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#1 Oct 10 2010 at 1:52 PM Rating: Excellent
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Hi there and welcome to the 401 Druid Sticky.

Normally a sticky like this is for everyone and I would welcome you into the world of druid. Then proceed to tell you just about everything you need to know. But since this is that magical in between time of xpacs I think we will assume you are level 80 and raiding in ICC.

As per request the new sticky will have more links to jump around between sections. Since this is a temporary sticky, as it will need to be redone once Cataclysm full opens up, I would appreciate feedback on its layout, organization and structure.

              Table of Contents

    The basics
  • Everything you need to know about druids.
  • Toys we can all use or could all use.
  • Basic leveling to 80 information.

    Moonkin is for moon stuff.
  • New Eclipse and You
  • DoTs vs Nukes
  • The Balance of talents and glyphs
  • How to look good in leather.
  • Rotation Rotation!

    Why is animals on my face?
  • Is it a cat, a bear or a catbear?
  • Attack table? No, attack monsters...
  • To specialize or to not specialize, that is the question.

    Cat form is for fite.
  • Savage Meow and Nom Nom Nom
  • Dude where's my bleeds?
  • JOHN MADDEN
  • What do all these numbers on my gear mean?
  • Talents an glyphs for exceptional felines.

    Bear druid is for tank.
  • Survival buttons
  • How to Mangle, Maul, Pulverize and Lacerate your foes into submission.
  • Strength vs Agility jewelry and other gear concerns.
  • Talent for bears.

    Tree druid is for heal.
  • OMG NAO DURID R LIEK NO BARK ALL BITE LOL
  • Infinite mana was fun.
  • How to stop spamming Rejuv.
  • Stats that I like and want on my gear.
  • Filling in your tree.

    Summary
  • What to expect before Cataclysm comes out.
  • Where are we going?
  • Stuff on the horizon.

    Appendix
  • Alla Posters who contributed.
  • Web Sources.
  • Shout outs.



Edited, Oct 10th 2010 10:21pm by DruidSock
#2 Oct 10 2010 at 1:52 PM Rating: Excellent
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63 posts
    The Basics


  • Everything you need to know about druids.

  • Druids are a shape shifting class. We can change forms to do any role in the game, if properly spec'd and geared. The class is very versitile and using all of your forms is key to surviving out in the world.


  • Toys we can all use or could all use.

  • Thorns (level 5): Is no longer for bears. With a 20 second duration and 45 second buff it has been shifted to a caster only spell. It does do way more damage but is now more of a PvP tool.

    Cat Form (level 8): Was at 20 before. Will let all druids have 2 levels of cat form being decent before talent tree selection.

    Bear Form (level 15): used to be at level 10 after doing the quest. Quest is gone now so it is now just a waiting game. So be extra careful until level 15 as bear form is no longer there to help save you.

    Omen of Clarity (level 20): What was once the reason why everyone would sub-spec Resto is now baseline.

    Rebirth (level 20): Is back on a 30 minute CD and restores 20% HP and 20% mana of their mana but can be glyphed to 100% for both.

    Insect Swarm (level 20): Is now baseline.

    Skull Bash (level 22): An interrupt usable in cat or bear form. On a 1 minute CD but can be talented, feral only, into a proper 10 second CD interrupt.

    Remove Corruption (level 24): All our poison and curse removal in one handy spell. Resto can talent to dispel friendlies.

    Faerie Fire (level 24): Is now a stacking armor debuff that reduces mob armor by 4% per stack. This goes for feral and caster versions.

    Soothe (level 28): Is now an enrage dispel.

    Mark the Wild (level 30): Now lasts an hour and is party/raid wide by default with no reagent cost. It also shares a buff spot with Kings and only boosts Int, Stam, Agi, Str and resistances.

    As a side note spell ranks are gone and spells just scale with your level as the default.


  • Basic leveling to 80 information.

  • As always feral will be the fastest to level as you don't use mana to kill mobs so it can be saved for healing. This reduces downtime so you can level faster. Also you can tank in the LFG tool and tanks don't have to wait in the queue.

    The other specs will work but feral is more efficient.

