Found this on the US forums - I had to post it here. :)
Question:
What is a Boomkin? Is it similar to a Moonkin? Does for the form even exist? I mean, I saw this funny WoW video with a "Boomkin" in it, but that was all. What's a Boomkin?
Response:
Its a more evolved form of a Moonkin. A Moonkin goes through different stages in its life.
Noobkin: This is the first form of Moonkin. Its new to the spec and generally doesn't know much. Its life in this stage can be short as most don't live past it. Moonfire is the preferred spell.
Oomkin: In this form the Moonkin is still new but knows little of actual mana management and gearing and thus don't last long in battle. Moonfire is the preferred spell.
Moonkin: This is the adult stage. It is able to use its abilities to its fullest potential.
After Moonkin it can advance to a new stage in life. Where it chooses a specialty in what it does. The choices are as fallowed.
Boomkin: These guys are psycho!!!! They enjoy big crits and big explosive damage. Very unpredictable in battle they prefer starfire as it shows the highest crits possible to a Moonkin.
Panzerkin: These guys focus on armor and stamina. Charging through enemy legions as they blast things to oblivion they are near invincible. The do however have little offensive ability. Moonfire as favored spell.
Doomkin: Deadly and precise. They can do more damage then any other Moonkin type. Preferring steady and predictable yet high blasting abilities they are deadly to all enemies. Preferred spell is wrath.
After this stage there is still one more. Infinitely stronger than the other forms they are incredibly strong. Legendary in power.
Space Chicken!!!!!!: These are a deadly combo of all the previous forms. Well balanced in all manners they can be nearly unstoppable. It is only legend however as very few have been known to exist. Moonkin are like an iron cannon as a mage is like a glass cannon. An iron cannon can take a sword to its side easily but when hit by fire from the glass cannon it will melt.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Hiatus
Two-three week hiatus coming up. I am a law student, and its finals time.
See you all in May.
hopefully I will get enough time in game to hit 62-63 and start running the coilfang instances.
See you all in May.
hopefully I will get enough time in game to hit 62-63 and start running the coilfang instances.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Weekend fun
So I spent the majority of my time this weekend in game swtiching professions so that I can make the most oru of my BC experience.
I leveld up Engineering to 361 and in so doing go myself a pair of Moon Magnified Specs and threw a Chaotic Skyfire Diamond and a Glowing Nightseye in.
That item is godly for a 62 - total states are now:
326 Armor
+28 Stamina
+24 Intellect
Crit- 53
Damage- 60
3% Increased Critical Damage
Stealth Detection and Gas Cloud Detection
YUM!
Also added the Goblin Rocket Launcher to my arsenal. :evil
Also dropped enchanting which was sitting at 270 or so and about to eat a lot of funds if I was to progress it and picked up skinning. Leveled skinning to 295 ina bout 2.5 hours and hearthed back to HP. Ready to farm up skins in order to level Leatherworking as soon as I hit 70 and make the Windhawk Set.
I leveld up Engineering to 361 and in so doing go myself a pair of Moon Magnified Specs and threw a Chaotic Skyfire Diamond and a Glowing Nightseye in.
That item is godly for a 62 - total states are now:
326 Armor
+28 Stamina
+24 Intellect
Crit- 53
Damage- 60
3% Increased Critical Damage
Stealth Detection and Gas Cloud Detection
YUM!
Also added the Goblin Rocket Launcher to my arsenal. :evil
Also dropped enchanting which was sitting at 270 or so and about to eat a lot of funds if I was to progress it and picked up skinning. Leveled skinning to 295 ina bout 2.5 hours and hearthed back to HP. Ready to farm up skins in order to level Leatherworking as soon as I hit 70 and make the Windhawk Set.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Gear Progression
Cameron over at Random Battle pointed out yesterday a nice little posting by blues stating that gear progression in WotLK will be much smoother than the debacle that was BC.
Quoth Bornakk: Players and items will have an increase in their stats/items that goes along with leveling to 80, it will just be a little more consistent when compared to The Burning Crusade. What I mean by this is the way items are working right now will be closer to the new items you get in Wrath of the Lich King and it isn't like you will see an item with double the usual amount of stamina from your first quest.
Now - this got me thinking. Remember how fun it is to get a nice shiny new piece of armor? Well I do, because it happened last night. My Druid is 60 now, and leveling in Outlands. I took a long hiatus from wow and returned to a new server with new toons and this is the first time I have been in Outlands since about September of last year. I was in Ramparts and our group basically had a healing set drop - I was healing, so I got four blue pieces - not purples, just blues, but they were there first true to life dungeon upgrades I had gotten in a while and it felt good.
