My Russian Interview

A Russian Blogger contacted me a few months ago to do an interview. He's done several great interviews with other moonkin like Hamlet from EJ and Lappe from Paragon, and I am honored by the request.

Since, I assume most of you can't read Russian, I asked Avl if it would be ok for me to cross post the interview here. He graciously agreed. You can find the original version in Russian here. Also, please note that I answer all of these questions in late May early June. Some of the answers may seem a little strange and out of date given that 4.2 has since been released.


Hi, Graylo! Let’s start with a question about your nickname - it’s kinda unique. Can you tell us about the story behind it?

- It's not all that exciting. My middle name is Gray, and I just started adding syllables on the end of it until I found one I liked. All of my alts fit that same pattern. It's very creative as you can see.

What’s your WoW story, Graylo? What classes have you played?

- WoW is my first MMO. I got a free trial with one of Blizzards RTS games and decided to give it a shot. That was in December of 2006 just before the TBC patch was released. I was hooked almost immediately and have maintained my account ever since with out any big breaks. In that time, I've played ever class to some degree, but only the caster DPS classes to max level. Prior to the release of Cataclysm I had 5 level 80 characters (mage, warlock, Shadow Priest, Ele Shaman, and Druid of course). I have raided the warlock and shadow priest at various times as an alt, but never seriously. Most of my attention is focused on my Druid, but I have gotten my shaman to level 85 as well.

When was your famous moonkin born?

-Graylo is actually the first toon I created, and has always been my main toon. I chose a Druid because they were said to be easy to solo and very versatile. I didn't know anything about the game other then what I had read online, so a druid sounded like the safe choice. My first few months playing WoW were an absolute disaster. Two thirds of my talent points were spent in Balance, the other third was spent in resto, but I spent half the time DPSing in Cat form with a mixture of caster and melee gear. As I said, I was a walking disaster. Then at about level 50 I realized that if I respecced I could pick up moonkin form, and haven't looked back since.

What’s you favorite thing is WoW currently? What activity you like the most?

- I've always been a raider. My primary goal in this game is to kill all of the raid bosses before the next content patch and get all of the raid related achievements. I've tried other aspects of the game off and on, but none of them have really stuck with me.

Is there any WoW achievement you are proud of? Some PvE boss or arena rating actually?

-The achievement I'm most proud of is getting Glory of the Raider (25man) and Immortal before patched 3.1 was released. This meant that I got the Black Proto-Drake as a reward. The Immortal achievement was such a pain in the butt because, little stupid things could screw it up. When we finally got the achievement it was cathartic. We had been working on Immortal for months with several near misses. The tension we felt by the end of the instance was enormous and being able to let all that go at the end was awesome. It was one of the happiest moments I ever had in this game.

The other big moment was killing Lady Vashj in TBC. My guild at the time had gone through a lot of trials and progression related drama, and it was awesome to finally kill her. In reality, it wasn't all that impressive because we were the fifth or sixth guild on the server to do so and it was after Sunwell was released, but it felt like a breakthrough to us.

Is there any feature, ability or mechanic in the game you would like to change?

- There isn't really a specific mechanic that I would like to see changed, but I do think that moonkin are a little too complicated overall. Having three nukes and two DoTs by themselves would be fine, but they way they interact with Eclipse and some of our other abilities pushes it a little over the edge for me. I don't like all of the run of play choices that we have to make at the moment.

Should I save this Starsurge cooldown for Eclipse or cast it now? Should I wait to refresh this DoT or do it now? Should I clip this DoT or refresh it later? Should I spam MF while moving? Should I cast Starfall now or wait? Should I hold solar now or can I get back to it in time?

I'm not against having to make choices in the run of play. That is what separates the excellent players from the average, but it seems like Moonkin have a lot of choices at the moment. I would like to see some of those choices simplified.

If I had to pick one mechanic to change/remove, I would pick the 4T11 set bonus. Yes, it is very strong and yes it is going away for all practical purposes in patch 4.2, but I've found it to be a real pain in the neck. It's just too easy to waste in my opinion. We transition between Eclipse procs so quickly now that it's difficult not to waste part of it with Starfall. I will be glad when I don't have to worry about it any more.

