So, to start this off, what I am really enjoying as a druid is supporting others in raid situations (including PvP). I like giving people innervates and battle resses. I like keeping the raid alive (which is how I've been PvPing). I like helping our offensive power with my moonkin form. These are the things that make me happy

The thing is, I feel like the damage I'm doing as a moonkin is just subpar. I feel like it's not really helping the raid. How do all of you feel about this? In what role/spec do you think I would be most effective?

Resto, unless you're crazy geared moonkin damage is crap. They have a long casting nuke, which means they get the most out of +dmg gear, which means that their high end damage is pretty good. But you're not going to get that kind of gear unless you're farming MC for 6-8 months.

However! Speccing resto is going to make you a much better healer. After respeccing holy, I noticed a considerable improvement to my healing. I was always of the mindset that as a shadow priest I could dps when called for and heal just as well as anyone else based on my uber gear and mad skillz. However there are yummy talents I was missing out on. I'm sure as we have you heal, you'll notice that you're able to do a much better job while resto. If we had 14 druids I think we'd have room for a moonkin, even given his subpar damage output, but we're short on druids and a respec is just the ticket to making our druid core a more effective healing squad.

Thanks Matron. It's nice to get some response. I'm going to be posting some possible specs (probably 24/0/27 or 12/0/39) in the next few days and asking for opinions on those, too. If anyone else has opinions on how my druid could be most effectively specced, feel free to chime in :).

some response.. at 4 o'clock in the freakin morning.. some people sleep!

Anyway...

I'd agree with most of what Matron says. It is true that unless you're diligent with getting the best gear for oomkin spec your damage output will be dismal in comparsion to... everyone but tanks mostly >.>

But I'm still always a fan of playing what you like and what you feel you're best at... so don't let his affinity for resto druids keep you from what you like the most.

Also, the casters do love your oomkin aura so you -could- pick up more resto talents and then still keep the oomkiness as a support role.

You might find it -easier- to heal as a resto spec, but... I've healed in feral spec before and people have in balance as well.. it's just... different.

Oh, btw, I'm currently moonkin specced with max resto as a moonkin.

The current build:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=MtRx0MxstZxyc0c

I'm not sure Thelias and the mages will let you spec out of moonkin...

<pulls out his horde alt rogue and proceeds to gank every druid trainer in Azeroth>

I'll say here what I told you in game, so that everyone has a chance to bask in my glory and amazingmentnessitude.

You and Matron (gasp) are right. Oomkin by itself is kinda gimped. Yea, with the best gear in the game, starfire can hit for like 8k. Big deal, with the best gear in the game, Paladins can hit for 8k (sorry Tarja). The damage is not al that hot. But...
You aren't running around looking like a bloated fluffy owl for the spell damage. The aura, man, THE AURA!

In all seriousness, lets assume that you have 3 mages and a pally in your group (pally heals benifit more from +spell crit, imo). For me, at least, 3% spell crit is (more or less) +21 to my flash heal. Thats hot, sinec it's about equal to 50ish +healing on gear. And for the mages, it's got to be, I don't know, a few zillion more damage. Ask Mutton for numbers, he's a good representative sample.

As far as resto goes, it's cliche, and it's not like we are short on healers. Not that that has ever stoped us from bringing or wanting more, but if that makes a difference to you, whatev.

So, alone oomkin = teh suck. But, if all you're going to do is raid, then it may be worth it.

:moo: <-- cow for good measure

ok seriously, you do whatever you want to do no matter the numbers you put up, no matter what anyone says.
i love the aura of course, because all i do stare at numbers, but the reality is 3% crit is ~3% dps.

in relative terms, for me, lets say i do 7% or the raids dps. add 3% of that and it's 7.21%
or if i did 1,000,000 damage it would be 1,030,000. 30,000 damage.... the average trash mob anymore probably has around 30,000. thorns will probably get you 30,000 over the same amount of time, i dunno. granted you can put 4 mages in the group, and if all things are = you would gain 120,000 maybe. but really that damage doesn't make or break anything.

