[Balance] 5.4 Changes and Thoughts

[Slippykins]

10% damage decrease before wastage is accounted is huge on 3+ targets, I highly doubt when dotting anyone is a full 10% above lock / mage / ele etc... but oh well can't see this change sticking, they should just change the way the shooting star proc works or buff haste/mastery by a fuck ton to make crit way less valuable.

As currently this change will kill all other aspects of balance outside of heroic raiding.

It does seem rather excessive, but I think the 10% should be reduced by including variable waste (which I can't model simply), as well as the slight nuke buff. We'll have to wait until WrathCalcs/SimCraft are updated before we can really conclude on anything, but for the moment I'd agree even 6-7% damage reduction on 3 targets is quite a lot.

[Deleted]

Don't make up stuff please, I never said that it wont reduce the amount of wasted procs, ofc it will. Also you seemed to completely ignore the content of my post. Please read my previous post again, I made a simple, yet pretty accurate way to compare the amount of SS procs you will get on live vs. ptr with this change. Just for the sake of it here it is again:

With this change proc chance will be reduced to the squareroot of what it is on live. This means that rolling dots on 4 targets (like Council) you would get sqrt(4)/4=0.5 of the procs you gain on live. The same amount you will get on a 2 target fight (megaera) on live.

Now, let's just leave out the fact that you with this change would have to spent a lot more gcds dotting 4 targets instead of 2 (which makes it even worse), and just compare the amount of SS procs you get on council and megaera on live atm. Do you still not see a huge differense?

And i never said there will be no difference.
Stop being so hostile about any other opinion then your own. Nobody here says there will be no difference.

[Deleted]

I'm not trying to be hostile, but it annoys me that you keep making up stuff I never wrote. I never qouted you for saying there will be no difference, I said there will a BIG difference, where as you said it will hardly be noticable. I gave you an example (which btw you are still completely ignoring), and you keep posting nothing but useless posts about how I am being hostile and "to keep my tears inside" when all I'm trying to do is give people the right impression of how this change is actually going to affect our rotation. Saying "you'll hardly notice it" is just straight up wrong.

[Fleuria]

Every one knows how its going to affect the rotation, your going to get as many procs on 4 targets as you did on 2 post change, on 2 targets you still cast wrath and starfire quite alot which is fine, 3-4 targets you want to eclipse cycle pretty quickly to be able to keep the eclipse dot up, now its likelu your going to not have enough effective starsurges to be able to cycle quick enough thus resulting in dots dropping early before eclipse is reached and you now having to cast spells to reach the next eclipse lowering the flat out 10% damage nerf even lower, obviously these situations are all theory but with still 25man testing to go they will have time to see that it will double dip in the damage nerf deparment and no ones really mentioned how it will affect CA that was reletively only a good multi dot tool etc... rather than them making this change right before 5.4 is due to go live.

[Deleted]

I'm not trying to be hostile, but it annoys me that you keep making up stuff I never wrote. I never qouted you for saying there will be no difference, I said there will a BIG difference, where as you said it will hardly be noticable. I gave you an example (which btw you are still completely ignoring), and you keep posting nothing but useless posts about how I am being hostile and "to keep my tears inside" when all I'm trying to do is give people the right impression of how this change is actually going to affect our rotation. Saying "you'll hardly notice it" is just straight up wrong.

I did not say it was hardly noticeable, and i surely did not make what i said look like a fact everyone should follow as the truth. I said i 'WONDER' if we will notice it. Now stop blaming me for not reading your post and making up stuff, while you seem to be a star in it yourself.
Let's wait for any definite numbers and decisions, since i don't care at all what is currently on the ptr. I care what will go live eventually. You should try that, will save you alot of heartache and tears. Theory is just theory.

[Souxlya]

With the expected patch having a pretty good chance of dropping on the 27th, this change will be pushed through with limited testing and will be horrible.

Then half way through the patch, after progression has been cleared, they will fix it and make it closer to 3% lost per target.

It sucks because the very limited ptr testing my guild has done so far, I couldn't even come close to their damage on Malkorok, it was pathetic. That is with 4 piece Heroic Tier 2/2, and almost everything else heroic 2/2 except my trinkets. Not BiS gear, but still its not bad gear! It was awful, plain awful I didn't even want to play because I felt I was holding us back. And this was before the nerf was even announced.

But, when we did Spoils of Pandaria it was like a dream for us Balance druids, our Shaman, Hunter came close to me but rarely/never passed my dps. Our fire
Mage and Warlock were in the other room so I'm not sure how I would have fared against them, other then us being very close. Now it going to be a nightmare with this change. I actually had to tell our raid leader (Warlock) That his plans to have me as part of the "AoE" group in our strats is likely to be pointless now.

