[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Madus]

That you can call WoD starfall bad design while defending an obsolete and poorly-executed empowerment system is astonishing.

its logical he defend it as a major feedbacker and legion alfa tester.

[Tyze]

If you are at 90+ astral power. With 3 empowerments, whats mote important. To use them and go above 100 AP or clear some of the ap with starsurge?

[Cyous]

Here's we go yet again.

I'm done talking about Starfall. I've talked about it for a full fucking year. WOD was awful and 99% of people would agree. I hated so many parts of WOD, but I would still teach people how to play so they could at least try to enjoy it.

Empowerments at 100% uptime don't feel like empowerments. I've stressed this throughout all of testing. If empowering your attacks is "old" ... we will simply disagree. I tried to get them to budge on mechanics, but they had a different vision in mind.

We should just do away with all spells then. Set my keyboard to press Starsurge and Solar Wrath and a auto hotkey. Free Loot Tuesdays, right? I mean, it's completely passive at that point, ya? You cannot please everyone. If you don't like it, re-roll. If you can tolerate it, have fun. If you hate it after a year of analysis, then just fucking re-roll already.

Surrounding myself with who now? I've done most of this work by myself, on my own time, consulting many players across many skill levels just to see how they were doing. I've had numerous ultra-high-end chats and discussions with Bologna -- whom disagreed with a lot of changes at first. Those talks drove a ton of talk and actual changes, including: Starfall's effective output, Fury of Elune output, MoonMoon reallocation of Astral Power, Stellar Flare mechanics, Incarnation nerfs out the ass, Soul of the Forest effecting Starfall's cost, and it'll probably lead to a new 4pc in T19, because we've stressed the uptimes of our Empowerments being way too high to begin with. There was a ton of discussion and tons of disagreements on preferred gameplay. In the end, it's widely considered to be the best Balance gameplay (or at least very close 2nd, your opinion may vary by expansion).

You seem to believe that middle of the pack is somehow not average. {1,2,3} ; 2 = average, and we're the analog for 2. No analogy with using a meter to measure cells required.

I believe Balance is a very methodical playstyle with player and enemy prediction being a huge factor in min/max gameplay, much like Cata's min/max gameplay. The simple fact is the RNG doesn't work with the mechanics in place. You cannot give a free Starsurge, the burst is insane. You cannot place RNG on the Empowerment system (one or the other procs, not both) because you'd be spamming SW half the time anyway, so it doesn't really work. 100% SW + 50% LS or something could work, but unless that LS bonus is huge, it's just not exciting...in which case RNG is pointless.

The issue is that you've been challenging the same shit for over 8 months. We've had numerous discussions. We've had a lot of good debates. There is nothing more to debate. This is what they're doing. I understand your opinion, and you understand mine. We disagree. That's all there is to us and these topics.

I rarely turned down a buff, but I don't think we need anything major (Barkskin needs help). I think other specs are designed poorly in some regard. And I would rather see nerfs open up more player choice and reduce gimmicky mechanics. It's not because I think Balance is fine, it's because there are many specs in the same boat as Balance, and only a few outliers. That is why Balance is fine. And as you agreed, the simplest solution is to fix the outliers.

- - - Updated - - -

If you are at 90+ astral power. With 3 empowerments, whats mote important. To use them and go above 100 AP or clear some of the ap with starsurge?

Use Solar Wrath at hit 100, burn SS, SW, SS, LS, and work your way out...also, it means you cast Full Moon at a bad time or used AC poorly.

[Madus]

I remember WOD starfall as a good spell (lil bit boring) but its probably because i played it for like a month lol. Anyway i would like to see old starfall with new empower mechanic.

Would you trade Innervate for Ursol's Vortex ?

[Weissrolf]

I am one of the players who enjoyed the unglyphed Starfall, especially for grinding down mobs (questing and skinning) and running around like a headless chicken (Hansgar & Franzok).

[huth]

So when a microbiologist is trying to measure the diameter of a cell and you helpfully give them a meter stick instead of a micrometer, the meter stick is suddenly useless for the task at hand. Sure, you can measure the width of your lab with it, but it in no way helps to accomplish the task at hand.

