The Moonkin Repository

I am sorry if u considered my post "idiotic".. but that's what i was really intending.
I have cleared SWP before the nerf on a shadowpriest, then stopped for a while and was thinking to come back raiding as Moonkin since my guild needs it.
So I was wondering, since all i can see on the posts on this forum, is the Balance druid "that" nerfed? I mean.. the rotation to me looks pretty pretty easy (no doubt there r easyer one like arcane mages u say), but the point is that druids beside the buff that brings into the raid, that is given also from other classes, brings only his wierd dps.
Moonkins doesnt have fast movements stuff like teleports, only a sprint in catform, that isnt what i was really aiming at.

So... since i see that this forum is a really good one, really active and this kind of stuff, i was wondering... why a dps should choose a moonkin now when the dps is low, the movement mechanics r so gimped and the buffs that brings r already in the raid by some other classes?

Thanks and sry again for the previous idiot post.

Cripes. You really souped up that last one, didn't you.

As far as rotations go, I would not say the moonkin rotation is one of the easier ones. All three (four? does Frostfire still count?) mages specs are remarkably easy (spam, get a proc, hit a button, spam some more). Fire may be the hardest of the three, but only because they have to keep track of Imp. Scorch. Destro warlock is pretty easy, as it's a true rotation -- just use these skills in this order over and over and over again. Same deal for ele shamans. Demon warlocks are primarily brought for their buff; I haven't done any theorycrafting on them, but I've been told it's the faceroll rotation for that class. Affliction locks are probably about the same as moonkin in terms of difficulty -- managing DoTs while nuking, but our nuking has more restrictions. Shadowpriests probably fall in the same category as affliction locks and us, but I've not done theorycrafting for them either. So I'd say we're up there as far as caster rotations go.

The buffs we provide are as follows:
5% crit - can be provided by an ele shaman
3% hit - can be provided by a shadowpriest
3% haste - can be provided by a ret pally
13% damage - can be provided by an unholy DK or a warlock

That's four classes that are required to provide the buffs that we can provide alone. And we can do 7-8k DPS on non-movement fights, which is still respectable, though certain not at the level of rogues.

But, yes, we require a lot more intelligence as far as moving is concerned, compared to most classes. It has an impact, but all casters are pretty impacted by it. Maybe get a friendly holy priest to bubble-sprint you when you have to move?

teehee

as i said i was playing shadowpriest before, and during movements u can SWD, or full dot and moving only when u should mindfly.. and also another thing is that u cant move fast in any way. IF ill ever go for moonkin, at least i am goonna go engeneer to have the rocket boots enchant ... at least.

I tried sp and feral druid, and moonking is xtremly much easyer as rotation. Not "that" easy.. but the point is .. i dont see that much difference in dps from a good moonkin and a perfecet moonkin. Like refreshing dots exactly i millisecond after they end to dont burn the last tick.

Anyway.. i'll give a shot and wank a bit on this really good forum, and maybe... i'll change my mind.. i really hope.. but i dont think so. Tnx for the advises tho*

The difference between the good and the best is quite substantial, actually. Not several thousand, maybe, but probably ballpark 1000.

Briefly looking at a shadowpriest rotation, it doesn't appear to be any more difficult than a moonkin rotation. Monitor your DoTs, cast MB when it's available, and use MF in between. Of course, that's dumbing it down -- there's a lot more that goes into the rotation, just as there's a lot more that really goes into a moonkin rotation. I'm just not sure it's much harder. The difference between a good moonkin and a perfect moonkin should be about the same as a good shadowpriest and a perfect shadowpriest because the skills involved in the rotations are so similar. This may also be the reason why moonkin DPS seems easier for you than others -- because you've already developed the skills required to do good moonkin DPS, specifically monitoring DoTs and other cooldowns (in our case, the "cooldown" is Eclipse).