    Edited, Dec 14th 2010 10:16pm by DruidSock
    #3 Oct 10 2010 at 1:52 PM Rating: Excellent
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      Moonkin is for moon stuff.


  • New Eclipse and You

  • Eclipse has under gone radical changes. It is now the Balance mastery and has a default UI implementation. It is a bar that swings between full of tow types of energy, Lunar and Solar. When it hits 100 of either type you gain a buff to the opposite type of damage, Arcane vs Nature. Nukes wont generate power after their proc until the other proc happens. You casting the opposite nuke lowers the bar and slowly starts to swing it the other way.

    You basically start off pushing towards Lunar or Solar eclipse, hit it, then go to the other one in a cycle until everything is dead.


  • DoTs vs Nukes

  • Wrath (level 1): Is 2.5 second base cast now and generates 13 Lunar Power.

    Starfire (level 8): Now generates 20 Solar Power.

    Starsurge (level 10): Hardest hitting nuke we have. Generates which ever type of power that pushes you closer to entering an Eclipse state.

    DoTs now truck. They need to be keep up as much as possible. Plus they can proc an instant Starsurge which is awesome. Otherwise they haven't changed.


  • The Balance of talents and glyphs

  • This spec will be what you use at 80. Glyphs aren't final and some should be swapped out for fights, Typhoon and Saurfang as an example. Mana has been a concern as of the current state of things so Innervate yourself as needed since critical strike no longer provide mana.


  • How to look good in leather.

  • For starters cloth is now a no go as you lose out on your leather specialization and 5% Int. Hit needs to be capped and you will need more hit as hit buffs are gone. So get to 446 Hit rating with some combination of hit and spirit. Reforge stuff into Spirit instead of hit as Spirit can be used to heal as well and will make sharing gear easier.

    Haste beats Crit hands down though as DoTs scaling with haste is huge. So get hit capped then focus on haste, sacrifice crit to achieve this goal. Haste has gotten a boost mainly from DoTs now scaling, Wrath having a longer base cast time, and the nerf to Nature's Grace.

    Once again gem for socket bonuses as much as possible. Int being red, Haste being yellow and Spirit being blue make this easily possible and desired.


  • Rotation Rotation!

  • Faerie Fire is now a melee debuff so don't use it unless you are the only one who has the debuff.

    Starsurge should be kept on CD. DoTs should be at 100% uptime, you can clip them a bit but shouldn't. Losing a DoT for a few seconds to wait for the right eclipse to proc is fine. Otherwise just push the nuke that will move your Eclipse bar.

    Spamming Moonfire during movement is better than doing nothing as long as you have the mana for it to not kill you later.

    Edited, Oct 16th 2010 2:08am by DruidSock
    #4 Oct 10 2010 at 1:53 PM Rating: Excellent
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      Why is animals on my face?


  • Is it a cat, a bear or a catbear?

  • Feral is basically the same melee DPS spec we all know and love. With the new trees cat, bear and catbear will all be valid specs. Bear as of now has more changes to the rotation, cats is still very similar to the Wrath version. The combo spec is far more efficient than it was in Wrath and is a serious option almost to the level of tBC.


  • Attack table? No, attack monsters...

  • With the new tree and the loss of PP hit and expertise are now more important than ever. Finishers not refunding on misses will hurt your DPS in a noticeable fashion. Since we still attack from behind when possible to avoid dodges hit capping will take priority over expertise but should should be capped as it will be fairly easy to take blue sockets with agi/hit and reforge gear to cover the rest.

    Aside from that the combat ratings have been adjusted so that now you require 200 expertise rating and 247 hit rating to cap them. Bears of course have a higher cap for expertise but hitting it is not as crucial as it is for cats.


  • To specialize or to not specialize, that is the question.

  • With the newer smaller talent trees and the level cap still being 80 we have less options in the resto tree. Actually you can only spend three points there that relate to tanking or DPS. While this will change to a degree when we can level again as of now the fact is with 33 points to dump in feral the ability to have one feral spec that can both tank and DPS is very real.

    The spec doesn't really miss out on any crucial tank or DPS talents. The lack of glyphs is on purpose as you would have to change them and gear depending on your main role in an encounter. The new glyph system will make swapping glyphs around that much easier. This will enable you to effectively have three specs as you can go Feral and then either Balance or Resto for the second one.

