[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Deleted]

what is warcraft logs sorry?

I can't post any links yet, but you can just go to warcraftlogs website , then you can choose any raid/boss on the upper left corner

[huth]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/

[Deleted]

I can't post any links yet, but you can just go to warcraftlogs website , then you can choose any raid/boss on the upper left corner

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/

great thanks

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I can't post any links yet, but you can just go to warcraftlogs website , then you can choose any raid/boss on the upper left corner

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/

every log is set to private :S

[Lucrece]

Most beta testing is from mythic guild raiders testing, who are often told by their guild to place their logs under embargo so as not to give away any possible strategies/information to the competition.

Welcome to the product of world races.

[Deleted]

My logs are public, but they are pretty useless when it comes to numbers because of old set bonuses/trinkets/sockets cheese, and different number of artifact traits.

[Tyze]

Do you really need to dot everything up on aoe?
I know if they live longer than 4 seconds or something its good to dot them up.

Spam dots to make starfall useful, ehm not sure..

[Lucrece]

Do you really need to dot everything up on aoe?
I know if they live longer than 4 seconds or something its good to dot them up.

Spam dots to make starfall useful, ehm not sure..

Usually you'll just bother with sunfire spread and proceed to starfall if adds are dying quickly enough.

[Deleted]

with accurate logs hard to come by can anyone shed some light on rough placements on charts against other ranged dps?

Balance changes in Legion look pretty fun and it looks like there is actually a nice skill cap with using new moon/potentially FoE/ stacking starfalls.

More than most other classes IMO. But...it is not very satisfying or rewarding to put in this work and play perfectly after learning the best way to play on that boss and still only end up mid table on charts.

[Lucrece]

Balance druid is about the same standing as ele shaman; that is, rather middle of the pack.

[Marc2001]

I was going to main boomy again but i feel more and more that my Fire Mage might be more the way to go. Was just curious if people feel we might improve?

[Tyze]

Usually you'll just bother with sunfire spread and proceed to starfall if adds are dying quickly enough.

I just feel that the Boomkins aoe is too slow, you need things dotted for the buff Starfall gives you and you need 60 astral power that can take some time to build up.
Bear in mind that I havent played Beta and I guess artifact will help.

But in mythic + dungeons? Or when aoe dies fairly quick.
Right now on live its boring to use sunfire on stacked mobs and spam Lunarstrike hopeing it will cleave enough.

[Lucrece]

I just feel that the Boomkins aoe is too slow, you need things dotted for the buff Starfall gives you and you need 60 astral power that can take some time to build up.
Bear in mind that I havent played Beta and I guess artifact will help.

But in mythic + dungeons? Or when aoe dies fairly quick.
Right now on live its boring to use sunfire on stacked mobs and spam Lunarstrike hopeing it will cleave enough.

Higher mythics stuff doesn't die too quick, but the problem is that there simply isn't any payoff to the ramp up.

Starfall with full dots on mobs isn't touching an unholy DK spamming epidemic or scourge strikes on death and decay, or a destro warlock popping out cataclysm with havocs and fire and brimstone, or a demonhunter popping eye beam+blade dance or a windwalker monk using any of his skills for that matter, let alone a fire mage farting metric tons of aoe, and outlaw rogue also doing the same.

Even with fury of elune in most mythic runs the best you see some balance druids reach is a short lived 900k burst every 1.3 minutes. For reference, I'm seeing unholy DK's and enhancement shamans with alpha wolves break past 1.2 mil DPS burst in mythic +10's.

AoE as a moonkin is still undertuned for the ramp up it takes, and they kept nerfing the one thing moonkins excelled at, priority add damage. So now you're just a spec you bring just like ele shaman, because you want to play it and your guild doesn't care to stack mages/hunters/warlocks for ranged DPS (because it simply isn't necessary for most guilds).

We're 13 days away from release, don't expect any drastic changes to balance class DPS for months, so learn to love the class as it is right now or consider keeping it an alt instead.

[elcapone]

Higher mythics stuff doesn't die too quick, but the problem is that there simply isn't any payoff to the ramp up.

Starfall with full dots on mobs isn't touching an unholy DK spamming epidemic or scourge strikes on death and decay, or a destro warlock popping out cataclysm with havocs and fire and brimstone, or a demonhunter popping eye beam+blade dance or a windwalker monk using any of his skills for that matter, let alone a fire mage farting metric tons of aoe, and outlaw rogue also doing the same.

Even with fury of elune in most mythic runs the best you see some balance druids reach is a short lived 900k burst every 1.3 minutes. For reference, I'm seeing unholy DK's and enhancement shamans with alpha wolves break past 1.2 mil DPS burst in mythic +10's.

AoE as a moonkin is still undertuned for the ramp up it takes, and they kept nerfing the one thing moonkins excelled at, priority add damage. So now you're just a spec you bring just like ele shaman, because you want to play it and your guild doesn't care to stack mages/hunters/warlocks for ranged DPS (because it simply isn't necessary for most guilds).

We're 13 days away from release, don't expect any drastic changes to balance class DPS for months, so learn to love the class as it is right now or consider keeping it an alt instead.

I just hopped on my druid to see how balance is doing. It didnt take long to realize the ramp up time for aoe especially starfall. in bgs if i have 4 targets + I can keeep up starfall up but that is sustain aoe. I can see problems in mythic+. locks are pretty bad atm tho. mm is fukn strong especially burst aoe along with bm. wish they improved stellar flare cast time plus ap is rough. If they improved the synergy of stellar flare with starfall to make it more burst potential something you cast for starfall, would enjoy it more. Balance has a fun playstyle, enjoying it a lot. My main is an ele shamn, I still think balance is better due to the talent tree.

