Moonkin in 4.0.1

Patch 4.0.1 is going live on EU realms Wednesday 13th October. Many things will change is this patch so I thought I’d write a post about it to share what I have experienced on the beta and PTR. This post will cover the following:

• New talents
• Talent build
• Glyphs
• Stats and caps
• Eclipse
• Rotation
• Reforging
• Gems
• Enchants
• Consumables
• Addons
• Armor specialization

So this post turned out to be my first moonkin guide. You can also find it here or by clicking “moonkin guide 4.0.1” in the menu on top. If you have any comments, questions or feedback I’ll be happy to read it.

New talents:

• Solar Beam – You summon a beam of solar light over the enemy target’s location, interrupting the enemy target and silencing all enemy targets under the beam within 5 yards while it is active. Solar beam lasts 10 sec.
• Shooting Stars – You have a 2% chance per point when you deal damage with your Moonfire or Insect Swarm to instantly reset the cooldown of your Starsurge and reduce its cast time by 100%. Lasts 8 sec. (2 points)
• Sunfire – While in Solar Eclipse, your Moonfire spell will morph into Sunfire. (1 point)
• Starlight Wrath – Reduces the cast time of your Wrath and Starfire Spells by 0.2 sec per point. (3 points)
• Euphoria – While not in an Eclipse state, you have a 12% chance per point to double the Solar or Lunar energy generated by your Wrath of Starfire when they deal Damage. When you reach a Solar or Lunar eclipse, you instantly are restored 6%/12% of your total mana. (2 points)
• Lunar Shower – When you cast Moonfire, you gain Lunar Shower. Lunar Shower increases the damage done by your Moonfire by 2% per point and reduces the mana cost by 10% per point. This effect is refreshed and amplified when you move, stacking up to 3 times. Effect lasts for 3 sec. (3 points)
• Fungal Growth – When your Treants die or your Wild Mushrooms are triggered, you spawn a Fungal Growth at its wake covering the area within 8 yards, slowing all enemy targets by 35% per point. Lasts 10 sec. (2 points)
• Starsurge – You fuse the power of the moon and sun, launching a devastating blast of energy at the target. Causes 1272 to 1756 Spellstorm damage to the target and generates 15 Lunar or Solar energy, whichever is more beneficial to you.

Talent build:

This spec is the one I’ve tested on the beta and PTR and the one I’ll use when the patch hits. It’s a PvE spec with mana regen talents cause I’ve experienced we might need them for the longer boss fights.

A pure damage spec without mana regen talents could look like this, if we don’t need the mana regen or for soloing.

Here is another one with Moonglow for lower mana cost on spells but with Gale Winds, think I’ll try this one if I don’t need my Innervate.

I haven’t picked Solar Beam in any of my specs cause I rarely used it on the beta and PTR, but I see how it would be good for soloing or PvP, but I’m not much of a PvPer, but here is what I think would be good for PvP.

Glyphs:

The glyph system will change and we will now have 9 glyphs instead of 6. Some glyphs are changed, some are new and some are removed. You will only need one of each glyph cause you can learn them once and then you will always be able to switch them out and back again as you like, but it requires Dust of Disappearance to remove them.

Here are some of the most useful glyphs for balance druid:

Prime

• Glyph of Insect Swarm: Increases the damage of IS by 30%
• Glyph of Wrath: Wrath does an extra 10% damage to targets with Insect Swarm
• Glyph of Starfire: Starfire increases the duration of Moonfire by 3 seconds
• Glyph of Starsurge: When your Starsurge deals damage, the cooldown remaining on your Starfall is reduced by 5 sec.
• Glyph pf Moonfire: Increases the periodic damage of Moonfire by 20% (up from 10)

Major

• Glyph of Starfall: Reduces the CD on Starfall by 30 seconds.
• Glyph of Innervate: When casting Innervate on another friendly target, the druid will receive 50% of Innervate’s effect.
• Glyph of Rebirth: Target is ressurected with 100% health.

