I get a lot of questions from people asking how to gear up their moonkin. Links to armories, comparasons between this item and that and so on.

Unfortunately, the answer is not always as clear cut as one might think. There is a lot of things to take into consideration, and to perform to our fullest we need to know what to aim for.

Our stat priority has changed a bit over the last few major content patches. It can be difficult to keep yourself up to date, so lets take a good look at our stats, once and for all.

First off, I would really suggest that you check out a few simulators. The best one, in my oppinion, is Hamlet’s Wrath Calc. It has the benefit over simulators like Simcraft that it is tailored for moonkins, and is made by a guy that does a lot for the druid community.

You could, ofcourse, follow his Moonkin DPS Compilation, which should give you all the basics you need to perform well. In this, the stat prioritation looks like this:

Hit rating (to cap) >> Haste rating (below GCD cap) = Spellpower > Crit rating (below Lunar cap) > Haste rating (above GCD cap) = Crit rating (above Lunar cap) >> Intellect > Spirit.

These comparasons are not 100% accurate, but they are close enough to give you a good reference. If you don’t like messing with Wrath Calc, this will do fine. But if you enjoy theorycrafting as much as I do, I would urge you to plot in your numbers in Wrath Calc and see what turns up.

In my current gear, with 4/5 tier 10, haste and crit soft capped, my stat benefits are something like this: (I’m sorry, I have to do it by memory. I will update this tomorrow)

  • Spell power: 1,79 DPS
  • Crit rating: 1,06 DPS
  • Haste rating: 1,42 DPS
  • Spirit: 0,5 DPS

The increase in the value of haste comes largely from switching to tier 10. More casts means more languish procs, and we are sitting on 60%+ crit no matter what when fully raid buffed, that haste wins by a slight amount compared to crit. There is still a lot of confusion going around about haste – people still can’t seem to shake the notion that it’s “bad because it doesn’t affect wrath”, and they forget that crit is “bad because it doesn’t affect starfire”. Both of these notions are untrue, since we don’t have a 100% uptime on Nature’s Grace, and we do cast starfire outside of lunar eclipse. With my stats, haste wins out over crit, but that doesn’t mean that crit is bad.

If you had to choose between an item with 50 haste and 50 crit, the difference in DPS would be around 18 DPS. Then again, an upgrade is an upgrade after all, and we have access to items that allow us to get both haste and crit. The way you go about it is to figure out the stat gains for each item, and calculate the effective DPS using YOUR values, to see which item is the better upgrade.

This also has an effect on how you should gem. I am currently using a lot of SP/crit gems, because crit was previously stronger than haste. I feel okay about not changing my gems for a very, very small upgrade until I exchange the gear – we can’t go and remove ALL of our crit, because we still need to mind our caps, and the difference between a SP/crit and an SP/haste gem is currently 2,3 DPS. But since I am aware of my stat values, I can plan ahead.

There is also the question about spirit. Should we take cloth pieces with crit/haste over leather pieces with spirit? Sure, if you can, and the actual benefit is better for you. But don’t disregard spirit completely. If you have the choice to upgrade to a spirit item, which will turn out to be an actual upgrade, by all means do it. My preference is cloth gear for most non-set slots, but that doesn’t mean that I would pass off on an upgrade.

So where do you go now? You go download Wrath Calc. You put in your stats (remember to add the effective bonus from any trinkets you have like Muradin’s Spyglass or Illustration of the Dragon Soul). Make sure your talents are set up correctly, and tell the spreadsheet if you have Nibelung, Reign of Dead, 4pt10 or 2pt9. Once it is finished calculating, you will have a solid guideline for which stats to look for, and how to gear up in the future.

DO NOT go into a haste frenzy. Remember that drastically changing your haste will effect the way it works for you. My advice for you is to try to increase your haste and crit as you go along, and whichever stat has the higher priority according to the simulator, you aim more for that, usually in the form of gems. Don’t simply assume that because my stats look like this, your will too.

Once you are done with that, you have all the tools you need to evaluate future upgrades. But don’t stop there; Wrath Calc has many features that you can play around with, and you should explore the spreadsheet to the fullest. Whether you are playing around in Naxx, or fighting the forces of Icecrown Citadel, a little bit of research can give you the edge and increase your performance!

- QQ