Back to your moonkin, what thing amuses you the most of him?

- Obviously the dance is a lot of fun, but I find the various graphical errors over the years to be the most fun.

What do you mean by graphical errors? Will be happy to see one myself!

- The moonkin model can only stand, sit, and dance. As a result it's had issues where and there where it didn't interact well with something else in the game, like having Moonkin stand on mounts rather then riding on them. My favorite one comes from Ulduar. For a short period of time when a moonkin got on one of the choppers the sidecar folded up and it looked like the moonkin was being dragged behind the bike. I posted a picture of it on the blog a while back.

What specs your moonkin has? What are the reasons behind it?

-The spec I use changes depending on the needs of the fight we are focusing on and the needs of the raid, but this is what I consider to be fairly standard raid build. (link)

I consider the fourth tier of the balance tree to be my optional choices. I picked them up because they are the best DPS options available at that point or I like the utility they provide. I skip all of the mana talents, because I haven't had any serious mana issues since the start of the expansion. I do pick up Fungal Growth on some fights because the slowing utility can be helpful, but the graphic is annoying enough that I leave it off when I don't need it. I skip Blessing of the Grove because it is incredibly weak (0.05% increase per point) and I prefer the utility of other talents.

Some people disagree with me but I do not consider Perseverance to be an optional talent. In my experience, raid attempts rarely wipe due to a lack of DPS. Most of the time the wipe is caused by someone doing something stupid and dying or killing someone else. They are also due to not having enough experience with some mechanics of the fight. Damage reduction and survivability help with both of these issues. Therefore, I don't consider it to be an optional talent.

Given only 3 words, how would you call current state of moonkins in PvE?

- Complex, Wanted, Beaten up

If a blizzard developer asked you to add only one feature to your beloved spec, what it would be?

-I would like better cooldowns. I would love to have something like Arcane Power, Icy Veins, or Elemental Mastery. Those cooldowns are nice because they say, I need to do more damage right now, without the complication of having do deal with trents or stars hitting the wrong targets.

Time for some blog questions, Graylo! When have you started to write Gray Matter?

- I wrote my first post for the blog in September of 2007.

What were the reasons for you to start a moonkin blog?

- When I started my intent wasn't to write a "moonkin blog." The blog started out as more of a WoW diary then anything else. As I've said before, I didn't know anyone who played this game when I first started, but I had read about it quite a bit online and had looked at a couple of WoW blogs. As I was leveling Graylo, I had a lot of thoughts and issues I wanted to talk about, but I didn't have anyone to talk about them with. Since I had read a couple of the other blogs I got the idea to post my thoughts on this game on a blog. It took me probably six months to actually sit down and write that first post, but I've been a fairly regular poster ever since.

The blog became more moonkin focused when I got more serious about raiding. Moonkin was not a popular raid spec in TBC so there weren't a lot of Moonkin theorycrafters out there. Also, I didn't trust the few numbers being posted by people on the forums. So, I did the math myself to verify or refute the numbers being posted. With that math I was able to show things like why Wrath was a bad raiding spell and why Crit was the worst raiding stat. I didn't do the research for the blog, but I wanted to get more readers and no one else was posting this type of information. So, I started to post my research on blog to get more readers and I became known as a moonkin blogger.

Does your blog improve your playstyle and WoW statistics?

- Yes and no. I didn't do my spec research to have something to write in the blog. I did it so that I would know what was the best way to play and then realized it would be good info to post on the blog. With or without the blog I would still do research and read the various sites see how I could improve my play. However, the blog keeps me honest and attracts a lot of attention and suggestions. If I post something stupid on the blog it gets corrected pretty quickly because someone reads it and tells me I'm being stupid. It also, forces me to do the research a little more quickly rather then waiting for someone else to do it.

In short, I would probably come to the same conclusions and play choices without the blog, but I probably get to them a little more quickly because of the blog.

What drives you crazy about it?

- At time's I am a victim of my own success and I feel like the blog is more of an obligation then a hobby. A lot of good things have happened to me because I've written this blog and I don't regret any of it, but the pressure to be Graylo can be tough at times.

