Balance Raiding in Cataclysm - Page 19

Ereshmilor · 08/15/10, 5:45 AM

According to mmo

# Furor now gives you a 33/66/100% (up from 20/40/60%) chance to gain 10 rage when you shapeshift into Bear form and you keep up to 33/66/100 (up from 20/40/60) of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form. Now increases your total Intellect by 2/4/6%. (Old - Only increased in Moonkin form)

With no changes to the balance tree in this build, there is no need to spec into moonkin. (unless there's no other class in the raid that provides the 5% haste buff)

aceofsween · 08/15/10, 9:17 AM

GC just refuted that.

They were intending to make Moonkin form optional, but decided they didn't like that. Moonkin form is going to be given some power back (probably from these talents again).

Ahshift · 08/16/10, 5:34 PM

There is still master shape shifter as the reason to go moonkin form if i am not mistaken.

Whitefyst · 08/16/10, 6:26 PM

Originally Posted by Ahshift

There is still master shape shifter as the reason to go moonkin form if i am not mistaken.

For which the damage bonus has been increased from 2% to 4% with also balance getting the 4% healing bonus from caster form.

• Hamlet · 08/18/10, 7:48 AM

I'm still mostly away for ~2 more weeks (so maybe others can try to remember to post new information), but I think I read that HotW will no longer increase Int.

aceofsween · 08/18/10, 7:58 AM

That's correct. It does, however, give a very generous 15% Mana boost.

As far as new information goes, there hasn't been much. Furor and Heart of the Wild are switching places, but in the end that's no different for us. I've been keeping my eye out though and will relay anything I see/hear.

Starfox · 08/18/10, 9:21 AM

HotW got changed a few days ago to +5/10/15% mana, not very useful for balance, but you have to put your excess points somewhere.

Videl · 08/18/10, 4:35 PM

It does mean that we can no longer choose to forego the insanely weak blessing of the grove talent for fungal growth or moonglow in balance or perseverance from resto.

It's a fairly raw deal for feral. Really both those talents should just be in feral for levelling cats to pick up.

It would be nice if they'd change off the thinking that we need to be sub-specced into a secondary tree. It works fine for classes with two or three trees that fill basically the same role, but given how dramatically different our 3 specs are it would be fine for spending 41 points in any one of our trees to be a viable option, with the sub-spec in another tree only being used if you want your utility to focus on the strengths of the other tree. The way they're doing it is leading to unnecessarily complicated talent specs.
Say, for example, our early tree is heavy on a mix of spell damage for resto or spell-based control for resto or feral, early feral might have some mobility boosts or just be an undesirable sub for the other two as it is now and early resto would have healing and survivability boosts for balance or feral. But there would be no reason someone who wanted to focus solely on offensive spell casting (both damage and control) couldn't go almost all balance, a feral couldn't choose to spend their utility to be cat and bear or extra mobile by going all feral or a resto couldn't choose to pick up some extra survivability by going full resto.
It would let them clean up these really convoluted talents they're making that are appealing to all specs not because any spec might want the boost from the talent, but because the talents have two or three separate effects, each of which is appealing to just one spec. They might as well just split the talents apart and put each effect into the appropriate tree. Right now it looks like our spec would probably be 32/3/6 not because we slightly improve our feralness and somewhat improve our restoness, but because feral contains 3 points and resto contains 6 points of early spell dps talents.

Arythorn · 08/20/10, 10:47 AM

EDIT: I clearly didn't search well enough before making this post -- I'll let it stand for now as I backtrack and read prior 12 pages. Glad to see this much discussion. I'll edit / remove if what I've asked has already been covered / discussed.

EDIT 2: Backtracked and deleted most of it.

My main concern is with the cancellation of an Eclipse when you reach the middle of bar. Right now, I can fairly well chain Solar to Lunar to Solar to Lunar. Occasionally, due to RNG, there might be some problems where:

a) I can't get the next Eclipse to proc due to unlucky non-crit string OR
b) I just proc'd an Eclipse and now have to move and waste some of that Eclipse.

Situation A is fairly infrequent and, in my mind, a hard to predict yet infrequent break in Eclipse cycles is far better than an easy to predict, inescapable, and very frequent break in Eclipse cycles.

