Hello,

Can any h00tkins tell me what dps rotation you use in raids? I am interested to learn what spells you cast, and in what order, and also if possible why you do it that way. :>

Fankoo !


-Annikk

Yo!
I do two types of rotations, one for trash and one for bosses;

Trash pulls:
Faerie Fire (if another druid doesn't have it up)
Insect Swarm
oonfire (if you have decent mana pool)
Wrath x4 or until moonfire is down
repeat
(if trash goes down fast I don't usually do FF or IS)

Bosses:
(Open with Trees for funsies, usually can throw them in there at least twice on longer bosses)
Faerie Fire (if another druid doesn't have it up)
Insect Swarm
oonfire (if you have decent mana pool)
Starfire x4 or more until IS or Moonfire is down, and repeat

(On longer bossfights, try to save your innervate for priests or pally tanks if possible, and look for spell hast procs from trinkets to cast an extra Starfire, since that cast time is a little longer)

-- This is what has worked for me, but it depends on the person--

Sabines

Pretty much the following:

Trash Pulls
Insect Swarm
oonfire
Wrath x4

Boss Fights
Insect Swarm
oonfire
SF x3

Reasoning
Insect Swarm is like Scorpid sting it damned well better ALWAYS BE UP. 2% miss to bosses and trash is just too valuable.
oonfire is mana intensive, but Damage, crit and overall damage (for the DOT) is a decent DPS boost.
Wrath is for trash because honestly you'll only ever get like two starfires of max and odds are high the second one will land after the mob is dead. You need fast spells for this.
Starfire is for mana conservation. Moonfire spam can be higher DPS, but you'll be OOM very quickly if you Moonfire spam. So for boss fights you choose Starfire to conserve mana, but it comes with some danger as if you chain crit the first two or three it can get very ugly.

Thankyou both for your responses. I has 2 questions :>


1. The moonfire dot... it lasts the length of 4 wraths, or 3 starfires... right? And that's why those specific number of spellcasts before the rotation starts over?




and 2.

and look for spell hast procs from trinkets

How important would you guys say spell haste is when it comes to moonkin raid dps?


-Annikk

Yes the length of the DoT is the reasoning for picking that specific spell rotation.

Spell haste is not that important to stack till later. Once you get to higher gear (closer to BT gear) you want to start stacking haste gear. If you stack it too early you'll be OOM constantly because you just burn through your mana that much faster.

Spell Haste is great for later, but when you are stacking spell haste you need to be careful. Even at low levels you can proc and ability that speeds up your Wrath casting and you can basically do "clipping" on your wrath. So you pretty get screwed because you can't cast any faster. The more spell haste you get the more likely you are to be stacking in more Starfires instead of more wraths. Wrath's are already on an insanely short cooldown.

Hey there,
I forgot where the spell haste comes from, I just see it with my other buffs, I think when I crit, my next spell cast is reduced by half or something (if anyone knows what I'm talking about, kudos, lol). But yeah, spell haste gear doesn't even show up until ZA really, so I've been focusing on spell hit (152 is cap with Balance of Power I think), damage, and crit right now. Have fun
Sabines

Nature's Grace:
All spell criticals grant you with a blessing of nature, reducing the cast time of your next spell by 0.5 seconds.

achine gun wraths :)

Nature's Grace:
All spell criticals grant you with a blessing of nature, reducing the cast time of your next spell by 0.5 seconds.

achine gun wraths :)





not really machine gun.
you are as fast as without the proc.
wrath = 1.5 sec casttime
with Nature's Grace = 1 sec
BUT GCD = 1.5 so u have 0.5 sec downtime.
Correct me if im wrong.

You are correct sir... I have had it proc when chain firing wrath's and all it does is give me the nice error sound for a half a second for "That ability isn't ready yet". So that ability kind of sucks if you are wrath spamming. Its great if you chain in lots of Starfires, but if I'm wrath spamming, I'm doing it for a reason.

Hmm good point.

Didn't think about that. Never really played boomkin, just with them in arenas and raids. I always raided on my druid as resto.

The caveat "if you have a decent mana pool" is a critical point. Going OOM at any point will crush your total damage and DPS stats and gimp your raid. I highly recommend avoiding using Moonfire unless you have a shadow priest or at minimum can keep your Innervate to yourself during boss fights.

