New Boomkin.

Post by Burakkura

Okay, leveled my death knight to 80...woot, ya its boring...moving on.
PvP = Ret pally does it better.
PvE = Warrior does it better.

So I went back to my 70s to choose a new contender...and im going with the boomkin.
So having no idea how the stats/specs look at 80 here are mah questions : (all PvE based)

> To Eclipse or not to Eclipse? I don't like Eclipse tbh, wearing a starfire idol and using starfire glyphs and spending a third of my rotation on wrath seems like a waste to me. But I can't imagine a talent that lowers you're dps when used...

> Crit heavy or Haste heavy? this one seems like another eclipse question too me, if using wrath haste isn't as great...but starfire spam LOVES its haste. And don't tell me to "get even amounts of both", one IS better then the other...it might have a point where the other one steps up...telling me where that point and which stat would be very helpful.

> Is Improved Faerie Fire a necessity? Everyone gets their own hit cap, if they don't they shouldn't be raiding. So pretty much the issue is the crit, but I imagine it doesn't stack with the ret pally judgment debuff, so worth taking up a spot on the rotation? I vote no.

> Trees? I mean when they live they're great added dps, but sticking around for their full duration is a rare occurrence. But can you get more dps for that single talent point?

> Starfall? A very small amount of added damage in one of the many aoe occurrences during a fight? I don't like this point tbh. Although its right around the trees point for usefulness, as can a single point offer more dps elsewhere?

> Dreamstate and/or Intensity? Regen is nice, I'm using both for leveling...but in a raid situation, are boomkins leaning on their mana pool at all with the endless sources for replenishment?

> Spirit > Intellect? As a boomkin you receive 12% of your intellect in spellpower but 15% of your spirit as spellpower does the VERY small amount of crit from int worth it? I can't imagine it is.

> Nature's Splendor? Most raiding boomkins will have both the moonfire glyph and the starfire glyph...so with you're moonfire already lasting the 18 seconds...is 3 seconds helping anything? I'm not even sure if it stacks with the starfire glyph tbh, as its a second debuff from what I hear.

> Insect Swarm? flat out, is it worth a rotation spot? (including the 3% crit from imp.)

> Genesis? worth if not taking Insect Swarm?...worth if you do?

That's about it for now, hopefully someone is able to answer a couple questions to help a future boomkin, as well as fellow boomkins reading this topic. I also tried to contribute my thoughts to each of my questions.

I assumed the sticky is out of date as I read nothing about it being updated for wotlk as I perused the first couple paragraphs.

Post by Heckler

I'm no expert, but I can toss out a little info from my own smashing of numbers in Excel...

> Spirit > Intellect? As a boomkin you receive 12% of your intellect in spellpower but 15% of your spirit as spellpower does the VERY small amount of crit from int worth it? I can't imagine it is.

Ok, if you're specced and geared like me (which you're probably not, cause as I said, I'm not an expert)...

1 Intellect adds 1.1 Intellect (with 5/5 Furor), which adds:

.0066% Spell Crit
.132 Spell Power
16.5 additional mana
0.11 mp5 (while casting) due to dreamstate
a small amount of mp5 from Intensity.

1 Spirit adds 1 Spirit, which adds:

0.15 spell power
a small amount of mp5 from Intensity.

So I'd say Intellect is better, but spirit is still nice.

Post by Apronos

> To Eclipse or not to Eclipse? I don't like Eclipse tbh, wearing a starfire idol and using starfire glyphs and spending a third of my rotation on wrath seems like a waste to me. But I can't imagine a talent that lowers you're dps when used...
Eclipse is really nice for those wrath spams (Together with Forge Ember and a bit of luck you can get combos of a few 7k+ crits in a row), but ti's not worth 3 points since there's a hidden cooldown of 40 seconds. I would suggest you only put one point in it.

> Crit heavy or Haste heavy? this one seems like another eclipse question too me, if using wrath haste isn't as great...but starfire spam LOVES its haste. And don't tell me to "get even amounts of both", one IS better then the other...it might have a point where the other one steps up...telling me where that point and which stat would be very helpful.
Many moonkins favor crit because it's so fun to see big numbers fly by, as did I in the beginning. But I've now come to my senses and have started to stack haste instead, it's a much more powerful stat as every extra percent of haste will grant an extra percent damage.

Hope this has made it a bit clearer to you :)

Post by curlymon

> To Eclipse or not to Eclipse? I don't like Eclipse tbh, wearing a starfire idol and using starfire glyphs and spending a third of my rotation on wrath seems like a waste to me. But I can't imagine a talent that lowers you're dps when used...

> Crit heavy or Haste heavy? this one seems like another eclipse question too me, if using wrath haste isn't as great...but starfire spam LOVES its haste. And don't tell me to "get even amounts of both", one IS better then the other...it might have a point where the other one steps up...telling me where that point and which stat would be very helpful.

Crit is more important to stack then haste... up to a point. 50% Crit after buffs/talents/gear/set. After this point crit won't benefit you til you reach about 1350 haste rating (if you have the crit dmg meta its around 1500 haste). This is all for eclipse builds mind you and you should definitely be taking eclipse as a talent set. as for wrath being 1/3rd of your rotation, it should not be as on avg it will take 2-4(probability ftl) wraths before you hit the SF eclipse. After which you can SF to your hearts content (until you need to cast wrath to get SF eclipse back up) and any haste on your set after the 50% crit is large gains in numbers as a result. You want the crit for consistent eclipse procing.

