Does Balance need a buff?

[Aleksej89]

Recently i took a look at: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11

Kinda sad to see Balance at the overall rock-bottom in the Mythic Nighthold raids, about 13% behind top performers.

Do you think Balance needs a buff to better compete with other specs?

Perhaps a modest 5% buff so they are a bit less bad compared to the current FOTM best DPS specs?

Either way please explain the reasoning behind your opinion.

[BazzTheLock]

I main a Warlock with a Balance Druid as my second favourite. Just to be clear I am not a raider beyond LFR since I'm old and decrepit.
Given the disparity between 1+million dps I can do on AOE on my aff lock and rather paltry AOE I can do on Balance Druid, I'd love to see a bit more in that department. My two characters are not equally geared however, Lock is on 880 and Druid is on 850, but I'm not sure how much difference that accounts for. Both have 35 ATraits.

The Warlock feels way more fluid in play with loads of instant casts, excellent mobility, AOE or Single target pets, while my druid feels cumbersome, doing the three Moons, two dots and relatively long Wrath or solar strikes when empowered by starsurge or regenerating resource for a starfall.

So, yes, from my rather limited perspective, I'd love my Druid to be a little more powerful.

[roi]

Barely anyone has the basically +6% flat damage trait yet, so there is the 5% buff you want.

Give it a few more weeks (data is rather flawed right now anyway because of the very few 7.2 logs so far for the hard bosses), too early to tell.

However, so far it looks like balance might be doing rather decently on the two hardest NH bosses (as well as other aoe fights)?

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1872

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1866

Single target damage is a bit disappointing for sure, but there have been 100000 other threads about this already and there're just so many factors contributing to it, like the lack of starsurge crit relics in NH and so on.

[Deleted]

Barely anyone has the basically +6% flat damage trait yet, so there is the 5% buff you want.

Give it a few more weeks (data is rather flawed right now anyway because of the very few 7.2 logs so far for the hard bosses), too early to tell.

However, so far it looks like balance might be doing rather decently on the two hardest NH bosses (as well as other aoe fights)?

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1872

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1866

Single target damage is a bit disappointing for sure, but there have been 100000 other threads about this already and there're just so many factors contributing to it, like the lack of starsurge crit relics in NH and so on.

It won't really feel like a DPS buff for balance druids though as other specs will get the same trait as well, lol.

[Glurp]

I think Balance needs a buff for single target and should probably have the Dreamcatcher effect made baseline.

[thedeisel]

I think at this point the Warcraftlogs data is pretty clear.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1842

On single target, Moonkin almost 30% behind top spec, 14% behind median. If we ignore specs with fewer than 400 logs, we’re 13.4% behind median. If we ignore specs with fewer than 400 kills, we’re almost 2 standard deviations (1.78) below the average spec’s dps. If we don’t ignore specs with fewer than 400 kills, we are a bit over 2 standard deviations away from average dps (2.01). And that's not because the standard deviations are very small. The standard deviation is 6.8-7.5% of the average spec's dps depending on whether we're filtering out specs with fewer than 400 logs. That’s an absolutely enormous gap in throughput. At 50th percentile, the numbers are the same.


Wait, our aoe must be really good, right?

negative.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1871

2% ahead of median, 20% behind top (10% behind number 2).

And that's being generous as to what counts as median since it all the nearly unplayed specs are lower than moonkin. If we filter out specs with 400 logs, we’re .02% ahead of median. At 50th percentile, we're slightly below the median DPS if we include all specs or filter out those with fewer than 400 logs.


Given the enormity of that gap, it's absolutely foolish to believe that Circadian Invocation solves the problem. This is for two reasons. First, and most obviously, other specs have a new golden ring trait too. Second, neither of our other two new traits gives us any single target dps benefit. Many other specs do get a single target benefit from their other new traits. Third, many other specs get single target benefit from their new traits as well and, moreover, have much bigger single target increases from capping their other traits at 4 than we do.

Again, even if CI was a flat 10% buff to our damage and no one else got any new traits, we'd still be well short of even median single target damage. CI is a smaller benefit and everyone else does get a new trait. People need to stop hiding behind the hope/prayer/delusion that CI is going to fix things.

[Zan15]

I think at this point the Warcraftlogs data is pretty clear.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1842

On single target, Moonkin almost 30% behind top spec, 14% behind median. If we ignore specs with fewer than 400 logs, we’re 13.4% behind median. If we ignore specs with fewer than 400 kills, we’re almost 2 standard deviations (1.78) below the average spec’s dps. If we don’t ignore specs with fewer than 400 kills, we are a bit over 2 standard deviations away from average dps (2.01). And that's not because the standard deviations are very small. The standard deviation is 6.8-7.5% of the average spec's dps depending on whether we're filtering out specs with fewer than 400 logs. That’s an absolutely enormous gap in throughput. At 50th percentile, the numbers are the same.


Wait, our aoe must be really good, right?

negative.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1871

2% ahead of median, 20% behind top (10% behind number 2).

And that's being generous as to what counts as median since it all the nearly unplayed specs are lower than moonkin. If we filter out specs with 400 logs, we’re .02% ahead of median. At 50th percentile, we're slightly below the median DPS if we include all specs or filter out those with fewer than 400 logs.


Given the enormity of that gap, it's absolutely foolish to believe that Circadian Invocation solves the problem. This is for two reasons. First, and most obviously, other specs have a new golden ring trait too. Second, neither of our other two new traits gives us any single target dps benefit. Many other specs do get a single target benefit from their other new traits. Third, many other specs get single target benefit from their new traits as well and, moreover, have much bigger single target increases from capping their other traits at 4 than we do.