    The versatility and easy usage of this spec will make it strong option for people who are in guilds that need more flexibility. People who PuG a lot will also get a larger benefit as being able to bring more to the table means you get to go to the table more.

    Edited, Oct 16th 2010 2:15am by DruidSock
    #5 Oct 10 2010 at 1:53 PM Rating: Excellent
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      Cat form is for fite.


  • Savage Meow and Nom Nom Nom

  • Savage Roar (level 76): Only affects white damage now. This is a huge nerf, especially with the removal of FAP. We don't benefit from weapon damage currently.

    Nom Nom Nom (talented): I refuse to use the real name of the skill but it gives us an execute phase. When mobs, will typically be bosses, are under 25% health FB resets Rip.

    Primal Madness (talented): This talent is terrible. Yes, that seems weird since it increases your maximum energy but it also takes it away at the end. As in if you had 44/120 energy and it ended you would know have 24/100 energy and can no longer do anything. This is a terrible talent as currently implemented.

    Tiger's Fury: From accounts I have seen so far the buff is not dynamic. Keep that in mind for your bleeds.

    Savage Roar got nerfed hard. It only affecting white attacks has severely hurt bleed damage. Nom nom nom gives an execute phase. Not having to spend CPS and energy on Rip will be a huge DPS increase. PM is terrible for the reasons given above. The TF change will have a huge impact on your rotation that I'll get into shortly.


  • Dude where's my bleeds.

  • Bleeds now account for a lower damage total. This is from the lack of SR boosting yellow damage and the loss of a large chunk of AP from your weapon. White damage will be very high compared to your other attacks. This doesn;t mean you can get lazy with bleeds or clip them unnecessarily. Rake also crits by default, so 4T10 is no longer required.


  • JOHN MADDEN

  • Same basic idea for the priority systems as we had in Wrath. SR and Rake last longer so you should be able to FB more which when glyphed wont take all your energy. Bleeds aren't as harshly penalized for clipping but it is still a DPS loss.

    The biggest change is due to TF not being dynamic with regards to bleeds. This means you have to use TF every 32 seconds and results in two seconds on Rake down time per cycle. This means when you open you are not going to Rake until you have four or five CPs so you can use TF then Rake and Rip thus starting the TF cycle.

    After that just keep SR running refresh Rip as it expires and let Rake be off for one second after it drops. This will let you sync half of your bleeds with TF and maximize uptime while minimizing clipping. So while the priority system gets a bit easier with some aspects the TF issues adds some complexity back in to the mix.


  • What do all these numbers on my gear mean?

  • Agility is the money stat. Gives 2AP per point and some crit. Strength gives nothing so avoid it, that should be easy. After agility that we prefer crit. Haste looked sexy at first but ends up not being able to have a huge impact as the energy regen isn't as good as the crit. We will be flooded with crit since ArP is gone and we will be gemming Agility.

    The main caveats to this is that you might end up being crit capped on white hits, which is bad and you need to get Exp and Hit capped since we lost PP. Should be easy to do. You you gems to get all your bonuses then reforge as needed, get Exp and Hit capped then crit to the cap then haste.

    As far as T10 goes ther is no longer a need to have 4T10 as the bonus is redundant with the 401 changes as Rake will crit by default.


  • Talents an glyphs for exceptional felines.

  • PM as said before is terrible and since you can't get MS anyway there is no reason to go more than 3 points in resto. This leaves us one talent spec. This is the cat spec. You have two free points to put where ever you want.

    Edited, Oct 16th 2010 2:10am by DruidSock
    #6 Oct 10 2010 at 2:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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      Bear druid is for tank.


  • Survival buttons

  • Frenzied Regeneration (level 52): Increases maximum health by 30% and puts you at 30% health if below 30% while converting rage to health.
    Survival Instincts (talented): Is now a 60% damage reduction for four seconds on a five minute CD.

    Barkskin has not changed, FR got buffed and SI got both buffed and nerfed. SI is a way more powerful CD but has a far longer CD now. The FR glyph should end up being more effective and not killing your rage is always nice. Keep your 4T10 for as long as possible as having an extra CD is never a bad thing.