Hm, obligation? Pressure to be Graylo? Sounds like you have more to say, Graylo!

- If someone's looking for moonkin information now there are several good sources to find it. Hamlet's guide on EJ is great. Calculated's Guide on the Moonkin Repository's the best I've ever seen. WoW Insider is finally covering Moonkin well. There is Moonkin information all over the place now but this hasn't always been the case. As a result, I used to get a lot of e-mails, asking why I haven't talked about a particular topic or why my gear list hasn't been updated yet. The worst example happened in ToC when Blizzard used different names for the Alliance and Horde items. Adding the horde items in the list required a lot of extra work that I wanted to avoid. I thought people could figure it out, but a ton of people complained and I ended up adding them anyway. To some extent I think it's forgotten that the blog is a hobby and that I have a career and family outside of WoW. I'm not always able to respond to things right away, or even do the amount of theorycrafting I used to do, because I just don't have the time anymore.

And it's not just readers that put this pressure on me. I put it on myself a lot of times, because I like being "Graylo, the Moonkin Expert." I find it very frustrating to see others make comments and observations on EJ or TMR that I think I should have thought of as well or posted about first.

I love writing the blog, and I love all the things it has provided me over the years, but it's no longer a casual activity that I do when I have time or feel like it. In that way, it's become a bit of an obligation.

What thing you want to improve in your blog?

- There are a lot of things I would like to improve about the blog, but I'm too lazy to do most of them. I would love to switch it to a Wordpress format instead of Blogger, because I think it looks a lot cleaner. I wish I had an editor to find my mistakes that I miss. I wish it had more pictures.

Our readers liked your moonkin gear rating. What’s the story behind it? Was it a social demand from your friends/colleagues?

- I wrote my first gear guide purely to get readers. This was during TBC and there seemed to be a lot of questions about cloth vs. leather and crit vs. other stats. It was just a simple pre-kara guide to tell people where the good rep gear was and what were the good dungeons to run. In early WotLK, I stole the idea of using a more mathematical approach for creating the gear list from the feral blogger Kalon at ThinkTank.

I like to think of the gear list more as a reference guide then an actual gear guide or BIS list. BIS lists are impractical because you don't get all the gear at once, and most players don't have a hope of ever getting the BIS item in every slot. What I like about my gear list is that it shows all of the options and where you can get them. This way, if you know you are weak in a particular slot you can quickly see where your upgrades are. I also like that it shows which upgrades are significant and which others aren't that important.

Is there any secret benefits of having a moonkin blog? :)

- I've benefited greatly due to having the blog. I've gotten into guilds, because of my blog. I got into the Cataclysm Beta because of my blog. I've been offered free stuff from other game developers because of the blog. Most of all, it's very pleasing to know that I've created something that the players and creators of this game have found to be valuable. I'm very proud of the fact that I've had some impact on this game.

What advise can you give to a novice blogger?

- The best blogging advice I can give, is to write because you want to write. I've seen a lot of people start blogs because they want to be e-famous, be listened to, or make money. Most of those guys burn out quickly and are unsuccessful because blogging is a lot harder, and less rewarding then it looks. I wrote Gray Matter for over a year, before I got any serious traffic, and most of my success comes from a lack of competition when I started rather then being a great blog. A new blogger starting today would have a much tougher time then I did. So, if your primary reason for starting a blog is to be read then I would reconsider, because chances are you are just going to be frustrated and disappointed.

From a technical perspective, my suggestion would be to buy your domain name when you start. Domain names are not expensive and owning your own can make a lot of things easier down the road. Owning your own domain name means you can redesign or and move your blog/site without having to redirect your traffic. I wish I had bought my Domain name when I started.

Moonkin bloggers an elusive people, don't you agree? :)

- Moonkin Bloggers have become more elusive recently with people like Quith and Relevart getting out of the blogging game.

What can you tell our Russian readers about yourself?

- I'm a married 35 year old father of two small children. I work in the banking industry. All in all my life is fairly normal and boring. Outside of WoW I spend my free time reading, watching movies and tv. I also spend a lot of time watching and reading about soccer. Most of my casual wardrobe consists of soccer jerseys. I am quite pissed that Qatar stole the 2022 World Cup from us, but congratulations you Russia for getting the 2018. Choosing Russia made a lot of sense to me.

