[Balance] 5.4 Changes and Thoughts

[Sainiunit]

Is this to counter people DoTing everyone in BGs and then machine gunning one person with Starsurges? That's like our meta right there. Esp on the run...

[Cyous]

Slippy, do we know if the formula truly is:
[ (0.30 * (SQRT(X)/X)) + 0.08 ]
or if it is:
[ (0.30 + 0.08) * (SQRT(X)/X)]

It would skew your numbers, heavily.

[Bonsaii]

Seriously, what I think we need is an EU representative and a US representative to make threads on the forums for what we think would be good changes to balance. Blizzard doesn't seem to really know what they want to do with us. We should attempt to give feedback and fill their heads with good ideas. I think Slippy should do the US thread, but I don't know which you guys play EU really. If you can link a thread for us to talk in on the Blizzard forums that would be awesome.

[Velaniz]

Is this to counter people DoTing everyone in BGs and then machine gunning one person with Starsurges? That's like our meta right there. Esp on the run...

We made this change because, even without the Tier 16 4-piece bonus, we felt that Balance multidotting was too strong. On top of that, with enough mobs available, the Balance rotation was devolving into just Moonfire/Sunfire and spamming Starsurge constantly, to the point of completely ignoring Wrath and Starfire.

Sounds like it was mostly a pve change. This will more than likely utterly crush moonkin damage in pvp if it goes through.

[Slippykins]

Slippy, do we know if the formula truly is:
[ (0.30 * (SQRT(X)/X)) + 0.08 ]
or if it is:
[ (0.30 + 0.08) * (SQRT(X)/X)]

It would skew your numbers, heavily.

Yeah that was my caveat at the bottom. If the 8% is included we'll see more SS proc loss, but that wasn't stipulated by Lore. Have to see for ourselves on the PTR I suppose, but it'd be very difficult to prove. I might tweet Lore about it.

[Cyous]

Yeah that was my caveat at the bottom. If the 8% is included we'll see more SS proc loss, but that wasn't stipulated by Lore. Have to see for ourselves on the PTR I suppose, but it'd be very difficult to prove. I might tweet Lore about it.

Yep, I just finished my spreadsheet (first one ever! whoo!)

And according to the maths ->

After just 3 targets, our effective "loss of SS procs" is ~50%. (half as many procs)

[huth]

Actually, that's what you get for 4 targets. sqrt(4)/4 = 2/4 = 1/2 = 50%.

[Deleted]

You forget to factor in that the reduce in SS procs will force us to hardcast, which would result in lower NG uptime and either lower dot uptime or having to cast more uneclipsed dots.

Imagine doing Council with the amount of SS procs you get on Megaera. Even when dotting both heads, you hardcast quite a lot (about half your nukes are hardcast, half instant SS). On council atm you only hardcast about 20% of your nukes. Now add on top of that reduced NG uptime from having to cast double the amount of dots, and it should give you a pretty good idea how much it's going to affect our multidot rotation.

[Fleuria]

Still can't see this change sticking as it absolutely murders druids at lower gear levels, pvp druids and ones that do challenge modes.

End of the day its their failure that they allowed classes to get up to 40%+ unbuffed crit and next tier when you have like 50%+... if this didn't happen this change would of never of happened x)

[Deleted]

Proving grounds also mong to do in the current build

[Deleted]

I wonder if we will notice it much at all, with 4 target fully dotted we get so many procs, i suppose even half of them would suffice in keeping the procs up. Im more annoyed by the fact they promised some work on booms, and with the patch on the doorstep we have yet to see anything. Nothing to improve our AoE or moving dps. Only some fixes to cover their own messing up.

[Deleted]

Again, stop the "wont even notice" talk, it's complete bullshit. If you can't tell the differense in procs between 2 and 4 targets dotted on live, you can't possibly be playing the spec right.

[Mirri]

You forget to factor in that the reduce in SS procs will force us to hardcast, which would result in lower NG uptime and either lower dot uptime or having to cast more uneclipsed dots.

Imagine doing Council with the amount of SS procs you get on Megaera. Even when dotting both heads, you hardcast quite a lot (about half your nukes are hardcast, half instant SS). On council atm you only hardcast about 20% of your nukes. Now add on top of that reduced NG uptime from having to cast double the amount of dots, and it should give you a pretty good idea how much it's going to affect our multidot rotation.

Not sure if this is a legitimate concern. You foresee having trouble keeping NG up at 550+ ilvl and meta gem ? I fail to see how that is possible. Maybe you can show some calculations ? I was of the opinion that with the LMG and 10.3k haste bp, we would have absolutely no problems maintaining NG up.

