[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Irefusetodie]

I know most people (or at the very least, Slippy) plan to use cloak and shoulders for their T19 pieces, but what should one do if you have to swap out shoulders for LaTC on aoe fights? Also swap out the T19 cloak for a better ilevel piece since you won't get the 2P?

Of course. There's no reason to keep T19 cloak when not using T19 2pc.

[huth]

If you have a better cloak, definitely.

[Zan15]

Recent topics:
-- Do you nerf AOE to buff ST, or do you nerf AOE to nerf AOE?
-- Balance Druid has big AOE potential given the adds don't explode when they spawn. If adds are suddenly living longer because gear is lower, do you expect Balance Druiid DPS to go up faster than those with burst AOE? :: Add health does not change, damage goes up, adds don't live as long, our AOE dps is based on sustained. So does our relative DPS go up, or down?)

Balance is more-or-less not going to get better. As encounters become more bursty, the bursty class get better. This will the case in every single game.

So what you are saying is we should expect to drastically drop in the rankings, which i assume would also apply to our ST damage?

What is the solution here then? when on multiple fights multiple specs are doing far far more AOE damage then most everyone else. And people are saying the ADDS are important to kill fast....so then what? do you let the outliers stay, then end up in a situation where you are stacking again like 4 shadow priest of the past??

then have the opposite occur on ST fights where you don't bring any shadow or balance??

Aoe was already nerfed, and aoe is our thing. If they nerf our aoe again, the need to increase our st damage.

Aoe might be our "thing" but it still does not mean it should be this huge of an outlier on most aoe fights. As one expects no class to be a huge outlier on ST fights.


so what is the solution?

[elynos]

So what you are saying is we should expect to drastically drop in the rankings, which i assume would also apply to our ST damage?

What is the solution here then? when on multiple fights multiple specs are doing far far more AOE damage then most everyone else. And people are saying the ADDS are important to kill fast....so then what? do you let the outliers stay, then end up in a situation where you are stacking again like 4 shadow priest of the past??

then have the opposite occur on ST fights where you don't bring any shadow or balance??







Aoe might be our "thing" but it still does not mean it should be this huge of an outlier on most aoe fights. As one expects no class to be a huge outlier on ST fights.


so what is the solution?

There is no solution, our aoe isn't even better than a lot of classes. But when adds are spread out and only our aoe can hit everything we shine. Right now heroic logs are a better representation of how things are playing out for our class.

[thedeisel]

I think the point is that the premise that balance aoe needs nerfing is probably a bad one. Already as more kills roll in from other bosses besides inquisition and harjatan we're coming closer and closer in line with the pack. In terms of stack rank at 75th percentile, we're already below shadow and aff (not coincidentally, two other multidot classes).

Balance dps relative to the rest of the specs is only going down from here. Single target is not going to go up relative to other specs.

We're going to be great for Harjatan (though this will come down the fastest of all), Demonic Inq, Mistress, and Host
We're going to be deep garbage for maiden and goroth.
We're OK to weak for sisters.
Unclear how we'll shake out on avatar and especially KJ. Unlike shadow, moonkin isn't a favored class for avatar because single target damage doesn't go up with multiple targets. Hence why it's looking like shadow will be a far better choice for avatar than moonkin.

Does that total package need a nerf? Probably not. We're great at a lot of fights but they're the early fights and being great at them is not worth as much as being great at other fights. Plus, our strength on them will fade quickly as more raids are in more appropriate gear. If you weighted the rankings by the difficulty level of the fight (so, being great at harjatan doesn't count for as much as being great as being great at KJ for the overall spec score), moonkin is probably a solid middle class to upper middle class spec.

Just, fwiw:

For a measure of how bad we can probably expect moonkin single target to settle in consider that the 50th percentile on a fight like goroth right now is more or less the 95th percentile level of performance in a few weeks. That is, everyone who has downed goroth is part of an extremely elite portion of the mythic raiding community. You can't say "Oh 50th percentile, that's baddie territory" because very shortly these same players are going to be 95th+ percentile players. The 250th best parse now for moonkin is 50th percentile but the 250th best parse in a few months or weeks when there are closer to 5000 parses will be 95th percentile. Right now, the 50th percentile for moonkin (aka the future 95th percentile in a few weeks) is 10% behind the mean and median on Goroth.