Woot! Married, two small children! Does it mean you play less now and spend more time with your family than before?

- Yes, and no. My son was born about 6 months after I started playing WoW, so family has always limited the amount of time I could play. In my four years of raiding the amount of time I spend raiding has been fairly constant, and since my kids go to bed before raid time they don't have any impact on my WoW time from that perspective. That said, they have limited more of my casual raid time, since we do more stuff on weekends, and they don't take as many naps as they used to.

Where do you live atm?

- I live outside Milwaukee Wisconsin in the US

What music you prefer to listen? During raid-time maybe?

- I can't listen to music or watch anything on TV while raiding. It's just to distracting for me. Outside of raid my musical interests very. Right now I'm listening to band like Emery, Thrice, Bullet's for my Valentine, but my interests change pretty quickly.

Some people think we, moonkins, are fat, clumsy and got large hair irl. Is it true?

- Unfortunately for me this is a little too true, but definitely not true across the board. Have you seen a picture of Murmurs/Tyler Caraway on WoW Insider? That is one skinny kid.

Is there a favorite moonkin meal you like to eat? :)

- Now that I'm not a Tauren anymore I have to say a Hamburger.

Time is money, friend! As a final word in this interview, what would you say or wish to our Russian audience?

- I just want to say thank you to all the readers. My blog would be anything without them and I appreciate all of their support.

Thanks a lot, Graylo, that was an awesome interview!

Thanks Avl

Blue Post: Need Before Greed and Other Things

This slipped my radar at first, but thanks to Lissanna's excellent post on Restokin.com it came to my attention.

The Blue Posts:

1. The Need Before Greed loot system will be the unalterable default looting system for pick-up groups in the Dungeon System and has been updated.
   
   
2. Need Before Greed will now recognize gear appropriate for a class in three ways: the class must be able to equip the item, pure melee will be unable to roll on spell power items, and classes are limited to their dominant armor type (ex. paladins for plate). All items will still be available via Greed rolls as well as the new Disenchant option should no member be able to use the item.
   
   
3. Group Disenchanting Option: In addition to rolling “Need” or “Greed” on items, players now have the option to elect for an item to be disenchanted. “Disenchant” works exactly like “Greed” except if a player wins the “Greed” roll, they will receive the disenchanted materials instead. Players who choose “Need” will always win the item and will always beat those that choose “Greed” or “Disenchant.”

A lot has already been said about these changes on the forums, and I want to try and cut through the hysteria.

The Actual Impact:

In a literal sense this change means that Moonkin will not be able to "Need" cloth when using the random group feature coming out in 3.3. A moonkin can "Greed" on cloth using the tool, but their rolls are grouped with everyone that just wants the item for enchanting mats or vendor gold.

In actual play this change will probably have very little impact. Who is running instances for gear any more? Most of the people using this too will be doing so to get emblems, get rep, or get achievements. The only really problem I have with the actual system is that it treats "Greed" and "DE" on the same level. Therefore an item that is a real upgrade for a new moonkin may get automatically DEed so that another player can have a shard in the bank. Other then that, the impact will only be felt by people who are leveling.

The Symbolic Impact:

The reason I have a problem with this change is the symbolic impact. Whether Blizzard means to or not, this change will be interpreted as a big flashing sign that says: "MOONKIN SHOULDN'T WEAR CLOTH!!!"

I am trying to look at it optimistically. First, this will probably have little or no impact right away. Thoughtful guilds like mine will still realize that there are valid reasons for Moonkin to wear cloth in some situations. Thoughtful Moonkin will pick their battles wisely and try not to rock the boat to much. Guilds that currently prevent moonkin from rolling on cloth will continue to do so. The status quo will be maintained.

Another reason to be optimistic is that there are massive changed coming to gear itemization in the next expansion. Moonkin shouldn't have to worry about Spirit any more and hopefully Blizzard will be better about providing gear with the necessary stats like Hit Rating. I may be dreaming but we may actually get to a place where spell leather is equal to cloth. If that happens then the leather vs cloth debate will change quite a bit.

