[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Lucrece]

The moon mechanic neatly expanded balance druid's gameplay so it makes sense they're baking it in. In the case of affliction warlocks, god I hope they scrap that on death+RNG garbage that makes them broken OP in some fights and pathetic on others with ridiculous variance.

My wish list is lower baseline cost to starfall, moonfire and sunfire being merged into stellar flare made instant or just leaving Moonfire as a stronger dot that also autospreads, and returning the oomph to our starsurge.

Empowerments can go rot in hell, bake that damage back into baseline nukes and change the mastery to basically be shooting stars.

Owlkin Frenzy becomes a proc like it was in alpha on offensive spells casts.

Healing affinity spells don't drop you out of moonkin form and heal for more than they currently do.

Barkskin damage reduction buffed to 35% damage reduction and increases healing taken by 20%.

Solar Beam being made a 30 sec cd baseline.

[Polarthief]

The moon mechanic neatly expanded balance druid's gameplay so it makes sense they're baking it in.

It only makes sense due to our new Blue Rage mechanic, but you can also fix it by just increasing the AsP generation of our main 4 spells (SW, LS, MF/SF) as well. Moon spells give us ~1.55 AsP/s (70 AsP every 45s). I mean you could literally bake in Blessing of An'she and accomplish the same thing.

TBH I personally dislike the Moon spells. It's weird.

Here's some of what I'd love to see:
- Combine MF/SF into StFl, or make MF also AoE. SF better get Sunblind baked in because a 5y radius is GARBAGE (see Lunar Strike if you don't believe that).
- If StFl stays as is, it's now instant-cast and/or doesn't have an AsP cost. Keeping it with a cost AND cast time makes it too horrible to bother with.
- Moon ability scrapped. Entire L90 tier scrapped. Blessing of Elune is now baseline.
- SOTF scrapped; SS and SF cost the same instead of forcing a talent just to AoE correctly. SOTF replaced with something less mandatory.
- Starlord and Nature's Balance baked in. We've had Starlord for as long as I can remember as a non-choice talent. It was called Grace of Nature IIRC. Used to be when you crit, you'd cast quicker. Now it's a talent that you have to take over other stuff. Removing SL from the talents now makes WoE and FoN actual choices with whatever else you can fit on that tier. NB is an awful talent and just a QoL bump for reapplying DoTs (and was also a non-choice talent IIRC).
- Stellar Drift made baseline (the radius increase and mobility).
- Something needs to be fixed on the L30 tier. Blink too strong yet horrible QoL for DPSing (2 globals), Renewal too weak (even as a 50% heal it's too weak due to it competing with our primary movement option). WC is perfect as is. Consider making WC or NB baseline and the talent is replaced with a Barkskin improving ability. Maybe let you turn Barkskin into Resto's Ironbark? Maybe increase Barkskin's effectiveness dramatically and/or reduce the cooldown?

Here's probably the reality: Nothing changes. Dead talents just left to rot or made so OP that they're mandatory.

[Lucrece]

It only makes sense due to our new Blue Rage mechanic, but you can also fix it by just increasing the AsP generation of our main 4 spells (SW, LS, MF/SF) as well. Moon spells give us ~1.55 AsP/s (70 AsP every 45s). I mean you could literally bake in Blessing of An'she and accomplish the same thing.

TBH I personally dislike the Moon spells. It's weird.

Here's some of what I'd love to see:
- Combine MF/SF into StFl, or make MF also AoE. SF better get Sunblind baked in because a 5y radius is GARBAGE (see Lunar Strike if you don't believe that).
- If StFl stays as is, it's now instant-cast and/or doesn't have an AsP cost. Keeping it with a cost AND cast time makes it too horrible to bother with.
- Moon ability scrapped. Entire L90 tier scrapped. Blessing of Elune is now baseline.
- SOTF scrapped; SS and SF cost the same instead of forcing a talent just to AoE correctly. SOTF replaced with something less mandatory.
- Starlord and Nature's Balance baked in. We've had Starlord for as long as I can remember as a non-choice talent. It was called Grace of Nature IIRC. Used to be when you crit, you'd cast quicker. Now it's a talent that you have to take over other stuff. Removing SL from the talents now makes WoE and FoN actual choices with whatever else you can fit on that tier. NB is an awful talent and just a QoL bump for reapplying DoTs (and was also a non-choice talent IIRC).
- Stellar Drift made baseline (the radius increase and mobility).
- Something needs to be fixed on the L30 tier. Blink too strong yet horrible QoL for DPSing (2 globals), Renewal too weak (even as a 50% heal it's too weak due to it competing with our primary movement option). WC is perfect as is. Consider making WC or NB baseline and the talent is replaced with a Barkskin improving ability. Maybe let you turn Barkskin into Resto's Ironbark? Maybe increase Barkskin's effectiveness dramatically and/or reduce the cooldown?

Here's probably the reality: Nothing changes. Dead talents just left to rot or made so OP that they're mandatory.

I like the moon spell if only for the visual flair. When I've been casting the same starfire and wrath and moonfire and starsurge spells for well over almost half a decade, I want something visually new on the spec.

Balance druid has always felt bareboned in spell kit compared to my warlock.

[Polarthief]

I like the moon spell if only for the visual flair. When I've been casting the same starfire and wrath and moonfire and starsurge spells for well over almost half a decade, I want something visually new on the spec.

