The Glade 4.0

My wife wants to switch her 40'ish druid from Feral to Moonkin around Outlands time, and I have no clue about casting rotation, importance of stats or spec, can anyone offer me some advice. The thread on the wow boards is a year + out of date for Balance and was looking for something more current.

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http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t37039-moonkin_raiding/

This is a good place to start, but you'll have to read through the entire catalog of posts to find all the answers you need.

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Yep, EJ is definitely a good source of info as Khross says. However, they do live up to their name, heh. My posts have been infracted twice because I "asked a question that was already answered somewhere else on the board".

The other thing to remember about EJ is that they rarely have things for lower levels.

If you're looking for stuff on a level 40-60ish druid, that will not be what they have on EJ.

This FAQ on the Wowhead druid boards is a good place to start- it's been updated this year, at least. In addition, there is this thread that is relatively recent, but for higher levels.

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For end game stuff, EJ is your best place for info on PvE performance. That said, even then you have to think about some of their assumptions and make sure they match your situation. The easiest one that comes to mind is on recommended hit ratings. They assume that you're going to always have the classes that provide 3% hit bonuses and often a Draenai in your group, so if you don't, then bump up your hit by another 3-4%.

Typically if I'm leveling up a toon and want some guidance, reach out to someone in the guild who is a good player of that class. Get some tips, look up their gear/spec on the Armory and then play around with it to see what works for you.

My usual offspec is Moonkin, but I haven't ever specced it until level 80. Leveling is usually a whole different ballgame than what is the best dps rotation on a boss that's standing there hitting a tank.

The Moonkin Repository is a good board for Moonkins that should have more relevant information than EJ, but it still may be tough to come up with leveling-specific information. edit: This link is to their Leveling subforum, but it's pretty sparse on information.

This is especially true if she will be leveling with you. :p It's different from solo, which is different still from queuing up in the dungeon finder.

The only general suggestions I can say is that so long as she's not questing in places a few levels higher than her, she can probably avoid Hit altogether. Moonkin are one of the best specs when it comes to hit, getting 7% through talents, which is already going to cap you for equal level mobs. Spell Power, Haste, and Crit are all good. SP is generally king. Haste vs Crit is weird, though -- it's pretty well mathed out for raids, but speaking from experience, Moonkin have huge mana troubles outside of raids due to how our mana regen works. More crit will help with that, but I suppose drinking every so often (and Innervate every 3 minutes!) works fine, too. Dreamstate may be a worthwhile talent for leveling Moonkin, but I don't really know. Just be aware that when you see talent specs online they almost always mean either raiding or PVP... and in the Moonkin's case, probably only raiding cause PVP as a Moonkin is painful. :p And Typhooning fellows off the Lumber Mill is harder than it looks!

Levels 50, 51, and 52 get her points in the Eclipse talent which changes how Moonkins work kinda dramatically. It's good stuffs, though.

I didn't want to say anything out of ignorance but I figured I'd throw in my two cents.

From what I see, the most popular spec for Balance at 80 is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0xG0uiIscdIVhouZbxcdb

I'd assume at 60 she should be something like:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0xG0uiIsczhVhou

I believe that the stats she wants are intellect, spirit, and spellpower - intellect to increase mana pool (and to a lesser extent spellpower), spirit to increase mana regen (and to a lesser extent spellpower), and spellpower to increase spellpower.

Crit is only important to the point that Eclipse procs - so most rotations I've heard about are designed to proc Eclipse through Wrath spam.

Haste won't be present on most early BC gear.

Starfall is cool but likely to cause issues from mana and aggro if she opens with it.

Insect Swarm as an opener and then Wrath / Starfall and such as Eclipse procs warrant.

Test rotation with a training dummy for a bit and see what works best. Use the moonkin repo and see what they have to say, of course.

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