That said, the pessimist in me is worried. Blizzard has gotten a lot better about providing quality spell leather, but there are a couple of facts that make me think that spell leather will never equal cloth.

1. If you exclude Ele Shaman, there is one spec that will want to use DPS spell leather. There are 3 classes that are restricted to cloth.



2. Most raids will run with only one Moonkin. Two at the most. On the flip side, most raids will have 6 or more cloth DPSers.



3. In WotLK, cloth drops are twice as frequent as spell leather drops.

Blizzard has said many times that they don't like seeing items useful to only one class getting sharded week after week when there are possible upgrades for other classes. This is why they don't like to have idols drop from bosses. This means that there will always be better cloth options because there will always be more cloth options. If you only have one non-tier leather piece with Hit Rating you might be forced to use it, because you don't have other options. Moonkin will be back to the same cookie cutter gear we had in TBC.

A Failure of Logic:

Blizzard has acknowledged that this change was likely to be controversial, but they feel it is necessary to protect people against ninja's because it will be harder for players to protect themselves with cross-realm LFG. I understand the reasoning, but I question its logic. Blizzard explained it this way:

Ultimately, our logic went like this: If a Holy paladin loses a great non-plate upgrade to another player, one out of five players might feel bad. If a Holy paladin rolls Need on every type of armor that drops, then four out of five players might have a bad experience. The jerk potential seemed worse than the lost-an-upgrade potential as far as whether or not players buy into using the new dungeon tool.

On the surface the logic seems reasonable. Upsetting 1 person is better then upsetting 4, but I want to ask one question. How big of a problem are Jerks/Ninjas?

I've played WoW for a long time and I've done a lot of pugs. I've met my fair share of assholes, but I would say the vast majority players are reasonable and aren't going to "Need" every single drop.

For arguments sake, lets say that in 1 out of 10 instantance runs there is a jerk that decides ninja loot. Then lets say that in 5 out of 10 instance runs there is a Druid, Shaman or Pally that loses a legitimate upgrade, because they couldn't roll need or another player wanted a shard. Who knows what the actual rate for these to events will be, but I think everyone can see how the 1 vs 4 argument is misleading.

To use Blizzard's example, only the Holy Pally will be upset that he can't roll on the non-plate item, but he may be upset every time he runs that instance because there will usually be someone that hits the DE button without checking to see if it's an upgrade for someone that can't roll need.

I think we would all agree that ninja's suck, but someone getting screwed out of a legitimate upgrade is going to be much more common.

Other Things:

Nature's Grace:

I agree Nature's Grace is a big part of the problem here. We changed Gift of the Earth Mother for pretty similar reasons. However, Nature's Grace is a Really Big Deal. We honestly keep talking about changing it, but we're also paranoid about screwing it up because Balance dps is dependent on it. NG is probably an overbudget talent, but in this case if we nerfed it, we'd have to mess with Balance in a lot of other areas to compensate. We'll almost certainly do it at some point, but I worry about messing with it for 3.3.

Translation: "Nature's Grace is getting nerfed in 4.0."

After reading all of the discussion, I agree with Ghostcrawler's comment quite a bit. If Nature's Grace wasn't so powerful we wouldn't be clipping the GCD, but it's such a powerful talent that nerfing it is more difficult then it sounds. Given that we are so close to an expansion it is probably a lot easier to alter the talent and the spec as they are making the massive changes that come with every expansion.

Twisted Nether Blogcast:

In case you missed it, my appearance on the Twisted Nether Blogcast round table is now available. You can find it here. I am also told it is available on Itunes.

A Return to the Twisted Nether Blogcast

Fimlys and Nibuca over at the Twisted Nether Blogcast have asked me to participate in a round table discussion this Friday. The primary topic of discussion will be patch 3.3 and how it affects us, but I'm sure the conversation will drift some. The round table will feature myself, Matt from World of Matticus, Stoneybaby from BigHitBox, Pike from Aspect of the Hare, and possibly Honor from Honor's Code.

You may remember that I was featured on TNB back in April as the blogger of the week. I had a lot of fun and it seemed like the people in the chat room enjoyed themselves as well. I'm sure this time will be a lot of fun as well. I just have to remember to let other people talk.

