[Balance] 5.4 Changes and Thoughts

[Drayarr]

A good moonkin definitely has the potential to top some of the fights in this tier. Yeah, with good RNG Mages are broken, but go watch some of Method's progression kills before people started scumming fights like Council via cleaving.

I love how you think adapting to a fight is "scumming" that is just out and out delusional, we had to adapt to the fight to stay competitive.
Now the fact that blizzard is nerfing us BECAUSE we had to adjust our playstyle for ONE FUCKING FIGHT is actually beyond stupid.

[Alzu]

Has Blizz stated that the nerf is because of Council? In my opinion, the SS procs were silly in Horridon as well.

But to be honest, the procs are quite silly already with 2 targets but that's just my opinion.

[cwowtbang]

I'm wondering how you all feel about these changes in arena/bgs. I barely use wrath and starfire because of the cc's stuns and interrupts. So I'm just gonna be kiting and spot rejuving in 5.4?

[Drayarr]

There was a blue post somewhere, saying that there were fights where moonkins were able to go for a majority of the fight without casting starfire / wrath Council main one i can think of

"Tier 16 Balance Druid Set Bonus Change
We made this change because, even without the Tier 16 4-piece bonus, we felt that Balance multidotting was too strong. On top of that, with enough mobs available, the Balance rotation was devolving into just Moonfire/Sunfire and spamming Starsurge constantly, to the point of completely ignoring Wrath and Starfire."

^ this

So ontop of hurricane/astral storm being complete shite, shrooms being a total waste of time, multi dotting as our only viable aoe is now not viable. Thanks blizz. Brb rerolling mage as thats the only class that seems to not actually get nerfed. When it does get nerfed all the whining qqing little idiots on the forums just rage enough and the nerf gets reversed. Fairs fair I guess.

[Fountaiin]

I love how you think adapting to a fight is "scumming" that is just out and out delusional, we had to adapt to the fight to stay competitive.
Now the fact that blizzard is nerfing us BECAUSE we had to adjust our playstyle for ONE FUCKING FIGHT is actually beyond stupid.

What?.....

I was saying Moonkins were one of the top specs on that fight during progression, but now guilds stack all four bosses and cleave, and so mages pull ahead.

You sure seem upset. You should relax, buddy.

[cwowtbang]

There was a blue post somewhere, saying that there were fights where moonkins were able to go for a majority of the fight without casting starfire / wrath Council main one i can think of

"Tier 16 Balance Druid Set Bonus Change
We made this change because, even without the Tier 16 4-piece bonus, we felt that Balance multidotting was too strong. On top of that, with enough mobs available, the Balance rotation was devolving into just Moonfire/Sunfire and spamming Starsurge constantly, to the point of completely ignoring Wrath and Starfire."

^ this

So ontop of hurricane/astral storm being complete shite, shrooms being a total waste of time, multi dotting as our only viable aoe is now not viable. Thanks blizz. Brb rerolling mage as thats the only class that seems to not actually get nerfed. When it does get nerfed all the whining qqing little idiots on the forums just rage enough and the nerf gets reversed. Fairs fair I guess.

Hey the warlocks did when they turned KJC into a CD. Tier bonuses set aside. I haven't found it favorable to hardcast starfire/wrath at all in arena/bgs without getting interrupted. The cast time is way too long even with the haste buff rolling. Its just not worth it.

[Alzu]

I'm wondering how you all feel about these changes in arena/bgs. I barely use wrath and starfire because of the cc's stuns and interrupts. So I'm just gonna be kiting and spot rejuving in 5.4?

I'm not saying that it shouldn't be compensated in some ways but they really should get rid of can be cast while moving and some instants in PvP. Maybe compensate with reduced amount of short stuns and other interrupts. They should encourage the use of Wrath and Starfire somehow.

But with these changes you'll just go kite, dot and hot. Maybe throw some CC if you're not getting tunneled.

[Drayarr]

The problem is it seems to me at least they make these changes without actively listening to the balance druid community. We ask / plead for changes and we get nerfs yet the issues that need to be addressed go unchanged. Makes me wonder who it is that actually makes these changes...

