Toon Tweaking Boomkin DPS help!

[Seldum]

I read in the forums about people easily pulling +1200 dps at my current lvl 75 range.

But my toons consistently do around 800-900 dps except when I really spam the dps button in instances I can get it to 1100 dps, but I think its because I have a moonfire build into my castsequence which then gets fired very fast and very often (which isen't the idear.

Anyway, its not the macros or eclipse proc I need help with, because theres some awesome guides in the macro forum, I need some help with the general setup of my guys in the form of Gear.

I tend to go for Intellect and Spirit stats on the gear I get from Quests. Also, if cloth drops which is better than my leather item I swap the leather out.

Can someone please take a look at my toons and tell me if i'm doing it okey?
Carnweed
Darnweed
Earnweed

I admit I haven't setup Eclipse Proc yet and i'm able to do the instances just fine. I just want to be 100% sure Im not doing something basically wrong with my gear setup.

[Khatovar]

Changes I would make -

Get rid of Dreamstate. You have a whole slew of Innervates to use, there's no need to waste 3 talent points on such a minimal amount of regen.

Drop Genesis. Again, a lot of points spent for minimal gain.

I'm guessing that you're talking PvE and not PvP. In that case, you don't need Owlkin Frenzy. It is only a 15% chance of a 10% boost when you get hit, you should not be getting hit enough to see much if any increase from this.

You probably can drop Moonglow, too for the same reason as Dreamstate.

There's no need for points in Nature's Focus, you should have hit t2 resto off 5/5 Furor and t3 with Natural Shapeshifter and 2/2 ImpMotW.

This leaves you with a ton of points for things you should have.

Nature's Splendor - Extra ticks are extra DPS and with your Glyph of Starfire, you have more time to refresh Moonfire, giving you time for 1-2 more Wraths before you need to switch to Starfire for DoT refreshing.

Celestial Focus - This is free spell haste, and reduced pushback for AOE. DPS boost all around.

Balance of Power - Hit is always valuable.

Improved FF - More free spell hit. 1 can take it to give the hit to the rest of the boomkins. I don't know that I'd suggest all the boomkins taking it for the crit, unless you have nowhere else to spend points.

Insect Swarm - It's another DoT, all your boomkins should have it. Improve it and then Glyph it.

As for gear, Boomkins gear Hit {to cap} > Spell Power > Haste > Crit > Int > Spr. You're pretty much neglecting everything in favor of Int/Spr. If you're running out of mana, it's because you've gotten next to no crit, so you're not getting much in the way of mana restores in Moonkin form.

As far as spell rotations, don't use DoTs on low-HP trash. Lots of trash, use Hurricane or Starfall. Otherwise, Wrath. DoTs won't tick long enough on trash to be mana-efficient or worth the GCD. If you're not managing Eclipse procs somehow, either by toggles or random Wrath x3 -> SF x2-3, then you're just wasting even more points and losing a lot of DPS in the process.

[lowlbalance]

I am considering to do a major overhaul with my 5xDruids in the near future. I'll give you a few points for consideration I have right now in mind:

Khatovar has very good points, which I will consider myself for the Spec overhaul. Also as a rule of thumb consider, that Boomkins with lvl 80 and proper heroic/T9 gear have no mana problems at all (it was an issue while leveling up), so avoid +spirit in favor of +spdmg, +crit, +haste. Of course if the dropped/quested +spirit gear is an upgrade, equip it. On your Resto you will want those +spirit and +mp5, I personally prefer +spirit.

I occasionaly took cloths here and there too, while leveling up, but by now I have mostly leather gear (with very few exceptions).

Glyphs: I love those two starfall glyphs, Glyph of Focus (+20%dmg & -50%radius) and Glyph of Starfall (cooldown down to 1 minute, woot!) and use it almost continuously on this 1min cooldown basis. That's a 3-5x "mobile AoE" starfall every minute, kthxbai. :D
I still have Innervate glyphed, which is great for leveling up, but not really necessary anymore at lvl80 (with exception for Resto druid).

Other than that, I alternate wrath and starfire for the eclipse procs. I hope I will implement an intelligent macro setup for 3xBalance eclipse procs, there are some great ideas out here in the forum threads...

