[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Deleted]

Hello everyone. I was wondering : Was is actually our best Stat ?

MASTERY -> HASTE -> CRIT ?

Thank you

[wing5wong]

How slow are people pulling for the decay to even matter?
Im not sure on exact numbers but theres a long period before the decay even starts

[Juvencus]

The ArP degeneration is indeed ridiculous. Compared to lets say DH who can not only zoom from pack to pack in zero time but also can generate resources at crazy speed AND have very slow degeneration.

- - - Updated - - -

How slow are people pulling for the decay to even matter?
Im not sure on exact numbers but theres a long period before the decay even starts

But once it starts, it's just gone.

[Smithsonian]

Does anyone on beta have a number for the degeneration rate? Is it ~25/sec? More?

[Catbug]

I don't mind so much that we don't have snares since we got Owlkin Frenzy. It being super bugged and not procing at all currently makes PVP testing very difficult. Owlkin also has its uses in PVE ofc, several bosses in Blackrock Foundry procced it which was great if you were paying attention.
Our interrupt is long, but it's an AOE interrupt and it's cooldown is reduced per target hit. Think imps on Mannoroth, very useful if more of those mechanics come into play.

Innervate is still a bit weird, I distinctly remember Blizz saying they didn't like giving abilities that required others like Symbiosis (still best spell in game, rip) and whatever the healing-increase Mage CD was called yet this still gives us nothing. I personally don't mind it too much since I've always favored support roles but I would much much rather have Roar since I could use that on my own plus help out everyone in the raids or battlegrounds.

Still amazing how our DOT interaction is strictly for AOE purposes. Will we reach a point where casting dots on single target fights will be useless? Really bad gameplay design there and could easily be fixed with for example simply making Shooting Stars baseline. ShadowP's can talent into making dots proc instant casts, they spawn their little floaty ghosties and they got an amazing artifact trait that ramps their damage up significantly the longer you're in voidform. That's great design around dots and works for both single target and aoe!

And speaking of artifact traits ours are still so bad and dull and barely make any changes to spells, damage or gameplay and at this stage I cannot see them changing at all (aside from increasing % damage). Really disappointed.

[Malmmoc]

learn the math and perfect the gameplay

As someone not in the beta, I appreciate the reassurance of a theorycrafter doing real testing. I know everything is subject to change, but you obviously have done math on it already, so would you be willing to share the decision tree you use on beta for multi target fights? I am particularly interesting in hearing how long of a time to live you expect to use moonfire over lunar strike as filler, and how # of mobs plays into that.

Another question I have for our beta testers is how much is the 5 yard cleave range of LS and Fury of Elune really hitting in your experience? Is it reliable cleave only with mythic caliber tanks / tiny hit box mobs, or is the average pug 5 man tank going to gather mobs close enough by default? My suspicion is that it will miss several mobs on many packs and that is just a cost of business we need to eat, but micro managing spell choice based on hit box size will be required for optimal play, which sounds kind of tedious.

[Alame]

Seems like most of the other people don't agree with your views on the topic. All we can do is propose ideas and changes and see what happens. But accusing people of failing to critically think over the issue is pretty weak.

There is no critical thought being had over the issue. Literally the only opposing viewpoint is "its not a problem". I'm being told if I learn to play the class and do the math it's not a problem. Well, the math shows ramp-up of minimum 6 GCDs and an average of 7-9 GCDs to START AoE'ing at full capacity. For the Druid to achieve half value on the sunk-cost of Starfall mobs need to live for 13-14s. There has been absolutely no attempt to contest that, the response has universally been "you're wrong." That's not critical thinking, that's obtuseness.

So let me pose this question instead: We all think Stellar Drift is garbage. We all want it changed. If changing it like I suggest is wholly unacceptable, what is your suggestion?

[Mystikal]

I think the artifact trait 'Light of the Sun' is currently bugged. I interrupted 3 casting mobs with it but it still only reduced the cooldown by 3 seconds.