[Deleted]

Starting to think if someone should just create an open forum for boomkins where they can actually discuss proper class mechanics etc. rather than having these silly discussions about wether or not we're viable.

[Deleted]

I am EU so i cant post here, but i read all of this forum that Cyous made on us forums, its a really nice discussion about how we can change our class for the better and make it enjoyable still. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9662276461

But yeah problem is that if we make a forum anywhere to try to discuss class mechanics and changes you will get pages of disagreements and arguments and people posting useless stuff, unless its moderated harshly where only idea discussions are kept.

Btw is the build on ptr atm the one with SS proc rate nerf on multi target? I logged last night and it really didnt feel too bad on 4 targets.

[Cyteriz]

Sunfire 372 ticks - 18.5%
Moonfire 393 ticks - 18.4%
Starsurge (34 Shooting Stars procs) 13 casts - 17.6%
530ilvl with 4pc

This was on a 2 target fight ( kor kron dark shamans)

Taken from US forums.

http://gyazo.com/2c9fbfbfcc94c8063e530255e4a8c88a 8-16 target (AOE)

[Slapsgiving]

Has Blizz stated that the nerf is because of Council? In my opinion, the SS procs were silly in Horridon as well.

But to be honest, the procs are quite silly already with 2 targets but that's just my opinion.

How exactly is the intended design "silly"? They knew this was coming, it is not like this came out of the blue.

And how is SS "spam" (I never get to spam SS with ilvl 526 gear... not even during Council) sillier than Starfire base cast time?

It is their game and they can do whatever they like with it, obviously -but moonkin design is all about getting high crit to use SS more often. Slipping this sort of change, which they want to address as tuning but masks actual mechanics, one week and a half before the PTR is over is so damn discouraging.

[Alzu]

How exactly is the intended design "silly"? They knew this was coming, it is not like this came out of the blue.

And how is SS "spam" (I never get to spam SS with ilvl 526 gear... not even during Council) sillier than Starfire base cast time?

It is their game and they can do whatever they like with it, obviously -but moonkin design is all about getting high crit to use SS more often. Slipping this sort of change, which they want to address as tuning but masks actual mechanics, one week and a half before the PTR is over is so damn discouraging.

I just said silly as it felt like a nice word to describe the amount we get. I just mean that with my item level (548) I'm getting so many procs I just feel like it's too much. Having ~50% waste because of having to spend globals on dots is not fun in my opinion.

I'm not sure if 50% waste and pretty much 0 hard casting is intended.

[Fleuria]

I just said silly as it felt like a nice word to describe the amount we get. I just mean that with my item level (548) I'm getting so many procs I just feel like it's too much. Having ~50% waste because of having to spend globals on dots is not fun in my opinion.

I'm not sure if 50% waste and pretty much 0 hard casting is intended.

It's their design flaw, Crit + instants have never gone well just look at mages in Wotlk, cata was ok because you couldn't get anywhere near 40% crit but now yah... end of the day they should of just left this change and waited to the expansion to get rid of crit proc instants.

[noobadrood]

I just said silly as it felt like a nice word to describe the amount we get. I just mean that with my item level (548) I'm getting so many procs I just feel like it's too much. Having ~50% waste because of having to spend globals on dots is not fun in my opinion.

I'm not sure if 50% waste and pretty much 0 hard casting is intended.

While im less geared (546, not horribly undergeared), I feel your pain as mine. But while i think it's appropriate to nerf the SS proc chance, I still think they should address the problem giving us something to go for. Hit/haste are capped almost instantly, mastery is so-so... so they can either buff mastery or change a bit wrath base casting time so we can use haste more, and deviate from the critstack. That's my idea, can't really think of much else tbh.

[Slapsgiving]

I just said silly as it felt like a nice word to describe the amount we get. I just mean that with my item level (548) I'm getting so many procs I just feel like it's too much. Having ~50% waste because of having to spend globals on dots is not fun in my opinion.

