Moonkin patchnotes

[Deleted]

might be ot am not sure but what are the bonus frome t17 for balance=)?

[Miraclous]

might be ot am not sure but what are the bonus frome t17 for balance=)?

2set reduces cast time of wrath/starfire by x% (forgot how much).
4set reduces CA cooldown by 3sec per wrath/starfire cast.

[Deleted]

ah oki thx

[kendro1200]

I think perhaps if Balance proves against all Blizzard's expectations to be totally broken, then blizzard might consider in the second or third raid tier to redesign the way Balance's energy cycles, including perhaps through adding cooldowns or a poolable/controllable resources such as you suggest...

Unless it's broken to an extent that it gets balance druids sat(because they can't mechanically function on a majority of fights), Blizzard will most likely not make serious mechanic changes mid-expansion. They may tweak spell coefficients, and basically break the overall balance of the spec in order to let it perform within fight mechanics of a raid. Making drastic changes mid xpack seems to be something they want to avoid at all costs now.

The bar hopping idea can work, but I'd be afraid that it'd make anything that passively increased the frequency between eclipse cycles bad to use.
Blizzard also seems to have this PTSD behavior towards anything that might resemble a solar cleave (which I honestly don't understand, I loved solar cleave, it was a creative use of mechanics, like festerblight, and you couldn't just sit in it all day to get top dps. Solar cleave also made running dungeons not awful). If solar cleave type scenarios may even be potentially possible, they break the entire system to prevent its return. As such, they'd probably give anything that let you hop eclipse states a 1+ min cooldown. Not because choosing to be in the correct state for a fight mechanic is bad, but because moonkins strafing back and forth and spamming moonfire (a design goal they had for Cata) is even more evil than warlocks running around free casting in their books.
If the dev team was held at gun point and told to choose to either give: Druids an eclipse system in which they had full control over and was properly balanced between an AoE and single target form, with no broken mechanics to force them to constantly swap between states if the fight didn't dictate it, and give warlocks the ability to run around in circles casting chaos bolts, fear, unstable affliction and what not until kingdom come. Blizzard would pick warlocks free casting with movement every single time over a reasonable eclipse system.
That said, there are still minor tweaks that can be done to improve this current system they're trying to push. The tweaks need to happen before WoD launches though, because otherwise I doubt they'll do anything to actually fix something until the next xpack. The past handful of pages have had some nice ideas. It'd be nice if somehow they could be made into large bullet points on a whiteboard inside the Irvine Offices that gets a lot of traffic. Hell, I'd even go for flat out bribery through the form of orders of cupcakes with a list of eclipse tweaks written on a paper taped to each box of cupcakes. Just to get the problems a little bit of attention so it can be known that a very small effort can be done to make a very large improvement to a spec within the game.

[Deleted]

My only gripe with the spec at the moment is the horribly long starfire cast time, considering it is a filler spell. The excuse we've been thrown is that it is supposed to feel like a rewarding spell to cast, but it just doesn't feel like it is.
Perhaps it is just a temporary annoyance with the spell as of now.

Having zero control over which eclipse the meter first leans to is also bloody annoying. I don't really mind the fact they've taken my direct control over it away, but at least give me the ability to control it's direction pre-pull so I don't end up twiddling my thumb for shit to happen.

The rest feels a bit braindead tho, and the overall system will not allow for much, if any change, to happen as gear progresses, which is actually quite a shame.

[xtramuscle]

So I've kept up with the notes and watched most of the beta development - I wasn't able to get into Beta but I did immediately jump on to the PTR to test balance. All that said I feel like I am missing something - everything seems pretty obvious (cast X in X eclipse movement + Y dot and A in A Eclipse Movement + Z dot). Obviously we want to keep SS at 0-1 charges as often as possible and there are a few small choices (i.e. what to cast near the eclipse swap, cast or save a SS based on existing procs) I don't feel like it is very hard. I'm not saying this to QQ or whine but I honestly feel like I am missing something - I feel like I am doing something wrong.

So what am I missing - where is the nuance of Balance now?

