I didn't mention it when it happened but a third thing happened during my awesome week. Phae over at Resto4Life asked me to write a post for her amazing blog. Since her readership is much bigger then mine I jumped at the chance. (Branching Out .... Get it?)
In an effort to provide something that is relevant to both Moonkin and Resto's I took a look at the gear changes in WotLK. In the past, Moonkin have had to fight tooth and nail with clothies to get decent gear. All of that is about to change. With the abundance of Leather Caster gear in WotLK expect that debate to change. Not only will clothies resist us rolling on cloth even more, but know we will be competing for the good leather items with all the tree's running around.
However, it doesn't have to be a big fight. It is my belief that each caster item leans more towards a DPS role or a Healing role. In my article I look at each of the stats and show how both Moonkin and Trees value them. Hopefully, this will prompt some good conversations with in our guilds so that we can plan our upgrades,have fewer arguments, and spend less DKP.
You can find the article here.
Thanks again to Phae for allowing me to spend some time on her blog. Hopefully I didn't leave to many feathers in the couch.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Lag boss is hard
You may remember that my final goal before November 13th was to kill something in SWP. Well, that has been achieved. Last week LoE downed Kalecgos in one attempt and Brutallus in two attempts. This week we went on to down Felmyst after 8 or 9 attempts after downing Kalecgos and Brutallus again.
Of course this was all after the patch. The bosses were nerfed and we were buffed. I'm sure the sense of accomplishment would be greater pre-patch but I'm ok with killing them post patch. This is mainly due to the fact that I just want to see the content, but it is also due to a new feature that guilds didn't have to deal with pre patch. I like to call this new feature Lag Boss.
I hate Lag Boss. After killing Kalecgos and Brutallus so quickly I started to have hope that we could clear Sunwell before the expansion. I knew that none of the bosses would be push overs. All of the fights except Brutallus require a significant amount of coordination, but it was obvious that if you could learn the fight, you could kill the boss. Unfortunately Lag is holding us back.
After downing Kal and Brut on Thursday we tried Felmyst a couple of times, but our main effort was on Monday. Unfortunately, after several hours of trying we couldn't down him and it was all due to lag in my opinion. Sure, we do have to learn the fight. We have to kite the beam. Get away from encapsulate. Dodge the dust. None of it is extremely hard but you do have to see it a time or two to know what to expect. The lag makes getting a good attempt in nearly impossible, in 10 attempts you may have 1 or 2 good ones, and those few good ones are going to expose your weaknesses if your still learning the fight.
On Wednesday, we one shot Kalecgos, four shot Brutallus after several lag related whips, then downed Felmyst after several attempts. So, Thursday was entirely dedicated to the Eredar Twins. I had high hopes that we would down them and be able to focus on Muru on Monday. Unfortunately Lag Boss prevented it. At least half of our wipes were due to lag. Many of the times it due to the Conflagged person not being able to move out of the raid. Another time was due to the misdirect not going off in time causing the Shadow twin to run up and kill the warlock tank. When we did have a decent attempt human error caused a wipe. The errors we had here was the 2nd tank pulling aggro of the first, Conflagged melee not running out and catching the tanks, and just having range problems with healing. All of this is to be expected and can be worked out, but when you have 3 or 4 lag wipes between each good attempt it takes for ever to work those issues out.
I'm still hopeful that we can clear Sunwell before the expansion is released. I think we have most of the kinks worked out of the Eredar Twins and can down them on Monday. After that we have two resets to clear the instance. I think it is possible, but it will be a whole lot easier if blizzard can fix this lag.
Toon Update:
Graylo - Just raiding to get some gear upgrades and try and see new content. I was able to pick up [Thunderheart Bands] on Wednesday, which is an upgrade in two ways. First they are better then my old [Cuffs of Devastation]. Second, it gives me 5 pieces of T6 meaning I can pick up a non-tier set piece and not break my set bonus. On the other side of the loot coin I've been a little unlucky. The good caster gear in BT just hasn't been dropping. I wouldn't have a shot at some of it due to DKP, but there are improvements that no one else wants and they won't drop. Oh well.
Some of you may wonder why I care since the expansion is only 2 weeks away. I know I will replace a lot of this gear in early raiding, but after looking at some of the instance gear, I realize that most of my gear will last me to 80. So what ever improvements I make now will make my leveling easier.