You defined it as a perfect meter stick. At absolute minimum he should be able to use it to make a better micrometer, if he can't just measure the cell directly with it.

If you want your simile to work, give him a thermometer or a barometer. But then it wouldn't fit the situation anymore. We're still comparing like to like, even if you want to claim otherwise.

[Juvencus]

I remember WOD starfall as a good spell (lil bit boring) but its probably because i played it for like a month lol. Anyway i would like to see old starfall with new empower mechanic.

Would you trade Innervate for Ursol's Vortex ?

Yes!

I am one of the players who enjoyed the unglyphed Starfall, especially for grinding down mobs (questing and skinning) and running around like a headless chicken (Hansgar & Franzok).

And yes!

---

Thing is, abilities don't have to be a sum of try-harding, clunkyness and challenge to be fun. Starfall's allure was its class/spec fantasy, the utility, the uniqueness, the look and feel of it that made it interesting. It was easy to use AND rewarding, something very rare in the history of Moonkins. It set us apart and now it doesn't.

[huth]

Use Solar Wrath at hit 100, burn SS, SW, SS, LS, and work your way out...also, it means you cast Full Moon at a bad time or used AC poorly.

Or you couldn't use everything up in a previous fight and didn't pause long enough for it to decay/fall off.

[Tyze]

Or you couldn't use everything up in a previous fight and didn't pause long enough for it to decay/fall off.

This is often the case, however I believe it will be better in raids.

[Lucrece]

I don't think Starfall is broken anyways, it's just an issue of numbers tuning. It's fine for it to empower dots, but the NUMBERS need to be there for the ramp up it has, and they just aren't.

It's that simple. There's a reason stellar drift is bad. There's a reason why sotf is so attractive to people. It's because people are trying to prop up a numerically crippled ability.

[huth]

I wouldn't say Starfall is bad, but it's to backloaded for short fights.

This is often the case, however I believe it will be better in raids.

Well, better in the sense that it will happen less due to preparation pauses.

[Kharahh]

Yes!




And yes!

---

Thing is, abilities don't have to be a sum of try-harding, clunkyness and challenge to be fun. Starfall's allure was its class/spec fantasy, the utility, the uniqueness, the look and feel of it that made it interesting. It was easy to use AND rewarding, something very rare in the history of Moonkins. It set us apart and now it doesn't.

MoonMoon is class flavour though - you can not deny that. Everytime Im playing with a mate doing world quests we're both yelling out FUUUUUUULLLLMOOOOOOONNNNNNNN when its about to drop its shit down on a mob. So we havent lost everything

I will agree though, I loved the all starfall, and despite Cyous saying it's a "bad design", there are many fire and forget spells similar to this one in the game, like whirldwind for example, but what is important is timing and positioning so that you maximise dps and dont a) break cc b) pull mobs . I mean there is still some thinking. The idea that "placing down a targetting reticule suddenly makes it "great design" is just silly - it is really just a small element of gameplay and it honestly is not fun. I mean if anything let us cast it while mid casts? That's interesting and different..

What I am not happy with at the moment is how we are not competitive compared to certain classes. I mean the damage output of rogues/DH given ilvl is disgusting,.. and this is whilst using FoE. I get blizz are like "take risk , big reward" but to get the similar dps to a rogue doing about 4 - 5 things more? That's bad design. risk-reward should actually be risk-reward, not risk-heres-a-pat-on-the-back-average-whilst-you-smash-keys

[Nythiz]

What if we were fine and certain melee were just overtuned?

Even if that were to be the case. I'm not sure blizzard should make sweeping changes (because that's all they do these days) just yet. With raids coming up and longer fights in general coming up. We should see if the trend is a general trend, or just a causation of extremely short fights.

Don't get me wrong, something should definitely change if blizzard intends for mythic+ to be endgame content. For heroic/mythic dungeons in WoD nobody really gave a damn, because it didn't really matter and CM was a relative small factor; but in Legion they intend for it to be endgame and last throughout, than they need to deal with this clear melee bias.

I'm at 802 and just tried both of these combinations. Most of the time they don't seem to kill, there's always a bit left. NM->HM->SW doesn't create enough AP for SS even when AC is used. I will try BotA again. But overall it seems that I shouldn't mess so much with DoTs and keep to your listed strategies.