Minor

• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth: Rebirth no longer requires a reagent
• Glyph of Mark of the Wild: Reduces the mana cost of MotW by 50%
• Glyph of Aquatic Form: Increases swim speed by 50% in Aquatic Form
• Glyph of Dash: Reduces Dash’s CD by 20 seconds

For a full list of glyphs, visit restokin.com

Stats and caps:

Hit rating
Hit is still an important stat, and we need 17% which is 446 hit rating to be capped. We get hit from spirit, 1 Spirit is 1 Hit rating. We should be able to get most of our hit from gear. But as this patch goes live I only have about 270 hit which means I have to change some gear or gem hit to reach the cap.

Intellect
Intellect is now the stat that will give us Spell Power, 1 Intellect is 1 Spell Power, it also gives us crit and mana.

Haste rating
Our spells have been changed to benefit from haste so now haste will reduce the global cooldown of our spells, increase the frequency of Moonfire, Sunfire, Insect Swarm and Hurricane ticks, and reduce the cast time of Starfire, Wrath and Starsurge. This means haste is now even more powerful than it was before.

Crit
Crit is no longer as important as before because we are no longer dependant on crit to proc Eclipse and Nature’s Grace. But we still want crit cause it will increase our damage.

Mastery
Mastery is a new stat and it will increase the damage of our eclipse by 12%, and additional 1.5% per mastery point.

Eclipse:

The eclipse bar is a new bar under your player frame on Blizzard standard UI. It takes 100 Solar/Lunar power to get from the middle to either side and you gain Solar power by casting Wrath and Lunar by casting Starfire. Starsurge gives both Solar and Lunar power depending on which side you’re closest to. When you reach Solar eclipse it buffs your nature spells until you hit 0 Eclipse power, and when you continue casting Solar spells you will reach Lunar eclipse which buffs your arcane spells until you hit 0 Eclipse power.

Lunar eclipse increases the damage of all your arcane spells which are Starfire, Moonfire, Starfall and Starsurge.

Solar eclipse increases the damage of all your nature spells which are Wrath, Insect Swarm, Sunfire, Typhoon, Starsurge and Hurricane.

Rotation:

The rotation we are used to is Faerie Fire, Insect Swarm, Moonfire, Wrath until Lunar Eclipse, Starfire until Solar Eclipse and always keep Insect Swarm up while in Solar Eclipse and Moonfire in Lunar Eclipse. Starfall on cooldown.

It hasn’t really changed much, so if you’ve been playing moonkin for a while this will be no problem for you to learn. If not you should just go practice at a training dummy and you will have it in no time.

• Faerie Fire doesn’t give hit or crit anymore, it’s only an armor debuff, so it will no longer be part of our rotation.
• You want to put up Moonfire before Insect Swarm because Moonfire procs Nature’s Grace and Insect Swarm benefits from it, so you get more ticks.
• Keep up both DoTs and refresh them whenever they fall off, because they can proc Shooting Stars which gives instant Starsurge, even if it is on cooldown.
• Starsurge should always be on cooldown and used whenever Shooting Stars proc.
• Force of Nature (Treants) I always pop in the start of the fight as we engage the boss so I can use them twice and because we usually pop Bloodlust in the start so they get the haste buff.

So my rotation would look like this:

Force of Nature > Moonfire > Insect Swarm > Wrath > Starsurge > Wrath until Lunar Eclipse, Starsurge whenever Shooting Stars Procs or is off cooldown, refresh DoTs if needed.

Lunar Eclipse

Starfall > Moonfire > Insect Swarm > Starsurge > Starfire until Solar Eclipse Starsurge whenever Shooting Stars Procs or is off cooldown, refresh DoTs if needed.

Solar Eclipse

Sunfire > Insect Swarm > Starsurge > Wrath until Lunar Eclipse, Starsurge whenever Shooting Stars Procs or is off cooldown, refresh DoTs if needed.

This is the rotation I’ve tested on the beta and PTR and it works really good for me.

