[Balance] Legion Discussion

[huth]

I really liked Collapsing Stars. No idea why they didn't stick with it (I guess there's a reason). FoE is meh at best.

Honestly, at this point i'd prefer it it was more like Rampage and less like Breath of Sindragosa.

High initial cost(90-100 AP), fixed duration(i.e. like our DoTs, not like Starfall, so it would benefit from haste), no constant AP drain. Would still require some setup, but not our entire rotation revolving around it.
Alternately, have it still scale duration with AP, but like Fire Shock.

Keep the recast to change targets.

[Crujones]

As someone who has just played boomy to do dailies and if we needed a DPS I really enjoyed the old boomkin (cough starfall) but with this testing I really am not enjoying the ramp up time, not much mobility, and having to power up astral power to really do anything... Will artifact ability change this or do I just need to play a mage?

Also man have they taken away our utility, is there any reason to bring a boomy now besides innervate? Used to we had our aura and stampeding roar and some off healing from our talents... Thanks!

[Tyze]

As someone who has just played boomy to do dailies and if we needed a DPS I really enjoyed the old boomkin (cough starfall) but with this testing I really am not enjoying the ramp up time, not much mobility, and having to power up astral power to really do anything... Will artifact ability change this or do I just need to play a mage?

Also man have they taken away our utility, is there any reason to bring a boomy now besides innervate? Used to we had our aura and stampeding roar and some off healing from our talents... Thanks!

Boomkins have pros over Mages same as Mages has pros over Boomkins.
Mages are king over Mobility (especially Fire Mage) but I'm pretty sure that Boomkins are the second most mobile caster in Legion.

And yes Artifact does some significant changes to the Astral Power gain.

New Moon Generates 10 Astral Power
Half Moon Generates 20 Astral Power
Full Moon generates 40 Astral Power

We also have alot in the talents that increases our Astral Power gain.

I haven't played Beta, but I've watched alot of videos and listened to the feedback, and it does turn out to be very smooth in 110.

[Lucrece]

Fire mages eclipse moonkin in pretty much aoe and single target, not to mention they'll be more desirable in mythic+ dungeons since those precious 5 slots prioritize shaman/hunter/mage for heroism, and fire mage much like shaman has an aoe CC that's invaluable at higher mythic keystones where stopping mobs from trucking the tank with 3 affixes for a few seconds is what's going to set the tiers for classes besides burst aoe (which balance druids don't have outside every 1.3 minutes).

PvP it's no contest. Fire mages were already doing burst comparable to what moonkins were doing with OKF Full Moon, and it's balance druid damage that got nerfed while fire is untouched, and happens to be the strongest caster spec in pvp because much of its strong damage can be triggered by instant casts (so they don't rely on hardcasting much to do damage), they have Drake's Breath, Prismatic Cloak (with shimmer it's 1.5 sec spell/cc immunity for every blink they can do midcast), and Kleptomania talent even while nerfed pretty much destroys resto druid comps.

That's not even covering defensives.

[Tyze]

Fire mages eclipse moonkin in pretty much aoe and single target, not to mention they'll be more desirable in mythic+ dungeons since those precious 5 slots prioritize shaman/hunter/mage for heroism, and fire mage much like shaman has an aoe CC that's invaluable at higher mythic keystones where stopping mobs from trucking the tank with 3 affixes for a few seconds is what's going to set the tiers for classes besides burst aoe (which balance druids don't have outside every 1.3 minutes).

There will be scenarios where a Balance will do better than a Fire Mage in raids. Spread out mobs for example.
I'm not saying Balance is the best caster, or better than a Mage. But everything isn't black and white.

[Lucrece]

Yeah, and in that scenario of spread mobs you'll be getting beat by shadow priests instead. Moonkin beats mage on spread cleave, but loses to shadow priest on that; boomkin beats shadowpriest on clustered aoe, but gets beat by fire mage in that. Boomkin loses to both shadow priest and fire mage in single target by a mile. If we're talking 2-3 target fights, destruction warlocks will rule those as well. Guess the upside of moonkin is you're decent at everything but burst aoe.