Now - this is why I didn't do Strat, Scholo, UBRS, LBRS, or ZG, AQ BWL or Ony on my new character - because the minute I hit 60 and went to outlands instances, the gear far outpaced what I could have go there. Hell,. At 60 I now have 4k life, 6k mana and 275 spelldamage with 400 healing. That is great by old world standards and I am not even through half of the quests in HP.
The fact that gear progression will not be so dramatic and staggered will keep some of the "old" content useful - there is a reason people will want to keep going back to the raid level stuff from BC, say you can 5 man Kara at 75 and probably still get a few upgrades.Or 10 man SSC, - you get the picture - the content will still be seen.
I for one love the idea of it. Cool content should not be abandoned. I ran BRD all the way through before I moved on to Outlands and remembered what a freaking cool, huge, and fun instance that was.
In all the time I have played this game here is what I have not yet seen - Any and all heroics. Any and all raid instances. DM, UBRS, Scholo, BWL, ZG, AQ20, AQ40, SV, SH, hell, I have never even been beyond Terrokar forest on my old server - so you get the idea. Even though I have been playing since launch, I am a newb at endgame. I don't want to have to bypass the stuff that was endgame in BC just because the crap drops in Northrend will be as good as SSC gear. And now I won;'t have to. :)
Cameron at Random Battle had another great idea to keep older content fresh that I thought was excellent- go back and create Heroic instances for each 5 man in the old world. It would not be that hard, update some gear and increase the level of the trash mobs, then you would only need some minor tweaking on the boss fights to bring them up to par with the current difficulty levels. You may not even need to update the loot - people would have fun running them for badges alone.
Quoth Bornakk: Players and items will have an increase in their stats/items that goes along with leveling to 80, it will just be a little more consistent when compared to The Burning Crusade. What I mean by this is the way items are working right now will be closer to the new items you get in Wrath of the Lich King and it isn't like you will see an item with double the usual amount of stamina from your first quest.
Now - this got me thinking. Remember how fun it is to get a nice shiny new piece of armor? Well I do, because it happened last night. My Druid is 60 now, and leveling in Outlands. I took a long hiatus from wow and returned to a new server with new toons and this is the first time I have been in Outlands since about September of last year. I was in Ramparts and our group basically had a healing set drop - I was healing, so I got four blue pieces - not purples, just blues, but they were there first true to life dungeon upgrades I had gotten in a while and it felt good.
Now - this is why I didn't do Strat, Scholo, UBRS, LBRS, or ZG, AQ BWL or Ony on my new character - because the minute I hit 60 and went to outlands instances, the gear far outpaced what I could have go there. Hell,. At 60 I now have 4k life, 6k mana and 275 spelldamage with 400 healing. That is great by old world standards and I am not even through half of the quests in HP.
The fact that gear progression will not be so dramatic and staggered will keep some of the "old" content useful - there is a reason people will want to keep going back to the raid level stuff from BC, say you can 5 man Kara at 75 and probably still get a few upgrades.Or 10 man SSC, - you get the picture - the content will still be seen.
I for one love the idea of it. Cool content should not be abandoned. I ran BRD all the way through before I moved on to Outlands and remembered what a freaking cool, huge, and fun instance that was.
In all the time I have played this game here is what I have not yet seen - Any and all heroics. Any and all raid instances. DM, UBRS, Scholo, BWL, ZG, AQ20, AQ40, SV, SH, hell, I have never even been beyond Terrokar forest on my old server - so you get the idea. Even though I have been playing since launch, I am a newb at endgame. I don't want to have to bypass the stuff that was endgame in BC just because the crap drops in Northrend will be as good as SSC gear. And now I won;'t have to. :)
Cameron at Random Battle had another great idea to keep older content fresh that I thought was excellent- go back and create Heroic instances for each 5 man in the old world. It would not be that hard, update some gear and increase the level of the trash mobs, then you would only need some minor tweaking on the boss fights to bring them up to par with the current difficulty levels. You may not even need to update the loot - people would have fun running them for badges alone.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Moonkin Enchants by Slot and Gemming Guide
These are the best enchants, per slot, for a Moonkin:
Helm - Glyph of Power
Cloak - Subtlety
Chest - Enchant Mana Prime
Bracers - Spellpower
Gloves - Spellpower; alternatively - if you are not hit capped, then get 15 spellhit
Legs - Runic Spellthread
Boots - Vitality
Weapon - Major Spellpower; an alternative enchant for the weapon is spellsurge if you have Mp5 issues (should be using consumables for Mp5 though)
Gems (Gem for hit until capped if possible, then damage)
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.