[Lucrece]

I just hopped on my druid to see how balance is doing. It didnt take long to realize the ramp up time for aoe especially starfall. in bgs if i have 4 targets + I can keeep up starfall up but that is sustain aoe. I can see problems in mythic+. locks are pretty bad atm tho. mm is fukn strong especially burst aoe along with bm. wish they improved stellar flare cast time plus ap is rough. Balance has a fun playstyle, enjoying it a lot. My main is an ele shamn, I still think balance is better due to the talent tree.

Destro warlock is currently one of the stronger mythic+ classes with wreak havoc, cataclysm, and fire and brimstone. They put out massive aoe and 2 target cleave damage.

Demo and affliction are garbage, though.

[elcapone]

Destro warlock is currently one of the stronger mythic+ classes with wreak havoc, cataclysm, and fire and brimstone. They put out massive aoe and 2 target cleave damage.

Demo and affliction are garbage, though.

ahh I see didn't know about destro aoe potential, only knew their 2 target cleave was good.

[Nythiz]

Higher mythics stuff doesn't die too quick, but the problem is that there simply isn't any payoff to the ramp up.

This is probably what irks me the most. It takes quite a while to build up AsP to get your starfall going, plus having to spread some DoT. And when you finally get it all going... it's nothing special.

Full moon might make it a bit easier, but you still need at least ( 5 / 1+haste%) seconds of hardcasting to get off 1 starfall (Full moon + Half Moon), by which time whatever needed to be AoE'ed probably already died.

But the whole AsP tuning feels off in general.
I also have an elemental shaman and not only do you generate Maelstrom WAY faster (which gives quite a good feel to the rotation in general); it also decays MUCH slower. I really get a bit pissy when I kill a group of mobs as Moonkin and lost like 50 AsP before the next pull.
The saving grace at the moment (in my eyes) for Astral Power is that Starsurge feels quite decent and with 40 AsP cost it's also a lot more flexible as you can bank 2 of them should you need to.

[Lucrece]

We've been complaining about the outrageous AsP decay rate out of combat compared to other specs since the early alpha. They simply do not give a shit.

Demonhunters are an obvious case of easy and overtuned aoe/burst, but I recently took out hunter for a spin and their damage is so outrageously high for how easy it is to dish out. MM hunter cleaves on so much of its crap.

I still don't understand why a completely mobile ranged spec is doing the DPS it's currently doing and why it can both frontload and sustain damage so well without drawbacks. Even something as OP as fire mages requires more thought and setup.

I just have to believe they haven't bothered doing an AoE balance pass, and I hope they will at some point because with the fight designs and content they're putting out not having classes balanced in AoE toolkit is folly.

[huth]

I also have an elemental shaman and not only do you generate Maelstrom WAY faster (which gives quite a good feel to the rotation in general); it also decays MUCH slower. I really get a bit pissy when I kill a group of mobs as Moonkin and lost like 50 AsP before the next pull.

That's not quite true. It decays slower, yes, but it also decays immediately upon dropping combat. Balance doesn't start losing AP until quite some time later.

Overall, it doesn't actually decay significantly faster.

[Tankor]

That's not quite true. It decays slower, yes, but it also decays immediately upon dropping combat. Balance doesn't start losing AP until quite some time later.

Overall, it doesn't actually decay significantly faster.

On my druid it took 42-44 seconds from dropping out of combat with 100 ASP to having 0 ASP.
On my shaman it took about 1 min 38 sec from dropping out of combat with 100 Maelstrom to having 0.

I'd say that it decays significantly faster..

ASP decay is better in that it takes a long ass time (17-20 seconds) from dropping out of combat until it starts to decay while as you said Maelstrom starts to decay instantly so Balance druids doesn't really lose ASP in between trash packs in dungeons for example when going at a steady pace. We can also bearshift to stop the decay currently, while I don't think shaman can do the same (don't really play it at all so might have some way to do it that I don't know about).

[Nythiz]

That's not quite true. It decays slower, yes, but it also decays immediately upon dropping combat. Balance doesn't start losing AP until quite some time later.

Overall, it doesn't actually decay significantly faster.

True, but the decay differences are huge. I timed them, here are the results:

Maelstrom decays immediately after combat at a rate of 1 maelstrom per second (1m 40s total for all my maelstrom to disappear)

Astral power starts it decay 20 seconds after combat ends, at a rate of 4 Astral Power per second.
I timed it to take 45 seconds total for all AsP to dissipate starting 20 seconds after combat ended.

Nice graph:
http://imgur.com/MiWLRBX


So if you're chain pulling, then yes. Balance druids benefit from having a delay on their resource decay. But if the time inbetween combat is long enough, you lose the edge fast.
How fast?

Well, algebra time:

Mealstrom dacay = Astal Power decay

100 - x = 100 - 4(x-20)
100 - x = 100 - 4x + 80
100 - x = 180 - 4x
3x = 80
x = 26.667 seconds

So 26.667 seconds after combat ended is where balance loses it's edge.
Which has the advantage here? Depends entirely on the situation.

My experience is though that the immediate decay on elemental doesn't feel as harsh. Whether I engage 5 or 20 seconds after i left combat doesn't really hurt me much either way, the difference is minor.
For balance you feel somewhat rushed; you're generally OK for a while. But if there is any kind of delay your resources feels like it deflate faster than a slashed tire.