Dealing with Eclipse to increase Moonkin dps

[olipcs]

Hi,

I recently respecced my druid to moonkin (previous I used him as the healer) and therefor looked for a way how to use 'eclipse' efficient to increase his dps.

So for someone how doens't have a clue, what I'm talking about, this is the description of eclipse:

Eclips: When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 100% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 30%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 60% chance of increasing your critical strike chance with Starfire by 30%. Each effect lasts 15 sec and each has a separate 30 sec cooldown. Both effects cannot occur simultaneously.

The effect of this is, that you can't use a simple predifiened rotation, like 2xwrath,3xstarfire (or so), but you have to change the spell you are casting, when eclipse procs.

So to do so, I simply use the following:

On my main dps-key I have the following macro:

/cast [mod:lshift]Starfire;Wrath

with simply translate to:
if lshift is pressed cast Starfire otherwise use Wrath.

And on the Hotkey I use for dps ('2' on my system) I do the follwoing:

A hotkey ('2') that has two states:

• A use-Wrath-state, when 'useWrath' is '1' it sends a simple '2' to my druid (w2)
• A use-Starfire-state, which when useWrath isn't '1' sends 'lshift + 2' to my druid

Then aditionaly I have a hotkey ('r') to toggle useWrath between '1' and '0'

So what I do is simply:
When I see that my druid gained the 'eclipse'-buff, I know I have to toggle the spell he uses, so I simply press 'r' once, which results that the 'useWrath' variable is 'toggled' so that now '2' becomes 'lshift + 2' if wrath was cast before or 'lshift +2' becomes '2' if starfire proced the eclipse.

In addition to better see/hear when the proc happens, I use Miks Scrolling Battle Text (MSBT), which announces the procs and plays a unique sound (and mostly I react on the sound,not the graphic).

I just thought I share this, as some other may find it usefull (ofcourse, if you would do this with multiple druids, it might be a little bit harder as you need to know which druid proced eclipse and use the appropriate trigger key).

In the following the HKN-Scripts which implement this technique (thei aren't identical with the ones I use, because I have to incorporate an ftl in them, but they should get you started...).

<Hotkey 2>    //the dps-key I 'spam'
     <Sendlabel w1,w3,w4,w5>    //send 2 to the other teammebers 
             <Key 2>
     <If useWrath is 1>               //evaluate the state of 'useWrath' to send the correct key to the druid (w2)
            <Sendlabel w2>
               <Key 2>
    <Else>
            <Sendlabel w2>
                <Key lshift 2>
    
<Hotkey r>    //the key I use to toggle the druid spells
    <If useWrath is 1>
          <SetVariable useWrath 0>
    <Else>
          <SetVariable useWrath 1>

what I know would need, is some good way how to integrate MF and IS, other than using the 'run concurrent castsequence method' (because I realy don't like to predefine the spam-speed I use (but honestly I don't think that there is realy a better way to do it))

[sp0000n]

Is this working well? I run a pally tank with 3x shamans and a moonkin. The moonkin posts a pathetic 10% or less of overall damage. Sure, the form is giving synergy to the other casters but holy crap that's bad. His current rotation, if you can call it that, is Insect Swarm, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath.

I'm dubious that managing Eclipse alone will make him competitive with the shamans and paladin.

[shaeman]

Managing eclipse procs will give a decent dps increase.

(Fursphere also wrote a detailed account of how he handled single moonkin eclipse procs so it's worth searching for that thread)

Don't underestimate the usage of starfall and hurricane on multimob packs (you really need to know your tank can hold multimob aggro).

If you want to see specific numbers take your moonkin to some target dummies. Try your normal rotation, then try it again with eclipse procs. Do a good few minutes testing.

[olipcs]

In my setup, this works quite well, and after implementing it and getting used to it, i saw a good dps increase, (even when only using is and mf at the beginning of a mspam macro with '/castsequence Insect Swarm,Moonfire,N').

So, yes, I would say it works quite well.

If you want numbers on a target dummy my group together (as in a real boss scenario, where the 13%-spelldmg buff is also used by the mage and hunter) did the following dps (buffed):

MM-Hunter (best geared of my dps buffed arround 30% charscreen-crit / 4500 AP) : ca. 2900 dps
Moonkin (arround 1700 sp / 23% charscreen-crit) : ca. 2800 dps
Frost-Mage (arround 1700 sp / 22% charscreen-crit): ca. 2700dps (with a simple icy vain/frostbolt spam)

so all in all, I would say the druid did quite good, and especialy when bevor I implemented the 'eclipse-method' he always was the 'last'-dpser (and in real dungeons even often behind my pala-tank, due to the amount of aoe-dmg the pala does on trash).

What I realy lack is a shaman who gives my team the heroism buff, which would increase boss dps quite a lot, but for this I would have to level and gear my lvl70 shaman and replace my 2000sp-holy-priest, which currently I don'T see me doing.

Annother funny think to note about the moonkin:
- I specced him with all the 'mana'-talent, as I knew, that back when doing kara mana was an issue (Oomkin anyone ), und funily, when doing the target-dummy test my frostmage ran out of mana before the druid (although i didn't use mana-gems,evocation and the druids anregen).
So I think I will respec the druid a little and put some points out of the mana talents and more in the dps ones..

[Eggy]

Hmm, why not try a click macro with your mage olipcs? I know from my own experience that it does wonders, my mage at level 72 was specced frost with a simple frost rotation, I respecced it to arcane and went from 600-800 DPS to 1100-1300DPS at the same level, on the same mobs +target dummy, quite a boost. Same story for my warlock, went from 700-800 DPS to 1500+ with minimal tweeking.

[palvarik]

Can you post your mage and boomkin macros? This would help me alot thanks

[olipcs]

Hmm, why not try a click macro with your mage olipcs? I know from my own experience that it does wonders, my mage at level 72 was specced frost with a simple frost rotation, I respecced it to arcane and went from 600-800 DPS to 1100-1300DPS at the same level, on the same mobs +target dummy, quite a boost. Same story for my warlock, went from 700-800 DPS to 1500+ with minimal tweeking.

I thought about respeccing my mage to arcane, but currently I stayed with frost for the following reason:

- I'm quite satisfied with his dps
- he applies the +5crit debuff with frostbolt, which doesn't need any management
- the macro he uses is extremly simple
- he gives my group replenishment

Although, when speaking about arcane:
Why do you need /click for it? -I thought a simple /castsequence reste=target Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Missle would do?

[olipcs]

Can you post your mage and boomkin macros? This would help me alot thanks

Well my mage uses a extremly simply:

/cast Icy Vein
/cast Frostbolt

(summoning the Pet I do manual)

and my druid uses (as described this isn't good for the dots);

/castsequence reset=target/alt Insect Swarm,Moonfire,Null
/cast [mod:lshift] Starfire;Wrath

[sp0000n]

Couldn't find this thread for a while. Thanks for the help. Looking forward to experimenting with this.

[Eggy]

I thought about respeccing my mage to arcane, but currently I stayed with frost for the following reason:

- I'm quite satisfied with his dps
- he applies the +5crit debuff with frostbolt, which doesn't need any management
- the macro he uses is extremly simple
- he gives my group replenishment

Although, when speaking about arcane:
Why do you need /click for it? -I thought a simple /castsequence reste=target Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Missle would do?

To mix in Arcane Power and eventualy Icy Veins
I see your point with the +5 crit debuff though, I use my dest lock for that and I sure would miss it.