Moonkin patchnotes

[Deleted]

This thread should be closed until numbers or mechanics of WoD has been released.

Right now there is 90% mouthbreathers panicing becuase they just take the changes and apply them to todays WoW and playstyle while knowing nothing of how things will be in WoD.

[Glurp]

This thread should be closed until numbers or mechanics of WoD has been released.

Right now there is 90% mouthbreathers panicing becuase they just take the changes and apply them to todays WoW and playstyle while knowing nothing of how things will be in WoD.

Welcome to MMO Champion.

[Cyous]

starfall change is most likely to make sunfall correctly reset on CA

[Juvencus]

Seems odd that they kept the starfall is cancelled upon shapeshifting function, if anything it would be nice for it to just be suppressed

Agreed. I hate having to shift for Might or Displacer and get my Starfall cancelled when it could just be easily suppressed and resumed.

[huth]

Agreed. I hate having to shift for Might or Displacer and get my Starfall cancelled when it could just be easily suppressed and resumed.

Frankly, i'd ignore the starfall "changes" for now. Looks like they fixed the build while the dev was in the middle of something.

[Juvencus]

Frankly, i'd ignore the starfall "changes" for now. Looks like they fixed the build while the dev was in the middle of something.

Nah I was talking in general for the live game. HC Lei Shen comes in mind when I would forgot to hold Starfall before using DB.

[Deleted]

With the huge outcry for mushrooms and hurricane to be less situational and difficult to prepare fully i am surprised with the current direction they are taking. I cant wait till beta to see what its really like, but i wouldnt be surprised if they surprise us.

Also with fungal growth being 5 yards now, does that also mean the bloom of shrooms is smaller or not?

[Aboubacar]

With the huge outcry for mushrooms and hurricane to be less situational and difficult to prepare fully i am surprised with the current direction they are taking. I cant wait till beta to see what its really like, but i wouldnt be surprised if they surprise us.

Also with fungal growth being 5 yards now, does that also mean the bloom of shrooms is smaller or not?

That hasn't changed yet. Who knows fungal growth thing could be wrong too. Wait for official patch notes because a large portion of the datamining is incorrect, especially where you see a numbers change

- - - Updated - - -

Nah I was talking in general for the live game. HC Lei Shen comes in mind when I would forgot to hold Starfall before using DB.

Sounds like a player issue not a design issue. I hope it stays as-is so you have to think a little more about your movement. Ursoc is a little different, but is a last resort sort of button, rarely used more than once a fight, if at all.

[roxfm]

Sounds like a player issue not a design issue. I hope it stays as-is so you have to think a little more about your movement. Ursoc is a little different, but is a last resort sort of button, rarely used more than once a fight, if at all.

I don't mind it being a player issue as long as other players are also facing similar issues. Boomkins however, (and I guess this is where the elitists call it whining?) have mechanics that are irrelevant to current game mechanics, yet still there to penalize. Starfall cancellation was added because moonkins were running around in travel form aggroing everything, and blizzard wanted to (rightfully) change that. Starfall doesn't hit OOC mobs anymore (except hostile mobs that are in combat with other friendly NPCs such as Lion's Landing area etc).

The new expansion was supposed to remove bloat in many areas. Positioning requirements are being removed. Item stats are being streamlined. DoT snapshotting is being done away with for the most part, etc. Yet, the few areas in which we have requested QoL changes for a long time are staying as is - at least for now. And their comments about boomkins are hinting that they're happy with the place that boomies are in right now.

There's not a whole lot that needs balancing in the Balance tree.

a) Fix our AOE dealing mechanics - Hurricane / AS - perhaps make it like Earthquake - cast time, ground targeted and forget. Or Rain of Fire. Or at least Mind Sear where it is dynamically centred around a target. As for Mushrooms, the watering concept is further making a complex delivery method even more complex. Name me one other spec that has AOE that is inefficient as ours? No dot spread, no instant AOE damage on demand, DoT up and accelerate (I think they did try with this but then decided against it?)

At least in Cata, you could camp Solar for deadly AOE - at that time, Mushrooms were better damage than most other AOE mechanics, so the added headache of managing them perfectly was rewarded with high damage. Now, the added headache remains, but the reward isn't there.

b) Starfall cancellation in animal forms - Change that to Starfall being suppressed. Cancellation is far too much of a penalty when you look at things like Displacer Beast, Might of Ursoc, baseline Stampeding roar etc. They already have the tech to do it when the druid is stunned / feared etc.

