My Current Patch 3.1 Moonkin PvE Talent Spec
The page on the right-hand sidebar with what I believe to be the optimal Moonkin PvE talent build is a little inaccurate. Since 3.1, the major change to the build has been reallocating points to pick up Improved Faerie Fire.
There is no *NO* reason to avoid Improved Faerie Fire (iFF).
The main change that Patch 3.1 brought to iFF, was dramatically increasing its PvE duration on a target from 40 seconds to 5 minutes. That’s huge, as that means you will only have to apply it once or twice in an entire fight. Previously, unless you were not at the soft hit cap, keeping iFF on a target would result in a personal DPS loss. The only benefit you personally get from iFF if you have the hit (and a shadow priest), is 3% free crit. 3% crit in exchange for a GCD every 40 seconds wasn’t fun.
Now, there is no reason to not take iFF. Below are the benefits it provides (and you only waste 1-2 GCDs for an entire fight!).
- 3% hit (if you don’t have a shadow priest in raid)
- 5% reduced armor for melee classes (increased raid DPS, stacks with Sunder)
- 3% personal crit
So, where do the points for iFF come from?
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the real question. Hopefully with what I wrote above, you are at least considering picking up iFF if you don’t have it in your spec already. Even disregarding the raid-wide armor debuff and +hit (which doesn’t stack with spriests), the 3% personal added crit is enough to justify this talent. Thing is, from the limited experience I’ve had in Ulduar, I’ve noticed that a lot of the trash isn’t AoE-able (only 2 adds at a time is what I’ve seen so far), but bosses are having lots of low-HP mobs. Pre-3.1, I have 2/2 in Gale Winds, for the 30% extra Hurricane damage. So 2 of the 3 points I put in iFF came from there. The last point used to max iFF, however, came from Intensity.
But…what about moonkin mana regen?!?!
I always chuckle a little to myself when I see moonkins on the forums saying that moonkin mana regen isn’t where it needs to be. I saw a post on the forums from this guy saying he was going OOM on some fights in Ulduar. He then proceeded to say he didnt have any points in Dreamstate or Intensity. IMO — where else are you going to put the points from a few mana regen talents to increase DPS? Gale Winds? Typhoon? Owlkin Frenzy? The fact of the matter is, there is no reason to gimp your talent build by not picking up mana regen other than 1-3 points in Moonglow and OOC. Sure, we have classes like ret pallies and spriests helping regain our mana, but I enjoy being self-sufficient. I enjoy saving my Innervate for the healers that need it more than I do.
Another thing to realize about mana regen is that the majority of moonkin’s mana is refunded via our crits (moonkin form). Back when they first introduced our new talents, AoE abilities used to refund mana when they crit. I remember Hurricaning all the trash in Hyjal and ending each pull with 100% mana. This was obviously changed, and now AoE is the biggest way to burn your mana quickly, since, not only do the spells cost a lot of mana, but you are also not regaining mana off those crits.
Last night, I was AoEing down the adds in Phase 1 of the Razorscale fight. I noticed I was going OOM, so I simply began spamming Starfire (ignoring Eclipse), to regain mana. Since the most important thing on Phase 1 of Razorscale is to simply stay alive, I saved my Innervate for our healers.
Not to make this post too long, but I understand there are some talent builds that avoid mana regen talents. Before Ulduar, you could have no mana problems in a 25-man raid and have only 1/3 Moonglow and 1/1 OoC. Ulduar fights are obviously going to last longer; and being an OOMkin is the last thing I want to be. So do yourself a favor, and even if your gear is complete leetskeet (I think mine is!), pick up some mana regen.
JUST TELL ME YOUR BUILD ALREADY!
Hah. Okay. The build that I am currently using and am experiencing what seems to be MAXIMUM DPS and having no mana issues (unless I am repetitively spamming Hurricane on mobs), is a simple 56/0/15 moonkin talent build. I used the new WoWHead talent calculator, and even put in there the moonkin glyphs you should be using. For those of you who simply scan my posts, I’m going to put the link again to the talent build, bolded and centered. (I hope the link works!)
56/0/15 Moonkin PvE Talent Build
When should I cast Faerie Fire?
Now that I have improved, Faerie Fire is now the very *FIRST* spell I cast when we open up a boss. It’s actually perfect to use while your tank is building aggro rapidly, since it doesn’t do any damage. So, put it up on the boss as soon as the boss is engaged, while you are running in position and putting up your DoTs. Pew pew for 5 minutes, and if it falls off, put it up again. Simple as that; adding this spell to your rotation complicates nothing.
