[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Kyanion]

Meanwhile, moonkin form doesn't quite work that way. And I don't mind, because shapeshifts should empower us.

Shapeshifts should empower us? But they don't. I could see it if we were power shifting into treant form to toss heals but out shapeshifts are weaker than ever. Cat and bear are useless if you do not have the talents for them and the 'healing' one is dropping our armored form to toss out heals. Way too many GCD costs and we make ourselves far too vulnerable to do it.

I hope I am not taking that line I quoted out of context, but I really feel something needs done or I think moonkin is in a really poor spot for PvP and likely in an unfun spot in dungeons or solo content.

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Oh, so it's about the offensive benefits now? Before you were talking about defensive. Way to move the goalposts.

You're also still talking about the extra healing spells you get from Resto affinity. Baseline heals don't force you out, and the others you mentioned don't even get the option to take any more than baseline.

Yeah I don't understand the point they were trying to make. What was the point making all of our other forms weaker and giving us a pitiful talent row to choose one of the forms about? I feel like I'm basically pigeonholed into 10% damage reduction and just spamming healing touch because it will eat up less GCDs and likely keep me just as healthy thanks to the extra armor.

[Lucrece]

Oh, so it's about the offensive benefits now? Before you were talking about defensive. Way to move the goalposts.

You're also still talking about the extra healing spells you get from Resto affinity. Baseline heals don't force you out, and the others you mentioned don't even get the option to take any more than baseline.

I'm telling you that when shadowform was lost, they baked in the benefits. It's that simple. Priests largely retained their defensive features while still being able to heal without cost. You're just being a contrarian.

Others don't get the additional healing options because they already have their own defensive features that don't rely on healing. Shadowmend is stronger than Healing Touch+Regrowth+Rejuv. Have you actually played a shadow priest? Watch Theed's videos and the amount shadow mend and vampiric touch heal for.

Shadow priests recover 50% of their health with dispersion, which also reduces damage by 95% with pvp talents.

Elemental shaman's direct heal gains 45% boost from the artifact talent alone. It heals for 450% spell power at a 1.5 sec cast. Healing Touch is a 360% spell power on a 2.5 second cast, and the only thing your artifact does is give you a free one every 20 seconds.

Ele shamans also have a 12 sec cd spell interrupt, as opposed to a 1 minute cd, which allows them to handle caster burst and damage far better than a moonkin. They also have a better burst defensive in astral shift, which reduces incoming burst by 40% for 6 seconds instead of a smaller 20% for 12 seconds, making it far more valuable in PvP combat where burst windows are much more valuable than sustained damage.

Quite frankly, your comment on resto affinity means jackshit considering in WoD we already had Rejuv in Moonkin form, so we only gained a Regrowth which competes with Healing Touch in casting opportunity cost and offers less burst healing (its burst heal compared to Healing Surge at the same 1.5 sec cast time is less than half of Healing Surge's healing without taking Healing Surge's 45% artifact boost, and the total healing is a miserly 269.4% spell power, or about 60% of the healing over 12 seconds of what a Healing Surge without artifact boost heals for). Rejuv adds 60% spell power every 3 seconds.

Assuming you're being generous and cast a Regrowth+Rejuv to compare with Healing Surge, you have a total healing of 569.4% for two globals, spread over an effect of 15 seconds, while 2 Healing Surge's in two globals worth of time heals for 900% spell power without the 45% artifact boost. Add swiftmend every 30 seconds for a third global, bringing up 1269.4% spell power for 3 globals. 3 Healing Surges in 3 globals is 1350% spell power. 2 Healing Surges at 2 globals with a 45% boost is 1305% spell power. Of our 3 ideal druid globals, 2 are instant, but 2 of the 3 spells can also be dispelled/spellstolen, they take many times longer to fulfill their healing for a lesser total amount of healing, and Swiftmend is on a 30 sec cd.

So their baseline heals compared without our talented for affinity is not a comparison you want to make, because if we're NOT talking about resto affinity, our healing is even more laughable.

[Madus]

What was the point making all of our other forms weaker and giving us a pitiful talent row to choose one of the forms about? I feel like I'm basically pigeonholed into 10% damage reduction and just spamming healing touch because it will eat up less GCDs and likely keep me just as healthy thanks to the extra armor.

Point is to look like they changed many things so it look "fresh" and have easy time to resell you old crap with new names in old/new "frames" be it spellbook or (pvp)talents...

[dark666105]

Feeling kinda underwhelmed by Balance atm. Feels like we got more taken away than we were given.

[Lucrece]

Feeling kinda underwhelmed by Balance atm. Feels like we got more taken away than we were given.

This is the case with most classes. Look at warlock, most of their crap was taken away from baseline and put in as talents, it's a joke. Their only saving grace is their stupid good PvP talent tree while balance druids didn't get such luck.

Monk is also pruned to hell, and feral is not in any better spot than balance druid to begin with. For the first time in PvP feral might actually be worse than balance druid in arenas.

