Talent Focus: Eclipse

When the Wrath of the Lich King talents first leaked, I like most moonkin really didn't like the new talent Eclipse. In fact I called it "the dumbest suggestion I have ever seen." If you take a look around the WoW Druid Forums or the Moonkin Repository you will see that this is still a very popular opinion, but my opinion has changed.

Please hear me out before you call me a noob or think I'm an idiot.

I am not saying this a must have talents as it is currently written or functions. All I am saying is that it has some potential that I don't think many of us have considered. So here are my new thoughts on Eclipse with pros and cons. Please post in the comments if you disagree, have something to add, or see an error in my reasoning. I would like this to be a debate.

Disclaimer: This is all speculation based upon second hand info. I am not in the alpha and do not know anyone that is. This analysis is entirely based upon the info available from the alpha wiki. All of the information is subject to change, and will likely change some what before WotLK is released. This is just for fun and to explore the possibilities of our new talents.

Eclipse
Tooltip - When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 60% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 10%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 60% chance of increasing your critical strike chance with Starfire by 10%. Effect lasts 30 sec and has a 2 minute cooldown.

From Wiki - "The buffs cannot stack, however it is possible to gain one buff less than 2 minutes after you've obtained the other. In actual terms, there is a definitive one-minute period minimum of "dead time" currently with Eclipse."

Analysis
This appears to be an effort to complicate our casting rotation. It potentially gives us a reason to cast Wrath in raid and Starfire in PvP. How it would work is definitely complicated. I propose that we could treat Eclipse like a trinket buff that triggers off of a spell cast and only cast Wrath to buff Starfire. Here is how it could work.

1. Tank pulls Boss.
2. Moonkin starts casting Wrath until Eclipse procs the Starfire buff. Assuming you have a max rank Eclipse and 25% crit chance this will take 6 to 7 casts on average (10-12 seconds of casting time with no haste).
3. Switch to casting Starfire as soon as you get the SF buff and use your normal casting rotation. (You may want to just chain cast Starfire for 30 seconds also.)
4. Due to the "dead time" the Wrath buff should proc a little more then a minute after the SF buff procced. As of now we would ignore this buff.
5. Due to the "dead time" the Starfire buff won't be available until a minute after the Wrath buff procced. After the "dead time" ends start chain casting Wrath again for the SF buff and start the cycle over.

Pros
* Provided you with a buff that can significantly increase your DPS from additional damage and Imp Moonkin form haste affects.
* It is possible that Eclipse would proc off of Rank one Wrath. This way you could spam it while the tank is still trying to gain aggro.

Cons
* It is extremely dependent on the random number generator. While it would take 6 or 7 casts on average for the buff to proc it could easily happen on the first cast or not until the 14th cast. Even after you get the buff there is no guarantee that you will benefit from it since crits are also determined by the random number generator. On average this should be nice but can be very feast or famine.
* I have not heard of any new buffs that apply to Wrath that do not apply to Starfire also. So Wrath still has all the same disadvantages that it currently does.
* Due to the "dead time" and the time it takes the buff to proc you will not get the buff every 2 minutes on cooldown. In practice it will probably take 2 minutes 30 seconds to get a new buff.

Recommended Changes
* Change the proc chance from 20%/40%/60% to 40%/70%/100%. This would reduce some of the randomness of the buff and make it more manageable.
* Allow the buffs to stack or reduce the "dead time" to 30 seconds. This would reduce the time between buff. You still won't be able to get it ever 2 minutes but it shouldn't take to much longer.

Conclusion
I think most moonkin get hung up on the fact that you have to cast Wrath to get anything from Eclipse. It is going to take a long time for people to get over the perception that Wrath is not a good spell for raiding. Just look at the Oomkin nickname. We haven't had significant mana issues for quite a while but quite a few people still assume that we do.

I am not convinced that this is a great talent that will significantly increase our DPS and should be picked up by every moonkin when WotLK drops. I am not down on it either. I think it has potential. Lets not write it off yet and see how it unfolds.

Guild/Toon Update
It has been a while since I wrote one of these and a lot has happened. Like many guilds this time of year we have had our share of attendance problems. We have actually put Kael on Hold for a little while because people seemed to be getting burnt out on the fight and we were running low on some of the roles required by that fight. The guild has also gone through some structural and leadership style changes. As of right now I am not 100% sure I am happy with all of the changes or how they were implemented, and I have heard similar thoughts from other members and officers. In fact a couple of people who I considered to be key members and officers of the guild have already /Gquit as a result. I am currently in a wait and see mode. If the new structure and tone of the guild help us to down new bosses and progress then I will be a happy camper. Even if it doesn't work out I don't have a whole lot of options. Most of the raiding guilds on Eitrigg have fallen apart or are having issues of their own. I also don't really want to transfer and leave my friends on this server. I am kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Graylo - As I said earlier, we have put Kael on hold for a little while and have done more in Hyjal and BT, including putting some attempts in on Gorefiend. Those attempts went pretty well but some people still need to figure out the mini game and that is wiping us currently. He as also been running ZA quite a bit and picking up new gear. I picked up [Shadowcaster's Drape] from timed loot and and [Loop of Cursed Bones] from Zul'jin. I also picked up the healing chest off of Lynx for my offset. As of right now the only thing out of ZA that I 100% need is [Hex Shrunken Head]. It did drop once but I lost the roll. I would also take the [Hood of Hexing] if no one else in raid needed it. It did drop once but I am still holding out for my T5 helm or something with a meta gem, and I can't take it if some else will get more use out of it. On a different note, I am starting to regret my decisions to pass on the [Hammer of Judgement] twice. It has dropped since I passed on it the last time but I wasn't in raid when it dropped, and I have been in Hyjal several times since then. I will get it eventually but it is starting to be a little frustrating.

