[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Adramelch]

I seriously seriously doubt they're going to make such a massive overhaul of a spec at this point.

[Lucrece]

I didnt play pve since firelands... so why i think its not a problem:
Ranked pvp:

• We still have owlkin frenzy so attacking you is wrong idea and you just chaincast lunarstrikes (same as in wod its wrong idea it will be wrong in legion)
• There is no reason wasting CS for SW/LS because he just start casting LS/SW vice versa.
• You wanna CS cyclone or heals not nukes.
• There is dispel compared to pve so you wasting here much more time with dots reaplication so generation AsP could be null without AsP on dots (be it hits or tics).
• Its not so strong as cata solarcleave because it just doesnt hit as much, we have OF when attacked, and we dont have lunar shower which basicaly forced you to spam SF.

Random pvp:

• So guy here is attacked, doesnt think and will spam MF all time then use Starsurge and spam MF, SS and die... because he absolute ignored his OF procs and didnt use LS instead MF for bigger dmg and bigger AsP gain. <- seems alright no?
• Guy is not attacked but he still MF spam single target instead of cast SW/LS or WoE(LS) or dotting whole team, will just lose a game for everyone because he ignored his dotting capabilities on purpose.

Actually PVP moonkin needs this AsP on dot more like PVE moonkin because both of his playfields need much more aplications of dots and without AsP he will see AsP spenders once in blue moon.



I mostly agree with you that moonkin is not designed as other casters, but this one is wrong because we actually have this in form of owlkin frenzy (asp on hit).

I think that Moonkin is mean to be some kind of area of denial tankcaster in pvp, but for some reason we have like 1 tool for tank: OF and one tool for AoD: Solar beam.
And we could easily have:

• Thorns as cd for even more hurt when attacked
• FoE with bigger radius for AoD
• Mass roots as zone where you get insta rooted for AoD
• Ursol vortex for AoD
• Wild mushroom/hurricane for aoe ticking dmg
• Real typhoon

Instead we lost all of it and gonna be instant spamers like in WoD with zero new spells and zero mechanic.
Seriously why should someone who quit a game with A,B,C,D,E skills, go back when there is only A,B,C skills.
Trying to make wow more desirable with removed skills just because HotS is 4 skills and D3 is 6 is wrong imho.
Without combos with spells, with only single way of playing be it instant spam it gonna end for pvpers in notime as wod...

Problem with Owlkin frenzy is it only works on single target spells applied at a 15% chance to proc. It's an RNG chance, not one that can be relied on to counterpressure. You either get it and can respond with damage of your own, or RNG screws you and you get nothing when you need it.

Your ability to respond to getting tunneled relies on a 15% chance proc. It's basically a worse version of the old Warlock backlash mechanic which worked at 25%.

And unlike a warlock moonkins don't have the tool to tank damage. That removal of 15% damage reduction in favor of armor for PvE purposes was GARBAGE.

Neither shadow priests or moonkins were broken in PvE for having a 15% damage reduction, but warlocks had that with fel armor at a time when warlocks were dominant in an expansion, people whined about warlocks, and moonkins and shadow priests were collateral damage to the blanket nerf.

200% extra armor is meaningless, most of the classes in this game deal armor ignoring damage in PvP, and the classes with high reliance on physical damage have armor ignore features like Colossus Smash.

[Madus]

See #3 - CCing someone during a burst window is baseline PvP gameplay, the whole point is to track enemy CCs / use your toolkit to prevent that & get your burst off. We're saying our PvP talents encourage a run & dot style of gameplay we're not happy with, so new talents that provide hardcasting & burst windows should be what we're moving towards. It fits in nicely with the infusion concept because you spend ~20% of your time in an infused state, and so you can link these talents to infusions to provide the windows you want that automatically overlap with when the druid wants to be hardcasting for max burst.

Still doesnt change fact that Ccing you is much more easy than prepare burst. Not to mention that with basic ui around what is game balanced its easy to stop your burst but hard to track all ccs.

