[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Alame]

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.

Problem with this is that one talent offering DPS increase while two offer pure survivability/utility means the damage talent is taken in 99% of scenarios.

We are a DPS role and hybridization will never be chosen over pure DPS where available - min/maxing ensures that. The other two talents would be condemned to niche scenarios.

I'm with Gebuz. I think adding another form of utility to Feral Affinity (Stampeding roar pls) is the way to go.

Resto & Guardian both give passives & actives for healing & damage reduction utility respectively. Give Feral stampeding roar so it has a passive & active component for mobility utility.

[Cyous]

Cannot give Moonkins and Resto Stampeding Roar. We'd have too much raid utility.

Dash would have been the better option, but that went baseline.

[dreamdaddy]

It'd be nice if they could give Feral affinity Headbash so we could get an interrupt. I doubt they want to force moonkins to go cat for minor DPS increases but it does make you wonder why'd they sink so much time into making those new owlcat assets.

[huth]

It'd be nice if they could give Feral affinity Headbash so we could get an interrupt. I doubt they want to force moonkins to go cat for minor DPS increases but it does make you wonder why'd they sink so much time into making those new owlcat assets.

That's exactly the kind of utility they don't want to spread around. And Owlcat is for the Feral Artifact.

[Mystikal]

It just feels a bit strange to me that the talent is designed so that the active part is never useful - on that talent row, we don't really have a choice of 3 talents, we have a choice of 2.5 talents.

I know that you won't (hopefully) often be called upon to emergency tank in a raid but, if you're Guardian Affinity specced and it happens, you can do it. Similarly, throwing some HoTs around as Restoration Affinity will periodically be useful. Feral Affinity feels 'cheap' because choosing to use the active portion is almost always choosing to hamstring yourself. They could honestly remove the active part of Feral Affinity and it would be no more or less compelling as a choice.

[Deleted]

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. The affinities are just there to allow you to do it without it being competetive. Say I wanted to fuck about in catform half the time while leveling, but I didn't want to respec because I'd have to learn too many new skills. I believe that is the intended use. For people that play competetively, the full talent is 15% passive MS, it isn't half a talent, hell, we have that as a talent right now in WoD.

[Mystikal]

I don't agree, but I respect your viewpoint on it. It seems to me that the intent of affinities is "bring extra oomph to a party, because you're supposed to be the better hybrid". Only Feral Affinity doesn't.

I understand we can't be competitive, but you can't undervalue the benefit of being able to buffer the entire raid with HoTs, or off-tank the raid boss for 30s and avoid a wipe because the tanks are dead and you have no CR available for half a minute. I understand that the likelihood of those situations occurring isn't huge, but the affinities are designed to make your being there a partial counter to them.

If the design intent of Feral Affinity is to be used "just to fuck around", then it's a poorly designed talent, in my eyes. That being said, I know a lot of people are resistant to the idea of Mooncatting being a thing (personally, I am not but I wouldn't want it to return in a competitive sense). I can't really offer an idea on how to make it compete with its sister talents, though, short of providing an extra, active utility of some sort.

It's just a shame that a Feral who chooses to use Balance Affinity on a fight like Atramedes has a concrete advantage over those who don't, but I respect that it's difficult to have an analogous situation for Balance.

I guess I would just like to be able to use it all, rather than it being purely just for the movement speed.

[garonne]

feral affinity should give some kinda stun (increased cd maybe?) and balance should give solarbeam. honestly what they have is just lacking and they can't give something that improves dps, so it'll be a interrupt, DR or heal for feral and stun, DR, heal for balance

[huth]

I don't agree, but I respect your viewpoint on it. It seems to me that the intent of affinities is "bring extra oomph to a party, because you're supposed to be the better hybrid". Only Feral Affinity doesn't.

The problem is that a hybrid as such is worthless in a raid enviroment. There is some value to having somebody who can swap roles between fights, but you're generally much better off just taking the respective specialists for any particular fight.

This is something that can't be fixed through changing the talent. You'd have to change how raid works.

[Deleted]

Yeah, in mythic raiding guardian aff wont let you tank, and the healing from resto aff wont be significant enough to make a difference (outside of swiftmend, which is basically an extra HS). It might work on normal/hc, but because of how little the active abilities actually provide, it isn't likely to make a difference whether you have the aff or not.

[Mystikal]

Hmm, so the active parts aren't of use in any meaningful content? That's a shame. So it really does come down to the choice of which passive is better. Seems almost... pointless to even offer the active portions.

[Deleted]

Swiftmend is good, and rejuv/regrowth might see some use in PvP (I don't know, don't play it). But that is about it.

[Adramelch]

Yeah, in mythic raiding guardian aff wont let you tank, and the healing from resto aff wont be significant enough to make a difference (outside of swiftmend, which is basically an extra HS). It might work on normal/hc, but because of how little the active abilities actually provide, it isn't likely to make a difference whether you have the aff or not.

I was thinking that resto affinity+innervate trait might (MIGHT) be useful in fights where you just have that one intense moment but can't afford the extra healer. But with disc covering that niche I don't really see it happening.

[Deleted]

I was thinking that resto affinity+innervate trait might (MIGHT) be useful in fights where you just have that one intense moment but can't afford the extra healer. But with disc covering that niche I don't really see it happening.

Can't use innervate on yourself, you oom extremely fast and healing is super bad anyway. Managing raid cds will be waaaay more significant, to the point of our healing being useless. For pve, Swiftmend is a nice little life saver, but in the bigger picture it doesn't matter.