Anyway, the taping will be this Friday 10/23/2009, at 10 pm CST. Click Here, if you would like to find details on how to participate in the live taping. Don't worry, if your unable to attend the taping. They will post the recorded show sometime next week and I will link it when it is available.

The Graylo Interview on TNB

If you were unable to attend the live taping of the Twisted Nether Blogcast last Thursday, the recorded version of the interview is now available. You can find it here. We talk about all sorts of things from Moonkin, to Theorycrafting, to Ulduar, to why I spell it "Gray" instead of "Grey".

Anyway, I had a lot of fun. It's amazing how quickly time can go. I was worried before hand that it might be a really short interview, but instead I turned out to be a wind bag and they couldn't shut me up.

Thanks again to Nebuca and Fimlys.

Graylo is about to be Twisted

I have been invited to participate in the live Twisted Nether blog cast this Thursday at 11:30 pm CDT. Since I am one of those people that has a hard time not expressing his opinion even when it's not asked for, how could I possibly turn them down.

Anyway, I am looking forward to it. I assume we will be talking about all things Moonkiny, the latest patch and maybe a little about me. I know that is pretty late for a lot of people in the US, but if you would like to participate in the in the show or just tease me about wiping a raid, please feel free to come. You can find the details on how to participate here.

I just want to say thanks to Fimlys, Breana, and Nibuca for having me. It should be a lot of fun.

FSU: The PvPkin

I have said it before many times. I am a PvP noob. I have a hard time running in circles and can’t fake cast to save my life. So, I thought it was time to talk to someone who clearly knows more about Moonkin PvP then me and probably everyone else.

Who would be better to talk to then FSU. He will list some of his accomplishments below, but there are two I would like to highlight. According to the SK-Gaming Arena ranking his 5v5 team Hopesfally We Win is ranked 13th in the US. Before the patch I looked at the arena ranking for just moonkin. At the time he was ranked 24th in the world without an active 2v2 team. If he had had a 2v2 team with an average rating he would easily have been in the top 10. I don’t think anyone would disagree that FSU knows how to PvP.

Gray Matter: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Please tell us a little about yourself. How long have you been playing WoW? Why PvP? Why Moonkin?

FSU: Hey, my name is Jason, but you probably know me better as Fsu, Balancedruid, or Influenza. I've been playing WoW since release, where myself and quite a few others came over from WC3: The Frozen Throne. I enjoy PvP just because I feel it is the most challenging aspect of the game where individual skill can stand out but you only are at your best when you and your teammate(s) have good coordination. I play Moonkin because I think it's one of the most fun specs in the game and although it has many problems it has enough to work with that I can continue to make it work, especially in 5v5 where it is probably at its best.

In terms of arena accomplishments I didn't play until late s1 but still managed gladiator in a double healer warrior comp. S2 I was very active, holding #1 in 5s on bg3 and then bg9 when we transferred. I also finished top 5 in 5s as moonkin, top 5 in 3s as resto, and top 20 in 2s as resto. In s3 my 5s was #1 at one point on bg9 running shaman / priest / moonkin / rogue / mage. I then transferred to Boulderfist (bg cyclone, dunno the number) and played on a top 5 5s team. S4 my 5s is currently #1, my 3s was top 20 when we were playing, and I hit 2200 as full balance / rogue in 2s early in the season.

GM: Are you or have you been active with a PvE Progression Raiding guild? If so, what is/was your progress?

FSU: I was in Predestined of Mannoroth at level 60 and saw and killed up to 4H. They continued on to kill Saph and Kel'thuzad but I was inactive at the time due to playing lacrosse for my school. In BC I joined Bloody Knuckles for a few months and we made it to Kael before the guild died out due to leadership issues. It was at this point that the team I played on, Spray n Pray, decided to transfer to Tichondrius. After we did quite well there my friend Realz went casual and transferred to Boulderfist to play with RL friends, and after being inactive for quite a few months he got me back into the game by begging and pleading (slight exaggeration) and eventually paying for me to come to Boulderfist.