Mages naturally gained a ton of shit, and shadow priests/shamans/DK's come out as winners in terms of talent revamps and new toys.

[Lucrece]

To be fair this is what feral druid has had to deal with since the start of cataclysm.

"hey look at this cool ability you have! its now your new max level talent".. next expac, "hey look at that other ability in your rotation! thats your new max talent too, the last max talent is now also on the same row because you're never allowed those buttons back"

They'll have to bank on their content being a lot stronger, more frequent, and long lasting given for how many classes very little was gained with the xpac. They'll have to grant a sense of novelty another way.

[Pails]

Damage nerfs basically across the board on the latest beta build. Don't understand at all because we're not even competitive in Mythic+ dungeons right now. There has to be some internal raid testing pushing these nerfs or something because they make no sense otherwise IMO.

[Hadrious]

So, i'm not exactly sure what the 9 + 360 actually means on the starfall. Anyone care to explain? Aside form that yeah i'm not rly sure if those nerfs are really warranted

[Cyous]

So, i'm not exactly sure what the 9 + 360 actually means on the starfall. Anyone care to explain? Aside form that yeah i'm not rly sure if those nerfs are really warranted

9 ticks for 360% SP :: = 40% per tick

[Lucrece]

O guess their way of making Stellar Drift and NB not look like total garbage is to nerf FoE instead of fixing the crap talents themselves lol. Typical developer on a deadline move, so lazy.

[Hadrious]

9 ticks for 360% SP :: = 40% per tick

What was it before? Just 360% over 8 seconds? Still confused beyond all hell on this lol

[Cyous]

What was it before? Just 360% over 8 seconds? Still confused beyond all hell on this lol

Unchanged.

[Alame]

Damage nerfs basically across the board on the latest beta build. Don't understand at all because we're not even competitive in Mythic+ dungeons right now. There has to be some internal raid testing pushing these nerfs or something because they make no sense otherwise IMO.

Mythic+ issues are mechanical more than tuning. It's not an environment we're mechanically suited to, and they can't fix that via tuning without making us stupidly strong in Raids.

But hey, when I was arguing for mechanical changes I was told it wasn't an issue so....

[Cyous]

Mythic+ issues are mechanical more than tuning. It's not an environment we're mechanically suited to, and they can't fix that via tuning without making us stupidly strong in Raids.

But hey, when I was arguing for mechanical changes I was told it wasn't an issue so....

And mechanically, there is nothing wrong.

Who gives a shit if we're not Top 5 in everything?

[Alame]

And mechanically, there is nothing wrong.

Who gives a shit if we're not Top 5 in everything?

Not asking to be top 5, I'm asking for the answer to the question of "best balance druid build for CMs/Mythic+" to be something other than "Resto".

[Cyous]

Not asking to be top 5, I'm asking for the answer to the question of "best balance druid build for CMs/Mythic+" to be something other than "Resto".

And what if Resto is shit for healing Mythic+? Play Feral? And if that sucks, play Guardian?

Here's a friendly tip: You don't need to get a realm best time to get rewarded. If your goal is to min/max for realm best times, then you will need to make tough choices.

[Alame]

And what if Resto is shit for healing Mythic+? Play Feral? And if that sucks, play Guardian?

Here's a friendly tip: You don't need to get a realm best time to get rewarded. If your goal is to min/max for realm best times, then you will need to make tough choices.

Once again, not asking for realm best times.

There is a difference between being competitive and being the best min/max choice. You know this, but continue to make these appeals to the extreme. No one is asking to be top 5 in all aspects, we just want to be competitive in all.

[Cyous]

Once again, not asking for realm best times.

There is a difference between being competitive and being the best min/max choice. You know this, but continue to make these appeals to the extreme. No one is asking to be top 5 in all aspects, we just want to be competitive in all.

"Competitive" -- You need to define your threshold. Is "Average" not good enough? Quite frankly, we're above average overall.

[Kyanion]

Once again, not asking for realm best times.

There is a difference between being competitive and being the best min/max choice. You know this, but continue to make these appeals to the extreme. No one is asking to be top 5 in all aspects, we just want to be competitive in all.

Yup I don't want to be told by my friends that balance druid just isn't good enough and that we need to look at other options for our mythic+ group where we intend to focus on it as hard as we would mythic raiding. I don't expect to be the best class but I want to be viable when going for difficult aspects of the game.

[Alame]

"Competitive" -- You need to define your threshold. Is "Average" not good enough? Quite frankly, we're above average overall.

If I'm going to be declined from the majority of pugs based purely on my class, the class is not competitive. If I'm consistently underperforming in content despite being as skilled or more skilled than my counterparts, the class is not competitive.

Above average overall doesn't help anyone. You can be #1 in raids and 29/30 in Dungeons and still be "above average" overall. Doesn't mean I'm ever being taken for dungeons.