List of moonkin concerns

[Panoramixe]

I made a list with all the moonkin issues and just posting it on a few forums to get different points of view. In the end the point of this is to get it to the devs and hopefully get some concrete answers, which we have none of at the moment on the beta forums.

Pve issues:

The talent: Improved Moonkin Aura
The issue: It has way too long of a cool down and is party-wide, making it weak compared to a totem.
(About 5,6% haste group-wide on average compared to 5% raid-wide from the totem, assuming they stack.)
The solutions:
- Lower the cool down to about 15 seconds, to make it acceptable.
- Increase the duration to ~15 seconds.

The talent: Earth and moon
The issue: It is just weak compared to improved scorch since the buff, imp scorch buffs 3 schools for 10% damage.
The solution: To buff earth and moon to an acceptable level it should go to 15% for 2 schools would make sense relatively speaking. Most druids, however, would be glad with it becoming a 10% buff.
If earth and moon and improved scorch don’t stack for the arcane part, 15% wouldn’t be over the top at all.

The talent: Eclipse
The issue: It has a very long cool down, making more than one point in it useless. (Theory crafting has shown that one point will result in a ~1,6% damage increase and three points a ~2,3% increase, a bit bad for three points this far in the tree imo.)
The solution: Either buff the talent or lower the cool down to one minute.
Many would prefer this being an active talent comparable to icy veins; it could perhaps have some use in pvp then.

The talent: Brambles
The issues:
- Thorns doesn’t depend on the caster’s but on the target’s spellpower.
- Force of Nature could do with some more love
The solution: A change for thorns is quite needed and buffing the damage of the treants by 30/50% would be appreciated by many too. Also extra survivability for treants is a must.

The talent: Improved faerie fire
The issue: It has a short duration for an important debuff.
The solution: Add extra duration to the talent itself or add somewhere in the tree the ability to refresh its duration, if it gets added to the talent it wouldn't affect pvp.

The talent: Lunar Guidance
The issue: It has been nerfed, for the healing part I believe.
The solution: Make it have double effect in moonkin form. This would make it balanced for healing and not nerf it without any reason damage wise.

The talent: Dreamstate
The issue: Due to some mana mechanics changes this talent became less useful than it should be.
The solution: Add some extra synergy with spirit to the talent to get our gear and talents in line, for example add crit from spirit.

The spells: Starfire and Wrath
The issue: Very low base damage compared to spells of other classes, already ruins single target dps a little.
The solution: Buff the base damage?

Resto talents are tailored for feral druids at the lower tiers, moonkin; however, need to pick up several useless points. A fix could be to swap master shape shifter to tier 2.
There is also a minor issue with the low tiers of balance. People are forced to take at least one pvp point to advance from tier 2 to tier 3 in the tree. Change control of nature, like mentioned in the pvp part, or change the lay-out of the tree a little, for example swap brambles and control of nature.

Pvp issues:

The talent: Starfall
The issue: It can be dispelled and spell stolen. It has a long cool down and its use is quite situational.
The solution:
- It needs dispell resistance
- It would also be awesome to add a mana burn effect similar to the engineering arcane bomb. It’s a 3 minute cool down and fairly weak in its current state for pvp, add to that the fact moonkin have nothing to counter casters and you have a perfect solution.

The talent: Typhoon
The issue: There’s a delay on the knock back, which is also fairly low.
The solutions:
- Make the knock back instant, like intended probably.
- It would be great if the knock back would be buffed to 7-10 yards so we are actually out of melee range. An extra option would be to double the knock back on crits.
- It would be appreciated if a slow would be added to the targets hit by typhoon.
- It could also be made a trainable skill or added to another balance talent (e.g. moonkin form) and have the current point to enhance it. This would give balance druids a “trainable spell” like the other two trees.

The talent: Force of Nature
The issues:
- Easily killed, little damage, no added effects, lack buster compared to other similar talents.
- The new spell pushback system, their use is even more limited because of this. The only benefit of having three of them is now gone.
The solutions:
- They need better survivability desperately.
- They need actual synergy with the spec, e.g. water elemental.
- They could use a total overhaul, for example turn it into one big tree that gives us a buff while active too: e.g. 15% damage decrease (for both tree and moonkin) and a 10% damage increase. (Sort of the old soul link, but then on a cool down.)

