[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Deleted]

At 70% Mastery, your DOTs are far more valuable than non-empowered nukes of either spell. Moonfire is still way ahead of SW (by +50% DPET). They are about equal while Empowered.
At 30% Mastery, your DOTs are just better if the target lives at least 7 sec, assuming the nukes are empowered. Non-empowered, it's no contest.

Stellar Flare is still twice as strong as your mega-empowered DOTs while empowered itself (125k vs 41k).

Are you including the damage benefit of the AsP generated by the non-empowered casts? Last time I did the math unempowered wrath was equal to SnF in DPET at ~30% mastery. Stellar Flare doesn't suffer from the problem SnF/MF has with 0 interaction single target and 0 mastery scaling.

[Cyous]

Are you including the damage benefit of the AsP generated by the non-empowered casts? Last time I did the math unempowered wrath was equal to SnF in DPET at ~30% mastery. Stellar Flare doesn't suffer from the problem SnF/MF has with 0 interaction single target and 0 mastery scaling.

I haven't calculated the AsP value of SW. I know of it, but losing 2 GCDs (2 SW casts) is worth it, considering the DOTs applied are simply worth more. 12|17 Astral Power every ~16sec is basically 1.5-2 Starsurges per minute. Can you get that much damage, plus 7 SW's for refreshing, out of MF and SnF in 60sec? Yes.

MF is 126%+504% (630%), and SnF is 126%+336% (462%). Moonfire will see 3 refreshes, and Sunfire sees 4 refreshes.
Moonfire is worth 1890%. Sunfire is worth 1848%. They tally up to 3738%.
Starsurge at 30% Mastery is effectively 910%, or 1190% at 70% mastery. We can expect Starsurge to be cast every 9.5sec (on average), so 6 casts -- this omits DOT casting. However, we can assume 5 Starsurge casts per minute with DOT refreshes. So, you only get 1 extra cast, if any.
Solar Wrath is worth 257.2%, and casting it 7 times is effectively 1543.2%, let's assume all are empowered, it should be possible. At 70%, that's 2623.44%. At 30% mastery, it's only 2006.12%.
Tallied up, nukes are worth 2916.12% or 3813.44%

Given absolutely no interrupts, lag, etc. 70% is practical equal at best. If you need to stop casting, you're better off DOTing anyway. Those are ridiculous numbers numbers to begin with, considering they're end-tier/expac/boosted ilvls. Given 30% Mastery, it's still no contest, in favor of DOTs. Besides, they are going to reduce power creep, so it's not a Legion issue. Albeit, it will be a pre-patch "issue" for the top 1%.

It would be best to increase DOT durations to avoid the issue altogether, or bump up the baseline empowerment and halve Mastery benefits -- then make Mastery appeal to DOTs in single-target.

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FWIW: It takes math to confirm this, and I now agree it's an issue, albeit not a big one (to me). But it's definitely there. With that said, thank you to those of whom brought to light this rotational issue. ^_^

[huth]

You used the wrong values for MF and SunF. That's for the baseline 12/8s duration versions.

[Lucrece]

I agree that I'd like more interaction between spells. Dot's could have a % chance to proc a reduced cast time on Lunar Strike or something of the sort. Or increase the critical chance and critical damage damage of your next Lunar Strike/Starsurge. If it was up to me I'd wish they would condense Moonfire and Sunfire into one dot with the baseline spreading effect as just Moonfire (and beef up the number to justify 1 dot). Do something interesting after with that.

Between some of that, tweaking the New/Half/Full Moon mechanic, and bringing back insect swarm not as a dot but a different nuke. I dislike losing Wild Mushroom and Hurricane even if they had to be changed into something else, the natural theme of the spec has been utterly changed to a celestial aspect, and more importantly a celestial aspect that's about lasers which is the last thing I'd associate with a druid.

They could make treants a baseline spell as well and replace it with some other mobility/cast time in that tier it was in. Maybe make a talent for stampeding roar on balance that works like Spiritwalker's Grace.

I'm still disappointed by our CC tier as well. Mighty Bash is a whopping 50 sec cd melee range stun, I don't understand why they can't make it ranged and summon a spirit of Ursoc to stun the target, Hammer of Justice style. Mass Entanglement seems as worthless as ever, at the very least they could add a sizable snare component after the roots break. Not sure why Typhoon has such a long cooldown for its effect either.