Graypal - I ran a kara with him this past weekend and got enough badges to pick up [Studious Wraps] but a cloak still didn't drop. Other than that nothing. The only place I would be interested to raid him now is TK for the caster helm or caster pants, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. I will probably use him for daily quests once Grayfel gets close to 70 so that I can get him his epic mount right away.

Grayfel - He is now about 3 bars from level 63. I have made a lot of progress since my last update on him at level 58. He is in Outland, but I am very bored with HFP. I've seen it two many times now and I'm tired of getting ganked by a Fel Reaver. Good news is I will be out of the zone soon if I follow my guide. The down side to Grayfel at the moment is his epic mount. I have done all of the quests up to the Lab run in Scholomance, and haven't been able to get a group together to do it. I will admit that I have mainly been looking for some one to run me through it instead of getting a real group, but I had hoped to be done by now. I'm not blaming anyone because I know every one is busy and doesn't' necessarily want to do that sort of thing after a raid. Its just frustrating to go slow when I could be faster.

Graytom - Haven't put a ton of effort into him but he is up to level 14 now.

Spell Damage vs Spell Haste (for Moonkin)

Note: This guide was written well before WotLK as released. The information and modeling done here is based completely on a BC version of WoW. While I thing this information is still generally correct, It does not apply direct any more. I do plan on writting a new guide and will post on my blog when it is done.

Spell Haste is the most misunderstood stat within the Moonkin community. If you watch the WoW druid forums regularly you see plenty of Spell Haste questions. The sad part about his is many of the people answering these questions provide incorrect or miss leading information. With this post I hope to provide the answers providing the Pros, Cons, and Breakeven points of Spell Haste.

Assumptions/Disclaimers:
1. Spell Crit is excluded from the calculation due to the fact that it affects Spell Damage and Spell Haste equally in terms of DPS. I ran the numbers with several levels of crit and the ratio between Spell Damage and Spell Haste is the same for all levels of Spell Crit used.

2. Spell Hit is excluded from the calculation due to the fact that it affects Spell Damage and Spell Haste equally in terms of DPS. I ran the numbers with several levels of hit and the ratio between Spell Damage and Spell Haste is the same for all levels of Spell Hit used.

3. This analysis has been written using Starfire but all moonkin spells are very similarly affected by Spell Haste. Therefore this analysis can be applied to Wrath and other Moonkin Spells.

4. Calculations assume that the caster is level 70.

Talents and other Buffs Affecting Spell Haste:
There are several items and spells that temporarily buff haste, but none of these last longer then 30 seconds. Therefore they will be excluded from the calculations.

General Spell Haste Info:
* Spell Haste lowers a spells casting time and lowers the global cooldown. Haste cannot lower the global cooldown below 1 second. However it would take 785 Spell Haste to lower the global cooldown to 1 second. This level is not possible to achieve long term with gear currently available in game.

* Spell Haste has no affect on the damage caused by a single spell. It only changes the casting time.

* Spell Haste has diminishing returns. Your first point of Spell Haste will affect your cast time more significantly then your second point.

* Cast Time Calculation: Base Cast Time / (1+(Spell Haste / 1570)) = Actual Cast Time. Ex: 3.0 sec / (1+(157/1570) = 2.73 sec for Starfire with 157 Spell Haste.

The Math:
As with all of the Spell DPS stats the value of Spell Haste and Spell Damage are highly dependent on each other. Obviously the amount of DPS you gain from one point of Spell Damage increases the more Spell Haste you have since Spell Haste will decrease your cast time. The amount of DPS you gain from one point of Spell Haste increases with the amount of Spell Damage you have because Spell Damage increases how much damage your spells do per cast.

How much additional DPS will you receive from an additional point of Spell Damage?
Moonfury, Wrath of Cenarius and your Spell Haste all affect the amount of DPS you gain from Spell Damage. Starfire has a base Spell Damage Coefficient of 1, and let X equal your Cast Time. So the additional damage from one point of Spell damage is:

Damage = ((1 + 0.2)*1.1)/X, So if you have zero haste Then
Damage = ((1 + 0.2)*1.1)/3.0
Damage = 1.32/3.0 = 0.4400 DPS per point of Spell Damage with zero Spell Haste.

