Some of the changes to moonkins has already been announced, and they are pretty exciting to say the least. I wanted to take a moment to adress some of the more interesting changes (ei. I won’t be talking about soothe being instant!). Please note that we might still see a lot more changes on the PTR before the patch goes live.

Oh, and before I forget, I’m going to link to a page at the top of my site (way up at the top, in that little grey area, because that’s all I can do – maybe I’ll add a link in the side bar) where I’ll keep a list of PTR changes for this and future patches.

• Total Eclipse now increases bonus damage from Eclipse by 16%, up from 12%. Each point of Mastery now increases the bonus by an additional 2%, up from 1.5%.

Right off the bat, this is a nice little damage increase. We are basicly looking at 4% more damage during eclipse just by logging in, which is a 2-2,5% damage increase. More importantly, this is going to make Mastery more desirable than crit, but probably not as good as haste.

Please keep in mind, as I’ve been saying so far about mastery, this doesn’t make crit bad, it just means that you’ll get more damage from haste and mastery.

• Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 15%.
  Fungal Growth now has a 100 yards range, up from 30 yards.

Blizzard’s first attempts to fix Wild Mushroom. You will still have to place three shrooms manually, but you can do this while moving, or choose to move right after you target it on the ground. The range increase was greatly needed, and placing shrooms is a bit more forgiving now. The added damage will make shrooms a lot better for AOE. I am still sulking for a glyph that makes Wild Mushroom a bit more attractive in PvE, but a damage and range increase is a good start.

Just to avoid the confusion: The change to Fungal Growth is just to make sure that if you place down your treants and run away, they will still drop the snare when they die.

• Moonfire and Sunfire now costs 9% of base mana, down from 18% of base mana.

A minor correction to our mana usage. 3,3k mana for a moonfire, where insect swarm is only 1,5k mana is a bit steep.

• The Shooting Stars buff duration has been increased to 12 seconds, up from 8 seconds.

This might seem trivial, but this is actually a pretty neat change. Have you ever been in an encounter where you get frequent stuns, see Shooting Stars proc, and then disappear before you get out of the stun? This will get you back in the game fast after a stun, provided that you have your DOTs up and a little luck. It won’t break the game, but it’s a cute little change afterwards.

• Balance of Power now increases spell hit rating by an additional amount equal to 50/100% of any spirit gained from item or effects. (Old – Just 50/100% of your Spirit)

As far as I know, spirit from food and the like did not increase your hit rating. I didn’t bother to test this though.

• Typhoon now deals nature damage to target in front of the caster within 30 yards.
• Soothe is now instant cast, down from 1.5 sec cast.

So?

• Glyph of Wrath now increases damage done by Wrath by 10% and no longer requires Insect Swarm on the target.

This change is probably most interesting to PvP’ers. I don’t generally shoot many wraths without IS being up already – not to mention the fact that I’m not using Glyph of Wrath.

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There you have it folks, the PTR changes so far. More might be on their way, but aside from Wild Mushrooms, I quite like our current situation in Cataclysm. Damage is fine, rotations are well balanced and we are not a force to be ignored.

- QQ

Before we do that, I want to try and make an important point. Best in slot lists are very discriminating. What I mean by that is that they asse that you have access to everything, normal and heroic, 10 an 25 man. If you don’t, the value of an item might change due yo caps and whatnot. Also, keep in mind that just because it is a best in slot list, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t alternatives out there. A good example is the Boots of Unnatural Growth. While they have spirit instead of haste, they are nearly as good as the Plague Scientist’s Boots.

An upgrade is an upgrade, so don’t go tunnelvision against these items in particular. If you an upgrade your stats with a nearly-as-good item, you should.

First things first, let’s take a look at my own 3.3 ICC BIS list. I am well away on getting these items. In fact, I’ve aquired them all on normal at least, and some simply needs to be upgraded.