Reforging:

Reforging allows you to change 40% of a stat you don’t need for something more useful. But it’s only for secondary stats as crit, spirit, haste, hit and mastery, and you can only change into a stat that isn’t already on the item. It costs what the item is worth, what you can sell it for at a vendor.

Gems:

• Runed Cardinal Ruby +23 Spell Power gets removed and will convert to Brilliant Cardinal Ruby +20 Intellect, now a red gem. Intellect will give us spell power, mana and crit.
• Potent Ametrine +12 Spell Power +10 Intellect changes  to  +10 Intellect +10 Crit Strike Rating.
• Reckless Ametrine +12 Spell Power +10 Haste Rating changes to +10 Intellect + 10 Haste Rating.
• Purified Dreadstone +12 Spell Power +10 Spirit changes to +10 Intellect +10 Spirit.

So those are the gems we will be using. +20 Intellect in red sockets, +12 Spell Power +10 Spirit x2 for the meta gem and +12 Spell Power +10 Haste Rating or +12 Spell Power +10 Crit Strike Rating  in yellow sockets, which give 5+ or higher Spell Power socket bonus, depending on what you need.

For a full list of the new gems, visit reviveandrejuvenate.blogspot.com

Enchants:

There are no new enchants in this patch, profession changes won’t come until Cataclysm in December. So the enchants you should use are still the following:

• Head: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries – 30 Spell Power/20 Crit – Kirin Tor revered
• Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Storm – 24 Spell Power/15 Crit – Sons of Hodir exalted, Master’s Inscription of the Storm – 70 Spell Power/15 Crit (requires inscription)
• Back: Enchant Cloak Greater Speed – 23 Haste, Lightweave Embroidery: Chance to increase your Spell Power by 295 for 15 sec (requires tailoring), increasing Spell Power by 27 (requires engineering)
• Chest: Enchant Chest Powerful Stats – 10 Stats
• Wrists: Enchant Bracers Greater Spell Power – 23 Spell Power, Fur Lining Spell Power – 76 Spell Power (requires leatherworking)
• Gloves: Enchant Gloves Exceptional Spell Power – 28 Spell Power, Hyperspeed Accelerators – increase Haste rating by 340 for 12 sec (requires engineering)
• Legs: Brilliant Spellthread – 50 Spell Power/20 Spirit
• Boots: Tuskaar’s Vitality – minor movement speed increase and 15 Stamina or if you need hit Icewalker – 12 Crit and 12 Haste
• Weapon: Enchant Weapon Mighty Spell Power – 63 Spell Power for one-handed weapons, Enchant Staff Greater Spell Power – 82 Spell Power for two-handed weapons
• Rings: Enchant Ring Spell Power – 23 Spell Power (requires enchanting)

Consumables:

• Flask: Flask of the Frostwyrm
• Potion: Potion of Speed
• Food buff: Any 46 Spell Power food

Addons:

As a moonkin you want an addon that keeps track of your DoTs, procs and Eclipse. There are many addons for that, you just have to pick the one you prefer. I prefer Forte Exorcist which I started to use because my Squawk and Awe was bugged one day. Forte Exocist has many configurations but is still very easy to manage. It works for all classes. I love it because I can customize almost everything and it keeps track of all my DoTs on all targets, my procs and cooldowns.

I would also recommend the new addon for your Eclipse power bar: Balance Power Tracker.

Other addons you always should use are some kind of boss mod like Deadly Boss Mods, DXE, Big Wigs etc, Omen Threat Meter, Skada or Recount, oRA2/3 and Grid or similar raid frames showing debuffs.

By the way: If you download Curse Client you can fast and easily download or update your addons automatically.

Armor specializations:

We will now get 5% Intellect by only wearing leather armor. This will give us extra Spell Power. So we might want to swap our cloth parts to leather to gain that bonus. I have all the BiS cloth parts on my druid and many of the BiS leather parts I’ve never even seen drop so I really doubt I’ll change them before Cataclysm. If they drop I will of course need on them.