[Fursphere]

I admit I haven't setup Eclipse Proc yet and i'm able to do the instances just fine. I just want to be 100% sure Im not doing something basically wrong with my gear setup.

Eclipse is a HUGE chuck of your DPS. This is why you're not breaking 1000 at 75.

If you're not going to manage Eclipse - roll another class that doesn't have procs. I know this sounds harsh - but its the truth. I dropped my Boomkin (80 w/ 4500 GS) for a 75 Warlock - and never looked back.

Boomkins are awesome DPS - but you HAVE to manage that stupid proc. At 80 - I'm talking the difference between 2000 DPS and 5000 DPS.

(I have done an enormous amount of work and testing on this subject - trust me on this one :) )

[Seldum]

Thanks for all the tips etc.

I will probably try to make the Eclipse Proc work. I was thinking about having:

"2" - dps, wrath, wrath, wrath, insect swarm, wrath, wrath etc.
"3" - DPS 1 starts casting Starfall
"4" - DPS 2 starts casting Starfall
"5" - DPS 3 starts casting Starfall

If all my dps proc on wrath I would have to go with hitting 3 keys - ohh guess that woulden't work. hmm.

Anyway, atm I have wrath wrath wrath, moonfire, starfall starfall, wrath, starfall or something like htis.

I will need to hit up a target dummy I guess.

And thanks for the help with the talentspoints, ill try to change a few things. And with the gear....

*Bluss* Guess I am the sucks. :) Ohh well you live and learn.

[genocyde]

Eclipse is a HUGE chuck of your DPS. This is why you're not breaking 1000 at 75.

If you're not going to manage Eclipse - roll another class that doesn't have procs. I know this sounds harsh - but its the truth. I dropped my Boomkin (80 w/ 4500 GS) for a 75 Warlock - and never looked back.

Boomkins are awesome DPS - but you HAVE to manage that stupid proc. At 80 - I'm talking the difference between 2000 DPS and 5000 DPS.

(I have done an enormous amount of work and testing on this subject - trust me on this one :) )

Id just like to add a point to back up Fur on how huge this proc is. Blizzard has already announced concern over this proc and an intent to change it because of how crucial missing this proc can be. Missing it once or twice during a movement fight or etc. is enough cause for blizzard to reconsider the proc itself.

[Seldum]

I hope they will, it would definitely make things easier. But who said it should be easy to box? :)

I could just turn them all into melee dps.

I guess its back to the old training dummy to test test test.

[Ualaa]

With three balance druids..

If you are going with buttons.
We would need 2x2x2.. 8 different buttons to mash.

I notice you have IS Boxer, in your signature.
An easier way to manage this will be with switches.

Create for each druid a few mapped keys.
The first will use an input of "1".
The first will output to wherever you put your IS/MF/Wrath wow macro.
The second will use an input of "1".
The second will output to wherever you put your IS/MF/Starfire wow macro.

Then create a toggle for each druid.
Give it two steps.
Step 1 will activate the first mapped key and deactivate the second.
Step 2 does the reverse.

So you spam 1.
And have it output either IS/MF/Wrath or IS/MF/Starfire, depending on the toggle.

Now have a toggle for each druid.

Then you need an addon which announces an Eclipse proc for each.
Ideally, it does not announce "Eclipse", but rather Druid 1's Eclipse announces the toggle for Druid 1.
Check out MSBT and this video... YouTube - MSBT setup for multiboxing procs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvt-cmKWWbY&hd=1)

[Seldum]

Thats actually a very nice suggestion Ualaa. Ill try to set this up and if anyone is interested I might just post what I came up with. :)

Druids FTW.

[Powerwar]

My druids are lvl 70 at the moment and geared with heirlooms and green quest gear.
I can push 1.2k DPs with them no problem.
I have no castsequence macros for them because I am too lazy to set one. Basically I hit with insect swarm, moonfire and then spam starfire.
At my current level and gear starfire does more damage than wrath and is more mana conservative. I ignore the eclipse procs completely by now.

