Note: This guide was NOT written by my, but by Sapphiron of the US realm Stonemaul.

There's been a lot of threads lately as more people spec balance about how to gear up for endgame raiding. Here's a post you can link to threads asking oft-repeated questions. Maybe I'll make a comprehensive post about moonkin as a whole one day, but for now... this is about how to DPS (along with some extra advice).

First thing to note is that the advice is based on this premise:
(1) You are gearing up for PVE raiding. Nothing I say is fully applicable to 5-man instances or PVP.
(2) You have a minimum of 700 spell damage when raid buffed.
(3) You've picked up your moonkin idols - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31025 and http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27518

Damage vs. Crit vs. Hit
This is probably the most common question asked. To make a long story short, Hit > Damage > Crit. Always - casting rotation does not matter. It is irrefutable, and though streaks of good or bad luck might give you a fight with skewed data, the relationship among hit, damage, and crit holds true overall. Note that this is only on a 'per-point' basis. A fairly good ballpark conversion is: 1 point of spell hit = 1.15 points of spell damage, and 1 point of spell crit = 0.65 points of spell damage.

A sidenote: This is true on raid boss mobs. Trash mobs do not require the same level of hit, and you can take off 'hit gear' for those mobs. However most people will just have a single set of raid gear, and the difficulty of trash mobs usually don't merit specifically putting together a second set of non-hit gear. Arvont has a nice easy-to-acquire spell hit gear list later in this post, reply #24. Link: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=112631617&sid=1&pageNo=2#24

Spellfire?
Spellfire is a viable option, as proven by Horao. It is not, however, a very good option, unless if you have a lot of money and do not mind swapping it for upgrades once your guild reaches SSC/TK, or if you know that your guild will be in Karazhan for a while. The arcane damage on spellfire is great, but it is inflexible, does not work with insect swarm or healing, and there are few stats on the set.

Enchants
These are the best enchants, per slot, for a moonkin:
Helm - Glyph of Power
Cloak - Subtlety
Chest - Enchant Mana Prime
Bracers - Spellpower
Gloves - Spellpower
Legs - Runic Spellthread
Boots - Vitality
Weapon - Major Spellpower
An alternative enchant for the weapon is spellsurge; however, in my experience so far, I haven't really found a need for it. Your mileage may vary, pending on your MP5, how much you invest in your consumables, and your group composition on a normal raid day.

What's Spell Penetration? Spell Hit?
Spell penetration does absolutely nothing in PVE. It is a counter to resistance, yet it has no bearing against a raid boss as base resistances are unmitigatable - not even by warlock curses. Spell hit on the other hand, does plenty - it mitigates your "misses" that show up as "resist". You have a 17% chance to miss against a raid boss at level 70, and there is a 1% base chance to miss. This means that to maximize hit, you have 16% to go. As every balance druid (no exceptions) should have 2/2 balance of power, this translates into requiring about 151 hit rating to hit the cap. Note that the hit rating you need also depends on your group composition - having a draenei and/or an elemental shaman with totem of wrath in your group will require you to have less spell hit to reach the cap. So gear accordingly if you have a fairly static raid group makeup.

Leather vs Cloth
Armor is more than a classification - it's a stat. As such, it should be weighted as you would weigh stamina, spell damage, intellect, etc. Unforunately for armor, it has little to no weight in a PVE setting. So in short, wear cloth if it's better than leather, or wear leather if it's better than cloth. For endgame raiding, this translates into wearing cloth apart from tier sets; and even then, the tier 4 gloves and leggings are not worth wearing.

Nature's Grace
This does not reduce global cooldown. Your wraths will still fire off at an average of 1.5 seconds, even if they crit every single time.

Subtlety
Subtlety is not required for any raid until you enter TK or get into late SSC. Having a good tank and keeping and eye on the threat meter is all that is required. I did not touch subtlety until two days ago, and I'm sitting at over +1300 spell damage in a raid without pulling aggro and still hitting high on the damage meters. If you "really" need subtlety to stay safe in early raiding, it's time to re-evaluate what you're doing wrong instead of respeccing to get a stopgap fix.

Casting Rotations
Wrath does more damage while starfire is more mana-efficient. Moonfire is very high DPS with terrible DPM, and insect swarm is very solid DPS with almost no mana cost. The difference between starfire and wrath DPS is generally under 50 DPS - aka, if I push out 1000 DPS with starfire, wrath will probably give me around 1050.

The most common casting rotation is this: IS/SFx4
The highest DPS casting rotation is this: IS/MF/Wx6

The DPS difference among various casting rotations is not very large, so keep an eye on your mana as your top priority. What do I use? I generally use IS/SFx4, with moonfire when I need to strafe; I switch over to IS/MF/Wx6 as a fight's ending if I have extra mana and an enrage timer is ticking.

