Quad Moonkin Arena

[Fomeny]

Hiho,

Ever since starting to read here I've thought about starting to multibox. Sadly I cannot use RAF and do not really have enough time to level toons normally. But since they announced the Starfall changes (for those that don't know: It's going to really hurt) I got some new motivation.

I do play Moonkin in a raiding guild and absolutely know - It's basically impossible to play more than one Moonkin effectively. It's already fairly demanding to keep up with other DDs. I cannot see Moonkins pulling more than 5-6k dps in only 10 man gear boxing - so PvE as boxer is really no option. (Maybe healling... That might be fun)

Of course, the usual problems boxers have will still occur - AoE stun/silence/root/fear. I don't expect the Moonkins to be as effective as Shamans. But they shouldn't be that far anymore. They have dots that can really hurt, and the Starfire/moonfire burst shouldn't be underestimated. (If you can cast it that is..)
Cyclone is one of the most hated CCs, simply because you cannot break it unless you've got a trinket or Mass Dispell Ready. Further, this might be used for some awesome combo such as - 4x Wrath + 3x Moonfire --> Enemy on ~60% hp. One toon immediately starts casting cyclone instead of Moonfire, and the healers wont be able to heal the target.

For facing problems after fear I alread figured, that it's easier to make 3 Buttons to resume casting to a specific enemy.
Button 1: Target enemy
Button 2: Interact with target
Button 3: Step Backward
Pressing these quickly will lead my toons to fact the target and are able to start casting again.

Thoughts?

I know I probably won't be able to pull this off, but thinking about it makes me smile :)

[Kruschpakx4]

Starfall (http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/53201/) damage has been increased. Now causes 563 to 653 Arcane damage (Up from 433 to 503) and 101 Arcane damage (Up from 78) to all other enemies within 5 yards.

go for quad boomkin+resto shaman and queue when shaman boxers are queued :p

[Stealthy]

This change isn't going to help things much IMO. Boomkins still suffer from lack of burst, and good teams will CC you as soon as you start Starfall....and then you are 90 seconds away from your next decent burst.

However...I think this change will let you tear shit up in BG's. :D

Cheers,
S.

[Ualaa]

The team will do okay in battlegrounds, but not so well in arena.

In arena, you'll rise to a certain level, but won't progress to the upper echelons.
Basically, its a lack of burst.
If you could go Nature's Swiftness >> Starfire, there would be a chance to insta-gib an opponent.

However, Boomkins have no fear protection, which is fairly significant for a boxer.
They have to drop out of their high armor form to heal.
It is too easy to Line of Sight... Starfire.
Moonfire/Insect Swarm/Wrath is not enough dps to down anyone, with a healer healing them.

I would think you could wreck havoc in AV's fairly well.
The team has massive AoE power, which could wreck the other team at Belinda/Galv.
You could also break a lot of bottleneck/choke points.
Just not so well against opponents who work as a team, the lack of burst sucks.




Boomkin are a very fun composition, which I had a blast leveling.
Mine are dual-spec'd now, Feral / Resto.

5x Mangle is pretty decent.
Also have 5x Shred (nostealth) and 5x Ravage (stealth) macro, which is quite nasty.

Interact With Target is what makes melee possible.
There are a ton of talents to reduce mana cost from switching forms.

I've gone with 4x PvP Cat, 1x PvE Bear builds.
Just so heroics will be an option, for the PvE game, and gearing from badges.

Berserk (glyphed) is 20 seconds of fear interrupt, and fear immunity.
Which helps against the fear bomb.



The team is as fun as the Boomkins, even if the toys are a bit different.
I'll also try some AV's, as 5x Resto, just for the change of pace.

[Fomeny]

CC will always be a problem, absolutely ^^.. And the lack of burst is fairly obvious... By now. Starfall would change this, as it is now on the PTR.

It's correct, the numbers in the bluepost don't seem to be fairly high. But as you can read on graymatters Blog, it's not only the base damage, but actually the spellpower scaling aswell.
http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/2010/02/starfall-buffed.html

Note:
- The Cooldown can be brought down to 1 Minute via glyph
- The Damage can be increased by 20% via Glyph (And Radius halved... Might not be a bad thing actually, so it's more "focused" on certain targets)

As far as I know Nature's swiftness doesn't work with starfire anyway. And don't underestimate the dots, glyphed they tick for a good amount and scale fairly well with spellpower. There is even a dot-owl-arena team somewhere, that has fairly high rating. The Moonkin actually goes for the spirit items to improve his spellpower even more.

