[BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (1.11/Naxx)

[BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (1.11/Naxx)

by TwinHeadedKraken » Tue Mar 01, 2016 3:20 am

Hello fellow spell caster!

After reading this thread, I decided to create a comprehensive Boomkin BiS list (pre-raid and post-raid). I currently play a warlock and use this bis list, and it has helped me considerably. I thought I would contribute to the community since my alt is currently a druid, and after AQ20 comes out, I plan to raid with him as a boomkin.

WARNING: Raiding as a Boomkin demands a more hardcore playstyle (max consumables every raid, complete BiS, etc) because Balance druid is substantially worse than its Mage/Warlock counterparts. 3% spell crit aura does not justify the Boomkin spot in a raid, and as a result, taking another Mage or Warlock will almost always result in better overall dps than having a Boomkin in the same spot. It will also be likely that you will be asked to heal during some encounters, so make sure you carry your healing set with you.

Without further ado, here is the list. Please proof read if you can! (Any missing items/wrong numbers/etc)

However, it should be noted that few theory crafters have crunched Balance druid numbers together. Because of this, we do not exactly know the "perfect" threshold between spell damage, spell hit, and spell crit. For example, how much spell damage is 1% spell hit worth? Or 1% spell crit worth? Perhaps using a Theorycraft addon can help distinguish this if anyone would like to enlighten us. At the end of this post, I will tell you my personal values between each so I could effectively organize the BiS list. If an item you think should be higher than another or whatever, please understand that I had to have a method to organize and simply not use personal whim in ranking the items. As a result, your personal BiS list might be slightly different. However, if you feel strongly about it, please post so readers can make a judgement for themselves, and if popular opinion says otherwise, I will change the list.

With that being said, I can confidently say that spell crit is NOT as valuable as it is compared to other spell caster classes. Warlocks get a 20% increased shadow damage debuff, Mages get Ignite procs, and Paladins get refunded mana for healing crits. What do Balance druids get? .5 cast reduction. Although that is a small overall DPS increase, it is a double edged sword because it can make a Boomkin go Oomkin quicker. Spell crit however is still needed to scale up, but you need to cross a certain threshold where you have a decent amount of spell damage before spell crit really shines. Again, where this threshold is at is currently unknown. I would estimate that you need between 250-300 spell damage before spell crit really starts helping you scale upwards.

I will also like to quote Keftenk in the other Boomkin guide thread because I think it is valuable information:
Keftenk wrote:The correct stat priority should be: Hit > SP > Crit > Int > M5 > Spi
Ideally ~9% spell hit should be suffice, but this really depends on how long the fights are. The longer the fights the better Spell Hit becomes, but as Balance spec we want shorter fights.

Pre-raid BiS should look like this (assuming you're leaving out ZG) for patch 1.8:
Weapon: Sageclaw
Off-Hand: Tome of Arcane Domination

Head: Bloodvine Goggles
Neck: Orb of the Darkmoon
Shoulder: Abyssal Cloth Amice of Sorcery
Back: Archivist Cape of Arcane Wrath
Chest: Bloodvine Vest
Wrist: Dryad's Wrist Bindings
Hands: Hands of Power
Waist: Stormpike/Frostwolf Cloth Belt
Legs: Bloodvine Leggings
Boots: Bloodvine Boots
Ring 1: Elemental Focus Band
Ring 2: Songstone of Ironforge/Eye of Ogrimmar or Maiden's Circle
Trinket 1: Briarwood Reed
Trinket 2: Eye of the Beast

Your crafts should be Tailoring and Engineering.

The thing about Moonkin is that it seems no one actually talks about (or maybe they haven't figured out) is that Crit only becomes exponentially better with SP. It needs to scale. You can't just dump a bunch of Crit onto your gear with no SP.


The last part is important if you are a new boomkin. For example, do you choose an item like Shroud of the Nathrezim (1% crit, 16 int, 10 spirit) over Cyclone Shoulders (14 spell, 11 int, 9 spirit, 11 stam)? If you are a beginner Boomkin, you should choose the spell power. It gets even tricker with epics. Here's another example, do you choose the epic Taut Dragonhide Gloves (1% crit, 20 int, 6 mp5, 20 stam) over the rare Hands of Power (+26 spell, 6 int, 6 spirit). In this case, I would still choose spell power over 1% crit, even with the stat gains.

This is just coming from a raiding warlock and reading threads such as these: mage, warlock
Again, the math hasn't been done for Balance druids.

Another thing that should be noted is spell coefficients.
Starfire receives 100% of your spell power. Wrath receives 58%.
Compared to Fireball 100%, Frostbolt 72%, and Shadowbolt 85%.
Never Wrath because it does not receive the 10% increase Arcane damage from Curse of Shadows. It is also highly inefficient mana-cost wise compared to Starfire.

