Page 1 of 45
1
2
3
11
... LastLast
  1. #1
    Over 9000! Myrrar's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    Rapture
    Posts
    9,479

    [MoP Balance] MoP Balance Discussion Thread

    Balance Druid MoP Discussion Thread


    This is where any general discussion about balance druid MoP changes will go. If you want to talk about general druid specifics please use the link to the appropriate thread. If there are any updates or changes I missed PM them to me.

    General: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...cussion-Thread
    Feral: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...cussion-Thread
    Guardian: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...cussion-Thread
    Resto: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...cussion-Thread


    General Changes:

    • The relic slot is gone. Our relics are now useless, but it's no reason to fret-- all other classes are losing their relic and ranged weapon slots.

    Glyphs
    Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
    General Majors
    Balance:
    • Glyph of the Moonbeast: You can now cast Healing Touch, Rejuvenation, Rebirth, and Tranquility without cancelling Moonkin Form.
    • Glyph of Solar Beam: Increases the duration of your Solar Beam silence effect by 5 sec.

    Minors
    • Glyph of the Cheetah: Your Travel Form appears as a Cheetah. This glyph will prevent Glyph of the Stag from functioning.
    • Glyph of the Treant: Teaches you the ability Treant Form.
    • Glyph of the Predator: Your Track Humanoids ability now also tracks beasts.
    • Glyph of Stars: Your Moonkin Form now appears as Astral Form, conferring all the same benefits, but appearing as an astrally enhanced version of your normal humanoid form.
    • Glyph of Charm Woodland Creature: Allows the Druid to befriend an ambient creature, which will follow the Druid for 60 min.
    • Glyph of the Chameleon: Each time you shapeshift into Cat Form or Bear Form, your shapeshifted form will have a random hair color.
    • Glyph of Grace: Feline Grace reduces falling damage even while not in Cat Form.
    • Glyph of Aquatic Form: Increases your swim speed by 50% while in Aquatic Form.
    • Glyph of the Orca: Your Aquatic Form now appears as an Orca.
    • Glyph of the Stag: Your Travel Form can now be used as a mount by party members. This glyph is disabled while Glyph of the Cheetah is active.



    New Abilities:
    Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
    Balance:




    Other Important Ability Changes:

    Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
    Removed abilities:
    • Insect Swarm
    Balance:
    • Moonfire and Sunfire are both available in all Eclipse states, and will be kept on the target at all times.
    • Eclipse now grants 15% spell haste immediately on trigger, and restores 35% mana.
    • When in a Lunar Eclipse, your Hurricane (which deals Nature damage) is replaced by Astral Storm (which deals Arcane damage). For all intents and purpose, Hurricane and Astral Storm are identical, with the exception of their damage schools.
    • Entering a Lunar Eclipse resets the cooldown of Starfall.
    • You gain Lunar Shower by default as a passive ability. This used to be provided by an optional talent in Cataclysm. The only difference between the Cataclysm version and the Mists of Pandaria version is that Moonfire and Sunfire no longer grant you energy while under the Lunar Shower effect.





    Talent Changes and New Talents:
    • The talent system is changing dramatically in 5.0.4. You will still select a specialization, but all specializations have the same small talent tree (6 tiers, one talent per tier-- we'll only be able to access the first 5 tiers in 5.0.4).
    • Druids have four total specializations, since Feral has been split into Feral and Guardian.
    • Most of the old talents you're familiar with have been rolled into spec-specific abilities and passives that you will learn naturally as you level up, or when you swap to the associated spec. For example, Feral druids no longer need to talent for Survival Instincts, Omen of Clarity, or Predatory Swiftness. These abilities and passives from pre-5.0.4 talents have not been lost.
    • We can only select one talent per tier.