Edit:

Problem with Owlkin frenzy is it only works on single target spells applied at a 15% chance to proc. It's an RNG chance, not one that can be relied on to counterpressure. You either get it and can respond with damage of your own, or RNG screws you and you get nothing when you need it.

Your ability to respond to getting tunneled relies on a 15% chance proc. It's basically a worse version of the old Warlock backlash mechanic which worked at 25%.

And unlike a warlock moonkins don't have the tool to tank damage. That removal of 15% damage reduction in favor of armor for PvE purposes was GARBAGE.

Neither shadow priests or moonkins were broken in PvE for having a 15% damage reduction, but warlocks had that with fel armor at a time when warlocks were dominant in an expansion, people whined about warlocks, and moonkins and shadow priests were collateral damage to the blanket nerf.

200% extra armor is meaningless, most of the classes in this game deal armor ignoring damage in PvP, and the classes with high reliance on physical damage have armor ignore features like Colossus Smash.

OF is mean to be counter to melee tunel, not casters. Whole tank caster is mean to be as old school definition of tank who is supposed tank attacks but weak against casters.
For explaining why 15% dmg reduction have been removed we have there plenty of pve top end moonkins. I remember there was discussion about it somewhere in cata.
You just agreed on my point, that we are supposed to be something what we have no tools for.

[huth]

I seriously seriously doubt they're going to make such a massive overhaul of a spec at this point.

Yeah, that's basically equivalent to rebuilding the entire spec. Way to late for that.

Not that i particularly like the proposal anyway.

[Cyous]

Looks like you absolutely ignoring a fact that moonkin pvp last 4 years is just about dotting whole teams.
Btw when asp on hit for MF is such a problem why you dont critize Twin moonfire and Crescent burn talents... Those promote MF spam even more.

You're delusional if you think we've exclusively DOT'd all game. Sure we DOT very often, but at least we want to hardcast in those 4 years. Hardcasting Starfire into players is extremely rewarding. DOT'ing was alway a means to start nuking players with Starsurge or take huge chunks of their health with Starfire whilst rotting them away. You were always rewarded for hardcasting. At this point, you are not rewarded for hardcasting. I find that to be an issue.

Especially when you can take Shooting Stars -> Why bother hardcasting at all? Sure, you'll hardcast for empowerments, but then you go right back to spamming Moonfire. It's no different from the reason why Shooting Stars was nerfed in MOP -> Devolved gameplay.

As for PVP Talents: You didn't generate AsP for casting Moonfire back when they were added. I'm not going to criticize those spells for a design that didn't exist. But yes, they will add to the problem with this current system.

[Madus]

You're delusional if you think we've exclusively DOT'd all game. Sure we DOT very often, but at least we want to hardcast in those 4 years. Hardcasting Starfire into players is extremely rewarding. DOT'ing was alway a means to start nuking players with Starsurge or take huge chunks of their health with Starfire whilst rotting them away. You were always rewarded for hardcasting. At this point, you are not rewarded for hardcasting. I find that to be an issue.

Especially when you can take Shooting Stars -> Why bother hardcasting at all? Sure, you'll hardcast for empowerments, but then you go right back to spamming Moonfire. It's no different from the reason why Shooting Stars was nerfed in MOP -> Devolved gameplay.

As for PVP Talents: You didn't generate AsP for casting Moonfire back when they were added. I'm not going to criticize those spells for a design that didn't exist. But yes, they will add to the problem with this current system.

Im not delusional. Last 4 or more years is moonkin about dotting in pvp, if you think otherwise you didnt play pvp enough.
I played this game when hardcasting a timed Starfire on 3sec cycloned target was a thing and right strategy to down opponents, but its pretty loooooong time away.
Till we have strong dots we will dotting, if not in rbg/arena you get disbanded bcs your dmg will be low, that how game evolved.
We dont even have tools for hardcast because we lost slows, instaroots, typhoon range, nature grasp ...
Making moonkin hardcaster would mean reducing his dot damage and you will slowly became eleshaman or frost mage (if they add to us control spells).
Im not against hardcasting but im pretty sure that removing of asp on MF will not reduce MF spam and absolutely not increase hardcasting. Dotting will stay just people will use spenders not so often.