With all of this being said, the way I personally organize the BiS list is this:
1% spell hit = 6.55 dps
1% spell crit = 5.94 dps
60 Int = 1% spell crit
Spell hit cap for bosses = 16%
13.5 spirit = ~1 mp5 with 15% Reflection talent
Spell damage > Spell hit > Spell crit > Int > MP5 > Spirit > Stamina

I am currently using these values calculated by theory crafters Taladril and Keftenk further on in this thread. If you want to contribute to the discussion, please feel free to post.
Taladril wrote:SP: 1
Int: 0.099 (value added for increased crit)
Crit: 5.94
Hit: 6.55

MP5: 0.35 (value only if you go oom)
Spi: 0.026 (value only if you go oom)
Int: 0.085 (value added for increased mana pool)


Previously, I had valued 1% spell hit = 13-15 spell damage and 1% spell crit = 10-13 spell damage with no empirical data. So the following is a "remnant" of this post, but I will include it anyways.
TwinHeadedKraken wrote:The reason for the ranges between spell hit and spell crit for spell damage value is because they fluctuate constantly based on your current stats and gear. So for instance, if you had 14% hit and 2% crit with sufficient spell damage (say 350 just for argument's sake), 1% spell hit is worth probably 12 or 13 spell damage compared to 1% spell crit being worth maybe 15 or 16 spell damage. When you get into a more balanced approach, such as 5% hit and 4% crit, spell hit will probably always win until you are on the higher end of the spell hit cap. In most cases, spell hit is almost always better than spell crit if all else is equal.


For trash mobs, you only need 5% spell hit for level 62 trash. For pvp, you only need 3% spell hit to reach pvp cap. You should have a set for each with the corresponding spell hit and stack spell damage to have higher dps potential. Another thing to consider is buffs. If you are using Flask of Supreme Power(+150 spell damage), an item like Pristine Enchanted South Seas Kelp (2% spell crit) becomes much more valuable because you have an excess of spell damage, so you can sacrifice the neck slot of spell damage for spell crit. Because of the constant ebb and flow of gearing up, make sure to not sell anything because that item could have potential as you move other pieces of gear around.

And lastly, having an MP5 set that doesn't sacrifice too much vital stats (spell power and spell hit) is nice to have for fights lasting longer than 3 minutes. 4 mp5 to bracers gives you more overall mana than +7 int to bracers if the fight lasts longer than 130 seconds. I would rock at least 10% spell hit though if the fight is going to be a long one to minimize resists.

Thanks to Yacopok who compiled the list of consumables/enchants/talent tree that all Boomkins should have! From this thread.
Yacopok wrote:List of consumables:
- Major Mana Potion x30
- Demonic Rune x20 (They do not share a global cooldown with mana pots, alternate between the two wisely)
- Mageblood Potion x15
- Nightfin Soup x20
- Sagefish Delight x10 (Use those for longer fights)
- Brilliant Wizard Oil (3 with 5 charges)
- Brilliant Mana Oil (1 with 5 charges used for long fights)
- Greater Fire Protection Potion x10 (You've useless dead, trust your healers but come prepared)
- Restorative Potions x10
- Rumsey Run Black Label x20 (Makes it harder for you to kill yourself)
- Greater Arcane Elixir x10
- Major Healing Potion (Again, trust your healers, but come prepared)
- Runn Tum Tuber Surprise x5 (Vael fight)
- Flask Of Supreme Power (Any progression raids and BWL)
- Greater Arcane Protection Potion x5 (Shazzrah)
- Greater Shadow Protection Potion x5 (Nefarian, phase 1)
- Stratholme Holy Water x5 (Nefarian, phase 3)
- Wild Thornroot x40 (I bring 60 in case we are short on Druids)
- Ironwood Seed x20
- Spirit of Zanza x2 (They are unique, so you pop one when we're dropping the Heart of Hakkar and keep the other one for later.)
- Always bother the warlocks to give you a Health Cookie.
- If you have serious mana issues, bring Flask of Distilled Wisdom instead of the Supreme Power

Enchants:
No matter what gear you are currently wearing, enchant it! Being a 'Caster Buff' is not enough, help your guild out and contribute as much as you can. Shame other lazy ass casters that don't enchant their gear because they are an 'actual dps class', so they don't put any effort into raiding.