[Staalsy]

FoE is clunky but still easier to use than Treants tbh. Throwing down treants just feels so slow.

[huth]

Throwing down treants is easy. Just somewhere in the general vincinity of the target is sufficient. FoE you actually have to aim.

You also need to retarget it every time the pack is moved. Treants just follow on their own.


Besides, that's not what makes it clunky to use, just annoying. All the extra work you have to do to actually make it worthwhile is what's making it clunky. You have to center your entire playstyle around the spell.

[Deleted]

Throwing down treants is easy. Just somewhere in the general vincinity of the target is sufficient. FoE you actually have to aim.

You also need to retarget it every time the pack is moved. Treants just follow on their own.


Besides, that's not what makes it clunky to use, just annoying. All the extra work you have to do to actually make it worthwhile is what's making it clunky. You have to center your entire playstyle around the spell.

Fucking shit... talents matter? sounds pretty clunky to me! although nobody actually knows what that stupid word means... its like "literally".

[Lucrece]

Fucking shit... talents matter? sounds pretty clunky to me! although nobody actually knows what that stupid word means... its like "literally".

Real experience in gameplay also matters. Which is why its incredibly short radius is called "clunky", because mob hit boxes vary wildly and you can't really control tank movement yourself so a tank can screw over your performance even with retargeting as you lose some ticks retargeting.

[PeopleReady]

How do you balance druid? At 705 ilvl (invasion plus some drops) I'm getting ~12k-17k in mythic dungeons, which cannot be right. My rotation and setup is based 100% on the WoWhead guide which I simply followed to a tee. For ST, I DoT, solar wrath until starsurge, then solar and lunar, and repeat while keeping DoTs up. For two targets, I do essentially the same but keep DoTs on both. For larger packs, I swap Starfall in as spender rather than Starsurge and keep DoTs on everything I can while spamming solar wrath. This was keeping me below 20k DPS on both single and multi target.

Halp?

[huth]

No idea. We'd need some logs or something to tell you more.

One immediate mistake is spamming SW on large packs, though. Use Lunar Strike against groups for what should be obvious reasons.

[Lucrece]

How do you balance druid? At 705 ilvl (invasion plus some drops) I'm getting ~12k-17k in mythic dungeons, which cannot be right. My rotation and setup is based 100% on the WoWhead guide which I simply followed to a tee. For ST, I DoT, solar wrath until starsurge, then solar and lunar, and repeat while keeping DoTs up. For two targets, I do essentially the same but keep DoTs on both. For larger packs, I swap Starfall in as spender rather than Starsurge and keep DoTs on everything I can while spamming solar wrath. This was keeping me below 20k DPS on both single and multi target.

Halp?

Several things:

1- If you are 705, you likely do not have a legendary ring. Most people do by now.

2- You have no class tier sets. Most people have class tier sets.

3- You likely have no class trinkets. Most people have those, too.

4- Balance druid was revamped with the artifact ability in mind. Astral power generation is currently gimped without it.

----


So with all those disadvantages in mind, people were usually expecting you in full 630 heroic gear to do around 18-20k DPS.

Why is that not happening as high as ilv 705? Fight length.

Your group mates are screwing you. When you have a guy in HFC gear joining your mythic group, he's cutting trash packs and bosses short by a lot, which means he takes up the vast majority of damage contribution, sinking yours in the process as by the time you ramp up your damage, those hunters/mages/warriors/rogues bursted the living shit out of the boss.

The way you play has to take into account fight length. You only use dots when you know mobs will live for a certain amount of time, so in trash packs you see trash dying quickly, you obviously will only bother with Sunfire as moonfire on each add that dies in a few seconds is a waste of time.

Take astral communion for bosses, don't use FoE in prepatch.

Pre-patch wrecked most classes that are not suited up in HFC gear and class trinkets. Enhancement shaman went down, for example, because a key source of their maelstrom generation and spec power, is tied to two artifact traits, doom wolves and their active ability doom winds. The same goes for warlocks, where their shard generation, at least for destruction, is heavily tied to artifact traits that up the crit rate on immolate.

