Moonkin needs advice for makeover

[darkmooniris]

I am rather new to WOW and have my first toon now ready for ICC.. however I see other who are have there gems ect quite different then mine.. My dps isn't bad.. but I know it has lots of room for improvement... I would love it if anyone who knows would have a look and tell me how to improve the charater.. thanks in advance for your time .. my armoury page is http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...n=Darkmooniris
constructive suggestions would be appreciated .. thanks and WOW what a good day

[Metasynaptic]

I'm not a pro boomkin, but I had a look over your gear and it looks pretty tight from the resources I read.

Question I have is that you seem to have gemmed for hit quite a lot. I know reaching hit cap for Boomies is important, and I don't know what your hit should be at... but I'd *suspect* you have overgemmed for hit.

As I understand it, you should be aiming for as close to the hitcap as possible, then spell power, then haste, then crit.

[Quinafoi]

My dps isn't bad.. but I know it has lots of room for improvement...

And what is your DPS? What context is that in (i.e. boss training dummy)?
In the meantime, I'll take a look and see if there are any glaring issues with your setup.

[Quinafoi]

This could take a while...

Your theoretical DPS without any raid buffs is about 6098 against a boss training dummy. Fully raid buffed, it would be around 7667 (variable on the benefit of Demonic Pact).

Professions
You have double gathering professions. Neither of which will provide any benefit to your DPS, both include survivability bonuses instead of throughput bonuses.

Gearing
First and foremost. At basically every level of progression, the tier sets are best in slot for 4 of the 5 slots possible due to the set bonuses having a very significant value. Currently you have the benefit of no set bonuses. Two piece tier 9 is worth about 130 more DPS for you, four piece another 200 DPS. To put it into perspective, your lovel item level 264 chest piece, Vestments of the Spruce Fir results in a 133 DPS loss when compared to what you would have if you had the 245 Malfurion's Vestments of Triumph (didn't run the numbers but I'm willing to bet even droping down to the 232 chest piece would still result in a DPS gain). This is because of the effect of the set bonus you would gain in combination with the legs you already have. Bottom line as a very generic rule for Balance... all 5 gear slots should be filled with tier pieces. When you do the number crunching you will find that breaking there may be one piece that drops which could replace a single piece of the set but you could never justify breaking the set bonuses. Balance druids need set pieces.

With that rule in mind, purchasing Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky with Emblems of Frost was likely a waste. You should invest your emblems towards the tier pieces first. Pretty much regardless of how weak your prior cloak was, the tier pieces would have still been a larger upgrade. You also want to avoid items in general with Spirit when there are alternatives without it. For the back slot in particular, Valinthria Dreamwalker in 10 man drops a Hit/Haste caster cape and on 25 man drops a Crit/Haste caster cloak, both of which would be substantially better than the Crit/Spirit. Spirit while valued higher than something worthless like MP5, is still the single worst stat on your gear. You should avoid this when possible.

And now that I brought up MP5, you have three pieces of gear with MP5 on it. Replace them. MP5 has no value at all for a Balance Druid. This is a lot of wasted stats that could be something else which at least benefits DPS. This may largely be due to your lack of alternative encountered so far. That 72 MP5 could be something more useful like 180 more Crit, Haste, or Hit. That's a lot of wasted stat points on something with no value.

One major problem you are running into is you haven't picked up sufficient gear with Hit rating on it. In particular this is the case because of rule one being violated, you don't have your tier pieces. Your tier pieces alone cover a substantial amount of the Hit rating required. Many of the problems you have gearing come from your not using set pieces when you should.

Enchants
You're not exhalted yet with The Sons of Hodir and require that to have the optimal shoulder enchant.

You're boots are enchanted with Icewalker which while a decent enchant, in practical applications Tuskar's Vitality will result in higher DPS on any fight which involves movement. I would recommend replacing it though you may choose to wait to do so until your next upgrade.

You're legs are enchanted with the wrong spellthread. If they were PvP legs, by all means through the Spellpower/Stamina spellthread on it, but for PvE you should be using the Spellpower/Spirit. Even though spirit has very little value, it still benefits DPS, stamina does not.