Conclusion
There you have it. If for some reason you notice you are having mana problems, feel free to drop Starfall (or 1/3 iFF), and max out Intensity. Conversely, if you find you have mana to spare, you have 2 routes to take. a) Drop 2 points from Moonglow and put them into Improved Moonfire (for a minimal DPS increase); b) Drop points from Intensity and put them in Gale Winds (for added mob DPS).
At either rate, please let me know what you guys think, especially while in Ulduar.
Macbook
37 Comments
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With the changes to spirit-based mana regen, I’m on the fence about whether Intensity or Dreamstate is better. Blizz claimed that in-combat regen would remain relatively the same (they increased the values from talents like Intensity), but I’m not sure reality mirrors that claim. Running through the numbers quickly… my spirit-based mana regen out of combat is less than 200, while my intellect is at 1100 (buffed). Looking at the talents for those numbers, the best investments are:
Dreamstate-1 44
Intensity-1 34
Dreamstate-2 33
Dreamstate-3 33
Intensity-2 32
Intensity-3 34
(Note: Dreamstate-2,3 and Intensity-2,3 are equal with these numbers. Also note that this does not take into consideration scaling.)
As for those having problems with mana, I would recommend dropping one from Celestial Focus before dropping from Starfall (relatively good DPM even on single-target) or IFF (crit helps regen mana). Additionally, CF actually causes you to use mana faster, so taking points of there can help you last longer. If you have mana to spare, it’s really up to you, but if I find myself in that situation, I’m just going to count my blessings and keep my mana.
As far as scaling goes, it appears that every 1 point of spirit-based mana regen with 3/3 Intensity is equal to 5 intellect with 3/3 Dreamstate. Nonetheless, the first point in Dreamstate still appears to be better than any point in Intensity.
Changing my list to:
Dreamstate-1
Intensity-1
Intensity-2
Intensity-3
Dreamstate-2
Dreamstate-3
Run your own numbers through and see what you come up with.
I also question the benefit of intensity vs dreamstate post 3.1
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0xRbuiIscdhVhRuZbxcub:fruzmM
I ran a 5 man and find that I have to drink every 2-3 fights. (especially when I have to fire off Hurricane.
I’d like to see if anyone has specced into Dreamstate instead of Intensity and has gotten better mana regen post 3.1
My moonkin gear seems to be really low on spi so it seems that it may be better to go dreamstate and take advantage of the stacking that we do on Int.
Dammit Macbook – now I have to figure out how to spec back into IFF… looks like the only thing I can do is to have neither Dreamstate NOR Intensity…
personally dropping starfall seems like an very unintellegent idea, especially if you are going solar ecplipse.
I have starfall glyphed for 1min Cd atm and it is nuts having a mini heroism on demand. last night we cleared 10 man FL, razor, XT, and Kolo. at the end of the night i was only second to our guilds best mage (3.1 popped me up like 10 places on 25 man dps charts) and starfall was acountable for 15% of my total damage.
if your having mana troubles it could be your playstyle, hurrican just destroys our mana (unless you able to chain OOC from one to the next)
Radagahst, I think you mean for lunar eclipse (eStarfire). Haste doesn’t mesh well with Wrath. But, yeah, Starfall is pretty sexy.
I do not think that the 2 points in moonglow are as good of regen as 2 points in dreamstate. I still run a standard 55/16 but only 1 point in natures reach. I do not take either starfall or typhoon. The only time I go OOM is on XT with AoE the adds. Even then get alot back with starfire on boss or heart once bots dead.
Arisma –
Personally, I go with 3/3 Moonglow because the changes to Nature’s Grace mean Imp. MF is not worth it.
In general, I’m really not noticing mana problems. The replenishment from our ret pally has been more than enough to keep me at full mana. (I also have 3/3 Dreamstate, but looking at changing that to 1/3 DS, 2/3 Intensity, just in case. The 40+% crit pre-Eclipse definitely helps too.) But, yeah, in a full clear of Naxx-25 and the first few bosses of Uld-10 (we managed Leviathan, Razorscale, and XT), I didn’t go OOM once.