The talent: Owlkin Frenzy
The issue: Spell pushback is not useful for wrath, our main pvp spell and it can be removed by hunters
The solution:
- Either make starfire worth casting in pvp, like the current arena set bonus for example, or change the talent to also make you immune to silence/interrupt mechanics.
- Another suggestion is to replace the talent by improved barkskin: Reduce cool down on your barkskin spell by 10/20/30seconds and in addition while under effect of barkskin, the druid has 33/66/100% chance to resist spell interrupt and silence effects.

The talent: Brambles
The issues:
- A short daze on barkskin is close to useless
- The daze for treants is useful but suffers from the trees being a bit weak
- The added damage would be quite good if thorns depends on the caster’s and not the target’s spell power.
The solution: Either change thorns like before mentioned and/or add the daze to thorns again.

The talent: Subtlety
The issue: Doesn’t have dispell resistance for balance spells anymore.
The solution: Either add it to subtlety again or combine it with lunar guidance or a similar talent.

The talent: Control of nature
The issue: Only affects cc, while our main pve spell doesn’t have any pushback resistance.
The solution: Make it 25/50/70% spell pushback resistance for all balance spells

The talent: Celestial focus:
The issue: Inconsistency within the talent.
The solution: Make it a stun/daze chance for all balance spells.

[str4vic]

The talent: Starfall
The issue: It can be dispelled and spell stolen. It has a long cool down and its use is quite situational.



Welcome to most useful DPS buffs in the game.

[Typh00n]

Buff this, Buff that..QQ

The user has been banned for this post

[Thandrin]

Q (Join the combo plx)

QQ

The user has been banned for this post

[Panoramixe]

The talent: Starfall
The issue: It can be dispelled and spell stolen. It has a long cool down and its use is quite situational.



Welcome to most useful DPS buffs in the game.

It's an aoe on a three minute cooldown and it's our 51 pointer.
We have no inert dispell resistance so it is a big issue.
I also don't have a clue why it's a buff, it just doesn't make sense.

Edit: People say official forums are bad, but people that don't even read the post and state "QQ" are worse imo. Either state why we shouldn't get these fixes or shut up.

[Sidders]

I made a list with all the moonkin issues and just posting it on a few forums to get different points of view. In the end the point of this is to get it to the devs and hopefully get some concrete answers, which we have none of at the moment on the beta forums.

Pve issues:

The spells: Starfire and Wrath
The issue: Very low base damage compared to spells of other classes, already ruins single target dps a little.
The solution: Buff the base damage?

I am confused as to why you think boomkin should be on par with pure caster dps (warlock or mage for example). As you can spec tank or heal and they cannot) So this one I completely disagree with.

The talent: Improved Moonkin Aura
The issue: It has way too long of a cool down, combined with it not stacking with wrath of air totem makes it lack buster.
The solution: Lower the cool down to about 8 seconds, to make it acceptable.

Agree, stacking issues are a pain and in the least that needs to be fixed.

The talent: Earth and moon
The issue: It is just weak compared to improved scorch since the buff, imp scorch buffs 3 schools for 10% damage.
The solution: To buff earth and moon to an acceptable level it should go to 15% for 2 schools would make sense relatively speaking. Most druids, however, would be glad with it becoming a 10% buff.


The talent: Eclipse
The issue: Has a very long cool down, making more than one point in it useless. (Theory crafting has shown that one points will result in a ~1,6% damage increase and three points a ~2,3% increase, a bit bad for three points imo.)
The solution: Either buff the talent or lower the cool down to one minute.

The talent: Lunar Guidance
The issue: It has been nerfed, for the healing part I believe.
The solution: Make it have double effect in moonkin form. This would make it balanced for healing and not nerf it without any reason damage wise.


The talent: Brambles
The issues:
- Thorns doesn’t depend on the caster’s but on the target’s spellpower.
- Force of Nature could do with some more love
The solution: A change for thorns is quite needed and buffing the damage of the treant by 30/50% would be appreciated by many too.

I 100% agree with this, I truly think this spell should depend solely on the druids spellpower (after all they are the ones casting the dang thing right?)


The talent: Dreamstate
The issue: Due to some mana mechanics changes this talent became less useful than it should be.
The solution: Add some extra synergy with spirit to the talent to get our gear and talents in line, for example add a crit from spirit or extra mp5 from spirit to the talent.