Gemming
The lack of Hit on your gear in general, largely related to not using the set pieces, is causing you to need to gem for hit to an extent however you are currently running over hit capped. Hit cap is 17% for spells, you gain up to 7% form talents and an additional 1% if you're grouped with a Draenei. This means you only need 9% normally, you're currently running with over 13%. Being overcapped has no benefit at all. A typical balance druid will run with either 9% or 10% hit and get the rest from talents. Some balance druids, myself included actually run with slightly higher hit rating but will drop one or both points in Balance of Power talent to compensate.

First, your meta gem is wrong. For a caster DPS (of any type), it should be Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. The additional 3% bonus to crit damage for you comes out to around 235 DPS gained.

Now assuming your gear was fixed and you had sufficient hit rating on gear without relying on gemming for it.

Meta Socket =
Always Chaotic Skyflare Diamond

Red Socket =
Always Runed Cardinal Ruby

Yellow Socket =
If there is one socket and the bonus is 5 Spellpower, Potent Ametrine, else Runed Cardinal Ruby.
If there are two sockets for a bonus of 7 Spellpower and the second socket is red, Potent Ametrine, else Runed Cardinal Ruby.
If there are three sockets for a bonus of 9 Spellpower and there is no Blue socket and at least one Red socket, Potent Ametrine, else Runed Cardinal Ruby.
Reason you always gem for Crit/Spellpower instead of Haste/Spellpower is because you will have sufficient haste on gear to be soft capped regardless by the later tiers of progression and even above the crit soft cap both have relatively equal values so you may as well continue to gem for crit instead.

Blue Socket =
If there is one socket for a bonus of 5 Spellpower, Runed Cardinal Ruby.
If there are two sockets for a bonus of 7 Spellpower and the second socket is red, Purified Dreadstone, else Runed Cardinal Ruby.
If there are three sockets for a bonus of 9 Spellpower and both of the other sockets are red, Purified Dreadstone, else Runed Cardinal Ruby.
Exception: If you are required an additional Purified Dreadstone to meet the Meta gem requirement.

Prismatic Socket (extra, i.e. belt buckle) =
Always Runed Cardinal Ruby

Glyphs
Glyphs are alright for 3.3.3, Starfall is the new best glyph instead of Insect Swarm and most prefer to keep the combo of Moonfire and Starfire as the remaining two. If you have two pieces of tier nine, you would definately choose those two as the others. Number crunching at higher levels of progression may see Glyph of Focus overtake Glyph of Moonfire.

Spec
You realize self buffed you have consume mana at a rate of about -230 MP5. That's before taking into account raid synergies like Replenishment. It is way past time to spec out of those efficiency talents. There should be no such thing as an Oomkin in tier 10 because they can generate mana faster than they consume it. Moonkin form's replenishment scales extremely well with gear, the only people in a raiding environment that can contend with it is Protection Paladins who gain mana through heals received and Warlocks who have this ability called Steal Healer Mana (or was it Life Tap, never can remember). You need to get rid of those efficiency talents.

Your spec should look something like this.
http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc...00000000000000
Typhoon should get picked up for situational usefulness like the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter. Additionally this spec put one point into Gale Winds. If you were to run 2% higher on hit rating than required, you could drop 1 point in Balance of Power to pick up the second point in Gale Winds. Many Balance druids will do this (buff their AoE DPS) instead of investing those optional points in the very low DPS buff talents of Brambles or Genesis. Even after droping Intensity and two points in Moonglow, fully raid buffed you will run out of mana... NEVER.


Additional Reading
I recommend you take a look at Hamlet's guide and download a copy of WrathCalcs (attached at the bottom).
http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-m...dated_3_3_3_a/

[darkmooniris]

WOW... I have alot of work to do .. I have started already... went back to the partial set I had and will build on it... wasted those hard earned frost I do appreciate all of the info and I know it will be of great help to me.. Thank you for your time ....