Moonkin T9 Set Bonuses + New Idol!
It seems I’m a day or two behind when these were released, so I apologize, I’m always caught between guild drama, raid leading, working, blogging, and real life stuff. Apparently the T9 set bonuses were released recently, along with a new idol, which makes me a happy moonkin; T8 wasn’t really cutting it for me, I have 3-4 25 man T8 pieces that just sit in my bags — those pieces put me WAY over the hit cap.
At any rate, and without further ado, I present to you the moonkin T9 set bonuses:
- Druid T9 Balance 2P Bonus – Your Moonfire ability now has a chance for its periodic damage to be critical strikes.
- Druid T9 Balance 4P Bonus - Increases the critical strike chance of your Starfire spell by 5%.
The set bonuses are interesting. The 4 piece bonus isn’t really that special since the 4pc T7 bonus was similar; except better. “Hey, lets use the same set bonus from two tiers ago except lets exclude Wrath from it.” At any rate, I do prefer a static 5% extra crit to a spell I find myself using often (and favor over Wrath), but I wish they had been a little more creative with the 4pc bonus.
The 2pc bonus sounds cool, but to be honest, I will have to see how greatly it will affect our DPS. In all sincerity, I wouldn’t be surprised if our BIS (once T9 actually comes out), is compromised of 2pc T8 and 2pc T9. The T8 2pc bonus is really powerful with the Eclipse changes that will hit on patch 3.2, so while I personally dislike T8, I will definitely find myself equipping some or all of it for the set bonuses, once I successfully manage to lose some hit rating.
What are you guys’ thoughts? It would take some further research and some basic math to figure it out, but the concept of Moonfire’s being able to crit sounds fun, and may even result in Improved Moonfire being picked up by more people instead of Moonglow. Check out the new balance druid idol:
Druid T9 Balance Relic - Each time your Moonfire spell deals periodic damage, you have a chance to gain 200 critical strike rating for 12 sec.
Say what? Looks like Blizzard is addressing the fact that our previous SF/Wrath idols are having their values essentially halved, and that the Insect Swarm idol completely sucked by releasing an idol based on Moonfire. While I know the benefit of this idol is very dependant on its proc rate, I’m sure its safe to assume this buff will have a very nice uptime. If you keep up MF almost all the time, which you really should be doing anyways, I think this will be up at least every 12 seconds of every minute.
Sure, I really just would have preferred an idol that gave me more raw spell power like badge idol from BC — do I really need more crit during a Lunar Eclipse proc if I have 2pc T8? But still, it will be nice to have an idol that works with a spell we are always casting, regardless of rotation. This also means we won’t have to worry about idol-swapping, which was being considered (with good reason) among the moonkin community.
Conclusion
Anyways, good stuff here, we will have to analyze the set bonuses at some point and weigh them versus the benefit of the higher level gear. It is also so strange to now have four (it’s 4, right?) different sets of gear of the same tier. DoTs critting sounds fun though, it would be really cool to see 2k Moonfire DoTs flashing on my screen. Stay tuned on my blog and around the internet/blogosphere for updates on this topic, and definitely check out all the T9 stuff on MMO-Champion!
Macbook
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!14 Comments
Loading ...
2T9 – Okay, I wish Blizz would make up their minds. They spend T7 and T8 trying to get us to keep IS up, resulting in moonkins undervaluing MF. With T9, we’re to keep MF up, resulting in moonkins undervaluing IS. Just make it so both can crit and be done with it. I guarantee you’ll get better uptime from both DoTs if you give us a reason to keep both up.
4T9 – There’s been some speculation that this is just a filler bonus at the moment. If not, bear in mind that 4T7 > 4T9 and 2T8 > 4T7. By proxy, that means 2T8 > 4T9. Maybe that’s the point — I certainly wouldn’t mind 2-and-2 being optimal.
Idol – Tests on the PTR reveal that there is no internal cooldown on the proc. I find it hard to believe that it will make it to live like that; I’m anticipating functionality similar to the Idol of Terror (feral) from TBC, where the proc chance was 90% and the ICD was equal to the duration of the buff.
Improved Moonfire – Consensus seems to be that this talent does NOT stack with the glyph. Between the two, the glyph is better. I really don’t see this talent gaining popularity unless Imp. MF and Glyph of MF actually do stack.
