Substitute for moonkin?

[Elgert]

Hi

I have only one team - and it looks like this (they are currently all level 79):

tank - prot palading
healer - holy priest
dps 1 - elemental shaman
dps 2 - frost mage
dps 3 - balance druid

I have been reading about how important eclipse is for moonkins, but can't decide if its worth the trouble to level a replacement. I chose the moonkin to get the buff, the aura and the spellpower bonus thingy. Is the dps loss of not using eclipse really so big that I wont miss the druid bonus stuff?

If yes - what would you use for replacement? another shaman? another mage? a warlock?

Any suggestions and experince are welcome

[Ualaa]

The biggest thing the druid brings is Earth & Moon.
Once your Wrath or Starfire successfully hits the target, it is debuffed and takes 13% extra spell damage.
The increased crit chance, is the same thing as you get from a Shammy on a crit, and in the next patch it will be a constantly on buff, so that is redundant for the team.
Still 13% spell power is huge, and on that alone the druid is a very strong addition to the team.
Similarly.... Totem of Wrath, Wrath of Air, Tremor Totem and Healing Stream/Cleansing/Mana Spring totems are huge, not to mention Bloodlust/Heroism.



For trash, the druid will probably just spam Wrath.
There is no point in using dots, for anything that will be dead in 2 seconds.
Also with such a fast casting spell, you'll almost immediately get the Earth & Moon debuff on the mob.

For bosses, the druid would ideally have two castsequences.
They are almost identical, except for the fall through.

a) Faerie Fire once, if you've talented for 3% hit (probably won't need this at all in heroics).
b) Insect Swarm, recasting as it expires (highest priority spell).
c) Moonfire, recasting as it expires.
d) Spamming either Wrath or Starfire, until you need to refresh a dot.

The easiest way to do this is with two castsequences or click macros.
One for Wrath as the fall through (spell that casts, when other spells are on cooldown/ticking away).
And the other with Starfire as the fall through.
If you go this route, you'll need something like MSBT to announce procs.
NoLife made a video showing how to configure it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvt-cmKWWbY&hd=1
When you get a proc, start casting from the other sequence.

Then you put the dps castsequence or click, or the pallies 96969 sequence on both keybinds.
So you can be using either the Wrath or the Starfire macro, and everyone else is still casting their preferred macro/spells.



You can approximate the Eclipse buff.
It won't be as strong as managing it, but it will be a lot stronger then ignoring it.

I'd build a single click castsequence.
And then go with a castsequence as the fall through.
Something like Wrath x4, Starfire x3.
You don't even need a reset on the fall through.
The point is to cast a few of one spell, to trigger Eclipse, and then several of the other spell.
The trick is few enough in a string, that if the first cast procs Eclipse, you don't waste too many casts of the wrong (same) spell.
And enough casts in the string, that you get the Eclipse bonus on several castings of the other spell.



A 13% increase in spell damage is fairly huge.
I'd try to make the druid work.
The team has worked for you, for 79 levels, so you're familiar with your hotkeys, spells and abilities.

If you decide the druid cannot work...
I'd recommend a Warlock (any spec) as replacement.
Because, Curse of the Elements is available to any spec, and is also a 13% spell power increase.

[Elgert]

Thanks a lot for the fast and very precise answer :-)

I think i'll keep the druid for now and try the approximation. I kinda like have a (almost) fully buffed team, and as you say i'm already used to the druid. As for setup i have a singe nuke button - and i'll like to keep it that way (it has some modifiers for special occasions). None of my dps'ers has ANY logic in their casts - they just spam lightningbolt/frostbolt/wrath, so there's room for improvement when I hit 80. Also the mage might end up with arcane dualspec so I can try that out.

Next step is to set up something for jousting and do argent tournament dailies until 80.

[Mercurio]

As usual, Ualaa has posted some great info.

You have a fabulous combo there. It's my #1 if you are going to raid with the group (where the +hit buff from boomkins can't be beat). My #1 team for non-raiding would be to drop the boomkin and add a warlock - I've found destro to wrok great. I've played all caster and hunter DPS a TON (boxed and non-boxed) and find that in similiar gear my warlocks do the highest DPS. My boomkins do solid DPS single-boxed, but boxed they are less than the others due to eclipse.

If you keep the boomkin the only thing I'd add to what Ualaa posted is that for me, tyring to manage the eclipse proc with 2 DPS macros for the boomkin is too much of a pain for the a pretty small gain. in trying lots of different single-cast sequences I've found just a simple sequence that casts two wraths and one startfire and repeats did the best DPS for me. That way you will always get half the benefit from eclipse guaranteed (since you are casting the spells half the time). When I went with longer sequences I would either get the proc too early in the sequence and lose most of the benefit anyway or miss out totally until the next rotation. There's my 2 cents.

[Drizzit]

you could also try switching the roles of the druid and priest. You can make the priest shadow, which can give you some mana gain, plus it also has a +hit buff/dot for your group. I heard that druids are pretty easy to box heal. This way you can keep the team and don't have to lvl another toon.

[Ualaa]

The 13% spell power is huge, for a caster team.
Even if you were to never manage Eclipse, and go with straight Wrath or Starfire.
The 13%, makes it worthwhile to have the toon on the team.

I converted (traded) a shaman from one team (giving the new team a 2nd shaman) for a warlock.
The warlock has fresh to 80th, literally in more greens then blues.
I gained a 2100GS (warlock) for a 4000GS (shammy)...
And the teams overall DPS significantly increased... heroic fights that I was very close to winning became easy with the trade.
Now the entire team (warlock too) is in full T9 badge gear.

If you had another source of 13% spell power...
An Unholy DK tank or a Warlock instead of the mage perhaps.
I'd consider Druid as healer, Priest as dps.
But for the above classes... approximate the Eclipse.
I like Mercurio's suggestion.. 2x Wrath to 1x Starfire, I'll try that on my mixed team.

[jimbobobb]

I'll come in here to beat my drum:

Make your druid resto, make your priest shadow.

Make a rolling hot button for your druid, and then tie it to your dps button and tank rotation buttons.

Cast wild growth on cooldown.

Clear every single heroic there is by smashing one button and paying zero attention to healing or pretty much anything except your tank.

Druid healers: god's gift to multiboxers

[J6mpsikas]

would it be waste to use both, warlock and boomkin in a team

team would be prot pala, ele shammy, resto shammy, boomkin, destro lock

[Ualaa]

If you want to run that, it will run fine.
However, with a Wrath/Starfire cast on the mob, the Curse of the Elements is not needed.
Or alternatively, with CotE on a mob, the Boomkin doesn't bring that much to the table.

You can use drums for an 80% as good, Mark of the Wild.
You lose out on battle rez and innervate.
But adding say another Shaman gets you a 3rd set of totems, which makes you almost immune to fear in PvE.
Or adding an arcane mage gets you food/water, ports and far superior dps without needing to manage Eclipse.

My main PvE team is a Prot Paladin, Demo Warlock and 3x Elemental Shaman.
If I wanted a dedicated healer, it would be a toss up between a Disc Priest and a Resto Druid, in the place of one of the shammies.

With the toons mentioned by J6mpsikas above, I'd respec them to:
- Prot Pally (tank)
- Elemental Shaman x2
- Destro Lock
- Resto Druid.