[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Borawa]

If this is a thing, this spec (Balance) has some SERIOUS issues.

Ya unless im playing terribly wrong. Maybe if i took shooting stars to help with the generation. But i normally take AC so i can be super strong alot. Very feast then famine talent. In the +5s and +6s (havent gotten anything higher) im normally even with our dk and pally tank and 10% behind the shaman and dk. I found i was able to be only like 7% behind on trash pulls if I used swipe and starfall.

So I dot it all up. Moon and instant lunar strike myself above 60. Then swipex3. Pop out redot, moon spells. Normally shits dying pretty quickly so i dont want to keep starfall rolling to long maybe one more starfall. But swipe crits for 120k-140k on each target and does 60k normal. So a quick triple swipe on 3 mobs is 540000-1.17 mil dmg in 3 seconds. Normally 2-3 globals then back to swiping.

[Lucrece]

I'd be horrified if I wasn't somewhat pleased that at least our other forms are good for something.

[Kaneshor]

How do you play with FoE atm?

Gain 100 AsP -> use FoE -> 3 MoonCasts -> 2 instant LS and then casting SW?

Do you use CA with FoE?

[xtramuscle]

Blizzard added the dot component to starfall and empowerments to starsurge to make the spec interesting. Ive said it from the beginning both are misplaced. Balance feels like destro but with destro you incinerate to chaosbolt which HURTS. It feels rewarding when you get it off. We wrath to ss which instead of hitting hard makes our builder a bit better. There's no flash bang, just mediocre damage all round. The same with starfall. Forget the dot component and make the stars falling from the sky hurt. Then you feel rewarded for using 60% of your ap, not disgruntled you didn't have double dots on everything to get the damage it's supposed to do.

Trouble is without the dot or empowerments balance as a spec looks as bare as it really is. And the developers want people who don't know the spec inside and out, to be tricked into thinking it had the same effort as all the other spec revamps. Honestly ours is more of a spec rehash, Friday afternoon type job.

I've been very absent on both here and alpha/beta due to moving house and having no cpu, but I should get my rig sorted in the next week and I'll stream and voice some thoughts again. Stay tuned.

[Frostyfire14]

So I watched the tutorial that Blizzard made for Balance in Legion. It doesn't even make you use Starfall lol. It doesn't even present it to you in the tutorial. Starfall is the niche aspect for this specialization. To exceed well in AOE / Cleave fights. And the tutorial, meant to help and aid players in deciding what class and specialization to play, doesn't even present this information!

WHAT?!

Do they even want people to play this specialization? Because as far as PTR goes, as far as all the theory crafter's opinions go, as far as Blizzard's own tutorial (all of this obviously subject to change still) goes, this specialization is unplayable and is chasing away people from it.

[wing5wong]

Agreed. Whilst i like the idea of empowerments, we shouldnt feel like we need to have empowerments - it may as well be baseline at this point.
The empowerment should feel special. you worked to generate enough to SS, which doesnt even hit that hard, then your filler just hits harder again.
I like the empowerment aspect of starfall though - spells interacting with each other is nice mechanically and adds something more interesting than just press starfall, although id like to see starfall doing the majority of the damage

[Deleted]

I think the spec plays fine, I agree we could do with moving some damage from LS/SW to SS though. Empowerment uptime is unlikely to change at this point, since it would mess with mastery and Starsurge frequency (and really, we don't want to cast SS less often). The solution with the smallest impact that I can think of is simply removing Solar Empowerment, as it has no influence on our rotation (unempowered SW is our filler anyway), but it would still mess with mastery (it will affect a smaller % of our spells).

[Frostyfire14]

Agreed. Whilst i like the idea of empowerments, we shouldnt feel like we need to have empowerments - it may as well be baseline at this point.
The empowerment should feel special. you worked to generate enough to SS, which doesnt even hit that hard, then your filler just hits harder again.
I like the empowerment aspect of starfall though - spells interacting with each other is nice mechanically and adds something more interesting than just press starfall, although id like to see starfall doing the majority of the damage

So basically:
-Starsurge need's a damage buff or cost reduction
-Starfall needs to do the majority damage; not the empowerment synergy.
-Starsurge should either grant more empowered spells (someone suggested 2 granted per Starsurge), or (my suggestion) also double the generation of Astral Power via Empowered spell usage. This would act as the "feel special" part. You cast un-empowered spells to cast Starsurge, which in return lets you cast more powerful filler spells, to cast more Starsurges/Starfalls.

I also hate Fury of Elune with a passion. This spell needs to be redesigned or baseline, and have a new talent takes its place. The fact that this is even a put up to be a competitive talent in the level 100 tier is a kick in the face. Although, it's probably too far into the beta for this to happen.

As more and more builds are released, I am losing my interest in spurts at a time, over time.

[Cyous]

So basically:
-Starsurge need's a damage buff or cost reduction
-Starfall needs to do the majority damage; not the empowerment synergy.
-Starsurge should either grant more empowered spells (someone suggested 2 granted per Starsurge), or (my suggestion) also double the generation of Astral Power via Empowered spell usage. This would act as the "feel special" part. You cast un-empowered spells to cast Starsurge, which in return lets you cast more powerful filler spells, to cast more Starsurges/Starfalls.

I also hate Fury of Elune with a passion. This spell needs to be redesigned or baseline, and have a new talent takes its place. The fact that this is even a put up to be a competitive talent in the level 100 tier is a kick in the face. Although, it's probably too far into the beta for this to happen.

As more and more builds are released, I am losing my interest in spurts at a time, over time.