Balance druid spec – Beta Build 12984

A new talent tree is out with the new build, and I made a spec after my experiences and what seems logical to take. This is a PvE raiding spec, so I didn’t pick any PvP talents or other solo talents.

I’ll explain some of the talents I picked which I didn’t have in my last spec. I have experienced a lot of mana issues in dungeons and while soloing, I go oom all the time and need many breaks to drink, even when I use my Innervate. It’s not as powerful as it was before and we don’t get so much mana back like we did before, not used to it yet, but it’s very annoying.

So that’s why I picked Moonglow to try it out and see if it helps on the mana issues, and I also picked Dreamstate which now gives you extra mana when you use innervate on yourself.

I didn’t pick Owlkin Frenzy cause if it is the same as it is on live, it doesn’t proc on many boss fights, and as I said this is a PvE raiding spec, not a solo spec. For the same reason I didn’t pick Overgrowth, Solar Beam or Fungal Growth. They might be useful in PvE in some situations, but not on bosses.

Feral: I wasn’t sure if I should take Furor or not. 15% more mana is a lot, but I chosed not to take it at the moment because I wanted to check if it was enough with Moonglow and Dreamstate.
Resto: You want Heard of the Wild because intellect gives you spellpower and same does Master Shapeshifter. I wasn’t sure about Blessing of the Grove because it’s only 6% on the direct damage of your Moonfire, but I picked it cause it’s still a tiny small amount of extra damage.

Will test this spec on the beta later when I have time for it and return to say how it went.

The Stonecore

The Stonecore is a level 82-84 instance located in Deepholm.

I joined Stonecore through the dungeon finder tool. And the group was me as balance druid, a resto druid, protection paladin, warlock and mage. Only the resto druid had been there before, but he explained the trash and bosses. When we entered the instance everyone had problems with freeze lag, so we stood there and waited for it to be gone for like 10 minutes. People had to relog, restart the game etc.

Here is my video from the run, it’s in two parts, watch in HD for better quality. I know it looks small but couldn’t get it uploaded to YouTube in larger cause then I would loose the HD quality, but maybe I’ll put it up on Filefront or something.

– What kind of gear did your group use? What item level, where the gear came from, etc.

Everyone had ICC25/10 HC and some greens/blues from Cataclysm quests/instances.

– What level were you and your party members for the dungeon run in question?

83 balance druid, 83 protection paladin, 85 mage, 82 warlock, 84 resto druid.

– How long were the boss fights?

Corborus: About 3 min. Slabhide: 2 min. Ozruk: 2 1/2 min. High Priestess Azil 3 min.

– Was there trash that felt obnoxious? unfair? took forever to kill?

The trash was ok.

– Were crowd control mechanics used for trash pulls? If not, how was tank damage?

We had to poly and use succubus on many trash pulls.

– What’s healing feel like?

Our healer was good and his mana seemed fine.

– Did anyone run out of mana?

I did run out of mana after a few trash packs, and on the final boss I was oom when it was 1 min left of the fight, used Innervate and pot. Not sure if the mage and warlock had mana problems. The healer was low some times.

– Were there mechanics in the dungeon that were unclear?

No, our healer had been there before and explained everything.

– How many times did the party wipe? Where did the wipes occur?

We wiped on the trash when we forgot to CC the earth shapers, once on the first boss cause the tank died, and once on final boss cause of many adds and tank died.

– Bug:

On like the 3rd trash pull in the start we dpsed Millhouse Manastorm till he ran down to where the first boss is an a lot of adds spawned, four earth shapers and some warbringers, and we already had four adds left to kill, two were CCed. Of course we wiped. Went back in and they were gone.

– Balance druid in Stonecore:

I did have mana problems on the trash and bosses, I used my Innervate on every CD and popped a mana pot when Innervate was on CD and I was oom.

I think my spells are too expensive, they cost so much mana, or my regen just sucks. I was careful with spending my mana, so I didn’t use Moonfire and Hurricane. I didn’t have any mana talents, but with this experience I might get 3/3 Furor earlier and Moonglow.