I also don't see myself ever taking feral affinity at all or restoration outside soloing. They could just make Restoration affinity increase healing received by 10-20%. For feral they could buff the movement speed bonus to 30% and give the druid back Stampeding Roar.

[Nythiz]

And most of the previously mentioned abilities help with this. Not to mention if you actually "get trained" then you'll have plenty of OKF procs making it pretty easy to generate AsP. Sure it wont be as good as when you can just turret targets but its still good.

I'm just saying what I'm seeing. I'm sure they can get it working, but to me it's a concern. I'm not saying it needs to be changed right away or that it is in a dire state. I'm just pointing out a potential rough edge.

Mechanic wise, moonkin is changed quite a bit.
And though I much (MUCH) prefer this new mechanic over the old pendulum rotation, it doesn't come without it's flaws.
Maybe not as much for raid PvE, because this new mechanic tends to lend itself well for extended fights. But there are some in other area's where I could forsee some problems.
Compared to live a boomkin is giving up a lot of "out of the box" burst, and on top of that we get more predictable burst by the straight up fact that the opponent can monitor our resources. I don't particularly mind that, but I do hope I can get a mental picture of the new way moonkin should go about this.

That's why I watched some moonkin pvp on the alpha servers, but other than that apparent AsP shortage it was rather hard to judge due to the imbalance still in the game. The AsP could very well also be very player side related, after all it's a new mechanic and you have to get used to that.

The game changes, balance mechanics change so the baseline abilities change aswell

That's the best you can come up with? "The game changes; suck it up!". I expected a bit more

Point remains, that I (and apparently many more people in this topic) think that just having DoTs for the sake of having DoTs is a bit plain for the state this game is in. This isn't vanilla or TBC anymore. There are very little, if any, other classes where DoTs have as little feedback and gameplay impact as with Legion moonkin.
If you're fine with that kind of gameplay; then fine, that's your right. I just think that the moonkin gameplay, from a "fun game" PoV, would benefit if they did a little bit more than just doing damage.
That's just like Savage Roar for ferals, having to keep up a 30% damage buff for the sake of keeping up. There is next to no interaction or feedback from that skill which creates a dull ability.

I'm not saying it has to be Shooting Stars, it could be something else. Hell maybe the last "super awesome"-artifact trait brings just that. But since we don't know that, I can only give my opinion on the current state of affairs.

- - - Updated - - -

FWIW: It takes math to confirm this, and I now agree it's an issue, albeit not a big one (to me). But it's definitely there. With that said, thank you to those of whom brought to light this rotational issue. ^_^

Well they haven't balanced numbers yet. So I'm not TOO concerned this will end up being a problem.
But the fact that DoTs have very little that makes them interesting to cast or in any way interact with the spec, is in my eyes a problem in itself.

Sure, as long as the DPET is even a sliver higher than that of chaining nukes (and unless blizzard is completely messing up it will be), we will all cast it.
But is it fun gameplay, when you're forced to keep up a (possibly) inferior scaling ability that is just flat out damage with no interaction/feedback?

We've seen that in Slice and Dice and Savage Roar and Searing Totem for other classes. Most of them got harsh criticism for being dull or are flat out reworked to be more entertaining.

And yet here moonkin is devolving their DoTs into just that.

[Deleted]

hopefully they change dot scaling before we hit live.

[Deleted]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20742444392#2

This change hopefully means that on pull dps will be a way smaller portion of the total dps than it is now - definitely good news for Boomkins with the ramp up time we have in Legion.

[Lucrece]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20742444392#2

This change hopefully means that on pull dps will be a way smaller portion of the total dps than it is now - definitely good news for Boomkins with the ramp up time we have in Legion.

Don't on use trinkets just overtake the on proc ones?

[Alame]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20742444392#2

This change hopefully means that on pull dps will be a way smaller portion of the total dps than it is now - definitely good news for Boomkins with the ramp up time we have in Legion.

That's veeeeryyyy interesting. I like the direction though - RPPM trinkets aren't very random chance when they're guaranteed a proc on the pull and likely to get a second proc as soon as the first ends. Hopefully the tuning ends well and we have some real competition between RPPM & on-use trinkets this expac.

Don't on use trinkets just overtake the on proc ones?

Depends on the numbers. It's a risk/reward relationship - do you take the smaller stat boost that's guaranteed to line up with your cooldowns/nuke cycle/whatever or the larger stat boost that comes whenever it wants regardless of your rotation?

