ok, so I'm finding it that more and more druids are saying "hey, I think I'm going to try balance", and I see more and more druids, speced balance, but wearing the same, or worse gear then I am. ( more worse then equal ) I have looked at gear guides, but not gotten much help from them aether for the people who write them seem to be un-educated as to what balance druids are.

Currently, I'm at a bit of a delema, because I want to be the best balance druid on my server, I'm sure theres better then me, yes I know I have a bit of a cocky attitude, but I have yet to see these mythical more damage then me moonkins walking around shatt, maybe there in kara or something ( a place I have yet to go in for more then 30 minuets)

I'm thinking, to prepar myself for some rades, hey I should try to have a good 650+ spell damage wearing all leather, or at least all but one or two pieces.

so I'm thinking, theres two ways to go at getting some more heavy magical cow skins to wear,

one: Tribal Leather working for that cute little 3 piece epic set, this would not only help my damage, but it would drastically increase my healing for thous awkward moments when the healer "lags"

two: hit up some heroics, for this I have two downsides, one, everyone wants me to be feral, and two I'm not yet keyed for anything but caverns of time. (haven't gotten a chance to use it yet aether for I'm at a lack of a time card, speeking of which if you wanna buy me one, that would be great!)

there would be a third, PVP, but I don't care much for getting hardcore into it, and wont.

so heres what I'm looking at.

this is what I have on now http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Clutter

for my chest.
1. I would get the last 5 levels of leather working ( and loose all my gold in the proses) and attempt to make the epic set for myself.

2. I could go and re-get the one I have at the moment, to fill it full of red gems, instead of going for the set bonus

3. I could get Starry Robes of the Crescent (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27818) in hopes that one day I will look like http://www.wowhead.com/images/screenshots/20237.jpg

its not a bad chest piece, but I feel that +spell damage is my priority and getting one with slots is better.

For my head gear:
no, I'm not giving that up unless its part of a tier set. and then I will be needing a bonus before I actually use it.

Gloves: I'm thinking I'm stuck with this until later on as well.

Feet: This is a cloth item I am willing to accept the deduction of defense on, but im still questioning my choice switching to them from Moonstrider Boots (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27914) because of the crit rating.

Legs: I really am not sure here, If I go for the rep, I can get Tempest Leggings (http://www.thottbot.com/i29141) and If I don't focus on getting the socket bonus I can probably get some nice spell damage off them.

I really am not sure, and I see now that I'm rambling.... soo
advice and opinions if you pleas?

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=85080772&sid=1

get the leggings, i picked up the alliance equivalent and they are awesome +dmg wise, altho lacking a bit in the stats. get the +dmg spellthread too, pretty cheap to have made: just 5 primal mana and one runic thread. also look into enchanting the gloves, you won't get better gloves til tier 4 or 5; you can either bump your crit (altho its pretty high as it is, at least without the new threat management talent) or your +dmg.

on another note, definitely think about getting subtlety if you are going to start raiding. the buffer in threat will allow you to either a) eek a bit more dps out or b) give you the breathing room to step out and heal without pulling aggro in those hairy situations.

now for my own question: does anyone know if balance of power actually works? i never see it computed in the character sheet, unlike other talents.

The kurenai kilt isnt bad (I had it forever) but I would try going for the one from Black Morass Khadgar's Kilt of Abjuration (http://www.thottbot.com/i28185)) You may lose a bit of spell dmg and some crit but you gain stam/int/spir which I think is a well enough trade off.

I would also suggest changing the gems in your bracers/boots to +7 spell dmg or +9 spell dmg gems, every little bit helps. Please Please change that gem in your gloves, a moonkin does not need defense.

Try running Mechanaar for Baba's Cloak of Arcanistry (http://www.thottbot.com/i28269) it's a nice upgrade from what you have (and lets face it you need the stam, no one likes a dead moonkin)

Plus for more dmg you could always go with Runesong Dagger (http://www.thottbot.com/i27868) or if you have the time get exalted with LC Gavel of Unearthed Secrets (http://www.thottbot.com/i30832) and get one of the various OH available.

I'm a big pvper so whenever I see something that is an upgrade I try to pvp and work for it, my armory is currently: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Arathor&n=Datura
just to give you some ideas.

good luck! :)

Just two quick notes, the itemization list that JWK linked is out of date. The tier 4 armor pieces in the list are ranked with the original bonuses. However, Blizzard has updated the armor pieces with better bonuses, so tier 4 items should be higher in the rankings than most blue items (i.e. Gloves of Malorne should rank above the Starlight Gauntlets after the update).

Also, if you intend to raid, you should consider modifying the list as well. The original calculations don't value the to hit with spells rating very highly. Once you get about 15% crit (without moonkin aura), you should get items that increase your ability to hit with spells. This stat enables you to land spells on level 73 boss mobs. While this is mentioned further down in the thread, one can easily miss it by not reading the entire entry. As an example of this, the runesong dagger ranks above the grand marshal spell blade because of the damage formula. But it an easily obtainable item with great spell damage and to hit with spells.

