Enchants

I have already updated my Enchant write-up here. There are no real changes. Shoulder and head enchant has changed slightly, and there is some talk about [Enchant Weapon - Black Magic] being superior to [Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower] on one-handed weapons. At present there doesn't seem to be a consensus though, so for now I will be sticking with +63 spell power.

Gems

Nice and simple for now here. Until better maths is available I will be using Brilliant Cardinal Ruby in red sockets, and Reckless Ametrine in yellow sockets. In one blue socket I will now be using a Nightmare Tear, because that provides the 10 Spirit / 10 Intellect of a Purified Dreadstone, but with a bit of Stamina too. In remaining blue sockets I will be putting Purified Dreadstones.

Later on there will be some maths in here I expect for when it is more beneficial to use straight-Brilliant Cardinal Rubies instead of hitting socket bonuses, but this will do for now.

Stats and Reforging

Rightio, stats. As of 4.0.1, 1 point of Spirit now provides 1 point of Hit. This resulted in my Moonkin having some 24% hit. Which was nice. Now you can't reforge to Intellect, so the first priorities on gear are simple. Firstly, make sure it's Leather due to the armour type bonus if you wear full Leather. Cloth is no longer a good option.

Secondly, aim for the highest item level (and so, usually, highest Intellect) gear that you can. Spirit is preferred to Hit rating, but hey just keep piling it up. Slot in gems and Enchants as detailed above, and then you're ready to get reforging.

The first aim for stats should be 17% hit rating which is (I think) 446 hit. Both Spirit and Hit on gear contribute towards this, however spirit also provices mana regen. Of your remaining stats, Haste is preferred to Crit rating. The theorycrafters rate Mastery lower than Crit, but personally I am seeing some benefit to Mastery.

To this end I would recommend the following. If you are below the hit cap, then reforge Crit rating into Spirit. If you are still under the cap (somehow) then reforge Haste. Realistically it would probably take some effort to be under the hit cap, but thought I'd include this for sake of completion.

If you are over the hit cap, then start reforging Hit rating into Haste. If you can't reforge to haste (because the item already has haste on), then reforge it into Mastery. When you run out of Hit, do the same to Spirit. Try and get as close as possible to 17% hit rating without going under. If it gets you closer to the cap then feel free to reforge spirit instead of hit.

Haste shouldn't be reforged away where possible. Critical Strike rating I currently am reforging to Mastery as napkin maths indicated it may be a positive improvement, however this may be due to my higher gearing level. All in all it's probably not too big a deal one way or the other at this stage, so do whatever you like!

As with gemming, once the spells have stabilised some and the maths is more proven I'll do a more concise write-up to replace the old WotLK version, but for now this rough guide seems to work well enough.

Talents

Ignore my druids talents for now, I might be playing with other talents at present. My current favoured talent build is this.

Mana isn't really a problem at 80, hence missing out Dreamstate and Moonglow. Split 5 points between Owlkin Frenzy / Gale Winds / Solar Beam as you see fit. I quite like Solar Beam, so for a 1 pointer it's handy. I chose to dump 3 into Owlkin Frenzy for the few situations where it increases boss DPS. Gale Winds gets 1 point just because it was either that or useless mana regen.

There is some talk about skipping Sunfire at the moment, but then you lose Lunar Shower which is nice when you are having to move around a lot. Personally I'd just take Sunfire, because chances are it will get fixed sooner rather than later (as at present it only ticks every 3 seconds instead of every 2, but because it only procs during eclipse it's about on a par with Moonfire. When fixed it'll be an undisputable dps gain).

Over in the resto tree, Heart of the Wild is kind of a no-brainer also. 6% extra Intellect = 6% extra Spell power, pewpew. Blessing of the Grove is kind of another couple of points that you could put there or anywhere else, but that will at least increase your DPS a bit. At 85 you'll be looking more at Natural Shapeshifter for Master Shapeshifter, but at 80 you don't have enough points.

Glyphs

Ok so Major glyphs you should use Glyph of Starfall. Glyph of Rebirth is a good second choice as it helps prevent the freshly rezzed person being dead. Glyph of Innervate is handy, and really there's not a great 3rd choice so I've shoved this in place for now. I also use the Solar Beam glyph, but that is only applicable if you chose to spec for it.

Minor glyphs, all rubbish really. Unburdened Rebirth is a no-brainer to remove the reagent, the others just put in whatever you want!

Prime glyphs are kinda fun. Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Wrath, Starsurge are the 4 I am toying with at present. Napkin maths is showing Insect Swarm, Wrath, and Starsurge to be the strongest 3. In my tests and napkin maths, Moonfire seemed to come in at about a 20-30% lower damage increase than Starsurge. Insect Swarm glyph seemed to be the winner, but Wrath, Moonfire, and Starsurge all seemed to be quite close. It's hard to tell from tests how much was due to RNG.

Rotation

The rotation is quite simple now. Maintain DoTs, pop spells on cooldown, pewpew. On pull I tend to cast Force of Nature -> Moonfire -> Insect Swarm -> Starfall -> Starsurge -> Wrath/Starfire.