Situation B is fixed by a cycle that can go longer if you aren't spam casting which sounds like a bonus but . . . currently, if I lose out on a portion of an Eclipse cycle due to movement, I can still finish what is left of it and quickly move into the next cycle. In the Cata situation, I get to retain my current Eclipse but there will still be a non-Eclipse break when I reach the middle. Honestly, Lunar Shower seems to help us deal with dps loss due to movement due much more than a potentially long Eclipse cycle that will "wait" for you.

Given what I'm hearing (and again this is without yet playtesting myself) I think this mechanic really needs to move to an opposite side of bar cancel versus a middle of bar cancel. Namely, the Eclipse cycle would last 45 seconds OR until you get to the far opposite side and proc the opposite Eclipse. Lower it to 30 second buff if need be but at least give us a possible chance of chaining Eclipses. Having it go away once you reach the middle means an inescapable, and very frequent break in Eclipse cycles. Also, with Energy move done on a per cast basis and assuming some internal cooldown on Eclipse procs separate from teh bar mechanic, it would seem high haste values make Eclipse cycles even shorter (again assuming spamming the Eclipse-affected spell) and the dead time longer in end game gear (thus not scaling).

I think if we could go past middle and maintain an Eclipse proc that would go a long way into maintaining Eclipse uptime and keeping predictably high dps. I understand we can do some gymnastics to make an Eclipse last the full 45 seconds but doing so will cause us to cast spells that don't benefit from that Eclipse a good portion of it's duration. I don't care so much about "Eclipse uptime" (how long the Eclipse is up) as "useful Eclipse uptime" (how much of that uptime I can use to cast spells that benefit from it). I clearly need to play test it or see more video of it but middle of bar cancel has me greatly concerned.

Erdluf · 08/20/10, 12:19 PM

Disclaimer: I'm also not on Beta. In the following, I'm going to assume we want to maintain 100% DoT uptime, and both DoTs have a 12s duration.

Energy bar is 100<->0<->100

On live, you can get roughly 70% of your Nukes to benefit from Eclipse, but being stunned, or having to move will really mess that up.

In Cata, that number should be around 64%, and go up slightly if you spend time on things on other than nukes

1) 11% of time spent casting SS -> Benefits from Eclipse
2) 11% of time spent using the energy that SS gave us -> Benefits from Eclipse
3) 24% of time spent not casting nukes (maintaining 2 short duration DoTs, using other cooldowns, some latency)
4) 27% of time spent casting a nuke to increase energy (no benefit from Eclipse)
5) 27% of time spent using that energy (benefits from Eclipse).

76% of the time we're casting a nuke, and 49% of the time we're casting a nuke that benefits from Eclipse. 49/76 = 64% of our nukes get Eclipse. If we get stunned or have to move, items (1) and (2) don't change very much, (3) increases, and both (4) and (5) shrink. This all assumes you manage Eclipse so that it is always up when SS comes off of CD. With an effective 17s CD on SS (2s cast + 15s cooldown) that should not be too difficult.

Full-speed, wall-to-wall Eclipse means Eclipse is up 50% of the time, so each DoT would only benefit from Eclipse 25% of the time. If you maintain each Eclipse for 40s (you can use Wrath to extend Lunar, and SF to extend Solar), total Eclipse uptime climbs to 80% (10s to proc, 40s active) and each DoT benefits from Eclipse 40% of the time. The difference in total DPS is not that large though (probably one or two%).

Note that longer Eclipse means less frequent Euphoria procs. There is a tradeoff between DPS and mana. I don't know if mana will matter.

It may be (somewhat doubtful), that they will allow you to stick to one Eclipse (exit Solar Eclipse after 45s at 85 solar energy, cast a single SF and proc Solar Eclipse again). If they allow that, one DoT and one Nuke get 100% Eclipse uptime. Last DPS numbers I saw (Hamlet's 7/31 spreadsheet) showed
IS > MF
Wr > SF
and also showed that Wrath consumes energy a bit more slowly than either SF or SS generates it. Put all that together, and you'd want to go for 100% solar uptime. Our stronger DoT would see 100% Eclipse. Nukes would see >65% Eclipse, and it would always be the stronger nukes (Wrath and SS) seeing Eclipse.

Relevart posted: saying that tooltips indicated 37% bonus from Eclipse at starter gear levels.

