Hit and Gear for Moonkins - Tit for Tat

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I always try to have my gear list in front of me for whatever role I'm playing.  Now that I have an IPad, this is even easier.  I like to give props to the gear list that I currently use and really like.  For moonkins, I recommend Grey Matter's list, which can be found here.  When tanking, I really like Think Tank's list, which can be found here.  Yes, I do also use programs like Rawr to look at my particular situation, but I am also not a math person so I appreciate the fact that some people can look at the gear and say what is better.  I'm still looking for a good arcane mage gear list, so if you have any recommendations, feel free to post them in the comments.

Now, with tanking, it is incredibly easy to be hit capped.  Not that it is really needed since we do a lot of actions very quickly, but since bears use rouge gear for tanking, it tends to have a lot of hit on it.  It also helps with threat generation.  However, with moonkins and mages, hit becomes a bigger issue.  It is their number one stat that must always be maintained and a requirement to be capped.  The difference in DPS between a hit capped and a non-hit capped moonkin is drastic. 

Some of the recommendations that I see from both moonkins and mages say they depend on other people to be hit capped.  While I'm not saying this is necessarily wrong, it doesn't feel right for me.  Sure, I have a Draenai and a shadow priest in my 25 mans that would make it very easy to be hit capped, but what about 10 mans or even 5 mans.  I want to know that I'm not dependent on another person for my damage to matter.  Plus, I don't want to be the person to say that I have to have a Draenai in my group for me to be able to DPS. And yes, I know I get buffs from other classes that increase spellpower, crit, or haste.  But I want to know that I could do the damage needed without them.  Those help to improve it.

This is where the value of gear list and what I value come into contrast.  Let me give an example with my moonkin.  I had the Crushing Coldwraith Belt on my moonkin gear and I was using the Shard of the Crystal Heart as one of my trinkets, since it has hit.  However, I had a decision to make with hit.  I could definitely get a better trinket than Shard of the Crystal Heart in ICC 25, however, this means that I would not be hit capped.  I tried to use the Maghia's Misguided Quill, but when I used it, I found that my DPS was not getting better.  So this lead to a decision.  I decided to not use the Crushing Coldwraith Belt anymore, get the T10 legs plus the Belt of Omission so that when a better trinket, like Dislodged Foreign Object dropped, I could trade the Shard of the Crystal Heart for it and be hit capped without gems or enchants.  Is the Belt of Omission the best in slot for moonkins? Not even close.  Is it the best for me?  Yes, because I can use a better trinket than a 245 haste/hit trinket.

This is why it is important to look at your situation.  I was looking at a mage list of just the best in slot gear.  It ended up with a hit rating in the 220s, not even close to being hit capped.  They argued that with other buffs from other classes, you would be hit capped.  I would much rather trade a BiS piece for a lesser piece if it means that I'm not dependent on another person for damage output.

I would love your thoughts on gearing for your class.  Is my fear of being dependent on other people for my hit rating completely insane or do you feel it is well founded?  I would love your opinion on this.  

How to Handle Sickness - Level A Mage. How to Get Sick Again - Level Enchanting.

Well, it has been over a week since my last blog post.  This has mainly been because I have been fighting a stomach bacteria, probably from undercooked hamburger.  (Thanks Applebee's)  However, while being sick and feeling on the verge of vomiting is not fun, I did get to level my mage with the time from being sick.  In a few short days, I went from level 73 to 80.    Now, I join the ranks of people who have two level 80s.  How did I do it?   Well, since DPS has a queue in the LFG, I quested while sitting in LFG.  Heirloom items did not hurt either.  So I am now running heroics trying to get my 5 piece T9 at the very least and then get the trinkets, etc.   Also, you geared people who run heroics need to try harder.  I know it is nothing for you at this point, but a mage in blues and greens should not be able to double your DPS by putting up 3k DPS on tank and spank boss fights.  That is just lazy.  Also, I'm still trying to figure out how to handle trash.  Blizzard does more damage but alternating rank 9 and 8 Flamestrike is more mana efficient.  My main spec is arcane for raiding/5 mans and my secondary spec is frostfire for soloing.  Now, I have to decide who I will level next.  I have a DK tank who I can get heirloom gear for or a warlock who I can give my mage's heirloom gear to.  Both are in the 60s.

I did raid on my moonkin this week, including clearing 25 man ToC for only the second time ever.  I was hoping for a better trinket than Shard of the Crystal Heart to drop, but unfortunately, it did not.  I did not do 10 mans however due to my illness.  Hopefully, tonight we will clear up to LK tonight on 25 mans and maybe get a kill if we extend this week.  We only have Blood Queen, Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and then LK.

With my new level 80 mage, I picked my professions to level.  I chose enchanting and tailoring.  I decided to level enchanting first.  After a weekend of working on it, I'm currently at 351 with the mats to at least get it to 375.  Enchanting is really expensive.  I had 1700 gold on my mage after leveling.  I burned all of that plus a 1000 gold from my main to get to this point.  Thankfully, I have someone in my guild willing to give me the vellums needed to start making some money on enchanting so hopefully leveling the rest of the way won't hurt me too much.  It is expensive enchanting the same bracer, chest piece, or boot over and over again and not being able to sell it.  Also, one of the weird things I have figured out is that WotLK blues can be disenchanted with 325 enchanting but some of the greens cannot be disenchanting until 350.  I'm thinking with tailoring that I'm going to arcane nova my way through Deadmines and farm some cloth from there.  Then, I will probably take my bear tank and go through some of the higher instances and farm the other cloth up to 350 and then probably just run heroics and get frostweave.  Hopefully, leveling tailoring won't be as bad because every time I went to the AH to get arcane dust over the weekend, I could feel my stomach getting upset again.


Now that I'm back this week, I should be putting blog post out again at a more consistent rate.  So until next time, please send your enchanting mats or greens to Redheady on the Ner'zhul server. (J/K.  Kind of.)  Thanks.