Boomkin+4xToW = Fun, fun, fun!

[Boylston]

Respecced out of my arena spec to farm some shards, make a little cash, and level up my little L66 boomkin druid.

4xToW + Moonkin Aura = 17% crit and 12% hit = Fun!

I think I did Steamvault in 16min for the fastest run...

You can read more about it here, ('http://overload.clintandcindi.com/?p=80') but the shamans were running with about 45-47% crit chance. Mana usage was also incredibly low due to the 40% mana reduction post-crit. I synchronized my druid's Starfire (with 15% chance to Stun) with Lightning Bolt to great effect.

The second boss goes down so fast that I can safely ignore the little healing gnomes (or just power through up to 5 of them). The last boss doesn't live long enough to do his tank/enrage mechanic. It's sexy.

I shudder to think what's possible if my druid was L70 and had any kind of reasonable gear. Still, at L66, he reliably hits the L70-72 content due to the +12% crit bonus.

This is the way to farm normal mode stuff fast and in style!

[Shaitan256]

Keep it Up man, I like Boomkins ;) and with 12 treants it's going to be nice some kind of the Lord of the Rings scene with the Tower ;)

[Khazrael]

Great to hear it's working out for you Boyl. Not to try and derail from your experience, but is 2% more crit really THAT big of a deal? Honestly I'd imagine you'd really have a hard time even being able to feel the bonus from it. Also, if you had a 5th shaman the damage would probably be more synchronized anyways, not to mention the boomkin probably runs out of mana much sooner since he doesn't have a clearcasting like the shams do. Druids do bring some extra utility though, with buffs and brez. It sounds like a fun team nonetheless.

[Kyudo]

I'll be honest.... I did the same, but I've dropped the druid now.

Because of the spell synergy, I just couldn't get the druid to do anything like the DPS of the shammies, even once I'd geared her up a bit. See the armoury link below for details, her name is Floriana. She's got virtually the same spell dmg as the shammies, but was only peaking at about 60% of their DPS. I've given up and parked her now, slowly levelling a 5th shammy on rested to join up with the other 4.

[Moxy]

I absolutely love moonkin + 4 shammies. 3% to crit and hit doesn't seem like much- but it STACKS. That's why when you actually read his post, he is about 50% crit rate. The reason for the druid is to boost the shammies dps- not be the uber dps. Plus it gives you crowd control options for pvp. :)

[Kyudo]

But I'd expect the druid to be able to at least hit 75% or more of the shammy DPS, mine actually has more Spell Dmg than 1 of the shammies, so for me, the extra 2% crit didn't live up to the hype, but whatever floats your boat.

[opt]

The combo is mad i love it.
I believe that MOTW+Moonkin Aura+Hot healing is alot better than a 5th shaman.

[Khazrael]

I absolutely love moonkin + 4 shammies. 3% to crit and hit doesn't seem like much- but it STACKS. That's why when you actually read his post, he is about 50% crit rate. The reason for the druid is to boost the shammies dps- not be the uber dps. Plus it gives you crowd control options for pvp. :)

I believe you misunderstood me. Yes, TOW stacks, I know that and it's a fantastic tool to use with multiple shammies. What I was saying was that having a druid over a 5th shammy means you get 5% to crit from aura, instead of 3% crit/hit from a 5th TOW. Thus you are really only gaining 2% more crit over having another shammy.

I'm just saying that since the druid in the group doesn't have a clearcasting equivelant, he doesn't have the stamina like the shamans do. To me on paper that just doesn't sound like a good tradeoff, but I've never tried it so I can only theorycraft.

[Toned]

i don't feel that the 2% is worth losing a shaman over... the shaman synergy = the wins... + 4 totems.

[Mokoi]

1+ grounding totem > Oomkin anyday in pvP.

[Moxy]

I see what you are saying Khaz, sorry bout that. In fact, i'm kinda glad more people don't like this combo, makes it more unique to use. Is 2% worth it? IMO- hell yeah. Even if that were all you gained.

For the others- this post has been about 5 boxing. When you have 4 shamans, you don't exactly run out of grounding totems before everything is dead. If you did happen to face a zerg of casters- it really doesn't take much time to *click* and get four new ones. Also, when instancing- its actually my druid that rarely goes oom. Synergy... two very similar cast styles... sorry haven't found much of a conflict.

[Khazrael]

I see what you are saying Khaz, sorry bout that. In fact, i'm kinda glad more people don't like this combo, makes it more unique to use. Is 2% worth it? IMO- hell yeah. Even if that were all you gained.

For the others- this post has been about 5 boxing. When you have 4 shamans, you don't exactly run out of grounding totems before everything is dead. If you did happen to face a zerg of casters- it really doesn't take much time to *click* and get four new ones. Also, when instancing- its actually my druid that rarely goes oom. Synergy... two very similar cast styles... sorry haven't found much of a conflict.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not hating on the combo or your playstyle :). I'm just trying to figure out if the extra 2% crit actually does make that much of a difference or if theres something more to it that I'm missing. And if you can make them synergize, then thats fantastic. And if you don't have mana issues with the Druid then I'd say that would have been my primary concern.

I'm all for trying new things, in fact while I'm doing the 5x shaman group, they are all different specs because I wanted to make things more interesting.

[Anozireth]

I've been running this combo since I started, thinking the extra crit and toughness of a boomkin would go well with the shaman. I find that the druid does about the same on mana as my DPS shaman do, if not better. Granted, I just hit 70 so my gear is greens and blues still. The shaman would probably get more efficient as their crit rate improves. The druid's DPS is probably about 20% less than the shaman on average in instances, but I think a lot of this can be attributed to CL hitting extra mobs all the time on trash. They're probably about on par for bosses.

