[Balance] Legion Discussion

[huth]

I believe the post was made just to help people be aware that it is no longer bugged, which has been the case from alpha until recently

Check the post two above yours.

so in terms of dps moonkins are bottom tier from what I keep reading is this true?

If you go by forums, every spec is at the bottom. We should be fine, and not being at the top generally means you don't get nerfed much, either.

[Cyous]

Not to be an ass here but who actually gives a shit? You make a lot of good points but this is a bad one. Historically games that are balanced properly are done around the highest levels. Balancing around casuals literally kills games. Our utility is fine in an organized setting, as it should be. Losing roar sucks and doesn't make much sense to me, but don't act like it wasn't compensated.

Losing Vigil hurts more, but to be honest the spell was boring and filled this weird niche that didn't really need filing of random free healing. It is not a good burst heal like VE because the numbers are low to balance the 30 second duration, and the ability does no real healing unless you pop it with cooldowns so its not as if there is any flexibility to it either.

Yes, it's fine at the super high-end. Our Battle Res is hardly meaningful, you only need 1 in a group, 2 to be safe. Innervate saves mana, not lives. And what else do we bring? Guardian Affinity? Our defensives suck shit, so we can't exact soak most raid damage.

Also, I didn't speak anything to the "balance for casuals" note. I'm saying Innervate is mediocre at best.

[Kilma]

Innervate is really good for mythic raiding, but is probably mediocre in everything else. I have a decent priest and resto druid that can make huge use out of innervate 20% haste buff so I'm not worried about that.

If bear form counts as a defensive (50% stam buff) and we can still cast moonfires it might not be all that bad.

Our AoE ramp up seems to be shit because they took away CA applying both dots. So if Incarn/CA went back to applying both DoTs especially when paired with Impeccable Fel Essence (Incarn reduced by 1 sec for every 8 astral power spent) then our issue with ramp up will be mitigated.

Although being balanced around legendaries kinda blows

[Tyze]

Is there a reason to cast Lunar Strike to get AP? Isn't Wrath spam the "best" way?

[huth]

Is there a reason to cast Lunar Strike to get AP? Isn't Wrath spam the "best" way?

In single target, yes. Cleave, not so much.

[Ilnezhara]

So my guild is absolutely requiring me to play a Moonkin in the upcoming expansion and I have to admit I'm a little worried. As a career Moonkin, I've never heard so much negativity going into an expansion. It's starting to sound like "once we're in raids we're fine, but good luck getting there".

I planned on doing most of my gearing in the first couple days of Mythics because I have the week off but I'm very concerned that I will feel like a second class citizen that people will only take to Mythic + if I beg loudly enough for gear. Is this the case? Is there really no conceivable way that we'll find enough groups to grind to get us to top tier gear?

[thedeisel]

If bear form counts as a defensive (50% stam buff) and we can still cast moonfires it might not be all that bad.

yeah, Bear Form (55% stam buff) + Barkskin on its own is pretty strong effective health.

With only Bearform you're at 155% effective health compared to normal HP, assuming you didn't have any % HP modifiers on you. Alternatively, being in bear form is like having a 35.5% DR up.

With only Barkskin, you're at 125% effective health (or, obviously, a 20% DR).
With both Barkskin and Bear Form you're at 193.75% effective health or, equivalently, a 48.4% DR.

That's not a bad DR on a 1min CD, even if as mentioned above, it comes with a very high opportunity cost of basically not being able to do anything plus losing the damage buffs on your dots from Moonkin Form.

If you layer Guardian Affinity DR on top of that, you get:
Barkskin only = 138.9% effective health / 28% DR on a 1min CD
Bearform only = 172% effective health / 42% DR on demand
Bearform + Barkskin = 215% effective health / 53.5% DR on a 1min CD

In addition to Guardian Affinity buying you a bit extra DR, you also get Frenzied Regen which heals back 50% of the damage you took in the last 5 seconds over three seconds. You get the 10 rage you need to activate it just by shifting into Bear Form. Using FR, though, has an even higher opportunity cost as it requires to you stay in Bear Form for the duration of the short hot to keep healing you. I haven't tested yet whether the damage taken that goes into the calculation requires you to be in bear form taking the damage yet. Would love to know if anyone has tested that.

So, overall, our straight DR is not bad for surviving big hits in a raid situation. It comes at a very high opportunity cost of being locked out of your character. Moreover, it isn't nearly as good as the immunity kinds of survivability that's relevant to soaking mechanics. We can, however, help healers out by healing back a lot of damage. Albeit at further very high opportunity cost.

Swiftmend also seems to be pretty solid self healing. It seems to me to be not too far off of what we get from Renewal, but it is on a 30 sec timer instead of 2min. That's not bad. The cost again, though, is high since you have to drop form to get the heal from Swiftmend. I don't think it's even worth thinking about the other heals we get from Resto Affinity as they're more or less worthless.

