Moonkin PVP "Numbers Pass Will Fix It"?

[Deleted]

Hi guys, does anyone get the feeling Moonkins will once again be demoted to "Free-kill" status in Cataclysm?

At the start of the beta leaks moonkins were looking pretty sweet with their knockdown, huge silence beam and awesome exploding mushrooms. How the mighty critchickens have fallen now. Over time we've been eroded back to the old burst or die we've been used to for the longest part. Starsurge knockdown gone, mushrooms with the kind of explosion radius that would make a squirrel laugh and a solar beam which will be largely ineffective unless the target is rooted (And without a trinket/freedom).

Don't get me wrong, I know it's still beta and stuff can change. I know there has been no number pass. I'm just not sure a numbers pass will be enough to work out the issues with moonkins in their current state. The way I see it, they can buff our damage as much as they like, but if we don't live long enough to damage someone or are locked out for the duration, isn't it pretty pointless?

Anyone else worried?

[Fenaris]

I'm worried, compared to early beta notes about moonkins, we've been nerfed so much that most of the new spells are completely useless, I mean common, 1 mushroom that we can drop and it does shit damage? This is bad.

[Rudy]

i only hope that we are at least on par with some other dps caster class, maybe not like frost mage, but on par on ele shammys, spriest

[Sunfyre]

I'm worried, compared to early beta notes about moonkins, we've been nerfed so much that most of the new spells are completely useless, I mean common, 1 mushroom that we can drop and it does shit damage? This is bad.

Last I heard mushrooms crit for 20k under solar eclipse.

That's not "shit damage".

[Galith]

Last I heard mushrooms crit for 20k under solar eclipse.

That's not "shit damage".

This. Also, don't forget all the crap it does with talents....?

[Madus]

Last I heard mushrooms crit for 20k under solar eclipse.

That's not "shit damage".

Last i saw icelance crit for 16k what is not shit dmg too and need only frozen target, vs something what need be casted, can be killed, need solar eclipse, have cooldown and need be in range with 3yards.

I dont wanna flame just take that into account too...

[Laptop]

I think we will be in the same exact place as we are right now. Right now we are like elemental shamans, when we get the chance to free-cast we will blow people up, but when we are focused heavily we are helpless. The same strategy will be used for boomkins in pvp...provide pressure to the target, proper CC and finish with starfall. But this time around we have instant root (also rooting others in range), quick silence with solar beam then following with a typhoon (which can be critical on such maps like blade's edge...silence then knock off the bridge for a finisher) or a cyclone and a little less effective yet still useful frost trap from wild mushroom and trees. Although I will agree that removing the knockdown for Starsurge sucks, I think we will be just fine in arena and will definitely wreck people in rated BGs.

[fizikz]

I remember a blue post a while back about designing hybrids in pvp to be viable alternatives to 'pures' of the same role/type (ie, ferals viable subs for rogues, boomkin viable subs for mages/locks) and (paraphrasing) they said something VERY similar to

if hybrids don't provide the same amount of utility as their pure counterparts, we will fix that. there needs to be some reason you'd want a balance druid over a mage or warlock in an arena team/rated bg

yet here we are, lost our stun, lost lost 1/2 our range (even more, considering a talent used to make it bigger that was removed) on our silence and we don't really provide anything a resto druid can't anymore, as far as instant aoe roots now, which is great, but it's about all we have left....and whenever all our eggs are in one basket, that basket is veeeeerrrry susceptible to a even a slight nerf breaking the entire spec.

the only thing we really bring over a resto druid is our aoe slow from mushrooms, but they nerfed the crap out of mushrooms so badly that I'm not sure how much use that'll even get.

on the other hand, eclipse looks actually useful for pvp in its current form, and i think dots being more powerful will help the spec with kite-killing a lot and remove the 'sit there and nuke' reliability of the spec a lot, along with the moonfire changes... hopefully

I'm just a little irked that they gave us enough cool stuff to be good choices against a mage/lock and they're slowly taking it all away >< i was really looking forward to a stun, silence, and awesome mushroom fun, and all that's left is a silence with 1/3 of its original radius.

perhaps in practice all will be fine though. maybe 3yards and 5 yards just sound small... i hope :S



^ my post from the other boomkin pvp thread. I completely agree with you that damage is not the fix to any problems boomkins are facing. ramping up out damage instead of giving us escapes is something they did with starfall, and it just made "train the moonkin" all the more important.

(hopefully with thorns being amazing and AoE roots on nature's grasp and instant roots from glyph, we will be much less susceptible to melee trains.)

[Deleted]

Mushroom explosion slow down to 50% now...

Seriously, what's next?

[Mistgun]

Iv loved my moonkin since BC, i loved him in wotlk too when it came to raiding since i always got a spot, but I never pvped since we could only kill shit with starfall. Then i read about all the amazing things they could do in cata and I was sure to continue having him as a main, but with all these nerfs and mages being buffed I might as well level a mage when cata is released. *sigh*

[Sunfyre]

I think you're all forgetting that PvP isn't balanced around duels or even 2v2, it's balanced around 3v3 and 5v5. A 5 yard solar beam is still going to be hard to get out of with a 50% snare and a rogue sitting on you.