LOS is a problem, indeed. But there are 2 things I can do to work around:

1. As far as I know, Typhoon ignores any obstacle - hits right through them (will test this today to be certain). It dazes the targets aswell :D
2. Cyclone + Timed Starfire

Yes... Fluffy theory, it doesn't work too often I fear ^^... But let me dream as long as they are not 80 yet ;)

Further... The advice with Ferals sounds interesting actually, I might give it a shot as soon as I'm frustrated enough playing Moonkins :)

[Zappy]

If you're depending on killing people with Starfall, you'll be greatly disappointed once you reach a few teams that have any clue how to play. Warlock shadowfury, priest/warlock/warrior fear, boomkins typhoon, and ele shammys thunderstorm will interrupt all your guys, and if they are good players, you'll be lucky to get more than a few ticks off. Not to mention if they have a rogue or druid, it's a lot easier for them to find 5 bunched up toons rather than 1.

On my boomkins, I tried opening up with treants + starfall, and a focused hurricane on all, and I would still be very lucky for anybody to drop. I also tried the come out of stealth, and 5x starfire someone. If you think crowd controls are bad on shammys teams, you don't want to see what they look like with that team.

It's definitely a fun team for both world pvp and bgs, but I think if you want any sort of success, you'll have to find a resto shammy. Unfortunately, he'll be the first target every time you start.

[Fat Tire]

If you're depending on killing people with Starfall


Apparently, you haven't been on the PTR. Boomkins do insane dmg on the PTR, if it goes live then bow to your new owl overlords.

[Zappy]

The real question is how many ticks will it take to kill people. All it takes is one warrior or shadowfury warlock to stop the ticking. I did play my boomkins in arenas for nearly 7 or 8 weeks for points, but my experience was that starfall was interrupted within one or two ticks by most teams, and once your feared they get eaten alive.

I'll have to take your advice and try them out on PTR as I loved the team for bgs and world pvp, but I still don't see them getting far due to all the mass CCs.

[Fat Tire]

No doubt its tough in 5s with all the cc/interrupts and I doubt it will help alot in 5v5 for the reasons you stated.

I am looking forward to using my boomkin in 2s though, I like that I can cyclone without facing the target and the dmg increase will be a difference maker now. lock/boom or ele/boom -looking forward to it.

[Zappy]

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/idruids.gifDruid ( Forums (http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-druid/) / Talent Calculator (http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid) )
Glyphs

Glyph of Focus: Now increases the damage done by Starfall by 10%, down from 20%.

[Multibocks]

pwned

[Ualaa]

With the changes to the base spell, and the change to the glyph...

Is it a net gain or loss?
And how much of a difference from what is on live servers now?

[Fat Tire]

With the changes to the base spell, and the change to the glyph...

Is it a net gain or loss?
And how much of a difference from what is on live servers now?

even with the glyph change EJ has said its a 226% net buff to starfall.

[Ualaa]

Better then twice what it is now.

Not sure that it will be that great for say Arena, where you have a healer or two to quickly react to damage dealt, not to mention interrupts or such.

But for world pvp, or battlegrounds. Coming out of stealth and dumping Starfall x4/x5 on a large group, which is already engaged with the General/Captain... that could be pretty fun.

[donut132]

wait- how do you make your treants come out on all toons? when i try it it makes the circle but i have to switch mouse to other windows to click it... i use keyclone. ALso how u do hurricane? same thing i have to manually click it

[Ualaa]

You'd need your software/hardware to mouse broadcast.

In my case (IS Boxer), I add my toons to an Action Target Group.
I've called this one "AoE on 4".

On my "4" DPS Key, in addition to the FTL stuff it does.
It also "sends next click" to all members of "AoE on 4".

So I get a targeting circle in every window.
And as I move the mouse around in the main window, the circle moves in all of the other windows too.
When I do a click, the click occurs in every window.
So Left click selects the area for the Treants, or Right click cancels the spell (same functionality here as one-boxing).

[donut132]

i am assuming keyclone does not do that...

[Ualaa]

With KC, your best option is to put Force of Nature on the same keybind.
And to manually move to each window quickly, clicking while you're in each window.

I've heard of people who use KC, and have an HKN script purely for mouse broadcasting.

Aside from HKN, IS Boxer is the only program I know of, which has quick and accurate mouse broadcasting.
Basically, you can build it right into your dps key, so it turns on until a click has been made.

[Lilith]

Playing 4 druid at ptr at the moment, and if they dont change it before it go live 4x druids and a priest(for dispelling pally bubble) is gone dominate arena.
Moonfire Insect swarm and starfall then even a fully hottet druid cant survive it.
Strand of the ancient never been more fun, run to a boat pop starfall and watch them fall over before they even notice what happend.

[Mokoi]

this is why I lvld so many GD teams.. gogo switch to Druid powa!! =)

[Ualaa]

I was initially running 5x Balance druids...
They were (are) all dual-spec'd for Resto as well.

