I am writing this guide to help my fellow moonkin druids maximize thier potential raiding DPS. First let's start off with what I believe is the optimal moonkin raid build.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classe...050000000000000
All my numbers that follow assume 700 + damage which I believe is achievable in pre-kara gear. My calculations also take into account all talents and crit effects. ( I assume 14% base crit which gets increased by talents)
Starfire 642 DPS 5.72 damage per mana
Wrath 787 DPS 5.09 damage per mana
The magic here is that wrath actually gets a larger boost from +damage than starfire. Starfire gets a full 100% of the +damage and at a 3 second case that translates into .33 DPS per +damage. Wrath gets 57% of the +damage but since it takes half the time to cast you get .38 DPS per +damage. The downside is that wrath is less mana effecient than starfire so there may be cases where you want to maximize mana effeciency. When that is not the case, wrath is clearly the nuking skill of choice.
Now let's talk DOTs. Since DOTs activate the global cooldown you must sacrifice a wrath cast in order to apply them. Is it worth it?
Insect Swarm 1352 damage over 12 seconds 7.86 damage per mana
Moonfire 1858 damage over 12 seconds 4.12 damage per mana
Since wrath provides on average 1140 Damage per cast both insect swarm and moonfire do more damage per GCD. Since insect swarm is so mana effecient you should always be refreshing insect swarm every 12 seconds. Moonfire, however, is less mana effecient than ether wrath or starfire so this one might be sacrificed on long fights.
Of course the most DPS a moonkin can do is moonfire spam. The HORRIBLE mana efficiency of this tactic immediately rules this out. That makes the highest DPS sequence a moonkin can do is Insect Swarm, Moonfire, followed by 6 wraths. Rinse and repeat. This provides a theoretical DPS of 830 DPS.
Now let's talk gearing.
We are starting at 700 DPS 24% crit and 95% hit. At this point the following increases translate into DPS
At level 70 we get 1% +hit for every 12.6 rating and 1% +crit for every 22.1 crit rating. To increase DPS by 1% you can add
14 +damage
12.6 +hit
28.7 +crit
As you add more and more damage and crit you will see diminishing returns on the DPS boost from +damage and +crit, while DPS boost from +hit is constant.
As you can see your biggest wins come from +damage and +hit. It takes twice as much +crit rating to get the same increase in DPS. Of course you will always want to stop stacking +hit once you've hit the 99% cap. Now you may ask, what about the synergy with Nature's Grace and crit? Well, we are limited by the GCD with wrath, so Nature's grace does nothing to increase wrath dps. And even at 2.5 second cast starfire still does less dps than wrath. Quite frankly Nature's grace does nothing for increasing moonkin DPS.
The last thing I want to mention is since we are completely GCD limited with the moonkin, get yourself a good GCD timer mod that will help you time the GCD. I find that I completely ignore the cast bar because of the varying latency and always time my casts off the GCD timer from quartz.
As some of my guild members can attest to I can do some pretty decent DPS in raids. This is done with a balance/resto spec that is completely geared towards healing. If have calculated that if I were to switch to the build shown above I would increase my DPS by a full 18% which would put me near the top of raid DPS.
D
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classe...050000000000000
All my numbers that follow assume 700 + damage which I believe is achievable in pre-kara gear. My calculations also take into account all talents and crit effects. ( I assume 14% base crit which gets increased by talents)
Starfire 642 DPS 5.72 damage per mana
Wrath 787 DPS 5.09 damage per mana
The magic here is that wrath actually gets a larger boost from +damage than starfire. Starfire gets a full 100% of the +damage and at a 3 second case that translates into .33 DPS per +damage. Wrath gets 57% of the +damage but since it takes half the time to cast you get .38 DPS per +damage. The downside is that wrath is less mana effecient than starfire so there may be cases where you want to maximize mana effeciency. When that is not the case, wrath is clearly the nuking skill of choice.
Now let's talk DOTs. Since DOTs activate the global cooldown you must sacrifice a wrath cast in order to apply them. Is it worth it?
Insect Swarm 1352 damage over 12 seconds 7.86 damage per mana
Moonfire 1858 damage over 12 seconds 4.12 damage per mana
Since wrath provides on average 1140 Damage per cast both insect swarm and moonfire do more damage per GCD. Since insect swarm is so mana effecient you should always be refreshing insect swarm every 12 seconds. Moonfire, however, is less mana effecient than ether wrath or starfire so this one might be sacrificed on long fights.
Of course the most DPS a moonkin can do is moonfire spam. The HORRIBLE mana efficiency of this tactic immediately rules this out. That makes the highest DPS sequence a moonkin can do is Insect Swarm, Moonfire, followed by 6 wraths. Rinse and repeat. This provides a theoretical DPS of 830 DPS.
Now let's talk gearing.
We are starting at 700 DPS 24% crit and 95% hit. At this point the following increases translate into DPS
At level 70 we get 1% +hit for every 12.6 rating and 1% +crit for every 22.1 crit rating. To increase DPS by 1% you can add
14 +damage
12.6 +hit
28.7 +crit
As you add more and more damage and crit you will see diminishing returns on the DPS boost from +damage and +crit, while DPS boost from +hit is constant.
As you can see your biggest wins come from +damage and +hit. It takes twice as much +crit rating to get the same increase in DPS. Of course you will always want to stop stacking +hit once you've hit the 99% cap. Now you may ask, what about the synergy with Nature's Grace and crit? Well, we are limited by the GCD with wrath, so Nature's grace does nothing to increase wrath dps. And even at 2.5 second cast starfire still does less dps than wrath. Quite frankly Nature's grace does nothing for increasing moonkin DPS.
The last thing I want to mention is since we are completely GCD limited with the moonkin, get yourself a good GCD timer mod that will help you time the GCD. I find that I completely ignore the cast bar because of the varying latency and always time my casts off the GCD timer from quartz.
As some of my guild members can attest to I can do some pretty decent DPS in raids. This is done with a balance/resto spec that is completely geared towards healing. If have calculated that if I were to switch to the build shown above I would increase my DPS by a full 18% which would put me near the top of raid DPS.
D