Force of Nature is kinda cast pre-pull because the positioning of it on the ground can still be annoying. Moonfire is cast before Insect Swarm but I can't remember why offhand. Starfall I cast before Starsurge simply because I use the Starsurge glyph, so that cuts 5 seconds off the cooldown right away.

Once you've got cooldowns and DoTs out of the way, just cast whichever of Starfire or Wrath moves the eclipse bar. As it stands I prioritise cooldowns over DoTs, and priotise DoTs over direct damage spells.

On heavily-aoe fights (i.e. Faction Champions when noone is CC'ing, or ICC trash) I tend to just kinda spam tab, Insect Swarm, Moonfire, Starfall, casting instant Starsurge when it procs. A more controlled approach would be to use Hurricane, but where's the fun in that.

Addons

Rightio, the basics. You need some kind of boss mods, a threat meter, and then something for class abilities. For the more generic addons, I use Bartender (to give more flexible bars), Omen (threat meter), Deady Boss Mods.

Class-specific I use Balance Power Bars at present to give a more adaptable Eclipse bar. It can be moved to be more noticable, and gives warnings when your current spell will proc Eclipse which is helpful. I also use Power Auras to track the timer on Insect Swarm and Moonfire, and to notify when the cooldown on Starfall or Starsurge is up.

Summary

There's still some hit and miss on what is actually best, but the guidelines above should at least point you in the right direction. At present it's best not to rely on anything, even this guide, as an undisputable truth. Until the spells have stopped changing then it's hard to be able to say with undeniable certainty that x is better than y.

I'll tidy this post up more a bit later on and put in more links, but for now enjoy!

Prices will not be included in this post, as a Moonkin seeking to make the best of themselves should find a way to pay for the best! Where possible I have included some cheapskate alternatives. For sake of clarity I will also not include any profession-specific enchants such as the Enchanter-only ring enchants.

Enchanter enchants

These enchants all come from your friendly(ish) neighbourhood enchanter.

Back (cloak) [Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed] gives a nice haste boost, and also comes in a cheaper flavour [Enchant Cloak - Speed]. There aren't really any other alternatives so this choice should really be quite straightforward. If you are really sure you don't need haste, which honestly should be noone, and are finding yourself with threat problems then [Enchant Cloak - Wisdom] offers a good alternative that gives you a little bit of spirit along with some threat reduction. If you are having threat problems then please take a look at Moonkin and threat management.

Chest [Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats] is the best choice for your chest. It will give you a little more damage, a little more crit, a little more mana, a little more of everything. Compared to the alternative, [Enchant Chest - Exceptional Mana], this should be seen as a clear choice. Mana is not normally a concern for a raiding Moonkin, and adding more mana does not directly increase your DPS unlike the stat increases. For those on a tighter budget, [Enchant Chest - Super Stats] is available.

Feet (boots) [Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality] is commonly considered to be the best option for raiding Moonkin at present on boots, with [Enchant Boots - Boar's Speed] being the cheaper option. This will give you a speed increase which is important for times where movement is required, and a little more stamina may make the difference between a pewpew machine and a dead pile of feathers. With the current trends in raid instances movement is becoming more and more common, so don't expect this to change any time soon. A viable alternative (and the one I currently use) is [Enchant Boots - Icewalker]. This is partially because it helps get to the hit cap precisely and a little more crit is always nice. At the end of the day though swapping a Cardinal Ruby for an Ametrine would address any hit deficiency equally well. Both are viable options for raiding Moonkin, so it's down to your own views really. Personally I intend to change my enchant back to Tuskarr's Vitality as soon as I upgrade my boots.

Hands (gloves) On your hands there is a hit enchant available, however hit is easily obtainable elsewhere. Also keep in mind that this is a 20 hit buff in place of a 28 spell power enchant, compared to if you swap out a Runed gem where you only lose 23 spell power to gain 20 hit. This makes the choice here clear, [Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower]. The little brother of this enchant is [Enchant Gloves - Major Spellpower]. The critical strike enchantments also should not be considered because the benefit from spell power will be greater to you.

Weapon (1H) There is only one choice here for similar reasons as with the gloves. [Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower] gives a really nice spellpower increase along with its cheaper version, [Enchant Weapon - Exceptional Spellpower].

Weapon (2H) As with the 1-handed weapons, 2-handed weapon enchant is a pretty simple choice to make too. Spell power enchants all out. By 2H weapon, as a caster druid, you really should be thinking of a staff. There aren't any 2H maces to speak of in endgame raiding for a Moonkin at present. Your choices here are limited, [Enchant Staff - Greater Spellpower], and for the cheaper version [Enchant Staff - Spellpower]

Wrist (bracer) The common theme recurs here. Spellpower enchants are very much order of the day. The only alternative really is [Enchant Bracers - Major Spirit]. Whatever way you work it out though, 18 spirit is no compensation for the benefit of 30 spellpower. For this reason the choices here are simple, [Enchant Bracers - Superior Spellpower] and [Enchant Bracers - Greater Spellpower]

Tailoring enchant

There is only one enchant that comes from a Tailor that should interest a Moonkin, and that is for your trousers.