I'd say WOD will be all about maintaining that really simple rotation on 2+ targets whilst moving out of a ton of shit on the floor. Most if not all bosses seem to have alot of movement on the beta, and having more than 1 target and maintaining dot+starfall uptime on more than one throws out all of your 'its perfect to cast X now' because on tar 2 its X+1 and its easy to get out of sync and die in fire.

@Rocketbear I have to agree. Starfire is sluggish, and its also a filler, I'm not sure if it hits as hard as chaos bolt? Maybe a better spell effect would make it feel/look stronger, a big moonfire is a bit underwhelming for a 3sec spell that wtb weaving bolt of big blue cosmos shit

Going into the expansion boomkin is looking strong. But will higher mastery/haste levels as the expansion progresses allow us to stay competative or will we lack behind the other classes as they scale better? High secondary stats has always been a end-tier thing for boomkins, but will slightly better starfall/starsurge weaving + more hard casts during peak be THAT much of a dps increase?

[lappee]

About Starfire vs Chaosbolt, Starfire is spammable while Chaos bolt isnt thus Starfire shouldnt hit as hard by default.
Its not wise to compare X spell with Y if their mechanics arent similar. You can compare Wrath and Starfire because they have similar mechanics and in that comparison Starfire wins because of longer cast time

[Lionor]

I don't know if this has been suggested before, but perhaps Balance of Power could be changed into something more interesting, while addressing some of our concerns regarding the feel of lack of control over eclipse states:

Balance of Power
Instant
45 sec cooldown (could have 2 charges, though that could be OP)
Your next spell will benefit from the peak bonus of the opposing eclipse state.

So for example you're on your way to lunar (pre-lunar or near lunar peak) and a pack of short lived adds shows up? Hit BoP and Sunfire, win.

Need a buffed Starfall while in solar? Hit BoP and you're golden. Need to finish off an add with a big Starfire but you are in solar, SS, BoP+Starfire.

I think this is simple enough and could work wonders, thoughts?

[Grum88]

Just out of curiosity ... come 6.0 mastery will obviously spike up to being a more beneficial stat for us, now the question is do we re-gem to int + mastery gems or use pure mastery(in yellows of course and vice versa for reds with int gems) I am just wondering what you theorycrafters would suggest.

[Shyzhi]

2set reduces cast time of wrath/starfire by x% (forgot how much).
4set reduces CA cooldown by 3sec per wrath/starfire cast.

its 15%

Was testing moonkin agian, Did feel abit "Eh.. this is slow.." but then.. i guess im use to my 580 haste levels :P so im gonna stick to it, its kinda cool in pvp tho :P

[kosars]

About Starfire vs Chaosbolt, Starfire is spammable while Chaos bolt isnt thus Starfire shouldnt hit as hard by default.
Its not wise to compare X spell with Y if their mechanics arent similar. You can compare Wrath and Starfire because they have similar mechanics and in that comparison Starfire wins because of longer cast time

That's not really true. Starfire at it's peak most certainty is not spammable, it's resource limited. (Your resource in this case being time, due to the unavoidable motion of the eclipse slider). Thus, it's perfectly valid to expect starfire at it's peak to be performing on par with chaos bolt damage-wise. Sure the spell is "technically" spammable, but if you're trying to compare starfire damage at midpoint, you're doing something wrong.

[lappee]

That's not really true. Starfire at it's peak most certainty is not spammable, it's resource limited. (Your resource in this case being time, due to the unavoidable motion of the eclipse slider). Thus, it's perfectly valid to expect starfire at it's peak to be performing on par with chaos bolt damage-wise. Sure the spell is "technically" spammable, but if you're trying to compare starfire damage at midpoint, you're doing something wrong.

Sure, its not "spammable" when its @ peak. But thats not what people were talking about. They were just wondering why starfire doesnt hit as much as Chaos bolt when it has longer cast time.

If the case was that Starfire would only be castable while we're at lunar peak. Then it would be justified for starfire to hit as hard (or harder) than Chaos bolt, However Starfire is castable always making it spammable "filler" spell.

[kosars]

Sure, its not "spammable" when its @ peak. But thats not what people were talking about. They were just wondering why starfire doesnt hit as much as Chaos bolt when it has longer cast time.

If the case was that Starfire would only be castable while we're at lunar peak. Then it would be justified for starfire to hit as hard (or harder) than Chaos bolt, However Starfire is castable always making it spammable "filler" spell.