Head - 8 Spell power (The ZG enchants do give you a lot of stats, but I think the extra dmg is still better)
Shoulder - 5 Fire Resistance / 5 To All Resistances / 18 Spell power (All depends on your rep, the 1st two are from Argent Dawn, last one is Zandalar Tribe exalted)
Cloak - 5 To All Resistances
Chest - 4 Stats (100 mana is nice, but the extra Spirit and Stam form this enchant makes it more beneficial over all imo)
Wrist - 4mp5
Gloves - There isn't a caster enchant for gloves in the game yet, and AQ come there won't be a Boomkin one. I use Riding Skill.
Legs - 8 Spell power
Boots - Either put Mithril Spurs on them or Minor Speed Increase

Talent Tree:
I have tried out multiple variations of how to spend your talents, talked to a number of people and came to the conclusion this is the best way to spend your talents as a Boomkin:
http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#0x0xIMEstZxxc
Link to my Char:
http://realmplayers.com/CharacterViewer ... er=Yacopok
If you have any questions or you see somewhere where I could improve this list, let me know.
All the best in game,
Yacopok


Boomkins to look at on realmplayers (please suggest names):
Nufy
Papablaze
Yacopok
Mxxi (non-Nostalrius)

Thank you for reading. If something is wrong, please post and we can work together to make sure all boomkins maximize their DPS!

SPECIAL THANKS for their valuable contributions: Yacopok, Taladril, Keftenk

Changelog:
March 4 - Added Naxxramas items, Amethyst War Staff (Silithus), Flowing Ritual Robes (ZG), Gloves of Ebru (AQ40), Southwind's Grasp (AQ20), removed Tunner from realmplayers list, added Mxxi to realmplayers list

March 8 - Added Yacopok's Enchants/Consumables/Talent tree to the post.

March 10 - Added the rest of Abyssal items (Cloth and Leather, blues and greens), finished implementing the formulas for 1.7/1.8 item scores
Last edited by TwinHeadedKraken on Thu Mar 17, 2016 9:07 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: [BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (up to 1.10/Pre-Naxx) [

by Keftenk » Tue Mar 01, 2016 4:42 am

Good write up.

I've been working a lot with Moonkin ever since Nostalrius launched and I agree and also am skeptical about its actual use. I've also been searching for that "sweet spot" between Sp vs Crit. I had a spreadsheet at one point but I got frustrated and felt like I was starting to go crazy, haha.

I would still argue that Spell Hit needs to come first over Spell Damage, but you shouldn't ever be aiming for 16%. I think a threshold should be met first or at least obtaining a number as close as possible. Then you start prioritizing Spell Damage. The reality is you can go with 0% spell hit through most of the game while just purely stacking spell damage following the stated above stat priority. A risk no doubt.

As I mentioned in the previous thread it appears that Spell Hit becomes much more valuable in longer fights. I operate in a top guild so our fights are immensely faster than most guilds and because of that I evaluate the need for Spell Hit accordingly. On average I target for a 70-second fight (Blackwing Lair), which is roughly 23 Starfires. So 9% spell hit would theoretically result in only 1 resist, but 8% would result in 2 resists.

It's probably worth noting that Moonkin isn't ideal in a raid setting because X, Y, Z class out DPS's it. However, if you're going to be viewing raiding in such a way then your raid really should just be class stacking. So, for optimal caster DPS you'd want 1 Shadow Priest and say 9 Warlocks. No Mages, no Moonkins, nothing else. Obviously this would change with Fire Mage being cycled in, but let's just keep it in the current content for now. Raiding generally isn't like this though.

It's also worth noting that to be useful you need to consider your role as a DPSer and what the Crit Aura brings to the party you're in. That Crit Aura actually scales differently for yourself, Mages, and Warlocks and that's essentially "added DPS" to YOUR DPS total. It's a way to value the actual aura itself. This also means there is an established DPS threshold that you must meet in order to be more useful than a DPS that could come in and replace you.

You can actually look at Innervate the same way. For instance, when I Innervate our Shadow Priest in our raid he will do roughly ~80 DPS more on Nefarian opposed to not having it. It MUST be understood that you're a support-DPS class that does bring a lot more than what people actually think. Is it worth while though? I wish I had the gear to try and prove it. Unlike the actual Moonkins on our server I can only speculate and crunch numbers :\

Additionally, I'll share what I've researched and documented through my findings for BiS 1.8. Our lists are actually extremely close to one another, which is great to see.

Patch 1.8 BiS Gear (9% spell hit)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Weapon: Lok'amir il Romathis
Off-Hand: Tome of Arcane Domination

Head: Mish'undare, Circlet of the Mind Flayer
Neck: Choker of the Fire Lord
Shoulders: Mantle of the Blackwing Cabal
Chest: Bloodvine Vest
Back: Cloak of Consumption
Wrists: Bracers of Arcane Accuracy
Hands: Bloodtinged Gloves
Waist: Firemaw's Clutch
Legs: Bloodvine Leggings
Feet: Bloodvine Boots
Ring 1: Ring of Spell Power
Ring 2: Ring of Spell Power
Trinket 1: Neltharion's Tear
Trinket 2: Briarwood Reed*

*: Interchange it with Talisman of Ephermal Power.