Graypal - Nothing really. I've tried to get him into ZA a couple of times, but nothing has worked out. On an odd note, I have thought about trying to play him holy in the expansion.
Grayfel - My main goal for him right now is gear and badges. Again, I've been trying to upgrade his gear to make leveling easier. I have run kara with him a couple of times. Hopefully I can get another couple in before the expansion.
Grayvik - I leveled him up to 20 over the weekend. Things are going well for the most part but I am definitely having problems with survivability. First, first this is the first toon I've level this far that doesn't have any way to heal itself. Second, I think this is kind of an awkward time in all classes. The content is getting tougher but you still have relatively few abilities to save yourself. Third, I'm over confident. My Druid blows stuff up quickly, and when I level I tend to get ahead of the guide. Therefore I usually over power the mobs fairly easily. Finally, I've just got to learn the class. I forget to polymorph a lot. I also for get that I can root the mobs at times. I just need more experience.
Anyway, his days of attention are numbered. I would like to get him to 30 by the expansion but I doubt it will happen. When the expansion hits I doubt he will see the light of day for months.
Of course this was all after the patch. The bosses were nerfed and we were buffed. I'm sure the sense of accomplishment would be greater pre-patch but I'm ok with killing them post patch. This is mainly due to the fact that I just want to see the content, but it is also due to a new feature that guilds didn't have to deal with pre patch. I like to call this new feature Lag Boss.
I hate Lag Boss. After killing Kalecgos and Brutallus so quickly I started to have hope that we could clear Sunwell before the expansion. I knew that none of the bosses would be push overs. All of the fights except Brutallus require a significant amount of coordination, but it was obvious that if you could learn the fight, you could kill the boss. Unfortunately Lag is holding us back.
After downing Kal and Brut on Thursday we tried Felmyst a couple of times, but our main effort was on Monday. Unfortunately, after several hours of trying we couldn't down him and it was all due to lag in my opinion. Sure, we do have to learn the fight. We have to kite the beam. Get away from encapsulate. Dodge the dust. None of it is extremely hard but you do have to see it a time or two to know what to expect. The lag makes getting a good attempt in nearly impossible, in 10 attempts you may have 1 or 2 good ones, and those few good ones are going to expose your weaknesses if your still learning the fight.
On Wednesday, we one shot Kalecgos, four shot Brutallus after several lag related whips, then downed Felmyst after several attempts. So, Thursday was entirely dedicated to the Eredar Twins. I had high hopes that we would down them and be able to focus on Muru on Monday. Unfortunately Lag Boss prevented it. At least half of our wipes were due to lag. Many of the times it due to the Conflagged person not being able to move out of the raid. Another time was due to the misdirect not going off in time causing the Shadow twin to run up and kill the warlock tank. When we did have a decent attempt human error caused a wipe. The errors we had here was the 2nd tank pulling aggro of the first, Conflagged melee not running out and catching the tanks, and just having range problems with healing. All of this is to be expected and can be worked out, but when you have 3 or 4 lag wipes between each good attempt it takes for ever to work those issues out.
I'm still hopeful that we can clear Sunwell before the expansion is released. I think we have most of the kinks worked out of the Eredar Twins and can down them on Monday. After that we have two resets to clear the instance. I think it is possible, but it will be a whole lot easier if blizzard can fix this lag.
Toon Update:
Graylo - Just raiding to get some gear upgrades and try and see new content. I was able to pick up [Thunderheart Bands] on Wednesday, which is an upgrade in two ways. First they are better then my old [Cuffs of Devastation]. Second, it gives me 5 pieces of T6 meaning I can pick up a non-tier set piece and not break my set bonus. On the other side of the loot coin I've been a little unlucky. The good caster gear in BT just hasn't been dropping. I wouldn't have a shot at some of it due to DKP, but there are improvements that no one else wants and they won't drop. Oh well.
Some of you may wonder why I care since the expansion is only 2 weeks away. I know I will replace a lot of this gear in early raiding, but after looking at some of the instance gear, I realize that most of my gear will last me to 80. So what ever improvements I make now will make my leveling easier.
Graypal - Nothing really. I've tried to get him into ZA a couple of times, but nothing has worked out. On an odd note, I have thought about trying to play him holy in the expansion.
