[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Catbug]

I was watching a video from latest raid testing and Lunar Strike had the old Starfire animation and casting hand movement (no longer the channeled movement). The druid i watched was Resto but used the Balance affinity if that might mean anything.

[wing5wong]

LS was most recently using hte handwave cast, with the old starfire Spell animation, unless they changed it again

[Juvencus]

600% SP * 1+Mastery with 18% increased crit chance + 33% chance of 400% SP vs. 252% SP * 1+Mastery + Stellar Empowerment.

I don't think the empowerment is going to make up for the massive difference in base damage.

FOE.

Else, you misplayed your Full Moon. You should Starsurge.
Starsurge = [600% * Mastery] / 40 ASP
Starfall = [226.8 * Mastery] * [3 ticks of 2 dots = 80% * 3 * 2 = (560% * Stellar Empowerment) - 560%] SE = 115%; = (644% + 226.8 * Mastery) / 60 ASP

Figure...60% Mastery.

600% * 1.6 = 960% / 40 ASP
363% + 644% = 1007% / 60 ASP

SS = 24.0% / ASP
SF = 16.8% / ASP

Thanks guys!

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On the subject of Affinities (Cyous on Discord)

I like the idea of short burst-HotW style affinities.
Greymane-execute+Speed (Feral), super tank/immortal+10% passive dr (Guardina), super healer+YG (Resto).
So instead of weak abilities all the time, you get short bursts of strong offspecing.
Makes the talents more situational but way more meaningful in raiding, soloing, world content, 5mans.

[Mystikal]

How does Feral Affinity actually work for Balance? It seems very weak (on paper) in comparison to the other two affinities, because going Cat Form for damage means giving up so much from Moonkin Form and the Scythe of Elune. I'm not in the alpha, so I don't know if there have been any changes, but it seems to me that the "active" part of Feral Affinity is lacking in comparison to the other two.

Would someone who has used it be able to explain if it works differently from my understanding?

[huth]

For both DPS specs, using the other Affinity is pretty much limited to the passive and some fringe cases where your primary spec isn't usable. Just happens that the Balance passive is far more useful to a Feral than the other way around.

[Adramelch]

Passive speed boost is still nice to have, however.

[Mystikal]

That was what I thought, and it essentially makes Feral Affinity only "half" a talent really, compared to the other two.

I'll probably mess about with it for Feline Swiftness coupled with Displacer Beast / Wild Charge, but it's disappointing that the devs haven't chosen to make it more compelling as a choice next to the other two.

[Adramelch]

That was what I thought, and it essentially makes Feral Affinity only "half" a talent really, compared to the other two.

In a raiding sense all affinities are essentially half a talent (well not half a talent, all 3 give a decent passive, you just use half of what you're given).

[huth]

That was what I thought, and it essentially makes Feral Affinity only "half" a talent really, compared to the other two.

I'll probably mess about with it for Feline Swiftness coupled with Displacer Beast / Wild Charge, but it's disappointing that the devs haven't chosen to make it more compelling as a choice next to the other two.

It's a bit of a conceptual issue. Since both specs essentially do the same thing, there isn't much the other can provide that would be useful in the first place, since it's all going to be stuff you already have anyway.

[Deleted]

Gebuz, how do you manage to zoom out like in your cenarius video? I have it maxed out in the interface options and the cameradistancemaxfactor thing i use on live doesnt seem to do anything.

[Mystikal]

In a raiding sense all affinities are essentially half a talent (well not half a talent, all 3 give a decent passive, you just use half of what you're given).

In a raiding sense, true. However, even in a non-raiding scenario, Feral Affinity suffers from the same problem. In, say, a solo environment or a 5-man, I can easily imagine using Guardian Affinity to off-tank briefly if the tank goes down, or using Restoration Affinity to throw some back-up heals out if the damage gets too heavy. I am struggling to think any of situation - solo, 5-man, PvP, raiding - where I would ever meaningfully use the 'active' half of Feral Affinity. You simply give up too much to make it useful.

As Huth said, it's a conceptual issue, but something needs to be done to change it, otherwise the talent just becomes a noob trap - the very thing Blizzard wants to avoid.

[Deleted]

Gebuz, how do you manage to zoom out like in your cenarius video? I have it maxed out in the interface options and the cameradistancemaxfactor thing i use on live doesnt seem to do anything.

/script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMax",30)

[Keiyra]

In a raiding sense, true. However, even in a non-raiding scenario, Feral Affinity suffers from the same problem. In, say, a solo environment or a 5-man, I can easily imagine using Guardian Affinity to off-tank briefly if the tank goes down, or using Restoration Affinity to throw some back-up heals out if the damage gets too heavy. I am struggling to think any of situation - solo, 5-man, PvP, raiding - where I would ever meaningfully use the 'active' half of Feral Affinity. .

I can think of one, but its quite niche. There's a boss in the Coldarra dungeon that has a spell reflect phase where all spells are reflected back and hurt you. Should such a scenario appear again, you could go feral and still do melee dps. It's extremely niche, but its existed at least once so could occur again. (In theory any other scenario or mechanic where you cant cast, but could melee)

Also perhaps say a boss with a heavy kite phase, where you constantly have to move and cant stand still to cast, you could go feral and keep dpsing while moving in melee range. Again extremely niche.