As for pvp talents, this is where you are actually delusional because you thought that dotspam design didnt exist at all, what is wrong, because this dotspam design is there since cata and those talents just upgrade it...

Im all for hardcasting, it was much more interesting in past and i would trade all these dots and talents for instant roots and gap makers.

[garonne]

Going to re-iterate my overhaul idea:



Why is it relevant?

1. It's more unique than the build resource / dump resource gameplay that's shared by Destro locks, shadow priests, warriors, paladins, etc.
2. I still think it fits the class fantasy better than the AsP system
3. You can add meaningful PvP talents that mitigate the hard-casting issues we're currently discussing (ex. uninterruptible during Astral Infusion)
4. It makes a really high skill cap for PvP Moonkin - timing your Astral Infusion to go off with your teammate's burst to secure kills

at this stage they're not overhauling, better to spend your time fixing what they have already

- - - Updated - - -

I'm still talking about a PVP setting. (And I have always made this argument for PVP.) I've already stated this change has no real downside in PVE. It devolves PVP decision-making, though. That is why I dislike it.


The raw difference in damage is negligible in a PVP setting, unfortunately. I feel like we should be encouraged to hardcast SW and LS. At the moment, it's just going to devolve into MF and SnF spam. It's very difficult to PVP (queue times), so I'm simply not going to devote time to logs. (Too many projects IRL.)

The reward for casting SW instead of MF is ~40k damage. We have 2.6mil health. Tuning will make a difference, but 40k damage is not worth risking a lockout since lockouts lead to CC chains. High Risk, Low Reward...it's just not worth it. DOT duration also plays a role, but it varies per battle.

thats really a tuning issue, but then again, this play style might be something they're ok with. PVP doesn't always play the same as PVE and that can be a good thing sometime.

[huth]

at this stage they're not overhauling, better to spend your time fixing what they have already

Honestly, at this time i don't want them to overhaul unless the system is unworkable.

[garonne]

Going to re-iterate my overhaul idea:



Why is it relevant?

1. It's more unique than the build resource / dump resource gameplay that's shared by Destro locks, shadow priests, warriors, paladins, etc.
2. I still think it fits the class fantasy better than the AsP system
3. You can add meaningful PvP talents that mitigate the hard-casting issues we're currently discussing (ex. uninterruptible during Astral Infusion)
4. It makes a really high skill cap for PvP Moonkin - timing your Astral Infusion to go off with your teammate's burst to secure kills

ok, when i first responded, i only read your first line but i went back and read it. your system isn't majorly different than the current system. all you did was basically change names.

1.) solar wrath and lunar strikes to build build energy.... the same as solar wrath and lunar strikes to build AsP
2.) maxing out energy and reaching zenith and gaining charges..... literally just gaining 40 AsP or w/e designed AsP for a spender.
3.) reaching zenith and doing astral damage.... this is the empowerments.

all you did was dress it up, its a very similar system.

[Cyous]

@Madus The difference between hardcasting and DOT'ing even more (after you've DOT'd enough targets) is what concerns me.

Considering the following:
- Moonfire and Sunfire generate 5 AsP on cast.
- Crescent Burn (35% more direct damage when reapplying Moonfire)
- Twin Moonfire (Apply Moonfire to a nearby target.)
- Shooting Stars (6 targets, for battleground setting). Given how spread out players can be, I figure it's okay to consider 9 Moonfire hardcasts/DOTs, and 3 Sunfire DOTs...my calculator just assumes all targets are hit by Sunfire, so this counts as 1 cast.

_______________________________________

Mkay.