Grayfel - My main goal for him right now is gear and badges. Again, I've been trying to upgrade his gear to make leveling easier. I have run kara with him a couple of times. Hopefully I can get another couple in before the expansion.
Grayvik - I leveled him up to 20 over the weekend. Things are going well for the most part but I am definitely having problems with survivability. First, first this is the first toon I've level this far that doesn't have any way to heal itself. Second, I think this is kind of an awkward time in all classes. The content is getting tougher but you still have relatively few abilities to save yourself. Third, I'm over confident. My Druid blows stuff up quickly, and when I level I tend to get ahead of the guide. Therefore I usually over power the mobs fairly easily. Finally, I've just got to learn the class. I forget to polymorph a lot. I also for get that I can root the mobs at times. I just need more experience.
Anyway, his days of attention are numbered. I would like to get him to 30 by the expansion but I doubt it will happen. When the expansion hits I doubt he will see the light of day for months.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Moonkin Nerfed
Edit: Sorry didn't realize the tooltip I copied was wrong. Max rank EnM still gives a 13% raid wide damage buff. The nerf is purely to the personal damage reduction.
Apparently there are two changes on the Beta realm that you all should know about.
Ghostcrawler said that the change was made because "balance dps is really high both at level 70 and 80. We're concerned that we made too many big changes and made their dps too high." (src)
I don't know if Balance DPS is two high or not. It's pretty hard to evaluate right now due to all of the server issues and the fact that almost all bosses are now loot piniatas. However, I can say one thing with complete confidence. Moonkin are not the highest DPSers in raid. In the last two raids we have run with 2 or 3 hunters. They are by far the best DPSers in raid, because the basically have unlimited mana now, an aggro dump, and at least a quarter of there damage comes from a pet with a separate aggro table. I'm not talking about a small advantage. In some cases they are doubling the DPS of the casters and such.
Murmurs has made a great post on the WoW forums regarding the state of Moonkin DPS and how Blizzard is trying to rely on Eclipse to heavily to make our spec more interesting. It's really long but she has some great points that I urge you to check out. (link)
Apparently there are two changes on the Beta realm that you all should know about.
Earth and Moon: Your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon effect, which increases Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow damage taken by 13% for 12 sec. Also increases your spell damage by 3%. (Max rank EnM used to increase personal spell damage by 5%)My first reaction to this is obviously disappointment and anger. No one likes to be nerfed, but I'm going to hold my judgement for now.
Glyph of Starfire: Your Starfire ability increases the duration of your Moonfire effect on the target by 3 sec, up to a maximum of 9 additional seconds. (Was unlimited)
Ghostcrawler said that the change was made because "balance dps is really high both at level 70 and 80. We're concerned that we made too many big changes and made their dps too high." (src)
I don't know if Balance DPS is two high or not. It's pretty hard to evaluate right now due to all of the server issues and the fact that almost all bosses are now loot piniatas. However, I can say one thing with complete confidence. Moonkin are not the highest DPSers in raid. In the last two raids we have run with 2 or 3 hunters. They are by far the best DPSers in raid, because the basically have unlimited mana now, an aggro dump, and at least a quarter of there damage comes from a pet with a separate aggro table. I'm not talking about a small advantage. In some cases they are doubling the DPS of the casters and such.
Murmurs has made a great post on the WoW forums regarding the state of Moonkin DPS and how Blizzard is trying to rely on Eclipse to heavily to make our spec more interesting. It's really long but she has some great points that I urge you to check out. (link)
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Gray Matter Linked on WoW Insider
This has been a great week for the blog. My blog has steadily grown over the past year despite my lick of editing and I've been pretty happy with it's size. I was getting on average 300 or 400 hits a day. Getting some nice comments after my posts, with people asking questions and disputing my articles. I even have had some one ask to advertise on my site. All good stuff.
Now I've had two events happen in one week that I consider major mile stones for the blog. First on Tuesday I had over 1000 hits in a single day. That isn't much compared to some of the big blogs like Resto4Life or World of Matticus, but it doubled my previous record. It basically told me that when people had questions about this patch, that they wanted to hear my opinion. I was shocked and humbled by it.