    Talent Level Description
    Feline Swiftness 15 Increases your movement speed by 15%
    Displacer Beast Teleports the Druid up to 20 yards forward and activates Cat Form and Prowl.
    Instant cast, 3min CD.
    Wild Charge Grants a movement ability that varies by shapeshift form (15 sec cooldown)
    Non-shapeshifted: Fly to an ally's position.
    Bear Form: Charge to an enemy, immobilizing them for 4 sec.
    Cat Form: Leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 sec.
    Moonkin Form: Bound backward from your enemies. Can only be used in combat.
    Travel Form: Leap forward 20 yards.
    Aquatic Form: Increases swim speed by an additional 150% 5 sec.
    Nature's Swiftness 30 When activated, your next Cyclone, Entangling Roots, Healing Touch, Hibernate, Nourish, Rebirth, or Regrowth becomes instant, free, and castable in all forms. The healing and duration of the spell is increased by 50%.
    Instant, 1 min cooldown
    Renewal Instantly heals the Druid for 30% of max health. Usable in all forms.
    Instant, 2 min cooldown
    Cenarion Ward Protects a friendly target, causing any damage taken to heal the target for 6174 (+ 57% of SpellPower) every 2 sec for 6 sec. Gaining the healing effect consumes the Cenarion Ward. Useable in all shapeshift forms. Lasts 30 sec.
    24.8% base Mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown
    Faerie Swarm 45 Grants an improved version of Faerie Fire that also reduces the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 sec. This talent replaces Faerie Fire.
    Instant, 2 min cooldown
    Mass Entanglement Roots your target in place for 20 sec and spreads to additional nearby enemies. Affects 5 total targets. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Useable in all shapeshift forms.
    30 yd range, Instant cast, 2 min cooldown
    Typhoon Summons a violent Typhoon that strikes targets in front of the caster within 30 yards, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms.
    30 yd Range, Instant cast, 20 sec cooldown
    Soul of the Forest 60 Aessina's blessing grants a benefit which varies by your combat specialization.
    Balance: When a Lunar Eclipse ends you gain 20 Solar Energy and when a Solar Eclipse ends you gain 20 Lunar Energy.
    Feral: Your finishing moves grant 4 Energy per combo point.
    Guardian: Mangle now generates an additional 2 Rage.
    Restoration: You gain 50% haste for your next spell when you cast Swiftmend.
    Incarnation Grants a superior shapeshifting form appropriate to your specialization for 30 sec. You may freely shapeshift in and out of this form for the duration of Incarnation.
    Instant, 3 min cooldown
    Balance: Chosen of Elune: Improved Moonkin Form that gains 25% increased Arcane and Nature damage while Eclipse is active.
    Feral: King of the Jungle: Improved Cat Form that allows the use of all abilities which normally require stealth, allows the use of Prowl while in combat, and removes the positional requirement of Ravage.
    Guardian: Son of Ursoc: Improved Bear Form that reduces the cooldown on melee damage abilities and Growl to 1.5 sec.
    Restoration: Tree of Life: Tree of Life Form that increases healing done by 15%, increases armor by 120%, and enhances Lifebloom, Wild Growth, Regrowth, and Entangling Roots spellcasts.
    Force of Nature Summons 3 treants to assist in the Druid's current combat role for 15 sec. Treant capabilities vary by specialization. Useable in all shapeshift forms.
    40 yd range, Instant, 1 min cooldown
    Disorienting Roar 75 Invokes the spirit of Ursol to roar, disorienting all enemies within 10 yards for 3 sec. Any damage caused will remove the effect. Useable in all shapeshift forms.
    Instant, 30 sec cooldown
    Ursol's Vortex Conjures a vortex of wind at the destination location that reduces the movement speed of all enemies within 8 yards by 50%. The first time an enemy attempts to leave the vortex, winds will pull that enemy back to its center. Lasts 10 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms.
    30 yd range, Instant, 1 min cooldown
    Mighty Bash Invokes the spirit of Ursoc to stun the target for 5 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms.
    Melee Range, Instant cast, 50 sec cooldown
    Heart of the Wild 90 Increases Stamina, Agility, and Intellect by 6% at all times. When activated, dramatically improves the Druid's ability to perform roles outside of their normal specialization for 45 sec. Grants the following benefits based on current specialization:
    Non-Guardian:While in Bear Form, Agility, Expertise, Hit Chance, and armor bonuses increased, Vengeance granted, chance to be hit by melee critical strikes reduced.
    Non-Feral: While in Cat Form, Agility, Hit Chance, and Expertise increased.
    Non-Restoration: Healing increased and mana cost of all healing spells reduced by 100%. Guardian Druids may also cast Rejuvenation while shapeshifted.
    Non-Balance: Spell Damage and Hit Chance increased. Mana cost of all damage spells reduced by 100%.
    Instant, 6 min CD
    Dream of Cenarius Wrath, Starfire, Starsurge, and melee abilities increase healing done by your next healing spell by 30%. Tranquility is not affected.
    Nourish, Healing Touch, and Regrowth increase the damage done by your next 2 Moonfire or Sunfire casts by 65% or by your next 2 melee abilities by 25%.
    Each of these bonuses lasts 30 sec.
    Nature's Vigil Increases all damage and healing done by 20% for 30 sec. While active, all single-target healing spells also damage a nearby enemy target for 25% of the healing done, and all single-target damage spells and abilities also heal a nearby friendly target for 25% of the damage done.
    Instant, 3 min CD

