How is it for levelling quickly ?

I've always been feral apart from a quick 48 hr sojourn as an oomkin about a month ago before patch 3 hit us, so i could just see if my cobbled together oomkin gear would be of any use.

I'd love to respec for a week or 3 and level as oomkin - say to get me from level 72 and a third upto maybe 75....

With a very average starting set of gear including greens (from Wrarth), blues and purples from BC will i find it a struggle after feral ?

I'm guessing I will see downtime after every 2 mobs with needing to drink for mana ?

So my question is how many of you are levelling oomkin and what are your experiences to date?

Has anyone tried it and given up due to frustration or it being slow to level ?

Thanks

Well, I am not a boomkin atm, nor do I intend to become one, but, I can tell you when I was resto spec'd I could caster DPS with pretty solid effeciency. Most of the Balance druids in guild are leveling with great ease in comparison to the feral druids. Mobs are just weaker to caster damage than melee at this point in Northrend.

I think if you really want to reduce your downtime, you may have to sacrifice some of the deep balance tree toys in order to get 14 points in resto for the 30% mana regen while casting. I am assuming you would be that far into resto for OoC anyway. Stack spirit, and you will be fine.

I think if you really want to reduce your downtime, you may have to sacrifice some of the deep balance tree toys in order to get 14 points in resto for the 30% mana regen while casting. I am assuming you would be that far into resto for OoC anyway. Stack spirit, and you will be fine.
Aye, just pretty much aim for Spell Power, Int & Spirit as Solarflash says. Hit & Crit rating will come with these pieces. Moonkins wield so much burst dmg we're back out-of-combat without spending much mana. Don't expect to drink water unless you're recovering from (or preparing for) a prolonged fight. I've read about TBC raiding boomkins who had such great stats they didn't need Intensity or OOClarity, but that doesn't sound like your situation kheldar.

There was an unintended bug in 3.0.2 when our moonkin regen per crit synergized with Hurricane or Starfall. Each crit from either aoe spell all combined to regen a staggering amount of mana... so there went our aoe OP fun in 3.0.3. :whistle:

yea pretty much as ryan4nayr said i just go for spellpower->int i have so far daone "only" 2 lvls and i used about 10 waters mainly only after big fights and becasue i lvled to 70 as feral i think that leveling as boomkin right now is way easier than feral especially when it comes to multiple mobs boomkin aoe is just imba right now

thats interesting cos when i had my 48 hrs as an oomkin i struggled on multi mobs when my kitty and bear just chew them up and spit out the bones !

4-6 mobs a time as feral is np but more than 2 in oomkin and i was dying :( prob just my lack of gear and skills !

I think if you really want to reduce your downtime, you may have to sacrifice some of the deep balance tree toys in order to get 14 points in resto for the 30% mana regen while casting. I am assuming you would be that far into resto for OoC anyway. Stack spirit, and you will be fine.
yeah i was thinking i would like to have OOC.

what 'deep balance tree toys' could i do without for 2-3 levels of having fun then given i'm about to ding 73 after a couple hours play last nite....or maybe more to the point what are the needed talents for aeo/doing good dps to aid fastish solo levelling ? (and mabye the odd 5 man if i am lucky)

i've been looking for Wrath gear with crit and hit but it seems like i should first concentrate on spirit/int ? from memory spirit was the stat i had least of and worried least about in BC when I cobbled together a oomkin set.

I was using some cloth items - belt of blasting / spellfire gear plus some purple healing items like hood of primal life / shoulderpads of renewed something? / pants of living growth / gloves of the living touch.

ty for the advice.

i've been looking for Wrath gear with crit and hit but it seems like i should first concentrate on spirit/int ? from memory spirit was the stat i had least of and worried least about in BC when I cobbled together a oomkin set.

I was using some cloth items - belt of blasting / spellfire gear plus some purple healing items like hood of primal life / shoulderpads of renewed something? / pants of living growth / gloves of the living touch.

ty for the advice.

Well the golden rule is always take the extra hit(or it use to be). That is the same for every class. I cannot recall the hit cap for druids atm...my mind is a bit rusty this morning. I am sure EJ has it for each build. The big thing that I shoot for as Oomkin is Int then Spirit. Int = +dmg and mana pool, while spirit = + regen (lots, with 14 points in resto) Hit is really more important when you are fighting mobs +3 levels higher than you are. You do not need nearly as much hit on mobs your level.

Now the thing to remember is if you are like most who had pre-lich king raid gear, you have the luxury of dropping mobs 2+ to 5+ levels above you with relative ease, so hit need will really depend on where you plan to quest/instance.

As for items: I would think by the time you have finished up your starting zone (BT or HF) you will have a respectable moonkin set. There are lots of caster loots from quests, most of which have a leather option. So hopefully you should be out of cloth shortly. In most cases cloth is fine, but for leveling I do reccomend leather, because regardless how strong you are, you will take a hits while leveling.

While i don't have any experience with ZOOMkin spec, i was chatting with a balance druid while waiting for the zep from org to Warsong Hold yesterday, and he was lamenting his spec for leveling, mostly because of the downtime. I've noticed this time around, that feral is So low maintenance. If i'm done fighting mobs and im at less than 50% health, i'll shift to caster, top my health off, and go right back into form with no thought about Mana. With regenerating Mana in animal form, and with the new and improved LotP, mana is something that i don't have to think about hardly at all... I can't remember stopping to drink ONCE, aside from the couple of deaths by ganking

thats interesting cos when i had my 48 hrs as an oomkin i struggled on multi mobs when my kitty and bear just chew them up and spit out the bones !