Yeah Moonfire bit me in the butt on my last raid. I was all alone in my own little group and consistently I ran out of mana in the last minute to minute and a half of the fight. I could have done it with chain pots, but ick.... what a pain... I need a bit better gear or even an elemental shaman with a mana totem would do wonders for that last minute.

The Pendant of the Violet Eye helped me out a bit with my oom-issues. (I just replaced it with my Sorcerer's stone and realized out much I miss it!--but I do like the +damage...decisions...)

Sabines

Any chance anyone has some updates to Cast Order as a Lvl 80 raid OOmkin?

I have turned into the filler for several different guilds on my server as a tank, healer, and DPS. My DPS is ok, ~1800-2k Single target, and simply godly on AoE. But I am not sure if my rotations are right or not.

Single Target:
FF
oonfire
IS
Trees!
Starfire x2-3 depending on movement etc. (automatically refreshes MF for you with talents)
Update IS as needed, and chain starfire.

Rinse and repeat. I sub in wrath if there is a lot of movement on the fight, the Starfire crits are so crazy its tough to imagine the wrath keeping up DPS wise.

ultimob:
Hurricane
Hurricane
...laugh histerically at the mage trying to claw his way on the DPS meter...ok, I'm a bit sinical!

Moonfire/IS + Wrath (until eclipse) Starfire until eclipse drops. refresh dots and repeat. The IFF only matters if your not hit capped or don't have an SPriest in the raid but according to (elitistjerks.com) reapplication of FF at higher gear levels amoutns to like a 150-200 dps loss just based on the loss of the GCD worth of casting time.

oonfire glyph + starfire glyph are must haves for maintaining the dot as long as possible. Currently they also happen to be the best dps glyphs we have which makes them no brainers at this point.

As far as haste is concerned the more we have the faster starfire casts get which is obviously a dps increase. During a bloodlust i can get almost 1.6sec starfire casts which is just obscene especially when you get those juicy 11-12k back to back to back to back crits when eclipse is up. i had a string of 5 11-12k crits the other night (Eclipse happend to proc for me), This isn't a common situation but its sweet when it happens.

So, it sounds like a big part of Boomkin DPS now is managing your "Eclipse" procs.

Is there a mod that helps manage this? Or do you just have to pay better attention to your buff bar. My concern, is in 25 man, my buff bar is minute, and still runs off the screen...

Squawk and Awe (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info11436-SquawkAndAwe.html)

Can't say enough good things about this mod. Must-have for any balance raider imho

Yeah, eclipse is uber-important. Proc it w/ wrath spam (faster cast, so more chances to proc in less time) then when it procs starfire away until the proc is over (refreshing MF/IS if needed of course) continue w/ starfire until S&A tells you your eclipse internal cooldown is up (the timing of its internal cooldown is this mod's best feature), then start trying to proc it again w/ wraths. There are some good discussions on elitistjerks to take note of on both the addon and basic raiding boomkin strategies as well

So, it sounds like a big part of Boomkin DPS now is managing your "Eclipse" procs.

Alot of it does have to do with this now. There also seems to be a measure of debate about 2/3 Eclipse vs. 3/3 eclipse.
2/3 eclipse seems to be most optimal when your raid buffed crit % (including talents/gear bonuses) reaches something around 40%. It seems that the rotation is most optimal when using Wrath to trigger the Starfire eclipse. 3/3 eclipse is probably best at lower gear levels.

There also seems to be a measure of debate about 2/3 Eclipse vs. 3/3 eclipse.
The math there is based on assumptions that are squishy at best. There are too few bosses that allow you to stand still and perform a theoretically ideal rotation for that sort of hairsplitting with talent points. Add in uncontrollable variables like lag, latency and the RNG and the problems with that analysis are fairly obvious.

The math there is based on assumptions that are squishy at best. There are too few bosses that allow you to stand still and perform a theoretically ideal rotation for that sort of hairsplitting with talent points. Add in uncontrollable variables like lag, latency and the RNG and the problems with that analysis are fairly obvious.


I changed my specc last night to include a 3/3 rather than 2/3 Eclipse and i noticed a pretty significant DPS boost. I still need to get that addon Tsunami has been raving about, Squawk and Awe.

Squawk and Awe is a great mod, one of those "must-have" mods for Moonkins! Completely agree with Tsunami.