P.S. It's Keftenk not KefTANK :(
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Re: [BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (up to 1.10/Pre-Naxx) [

by TwinHeadedKraken » Tue Mar 01, 2016 4:26 pm

Thanks for the comments, and changed haha :)

Very true, if you can determine the average length of a fight before hand (like if you have a raid on farm), then I'm sure its easier to figure out the optimal line up of gear.

If a Boomkin is going to have a shot at AQ40 and Naxx content though, I'd figure the progression fights are going to last longer on average than what you find in MC and BWL obviously. So because of that, spell hit and maybe even mp5 have higher significance. On the otherhand, spell damage and spell crit reign king for topping meters on short fights/trash. Good points to understand.
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Re: [BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (up to 1.10/Pre-Naxx) [

by Keftenk » Tue Mar 01, 2016 4:44 pm

Yea, for sure. AQ and Naxx are probably going to be quite long.
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Re: [BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (up to 1.10/Pre-Naxx) [

by Keftenk » Tue Mar 01, 2016 4:49 pm

Cataloged all the spell hit gear in the current and upcoming patches:

Patch 1.8 Spell Hit Gear
-------------------------------------------
Jin'do's Judgement 2%
Jin'do's Bag of Whammies 1%

Bloodvine Goggles 2%
Soul Corrupter's Neckalce 1%
Abyssal Cloth Amice of Sorcery 1%
Bloodvine Vest 2%
Cloak of Consumption 1%
Bracers of Arcane Accuracy 1%
Bloodtinged Gloves 1%
Angelista's Grasp 2%
Bloodvine Leggings 1%
Ringo's Blizzard Boots 1%
Bloodvine Boots 1%
Band of Forced Concentration 1%
Zanzils Band 1% (+3% with set)
Zanzil's Seal 1% (+3% with set)
Neltharion's Tear 2%


Patch 1.9 Spell Hit Gear
-------------------------------------------
Blessed Qiraji Acolyte Staff 2%
Staff of the Ruins 1%
Royal Scepter of Vek'lor 1%

Garb of Royal Ascension 2%
Cloak of the Devoured 1%
Rockfury Bracers 1%
Dark Storm Gauntlets 1%
Ring of the Fallen God 1%


Patch 1.10 Spell Hit Gear
-------------------------------------------
Lord Valthalak's Staff of Command 1%
Scepter of Interminable Focus 1%

Spellweaver's Turban 1%
Star of Mystaria 1%
Diana's Pearl Necklace 1%
Shroud of Arcane Mastery 1%
Ban'thok Sash 1%
Clutch of Andros 1%
Kayser's Boots of Precision 1%
Rune Band of Wizardry 1%


Patch 1.11 Spell Hit Gear
-------------------------------------------
Brimstone Staff 2%
Sapphiron's Left Eye 1%

Cloak of the Necropolis 1%
Seal of the Damned 1%
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Re: [BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (up to 1.10/Pre-Naxx) [

by Tunner » Tue Mar 01, 2016 5:25 pm

Just to clarify, im not a Boomkin, im main feral, ive just respeced balance 2 days ago to try it in pvp for lulz and gonna respec to feral again :D //Tunner
Nice thread tho, would be nice to see more boomkins on Nostalrius :)
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Re: [BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (up to 1.10/Pre-Naxx) [

by Pottu » Tue Mar 01, 2016 6:47 pm

I am not going to sticky 2 Boomkin threads. Either merge them or decide among the active druid posters here which one is better for the sticky spot.

The GM team.
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Re: [BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (up to 1.10/Pre-Naxx) [

by Draenin » Tue Mar 01, 2016 7:56 pm

C'mon Pottu. Gotta do all we can to help the endangered Boomkin species. Not like we're overflowing with stickies. Or we can make a thread and simply link to the two separate threads, in it explaining what each two contain and hold and sticky that thread.
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Re: [BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (up to 1.10/Pre-Naxx) [

by Norjak » Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:36 pm

Great list.
This one will be more useful to most players. The other list has no MC/ZG/PvP gear, which is unrealistic for anyone interested in gearing a Boomkin on Nost.


Keftenk wrote:Abyssal Cloth Amice of Sorcery 1%

There's a Leather version of this item with the same stats that Druids will have an easier time obtaining. Might as well list that one, or list both if you want to keep showing the cloth version. The cloth version will be sought after by every other caster. They both drop off different Silithus lords.

http://www.wow-one.com/forum/topic/8194 ... malogsetc/
This thread from the Feenix forum has some good info as well. He seems to be aiming for 16% hit, so there's a difference of opinion (not sure what the math is there.)
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Re: [BOOMKIN] Comprehensive BiS List (up to 1.10/Pre-Naxx) [

by Norjak » Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:37 pm

.
Last edited by Norjak on Wed Mar 02, 2016 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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