[Madus]

I think you're all forgetting that PvP isn't balanced around duels or even 2v2, it's balanced around 3v3 and 5v5. A 5 yard solar beam is still going to be hard to get out of with a 50% snare and a rogue sitting on you.

thats truth if only we will live long enough. :P

[Boomkindance]

3 charges on Natures grasp is nice as well. I wonder if the Natures grasp proc will produce "AoE roots" when talented.

I wouldnt go as far as to say that we're going to be in the same place as in WoTLK. We will be better off than we are now, im just skeptical that we will be good ENOUGH to compete against Mages/Locks that have some survivability against burst.

I still think that our PvP 4 piece set bonus should have something to do with survivability like "Your Barkskin now Reduces all damage done to you by an additional X%" X should be 10% at least.

I would even venture to say a good PvP 4 piece set bonus would be "Your Barkskin now Reduces all Damage taken by 90(or 100)% for X(5?) seconds. The druid cannot cast offensive spells while under the effects of Barkskin. 5-minute Cooldown.

Mages have Iceblock and Invisibility. Two ways to reset a fight and avoid getting burst down which is every casters problem in pvp. Boomkins will never compete with that kind of longevity and flexibility if we dont get some more survival talents/abilities.

[Deleted]

Well, if they are going to stay on this "nerf moonkins to useless" -path, I bet next they are going to remove the overgrowth talent that makes roots AoE. And after that maybe the instant root glyph too.

[Sunfyre]

Well, if they are going to stay on this "nerf moonkins to useless" -path, I bet next they are going to remove the overgrowth talent that makes roots AoE. And after that maybe the instant root glyph too.

Your wish is their command: Glyph of Entangling Roots now adds a 10 second cooldown to the ability along with a -100% casting time.

[exochaft]

I see a LOT of focusing on 1v1 scenarios. Everyone needs to step back and see the broader picture.

Boomkins are getting a LOT more methods of control, and all I see are the tears flowing. If someone on Live who knows nothing of the beta/PTR logs in for 4.0, are they going to scream "Wow, boomkins just got hella nerfed in PvP"? That's silly, going from Live to 4.0 is a drastic increase in control for boomkins in PvP.


PvP in Cataclysm is supposed to be about control, not "my leetzor numbers nuke you faster!" After PvPing on the beta, even though I generally play as feral, control is a very nice thing to have on your side (heck, I can actually kill a healer w/o MS eventually in a 1v1 battle as feral, just have to get thru their mana), and feral damage numbers, for lack of a better word, suck horribly atm. Solar Beam, AoE roots (instant roots even), Wild Mushrooms (as well as talents), Typhoon, Cyclone, Hibernate, Soothe, as well as Treants/Thorns... it's all about control. With practice and timing, you have all the tools you need to force the battle into the tempo and direction you want. Outside of 1v1, boomkins will be very valuable.

If you're stuck on 1v1, sure, some fights will be harder than others, that's just the nature of PvP balance. I see most of the gripes about mages with all their forms of escape or what have you... you do realize that one Solar Beam locks out EVERY spell that use for escape, short of a trinket or rocket boots. Guess what... secret of the champs... make them burn their trinkets/cooldowns, and then go for the CC lockdown and kill. Another use I saw one post focus on, but most people seem to just pass it off, is using Solar Beam as a defensive tool. While you may have an incoming barrage of caster attacks determined to focus you down, plop a beam on them to slow down the fight... heck, it even works on melee classes, as was mentioned before. I think the only melee class that has zero restrictions when silenced are rogues, actually, unless Blizz makes hunters not susceptible to silence on certain abilities since they're going to a Focus-based system. Be that as it may, this is just one ability out of many.

With the recent changes to some of these abilities, all that's really being said is that boomkins shouldn't be a faceroll spec, and that a bit of planning and strategy will be required. Anyone can plop a Wild Mushroom on someone and click detonate... but it takes a more skilled person to plant it somewhere and force their opponent to be on top of it. Of course, this can be said about any ability, but I think most of the gripes revolve around people wanting easy-mode versus skill required.

[Stanton Biston]

People focus too much on the arena when they talk about any classes pvp viability in Cataclysm.

"EFC tun"
"Don't worry, mushrooms!"
-Boomkin Returns Flag-

[Boomkindance]

I see a LOT of focusing on 1v1 scenarios. Everyone needs to step back and see the broader picture.

Boomkins are getting a LOT more methods of control, and all I see are the tears flowing. If someone on Live who knows nothing of the beta/PTR logs in for 4.0, are they going to scream "Wow, boomkins just got hella nerfed in PvP"? That's silly, going from Live to 4.0 is a drastic increase in control for boomkins in PvP.