Strength of spec is relative to the strength of others. With Tranq and Innervate being removed, and HOTW/NV reduced in effectiveness, they are moving to a model of lesser raid utility in the form of off-spec healing. I'm completely fine with that. But with that, some of our age-old mechanics need to be updated to put us on par with other classes.

I'm not saying it's a numbers issue - For instance, a Moonkin and an Elemental could have the exact same DPS but I'd still prefer to take the Ele on progression fights because the margin for error is very small in the case of a moonkin and much less in other classes. This disparity is what I'd like to see lessened, and if not, then at least rewarded. Just my 2c I suppose.

[earthwormjim]

They really need to make shrooms a 1 gcd cast to do all of their damage.
They can leave the ability to drop 3 mushrooms to spread our ground snare, but make the three shrooms share a pool of damage.
1 shroom does 100% damage, 2 shrooms do 50% damage each, 3 shrooms do 33% damage each.


Hopefully we can replant the mushrooms once we've fully watered them too, without losing the bonus damage (like resto currently can)


I do really miss how powerful mushrooms were in Cata. It's unlikely we'll ever see that again, they were too broken in battle grounds (GY camping).


They should also change displacer beast to no longer put you into cat form. It doesn't stealth us anymore, what reason is there to put us into cat form?

[Tarm]

With Tranq and Innervate being removed, and HOTW/NV reduced in effectiveness, they are moving to a model of lesser raid utility in the form of off-spec healing.

It hasn't been remarked on much, but in the most recent alpha build, NV is increased in effectiveness, not decreased.
http://wod.wowhead.com/spell=124974#changelog

Live:

• Increases damage by 12%.
• Single target damage heals a nearby target for 25% of the damage done.
• (A 100 damage attack does 112 damage and heals a nearby target for 28.)

Current alpha:

• Single target damage heals a nearby target for 35% of the damage done.
• (A 100 damage heals a nearby target for 35.)

So the healing from NV in the current alpha is 25% stronger than in live.

Both NV and HotW could be changed further before 6.0, but the changes we've seen so far suggests that blizz aims to make their healing utility more comparable (by increasing NV's healing and by decreasing HotW's by taking away tranq). I like the idea of having the level 90 tier being completely about choosing whichever off-healing (or for HoTW off-tanking) is most useful for your raid on each encounter: HotW for switching completely to heals for a single intense phase of the fight and blanketing the raid with rejuv or NV for providing a bit of help several times throughout the fight during high damage phases without losing any dps uptime.

DoC with it's one instant HT every 15-20 second seems much less useful as far as helping out the healers, but it could be a minor dps boost if you use it just before and after you hit solar (i.e. at 20 energy from solar, cast instant HT, then starfire to get to solar, then starsurge, then your next instant HT, then starsurge again - so that you can use the starsurges during solar). HotW could also be a minor dps boost for fight phases where it is much better to be a cat for a bit.

I like how this talent tier is shaping up: NV or HotW depending on what type of off-healing is required, or DoC if you don't really need much off-healing (or in some situation where the HTs are helpful) and you want to tinker around with resetting starsurge at opportune times.

Postscript:
Maybe the boost to NV is partially due to the fact that blizzard is increasing health pools relative to dps? Have there been similar changes in any other classes' abilities that heal based on a percentage of damage dealt?

[Glurp]

You're looking at it completely the wrong way, it's not being increased/changed for class balance purposes, The level 90 talents are being made into different forms of healing/raid utility. HotW gives you the option to Rejuv and Healing touch people or be a Bear, DoC gives you strong, instant Healing Touches for yourself and NV gives you a raid healing CD.

What numbers NV does in comparison to live means absolutely nothing.

DoC with it's one instant HT every 15-20 second seems much less useful as far as helping out the healers

Am I the only one who is looking forward to DoC? A 20 second CD Healthstone on the GCD with infinite uses sure sounds OP as fuck to me.

[lappee]

I don't mind it being a player issue as long as other players are also facing similar issues. Boomkins however, (and I guess this is where the elitists call it whining?) have mechanics that are irrelevant to current game mechanics, yet still there to penalize. Starfall cancellation was added because moonkins were running around in travel form aggroing everything, and blizzard wanted to (rightfully) change that. Starfall doesn't hit OOC mobs anymore (except hostile mobs that are in combat with other friendly NPCs such as Lion's Landing area etc).

