We were able to kill heroic Halion tonight, bringing to the close all of the Wrath of the Lich King raid content.

You can kind of see me in the background, but you can see my treants and Starfall better.  Apparently tradition has it that the moonkin faces backwards in Aftermath.

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

I know I’m way behind the curve on this, but I just returned to raiding this week after a 5 month hiatus.  I was able to get in on our ICC25 clear this week, and I can finally strut my feathers around random heroics with my “Light of Dawn” title.

If you haven’t had a chance to do Lich King in any form, I suggest you try to find some sort of group or guild that can.  I personally think it’s the most fun (and diverse) fight in the game, and heroic is just a blast.

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

 Are you attending BlizzCon this year?  If not, are you attending the ‘virtual BlizzCon’?

Since I took a hiatus, counts have been a little low.. I’m thinking of maybe giving away a virtual BlizzCon ticket as a small surprise sometime in the next few weeks….

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

A few changes are going live tonight, as mmo-champion reports, and are pretty major :
Starsurge now generates 10 solar/lunar energy baseline. Lunar guidance only generates an extra 2/4/6 (old : 5/10/15) solar/lunar energy.
Moonkin Form now gives 5% haste instead of 5% crit.
Genesis increases the damage from DOTS by 2/4/6% (old : 1/2/3%)
Finally : Nature’s Grace now is always 100% chance on crit, but 5/10/15% casting speed. This is a 5% decrease from live version. We do gain that 5% all the time on our aura though.
On a minor side, Heart of the Wild increases intellect by 2/4/6%, making it on par with Furor for moonkin benefits. Still going to pick it up on launch day (see my projected spec here)

Although it’s too early to theorycraft and start mathematicalizializing stuff, I can tell you that I’ve switch my SP gems for haste gems. All three of our nukes (Starsurge, Starfire, Wrath) aren’t bound by the haste soft cap anymore, therefore making haste very good. Feel free to prove me wrong or right in comments (read : I let more competent people do the maths)

-BALOURD.

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

It’s hard to say what our class looks like so far, since most of the classes’s dynamics are disabled (Eclipse indicates a 0% buff to damage when reaching the 100 energy) + Starsurge (which hits for tons of damage btw) always increase Lunar Energy.
What i can tell you :
Starsurge is very nice. Hardest hitting spell in my spellbook so far, with a knockdown that lets you cast an extra starfire if you have a melee on you.
Jumping around casting moonfire costing 45 mana is hours of free fun.
I’ve picked up Heart of the Wild from feral tree to get increased intellect, with 2 points in Furor. Since lvl 80 doesnt let you get Master Shapeshifter, i prefered waiting till lvl 85 to get it.
Moonkin form was pretty much nerfed to the ground. You only get 120% armor contribution (my health dropped so fast when a rogue ganked me I didnt have time to hit barkskin), we lost the 15% damage reduction while stunned and no new skins for Worgen or Troll (so far).

Also, Insect Swarm isn’t trainable yet (probably will be implemented as a baseline spell when you chose Balance as a spec)
Grim portrait of our situation, you say?
Fear not, for this is only Beta and many changes are sure to come.

Edit #1 : For those of you with Feral off-spec, Pre-made characters don’t come with any feral weapon — or a tanking set. Feral talents are probably the farthest away from functionning (most of them are “go to trainer!” statused, but once at the trainer, you can’t train them)          Heck, Bear form isnt traineable!

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

I’ve been able to get my hands on a Beta invitation (through a friend’s account). I’ll let you guys know my reactions to Moonkin changes and gameplays. I’ll be questing and dungeoning to have a feeling of everything in-game. Tune in later this week !

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

Hi! I’m not dead.  It is true that I’ve cancelled my WoW subscription for now (but would never sell my account), while I focus on some real life things.  I am still interested in more bloggers who would like to cover balance druid life, especially with the things happening in Cataclysm.  I can’t offer any compensation, other then the pride you’d have writing about your favorite class. I will say that being able to reference thoughtful creative posts about the class HAS been a great selling point for guild applications, however.

If you’re interested, please drop me a line at sunfyre@owlkin.org

Thanks.

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

The new raid content is available to US servers. How do you guys anticipate the new boss? Will it be an easy fight for moonkins? Did any of you do it yesterday?
Loot is pretty interesting, trinket being probably BiS and cloak being extremely attractive!

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

I guess we’re all watching mmo-champion at some point in our day. I signed on tonight and saw that new talent calculator website. I’m thinking most of you have, but here’s the link (www.wowtal.com) if you’ve been kept out of the loop because of forest fires or tsunamis.
Going through the still very beta-feeling talent calc, I’ve noticed a few things : We have way too many talents. I still have like about 10 talents I have no clue where to put. I’m getting Genesis and Brambles as fillers, cause I can’t figure out where else they would be worth. Second, I notice they have a note saying Balance tree is about 95% complete. Which means, they still have a few things to work on (cough nature’s grace?)
Anything else you guys wanna discuss, have noticed?

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

I’m sure it happened to all of you at least once : You’re in a pug, doing your thing, topping damage meters. Suddenly, you all beat a boss and that sweet item everyone wants drops. A few seconds pass only to see the raid leader take the item to himself or for a friend. Then logs off and the raid disbands, whether the instance was over or not.
Ninjas are very common on my server, and I don’t know about you guys, but it’s depressing, even if it’s not an item you want that’s being ninjaed.
Have you been ninjaed in the past? Have you ninjaed something yourself? What solutions to that problem can we figure out?

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]