[wing5wong]

Swiftmend also seems to be pretty solid self healing. It seems to me to be not too far off of what we get from Renewal, but it is on a 30 sec timer instead of 2min. That's not bad. The cost again, though, is high since you have to drop form to get the heal from Swiftmend. I don't think it's even worth thinking about the other heals we get from Resto Affinity as they're more or less worthless.

I think swiftmend is the only useful part of resto affinity.
At least the spell that feels most significant and worht picking up resto for. That with renewal is a lifesaver in pvp. will be a tough choice i think

[theburned]

So, overall, our straight DR is not bad for surviving big hits in a raid situation. It comes at a very high opportunity cost of being locked out of your character. Moreover, it isn't nearly as good as the immunity kinds of survivability that's relevant to soaking mechanics. We can, however, help healers out by healing back a lot of damage. Albeit at further very high opportunity cost.

Damage taken does not require bear form.

Overall its a good option to have and perhaps even more important in mythic+ due to a lot of the mechanics are one shots, helping out the healers in a raiding situation tends to have a lot less value, in mythic+ though it can easily save both your and someone else's life.

[Ribeyez]

Wowhead patch notes starting to come out. Looks like we got some buffs boys!

[Zhere]

I am very happy to see some buffs, it does however not adress our issues in mythic+. Our ramp up is just so long. I wish blizzard would specifically aim for Balance and Feral to be viable in myhtic+ as we have been told for the 2 last expansions to go resto if we want to mythic+. If NewMoon does 50% more damage, does this affect the damage of the other MoonMoons? It used to be doubled damage and cast time between each rank, and also AP generated, did entire MoonMoon get a 50% buff?

Edit: I scrolled further down. It's now 450/900/1800 spellpower, up from 300/600/1200.

In general I am very happy about getting buffed. I am pretty sure this will make us perform fine in raids. The only real issue I see is being weak in mythic+ now. Hopefully blizzard will realize this during the expansion.

[theburned]

so 10%(+++ with relics) buff to dots, and 50% buff to MoonMoon spells, aswell as a 150% buff to starlord.

[Borawa]

Well Starlord can just be renamed to euphoria now. Dope as fuck. All our moon spells do 50% more damage.

[vorchun]

Wowhead patch notes starting to come out. Looks like we got some buffs boys!

Now, with buffs to Sunfire Burns and Twilight Glow I wonder whether most popular way of unlocking traits will change. Now it completely ignores those two traits when going to Moon and Stars.

[Alame]

The fact of the matter is balance has issues.

Some of us believe they are mechanical issues.
Some of us believe they are tuning issues.
Some of us believe they are conceptual issues.
Some of us believe they are perceptual issues.
Some of us believe they are combinations of the above.

The discontent does not come from the problems - every class has problems - the discontent comes from the utter stonewall Balance as a community faces from Blizzard. We provide pages and pages of discussion and feedback, and nothing gets changed. Build after build goes by with no changes despite general community consensus on several key issues - some of which still exist today. When the changes do show up they fly completely in the face of the presented feedback and make no sense in the context of the state of the game. All of this occurs with complete silence on the part of Blizzard, no communication about their design direction, no communication about why they felt nerfs or changes were necessary, just total silence.

It is impossible for us as a community to provide feedback and help Blizzard design a cohesive, fun, and appropriate Balance Druid when they flatly refuse to talk to us. It's especially insulting when each and every blue tracker wrap-up includes hosts of communication for mages, shamans, warlocks, death knights, and virtually every other class (christ, even the communication with the Feral community has been significantly better) and we're left to throw darts at a board we think exists, but have no idea where it is.

Whoever is responsible for Balance in this beta cycle has utterly failed their responsibilities. Regardless of what state you believe Balance to currently be in, the lack of transparency and communication has made the alpha & beta feedback process a complete and utter waste of time for nearly everyone involved.

I'm voting with my wallet. I chose the transparency & availability shown by Kaplan & team 4 over the haughtiness shown to me by team 2. I could understand if there was a need for a class designer responsible for Balance - but having just hired Hamlet & the only advertised opening being for a Senior Encounter designer, I have to assume this is not the case.

[Ilnezhara]

So more buffs that will be reverted and we're still gonna never get to do mythics!!! Fun!! I too look forward to missing out on half the content.

[Deleted]

So more buffs that will be reverted and we're still gonna never get to do mythics!!! Fun!! I too look forward to missing out on half the content.

That's some next level salt lol.

[vorchun]

Also what's with the Cat form being Feral spell? I hope that just some datamining issues or non-ferals get some different cat form.

[Kilma]

Also what's with the Cat form being Feral spell? I hope that just some datamining issues or non-ferals get some different cat form.

Find out when beta comes up. I have a feeling it's really nothing.

[masterhorus8]

Find out when beta comes up. I have a feeling it's really nothing.

I'm 99% certain that the change means nothing, otherwise we wouldn't be able to use displacer beast.