[PeopleReady]

Several things:

1- If you are 705, you likely do not have a legendary ring. Most people do by now.

2- You have no class tier sets. Most people have class tier sets.

3- You likely have no class trinkets. Most people have those, too.

4- Balance druid was revamped with the artifact ability in mind. Astral power generation is currently gimped without it.

----


So with all those disadvantages in mind, people were usually expecting you in full 630 heroic gear to do around 18-20k DPS.

Why is that not happening as high as ilv 705? Fight length.

Your group mates are screwing you. When you have a guy in HFC gear joining your mythic group, he's cutting trash packs and bosses short by a lot, which means he takes up the vast majority of damage contribution, sinking yours in the process as by the time you ramp up your damage, those hunters/mages/warriors/rogues bursted the living shit out of the boss.

The way you play has to take into account fight length. You only use dots when you know mobs will live for a certain amount of time, so in trash packs you see trash dying quickly, you obviously will only bother with Sunfire as moonfire on each add that dies in a few seconds is a waste of time.

Take astral communion for bosses, don't use FoE in prepatch.

Pre-patch wrecked most classes that are not suited up in HFC gear and class trinkets. Enhancement shaman went down, for example, because a key source of their maelstrom generation and spec power, is tied to two artifact traits, doom wolves and their active ability doom winds. The same goes for warlocks, where their shard generation, at least for destruction, is heavily tied to artifact traits that up the crit rate on immolate.

Thank you VERY much. I really appreciate the detailed response.

[Lilija]

Fucking shit... talents matter? sounds pretty clunky to me! although nobody actually knows what that stupid word means... its like "literally".

It means it's annoying to use and generally meh.

I don't like FoE either. Too much depends on your tanks not being tards. The ability to move it seems nice in theory but in practice it means you will lose a lot of uptime since the AP drain is extremely rapid, so you might as well not bother. FoE looks very situational and has very high failure cost over which you don't even have full control in group setting. The only situation it seemed really good for was boss killing while questing as long as I could tank the mob.

[Kharahh]

Cyous, I have been looking at artifact traits and was wondering what is the thinking behind spending points in buffing DoTs -> Moon and Stars over quick access to Moon and Stars and instead spending the points to the Scythe of Stars -> Sunblind.

This has stemmed from comparing your bnet guide to the wowhead one for second lot of traits going Dark Side of the Moon -> Empowerments > Moon and Stars.

[huth]

It means it's annoying to use and generally meh.

Not very smooth. Like a machine that goes clunk, clunk, clunk.

[Deleted]

Don't mean to be rude here guys. Yet what you describe is totally subjective. I for example think that FoE is one of the best spells they have ever designed. It just feels extremely rewarding if you can pull it of. Yes, there is an "if" maybe even a big one... but isn't that the way a game should be? Like a little uncertainty? I THINK yes. I say think knowing that some may have different opinions so this (my) opinion is not the actual factual truth but just another opinion.

[Lilija]

I haven't done much dungeons on beta. I have the general idea of a questing build cause that I have practiced that a lot. But I haven't worked out anything decent for 5mans. Any tips?

[Teph]

It means it's annoying to use and generally meh.

I don't like FoE either. Too much depends on your tanks not being tards. The ability to move it seems nice in theory but in practice it means you will lose a lot of uptime since the AP drain is extremely rapid, so you might as well not bother. FoE looks very situational and has very high failure cost over which you don't even have full control in group setting. The only situation it seemed really good for was boss killing while questing as long as I could tank the mob.

Exactly. Most tanks move all the time with adds. And they don't bother to position all the mobs on top of each other. FoE and LS cleave is an aoe. Their area has to be doubled or even tripled to make them feel like an aoe and not a pin.

Guess for now i will scream at my tank every time when i am about to use FoE or he starts moving while there is the big glowing beam active. He's gonna love it .