[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Slippykins]

The main problem really is Starsurge's impotence.

Our aoe is fine. It's fine for raids and it's fine for dungeons. It's even strong in some cases.
Our single target (obviously) is abysmal.

A deep root of our current problem is that whether we cleave or single target is a such a strongly exclusive choice. Because our dots are so weak and because our unempowered nukes are so weak, our cleave is atrocious. If we had strong dots, we could focus into a priority target while getting respectable cleave. If we had strong nukes we could Starfall cleave and still put meaningful damage into a priority target. We have neither. As a result, we're left with a very strong exclusive choice to make. Either we do basically the same damage to all targets or we do all of our damage to one target. Worse, if we choose the latter, our damage doesn't increase all that much relative to the former. If we have to make such a stark choice, we need much bigger payoff on the single target end.

If starsurge + empowered nukes brought us to the kind of level of single target performance that starfall brings our AoE performance we'd even be fine. We'd have to make a choice, either Single target or Cleave/AoE, but making the right choice would have a relevant payoff. The problem is starsurge + empowered nukes is no where near what other classes bring to the table for single target. So, even if you make the right decision to single target instead of starsurge, you get very little payoff in terms of doing competitive single target damage.

Starsurge needs a big buff. It's already bad enough that it's not very bursty because the full damage is locked behind two more hard casts to use the empowerments. Even with our 4pc in Nighthold it's just all laughably weak. When you layer on top of that how much more demanding Nighthold is on ranged in terms of mechanics, you get the recipe for the exceptional weakness moonkin is showing currently. Bottom of the barrel spec on Anomaly, Trilliax, Botanist, and Krosus (that's bottom of the barrel for 4 out of the 6 bosses for which there's something resembling a reasonable sample size; and really who cares about skorp. i just single target tunnel the boss anyway to make the miserable fight end more quickly.).

Yeah I agree. I was saying to a few guildies that the main issue with Boomkins now (and ranged DPS to an extent) is the high opportunity cost of cleave. This is the main drawback of our cleave build: when going full cleave talents, our ST DPS suffers greatly, and so we experience a large ST opportunity cost. Many melee currently do not face this problem, as their cleave damage is either passive or switching to a more cleave-oriented build does not impact their ST DPS much.

In light of this shortfall, I think some of our cleave power needs to be shifted to baseline instead of being all invested in cleave talents, to remove the excessive situstions where swapping builds feels bad because it always comes at a large sacrifice. Alternatively, ST DPS could be buffed to reduce the opportunity cost faced.

[Polarthief]

Yeah I agree. I was saying to a few guildies that the main issue with Boomkins now (and ranged DPS to an extent) is the high opportunity cost of cleave. This is the main drawback of our cleave build: when going full cleave talents, our ST DPS suffers greatly, and so we experience a large ST opportunity cost. Many melee currently do not face this problem, as their cleave damage is either passive or switching to a more cleave-oriented build does not impact their ST DPS much.

In light of this shortfall, I think some of our cleave power needs to be shifted to baseline instead of being all invested in cleave talents, to remove the excessive situstions where swapping builds feels bad because it always comes at a large sacrifice. Alternatively, ST DPS could be buffed to reduce the opportunity cost faced.

How to fix this:
- Making Starfall worth a damn when you're not talented into it hardcore (SOTF's Starfall cost reduction should be baseline; some damage from SD should also be baseline). Losing out on Incarnation is a huge overall ST loss while making Starfall cost 50% more AsP every cast is a huge AoE loss. We shouldn't have to pick between such huge swing talents like this.
- Making DoTs easier to apply to targets (Sunfire is fine, Moonfire is ANYTHING BUT, even with LatC legendary).
- Making Lunar Strike a larger radius (5y is pitiful) and not doing ~12% cleave damage (I don't even cast it to cleave anymore because it's just too annoying and not worth it).

Like, idk, I'm just hoping we get some kind of fix for 7.2 but so far, it's been nothing but shitty traits (one of which, CI, which will nerf our AoE due to ramp-up, and make LS lose out on another 5% damage since you barely use Moonfire on AoE anymore) and no communication outside of Promise of Elune randomly getting an 8% filler damage buff.

- - - Updated - - -

"Starfall duration and tick rate is no longer affected by Haste."

Uh... huh. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It'll sure make Stellar Emp last longer, that's for sure.

[worcester]

"Starfall duration and tick rate is no longer affected by Haste."

Uh... huh. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It'll sure make Stellar Emp last longer, that's for sure.

I think it's mostly good. You can do the same total damage but longer steller emp. You can stack starfall on top of each other if you need to afaik.

[Slippykins]

Yep Starfall still does the same DPET (ie. there is no throughput nerf), however it is an indirect nerf to burst damage if the AoE situation lasts less than the new Starfall duration.