PvP in Cataclysm is supposed to be about control, not "my leetzor numbers nuke you faster!" After PvPing on the beta, even though I generally play as feral, control is a very nice thing to have on your side (heck, I can actually kill a healer w/o MS eventually in a 1v1 battle as feral, just have to get thru their mana), and feral damage numbers, for lack of a better word, suck horribly atm. Solar Beam, AoE roots (instant roots even), Wild Mushrooms (as well as talents), Typhoon, Cyclone, Hibernate, Soothe, as well as Treants/Thorns... it's all about control. With practice and timing, you have all the tools you need to force the battle into the tempo and direction you want. Outside of 1v1, boomkins will be very valuable.

If you're stuck on 1v1, sure, some fights will be harder than others, that's just the nature of PvP balance. I see most of the gripes about mages with all their forms of escape or what have you... you do realize that one Solar Beam locks out EVERY spell that use for escape, short of a trinket or rocket boots. Guess what... secret of the champs... make them burn their trinkets/cooldowns, and then go for the CC lockdown and kill. Another use I saw one post focus on, but most people seem to just pass it off, is using Solar Beam as a defensive tool. While you may have an incoming barrage of caster attacks determined to focus you down, plop a beam on them to slow down the fight... heck, it even works on melee classes, as was mentioned before. I think the only melee class that has zero restrictions when silenced are rogues, actually, unless Blizz makes hunters not susceptible to silence on certain abilities since they're going to a Focus-based system. Be that as it may, this is just one ability out of many.

With the recent changes to some of these abilities, all that's really being said is that boomkins shouldn't be a faceroll spec, and that a bit of planning and strategy will be required. Anyone can plop a Wild Mushroom on someone and click detonate... but it takes a more skilled person to plant it somewhere and force their opponent to be on top of it. Of course, this can be said about any ability, but I think most of the gripes revolve around people wanting easy-mode versus skill required.

I do agree with your post. Just want to know what you mean by the bold section, as I dont see any of us boomkins complaining about lack of damage output. All that we are noticing is our "control" is decreasing... and trying to get more control back. That and a little more survivability would be nice. (Yes I know that if you "control" well enough you dont have to worry about survival mechanisms like iceblock, but still)

[exochaft]

I do agree with your post. Just want to know what you mean by the bold section, as I dont see any of us boomkins complaining about lack of damage output. All that we are noticing is our "control" is decreasing... and trying to get more control back. That and a little more survivability would be nice. (Yes I know that if you "control" well enough you dont have to worry about survival mechanisms like iceblock, but still)

You can look at this a couple of ways.

As in my previous post, going from WotLK to Cataclysm is going to yield more control tools for your toolbox. I don't think anyone can deny this... therefore, no one has really lost anything and only stands to gain when 4.0 hits.

Now, there have been several recent adjustments, mostly spacial adjustments. Basically, you still have all your control tools, Blizz is just in the power adjustment stage for these tools. I'm still failing to see the big, glaring problem even with all the adjustments. If you come at this from "a one-many army" perspective... sure, they hurt in that regard, but one-many armies have been one of the biggest problems in PvP (and Blizz is trying to make sure no one comes out too far ahead).

I think another possible problem it's ppl's perception of distance and numbers. We see things like Solar Beam affecting targets w/i 5 yards, Wild Mushrooms affecting targets w/i 3 yards, and Fungal Growth affecting targets w/i 8 yards with a 50% slowing debuff. "Affecting targets within X yards" just means the ability has an X yard radius (while at a glance most people just see diameter, plus we're just used to worrying about the distance between us and the target most of the time rather than the area around them)... so I'd surmise most people envision an area of effect of half of what these numbers indicate. If we just do a simple conversion, Solar Beam is 10 yards across, Wild Mushroom explosions are 6 yards across, and Fungal Growth is 16 yards across. Especially in the case of Fungal Growth, one boomkin could make a stretch of the WSG tunnel have a 50% slowing effect for 48 yards with how things currently are... that doesn't sound too shabby does it? And no complaints about the 50% slow, every other player-based slowing effect is 50% (except Chains of Ice, but I'm not gonna go there, dirty DKs).

If we just want to step away from numbers (even though that's all that really changed), PvP is a group effort unless all you do are duels. While your complete contribution to the team maybe be technically diminished (hardly anything at all, but let's play along with this), all these changes do is allow you to rely on your own skill or your own teammates, preferably both. Solar Beam might as well have a 50 yards radius if you and your teammates can lockdown someone inside of it via knockbacks/snares/stuns/etc... it's not the size of your beam, it's how you use it! Same goes any of your abilities... in the right hands, the changes in radius/slowing speed don't affect the potency of the skilled boomkin. At worst, everyone that wants to go flavor-of-the-month and roll boomkins will find out it takes more skill than they originally thought to dominate and play well with a team.

[scorch109]

Not to mention one thing boomkins can do that mages and locks can't do. they can cast heals, yes god forbid you do the very thing that makes you a hybrid.