• Head: Sanctified Lasherweave Cover
• Neck: Blood Queen’s Crimson Choker
• Shoulder: Sanctified Lasherweave Mantle
• Back: Frostbinder’s Shredded Cape
• Chest: Sanctified Lasherweave Vestment
• Wrists: The Lady’s Brittle Bracers
• Hands: Sanctified Lasherweave Gloves or Gunship Captain’s Mittens
• Belt: Crushing Coldwraith Belt
• Legs: Sanctified Lasherweave Trousers or Plaguebringer’s Stained Pants
• Feet: Plague Scientist’s Boots
• Ring: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
• Ring: Ring of Rapid Ascent
• Trinket: Phylactery of the Nameless Lich
• Trinket: Dislodged Foreign Object
• Main hand: Royal Scepter of Terenas II
• Off hand: Shadow Silk Spindle
• Idol: Idol of the Lunar Eclipse

Because I have access to heroic gear, I get a little bit more out of the hit rating items. In fact, I am ble to achieve my hit cap using just four items: The rep ring, tier 10 pants and gloves and The Lady’s Bristle Bracers. If all of these items are from normal, I will be 3 hit rating under the cap. With just one from heroic – the bracers in my case – I am above the cap. If you are alliance, keep in mind that your hit cap is only 9%. However, it never hurts to go to 10% anyways, because you are not always covered by a draenei aura.

Come 3.5 and Ruby Sanctum, we will see three new items that could be relevant to us: A cloak, a trinket and a new pair of bracers:

• Trinket: Charred Twilight Scale
• Back: Cloak of Burning Dusk
• Wrists: Phaseshifter’s Bracers

We haven’t seen the heroic versions yet, but I think that it is safe to assume that they will be of an equal item level to items dropping from Lich King 25 heroic. So far, there are no sign of a caster ring – none that I have notices anyways. In any case, it will either be a hit + crit or haste ring, or a crit/haste ring. Either way, it will replace the two rings we have now, if it comes around.

It is likely to assume that the trinket is viable replacements for either DFO or Phyl. Because it has haste, it will probably replace DFO rather than Phyl. Haste is still stronger than crit, but barely, and when we are talking true best-in-slot, the differences would be minute. The best course of action would probably be to have one haste trinket and one crit trinket. The cloak is a straight upgrade from the Frostbinder’s Shredded Cape (or in my case, Aethas’ Intensity), so there is little debate in regards to this.

The interesting point are the bracers. We are finally looking at a leather wrist item with crit and haste. It is a wonderful item, but it has one drawback: No hit. Assuming that I have heroic hit pieces in other item slots, removing my Lady’s Brittle Bracers will put me at 239 hit rating (which is bloody well perfect for a night elf druid). I need to cover the 25 hit from somewhere, and I can do that with either a pure +20 hit gem or two Veiled Ametrine. Or at least, it can cover 20 hit rating.

The Veiled Ametrine is probably the safest bet, as they give spell power as well, and is slightly better than pure gems – much as it is the case with SP/crit and SP/haste gems. I may just use a third Veiled Ametrine and accept being 5 hit rating over the cap. This seems the best course of action, rather than being 5 hit rating below the cap.

So, where does that place us? Well, it gives us the following BIS list:

• Head: Sanctified Lasherweave Cover
• Neck: Blood Queen’s Crimson Choker
• Shoulder: Sanctified Lasherweave Mantle
• Back: Cloak of Burning Dusk (heroic)
• Chest: Sanctified Lasherweave Vestment
• Wrists: Phaseshifter’s Bracers (heroic)
• Hands: Sanctified Lasherweave Gloves or Gunship Captain’s Mittens
• Belt: Crushing Coldwraith Belt
• Legs: Sanctified Lasherweave Trousers or Plaguebringer’s Stained Pants
• Feet: Plague Scientist’s Boots
• Ring: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
• Ring: Ring of Rapid Ascent
• Trinket: Phylactery of the Nameless Lich or Dislodged Foreign Object
• Trinket: Charred Twilight Scale (heroic)
• Main hand: Royal Scepter of Terenas II
• Off hand: Shadow Silk Spindle
• Idol: Idol of the Lunar Eclipse

And ofcourse, BIS gemming is important here: You must have Veiled Ametrine in three of your yellow slots. You still need two Purified Dreadstone for your meta gem. Red gem slots will obviously be for Runed Cardinal‘s and your remaining yellow slots will be for SP/haste gems.

Enjoy the Ruby Sanctum, and all the new, tasty gear!

- QQ