Boomkin for the first timeFollow

Playing a Moonkin without force of nature is...odd. You do yourself a disservice with that. They are important to your damage output and are an essential part of your pve and pvp game.
You also left out Improved Moonkin form. You're a Moonkin. Damage and haste are important, and this talent gives both.

Lose the Owlkin frenzy, that's not even remotely as important as those I mentioned.


Edited, Dec 11th 2008 2:52am by Lomedae

*whooshes in on a giant boomkin ego*

Did someone say Boomkin!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

Ok, after my slight attempt at a humorous intro to this post I'll run down with what will give you the best edge in leveling.

This is your best build to use. Now some of you may look at this and be a little confused but there is a method behind the madness, and surprisingly it all ties in together.

As you level in Northrend the amount of crit/spell power greens you're going to see from quest rewards is pretty good so you're crit rate will grow/shrink as you level and get gear, this is obviously a given. So to explain why this build works so well.

Balance Side.
Tier 1 - Starlight Wrath is a must it's the reduction of cast time which essentially means more damage put out.

Tier 2 - Moonglow is a reduction in your mana costs so you want that, and Nature's Majesty increases crit chance, also good.

Tier 3 - Brambles. I need to explain now why you take this because most people dont but the fact remains that if something is hitting you and its getting 300+ damage returned to it is this a bad thing? Also, a good reason to have it is eventually when you use Force of Nature the treants now have an increased amount of damage which makes for an even easier time. Throw in the fact that you can Barkskin and stun something on a 15% chance when they hit you makes brambles seem like an overlooked talent.
Nature's Grace is also something you want because its a .5 second cast time reduction after every crit, and has no internal cooldown.
Now some people may wonder why there is no Nature's Reach well, you're leveling not raiding or doing instances so a threat reduction talent is basically worthless, and the extra 6 yards you get from it is also pretty worthless when you're leveling. Almost everything you kill requires killing at least more than one thing so it just gets you closer to your next target

Tier 4 - Lunar Guidance is an increase in spell power and pick up Insect Swarm for more damage from another spell. Don't take Imp IS because you're not going to need it.

Tier 5 - Moonfury to increase your damage out put and Balance of Power to increase your hit chance by 4%. DO NOT TAKE DREAMSTATE, it is the worst mana regeneration talent you have and point for point against Intensity it is terrible.

Tier 6 - Moonkin Form and Imp Moonkin form, increase in damage and haste.

Tier 7 - Wrath of Cenarius for an increase in damage.

Tier 8 - Eclipse. This talent is amazing, I was once one of the naysayyers about it but I was easily proven wrong. The reasoning is you should always be pulling your mobs while leveling with Starfire, and then either doing one more Starfire or switching to wrath. If you proc eclipse thats more damage on your wrath spells. This is awesome. Take up Typhoon because its nice for when something either gets too close or you need to put room in between you and something else. A good tactic is SF/Typhoon back to back because it is good damage up front and then pushes something back if you need to root it, IE: Good vs elites. Force of Nature because treants are absolutely amazing for your first pull against an elite and it keeps the elite off of you.

Tier 9 - Earth and Moon is imperative because it's a 13% increase in damage from all spell types even though you're limited to Nature/Arcane.

Tier 10 - Starfall, when you learn how to use this spell properly it's a very good mana/damage spell. It has a huge range so learning to use it can be a total pain in the ***.

On the resto side, it's up to you honestly. You can go 2/2 Imp MotW or you can go 2/3 Nature's Focus. The reason I would use Nature's Focus is because paired up with the glyph of wrath you're at a 96% chance to resist pushback on all wrath casts.

As for glyphs don't use the glyph of starfire. That glyph is terrible when you are leveling, everything will die in the amount of time moonfire is up anyway so there is no point in using it. I would use though the glyph of moonfire for the extra increase in damage over time, glyph of IS to also increase the damage of IS and the glyph of wrath, which I previously stated gives you an extra 50% for pushback resist. Also get the glyph of thorns, its a minor so it increases your thorns timer to an hour.

One of the things about this build is you hardly if ever will be utilizing ER, now there are cases that you will need too but for the most part against mobs they should die within 1 or 2 swings of you if you follow this pretty general pull rotation.

Starfire first to pull them, as they come towards you you'll have two GCD's to combat so throw up moonfire and IS. By then you should have cut down between 3-8k depending on your spell power/crit and then you can switch over to wrath. If you did crit starfire you'll have an Eclipse proc and Earth and Moon, so you're wrath will crit for a much larger amount. If things do end up getting a little hectic pop typhoon and that will usually be enough to kill them or push them back long enough for dots to do what they do, damage over time.

Also remember, this build will get you hit sometimes and having thorns up is a must. Always use barkskin if you have too and level up your first aid, because the less mana you spend casting healing spells you can cast that for damage spell and speed up your leveling.

Well, thats all I have to say about leveling and all that fun jazz. Hopefully you got some good pointers and ideas from this, but don't be afraid to try different things out yourself. The best way to learn is to do it yourself.

Of course I can show you an instance build, it really isn't much different. But remember there are quite a few good instance builds that do different things so it will depend on what you want.

But at the moment I'm being dragged away from my man cave by my girlfriend to go shopping for god knows what, so I'll have to write it up later.

I'm going with this, which is mostly what has been suggested minus three talents.