Most of the time if you take feral affinity, its really just for the passive as boomkin, sadly.

[Juvencus]

I can think of one, but its quite niche. There's a boss in the Coldarra dungeon that has a spell reflect phase where all spells are reflected back and hurt you. Should such a scenario appear again, you could go feral and still do melee dps. It's extremely niche, but its existed at least once so could occur again. (In theory any other scenario or mechanic where you cant cast, but could melee)

Also perhaps say a boss with a heavy kite phase, where you constantly have to move and cant stand still to cast, you could go feral and keep dpsing while moving in melee range. Again extremely niche.

Most of the time if you take feral affinity, its really just for the passive as boomkin, sadly.

We could already do that since forever, with the baseline Cat abilities. The Feral affinity doesn't give anything more than that. It just takes them away and gives them back with a speed boost.

[huth]

As Huth said, it's a conceptual issue, but something needs to be done to change it, otherwise the talent just becomes a noob trap - the very thing Blizzard wants to avoid.

I don't think you quite understood that one. There's nothing that can be done about it, as the spec simply doesn't have anything to give.

The "noob trap" issue is somewhat doubtful, though. Anybody who can't appreciate the difference between the Affinities is unlikely to be able to properly make use of the active benefits anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

I can think of one, but its quite niche. There's a boss in the Coldarra dungeon that has a spell reflect phase where all spells are reflected back and hurt you. Should such a scenario appear again, you could go feral and still do melee dps. It's extremely niche, but its existed at least once so could occur again. (In theory any other scenario or mechanic where you cant cast, but could melee)

Stonecore, the giant. That guy can be even worse, as he can spend most of the fight being immune to spells if you don't have someone to Purge him. Both of them are TW bosses, too.

[Keiyra]

We could already do that since forever, with the baseline Cat abilities. The Feral affinity doesn't give anything more than that. It just takes them away and gives them back with a speed boost.

True we could do that with baseline cat, I thought the feral affinity gave more cat dps abilities, yielding higher dps (cant check atm) - but point taken, its an even more marginal gain since we have baseline cat.

[Mace]

How does Feral Affinity actually work for Balance? It seems very weak (on paper) in comparison to the other two affinities, because going Cat Form for damage means giving up so much from Moonkin Form and the Scythe of Elune. I'm not in the alpha, so I don't know if there have been any changes, but it seems to me that the "active" part of Feral Affinity is lacking in comparison to the other two.

Would someone who has used it be able to explain if it works differently from my understanding?

it's my opinion that Feral affinity should be..."adjusted" to provide balance with something for picking it. Imo, it should just be an adapted playstyle. Where you don't suffer a dps loss for occassionally dipping into it, like you did in the old days. for me it works as an energy drainer, cat form has 100 energy when you first shift to it, which allows you to unload all that in useful short burst spike. once you've drained the energy, it's back to moonkin form.

it should be a dps loss, doesn't hve to be a gain, but something that would make it useful is if you gained AsP from the moves, allowing you to get some much need resource. You then make a decision whether you want this an attribute of balance's cat form or the AsP build up from using cat abilities a thing that happens on a cooldown, like a 10s burst, down on a 2-5min cooldown meaning you don't have to always use it.

The idea is to provide a playstyle alternative, not necessarily a dps increase. But it will have to have some advantages because staying in melee is more dangerous. You want to pick that if you like occasionally using cat form.

Atm, AsP generation is really slow off the bat, mobs get to you long before you built enough tear them apart. I've felt that an extra detterrent like Starsurge knockdown would help, but i also feel, the spec needs a faster initial build up, maybe something that increase the AsP generation of spells greatly at the beignning of combat, goes on a longish cooldown that's reset every time after combat.

[Deleted]

In my opinion, cat form dps should never be a viable thing for a boomkin. Feral affinity is fine for what it is: A passive movement speed increase. If it should have any added benefit other than that, it should be a pure utility cooldown (Dash, stampeding roar, innervate, nature's vigil, something like that). But that is honestly just putting too much into one talent.

[Cyous]

In my opinion, cat form dps should never be a viable thing for a boomkin. Feral affinity is fine for what it is: A passive movement speed increase. If it should have any added benefit other than that, it should be a pure utility cooldown (Dash, stampeding roar, innervate, nature's vigil, something like that). But that is honestly just putting too much into one talent.

Mooncatting should not be a thing -- weaving Cat Form for DPS. But the "Greymane Burst" idea would offer a decent skill for finishing off low-health targets. And giving up 10% DR and bursty self-healing for a potential execute can be a good trade.

[Deleted]

I think you're trying to put way too much into one talent. Also I personally don't think boomkins should ever have to go catform (or melee range) to do any kind of dps in a competitive environment. I'm completely fine with it working like it does now, where you can go into catform and shred and bite if you want for fun, but also knowing that it isn't ever going to be competetive with the damage you'd do in moonkin form.