Again, even if CI was a flat 10% buff to our damage and no one else got any new traits, we'd still be well short of even median single target damage. CI is a smaller benefit and everyone else does get a new trait. People need to stop hiding behind the hope/prayer/delusion that CI is going to fix things.

Well i first was excited after i saw CI had a hidden 12% buff to starsurge, but after trolling around on other forums like howtopriest i saw their dps gains from their 2+golden traits was 4.5-6%. Warlocks were bantering back and forth around here about 5-8%, was way higher before the nerf.
Granted i did not do any deep search of information or hit up discords yet.

Ours is looking to be 7.5-8.5% and our other two will do nothing for ST dps.

is 8% really out of line with other spec buffs?

[Disinvolto]

Absolutely. The only time we're competitive relative to other specs is when playing at the 95th or above percentile. We're so far behind on ST and with the ST fights in this xpac being so ranged unfriendly, we're at a severe disadvantage IMO.

[Cowa]

Barely anyone has the basically +6% flat damage trait yet, so there is the 5% buff you want.

Give it a few more weeks (data is rather flawed right now anyway because of the very few 7.2 logs so far for the hard bosses), too early to tell.

However, so far it looks like balance might be doing rather decently on the two hardest NH bosses (as well as other aoe fights)?

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1872

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1866

Single target damage is a bit disappointing for sure, but there have been 100000 other threads about this already and there're just so many factors contributing to it, like the lack of starsurge crit relics in NH and so on.

How does that buff work exactly? as long as you keep moonfire / sunfire on the target and it ramps to 6% it stays at 6% increase to nature and arcane?

[Zan15]

How does that buff work exactly? as long as you keep moonfire / sunfire on the target and it ramps to 6% it stays at 6% increase to nature and arcane?

yes and you get 12% to astral damage

[beaver1024]

Barely anyone has the basically +6% flat damage trait yet, so there is the 5% buff you want.

Give it a few more weeks (data is rather flawed right now anyway because of the very few 7.2 logs so far for the hard bosses), too early to tell.

I don't know where this delusion that CI is going to fix everything is coming from. We are more than 8% behind even the median. Are you a developer or a Blizzard employee?

- - - Updated - - -

How does that buff work exactly? as long as you keep moonfire / sunfire on the target and it ramps to 6% it stays at 6% increase to nature and arcane?

CI does 2 debuffs on the target one for nature and the other for arcane. Starsurge benefits from both. So it's 12% for Starsurge. Roughly 8% overall due to ramp. Much much less in M+ where things don't last the theoretical 5 minutes.

- - - Updated - - -

People need to stop hiding behind the hope/prayer/delusion that CI is going to fix things.

Couldn't agree more.

[Deleted]

I think Balance needs a buff for single target and should probably have the Dreamcatcher effect made baseline.

Couldn't agree more. ED makes the spec so much more fun to play! - They could then give the headpiece a different passive, increase SS Crit Chance or increase the duration of the buff

[Wiyld]

I love how fast blizz was able to nerf Wax and Wan when it only let us do 'ok' dps.

'Does your spec suck? Well we can get to that in 6 months.....does your spec do something we didn't intent? We can get to that tonight'

[Aleksej89]

A % buff to overall damage is something blizz can implement over night... if they wanted to.

[Myztikrice]

I love how fast blizz was able to nerf Wax and Wan when it only let us do 'ok' dps.

'Does your spec suck? Well we can get to that in 6 months.....does your spec do something we didn't intent? We can get to that tonight'

It was resulting in degenerative gameplay.

[Moshots]

Barely anyone has the basically +6% flat damage trait yet, so there is the 5% buff you want.

Give it a few more weeks (data is rather flawed right now anyway because of the very few 7.2 logs so far for the hard bosses), too early to tell.

However, so far it looks like balance might be doing rather decently on the two hardest NH bosses (as well as other aoe fights)?

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1872

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ount&boss=1866

Single target damage is a bit disappointing for sure, but there have been 100000 other threads about this already and there're just so many factors contributing to it, like the lack of starsurge crit relics in NH and so on.

We get 6% in 1 trait that we have to spend 5 useless traits to get.

Other classes get 1.5-2% per trait..

For example the ret trait right before their gold is flat 2000 STR not even counting the gold trait....

[Beckers]

Lol sherlock..

[earthwormjim]

Absolutely. The only time we're competitive relative to other specs is when playing at the 95th or above percentile. We're so far behind on ST and with the ST fights in this xpac being so ranged unfriendly, we're at a severe disadvantage IMO.

We're basically only competitive if we get a whispers proc during the opener with CDs, otherwise we just fall behind. That's why you see 95th percentile boomies not at the bottom with other 95th percentile dps. It's just winner selection bias basically.

Our DPS potential is extremely high relative to our average damage which I find extremely frustrating. I hate inconsistency that is entirely out of my control. It feels like DPS potential is what Blizzard uses for their design balancing criteria, not what we do on average.

RNG that is that punishing is not fun, it just leads to more stress during a raid the few times things line up correctly. Great, whispers proc'd, incoming wipe... Even then, when things line up, it just pushes us to middle of the pack damage single target...

There shouldn't be 100k differences in single target damage between pulls, when I'm hitting my buttons exactly the same every pull...

I like the spec overall, the play style is very fun, I just wish we were a few % higher in damage. It feels like no one on the dev team actually plays balance in a competitive raid setting.

[Aleksej89]

I am sure hoping blizz tosses us a buff in a hotfix

You know, just a cute little 8% increase to overall damage.

[Deleted]

ye since wotlk