[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Lucrece]

I don't dislike FoE. If anything spells like those should be baseline and we should have more talents like it.

Balance druids need more active spells and defensive cd's/utility, not less.

[Borawa]

Is owlkin frenzy bugged? I can instant triple moon as moon spells do not take up the spell where wrath and lunar strike do.

[Frostyfire14]

Is owlkin frenzy bugged? I can instant triple moon as moon spells do not take up the spell where wrath and lunar strike do.

This sounds profoundly like a bug.

[wing5wong]

Is owlkin frenzy bugged? I can instant triple moon as moon spells do not take up the spell where wrath and lunar strike do.

Yup. Bugged since alpha

[Deleted]

I love FoE and the current standing of the Balance Druid. 7.0 Pre-Legion gameplay will be shit, though

[Cyous]

@Cyous What are you doing with guardian affinity. I kept trying it in a DHT +6 and it felt super underwhelming. Is stellar flare mandatory with the guardian affinity talent for dungeons? They told me to stop gong bear form and fucking kill the adds and i ended up doing more dps starfalling and lunar striking adds.

Tanking.

/10char

[dreamdaddy]

Tanking.

/10char

Are you able to tank Heroics/Mythic dungeons well with just the Guardian Affinity?

[Cyous]

Are you able to tank Heroics/Mythic dungeons well with just the Guardian Affinity?

Between FON, Renewal, and a real healer, yes.

It's like bring 4 DPS too.

[huth]

That's going to go nicely with my bear offspec. I wonder if Balance Affinity is worthwhile... +5y range doesn't sound to bad for a melee.

[Lucrece]

Balance affinity is what most likely feral/bear druids will use. You could make an argument for feral affinity's movement speed as a tank, though. Feral has historically struggled with the placement of its hitbox as well, so a 5 yard increase mitigates a lot of miscalculations as to where your hitbox sits.

Balance affinity also gives you moonkin form that hits decently hard on a cooldown for those phases where a mechanic forces you off melee.

I mean, the other option is resto affinity, which is trash with the current laughable state of our heals, or feral affinity which has a decent movement bonus but whose form unlike guardian or balance affinity is utterly useless.

Of all the affinity forms, feral is the most gimped as you're missing out on crucial feral spec features that make cats work. Feral druids require more talent and mastery support to perform completely than balance druids.

[Keiyra]

Between FON, Renewal, and a real healer, yes.

It's like bring 4 DPS too.

And because its likes bringing 4 dps to a 5 man, is likely the reason it'll get nerfed at some point in the future (we aren't allowed to have fun with our abilities like that)

[Tokota]

As many of you I, too, am not happy about the current moonkin design, and even though I'm not sure whether any of the Devs would take into account what is being posted here, I'd like your feedback on some of my thoughts on the following issues:
- synergies of talents
- actually having meaningful choices (as opposed to obligatory or contradictory talents)
- scaling of haste and mastery

My basic idea is about creating talent synergies to embrace the three most basic encounter scenarios: a) Multi Dot, b) Burst DPS, c) Sustained Single Target DPS. In order to make this work, two talents would have to be swapped:
Fury of Elune --> Level 75 Talent
Soul of the Forest --> Level 100 Talent + cost reduction for Starfall should be included in Stellar Drift rather than in SotF

Here's my reasoning: By putting Stellar Flare, Fury of Elune and Incarnation into the same tier, we would have those options about DPS as mentioned above. In addition, our artifact dragon that currently only enhances Incarnation (which makes it hard to believe that this is actually a choice and not an obligation unless you want to waste an artifact dragon), could enhance those three talents in a way that you would gain haste as long as those talents are up. Of course, the percentage would have to be different on each as their durations / uptimes vary.