  • How to Mangle, Maul, Pulverize and Lacerate your foes into submission.

  • Mangle (level 10): Hard six second CD that can't be reduced by talent.
    Maul (level 15): Now has a three second CD and is on the GCD.
    Swipe (level 36): Has a six second CD now. Good bye spam tanking.
    Lacerate (level 66): Now only stacks to three.
    Pulverize (talented): New attack that is based of weapon damage plus ~943 times your Lacerate stack count. Also boosts crit by 3% times number of Lacerate stacks for 10 seconds.
    Berserk (talented): Lacerate ticks have a 30% to reset the CD on Mangle and it costs no rage in addition to the old effect.

    With the change to Maul it should now take all of your OoC procs as Maul trucks and is expensive. FFF is still a threat move and both it and Mangle should be kept on CD. Berserk procs will be awesome and used quickly as I am unsure of the CD on the proc. Lacerate is your spam move and you should Pulverize if you are at three stacks as Lacerate no longer hides it threat in the DoT portion and is fairly front loaded. Still keep up Demo shout and use BS, SI and FR as defensive CDs.


  • Strength vs Agility jewelry and other gear concerns.

  • Stop using gear with Strength unless it has armor on it as well. The agility stuff is better as defense is gone and we get dodge from agility in addition to AP which we obviously no longer get from Strength. Trinkets are still tank trinkets as they are Stamina and Armor both which are better than agility for bears.

    Otherwise it is still all about Stamina. Hit and expertise are still very important and it is easy to grab jewelry and backs that have them over crit and haste. You should be seeking pieces like the Seal of Many Mouths. So focus on grabbing pieces with hit and expertise up to caps them choose crit over haste.

    Honestly just reforge haste into hit or expertise, cap hit as it should be easy with agility pieces then push expertise to the hard cap. Keep your crit as you need it for SD. Still gem/enchant for stamina.

    Also keep your 4T10 for as long as possible, the extra CD is huge.


  • Talent for bears.

  • The bear spec at 80 has 3 points to do what ever with and no strong glyph choices. This plus the lack of ability to effectively spend more than three points is why combo spec is a serious option.

    Edited, Oct 16th 2010 2:17am by DruidSock
    #7 Oct 10 2010 at 2:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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      Tree druid is for heal.


  • OMG NAO DURID R LIEK NO BARK ALL BITE LOL

  • Tree form is gone, well passive tree form is gone. Most of the buffs of old tree form have been baked into our spells so the loss of it is not a nerf. Plus we now have it as a cooldown that does a lot of cool tricks. Other spells have also changed but Tree form is the biggie.

    Regrowth (level 12): Now has a 1.5 second cast time but heals for less.
    Lifebloom (level 64): Can now only be on one target at a time unless in ToL form. The bloom doesn't return mana.
    Tranquility (level 68): Is now raid wide and puts a HoT on the lowest five people in range. The HoT stacks three times. Still channeled and cheaper man wise. Worth it to cast now.
    Nourish (level 78): Now takes 3 seconds to cast, just like HT.

    Tree of Life (talented): Has 3 minute CD. Gives you a 15% healing and 120% armor boosts plus it affects some of your spells.

      Lifebloom: Can be cast on multiple targets. 
      Wild Growth: Applies the HoT to 2 additional targets. 
      Regrowth: Becomes an instant cast spell.  
      Entangling Roots: Is now instant cast, and damage is increased by 200%. 
      Wrath: Cast time is decreased by 50% and Damage done is increased by 30%.


    Tree form is a soft-enrage effect like a Warlock's Metamorphosis. The possibilities are endless with both healing and DPS options. The ability to spam LB will be great for large raid wide damage like Infest. WG hitting up to eight targets is just crazy. The Regrowth option is the weakest of them all. The ER and Wrath effects will be great for five mans and PvP.

    HoTs now benefit from haste and critical as the default. Haste makes faster ticks, and adds more ticks once you get enough. I shouldn't have to tell you what critical does. Clipping is still bad. Just not as bad as it was in Wrath so try to avoid doing it when possible.


  • Infinite mana was fun.