How much additional DPS will you receive from an additional point of Spell Haste?
First we need to figure out how much DPS Starfire does on a normal cast. It has two components, base spell damage and bonus spell damage. Base spell damage is the damage that comes with the trainable spell with no bonus from gear. A max rank Starfire can hit for between 550 and 646. It is increased by 10% because of Moonfury, so the average base spell damage for Starfire is 657.8. Bonus spell damage is what you receive from gear and is calculated on your character screen. It is modified based upon the base casting time of the spell and talents. Starfire has a Spell Damage Coefficient of 1, and it is modified by Wrath of Cenarius and Moonfury as I said before. Of course all of this need to be divided by your Spell Cast Time. So the DPS of your average non-miss Starfire is equal to:

DPS = (657.8 + (Spell Damage)*(1 + 0.2)*(1.1)) / Cast Time
DPS = (657.8 + (1100)*(1 + 0.2)*(1.1)) / 3 = 703.2667, If you have 1100 Spell Damage and zero Spell Haste.

Now, if we had one point of Spell Haste to the equation then we increase the average DPS per spell cast. Using the equation

DPS = (657.8 + (Spell Damage)*(1 + 0.2)*(1.1)) / Cast Time
DPS = (657.8 + (1100)*(1 + 0.2)*(1.1)) / (3/(1+(1/1570))) = 703.7146, If you have 1100 Spell Damage and zero starting Spell Haste.

So from one point of Spell Haste you gain 0.4479 DPS with 1100 Spell Damage and zero starting Haste. Lets compare this value to the DPS value I calculated for one additional point of Spell Damage.

0.4479/0.4400 = 1.0180

So, at 1100 Spell Damage and zero starting Haste, one additional point of Spell Haste is worth 1.0180 points of Spell Damage.

I have calculated this value for several levels of Spell Damage and Spell Haste. Here is a graph that shows the results.

Break-Even Point:
As you can see from the graph above the value of Haste is below that of Spell Damage ever for some reasonable amounts of Spell Damage. Not only that, but as your starting haste increases the value of an additional point of haste decreases relative to Spell Damage.

This brings up two important questions. When should you start picking up haste? How much haste is too much haste? If we ignore the mana concerns that come with Haste, these questions are very easy to answer from a mathematical standpoint.

When should you start picking up haste?
Assuming that you are starting with zero Spell Haste, one point of Spell Haste, will provide more additional DPS then one point of Spell Damage when you have 1,072 Spell Damage fully raid buffed. This is a fairly easy level to reach if you uses flasks and other consumables, but hasted should not be equipped before you reach this level.

How much haste is too much haste?
Unlike Spell Hit, there is no reasonable level of Spell Haste where Spell Haste becomes worthless on its own. However, if you collect to much Spell Haste you can push its value below that of Spell Damage as we can see from the graph above. You can find this break even point with a simple equation.

Spell Damage > Spell Haste + 1,071

If that equation is correct for your toon, then you do not have to much haste. So for example, if you have 75 Spell Haste, then you should have at least 1,146 Spell Damage fully raid buffed.

Gemming for Spell Haste:
Another very common question is when should you gem for spell haste. And it is a little more complicated to answer. It depends on stat your not gemming because your gemming haste, and what quality of gems you are using. Lets look at each of the stats and see how they affect the choice.

Spell Hit – Assuming you are not hit capped. Spell Hit is always more valuable then Haste. If you are not hit capped do not gem for Haste.

Spell Crit – Spell Haste will always improve your short run DPS more then Spell Crit. My math showed that Spell Haste was better then Spell Crit even if you had very low crit and very high haste. So don’t be afraid to put a Reckless gem in those yellow sockets instead of a Potent gem if your above the break-even point.

Spell Damage – This is the complicated one. Unlike the other stats Spell Damage has a lower stat value then Spell Haste. So you will get more Spell Damage on a gem then you will Spell Haste. For Example The Runed Crimson Spinel will give you 12 Spell Damage. The Quick Lionseye on the other hand will give you 10 Spell Haste. So right off the bat Spell Damage has a 1.2 greater value then Spell Haste. This cause us to have a different break-even point when gemming for Spell Haste over Spell Damage. It is:

Spell Damage > 1.2 * (Spell Haste) + 1,386

If that equation is correct for your toon, then you can gain more DPS by gemming for Haste instead of Spell Damage. So for example, if you have 75 Spell Haste, then you should have at least 1,476 Spell Damage fully raid buffed before you gem for haste over damage.

Conclusions:
1. My results show that moonkin shouldn’t consider equipping haste until they have at least 1072 Spell Damage raid buffed. This however is an absolute minimum and higher levels of Spell Damage are recommended to be safe.

2. You can always gem for Haste over Spell Crit to increase your DPS, but should never gem for Haste over Hit if you are not hit capped.

3. You need at lease 1,386 Spell Damage raid buffed to gem for Haste over Spell Damage, but should probably have significantly more.

4. This whole article ignores the mana issues associated with Haste. If you find that you are running out of mana at the end of long fights then you should probably hold off on equipping haste until your mana situation is more stable.

Moonkin Idols: Which one is Best.

With Patch 2.4.3 going to break in the next couple of weeks Idol Swapping macros will become a thing of the past. This begs the question which Idol should I use, and like any good question the answer depends on a couple of things. Below I have highlighted the for main idols you have to choose from and when you should use them.