The second mile stone happened today. I was linked on WoWInsider (link). I have followed this site for WoW news for quite a while and hoped that one day they might notice me. I have privately been critical of WoWInsider's coverage of Moonkin in the past because I thought most of it was a list of changes with little or no analysis. This article defies all of my previous concerns. I don't necessarily agree with all of comments made but it was obvious that Allison Robert did her research and knew the issues.
I just want to say thank you to WoW Insider for the links and taking a serious look at moonkin. If my blog helped in any way then I am pleased.
To any new readers that may have just found there way here I say welcome. I hope you find my site useful and please feel free to ask me questions or comment on my posts.
Now I've had two events happen in one week that I consider major mile stones for the blog. First on Tuesday I had over 1000 hits in a single day. That isn't much compared to some of the big blogs like Resto4Life or World of Matticus, but it doubled my previous record. It basically told me that when people had questions about this patch, that they wanted to hear my opinion. I was shocked and humbled by it.
The second mile stone happened today. I was linked on WoWInsider (link). I have followed this site for WoW news for quite a while and hoped that one day they might notice me. I have privately been critical of WoWInsider's coverage of Moonkin in the past because I thought most of it was a list of changes with little or no analysis. This article defies all of my previous concerns. I don't necessarily agree with all of comments made but it was obvious that Allison Robert did her research and knew the issues.
I just want to say thank you to WoW Insider for the links and taking a serious look at moonkin. If my blog helped in any way then I am pleased.
To any new readers that may have just found there way here I say welcome. I hope you find my site useful and please feel free to ask me questions or comment on my posts.
Raiding after Patch 3.0.2
A couple of weeks ago it was announced that BC raid mobs (trash and bosses) were going to have their Health reduced by 30%, possibly loose some abilities, and have there melee damage reduced (src). Most assumed that it was a nerf but there was a little debate since the way raid buffs work has been completely reworked. I'll say this right now, for BT it was a nerf.
Prepatch, my guild normally cleared BT over two nights and it took around 4 to 5 hours total. Last night we cleared BT in 2 and a half hours. That includes a +20 minute break in the middle after the realm server crashed. This is how ridiculous it was.
Naj - Only bubbled once.
Supremus - Dead, at the very start of the second tank and spank phase.
Shade - Only one set of adds.
Gorefiend - Only two people died to the debuff and one of them was just barely.
RoS - Our interrupts for phase 2 were all screwed up because of addons not working right but still downd him in record time.
Bloodboil - Only two fel enrages
Mother - I don't know how many fatal attractions there were but it couldn't have been more then 3 or 4.
Council - Lets face it, council takes some time, but we were nowhere close to the engage. In fact I had to leave the fight briefly because it sounded like my son fell out of his crib (he was ok), but the loss of DPS wasn't a problem.
Illidan - Downed in 8 minutes.
My friends that formed a new guild on my server reported an equally easy time. They blazed through the first 3 bosses and got a guild first kill on Gorefiend.
This gives me hope for our efforts in Sunwell. Our best effort on Kalecgos prepatch got both forms to around 30%. It makes me think we have a shot at getting at least half the instance cleared, which would be awesome. This accomplishment won't be as sweet as if it had happened prepatch, but none of these bosses are freebies. You still die if you stand in the fire. You still have to know where to run and went. All this nerf does is make the fights a little more forgiving.
So, I think this last month is going to be fun, but then again, I was one of those people who liked to run kara with a bunch of T5/T6 geared mains just for the experience of beating up on them.
Toon Update:
This is kind of a personal post, will include a Toon update.
Graylo - Life has been pretty good for Graylo lately. A while back I listed my goals before the expansion and all of my main goals were met before the patch. With my first Archie kill last week I have now cleared ever instance below Sunwell. Unfortunately, Archie didn't drop a druid token, but I have picked up quite a few other upgrades. I finally picked up the [Hood of Hexing] off of Hex Lord. I really want something with a meta socket but Vashj and Archie have been uncooperative, and this is the best helm without a meta socket. I've also completed my T6 4 piece set bonus. I picked up the [Thunderheart Pants] last week and I picked up the [Thunderheart Shoulderpads] and [Thunderheart Vest] last night. I have been raiding for well over a year and this is my first 4piece set bonus. I'm excited.