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

    Druid: Symbiosis
    • The Druid will select a raid or party member and cast Symbiosis on them.
    • The target cannot be another Druid.
    • The target gains a buff that tells them what spell they have temporarily learned, and that spell temporarily appears in their spellbook, and they can drag it to an action bar.
    • The Druid’s Symbiosis button will become the ability they gained from the target class.
    • The Symbiosis link is cancelled if: the Druid clicks off the Symbiosis buff, or the Druid or the target changes continents or enters or exits an instance, or the Druid or the target changes talent specializations.
    • Symbiosis fails to cast if Symbiosis is already active on that target.
    • Symbiosis cannot be cast in combat.
    • For the non-Druid target, the icon will revert to a placeholder (uncastable) Symbiosis icon when Symbiosis ends, but will become the Symbiosis-granted ability again the next time Symbiosis is cast on that target.
    • The ability gained from Symbiosis is always something chosen to match the Druid’s specialization and the target’s combat role.
    • The target always gets the same spell unless they change combat roles. A Druid of a given specialization always gets the same spell from each different class. If there is a change of specs, there is a change of spell.
    Other Resources for 5.0.4:

    Last edited by Myrrar; 2012-08-26 at 07:28 PM.

  2. #2
    I'm pretty sure your "Eclipse Changes" quote is actually from pre-Cata (ie, it was a Cata change) not a MoP change.
    Last edited by columbusjones; 2012-03-05 at 08:43 PM.

  3. #3
    Wild Mushroom: Bloom 84 Causes all of your Wild Mushrooms to bloom, healing all allies within 6 yards for 934
    40 yd range, Instant Cast, 10 sec CD
    That's a Resto only skill, not balance.

  4. #4
    Over 9000! Myrrar's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    Rapture
    Posts
    9,479
    Quote Originally Posted by columbusjones View Post
    I'm pretty sure your "Eclipse Changes" quote is actually from pre-Cata (ie, it was a Cata change) not a MoP change.
    It is, I'm updating everything as we speak =]

  5. #5
    It makes me sad that I have to pick between Soul of the Forest, Incarnation, and Force of Nature.

    Although it does sort of seem like trees might not be the best choice anymore. We will have to see. I wonder how the balance between those 3 in particular will pan out.

  6. #6
    Well, that's kind of the point of the new talent system. Make you choose between similar things.

    On a sidenote, i think it would be best to make the "Changes" section relative to live, i.e. only list the differences between current 4.3.3 and the MoP skills. Having Insect Swarm listed twice with different changes each time is rather confusing.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Perigee View Post
    It makes me sad that I have to pick between Soul of the Forest, Incarnation, and Force of Nature.
    Exactly what they want to hear. Compelling decisions. We can only hope that all trees will end up that way. One of the big things about "Force of Nature" is 'Treant capabilities vary by specialization'; that's a very big question mark at the moment. Will Balance-Treants be mirror images in that they sit there and spam Wrath along side you? Can they be mathed out to a dps increase? It seems like Soul of the Forest and Incarnation can be somewhat theorycrafted, but not pinpointed on dps.

  8. #8
    Soul of the Forest at least should be fairly easy to math out. It's just a reduction in Eclipse downtime. Incarnation is similar.
    FoN is the only real problem right now because we have no idea what it will do.

  9. #9
    So far I think the spec changes are amazing.

    -The eclipse changes really seem to smooth out the rotation, with refreshing our dots only on phase changes. Also we are going to be punished less for not being in solar for any sort of aoe since starfall resets on lunar phase, and hurricane becoming arcane damage.
    -We finally get a meaningful dps cool down witch involves all of our nukes. so that's awesome.
    -I like that insect swarm is being returned to a buff/debuff. I Miss the days of the 6% hit debuff still.

    As for the talents, I have a few concerns about.
    -First tier seems good, aside from displacer beast not dispelling anything on use, makes me think that will be a very situational talent for anyone. The other options are nice. cant say I'm gonna pass up on the passive tho.
    -Second tier is good too. We can either go for insta healing, cc, or utility which are all good choices.