[Idol of the Unseen Moon] - The only epic idol available to moonkin.
The Pros: It has a 50% proc rate with no internal cooldown. It also affects all spells cast and is affected by your Wrath of Cenarious talent.
The Cons: The down side is that you have only 8.5 seconds of the buff since the global cooldown takes away 1.5 seconds of cast time. Plus you you don't want to cut off your last moonfire tick so you can only get the buff once every 12 seconds. (15 seconds with two pieces of T6).
The Verdict: With Natures Grace you should be able to get 3 starfires off while the buff is up, and it is made even easier if you have any haste. You should use this Idol when you add Moonfire to your rotation until you have two pieces of T6 gear. The two piece set bonus makes this idol less valuable.

[Ivory Idol of the Moongoddess]
The Pros: It affects the primary damage spell of a moonkin on every cast.
The Cons: The additional damage is applied to the spell's base damage and does not benefit from Wrath of Cenarious.
The Verdict: Oddly enough you will want to use this idol two times in your raiding experience. The first is at the start, when you have very little mana regen and don't use Moonfire in your rotation. The second is when you have two pieces of T6 and start stacking haste. Two pieces fo T6 and Haste mean you will be able to get more Starfire casts in for every one moonfire cast. More Starfires mean more damage and pushes this idol past the Moonfire Idol in terms of total damage.

[Idol of the Raven Goddess] -
The Pros: Can increase raid viability and party dps.
The Cons: It is a personal DPS loss and the party wide gains are very dependent on your group and the fight you are attempting.
The Verdict: This is the hardest idol to quantify, and its usefulness best described as situational. Here are the things to think about when evaluating this trinket.
1. Your party - You need to have at least 4 casters in your party that benefit significantly from crit. Having five heavy crit users is best. This means that this trinket is fairly useless in most 5 mans and may not be good for 10 mans either. If you have 3 mages, destro locks, elemental shaman, or holy pallys in your group, consider this idol. If not move on.
2. Your party's gear level - Crit scales very well with spell damage, but spell damage doesn't scale as well with crit. So if your party has very high levels of spell damage then they will benefit more from crit then you will benefit from some extra spell damage.
3. The fight - This idol improves your aura, but unfortunately your aura has a range of 30 yards. For high movement fights like Void Reaver it will be very easy for your party to get spread out and not benefit from your buff. Other fights like Solarion are great for this idol since they cause everyone to clump up in one spot.

[Idol of the Avenger]
The Pros: This is the easiest idol to obtain since it is a quest reward.
The Cons: Buffs the least used spell by a raiding moonkin.
The Verdict: A very situational idol since moonkin shouldn't be using Wrath all that much. I like to keep it in my bags for the rare occasion that I do use wrath in raids. Other then that this idol is only good for PvP or soloing.

Blog Update: I really wanted to use the WoW icons for each of these idols in my blog post. Unfortunately I could not ind a good way to get them. I tried saving them off of WoWHead and WoWWiki but that didn't work. I also remember some data base with all of the icons in it but I couldn't find it. Anyway, if anyone knows a way for me to get a .JPG or .GIF of each of these icons please let me know.

Also, if anyone has some suggestions on how to improve my blog feel free to post them. I won't promise to implement them all, but I would like to know what you think.

Toon Update:
Graylo - Primarily Raiding, but raiding has been a little slow this week. We've had some absences and haven't had many attempts on Kael. I did run some ZA over the weekend. I had shot at the [Loop of Cursed Bones] but the guy rolling against me was the guy I beat for my new ring, and I didn't think it was fair if I rolled against him again. Not a big deal, We are clearing ZA fairly regularly now and it will drop again. My only really plan for Graylo now is to do those Fire Fest quests and get 550 free gold.

Graypal - As usual not much is going on here. I've had some opportunities to take him into Mag but there is nothing I really want there so I don't see the point. Like Graylo the only plan I have for him is free gold.

Grayfel - He is about halfway through 58 now. I haven't played him a whole lot, but he is progressing. It looks like I am going ot have to spend a 100g or so to get his Jewelcrafting up to 300. The gems just aren't dropping the way I would like them to and I want to be at 300 when I go to outland. I also plan to do all of the free gold quests on Grayfel. I won't be as much gold but it will be some good exp. My plan for the weekend is to get rid of his rested exp and hopefully get him to outland.

Graytom - He has built up quite a bit of rested exp. Hopefully I can use it all over the weekend. Shouldn't take to long.

My Thoughts on Patch 2.4.3

For those of you that don't know, blizzard released a new set of patch notes a couple of days ago. You can find them here.

With Wrath of the Lich King on the horizon, no body was expecting significant changes until the expansion is ready to release. While additional patches were expected, most people expected them to be fairly small bug fix patches. That is why this new patch caught me a little off guard. It is by no means a major patch like 2.4 or 2.3, but there are some significant changes in there that will change the way we play. Here are my highlights and thoughts.

* Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World's End Tavern! - With all of the new daily quests there is a lot of money laying around in Azeroth. So Blizzard has provided a new money sink to take some gold out of the market and prevent inflation. There isn't a lot of news from the PTR but it sounds like most of her items are expensive novelty items that few people will be interested it. However she will be selling a 22 slot bag for 1,200 gold. Not a huge deal for me because I can't see myself shelling that much gold for two bag slots, but I know that others will.

* Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold. - A nice change but nothing huge. As some one with several alts I have always found the first few levels frustrating because running is so slow. So, I am happy that I will get a mount for my shaman a little bit sooner.

* Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress. - This is huge for moonkin. I have not been on the PTR to test it, but I assume that this will mean the death of Idol swapping macros. I had stopped using them for a couple of reasons, but I know that they are still popular with quite a few moonkin. This of course prompts the question: "Which Idol should I use?" The answer depends on a couple of things and I will address it in a future post.

* Barkskin: The cost of this spell is now reduced by Tree of Life Form. - While this makes sense it honestly doesn't go far enough, and I have thought it for a while. They are Trees, Trees have bark, therefore Druids in Tree of Life Form should always have Barkskin up. Period.

* Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed. / Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire. - Another huge change for moonkin, and it is a fairly significant change for raiding in general. From a moonkin point of view having CoS is not guaranteed in smaller raids, and if you have only one Lock with Malediction then you don't know which curse he is going to cast. This change should increase our personal damage and will make it more beneficial for all group situations. From a raid perspective this is awesome. Even if you currently have two locks with Malediction casting the curses, this will increase raid DPS because one of those locks will now be able to cast another curse like Agony or Doom. Great change. I'm a fan.

* Magisters' Terrace is being nerfed. - There are two many changes to list them all. Basically all four bosses were nerfed in some way. They either had their damage reduced or their health reduced. Even some of the trash was nerfed. To be honest this isn't that much of a surprise. I lot of people have felt that this instance is significantly harder then the other level 70 instances. It will be interesting to see how big of a difference these changes make.

* The most exciting change isn't in the patch notes - On PTR, the first parts for Stormwind Harbor are showing up, you can find the Harbor entrance at the northern canal wall between the Park and Cathedral districts in Stormwind. and various construction worker NPCs have been added to Stormwind for the Harbor. You can witness the new npcs two of which can open a chat dialog box explaining whats going on and the new construction zone between The Northern area of The Park and Cathedral Square. This is the first in-game reference we have seen to Wrath of the Lich King. For those of you that haven't been paying attention to the leaks, Stormwind is getting a new section in WotLK called Stormwind Harbor. Presumably this is one of the places you will catch a boat to Northrend. It doesn't mean anything in terms of our current game play but it is a sign of how close we are to the expansion.

Guild Update:
We have spent the last three nights in TK and on Kael. Tuesday we cleared the first three bosses relatively quickly and got a couple of attempts in on Kael. Wednesday and Thursday night we focused all of our attention on Kael with the exception of a quick trip to Mag on Wednesday after the Kael attempts were done.

Kael is going pretty well, and we have made progress each night.

In phase one we are consistently killing the 4 advisers in the correct spots. Thaldred kiting could improve a little bit, but that is being picky.

Phase two is going much better. We are consistently getting at least 4 (usually 5) of the weapons down before the advisers respawn and are starting to manage the Phase two to Phase three transition pretty well. Despite our successes I personally think our phase two can improve. I am sure that we can get the weapons down quicker and make the transition to phase 3 easier. The main reason I say that is I am beating some of the AoEers on DPS as a moonkin. Yes, I do out gear a couple of them but they should at least be closer to my damage and probably beat me by a little bit.

Phase three has been very up and down for us and is the phase where we currently need the most improvement. Since we usually have a couple of weapons still up the transition to phase three has been fairly chaotic and some people have had trouble picking up the weapons in before they despawn. Also, the kiting of Thaldred is much more complicated now that the other 3 advisers are up as well. The raid in general needs to work on their positioning so they don't get one shotted when he pops and kiting him north instead of towards the other advisers.

We did however have one really good attempt last night were we had two advisers down before Kael popped and a third was down soon after he popped. Unfortunately our inexperience showed after that and a lot of people made mistakes in the confusion.

We are getting to phase 4 consistently, but don't have the advisers under control enough to make a serious attempt at it.

Toon Update:
Graylo - I have something to say about Graylo for a change. We started a ZA run on Wednesday night and did the first 3 bosses on timed loot. Luckily for me the [Mana Attuned Band] dropped and I won the roll. It is a very nice ring that should do quite a bit for my DPS.

Graypal - Nothing to say.

Grayfel - I did a little questing with him but no big changes. He is still level 57 but about 4 bars away from 58. I will say this though. Now that I am getting closer to level 60 I am wondering if Affliction is really the best way to go. I don't have an overall problem with Affliction but my goal is efficient leveling. If any of you have some suggestions as to how I should level to 70 please let me know.

Graytom- Just gathering rested XP.

A Cornucopia of things.

Life has been a little busy lately and I just noticed that I have not updated my blog in over a week. Sorry for the long wait, here are a couple of thing that have been going on.

Guild Update:
We attempted Kael for the first time in over a month last week, but unfortunately our number of attempts was very limited due to tanking availability and some stupid wipes on the other TK bosses. The few attempts we did have didn't go quite as well has hoped but I still up beat about our prospects. It took us a little while to get through Phase one and get all of the adds positioned where we wanted them to rez, but in the end we were doing it with no problem. Our current issue is phase 2. We haven't been able to dps the weapons fast enough and get most of them down before the adds respawn.