  • Mana still isn't an issue. You can still blindly HoT everyone the the whole fight on tougher content. This will likely change when you start leveling but at 80 it is still party time.

    The changes to Revitalize in being able to provide Replenishment will be a great utility for a healer to bring.


  • How to stop spamming Rejuv.

  • Nourish is your healing auto attack and sustainable for long periods of time. RG is the fast heal, while HT is big heal and both are expensive. Rejuv is back to its original design intent of being for anyone taking damage, but who isn't critical.

    HT is more for tanks and when they get large spike damage as the cost is not sustainable for the long term. You should still try not to Nourish people without one of your HoTs on them. Even when talented RG is still going to heal for less than you expect when it doesn't crit so be aware of this when casting it on someone with low health. Tranquility as stated before is now worth it to use as is raid wide.

    LB is now for the tank as a three stack of Lifebloom can be kept rolling with Nourish. LB refreshes proc Replenishment and getting the stacks rolling again is costly. So get it rolling and keep it going. The spam phase during ToL can get nutty if you spec'd into the FoS->MG combo.

    Swiftmend + Efflorescence is extremely efficient anytime you have a stack of characters. You'll likely use it on cooldown in those situations. However right now the animation looks a lot like green goo, so communicate or perhaps macro a reassuring message when casting it until they change the animation.


  • Stats that I like and want on my gear.

  • Say good bye to all of your cloth gear as the 5% Int from wearing all leather is just to big to use cloth.

    Haste makes faster ticks and adds more ticks once you get enough. With HoTs now benefiting from haste and critical as the default this greatly increases the value of haste relative to crit. So you end up desiring Int->Spirit->Haste->Crit.

    Feel free to take every possible socket bonus as Int is now a red gem, so you have something good for every socket option, typically going either pure Int or an Int/xx gem. Reforge crit into Spirit until mana stops being an issue then go for haste until mana is an issue.


  • Filling in your tree.

  • The base template of a well rounded level 80 PvE build is all in resto.

    There are several places you can move talents to and from. Nature's Cure isn't crucial as current fights don’t really require magic dispelling. Swift Rejuv can lose a point and still be affective. Revitalize can be poached from as long as mana issues don't arise as it only needs one point to proc Replenishment. Nature's Bounty can be dropped out right as RG is no longer a powerhouse and the CD reduction on Swiftmend isn't that significant. Places for those points are Nature's Majesty in Balance for more crit or Furor in feral for more mana. You could also pick up the FoS/MG combo for free Wrath spells and the potential for OoC procs during ToL are amazing.

    The glyph choices are solid but with the new system flexibility and changing on the fly is easy enough. The only others that might see use are the RG and HT glyphs as the choices beyond the defaults aren't very extensive for now.

    Edited, Oct 16th 2010 2:14am by DruidSock
    #8 Oct 10 2010 at 2:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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      Summary


  • What to expect before Cataclysm comes out.

  • Over the next two months except a lot of changes to happen. For prior expansions this in between time only lasted a month so I'm thinking of this as a forced beta. Lots of classes will be over powered or weak. Blizz will eventually fix issues, eventually being the key word.

    ICC will likely be at a slower pace the first few weeks as AoE threat got nerfed. Healers will have to adjust to the new healing paradigm. DPS will be learning rotations a new.

    Five mans will also be impacted, no more Swipe and Maul spam will do that. As will Rejuv not being spammable. Moonkin regen will take a while to adjust to as well. Cat DPS will be abysmal until some issues are fixed, both overall and Swipe hitting like a noodle.


  • Where are we going?

  • Druid is in good shape for the future overall. Balance should be largely freed from the bulk of their scaling and RNG issues. Resto will adjust to not being in form all the time and using more of the toolbox. Bears will have a more dynamic rotation and have to work more for AoE aggro. Cat is in a bad place but once they fix the weapon damage issue should be fine.

    The direction of the caster druids is headed to a good place with the new systems in place. Feral is seemingly returning to the tBC tank/dps spec at once. Some like this and some do not. This could easily change as even a few talents being moved or altered could put them back at two different specs that don't overlap as well.

    Either way it should be exciting especially as the pre-Cata events start to arrive. Being able to participate in world events for expansions is always fun and something to look forward to doing.