Legs [Brilliant Spellthread] is the best choice hands-down for this slot. While [Sapphire Spellthread] is also good, it doesn't have the addition of spirit which of course boils down to more spell power for Moonkin. A cheaper alternative is [Shining Spellthread]. If you are looking for a cheaper way to get this I would advise gathering the materials yourself. Tailors seem to like using this to make a lot of money, so if you have a friendly Tailor that will put it together for you for a reasonable fee then that would be advisable.

Reputation (vendor) enchants

These enchantments require a certain reputation with factions to obtain. As of 3.3 these items are Bind to Account and so there is no excuse for not having at least one character with the required reputation. If you do not already have any that are Exalted with the required factions then make this a priority.

Head For the head enchants you will need Revered reputation with the Wyrmrest Accord, [Arcanum of Blissful Mending]. The Spirit on it is preferable to the Critical Strike on [Arcanum of Burning Mysteries]. If you for some reason don't have the required reputation with Wyrmrest, but do with Kirin Tor, then the [Arcanum of Burning Mysteries] is still a good second-choice option.

Shoulder For the shoulder enchants you will need reputation with the Hodir. Both choices here requires Exalted with The Sons of Hodir, but realistically this isn't hard to achieve on at least one character. First up is going to be [Greater Inscription of the Crag]. The second choice, if you have more than enough hit already, will be the old first-choice, [Greater Inscription of the Storm]. As before if you are on a budget or haven't the reputation then the lesser inscriptions are better than nothing.

Summary

So there is all my explanation, now here is the summary cheat-sheet. Please remember that crafters often spend a lot of money levelling their professions, so don't go insisting on freebies. If you want them to continue crafting then a small tip is the least you can do.

As a final note. If you are a raiding Moonkin and really want to be the best you can be then please please please do not try and just save money on these by getting the cheaper options. The differences may seem insignificant, but added up they can all boost your dps nicely. As a veteran of many wipes, some at under 50k hp remaining, I can honestly say that every little helps.

First things first, Strayegg may be unreliable over the next week or so. I am in the process of moving to a shiny new server. All being well the change-over will be smooth, but sometimes things go down the proverbial creek!

For now none of the guides have been updated, but they will be soon. I am currently catching up on the theorycrafting, and am not intending to go putting out information as gospel truth until I've had a chance to look into it more myself. In the mean time I would like to recommend taking a look at Graylos fantastic write-up here.

There's not a great deal I would add to Graylos information at this point with one slight exception. Personally I am finding Solar Beam quite useful. I mean it's a 15 second silence when glyphed! That's quite handy on some fights. Not too relevant to endgame raiding, but I got Gundrak as a daily heroic and we got Less-rabi without even trying due to that silence. Also I would be careful about listening to those going on about Thorns. It's strong at the moment but it seems like a nerf is incoming to reduce it to be more situational rather than being on a par with our main damage spells.

A couple of personal notes. Firstly, I loved being able to mess around with moonfire spam. I managed to clock up 8.2k dps against a target dummy. In Azjol Nerub I managed to do quite well spamming it also. It's also nice to be able to mess around with aoeing by spreading around Insect Swarm, with the damage buff it works beautifully, hoping to have some fun with that in ICC when I'm next in there (though apprently they have nerfed it heavily, inevitable really).

Lastly for the personal notes, my team successfully completed the CARE challenge, and with not too bad a time ending up almost exactly middle of the table. If you feel like contributing to the charity CARE International then it's still not too late,just click here - any money donated is going to a good cause! Don't worry I'll stop going on about this soon!

Finally, a small warning. Moonkin are now aggro magnets if you are in high-end gear. You may find it beneficial to warn your favourite healer of this fact, so that they are there to spam-heal you when you inevitably pull aggro from that low-geared tank in that PuG you just joined!

TLDR version Updates incoming, I love Solar Beam, CARE challenge didn't kill me, watch your threat.

I've still been quiet, I've been reviewing some of the articles lately and feel that I need to do some rewrites. The Pecking Order is, I am afraid, going to be put to rest for the time being - I am uncertain I am able to do it proper justice at present. I will instead concentrate on filling a couple of gaps in the knowledge on the site (interface, macros, that kind of thing) and look at refining the existing articles.

That is not what I am here to say today though. A few months ago my boss asked for volunteers to take place in something called the CARE New Media Challenge. It comprises of 24km bike ride, 16km run, and 2km canoe segments. I'm not looking forward to the running. This is why I've not really had much time to keep Strayegg active lately!

Anyway, as part of this we are of course raising some funds for the charity CARE International UK. I thought I'd make an appeal to the readers of Strayegg to see if any of you felt like sponsoring our team!

If you would like to sponsor us, then you can do so through our page on Just Giving. Sponsor MSO.net on the CARE New Media Challenge

More information on the challenge is available here : Care New Media Challenge

Thank you to any of you that do contribute, every little helps! Until next time, Aeiedil out!

Why does this matter?

The first point to consider. Why does this question actually matter. Simply put, if you are reading blogs and the theorycraft threads then the chances are you care in some way about your performance. If you don't know what qualities seperate a good Moonkin from a bad then how are you to determine good advice from bad?

