Serious Changes to Balance for Raiding, please give feedback!

[Cerus]

Dear OP: Have you ever heard of +hit gems? They're in the game for a reason - to increase your hit rating! 342 hit rating (the cap if you choose to go without IFF) is easily reachable pre- Naxx with a few select pieces of gear and +hit gems, enchants and food. But you don't need to hit the cap right away to be competitive, if you haven't learned that by now then see if E-Bay offers a return on your account.

There are two types of Balance Druids in this game: Those that refuse to wear anything but leather because that's what a Druid can wear and never reach their potential. And those that wear the best piece of gear regardless of type and blow away the DPS meters. You have openly admitted that you are the former. Armor means jack in a raid setting. Do you think you wearing all leather and myself wearing a mix makes any difference if a raid mob attacks us? It doesn't. It's only marginally better in 5-mans and when soloing. But I guarantee I'll be a mile above you on DPS because I choose the wear the best piece of gear.

As for your talent tree concerns. They are "bloated" as you call it for a reason. Every class has choices to make. Do you want to focus on single target (boss) damage or do you want to boost your AoE? Do your raids lack a replenishment class or are you at a lower gear level and have poor mana regen? These talent choices are there for a reason. It will never change.

And if you are in a guild that won't let you roll on cloth, find a new guild. End of story.

[saraswati]

im sitting on 5 valorous and trying to get rid of my blue VH trinket as well. and atm it can only be replaced by dying curse which atm refuses to drop for me. anyway some more hit items wouldnt hurt. i admit im using +19 spell power gems, spell power enchant on gloves and spell power food aswell. they are far better than any other.


one other thing is that i would like to point out, -its somewhat off topic but -the owlkin frenzy talent is worth specing for pve as welll. you wont believe by how many things do it proc from.. try it for a raid week. and the best thing is that if something else hits u before the proc ends , it renews its duration for another 10 seconds. so theoritically owlkin frenzy can always be up if u get dmg every 10 seconds or less... /cheers

[DepecheMode]

Dear OP: Have you ever heard of +hit gems? They're in the game for a reason - to increase your hit rating!
There are two types of Balance Druids in this game: Those that refuse to wear anything but leather because that's what a Druid can wear and never reach their potential. And those that wear the best piece of gear regardless of type and blow away the DPS meters.

So you say Mages/Locks/Spriests would be happy with picking all healinggear then?

Because that is what you get if you are a druid and want to use leather.

My balancedruid does not wear a single piece of leather, all dressed in cloth she´s even a spellfire tailorer because when I created her back then I had allready leveled a moonkin to 70 and had to respecc because of guildduties. Still back then there were pretty much 0 pieces of leather, this was fixed somewhat in ZA but now we are back at square one again.

The bigest problem here from my point of view is all the QQ you get from other casters if you roll on a cloth item. From their point of view you can use leather and therefor you should also do so. Now I can understand it if you run a heroic with random people but in a guild that´s just retarded, if that´s the case your GM and officers really need to think again tbh.
For obv reason there can´t be as much leatherdrops as there are cloth, since only one class use it and for dps only spec compared to 3 clases that use cloth.

I think a simple solution would be to grant druids a balancetalent that make spirit ---> hit. That way you could now itemize all leathergear to fit both balance and resto. Clothwearers would be happy since they won´t have any druids "ninja" their loot and druids would be happy aswell since they would now be able to somewhat use the same gear for dps and healing. With dual speccs comeing soon (hopefully) this would be even better.

[Nirual]

I think a simple solution would be to grant druids a balancetalent that make spirit ---> hit.

So that you can gem and enchant your stuff with SP instead? Having a talent to increase hit scaling with something else is retarded due to the cap.

You already get up to 7% hit from talents, how much easier do you want it? (Not to mention this is already overkill for anything but raids)

Gems and enchants (and food) do the job well enough since you only need that much hit rating.

Besides, I've seen (and got) quite a few leather pieces without any spirit at all. Hit rating is pretty damn rare on leather gear for casters, yes, but nothing you can't overcome even if you insist on wearing leather only.

[DepecheMode]

Hit rating is pretty damn rare on leather gear for casters, yes, but nothing you can't overcome even if you insist on wearing leather only.