This is the link to my armory:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Anachronos&cn=Xulkin

The heirlooms are on my priests/mages/warlocks team, so don't be afraid of the seminude elf :)

[genocyde]

My druids are lvl 70 at the moment and geared with heirlooms and green quest gear.
I can push 1.2k DPs with them no problem.
I have no castsequence macros for them because I am too lazy to set one. Basically I hit with insect swarm, moonfire and then spam starfire.
At my current level and gear starfire does more damage than wrath and is more mana conservative. I ignore the eclipse procs completely by now.

This is the link to my armory:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Anachronos&cn=Xulkin

The heirlooms are on my priests/mages/warlocks team, so don't be afraid of the seminude elf :)

That may be ok at 70 but not viable to ignore eclipse at 80 as has been said many times in this thread. Be prepared to cap out around 3k dps at 80 with T9+ without eclipse maybe 5-6K+ with it.

[J6mpsikas]

Blizz have not fixed the proc stuff yet?
So MSBT wount prolly work before new patch.

[Ualaa]

The easiest work around for Eclipse, is to approximate the procs.
Have your castsequence clicks, hit IS/MF as they expire.

And use a castsequence (or a series of click buttons, if you have higher latency) for the fall through.
And use Wrath x3 or x4, and then Starfire x3, as your fall through.

The idea being, after 3-4 Wrath casts, you'll have proc'd Starfire 85-90% of the time.
And then you get a string of Starfire casts with the buff.

Manually managing will get you more then an approximation.
But an approximation is far superior to always casting one or the other.

The second to last (keymap) example in my guide is an Eclipse set up with IS Boxer.

[Fursphere]

The easiest work around for Eclipse, is to approximate the procs.
Have your castsequence clicks, hit IS/MF as they expire.

Couple of problems -

1) It procs off crits. Unless you have a way of 'knowing" when you'll crit, this will never work. (one is 100% chance on crit, the other is 60% chance on crit)
2) There is an internal CD on the procs (lunar / solar) - 45 sec cooldown until it can proc again
3) There is an internal CD BETWEEN procs. 15s after lunar/solar ends, then the other "CAN" proc - if you get a crit. (100%/60% chance to proc).

So "approximating" this with a castsequence is an excersize in futility.

Blizzard has made the Eclipse proc the most complicated mechanic in the game, and I'm hoping they just take the stupid thing out.

I could probably model it out on a spreadsheet and get "best case scenario" numbers - but as soon as you move the timing starts over. Your macro won't start over and you're just screwed at this point. It really requires Human intervention.

[Seldum]

I don't see any problems managing the procs on my 3 dps at all. It will be very easy to manually switch between the different cast macros. All I have to do is watch the 3 dps closely during fights and simply make 6-8 buttons to manage the proc.

*Just kidding*

Ill try to setup the stuff in innerspace, and see if I can get it to work... I can imagine it would take some serious hours of practice. But as im able to clear out all instances without the proc so far, it can only improve.
I know when I need to do heorics etc. it will be a problem. But practice makes perfect :) and Nolife got very far with just spamming wrath+moonfire (see his vids).

[Ftwyman]

Do you really need to map this in IS boxer can't you just swap action bars from starfire bound in action bar 1 button 1 to wrath bound in action bar 2 button 1 and as they proc swap back?

[Ualaa]

Well you can swap bars manually if you like.
With one boomkin, while a pain to always track, its not that bad.

You have two buttons for DPS, one is Wrath fall-through the other is Starfire fall-through.
Your tank and other dps have both of their click spam buttons on both keys.
If you see a proc of Eclipse, move from the one button to the other.

The problem with multiple boomkin, is that the procs won't be in sync with each other.
With one boomkin, you need two buttons.
With two boomkin, you have four combinations.
- Wr, Wr
- Wr, Sf
- Sf, Wr
- Sf, Sf
So you now need four buttons.

With three boomkin, you have eight combinations, so need 8 buttons just for your team to DPS.
And you need to track each state, and pick the correct button to mash.
Trash will die fast, so you'll be plain old Wrath on all toons.
But bosses who might last 90 seconds will force you to push the correct button or sacrifice your DPS.