Resto talents are tailored for feral druids at the lower tiers, moonkin; however, need to pick up two useless points. A fix would be to swap master shape shifter to tier 2, but keeping the prereq.

Pvp issues:

The talent: Starfall
The issue: It can be dispelled and spell stolen. It has a long cool down and its use is quite situational.
The solution: It needs dispell resistance; it would also be awesome to add a mana burn effect similar to the engineering arcane bomb. It’s a 3 minute cool down and fairly weak in its current state for pvp, add to that the fact moonkin have nothing to counter casters and you have a perfect solution.

The talent: Typhoon
The issue: There’s a delay on the knock back, which is also fairly low.
The solution: Make the knock back instant, like intended probably. It would also be great if the knock back would be buffed to 7-10 yards so we are actually out of melee range. An extra option would be to double the knock back on crits.
It would also be appreciated if a slow would be added to the targets hit by typhoon.

The talent: Force of Nature
The issues: Easily killed, little damage, no added effects, lack buster compared to other similar talents.
The solution: Give it either an added effect and/or reverse the brambles nerf from alpha, aka 75% more damage for trees. Added effects could be a random casting of roots from the treants, weak rejuvenations, tranquillity like spells or an explosion when killed causing a silence or something similar. In short a little bit extra to make it a worthwhile 41-pointer.

The talent: Owlkin Frenzy
The issue: Spell pushback is not useful for wrath, our main pvp spell and it can be removed by hunters
The solution: Either make starfire worth casting in pvp, like the current arena set bonus for example, or change the talent to also make you immune to silence/interrupt mechanics.

The talent: Brambles
The issues:
- A short daze on barkskin is close to useless
- The daze for treants is useful but suffers from the trees being a bit weak
- The added damage would be quite good if thorns depends on the caster’s and not the target’s spell power.
The solution: Either change thorns like before mentioned and/or add the daze to thorns again.

The talent: Subtlety
The issue: Doesn’t have dispell resistance for balance spells anymore.
The solution: Either add it to subtlety again or combine it with lunar guidance or a similar talent.

The spell: Thorns
The issue: It needs some love.
The solution:
- Brambles (see above)
- A damage reduction based on caster’s spellpower.
- A proc chance to give bonus spellpower or other sort of other beneficial effect.
- Just to mention again, make the damage dependant on the caster’s and not the target’s spellpower.

This is all I believe, if I missed anything reply anywhere and i'll add it.

Ps. IMKA is a bit in the blue still, on EJ forums someone tested it and the haste stacked with wrath of air totem. But would be great to be sure if that is for all group members or just the moonkin. Anyway if they do stack it is still a bit weak.

I agree with most of these, and had some comments I wanted to make (in red below your original corresponding post).
And I think I have seen blue posts regarding some of these that you mentioned so hopefully they will get fixed soon.

My main question to you is the starfire and wrath issue. What would warlocks and mages bring to the table if boomkin were equal in dps to them?

I believe, yes, that boomkins should be very powerful and formidable dps.. but not in the least equal to mages or warlocks. Lest blizz give them some sort of tanking and healing option to spec into. :P

[str4vic]

It's an aoe on a three minute cooldown and it's our 51 pointer.
We have no inert dispell resistance so it is a big issue.
I also don't have a clue why it's a buff, it just doesn't make sense.

Edit: People say official forums are bad, but people that don't even read the post and state "QQ" are worse imo. Either state why we shouldn't get these fixes or shut up.

You shouldnt get that fixed because most offensive magical buffs are spell-stealable/purgable/dispelable.

Also because you are a druid, and should be content with 2400 ratings in every bracket.



Edit: Its a buff because you could either get it A) Channeled and interrupted B) Applied as a DoT and get it dispelled or C) Have it as a passive buff on yourself and hope nobody cares to purge you since it is such a terrible spell.

[Panoramixe]

You shouldnt get that fixed because most offensive magical buffs are spell-stealable/purgable/dispelable.

Also because you are a druid, and should be content with 2400 ratings in every bracket.

This is about balance druids only, they struggle in pvp. So please try to use those things between your ears before posting. We deserve to be viable in every part of the game, even if we have another tree that is considered overpowered.