It's a buff for drifting though.

[Polarthief]

Yep Starfall still does the same DPET (ie. there is no throughput nerf), however it is an indirect nerf to burst damage if the AoE situation lasts less than the new Starfall duration.

It's a buff for drifting though.

Yeah I figured there's a burst nerf, but I wasn't sure if there were ticks gained or not from the duration loss. This is at least good news for Mastery getting a slight buff (Stellar Emp now lasts longer, especially so during CA/Inc and/or Lust moments), not so much for burst AoE.

Also, erm, "drifting"?

[huth]

Frankly, i think they should just make Incarnation baseline and give us something else instead. Also, shift some damage from Stellar Drift to baseline.

LS AoE has been 35% of ST damage for quite a while, though.

[Deleted]

It's a buff for drifting though.

Not always. There's some very niche cases (i.e Nal'tira in Arcway, and to a lesser extent Whispers' proc) Where you can take a - haste buff and cast a 30sec duration starfall that allows you to cast while breaking the webs or whatever.

[Polarthief]

Frankly, i think they should just make Incarnation baseline and give us something else instead. Also, shift some damage from Stellar Drift to baseline.

LS AoE has been 35% of ST damage for quite a while, though.

They really should. Also NB and SL IMO should also be baseline since NB is just a QoL buff and SL, well, idk, it just feels like something that should be part of the main toolkit (and has been for YEARS until Legion).

That also doesn't make it worth casting, especially when the radius is the length of a caterpillar.

[Zan15]

People had their chance to make a ruckus in the closed beta, but that didn't happen and people gave Blizzard the benefit of the doubt knowing full well that once a spec goes live into the game, it isn't receiving substantial changes until the next xpac.

Moonkin were relevant only in beta when starsurge was doing tons of damage and moonkin was a good priority target class. They then nerfed that, and the class was left with nothing.

Ramp up aoe that isn't even better than the sustained aoe of burst aoe classes, and absolutely dreadful single target and burst.

they all got giddy with the new AOE spec.....and attacked anyone saying it was going to be underpeforming come ramp up, mythics and scaling.

oh well and now 7.2 does not look any more promising.
no one seems to care

- - - Updated - - -

Ranged in general outside shadowpriest and mage gets shit on in Nighthold. That raid is melee happytimes.

really because warlocks and hunters are also doing quite well

[Myztikrice]

Only one troll was defending the buffs and they were only looking at Heroic fights which focused more on AoE.

[Zan15]

Yeah I agree. I was saying to a few guildies that the main issue with Boomkins now (and ranged DPS to an extent) is the high opportunity cost of cleave. This is the main drawback of our cleave build: when going full cleave talents, our ST DPS suffers greatly, and so we experience a large ST opportunity cost. Many melee currently do not face this problem, as their cleave damage is either passive or switching to a more cleave-oriented build does not impact their ST DPS much.

In light of this shortfall, I think some of our cleave power needs to be shifted to baseline instead of being all invested in cleave talents, to remove the excessive situstions where swapping builds feels bad because it always comes at a large sacrifice. Alternatively, ST DPS could be buffed to reduce the opportunity cost faced.

the main issue is Single Target. Second issue is ST with movement.

Cleave in this game is basically useless for us since there are classes that do it so much better that we will never be buffed to their level. The mobs die too fast.

Our AOE spec at this point is basically a pad spec in raids, moderately useful in 5 man mythic +.

How are you going to beat a warrior 1 button 1 trinket 40m burst aoe when you are dotting and waiting for starfall to accumulate damage.....then walks in a hunter and couple DH...bam dead pack. or you have 2 dk's and down comes dragons....bye bye aoe


Even when spec'ed full ST we are horrific unless we get that rare chance to stand still for 98% of the fight then we are Meh at best.


Movement needs to be fixed if they are going to put this many movement mechanics into the game.


our "memms" spec basically was the worst thing that could happen to us for mythic raiding

[Slippykins]

Yeah I figured there's a burst nerf, but I wasn't sure if there were ticks gained or not from the duration loss. This is at least good news for Mastery getting a slight buff (Stellar Emp now lasts longer, especially so during CA/Inc and/or Lust moments), not so much for burst AoE.

Also, erm, "drifting"?

Drifting == casting while on the move during Stellar Drift.

Not always. There's some very niche cases (i.e Nal'tira in Arcway, and to a lesser extent Whispers' proc) Where you can take a - haste buff and cast a 30sec duration starfall that allows you to cast while breaking the webs or whatever.

Sure, but like you said they're niche cases.

