How is Balance in Alpha without Moons?

[Polarthief]

The still require keybinds. And 7 keybinds is a lot for a single target rotation. Most classes have 4 or 5.

Depends on how you use them. A Moon spell is used every ~15s. DoTs every ~22/18. LS every SS. An overwhelming majority of your rotation is spamming SW. More buttons != more complex. Long-duration DoTs reduce your need to press them. A spell (LS) that is 100% scripted to only be cast after casting another spell doesn't add complexity. Despite it's relative lack of complexity, I'd argue Affliction, a spec with less buttons, is more interesting and 'difficult' (though still relatively easy) than Moonkin.

Shadow Priest is also pretty simple with its number of buttons: 2 (quite long) DoTs (that you can also cast both simultaneously with a talent), a filler, a button (MB) pressed every so often, and a spender (Void Eruption) that also turns into a rotational button during Voidform and an artifact ability on a 1m cooldown. Also an execute button. Assuming you combine VE and VB and the DoTs with the talent, that leaves you at 5 buttons w/ a <30s cooldown, one of which you only use at execute, and a 6th button on a 1m cooldown. 5/6 is < 7 and yet Shadow Priest is a thousand-and-one times more complex than Moonkin.

I don't understand your argument that more buttons = more complexity.

[huth]

I don't understand your argument that more buttons = more complexity.

That is in fact exactly what complexity means. How many moving parts there are. Nothing less, nothing more.

[Lucrece]

What he's questioning is whether those few extra buttons constitute more moving parts in any meaningful way compared to other specs.

[Deleted]

Yup, all it needed to do was follow the target just like Artanis's purifier beam from heroes of the storm, which is where the spell was grabbed from for inspiration (it even had the same graphic before the update).

It's just too bad because the removal of the moon cycle spells only exposes how stale and bareboned the core balance rotation and toolkit is. It's one of the offensive caster specs with the least amount of mechanically distinguished spells. It's virtually two clones of the same spell themed sun and moon with a marginal difference like sunfire spreading but otherwise the spells have no synergy within themselves until starfall was changed to interact with dots and starsurge gave empowerments.

They tried distinguishing lunar strike more with a cleave aspect to it, but the cleave portion is so pathetically undertuned that it was not compelling enough to set it apart as totally distinguishable from solar wrath.

If you look at mage or destruction warlock, each spell has a clearly defined function that doesn't really overlap with any other of the spells.

I have been saying this for some quiet some time, imagine if starfall also spread moonfire on all targets currently not affected by moonfire if it hit a target already affected by moonfire...there would be 0 use for sunfire basically

Im not sure when (cata with anshe and sunwalkers?) moon (arcane) & nature (actually nature) theme was replaced by moon & sun (nature?) theme. Moon and sun makes more sense for "astral" type of damage but that is just different type of damage calculation, they havent used this theme in a more unique way. Nature theme provides more variety, I miss things like insect swarm or hurricane, maybe thats just me though. At this point the only "natural" thing about balance druid is entangling roots spell.

Moonfire and sunfire are essentially the same, lunar strike and solar wrath as well. Sunfire without extra AoE range is meh, lunar strike is undertuned (and in PvP those dots are mandatory "nothing damage" things forced down your throat because of +% dmg trait, nothing else). Moonkin talents also require a much closer look than they get right now. Roughly 1/3 of talents are dead, not worth picking (like if giving treants some 5 astral power per second would break the spec or something...).

[cafecito820]

Since MoonMoon is above other spells, it's by definition not a filler. It's your highest value builder. You also forgot "don't cap moonmoon charges".

Your filler is the spell you use when you can't do anything else. Not just all spells that aren't spenders.

In our case, that's generally unempowered SW.

I know what you're saying. In the strictest sense of the word, yes, SW is the "filler". I'm just speaking more categorically as if more things that build AP are, in essence, fillers. One is without doubt better than another - you're right. But I guess it just feels odd to me that an artifact ability fills *that* particular spot in the rotation. Does that make sense?

[Seneca]

I know what you're saying. In the strictest sense of the word, yes, SW is the "filler". I'm just speaking more categorically as if more things that build AP are, in essence, fillers. One is without doubt better than another - you're right. But I guess it just feels odd to me that an artifact ability fills *that* particular spot in the rotation. Does that make sense?

I guess "builders" is the right word?

[huth]

I know what you're saying. In the strictest sense of the word, yes, SW is the "filler". I'm just speaking more categorically as if more things that build AP are, in essence, fillers. One is without doubt better than another - you're right. But I guess it just feels odd to me that an artifact ability fills *that* particular spot in the rotation. Does that make sense?