Starfall cancellation was added because they wanted to remove its op-ness from pvp. The OOC thing was added because of pve.

Its a very clear mechanic that has its downsides, the fact that you want it to be easier to use because "other classes dont have penalties like that" just makes me wonder, do you really want to play a druid or some of those other classes?

The new expansion was supposed to remove bloat in many areas. Positioning requirements are being removed. Item stats are being streamlined. DoT snapshotting is being done away with for the most part, etc. Yet, the few areas in which we have requested QoL changes for a long time are staying as is - at least for now. And their comments about boomkins are hinting that they're happy with the place that boomies are in right now.

QoL changes doesnt make the game better. Homogenization of classes just makes it worse

a) Fix our AOE dealing mechanics - Hurricane / AS - perhaps make it like Earthquake - cast time, ground targeted and forget. Or Rain of Fire. Or at least Mind Sear where it is dynamically centred around a target. As for Mushrooms, the watering concept is further making a complex delivery method even more complex. Name me one other spec that has AOE that is inefficient as ours? No dot spread, no instant AOE damage on demand, DoT up and accelerate (I think they did try with this but then decided against it?)

Homogenization is bad bad bad bad bad, New systems are good for the game as long as they're implemented properly

At least in Cata, you could camp Solar for deadly AOE - at that time, Mushrooms were better damage than most other AOE mechanics, so the added headache of managing them perfectly was rewarded with high damage. Now, the added headache remains, but the reward isn't there.

You've no idea how the mechanic works in WoD, you also have no idea of the numbers.

b) Starfall cancellation in animal forms - Change that to Starfall being suppressed. Cancellation is far too much of a penalty when you look at things like Displacer Beast, Might of Ursoc, baseline Stampeding roar etc. They already have the tech to do it when the druid is stunned / feared etc.

Displacer beast is a talent, a very good one, so it has some penalties. sounds fair to me
Might of Ursoc is a "very" strong defensive cd (as well as very situational), and we'll have plenty of others too in WoD. If one cant plan ahead a starfall use then the penalty is very well deserved.
Stampeding roar will have only one glyph and it will be very baseline for pve so theres nothing to QQ about that, for pvp its another matter but then again you'll have more decision making (as there should be)

Strength of spec is relative to the strength of others. With Tranq and Innervate being removed, and HOTW/NV reduced in effectiveness, they are moving to a model of lesser raid utility in the form of off-spec healing. I'm completely fine with that. But with that, some of our age-old mechanics need to be updated to put us on par with other classes.

and they are updating our aoe mechanic, so whats the whining?

Being "on par" with other classes is fine as long as the differences are still ~5-20%. Getting all classes to deal the same damage in every situation is just bad for the game

I'm not saying it's a numbers issue - For instance, a Moonkin and an Elemental could have the exact same DPS but I'd still prefer to take the Ele on progression fights because the margin for error is very small in the case of a moonkin and much less in other classes. This disparity is what I'd like to see lessened, and if not, then at least rewarded. Just my 2c I suppose.

I've no idea what moonkin error margin you're talking about.

[roxfm]

You're looking at it completely the wrong way, it's not being increased/changed for class balance purposes, The level 90 talents are being made into different forms of healing/raid utility. HotW gives you the option to Rejuv and Healing touch people or be a Bear, DoC gives you strong, instant Healing Touches for yourself and NV gives you a raid healing CD.

What numbers NV does in comparison to live means absolutely nothing.

Am I the only one who is looking forward to DoC? A 20 second CD Healthstone on the GCD with infinite uses sure sounds OP as fuck to me.

Allow me to clarify - I meant the removal of the static int from HOTW and the +dmg increase portion of NV, as well as the +25% bonus on next eclipse on DoC. I'm not comparing numbers as those can be changed very easily - rather than the mechanics of the talent/spell/ability. We are extremely good raid healers / off-healers (at least till I was playing up until 4ish months ago) and that part is going to be reduced in effectiveness (across the board for all classes) - which is completely fine by me.

And no, you're not the only one who is stoked for DoC - I find the current iteration of it on the Alpha is better than live. That's how I feel about it anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

Starfall cancellation was added because they wanted to remove its op-ness from pvp. The OOC thing was added because of pve.

Its a very clear mechanic that has its downsides, the fact that you want it to be easier to use because "other classes dont have penalties like that" just makes me wonder, do you really want to play a druid or some of those other classes?

QoL changes doesnt make the game better. Homogenization of classes just makes it worse.