[Mirri]

With the expected patch having a pretty good chance of dropping on the 27th, this change will be pushed through with limited testing and will be horrible.

Then half way through the patch, after progression has been cleared, they will fix it and make it closer to 3% lost per target.

It sucks because the very limited ptr testing my guild has done so far, I couldn't even come close to their damage on Malkorok, it was pathetic. That is with 4 piece Heroic Tier 2/2, and almost everything else heroic 2/2 except my trinkets. Not BiS gear, but still its not bad gear! It was awful, plain awful I didn't even want to play because I felt I was holding us back. And this was before the nerf was even announced.

But, when we did Spoils of Pandaria it was like a dream for us Balance druids, our Shaman, Hunter came close to me but rarely/never passed my dps. Our fire
Mage and Warlock were in the other room so I'm not sure how I would have fared against them, other then us being very close. Now it going to be a nightmare with this change. I actually had to tell our raid leader (Warlock) That his plans to have me as part of the "AoE" group in our strats is likely to be pointless now.

What is this AoE group we're talking about? Do you instead mean cleave/multi-dotting group? Because there is no change to Hurricane/Astral Storm so far.

And no, multi-dotting is not "Area of Effect". You can happily continue to Hurricane/Astral Storm as much as your raid leader wants

[Deleted]

@Souxlya, ilvl was scaled to a set ilvl for all ptr testing, you should have been exact same ilvl as your fellow raiders during the tests.

@Miscam, I'm sorry if I came across as hostile. My english aint the best so my wording might seem a lot more hostile than the intention behind them. Think about this though, if you care about what goes live the PTR is your best chance to influence it. Also keep in mind that GC and Lore specifically said that the change was intented to change our rotation from SS spam towards more SF/Wrath usage, chances are they wont go with a middle way where you would hardly notice the change. That would be a completely pointless change.

I was on the PTR for a few minutes dotting dummies to see if the reduced proc chance had made it to the ptr yet, didn't feel like it, but I didn't test for very long so I could just have had amazing RNG. Would suck if it wasn't there for Fallen Protector testing, as that might be the best encounter to give us an idea of just how big an impact it will have on our dps.

[Jibjabb]

Moonkin AOE (meaning hurricane) actually isnt bad IF you have Nature's Grace active in Solar. Its quite comparable to a lot of other classes, better in some cases. The problem is NG isnt going to be there for longer sustained AOE and to get in the first place it requires eclipse timing which isnt always easily doable.

My thoughts honestly were for Blizzard to add a feature to Hurricane something along the lines of: Whenever Hurricane hits 4 or more targets Nature's Grace becomes active for 3 seconds. Doing damage to 4 or more targets continuously will keep refreshing the buff to its 3 second duration.

Would fix problems without making Moonkin overpowered imo

[Aboubacar]

Looking at the game on a broader scale, is there a way to fix this scaling problem with classes and gear? Certain classes, tuned around meta gem and legendary cloak, are just awful to play without these items or at low gear levels in general, making MoP even more "alt-unfriendly". I haven't been playing the game that long so I'm not 100% sure if this was a big issue in previous expansions or not.

Balancing the game around the best gear seems like a very flawed designed and it continues to impact PvP, challenge modes, and soon proving grounds (although all but endless will be trivial for most anyway). Idk if there's a better way to do things, but as you can see it's a pretty bad design leading some ridiculous things with combustion and spamming shooting stars, while for newer players makes the class really undesirable.

I don't really think the same problem exists with hunters for example, or most physical dps, outside of festerblight DK.

[Deleted]

@Souxlya, ilvl was scaled to a set ilvl for all ptr testing, you should have been exact same ilvl as your fellow raiders during the tests.

@Miscam, I'm sorry if I came across as hostile. My english aint the best so my wording might seem a lot more hostile than the intention behind them. Think about this though, if you care about what goes live the PTR is your best chance to influence it. Also keep in mind that GC and Lore specifically said that the change was intented to change our rotation from SS spam towards more SF/Wrath usage, chances are they wont go with a middle way where you would hardly notice the change. That would be a completely pointless change.

I was on the PTR for a few minutes dotting dummies to see if the reduced proc chance had made it to the ptr yet, didn't feel like it, but I didn't test for very long so I could just have had amazing RNG. Would suck if it wasn't there for Fallen Protector testing, as that might be the best encounter to give us an idea of just how big an impact it will have on our dps.