On a more positive note, Entangling Roots seems to have a bit more resilience to breaking from DoT damage. I saw a mob entangled for about 10s with both MF and SnF active on it, a farcry from its current "Don't look at meeee!" functionality.

In terms of 'feeling', Power of Goldrinn feels very underwhelming. It's another trait where you hardly feel the effect when it procs. Hopefully the damage will be buffed.

[Lucrece]

I don't mind so much that we don't have snares since we got Owlkin Frenzy. It being super bugged and not procing at all currently makes PVP testing very difficult. Owlkin also has its uses in PVE ofc, several bosses in Blackrock Foundry procced it which was great if you were paying attention.
Our interrupt is long, but it's an AOE interrupt and it's cooldown is reduced per target hit. Think imps on Mannoroth, very useful if more of those mechanics come into play.

Innervate is still a bit weird, I distinctly remember Blizz saying they didn't like giving abilities that required others like Symbiosis (still best spell in game, rip) and whatever the healing-increase Mage CD was called yet this still gives us nothing. I personally don't mind it too much since I've always favored support roles but I would much much rather have Roar since I could use that on my own plus help out everyone in the raids or battlegrounds.

Still amazing how our DOT interaction is strictly for AOE purposes. Will we reach a point where casting dots on single target fights will be useless? Really bad gameplay design there and could easily be fixed with for example simply making Shooting Stars baseline. ShadowP's can talent into making dots proc instant casts, they spawn their little floaty ghosties and they got an amazing artifact trait that ramps their damage up significantly the longer you're in voidform. That's great design around dots and works for both single target and aoe!

And speaking of artifact traits ours are still so bad and dull and barely make any changes to spells, damage or gameplay and at this stage I cannot see them changing at all (aside from increasing % damage). Really disappointed.

In an arena, you're not going to be catching more than one person with Solar Beam is they have any semblance of awareness, especially now that Ursol's Vortex is gone because those assholes gave it to Restoration druids for some fucked up reason.

And owlkin frenzy does not replace a snare. A snare lets you preempt damage or prevent targets from escaping your casting range or an ally. Owlkin Frenzy requires that you are already being trained (which is not a good thing regardless of OKF proccing because it still means you're getting chain CC'd and bursted, and despite OKF procs you're still casting less total as a result of getting tunneled).

We are NOT a tanky caster. We did not receive the warlock treatment, all they gave us is a useless armor increase that only affects warriors in general while the rest of the classes deal the majority of their damage in PvP as armor ignoring damage.

[BiggestNoob]

There is no critical thought being had over the issue. Literally the only opposing viewpoint is "its not a problem". I'm being told if I learn to play the class and do the math it's not a problem. Well, the math shows ramp-up of minimum 6 GCDs and an average of 7-9 GCDs to START AoE'ing at full capacity. For the Druid to achieve half value on the sunk-cost of Starfall mobs need to live for 13-14s. There has been absolutely no attempt to contest that, the response has universally been "you're wrong." That's not critical thinking, that's obtuseness.

So let me pose this question instead: We all think Stellar Drift is garbage. We all want it changed. If changing it like I suggest is wholly unacceptable, what is your suggestion?

The DPS of those people in raid testing logs was bad compared to people who actually played the spec properly (ho ho but "i'm a theorycrafter, i has to be doing it rite") but they didn't make that connection either. I immediately found Starfall w/ Stellar Drift incredibly underwhelming (pull a few mobs, watch it tickle them and cost an insane amount of power) and the math and logs confirmed that it was basically terrible. Starsurge play is also nearly pure ST and still bad DPS and boring even compared to Starsurge on live. The only thing interesting and reasonably strong about the spec is FoE given its interactions with CDs and the fact that on even 2 target infrequent cleave it's astronomically beyond anything else in our toolkit (and still stronger single target without some absurd gear I don't think is relevant until 900+ solely because it scales with int/crit/vers). I'm sad they reduced the haste during Incarn to 1% per stack because people complained about the cast time for Solar Wrath going below the GCD. I'm not sure what idiot thought it was a good idea to cast Solar Wrath at that haste level over Lunar Strike, but thanks for making the spec even more boring now that we don't have anything interesting like an achievable haste breakpoint during CDs that changes the gameplay and lets you sustain AoE competitive with DKs and DHs. If you thought a sub GCD cast was awkward, try animation cancelling where you have to wait for a GCD so FR goes off or using Prepared/Felblade so you can charge back after VR, even if you can't do it during the initial animation because Blizzard broke it on purpose to stop anim cancelling. Awkward doesn't even start, but they're incredibly strong. We have something that's incredibly strong and kids complain about a fucking cast time of a lower DPS lower AP gen spell going below a GCD when you have another perfectly viable one that will never go below the GCD. What the fuck is wrong with you?