  • Stuff on the horizon.

  • Trash and Wild Mushroom will be the two main new skills we get that people are excited for. The Stampeding Roar just has too small of a radius for it to be exciting.

    As side from that, I look forward to leveling again and seeing new content. Seeing how the class will change over the next two months will be interesting. So will the eventual deluge of worgen and troll druids, we know it will happen. Not looking forward to queue times though as everyone will come out of the wood work over the near future as changes always bring people back.


    So thanks for reading our guide. Hopefully, it was helpful enough to smooth out your transition to cataclysm mechanics. As always if you have feedback post it in this thread and if you have a new question make a new one.

    Edited, Oct 11th 2010 6:52pm by DruidSock
    #9 Oct 10 2010 at 2:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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      Appendix


  • Alla Posters who contributed.

  • Horse and someproteinguy did all the work. Everyone else sat around and got drunk.


  • Web Sources.

  • Kalon's blog, Graylo's blog, elitistjerks.com, treebarkjacket.com and other random google searches.

  • Shout outs.

  • Quor, Rarebeast, Arex, and everyone else who is part of the Bored Druid thread.

    Edited, Dec 14th 2010 8:53pm by DruidSock
    #10 Oct 10 2010 at 2:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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      Extra Page


  • This page is intentionally left blank

  • Edited, Dec 14th 2010 8:52pm by DruidSock
    #11 Oct 10 2010 at 8:26 PM Rating: Excellent
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    Mostly finished with everything but bear and tree. Some other non-essential stuff will be tacked on at the end. Mostly links and stuff of that nature.

    Thanks for not making it a sticky tell I changed the thread name.
    #12 Oct 11 2010 at 2:41 PM Rating: Excellent
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    Protein is done being a sock for a while.

    Horse, feel free to edit the resto stuff how you see fit. It should be basically done for what we need for 4.0.1
    #13 Oct 11 2010 at 3:06 PM Rating: Good
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    Will edit resto and finish the rest up after I run some errands.

    Then we will have a finished sticky, which will be good since 4.0.1 is likely dropping tomorrow and people will be flocking to forums for help.
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    #14 Oct 12 2010 at 3:49 AM Rating: Good
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    Mazra wrote:
    What? Are you already done?

    Can't you make another sticky so I can have a few more beers?


    Yes, this is the new sticky. Keep drinking, I am.
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    Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
    #15 Oct 12 2010 at 3:56 AM Rating: Good
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    Well, I never actually stopped, but that makes it sound like I'm a drunkard.

    LOLOLOL Smiley: boozing
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    #16 Oct 12 2010 at 3:57 AM Rating: Good
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    Mazra wrote:
    Well, I never actually stopped, but that makes it sound like I'm a drunkard.

    LOLOLOL Smiley: boozing


    /highfive
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    Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
    #17 Oct 12 2010 at 11:33 PM Rating: Excellent
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    Might have to back off the "can't spam heals" thing a bit.

    The biggest thing I keep seeing on websites and blogs is how we still have more than ample mana regen (read as more than expected) and people are reforging some spirit into either mastery or crit (depending on how much tank healing they are planning on doing).

    Apparently it caught many by surprise, so I don't feel so bad... Smiley: grin
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    #18 Oct 13 2010 at 12:32 AM Rating: Good
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    Feral DPS seems ok as well.

    Will fix stuff up a bit over the next few days.
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    #19 Oct 15 2010 at 12:15 PM Rating: Good
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    So, what's the rotation as a Balance Druid exactly? Solar Eclipse buffs nature damage, which is: Insect Swarm, Hurricane, Typhoon, Sunfire (talented Moonfire) and Wrath. Lunar Eclipse buffs Moonfire, Starfall and Starfire.

    Without knowing, it seems like it would be better to keep Solar Eclipse up as much as possible, since it affects both DoTs and two AOE spells. So when the Eclipse-meter hits 0, wouldn't it be more beneficial to raise Solar again?

    Edit: Never mind, Eclipse is on a cooldown, so once it swings back at 0, you can't go the same Eclipse you came from.