Taken to an extreme.. an all Boomkin team, no tank, trying to burst things down.
Or maybe 4x Boomkin and 1x Resto.
With IS Boxer (or HKN, etc) have a mapped key for 1 = Wrath, another for 1 = Starfire.
And then 1 toggle per druid.
Mash away on 1, for every character.... note, a single button for the whole team to dps with at all times, not 2, 4, 8, 16 or 32.
And then as Eclipse procs occur, your program announces Shift F1, Shift F2, Shift F3, Shift F4 or Shift F5, depending on the number of boomkin in your squad... only one button per boomkin to track, and only push it as your addon announces a proc, with the button to push as the message (instead of Eclipse as the message).
You press the hotkey as it is announced (not caring which state you are in/going to, just that you are changing to the other, as that boomkin gets an Eclipse proc)... and continue to spam your "1" key.

That is probably the ideal way to manage Eclipse.
The fewest buttons to mash and keep track of.
The easiest to be on the correct Wrath/Starfire state for multiple druids.



Honestly, I went with a simpler method.
Reset=Target (only dots are on timers).
Click based sequence, with commas for timing.
IS, as the 1st cast and recast whenever it finishes.
MF, as the 2nd cast, also recast as it ends, lower priority to IS.
And the fall through (only when IS/MF are not being cast/recast):
/castsequence Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Starfire, Starfire, Starfire

Which gets me, strings of Wrath casts, then strings of Starfire casts.
In theory, 80% of the time the Starfire casts will have Eclipse benefit.
Unfortunately, I'll sometimes cast Starfire without having had Eclipse proc.
And I'll sometimes proc Eclipse on the first Wrath, and waste 4-5 seconds of the boost on the wrong spell.
But there is nothing to manage, which is a huge benefit.
And the damage is far ahead of spamming just one spell or the other.
It is probably in the neighborhood of half way between proper management and ignoring Eclipse altogether.

[Fursphere]

It is probably in the neighborhood of half way between proper management and ignoring Eclipse altogether.

lol - my solution to dealing with eclipse procs was to level and gear a warlock.

[Ualaa]

I've got a warlock on my PvE team.
Pally, 3x Elemental, 1x Warlock.

But I have the Boomkin on the mixed team.
Mage, Priest, Druid, Shaman, Shaman.
Everyone is caster spec, although the druid is dual spec (Feral) and the shammy on the warlocks account is dual spec (Resto), as she was the healer when the first team broke into heroics.
This team is all caster dps, since its faster for dailies then with a tank/healer.. and they can do all the dailies in my route.

I'd recommend a DK tank (hard to recommend over a Pally) or a Warlock over a Boomkin, for the 13% spell power.
But if you have the Boomkin already and don't want the other two options.
Either you manage the Eclipse proc, approximate the proc, or ignore the proc.

[Jeppis]

I have 3 moonkins as dps and i'm managing my eclipse procs with macros/total 4 buttons and with one addon (pitbull4)

Wrath macro
/target [target=focustarget]
/castsequence reset=5/target Faerie Fire.Insect Swarm, moonfire, null
/cast wrath

Starfire
/target [target=focustarget]
/castsequence reset=3/target Moonfire, null
/cast starfire

/swapactionbar 1 2

i got shared dps/tanking button (1) that i just spam like hell, when i see that i proc eclipse with one of my moonkins i press keybad 1-3 that changes actionbar so wrath --> starfire // starfire --> wrath

Moonkins are geared (full t9, about 2100sp, 27crit and below soft haste cap 270-360) and if i blow all my cooldowns (trinket, treants, starfall) i'll do 3800-5000dps

http://i46.tinypic.com/os8h39.jpg <--- here's my main addons, VuhDo for healing and PitBull4 for eclipse tracking

http://i48.tinypic.com/25qqb0x.jpg <--- dps when everything goes fine

[Seldum]

Thanks for the tips.... I use pitbull aswell but I just diden't know I could set it up to show me the procs.

[Seldum]

I have now played my dps druid Carnweed manually in a couple of instances with PUGS to learn to play the spec better.

All I can say is that what a sucky proc the ecplipse/lunar is. This is totally fucked up to say at least.
In some fights I get lucky and it procs early and my dps was 1400-2000 which is okey considering the lvl.

In other fights I got the proc, then got stunned or had to move due to AOE damage etc. and only used like half of the proc, and ended up around 1100-1200 dps.