I'm basically over Balance in Legion if it goes live as it is. The feedback threads in the official forums are full of these same people claiming everything is fine and we just need tuning. If things get tuned to where Starfall and Stellar Drift are "good" and Starsurge becomes by far the best ST, FoE becomes useless except in the rare cases that you consistently get a big clump of targets for 20-30 seconds every minute or so, and if it also is made to scale with mastery it becomes incredibly broken. Proposing changes and that things are bad (like Shooting Stars / Starlord, AC depending on what 100 talent you're playing with) is immediately met with "but the way I play this talent isn't that bad" -- as if arguing from a single point of view with a shitty build means that things are fine. I don't see this problem with many talents in other classes. There are several tiers in Balance that are just fucked but "they're fine". What useless feedback, and what an uninspired community. The class still feels incredibly boring compared to other specs I'm testing on beta and I'm pretty sure I won't be playing it.

The summary for Balance is: we have ~4 different ways to play with our talents, all possibly maybe relevant depending on how a fight works. All but one is AoE, and only one is maybe competitive AoE with other classes and it's also the strongest ST build we have. This is stupid. This design is stupid, most of the talents suck, and the most vocal people in this community are arguing that having 100 AP on the pull isn't good and instead you should just use a cooldown, AC, forcing a talent choice (a shitty one, it's only good if you're spending lots of GCDs spamming DoTs, and then it's beaten by Shooting Stars at like 2 targets, so like I said, it's a fucking worthless talent) and somehow applying some incredibly brilliant logic that 75 AP from a CD > 100 AP for free. Fuck this community and fuck this spec if it goes live.

[Kyanion]

Fuck this community and fuck this spec if it goes live.

Look you made a few good points in your post but you harm your point by making statements like the one I quoted. Again we shouldn't be at each other's throats about this type of thing. Just arguing among ourselves here and on the beta forums is pointless. We need to come up with good ideas and tweaks to suggest but debating over X and Y thing drowning out anything else isn't helping the cause.

[wing5wong]

AC is better than shooting stars if you require on demand AsP, how is that a problem again?
That tier(90) (along with T30) is probably one of our most difficult choices, because all the options offer advantages in differing situations

Affinity tiers are strong (but not what they were hyped up to be) when you consider them largely for their passive bonuses.

CC Tier is strong and offers good choices. and with roots sustaining more damage, ME becomes slightly better. Typhoon can still use more pushback.

Our biggest issues still lie in the 75 and 100 talents, where incarnation is just too powerful relative to the others (and even more so with new legendaries).

I dont think anyone has claimed Stellar Drift to be a good talent. It's weak, and the only reason to take it is because the other talents would be useless anyway. (large spread, low-med hp adds occurring frequently). The cast-move bonus is moot with dot refreshes/bota toggles and so on.

If balance doesnt do it for you anymore, thats fine - find something else, but at least post constructively.

[Lucrece]

AC is better than shooting stars if you require on demand AsP, how is that a problem again?
That tier(90) (along with T30) is probably one of our most difficult choices, because all the options offer advantages in differing situations

Affinity tiers are strong (but not what they were hyped up to be) when you consider them largely for their passive bonuses.