What we were trying to do was have ranged on staff, melee on mace, then AoE the rest except for non AoE ranged going on bow. This just wasn't fast enough. We also had a problem with the bow teleporting and Multishoting the raid. After some research I think we know what our problems were. First, it seems the bow tank was sending her pet in, causing it to move around. Obviously we won't do that anymore. Second, I think we are going to work harder to get the Staff into AoE and take the bow down first. We will probably try and get a rogue or DPS warrior to lock it out of spells and then drag it into AoE. Hopefully they will be able to keep it spell locked after that. AoE will start right after the bow goes down. This should give the tanks enough time to generate threat.

Hopefully this will be enough. If anyone that has done this fight has any suggestions post them in the comments.

Blog Update:
I have added a new blog to my blog roll. Chick GM is a blog about running a guild in High end content. She has recently done a series of posts on applying and getting into a new guild. I haven't read all of her posts but I like what I have seen so far. I like it because it has some good info and has a few of those horror stories of applications and guild drama that most of us like to read.

Alpha Update:
Not a whole lot to report here. It looks like a new build has been released and made its way to the leak page. You can find it here. There are a couple of what appear to be minor changes for druids but nothing to really comment on. It does look like they have included more changes for Mage's, Rogues, and Shaman if you are interested in those classes.

My Haiku:
The blog Unbearably Hot had a contest last week for Druid/Nature themed Haiku's. Normally I don't participate in these types of things but I did this time. Here is my entry.

Playing Moonkin rocks.
Moonfire Spammer I am not.
Tempt my Wrath and die.

Its not vary naturey unless you look at it from the stand point I talked about Wrath which is a nature spell. It is definitely very druidy though. The contest ended last Friday and the results are not out yet. I will keep you posted.

Toon Update:
Graylo - Same old thing. Just raiding. Since I don't PvP there isn't much to do with him. I did get him into ZA and I finally got a chance to kill Zul'jin. We took him down in one shot. Most of our ZA runs are on the weekend and not scheduled. So I have a hard time getting in on them. Hopefully I will get in some more soon.

Graypal - Did a full clear of Kara on Friday. Also did some heroics and finally got my Sha'tar rep up to revered so that I could head enchant. Still need to run Heroic MgT to get the trinket, and need to do some arena to get some bracers once season 4 comes out. Other than that there isn't much to do.

Grayfel - This is where most of my time has gone. He is now about halfway through 57 and in Eastern Plagelands. I skipped a good portion of my guide to get there, and I am actually a little bit behind the guide. As I said before I plan to finish out the WPL and EPL sections of my guide just so that I can see the zones even if that takes me a little bit into 60. I am very motivated to play him right now, but I think a lot of that is because I want to see EPL and WPL. I wonder what will happen when I hit outland. Profession wise he is doing pretty well. His mining is up to 300 and his Jewelcrafting is up to 271. I need to get him to outland to train his mining but I kind of want to wait until I can train his Jewelcrafting also. Anyway, he is doing pretty well.

Graytom - I think I mentioned this toon a back in January. I created him as a way to escape from everything during the time after the break up. I didn't play him much then and only worked on him slightly in the months since. However, I put a little work into him this past weekend. I leveled him from 10 to 13 over the weekend. I started playing him again out of boredom, having limited time, and accomplishments are so easy at the lower levels. I would have play Grayfel some more but I had used up all of his rested XP, and he is currently in IF. Just getting to EPL would have taken a little while. Since I had limited time I didn't want to get all the way up there and not be able to do anything. So, Graytom got my attention.

If you couldn't guess I put his 4 points in Elemental. I have a goal of having a level 70 in all 5 caster dps classes but don't have a real plan to achieve this goal. The chances of me completing it before the expansion comes out is very slim. In fact I would be impressed if I had 4 70s before the expansion let alone 5. Though I have put the points in Elemental I must admit that I have been very tempted to go the enhancement route. If I get bored with elemental I may switch over.

Azgalor Down

WA tried Azgalor for the first time this past Monday and did surprisingly well. They ended up getting him down to 16% on the first try, but had to call the raid after that. On Tuesday night we tried to do it again. We had hoped to down the first three bosses quickly so that we could get a couple attempts on Azgalor, but luck was not with us. We had a couple of unlucky wipes due to DCs at very bad times. So we ended up only getting one attempt in on Azgalor on Tuesday. On Wednesday we came back and three shotted him. In total it took us 5 attempts to get him down which I think is pretty good.

I had heard that Azgalor was the first hard boss in Hyjal. I do agree that he is significantly harder then the first three but I expected him to be worse. As long as your raid pays attention it isn't that hard. You just have to get out of the fire. Pay attention to Doom. Healers have to worry about silence, and warlocks have to worry about soul stones. Other then that it is a DPS race. One last thing I will say about the fight. All raid members have to have 375 First Aid. Bandages are very important for this fight and can be difference between life and death.

The funny thing about all of this is we hadn't planned on starting Azgalor this soon. The plan for Monday was to do the first three in Hyjal, but they killed them fast enough that there was time left over at the end. Since it was Monday, all of the really easy kills were done and there wasn't anywhere meaningful they could go. So they decided to try Kaz. This has put the guild is in kind of a funny spot. Here we are with 4 of 5 down in Hyjal and 3 of nine down in BT. I am fairly sure we could get Gorefiend down quickly to be 4 or 9 in BT. The problem is we still haven't downed Kael. In fact we have only attempted him a couple of times well over a month ago.

