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[Guide] Boomkin PvP
Boomkin PvP Guide 3.3.5a
Welcome to my terribly formatted guide where I’m unloading my thoughts on Moonkin PvP in no specific order. I’m hoping to focus more on advanced tips and strategies rather than a simple “wear this and use that” guide. Apologies in advance for the lack of any proper formatting.
Talents:
Glyphs:
Other than Glyph of Insect Swarm, these glyphs are essential. The Glyph of Focus is a noob trap because more damage doesn’t matter when it means you have to be sacrifice range and positioning.
Glyph of moonfire might seem great, but wait.. now you have no ability to do instant damage anymore! (Your opponent was on 1k health but you didn’t have time to cast wrath? You missed your chance.)
Glyph of barkskin is critical for surviving bladestorms/shadowdances/beast mastery comps etc.
You could swap Glyph of insect swarm for Glyph of monsoon. But I prefer the consistent damage increase over having my knockback up a few seconds sooner.
Although Moonkin crits can be very effective at sustaining your mana pool, in arena situations you will more likely be playing a supportive role (cyclone/roots/dots and hots). So outside of Starfall you will spend very little time actually in Moonkin form.
Moonkin dots are really ineffective outside of a duel situation so like PvE you want to spend as much time as possible free casting. Finding the earliest possible window to apply 1 wrath for Earth and Moon is more important you might think. That’s where the opening rotations come in.
Opening rotations:
- Pounce -> Entangling Roots (good vs warrior)
- Cast Entangling Roots from max range (36 yards)
- Pounce -> Wrath-> Starfall (good vs mage)
- Pounce -> Cyclone (good opener on healer in arena)
- Cast Cyclone from max range (29 yards – not recommend as interruptible by many skills)
Tips and Tricks:
Generally the rule is if you can freecast, do it. If you have to move, apply dots and hots.
Try to not use starfall without Earth and Moon Proc.
Don’t waste Nature’s Grasp or Barkskin – these are VERY important “oh ****” buttons. If you follow the opening rotations you will most likely force a MoA use beforehand so nature’s grasp can do some clutch saves against non-dispelling teams.
Glyphed starfall has a cooldown of only 60 seconds. Strategies involve using your initial opener to force trinkets and defensive cooldowns. If possible reset the fight and prepare to go again after a minute.
Night Elf Druids can quite effectively Vanish by using their mobility to allow dots to fade before Shadowmeld - > Prowling. You can also shadowmeld->cat form->drink->prowl. However a good opponent won’t allow this to happen. So usually you will kite and mitigate damage using defensive CDs and hots during this time.
Don’t just cyclone your focus target. Cyclone your main target during the DR to prevent them being healed by their partner.
Don’t tank a warrior’s bladestorm, or sit in a DK’s chains of ice. You are a druid, a master of mobility! Switch to cat and dash out of that ****, or travel form if nothing else. Learn to use powershift macros for instant form swapping.
Typhooning a healer off a ledge is sometimes far more effective than any amount of CC.
Here is my personalized powershift macro that works with Moonkin form:
Code:
/cast [stance:1] !Dire Bear Form; [stance:4] !Travel form; [stance:3] !Cat Form; [stance:5] !Moonkin Form;
I also advise macros for mouseover hots/abolish poison/remove curse. You can add modifiers to apply these spells to party1 or party2 as necessary.
Abolish Poison and Remove Curse are usable in Moonkin form. Not quite as good as a heal but really important vs Rogues/Locks. For example you can remove wound poison before using bauble for a good heal without leaving the safety of Moonkin form.
Most moonkins end up dying by being brought low, they panic and switch to human form to try and heal. This reduces their defences even further and they just die. **You must use your tools to create safe windows for you to switch to human form.** That’s not enough either. Just because you cycloned that rogue doesn’t mean you can go human. If he trinket’s and blinds, you are screwed (unless you have saved your trinket also).
Use addons like Gladius to track your opponents important cooldowns like PvP trinket. It’s also worthwhile using an addon to track diminishing returns so you can cyclone/root as much as possible.
The key to playing Boomkin well is to anticipate and mitigate damage! You should focus on getting your opponent to burn their trinket so you have freedom later on. The problem is.. Boomkins are very squishy.. like squishier than an elemental shaman. They have no proper defensive cooldown. Barkskin is only a 20% damage reduction and is more often used for stopping knockbacks while casting. For this reason it is wise to stack as much resilience as you feel is necessary to survive your opponent’s burst windows.
Resilience continues to be effective all the way to approximately 1415 where it will hit the soft cap. So don’t feel ashamed stacking it on a boomkin – they have no ice block/dispersion/deterrance etc.
Stat Priority:
Hit rating - With Balance of Power talent, Ashen ring alone will put you well over the PvP soft cap (5.94%).
Spell Penetration – adjust based on your opponents! Most classes have no arcane/nature resistance so running spell pen against them is a waste. You only need 75 spell pen against druids, but you will need 130 vs mages/shamans/hunters.
Resilience – Moonkins are extremely effective if they can simply survive. The problem is that usually they cannot.
Haste - The majority of your CC and damage relies on spell casts. Self explanatory.
Spellpower – Your damage+hot effectiveness.
Crit - Essentially better than stacking anything else at this point. A decently geared boomkin will have over 30% crit in Moonkin form.
Spirit - It isn’t completely useless with Improved Moonkin Form, especially if you take Intensity. But generally raw mp5 is always superior if you want sustain. I don’t really agree with itemizing mana regeneration on a Moonkin though, you’re playing this class for it's versatility, not the long game.
Gear:
Enchants:
Gems:
I’ve been making this guide very general and non specific regarding PvP situations. If you want more specific information on facing a certain class or arena comp please ask and I’ll do my best to explain the strategy involved.
I will probably add more to this guide over time.
Cheers for reading, appreciate any feedback.
- Your friendly neighbourhood Titanform
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Great guide, really thanks for your work dude. I want to mention a specific thing however im sure its worthy to mention.
If you have engineering and the gloves encha (340 Haste use every minute for 12 sec), Phylactery is a better trinket then CTS. Its more spell power for a longer time. CTS is 15 sec and 861 sp -Phylactery got a procc for 20 sec with 1207 sp --> It means way stronger burst. Basically you replace haste for crit there, but most cases you win with bursts and playing around burst cds in arenas. : )