[Polarthief]

TBH I think it's really dumb to have a class be an AoE or ST class, especially given how important ST is on most fights. Unless we start getting more and more council fights per raid, AoE should be more or less a bonus while ST should be NO MORE than 5% between the top and bottom specs. If you want to make the better-at-AoE classes closer to the bottom for that reason, then sure, but what we have right now is a mess where the top and bottom ST DPS are almost 20% apart. That's like, that's just fucking insane to me. I'm in shock the balancing has gotten so bad at this point.

As for what they can do, they could easily throw us a bone on Solar Wrath (which we spam and it feels awful to cast, even with Empowerment), maybe Lunar Strike, or just give Solar/Lunar Empowerment a buff instead (though this subsequently buffs Starsurge more when they really should be buffing the base Solar/Lunar spells). If they add any more damage to Starsurge, idk it might get too strong. They can't do anything to our Moon/Sunfire spells or our AoE just gets better, which we don't need; AoE's fine where it is. They could also buff Moon spells but that might make Full Moon too ridiculous.

[Gemini Soul]

TBH I think it's really dumb to have a class be an AoE or ST class, especially given how important ST is on most fights. Unless we start getting more and more council fights per raid, AoE should be more or less a bonus while ST should be NO MORE than 5% between the top and bottom specs. If you want to make the better-at-AoE classes closer to the bottom for that reason, then sure, but what we have right now is a mess where the top and bottom ST DPS are almost 20% apart. That's like, that's just fucking insane to me. I'm in shock the balancing has gotten so bad at this point.

As for what they can do, they could easily throw us a bone on Solar Wrath (which we spam and it feels awful to cast, even with Empowerment), maybe Lunar Strike, or just give Solar/Lunar Empowerment a buff instead (though this subsequently buffs Starsurge more when they really should be buffing the base Solar/Lunar spells). If they add any more damage to Starsurge, idk it might get too strong. They can't do anything to our Moon/Sunfire spells or our AoE just gets better, which we don't need; AoE's fine where it is. They could also buff Moon spells but that might make Full Moon too ridiculous.

So very true, SW/LS base dmg increase would be the best way to buff ST dmg. Our DPS rankings on fights are going to go down as the rest of the raids goes up because of burst AoE.

One fix to our AoE to make it better would perhaps be in SoTF talent, where if we MF a mob with SF on it then it will spread the MF DoT to those mobs also. This would let us keep up AoE wise some as things die faster where our AoE lowers at the cost of a talent.


We can only hope for a ST buff as things progress.

[Cyous]

The point of my post was to get these calls for buffs and nerfs shot down.

You don't buff ST because your AOE is too strong. "Compensation buffs" are not used this way. Compensation buffs are used when they don't want to hit the overall performance of a spec, but they do want to change talent usage, or damage breakdowns. Buffing ST because you got nerfed on your AOE? K.

As for performance -- there is literally no need to change anything. Balance performs well in specific environments. We have very, very little burst potential. As everyone's damage goes up, our damage will go up too. But! When the damage goes up, the adds don't live as long and DOT or sustained (read: non-bursty) specs will get "worse."

Let's assume PlayerA and the Moonkin are great DPS players.

Here's a very simple example:
PlayerA does 120 damage in 20sec (6.0 dps), and dealt 100 damage in the first 10sec. (10.0 dps)
Moonkin does 150 damage in 20sec (7.5 dps) and dealt 60 damage in the first 10sec. (6.0 dps)

A few weeks later, players got better gear, the adds now die in 15sec.
PlayerA does 150 damage in 15sec (10.0 dps) and did 130 damage in the first 10sec. (13.0 dps)
Moonkin does 180 damage in 15sec (12.0 dps) and did 80 damage in the first 10sec. (8.0 dps)

The next pull, the rest of the DPS suddenly stopped being shit and now the adds are dying in 10sec.
PlayerA is still doing 130 damage in 10sec.
Moonkin is doing 80 damage in 10sec.

This Moonkin went from crushing PlayerA, to being PlayerA's bitch on the meter. This is exactly what happens when gear goes up and players get mechanically better. As we have been saying since Alpha, Moonkins are great when the rest of the raid is shit.

[thedeisel]

I definitely agree that everything is probably best left untouched (our nukes could hit harder if anything).