You wouldn't use FOE if it was undertuned, same thing is happening with Stellar Drift..and Nature's Balance to an extent.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the spec plays fine, I agree we could do with moving some damage from LS/SW to SS though. Empowerment uptime is unlikely to change at this point, since it would mess with mastery and Starsurge frequency (and really, we don't want to cast SS less often). The solution with the smallest impact that I can think of is simply removing Solar Empowerment, as it has no influence on our rotation (unempowered SW is our filler anyway), but it would still mess with mastery (it will affect a smaller % of our spells).

I'd do this by nerfing Empowerments. Non-Empowered fillers feel meh. Starsurge feels meh. Mastery needs to do something else, or simply buff ALL Astral damage output (read: Arcane+Nature buff).

- - - Updated - - -

So I watched the tutorial that Blizzard made for Balance in Legion. It doesn't even make you use Starfall lol. It doesn't even present it to you in the tutorial. Starfall is the niche aspect for this specialization. To exceed well in AOE / Cleave fights. And the tutorial, meant to help and aid players in deciding what class and specialization to play, doesn't even present this information!

WHAT?!

Do they even want people to play this specialization? Because as far as PTR goes, as far as all the theory crafter's opinions go, as far as Blizzard's own tutorial (all of this obviously subject to change still) goes, this specialization is unplayable and is chasing away people from it.

Link to VOD?

[Deleted]

I'd do this by nerfing Empowerments. Non-Empowered fillers feel meh. Starsurge feels meh. Mastery needs to do something else, or simply buff ALL Astral damage output (read: Arcane+Nature buff).

Wouldn't it just buff literally all our spells except FoN then? Seems rather boring.

[Juvencus]

I think the spec plays fine, I agree we could do with moving some damage from LS/SW to SS though. Empowerment uptime is unlikely to change at this point, since it would mess with mastery and Starsurge frequency (and really, we don't want to cast SS less often). The solution with the smallest impact that I can think of is simply removing Solar Empowerment, as it has no influence on our rotation (unempowered SW is our filler anyway), but it would still mess with mastery (it will affect a smaller % of our spells).

At this point, Empowerments are just inconvenience for damage. You either want to cast Solar Wrath or Lunar Strike. Empowerments make you cast the opposite of what you want because reasons. Or it could be a lazy way to prevent you from spamming the same button depending on the fight.

Of course you can argue the same for WoD but at least with Eclipse there was a slight skill involvement with using emps at the right times.

[Frostyfire14]

Link to VOD?

Here you go!

The tutorial chooses to highlight the basic spells such as Moonfire, Sunfire, Solar Wrath, Lunar Strike and Starsurge. And even the use of Entangling Roots, and casting Healing Touch on yourself. But not Starfall! One of the most iconic spells in the game! Why would they highlight THAT!?

(Yes, I understand this tutorial is subject to change, but seriously? lol)

[Cyous]

Wouldn't it just buff literally all our spells except FoN then? Seems rather boring.

Yeah, and fillers and spenders would feel better as a result.

[Deleted]

At this point, Empowerments are just inconvenience for damage. You either want to cast Solar Wrath or Lunar Strike. Empowerments make you cast the opposite of what you want because reasons. Or it could be a lazy way to prevent you from spamming the same button depending on the fight.

Of course you can argue the same for WoD but at least with Eclipse there was a slight skill involvement with using emps at the right times.

Well, I'd argue there is actually more skill to using empowerments in Legion, since you can bank Lunar Empowerments. Either way, spending empowerments is pretty hard to fuck up in both WoD and Legion.

Removing empowerments completely would result in mastery requiring a complete overhaul (which is unlikely this close to release) and it would also mean that single target we would spam a hella lot of SW. While Lunar Strike isn't particularly interesting, I still prefer having to alternate between it and SW single target over just spamming SW.

[Cyous]

Here you go!

The tutorial chooses to highlight the basic spells such as Moonfire, Sunfire, Solar Wrath, Lunar Strike and Starsurge. And even the use of Entangling Roots, and casting Healing Touch on yourself. But not Starfall! One of the most iconic spells in the game! Why would they highlight THAT!?

(Yes, I understand this tutorial is subject to change, but seriously? lol)

Thank you. And yeah, it's the very basics. Starfall is harder to use correctly.

[Deleted]

Yeah, and fillers and spenders would feel better as a result.

Sure, but a flat damage increase goes against the whole "mastery" idea. The best thing we could hope for in that regard is something like Ele or Destro mastery (chance for extra dmg on all spells).

[Borawa]

Question. On single target with 39% mastery and 9% extra from artifact power. Is it worth casting empowered lunar strike single target? Alot of times I find myself @ 3 stacks and just not wanting to use them. Save them for movement (WoE) or perhaps maybe to cleave in genera but hard casting it into one target seems wrong id just prefer to not cast it ever.

Another question. At what point is it worth dumping regular lunar strikes into target for trash damage? I saw a stream of a moonkin using it in darkheart thicket but wasnt sure if there was any rhyme or reason to it. Is there like a target breakpoint where it just out damages solar wrath (keeping in mind the tradeoff of damage for generation)?

Anyone messing with swipe @ all or am i just the lone cat form boomkin?

General Mythic+ dmg tips? Anyone doing +7s or higher? Trash and boss dps rotations and cd rotations are welcome.

[wing5wong]

use it if u are capped

[Borawa]

use it if u are capped

So Xavius in darkheart thicket. I pop all my cds start stacking haste buff and everytime I cast starsurge just use solar and lunar empowerment since there is no point in saving them. Meh

[Deleted]

No matter what mastery you're at emp LS > unemp SW single target. You can save them for when multi targets are up or a trinket proc, but you never want to overcap. It is actually a bad idea to save them for WoE, since when you are using WoE you'll almost always want to cast SS the 2 GCDs prior to WoE.