Balance Raiding in Cataclysm - Page 16

lissanna · 07/25/10, 9:07 PM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Just going by the numbers that came off the theorycraft thread (which I'll revive with a new spreadsheet version once things seem a bit more stable), MF and IS are our highest DPET spells.

The direct damage portion of moonfire is still potentially lacking at filling the role it's intended to fill, because I don't think it does quite enough damage due to most of the damage being tied up in the DOT portion, even without glyphs.

aceofsween · 07/25/10, 10:23 PM

For Moonfire to be capable of filling that on-the-move role, they need to probably both increase the DD portion and make the stacking WoC buff more potent. The DoT itself is irrelevant for the WoC buff. The best thing I could think of would be to make WoC bundle the DoT damage into the DD portion at the cost of the duration. So say it's normaly a 15 sec duration (I honestly forget what it is in Cataclysm), drop it down to 6 seconds through WoC, but the DD portion does an additional damage equal to 9 seconds worth of Moonfire. That would make Moonfire more frontloaded during movement, but keep the total damage the same. They could make a similar function for Insect Swarm if they decide to make DoTs generate energy (because you'd need a nature spell equivalent for Moonfire).

If Moonfire ticks for close to 2000 damage, you'd gain an additional 6000 on top of the initial direct hit. That's a pretty hefty amount of damage, in the 7000 to 8000 range.

• Hamlet · 07/26/10, 1:15 AM

That's kind of a clever idea, although really, increasing the strength of WoC is just as good. I've been thinking that too--24% is going to be hard to make really effective.

aceofsween · 07/26/10, 1:30 AM

Right. Let's take the 8000 benchmark. In order for Moonfire to reach that with a full stack of WoC, it would have to hit for ~6500. That's a really pathetic difference, only 1500. This effect needs to double or triple the direct damage of Moonfire in order for it to really feel potent. It doesn't really matter how it accomplishes that in the end.

Ereshmilor · 07/26/10, 4:07 AM

MF Dot keeps ticking, you just refresh the duration. and while IS is still rolling too, you do roughly 60% of the dmg of the standing dps.
I dont know about the other classes, but i dont think they will buff that very much.

aceofsween · 07/26/10, 4:13 AM

How do you figure that? Those numbers are impossible to figure until they finish the class overhauls. Starfire right now can easily crit for 20k. On the beta it's critting for around 8000. There's no way that MF and IS are going to make up 60% of our damage.

Ereshmilor · 07/26/10, 5:52 AM

Originally Posted by Ereshmilor

I dont know if the numbers for level 85 are correct, but wowhead says
359 dps for wrath, 31 MF dot, 136 IS and 218 dmg MF DD means 18 dps MF DD
lets say eclipse is 20%
that is about 580 dps standing

24% bonus on MF while moving, 145 dps MF spamming, thats
354 dps running

Thats about 60% of the dps. I like that

I assume that everthing scales even with sp, haste and crit.

aceofsween · 07/26/10, 6:43 AM

Well... it does, but not everything scales linearly.

For instance, Insect Swarm has a .260 coefficient (per tick). Wrath has a .714 coefficient. If you take the total damage for Insect Swarm though, it actually scales better than Wrath does. The problem is that this doesn't account for any talents or even Eclipse. It's just the raw spell data. Since we don't even know what the talent tree is going to look like at this point or even how much the Eclipse buff is going to be, you simply can't draw those conclusions at this point.

There's no point in trying to number crunch anything right now because for all we know everything could very well change next patch. If our dots come to 60% of our total damage, I will eat my Cataclysm CD.

Aixler · 07/26/10, 8:12 AM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

They could make a similar function for Insect Swarm if they decide to make DoTs generate energy (because you'd need a nature spell equivalent for Moonfire).

Remember that we still have Wild Mushroom, and according to Blizzard its damage component will remain very effective against single targets.
Possibly/probably keeping both dots, MF & IS, up during our rotation, and casting either WM(Wild Mushroom) or MF while moving, depending on the energy you want.

This could be the first difference between nature and arcane in our rotation.

aceofsween · 07/26/10, 8:58 AM

Here's my beef with Wild Mushroom.

It's an awkward delivery mechanic. If it's anything like how I have conceived, it'll be a targeted AoE type effect where you have to select the patch of ground you want the mushroom to grown on. That's all well and good, but doing that in the middle of a raid, on the move, while you're generally focusing on not getting killed lends itself to being a somewhat awkward and cumbersome mechanic and certainly not something you can spam. That would have us trying to juggle movement , camera angels, and mouse coordination all at the same time. Remember, it won't be like treants in that you can just click anywhere on the ground and they'll trot off toward their target.

I'm not a fan of Wild Mushroom being the answer here. Plus, it does have a cast time so we can't automatically assume it'll be a castable on the move; although the only other spell that shares a 0.5 sec cast time is (Shadowfury). We'll see I guess. It really depends on how big the damage radius is, which is not necessarily the same radius as the Fungal Growth snare component.

