Last night on one of the first couple attempts of the night, we downed Heroic Anub 25.  I had almost forgotten the feeling of working on something for so long and then downing it.  Good stuff.

Video is on YouTube, props to Avelie for another well-put together video.

Warpath vs. Heroic Anub 25 Video

On a separate note, my designer has made a few changes to the website, let me know what you guys think of them.  Things like a nav bar have been created, and certain things on the sidebar tweaked.  Any feedbac will be appreciated — I’ve been a bit busy lately and haven’t gotten back to him with my revisions so I want to just be able to send him to this post!

Anyways, I have my first midterm of like 2 years tomorrow so I took the day off to study!

Adios

Ballerkin

The new T10 set bonuses for all classes have data mined and made available via MMO-Champion.  Hate to say it, but at first impression, I am a little underwhelmed.  I used to love seeing 4pc bonuses that I really wanted to get, but lately it seems that the 4pc bonuses they are coming up with have not been so useful.

Moonkin T10 Set Bonuses:

• Druid T10 Balance 2P Bonus – When you gain Clearcasting from your Omen of Clarity talent, you deal 10% additional Nature and Arcane damage for 6 sec.
• Druid T10 Balance 4P Bonus – Reduces the cooldown on your Eclipse talent by 6000.

The 2pc is interesting — it seems similar to 2pc T8, except will cover ALL of our spells, and I prefer 10% damage than 15% crit to my Starfires.  The 4pc, on the other hand (I understand the ‘6000′ is simply filler), isn’t attractive at all.  Sure, I know that eventually they will ‘fix’ Eclipse so that WiseEclipse does not work anymore and that will lower our Eclipse uptime, but that said, I still don’t think that lowering our Eclipse CD is that attractive.  Even if it does prove to be DPS increasing somehow, its still, well, boring.  Honestly, at certain levels of crit, and even without WiseEclipse, I usually am chaining (or near chaining) Eclipses on tank/spank fights.  I mean, really, are any of you guys consistently taking 10+ seconds to proc the other Eclipse than the one you just had up?

Moonkin 2pc T10 Analysis

OMG BALLERKIN/MACBOOK IS DOING MATH!?!?!  Nope, but I can definitely go through some of my logs

I’m interested in seeing approximately how long we can expect to have the buff from 2pc T10 up, since it procs of OoC and lasts 6 seconds.  Easy enough — I’m going to use my logs from our Heroic Lord Jaraxxus kill (no, I will not provide the link).  Lord Jaraxxus is probably the closest to a tank & spank fight in ToC, since you only have to move for Legion Flame, and the amount of adds isn’t *that* crazy.

Based on the above buffs breakdown, some key things I’d like to mention:

• Combined Eclipse up-time for either Solar/Lunar = 76.5%
• Blessing of the Moongoddess (the MF Idol) had great up-time = 93.5%
• Nature’s Grace uptime = 73.2%
• Clearcasting/OoC proc’ed a total of 10 times.
• Total Fight Duration: 4 minutes, 59 seconds

So, if we have 2pc T10, the 10 Clearcasting procs would give us a total of 60 seconds of the 10% increased damage buff, or ~20% uptime.  Starfire and Wrath, on average, still make up around 80% of our damage most of the time, so even though 2pc T10 affects all our spells, I think it is safe to say that if we compare 2pc T10 to 2pc T8, then 2pc T8 should win.  However, I am 100% positive that the additional stats from T10 will be huge, especially if they continue on this path of 3x different iLevels for the same tier sets.

I really hope they increase the OoC proc rate, and fix T10 4pc.  Does anyone know if they already released info on a new boomkin idol (i258)?  I really hope there is going to be one that rocks.

Adios,

Baller

With each content patch, I’ve tried to create a post about that outlines the times I prefer to use my main CDs, Treants & Starfall on each encounter.  I blogged about when to use Starfall in Naxx/OS/Maly, Starfall & Treants in Ulduar, and in a couple of other posts.  I have been fairly busy since Onyxia came out, so I won’t include that encounter in this post; its an easy fight anyways, and I’m sure its obvious to you when to pop your cooldowns (Oh, look, there’s whelps everywhere!  STARFALL!!!!).