GM: What do you think is the moonkin's roll on an arena team? What are a moonkin's core strengths and biggest weaknesses?

FSU: The Moonkin's role on an arena team can vary depending on what sort of make up you play on. One thing (and for those that read my guide on the druid forums I mentioned this) that is important in playing arena as Moonkin is playing to your strengths and weaknesses. I think the main role for a Moonkin is to DPS and CC (order changes depending on what you're playing) as well as offheal when needed. For example, on my 4 dps team, I often times will pop tranquility as soon as we land a kill on someone so that our team can stabilize. A strength of Moonkin is our extremely high damage as well as great cc, especially against melee classes. If you use those tools correctly you can put yourself into great situations to win matches. The main weakness of Moonkin is our complete and utter lack of true outs. If a rogue is on you and you can't fake their kick you get into trouble very fast, as despite our large amount of armor we still take damage very fast from rogues, and warlocks can shut us down too easily often times.

GM: Your current build on the armory is 44/0/17 and seems to focus entirely on Moonkin DPS. In the past I have seen people advocate a build that includes 11 points in feral to get Feral Charge and Brutal Impact for the interrupts. Are their any merits to this type of build, and why have you chosen against it?

FSU: My 44/0/17 build is made for having dispel resistance on my DoTs for 2s and 3s while still maintaining all the DPS I need for my 5s comp which as I said earlier is for dps. I think people that advocate 11 points in feral are BG enthusiasts, because a build such as that used in arena is just a waste of mana. The amount of mana you have to use to feral charge then go back to Moonkin form is too much, and I prefer just using cyclone offensively to help interrupt heals instead of wasting mana and losing out on valuable talents such as subtlety and intensity. It can be helpful for a Moonkin to get furor sometimes for 2s to get that instant bash off, but my 3s and 5s teams (I only play 5s right now but I was serious about 3s earlier) I don't have time to be bashing and the like because I'm busy cycloning and pewpewing.

GM: Spell Power, Stamina and Resiliance are obviously key stats for a PvP moonkin. How would your rank Haste and Crit for PvP?

FSU: Crit is now arguably the most important stat, especially once you reach at least 1050 spell power. The toss up is between crit and intellect, and it will be interesting to see how the math works out as to whether gemming for intellect or crit is better (more crit from gemming just crit obviously, but intellect gives you more mana, spell power, and crit; this means that when you do crit you get even more mana back from the new mana mechanic). I've been lazy and haven't done any math yet, and probably won't until wrath is actually out and I have the gear available to me. But for now, I think the gemming ideals will be either crit or intellect. Haste is a good stat, but I prefer less haste because the more you get the harder it is to time your starfires out of cyclones.

GM: What are the most common mistakes you see/hear moonkin make when the start PvPing? What advice would you give to some one looking to get more involved with PvP?

FSU: Something I've noticed is a lot of Moonkin seem to be against starfire usage in arenas. This couldn't be further from correct, and if you're not using starfire you're missing out on a lot of potential DPS and burst DPS from starfire crits. Also, you should be prepared to heal, especially in 2v2, because many times you will have to play like a healer if you expect to win. I think some druids get into the mindset of being a fully offensive caster sometimes, but you have to remember our heals are decent as well as our mana regen, and you should always use them to your full advantage when playing arenas or even bgs or world pvp.

GM: What Addon's do you think help you most when you PvP?

FSU: Proximo is invaluable to pvping in arenas. It makes targetting people extremely easy and should definitely be used by all people that want to be serious in arenas.

GM: Do you have any macros that you find are particularly useful that you can share? If so, why are they so valuable?

FSU: The only real macros that I use involve shape shifting, and are something I think all druids and moonkin should have. The first one is a travel form to travel form macro, allowing you to break snares instantly and continue running without having to hit travel form more than once. The other one is moonkin to moonkin form for the same purpose, breaking snares insantly in one button while staying in moonkin. This macro is used often vs rogue / mage teams where they try to get shatter combos off.

GM: You play Horde. I play Alliance. The few times I have PvPed in BGs and Arena it seems to me Horde always win even when I'm in a premade. This is probably because I suck, but a lot of people seem to have had the same observation. Do you think there is/was a faction imbalance in PvP? If so, what do you think caused it? Does horde attract better players or was it the racials?