I'm not sure if 50% waste and pretty much 0 hard casting is intended.

Probably not intended in the sense of what they envision as the spec's rotation, I agree; but then again, they could see this issue coming from miles ahead -it is not as it if had not happened before with other specs. I also agree that spamming SS is probably not a lot of fun -strings of procs, those are really nice and satisfactory to weave in.

I did not intend to tackle you, btw -just a bit frustrated as so many posts seem to assume it is a warranted change; which it may be, for the gear levels you mention and this final tier. But the debate is mixing up moonkins of different gear levels and partaking of different aspects of the game that will be severely affected by a change of this nature.

You really have to admire how GC manages to dispatch moonkin queries without ever mentioning "AoE", btw. The guy's a pro.

[Deleted]

I am actually worried about the removal of 15%, the more i look and try the fights on ptr, and the more i think about current fights, we really lack a built in cooldown, 20% is just way too weak, and not all 10 mans have a rogue, dk or warlock.

[Aboubacar]

Looks like we've had 2 passes at damage tuning. Have yet to address most classes' AE spells. CL obviously needs toning down, as well as some of the warlock AE. Hurricane or shrooms still needs more damage to even be close to other classes' aoe.

- - - Updated - - -

I am EU so i cant post here, but i read all of this forum that Cyous made on us forums, its a really nice discussion about how we can change our class for the better and make it enjoyable still. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9662276461

But yeah problem is that if we make a forum anywhere to try to discuss class mechanics and changes you will get pages of disagreements and arguments and people posting useless stuff, unless its moderated harshly where only idea discussions are kept.

Btw is the build on ptr atm the one with SS proc rate nerf on multi target? I logged last night and it really didnt feel too bad on 4 targets.

I don't agree with, well, any of the ideas in this post. While they aren't exactly bad ideas, it's radical changes to how balance druid works. I don't really have a problem with any of the balance druid mechanics outside of mushrooms, and that's just because the damage is pitiful. The class combat is really smooth, the spells work great, and the eclipse bar is working out very, very well. There's no need for large scale changes to how the spec works.

[Drayarr]

Give us casting while moving and add another 15% to our main nukes. Problem solved.

[Deleted]

The shooting stars change honestly feels a bit contrived. They first give us a set bonus that increases it's proc rate. and then turn around, 2 weeks prior to patch launch and say "nope, nope, we thought SS proc rate was too high."
This is more a flaw due the high increments of item levels rather than class mechanics, and thus we get undeserved BIG nerfs, while other classes who were already stronger multi dotters get even more buffs (Looking at affliction warlocks here.)
What are boomkins good for? They were decent on single target damage, decent on multi dot fights (while still being outclassed by mages and warlocks in both instances) and are complete crap when aoe is required due the huge set up. And guess what? Even in that scenario, Warlocks and mages have it better in 2 of their specs.

At this moment we see boomkins limping behind all other ranged classes on the ptr when multiple targets are active. Multidotting without an actual increase in SS procs, is an effective DPS loss for a boomkin since it slows down your eclipses by casting spells that don't push your eclipse bar. Our dots aren't strong enough on their own.
Buffing our Wrath, Starfire and Starfall aren't the right course of action to compensate this change, it would be to reimplement the Lunar Shower mechanic from 4.2 (where consecutive casts of our dots would push the eclipse meter), and to increase our dot damage.
This would give us something to cast rather than wait for SS procs or placing mushrooms for pitiful damage when on the move and would actually encourage dotting up multiple targets for the additional damage rather than the SS procs.
Let's be honest here. When dotting 4 targets, you barely have the time to stop and cast your Wrath and starfire, therefor the new mechanics behind Shooting Stars would discourage doing that, since dotting up a target costs us 2 GCDs, and then wouldn't give us anything in return to compensate that lost time on NG that could have been used to cycle through eclipses.

And the Wrath and Starfire buff isn't 20% total, it is just 10%, besides, percentage buffs aren't additive, but would be multiplicative.