TBF I'm not even really sure what the argument is here, but I think it IS justified for starfire to hit as hard or harder than chaos bolt @ peak, and of course significantly less any other time. If anyone is complaining that it's weaker halfway through lunar, well, that's just silly, it should be. The trade-off for being resource limited should be significantly stronger than normal spells. And as said before, time is our resource. (To make a proper comparison, starfire @ peak should be around the strength of a chaos bolt, possibly more since you can't choose when you spend your resource, while starfire at mid-point should be about 2.. maybe 1.5 incinerates.)

edit: all the above should take into account empowerment too. Basically, starfire should be a relatively weak spell base. When fully powered though, it should hit incredibly hard.

I have no idea if the above is, or isn't the case though atm.

Starfire being castable at any point as a "spammable filler spell" shouldn't in any way justify it being weaker @ peak, for all intents and purposes starfire @ peak and starfire not @ peak should be treated as 2 seperate spells with identical cast times. (Well, for the purposes of comparisons anyway).

[lappee]

@kosars

If you really want to make starfire hit as hard as chaosbolt @ peak, then eclipse scaling would have to be totally different.
Starfire@peak = Chaos bolt
Starfire@50lunar energy (midway lunar) = Incinerate
Starfire@0 energy = ½ Incinerate

or something similar to that, either way it would make eclipse scaling totally different and our damage even more spiky and I did not take Starsurge into account in any way.

tl:dr Do not compare Two totally different spells with different mechanics of different classes. Its totally pointless and idiotic.

[kosars]

@kosars

tl:dr Do not compare Two totally different spells with different mechanics of different classes. Its totally pointless and idiotic.

get over yourself please. Honestly. No, it wouldn't require any rework of the mechanic or scaling. A slight tweak of numbers here or there would suffice, thanks to empowerment. If empowerment didn't exist you may have a point, but because it does, it's perfectly reasonable to expect a relatively weak spell be buffed to insanity under normal circumstances.

And such comparisons are perfectly valid, and actually a pretty good idea, in a vacuum. Obviously you can't keep the comparisons going in a real environment simply because you have to account for the whole picture at that point. But in a theory vacuum making comparisons between somewhat similar spells is a great way to identify major discrepancies. If the numbers come out wildly off, you likely have a problem. If they're in the same realm, you likely don't. But, I guess this is all just pointless and idiotic, so, who cares, right?!

[lappee]

@kosars

Ofcourse it takes alot of work, you have to change dps of different spells aswell as change the values of certain buffs and eclipse.

Taking something out of its concept is NEVER a good idea in the long run


But if you want, lets go ahead and make it even simpler taking everything out of concept
Chaos Bolt: 3sec cast 210.75% SP
Starfire: 3sec cast 208% SP

Results, they're close to each other. Happy?

[Antimals]

@kosars

Ofcourse it takes alot of work, you have to change dps of different spells aswell as change the values of certain buffs and eclipse.

Taking something out of its concept is NEVER a good idea in the long run


But if you want, lets go ahead and make it even simpler taking everything out of concept
Chaos Bolt: 3sec cast 210.75% SP
Starfire: 3sec cast 208% SP

Results, they're close to each other. Happy?

and with the new SOTF and empowerment, there's an additional 10% and 30% added, not sure if multiplicative

[Deleted]

Which race will be more beneficial in PvE (troll with 15% haste cd or tauren with 2% critical damge)? Anyone maby tested it?

[Deleted]

I'm not gonna claim anything but I would personally give my hands down to Troll > Tauren, simply because crit damage isnt that great if you're not gonna have alot of crit.

For Alliance there is either 1% crit vs 1%crit/haste depending on time (Still weird as hell imo) so I'm not gonna comment on that part.

[Mystikal]

For Alliance, there's at least a little bit of thinking to do now. In terms of DPS, the racials are more or less equivalent in WoD, so the choice essentially comes down to Darkflight vs. Shadowmeld +2% movement speed. Both have their pros and cons in PvE and so I'd say pick whichever you find more aesthetically or thematically pleasing.

Haven't played Horde in sometime so I'm not really in a position to comment there.