I’ll be interested to see the stats on the T9 gear. If the idol is any indication, T9 gear will be a higher level than T8 gear (I’d have preferred it being the same level). Can’t wait to put a new BiS list together…
I feel where you are coming from. Since I personally prefer MF over IS since I favor SF over Wrath, I find welcome their new desire to push MF.
I also don't mind 2-and-2 being optimal for our DPS, it keeps things interesting, and quite frankly, gives us a little bit more room to play around with which two pieces to actually use, etc etc etc.
I read about the idol I think on TMR — pretty crazy if it will have no internal cooldown, that sounds like an awesome idol then, if you ask me. Makes sense to have it proc often since most of our other idols are up 24/7 anyways, and I really hate having more RNG things to deal with or factor into a rotation.
Regarding IMF — I always thought they stacked, but due to the way they stacked, it was a minimal DPS increase. Not sure where I could find that out though, but I always thought they did.
The T9 stats are pretty absurd and very high iLevel. T8.5 is 226, I think the T9 stuff gets up to like 254 (?). They have the sets up on MMO Champion, just keep in mind there are now like 4 sets of T9 lol.
I also can't wait to figure out our new BIS….
T9 gears bonus updated
* Item – Druid T9 Feral 4P Bonus – Reduces the cooldown on Barkskin by 12 sec and increases the critical strike chance of Rip and Ferocious Bite by 5%.
* Item – Druid T9 Balance 4P Bonus (Starfire) – Increases the critical strike chance of your Starfire and Wrath spells by 3%.
As the above poster said, the T9 4P bonus includes both Wrath and Starfire on all the sites I've seen it on, but it's 3% instead of 5. So it's exactly like the T7 bonus only -2%. =/ I'm hoping they're still going to tweak that b/c it doesn't make much sense to me. I could just stick with 2T8 and 2T9 if that's the case. It all depends on that math that I'm not willing to do myself. lol.
I am excited about the Eclipse changes and everything else we're getting with 3.2 though.
Some think that even this new 4T9 bonus is only temporary. If it's not, 2T8 + 2T9 is definitely the way to go still.
To be completely honest, I am kind of hoping that 4pc T9 continues to suck and it makes live — I want the decision of whether or not to use 4pc T9 or 2pc of T8/T9 to be a no-brainer.
I really like the 15% extra Eclipse and the ability for our MF DoTs to crit. They'd have to make 4PC T9 incredibly OP to sway me away from wanting that.
I think i am not gonna use t9 .i luv t8 i am bored of using same rotation over and over atleast with t8 you get to do something diferent and have a laught when they proc like 4 time in a row.only thing with t8 i end up with alot hit rating but is rly fun hopefully every moonkin have change to experiance what i have.
How much hit rating does a full T8 set give you? because i unfortunatly am still stuck with the mark of the war prisoner(blue trinket from H VH) which gives me 73 hit rating, unfortunatly i have not been able to win the better trinkets.
And is there a website that shows the T9 druid set and/or its stats?
Hey mac,
. I have been thinking ill be running with 2 pieces T8 and 3 pieces of T9 or something because the 5% extra crit aint that great compared the T8 2P bonus since thats like 15% crit. I already dropped all my mp5 talent and i already picked up improved moonfire because i barely have have mana problems if i use my innervate. I already read they changed the 4P bonus to 3% crit for wrath and starfire so thats a nerf compared the to 4P T7 bonus. I hope blizz might consider changing the 4P like your insect swarm has a chance to crit because that would be awsome^^. The idol in my opinion is very great caus we could stack some more haste instead of crit. What do you recon about the stuff i say mac ? ^^
nice revieuw btw i had the same problem i had the trinket living flame because i wasnt his capped since i didnt had 4 pieces yet from T8 but now i have them and i was forced to drop the trinket because i was running with 385 hit
Regards Valkas – EU Darkmoon faire
They just re-re-updated the T9 4PC.
I think I will write a post about it today!
Mac
I think WoWHead has the full tier comparisons up.
2PC T9 is pretty much a must have (as well as completely awesome). Your rotation is going to change significantly anyways when 3.2 hits live!
Think about it.
What Blizz needs to do is make the T8 2PC set bonus, the T9 4PC bonus and we will all be happy, because to be honest with you the T8 2PC bonus is OP for just being the 2PC set bonus
I have to say that the idol is very impressed by the idol they are inserting
btw whats up mac /lick
edit english is fail >.<
I have to say that i was very impressed by the idol they are inserting