After only getting one blog post last week and still recovering from surgery, I am finally back and will be updating back on a normal schedule. The first thing I want to tackle now that I'm back is my impressions of moonkins after patch 4.0.1. I think this is best described in this following equation.
4.0.1 Moonkin = 3.3.5 Moonkin + Fire Mage
Now, it may seem a little weird to say it like this, but it is absolutely true. With the new addition of Shooting Stars and Starsurge, which procs into an instant cast off of Shooting Stars, it seems a lot like Hot Streak proccing instant Pyroblast. In addition, like a fire mage, we now have no talents that give us hit. We are required to get all of our hit from spirit or hit on gear.
The biggest difference however is the short cast time of Starsurge makes it to where we will want to cast it when it is off cooldown, regardless if we have Shooting Stars. Shooting Stars just resets the cooldown and makes it an instant cast so we can get more in. Mages may stick a Pyroblast in there every so often, but they would much rather just proc Hot Streak from Fireballs due to the long cast time of Pyroblast.
The other major changes come in the way of our DoTs. Before, you would cast the DoTs, Moonfire and Insect Swarm, when you don't have an Eclipse. Now, you will cast them both at the beginning of an Eclipse. The other change in our DoTs is Moonfire changes to Sunfire when you proc a Solar Eclipse. In other words, I would not macro the two DoTs together because there is no way (at least, I know of no way) to macro for Sunfire. Also, Faerie Fire's use has gone down drastically since you don't need the 3% hit. We have a feral tank and he needs it for aggro, so I just let him cast it now.
With reforging, after patch 4.0.1 hit, I was at 27% hit due to the benefit of spirit changing to hit. So, when it comes to reforging, here is the order I reforged since you can only reforge each piece of gear once.
1) Reforge excess spirit or hit to haste or crit depending on the gear. (Reforging for some reason only allows to change some pieces to just haste, just crit, or haste or crit. If I had a choice, I always leaned towards haste.)
2) Reforge 40% crit into haste if possible.
The final thing is the timing of Starfall. Most places I have researched say cast Starfall during Lunar Eclipses if it is off cooldown. Now, there are some situations where you may want to cast it off Lunar Eclipse. The best example I can think of is Valks during Lich King. If people are getting close to the edge of going off and my Starfall is off cooldown, even if it is not a Lunar Eclipse, I'm casting it to save them from going over. It may not be the max DPS, but it becomes situational. That is why I would say use in a Lunar Eclipse, but be mindful of specific situations.
So, as you see, a lot of what moonkins do stay the same, but there are some new tricks up our sleeve to use. I definitely saw a DPS increase although I was using a laptop that was topping out at 10 FPS during some boss fights. Tonight, since I'm back on my main computer, I'm expecting it to go up even higher. Also, a lot of this information has come from other bloggers like Qieth's Quips and Gray Matter, so I encourage you to check them out since they go into more theorycrafting than I do.
Also, come back tomorrow because I will announce the winner of the Christmas In July contest where someone will win a FigurePrint of their character.
And damn, it feels good to be back.
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