Dancing With The Stars - Breaking A Boomkin Druid

Per request I'm going to do a little writeup of how you, Mr Marks/Surv Hunter are going to drop the big bird dancer you so dislike. One of my favorite bloggers is having issues fighting them. We're going to assume in this case that both parties are at similar gear levels.

Hunter 200 Resil, 1650AP, 25% Critical, 5% to hit 10,000 HP, 6,000 Mana.

Big Bird: 200 Resil, 700 SD, 18% Spell Critical, 5% Spell hit, 9,500HP, 8,000 Mana.

Soooo... First things first we need to establish what the heck a moonkin can do to us and how it will mess us up. So what is basics are moonkins? They're mages with higher armor, less burst dps and the ability to heal if put on the defensive.

Moonkjn Strengths VS Marks Hunter:
- High armor (in the 12,000 armor range) while in moonkin form
- If given the chance the ability to root a hunter this is a cast time however.
- Hibernation to CC the hunter pet for a duration to avoid pushback
- 41 point talent summoned pets that do decent dps but also cause pushback dropping steady off the map.
- Insect swarm low dps dot to reduce your hit rating by 2 or 3%.

Moonkin Weakness VS Marks Hunter:
- Shorter range 35 (correct me if wrong) vs 41
- Only 1 instant cast that crits for only around 1000, granted its spammable but due to silence and resiliance they need to get their channeled spells off.
- Their main dps comes from 1.5 and 3 second cast spells.
- Lack of AOE (they have huricane at a huge mana cost and cooldown) makes them vulnerable to the good dmg snake trap does as well as the potential for mind numbing to proc from a snake pushing their casts to 2.25 & 4.5s on nukes.

Ok so whats our plan. It looks like the best way to get a boomkin down is to get him the heck out of moonkin form. His form severly limits our dps as well as gives him a crit boost. Putting him on the defensive early will give us the advantage of nearly 25% increased dmg (back to leather 4 u bird man) as well as really forcing him into outlast mode where he dots you and tries to heal through your crap.

So right off the bat duel starts you drop snake trap before hand and back up. Blow rapid fire right away, hit the boomey with a concshot and unload a steady->auto->steady->arcane->auto->multi crap storm into his face. This puts your burst on a cd but you've taken a good chunk out of his life (most likely 3,000 to 4,000). Now hopefully at this point the moonkin was thinking to start the fight early by rooting you to cut your dmg down. He probably wasted a lot of time trying to cast this before he realized your ploy to get an early lead.

Now as a note. NEVER FD his roots you need FD for his trees.

After taking this pounding the druid is going to make a crucial call, you've probably taken 1-2,000 dmg from his dots and initial moonfire. Some moonkins will decide to try and take you out staying in moonkin and unleash the trees on you.

THE TREES ARE STUPID!

Druids do not get a pet bar to control them, the second they head for you feign death and if available drop a frost or snake trap to confuse them more. Congrats you just avoided nearly all of the dps output of this druids 41pt talent. At this point if the druid is still in moonkin form we need to unload another barrage and convince him to get out. clip or concussive shot him and unload another arcane auto multi into him.

Now here it comes hes realized you can out burst him and will begin to rely upon his hybrid skills. With 700+dmg and healing he can heal somewhat effectively and is going to rely upon his dots to finish you while he heals through your dps and outlasts you. So bam cyclone and he starts winding up a heal. Right away if he cyclones you trinket scatter and snake trap him.

Outlast a hunter, my arse!

Turn your scorpions poison on and viper sting him. Get an auto steady rotation going and lets burn this boys mana down. Repeat viper stings as available and wait for scatter and silence to be off cooldown. If you feel comfortable and he drops to a decent 40% hp or so let him have it silence arcane multi him down. But realistically you can at this point slap on viper and just oom him.

If at any point early in the fight the moonkin decides to go moonfire spam on you silence him and turn on AOTC and run away. Get out of his range and let your pet work him down for a bit. If you are feeling seriously low on health early in the fight don't hesitate to scatter him and then trap him and bandaid this may get you the edge. You can even scatter then concussive and lay a frost trap and run away and bandage with AOTC on.

So key points?
- Get the moonkin on the defensive as fast as possible he needs to go humanoid to heal, when he goes humanoid our dps goes way up!
- Save your FD to take his force of nature (trees) cooldown away from him
- Save your trinket for a cyclone heal attempt. Be ready to spam scatter when you trinket
- DO NOT TRINKET ROOTS it is unlikely he will get this off on you since its channeled. This is the spell you should most likely silence shot if he is in moonkin form.
- Don't hesitate to silence and AOTC (cheeta) out of his range and let your pet get a little dps in.
- AOTC or scatter trap daid is your answer to him getting a lucky crit string off early.\
- In 2.3 arcane shot dispel innervate the second it comes up that's alot of mana regen and we want to outlast this kiddie. Especially in arena.

Good luck and whoop that bird man.

PS: 1/2 so far Mabd I think the frost mage is going to be more difficult as they really are the hunters anti class. I couldn't find any last night that didn't really outgear me (full merciless) or just sucked miserably. I'll keep on it though. Thanks for the idea!

EDIT: Mabd had an excelent point. That a moonkin can avoid pushback on his spells by going into basicaly barkskin wrath party. If this happens I'd try the same method as if they go moonfire spamhappy. Silence drop frost trap and pop AOTC and run the hell away till their buff is up. Untill 2.3 then just arcane shot them and laugh.