Compensation buffs do happen though.

Affliction, for example, was specifically targeted in the 7.2.5 patch cycle via talents and tuning to lose single target damage so that it could have more multi-dot damage, which they believe to be more thematically appropriate for the spec.

That's not a pure compensation buff, since it's tied to some spec theme stuff as well, but it's a clear case of adjusting one kind of damage while adjusting another kind of damage.

[Zan15]

The point of my post was to get these calls for buffs and nerfs shot down.

You don't buff ST because your AOE is too strong. "Compensation buffs" are not used this way. Compensation buffs are used when they don't want to hit the overall performance of a spec, but they do want to change talent usage, or damage breakdowns. Buffing ST because you got nerfed on your AOE? K.

As for performance -- there is literally no need to change anything. Balance performs well in specific environments. We have very, very little burst potential. As everyone's damage goes up, our damage will go up too. But! When the damage goes up, the adds don't live as long and DOT or sustained (read: non-bursty) specs will get "worse."

Let's assume PlayerA and the Moonkin are great DPS players.

Here's a very simple example:
PlayerA does 120 damage in 20sec (6.0 dps), and dealt 100 damage in the first 10sec. (10.0 dps)
Moonkin does 150 damage in 20sec (7.5 dps) and dealt 60 damage in the first 10sec. (6.0 dps)

A few weeks later, players got better gear, the adds now die in 15sec.
PlayerA does 150 damage in 15sec (10.0 dps) and did 130 damage in the first 10sec. (13.0 dps)
Moonkin does 180 damage in 15sec (12.0 dps) and did 80 damage in the first 10sec. (8.0 dps)

The next pull, the rest of the DPS suddenly stopped being shit and now the adds are dying in 10sec.
PlayerA is still doing 130 damage in 10sec.
Moonkin is doing 80 damage in 10sec.

This Moonkin went from crushing PlayerA, to being PlayerA's bitch on the meter. This is exactly what happens when gear goes up and players get mechanically better. As we have been saying since Alpha, Moonkins are great when the rest of the raid is shit.

I don't think anyone was saying Buff ST cause AOE is too strong. I am saying we need ST buffed. And there is a possibility that AOE could be nerfed. i also said i would be willing to do less AOE if it meant having a ST buff....since i feel ST is much more important in mythic, it always has been.



Although you make a point that our aoe dps will go down as those mobs die faster but the moonkin will also have an gear bump and be doing more dps at the same time burst classes are doing more dps. So how much will it really go down? depends on raid comp, other players skills and gear levels.

But anyway, based on your statements then you agree ST needs to be buffed since we will inherently get worse as the tier progresses? and aoe needs to stay the same till people get more gear and then we see where we stand?

or you "calls for buffs and nerfs shot down" because you don't think we need any adjustments at this point?

[Cyous]

Not particulary keen on any buffs or nerfs. Increasing LS and SW by ~15% would help with mid-tier tuning. A mechanic that scaled with Crit Hit Damage would have been better.

[Bugg]

If one has every lengendary, is there any case (encounter) where he should use Soul of the Archdruid?

[foibooze]

For trash?

[thedeisel]

SoTA has value on demonic inquisition, for sure. Looking at logs it also looks like it has value on Desolate Host.

The main thing to think about is whether you would like to add burst damage for any phase or demand while having 40 AP starfall. If the answer is yes, then SotA + selecting INC is generally a good choice.

The other reason to take SotA is just for fun on a multi-dot fight as it lets you run Stellar Flare while Starfalling. If you want to keep high boss damage on Mistress, for example, while starfalling and dotting the adds, you could always do that with SotA + Stellar Flare. It's not a huge damage loss relative to a standard setup but depending on how you feel about juggling lots of dots for fun, SotA can get use there as well.

[Kyanion]

So what makes the Tarnished Sentinel Medallion so OP? I've heard it scales with a lot of things we have but what exactly works with it? For a 2min cd trinket it DOES seem to put out a significant amount of damage but is that because the trinket itself is really strong or because we're moonkins?

[joltcola1234]

So what makes the Tarnished Sentinel Medallion so OP? I've heard it scales with a lot of things we have but what exactly works with it? For a 2min cd trinket it DOES seem to put out a significant amount of damage but is that because the trinket itself is really strong or because we're moonkins?