though i may be shooting myself in the foot, the +crit may be more benificial to a full group of fire mages that can stack off each others ignite ticks, but i wonder how much really.

bottom line is i love the big ole oomkin, and i love the crit. but i love people playing the way they want for themselves much more. don't worry about meters or auras or anything else, because after you've run MC ZG AQ or BWL 10000 times all that matters is did you have fun doing it, not were you the "best" spec each and every time you did it.

i may take my own advice sometime and respec fire or something. just sticking to what i know now as i feel i am a nice bullseye for these rogues/warriors/warlocks/hunters/mages to shoot for on the meter, learning how to maximize they're output without dying:P. i see some warriors and rogues getting really close and they should pass me soon:). when they do, i'll start mixing it up i think

BLAST! I had hoped you hadn't noticed Gill and I inching up on your mad dps skills. I guess we will just have to not hold back this week and pass ya so you can go fire. B)

To throw out some numbers based on last night's MC run (which may or may not be a good representation of how you normally do, I have no idea):

Last night you had about 460k damage on my meter. To make thing easier, let's assume you had 4 damage casters in your group instead of taking into account healing and damage. Our damage casters probably average around a million or so (some just below that, Muttons way above that), so to really analyze your damage contributed to the raid, you should add 3% of 4 million (which is 120k). So that puts you at around 580k, which definitely isn't in the "waste of a raid spot" range, but also isn't that hot either. For comparison, I have done over 1 million damage in MC, as a "non-DPS class" - although you have to consider that I likely have much better gear at the moment, and that if you stick with Moonkin, then your totals will get better as your gear progresses.

So anyways, I think it's pretty obvious that if you only consider "what is most beneficial to the raid", that the answer would be to ditch moonkin and only heal. But you also need to consider "what YOU want to do", since if you give up moonkin and then you play a healer for a while but get sick of it and want to quit or reroll, then that's not beneficial to the raid at all.

Another option might be more of a "hybrid playstyle" where you spec for moonkin and as many healing talents as possible (which it looks like you already have), and then switch between dps/healing roles depending on what is more needed for each particular fight, given the particular raid composition at the time. This is basically what I try to do, so I collect both dps and healing gear (which I'm pretty sure you already have been as well) - only you'd even have an advantage that your "dps gear" also doubles as decent healing gear (your dps stats are int and +damage/healing, whereas for me it's str and agi), so you'd even be able to switch between moonkin/healing within the same fight

You have several options, I think resto would definitely provide the biggest help to the raid, but only if it's a role that you're going to enjoy doing.

That is basically what I do with my feral. Now, I normally heal in raids because the gear is not so compatible between the two, but on occasion I get to do some cool ferally goodness. "Hey Chie.... go taunt that dragon off of the warriors.... *die*" That is so much fun. *laughs because it really is*

Thanks for all the replies guys. This is gonna take some time to think over. I like the idea of the hybrid playstyle, bringing what we need to each fight, but I'm not quite sure that it's working. Then again, I've only had Chiela as a 60 for around a month. In addition, I think I would have fun playing Chiela either way. Friendships and shared experiences are what I'm after. I'll get that either way :).

If you like the hybrid-style idea, but don't think you have the gear for it yet, you might want to think about speccing for healing now and sticking with that role for now, but trying to pick up dps gear whenever you can, and switch back whenever you think you've got the gear to try it again, and/or get sick of healing all the time :)

Also, normally something like that might be an issue with changing your dkp priorities and such, buuuuut as a druid you're generally last in dkp all the time anyways, so I think it could work itself out :lol:

So, Gill brought up a really good point to me yesterday (I know, I was shocked, too). I think I need to at least try out a resto spec. Sure, I may hate it and want to switch back within 3 hours of respeccing. However, even if I go back, I will have learned something about the kinds of playstyle that I enjoy and the effectiveness of using other specs. So, I'm going to respec resto, at least for a while and see how it goes. It can't hurt, right? :)

Oh yea it can.

*wonders if Thelias and all those swords know where exactly Chiela is living this summer....*

Even better idea, get the test realm server loaded up and try a few respecs :D

it is open now, right? :/