FSU: Each faction thinks they suck. I'm pretty sure that horde wins wsg / ab more, but alliance win av (a lot more) and eots slightly more. This is from playing on 3 different bgs, this is normally what it feels like. I think it switches from time to time (before the av changes horde were winning a lot more (right after afk was made a punishable offence)). Really though, until perception was changed I think alliance had the best racials between that and escape artist, for pvp anyways. Those 2 racials are so strong, and as Blizz even stated no other racial increased one's ratings like having perception did for alliance players. I think Horde is probably stronger now, but with human's getting a free pvp trinket it's pretty close. Will of the Forsaken and War Stomp will always be great though. Also, I think, avoiding the stereotypes, that horde might have attracted more PvPers. I know at least from my experience that many RTS guilds from wc3 rolled horde, mostly because it was expected to be the underdog in terms of population. Don't know if RTS experience helped make better PvPers (I was ranked 4th on the US ladder on The Frozen Throne at one point :P) but then again there's some good RTSers who suck at WoW.

GM: Wrath of the Lich King is just around the corner and you have been one of the lucky one's to get a Beta Key. Is the Arena system at all active in Beta? Have you gotten a chance to test moonkin out in an arena environment?

FSU: I haven't really participated too much in beta arenas. I find beta somewhat depressing at the moment mostly because deathknights, ret pallies, and mages are all so strong that it is hard to have fun getting so utterly destroyed by players you can tell aren't very good. I did get to play moonkin on ptr with my rogue partner, we still seem to do very well but arcane mages have 4 shot me and ret pallies are obviously just as insane on ptr as they are on beta. Blizzard has acknowledged 2 of these 3 classes, and I can only hope that at level 80 arcane mages aren't as crazy, but playing against some they are still quite strong, especially with their ability to spam spell steal now, basically killing my HoT production.

GM: In general how are Moonkin shaping up from a PvP perspective? What are the positives? What would you like to see changed?

FSU: The positives are that we finally got some bloat reduction in our talent tree. I still think we need more, but I doubt Blizzard will give any. We also gained 2 new spells, both of which we can use while being attacked. This is very helpful to PvP where before when you're focused if you don't fake an interrupt you end up only being able to spam DoTs. I like starfall as a gimmicky sort of out, where I can use it to stun melee chasing me as well as doing damage. Typhoon is pretty bad overall, I only like it for it's damage; the mana cost and knockback are laughable at best. I also like the new eclipse for PvP. Ironically Blizzard made it for PvE but 30% crit to starfire after a wrath crit is no laughing matter; my plan currently is to spam wrath until I have wrath of elune and eclipse up, then throw out a 1-1.5 second starfire that crits for a ton.

I'd love to see us given a 4-5 second silence instead of typhoon. This would be infinitely more helpful and allow us to finally be able to interrupt casters more consistently. I also still must advocate for a PvP survivability talent. The amount of damage classes can do is very strong, and our inability to do anything while stunned or feared after our first trinket and barkskin is very disheartening. A simple 2 point talent that gives us 30% reduction on fear duration and 30% damage reduction while stunned (primal tenacity for Moonkin basically) would help so much. It boggles my mind that we haven't been given any survivability talent yet.

GM: From my perspective Lake Wintergrasp seems to be the most exciting PvP related change in WotLK. What do you think of it? Have you had any problems with faction imbalance?

FSU: I've only participated in Wintergrasp once when it was first released and it was pretty buggy. It seems like it could be fun though. To be honest I only like to arena or duel on beta / ptr because I don't want to spoil the game for myself. I'll have plenty of time to test wintergrasp and the new bg when I hit level 80 and I don't want to take away any fun I might have with my own character.

GM: Thank you for your time. Is there anything else you would like to say or anyone you would like to recognize?

FSU: Shout outs to my partners in crime Realz and Girlz, my 5s team Hopesfally We Win (and get Brutal Glad!), Hafu, my druid Queen, and ym.

If you have any questions for FSU please feel free to post them here in the comments and I will pass them on. You can also ask them in the guide thread he wrote that I linked above.