Too many players like to focus on tools such as Gearscore to determine a players ability. From the point of view of a PuG leader it is hard to use much more of an in depth tool without taking hours to form a group. When it comes to forming a guild you can afford to take the larger picture into consideration. Consider not just what the player has now, but what they could become.

You may find a player with a Gearscore indicating they should be at home in ICC25 Heroic. There is nothing stopping that player having 20% +hit chance and pulling out a massive 3500 DPS on Onyxia 25. There is nothing stopping a player with a Gearscore of 800 lower doing nearly double the DPS in the same fight. This example is plucked out of a raid I was in the other day with 2 other Moonkin. The point that worried me most is that the Moonkin with higher Gearscore (and lower DPS) couldn't comprehend what was so bad about being vastly over the hit cap with a low critical strike rating.

You may look at an armory profile and draw conclusions as to how well balanced a player is in a spec you know well. I know I do. Chances are if you know your class well you will be able to pick up on a few points that may help the player in question. To do this both players involved need to understand the reason behind the advice to be able to make an informed decision to follow it, or alternatively be able to argue their own point of view.

What can we get from an Armory profile?

The armory XML provides us all kinds of data. It shows us the achievements on a player. It shows us what items they have equipped. Their talents and glyphs. Their professions. Their gems. Their enchants. From this we can draw a conclusion as to how well a player should perform, and can draw a conclusion as to how a player may be able to improve their chances.

Equipment

In general equipment can be ignored. The important factor is the stat totals. The exceptions to this are procs (including on-use effects) and boosts that are variable (such as gems).

Procs are difficult to factor in reliably, however an estimation of uptime of the passive (chance on hit, etc.) procs is possible and can be made with a reasonable level of accuracy. Uptime of the player-activated procs is more difficult. What can be calculated is a maximum effect of those trinkets by assuming a use on every cooldown.

Variable boosts are an area where adjustment can be applied. Would a player benefit more from a Reckless or Potent Ametrine? Would a Runed Cardinal Ruby be of more benefit? These are the questions that need answering. I have already drawn up a post for gems and enchants, however these summaries can't take into account every variable.

Talents and Glyphs

Talents and Glyphs are generally pretty well covered by most blogs out there. The optimal glyphs seem to change from patch to patch at present, with Starfall looking to be moving back into favour. They of course tend to alter your spells functionality and so can sometimes be hard to quantify. Others are much simpler such as the Glyph of Insect Swarm which is a nice straight forward damage boost.

Talents change much more than just your spell effects though. Combinations of talents can change your entire play style. Improved Insect Swarm pushes more towards maintaining appropriate DoTs for example. If you haven't specced Force of Nature (idiot!) then you won't be including it in a rotation. If you haven't specced Eclipse (and so deserve to be deleted) then you won't be alternating between Wrath and Starfire particularly.

The upshot of these 2 points is that a players choices of talents and glyphs will affect their output and optional rotations. Combined with variances in stat balance, what works for one player may not work for another. All factors need to be taken together to calculate how well they fit. There is no point having Balance of Power if you have 24% +Hit as you are already well over the cap (for example).

What do your spells actually do

The effect of your equipment, talents, and glyphs is that your spells will not do what they originally said they did on paper. Due to the fact that they scale with your equipment they will most likely hit harder, hit faster, and crit more than they would if you were naked.

The effect of this is that a once-great trinket may become merely good (such as Reign of the Unliving, where the proc becomes less valuable when Starfire takes less than 2 seconds to cast). Your rotation may vary through a fight (such as favouring Starfire over Wrath during Heroism when you have high amounts of haste due to the GCD). Some spells may even fall out of your rotation entirely (discussion on Elitist Jerks about taking a DoT out of the rotation).

There are formula available thanks to the theorycrafters out there that allow a player to calculate what their spells will actually do based on their stats and other environment variables. This in turn allows a player to, given time, figure out their (theoretical) optimal rotation and gear setup.

Pulling it together, the Strayegg rate-my-Moonkin tool

This brings me onto my current pet project. First of all, it needs a better name. "rate-my-Moonkin" is a nasty name and I don't want it to stick. This isn't something you should expect to see appear overnight, but it is something I intend to build and have started building already. It will be a web tool that will (hopefully) do the following.

1. Create a Moonkin ranking system and figure out who are (theoretically) the best Moonkins in the world
2. Expose the formulae and methodology used to calculate the rankings in point 1
3. Build on points 1 and 2 to enable a player to have an automated list of recommendations for how best to improve their Moonkin
4. Build on point 3 to allow a tiered improvement path rather than jumping from quested blues to ICC25 HC epics without a step in between.
5. Build on point 4 to include an estimated time frame so a player may see how long it may take for them to achieve their goal.
6. Devise a method to tie WoL logs in to the ranking system built in points 1 and 2 to help verify or adjust the accuracy of the rankings
7. In the event that points 1 through 6 are achieved, open up the system to allow it to be spanned out into other classes and specs

The first point may sound a bit grand, but in all honesty it is because I pride myself on being a well geared, both from level of gear and balance of gear, player. I am tired of seeing players above me on wow-heroes that have higher item level yet inferior (+hit trinket when above the hit cap?) gearing choices, obviously just gaming the Gearscore culture. I don't expect to be in the top 100, but it would be nice to have some means to figure out where I stand and figure out how my choices in the future affect that standing.