Homogenization is bad bad bad bad bad, New systems are good for the game as long as they're implemented properly

You've no idea how the mechanic works in WoD, you also have no idea of the numbers.

Displacer beast is a talent, a very good one, so it has some penalties. sounds fair to me
Might of Ursoc is a "very" strong defensive cd (as well as very situational), and we'll have plenty of others too in WoD. If one cant plan ahead a starfall use then the penalty is very well deserved.
Stampeding roar will have only one glyph and it will be very baseline for pve so theres nothing to QQ about that, for pvp its another matter but then again you'll have more decision making (as there should be)

and they are updating our aoe mechanic, so whats the whining?

Being "on par" with other classes is fine as long as the differences are still ~5-20%. Getting all classes to deal the same damage in every situation is just bad for the game

I've no idea what moonkin error margin you're talking about.

Yup, and back then, Starfall would hit quite hard, did splash damage, got people out of stealth. Can't recall if the 10 star limit per target was there or not, but I don't think so. Entering Lunar didn't reset the CD either as far as I can recall in LK. Much of the OPness was removed in Cata, but the downsides remained intact. I don't think that complicated just for the sake of being complicated is a good thing - but to each their own.

As for mechanic of Mushrooms - they're adding the watering concept, via use of Hurricane. No other change has been announced as yet that I can recall. So I'm not sure how you can say that I don't know how they will work. They cannot be re-planted, like Resto's version can. They cannot be cast together, nor any other benefit. The only thing that's being changed is the watering part making them more potent, so I'd like to think I know how they work in WoD (as of now). And no, I'm not arguing numbers - those can and likely will be balanced.

Displacer Beast, Ursoc, Stampeding - all penalized Moonkin more than our Cat and Bear brethren. Why? You don't see cat form lose Tiger's Fury. Nor does Bear lose their bleeds on the target, etc. I do believe that it was their stated intention to have all talents behave equally, yet the first tier heavily favors other forms over Moonkin. I'm not saying I can't play around the cancellation of starfall - I don't think I have ever said that. But I still think it should not be there. Suppression yes, cancellation no. And yes, I'm with you 100% on the glyph of stampeding - 2 glyphs for 1 spell I did have a qualm with. The new glyph is perfect.

Homogenization is bad when they can balance the uniqueness of each class very well. But they haven't done that very well in the past. Especially not with Moonkins. If they cannot balance the uniqueness properly, I'd much rather prefer a homogenized class over a unique one.

re: class dps differences - 5-10% is more in line. 20% dps differential is far too much.
re: margin of error - the difference between an exceptional moonkin (such as yourself) and the average moonkin (such as me) results in a far larger DPS difference, than compared to say, an exceptional mage vs. an average mage. Hence the margin of error, or the mastery of the spec, or however you want to spell it out.

[Dessan]

I'd love a glyph that dropped all 3 shrooms and detonated them with a single click (or maybe one to place all 3, then one more to go boom?) Nice burst aoe, it still has a CD, if you want them to be strategic don't use the glyph.

Hurricane needs some love though.. I'd like it to be a debuff that you could apply to a target and it'd treat said target like a weather vane, causing lots of lightning strikes and what not to it's surroundings. Then we can throw it on a dude it ticks down for 10 seconds, we can still multi dot/pop shrooms, whatever the specific aoe encounter calls for.

[earthwormjim]

I'd love a glyph that dropped all 3 shrooms and detonated them with a single click (or maybe one to place all 3, then one more to go boom?) Nice burst aoe, it still has a CD, if you want them to be strategic don't use the glyph.

Hurricane needs some love though.. I'd like it to be a debuff that you could apply to a target and it'd treat said target like a weather vane, causing lots of lightning strikes and what not to it's surroundings. Then we can throw it on a dude it ticks down for 10 seconds, we can still multi dot/pop shrooms, whatever the specific aoe encounter calls for.

Hurricane does not need a mechanic change (would be nice if the first tick was instant though), they already made it so we no longer get penalized for using it (NG uptime). All it needs now is competitive damage, which is certainly within their reach to give.

[Aboubacar]

Hurricane does not need a mechanic change (would be nice if the first tick was instant though), they already made it so we no longer get penalized for using it (NG uptime). All it needs now is competitive damage, which is certainly within their reach to give.

Disagree just slightly- it should have a 40yrd range not 30.

