AoE FTW!

[Amokk]

In the dungeons last night I saw the power AoE's have. I am always a little leery of AoEing in dungeons because I don't want to pull mobs off the tank and I definitely do not want to draw more mobs than expected. My one spell Starfall is an awesome AoE spell but the range is a little too big for dungeons. Found out the hard way the other night when we got into trouble with a bunch of mobs and I cast it to try and burn them down faster. Worked. But also drew a ton of other mobs. So while powerful I rarely use it in dungeons just in case. But I do have Hurricane that has a much smaller radius and I used it as my main attack last night and saw my DPS just from 1400 to nearly 2200. Which is cool and makes things dies faster. But it also means I channel Hurricane over and over and over for most of the dungeon. For all the mobs till we hit a boss then switch to Starfire, Wraith, Moonfire.

This has gotten me thinking that perhaps part of my seeming lack of DPS was me not using AoE enough. I can put the hurt on one mob at a time but when the Mage nails 10 or so at once.............well you get the picture.

[Ashenfield]

Yup, AoE is pretty good for the trash mobs.
I usually use it on 3 or more. (3 can go either way depending on my mood)
Though if there is a healer class in the mobs I will usually focus on it first before channeling AoE.
Or AoE with it targetted so I can see it it starts to cast a heal, then quickly counterspell it and move on.

[Amokk]

My only concern with this is I pretty much have to AoE to keep my DPS up. If I swap to attacking one target then my DPS sags. Starfall is very situational, Cyclone knocks mobs back. Thus channeling Hurricane becomes my one and only spell, a rotation of one.

Still not sure what I am doing wrong single target. My DPS is just not there. I am following Druid guidelines for spell rotation and what to make sure is always on target. I think my gear is decent. Perhaps gems are slightly wrong and enchants are not up to snuff. But cannot see that making a huge difference. Of course as soon as I switch from single target to AoE then my DPS goes up so maybe that is what I need to do all the time.

[Ashenfield]

Looks like you are right and hurricane is generally your only real option for AoE in a dungeon environment.

That being said I would still always look to eliminate the greatest threat first and say to hell with overall DPS. Better to take out a healing mob, or something else nasty first (things that sleep, fear etc) than to worry about topping the damage tree. Your DPS is 0 when you wipe because you all got feared into a room of adds

From what little I see about moonkin (I think that is your dps spec) it looks like you have a good number of DoT's, but they seem to be 12 second DoT's. More useful to stack on a boss than the trash that dies in 4 seconds.

For your DoT's have you tried a cast sequence macro?

/castsequence reset=target Starfire, Moonfire, Entangling Roots, Insect Swarm

Map to a key and hit it 4 times then move on to the next mob, then the next, then the next?

Not quite AoE but you could DoT up a good number to soften them up as an alternative. Dunno if it's the best approach, but something different to try.

[Amokk]

Looks like you are right and hurricane is generally your only real option for AoE in a dungeon environment.

From what little I see about moonkin (I think that is your dps spec) it looks like you have a good number of DoT's, but they seem to be 12 second DoT's. More useful to stack on a boss than the trash that dies in 4 seconds.

For your DoT's have you tried a cast sequence macro?

/castsequence reset=target Starfire, Moonfire, Entangling Roots, Insect Swarm

Map to a key and hit it 4 times then move on to the next mob, then the next, then the next?

Yup, Starfall is just too big for most areas in dungeons.

I have run most dungeons as Moonkin over the last week and even with less gear then my Feral he gets better results. Thinking of concentrating him on DPS for dungeons and Feral more Tank. Just don't want to sacrifice too much DPS in Feral since he is my solo guy.

That macro idea looks cool. Will try it tonight.

[Ashenfield]

That macro idea looks cool. Will try it tonight.

Something I used on my Warlock for a bit. Worked well to spam the curses across a crowd.

May find a few more here.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Useful_macros_for_druids

I keep tweaking my play with macros.

For example I have an ability Arcane Power (20% more mana to cast for 20% more damage for 20 seconds)
Cooldown is 1.4 minutes.

So for my Blizzard AoE spell I have it macro'd as follows:

Code: Select all

/cast Arcane Power
/cast Blizzard


This way a good portion of time I can max the power of Blizzard instead of always forgetting that spell is there

Another is a skill that makes a spell instant cast. So I can set up my flamestrike aoe as an instacast every once in a while to gain some DPS.

Code: Select all

/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Flamestrike


If the first spell isn't cooled down it will still cast the next in the list.

You can have it pop a trinket as well, which I have for boss fights. Sort of a little prebuff macro to use at the beginning of a boss fight that uses a spellpower buff trinket, casts a haste and my Arcane power.

[Amokk]

Learning, learning, always learning.
Found a good Balance Druid site last night that goes into details of gearing, gemming, enchanting as well as skills and rotations to use to best max DPS. Did upgrade a couple of gems as well and picked up my third piece of set armor. Enchants I will look into tonight. Balance GS is now almost as good as Feral. Actually doing more with my Balance side even soloing. Loving the ability to get up close with Feral or blast from afar with Balance.

So for DF I have swapped to Balance for DPS. Feral I want to setup for Tanking but I need to find the best combo of stats to tank but still allow me to solo as a cat.

[Ashenfield]

Elitist Jerks has some decent info.

Balance Druid
http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-drui ... d_3_3_5_a/

They go a bit deeper into the numbers than I often care to but they have some good info and experience to draw on.

[Amokk]

LOL
That is the site.

[Amokk]

Two runs last night using Moonkin for DPS. First run Halls of Stone. Once again over 3k damage which I have never done on my Feral. I was 2nd in DPS most of the run, slipping to third towards the end. At one point I thought I had bought the farm when the tank was running around gathering the trash mobs in the one cave. He must have picked up 20 or so. SInce it was wide open I cut loose with Starfall then Hurricane. For a few seconds all I could see was my yellow damage numbers on screen. Followed by Changed Target. Then damage numbers on me followed by low health. Then all was quiet.

Second run was Forge of Souls. Again I was doing, for me, awesome damage. 3rd overall but I feel like I am actually pulling my weight now. At least when I look at the numbers I don't see Amokk 1400, the rest 2900+. Now I am a lot closer.