Balance druid has always felt bareboned in spell kit compared to my warlock.

*shrug* TBH that says more about the "visual update" we got than anything. Starsurge is pretty bad (sideways LS), SW is very underwhelming, LS is the same it's always been (just hits all targets now). MF/SF is fine but eh.

Then you look at a properly done visual update like Frost Mage and holy shit you can see who truly got more love.

[Biomega]

All the visual budget for the druid went into 10 different bear and kitty skins, obviously. Not that there was ever in a doubt who the ugly swan in the druid family is, I mean it's been going on for YEARS.

I have to share the fears about talents remaining trapped in the useless vs. OP dichotomy. Too much effort required to balance things into MEANINGFUL choices, I'm not sure any class has those, really. I guess the class I respec the most on per fight is Affliction Warlock? And that's just between AoE and ST for the most part.

[huth]

It only makes sense due to our new Blue Rage mechanic, but you can also fix it by just increasing the AsP generation of our main 4 spells (SW, LS, MF/SF) as well. Moon spells give us ~1.55 AsP/s (70 AsP every 45s). I mean you could literally bake in Blessing of An'she and accomplish the same thing.

Eh, the relevant point is they have to do something. Just taking the artifact away and leaving things as is wouldn't work.

[Myztikrice]

They just buffed the pitiful 25% warlock healthstones to 40% baseline. Who knows, maybe balance druid heals and defensives (lolbarkskin) will not be utter garbage by 7.3.5

Maybe they'll give us our passive % damage reduction back. Maybe.

Mine heals me for 1.2 million. It's noticeable to me *shrug*

[Lucrece]

Mine heals me for 1.2 million. It's noticeable to me *shrug*

Now try it outside affliction.

[Myztikrice]

Now try it outside affliction.

I was talking about the Moonkin heal trait

[joltcola1234]

are current sims handling Oneth's correctly?

soul of the arch druid is currently siming much higher for me with lady and the child then oneth's is.

I'm seeing about a 185k difference in DPS when siming with hectic add cleave AoE

ilevel is the same with both legendaries and there isn't a great deal of difference in terms of stats when making the swaps

I haven't done much testing with soul of the arch druid honestly

[Kyanion]

are current sims handling Oneth's correctly?

soul of the arch druid is currently siming much higher for me with lady and the child then oneth's is.

I'm seeing about a 185k difference in DPS when siming with hectic add cleave AoE

ilevel is the same with both legendaries and there isn't a great deal of difference in terms of stats when making the swaps

I haven't done much testing with soul of the arch druid honestly

I know I'd be curious. While OI is fun and all I am getting a bit tired of the RNG strings were you can get screwed on procs or just way too lucky on the procs, it just does not feel as fun as I'd like.

[wing5wong]

pure AoE doesnt exactly favour oneths.
your proc is a single target damage boost, stopping you from casting aoe spells in its place (though you might get lucky and double proc off the free cast). The gain is because you are able to run both incarn and SotF

[Biomega]

The value of Oneth lies in it mixing well the idea of having amazing low/medium target AoE while maintaining solid priority ST - which is exactly what most raid boss fights where you use Oneth demand of you. Even DI, which is arguably the most AoE-centric fight on Mythic, still has boss targets that benefit from having free ST damage. No fight actually calls for sustained AoE with no priority target.

I suppose if padding is specifically what you're after, then you may want to make different choices in some places. But for sensible strategies, Oneth's remains VERY good imo.

[wing5wong]

The value of Oneth lies in it mixing well the idea of having amazing low/medium target AoE while maintaining solid priority ST - which is exactly what most raid boss fights where you use Oneth demand of you. Even DI, which is arguably the most AoE-centric fight on Mythic, still has boss targets that benefit from having free ST damage. No fight actually calls for sustained AoE with no priority target.

I suppose if padding is specifically what you're after, then you may want to make different choices in some places. But for sensible strategies, Oneth's remains VERY good imo.

right, but simming it in hectic add cleave is going to give skewed results to unrealistic scenarios as they have discovered

[Deleted]

running owl 915 and 860 arcano atm in raids, in M+ is it better to change both out for say 1 915 int/mast stick and the other a 915 int/haste trinket?

[Kluian05]

running owl 915 and 860 arcano atm in raids, in M+ is it better to change both out for say 1 915 int/mast stick and the other a 915 int/haste trinket?

Arcano works well as both a ST and AoE trinket, and it's better than a 915 stat stick. I would replace the Owl with a stat stick for Mythic+ because of the amount of AoE though.

[Deleted]

Arcano works well as both a ST and AoE trinket, and it's better than a 915 stat stick. I would replace the Owl with a stat stick for Mythic+ because of the amount of AoE though.

Sweet, hopefully not long until 910 Arcano

[huth]

Arcano works well as both a ST and AoE trinket, and it's better than a 915 stat stick. I would replace the Owl with a stat stick for Mythic+ because of the amount of AoE though.

I'd say it depends on the week, too. Tyrannical the Owl might worth swapping in a group or two before a boss.

[Kyanion]

I've not done my research into prepping for Antorus yet but as far as normal/heroic goes what Legos do you see yourselves using? Mythic is usually such a difference in how the fights go I tend to try and avoid that since I'm not doing it this expansion.

[joltcola1234]

Sweet, hopefully not long until 910 Arcano

I've been trying about 4-5 times per week, no luck!