DPS: Theory vs. Practice

In the quest for moonkin ass-kickery, this moonkin still has a ways to go. Using the moonkin DPS spreadsheet from Elitist Jerks, my best DPS casing cycle is

Insect Swarm -> Moonfire -> Starfire x 3

When fully raid buffed, I should be hitting about 717.5 DPS. My numbers are dismally lower than theory. On our Gruul's attempt last night, I was hitting only about 447 DPS.

The difference could come from a number of places, my noobness at moonkin, bad gear, taking a longer than expected time to find our healer to battle rez, or not having enough spell hit. The rotations I did use where not the recommended ones. Part of the problem I see with this rotation is the cast time for Starfire. I was getting interrupted from the silences and the ground slams in the middle of casts. To mitigate that, I was casting Wrath more than Starfire.

According to theory, replacing Startfire with Wrath in the rotation should net me around 664.5 DPS, still 217.5 DPS off the mark. Why the big difference still if the lower cast time should result in less interrupts? Skill.

I am a moonkin noob still. In feral I know my stuff, know the rotations, have a feel for when I can toss what spell, and did not have a problem cleanly chaining spells together. In moonkin, I am still getting a feel for everything. I am not used to my dot timers yet nor used to range combat role yet. When casting wrath too, I keep trying to cast it before the global cool down is up.

So what I am going to do tonight to get some casting sequence practice is to wander over to Dr Boom in Netherstorm and practice, practice, practice.