During some mass pulls on mobs I even managed to hit 2800 dps which I was fairly happy with... but dahm it takes so much management to really get the high figures.

Another thing, I love my druid tank and think its awesome until I had a paladin in a group doing the tanking and me dps with my dps druid....and dahm he could easially hold aggro on 6-8 mobs at a time, while me and a mage was spamming AOE spells from the initial pull.... My swipe etc. dosen't keep aggro aswell it seems.

Ohh well, I just need another 100 stonekeeper shards in total and ill start leveling my pally team.

[jinkobi]

I'm definetly going to try some of the methods you other guys use.

Personally I don't pay much attention to eclipse because of the way I'm set up. Sure I'm losing efficiency but am not having any problem doing great DPS. Random processing is still random.

With this randomness in mind I just have my boomkins constantly alternating between wrath and starfire... Like I said I'm not squeezing every possible point of DPS out but doing just fine in the DPS department. Just rotating between wrath and starfire you're going to catch the eclipse effect half the time.

Not saying you should do it my way but i'm doing just fine running heroics every day with my team of a pally tank- resto druid and 3 boomkins.

[genocyde]

I just thought I'd add I just cleared a few heroics last night with disc priest, mage x3, panzerkin (moonkin tanking ftw)

Moonkin has about 19k health and is not crit capped but didn't have any problems tanking old school 80 heroics like violet hold and does way more DPS than my much better geared real tanks do.

Kind of a fun way to use an underpowered caster class once you outgear content sufficiently.

[Seldum]

I just thought I'd add I just cleared a few heroics last night with disc priest, mage x3, panzerkin (moonkin tanking ftw)

Moonkin has about 19k health and is not crit capped but didn't have any problems tanking old school 80 heroics like violet hold and does way more DPS than my much better geared real tanks do.

Kind of a fun way to use an underpowered caster class once you outgear content sufficiently.

haha nice... diden't know you could do this :)

Your gear must be quite good.

[alcattle]

The problem I found on Moonkin tanking is I never trained the spells, once you get those and your odd feral talents you are ready to roll them mobs

[genocyde]

The problem I found on Moonkin tanking is I never trained the spells, once you get those and your odd feral talents you are ready to roll them mobs

What skills didn't you train? What feral talents? I didn't have a single point in the feral tree nor did I use any non-balance spells/abilities.

[alcattle]

Any Feral skills. I was at 60 with level 1 maul and that was about it. Feral Talent--> I can't think but it is a level 1 feral that adds a stamina buff

[genocyde]

Any Feral skills. I was at 60 with level 1 maul and that was about it.
You tank in moonkin form. You can't use any feral skills in that form. You tank with just balance spells.

Feral Talent--> I can't think but it is a level 1 feral that adds a stamina buff
None of the talents in the first few tiers of feral do that or anything else tanking useful. You have to go a little to far in feral to get anything useful. I do not put any points in feral for moonkin tanking. I'm guessing the talent trees must have changed a lot since you tried this.

[alcattle]

ok, I was always thinking that I had to go bear to tank, and when the moonkin went bear, it had no skills. What was your rotation on MK Panzertank?

[genocyde]

ok, I was always thinking that I had to go bear to tank, and when the moonkin went bear, it had no skills. What was your rotation on MK Panzertank?

Well I specced and glyphed pushback protection on wrath for tanking. I pulled with a few starfires hoping to proc eclipse on the first couple casts. As soon as a procced eclipse it was wrath spam till death. Having a hard time deciding if throwing up DoT's was a DPS gain as it made it harder to get the starfire eclipse proc fast enough. Use your trees as well or drop them on adds for some leet offtanking.

Spec - http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0vM0uVIscdhAuRuZrhczb:hr Theres plenty of talents in here that you can shift around for preference. Just make sure you take pushback protections and owlkin frenzy (i haven't checked yet to see owlkin frenzies uptime... Wrath glyph and pushback protection might be unnecessary if frenzy is up enough).

PvP gear helps a ton for tanking but I don't have much for my moonkin set yet.

[Style1one]

I have raided as a druid for multiple years as my main. In that time it was mixed between resto and boomkin.

At the current state, the general gearing wise is sp > haste > crit while leveling.