I need gear to shoot for
First, check out the balance equipment list:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=106672385&sid=1&pageNo=1
Then, look at the armories of some players. There's my gear, but here's a few more links to PVE moonkin:
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Magtheridon&n=Madrox
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Skullcrusher&n=Caliane
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dethecus&n=Skeldi
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kel%27Thuzad&n=Horao

What gems?
Yellow sockets should be veiled noble topaz.
Red sockets should be either veiled noble topaz or living rubies.
Blue sockets, if the socket bonus is worth it, should be glowing nightseyes, although dazzling talasites are not a bad choice if you have major issues with mana.

I do awful DPS. I am out of mana. My dog hates me.

If you have low DPS, it might be because:
(1) You had to shift out and battlerez/heal
(2) You ran out of mana
(3) Your gear is not good enough.

If you run out of mana, it might be because:
(1) You aren't using the correct consumables
(2) You don't have enough MP5
(3) Your casting rotation is incorrect.
Apart from fixing casting rotation, a quick fix would be to get a weapon with a lot of spirit and then equip it during an innervate.

If your dog hates you, it might be because:
(1) You're kicking it.

Really sounds advice and a great post. Gets a thumbs up from me. Thank you fro transferring the information over to us EU owls.

Up you go!

ahh 'fraid I beat you with the translatic crossover post by a couple of days, which may be why this one slipped down so fast. :)

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=299080306&postId=2987734836&sid=1#0

thanks to both of ya :P

All seems reasonable except...

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Q u o t e:
What's Spell Penetration? Spell Hit?
Spell penetration does absolutely nothing in PVE. It is a counter to resistance, yet it has no bearing against a raid boss as base resistances are unmitigatable - not even by warlock curses.

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Long time ago I could make elixir of emopowerment - the one that gives 30 spell pene and I did notice its effect on boss fights. Also, at the very begining of raiding I had pretty a lot of spell pene and I had pretty much less partial resist on bosses than I have now.

I would like to hear more oppinions about spell penetration. So far we did discuss the issue with other casters in my guild and all seemed to agree that it does make a difference. Tho we haven't made any tests that could make us 100% sure that it's correct ... it were only observations.

Also, I would like to as you people ... do you think sunfire enchant is worth it for a moonkin? It adds pure arcane dmg and I was planning to get when I get new weapon.

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Q u o t e:

Also, I would like to as you people ... do you think sunfire enchant is worth it for a moonkin? It adds pure arcane dmg and I was planning to get when I get new weapon.

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Personally I am not in favour of +dmg enchants/gear that is speicifically for one school of magic, as we use our nature spells and arcane in equal measures (well i do). Although if your overall +dmg is already high (I think your is but havnt checked your armoury in a while) then you could probably afford to max out your +arc damg without gimping your +nature dmg.

(ps. that all made sence in my head...)

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Q u o t e:
All seems reasonable except...

Long time ago I could make elixir of emopowerment - the one that gives 30 spell pene and I did notice its effect on boss fights. Also, at the very begining of raiding I had pretty a lot of spell pene and I had pretty much less partial resist on bosses than I have now.

I would like to hear more oppinions about spell penetration. So far we did discuss the issue with other casters in my guild and all seemed to agree that it does make a difference. Tho we haven't made any tests that could make us 100% sure that it's correct ... it were only observations.

Also, I would like to as you people ... do you think sunfire enchant is worth it for a moonkin? It adds pure arcane dmg and I was planning to get when I get new weapon.

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Forgive my bluntness, but I must insist that your tests were effected deeply by strokes of luck.

The way I have understood it, spells which miss and spells which are resisted are both labeled as "resist". It is spelled in white text if the spell missed, and it is spelled in yellow text if the spell was resisted.

Also, a raid boss's resistance can never go below 0, not even by the use of Warlock curses. I am not even sure it's possible to gear up enough penetration to penetrate a certain school immunity.

Let us just assume you go up against a boss with arcane immunity as a Moonkin. You could, in theory, stack up spell penetration to such an extent that you can penetrate the resistance of the boss, however, that would flaw your performance greatly. Why not, then, just use your other nature school, and use wrath?

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Q u o t e:
Forgive my bluntness, but I must insist that your tests were effected deeply by strokes of luck.

The way I have understood it, spells which miss and spells which are resisted are both labeled as "resist". It is spelled in white text if the spell missed, and it is spelled in yellow text if the spell was resisted.

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I use SCTD and the resist that comes from +hit is displayed in different way than partial resist ... in case of partial resist I see for example
1020 (1020) - that means my SF instead of 2040 did 1020 (numbers are random) ... that is the part that is countered by spell penetration cause it comes from resistance to school of magic

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Q u o t e:
Also, a raid boss's resistance can never go below 0, not even by the use of Warlock curses. I am not even sure it's possible to gear up enough penetration to penetrate a certain school immunity.