    -The Third and Fifth Tier is where most of my issues are for our talent tree. We have two tiers completely dedicated to CC, which no other class has atm. Most classes have the one tier and one or two scattered through out the tree.
    -I think Roar, Vortex, and Mass entanglement are all good and should stay in a tier. Faerie swarm should have a place somewhere within our tree as one
    of the one or two talents for cc.
    -Typhoon needs to be reworked into either a balance only spell since we had it since bc. Or give it different effects as a balance/resto spell. Make the
    resto one a cone hot since thats something they dont have right now and would be a neat addition to their line up. I just dont think it has any use for a
    feral since it knocks back.
    -Mighty bash needs to be either a feral spec only spell or scrapped. I just dont think balance or feral have much use for a melee stunn with a minute cd.

    -The fourth tier has a good mix between sustained dmg or burst cds. looks good there. oya Trees do stuff yeeeeee.

    -The sixth tier is a little rough. With how much they are splitting the trees up a talent that enforces hybridization is retarded. This talant has no place, rework or scrap. Dream is an alright talent to increase a feral or balance healing a tad, i just think it needs some love to make it interesting since its a 6th tier talant. While i would have liked disentanglement to be a baked in spell, it does have a spot on the tree, i just wish it was in an earlier one.

    but yea thats it few tiny changes here and their and the tree is golden

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by todzilla85 View Post
    -The sixth tier is a little rough. With how much they are splitting the trees up a talent that enforces hybridization is retarded. This talant has no place, rework or scrap. Dream is an alright talent to increase a feral or balance healing a tad, i just think it needs some love to make it interesting since its a 6th tier talant. While i would have liked disentanglement to be a baked in spell, it does have a spot on the tree, i just wish it was in an earlier one.
    DoC is as good/bad is the current Focused Insight (shaman talent) is. That is: It's more or less useless, as it's:
    1. unpredictable (mostly overheal, it's porccing on casted spells after all),
    2. hardly a DPS Boost (just have your healer healing you, he's better at it, and the overall DPS will be higher),
    3. and suprisingly weak for a tier 90 talent. (Remember: blizz wanted those talents to be especially awesome, that was one of the goals of the redesign after all)

    Cenarion Ward is "bad" compared to the alternatives offered. Guardian has Renewal as the obvious choice. That spell will scale with their HP after all.
    Feral/Moonkin/Resto are better of with NS. More utility and it's easier to can control. CW faces the fundamental problem of a CD based HoT. It will most likely be wasted, even more so because it procs on ANY kind of damage (they at the very least should limit it to "big" hits).

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by stormgust View Post
    DoC is as good/bad is the current Focused Insight (shaman talent) is. That is: It's more or less useless, as it's:
    1. unpredictable (mostly overheal, it's porccing on casted spells after all),
    2. hardly a DPS Boost (just have your healer healing you, he's better at it, and the overall DPS will be higher),
    3. and suprisingly weak for a tier 90 talent. (Remember: blizz wanted those talents to be especially awesome, that was one of the goals of the redesign after all)

    Cenarion Ward is "bad" compared to the alternatives offered. Guardian has Renewal as the obvious choice. That spell will scale with their HP after all.
    Feral/Moonkin/Resto are better of with NS. More utility and it's easier to can control. CW faces the fundamental problem of a CD based HoT. It will most likely be wasted, even more so because it procs on ANY kind of damage (they at the very least should limit it to "big" hits).
    I agree with you on DoC, which is why i said it needed some love or perhaps a rework or scrap. I mean as it is right now the only thing i would ever take is disentanglement for every situation, which under the new design should not be the case.

    I assume cenarion ward is listed as the base value and not the lvl 90 healing of it which is why i haven't counted that out yet as a utility spell for dps. The other two choices are extremely strong, so depending on if the value of that spell goes up i wouldn't count it out yet.

  12. #12
    None of the spells shown include spell power, which is why they appear to be so weak. Those are likely the level 85-90 base values.

    I don't think T6 is salvageable the way it is now. I understand what they are trying to do, but i think they should just give HotW as a class spell and find two new talents that can properly compete with Disentanglement.

  13. #13
    I feel like soul of the forest with be the best talent in the 4th tier, 3 minutes seems too long of a cooldown. and the T12 4pc (which more of less did the same thing) was a great set bonus to have. One less GCD to push you between eclipses is pretty huge, more uptime on your natures grace and mastery.