[Lucrece]

they all got giddy with the new AOE spec.....and attacked anyone saying it was going to be underpeforming come ramp up, mythics and scaling.

oh well and now 7.2 does not look any more promising.
no one seems to care

- - - Updated - - -



really because warlocks and hunters are also doing quite well

How many warlocks were in the world first mythic gul'dan kills? Oh, right, none in two of the top 3 and only one destro warlock for Method, the number 2 guild.

Meanwhile there were 3 shadow priests in most of those rosters.

[Zan15]

How many warlocks were in the world first mythic gul'dan kills? Oh, right, none in two of the top 3 and only one destro warlock for Method, the number 2 guild.

Meanwhile there were 3 shadow priests in most of those rosters.

because world first mean anything?

how many have killed mythic gul'dan vs other specs/classes.
tell me that then we can talk about your arguement


guess i could throw in meaningless stuff too
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#boss=1866

looks whom is higher then moonkin

they even have more parces.

(yes guys i know this is meaningless....but hey its fun)



only 1-3 had moonkin too....hmmmm no idea what this even means...but i can do it too!!!

[Lucrece]

because world first mean anything?

how many have killed mythic gul'dan vs other specs/classes.
tell me that then we can talk about your arguement


guess i could throw in meaningless stuff too
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#boss=1866

looks whom is higher then moonkin

they even have more parces.

(yes guys i know this is meaningless....but hey its fun)



only 1-3 had moonkin too....hmmmm no idea what this even means...but i can do it too!!!

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...866&dataset=90

Or we can look at 90th percentile and see 2 of the warlock specs are below balance druid.

You can say all you want, but warlock is a crap class for progression for the same reason moonkin is. It has crap mobility which hurts its damage when movement happens, and it has no burst plus the aoe takes a while to ramp up.

[Zan15]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...866&dataset=90

Or we can look at 90th percentile and see 2 of the warlock specs are below balance druid.

You can say all you want, but warlock is a crap class for progression for the same reason moonkin is. It has crap mobility which hurts its damage when movement happens, and it has no burst plus the aoe takes a while to ramp up.

or we can look at the 70% and see you 50k dps higher

or other fights

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...865&dataset=90

movement, beat us by 100kdps

Single target movement
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...867&dataset=90

Beat us by 70k


https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...871&dataset=90
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...862&dataset=90
Whoot we win two cause we dont have to move and there are more then 4 adds up for a while...

Not exactly what we said our problem was.


Back to problem area's
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...863&dataset=90

90k

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...842&dataset=90

90k

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...886&dataset=90

120k

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...872&dataset=90
180k


Guess i could go feral and....well.....oh wait same situation. my god even beating a melee in movement fights. I think i would gain a tie in 1 of the bosses if i switch to feral

You are top 3 casters in 8 fights not including skorp.
You are top caster in at least 3 maybe 4 of them
Moonkin are 1,0




now that, that is out of the way can we get back to moonkin...and take the warlock stuff back to the warlock forum??

[Lucrece]

Lovely to clump all 3 warlock spec performances in one to make statistical claims, as if spec swapping was even an option this xpac given the nature of legendaries and grinding 54 traits.

[Polarthief]

Lovely to clump all 3 warlock spec performances in one to make statistical claims, as if spec swapping was even an option this xpac given the nature of legendaries and grinding 54 traits.

It's not hard to get to 35 (hell my Paladin alt I never play has 2 specs at 35 already) and it's a < 10% DPS loss for having the paragon trait but it not being maxed (at worst, a 35 trait weapon is only 9.5% weaker in DPS than a 54). Some fights, you can easily get more than 10% from switching specs or hell even a talent swap.

... Not that Druids would ever want to swap though. You're pretty hard locked into Balance or Feral (if you play DPS) given how radically different they play, their stats are like the complete opposite of each other, etc.

[Lucrece]

It's not hard to get to 35 (hell my Paladin alt I never play has 2 specs at 35 already) and it's a < 10% DPS loss for having the paragon trait but it not being maxed (at worst, a 35 trait weapon is only 9.5% weaker in DPS than a 54). Some fights, you can easily get more than 10% from switching specs or hell even a talent swap.

... Not that Druids would ever want to swap though. You're pretty hard locked into Balance or Feral (if you play DPS) given how radically different they play, their stats are like the complete opposite of each other, etc.

9.5% is not more than made up for swapping spec. A demo lock and affliction lock perform similarly enough to where spec swapping is an outright loss.

Moreover, the lack of spec specific legendaries is another large DPS loss.

Pure DPS classes are just as spec locked as hybrids are, Blizzard made sure of that.

Nobody said balance was good anyways, just that their woes are not unique. Blizzard fucked up certain specs royally.

Assassination rogue is a mongoloid easy version of feral that puts out absurdly higher DPS both in ST and AoE whi;e having soaking immunities and better CC, it's a joke.

[Bugg]

50k is one thing.
150, 200k and above is another league entirely.