It makes sense, but it just means that you're misusing the word "filler" when you mean "AP builder". A filler is the lowest rung spell you use when you have nothing better to do. By definition, you can only have a single one of those, since lower tier fillers would never get used, and as such aren't part of the rotation.

Specificially, our filler is unempowered SW, not just SW. Empowered LS is between Empowered SW and unempowered SW in priority. Unempowered LS only gets used in edge cases.

[Argenon]

So, the real question is how long till we see some attention in alpha? I know Blizz hasn't gotten to Balance Druid yet, but I would just like a glimpse of what we can expect.

I go back and forth on moons, I really enjoyed the spell itself, but I would like our priority to change. I am not a fan of LS, as many have said it is basically SW, and I would love to see our moonfire/sunfire combo get some type of overhaul. I know it is hard to make each spec "interesting" but ours most certainly feels lackluster at times.

[Rotted]

I played balance for 1/3 of this expansion, I hope its gone and replaced with something better.

At ToS I felt in a good place but going into antronus was just hell. I kept to what I was supposed, I only replaced my tier 2 for 2 then 4 for 4 so I lost no set bonuses and my DPS just plummeted constantly. By the time I went up 25 ilvls my dps dropped on avg 500k

[Argenon]

At ToS I felt in a good place but going into antronus was just hell. I kept to what I was supposed, I only replaced my tier 2 for 2 then 4 for 4 so I lost no set bonuses and my DPS just plummeted constantly. By the time I went up 25 ilvls my dps dropped on avg 500k

I actually enjoyed the start of Antorus more than any other part of this expansion, until they nerfed W&W.

[Myztikrice]

I played balance for 1/3 of this expansion, I hope its gone and replaced with something better.

At ToS I felt in a good place but going into antronus was just hell. I kept to what I was supposed, I only replaced my tier 2 for 2 then 4 for 4 so I lost no set bonuses and my DPS just plummeted constantly. By the time I went up 25 ilvls my dps dropped on avg 500k

You clearly made a mistake swapping over then

[huth]

Something that came to my mind: What if Owlkin Frenzy had some (new) trigger condition that caused it to be used rotationally.

This would achieve 3 things: It would give LS a more clearly defined role in our rotation, give us something to watch out for and add some gameplay to trying to keep LS Empowerments ready for Frenzy procs, while being a fairly simple change to implement.

[wing5wong]

dot ticks have a chance to grant owlkin frenzy, causing your next LS to be instant cast.
sounds familiar....

what about empowered LS cast while under OF will cause moonfire to be applied to the target

Not sure about all the preconditions though... chance to proc OF, must have empowerments ready..

[Cyous]

Something that came to my mind: What if Owlkin Frenzy had some (new) trigger condition that caused it to be used rotationally.

This would achieve 3 things: It would give LS a more clearly defined role in our rotation, give us something to watch out for and add some gameplay to trying to keep LS Empowerments ready for Frenzy procs, while being a fairly simple change to implement.

I think the issue is empowerments in general. Cutting Solar Empowerment would make Lunar Strike that much better.

[zeoos]

I loved Balance Druid in legion. Moon spells were awesome. I am currently leveling some alts for BfA in case they don't add the moon spell to BfA.
Its still early so anything can happen to Balance druid.

Sent from my Mi A1 using Tapatalk

[huth]

I loved Balance Druid in legion. Moon spells were awesome. I am currently leveling some alts for BfA in case they don't add the moon spell to BfA.
Its still early so anything can happen to Balance druid.

Sent from my Mi A1 using Tapatalk

If anything, the fact that absolutely nothing happened to Balance specificially is the confounding part. Outside of the general damage reduction and the Druid wide removal of Displacer Beast, they haven't touched us at all.

[Polarthief]

I think the issue is empowerments in general. Cutting Solar Empowerment would make Lunar Strike that much better.

Also makes Solar Wrath a lot shittier, as well as Starlord/whatever the talent used to be called back forever ago. Used to be on spell crits you'd get cast speed or something.

I loved Balance Druid in legion. Moon spells were awesome. I am currently leveling some alts for BfA in case they don't add the moon spell to BfA.
Its still early so anything can happen to Balance druid.

While I didn't main Boomy except for (very) early BC and all of Legion since ~middle of EN (planned to play Resto til my first guild got too many healers), I will say this definitely wasn't the best Boomy iteration. WoD was an absolute dumpsterfire abortion for sure, but MoP and even earlier felt pretty damn good. This mess of ST vs AoE really screwed up Boomkin hardcore, not to mention ending the expansion with some of the worst ST damage and mobility (unless you run RM+SOTF) as well as way too many dead talents.