Now, we would be left with the following talent synergies:
a) Multi Dot: Stellar Flare (100), Shooting Stars (90), Stellar Drift (75), Force of Nature (15)
Advantages:
- an additional DoT
- additional Dmg and energy gain through DoTs
- buffed DoTs while targets are within starfall range
- maybe some extra dots through the treants (?) - could be reworked

b) Burst DPS: Fury of Elune (100), Astral Communion (90), Nature's Balance (75), Warrior of Elune (15)
Advantages:
- Heavy (but short) Single Target and Multi Target burst on a small area
- Two talents for instant generation of Astral Power while the Beam is up
- enhance DoTs while Beam is running because they tend to fall off while we're trying to prolong the duration of Fury of Elune

c) Single Target DPS: Incarnation (100), Blessing of the Ancients (90), Soul of the Forest (75), Starlord (15)
Advantages:
- 30 sec heavy burst and faster Astral Power generation
- higher Power generation through single target spells
- higher Dmg and shorter cast time for single target spells that are buffed by Star Surge


Two more topics have been addressed in this thread recently: the scaling of mastery and haste with our talents.
Taking everything into account what people have stated before, with the above changes our mastery, too, would have to work differently.
This could easily be done by our mastery strengthening Stellar Flare, Fure of Elune and our casts during Incarnation, as these would turn out to be the main spells for the above scenarios.
Haste, on the other hand, should in fact influence the rate Fury of Elune deals damage but not the amount of energy it consumes per second. Rather the damage would have to be balanced as with haste buffs and bloodlust the beam will be down quicker than one can use even those instant power generators mentioned above.
This way, haste could equally buff the damage of Fury (Ticks), Stellar Flare (Ticks) and Incarnation by being able to cast more single target spells, thus generating more Astral Power and consequently being able to use more Starsurges and again enhance the next single target spells.


All that being said, I do understand that each class should - according to Blizzard - have its niche; but we should keep in mind that Balanace Druids do not have the same options like (pure damage) classes that can work on different speccs and fulfill a number of niches. If bosses require different playstyles and not just one of the scenarios mentioned above, we would still need to make meaningful choices. Aditionally, we would finally be required to change our talents according to each boss - something we have not been required to do for more than a year now.

I appreciate your thoughts and comments on my ideas.

[Cyous]

Don't overestimate Incarnation, good for burns, but SOTF is honestly fantastic. Stellar Flare looks decent on 2-target. Especially strong for sustained Council.

[AngelovV]

Don't overestimate Incarnation, good for burns, but SOTF is honestly fantastic. Stellar Flare looks decent on 2-target. Especially strong for sustained Council.

With what ilvl did you test this? Wouldn't Sotf devaluate itslef with higher ilvl and on the other hand Incarnation become stronger.

[Frostyfire14]

With what ilvl did you test this? Wouldn't Sotf devaluate itslef with higher ilvl and on the other hand Incarnation become stronger.

Take in to some consideration that with higher item levels, Sotf doesn't become any less weaker either. Sure Incarnation might be the go to talent end game, but like previously mentioned, I wouldn't over value it either until proven otherwise via logs.

[Deleted]

@Cyous please, I'm wondering. I like SotF too - but! When I got my Moon and Stars trait - does it make INC much stronger because of that doubled uptime ?

[Adramelch]

@Cyous please, I'm wondering. I like SotF too - but! When I got my Moon and Stars trait - does it make INC much stronger because of that doubled uptime ?

The thing is that Moon and Stars grants you 3% haste per cast in CA, but only 1% in Incarnation (to balance the doubled uptime).

[Frankzor]

Was trying to join multiple mythic groups on beta this morning got the reply; "Sorry balance driud useless"
like what?

[huth]

With what ilvl did you test this? Wouldn't Sotf devaluate itslef with higher ilvl and on the other hand Incarnation become stronger.

The single target portion loses value with increasing Mastery, but the multi target portion is constant. Also keep in mind that secondaries will increase far slower in Legion than they do now, and Mastery isn't as good.

[Genju]

Between FON, Renewal, and a real healer, yes.

It's like bring 4 DPS too.

What does the rotation look like? Do you shift between Bear and Moonkin?