CC Tier is strong and offers good choices. and with roots sustaining more damage, ME becomes slightly better. Typhoon can still use more pushback.

Our biggest issues still lie in the 75 and 100 talents, where incarnation is just too powerful relative to the others (and even more so with new legendaries).

I dont think anyone has claimed Stellar Drift to be a good talent. It's weak, and the only reason to take it is because the other talents would be useless anyway. (large spread, low-med hp adds occurring frequently). The cast-move bonus is moot with dot refreshes/bota toggles and so on.

If balance doesnt do it for you anymore, thats fine - find something else, but at least post constructively.

CC tier is NOT strong. Your choice is a 50 sec cd SINGLE target melee range stun (my monk gets a 45 sec cd conal aoe stun, let's not talk about mage or warlock or shadow priest CC please, pretty much EVERY caster has better CC and snares than balance druids), how is that possibly good for a ranged spec in PvP? Mass Entanglement is garbage, and Typhoon is just a crappier Thunderstorm with lessen knockback range, a short duration daze and a whopping cooldown.

Neither are affinities good. In a PvP setting, you either pick 10% reduced damage from bear affinity and have NO heals whatsoever worth a damn, or you choose resto affinity for a measly periodic heal and heals that take you out of form (essentially each heal costs you 2 GCD's and a decrease in armor, which is the more minor side effect) and no damage mitigation.

Affinities are virtually taking away tools we had and baking them into the talent tree. It's no better than telling warlocks they got added mobility by having demonic circle in the talent tree when it used to be baseline and got removed to occupy a talent slot. Except at least warlocks were compensated with baseline soul leech; we were not so lucky.

You also seem painfully adverse to acknowledging that in a PvP setting where you can't cast worth crap given the tools we ended up with in arenas, relying on AC and Incarnation to cope with the snail's pace at which astral power is generated when you can't just sit there and turret casts (read:never) IS A PROBLEM.

This is what annoys people, that just because these things work for you in your preferred play format, that the balance spec is completely fine and working as intended in Legion and people should seek another class if they're displeased.

We can't have a class balanced around an ability to turret and ramp up resources slower than any other caster. Even ele shaman maelstrom generates much faster and decays more slowly.

[Juvencus]

In my opinion, most of the problems lie with the fact that they homogenised specs as builders-spenders. I mean, if you are going to homogenise, at least do it all the way and right. Don't force eclipse mechanics on a "new" mechanic and don't keep Starfall weak because it used to be nearly passive and high uptime.

For me, the worst parts are the disjointedness and and rigidity of Balance. At least leveling is an uphill battle and I highly doubt 110 world objectives would be any different. Maybe Mythic gear eliminates those, but then again not everyone is covered in Mythic pieces.

[wing5wong]

CC tier is NOT strong. Your choice is a 50 sec cd SINGLE target melee range stun (my monk gets a 45 sec cd conal aoe stun, let's not talk about mage or warlock or shadow priest CC please, pretty much EVERY caster has better CC and snares than balance druids), how is that possibly good for a ranged spec in PvP? Mass Entanglement is garbage, and Typhoon is just a crappier Thunderstorm with lessen knockback range, a short duration daze and a whopping cooldown.

Neither are affinities good. In a PvP setting, you either pick 10% reduced damage from bear affinity and have NO heals whatsoever worth a damn, or you choose resto affinity for a measly periodic heal and heals that take you out of form (essentially each heal costs you 2 GCD's and a decrease in armor, which is the more minor side effect) and no damage mitigation.

Affinities are virtually taking away tools we had and baking them into the talent tree. It's no better than telling warlocks they got added mobility by having demonic circle in the talent tree when it used to be baseline and got removed to occupy a talent slot. Except at least warlocks were compensated with baseline soul leech; we were not so lucky.

You also seem painfully adverse to acknowledging that in a PvP setting where you can't cast worth crap given the tools we ended up with in arenas, relying on AC and Incarnation to cope with the snail's pace at which astral power is generated when you can't just sit there and turret casts (read:never) IS A PROBLEM.