This still doesn´t change the fact that if a clothpiece does not have hit it doesn´t qualify as dps gear.
I can´t see why leather should be any different.
It is indeed possible to get 10% hit from trinkets/gems and so on but where clothcasters have their options open a moonkin druid have to compensate for the lack of hit on even T7 (must have if you raid because of 4-piece bonus) so he/she will have fewer options. And tbh I think about 95% of all moonkins care shit about if they have to wear cloth, the problem is there are other classes that do.

It´s the itemization on gear that is the problem not the balancetree, it´s abit bloated but nothing compared to what it used to be like and atleast nowdays you don´t have to waste 10 of your first 15 points just so you could get to tier 4. I don´t really see this geting fixed though, not aslong as there is only one casterclass that want leather, giveing more gear would simply cause to many DE´s.

[Cerus]

So that you can gem and enchant your stuff with SP instead? Having a talent to increase hit scaling with something else is retarded due to the cap.

You already get up to 7% hit from talents, how much easier do you want it? (Not to mention this is already overkill for anything but raids)

Gems and enchants (and food) do the job well enough since you only need that much hit rating.

Besides, I've seen (and got) quite a few leather pieces without any spirit at all. Hit rating is pretty damn rare on leather gear for casters, yes, but nothing you can't overcome even if you insist on wearing leather only.

Agreed. Hit rating isn't that hard to come by and a change like this would throw off the balance they made with talented hit ratings. It would also likely end with a nerf to the gear on a Resto Druids side because there is so much leather with spirit on it. There are only two classes that could use leather Balance gear - Balance Druids and Ele Shamans (if the piece didn't have spirit on it) so they aren't going to add a ton in the game. I've seen quite a few leather pieces that were designed for Boomkins. A lot more than there was in BC. Enhance Shamans and DPS Warriors wore leather in BC because of the lack of nice gear for them. I don't see why so many have an issue with wearing cloth.

On the issue of other players getting mad if we roll on cloth. I've had a guildie or two get pissed about that. You call those people loot whores because they care more about the piece of gear they didn't get rather than the nice upgrade you just did. I simply told them that gear was gear and they would see even less drops for themselves if Blizzard put more leather dps pieces on the loot tables. Of course I heard "you're the only one that can use that leather dps piece so that's unfair" The response to that is only Paladins can use the plate healing gear and that's just one class - at least Balance, Resto, Elemental and Resto Shamans can share the same piece if it's itemized right.

Just remind any QQers that before all the spirit changes, cloth gear with spirit on it was useless to anyone but a Priest and Resto/Balance Druids. Now all the cloth DPSers can use spirit when Druids always could - You don't hear Druids complaining about that.

[Badeggplant]

Wow, this post is unbelievably full of fail. I don't even know where to start. You complain that we don't get a talent which resets our DOT duration but then suggest that glyph of Starfire be removed from the game and we should raid with the Innervate glyph instead? LOL? 10% IS damage as 2 piece t7 is a problem somehow? You suggest that Spirit be removed from our t7 set and replaced with mp5? wtf? Irrational dislike of cloth? Check. Inability to comprehend the existence of hit gems and hit jewelry? Check. Utterly asinine suggestion for revised Eclipse and Innervate mechanics? Check. Complete and utter failure on the part of both the OP and 90% of the respondants in the thread to understand the class and spec in question? CHECK PLUS.

Either this is a massive fail post or a troll...good entertainment either way, keep it up.

[Nirual]

This still doesn´t change the fact that if a clothpiece does not have hit it doesn´t qualify as dps gear.

If your guild has such narrowminded definitions of dps gear, I pity you. And every other caster in your guild. With the spellpower merge pretty much every drop works for both dps and healing. How good a drop is mostly depends on your class and current stats in terms of caps. If every dps item had hit getting capped would be a nonissue, aswell.

[Hadriker]

Sorry if I'm posting more QQ, but I think balance needs some key changes to gear, talent trees, and glyphs for raiding. If you don't want to read my QQ, just skip down to the end to see my suggestions for improvement.

First off, gear:

There are two pieces of level 80 leather caster gear in the game with hit rating on them, Tier 7(7.5) Helm and Shoulders.
There are 40 pieces of level 80 cloth gear with hit.

So now, not only do I have three other classes rolling on my tier gear, but I'm rolling against mage/lock/spriest for cloth hit rating gear. I know there's the badge neck, offhand, and cloth belt, but shouldn't we have some more of our own gear with hit? I don't know why they even released the windripper boots and leggings without putting some hit rating on them? Those pieces would have been perfect additions to help raiding moonkins reach hit cap.