The eventual aim of this is to do away with the threads on forums where players simply ask for pointers as to how to improve their DPS. Such threads usually spawn a handful of the same few replies, and it would be good to be able to just provide users a link that can provide them advice for their Moonkin for the present time and for the future as and when they may upgrade.

Help needed

Now with all that out of the way. I am not a theorycrafter but I do have a strong grasp of mathematics. I could use input from the theorycrafters among you out there to help ensure that my formulae are accurate. I could also use any feedback from those of you who have opinions as to how to determine how good (or not) a particular player is based on the information within their armory profile (and eventually, any available combat logs).

If anyone would like to contribute Moonkin formulae and other such information (I will be checking the EJ threads when I get to that point) then I would be greatly appreciative. Any assistance in this endeavour would of course be accredited within the final end product.

Wish me luck!

Starfall buff

Starfall damage has been increased. Now causes 563 to 653 Arcane damage (Up from 433 to 503) and 101 Arcane damage (Up from 78) to all other enemies within 5 yards.

Couple this with this nice little bit from Ghostcrawler for the theorycrafters out there (source)

Hey Hamlet, sorry for any confusion. We probably should have just waited until you guys could test it on the PTR.

I think I figured out how you all are calculating the coefficient, so maybe this will make more sense. Again, I'm not 100% sure we're speaking the same language here. If I have time, maybe I will just log in with a moonkin and compare the before and after and post numbers.

Main star
Old coefficient: 4.8%
New coefficient: 37%

Splash damage
Old coefficient: 1.2%
New coefficient: 13%

As I said, these numbers are very generous. If Balance druids melt the world we may have to back off of them.

My initial thoughs were that this will do next to nothing, but then I spotted Gray Matter: :Starfall Buffed.

Graylos numbers indicate that the buff alone is about about a 4-5% boost to damage over the course of a single-target boss, which for a 1-point (albeit 51-pointer) talent isn't bad alone, ignoring the existing damage.

The secondary point which is more worth focusing on is that it means that the DPS increase from [Glyph of Starfall] and [Glyph of Insect Swarm] is now reversed to the tune of about 50 dps (according to Graylos theorycrafting).

This in turn means we can remove the [Glyph of Insect Swarm] in favour of [Glyph of Starfall], which in turn means that this buff is not only a 4-5% buff to damage, but also a 3% hit debuff added to the raid. This of course assumes all Moonkin currently go for the most beneficial DPS glyphs.

At the end of the day

Firstly, the patch notes are not final. Things may yet change more. Even if they go live today as-is I don't think that it's a bad buff. It won't alter the course of history, but really we didn't need anything that drastic.

Secondly, this shouldn't be viewed as simply a DPS buff, rather a DPS buff combined with a buff to avoidance through the 3% hit debuff applied by an unglyphed Insect Swarm.

Finally, where do I get my feathers on that lovely looking rocket!!!!

What can be done

Simply clean your computer. Here is a nice (slightly dated looking) Youtube video that explains more : Air duster video. Please excuse the attempted comedian. In fact here is a second link that takes you on a step by step guide as to how to clean your laptop : ehow link.

On that article the key point I find is point 6. I just hold my laptop on it's side, and spray air duster through the bottom air vents. All the dust comes out the side of the laptop, and hey presto the laptop runs cooler again. It is important to not turn the air duster upside down, as if you do that liquid may come out. This is undesirable.

Why do I need to care about heat?

There are 3 sides to this. The first bvious reason is that if your laptop overheats then it can get damaged. The chips within a computer are made up of very thin pathways. If they overheat, then they melt. For a comparison, if you get an incandescent light bulb and (carefully) smash the glass off you are left with a thin wire outside of a vacumn. If you then plug it in (this is not very safe) you will see that almost instantly the element melts. This is due to overheating. The thickness of a lightbulb element is far greater than that of the pathways within a CPU chip. Overheating melts these pathways and kills your computer (eventually).

Reason number 2, a simple one this. If your laptop is too hot to touch and you put it down on anything at all flammable, then potentially you have a fire hazard right there.

Reason number 3, modern computers have failsafes to help combat overheating. They do this by reducing the power to the components that are overheating. What this means to you is that while you are playing a game you will see the amount of power available to give you a nice high framerate will drop. In fact the more demand you put on the components, the more you will see the power drop because the increased demand will increase heat buildup.

Are you lost yet? To put it simply, a 10 man raid needs more power than a 5 man heroic. A 25 man raid needs more power than a 10 man raid. This is due to there being more players and therefore more spell effects. The increased power causes increased heat buildup. In turn your computer tries to turn down the power consumption to compensate. You then get your screen frozen as soon as the boss casts a debuff on everyone, you die, and the raid wipes.

Why does this happen over time?

There is a lot of dust just sitting around in the air. Over time the air circulation through your computer results in dust being deposited. The main places it will be deposited are on the heat sinks. This dust acts like a blanket that traps warm air next to the heat sink. This in turn reduces the ability for the fresh air bring pulled in to your computer to cool the heat sinks. This in turn causes your laptop to heat up.