Obviously as I am leveling, I will be using much less expensive enchants and gems until 70.
Questions? Comments? Buehler?
Helm - Glyph of Power
Cloak - Subtlety
Chest - Enchant Mana Prime
Bracers - Spellpower
Gloves - Spellpower; alternatively - if you are not hit capped, then get 15 spellhit
Legs - Runic Spellthread
Boots - Vitality
Weapon - Major Spellpower; an alternative enchant for the weapon is spellsurge if you have Mp5 issues (should be using consumables for Mp5 though)
Gems (Gem for hit until capped if possible, then damage)
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.
Obviously as I am leveling, I will be using much less expensive enchants and gems until 70.
Questions? Comments? Buehler?
Rumored 2.4.2 notes
Rumored 2.4.2 patch notes found floating around MMO-champ, likely fake, but you never know. a lot of the changes in the "fake" 2.4 notes found there were actually implemented. A couple nice bonuses to Druids - specially love the Abolish poison, moonfury/moonglow effects and the reduced cooldown on trees.
Druid changes -
Cyclone: A change made to this spell's range made in a previous patch has been reverted. Cyclone's range is now 30 yards, up from 20.
The "Moonfury" and "Moonglow" talents will now also affect "Insect Swarm."
The "Wrath of Cenarius" talent will now increase the spell damage contribution from the player's equipment for "Lifebloom" by 4% per talent point spent.
The "Empowered Rejuvenation" talent no longer affects "Lifebloom."
"Abolish Poison" and "Remove Curse" are now considered Balance spells. "Remove Curse" and "Abolish Poison" can now be cast in while the player is in Tree of Life and Moonkin forms.
Force of Nature: This spell's cooldown has been reduced to 1 minute and 30 seconds, down from 3 minutes.
Ferocious Bite: This ability will no longer covert excess energy to damage.
Druid changes -
Cyclone: A change made to this spell's range made in a previous patch has been reverted. Cyclone's range is now 30 yards, up from 20.
The "Moonfury" and "Moonglow" talents will now also affect "Insect Swarm."
The "Wrath of Cenarius" talent will now increase the spell damage contribution from the player's equipment for "Lifebloom" by 4% per talent point spent.
The "Empowered Rejuvenation" talent no longer affects "Lifebloom."
"Abolish Poison" and "Remove Curse" are now considered Balance spells. "Remove Curse" and "Abolish Poison" can now be cast in while the player is in Tree of Life and Moonkin forms.
Force of Nature: This spell's cooldown has been reduced to 1 minute and 30 seconds, down from 3 minutes.
Ferocious Bite: This ability will no longer covert excess energy to damage.
WTB more starfire crits plz
Wow. Broke 2k on a Starfire crit last night. yum. I know, I know, druids are not meant to push crits and damage is way better of a stat to get a hold of, but something about those big numbers just makes me salivate....
Progress? I am currently about a quarter of the way into 61 and about to get some really sweet gear from some Hellfire Peninsula quests.
I am also saving mats up from my AH alt to craft my Destruction Holo-gogs. Yay! come onnnnn 62!
Progress? I am currently about a quarter of the way into 61 and about to get some really sweet gear from some Hellfire Peninsula quests.
I am also saving mats up from my AH alt to craft my Destruction Holo-gogs. Yay! come onnnnn 62!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Nature's Grace
With the new implementation of haste, I think it may be likely that nature's grace will be changed to a haste mechanic. At least I hope so.
At present, with wrath being lowered to 1.5 seconds cast time, a nature's grace proc does absolutely nothing for wrath spam. The GCD is 1.5 seconds, so even if you get a .5 second quicker cast off, the next available cast is still 1.5 seconds away.
Currently you have to interrupt your casting patter to bring in a starfire in order to see any benefit from nature's grace.
At present, with wrath being lowered to 1.5 seconds cast time, a nature's grace proc does absolutely nothing for wrath spam. The GCD is 1.5 seconds, so even if you get a .5 second quicker cast off, the next available cast is still 1.5 seconds away.
Currently you have to interrupt your casting patter to bring in a starfire in order to see any benefit from nature's grace.
What I'd like to see in WotLK or 2.5
Hoped for new spells:
Emerald Dreaming - have it affect humanoids/beasts/dragonkin instead of reducing aggro radius, make the creature non-hostile for the duration (15 seconds). Creature would still attack if aoe'd or struck, just makes it non-aggressive for 15 seconds. Can you say PvE cc?
Emerald Cleansing - aggro dump, instant, 10 minute cooldown, sheds half your hate on current target only.