[Adramelch]

Can't use innervate on yourself, you oom extremely fast and healing is super bad anyway. Managing raid cds will be waaaay more significant, to the point of our healing being useless. For pve, Swiftmend is a nice little life saver, but in the bigger picture it doesn't matter.

Meant the +healing from innervate but that was back when it was 50%. Mana is kinda irrelevant in my scenario (you just heal during the innervate more or less so whatever mana we have should be enough). But yeah I don't see it happening.

[akthalion]

Hello. As a retired raiding moonkin, this expansion actually got me thinking in returning, particularly the class theme and playstyle changes. It seems they're finally making each spell have specific and unique uses and making everything very cohesive, save for a few talents. One of the things that got me hooked initially was Bliz' objective with affinities stated in their previews.

"Unlike Heart of the Wild, Affinities are not temporary buffs. This enhanced access to an off-spec, delivered through a cleaner game mechanic, empowers Druids of any specialization to make interesting situational combat decisions."

The talent redesign was supposed to make talents fun, and alter playstyle in some way, otherwise they could just be baked into each spec as % modifiers to a stat. The problem I see with the current state of that talent row, is that players will only be choosing the talents for the passives which don't really alter playstyle, and certainly don't make for interesting situational combat decisions nor can it be called enhanced access to an off-spec.

Guardian and Resto affinities are close to that target goal with a few tweaks I think. I would suggest switching Ironfur for Survival Instincts, and add Ironbark to Resto's affinity. In that way Guardian could be seen as the Self Survival role and not just those extremely rare cases of tanking when everything already went wrong, and Resto more of a Team Support Emergencies role with Swiftmend and Ironbark though still limited by mana.

As for the Feral affinity, I do like Cyous' suggestion, though perhaps it's a bit too much for one talent. Perhaps if it lowered Dash's cooldown, made Skull Bash and Tiger's Fury available, it could offer more opportunities of when the talent affinity can prove useful for Resto and Balance, both in raids and pvp.

In this way you could choose between a Self Survival talent, a Support Healing talent, and an Increased Mobility talent, basically choosing between what type of active utility you would want, not just a passive bonus.

[Madus]

"Unlike Heart of the Wild, Affinities are not temporary buffs. This enhanced access to an off-spec, delivered through a cleaner game mechanic, empowers Druids of any specialization to make interesting situational combat decisions."

The talent redesign was supposed to make talents fun, and alter playstyle in some way, otherwise they could just be baked into each spec as % modifiers to a stat. The problem I see with the current state of that talent row, is that players will only be choosing the talents for the passives which don't really alter playstyle, and certainly don't make for interesting situational combat decisions nor can it be called enhanced access to an off-spec.

Blizz going to resell you old skills what we had in spellbook since forever and call it "enhanced access to an off-spec" haha.

[Juvencus]

Hello. As a retired raiding moonkin, this expansion actually got me thinking in returning, particularly the class theme and playstyle changes. It seems they're finally making each spell have specific and unique uses and making everything very cohesive, save for a few talents. One of the things that got me hooked initially was Bliz' objective with affinities stated in their previews.

"Unlike Heart of the Wild, Affinities are not temporary buffs. This enhanced access to an off-spec, delivered through a cleaner game mechanic, empowers Druids of any specialization to make interesting situational combat decisions."

The talent redesign was supposed to make talents fun, and alter playstyle in some way, otherwise they could just be baked into each spec as % modifiers to a stat. The problem I see with the current state of that talent row, is that players will only be choosing the talents for the passives which don't really alter playstyle, and certainly don't make for interesting situational combat decisions nor can it be called enhanced access to an off-spec.

Guardian and Resto affinities are close to that target goal with a few tweaks I think. I would suggest switching Ironfur for Survival Instincts, and add Ironbark to Resto's affinity. In that way Guardian could be seen as the Self Survival role and not just those extremely rare cases of tanking when everything already went wrong, and Resto more of a Team Support Emergencies role with Swiftmend and Ironbark though still limited by mana.

As for the Feral affinity, I do like Cyous' suggestion, though perhaps it's a bit too much for one talent. Perhaps if it lowered Dash's cooldown, made Skull Bash and Tiger's Fury available, it could offer more opportunities of when the talent affinity can prove useful for Resto and Balance, both in raids and pvp.

In this way you could choose between a Self Survival talent, a Support Healing talent, and an Increased Mobility talent, basically choosing between what type of active utility you would want, not just a passive bonus.

Utility works as well, besides the HotW-burst toolkit suggestions. The problem is that the current talents are taking what we have now and giving it back, without any intuitive effect on gameplay.

[huth]

Hmm, so the active parts aren't of use in any meaningful content? That's a shame. So it really does come down to the choice of which passive is better. Seems almost... pointless to even offer the active portions.

I think it's mostly supposed to be a class identity thing.

But a Jack of All-Trades is only useful when you have to work with a limited pool of people and can't afford to just take specialists for every occassion with you, so that his ability to cover multiple roles outweighs the lack of proficiency in any one of those. So, say, if Mythic forced you to use the same 20 characters for the entire instance and not allowing spec changes.

With the game as it is, they don't serve much purpose.

Blizz going to resell you old skills what we had in spellbook since forever and call it "enhanced access to an off-spec" haha.

Well, every class lost them, we're the only ones who can get them back.

[Madus]

Well, every class lost them, we're the only ones who can get them back.

Not a true at all, but keep defend their impotency of srs changes. They took skills from classes just to give them back in other ways, just different reselling same shit as our "affinities".