We have put him off for a several of reasons. First we wanted to down Vashj. We had more experience with that fight and felt like we were close to downing her. Second, since blizzard dropped the attunements for both Hyjal and BT a lot of people wanted to get in there and check them out. Once we got in there and were getting easy loot it was very hard to convince people to go backwards. Third, we wanted to solidify our recent progress. We had only killed Vashj once and missed her the next two weeks primarily due to attendance issues. We had also only gotten Supremus and Kaz'rogal down once and didn't feel like we had the fights mastered. We wanted to make sure we had those fights down before we moved on. Lastly, we all know that Kael is a hard boss and that he is really going to test the guild mentally. Quite a few officers blame Vashj and the way we went at her for breaking up the guild the first time, and are very leery of it happening again. So they don't want to push it to hard and possibly cause another break. All of this is about to change since we have scheduled TK and Kael for 3 days next week.

I am happy that we will be starting Kael soon, but having to wait such a long time as caused me to regret that Blizzard dropped the Attunements. I see how dropping them has helped us, but it has also made wow life a little difficult. Before 2.4 we had two instances we could run. Planning a raid wasn't all that difficult. Now we have four instances to choose from and don't have enough time to do them all. This has caused us to scatter our focus all over the place and has made guild management very difficult. I'm not sure I would be happy if they replaced the attunements, but part of me would be happy to have the focus back. This should all be made irrelevant once we get Kael down. Then we can focus on T6.

Toon Update:
Graylo - As usual he is primarily raiding, but is not having a whole lot of luck. We downed Vashj last night for the third time and not a single Defender token has dropped. We have had 7 Hero tokens drop and 2 Champion tokens but no Defender. In one Vashj kill there is a 71% chance at lease one defender token will drop. In all of our 3 kills there was a 97.6% chance for a defender token to drop, but we have gotten none. That sucks. To make matters worse is that this maybe our last Vashj kill for a little while. We don't have any scheduled in the future because we are focusing most of our attention on Kael. Hopefully we will find some time to come in and get her down. I want that helm.

Graypal - Absolutely nothing. Can't even get rested XP anymore. The only goals I have for him now require me to run Kara or Heroics and I just haven't had time for those lately.

Grayfel - Nothing since my last post but he does have the advantage of gaining rested XP. He won't be progressing much though. I have a lot of family coming in town this weekend and won't be on much if at all. And I don't level on the weekdays. He probably won't see any action until next weekend.

How to Gem a Moonkin.

There are two ways to look at this topic. What level of gems should I use and what stats should I look for in my gems? Both questions are fairly easy to answer but I am surprised at how many times is see people make the incorrect choices. Here are my thoughts.

Gem Level:
I assume that most of you already know this but I have seen quite a few posts that say "rate my moonkin" that fail some of these basic rules.

White Gems - Most people don't even know they exist but you can by white level gems from a vendor. My advice is to not do it. Yes, they are cheap and easy, but green gems are just as cheap and easy. The only time I would consider equipping a white gem was if I was about to do an instance with a new piece of gear and the AH didn't have the gem I needed. Even then I would replace it as soon as I could.

Green Gems - These are great for Green or Blue items that you probably will replace fairly soon. They are also very good for off spec and alt gear. No point in spending 50g for gem that you won't use often.

Blue Gems - Pretty much a must for Epic level gear. If you want to raid more than casually then having these gems are expected at a minimum.

Purple Gems - There are now several sources of epic gems. You can get them from T6 raiding, Badges of Justice, Instances, and PvP. High end raiding guilds are starting to expect you to be gemed with epic gems. So If your hope is to see all the game content before the expansion, then you will need these.

Gem Type:
This is where most people need help. I will look at it from the stand point of each socket type and then talk about some of the pitfalls you should avoid. I will also use blue level gems as my examples but you can use either the green or purple level gems if you like.

Meta - [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] is your best option. This is the one and only time I will say to stack crit over spell damage. I do that because the extra 3% crit damage is awesome. In actuality it improves your Crit damage by 4.5% due to blizzards crazy math. For a kara/gruul's level raiding moonkin it is equivalent to 20 - 30 spell damage. For T5 and T6 moonkin it is more like 50 spell damage and can go much higher. The runner up is the [Swift Starfire Diamond]. I only mention this because it is cheap and easy. Not a bad choice for socketing an alt or off spec.

Note: Meta gems have other requirements to activate them. The [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] requires two blue gems. This means you have to have two blue gem types socketed in other gear. However they don't have to be pure blue gems. You can meet the requirement using Purple or Green gems also.

Red - [Runed Living Ruby] is the best choice most of the time. Spell damage drives your DPS and this gem gives the most of it. [Veiled Noble Topaz] is another option if your below the hit cap. If you have 1400 buffed spell damage then [Reckless Noble Topaz] could also make sense if your are stacking haste.