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Going below 0 is not the issue ... if he has 0 resistance there be no partial reists.

Immunity is completly different case ... plus for arcane immune mobs we still have nature dmg ^^

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Q u o t e:

I use SCTD and the resist that comes from +hit is displayed in different way than partial resist ... in case of partial resist I see for example
1020 (1020) - that means my SF instead of 2040 did 1020 (numbers are random) ... that is the part that is countered by spell penetration cause it comes from resistance to school of magic


Going below 0 is not the issue ... if he has 0 resistance there be no partial reists.

Immunity is completly different case ... plus for arcane immune mobs we still have nature dmg ^^

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The question rises again, however. If a mob has partial resistance to one of your two schools, why would you gimp yourself in order to use your school, rather then just momentarely switching to your other school? ^^;

tag

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Q u o t e:
The question rises again, however. If a mob has partial resistance to one of your two schools, why would you gimp yourself in order to use your school, rather then just momentarely switching to your other school? ^^;

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Mobs and bosses in TBC have generally much higher resistances for all schools of magic. On bosses I have equal amount of partial resist on both schools ... so do other casters. There are hardly any bosses/mobs without magic resistance. So changing to the other school of magic won't change anything.

disagreeing with best boot enchant! I take 12 sta>>>Vitality any day a week.

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Q u o t e:
disagreeing with best boot enchant! I take 12 sta>>>Vitality any day a week.

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It's a PVE guide. Vitality is the best PVE boot enchant for pretty much any caster. Unless it's some encounter where you desperately need stamina gear, then you just switch on stamina gear.

I have a little question regarding the part about hit, crit and spell damage, namely the effectiveness of crit compared to spelldamage.

The way I see it, spelldamage and crit chance complement each other, in the way, that 1% crit chance will be worth more the more spelldamage you have, and 1 spelldamage will be worth more the more crit chance you have, for substained DPS of course.
The reason for this is, that we're not relying that heavily on DoT's for DPS, and all our damage spells except insect swarm, has some direct damage in it as well. Also, the chance of Nature's Grace proccing of a crit should probably also raise the value of crit chance.

Of course, this really comes down to how many itempoints spelldamage costs, compared to crit chance. But nonetheless, there ought to be a certain amount of spelldamage, where crit would be a the better choice when "spending" your itempoints.

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Q u o t e:
Of course, this really comes down to how many itempoints spelldamage costs, compared to crit chance. But nonetheless, there ought to be a certain amount of spelldamage, where crit would be a the better choice when "spending" your itempoints.

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I heard once that over 800 spelldmg crit is more important ... but it was only some theory - haven't seen any proof.

Btw, any more oppinions about penetration thing? I would really like to sort it out cause maybe in the end subtelity on cloak would do more good for me than 20 penetration. But since subtelity it's bit harder to get I need to be sure I don't need that penetration.

About spelldamage vs spellcrit:

Spelldamage scales really good with gear when we're talking about moonkins. Spellcrit does scale ok with 2x crit damage and NG but I'd still say it's better to go with pure damage in most cases.

About spell penetration:

Useless stat. Just like the guide in the original post says, it does nothing in PVE. The only reason I even have it on my cloak at the moment is that I've been too lazy to find an enchanter with the enchant.

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Q u o t e:
About spell penetration:

Useless stat. Just like the guide in the original post says, it does nothing in PVE. The only reason I even have it on my cloak at the moment is that I've been too lazy to find an enchanter with the enchant.

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Have anyone made any tests that prove it has no affect? Cause I know it was useless pre TBC ... now I have serious doubts and tbh might need some stable proof for it beinf useless...

As I said I can make an elixir that gives 30 spell penetration so in theory I have a good tool to make some test but I need advise on what I should test it and which tool I should use to get some reasonable results (some addon maybe)

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Q u o t e:


It's a PVE guide. Vitality is the best PVE boot enchant for pretty much any caster. Unless it's some encounter where you desperately need stamina gear, then you just switch on stamina gear.

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Yes and I only care about PvE. You want alot of stamina because almost every boss fight in the game include AE damage/attacks that the tank doesnt take. fe: Void Reaver, Karatresh, Morogrim(!!), Magtheridon...the list can be made long. For me vitality would be quite useless since i'll basically never runs oom anyway.

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Q u o t e:


Yes and I only care about PvE. You want alot of stamina because almost every boss fight in the game include AE damage/attacks that the tank doesnt take. fe: Void Reaver, Karatresh, Morogrim(!!), Magtheridon...the list can be made long. For me vitality would be quite useless since i'll basically never runs oom anyway.

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Vitality also regens HP, doesn't it? :P 4 hp / 5 seconds = 80 HP / minute. 12 Stamina = 120 HP for the entire fight.

But each to their own I guess. ^^;