Over time if left unattended this gets worse and worse, and then eventually you get to the point where either your computer catastrophically overheats, or it takes drastic action. Most modern computers will automatically kill the power (turn themselves off instantly) if the temperature gets to a point where it is becoming a potential hazard. If your computer turns itself off (and it's not due to Windows Update) then it is a sign that you may have overheating problems.

Why is this being posted here

This is not strictly a Moonkin post, however it seems lately that not a week goes by that at least 1 person I am raiding with complains of a poor framerate, either in my guild (you know who you are) or in a pug. Each time the advice is the same, so I thought I'd post up an article here that explains what can be done, and why it should be done.

If your computer experiences framerates in the order of 5 FPS then you won't really stand a chance of moving out of the fire (or equivilant effect). By performing simple housekeeping on your laptop (or desktop) you can ensure performance is maintained. As a side effect you are preventing damage caused by overheating, prolonging the life of your system and saving you money in the long run.

Example air dusters

Considering most of my readers seem to be from the UK and US, here are a couple of links to products on Amazon that will help you clean out your dusty air vents. On some of the alternative options, be careful because not all air dusters can be used upside down. If you get one that is not listed as invertible then make sure you do not spray it upside down. Doing so causes liquid to come out which of course is bad. I have listed what look to be about the cheapest good options that don't have idiotically high shipping costs.

• US Amazon.com, $5.99 inc. shipping
• UK Amazon.co.uk, 7.98 inc. shipping, Invertible

Introduction, Moonkin DPS variance

Moonkin DPS is heavily reliant on Eclipse. There's no way you can argue that. The periods during which a Moonkins DPS lowers is when they are applying DoTs, and when they are outside of an Eclipse.

If Blizzard had intended to simply increase our crit damage by 7% then they could have done that much more easily by doing just that. Instead they opted to implement Languish, and I think the reason is to try and reduce those DPS low-points without increasing the DPS high-points where we are chain critting.

Languish - DPSing so you don't have to

Ok so not so you don't have to. If you crit repeatedly back to back then an ICC geared Moonkin with Starfires casting faster than every 2 seconds will see no Languish ticks. What will happen is that the damage bank of Languish (more on this here) will keep increasing indefinitely.

As soon as you either stop critting, or maybe break to refresh DoTs or just simply move, Languish will then step in. It will boost your DPS during the periods of non-crit by discharging that stored damage over the course of 4 seconds. It not only increases your damage, but also increases your overall DPS as it is stepping in adding damage in the periods which previously would have reduced your DPS.

To put it another way, instead of having the crit-frenzy high-dps segments and the lower crit lower DPS segments, we still have the crit-frenzy high-dps segments but then a kind of middle ground, where for 4 seconds the extra damage stored in Languish discharges. We are still creatures of RNG, but this helps soften out the extremes. All being well windows of non-crits for more than 4 seconds will be limited.

Enough talk, what does it do for my DPS really?

In the fights that I checked logs on this week I saw Languish account for approx 3-5% of my DPS. The value of ticks appeared to range from a few hundred up to about 6k. Languish helps increase the value of crit, as the more you crit the more Languish charges up.

It changes your DPS variance. Due to the fact it never actually ticks while you are chain critting (which is when you will get your highest DPS anyway), and the fact it discharges when your crits dry up, it helps bring together your max and min DPS over the course of a fight. It increases your average DPS, but not your maximum DPS.

How Languish actually works

First of all, Graylo has put up a nice explanation of the mechanic. You can read his explanation here.

Graylo describes Languish as a bank. His analogy works quite well. The key to understanding Languish is to understand that every time you crit, the DoT duration resets to 4 seconds. Every time you crit an amount of damage equal to 7% of the damage of the crit (i.e. for a 20k crit 1.4k damage will be added) gets added to the damage inside Languish.

If 2 seconds pass without another crit, half of the damage stored within Languish hits the target. If a further 2 seconds pass without another crit, the rest of the damage stored within Languish hits the target.

For further details of this look at Graylos post. Just remember that the Languish damage is not affected by any damage modifiers. The original spell that critted was already affected by any spell damage modifiers etc. that you may have, and so the 7% took that into account. If Languish also was affected by spell damage modifiers, then it would be getting a double bonus.

Secondly, remember that no damage put into Languish is lost. The only time damage is lost is when the creature that Languish on is dead (or if Languish ticks while the enemy is shielded, or the spell is dispelled, that kind of thing).

In conclusion

I like Languish. It increases our total damage and therefore our average DPS but without increasing our peak DPS, which was already quite nice. Even though it is based off crits, inherently an RNG factor there, it actually helps reduce the variance in our DPS through the course of a fight. I'd like to think that in Cataclysm a Languish-like effect becomes a permanent part of our talent tree instead of just being a set bonus. Time will tell on that one.

Important points to remember

1. Do not expect to finish at the top of many damage meters unless you outgear others in the raid substantially. There will usually be better geared players, better skilled players, or just classes that are more balanced out there.
2. Even if everyone in the raid is equal gear and skill do not expect to finish at the top. In a world where all classes damage output is equal then it is fair to expect to be at the top 1 fight in 16 or so.
3. Your DPS while testing will not be the same as your DPS while raiding.
4. Due to a lack of raid buffs, haste will not soft cap at the same point when solo. You can get around this if you have a bored shaman with you.

I'm afraid that a lot of what will help you adjust your setup is not a simple number that you can look at. Ideally you need to have a good instinct for when your character is performing well, and when it isn't. Having Recount showing you nice numbers is all well and good, but when your Moonkin is functioning well hopefully it should be apparent when testing. Runs of good or bad luck can easily skew your recount numbers.

Before you start testing

It is important to ensure that you do as much as you can to maximise the benefit from your stats. There is no point exceeding a hard cap. As a balance druid the only hard cap you need to concern yourself with is the hit rating cap.

Next up review your talents, glyphs, enchants all that kind of thing. For now you should not bother yourself with gemming with the possible exception of ensuring that you have an active metagem in any hat you intend to trial. It isn't worth worrying about swapping Ametrines just yet as any regemming will mostly involve swapping around Reckless, Potent, and Veiled Ametrines. If you have the cash available then it will make for a fairer test if you gem and enchant before testing. Some useful links if you missed them :

• Moonkin talents
• Moonkin professions
• Moonkin glyphs
• Moonkin enchanting

Visit your bank and gather up a good selection of gearing options. Hopefully you are not one of those players that disenchants everything as soon as a higher item level item drops. Trinkets are a great example where lower item level does not always equate to a worse item. Illustration of the Dragon Soul is an iLevel 200 trinket that has proven useful through multiple patches (for example).

The only things that you should aim to maintain are the following :

• 4 piece tier 10 bonus (if available)
• Tier 9 or tier 10 idol (tier 10 is superior)
• 10% hit rating

Everything else apart from those 3 points are viable for rebalancing. Just because someone has posted up some stats that shows that 1 spell power is equal to 2.4 crit (these numbers are ficticious) does not make it strictly true. Practicalities are not always as cut and dry as the theorycraft makes it look. Weapons, trinkets, and rings are the main areas where you can easily shift the balance between haste and crit. As a Moonkin any rebalancing is likely to involve shifting the balance between these 2 stats more than anything else.

Testing procedure

If you are not already familiar with the Moonkin rotation then it may be worth checking out this flow chart. By familiar, I mean able to perform it without thinking about it. Within a raid if you spend time thinking about your rotation too much then you will have less time to think about what you are doing.

Next up, do not change too much at once. Try to maintain the same rotation for all gearsets. If you wish to change your rotation, do not change gear at the same time. If you wish to change multiple parts of your rotation then do so but one at a time. The reason for this is so that if something improves or gets worse then you need to be able to identify what caused it. If you change 10 things at once then you have no idea what changes were positive and which were negative.

Make sure that any testing runs are longer than 30 seconds. Ideally you should have a nice long test run. Personally I tend to DPS until I have no more mana. If you have someone else putting debuffs on the dummy then chances are that they will influence your DPS one way or another and so make it impossible to tell whether the differences are due to anything you changed. Ideally you want to have a nice quiet dummy with noone else hitting it. Darnassus is good for this (if you are Alliance).

If you have a good run and see a 1000 DPS improvement then do not stop there. You may have been lucky. Check your stats. Does your crit rating match up to about what you would expect? Did you really expect to see 100% Wrath crit rate? No? Didn't think so. The more repetitions you do, the less chance there is for a fluke skewing your results. It will take time, but in the long run it will be worth it to boost your DPS.

What should get changed

The main stats you will be adjusting are your Haste and Crit. To a lesser extent you may be changing your Spellpower also either directly or indirectly (by changing your Spirit). In WotLK items seem to always have a healthy amount of raw Spellpower, Intellect, and Stamina. They seem to share the same set of points across Spirit, Haste, Crit, and Hit.

In any gearset you should be aiming for 10% hit rating, even if you are Alliance (see this post for the reason). After that you see all the advice about hitting the haste soft cap and crit soft cap. Treat this as advice, not a strict rule. The point of this exercise is to experiment and see what works for you. I highlighted weapons as a good place to start, and this is because they usually have a massive amount of stats on them. This can make it easy to shift the balance between haste and crit drastically in order to see what would happen.

Don't be afraid to do tests without a full set of armour. Try to keep Spellpower constant whilst reducing haste and crit to see what that does for the general feel of the rotation. Your DPS will most likely be down, but if reducing haste by 100 makes your rotation feel a lot smoother then chances are that you would benefit more from an increased amount of crit.

Conclusion : The rules of testing

As previously mentioned, there are only 3 strict rules that I would personally follow regarding gear choices.

• Get the 4 piece tier 10 bonus
• Get the tier 10 idol
• Get 10% hit rating

And to sum up the rest of the advice.

