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.

New Starsurge graphic again and again!

Starsurge got yet another new graphic in beta build 13117 September 30th. So I had to make a new video of it, again! This is the 4th.

I’m very happy with this new graphic cause it’s gigantic and blue, I think it looks like a blue signal flare, and I love it! Hope they’ll keep this one.

The first one was green and looked like a bogger, who think green when they think of Starsurge? I think blue/white, maybe because Starsurge sounds like an arcane spell, but it does spellstorm damage which count as both arcane and nature damage. The second one was blue/white but very small, third was more electric still blue/white and small, I liked this one, I never thought they would change it again.

Here are the old ones so you can see what it looked like before.

1.

2.

3.

Only one thing to say…..

KAMEHAMEHA!

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.

Moonkin form changes

Ghostcrawler:

We’ve had a lot of discussions about Moonkin form, as you might guess. We know opinions range among the player base from “cut it” to “make me stay in my adorable form all the time.” At first we were trying to make it more of an option, so that cuddly-hating Balance druids could choose the spec without the shapeshift. After much discussion though, we’re going to go back to a Balance druid = Moonkin Form design. We’ll put some more damage into the Moonkin Form.

This is the answer to a post about however moonkin form is pointless or not, you can read it here if you haven’t.

I agree that moonkin form won’t give much if they keep these changes, and I don’t want it to be like that. I wish they would give moonkin form something unique that other classes don’t give, not only 5% crit/haste or damage increase. But I don’t know, it has to be something that makes us want moonkin form and so we have to stay in it when we dps.

Because I like the moonkin form and I want them to keep it, but it needs some graphic updates like the cat/bear got because I’m jealous of their good looking forms and since the day they got them I’ve had ideas of how the updated moonkin form could be. I hope they’ll make it possible for us to change the colors, hair color=form color, like the cat/bear.

There are different colored moonkins around Azeroth like the orange and black wildkins in the Hinterlands, white and gray/brown owlbeasts in Winterspring. So maybe they’ll use some of those colors.

But why do druids have moonkin form as a spell caster form?

Moonkins in Azeroth doesn’t cast spells, they are melee. Did they forget how to do it as many of them became corrupted, mutated and wild?

I know that night elves claim that Elune created the first wildkin to serve as guardians to Cenarius.

”She combined the best traits of the owl, the most beloved of her night birds, and the bear, the lumbering protector of the woods”.

But other scholars claim that wildkin were the misguided creation of a sorcerer.

Mastery, Moonkin Form changes and gear

Mastery

Balance – Increases the bonus damage from Eclipse by 12%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.

This was announced by Blizzard some days ago, but I haven’t seen much talk about it yet, at least not on MMO-Champion. Only a thread about some people whining about it being a bad mastery for PvP moonkins, but I thought eclipse wasn’t much used in PvP and their specs. But now as they’re changing eclipse to be a core mechanic you don’t have to spec for it and you will get eclipse sooner or later when casting arcane/nature spells.

We don’t know much about how this mastery will work yet in PvP and I don’t PvP much at all so I have no idea, I just know it’s a good mastery for PvE moonkins and I’m looking forward to test it.

The eclipse changes

We are moving Eclipse from a talent into a core mechanic of the class and making it less random. Balance druids will have a new UI element that shows a sun and a moon. Whenever they cast an Arcane spell, it will move the UI closer to the sun, and buff their Nature damage. Whenever they cast a Nature spell, it will move the UI closer to the moon, and buff their Arcane damage. The gameplay intention is to alternate Arcane and Nature spells (largely Starfire and Wrath) to maintain the balance.

Spell changes, not confirmed by Blizzard

• Starsurge now also generates 10 Lunar or Solar energy.
• Wrath of Cenarius is now named Lunar Shower.
• Lunar Guidance now generates an additional 2/4/6 Lunar or Solar Energy. (Down from 5/10/15)
• Moonkin Form now increases spell haste by 5%. (Old – Spell crit)
• Genesis now increases the damage and healing done by your periodic spell damage and healing effects and by Swiftmend by 2/4/6%. (Up from 1/2/3%)
• Nature’s Grace now has a 100% proc rate for all ranks. increasing your spell casting speed by 5/10/15% for 3 sec.

So they changed the 5% crit to 5% haste. So now we’ll bring the same buff as shamans, shadow priests and destro warlocks. Will that make it harder for us to get raid spots? I hope of course they will take us for our damage, not only buffs. But I remember in my last guild we always had a shaman and a shadow priest, and for the 5% crit we had fury warrior and feral druid. We didn’t have any elemental shaman and very rarely a destro warlock. But we had 1-2 moonkins, for buffs and damage, but that was then. So will a raid like that drop to take a moonkin cause they can take other classes? I mean, if the moonkin does low damage, or the raid leader is a weirdo. I remember them asking me “Why take a moonkin when we already have other classes who give all the buffs moonkin gives?”, I just turn it the other way “Why take all the other classes when you can have ONE moonkin who gives all the buffs?”.

• 5% spell haste: Balance druid, shaman, shadow priest, destro warlock.
• 5% stats: Druid, paladin.
• 12% armor debuff: Druid, warrior, rogue, hunter
• 8% spell damage taken: Balance druid, warlock, unholy death knight, assassination rogue.

No other class can do it. And you get a combat ress, Thorns on tanks, strong AoE and single target damage.

Armor specializations relevant to druids

• Cloth Specialization – Increases your Intellect by 5% while wearing only Cloth armor.
• Wild Leather Specialization – Increases your Stamina in Bear Form by 5% while wearing only Leather armor.
• Wild Leather Specialization – Increases your Agility in Cat Form by 5% while wearing only Leather armor.
• Astral Leather Specialization – Increases your Intellect by 5% while wearing only Leather armor.

I heard they’ll make better leather gear so moonkins don’t have to take cloth items anymore, so the new leather items will be BiS instead of cloth as it has been for a very long time now cause they give spell power, crit and haste as we want and not many leather items got. But I also read that balance druids and elemental shamans still will share gear with resto shamans and druids, and that gear will have spirit cause it’s healing gear. Like spirit and crit, spirit and haste. So we have to mix that gear or still wear cloth with crit AND haste? Cause spirit won’t give spell power but hit, and we still need haste and crit. But if we in some way can only take leather or cloth items, we will get 5% intellect which gives spell power, a nice bonus.

I want to know more about this, so if anyone knows – contact me.