And since most of our leather gear has spirit on it, we roll against our resto brothers, and I myself feel forced into specing into intensity to keep from going OOM.

learn to wear cloth there is a reason why most non tier pieces with caster stats are cloth, because themore classes can benefit from it. having a bunch of leather gear with hit will just contribute to loot rot.

This leads me into our talent trees, very bloated. I'm spending 16 points in resto, and find myself having to choose a spec divided between mana efficiency, single target dps, or AoE. I think some of our talents need a serious rework, particularly, improved insect swarm, and eclipse.

Both shadow priests and affliction locks have talented abilities to reset the duration of one of their main DoTs. Warlocks have "Everlasting Affliction", which makes haunt and drain life reset the duration of corruption, and shadow priests have "Pain and Suffering" which makes mind flay reset the duration of shadow word pain. We currently have to spend two glyphs to change our moonfire into a decent DoT, and the change to glyph of starfire only increases the moonfire duration by 9 seconds. Not to mention, why is the Tier 7 two-set bonus a buff to insect swarm?

our talent tree isn't really that bloated. as your gear improves you can drop more and more regen talents. i myself am at the point where i'm choosing between talents with minimal dps upgrades (genesis, imp moonfire) and regen talents. and still have points left to spend.

Here's my suggestion to fix some of the above problems:

1) Remove spirit from balance tier 7 gear, and some other leather pieces, replacing it with similar MP5 value (while adding some hit to select leather pieces). This would allow us to drop intensity from the resto tree, freeing up 3 points to put back into balance, and give balance druids a few pieces of gear unique to them. I know armor doesn't matter for PvE, but I like leather, I didn't roll a clothie.

MP5. is this a joke? MP5 is one of the worse stats you could ask for on gear. fail fail fail

2)Drop the cooldown on innervate to 5 mins (mages have 4 min evo with 2 mins talented), and change innervate to increase all mana regen while casting by 400%, (not just spirit based mana regen). This would make innervate useful to all mana based classes, not just those with spirit.

innervate is fine although a 5 min c/d would be nice.

3)Change "Improved Insect Swarm" 3 point talent to give wrath a (33/66/100%) chance to reset the duration of insect swarm. This combined with the Tier 7 bonus, and glyph of insect swarm gives us a nice dps boost without having to refresh another DoT.

you want to trade an extra 3% damage on wrath so you can be lazy about refrehing DoTs. thats a big negative.

4)Change the eclipse mechanics to: All spell criticals have a 20/40/60% chance to cause eclipse. For the next 15 seconds, your wrath casts will cause the next starfire to have an additional 30% chance to crit, and your starfire will cause your next wrath cast to do 20% more damage (keeping the 30 sec cooldown before eclipse can proc again). This eliminates the 2 current problems of eclipse: procing off the wrong spell, or the problem of eclipse procing off of wrath when you are already casting another wrath, and you lose about 2 seconds of the 15 second duration. So basically when eclipse procs, you alternate back and forth between wrath and starfire, and each spell buffs the next one cast.

i don't even no what to say this is just terrible all around eclipse is fine. don't want to proc the wrong spell? get a mod that tracks the ICD problem solved.

5)Throw away glyph of starfire. Balance druids will now use, glyph of insect swarm, glyph of moonfire, and glyph of innervate.

now your just being moronic.

6)Make an updated idol of the unseen moon, so that moonfire casts have a chance to increase spell power for 10 seconds.

you do realize an updated unseen moon idol would still be terrible right? The starffire glyph pretty much makes any idol that procs off of the instant damage portion of MF worthless.

That's all. Please give some feedback. I love my moonkin, but it needs a little work.

your ideas are bad and show you have a complete lack of understanding of the specs mechanics. in short your ideas fail on a level i haven't seen in a long time

[trim]

Complete and utter failure on the part of both the OP and 90% of the respondants in the thread to understand the class and spec in question? CHECK PLUS.

Look again, hardly anyone is agreeing with him in any way.

[Badeggplant]

Look again, hardly anyone is agreeing with him in any way.

You're right, my bad, I got thrown off cause I was too busy ROFLing at the OP's "suggestions".

[khornate68]

Pls give back your character back to whoever you ebayed it from.

[hizaika]

mp5 on t7? unseen moon V2? lol..

i just want original SF glyph and old lunar guidance ;D