Trial of the Crusader

Northrend Beasts

• Gormok the Impaler: Whether you are doing regular or heroic, this fight really doesn’t change too much for a moonkin.  With the exception of the Snobolds on random people and the occasional fire that you must move out of, its a tank & spank.  I usually burn both Treants and Starfall right off the bat on this fight, since I don’t think that Starfall can actually hit the Snobolds.  Plus, you will usually have your Treants up in time and Starfall (even if you don’t have it glyphed) for the Jormungar.  I only have enough time to pop Treants once during Gormok, and Starfall twice.  Pop whenever off CD, IMO.
• Acidmaw & Dreadscale: Generally speaking, my Treants are still on CD from Gormok, but I do pop Starfall before the first burrow.  I usually pop Treants when they come up immediately after the first burrow, and hopefully on the mobile jormungar, because the immobile one does a knock-back.  Pop Starfall whenever off CD, hopefully you will hit both.
• Icehowl: I have been somewhat unsure of when to pop my Treants on this fight.  Since after his big knockback, we have a VERY small window of time to a) get in range to attack him, b) actually attack him, I’ve usually been waiting till after the 100% damage increase is done to pop Treants, since I’d rather be hitting him with huge, Eclipsed SF/Wrath than letting my Treants wail on him.  I usually pre-DoT him up when I know he is doing his knock-back, and Starfall either while I’m running in range to attack him while he is stunned or during other times in the encounter.

Lord Jaraxxus

I haven’t done this fight in regular often, but the same should apply.  I usually wait till he starts summoning either his Nether Portal/Mistress of Pain or his Volcano/Infernals before popping CDs.  I wait to pop Treants till he summons the Nether Portal, and pop Treants and Starfall either right before or as soon as he summons it.  Rinse & Repeat.  Starfall is awesome during the Infernals/Volcano portion, and you hopefully aren’t pulling aggro on the Infernals with it (try and let your OT at least hit the adds once).

Faction Champions

Really depends on how you do this fight.  I try and pop Treants right off the start since its a long fight, but, since I don’t even have my pet bars turned on, I oftentimes can’t control what target they attack.  If you are lucky enough to be able to pop Starfall because nothing is being cc’ed, I am under the impression that the star portion of Starfall is not technically AoE — and therefore is hitting them for what it should be.  I think the splash star damage, however, is AoE and reduced during this fight.

Twin Val’kyr

I love being a boomkin on this fight.  Since I have Starfall glyphed, I usually will have it up for every special ability, so I oftentimes pop it a second BEFORE the special ability happens so I don’t have to waste a GCD, should I be required to nuke down a shield.  Treants happen if and only if there is a shield, and I try to drop them right on top of the target that is shielded.  Starfall will hit both targets, and usually does a good 100k+ for me on this fight, so its not a negligible amount of damage

Anub’arak

I actually just started picking up Gale Winds for this fight, on Heroic.  I need to start grabbing and glyphing Typhoon for this fight, too, for those times where I can’t begin channeling a Hurricane but could use some instant AoE damage.  I’d love to see some parses of Typhoon on Heroic Anub 25, too.  Anyways — Starfall when you see a lot of adds, whether it be the burrowers on Heroic, or the scarabs that come up while he is submerged.  IMO, pop Treants whenever you want and preferrably as much as possible, but I don’t think its a bad idea to try and keep them off CD for P3, when he hits 30%.  I am still performing pretty poorly on this fight in terms of my DPS (relative to everyone else), and I refuse to believe its “not a moonkin friendly fight”.  Typhoon should help.

Conclusion

As with the other Treant & Starfall posts — I would love some people to share their best tips & practices for T9 encounters, paying special attention to our main CDs – Treants & Starfall.  As I like to say, we moonkins do not have many spells in our arsenal, and oftentimes it is using your CDs appropriately that may separate a moonkin that is near the top of the charts to one that is near the bottom of the charts.  Let’s show those pure DPS classes that we can rock out some serious DPS too

Ballerkin

P.S. – I need some post ideas — comment here or contact me if you have anything you’d like to see blogged about!

Edit - Sorry for the rant-ish nature of the post — it really isn’t a rant, more an explanation and request for feedback on your own experiences.

As I have QQ’ed about a couple of times in this blog, my life, while generally pretty predictable, is pretty busy.  I’m 20, work full-time, am a part-time student, webmaster, progression raider, and trying to keep some sort of semblance of a social life.  My guild has 5 raid nights per week allocated (we hardly use up all the time, however), and raiders are supposed to make 4 of 5 of those nights, each week (this information is all publicly available on my guild’s recruitment thread).  Therefore, my schedule looks something like this (times in EST):

Sunday – Raid: 7:30pm – 12:30am

Monday – Work: 9:30am – 6:30pm; Class: 7:20pm – 10:00pm (Raid is 7:30pm – 12:30pm but I cannot make it)

Tuesday – Work: 9:00am – 11:30am; Class: 12:00pm – 1:15pm; Work: 1:30pm – 7:00pm; Raid: 7:30pm – 12:30am

Wednesday – Work: 9:30am – 6:30pm; Raid: 7:30pm – 12:30am

Thursday – Work: 9:00am – 11:30am; Class: 12:00pm – 1:15pm; Work: 1:30pm – 7:00pm; Raid: 7:30pm – 12:30am

Friday – Work: 9:30am – 6:30pm

Saturday – OFF!