Some sort of Feral spell damage mitigation.
Perhaps a feral talent high up called Leathered forelimbs? gives parry to Dire Bear. Would help with crushing blows.
General changes to untalented druid spells:
Entangling Roots - make it usable indoors and change damage caused by roots to not break roots.
Rake - needs better scaling, perhaps link damage with AP
Tiger's fury - useless, well almost useless. Change this to a Berzerk mechanic that makes one immune to stun/fear/charm for 5 seconds, 5 minute cooldown. Would have to be used pre-emptively or it would be like will of the forsaken. Alternatively - make this a haste - say adds 10% of agi in haste for 20 sec, 2 minute cooldown.
Talent changes:
Balance
Combine Brambles and Control of Nature, the new talent should be at tier 2
Create a new talent where Control of Nature was in tier 3 called Celestial Fury - increase Starfire's crit rate by 2/4/6 against mobs affected by Moonfire, also reduces threat based on offensive spells by 3/6/10
Cut Vengeance down to two talent points and make it 50/100
Change Nature's Grace to a haste effect - maybe crits add 100 haste for 6 seconds, stacks up to three times
Change Moonfury to affect all spells - roots and insect swarm need to be in there
Change Moonkin - Change the mana recovery mechanic from melee to a 2% of mana back on crit, or maybe refund 30% of spell cost on crit. Change the AP boost to a Spelldamage boost of 100% of level, or to an Mp5 boost of 50% of level.
Remove Improved faerie fire from Balance tree, move it to feral.
In its place add Improved Moonkin Form, two points, add 5/10% of INT as spelldamage to the Moonkin Aura
Force of Nature - for the love of Cenarius, please give these a pet bar and maybe up their hp by a couple hundred
Feral
I don't really have a problem with feral, maybe make predatory strikes increase AP by a percentage of AP? say 7/14/20 instead of based off of level?
Also, add improved faerie fire to feral as improved feral faerie fire.
Resto
Improved Mark of the Wild - Best original buff, worst scaling buff in the game after BC, change this to add "and increases resilience by 3/6/9/12/15"
Omen of Clarity should say after melee attacks - "or offensive spell casts"
Tree of Life - add Healing touch to what you can cast
Emerald Dreaming - have it affect humanoids/beasts/dragonkin instead of reducing aggro radius, make the creature non-hostile for the duration (15 seconds). Creature would still attack if aoe'd or struck, just makes it non-aggressive for 15 seconds. Can you say PvE cc?
Emerald Cleansing - aggro dump, instant, 10 minute cooldown, sheds half your hate on current target only.
Some sort of Feral spell damage mitigation.
Perhaps a feral talent high up called Leathered forelimbs? gives parry to Dire Bear. Would help with crushing blows.
General changes to untalented druid spells:
Entangling Roots - make it usable indoors and change damage caused by roots to not break roots.
Rake - needs better scaling, perhaps link damage with AP
Tiger's fury - useless, well almost useless. Change this to a Berzerk mechanic that makes one immune to stun/fear/charm for 5 seconds, 5 minute cooldown. Would have to be used pre-emptively or it would be like will of the forsaken. Alternatively - make this a haste - say adds 10% of agi in haste for 20 sec, 2 minute cooldown.
Talent changes:
Balance
Combine Brambles and Control of Nature, the new talent should be at tier 2
Create a new talent where Control of Nature was in tier 3 called Celestial Fury - increase Starfire's crit rate by 2/4/6 against mobs affected by Moonfire, also reduces threat based on offensive spells by 3/6/10
Cut Vengeance down to two talent points and make it 50/100
Change Nature's Grace to a haste effect - maybe crits add 100 haste for 6 seconds, stacks up to three times
Change Moonfury to affect all spells - roots and insect swarm need to be in there
Change Moonkin - Change the mana recovery mechanic from melee to a 2% of mana back on crit, or maybe refund 30% of spell cost on crit. Change the AP boost to a Spelldamage boost of 100% of level, or to an Mp5 boost of 50% of level.
Remove Improved faerie fire from Balance tree, move it to feral.
In its place add Improved Moonkin Form, two points, add 5/10% of INT as spelldamage to the Moonkin Aura
Force of Nature - for the love of Cenarius, please give these a pet bar and maybe up their hp by a couple hundred
Feral
I don't really have a problem with feral, maybe make predatory strikes increase AP by a percentage of AP? say 7/14/20 instead of based off of level?
Also, add improved faerie fire to feral as improved feral faerie fire.
