The Utility of a Moonkin in Arena

[Course]

Hey guys,

I'd like to take a few words about a class that is commonly evaluated "underpowered" or more than once was called "useless" in Arena, a Moonkin.

Myself playing a Moonkin since BC, but starting my wow-career being a healer, I found it amusing to more and more get to know what a Moonkin really can do in terms of PvP and especially in Arenas.

Depending on the matchup and type of arena team you are playing in a solidly played Moonkin can be the crucial difference between losing and winning a fight and to be more precise, can make the difference between being able to put preassure on the opposing team or beeing preassured at.

I understand myself as a very hard to pin down hybrid class, that can either take insane physical DMG due to having loads of armor and resilience or do DMG himself while providing the team with a CC thats hard to counter and not to forget can heal strongly eventhough he is offensively specced.

Lets stress this out a bit more taking a closer look at common Arena situations:

We have a MS Warrior and another melee class putting preasure on a single target, with one caster assisting them, while CCing one of your healers. Leaving you with one healer they probably kill their target, gaining control of the fight. In comes the Moonkin! What I do in these situations is effective as it is easy to do for every moderately skilled player. Analyzing this Ms makes it hard to heal so we cyclone that warrior, that will instant trinket if his target is almost down, so do not forget to watch bars and re-cyclone, abolish poison on target if we have a opposing rogue, double hot enemies target and either cyclone warrior again to get rid of Ms or cyclone whatever other melee class is assisting to lower dps.

Generally if you are not getting targetted or you only got casters as opponents, there is no need to stuck to Moonkin form taking away your flexibility. Next thing I'd like to stress out is your insane group-healing ability.

If u succeed in using tranquility in a 5 on 5 match without being interrupted its like healing the whole of your team to full HP, making your opponents have to start all over again.

If you really play swiftminded as a moonkin and once u checked there is no BoF on melee you obviously bring in the roots! If all goes according to plan you use your cyclone to either CC opposing healers or take pressure off enemys target, while rooting another melee class (if skilled both rooting and cyclone can't be interrupted with Dmgmeans) and meanwhile using ur instantcasts and after every crit or whenever there is time you add a wrath to your routine. If you have ever seen what a moonfire, double wrath and moonfire combo can do in terms of burstdmg you won't be tempted to say ever again that a moonkin is a low dps class.

Having a Shaman in your team you can also use starfire whilst heroism to really step up your team's dps. After you critted someone never forget to check if your next spell shouldn´t be a regrowth which I experienced oftenly to be exactly the amount of extra heal to be needed in your team.

If u ever get focused as a target you obviously stay in Moonkin or bear form (I have feral charge to get away from enemies if they focus me too much) playing moonfire only if you can get healed or using cyclone to lighten the pressure on healers.

Be aware though a counterspell on cyclone blocks kinda every useful spell you got!

Do not be hesitant to switch forms directly after cycloning an opponent to make some ground on him in travel form, before re-shifting (forgetting to shift out of travel form will always be disastrous).

Lastly if there seems to be no way to get rid of melees smacking your ass, make them work for it the most. Remember that u can switch weapons to gain even more armor , resilience dodge or whatever. I myself switch season 2 staff agains staff of wildfury from SSC giving you 2k extra armor and a huge bonus to dodge cause if they kill you anyway you must buy a maximum ammount of time for your own teams sake.

[p0ke]

Nice work mate! ^_^

[christiankim]

lul boomkin
Dark Legacy Comics


honestly, good guide bro

[Cimerii]

Very nice utility guide. I'm feral myself, which is in my opinion more UP in arena then balance, considering it's impossible to take down a healer with our own dps/cc, making it hard to get it down in arena. rogues can help on that with poisons and in return dot increases and crit, which can be an effective team but it lacks healing as the druid needs to sacrifice dps to heal ( even if you pop up ur rip and mangle debuff ) Throwing treants on a priest who blew it's fear makes them panic and interrupted like hell, rooting does quite some dmg as balance as well which not should be underestimated, both with that +moonfire + insect swarm and continuing wrath/starfire hits which put out a lot of burst damage.the primary offensive stat of a feral druid aint mana, so really healing well aint gonna happen, low mana pool, need to sacrifice crucial talents to get nurturing instincts really point out the problems for ferals in arena. That said I'd like nurturing instincts become trainable, replaced with a new talent which converts a certain % of str into mana which would make up for a lot of problems. This will be overpowered in 1v1.. but hey, I accepted the fact that WoW aint a 1v1 game, which Blizzard points out as well ( hey, warlocks?) +rep, good guide, but if I'd spec something else then feral I'd go resto, healing is fun and resto is overpowered as hell. I personally can't kill a resto in 1v1, simply because they outlast me, and on top of that they got a bit of spelldmg- They can outlast me and gradually take me down with me losing mana on shifting and slow dotting. Cause unlike a paladin who you have to kill twice, You have to kill a resto druid over... and over.. and over again.
-Cim

Edit : Wall of text crits you for *873465347* rant damage.

[Avrsion]

Well tbh, when i come against boomkins in arena's they usually just fail.

"Usually" because once we couldn't tell if he was resto or balance, he was putting out so much healing and damage at the same time. Turns out he was balance afew matches later he was in boomkin.
I'd take a druid like that on my team anyday.

[chaud]

Hi there, Flashero is the author of this article. He originally posted it on PvPscene.
They can be viewed, properly formatted at

Utility of a Moonkin in Arena

I would appreciate if you linked to the original source, as people put their time and effort into writing these guides.
Thanks.

[Atrotos]

boomkins .-
spec resto!

[Kazzin100]

Must admit.. iv seen VERY few moonkin in arena. Actual fact not many druids at all in arena, mainly feral and resto if they are present. :/

[chaud]

Resto druids are extremely popular in 2s, and still highly visible in 3s. The only bracket you will not see them often is 5s.