Feral is slightly harder, admittedly, because you have more to monitor -- two DoTs and a buff (and a debuff if you lack another feral or arms warrior). And you actually alter your rotation slightly for things like Omen of Clarity, and know when to use Tiger's Fury, etc.

But, yeah, I really think you're having an easy go of it because you've already developed the necessary skills.

i think he's just trolling us =(

Meh, I couldn't care less whether he's trolling or sincere. It's still an important discussion to have, one that I think both long-time moonkins and newbie moonkins can learn from.

i am not "trolling" at all...
anyway
ye prolly xiera u r saying right, the point is that i dont see that much margin from what i am doing now that is like the first 30 min i am trying dps, and after 1 potential year of training.
Instead yeah.. sp is slightly different, since u should cast MB whenever is in cooldown, breaking mindfly on his 2/3 or 1/3 part to dont waste casting time of mindfly without letting the tick actually "tick". More u got a dot that has casting time (VT), so it needs a precast of 1.3~secs + another dot (dp) that can be refreshed on only 1 tgt, and blablbalbla..
And ye cat is prolly the hardest, since u cant really plan clearcasts and doubleproc of crits that gives u 2 combo points instead of 1.

So.. having a class that doesnt have big dps, that has an "easy" rotation, and that doesnt have any kind of "teleport" (blink-jump-portal-sprint (our dash means no dmg at all)) or "wipe incoming dmg" (dispersion or deterrence, iceblock, bubble, CoS) "wipe aggro" abilty (fade, soulshatter, inv, FDeath, vanish.. blablbla), makes me a little much wondering..

Returning to my previous post that got deleted since i prolly didnt xplain good: beside the buffs (that other classes can bring), a moonkin can bring only medium dps (low on movements fights), innervate if possible and a sad res in combat. What's the deal really?
I like the big owl and his disco-dancing.. but still ..

I am happy som1 found this discussion interesting, sadly is offtopic BIGTIME (sry about that)

moonkins arent "medium dps" they're actually fairly high damage dealers when played correctly... on top of that, as xiera said, you'd need 4 other classes to bring the buffs 1 moonkin can bring, and for a lot of guilds that's just not an option sometimes due to low recruitment potential on their server, their current guild member for one of those 4 buffs for some reason or another doesnt perform as well as the moonkin, or they just like having the moonkin so they can stack other classes...

the point is... i am going in one really good guild no problems at all about roster or stuff, and so.. i am scared that i'll be totally useless with this class-spec if the dmg is low. Anyway.. we will see
Tnx for the tips ppl!

I actually see us as a lot like Hunters back in Vanilla (ok, maybe the relative position isn't as faceroll, but hear me out). Any retard can slap buttons and be a passable Moonkin, the rotation is simple in and of itself. However, to be a good Moonkin requires a lot of skill and/or effort. Essentially, we have to be constantly theory-crafting on the move - is it better to reapply the DoT now or wait? better to break rotation or risk the add dying before the spell hits? - and we suffer horrendously from movement interrupting our rotation and so have to try to minimise that impact (simple rotations are also a little too rigid).

Real problem is is that a lot of moonkin are satisfied to go "our class sucks, but you need me for the aura/rebirth/innervate, so free raid slot!" and slack about in last position. The first problem with that is that many non-moonkin see these abysmal numbers and just write moonkin off as a wasted slot and don't bring them, so there's a glut of skill-less moonkin flitting around pugs and Dalaran. The secondary effect is the "competition" effect: if I and another moonkin, same gear level, both raid together, and he does consistantly 2k DPS less than me, I'm going to think I'm great, whereas I'm really only fulfilling part of my potential. I saw it happen with our locks. We had two decent locks, and then two sucky players joined (they were RL mates of folk, and had rerolled from classes they were competent at, so they good a good chance before failing trial). The good two were consistently in the top 10, the sucky two would on occasion beat the tanks. The good two started slacking, since the sucky two were very verbose in their talk of how nerfed locks were (because it can't be me, it's the class!), and even while slacking the good two were miles ahead of the others of their class. Even when the suckies got punted, the other two never recovered. One quit (RL reasons), and the other is still with us, in 245+ gear, struggling to break 5k most nights. And he's capable of better, because in 10mans where I rip the piss out of him for being so far below me, he can push 7k, so it's not all gear and class-suckage and skill, it's complacency and laziness.

Anyway, before anyone gets their feathers ruffled, I'm not saying that all moonkin who are bottom of the meters are lazy or skill-deficient, I'm just saying enough are that it's made it a reason to not bring the good ones, and for the good ones to not totally live up to their potential in some cases. Obviously removing those factors won't punt us to the #1 spot, but I don't think we're totally worthless when played correctly and encouraged to keep doing so.

Modafinil, you have the wrong impression about moonkins. And you are so obviously trolling even if you don't think you are.

You make a post whining about abilities other classes have had for over a year and some since the game was made. You're also complaining because you think Moonkins are underpowered and don't have as many "oh shit" buttons. Complaining about threat is laughable when we get 30% reduction in a mandatory talent.

It is true that we lack some of those abilities and to be honest they are used as a crutch. Moonkins aren't the only specs without such tools. Shamans, Warriors, Feral Druids, and Warlocks survive without them. The better skilled players will survive fine without those abilities and continue to do worthwhile damage.

Moonkins bring competitive DPS along with a numerous amount of buffs and raid utility.

Go play a mage if you want to top DPS charts while have crutch tools to make up for your mistakes.

If the concern really is about whether a moonkin would be "useless" and therefore not slotted for a raid, it's fair to say that's unlikely. I'm in a guild that's downed everything in Wrath except for Yogg+0 and Putricide (which we haven't attempted yet, but will this weekend) and I've never been concerned about not making a slot because of my DPS.

Fact is, moonkin dps is very competitive with several of the classes that bring our buffs: e.g. shadow priests, ele shammies and ret pallies. Prior to 3.3, and probably even now, moonkin DPS was higher than shadow priests. So if you wanted your raid to have the very useful 3% hit debuff and higher average DPS you'd bring a moonkin. The moonkin debuff is also superior, being a one time instant cast lasting 5 minutes. With shadow priests, if they died or changed targets, you lost your debuff.

In addition with moonkins, you got a couple very useful class unique buffs: battle rezz (now with a 10 min cooldown) and innervate. With limited attempts in ICC, I can tell you battle rezz is highly coveted at the moment by raid leaders.

We struggle to compete against some pure DPS classes (mages, rogues) and some currently OP hybrid classes (DKs) but I'd say at the moment we're at par or higher than most hybrid DPS. We definitely suffer more than most, but we're not the worst off, on highly mobile fights. Re: speed boosts and threat management: Most classes don't have a sprint/blink type speed boost on a regular basis and moonkins aren't unusual in that...but kitty dash comes in very handy on fights like TOGC 25 Anub phase 2. We have shadowmeld for threat, but to be honest, the spec doesn't really require much threat management. Blizzard seems to let us get away with quite a bit of burst dps before threat becomes an issue. It's locks and mages that bite the dust far more often due to threat.

when i talk about threat, i mean "wipe threat" ability to save ur ass from a ninjapull or tanks with some problems, like fade, invis, vanish... this kind of stuff.. or teleprot.. u r telling me warlock doesnt have an imba teleport? warrior can charge/intervene/intercept to move faster, feral druids has 30% speed base and also dash usable while still able do dps.. so. ye prolly the shamans has our same situation.
anyway i am not whining just for the sake of it, since as i told u before, i still dont have a true moonkin, but going around on the forum, watching movies and WWS, if the raid has already the buff u r looking for, then i dont really see a point why a guild would bring a moonkin instead of any other dps class. Beside our magic Res in Combat.

And... what do u mean about me "trolling" on forum? u think i am just spamming for the sake of doing it?