I get your point, and i deeply hope they see the error.

@Jibjabb

Im not so sure about hurricane being ok even with NG AND being in solar. The fact you need to channel it, it is only on the spot where you put it, on top of the massive mana cost (Wich will be probably even worse with our main nukes costing alot more now)
Even if NG would get extended indefinetly, you would need to reach the next eclipse just not to go oom pretty quick. Not even mentioning if the adds would move slightly, and you need to recast it with little effect.

[Aboubacar]

I have never seen so much setup requirement + cost with any spell in the game

-10% max mana
-15sec NG window
-Solar Eclipse
-10 yard diameter
-30yard range
-Mobs can't move
-you can't move

How is a spell with these requirements not the best AE in the game? I've never seen so much setup and cost behind any other spell. Several of those costs need to go or just move back to mushrooms and make them less bursty (shorter CD but more sustained damage)

[Fleuria]

Trying it out on the ptr atm you can definately feel the change, in terms of the fact you sometimes have to actually hard cast spells and starsurge is way lower on total damage done compared to the dots but only more testing will tell.

[Deleted]

Delete post

[huth]

(Base Proc % * Crit Chance % + 8%) * AoE modifier for spell.

Wrong. It's (BaseProc% + 8%) * Crit Chance % * AoE_mod.

The setbonus modifies the proc chance on crit, not the total proc chance. It doesn't suddenly allow you to get procs on non-crits.

[Souxlya]

@Souxlya, ilvl was scaled to a set ilvl for all ptr testing, you should have been exact same ilvl as your fellow raiders during the tests.

Bah I keep forgetting that, thanks for the reminder. Which means I probably wasn't at the haste break point for the meta <.<, shit. We should be doing more testing, bleh after nerf.

[Deleted]

Wrong. It's (BaseProc% + 8%) * Crit Chance % * AoE_mod.

The setbonus modifies the proc chance on crit, not the total proc chance. It doesn't suddenly allow you to get procs on non-crits.

will look into it

[land]

My thoughts honestly were for Blizzard to add a feature to Hurricane something along the lines of: Whenever Hurricane hits 4 or more targets Nature's Grace becomes active for 3 seconds. Doing damage to 4 or more targets continuously will keep refreshing the buff to its 3 second duration.

Would fix problems without making Moonkin overpowered imo

That would be an amazing QoL change.

[Cyous]

So here's what I've got for now --
Targets - {DataSet}

Bold = non-set bonus
" ( ) " = set bonus

(SQRT(NumTargets)/(NumTargets)) * ProcRate --[ProcRate = 0.30]
(SQRT(NumTargets)/(NumTargets)) * SetBonus --[SetBonus = 0.38]

50% Effective Crit, 3 targets, 12 ticks per dot, 14 sec duration, 3 dots total

EffectiveProcRate: 17.3%, (21.9%)
TotalDOTTicks: 36 total, 2.57 ticks/sec, 1.167sec tick interval
SSProcRatePerDOT: 1.039, (1.316)
SSProcsPerSec: 0.445, (0.564)
ProcsExpected: 3.12, (3.95)

Compared to Live:

EffectiveProcRate: 30.0%, (38.0%)
TotalDOTTicks: 36 total, 2.57 ticks/sec, 1.167sec tick interval
SSProcRatePerDOT: 1.80, (2.28)
SSProcsPerSec: 0.771, (0.977)
ProcsExpected: 5.40, (6.84)

[Fleuria]

So here's what I've got for now --
Targets - {DataSet}

Bold = non-set bonus
" ( ) " = set bonus

50% Effective Crit, 3 targets, 12 ticks per dot, 14 sec duration, 3 dots total

EffectiveProcRate: 17.3%, (21.9%)
TotalDOTTicks: 36 total, 2.57 ticks/sec, 1.167sec tick interval
SSProcRatePerDOT: 1.039, (1.316)
SSProcsPerSec: 0.445, (0.564)
ProcsExpected: 3.12, (3.95)

Compared to Live:

EffectiveProcRate: 30.0%, (38.0%)
TotalDOTTicks: 36 total, 2.57 ticks/sec, 1.167sec tick interval
SSProcRatePerDOT: 1.80, (2.28)
SSProcsPerSec: 0.771, (0.977)
ProcsExpected: 5.40, (6.84)

To be fair, it didn't seem extremely bad during the last testing but when you got unlucky it was full halloween, think i had multiple occasions where i didn't get one proc in 20s with 5+ targets dotted and was just hard casting with no NG up to try and get back on track.