[str4vic]

This is about balance druids only, they struggle in pvp. So please try to use those things between your ears before posting. We deserve to be viable in every part of the game, even if we have another tree that is considered overpowered.

Most are restokin.

[Typh00n]

It's an aoe on a three minute cooldown and it's our 51 pointer.
We have no inert dispell resistance so it is a big issue.
I also don't have a clue why it's a buff, it just doesn't make sense.

Edit: People say official forums are bad, but people that don't even read the post and state "QQ" are worse imo. Either state why we shouldn't get these fixes or shut up.

You shouldnt get that fixed because most offensive magical buffs are spell-stealable/purgable/dispelable.

Seriously. You must have understood that yourself

[Eleena]

So having offensive spells get a chance to resist dispel is gonna make it OP, to be restokin?

Restokin is a problem about the very way hots works, balance druids don't work as intended.
Its fin if resto kins get nerfed one way or the other too, if that really is so necesary (which i doubt bluntly speaking). But that doesn't mean fullfledged balance druids are supposed to be broken.

Rather then trolling a thread trying to be constructive, I suggest you try to be it too, rather then just say gg 2400 rating...

[Eleena]

Concerning IMKA being lackluster, currently even if it stacks, it would still be weaker then a "raidwide"(some one told me it was nerfed to be party wide again, thus the ""), shaman totem, which doesn't even require any talents.

Obviously there is more to it then that tho'...

[metalgemini]

Pve issues:

The spells: Starfire and Wrath
The issue: Very low base damage compared to spells of other classes, already ruins single target dps a little.
The solution: Buff the base damage?

This is possible, but beta isn't done yet and I can't see Blizz letting it go live with weak primary spells.

The talent: Improved Moonkin Aura
The issue: It has way too long of a cool down, combined with it not stacking with wrath of air totem makes it lack buster.
The solution: Lower the cool down to about 8 seconds, to make it acceptable.

A buff that lasts 8 sec with a 8 sec CD is just no CD. Why not just give us a constant 20% haste buff then? I think we'll be ok with a 30sec CD.

The talent: Earth and moon
The issue: It is just weak compared to improved scorch since the buff, imp scorch buffs 3 schools for 10% damage.
The solution: To buff earth and moon to an acceptable level it should go to 15% for 2 schools would make sense relatively speaking. Most druids, however, would be glad with it becoming a 10% buff.

I agree its a small buff for 5pts, but you can't really compare it to Imp Scorch. It's a raidwide debuff so it helps anyone doing arcane/nature dmg. Likewise, Imp Scorch buffs all types of dmg mages do, so it kind of needs 3 schools.

The talent: Eclipse
The issue: Has a very long cool down, making more than one point in it useless. (Theory crafting has shown that one points will result in a ~1,6% damage increase and three points a ~2,3% increase, a bit bad for three points imo.)
The solution: Either buff the talent or lower the cool down to one minute.

This type of ability needs a long cooldown. It would be tedious to be switching from wrath to starfire rotations every 30sec during a boss fight.

The talent: Lunar Guidance
The issue: It has been nerfed, for the healing part I believe.
The solution: Make it have double effect in moonkin form. This would make it balanced for healing and not nerf it without any reason damage wise.

Ya, I hope there is a reason for this.

The talent: Brambles
The issues:
- Thorns doesn’t depend on the caster’s but on the target’s spellpower.
- Force of Nature could do with some more love
The solution: A change for thorns is quite needed and buffing the damage of the treant by 30/50% would be appreciated by many too.

Might be too much for one talent, I'm just glad treants get something

The talent: Dreamstate
The issue: Due to some mana mechanics changes this talent became less useful than it should be.
The solution: Add some extra synergy with spirit to the talent to get our gear and talents in line, for example add a crit from spirit or extra mp5 from spirit to the talent.

Blue posts have said the opposite, that moonkin might be regenning too much. I wouldnt expect a change here.

Resto talents are tailored for feral druids at the lower tiers, moonkin; however, need to pick up two useless points. A fix would be to swap master shape shifter to tier 2, but keeping the prereq.

Only 2 wasted points is a blessing!! Try spec-ing an elemental shaman (boomkin counterpart) and wasting closer to 10 just for 4-5% crit.

