#0 - June 23, 2007, 11:04 p.m.
There's been a lot of threads lately as more people spec balance about how to gear up for endgame raiding. Here's a post you can link to threads asking oft-repeated questions. Maybe I'll make a comprehensive post about moonkin as a whole one day, but for now... this is about how to DPS (along with some extra advice).
First thing to note is that the advice is based on this premise:
(1) You are gearing up for PVE raiding. Nothing I say is fully applicable to 5-man instances or PVP.
(2) You have a minimum of 700 spell damage when raid buffed.
(3) You've picked up your moonkin idols - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31025 and http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27518
Damage vs. Crit vs. Hit
This is probably the most common question asked. To make a long story short, Hit > Damage > Crit. Always - casting rotation does not matter. It is irrefutable, and though streaks of good or bad luck might give you a fight with skewed data, the relationship among hit, damage, and crit holds true overall. Note that this is only on a 'per-point' basis. A fairly good ballpark conversion is: 1 point of spell hit = 1.15 points of spell damage, and 1 point of spell crit = 0.65 points of spell damage.
A sidenote: This is true on raid boss mobs. Trash mobs do not require the same level of hit, and you can take off 'hit gear' for those mobs. However most people will just have a single set of raid gear, and the difficulty of trash mobs usually don't merit specifically putting together a second set of non-hit gear. Arvont has a nice easy-to-acquire spell hit gear list later in this post, reply #24. Link: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=112631617&sid=1&pageNo=2#24
Spellfire?
Spellfire is a viable option, as proven by Horao. It is not, however, a very good option, unless if you have a lot of money and do not mind swapping it for upgrades once your guild reaches SSC/TK, or if you know that your guild will be in Karazhan for a while. The arcane damage on spellfire is great, but it is inflexible, does not work with insect swarm or healing, and there are few stats on the set.
Enchants
These are the best enchants, per slot, for a moonkin:
Helm - Glyph of Power
Cloak - Subtlety
Chest - Enchant Mana Prime
Bracers - Spellpower
Gloves - Spellpower
Legs - Runic Spellthread
Boots - Vitality
Weapon - Major Spellpower
An alternative enchant for the weapon is spellsurge; however, in my experience so far, I haven't really found a need for it. Your mileage may vary, pending on your MP5, how much you invest in your consumables, and your group composition on a normal raid day.
What's Spell Penetration? Spell Hit?
Spell penetration does absolutely nothing in PVE. It is a counter to resistance, yet it has no bearing against a raid boss as base resistances are unmitigatable - not even by warlock curses. Spell hit on the other hand, does plenty - it mitigates your "misses" that show up as "resist". You have a 17% chance to miss against a raid boss at level 70, and there is a 1% base chance to miss. This means that to maximize hit, you have 16% to go. As every balance druid (no exceptions) should have 2/2 balance of power, this translates into requiring about 151 hit rating to hit the cap. Note that the hit rating you need also depends on your group composition - having a draenei and/or an elemental shaman with totem of wrath in your group will require you to have less spell hit to reach the cap. So gear accordingly if you have a fairly static raid group makeup.
Leather vs Cloth
Armor is more than a classification - it's a stat. As such, it should be weighted as you would weigh stamina, spell damage, intellect, etc. Unforunately for armor, it has little to no weight in a PVE setting. So in short, wear cloth if it's better than leather, or wear leather if it's better than cloth. For endgame raiding, this translates into wearing cloth apart from tier sets; and even then, the tier 4 gloves and leggings are not worth wearing.
Nature's Grace
This does not reduce global cooldown. Your wraths will still fire off at an average of 1.5 seconds, even if they crit every single time.
Subtlety
Subtlety is not required for any raid until you enter TK or get into late SSC. Having a good tank and keeping and eye on the threat meter is all that is required. I did not touch subtlety until two days ago, and I'm sitting at over +1300 spell damage in a raid without pulling aggro and still hitting high on the damage meters. If you "really" need subtlety to stay safe in early raiding, it's time to re-evaluate what you're doing wrong instead of respeccing to get a stopgap fix.
Casting Rotations
Wrath does more damage while starfire is more mana-efficient. Moonfire is very high DPS with terrible DPM, and insect swarm is very solid DPS with almost no mana cost. The difference between starfire and wrath DPS is generally under 50 DPS - aka, if I push out 1000 DPS with starfire, wrath will probably give me around 1050.
The most common casting rotation is this: IS/SFx4
The highest DPS casting rotation is this: IS/MF/Wx6
The DPS difference among various casting rotations is not very large, so keep an eye on your mana as your top priority. What do I use? I generally use IS/SFx4, with moonfire when I need to strafe; I switch over to IS/MF/Wx6 as a fight's ending if I have extra mana and an enrage timer is ticking.
I need gear to shoot for
First, check out the balance equipment list:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=106672385&sid=1&pageNo=1
Then, look at the armories of some players. There's my gear, but here's a few more links to PVE moonkin:
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Magtheridon&n=Madrox
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Skullcrusher&n=Caliane
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dethecus&n=Skeldi
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kel%27Thuzad&n=Horao
What gems?
Yellow sockets should be veiled noble topaz.
Red sockets should be either veiled noble topaz or living rubies.
Blue sockets, if the socket bonus is worth it, should be glowing nightseyes, although dazzling talasites are not a bad choice if you have major issues with mana.
I do awful DPS. I am out of mana. My dog hates me.
If you have low DPS, it might be because:
(1) You had to shift out and battlerez/heal
(2) You ran out of mana
(3) Your gear is not good enough.
If you run out of mana, it might be because:
(1) You aren't using the correct consumables
(2) You don't have enough MP5
(3) Your casting rotation is incorrect.
Apart from fixing casting rotation, a quick fix would be to get a weapon with a lot of spirit and then equip it during an innervate.
If your dog hates you, it might be because:
(1) You're kicking it.