In an ideal world — I could theoretically make all of the raid times (with the exception of Monday since I have class).  The thing is — what happens when I get stuck at work?  With traffic, the drive between my house and work is an hour.  On a good day or depending on my driving, I can maybe make it in a little under 30 minutes.  My times are tight — if there is traffic, I will be late to my raid.  If I am swamped at work, I will be late to a raid.

Of the 3 main things in my life, the order is simple School > Work > Raid.  Last year, I have my priorities mixed up, causing me to do poorly at work and waste $10,000 worth of tuition by failing two semesters.  I’m not letting that happen.

I’m blogging about this right now because my attendance has been crap lately.  I don’t think they care so much about the times where I tell them in advance that I will be late/absent — its those unexpected ones that I don’t have a chance to post on the forums about that I think may annoy them.

For example — I was 2 hours late to my Sunday raid this week.  My reason, in my mind, is justifiable, but then again, I think most everyone else that misses a raid also has a fair reason to miss.  I drove down to Norfolk, VA over the weekend (about 2-3 hour drive) to visit some friends.  I came back up Sunday after the Redskins game (around 4pm), to find heavy traffic on my way up.  I made it home a little late — but what REALLY caused me to be two hours late was the fact that my mom had hired some people to remodel the room where my computer is — moving my desk and equipment to different parts of the house, and unplugging the router/modem.  Shit happens.

What are your views on Raid Attendance Policies?

There are two sides to the coin, and I am undecided on how I feel about them.  On one hand — I wholly understand a GM’s frustration when people aren’t showing up — especially if they bring a particular raid buff to my raids.  At one point when I was leading <iRaid> — it came down to a choice.  I was having crappy attendance on my progression raid nights (generally Sunday), and the extra DKP I gave on Sundays didn’t significantly improve the attendance.  When we first started the guild I tried to keep it a small, tight-knit group — but raiders need to show up for almost every raid for that to work.  After a lot of raids with crappy attendance, I tried a different tactic — recruiting overlapping classes so as to always have my raid spots filled.  For example — if my feral druid wasn’t showing up to a lot of raids, I would recruit another one.  If they were both on, I’d have them roll off for the spot or decide in Officer chat.

On the side of the coin that is raid attendance — there are the raiders.  We really have no way of knowing what is going on in other people’s lives, or maybe what they even have to go through to raid or show up, or what kind of stuff may happen in their lives.  I once raided with a guy for over a year, who claimed to be homeless and have to play from a LAN center every time.  Guy never really missed raids, too.

Conclusion

In conclusion — I know what I need to work on.  I can’t do much about my attendance, since I am online whenever possible.  I need to work on getting my absences posted on the forums more often — I have an iPhone so I need to get comfortable doing it from there.

Still — I want to know what you guys think about attendance policies.  I am obviously not against them (I had them when I was GM), but would love to hear about what you guys have seen done to people late a lot, no-shows, or anything on the subject, really.

Ballerkin

I never had an issue with what I used to blog about before, because, well, I was the GM of my guild, and if I wanted to be open about our wiping, DPSers, etc, then I could do as I pleased.  Plus, we weren’t much more than an average raiding guild, so nothing I would disclose would be of much use to other people.  I even used to disclose Ulduar boss strategies from my guild; I think I am allowed to do what I want with strategies that I helped create and fine-tune.

At any rate, this post is NOT spurred because anyone brought up my blog in my new guild, nor do I think people from that guild even read it.  I partially don’t have much to blog about right now, the latest Patch 3.3 notes bring no changes for moonkins, and raiding ToC and ToGC have been pretty standard.  We are working on Heroic Anub 25, and I think he will be downed very shortly.

Still, my question to you guys is — Are certain things about guilds supposed to be kept confidential?  If you were a WoW blogger, would there be certain things about raiding and guild issues that you would not make public, regardless of who was reading?

Personally, since joining Warpath, I have limited the amount of guild-related things I blog about.  Once again, its not because anyone told me anything, but its because I do not feel comfortable disclosing things like reasons why we may be wiping on something, guild drama (I hate drama), etc.  I have drawn a line as to what I will talk about with my guild — and that line is only discussed things that you could have found out elsewhere.

For example, in this post I brought up we are working on Heroic Anub 25.  Looking on any guild ranking website, you can tell we are 4/5 ToGC, and, as a progression-guild, you can probably infer that we are working on that encounter.  I think that is fair.

So, what is your guy’s take?  Are there certain things that you would not like seeing in the blogosphere?  What if a guildie blogged about how you caused a wipe (BTW – I was a HUGE FAIL the other night and got hit by Icehowl’s charge – first time ever x.x), and he mentioned your name?  What if a guild member put up the guild link to the raid’s WWS?

/discuss

Ballerkin