Assujing 25% Haste. I have 48 GCDs available.

Shooting Stars provides ~215 Astral Power in 60sec.
Moonfire and Sunfire were cast 10 times, for 50 Astral Power, and must be refreshed 2 times (3 sets).
"MoonMoon" will provide ~80 Astral Power in 60sec.

215+150+80 = 215+230 = 445 Astral Power over 60sec (~7.5/sec)

Counting my GCDs now...

10 casts, 10 GCDs.
MoonMoon -> 2 new moons, 1 half moon, 1 full moon; 2+1+2 = 5 GCDs (more-or-less).

445 / 40 = 11 Starsurge casts.

That's 26 GCDs used.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

With 22 GCDs left, we can just calculate the difference between hardcasting and DOT'ing even more targets (up to 10 I guess).

DOT'ing 10 targets leaves to no time to hardcast fillers. Given 3 sets of DOTs (17 MF/SnF casts) -> 17*5 * 3 = 255 Astral Power. This many DOTs is about 355 Astral Power/60sec. Add 80 for MoonMoon.

690 Astral Power.

This translates to 17.25 Starsurges per minute. (3.5sec between SS casts). So, we've actually have too much Astral Power to spend.

You sit on WOE and dump empowered Lunar Strikes into the victim only when they're instant cast.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Filling 22 GCDs with Solar Wrath and Lunar Strikes, we already had 11 Starsurges. So it's fair to assume of Solar Wrath and Lunar Strikes will be empowered.

We'll get ~13 filler casts into our GCD limit. (11+2+SS) -> which is more than ideal for PVP casting. {86} = 86 + (445) = ~530.

So that's 13.25 Starsurges overall. (4.5sec between)

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Basically.... nerfing the direct damage of Moonfire and Sunfire heavily increases the value of Hardcasting. You should want to fill your available time with hardcasts, even in a PVP setting. I want to reinforce this idea.

I didn't calculate overall damage, but it's very likely that "DOTing even more" can be decently competitive with single-target output via "switching to hardcasting."

[Madus]

calculation

With so much targets those free GCDs what you calculated would go just for dot reapplication for dispels, mass dispells, clos, ams, and similar shit.
Also bg is bad format because its promote dotting too much. If you wanna calc it use 3v3 format.

[Cyous]

With so much targets those free GCDs what you calculated would go just for dot reapplication for dispels, mass dispells, clos, ams, and similar shit.
Also bg is bad format because its promote dotting too much. If you wanna calc it use 3v3 format.

I'm using BGs specifically. I'd like solution that works in more places, such as Shooting Stars baseline instead. Still promotes DOTs in BGs, and allows for more options to encourage hardcasting when possible.

[Madus]

Not gonna happen till you dont nerf dot dmg to joke numbers, so it will be pointless to apply them on all targets.

[Cyous]

Not gonna happen till you dont nerf dot dmg to joke numbers, so it will be pointless to apply them on all targets.

You can have the direct damage of MF and SnF be nerfed into the ground. It makes spamming them far less valuable because you aren't getting a 3:1 damage output (3 Moonfire = 1 SW, minus DOT ticks). If it's more like 6:1, then hardcasting doesn't look as bad.

[huth]

I'm using BGs specifically. I'd like solution that works in more places, such as Shooting Stars baseline instead. Still promotes DOTs in BGs, and allows for more options to encourage hardcasting when possible.

I think they put it on cast specificially for the same reason as with Shadow. Meaning Shooting Stars is not a viable solution for the issue in question(because it scales with # of targets).

[Lucrece]

Plus, one of the features that historically has distinguished moonfire from other dots is that it was a HYBRID; it had a comparatively strong direct damage component with a side dot aspect, compared to affliction dots and shadow dots. Shadow only got the direct damage perk much later on and it was still comparatively weaker.

We had no executes so moonfire in a range where a target could be burned down without risking an interrupt saw moonkins just mashing Moonfire on a target that was close to death, since they had no Drain Soul or Shadow Word: Death.

