Moonkin DPS guide

[Concillian]

It's a crap gimmick talent, only designed to give Moonkins something to bring to a raid.

Is a "gimmick" that only takes 2 physical DPS +a tank before it starts providing more DPS than talents that "help the druid" really a "gimmick"? Also how can you argue that raising the threat ceiling is a gimmick at all and not helping the druid.

I mean face it, you bring a Moonkin on a raid for DPS, you want them to DPS. You don't care about their single contribution, just like you don't bring an enhancement shaman or elemental shaman just for their solo DPS, you want their totems too.

[Pantalaimon]

It's not nearly as beneficial as any of those. Neither of them has a cap--+hit does. Sure, if they are aware of it and has gear without the +hit that provides more DPS, it gives more leeway for physical DPS classes. But it's just not a big bonus.

I'm fairly certain we'll have to agree to disagree :), but I will contest it not being a very big bonus - that's the equivalent of 47.4 hit rating per DPSer that is not hitcapped.

Now, I don't know if you're running with some sort of uberguild, but most of the rogues/fury warriors/enhancement shamen that I know don't run around entirely hitcapped; they've reached a point where sacrificing everything to the almighty god of hit becomes a net loss due to everything else given up. Hunters, 2-hander warriors? Yeah they're probably capped. But even a raid that's light on melee DPS will probably have 2-3 rogues/fury warriors and an enhancement shaman to toss in a group with a feral tank together.

Regardless - I think it's a very very good raid talent if you can squeeze it in, you don't; likely because I'm not the one that has to find room in a build for it:P

[Zarathustra]

I don't think you can consider Imp. Faerie as anything other than a must-have talent for a pure raid spec.

Not sure I agree, as any of the physical damage dealers in my raids are already sitting more or less at their hit cap.

[Legedi]

Not sure I agree, as any of the physical damage dealers in my raids are already sitting more or less at their hit cap.

If you know that you are going to have +3% hit from imp FF everyone should be able to regear around the fact they need less hit now. And tanks rarely have much +hit. So +3% hit is basically +3% threat for the tanks. I think just the extra threat for tanks is more than enough reason for the talent.

Also, enhancement shamans and DW fury warriors should not be sitting at the hit cap. Lots of EJ threads show that they gain more DPS per item point from crit and str/AP than hit once they get 8.6% hit (or something close to that). But getting a free +3% hit from this talent would still be good for them.

When you are a class that doesn't bring the straight up DPS of something like a rogue you need to bring other utility to a raid. And purposely avoiding utility like that seems like a waste.

[Brista]

Regarding the Improved Faerie Fire issue, I suspect people's views are largely coloured by how the rest of the raid judges them.

If out of 15 dpsers you are consistently 10th-15th and the rest of the guild looks at the damage meters and assumes you're a semi-afk slacker it will obviously cause you to have a different take on the notion of sacrificing personal dps for the +3% hit raid buff. If you're in a raid where either people simply take it for granted that you are bringing something valuable regardless of the meters or if you're in a raid where most people have very deep game knowledge and are aware that hybrid dpsers should be judged on damage contribution not personal score

Judged by contribution Moonkins seem approximately equivalent to a dps class that lacks synergies in terms of how much damage the raid will do with them there. I suspect Moonkins will struggle for general acceptance until they are ahead of that value (just as Shadow Priests are) since most people simplistically value 1000 dps more highly than 700 personal dps + 300 dps to other people

In conclusion if you're in the kind of guild that lets you spec Moonkin in the first place you're probably in the kind of guild that would rather have an extra 50 dps and 20 tps from Improved Faerie Fire over 20 extra dps on the Moonkin but that is probably atypical of how the general WoW populace looks at things

[PapaSmurf]

Point taken, based on theory craft Wrath does 22% more DPS than Starfire, so while Curse of Shadows does narrow the gap, there is still a lead with wrath.

As a side note, it is nearly impossible to maintain a perfect 1.5 second cast on wrath. Due to latency issues starfire does get a boost from the longer cast time. In addition, Starfire DPS goes up with NG procs. With a 25% chance to crit that equates to a 4.2% increase to DPS with Nature's Grace. Between Curse of Shadows, NG procs, and cast latency they may be closer than I originally depict. I'll need to take these issues into account and re-calculate my numbers. Perhaps Wrath is not the clear winner.

D

One thing I forgot to mention and bolty's post reminded me. Do not forget your /stopcasting macros. Using the GCD timer for doing cast relies on have a /stopcasting macro setup for wrath. Even at a respectable 200ms latency you will be losing over 10% DPS without it.