I started thinking about where I would put those three talents if I decided to drop Dreamstate/Intensity altogether. I’ve heard conflicting reports with Owlkin Frenzy (whether chance to proc from spell damage was truly removed), so I’ll have to test that (it’s part of my PvP spec anyways, so not a huge deal). Other than that, I could fill in my last point in IIS and maybe throw the other 2 back in Gale Winds, but AoE seems very situational in Ulduar and it’ll probably be the mage and hunters taking care of that (yes, singular ‘mage’, I’m working to fix that).
@ All — Wow. Lotta comments, gonna try to answer them all.
@ Xiera — IIRC, the first point of Dreamstate (even pre-3.1) was always better than the first point of Intensity. Since I only have 3/3 Moonglow and 2/3 Intensity for mana regen, I just *may* do 1/3 Dreamstate and 1/3 Intensity and see if that helps out my mana regen (but its really not bad in 10 or 25 man raids).
@ Radaghast — Yes, I don’t advocate dropping Starfall either, and what Xiera said seems to make more sense. If you are going OOM, you probably want to drop a point or two from Celestial Focus. Just remember that Starfall probably accounted for so much of your damage of those fights because XT/Razorscale have loads of adds. The primary focus of my moonkin spec, is, and always will be, single-target DPS. However, Starfall is not bad at all single-target, either, which is why I keep it
@ Arisma –
Thing is, you can’t compare the efficiency of Moonglow vs. Dreamstate. The only comparison to be made is whether you take 3/3 Moonglow or 1/3 Moonglow and 2/2 Imp. MF (to go further down into the balance tree). Since Imp. MF is a horrible point investment, I go 3/3 Moonglow.
@ Xiera – I’m interested in checking out your build? I only have 2 points in mana regen (in my real spec, I have a weird AoE spec I made for XT last night), so if I dropped the 2 points from there, I would probably put them 2/2 in Gale Winds, or maybe pickup Typhoon for fun, and 1/2 Gale Winds.
I seem to be doing alright for mana regen, but on fights like XT-002 (where its really only 3-4 of us actually AoEing down scrapbots), popping Tranq, Brezing, and innervating healers, I am finding myself close to OOM sometimes.
Good comments here all around though guys
Macbook
Sure. Xiera@Shadowsong (US). I figured that if Blizz gave us two 3-point talents for mana regen, we’re designed to have 3 points invested in mana regen talents. That doesn’t mean we should necessarily spec that way, but it seemed right to me. As mentioned, I’m 3/3 Dreamstate right now (I wasn’t fully raid buffed when I made the build), but I’ll be messing around with that this coming week.
Has anyone ever looked at their regen # while casting when specced
3 pt in Intensity
3 pt in DS
1 pt in DS and 2 in Intensity?
Not that I would ask anyone to blow respeccing gold to find out but just wondering if anyone looked at their number when changing specs?
One other alternative would be to dual spec into A) AOE moonkin and B) Single target Moonkin w/ IFF
What about removing an Insect Swarm point? i’ve been thinking a bit about this build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0xG0uiIRsdIVuouZbxckb
It helps a lot with Deconstructor, and properly non-glyphed (without the Typhoon Minor Glyph), with Starfall, Typhoon and Hurricane you could handle a scrapbot wave all by yourself, combine that with a bomb and you’ll have a lot of spare time…
That assuming that the first point in DS is stronger than a point in Intensity.
Thoughts?
Which Glyph to remove?
If you wanted to add Starfall Glyph that reduces the cooldown.
What would you trade?
Moonfire Glyph
Insect Swarm Glyph
Starfire Glyph
It seems to me that Gale Winds would be extremely useful for boss fights where you have to burn down adds ASAP. Fights such as Kologarn and Razorscale.
The 3% crit is nice, yes, but my guild’s feral tank takes care of the Faerie Fire in her rotation, and we have a shadow priest for the hit.
I think the 30% increase to AoE damage and Typhoon are both extremely useful and can outweigh the Imp FF in many situations in Ulduar.
@ Aju: I think Moonfire, Insect Swarm and Starfire are the Glyphs to have, you misunderstood me, i was talking about removing Minor Glyph of Typhoon, which i use because my Tanks asked me to, because knockback annoyed them in Naxx…
@Akutsito
Understood. My question still stands – Does anyone think the Starfall glyph is worth putting on?
I use Starfire, Moonfire, and Starfall. It’s epic.
@Xiera
Would it make more sense to trade IS for Starfire? How much more damange would you get from extended 9 seconds of MF vs Increased damage from IS Glyph?
