So, I forgot what sparked this (probably a reader comment), but I decided to fiddle around with my talent build.  Nothing serious, mind you, as my moonkin talent build, which has been viewed over 17k times (!), has been working great for me.  In fact, in a 2 minute, 53 second Patchwerk kill, I managed to somehow push 5.8k DPS, and I accidentally had my PvP trinket equipped!

Still, I’ve been having mana issues on certain fights in Ulduar 10 man, whether it be from the lack of spriest/ret pally/hunter/etc… I have not experience any issue in 25mans, but on some of the longer 10 man fights, I can be hovering at around 0% mana.  I never Innervate myself (by the way, they are fixing Innervate!!!), and save it for our priest/druid healers on long fights.  When I find myself running OOM, I usually completely forget about Eclipse, or at the very least stop casting MF.  Its kind of weird, I know, but when I’m running low on mana, I try and avoid casting Wrath, as well.  Whatever.

Stop the chatter, what’s the change you made?

Anyways, the change I made and am officially going with is that instead of going with 2/3 Intensity, 3/3 Moonglow, and 1/1 OoC for my mana regen, I’ve switched it up to 1/3 Dreamstate, 1/3 Intensity, 3/3 Moonglow, 1/1 OoC.  Small change, but its true that the first point of Dreamstate does scale better than the first point of Intensity.

For starters, the list above may seem like *too much mana regen talents*.  Remember, you pretty much have to take 3/3 Moonglow unless you are going 2/2 Imp. MF, which, based on the way the MF glyph works, is pretty weak.  I saw the math for it somewhere, its a very miniscule DPS increase, and I’d rather have my spells cost less mana.

At least with my gear, which is mostly pre-3.1 BIS, this is the way the numbers came out for me:

• 2/3 Intensity = 33% of 183 (unbuffed mp5) = 60.39 mp5 while casting
• 1/3 Dreamstate + 1/3 Intensity = 4% of 937 (my unbuffed Int.) + 17% of 183 (unbuffed mp5) = 37.48 + 31.11 = 68.59 mp5 while casting

Note that the difference isn’t that large, but in an age where every bit counts, why not get that little increase?  If my math serves me correctly, those extra 8 mp5 are equivalent to a 13% mp5 increase while casting, by just switching a point from Intensity into Dreamstate.

Now, if you spec into 5/5 Furor, like every good moonkin should, that 1/3 Dreamstate just got more appetizing.  My unbuffed Int. jumped to 1030.7, meaning that my new mp5 while casting with 1/3 DS and 1/3 Intensity = 72.34 mp5 while casting.

Thing is, if you currently have 3/3 Dreamstate or 3/3 Intensity, this method *may* not work for you.  If you look closely at the tooltips of both Dreamstate and Intensity, you’ll notice that not every point is equal.  For example, the first point of Dreamstate gives you 4%, but subsequent points only give you 3% of your Int as mp5.  Same thing goes for Intensity.  The first point gives you 17%, the second point gives you 16%, and the last point gives you 17%.

However, I don’t feel the need for a full 3/3 in either Dreamstate or Intensity, so for the purposes of the spec I use, I am going to continue using 1/3 Dreamstate, 1/3 Intensity.

How does this scale with raid buffs?

Hands down, Intensity scales better with raid buffs.  No questions asked, but the extra 91 mp5 from Wisdom makes Intensity scale significantly better when raid buffed. AI will give you very little actual mana regen back, even with 1/3 Dreamstate.

Conclusion

If you guys seriously haven’t noticed yet, I am very impulsive, and state many times I’m no moonkin teacher or anything.  Actually, writing this post makes me feel like I should go back to 2/3 Intensity, and ditch the point from Dreamstate.  For PvP, I’d definitely recommend and value Dreamstate over Intensity (or at least take the first point in Dreamstate), but given the scaling of raid buffs, I am probably going to end up going back to my 2/3 Intensity rather than 1/3 DS and 1/3 Intensity.

Consider this post some insight into the complexities of my mind (lol), and my attempts to come up with stuff to blog about!   Feel free to chime in your opinions, and let me know if I was missing something when I wrote this post (I feel like I’m missing some obvious point that will confirm my initial theory).

In other news, the guild is still going steadily, we are up to Thorim/Mimiron on Ulduar 25, but we did go from our Realm Rank of 6 on WoWProgress.com to a more meager 12th or so.  Still, you won’t hear me complaining, even though I haven’t seen any good caster or Tier drops for me and have just been hanging out!

Macbook