The druid brings a few things that another shaman wouldn't though. The 2% crit as mentioned above, and GOTW is a nice all around buff. I can CC beasts and dragons. The druid is also a big tougher than the shaman, but this doesn't matter much as he usually can't hold aggro over their superior DPS. Another shaman would of course bring another set of elementals, which are very useful. I think in PVP my boomkin gets focused more than if I ran with a shaman as a leader since the boomkin is such a big obvious target that's easy to click on.

All in all, it's a trade off either way, but I'm happy with my setup.

[Toned]

I absolutely love moonkin + 4 shammies. 3% to crit and hit doesn't seem like much- but it STACKS. That's why when you actually read his post, he is about 50% crit rate. The reason for the druid is to boost the shammies dps- not be the uber dps. Plus it gives you crowd control options for pvp. :)

My shamans are at 46% crit when I spec TOW x5... So the syngergy of 5 sham @ 44-47% > 4 sham + 1 druid. The shamans = 5 dps the druid + 4 sham is like = to 4.5 dps.

[Moxy]

Lol, don't think I quite buy that theory craft. Go with your 5 shammies, I don't really care. I know what a boomkin does for the group.

[Boylston]

I'm not arguing that Boomkin+4xShammies is "better" than 5xShammies. Yes, the crit difference is relatively small. Sure, you lose another grounding totem, healing stream, tremor totem, etc etc.

My personal baseline for DPS running has been running 4xShamans with a 40/21 PvP spec. Sure, going up 17% crit and adding a little gimpy L66 druid increased my damage. Here are some things to consider:

PvE:
You get the ability (at L70) to cyclone and hibernate. Handy.
Innervate is useful when one team member (usually not the druid, in my limited experience) is low on mana but the others don't need to drink yet.
Starfire stun is nice.
Instant cast heals work well on the move for kiting situations.
5% crit is constant, so even if you decide to drop 4xFire Nova totems, you still keep some nice crit bonus.

PvP (BGs):
Running with a moonkin lead can be nice for both concealing your numbers (My orcs are very well hidden behind or inside a boomkin avatar).
Outdoor roots are handy (I largely ignore druid DPS potential and just have him cast entangling roots on everything the shamans attack)
Rooting attackers on-hit is also handy if the moonkin is your lead.
Tranquility is awesome against mass AoE attacks.
Barkskin gives a little more durability if your moonkin gets focused.
Heals on the move are nice.


I mainly don't like running with 5 characters in BGs, though, unless it's AV. I think 4 is plenty of killing power and it allows an extra player slot to be filled by someone. 5 is too many on defense in AB and EotS, and it's 50% of a WSG team instead of 40%.


I wasn't trying to tout my little PvE fun group as better than 5xShamans. Just trying to share what fun a near 50% crit rate can do for normal mode PvE instances...

[Eteocles]

Boomkins can be quite useful if abused right...they're alot trickier to play correctly than you might think, as I found out when I first spec'd that way at 70 after lvling as feral. Alot of situational changes occur, from wrathing with aggro, or when to starfire even if being hit, to when to root/cyclone so as not to waste what little CC they'll provide and mana management + spec tweaking(and goddamn did I tweak my spec alot)

Most of Boyl's lists are spot-on; Innervate and Bres are helpful obviously, you do pretty much trade hit for crit vs another shaman but there's so much hit + hit enchants and little good crit gear that it's negligible(and Penetration is more useful to those who pvp); as for their dps, yeah Shamen can put out a fair bit...but once you know boomkin patterns and have a 6th sense regarding how much aggro you're generating, and if spec'd right, you can put out dps to rival any class. When I ran Karazhan as we started out I was constantly high on the meters and often pulling aggro via big crits...

Then they all geared up so I spent a day upgrading my gear as best I could as well and going all-out gemming/enchanting my gear...very next raid I was miles ahead in dps even ahead of our uber-high-dps Destro lock and that was despite using Dreamless Sleep Potions(dispellable sleep potion that restores a guaranteed-exact 3600 mana over 12 seconds; you're unable to do shit during those 12sec though but 3600 mana guaranteed vs the 2k-2500 I get 90% of the time from Super Manas = worth it; it heals too if you're dmg'd AND makes you immune to knockbacks like Gruul's pre-shatter stomp, or Magtheridon's Earthquakes); then when I went to hyjal and BT with DC, in what their retarded leader called "kara gear"(1 piece was kara maybe...rest was a mix from everything past kara, but still "undergeared" compared to their t6+ gear), I still managed to place 7th among their top dps'ers

Of course, if you're comparing dps with a boomkin below 70, yes, they're gonna suck. Druids in general are highly, highly gear dependant, and Boomkins in particular are highly TALENT dependant; we NEED the most of the Balance talents + Intensity to keep yer mana up. Once at 70, you access to good spelldmg gear, and most importantly, good Idols. The Starfire idol in particular will help your dps; the 2nd biggest help will be the 3% crit spell dmg meta gem; then once you have badges, the Moonfire idol is better in a moonfire/SFx3 rotation

Combine him with a Shaman and their totems and he will be in Boomkin Heaven; I was a freaking monster in raids with just 1 Shaman...if I had 4 Shamen nothing would survive my wrath :P It just takes practice and learning to use the Boomkin correctly.

And yes, Starfire stun is your best-fuckin-friend ;p It has saved my ass so many times it's not even funny anymore; mob is inches away from me or a clothie in my group, BAM 5k crit + stun, dps it down before it wears off and thusly save someone's ass, possibly my own.