Okay curently im a moonkin druid with half my gear being cloth.. /sigh, But then again, having 1022 spell dmg unbuffed(with spellstike hood) 1006(with t4)but Only 15.40% crit(out of form), which hurts alot but i have chosen to go with 9 spell dmg gems, but with the thought of losing alot of the crit hurts, i have Full epics but half with crit, the belt of moroes with 35 spell dmg and 0% crit isnt verry great, only Raid loot better would be the belt of Ilhoof or maulgar<--gruul's lair(having two sockets(yellow/red) which you can put crit and crit/spell dmg if you REALY want to make up for it. but not wanting to lose the +1000 spell dmg im also using the Trial-tire legs off oprah event having no crit either, but 3 yellow sockets, mine having all 9 spell gems if your put Topaz gems in there you would lose somthing like 7 spell dmg but gain 15 crit. Tier 4 aint bad either, really awesome int/stam/spir but alot of non-set epics from raid bosses are at times.. Better but being cloth at the same time... with blue/5man gear having most of item with crit is really great cause you can come up to maybe 26% crit in oomkin form being pretty nice. but with our improvement in SSC, most of items for casters are filled with lots of crit so if you get THAT far in your raids anytime soon, have fun with your new fat epix!

Ok I haven't raided much beyond KZ, but from a tank's perspective. I don't want you to crit as much. I mean that in a general raid/caster sort of way. If you crank out four 4k+ crits in a row, then there is not a damned thing I'm going to do to keep the big bad mob from walking over and beating you dead.

Crit is nice, but in a raid situation, sustained dps is probably more valuable then a high level of crit. The extra spell damage is pretty critical. From what I have seen, +spell penetration and +spell hit is very critical as you progress. If your spell never lands, that crit didn't do squat for you.

The bad news is that unless you leave leather for a lot of cloth, itemization isn't great for balance druids.

Hey guys I recently switched to moonkin (but in my server summon treants is bugged so I'll be giving more points to resto in the near future) and a lot of people plays moonkin as melee too. He's like melee and caster. And some people say you can play it like it's not a mage since a lot of people are doing that. So if that's the case, is it possible to have a melee+caster in moonkin form? Because I checked the items listed in this forum, it seems to be on the route for mages (with all the cloth gear). Is it efficient for moonkins to actually go melee plus caster?

Here's what I suggest:

badge gear. AWESOME! I highly suggest the idol as well since it procs on moonfires and gives you bonus +spell dmg.

PVP gear. Right now I have 3 pieces of season 1 and am working on getting some arena gear to replace those. The stats are pretty comparable to tier sets so it's worth looking into.

Cloth. Hate to say it, but it's true. There isn't any casting leather in SSC or TK so start looking at cloth in between getting your tier pieces.

lots of gear options are personal choice but your first goal for raiding should be getting your hit rating up. 25 hit rating is fine for eveything but a raid boss so for up to heroics its fine. for a raid boss set of gear shoot for 151 hit rating. right now you have double what you need for anything but a raid boss and 1/3 of what you need for a raid boss. if you dont switch out pieces you need to add strait hit gems instead of hybrid ones, or if you donw mind switching out then drop the gems for pure dmg and switch out a couple of pieces for some that are gemed strait hit to reach cap for a boss.

I would suggest the helm of second sight from SMV, i like it better than the one you have and its a quest reward adn easy to get. Also the scryer trinket if your scryer is awsome, and theres another hit trinket in NS that is a quest reward.

if the stats are better on cloth, take it. leather is great if its not gimping caster stats.

sublety is essential, if your not using all your threat potential you are slackin. you will never miss celestial focus, natures grasp, or the 1 point in a talent that is debatable with 3 points.

pickle, honestly ad an ex MT/raid leader, the last thing I want is casters to include moonkin in melee range. Melees get thrashed cuz a lot of bosses cleave. More stress on healers and you'll get less heals cuz ultimately you're low on theheal priority list. That being said try it out and have fun with it. Just understand you are better off at a distance alive and outputting dps as opposed to getting rocked from up close. If you were feral this would be another story.

pickle one more thing jutto giveyou a heads up so you don't get your ear drums destroyed by the raid leader or healers. ALWAYS stand behind or slightly behind and to the side of the mobs when in melee range. If you stand in froth and get parriend your tank could go from being at 50% to 6 feet underin an instant. The reasoning is because when an attack is parried the time in between attacks is cutto instantly meaning if the boss has a 2 second tim in between attacks and he parries he will instantly retaliate AND then attack on his normal attack timer so basically you're giving him a free instant attack which could very likely end up in dead tank. Adds stress to healers and repairbills. Just a heads up bro.

Yeah, what Badge said about melee. Always from behind. Blizz even changed the mechanics for pets so they now attack from behind. Melee moonkin is good for solo'ing mobs to regen some mana or hope for an OoC proc if you have it, but never in a raid. Just doesn't make sense. You don't do any damage at all with your weapon. I guess if you are totally OoM and a pally has judged the mob with w/e returns mana on hit, but eh...

Also, what DJ said about hit rating. If you have an asston of spell dmg, but ur spell is resisted, all that is wasted. First thing to do for any dps class is to cap hit rating, then increase other stats.

And Alla - I know this is 7 months after the fact, but for pickles knowledge, spell penetration is worthless in PvE. No mobs before Hyjal have any resistances to speak of (and in any given raid Warlocks will be putting up Curse of Shadows and Curse of Elements, which negates the resistances. Pen isn't really that useful in PvP for moonkins either, as no one (other than Master Demonologist Warlocks with Fellhunters) really ever has any arcane or nature resist.