Lack of Blue posts about Balance Druids...

[Gersey]

So I sit and read a lot of the blue posts about class balancing, talent changes etc, and Ive noticed that Balance Druids seem to change the least and suffer the least amount of Nerfs and Buffs (from what Ive noticed anyway). Does that mean we are where Blizz wants us? All the druid forum pages (here and on Blizz official forums) are quite friendly places and we seem to have quite a friendly following, so does this mean Balance druids dont have that many changes because we complain less and just get on with it?? Perhaps im just completely wrong with this... any other thoughts??

[Sunfyre]

So I sit and read a lot of the blue posts about class balancing, talent changes etc, and Ive noticed that Balance Druids seem to change the least and suffer the least amount of Nerfs and Buffs (from what Ive noticed anyway). Does that mean we are where Blizz wants us? All the druid forum pages (here and on Blizz official forums) are quite friendly places and we seem to have quite a friendly following, so does this mean Balance druids dont have that many changes because we complain less and just get on with it?? Perhaps im just completely wrong with this... any other thoughts??

They fixed a typo on Celestial Alignment. That's something!

I don't know. It seems like they don't understand our actual play style. They still haven't made force of nature attractive, NV was nerfed for PvP but no PvE counter so far. I am fine with our burst being lowered if our movement and sustain is addressed. Movement and AoE both burn NG, which hit us hard for the direct damage after, and hurricane is balls without NG.

[Deleted]

Meeh the NV nerf just makes everything super annoying. Somehow I would like to see CA and incarnation go to a 1.5min cooldown too so we could still line up CDs at the same time everytime, but less bursty to make it more balanced for PvP. Then still get a slighty buff to wrath and maybe increase the damage by our dots slighty (outside cds.. somehow - damn DK dots hits harder than ours - just feels wrong? )

Or something else...

[dancm]

Does that mean we are where Blizz wants us?

No. It doesn't mean anything.

..., so does this mean Balance druids dont have that many changes because we complain less and just get on with it??

There is actually no relation between the number of complaints and the number of changes. It's more about the quality of feedback.

Perhaps im just completely wrong with this... any other thoughts??

Probably. I'm pretty sure Blizzard knows about all the different playstyles in game. Regardless of Blizzard's posting strategy it wasn't/isn't/won't be enough to satisfy people's concerns. But should it be enough? Personally I think insteed of creating a lot of misunderstood posts they should actually improve (includes both: buff and nerf) the game. That's the best answer they can give (not necessarily a welcomed one).

[PHsname]

I think they should just get rid of NG. That is the one part of our kit that is the root of nearly ALL our problems.

[Deleted]

I think they should just get rid of NG. That is the one part of our kit that is the root of nearly ALL our problems.

I have absolutely no damn idea how you meant it.

[Stommped]

Meeh the NV nerf just makes everything super annoying. Somehow I would like to see CA and incarnation go to a 1.5min cooldown too so we could still line up CDs at the same time everytime, but less bursty to make it more balanced for PvP. Then still get a slighty buff to wrath and maybe increase the damage by our dots slighty (outside cds.. somehow - damn DK dots hits harder than ours - just feels wrong? )

Or something else...

They would have to nerf the duration of CA in half in order to not make this change OP, so it would just lead to more headaches likely. Slight buff for Wrath is needed but I'm not so sure dot damage buff is needed. We crush meters already on fights like Heroic Elite Protectors and Heroic Sha, stuff that has a high uptime of multiple targets to dot. This is due in large part to the increased amount of SS procs obviously, but if you increase the damage of our dots it would only make these situations even better for us. They would likely have to nerf SS proc rate in order to compensate for a dot damage buff, which would nerf our already stinky movement DPS.

[Sunfyre]

Buffing our burst is not what's needed. Nerfing NV is fine if they also buff our sustain. Part of helping our sustain would be addressing the fact that our AoE and movement is super penalizing, because our only 'decent' AoE is NG buffed hurricane, which then steals NG from our directdamage post-hurricane, and ends up continuing the pain.

[huth]

Keep in mind that we haven't seen much, if any, numbers tuning yet. Blizz is still working on mechanics.

[Cyberowl]

Well, tbh I don't see many recent posts about Moonkins in the PTR thread...I would if I could, but EU, so whatever >.>

If Moonkins are already a minority, they at least should be a vocal one, if they want to be fixed.

[Toucanio]

The lack of Blue posts is commonly due to not having a good answer regarding our class.
I guess the main trigger of the diminishing numbers on the Moonkins are due to the way we were taken in the Beta. I remember they pulled off our current design in less than a month, and even if we had more vocal voices saying that the spec became clunky and unpolished (not to mention that there is this feeling of getting carried due to how well we scale with gear, yet for an expansion start is bad), seems everything fell in deaf ears.

Well, tbh I don't see many recent posts about Moonkins in the PTR thread...I would if I could, but EU, so whatever >.>

If Moonkins are already a minority, they at least should be a vocal one, if they want to be fixed.

I agree. But we would require a thread were the spec is discussed throughly, both pros and cons (because focusing on the cons would make us sound whiny), and then discern which cons are regarded as part of the Design and which ones can be fixed to make the spec more streamlined. And without people flamming around how their class/spec has it worse and they should get fixes first (downvote/report those guys).

[Deleted]

This nv's change is definitely annoying , but at the moment isn't one of the main problems we have. Our aoe's damage is one of the worst and dps while moving is just awful..