Balancing the stat differences with the unpredictability of the proc (a notoriously difficult thing to do) will determine whether RPPM or on-use is better, or if the two are competitive.

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Re: DoTs - I agree we need more integration into the rotation. Right now they're just fire & forget until you need to re-apply.

How about:

Mooncraze
Your most recent Moonfire & Sunfire applications have a 11% chance to apply a stack of Mooncraze.

Mooncraze reduces the cast time of Full Moon by 5% per stack, stacks up to 20 times.


Resulting in every ~3 minutes you get an instant Full Moon cast, assuming you've cycled your Moon spells in that time. Addresses Moon usability, and gives lots of incentive/integration to DoTs.

[Deleted]

Has anyone done any maths stuff for Power of Goldrinn yet? After farming a load of dungeons for artifact power i finally got it, and the wolf you get from starsurge seems to do 1/3 of the damage of the starsurge in a line to everything between you and your target. Doesnt this kinda undermine starfall a bit? how many dots would we have to have empowered by a starfall for it to now beat starsurge with the extra damage this does?

[Arborus]

Re: DoTs - I agree we need more integration into the rotation. Right now they're just fire & forget until you need to re-apply.

How about:

Mooncraze
Your most recent Moonfire & Sunfire applications have a 11% chance to apply a stack of Mooncraze.

Mooncraze reduces the cast time of Full Moon by 5% per stack, stacks up to 20 times.


Resulting in every ~3 minutes you get an instant Full Moon cast, assuming you've cycled your Moon spells in that time. Addresses Moon usability, and gives lots of incentive/integration to DoTs.

That seems kind of...odd to me. A Moon cycle is 40 seconds-ish, right? 10-10-20 on the CDs? Is it not worth it to cast Full Moon without it being instant? Because otherwise you'll never build up to an instant one if you're casting on CD. Even then, I feel like having any reduction to make the 4 second cast more manageable is an improvement- but it seems you'd never want to hold the CD long enough to get 20 stacks.

[Alame]

Has anyone done any maths stuff for Power of Goldrinn yet? After farming a load of dungeons for artifact power i finally got it, and the wolf you get from starsurge seems to do 1/3 of the damage of the starsurge in a line to everything between you and your target. Doesnt this kinda undermine starfall a bit? how many dots would we have to have empowered by a starfall for it to now beat starsurge with the extra damage this does?

There's no numbers on WoWhead & I don't have alpha access or I'd help you out. If someone can pull me numbers I can run them for you.

That seems kind of...odd to me. A Moon cycle is 40 seconds-ish, right? 10-10-20 on the CDs? Is it not worth it to cast Full Moon without it being instant? Because otherwise you'll never build up to an instant one if you're casting on CD. Even then, I feel like having any reduction to make the 4 second cast more manageable is an improvement- but it seems you'd never want to hold the CD long enough to get 20 stacks.

That's kind of the point - you can use whatever stacks you have for partial cast time reduction for every Moon cycle, or you can save up stacks to have an instant full moon at the start of your 3-minute cooldown stack cycle. Another way of offering the player choice in usability.

[Arborus]

That's kind of the point - you can use whatever stacks you have for partial cast time reduction for every Moon cycle, or you can save up stacks to have an instant full moon at the start of your 3-minute cooldown stack cycle. Another way of offering the player choice in usability.

Surely it isn't really a choice, though? You lose at least 3 uses of Full Moon if you try to save stacks for an instant cast one. Would it really ever be worth losing out on that 300 AsP? It seems like if players are always going to be casting with a low number stacks that a different design does that same thing without seeming so...off?

The design just seems weird to me- because if you're never going to cast it with 20 stacks, why even give it 20 stacks to begin with? It's just offering a reward- an instant cast Full Moon- that you'll never realistically get.

I guess my point is-

if it's only worth casting once every 3 minutes when it's instant...why not just make it instant and have a 3 minute CD on the cycle?

If it's worth casting every 40 seconds regardless of if it's instant...why have a proc that can build up to make it instant?

It just seems sort of...wasted? I guess. It seems like the incorrect way of addressing the problem.

I feel like a more exciting and easily readable DoT interaction is that of the live Shooting Stars. Why not have something similar that immediately activates Full Moon and makes it instant with a low proc rate?

Perhaps this creates a bit more...interesting gameplay if the instant-cast portion lasts a while? Such that you can dump your current AsP before using it or hold the proc to line up later- say if you need a burst of AsP for adds shortly. Similar to how you can pool Starsurge/Starfall charges currently on live.