The damage is arcane and Circadian Invocation applies a 6% increased arcane damage debuff to the target

Not sure if any other classes have something like this, but that's a 6% flat boost for moonkin?

[beaver1024]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed but Balance 4P T20 set bonus did not work like I expect it to. I expected it to be like Iron Fur where each stack has its own timer. Instead all stacks share the same timer and the time starts from the first stack. So the buff duration and magnitude goes like this:

1 stack 20s
2 stack 15s remaining
3 stack 10s remaining
4 stack 5s remaining

Stack drops off all buffs are lost and you start from 0 again.

If this is the intended functionality then I think this changes our stat preference I think. This is kind of like a pseudo ED like functionality. You'd want high amount of haste. Where whilst the stack is building, you try to cram in as many Starsurges as possible. Probably need to look at AP gen rate and how to maximise use of the stack. Also, I think this also devalues the set bonus overall as it depends on how high you can get the stack and how long you can get it that high.

TLDR; Looks like high haste is still necessary to take full advantage of 4P T20.

[Irefusetodie]

Snip.

The handling of movement/mechanics has a far bigger effect on your DPS than trying to game 4pc stacks ever will. Dumping all of your AsP to try to get 5 stacks ASAP but then being forced to spam Moonfire for 2-3 globals, over Starsurges, is a net loss. The only thing you have to do with the 4pc is try to maintain as high an uptime on the buff as possible.

Naturally, when you can play around the 4pc and try to game stacks you should do so. This rarely ever happens in the more intense encounters though.

[joltcola1234]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed but Balance 4P T20 set bonus did not work like I expect it to. I expected it to be like Iron Fur where each stack has its own timer. Instead all stacks share the same timer and the time starts from the first stack. So the buff duration and magnitude goes like this:

1 stack 20s
2 stack 15s remaining
3 stack 10s remaining
4 stack 5s remaining

Stack drops off all buffs are lost and you start from 0 again.

If this is the intended functionality then I think this changes our stat preference I think. This is kind of like a pseudo ED like functionality. You'd want high amount of haste. Where whilst the stack is building, you try to cram in as many Starsurges as possible. Probably need to look at AP gen rate and how to maximise use of the stack. Also, I think this also devalues the set bonus overall as it depends on how high you can get the stack and how long you can get it that high.

TLDR; Looks like high haste is still necessary to take full advantage of 4P T20.

Weird, this was exactly how I figured it functioned...pretty much the same way Erratic Metronome works.

[Mooncode]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed but Balance 4P T20 set bonus did not work like I expect it to. I expected it to be like Iron Fur where each stack has its own timer. Instead all stacks share the same timer and the time starts from the first stack. So the buff duration and magnitude goes like this:

1 stack 20s
2 stack 15s remaining
3 stack 10s remaining
4 stack 5s remaining

Stack drops off all buffs are lost and you start from 0 again.

If this is the intended functionality then I think this changes our stat preference I think. This is kind of like a pseudo ED like functionality. You'd want high amount of haste. Where whilst the stack is building, you try to cram in as many Starsurges as possible. Probably need to look at AP gen rate and how to maximise use of the stack. Also, I think this also devalues the set bonus overall as it depends on how high you can get the stack and how long you can get it that high.

TLDR; Looks like high haste is still necessary to take full advantage of 4P T20.

Weird, this was exactly how I figured it functioned...pretty much the same way Erratic Metronome works.

As Joltcola said... this is working exactly how Metronome did... except we are mastering our own procs.

This basicly means, if you know how to play around the buff correctly.. you can be at 3+ stacks instant (9% haste for 18 sec).

Basicly, I always aim to have spend all my empowerments when there is 3-5seconds left on the buff.. In order to be back at 120+ AP.

Then I can instantly shoot out 3 Starsurges in a row, for 3 stacks + 3 of each new empowerment that is now having faster cast time with the 9% haste from the stacks.

This doesnt even include OI Procs. Sometimes I can hit the procs whilst shooting the 3 starsurges of, which then again can either trigger more then once... or re-trigger a free starsurges.. which gives me the 5 stacks instantly... Having @ 15sec uptime with 15% haste.

All in all.... I would say, that needing high haste is not what manages this Tier Bonus. But rather the way you play around it - Watching timers, and making sure you have enough AP to dump straight back into 3 stacks.