[lappee]

Yup, and back then, Starfall would hit quite hard, did splash damage, got people out of stealth. Can't recall if the 10 star limit per target was there or not, but I don't think so. Entering Lunar didn't reset the CD either as far as I can recall in LK. Much of the OPness was removed in Cata, but the downsides remained intact. I don't think that complicated just for the sake of being complicated is a good thing - but to each their own.

Back then Starfall cancelled your ability to shapeshift, which quickly got moved into starfall being cancelled upon shapeshifting (just to remove macro's) So it has always been there.
Starfall started to hit ~really~ hard late in LK
Stealth removal as well as perma stun was removed very early in LK (if not even in beta - cant remember)
Lunar eclipse didnt reset starfall in LK because eclipse system was way different back then
Only starfall splash damage was removed in Cata
Justified "downside" has always been there, all the retarded opness was removed and starfall got a reset on lunar eclipse. All in all it has gotten better with the one "downside" remaining

As for mechanic of Mushrooms - they're adding the watering concept, via use of Hurricane. No other change has been announced as yet that I can recall. So I'm not sure how you can say that I don't know how they will work. They cannot be re-planted, like Resto's version can. They cannot be cast together, nor any other benefit. The only thing that's being changed is the watering part making them more potent, so I'd like to think I know how they work in WoD (as of now). And no, I'm not arguing numbers - those can and likely will be balanced.

As said, you have no idea how they'll work as they havent announced anything else.
You cant say mushrooms cannot be pre-planted, no one knows if the watering system is built in the mushrooms or just a power bar similar to eclipse bar etc.
We dont know how they'll make mushroom casting work.

Only thing we do know is that damaging with hurricane/AS gives mushrooms extra power (and they might just remove the damaging part, making it into casting hurricane = mushroom power, who knows)

Displacer Beast, Ursoc, Stampeding - all penalized Moonkin more than our Cat and Bear brethren. Why? You don't see cat form lose Tiger's Fury. Nor does Bear lose their bleeds on the target, etc. I do believe that it was their stated intention to have all talents behave equally, yet the first tier heavily favors other forms over Moonkin. I'm not saying I can't play around the cancellation of starfall - I don't think I have ever said that. But I still think it should not be there. Suppression yes, cancellation no. And yes, I'm with you 100% on the glyph of stampeding - 2 glyphs for 1 spell I did have a qualm with. The new glyph is perfect.

First talent tier only favours cats IF they take displacer beast, all other have to form back to their original one if they use it. However if you take wild charge, it favours moonkins (one more way to use it)

Wild charge is nearly as good as DP (for that one specific job), doesnt cancell starfall but requires extra play. Which is how it should be.

Might of ursoc penalizes all others by the same amount except bears (and tbh, it is a bear cd all together. Its just extra that others can use it)

Stameding roar could've been castable in all forms (without force- changing form) but its fine with me as long as theres a glyph for it.

Homogenization is bad when they can balance the uniqueness of each class very well. But they haven't done that very well in the past. Especially not with Moonkins. If they cannot balance the uniqueness properly, I'd much rather prefer a homogenized class over a unique one.

In my opinion they've done it pretty well. We have bad aoe in turn for good multidot, Mushrooms are still ~very~ good when theres a need for very fast burst aoe so we're in a good place.

re: class dps differences - 5-10% is more in line. 20% dps differential is far too much.
re: margin of error - the difference between an exceptional moonkin (such as yourself) and the average moonkin (such as me) results in a far larger DPS difference, than compared to say, an exceptional mage vs. an average mage. Hence the margin of error, or the mastery of the spec, or however you want to spell it out.

5-10% when it comes to single target, up to 20% when its about cleave/multidot/aoe properties.

Theres very little margin of error when it comes to moonkins. The rotation is very simple - the only thing there is to play around is all the procs - which every class has (more or less)

- - - Updated - - -

Hurricane does not need a mechanic change (would be nice if the first tick was instant though), they already made it so we no longer get penalized for using it (NG uptime). All it needs now is competitive damage, which is certainly within their reach to give.

It doesnt penalize NG, it does penalize itself by changing out of eclipse etc (which can be bad for single target dps etcetc)

[earthwormjim]

It doesnt penalize NG, it does penalize itself by changing out of eclipse etc (which can be bad for single target dps etcetc)

Not when paired with equinox, which could be when that talent is called for; sustained heavy AOE.

[lappee]

Not when paired with equinox, which could be when that talent is called for; sustained heavy AOE.

True, forgot about that talent already