When you hit 80 it is, hitcap in sp gear then sp > haste soft cap (401) > starfire crit cap (depends on your group/raid buffs but basicly will crit ever starfire you cast) > haste over soft cap > int > spir

Adding the IS and MF glyphs will hugely increase your dps.

To max dps, you never want to clip dots (is/mf) in short if there is 5 seconds left on eclipse then you do not refresh that druids dots. If there is more then that, then you refresh that druids dots.

You only need one to have improved ff.

For watching the eclipse procs you are able to set up power auras (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info8579-PowerAurasClassic.html) to do just that. (though the screen shot is some months old the timers with icons on the middle left of my screen shown here is power auras)
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/801/wowscrnshot120109144941.jpg

I would sugjest this build while leveling. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0xG0uiIscdhVuouZbxczb:fruzMV (make sure one of your druids has imp ff)

and when you get to 80 and have the 2/4 t9 bonus where mf can crit on its periodic strikes then add imp mf to it.

Hopefully that helps you out.

[Seldum]

Thanks for all the nice information :)

[Style1one]

to add what has been previously stated. If you are having issues with keeping eclipse and just find all together you can not manage the buff and cd timeing between. Each solar and lunar have there own cd. That is 30s.

So to look at that using the genral idea (it does not boost your dps which you choose to try and proc first though I tend to try and proc lunar first but that is just to my likeing).

Proc lunar happens (by casting wrath). I now have a 30s cd till lunar can proc agin. I have 15s that this buff will stay up. With being starfire crit cap once this happens I should imidiatly go into a solar eclipse on the first cast after the lunar buff wears off. (Lunar is now at 15s left on cd). So with in 1-3 second I am now into a solar eclipse. On proc it then will go into a 30s cd till it can proc agin. Once it is done, this is where haste soft cap and then haste after starfire crit cap comes to play, I want to be able to cast wraths as fast as I can in order to get into lunar eclipse for lunar is off of its cd once solar buff has worn off.

Having the t9 idol, you will be having that proc almost at all times running strong and due to having to ramp up the t10 idol, and unless you are massivly raiding you over all should get more out of the t9 idol then the t10.

If you still find it hard to manage the eclipse proc. For gear wise just go hit cap > Sp > Haste. This will allow you to spam starfire more and with the haste in the game as it is get it to about 1.2 (with talent procs) - 1.8s casts. So if to much is going on, you are finding that you are having issue in the fight to watch the proc, just set up a macro where it casts wrath then starfire. Though this will not give full max potential you could have.

As for talking about power auras, you are able to set it up so it can watch buffs, debuff and such things on other players. So in your team being a feral, 3 boomkin, and 1 tree. My sugjestions on this, is use the spell icon for the notifier, and there is a setting to set the glow color of the proc. So to give you an idea

Druid 1 Red Glow
Druid 2 Blue Glow
Druid 3 Green Glow

With those visual ques, it may help with being able to take more note on who is proced and who is not.
It would take a little getting used to but to add to that. If you set up your starfire and wrath macros yes there would be 8 of them. But it would help out greatly.

Macro 1
wrath
wrath
starfire

Macro 2
wrath
starfire
wrath

Macro 3
starfire
wrath
wrath

Macro 4
starfire
starfire
wrath

Macro 5
starfire
wrath
starfire

Macro 6
wrath
starfire
starfire

Macro 7
starfire,

Macro 8
wrath

In doing that, you persay could set Macro 1-6 on persay v + shift, alt, ctrl, shift/alt, ctrl/alt. And v with out a midifyer.

Then just set up 7 and 8 on the same key using a modifyer for one of the two. It will take time to learn it, but will help massivly when they are running on other procs then one another.

As the reasoning in the dots and why they are so dam important is that, they do modify wrath and starfire, not to mention there personal dps.

[Seldum]

Well this would almost be like playing a piano then with all the buttons :D

Thanks for the details.

I was thinking about something. Prior I have been very "single" target focussed when doing instances. But everytime I do PUG the runs are so much faster since they AOE everything down.

Woulden't this be a viable alternative for trash? Have a simple single target dps macro and maybe utilize and spec for AoE damage aswell?