Brambles is not a good PVE talent, for a couple good reasons.
You should not even be getting attacked in an instance, because you're DPS. If you are, the last thing you need is building more threat (Thorns counts as AOE threat).
Your DPS will go down, because you spent points in something that relies on being hit, or has a cool-down.
Players stop building threat on stunned targets, which makes this undesirable in an instance, not counting the possibility the treats could aggro something not intended.
The "stun" mechanic is clearly superior in PVP situation, because a lot of elites and no bosses can be stunned.


I have to disagree. I do not run out of mana easily, and my down-time is very short. This is accomplished with Dreamstate and Intensity. The only reason to get Dreamstate is so that you get the maximum amount of regeneration with Intensity.
I checked your armory, and I notice that you have much better gear than my druid (Shaudra, Nathrezim). However, I have more mana regeneration and in-combat regeneration than you do. So, I hope you will re-evaluate the usefulness of Dreamstate.

Personally, I do not like to rely on procs, which is why I no longer spend points in Vengeance or bothered with Eclipse.
Improved Faerie Fire seems to have a lot of potential. It buffs everyone's damage, and has the same effect as Improved Insect Swarm. With Balance of Power, I would get a total of 7% chance to hit without gear. So, I chose that instead of Eclipse.

To the OP: you are missing some core talents. You need Improved Moonfire, Improved Moonkin Form, and Insect Swarm. These are signature talents, and the latter is good for mitigating damage in longer fights and soloing.
I would not bother with Vengeance, but put those points into Genesis to sustain DPS. It's better to do damage all the time, then do the same damage some of the time.


Edited, Dec 12th 2008 5:42pm by sederix

The problem with what you describe, is that your "little bit" of extra damage from Moonfire is more effective than the "little bit" from critical hitting, simply because one is happening all the time. You dont critical hit 100% of the time, and if you did, then I would be more incline to agree.
If I was better at math, I would grind the numbers for critical hit damage, versus damage over time. In order for either of our positions to be validated, we need these numbers. Telling me your current DPS does not prove anything, simply because you're a higher level and with better gear. We would have to use an arbitrary number, then apply the appropriate calculations. I can only determine DPS at the time of a crit, not a consecutive number of crits equal to critical chance.

The OP is not a lowbie, but level 80. He is not leveling, but already able to raid BC and Wrath instances and heroics. This is why I said that Brambles is less desirable for PVE.
I had Brambles when I was leveling before 70, and it was good then.
Also, Omen of Clarity has an internal cool-down, with a very low chance to proc. A "free" spell would not compare to simply having more regeneration and/or more critical hits (which proc 2% base mana). It may work for you, but I cant see it being useful for my playing style.

Edited, Dec 12th 2008 6:23pm by sederix

Rarebeast, I can always count on you for my failed ability to do math.

There is all the information you need rating our mana regeneration talents and dps per talents.

fast question for ya alex. Do you use a diff set of gear for raiding? just wondering cause atm your low on hit. personaly i'm still feral guild is needing me to tank 10 naxx atm so i have worked on boomkin gear too much. I did manage to get enough to get hit caped with BoP and IFF(wich i noticed no one has piked up in any build so far). Sadly doing this set has my SP and crit real low. just thought hit was number 1 thing to get minus 1% or so. but even picking up imp ff in your build you would still be 140ish under hit capped for tallents.

I haven't had a lot of chances to raid punkspider so my gear isn't near as what it was when I was raiding BC. I know I'm below the hit cap so yes my goal is to be able to play more and get the hit gear I need and then work on my crit/haste/sp and what not.

/sigh work is killing my raiding time QQ

Edit: Sederix, I also want to mention that you're not understand that having a lower crit chance will affect the amount of damage out put by having vengeance, which essentially makes it look like a talent you would want to skip for some reason.

Edited, Dec 13th 2008 4:19am by ArexLovesPie

Actually, all talents taken would have to be taken into consideration, if you want results to have any sort of relevance at all. Nature's grace is quite relevant, as every balance druid takes it. For this to have more relevance, an actual rotation should have been used, instead of your weird spam wrath and "cast-moonfire-and-watch-it-tick-while-doing-nothing-else" rotations or my better, but admittedly flawed, moonfire/wrath rotation.

Vengeance. You can, in fact, read about this on the wowwiki page. Idiot.

Moonfire could not always do 1000 total damage, as crits would do more damage. Idiot.

I assumed moonfire's initial damage as 36% of total damage (not .36% as I first stated, that was a typo. I started it off as .36, and forgot to remove the decimal when I decided stating it as a percent would be more valid), like I said, based on base values of the spell. Moonfire. Direct yourself to rank 14.406-476 initial damage is an average of 441 damage. 441/1241= .355, rounded up to .36, or 36%. I can see how you wouldn't be able to see how I got that, though I explained it was based on initial values of the spell.

My formulas were pretty decently explained, I thought. I might be wrong on that, though. I would like to get a second opinion on that, though, instead of that of someone I don't trust the opinion of.

But...I kinda like it when they don't realize they are wrong for a while. Makes me look better in comparison...

Abuse of basic math skills?

Or it could be that guys like me take a few weeks off the druid and therefore the druid forums to level a DK and come back to this hilarious thread and give the appropriate parties rate ups ( Arex/ Anonymosity) and rate downs (sederix)

Missed you guys, only drood I keep seeing over in DK forums is Quor and we have to deal with people like Theo and Gaudion :P

That's Arex's hand...mine's in my own pants O.o