Erdluf · 07/26/10, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by lissanna

The direct damage portion of moonfire is still potentially lacking at filling the role it's intended to fill, because I don't think it does quite enough damage due to most of the damage being tied up in the DOT portion, even without glyphs.

I don't know what movement penalty they want for us. Presumably if we have to move, we are supposed to take a DPS hit. I don't know if that hit is supposed to be 25% or 75%. I suspect the main point of WoC is not the damage bonus, it is the mana reduction.

Here are some reasonable relative design numbers:

Nukes: 90 DPS outside of Eclipse, 110 DPS inside of Eclipse, 50% of nukes are cast with Eclipse.
DoTs: 120 DPET
DoTs last 10 GCD's.

The stationary Nuke+DoT single-target rotation does 104 DPS.

If 1/3 of MF damage (pre-WoC) is direct damage:
Single-target 100% kiting, without WoC does 56 DPS. With WoC it does 64 DPS.

If 1/6 of MF damage (pre-WoC) is direct damage
Single-target 100% kiting, without WoC does 40 DPS. With WoC it does 44 DPS

If mana is an issue, and kiting is involved, WoC is a no-brainer. Right now the Balance tree has 37 points, and 12 of them are worthless in a Patchwerk fight (Typhoon(1), GW(2), Solar Beam(1), WoC(3), OF(3), Fungal Growth(2)). You've got to spend at least six of those points, so you should be basing that decision on something other than Patchwerk.

klüger · 07/26/10, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by Erdluf

I don't know what movement penalty they want for us. Presumably if we have to move, we are supposed to take a DPS hit. I don't know if that hit is supposed to be 25% or 75%. I suspect the main point of WoC is not the damage bonus, it is the mana reduction.
<snip> You've got to spend at least six of those points, so you should be basing that decision on something other than Patchwerk.

Going off the statements the blues have made regarding nukers and cataclysm, I do not believe the mana-reduction is the most important part of WoC, everything I´ve read supports that WoC was put in to give use some more dps while moving. (Though if thats the case, why is the dmg-bonus so low, and why is the mana-reduction so high at the moment?)

I also want to voice my support to sween in the matter of the mushrooms. Having to do it once every 3 mins with the more forgiving treants is hate enough in my book, that ground area targetting is too clunky by far. Maybe if you could set a "set" groundtarget X yards from where you are facing that could be good enough for pve, but having the option to change it must also exist. Either way its very clunky and a poor design in my opinion.

Lucrece · 07/26/10, 1:56 PM

My main beef with Wild Mushrooms is that it is affected by the global cooldown AND Detonate. Planting the mushrroms themselves should be off the GCD, and leave Detonate on the GCD.

The planting itself isn't a problem if they tweak the numbers to compensate for the time spent placing the mushroom.

Also, remember that while survivability will be a main raiding theme in Cataclysm, they've stated emphatically that a player will not be getting 2-shot by mechanics like they can in Wrath.

Any other complaints I can think of about mushroom is that a 70% snare is rather situational utility that won't help much the appeal of the spell if the spell is inconvenient to use while under pressure to begin with (pressure from movement or other players attacking you).

Also there's no point in arguing glyphs, much less the Moonfire one-- if any glyph is going to go, it's going to be that one given the cataclysm intent for the spell as stated by the developers. I'll only say that I'll be MUCH, MUCH happier if our glyphs mirror more those of the current Wrath mage or warlock. One look at the current warlock and mage glyphs on my alts reminds me of the glaring dearth of choice the balance glyphs have by comparison.

P.S. Shadowfury hasn't been a .5 sec cast for a long while now. It used to be, but now it's instant.

Obligatory · 07/26/10, 3:44 PM

If Blizzard intends for wild mushrooms to be a part of our mobile DPS, they could always create a talent that will randomly drop one at your targets feet while you're casting your normal rotation, and then you could detonate them while on the move.

That said, I don't see any reason to believe that moonfire DD will not be sufficient. Again, consider fel flame, which is a very similar spell (no longer identical since they nerfed the DoT refresh to a 6-second extension, but close enough). When combined with DoTs, is intended to be a warlock's main source of damage while on the move. MMO Champion has it listed as doing ~2k base damage, and since we have weaker DoTs, we can probably expect somewhat more damage than even that.

I will be quite surprised if we need to start messing around with Wild Mushroom as a regular portion of our DPS. Far more likely that it will occupy a niche similar to hunter traps.

aceofsween · 07/28/10, 1:24 AM

Ghostcrawler recently made this post...

5% Crit -- Fury Warrior, Feral Druid, Subtlety Rogue, Elemental Shaman

Are they considering giving Moonkin Form haste only now or was this simply over looked? Also, I think it's strange that Elemental Shaman bring every single caster buff.