    Edited, Oct 15th 2010 8:28pm by Mazra
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    #20 Oct 15 2010 at 1:44 PM Rating: Good
    Yeah, you can't keep swinging into one eclipse, you have to go back and forth like a see saw.

    After reading the sticky for balance druids, what I've been doing is casting the specific nuke, then casting the appropriate dots, then doing Starsurge to build up the specific power. So if I'm trying to build up solar power, I cast Starfire, Moonfire, then Starsurge. If I'm trying to build up lunar power, I cast Wrath, Insect Swarm, then Starsurge.

    The only time this changes is during a solar eclipse, when Moonfire changes to the sun version, and I'll add that in as well. Of course during a dungeon or a raid the mobs have more health and you'd be able to stack all the dots on there, but for leveling, stuff just dies too quickly to bother with more than one of the dots most of the time.
    #21 Oct 15 2010 at 5:29 PM Rating: Good
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    So, what about reforging? I don't think the guide mentions it.

    What should Resto reforge into? Right now I'm just running with the old mix of intellect (spell power) and spirit. I have a crapload of mana though, due to the conversion, but with my Wild Growth + Efflorescence rotation (I know, it's crazy), I haven't been able to run out yet. I had to spam Regrowth for 30 seconds before mana got critical, but one Innervate and I was back to first base.
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    #22 Oct 15 2010 at 6:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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    Crit seems to be the choice atm.

    Mastery appears to be the "best" stat by a good margin, but it can also be too situational (i.e. are you casting on a target with a HoT on it or not?). Haste is nice, but if you have 2 points in Swift Rejuvenation, it may not be doing you much good, depending on what you cast. So then you end up with critical.

    Really it's turning into one of those spreadsheet heavy-math kind of things. Mastery and Haste are better, if you use them. But since the benefit is more situational critical appears to be getting the nod, because it'll always give you an increase, no matter what you are doing.

    I haven't reforged any of my gear yet myself. I'm waiting until after I raid a little first.
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    #23 Oct 15 2010 at 6:27 PM Rating: Good
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    I see.

    And you can only reforge stuff like 'Equp: Improves...' right?

    Edit: Even if you have Swift Rejuvenation, wouldn't haste be better than crit for the faster HoT ticks and direct heals? Right now my Nourish takes 2.05 seconds to cast and my Rejuvenation ticks every 2.5 seconds. Seems to me that increasing the casting and tick speed would be more beneficial than crit (which is RNG).

    Edited, Oct 16th 2010 2:30am by Mazra
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    #24 Oct 15 2010 at 6:48 PM Rating: Good
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    Moonkin DoTs should have as close to 100% up time as possible. Only delay if it means you can get them buffed by Eclipse in the next few seconds.

    Resto reforging, most healers to be honest, is a very dependent on play style, content and your typical raid comp.
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    #25 Oct 15 2010 at 8:02 PM Rating: Excellent
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    Mazra wrote:
    Edit: Even if you have Swift Rejuvenation, wouldn't haste be better than crit for the faster HoT ticks and direct heals? Right now my Nourish takes 2.05 seconds to cast and my Rejuvenation ticks every 2.5 seconds. Seems to me that increasing the casting and tick speed would be more beneficial than crit (which is RNG).


    Ya, I'm trying to make sense of it all myself. The question seems to become "can you get enough haste to get another tick?" Another problem is that the spreadsheet (the version I downloaded the other day at least) is showing no benefit to RJ from haste with the 2 points in Swift RJ. 1016 haste is the number I'm seeing to grab another tick of RJ, which seems to be a popular thing to do. However after that... *shrugs* there seems to be a bit of gray area; which kinda leads back to what I wrote above.

    I imagine people will have to get more raid logs before they can start getting a better idea of how things seem to interact. Mastery seems to be proving particularly frustrating, as there isn't exactly a strong way to track what percentage of your heals benefit from mastery at the moment.


    Edited, Oct 15th 2010 7:11pm by someproteinguy
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    #26 Oct 15 2010 at 10:43 PM Rating: Good
    Uh, just so you guys know, someone messed with the spec links for both boomkin and resto. Boomkin one isn't filled out all the way and the resto one was given all feral glyphs for the prime glyph slots.
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