    Also (assuming Mirror Image is going to be the mage symbiosis ability) i have a feeling PvE wise, Force of Nature will be substituted for a mages mirror images. Unless something else really awesome comes out they haven't mentioned yet, Mirror Image seems to be the best symbiosis ability atm. Or Treants hit substantially harder, cuz right now i think they only do like 100 - 200K.
    Last edited by Skyepic; 2012-03-06 at 08:25 PM.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Skyepic View Post
    I feel like soul of the forest with be the best talent in the 4th tier, 3 minutes seems too long of a cooldown. and the T12 4pc (which more of less did the same thing) was a great set bonus to have. One less GCD to push you between eclipses is pretty huge, more uptime on your natures grace and mastery.

    Also (assuming Mirror Image is going to be the mage symbiosis ability) i have a feeling PvE wise, Force of Nature will be substituted for a mages mirror images. Unless something else really awesome comes out they haven't mentioned yet, Mirror Image seems to be the best symbiosis ability atm. Or Treants hit substantially harder, cuz right now i think they only do like 100 - 200K.
    Symbiosis will work with pre-defined core spec/class abilities not talents. No one guarantees that any one will choose Force of Nature to be able to be exchanged.


  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Skyepic View Post
    I feel like soul of the forest with be the best talent in the 4th tier, 3 minutes seems too long of a cooldown. and the T12 4pc (which more of less did the same thing) was a great set bonus to have. One less GCD to push you between eclipses is pretty huge, more uptime on your natures grace and mastery.
    I am starting to think this, as well. Incarnation, while it's finally a seemingly nice dps cooldown, it's BOOOOORING. A flat 20% damage increase. Woo freakin' hoo. At least with Soul of the Forest I get to be lazy and not have to pop anything. (tunnel tunnel tunnel)

  16. #16
    Interesting post thanks for this

  17. #17
    i was thinking of making one but i cant wrap my mind around my whole dps being based on a metronome, is it really like this?

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Perigee View Post
    I am starting to think this, as well. Incarnation, while it's finally a seemingly nice dps cooldown, it's BOOOOORING. A flat 20% damage increase. Woo freakin' hoo. At least with Soul of the Forest I get to be lazy and not have to pop anything. (tunnel tunnel tunnel)
    the current incarnation on the calculator is different then in this post. it reads lunar and solar power generation is halved when in an eclipse state and doubled when not. celestial alignment is the 20% increase now and puts up both dots.
    Last edited by todzilla85; 2012-03-07 at 05:42 AM.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by todzilla85 View Post
    the current incarnation on the calculator is different then in this post. it reads lunar and solar power generation is halved when in an eclipse state and doubled when not. celestial alignment is the 20% increase now and puts up both dots.
    That would be an interesting talent, but i feel Soul of the Forest would still be better. The only incentive to stay in an eclipse longer is usually for solar to AoE. Halving it in the eclipse and then doubling it outside sounds good in theory but that means it would take 10 starfires to get out of lunar....that seems like an awful lot. By then your starfall probably finished 5+ seconds ago and your DoTs are about to fall off if they haven't already. That honestly sounds more like a dps loss than anything.

    I feel like boomkins would benefit more from quicker transitions than prolonging the eclipse and then speeding through the uneclipsed portion.

    Edit: I could see Incarnation being a very solid PvP talent.


    ---------- Post added 2012-03-07 at 03:12 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Juvencus View Post
    Symbiosis will work with pre-defined core spec/class abilities not talents. No one guarantees that any one will choose Force of Nature to be able to be exchanged.
    Don't have the exact post (and it could be merely speculation) but as far as i know / heard symbiosis on a mage gives us mirror images.

    Edit: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...54?page=23#450 found the post, read the blue reply
    Last edited by Skyepic; 2012-03-07 at 03:29 PM.

  20. #20
    Lunar Eclipse: When you reach 100 Lunar Energy you will trigger a Lunar Eclipse, increasing all Arcane damage done by 20%, transforming your Hurricane spell into Arcane Storm, and causing Starfire damage to refresh Moonfire's duration.
    DoT's falling off during Eclipse won't be an issue. The energy required for a full cycle with Incarnation is also only 100 higher than without, or 25%.(normal: (100+100)*2=400, Incarnation: (200+50)*2=500) Keep in mind that Moonfire won't overwrite Sunfire and vice versa.

    Also, how would Mirror Images replace FoN? What's stopping us from just using both?

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •