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I've recently been playing boomkin and thoroughly enjoying it, hitting 6million on the damage meters, along with top kills etc. I'm not a moonkin expert, I just want to share information I've gathered.
As many of you aspiring boomkins know, there is little information of a standard moonkin build for pvp. I would like to dedicate this thread to bring all known information about boomkin pvp into one place, acting as a guide. In my searches, I looked up high rated balance druids, searched google, looked through arenajunkies for any bits of information, along with mmo-champion forums. Covered in this write-up: Where to start Haste Stats Glyphs Gems Talents How to play effectively Openers Tactics Where to start? I personally started with thinking crit was the way to go. However, I began to notice crit was not stacking up very well, compared to a feral druid who can get 40% crit without much problem. I then thought about going mastery but I realized there is no synchronization with talents and other stats that are beneficial enough to stack mastery. Getting right into it. The trick is haste. Why haste? Firstly because of the talent Nature's Grace, which gives you 15% haste after you cast Moonfire, Regrowth, or Insect Swarm, lasting 15 sec. This effect has a 1 minute cooldown. When you gain Lunar or Solar Eclipse, the cooldown of Nature's Grace is instantly reset. This means, quite simply that: more haste = more Nature's Grace = more mana regen. The next thing to synchronize with haste and Nature's Grace is the talent Shooting Starts which gives you a 4% chance when you deal damage with your Moonfire or Insect Swarm to instantly reset the cooldown of your Starsurge and reduce its cast time by 100%. Lasts 12 sec. Why does this work with haste? Because haste provides more ticks from Moonfire and Insect Swarm, plus causing Nature's Grace for extra haste, allowing Shooting Stars to proc frequently. Finally, haste allows more Starsurges as mentioned due to increased dot ticks. Starsurge will allow you to constantly be in, out and back in an eclipse state constantly providing all of the above benefits even more. More starsurges you say? Well they also decrease the cooldown of Starfall by 5 seconds due to the glyph. Haste also provides faster Entangling Roots, Cyclone, heals, and most importantly damaging casts. From what I have gathered, haste is the most beneficial stat to stack at this current moment. With crit possibly being second, simply because you will be spamming Starsurge everywhere during large group encounters. Stats: Hit cap*>int>195 spell pen>haste>crit>mastery *You will gain your hit from the talent Balance of Power which gives hit rating equal to your spirit. There isn't a need to stack resiliance gems because you will get around 3.9 resi easily with all vicious gear. Prime Glyphs: Insect Swarm Moonfire Starsurge Major Glyphs: Solar Beam Barskin Starfall or Monsoon Minor Glyphs: Mark of the Wild Dash Unburdened Rebirth or Aquatic Form Gems: Meta Burning Shadowspirit Diamond (+54 int & +3% crit damage) Ember Shadow Spirit Diamond (+54 int & +2% max mana) Red Brilliant Inferno Ruby (+40 int) Yellow Reckless Ember Topaz (+20 int & +20 haste) Potent Ember Topaz (+20 int & +20 crit) Blue Stormy Ocean Sapphire (+50 spell pen) Purified Demonseye (+20 int & +20 spirit) Vidid Dream Emerald (+20 resi & +25 spell pen)* *Use this if you are getting your spell pen cap via 70 spell pen on cloak, 2 50 spell pen gems. You can also just get the spell pen neck and put 40 int on cloak and 20 int & 20 spirit on blue gems. General talent build: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0IfMdRGokRuzZMcz:RabrRMzcm The 1 pt in Furor allows for a chance to get 10 rage for that Bash, letting you use the Enrage for other things. It also provides an extra 5% max mana. |
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How to play boomkin effectively?
Firstly, if possible: always start the engagement in cat form! Boomkin is very hard to control an enemy if you get opened on by most classes. However, you getting the opener is huge because 1) the element of surprise and also 2) less chance of getting countered. How to open? Here is where playstyle, circumstance comes up because you can open in a number of ways. Pounce Opener: Here you will sneak up to an enemy and Pounce them. If it is a caster you will root them out of the pounce into a Solar Beam. Apply your dots but do not cast Starfall until they have silenced/stunned you, unless you can keep them in the Solar Beam. Usually, you want to position your self so you can Typhoon them back into the Solar Beam. On a melee, I like to Pounce them, and then use Force of Nature and popping Nature's Grasp. When they are rooted you can pump damage into them or lay down a line of Wild Mushroom to provided your kiting grounds. Use Typhoon to knock them back on to the mushrooms. Cyclone Opener: In this opener you will get at maxmimum distance and Cyclone them. Next you will put Wild Mushrooms at their feet and detonate them as the cyclone finishes, this is super effective if you are in a Solar Eclipse. Another benefit to this opener is they will sometimes use their trinket on the Cyclone which will let you root and Solar Beam them for the full duration most of the time, which is a huge advantage. Non-stealth Opener: Simply pre-hot your self, set your Wild Mushrooms in a triangle, large enough to allow the edges of the detonation to slightly touch, allowing you to kite in a circle. Solar Beam is your best friend... ...especially vs those dks. If you're fighting a dk Solar Beam him straight away, because silence stops them from using anti-magic shield, lichbourne and other abilities. Do the same with enh shamans because trying to kite them is pointless. Vs classes like these you will just have to tank them, if you're alone. However, sitting in a Solar Beam will help you a lot. Proper usage of Solar Beam: Never just use a Solar Beam on its own. Always root them first, or allow another class to do it for you. What you will want to do is spread dots on all targets and then drop a Solar Beam on a rooted healer, then proceed to either nuke the healer or destroy a dps target. When a mage catches lots of people in a ring of frost, you can Solar Beam them for mass silence. Another useful tactic is to Solar Beam at a doorway or choke point, soiled with Fungal Growth, forcing people to either wait or run slowly through the Solar Beam, to only get Typooned back into it. How to deal with rogues: Run. By this I mean dot them, get Faerie Fire on them asap, save your starfall and Force of Nature. Once he vanishes, go into bearform, tank the opener with Frenzied Regen, pop Nature's Grasp, travel form, re-dot, kite, mushrooms, kite, heal, root, then blow him up. If you're feeling extra special, go cat form and put rake on him to stop that vanish opener. Last but not least. Ledges, ramps, and objects which block line of sight are your friends. What you want to do is fight near them if possible. Ramps and ledges add the extra "push" to your Typoon spell and can often stop a fight completely if you can knock someone off a big drop. However, generally you will knock them down a slope and put Wild Mushrooms down so they run slowly back to you, as you pump damage into them. Final tips: Switch forms a lot, do not just sit in moonkin form. Playing a rather weak, support spec, it is critical to use every advantage you can find to dispatch of an enemy. Don't be afraid to use cat form dash, shift in and out of moonkin form to get out of roots/snares, soothe those damn warriors, heal your self, cyclone a warrior's spell reflect. Abuse cyclone on healers. A lot of this information is relative to the battleground environment. When I eventually step into the arena with my boomkin I will try to write tactics for that too. However, arena info can be found in the below link. Here you will find other places of information: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/919692-PvP-Guide-Moonkin-4.1-4.2 http://www.arenajunkies.com/rankings/battleground/?region_id=All&battlegroup_id=-1&realm_id=-1&faction_id=-1&class_id11=11 Thank you for reading this. I will continue to edit, post new things and improve the quality of this information if wanted. Boomkin is very fun |
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Edited by Fayte on 02/08/11 22:47 (BST)
Very nice, clear and constructive post :)
Your tips on tactics will be very useful for most PvP Moonkins, especially stuff on the mushrooms, as most Moonkins dont know how to use them effectively or dont even use them at all. Tho ur tactics are useful, i think they might be too much of a perfect world :P Ur strategies are mostly based around 1v1 situations and while they're very well done on that, they become quite unrealistic when theres a healer involved with the enemy target. Its very sad that roots are just next to useless vs melee classes in Arenas when they have a dispeller, and then all we have left are Typhoon and Mushrooms (cyclone does not really help). Typhoon gets negated by charge abilities and Mushrooms are often just too hard to cast due to the fast pace of Arenas. Realistically, it is very often that our CDs get countered easily by most classes' abilities and we end up a sitting duck when those CDs run out (starfall/typhoon/NG), thats the biggest problem. Switch forms a lot, do not just sit in moonkin form. Playing a rather weak, support spec, it is critical to use every advantage you can find to dispatch of an enemy. Don't be afraid to use cat form dash, shift in and out of moonkin form to get out of roots/snares, soothe those damn warriors, heal your self, cyclone a warrior's spell reflect. Abuse cyclone on healers. That just doesnt happen in Arenas even though it can be useful in BGs and duels. In 1v1 situations our CDs and shapeshifting utilities might seem ok and useful and be JUST enough to get a kill, but once we go beyond that in 3v3 etc, our CDs are totally lackluster. Mages have CS every 24 secs while our solar beam is 1min, Mages can Frost Nova approximately twice every 20 seconds or so while our Nature's grasp is 1min again. Mages have Ring of frost while we have Mushrooms, Mages Have iceblock but we only have Barkskin, not to mention they have Deep Freeze, Blink and Cold Snap to reset all these Cooldowns! Just from these comparisons, u can already see why Moonkins are so much more squishy than Mages because of our lack of strong instants on shorter cooldowns. Our 15% dmg reduction, our ability to heal and our medicore dps-on-the-move/over-time just DOESNT COMPENSATE enough for these differences in CDs. Our CDs run out too quickly and we have no effective way to survive while we wait for those CDs to come back....its so sad. Locks are kinda in the same boat as us when surviving vs melee but at least they have Fears, Deathcoil and Teleport that are reliable to save their butts. Even when they run out of CDs they still have their increased healing taken etc to help them survive while Moonkins do not. Moonkins really do need buffs in the form of more reliable CCs and/or plain dmg reduction/+healing, at least thats how i see it. I just hope all these Moonkin concern posts dont go to waste and hope that Blizz realizes our flaws and does sumthing about it. Anyway i do really appreciate ur efforts with this small Moonkin PvP guide but ultimately its up to Blizz whether or not we'll become more viable :) Moonkins currently are too dependent on gear due to us being reliant on our DPS to kill sum1 before they kill us, all because of our medicore CDs and survival. Until Blizz give us some sort of survival ability to enable us to survive better and use more hard-casts, Moonkins will remain a bad PvP spec :( |
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Thank you for the feedback Fayte. :)
LSD2 is a good comp for arena. Although, I'mleaving out arena tactics for the reserved bit until I start playing the comp. We did bg today with 4 boomkins, it was amazing. Most fun I've had in a long long time during wow. Solar eclipse, plant shrooms on flag, victim walks on... BOOM one shot him. Its freaking hilarious. Also recking healers with multiple solar beams. Pretty much decimate everything in your pth. Boomkin lovers, YOU MUST TRY THIS LOL |
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Edited by Fayte on 03/08/11 00:01 (BST)
Hehe 4 ferals and its even more OP :P
Ye LSD2 is gd i played it last season to 2.2 BUT its still bad vs melee cleaves like TSG etc. The truth is tho, the team would do so much better if u swap the Boomkin with a Mage and become Mage/Lock/Rsham, the number 1 Wiz cleave! xD So ye even if LSD2 has potential, Moonkins are still no where near they should be sigh.... To make this post more fun tho, heres some fun spells i made up! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dance of Doom (Physical Ability) lasts 5 seconds, Channeled 2 min Cooldown The Moonkin enters a Dance of Doom, psychologically forcing the enemy target to also dance with the Moonkin because of their awesomeness. Enemies under this effect cannot act until the dance is over. The Moonkin recovers 5% health every second for 5 seconds while using this spell. *breaks only by CCs, NOT spell interuptions *dmg does NOT break this effect *can be trinketed ps: DoT up + starfall > Dance of Doom! GG! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATHER DANCE (Physical ability) Instant, 1min Cooldown 8% of base mana The Moonkin spins like a Tornado, instantly dealing X physical damage and tossing all enemy players within 5 yards around the Moonkin into the air. While in the air, enemies cannot move and becomes immune to melee attacks but are still vulnerable to spells and effects. They can cast instant spells but cannot use cast-time abilities or any melee attacks. This effect cannot miss, be dodged, parried or be dispelled. Lasts 4 seconds. *This is NOT a movement imparing effect (so cannot be freedomed etc) *This CAN be trinketed. *This is Physical (goes through AMS and cloaks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Moonkins just got funner and more survivability! :P |
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Ty for this guide but i mind asking why have u got Lunar shower, isnt it uselss since ur not gonna be spamming moonfire, also why not glyph of wrath for extra damage.
and btw i never thought mushrroms would be used in pvp:P |
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Sticky requested
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Ty for this guide but i mind asking why have u got Lunar shower, isnt it uselss since ur not gonna be spamming moonfire, also why not glyph of wrath for extra damage. You don't often get the chance to spam wrath. Also, the key to doing well in a battleground as a boomkin is to literally dot everything (including pets), which gives healers a hard time and also procs the instant starsurges more. Mushrooms are excellent, especially in tight places such as the tunnel in wsg. They are great for placing around a flag to stop ninja caps and serve as a method to kite. Completely ruins rogues and dks which have no ability to break snares outside of cloak and ams. |
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ty for reply, one more thing please. Did u take Gale Winds cause of the cyclone radius increase?
over all=) much help for the future |
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Ye take Gale Winds always, that 8 yards extra on cyclone is important for Booms even though the other benefits to Typhoon and Hurricane are very minor for PvP.
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For in arena:
in case the enemy team has a healer, your opener Cyclone healer, get dots on focus target,pop starfall, cyclone healer , bear form bash healer, switch cat form and use skullbash, rake/rip(get some fast red dots up, use kitty stun. mookin form, root+solar beam healer and kill the other dps. it's a great opener, also because you can re-cyclone the healer after solar beam wears off again. dont forget that tyfoon is an interrupt aswell. if starsurge procs... well... shoot it at focus target you shold try it in arena. if they dont react fast enough and stun you, they will loose a dps |
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Awesome post!
By the way, when it mentions Hit Cap, for PvP would it be the same Hit Cap required for PvE? (1742) |
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Really nice guide on moonkin pvp, i kinda gave up the BG's but this make me wanna try again and see how it work out...
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Hey, you say 1 point in furor has a chance to give you 10 rage, but the other fantastic thing about it is, you retain 33 energy in catform. This way you can instantly go catform and skullbash a spell you want to interupt.
Also I can't see you mentioning thorns, which is fantastic against a bladestorm or any rogue. Anyone here have any tip for taking down death knights? They are very hard to get away from, have excelent damage at range and anti magic shield when I first get to put out some damage. Any tips would be appreciated. |
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Great guide, wish I could have read it before having to realize all of this by myself the hard way :p
One thing you don't mention about 1/3 Furor is that it allows you to shift cat -> Stampeding Roar right away. The great thing about this is that Stampeding Roar doesn't fade when you shapeshift, which, combined with Moonkin's ability to break roots / snares on shapeshifts might just be one of the most powerful kiting tools available. As a matter of fact it's also a great way of getting away from DKs / Rogues ; Wars are less of a problem since you can basically Typhoon them once they've charged you and either flee or gain some time for kiting (just have to be careful of Heroic Leap). Generally speaking, it's best to keep Stampeding Roar for defensive purposes and Dash if you need to catch up with a fleeing target (which allows you to get close enough to either Cyclone the guy or Root / Beam him). Great job whatsoever, thanks for the tips :p |