Eclipse is a very good dps boost and you only use wrath limitedly, making the SF idols and MF SF glyphs very prominent additions to your glyphs.

> Is Improved Faerie Fire a necessity? Everyone gets their own hit cap, if they don't they shouldn't be raiding. So pretty much the issue is the crit, but I imagine it doesn't stack with the ret pally judgment debuff, so worth taking up a spot on the rotation? I vote no.

IFF is a tricky subject. In terms of min maxing for a raid; yes if everyone stacks 3% less hit, that means they can stack other stats and the loss of personal DPS(4-6%) from working this into your rotation is more then made up by those gains from others. If you have a Spriest in your normal group let him do his version as it is applied as part of his main rotation. That being said you should only do this in a 25 man. For a 10 man or heroics you should not do this at all. So the vote is:

Heroics/10 Man: No don’t take it
25 Man: take it if you don’t have it from another source and let people know that you have it.

> Trees? I mean when they live they're great added dps, but sticking around for their full duration is a rare occurrence. But can you get more dps for that single talent point?

> Starfall? A very small amount of added damage in one of the many aoe occurrences during a fight? I don't like this point tbh. Although its right around the trees point for usefulness, as can a single point offer more dps elsewhere?Trees are am amazing DPS gain.. Yes you have to use them intelligently and they only need to have about 4-6 second of up time for them to have been an effective use of a cool down. Don’t place them down in front of a boss with cleave or behind a dragon.. you put dps there why places yours? Also try and get them up and beating on the boss just before heroism goes up and you will see a very large gain in effective dps.

And Starfall is a great way to keep up dps when having to move a lot and can be quite effective in getting a couple extra hits on a boss like Heigan during phase 2.

> Dreamstate and/or Intensity? Regen is nice, I'm using both for leveling...but in a raid situation, are boomkins leaning on their mana pool at all with the endless sources for replenishment?

Order of best to worst mana pool lengthening talents:
1. Omen of Clarity
2. Intensity
3. Dreamstate
4. Moonglow

> Spirit > Intellect? As a boomkin you receive 12% of your intellect in spellpower but 15% of your spirit as spellpower does the VERY small amount of crit from int worth it? I can't imagine it is.
Int and spirit or both worth stacking but Int after raid buffs becomes the better of the two for mana regen and spirit (w/imp div. spirit) becomes better point for point in terms of raw spell power.

> Nature's Splendor? Most raiding boomkins will have both the moonfire glyph and the starfire glyph...so with you're moonfire already lasting the 18 seconds...is 3 seconds helping anything? I'm not even sure if it stacks with the starfire glyph tbh, as its a second debuff from what I hear.Yes both of these stack and 3 seconds is 1 extra tick and 2 ticks for Insect swarm. That’s very much worth the point spent.

> Insect Swarm? flat out, is it worth a rotation spot? (including the 3% crit from imp.) Boomkins are not a single rotation class we must adapt it for almost every different fight out there. In some this is well worth it in others this can hinder more then help.

Side note about the 3% crit, while you need Imp IS to get the buff the 3% crit is actually gained from MF being on the target at the time SF hits. It just requires you to have Imp IS to get this.

> Genesis? worth if not taking Insect Swarm?...worth if you do? The answer is, don’t take it unless your gonna pick it up as a Resto(which is why they have it here). The dps gain is 1% per point on only about 20% of your rotation when you do use it. Coming out to 5 points spent for 1% increase to dps. Even with the new changes in the coming patch it will not be worth taking.

Post by Gemily

I second Curly on just about everything.

Improved Faerie Fire. I find it useless. It's a wasted CD and doesn't add enough dps to work it into your rotation. IS is much better. It's damage for you, and decreases the target to hit so your tank takes less damage. Plus as stated already, IS is used for other talents and glyphs, so it's just all around better.

Nature's Force. I really don't like the trees unless they are accompanied by brambles. But that's just me.

Starfall. When I first saw this talent I was amazed and so excited. Then read all the arguments against it in PvE. Yes it's great for fights when you're in a room with only mobs that you're going to fight all at once, like boss fights or whole room AoE pulls. But other than that, if you're only trying to pull one group at a time, starfall is most likely going to hit something you don't want to hit and pull extras. Which makes it rather dangerous. Many expert boomkins classify it as PvP.

Post by Jaspirac

I think trees are worth it. If your working with a tank the trees will always last the duration and are great at spreading your DPS around to multiple targets. In PvE they are great in a pinch- emergency pet.

Eclipse not that worth it unless you take crit over haste- since your DPS will increase with +crit and eclipse points.
I'd only take a point in it as well.

Insect swarm is worth the space a powerful DoT that causes mobs to miss you.

I'm just anti- IFF really.

Genesis + MF and IS are your key DoTs- so Genesis yes. Nature's Splendor- see if you need it, most mobs are dead by the time these tick out.

Dreamstate/Intensity- I'd go with Dreamstate- you will end up stacking intellect as most Spell power gear has +int to benefit all casters. Mana is always helpful.

Starfall.... hmmm. It can be dangerous and helpful in a pinch. I find it a better AoE than Hurricane because there is no channeling, but it can hit so far around you that you WILL get new adds.

Post by 258303

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by curlymon

Eclipse not that worth it unless you take crit over haste- since your DPS will increase with +crit and eclipse points.
I'd only take a point in it as well. You will only need 50% crit after raid buffs/talents/gear. Which after the 4t7.5 bonus comes out to ~330 crit rating(it's a rough number because I do not know how much int you'll have) which in not at all hard to get. After which stacking Haste is very much to your advantage.

New Boomkin.

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