I really miss the old regen, but I know it was too overpowered because we never went oom. But it feels like Innervate is too weak, I don’t know how mages Evocation works but I the mage in the group didn’t seem to have any mana problems.

I had a lot of water with me, but it takes a while to drink up 44000 mana.

Besides that my damage was fine, I had Recount damage meter installed to check my damage. We were three casters and did about the same damage, at least on single target.

– Design, quests, music etc:

I think the Stonecore was a fun instance, it’s the third Cataclysm instance I have been to and this had the most fun bosses. I don’t usually like this dark, stone cave instances, but this looked different. The bosses were different and not just tank and spank. The trash also had some new abilities which are good.

I didn’t have any quests for the instance, if there are any, but I really wonder what Millhouse Manastorm is doing there, so can’t wait to find out more about it.

Also there was no music in the instance, looking forward to hear it, I think the Deepholm music is really good.

Overall I had a lot of fun in Stonecore and it’s absolutely a great instance.

Balance druid changes – Build 12857

Starsurge was updated with new graphics. It no longer looks like a green lava burst or a bogger as some people said. Here is a video showing the new Starsurge.

I think it looks better now, the color at least, but the spell looks very small, like a Wrath, or lazor beam(!), wish it was more like a Frostfire Bolt but blue/purple. And why is it green on impact? Looks like a Wrath when it hits the target.

Here are the other balance druid changes in build 12857:

• Hurricane base damage increased by 33%.
• Innervate now regenerate mana equal to 20% of the casting Druid’s maximum mana pool, down from 33%.
• Starsurge now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
• Entangling Roots now has a 2 sec cast time, up from 1.5 sec.
• Starfall now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards. Base damage increased by 33%.
• Lunar Shower now increases damage done by your Moonfire by 15/30/45% (Up from 2/4/8%)
• Force of Nature now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
• Solar Beam now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
• Lunar Guidance no longer increases the radius of your Solar Beam.
• Moonglow now reduces the mana cost of all your damage and healing spells.
• Nature’s Majesty now increases the critical strike chance with all spells.

Innervate

Innervate is now based on YOUR mana, not the target’s mana. GC specifically stated this makes Innervate useless for Ferals, as they do not want Ferals helping Healers in their mana management.

That’s not actually what I said. I said that we wanted Feral’s Innervate to be less powerful than Balance and Restoration, because we don’t want “stack Ferals” to be the solution for healers who overheal a lot. Your Innervate will still be valued (probably more valued, all things considered), but it won’t be and shouldn’t be the magic pill that gets you a raid slot.

The Eclipse bar got an update:

Here some pictures of what it looks like with no eclipse, Solar eclipse and Lunar eclipse.

So Hurricane base damage is increased by 33% and with Gale Winds which gives 30%, the damage will be 63% more than what it is for me now on live, cause I don’t have Gale Winds.

I noticed my Innervate is much weaker and doesn’t help me very much. It still has a 3 min CD, and at the moment on beta I go oom really fast and take a lot of damage cause the mobs hit like trucks and sometimes I have to pop out of moonkin form and heal, then back in to DPS. And it takes sooo long to drink up 42k mana between each fight cause the water I found is level 75 water. Maybe there is level 80 water somewhere hmm…

Starsurge, Solar Beam and Force of Nature, just got their range increased like all the other spells, same with Starfall, but it also got a damage increase by 33%. I didn’t really notice this on the beta, it still feels like Starfall does less damage than what it used to do and what it does on live (without 30% ICC buff).

But the range is annoying when leveling cause there are always many mobs in the area and I’m so used to just pop Starfall all the time, but now all the level 84 mobs come running and I die. It’s also so annoying to die, cause the ghost form, you know when you fly on that little mount back to where you died, the speed of it is sooooo slow, slower than what you would run.

Lunar Shower got a very nice buff. 15/30/45% increased damage on Moonfire is a lot.

My current spec looks like this and I will put the next two in Furor. But maybe I should have gotten Moonglow cause I go so oom from all this mob killing and self-healing.

What do you think of the new Starsurge and the other updates?