Demolishing moonfire to make hardcasting relevant is the wrong way to go about it. You shouldn't make hardcasts more desirable by making moonfire as crappy as they are. You do it by making hardcasts better and a more desirable and viable option. By giving moonkins the tools to be able to hardcast more often in PvP like hard long range CC such as making Bash 25-30 yard range, making faerie fire snare baseline, and giving us Nature's Grasp back and reducing the cd on Typhoon.

[Madus]

You can have the direct damage of MF and SnF be nerfed into the ground. It makes spamming them far less valuable because you aren't getting a 3:1 damage output (3 Moonfire = 1 SW, minus DOT ticks). If it's more like 6:1, then hardcasting doesn't look as bad.

Sure people will not spam it for direct damage, but they will still spam it for dotting. I mean amount of gcd used on dots will not change, and we still moonfarespam.
It looks to me that we trying to have a cake and eat it too .
In crowded pvp you have one dot what you apply and mostly hardcast stuff (shadow,ele) or you have more dots and you throw more dots (more dots, more dots,,.). They would need reduce our amount of dots, so we dont have so many (2x more like hardcaster) dpet gcds.
Or you can make our dots undispellable and long lasting and we will hardcast too, because there will be no reason for next dot gcd, but clearly we will be OP as fuck.

[Cyous]

Sure people will not spam it for direct damage, but they will still spam it for dotting. I mean amount of gcd used on dots will not change, and we still moonfarespam.
It looks to me that we trying to have a cake and eat it too .
In crowded pvp you have one dot what you apply and mostly hardcast stuff (shadow,ele) or you have more dots and you throw more dots (more dots, more dots,,.). They would need reduce our amount of dots, so we dont have so many (2x more like hardcaster) dpet gcds.
Or you can make our dots undispellable and long lasting and we will hardcast too, because there will be no reason for next dot gcd, but clearly we will be OP as fuck.

Yes, multi-doting for multi-target is good. But Moonfire spam is still too effective (at the current tuning).

I don't agree with Shooting Stars not being a good solution. I think they don't want to change talents on that row. It's just two similar ways to solve a list of problems: one is about increasing power with more targets due to hardcasting lost, the other is about actively removing hardcasting because "we do it anyway."

Having both available is problematic, but one of the other is very viable.
______________________________________

I'd really like to see Stellar Flare get some love.

"Stellar Flare: Consumes 10 Astral Power.

Deals [1260% SP] damage to the target over 24sec. If Stellar Flare expires early or is dispelled, Stellar Flare will cause Implosion.

Implosion: Deals [(1260% * 0.5) SP] damage to the target and nearby enemies."

- 1260% SP is the same as 15 Moonfire ticks (26sec; 25% more DpET than Moonfire)
- 10 Astral Power cost allows it to work with the proposed design of Moonfire and Sunfire generating Astral Power on cast.
- Potential to be EXTREMELY good for Leveling and AOE content, especially for piles of enemies.
- Fairly good on single-target, but the cost to Astral Power makes it cost ~25 Astral Power every 60sec (on average).
- High-skill cap due to advantages -> Reapplying before an enemy dies so you can deal massive AOE damage.
- Good for PVP for dispel protection. Implosion is like hitting them with Starsurge, and an AOE effect to allies.
- Implosion would only trigger on dispels and target death. Expiring early cannot cause it.
__________________________________________

It's really simple to use. But it has a lot of room for skill and forethought. It's something we lack in our damage model -> complex mechanics.

[Madus]

Ooo, dispel protection, whined about it since UA existance. Would trade starsurge for strong dot with dispel protection.

[Cyous]

Ooo, dispel protection, whined about it since UA existance. Would trade starsurge for strong dot with dispel protection.

I made a fairly concise post on our talents and their "fun gameplay."
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...4781?page=2#27

I can't think of any solutions to help Nature's Balance, but I don't want to morph any spells.