Pvp issues:

I've never pvp'd as moonkin, so I'll skip that part

Final notes: QQ seriously. So basically you don't like any of the new talents or just wanted something OP so you can be top dps. If you want huge dmg, I'd suggest rerolling a mage or warlock. With proper gear and skill, moonkin can compete with any other caster on dps now and thats not going to change in wotlk. Hybrids get more utility and buffs than you'll get from any pure dps class.

[Panoramixe]

You seem to misunderstand me, i'm not asking for all of this I'm just saying there are still several major issues for which we should either get answers or fixes.

In our resto tree we actually waste 10 points before getting anything useful for balance damage itself, I just am less pessimistic than others seeing some use for the talents in just one boss encounter in the expansion.

IMKA is group-wide and averages at 5,6% haste right now, now compare it to a 10% haste totem that is raid-wide and doesn't cost a single talent point. We're not even sure those two stack yet.

Comparing the mage debuffs to earth and moon is quite fair, seeing as this is our tier 10 talent and should be at least as good as imp scorch or winter's chill.
(There are even more fire; frost and arcane users than just arcane/nature users, meaning ours should be a bit stronger.)

Eclipse averages out at 1,6% dps for 1 poinnt, about 2,5% for 3 points. It is weak and Koraa has admitted it needs changing.

Brambles just had a few suggestions to buff it, it doesn't need them all.

The point of my suggestion for dreamstate was the fact intensity is far better at the moment and it makes dreamstate close to useless, it shouldn't get buffed for mana regen but could perhaps help with one of the other issues.

And as a last remark I'm really disappointed in these forums, the only ones so far that had people that can't be constructive at all. The official forums can actually discuss this topic properly, so do your really want these ones to be worse?

[Lowestofthekeys]

The talent: Improved Moonkin Aura
The issue: It has way too long of a cool down, combined with it not stacking with wrath of air totem makes it lack buster.
The solution: Lower the cool down to about 8 seconds, to make it acceptable.

A buff that lasts 8 sec with a 8 sec CD is just no CD. Why not just give us a constant 20% haste buff then? I think we'll be ok with a 30sec CD.

You can't really claim that a 30 sec CD is "ok" until you've provided some sort of evidence. An easier solution would be to bump up the duration of it to 15 seconds.

The talent: Earth and moon
The issue: It is just weak compared to improved scorch since the buff, imp scorch buffs 3 schools for 10% damage.
The solution: To buff earth and moon to an acceptable level it should go to 15% for 2 schools would make sense relatively speaking. Most druids, however, would be glad with it becoming a 10% buff.

I agree its a small buff for 5pts, but you can't really compare it to Imp Scorch. It's a raidwide debuff so it helps anyone doing arcane/nature dmg. Likewise, Imp Scorch buffs all types of dmg mages do, so it kind of needs 3 schools.

Imp Scorch is also a raid-wide buff and considering that Moonkin should be bringing on par raid utility to make up for our less than par DPS compared to Mages (I know that's not always the case), an increase to 10% on the debuff is not game-breaking unless Blizzard is purposely keeping it that low to balance all the magic school debuffs.

The talent: Eclipse
The issue: Has a very long cool down, making more than one point in it useless. (Theory crafting has shown that one points will result in a ~1,6% damage increase and three points a ~2,3% increase, a bit bad for three points imo.)
The solution: Either buff the talent or lower the cool down to one minute.

This type of ability needs a long cooldown. It would be tedious to be switching from wrath to starfire rotations every 30sec during a boss fight.

The problem with Eclipse is it's not as useful as it could be. It wouldn't be OP if it caused a buff that both increased Wrath damage by 10% and Starfire crit by 10% for 30 secs but kept the 2 min CD. I believe that's a fair trade to balance it out.

The talent: Brambles
The issues:
- Thorns doesn’t depend on the caster’s but on the target’s spellpower.
- Force of Nature could do with some more love
The solution: A change for thorns is quite needed and buffing the damage of the treant by 30/50% would be appreciated by many too.

Might be too much for one talent, I'm just glad treants get something

They could very well take the daze off of Treants and Barkskin (15% chance to daze on a 12 second spell, c'mon :/ ) and add some AOE resitance to them, possibly 10/20/30% (I'm not sure if that would be considered OP or not), and keep the damage bonus to the thorns and treants.

The talent: Dreamstate
The issue: Due to some mana mechanics changes this talent became less useful than it should be.
The solution: Add some extra synergy with spirit to the talent to get our gear and talents in line, for example add a crit from spirit or extra mp5 from spirit to the talent.