Yellow - Spell Hit, Spell Crit, and Spell Haste are more expensive stats then Spell Damage. Gems are the perfect proof of this. The [Runed Living Ruby] has 9 Spell Damage where as the yellow gems for hit, crit, and haste only have 8 points in their stat. That is why I prefer to socket yellow sockets with orange gems. You should focus on the [Veiled Noble Topaz] until you are hit capped from gear. However, the [Reckless Noble Topaz], [Great Dawnstone], [Quick Dawnstone], and [Potent Nobel Topaz] are also decent options if they fit your situation. Don't stack Haste until you have at least 1400 Spell Damage buffed. Crit should only be stacked if you are hit capped.

Blue - [Glowing Nightseye] is the best choice. Spirit, Mp5, and Spell Pen are the only spell related stats available in blue, and all of these stats are either expensive or useless. Thus, the Glowing gems are always the best option.

Socket Bonus:
I find that you should equip for the socket bonus 90% of the time as a Moonkin. This is because a majority of socket bonuses are additional Spell Damage or Spell Hit. I think socket bonuses of Stam or Crit are a matter of personal preference and how far out of your way you have to go to get the socket bonus. Any other socket bonus you should ignore for the most part. In these situations I would equip Runed gems.

Pitfalls:
Intelligence - Gemming for Int is a common error for a lot of new moonkin. They see all of the damage, crit, and mana we gain from it and assume that it is our best stat. Well, it isn't. It is a very good stat but you will get more DPS out of straight spell damage then you will out of Int.

Mp5 - Moonkin have a history of having mana problems and therefore some moonkin are tempted to gem for a little extra mana. The problem with Mp5 is that it is so expensive. You can get 5 spell damage and 6 stam at the expense of just 3 Mp5. It just doesn't have enough bang for the buck.

Epic Gems from Instances - There are some very good gems that drop out of instances. [Glowing Tanzanite] drops in heroic BM. [Shining Fire Opal] drops in heroic Mech. However, these are the only two gems you should consider equipping out of instances. Don't feel like you have to equip the 5 hit/2 mp5 gem just because it dropped. Equip what gives you the best performance.

Alpha Update:
There have been some changes made to the Alpha leak Wiki. If you would like to look at the Wiki your self you can find it here. Just remember, that none of this is final and it may be fake. Browse at your own risk.

Eclipse - now lasts 30 sec (up from 12) and has a 2 min cooldown. - I didn't like this talent in the first place and this change doesn't make me like it anymore. My main question is what is there intent with this talent? Is it for PvP or do they expect it to be used in raids?
Owlkin Frenzy - 25% spell haste ditched, now gives balance spell pushback immunity on proc. - I'm not sure if this is a nerf or a buff. Probably a bit of both. The pushback resistance could save you as much casting time as the haste especially if you are trying to get a Starfire off. Anyway, this is still a very PvP focused talent and you all know I am not a PvP expert.
Imp Moonkin Form - 100% spell haste changed to 20%. - I said in my original comments that this was an overpowered talent and wouldn't make it to release. Well, as predicted it has been nerfed to a much more reasonable level of 20%. It would make my Starfires a 2.5 second cast. I think this is a good level, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was lowered a little more.
Soothe Animal - Now affects dragonkin. - Has anyone ever used this spell?
Celestial Focus, Vengeance, Focused Starlight, Moonglow - Now also affect Starfall. - Not a surprise.
Entangling Roots - Now ticks every second. - Just means a little more damage if it breaks early and makes it a little more affective on casters by causing more push back.
Lunar Guidance - Changed to 4/8/12% (down from 8/16/24%). - A HUGE nerf that will cause a lot of moaning and groaning in the Moonkin community. If it was implemented right now I would lose about 70 spell damage raid buffed. I don't like it but we will see what happens. Phaelia over at Resto4Life thinks this change is primarily focused at discouraging the Dreamstate build. If this is the case there has to be a better way to do it. Here is her evaluation of the new changes.
Starfall - Extra damage radius changed to 5 yards (down from 10). - A nerf but I still don't understand enough about how this spell works to voice much of an opinion on it.
Nature's Fury - No longer converts bonus healing into damage. - Not huge. This would make this talent useless in PvP, but leaves it still vary viable for Raiding.

Toon Update:
Graylo - I didn't play a whole lot over the weekend. I have a lot of family stuff coming up so my playtime will be limited. I did the first four bosses of ZA on Saturday, I wasn't able to get on early enough to try and finish it up on Sunday. Nothing special here I just got some more badges.

Graypal - He is really on the back burner now. I didn't do Kara with him because I was busy this weekend and I don't really have any other reason to play him right now. I did get a couple of heroic runs on him during the week and I am very close to revered with Sha'tar so that I can get the head enchant.

Grayfel - As is usually the case I had hoped to do more with him then I did. He is now two thirds of the way through level 52. I had hoped to get him to 53 but it didn't happen. I can really see the light at the end of the outland tunnel. I know that I am 8 levels away but i feel very close. His professions are doing ok. I think his mining is up to 269 and should easily be 300 by the time I hit outland. Jewelcrafting isn't going as well. I think I am up to 218 or so. I need a ton of [Aquamarine] to level it up and they were selling for 5 gold each over the weekend. I think I have some time to get it up but I hope to be 300 by the time I reach outland.