Druids have so many toys, to make boxing them very enjoyable.

A lack of burst convinced me to try Feral/Resto instead.
That is a blast, too.

With the changes to Starfall, Balance is quite tempting.
But Feral has massive burst, good sustained damage, and a lot of toys too.
I like Berserk is 20 seconds of Fear Interrupt/Immunity, which Balance has no protection against.

[mikekim]

wait- how do you make your treants come out on all toons? when i try it it makes the circle but i have to switch mouse to other windows to click it... i use keyclone. ALso how u do hurricane? same thing i have to manually click it


i am assuming keyclone does not do that...

this is one of the major failings of keyclone, I switched to HKN for the exact above reason, now all i do is hold down select the spell (eg. Force of Nature) hold my mouse broadcast button and click anywhere on the main window - instant portable forrest :cool:

[EsaJunttila]

Nobody mentioned that Moonkin can start from stealth. From there it's more likely that a starfire goes through, isn't it?

[Ualaa]

You start from stealth, but unless you are Feral, you'll lack the talents to improve your stealth.
As long as you stay behind your targets and in general keep range, you'll stay hidden.

As an ambush set up, with Starfall going, broadcast the Treants into the healers, and then Hurricane on a bunch... this will be rather potent, especially so against any group that is already engaged against something else.

[Seldum]

How about cyclone the healer?

if you where able to get close to the other team in stealth, i guess you could hurt them with treants and then hurricane (the cone aoe) followed by 5*moonfire+starfire. What should hurt.

But if you pop out, get feared... then that would suck :D

[Fomeny]

Something different actually came to my mind... I mean, this probably only works once on any team, if at all, but this might give the Moonkins an edge.. Only if you are Night Elves though ;)

Let's see, we have stealth, cat form
We have Shadowmeld - Off GCD Instant
We have starfall - instant

Let's mix this. I know - since I tried it - that when you activate starfall and use shadowmeld, you still deal damage to your opponents via starfall. Create a macro, that looks like this:

/cast Starfall
/cast Shadowmeld

And try it... This should put you out of cat-stealth, pop starfall and immediately put you into shadowmeld. I did not test this - but it should work ;)... Sure, you are not in Moonkin form with this, but it should still deal insane damage.
You actually could (assuming 5 Moonkins) place 4 in one spot and 1 in another. The 4 should be still in range to the opponents.. Now, pop the 1 out into Moonkin form - the opponents will spot it. Use starfall immediately after, and shortly after this the macro :D... The reason, why you enter Moonkin form first, with the 1 is simple - 5% more crit and survivability..

[Sephice]

http://eu.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?r=Arthas&ts=5&t=Cow+LeVeL&select=Cow+LeVeL

i startet yesterday, no specific amcros, nothing special

But its really fun and for the first time 29 - 13 ( last one i had a disconnect ) inst so bad.

There is many power in this team

After some matches i removed the focus glyph, you can more troubles without it, the 10% is okay but more range make Healers like Paladin and Diszi Priests more problems.

Possible i try 5 Balance Drudis too one time

[Zugdud]

Awesome team Sephice, looks like a lot of fun! Seems like your off to a good start, keep up the good work

P.S. Awesome team name

[Sephice]

Awesome team Sephice, looks like a lot of fun! Seems like your off to a good start, keep up the good work

P.S. Awesome team name

thanks :)

Its really funny and sometimes i win matches in under 5 seconds. But at the end i often meet teams with much better equipment and its really hard then, Moonkins are the biggest glass cannon ingame -_-

I try some macros for more CC ( arena1 and cyclone ) and hope that i can hot my healer and me in this time.

I think i try it this week with a elemental shaman too ( i hope Kruschpak has time ;) ) to have more Spell Power and more BUrst at some targets

[Toned]

Once you figure out the boonkin teams as a 4sham + healer team they aren't that hard. 5 boonkins = nasty shit but once you figure out how to setup to put the boonkins in a bad spot for your full rotation and no LOS it's almost free wins.

[Toned]

Xio had a few games where he melted my face off but once I saw what I needed to do in order to win I made it happen :)

[Ualaa]

How about cyclone the healer?

if you where able to get close to the other team in stealth, i guess you could hurt them with treants and then hurricane (the cone aoe) followed by 5*moonfire+starfire. What should hurt.

But if you pop out, get feared... then that would suck :D



You could be pretty nasty.

Approach from the back, in stealth/kitty.
Have a key for round-robin, set target as focus.
Once they each have a focus, press another key for Cyclone target=Focus.

You could really screw up the offense, with each healer out of it for a bit.
And then add your AoE stuff to the mix.