Graypal - Things are not going so well for Graypal. He is still my least played toon, plus I found out that the change to Spell Power has nerfed him quite a bit. I had 5 pieces that buffed shadow damage specifically and all of those items were nerfed. I've been trying to get him into ZA to pick up some upgrades but who knows if I will have time.
Grayfel - I've been having a lot of fun playing him lately, and he has been getting lucky with up grades. I've run him through kara a couple of times, and had decent luck. I also ran Shadow Labs once and got 4 upgrades from drops and quest rewards. It was great. I don't really expect anything major from him but I would like gear him up a little so that his transition to northrend is easier.
Grayvik - I haven't played him much, due to all of the stuff going on with the patch and stuff. I may be on the shelf for a while because, I can't see him getting much time when the expansion is released.
Prepatch, my guild normally cleared BT over two nights and it took around 4 to 5 hours total. Last night we cleared BT in 2 and a half hours. That includes a +20 minute break in the middle after the realm server crashed. This is how ridiculous it was.
Naj - Only bubbled once.
Supremus - Dead, at the very start of the second tank and spank phase.
Shade - Only one set of adds.
Gorefiend - Only two people died to the debuff and one of them was just barely.
RoS - Our interrupts for phase 2 were all screwed up because of addons not working right but still downd him in record time.
Bloodboil - Only two fel enrages
Mother - I don't know how many fatal attractions there were but it couldn't have been more then 3 or 4.
Council - Lets face it, council takes some time, but we were nowhere close to the engage. In fact I had to leave the fight briefly because it sounded like my son fell out of his crib (he was ok), but the loss of DPS wasn't a problem.
Illidan - Downed in 8 minutes.
My friends that formed a new guild on my server reported an equally easy time. They blazed through the first 3 bosses and got a guild first kill on Gorefiend.
This gives me hope for our efforts in Sunwell. Our best effort on Kalecgos prepatch got both forms to around 30%. It makes me think we have a shot at getting at least half the instance cleared, which would be awesome. This accomplishment won't be as sweet as if it had happened prepatch, but none of these bosses are freebies. You still die if you stand in the fire. You still have to know where to run and went. All this nerf does is make the fights a little more forgiving.
So, I think this last month is going to be fun, but then again, I was one of those people who liked to run kara with a bunch of T5/T6 geared mains just for the experience of beating up on them.
Toon Update:
This is kind of a personal post, will include a Toon update.
Graylo - Life has been pretty good for Graylo lately. A while back I listed my goals before the expansion and all of my main goals were met before the patch. With my first Archie kill last week I have now cleared ever instance below Sunwell. Unfortunately, Archie didn't drop a druid token, but I have picked up quite a few other upgrades. I finally picked up the [Hood of Hexing] off of Hex Lord. I really want something with a meta socket but Vashj and Archie have been uncooperative, and this is the best helm without a meta socket. I've also completed my T6 4 piece set bonus. I picked up the [Thunderheart Pants] last week and I picked up the [Thunderheart Shoulderpads] and [Thunderheart Vest] last night. I have been raiding for well over a year and this is my first 4piece set bonus. I'm excited.
Graypal - Things are not going so well for Graypal. He is still my least played toon, plus I found out that the change to Spell Power has nerfed him quite a bit. I had 5 pieces that buffed shadow damage specifically and all of those items were nerfed. I've been trying to get him into ZA to pick up some upgrades but who knows if I will have time.
Grayfel - I've been having a lot of fun playing him lately, and he has been getting lucky with up grades. I've run him through kara a couple of times, and had decent luck. I also ran Shadow Labs once and got 4 upgrades from drops and quest rewards. It was great. I don't really expect anything major from him but I would like gear him up a little so that his transition to northrend is easier.
Grayvik - I haven't played him much, due to all of the stuff going on with the patch and stuff. I may be on the shelf for a while because, I can't see him getting much time when the expansion is released.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Builds for Patch 3.0.2 - Mailbag
Update: I ended up going with something a little different then I listed below. I was kind of bummed when EnM and Moonfury hadn't been reduced yet because I still wanted to try out Owlkin Frenzy and some of the other talents. So I went with this build instead.