I was mostly just giving some combinations. It's not often that I start a fight with 0 AsP so the NM-HM-SW-SS combo generally works if you have at least 10 AsP.
I personally run with Astral Communion; so in the case i have 0 AsP I either open with something like AC->SS->NM->HM->SS; or I open with a full rotation of NM->HM->FM. Depends a bit on mob health too. If a mob lives for 6+ seconds I drop my DoTs on it. If a full moon is going to severely be overkill than I save FM as an opener on the next pull.

Back in WoD I didn't like the new moonkin, because I felt very forced into using unempowered SW spam to grind up Astral Power on each fight. The moonmoon skills alleviate that issue a lot by giving you a nice burst of AsP and solid damage.

Most fights I try to just keep my AsP up and use a few moon spells per mob. The thing is you should always have plenty of 1 of your 3 resources ready.
Either your moonskills are ready to be fired, you can pop a cooldown (AC or CE/Inc), else you have AsP to spend on starsurges and if you have neither of those you should have empowered spells ready to be cast. If none of that is true, you've done something wrong.

If everything goes really well I try to always have Full Moon up for the pull. That way I can Full Moon -> Starsurge -> LS (as they run towards me) -> SW -> X
Where X is maybe NM -> HM; or another SS into empowered SWs.
Now that I have a bit more gear (830+ for moonkin, as resto is my main spec); I can get away with pulling 2-3 semi-strong mobs at once and nuke them all down.

If you are at 90+ astral power. With 3 empowerments, whats mote important. To use them and go above 100 AP or clear some of the ap with starsurge?

If you're in that situation in the first place you've messed up somewhere. Generally it comes from popping AC at a bad time; or casting too many unempowered spells when your moonspells are up.

I'm not sure which is better exactly. But I would probably say that wasting 8-20 AsP isn't as bad as wasting 2 empowerment stacks. But someone with more actual numbers can probably tell you.
In a single target situation might actually be best to just spend 1 SW charge and then SS. Losing 1 LS charge doesn't seem so bad as it's comparatively inferior to SW anyway. After you burn 20 AsP on SS you should be able to cast 1 of each charge and burn another SS.

After that your main priority becomes a bit of damage control as you're probably sitting on a few moonmoon charges, at about 60 AsP and on 2/2 empowerments, so you'll want to not waste any resources here.
Either
NM/HM -> SS -> SW/LS spam
or
SS->FM->LS/SW->SS(->NM)->LS/SW spam(->NM).

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As for the starfall vs FoE debate.

I'm personally not a huge fan of FoE. I can see how it can be fun and challenging, but I feel its mechanically too clunky to be fun enough of a spell. Making it fixed on a mob would be a big help.
There are some other changes that would make it better too. I really like the challange of having to generate as much AsP/sec to keep it going for as long as possible, but you need to build your entire talent build and cooldown rotation around this single spell, which I feel is a bit overkill and to an extend even takes away a lot of class choice.
I'd almost say this skill would be better with a lower drain and a maximum duration; but I feel like that would take away a lot of skill and fun of the skill. So I'm not sure yet what I would want FoE to become.

As for starfall, the spell really isn't that bad. The problem is that it's practically impossible to get it working to full effectiveness.
Say you start at 0 AsP. First you're busy for like 5-10 seconds to get some sunfires up and generate the 60 AsP it takes to get this thing rolling. If you finally get the badboy rolling and you continue applying some moonfires for the extra punch, but then you realize that this thing only lasts for 8 friggin seconds and you need ANOTHER 60 Astral Power to keep it going. And that's all considering the mobs don't get zomfgDHcleaved in the first 3 seconds of the fight.
It's just frustrating, because this combination requires SOOO much setup and doesn't really pay out enough.

[wing5wong]

I wouldn't say Starfall is bad, but it's to backloaded for short fights.


Well, better in the sense that it will happen less due to preparation pauses.

I think its been brought up since alpha - would be really nice to shift some damage from empowerments into the direct damage of starfall.
Such a high cost, many talents affecting its (relatively weak) direct damage, yet it also requires significant number of gcds beforehand before being optimal.