[Deleted]

Again, stop the "wont even notice" talk, it's complete bullshit. If you can't tell the differense in procs between 2 and 4 targets dotted on live, you can't possibly be playing the spec right.

You can spout all you like, but if you can't even see that it will also reduce the amount of wasted procs you are just as bad. Just keep your tears inside for now, till we got some real numbers. A 50% nerf to a proc wich is wasted for 40% anyway might not seem as bad as you think.

[Juvencus]

You can spout all you like, but if you can't even see that it will also reduce the amount of wasted procs you are just as bad. Just keep your tears inside for now, till we got some real numbers. A 50% nerf to a proc wich is wasted for 40% anyway might not seem as bad as you think.

What he is concerned about, I believe, is that even though the amount of waste was great, you were sure that you would always have an SS proc to fire which is why I said in a previous post of mine that this is not the correct way to address the wastage problem.

Excessive waste + Always available SS > Controlled waste + SS proc gaps

[Mirri]

What he is concerned about, I believe, is that even though the amount of waste was great, you were sure that you would always have an SS proc to fire which is why I said in a previous post of mine that this is not the correct way to address the wastage problem.

Excessive waste + Always available SS > Controlled waste + SS proc gaps

In terms of raw dps? Movement stuff? What are you measuring?

[Slapsgiving]

Still can't see this change sticking as it absolutely murders druids at lower gear levels, pvp druids and ones that do challenge modes.

End of the day its their failure that they allowed classes to get up to 40%+ unbuffed crit and next tier when you have like 50%+... if this didn't happen this change would of never of happened x)

Totally agreed, bit tired of everything moonkin being measured and modelled with heroic gear in mind. Also, this is a nerf to CA as well, which was not all that great to begin with and has a lengthy 3-min CD. So concerning all those "we will be fine" posts, I suspect we will see the nerf double-dipping in unsuspected ways yet.

[Deleted]

Not sure if this is a legitimate concern. You foresee having trouble keeping NG up at 550+ ilvl and meta gem ? I fail to see how that is possible. Maybe you can show some calculations ? I was of the opinion that with the LMG and 10.3k haste bp, we would have absolutely no problems maintaining NG up.

NG uptime has never been a problem on Single Target, but that is not what this will affect, it's about multitarget, where you are not able to keep a 100% uptime on NG. We wont get anymore haste next tier (we will get less meta procs, so actually less haste), and on 4 target fights on live you will sit around 75% uptime if you play it well (looking at Fountaiins rank 1 on Council).

You can spout all you like, but if you can't even see that it will also reduce the amount of wasted procs you are just as bad. Just keep your tears inside for now, till we got some real numbers. A 50% nerf to a proc wich is wasted for 40% anyway might not seem as bad as you think.

Don't make up stuff please, I never said that it wont reduce the amount of wasted procs, ofc it will. Also you seemed to completely ignore the content of my post. Please read my previous post again, I made a simple, yet pretty accurate way to compare the amount of SS procs you will get on live vs. ptr with this change. Just for the sake of it here it is again:

With this change proc chance will be reduced to the squareroot of what it is on live. This means that rolling dots on 4 targets (like Council) you would get sqrt(4)/4=0.5 of the procs you gain on live. The same amount you will get on a 2 target fight (megaera) on live.

Now, let's just leave out the fact that you with this change would have to spent a lot more gcds dotting 4 targets instead of 2 (which makes it even worse), and just compare the amount of SS procs you get on council and megaera on live atm. Do you still not see a huge differense?

[Juvencus]

In terms of raw dps? Movement stuff? What are you measuring?

In terms of 3+ Targets where the change will start taking effect

[Fleuria]

Therefore, if we say Starsurge constitutes 30% of our damage like we did in an earlier comparison, we would see a damage reduction of 6.96% two-target, 10.02% three-target, and 11.88% four-target not including SS proc waste. With SS proc waste variance we would expect these values to be reduced significantly (possibly by up to 25%), and on top of that we have the 10% buff to our nukes offsetting this.

10% damage decrease before wastage is accounted is huge on 3+ targets, I highly doubt when dotting anyone is a full 10% above lock / mage / ele etc... but oh well can't see this change sticking, they should just change the way the shooting star proc works or buff haste/mastery by a fuck ton to make crit way less valuable.

As currently this change will kill all other aspects of balance outside of heroic raiding.