As you probably know, Patch 3.0.2 is dropping today, and with it a lot of changes to the Balance tree. These changed have prompted a lot of debate and questions like this one I received today:
1. Raid Build with Moonfury and EnM at reduced cost. (Core Build),(My Build)
If Moonfury and Earth and Moon have there costs reduced in the patch then you can pick up all of the important talents and have a couple to play with. I have bypassed Intensity, Omen of Clarity and Master Shapeshifter because I'm told that Mana hasn't been a big issue for moonkin on the PTR and putting 16 points in that tree would force us to skip some good talents in the Balance Tree.
The Core Build Picks up all of the major talents in my opinion. In My Build I have also picked up Dreamstate, Owlkin Frenzy, and Starfall. I picked up Dreamstate, because I'm having a hard time trusting that I won't have mana issues without all the mana regen talents. I'm picking this one up to ease my mind a little. Starfall I picked up to play with. It sounds like a cool ability and I want to try it out before the expansion. I picked up Owlkin Frenzy because by guild plans on raiding up until the expansion is released. We are currently working on SWP and clearing BT weekly. Both instances have lots of raid wide damage that could make Owlkin frenzy valuable.
You might also consider Gale Winds all of the trash if your guild is still progressing through Hyjal. Force of Nature is always a fun talent for soloing and some raid bosses. You could also put a point into Eclipse if you don't have the 4T5 or 4T6 set bonuses.
2. Raid Build with Moonfury and EnM at 5 points. (Core Build),(My Build)
This is pretty much the same thing as above, but we don't have as may points to play around with. I still picked up Dreamstate because of my paranoia, and dropped Owlkin Frenzy and Starfall.
3. Solo fun build. (Build)
For those of you that don't plan on seriously raiding for the next month this is the build I would choose. I build this spec purely to play around with some of the new talents. It should allow you to do well in PvP, 5-mans, and raids that you over gear.
M.B. thanks for the question.
What builds are you guy's planning on using? What do you think of the builds I have suggested?
As you probably know, Patch 3.0.2 is dropping today, and with it a lot of changes to the Balance tree. These changed have prompted a lot of debate and questions like this one I received today:
Hi GrayI think this question is on a lot of people's minds right now. It's a little hard to say right now because I don't know if the changes to Moonfury and Earth and Moon have taken affect in the patch but I will look at it both ways.
Tonight we'll start to play on 3.0.2 with a cleared talent tree. I've found a lot of build ready for WOTLK but with all 71 points spent.I need a build for a level 70, to start playing on the patch without headaches.
Have you any suggestions?
Thank you very much.
M.B.
1. Raid Build with Moonfury and EnM at reduced cost. (Core Build),(My Build)
If Moonfury and Earth and Moon have there costs reduced in the patch then you can pick up all of the important talents and have a couple to play with. I have bypassed Intensity, Omen of Clarity and Master Shapeshifter because I'm told that Mana hasn't been a big issue for moonkin on the PTR and putting 16 points in that tree would force us to skip some good talents in the Balance Tree.
The Core Build Picks up all of the major talents in my opinion. In My Build I have also picked up Dreamstate, Owlkin Frenzy, and Starfall. I picked up Dreamstate, because I'm having a hard time trusting that I won't have mana issues without all the mana regen talents. I'm picking this one up to ease my mind a little. Starfall I picked up to play with. It sounds like a cool ability and I want to try it out before the expansion. I picked up Owlkin Frenzy because by guild plans on raiding up until the expansion is released. We are currently working on SWP and clearing BT weekly. Both instances have lots of raid wide damage that could make Owlkin frenzy valuable.
You might also consider Gale Winds all of the trash if your guild is still progressing through Hyjal. Force of Nature is always a fun talent for soloing and some raid bosses. You could also put a point into Eclipse if you don't have the 4T5 or 4T6 set bonuses.
2. Raid Build with Moonfury and EnM at 5 points. (Core Build),(My Build)
This is pretty much the same thing as above, but we don't have as may points to play around with. I still picked up Dreamstate because of my paranoia, and dropped Owlkin Frenzy and Starfall.
3. Solo fun build. (Build)
For those of you that don't plan on seriously raiding for the next month this is the build I would choose. I build this spec purely to play around with some of the new talents. It should allow you to do well in PvP, 5-mans, and raids that you over gear.
M.B. thanks for the question.
What builds are you guy's planning on using? What do you think of the builds I have suggested?
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