I like that it has interaction - perhaps its still just slightly too much

[Lucrece]

Outlaw rogue and assassination rogue are gonna be retarded OP no matter the fight length. They're just overtuned, period.

Outlaw is even a bigger transgressor as assassination at least has mediocre aoe, but outlaw has among the best aoe, low target cleave, and single target in the game.

I'm surprised Blade Flurry has gone unnerfed for so long through these xpacs, it's virtually the best cleaving/aoe ability in the game.

Outlaw can't have its cake and eat it. Its single target or aoe need to be nerfed. It can't be the best at everything.

[thilicen]

Or you couldn't use everything up in a previous fight and didn't pause long enough for it to decay/fall off.

Happens to me all the time, very much expect this "problem" to go away as soon as we get to raiding and have a minute or so of prep-work before boss pulls.

[Synadrasa]

Yeah, you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. WOD Starfall was a shitty design. Damage output is just a number. It's not a nerf unless you need to be carried by passive mechanics.

You're trying to say is starfall was a shitty designed spell because it was too strong and easy to use? I mean I totally understand your point of view but realize moonkins will be a lot worse off mechanically on raid fights, infact starfall was the reason moonkin was even a thing in wod, it was the MOST unique aspect about a moonkin. So while you're praising the clunky targeting reticle of our new starfall understand there is a hunter smashing his head on his keyboard recieving probably better results.

[lappee]

You're trying to say is starfall was a shitty designed spell because it was too strong and easy to use? I mean I totally understand your point of view but realize moonkins will be a lot worse off mechanically on raid fights, infact starfall was the reason moonkin was even a thing in wod, it was the MOST unique aspect about a moonkin. So while you're praising the clunky targeting reticle of our new starfall understand there is a hunter smashing his head on his keyboard recieving probably better results.

What was unique about it? It was just AoE spell like Monk RJW only with ridiculous range

[Cyous]

You're trying to say is starfall was a shitty designed spell because it was too strong and easy to use? I mean I totally understand your point of view but realize moonkins will be a lot worse off mechanically on raid fights, infact starfall was the reason moonkin was even a thing in wod, it was the MOST unique aspect about a moonkin. So while you're praising the clunky targeting reticle of our new starfall understand there is a hunter smashing his head on his keyboard receiving probably better results.

Numbers are numbers, the spell was boring as fuck. It was essentially a 40-yard AOE pulse. Who gives a fuck about other specs. Do you have fun pressing buttons as a hunter or a moonkin? It's not a yes/no question. Play what you enojy. If you need to jerkoff to DPS Meters, then I'll give you an edited Skada/Recount script so all your damage has a multiplier on it. But who fucking cares about numbers....WOD Starfall was boring no matter how good you think it was. Legion Starfall actually has some gameplay around it.

IIRC, the only reason Moonkin was a thing was because you had ridiculous spread/non-clump AOE damage on 1 encounter. And you think having 1-2 encounters all expansion be good for our main AOE overrides that shitty gameplay? You should probably play hunter instead.

[Ilnezhara]

Numbers are numbers, the spell was boring as fuck. It was essentially a 40-yard AOE pulse. Who gives a fuck about other specs. Do you have fun pressing buttons as a hunter or a moonkin? It's not a yes/no question. Play what you enojy. If you need to jerkoff to DPS Meters, then I'll give you an edited Skada/Recount script so all your damage has a multiplier on it. But who fucking cares about numbers....WOD Starfall was boring no matter how good you think it was. Legion Starfall actually has some gameplay around it.

IIRC, the only reason Moonkin was a thing was because you had ridiculous spread/non-clump AOE damage on 1 encounter. And you think having 1-2 encounters all expansion be good for our main AOE overrides that shitty gameplay? You should probably play hunter instead.

I agree to a point, moonkin is very fun to play but there's a point that comes where we're less likely to get into Mythic + than other classes.

Personally, I usually have to pug even though I'm in a good guild because it, so far, seems a little clique-esque and the other well established moonkin in the guild gets the groups. The pug life is currently very unkind to moonkins as opposed to, say, hunters.