@Aju
I currently use Glyph of Starfall, Focus and Insect Swarm. I feel it is a huge DPS boost to be able to use a 20% upgraded Starfall every minute. I still refresh MF and IS every time if i am not in an Eclipse Proc. The only mana-talents I use are Moonglow and Omen. in 25-man i have no mana-issues, but in 10-man it can become a problem especially when you cast wrath a lot (so avoid Solar eclipse).
Aju-
I chose Starfall over Insect Swarm because it fits my rotation better. It’s actually pretty difficult for me to say exactly what the difference is between the two. Insect Swarm is a straight 30% damage increase — pretty easy to calculate. Starfall essentially increases its damage by 33% AND gives a greater chance to have Blessing of Nature up. Because I use Insect Swarm only when I’m spamming Wrath and I use Starfall as part of my rotation (when the fight allows it), it just makes more sense for me to use Starfall.
@ Xiera –
Checked your spec, it seems that the only real difference is you drop a point from iIS and put it 3/3 in either Dreamstate/Intensity.
@ Akusito –
Yes, I actually spec differently for the Deconstructor fight. I picked up Typhoon (unglyphed), Gale Winds, etc. Gale Winds will never find itself in my permanent single-target spec, but it will be in my spec anytime I need AoE damage. I have actually been thinking about going dual-moonkin for dual specs (Single Target and AoE spec). Might make more sense for me, since I’m not the best healer available.
@ Xiera (again) and Kehlim –
I like where you guys are going with glyphing Starfall. From the way it sounds, I am really going to have to try it out!
Great comments, I’m not even used to getting so many comments on a single post, my email is getting spammed!
Mac
Oh, Aju, I misread your post.
Some quick math, based mostly on memory:
With Glyph of Starfire, you would receive an extra 3 ticks of Moonfire if you cast Starfire 3 times. At about 1100 per tick, that’s an extra 1100 damage per Starfire for three Starfires every 24 seconds. That’s an extra 137.5 DPS at those numbers.
With Glyph of Insect Swarm, you would receive an extra 30% damage to each of 7 Insect Swarm ticks. At about 750 damage per tick (I think? Including 2T7 bonus), that’s 225 extra damage per tick, totaling 1575 damage, or 112.5 DPS at those numbers.
Glyph of Starfire requires you to cast three Starfires per Moonfire cast for its full bonus. Glyph of Insect Swarm requires you to keep IS on the target for its full bonus. Both require that you don’t clip the DoT to achieve the full bonus.
Hope that helps. ^_^
Mac, I recently added a comment to the Starfall thread from a month ago as to how to work Starfall into a full 1-minute rotation for maximum effectiveness. I’m not sure if it really works as well as I suggest, but I’d be interested to know what you think about it.
Xierra, I am curious what is your normal rotation/s using starfall. I just specced into starfall and wanted to see what someone with more experience was doing before I made my decision about re-glyphing or not.
Metamorf, the rotation I’ve been using is a Lunar rotation, using Starfall every second Eclipse cooldown as a mini-heroism. That said, I’ve been contemplating a 4-phase alternative cycle that leverages both Eclipse types, using Starfall in the same role — as a mini-heroism during Eclipse cooldown while spamming Starfire.
http://moonkin.info/when-to-use-starfall-in-wotlk-raids-increase-dps/#comment-1330
Thank Xiera – hopefully I will have time to play around with starfall next week in Ulduar.
Doesnt the SF glyph only save mana as you do not have to recast MF as soon? I really dont see how it adds to damage unless by extending the time when you would have otherwise not refreshed MF. On a side note, I recently came back to WoW after a year long break )2 weeks ago and I have really found this site and graylo’s very helpfull. Keep it up!
Cherryhoof-
Yes. Glyph of Starfire does save mana and that’s part of the reason it’s nice.
But it does also increase DPS in two ways.
1) Unless you’re pro at timing your MF refresh so that it lands at the same time as the last DoT ticks, it’s generally a better idea to let MF wear off completely before refreshing. Glyph of Starfire means that there are more DoT ticks per DD (direct damage) cast. Of course, if you’re pro, this doesn’t apply, but it’s useful for the majority of us.
2) Every time you use the DD Moonfire cast, that’s at least a 1-second cast (GCD). That’s 1 second that you’re not casting one of your nukes. Over time, that adds up (if you cast Moonfire twice, that could have been one Starfire). So the idea is that you squeeze as much damage out of that one Moonfire as you can.