[Fomeny]

Something different actually came to my mind... I mean, this probably only works once on any team, if at all, but this might give the Moonkins an edge.. Only if you are Night Elves though ;)

Let's see, we have stealth, cat form
We have Shadowmeld - Off GCD Instant
We have starfall - instant

Let's mix this. I know - since I tried it - that when you activate starfall and use shadowmeld, you still deal damage to your opponents via starfall. Create a macro, that looks like this:

/cast Starfall
/cast Shadowmeld

And try it... This should put you out of cat-stealth, pop starfall and immediately put you into shadowmeld. I did not test this - but it should work ;)... Sure, you are not in Moonkin form with this, but it should still deal insane damage.
You actually could (assuming 5 Moonkins) place 4 in one spot and 1 in another. The 4 should be still in range to the opponents.. Now, pop the 1 out into Moonkin form - the opponents will spot it. Use starfall immediately after, and shortly after this the macro :D... The reason, why you enter Moonkin form first, with the 1 is simple - 5% more crit and survivability..

I tested this and... It works! Better than expected!

I brought a PvE equipped DK from 27k hp to 0 without him being able to see me with the following macro (note: I have near best in slot ICC 25 normal mode equip)

/use {SP Trinket}
/cast Starfall
/cast Shadowmeld

I used the frost badge trinket with hit and on use-spellpower.

I also did some additional tests with a priest friend of mine. I told him where I was standing (in catform-stealth). He didn't see me when I was hidden, and he didn't see me activating the macro. So he basically took 16k damage (He has about 1.2k resilience) without seeing anything.

Have fun ;)

[Sephice]

thats really cool, i must change ...

hmmmm

No, FOR THE HORDE ^^

[Twy]

I tested this and... It works! Better than expected!

I brought a PvE equipped DK from 27k hp to 0 without him being able to see me with the following macro (note: I have near best in slot ICC 25 normal mode equip)

/use {SP Trinket}
/cast Starfall
/cast Shadowmeld

I used the frost badge trinket with hit and on use-spellpower.

I also did some additional tests with a priest friend of mine. I told him where I was standing (in catform-stealth). He didn't see me when I was hidden, and he didn't see me activating the macro. So he basically took 16k damage (He has about 1.2k resilience) without seeing anything.

Have fun ;)


Now I can post this where is belongs

Yep it works great prowl in range 36 yards then pop this. Sometimes they all die before they see a thing. Went from 0 to 1450 in one week. Cant seem to get past 1450 every other fight is win then lose.

If they don't all die pop out of stelth with 5 Typhoons and then moonfire spam the last guy or jsut wait for the one paly that remembered to bubble to have it run out then hes dead.

Pets, Preists stelthers are the problem. Pets sometimes agro even though im shadowmelded. Not always ( I tested this on my friends hunter and it did nothing) not sure why some pets agro and some don't. Preists seem to be harder to kill and don't die straight off. Then their Fear is the bane of my existance. Nerfs starfall and im out of control till dead. I havent got down the trink skill that fast yet. need more practice. 3rd Rogues that sap my main while I prowl. UGH then wipe. Preist, Rogue Pet in one group. I am done.

[Fomeny]

Pets do aggro because they are set to "aggro" or "defensive", well, meaning: If they attack the first target in sight, they will attack you in the split second where you are visible. (I call that 1 frame, where you actually would be visible) I had this once, where a mage randomly used mirror images. I pushed the macro and one image instantly fireblasted me out.

You could also go for some weird build, where you've got improved stealth in it, since you won't profit from anything else anyway. If you had some close calls, you could also get Survival instincts, since this also works in Moonkin form.

I think it's fairly easy to counter, once people know what's going on. Randomly running around pillars or other LOS objects hurts the damage output fairly hard.
So your best bet would be playing about 5 games a day, and not overdo it.

Another method may be, to stack Stamina/Resilience on one Moonkin and separate it from your group, then intentionally pop out into Moonkin form, activate all survival thingies. Basically play bait and maybe even interrupt the enemie healers from casting via typhoon while your other toons activate their macro.
+ You get the crit buff
- One Moonkin won't do too much damage

[Twy]

the tool tip dosn't say that Survival Instincts is useable by moonkin?

And doesnt Shadowmeld by deffinition take you out of combat so if a pet aggros for a frame then you meld shouldnt the pet deaggro untill you break meld?
Your blast example makes sense to me because you cant pull back a cast spell but a pet is different if its running at you then it should stop running right away. My friends hunter pet just sat there whether on aggresive or deffence.

I think i get too close and the pet runs to me then gets so close it sees me then keeps comming Many times the pet just stands there and dies but thats when im farther away.