World of Warcraft: Multidotting Goodness

I’ve been playing my druid a lot more as balance and one of the skills you learn is the multidotting technique. What is multidotting and why is it beneficial for a class like the balance druid? Multidotting is a technique where you apply your dot abilities on a target and gain a chance to proc other abilities. In the case of the balance druid, you have two dot spells: moonfire and sunfire. The key for a balance druid is in the Shooting Stars ability that is triggered when your moonfire and sunfire does a critical hit. In particular, you get a free Starsurge, which occurs on a 30% critical hit chance with the aforementioned spells.

So here the idea of multidotting is that you apply moonfire and sunfire to as many targets as possible. With more targets, you increase the chance of Shooting Stars procing which gives you some nice, meaty damage. This ability really isn’t useful in large AoE scenarios. I think the general rule of thumb is doing multi-dotting for around 3-6 mobs. If you have more than that number of mobs, you probably are better off using your other AoE abilities like Hurricane.

The trick to multidotting outside of knowing when to apply dots is managing them. This is partly why the number of mobs becomes an important factor when deciding whether to go towards multidotting. The thing is that the dots have a certain duration so if you reapply them while they’re up, you essentially are losing a bit of DPS. One technique I like to do is apply a set of dots on a group of targets. When I get to the last one, I’ll enter into my normal rotation until I start seeing Starsurge procs. Also, if I see myself switching between lunar/solar eclipse, I might start re-applying dots. If none of these situations happen, I’ll wait until the dots of the target I’m working on falls off then I’ll go through another round of dots until each target dies.

What’s nice about this technique is that you’re essentially getting free, fast, high damaging spells as well as generating energy for your eclipses. Some cool tricks you can do is applying dots in add fights to get cheap procs. Examples are Amber-Shaper Un’sok where you see all the living amber, Will of the Emperor or even Garalon where you can apply your dots on the legs and body. The thing is that in the case of the druid, for instance, your other two main spells of Wrath and Starfire have longer cast times. So rather than spending time focusing on a single target, you can spread your damage a little more evenly during an add fight. You will with time and practice begin to see your damage rise up dramatically.

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