Base Active Moonfire DPS
= 4 ticks * X damage per tick / 1.5s cast
MF with Nature’s Splendor
= 5 ticks * X damage per tick / 1.5s cast
MF with Nature’s Splendor, Glyph of Starfire, 3x Starfire
= 8 ticks * X damage per tick / 1.5s cast
(Active DPS treats a DoT like a DD spell and is useful for figuring out how to spend your available casting time.)
Using the above equations, and my MF tick damage of about 1000, MF with Nature’s Splendor does 3333 active DPS and MF with Nature’s Splendor fully extended by Starfire does 5333 active DPS. That means for that GCD, you increased your damage by 2000 and all it required was a major glyph slot and 3 casts of your primary nuke.
Welcome back to the game.
[...] post the other day on my updated Patch 3.1 moonkin spec received over 20 comments so far, which I recommend you guys read. The main thing that caught my [...]
look up my name in wowarmory. I assure you im the only one there =P
Thats the build I use. It’s worked for me so far. My dots are my bread and butter of dps, the extra chance to crit with moonfire (i know the initial dmg is decreased) actually helps my mana regen and slight dmg output, win/win. I never have mana issues unless I’m doing a 10 man with no replenish, or the buffs just arn’t there.
I have all the same glyphs as Macbook, however deff gonna switch my IS glyph to Starfall, to see my numbers. Criticism would be great.
Im not a raider any longer because I dont have the time. Some of my friends do remember their moonkin friend and ask me for tips. It was why I felt the need to keep looking for more and more info on H2Boom with Moonkin. Reading your articles makes me think someone copy/pasted me into you or the other way around.
I totally agree with you mate or las ( im a girl ). Ulduar is a major change in the general wow instancing idea. http://armory.wow-europe.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Argent+Dawn&n=Aakasha haste !!!! Druids remember that haste is for the healers and you will lose mana faster with greater haste rating. Get crit to have mana!
Hey mac,
first of all your site is really awsome.
. the addon that shows your dots and GCD of eclipse is really awsome.
We have to many resto druids and we don’t got a balance druid in our guild so i decided to go balance to help out my guild. still working on gear because most of my gear is resto but atm im pulling around 4.6k dps which i think is not so bad
btw patch 3.2 came to wow and they made a change and improved the spirit of improved moonkin so i changed my spec dropping the 2 points in intensity and put the 2 points in improved moonfire and i really dont got any problems with my mana since i can still use innervate and a mana potion. by putting 2 points in improved moonfire i saw that my dps increased quiet a bit. I was able to pull around 5k dps in some fights if i had time to go hardcore.
What do you think about the improved moonfire and dropping intensity?
Regards Valkas
I personally don’t have an mana issues when it comes to 25man Ulduar. The curretn 56/0/15 spec is the best way to go. Macbook gave very good points in his lengthy paragraph =). So far in Ulduar I had to AoE like once in a blue moon. I am usually not on the adds phase on XT since mages and shadow priests do it better. Plus taking 1 extra secs to put IFF is only helping you in the end. More pew pew!!!(which means extra 3% crit) which in turn means more mana back and never turning into and OOMKin…
- Earth
I checked your PvE build, everytghing is ok but I would rather get Dreamstate 3/3 than Eclipse 3/3. It’s my opinion ofc. Coz I like to see 2x wraths on air spamming them like hell
Also at long fights its ez to get OOM.
Hoinstein you shouldn’t have an issue going Oom during those long batters if your spec’ed into Intensity. Plus you get more mana back form your crits due to Improved Moonkin form. Also with a shadow priest and ret paladin in the raid its highly impossible to go Oom unless your spamming hurricane.
Personally I’ve only been Oom in the General Vezax due to the 0 mana regen aura. Even with only 2/3 in Intensity its or you can do 2/3 in Dreamstate and forget the resto tree talent.
But going Oom shouldn’t be an issue with the amount of mana one gets back from Improved Moonkin Form, Shadow priest, Retribution Paladin and even a resto shaman if he is in your group from Mana Tide Totem.
I arrange myself to be in groups with such classes whenever I lead the raid. That’s all from me.
- Earth
3 points in dreamstate rather then eclipse…doooo eclipse!!!!
just bouncing my thoughts off you guys but moving the 5 points from starlight wrath to genesis with some haste to make up the difference, my be harder to cap hit and get the hast but its a thought.