I personally dislike the Moon spells and I wish they'd fix up SS and SF; making them compete for one another on the same resource just feels bad. Hell make SF a cooldown again or something. Also do something to Lunar Strike; my god is that easily one of the most pointless spells in the game: Cleave radius is way too small, cleave damage is also pretty crap to really care about, takes too long to cast for what it does, and you literally don't cast it if unempowered, unless you know for a fact it'll hit a few targets (which, with the super small radius, you'll never guarantee that).

If anything, the fact that absolutely nothing happened to Balance specificially is the confounding part. Outside of the general damage reduction and the Druid wide removal of Displacer Beast, they haven't touched us at all.

Almost nothing has happened to Druid, really. There's no way they're done with the class.
- Balance: General changes, nothing spec-specific.
- Feral: Same as Balance, but the Poisons/Bleeds now scaling with Haste thing will likely change its stat prio.
- Guardian: Same as Balance/Feral. Ironfur now scales off of Agility, FR has a longer CD. Nothing has replaced MoU yet.
- Resto: The only spec to have some decent changes, mostly in the talent department, but Healing Touch was also scrapped.

[Lucrece]

Also makes Solar Wrath a lot shittier, as well as Starlord/whatever the talent used to be called back forever ago. Used to be on spell crits you'd get cast speed or something.



While I didn't main Boomy except for (very) early BC and all of Legion since ~middle of EN (planned to play Resto til my first guild got too many healers), I will say this definitely wasn't the best Boomy iteration. WoD was an absolute dumpsterfire abortion for sure, but MoP and even earlier felt pretty damn good. This mess of ST vs AoE really screwed up Boomkin hardcore, not to mention ending the expansion with some of the worst ST damage and mobility (unless you run RM+SOTF) as well as way too many dead talents.

I personally dislike the Moon spells and I wish they'd fix up SS and SF; making them compete for one another on the same resource just feels bad. Hell make SF a cooldown again or something. Also do something to Lunar Strike; my god is that easily one of the most pointless spells in the game: Cleave radius is way too small, cleave damage is also pretty crap to really care about, takes too long to cast for what it does, and you literally don't cast it if unempowered, unless you know for a fact it'll hit a few targets (which, with the super small radius, you'll never guarantee that).



Almost nothing has happened to Druid, really. There's no way they're done with the class.
- Balance: General changes, nothing spec-specific.
- Feral: Same as Balance, but the Poisons/Bleeds now scaling with Haste thing will likely change its stat prio.
- Guardian: Same as Balance/Feral. Ironfur now scales off of Agility, FR has a longer CD. Nothing has replaced MoU yet.
- Resto: The only spec to have some decent changes, mostly in the talent department, but Healing Touch was also scrapped.

That's not new, though.

For most of balance's existence, it has been a dreaful ST spec made only relevant by aoe gimmicks. Whenever it couldn't cheese aoe, it went down the drain.

And it always lacked mobility, shooting stars helped somewhat but it's always been a spec with little in the way of instant cast damaging combo spells like a mage or hunter, so we ended more like warlocks, shadow priests, and ele shamans wehre any movement takes a dump on your DPS.

[Gungnir]

I just miss back when Starsurge was our mechanic that had charges and resets.
It felt a lot more engaging than a generic builder-spender gameplay like every other class, simply because it was a lot more dynamic on when you'd get those bursts of damage and action.

Also made it a LOT more interesting in PvP, but then again PvP got completely destroyed in Legion so I guess I shouldn't factor in that anymore.

[Soultrigger]

After playing all 12 classes in legion, I feel they went overboard with the build/spend methodology to the point that every spec feels the same. (elemental shaman, shadow priest, enhancement shaman, warlokc all 3 specs? etc).

I miss when starsurge/starfall had 3 charges and we had to choose between aoe or st to spend them. We could still have that as charges with build/spender, but when we got like 40 ap (say it was a full bar, and then it resets), we get another charge and capped at 3 as in the past. Just that would make it more fun, if anything we would be able to aoe when the fight starts haha. They tried to keep it as a builder/spender, but then starsurge and starfall would have to cost the same baseline, and sincerely we should be able to spend a ss or sf before building anything.

I also think we miss some kind of "wow" feeling, and here I mean some kind of proc. In the past we had eclipse as the wow factor, I mean we had to keep in touch with its flow so that we would use the right spell. On a builder/spender we should have something that procs for us to click, I would like something like fire mage pyroblast here. (the owl frenzy as a proc is not a bad idea either that someone gave before).

Maybe I am nostalgic, but I just feel moonkin was a lot cooler in wrath-mop era. (even BC haha).