Meeh the NV nerf just makes everything super annoying. Somehow I would like to see CA and incarnation go to a 1.5min cooldown too so we could still line up CDs at the same time everytime, but less bursty to make it more balanced for PvP. Then still get a slighty buff to wrath and maybe increase the damage by our dots slighty (outside cds.. somehow - damn DK dots hits harder than ours - just feels wrong? )

Or something else...

P. much what he said would make everything better and balanced(they need to buff mushrooms as well!), but unfortunately, as far as I seen, all the feedbacks that people give(even on official's forum)are totally ignored and they seem to prioritize classes such as mage and warlock.

[Deleted]

(they need to buff mushrooms as well!), .

ohh ye forgot about shrooms... wth cata shrooms back =(

[apepi]

Heres something from ghostcrawler

I may regret this, because I don't know that I can capture every one and we iterate on this stuff really rapidly. We may change a number one day and change it again the next when we look at AE or PvP damage or whatever. If frequent iteration scares you, look away! But in the interest of providing context and helping theorycrafting, I'll give it a go.

DPS Tuning Adjustments

- Arms - Increased Deep Wounds by +100%.
- Balance - Increased Starfire, Wrath and Starsurge by 9%.
- Mind Blast - Increased Mind Blast by 20%. (Yeah I know you have to stop and cast it modulo procs, but I meant in contrast to Mind Flay which makes you really plant.)

It atleast states that we balance druids are actually here, not sure if it will fix the problem though. I would really like a spell that we could only use outside of our eclipse.

[earthwormjim]

Heres something from ghostcrawler


It atleast states that we balance druids are actually here, not sure if it will fix the problem though. I would really like a spell that we could only use outside of our eclipse.

That would just add more to the chunkiness. We already have quite a lot of spells that we use regularly in our rotation, we don't really need more.

The central issue is nature's grace. We're penalized for AOE'ing because of nature's grace, we're penalized for moving because of nature's grace. Perhaps if they made it where crits could extend nature's grace, that would help, including hurricane crits. Maybe up to a maximum limit, say 20-25 seconds. That might alleviate some of the issues with the mechanic, without going all the way and just removing it.

They could also just tie nature's grace directly into eclipse states, as long as you're in solar, you have the buff, as long as you're in lunar, you have the buff.

Perhaps having hurricane consume eclipse energy might be beneficial too. We would at least be making our way to the next eclipse state, minimizing nature's grace down time, rather than having to go from a fresh solar all the way to lunar with no nature's grace.


Single target and multidotting heavy fights next tier, I think we're going to be bananas. Our DPS scaling from gear is pretty damn high compared to other classes. Once we start breaking 35-40% crit, the amount of starsurge procs we'll be getting will be insane. So any "fixes" for nature's grace or our movement or AOE have to be carefully balanced with this.

[Liax]

This nv's change is definitely annoying , but at the moment isn't one of the main problems we have. Our aoe's damage is one of the worst and dps while moving is just awful..



P. much what he said would make everything better and balanced(they need to buff mushrooms as well!), but unfortunately, as far as I seen, all the feedbacks that people give(even on official's forum)are totally ignored and they seem to prioritize classes such as mage and warlock.

Lemme iterate, that our aoe damage on 4+ targets is one of the worse. On 2-3, it's a lot higher than most classes.

[Deleted]

We are not the perfect class/spec, everyone has weaknesses and strenghts obviously. In cata it was safe to say that if there was more then one target, and then it didnt matter if it was a multi target situation or a real aoe situation, balance was the strongest spec. Looking back at our weaknesses then if im correct our single target dps was poor, burst damage was non existing and after they nerfed lunar shower into our movement dps wasnt great although with some mushrooms and all you could make the best out of it combined with some dot spamming. Our poor single target dps might have gotten covered up abit during the last 2 tiers by the legendary staff, but it was definetly one of the worst. Looking at the complete picture balance druids were one of the best DPS overall.

Right now we are the kings of burst, strong multi dotters, horible at aoe, non existing movement dps unless you get lucky(this scales with crit so it might improve over the tiers) and our single target dps is weak. It seems on ptr they have slightly nerfed our burst and if we receive that 9% buf to our nukes, which maps out into a ~5.5% overall single target damage buf, our single target dps will become decent. Also the starsurge buf is a multi target fight increase aswell. If they give us moment dps and stronger aoe we would become the best overall spec in the game probably, which wont happen!

So imo make the best of it, I checked out the item database and that looks insanely well tailored for us. Many crits lay ahead of us! Imo the only real change they should still make is to nerf the mana costs of huricane / astrall storm because thats just a joke! It would also be nice if we could, like several others classes, get 2 shooting stars buffs at the same time instead of a second proc overwriting the first.

[Deleted]

would also be nice if we could, like several others classes, get 2 shooting stars buffs at the same time instead of a second proc overwriting the first.

It would be a buff for whoever plays moonkin yeah, but that's one of the principal part that differentiate a good moonkin from an average one and to be honest changing shooting stars proc like that, would make our rotation a lot easier.

[Juvencus]

It would be a buff for whoever plays moonkin yeah, but that's one of the principal part that differentiate a good moonkin from an average one and to be honest changing shooting stars proc like that, would make our rotation a lot easier.

Yeah Starsurge lockout because there is one flying towards the boss can really tell a good moonkin from an average..... It's the main reason SS prcs are lost.

[Reyzzz]

Would help a ton if NG was passive during eclipse, not a lousy 15 second buff.