Resto
Improved Mark of the Wild - Best original buff, worst scaling buff in the game after BC, change this to add "and increases resilience by 3/6/9/12/15"
Omen of Clarity should say after melee attacks - "or offensive spell casts"
Tree of Life - add Healing touch to what you can cast
Monday, April 14, 2008
General thoughts on leveling balance in HP
I originally was feral (aren't we all?:) ) and leveling was fast. Real fast. And it only ramped up when you got mangle.
I specced boomkin once when I was around 45 or so, with no spelldamage gear and limited spirit, and it was literally the OOMkin. I ran through mana so fast I could barely see any blue left with two mobs half dead.
Not so anymore. I must say that once you reach outlands and spend an hour or two getting quest rewards (and 75 g in the AH didn't hurt either) and all of a sudden I am rocking 250 spelldamage and a ton of int and spirit, and I can now grind about 10 mobs without drinking.
Now, I am not saying feral is faster, as I think it is by just a tad. But I'll tell you what, seeing a 2k starfire crit is worth it.
That, and it is quite nice to be able to pick up all of the ground clutter objects without shifting back to caster.
I specced boomkin once when I was around 45 or so, with no spelldamage gear and limited spirit, and it was literally the OOMkin. I ran through mana so fast I could barely see any blue left with two mobs half dead.
Not so anymore. I must say that once you reach outlands and spend an hour or two getting quest rewards (and 75 g in the AH didn't hurt either) and all of a sudden I am rocking 250 spelldamage and a ton of int and spirit, and I can now grind about 10 mobs without drinking.
Now, I am not saying feral is faster, as I think it is by just a tad. But I'll tell you what, seeing a 2k starfire crit is worth it.
That, and it is quite nice to be able to pick up all of the ground clutter objects without shifting back to caster.
Spellcasting Rotations
(taken from maximizing your moonkin DPS post) Pending on gear level, wrath may out-DPS starfire in a raid or vice versa. It doesn't matter, as the DPS is close enough to where it's insignificant. How much DPS each rotation outputs is a result of how many casts you are able to land.
The most common casting rotation is this: IS/MF/SFx3
The highest DPS casting rotation is this: IS/MF/Wx6
The highest DPM casting rotation is this: IS/SFx4
The most common casting rotation is this: IS/MF/SFx3
The highest DPS casting rotation is this: IS/MF/Wx6
The highest DPM casting rotation is this: IS/SFx4
Welcome to class!
Hi-didly-ho neighbors.
This is going to be a blog about the coolest class and spec in the World of Warcraft Universe. Some have heard it lovingly described as Boomkin, OOMkin, Lazer Turkey, Space Chicken, and I'm sure a host of other delightful names. The spec I am referring to is of couse, the Balance Druid, the Moonkin.
Me: I have been playing wow since about two days after launch, with a brief hiatus of a few months when my computer decided to eat its own video card back in May of 07. Started playing on a pve server and had a few toons, none higher than my loving priest, who is sitting at level 68 still. Various others including a warlock, pally and druid made it into the 30-50 range. I switched servers at the nudging of my nephew who had moved to a pvp server with some friends and never looked back.
Ursine: Ursine is my freshly level 60 lazer turkey. :) I leveled him feral until I got ahold of some outlands greens on the AH at 58 and then made the switch and never looked back. Wrath cannon ftw!
So, I decided to start this blog becasue there aren't a lot of Boomer blogs out there, although the few that are are very high quality. (See my blog roll to check them out)
I plan to chronicle my travels from 60-70 and then hopefully my raiding after that. Hope you all enjoy.
This is going to be a blog about the coolest class and spec in the World of Warcraft Universe. Some have heard it lovingly described as Boomkin, OOMkin, Lazer Turkey, Space Chicken, and I'm sure a host of other delightful names. The spec I am referring to is of couse, the Balance Druid, the Moonkin.
Me: I have been playing wow since about two days after launch, with a brief hiatus of a few months when my computer decided to eat its own video card back in May of 07. Started playing on a pve server and had a few toons, none higher than my loving priest, who is sitting at level 68 still. Various others including a warlock, pally and druid made it into the 30-50 range. I switched servers at the nudging of my nephew who had moved to a pvp server with some friends and never looked back.
Ursine: Ursine is my freshly level 60 lazer turkey. :) I leveled him feral until I got ahold of some outlands greens on the AH at 58 and then made the switch and never looked back. Wrath cannon ftw!
So, I decided to start this blog becasue there aren't a lot of Boomer blogs out there, although the few that are are very high quality. (See my blog roll to check them out)
I plan to chronicle my travels from 60-70 and then hopefully my raiding after that. Hope you all enjoy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)