Starfox · 08/20/10, 3:26 PM

Originally Posted by Erdluf

It may be (somewhat doubtful), that they will allow you to stick to one Eclipse (exit Solar Eclipse after 45s at 85 solar energy, cast a single SF and proc Solar Eclipse again). If they allow that, one DoT and one Nuke get 100% Eclipse uptime. Last DPS numbers I saw (Hamlet's 7/31 spreadsheet) showed
IS > MF
Wr > SF
and also showed that Wrath consumes energy a bit more slowly than either SF or SS generates it. Put all that together, and you'd want to go for 100% solar uptime. Our stronger DoT would see 100% Eclipse. Nukes would see >65% Eclipse, and it would always be the stronger nukes (Wrath and SS) seeing Eclipse.

On current beta you can do this just fine, always staying on one side of the eclipse bar
Also, DoT durations are IS: 14s, MF: 15s, they just gave splendor to everyone for free :o

klüger · 08/21/10, 4:35 AM

New build up, moonkin changes:

Balance

* Wild Mushroom changed, only 3 mushrooms can be placed at one time (Down from 5).
* Cyclone cast time increased to 2 sec. Up from 1.5 sec.
* Faerie Fire now has a 35 yards range, up from 30 yards.
* Insect Swarm now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
* Starfire now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
* Entangling Roots now has a 35 yards range, up from 30 yards.
* Thorns now lasts 20 sec, down from 10 minutes. Damage increased by 1400% (Deals 447 damage instead of 32)
* Moonfire now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
* Wrath now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
* Moonkin Form now increases Nature and Arcane spell damage by 10%.
* Starlight Wrath now reduces cast time by 0.15/0.25/0.5 sec. (Up from 0.1/0.2/0.3 sec)

I'm glad for the thorns changes, and the range thing seems kinda weird (but nice) if you look at shadowpriests (who don't get 40 yards, but 35 on most spells). Our tooltip range on most(all?) dps spells is now 48 yards.

My wrath casttime with 700ish haste is now 1.51 or something, so we might run into the gcd-cap again given enough gear&bloodlust.

Ereshmilor · 08/21/10, 5:04 AM

Thorns is interesting. The question is: Will it be worth to keep it up on the tank?
Moonkin, well. Hello fun talents.
The remains is adaption to 3 point talent and to the loss of this range-talent whatever name it had.

I'm still missing the 200% from crits

My wrath casttime with 700ish haste is now 1.51 or something, so we might run into the gcd-cap again given enough gear&bloodlust.

100% haste will be the new cap. With 30% BL and 15% NG, that makes 55% solo and 50% in raid. 50% on lvl 80 means 1640 hasterating. I don't think we will reach this.

aceofsween · 08/21/10, 6:28 AM

It looks as though it's finally our turn in the development cycle. I'm glad Moonkin Form got a buff (it needed one). All of the range changes go in to replace the loss of Nature's Reach. I believe there's a bug in that if you had Nature's Reach at the time it was removed from the talent tree then it's still active, which would explain the 48 yard range.

About the Haste cap... Unless I'm remembering incorrectly (or something has changed) Haste buffs stack multiplicatively, not additively, so the cap is actually a little bit lower than you're projecting. 1.30*1.15*1.05 during Bloodlust means we need ~43% Haste during Bloodlust to be haste capped. Still, that's a rather tall order and Wrath will still be impossible to Haste cap, or at the very least impractical.

Also, I'm a little surprised they haven't lowered the casting time on Starfire yet. Similar long cast times have been drastically reduced, but Starfire seems to be the only one that hasn't. We should be seeing our round of changes in the next few patches though. It's still early yet.

Erdluf · 08/21/10, 11:05 AM

Did the coefficient for Thorns also get increased? If not, they just doubled its damage and massively reduced its duration. If it was increased enough, keeping thorns on the tank might actually become a part of our rotation.

Could someone check our DoT durations on a premade character? Resto's are reporting 9s lifebloom for transfers, and 7s for premades.

I'm happy with a 3s talented Starfire. It provides a chance to relax and look around. Having a big hitting nuke, off cooldown, is nice in lots of situations. It suffers more from things that cancel a cast (movement), but less from most delays (pushbacks, latency). It is a nice "opener" for starting small-scale combat, or greeting someone leaving Cyclone.