[Deleted]

There's no numbers on WoWhead & I don't have alpha access or I'd help you out. If someone can pull me numbers I can run them for you.

At lvl 106, with 14,672 spellpower and 2881 (31.64%) mastery my starsurge hits for 148,271, and the goldrinn wolf 48,417 to all targets hit. i need to learn how to do this maths stuff x_x

[Alame]

Surely it isn't really a choice, though? You lose at least 3 uses of Full Moon if you try to save stacks for an instant cast one. Would it really ever be worth losing out on that 300 AsP? It seems like if players are always going to be casting with a low number stacks that a different design does that same thing without seeming so...off?

The design just seems weird to me- because if you're never going to cast it with 20 stacks, why even give it 20 stacks to begin with? It's just offering a reward- an instant cast Full Moon- that you'll never realistically get.

I guess my point is-

if it's only worth casting once every 3 minutes when it's instant...why not just make it instant and have a 3 minute CD on the cycle?

If it's worth casting every 40 seconds regardless of if it's instant...why have a proc that can build up to make it instant?

It just seems sort of...wasted? I guess. It seems like the incorrect way of addressing the problem.

I feel like a more exciting and easily readable DoT interaction is that of the live Shooting Stars. Why not have something similar that immediately activates Full Moon and makes it instant with a low proc rate?

Perhaps this creates a bit more...interesting gameplay if the instant-cast portion lasts a while? Such that you can dump your current AsP before using it or hold the proc to line up later- say if you need a burst of AsP for adds shortly. Similar to how you can pool Starsurge/Starfall charges currently on live.

You're assuming casting Full Moon is a high enough priority that you want to be using full moon & cycling the associated spells as often as possible - that's not necessarily the case. FoE is one example - you can have Full Moon ready every 40s but you will likely want to hold onto it to use in conjunction with FoE every minute.

It can be worth casting both as an instant every 3 minutes and as a reduced cast every 40s, it depends on the comparative value of the other actions available to you at the time. This is easier to conceptualize if you think of the cast time reduction as an increase in DPET/value. The stacking buff steadily increases the value of casting full moon (via reducing the cast time) until it becomes the most valuable action available and you consume the stacks. This can be simply rotational based (Full Moon's total value exceeds that of Solar Wrath at X stacks & should be cast then) or it can be decision based (I get more value out of using Full Moon with FoE/Incarnation/etc than I do consuming stacks right now) adding layers of complexity & decision making.

[Cyous]

You used the wrong values for MF and SunF. That's for the baseline 12/8s duration versions.

Do you have the 18/14sec values? Direct Damage looks to be correct.

[Arborus]

You're assuming casting Full Moon is a high enough priority that you want to be using full moon & cycling the associated spells as often as possible - that's not necessarily the case. FoE is one example - you can have Full Moon ready every 40s but you will likely want to hold onto it to use in conjunction with FoE every minute.

It can be worth casting both as an instant every 3 minutes and as a reduced cast every 40s, it depends on the comparative value of the other actions available to you at the time. This is easier to conceptualize if you think of the cast time reduction as an increase in DPET/value. The stacking buff steadily increases the value of casting full moon (via reducing the cast time) until it becomes the most valuable action available and you consume the stacks. This can be simply rotational based (Full Moon's total value exceeds that of Solar Wrath at X stacks & should be cast then) or it can be decision based (I get more value out of using Full Moon with FoE/Incarnation/etc than I do consuming stacks right now) adding layers of complexity & decision making.

No argument in relation to Moon's interactions with FoE. Holding it an additional 20 seconds to line up doesn't seem like an issue.

However, I really can't see Blizzard tuning our initial artifact trait in such a way that it's worth not using it for 3 minutes. It seems like something that they'll actively try to tune in a way such that you want to use it fairly often.

[huth]

Do you have the 18/14sec values? Direct Damage looks to be correct.

Should be a linear increase, so you can just multiply by 18/12 and 14/8 respectively.

[Cyous]

Should be a linear increase, so you can just multiply by 18/12 and 14/8 respectively.

Updated values:
Moonfire: 648% DOT
Sunfire: 588% DOT

(This makes our "Mastery tuning" a bit better.)

[huth]

Shouldn't that be 756% for Moonfire? The absolute increase should be the same for both, since both tick at the same intervall and for the same amount.