This is what annoys people, that just because these things work for you in your preferred play format, that the balance spec is completely fine and working as intended in Legion and people should seek another class if they're displeased.

We can't have a class balanced around an ability to turret and ramp up resources slower than any other caster. Even ele shaman maelstrom generates much faster and decays more slowly.

Bash is 10yard, 5 second stun. That is powerful.
Typhoon offers Z-axis control, with aoe daze. As i said, it could use more pushback distance.
Mass entangle has always been weak because damage broke it far too easily. Root damage threshold has been increased now. I still dont think this will often be the talent of choice, but it is still a better option than it was.

10%DR/Ironfur/FR or YG/SwM/Rej/Reg is a good choice.
Not being able to cast them in form, ive said before, is a problem.

I think you assume i only PvE, yet here i am, AM and HotA as well.
casting as balance is what makes them shine. You CAN make room for casts.
Owlkin frenzy not working is a big issue for pvp testing, but as long as it remains, even (especially) with melee on us we have huge damage potential. Instant Full Moons into SS/SS, Instant LS

Decay is no an issue in any pve raid or pvp setting.
Personally, ive not had an issue with it levelling either.

[Lucrece]

In my opinion, most of the problems lie with the fact that they homogenised specs as builders-spenders. I mean, if you are going to homogenise, at least do it all the way and right. Don't force eclipse mechanics on a "new" mechanic and don't keep Starfall weak because it used to be nearly passive and high uptime.

For me, the worst parts are the disjointedness and and rigidity of Balance. At least leveling is an uphill battle and I highly doubt 110 world objectives would be any different. Maybe Mythic gear eliminates those, but then again not everyone is covered in Mythic pieces.

Leveling would be a lot better if we actually had CC (typhoon baseline, Bash 30 yard range and 30 sec cd), snares (faerie fire back as a baseline snare woth the pvp talent still giving it the bonus effects), rejuv/regrowth/HT didn't take us out of moonkin form.

We could also automatically gain astral power guaranteed for each hit or damage we take, JUST like warriors. Or they can actually give moonfire/sunfire tics each an asp generation component so asp generation isn't tied to turreting.

Solar Beam should be a 35 sec cd. Take off any talents or traits that reduce its cd further and replace with something else.

Give us Survival Instincts just like feral druid (and give them barkskin too since their survival is pretty crap on pvp as well). Otherwise just give us a spell called Dreamstate that puts us in a stasis where we are immune to damage but cannot move or attack and we regen 35% health for its duration, 2 min cd.

[wing5wong]

You prefer small asp gain(the old pvp set bonus) to instant cast lunar strike or full moon? Ok...

What are you Ccing while levelling?
Treants, renewal, resto,sotf, foe give a great pace to levelling

[huth]

What are you Ccing while levelling?
Treants, renewal, resto,sotf, foe give a great pace to levelling

That was my thought as well. I can't remember having to CC anything while leveling since... well, Vanilla. And that was quests you weren't actually supposed to solo, and nobody having any real clue what they were doing.


Still worried by the lack of actual choice on the tier 100 talents. Might as well just remove the tier and give us FoE baseline as things are now.

[Lucrece]

You prefer small asp gain(the old pvp set bonus) to instant cast lunar strike or full moon? Ok...

What are you Ccing while levelling?
Treants, renewal, resto,sotf, foe give a great pace to levelling

?

Who said either or? I said current OFK was insufficient, why is that hard to understand? You're the one suggesting one be replaced for the other for some strange reason.

You're CC'ing any mob you pull while leveling, you know because a snare reduces their arrival time which means you take less damage in between pulls, and this applies particularly to elite mobs that don't fall dead to 1-2 starsurges.

But you don't need to fixate on the impoirtance of CC while leveling since more important uses for CC and snares are necessary for content like PvP.

You just listed me a 1 min cd, a 2 min cd, and another 1 min cd talent.

[striderZA]

Are we complaining about leveling now? Er.