4-6 mobs a time as feral is np but more than 2 in oomkin and i was dying :( prob just my lack of gear and skills !
bolded for my emphasis: I mentioned Blizz's fix for Hurricane & Starfall earlier because multi-mob killing has become a bit of our Achilles heel (along with un-Rootable mobs). Obviously we have great tools to deal with multiple mobs but our longevity was cut down in these situations after Blizz' bug fix.

Moonkin: Only single target spell critical strikes can trigger the mana gain from this talent.

So no, it's not due to deficient equipment & player skill, just a limitation forced on the spec by Blizz.

so you're saying ryan that oomkins cuirrently struggle in multi mob situations due to some blizz changes/fixes to our aoe spells like hurricane and starfall ?

indeed skw - there is so little downtime in feral. i just chew up the mobs, quick shift and heal or use a bandage still in feral form and carry on killing !

so you're saying ryan that oomkins cuirrently struggle in multi mob situations due to some blizz changes/fixes to our aoe spells like hurricane and starfall ?
It'll become a struggle if the mana bar can't take it... the burst dmg is there, just not the staying power.

You're probably expecting this beta footage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvlSe52_GqI) out of your respec'ing into balance; notice how the blue mana bar upper-left corner decreases by a lot at every spellcast then hops constantly every crit until nearly full.

If you want "feeling invincible," forever grinding, I'd agree feral cat is tough to beat. I miss it sometimes, but not when I'm off-healing.

just looking for a change for a little while.

i dont expect it to be invincible. but want some fun.

i wont ever be healing in my feral spec....the days of raid healing whilst feral specced are long gone....ie that's what i used to do in MC/BLW and AQ20/40 !

been chewing up mobs again tonite in dragonblight and hit 73 an hour ago.

quick question :

what is the hit rating we should be aiming for... ?

looking through the gear i have and mixing and match pre wrath and some wrath drops i'm at around 119 +hit. 17% ish crit. 880 spellpower ?

still a mix of leather and cloth.

i've also just bought the old epic exalted skyguard trinket that gives a proc for a lot more spellpower to see how often it procs and if its worth it.....


oh and yes i have respecced - 59 point in balance iirc and the rest in resto to get OoC.

nope oomklin aint for me.

frustrating as hell.

slow. annoying. irritating.

slow. annoying. irritating.

??? how???
never had any mana-issues and was critting for about 7k starfire.

I just leveled feral cause i love it more! ^^

maybe because of my skill / gear or patience !

my dps was good or at least i was happy with it given my gear and things seemed to die.

it was multi mob situations that i seemed to struggle - again maybe down to my experience in how to manage the 2nd/3rd mob in oomkin.

i just found it 'no fun' and was getting hit so much that my HP was going down fast.....again i only had 8.5k ish HP in oomkin compared to 13k+ in kitty.

so i was having much more downtime compared to running feral.

maybe if i can put together a better gear set i may enjoy it later.

i also think i would enjoy it more if i was doing oomkin dps in a 5 man,.

I've respecced full out moonkin for leveling and I love it.

However,

i also think i would enjoy it more if i was doing oomkin dps in a 5 man,.

Meh....it's not that great.

Starfire in a 5-man is just useless because the cast time is so long that by the time it goes off, your target is dead, and you've gotten NO credit for the kill on a meter. And cd's are just annoying on the other noticeable spells.

AOE is nice, I guess, but I much prefer healing a 5-man over dps'ing one as a druid.

Actually, I'm really looking forward to getting back my Tree. But there is no way I'm gonna do it before I'm done questing. I don't care how geared I am.

glad to hear you are enjoying levelling oomkin Mag.

how do you find multi mobs when questing etc ?

What sort of +spell damage / HP / crit / spirit / ManaRegen do you have out of interest ?

Do you have a lot of downtime for drnking ? That's something i found i disliked so much about trying to level as oomkin. 2 mobs and drink!

i really thought i was going to enjoy it but a couple of hours of it and i was tearing my hair out.

i see what you say about 5 mans.....i guess its more about wrath/moonfire/insect swarm and your crit aura ?

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Misha&n=Magellan

I've spent most of my time as a healer so I'm using my pre-WoLTK healing set. I've never collected an "official" balance set. I have managed to replace a couple of my epics (for +crit sake), but I find it really difficult to actually do so....../sob

Anyway...

I don't usually run into a mobs (I love to pull with starfire - starfire crit is pwn) but if I'm surprised with unexpected aggro it's exciting and I'm capable of holding my own. Especially with Treants. I giggle like a fool every time I pull 'em out.

Mana is never usually a problem. In a multi mob emergency, I'll throw myself an innervate, but it's rare. In two weeks (of questing daily) I've sat to drink maybe 3 times.

can see armoury via firewall Mag :(

my base set was also my healing set from BC - but my healing set was also 'cobbled' together as i was always feral. so it was a combination of a couple blues, pre-BC purples (yes i still used 1 or 2 items of the Stormrage set and yes i find it even harder to ditch my old very hard worked for raided purples! ;) :) and some BC crafted purples.

hmmm so i was probably going a bit gung-ho into mobs with my feral hat on !! Trents are on cd ? 3 mins ?

i will try to check out your link tonite although time it always limited and my baby boy is ill atm :(