Blue posts have said the opposite, that moonkin might be regenning too much. I wouldnt expect a change here.

But his solution to add spell crit from spirit is practical considering how many of our talents require spell crit.

Resto talents are tailored for feral druids at the lower tiers, moonkin; however, need to pick up two useless points. A fix would be to swap master shape shifter to tier 2, but keeping the prereq.

Only 2 wasted points is a blessing!! Try spec-ing an elemental shaman (boomkin counterpart) and wasting closer to 10 just for 4-5% crit

If you're referring to Tidal Mastery, that talent shouldn't be where they have it and it also requires a full 20 points to maxmizie it's effects.

Either way, his suggestion for switching NSS to tier 1 is in no way game-breaking or OP and would alleviate the wasted talent points for Moonkin in the resto tree.

Final notes: QQ seriously. So basically you don't like any of the new talents or just wanted something OP so you can be top dps. If you want huge dmg, I'd suggest rerolling a mage or warlock. With proper gear and skill, moonkin can compete with any other caster on dps now and thats not going to change in wotlk. Hybrids get more utility and buffs than you'll get from any pure dps class.

This is your final statement? I guess being a jerk-off comes naturally for you since all his suggestions were pretty objective and practical. I'd like to see where the OP also states he wants to be "top of the dps meters"?

On another note, I know there's an issue, not a big one, with the fact that in the beta Druids are getting two trainable resto spells and one trainable feral spell, instead of one feral, one resto and one balance spell.

I suggest making Typhoon trainable while making a 1 point talent for "improved Typhoon" in the balance tree which enhances the knockback by 5 yards and gives a 30% chance to daze for 3 seconds. This would go in line with what was previously suggested for taking the daze out of Brambles.

[Madus]

@Panoramixe
Good ideas, finaly you see it how it is screwed :/ It will be very retarded when moonkin will be shit for next expansion again, so please try to do the best

And dont listen these naysayers, they are just useless players with useless comments, they never played deep moonkin and usually only saw restokins.
Every deep moonkin know how are our new talents weak.

[Hooch]

I'm pretty sure Dreamstate is fine the way it is.

[krckrc]

1. Talent Redundancy/Bloat
Control of Nature, Celestial Focus and Owlkin Frenzy give the same abilities (pushback resistance)
Control of Nature should include all CC Spells (Roots, Cyclone, Hibernate), and Celestial Focus should include all Damage Spells (Wrath, Starfire, Hurricane)
Owlkin Frenzy should be changed to instead of receiving pushback resistance, to decrease damage taken by a certain %.

2. Typhoon
The knockback should be 7-10 yards and apply a slow for 3 seconds.

3. Starfall cooldown is just too long, it should be 2 minutes.

4. Treants synergy and survivability
Treants, besides having a pet bar, should have an ability that synergizes with our playstyle. Also, their survivability is just too small.

[doomkin11]

Blizzard seems to think its good for us to have a bloated tree so clearly theres something wrong here. we havent been gettin great buffs because blizzard wants druids to be tanks or healers.

1.having a bloated tree is ok for some classes but not for us. It makes you choice do you want to be pvp spec or pve u cant do both with the way the tree is.

2.typhoon??? you might as well call it a little gust , 5 yards is NOTHING and will not solve any problems we face against hunters , rogues or any other class , shamans get a 20 yard version(thunderstorm) because blizzard just loves them and it also gives them mana??!!

3. Eclipse is very very very weak and seems dumb for pvp so i might as well not spec for it. id rather they scratch this talent and gives us something PVP and PVE reliable.

4.starfall sure isnt anything great in my view , first off like someone said before its going to be very situational(like hurricane) and will be dispelled or silenced 1 second into it.

5.IMF seems great for pvp and pve and it a much needed talent , lower the cd though or its gona suck.

6. just a generally weak class that doesnt seem to work well and feels strange playing lol.

please blizzard dont make me spec into a tank or healer

[doomkin11]

also forgot to throw in that entangling roots shouldnt break on damage because it seems very easy for classes to somehow get out of it especially rogues and almost feels useless at times , no point in using on a caster unless u plan to run and heal , also looks like shamans are the new cc kings with hex which i think is better then roots atm.