• Do not change too much at a time
• Do not be afraid to drastically change the balance between haste and crit
• Find an isolated level 80 heroic dummy that doesn't have someone else hitting it
• Repeat tests as much as is viable to reduce the effect of runs of good or bad luck
• Do not expect to be the top DPSer on every fight
• Do not do 30 second tests as they will not give a good illustration of sustained DPS. Aim for at least a few minutes.
• Don't use Starfall when testing, it will skew your results due to the proximity of other dummies
• Make sure you have plenty of water to reduce downtime between tests

There are no other strict rules. Never be afraid to try out new things. If you have anything to add to the above or any comments then I'd love to hear them. I hope that the above helps you find out what your weaknesses are so you are able to work on them and come out a stronger Moonkin.

Starting the rotation (the pull)

The pull may last for just a few seconds, however it is the point at which you set up your buffs for the fight to come. The casting order here is not important, however I cast in the order shown for specific reasons.

Force of Nature is cast just before the pull. Most fights will last longer than the cooldown of Force of Nature. I find it wastes a little bit of time positioning the trees and so the most efficient way of getting them out fast, in my experience, is to position the spawn point before the boss is pulled. As soon as the boss is pulled, click your trees into action.

Faerie Fire is second up because it increases the spell hit rating by 3%. That may not sound like much, but I have now and again missed even this initial Faerie Fire. This ensures that all the rest of your spells will hit, as well as the spells of everyone else that relies on your hit bonus from Improved Faerie Fire.

Wrath sneaks in third for a few reasons. Firstly, it may proc Lunar Eclipse. Due to the transportation time of Wrath, by the time it actually hits (and so can potentially proc Eclipse) you will have finished your pull. Secondly it gets Earth and Moon up for the raid. Thirdly if it crits you get a small bonus from Languish. All in all, this is a nice place to sneak in a Wrath.

Insect Swarm is fourth for 2 reasons. Firstly because Wrath will be the first spell you cast when you start casting your main rotation and so Improved Insect Swarm will improve your damage. Secondly becuase it ticks once every 2 seconds. If you have your tier 10 idol this will help ramp up your crit rating faster.

Moonfire is next so that it too can start ticking increasing your crit rating once every 3 seconds. It should also be able to extend it (using glyphed Starfire) so that it doesn't need refreshing until after your first lunar eclipse.

Starfall is last. This assumes that it is safe to do so. This shouldn't really be done on Faction Champions usually or the Blood Princes. Any fight where there is anything with loose aggro or crowd control floating around is a no-go for Starfall. All being well Starfall will bring Natures Grace up for your main rotation.

Main rotation

I won't break this down too much. The idea here is to maximise the amount of time you are casting whilst in appropriate eclipses whilst minimising any DPS loss caused by clipping the GCD.

The important thing to remember that if you hesitate, that is lost DPS time. It doesn't matter if you cast the sub-optimal spell just so long as you cast something.

If you are in a fight where you are needing to move a lot then it is sometimes best to throw out a Wrath at a bad time (because it can complete before something like Tear Gas interrupts you). Another point about throwing out the wrong spell is that you can prevent Eclipse coming up during a transition phase.

The prefered eclipse to have is Lunar (Starfire crit) simply because Starfire does not sink below the GCD. In an ideal world you will be alternating Lunar, Solar, Lunar, Solar pretty much as soon as each Eclipse expires.

DoT check

DoTs keep the damage rolling while you are busy doing other things. It is good to keep as many as possible running for this reason. Improved Insect Swarm also increases the damage you get through Wrath and Starfire either directly or by increasing your crit rating.

It is also a good idea to keep Insect Swarm up (when unglyphed) because it does provide that little bit extra survivability to the tanks. 3% less chance to hit may not sound like much, but it may be that 1 hit that kills the tank that ends up missing.

In an ideal world, you should not clip your DoTs short. In a real world you will often find yourself clipping them short by a tick or so maybe. Around the last second or two of Eclipse you will need to make judgement calls. If you can squeeze out 1 more eclipse Starfire then that is probably more important than refreshing Insect Swarm, for example.

It is a good idea to always refresh DoTs while moving, becuase there's not a lot else you can do. Just as long as it doesn't distract you from staying alive that is.

Updates

edit 17th Feb 2010 : Following further tests and following feedback from other readers I have adjusted the chart a little bit. I am still not happy with it, and will do a series of posts that will break down the rotation into finer detail. Once they are done I will update this post to link + use the new charts. Changes to the chart, 1 : addition of Wrath to the pull spell order in order to proc Eclipse. 2 : Correction of error when checking to see whether to cast Force of Nature. 3 : Correction of error that indicated that DoTs should be clipped. Do not clip DoTs, it's not worth it.

Moonkin Single-Target Spell Rotation Flow Chart

As always I would love to hear any feedback, comments, or suggestions about this. I have tried my best to document the process I go through while raiding to decide which spell to cast next. Ultimately I am not saying that this is the one and only rotation to use, I am saying that this is what works well for me and fits most situations.

Some fights have mechanics that will shift the spell rotation further in favour of Starfire. Hodir and Vezax for example both have mechanics that increase casting speed significantly. In these situations it is not uncommon to see Wrath dip below 1 second in normal casting, let alone with Heroism up. At the end of the day, don't be afraid to deviate from the norm if something else works for a given situation.