Balance Raiding in Cataclysm - Page 30

Arythorn · 09/26/10, 6:30 PM

It is moving the bar whichever direction it is currently going -- toward Lunar if Solar was most recently proc'd and toward Solar if Lunar was most recently proc'd -- 15 energy gain on hits AND crits. It is still not acting smart but it does appear to be acting consistent.

Hardane · 09/26/10, 10:42 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

Edit: And this is something of an afterthought but they could easily roll Wild Mushroom into Earth and Moon to give Moonkins the ability to spread the debuff easily to multiple targets.

At the very minimum, add it to Starfall and Hurricane, with Starfall applying the standard 12s duration and Hurricane applying Earth and Moon for as long Hurricane is channeled. As it is, every other class/spec that can apply this debuff can already do so as a part of their normal AOE rotation given the right talents (Master Poisoner + Vile Poisoner + Fan of Knives, Ebon Plague + Pestilence, Jinx + Curse of Elements). Relegating moonkin to tab-casting (for 25s at least) if they are the only source of the debuff seems silly.

Kluian · 09/27/10, 9:14 AM

Originally Posted by Arythorn

It is moving the bar whichever direction it is currently going -- toward Lunar if Solar was most recently proc'd and toward Solar if Lunar was most recently proc'd -- 15 energy gain on hits AND crits. It is still not acting smart but it does appear to be acting consistent.

Okay, well It seems like the developers don't want Starsurge to prolong Eclipse. Considering it gets the damage bonus of the current eclipse, it should be depleting that power, not restoring it.

Hardane · 09/27/10, 9:34 AM

Not that it matters incredibly much, but casting Wrath during a Lunar Eclipse is no longer granting lunar energy. Same with Starfire, Solar Eclipse, and solar energy.

klüger · 09/27/10, 3:46 PM

Originally Posted by Hardane

Not that it matters incredibly much, but casting Wrath during a Lunar Eclipse is no longer granting lunar energy. Same with Starfire, Solar Eclipse, and solar energy.

While it is a good change in the sense it forces us to switch, its (at least for me) often hard to remember in instances which eclipse you were in last, which can be a dps loss in that you could be casting a nuke a couple of times before you notice its not moving the bar, and you switch to the other one.

I'm also a little on the fence about eclipse not decaying, but in the end I came to that it gives us a little variation from the constant opener.

Hardane · 09/27/10, 7:17 PM

There was a slight change to the UI as well, the indicator is now a little triangular arrow pointing in the direction of the next Eclipse, regardless of its current position.

Arythorn · 09/27/10, 8:06 PM

Originally Posted by Hardane

There was a slight change to the UI as well, the indicator is now a little triangular arrow pointing in the direction of the next Eclipse, regardless of its current position.

There is a small bug with this as well where you can log in to the game and be sitting at zero energy with a directional arrow in place. Here's what I can tell from my somewhat limited testing. If you log-off with Eclipse still in effect. It will remember what direction you were heading and log you back in at zero with that directional heading. If you log-off in between Eclipses it will log you back in at zero with neutral direction (you can go either way). Not sure if that should be called a bug or a feature but it's at least semi-annoying.

sturgissw · 09/27/10, 11:49 PM

I have a question for people in the beta: Are you picking up points in Owlkin Frenzy? And if so, does it still proc off any type of damage or just autoattacks?

The tooltip is unclear but in the last change in WotLK, Owlkin Frenzy was set to proc off any damage.

Im not in the beta so I've been biding my time furiously making different builds with the talent calcs

klüger · 09/28/10, 2:15 AM

From my recollection: Procs of any dmg (more then autoattacks/dd spells I'd say), do not have it currently. I've run with 2 furor instead, due to having some mana-trouble (I usually need to give away my innervate in heroics).

Running with an Ilvl of 335 or so.

Fallenangel · 09/28/10, 4:47 AM

Going over the 333 / 359 gear shows that all the leather and mail items have spirit on them, except the tier pieces. Won't that cause a problem with excessive hit for druid and shaman DPSers? On the flip side, healers of these classes can't gear for more throughput at the expense of regen. While this is less of a concern now, it will escalate as gear progresses. I know there was an intent to raise the hit cap, but it's not really set in stone - it directly conflicts with the new UI feature that tells you how much hit you need against mobs of various levels, for one.

Arythorn · 09/28/10, 8:34 AM

That is one thing I have found very annoying at least in the Cata leather gear that I've seen so far on MMO -- outside of tier gear, leather and mail seem to be getting generic "spell" pieces that they try to itemize for both heal and dps whereas cloth is getting separate and distinct "cloth heal" and "cloth dps" pieces. If they are going to implement things like Astral Leather to encourage us to stay within our armor, they need to have itemization follow suit.

Ektoplasme · 09/28/10, 9:47 AM

Nothing has changed. They still want to scale the hit cap (and crit reduction, expertise of the boss etc.) in the following raids.

See this recent quote from GC:
MMO-Champion BlueTracker | The problem with hit scaling in raid tiers

So in the end, the increase in spirit on items will follow roughly the increase of the hitcap in 4.1 and 4.2. The fine tuning is then achieved through reforging. I think this is actually a very good design.

Fallenangel · 09/28/10, 10:07 AM

The increased hit cap is a possible solution I mentioned, although it doesn't really mix well with the UI, but that's workable (if not the most elegant - imagine a list of 8 possible target "levels").
I'm not sure if they changed it, but currently there's a big gap between the hit needed to cap against 82 mobs compare to level 83. If this holds, what about a fight in which the focus is adds? A cloth DPS can choose to focus on other stats, while the druid / shaman has to content with a sizable chunk of spirit, or (and maybe that's fine) use their set pieces exclusively.
Maybe the concern is not great here, but the itemization limits are not particularly clean.

aceofsween · 09/28/10, 10:16 AM

Don't forget that you can reforge all of the spirit on these items into another stat too.

That gives us a lot of room to play with regarding the hit cap. Yeah, it's a little annoying that they're trying to itemize us exactly the same as our Resto druid, but it's something we should have all seen coming. It's the whole reason they gave us spirit->hit conversions. It's a minor inconvenience at worst.

Ektoplasme · 09/28/10, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by Fallenangel

The increased hit cap is a possible solution I mentioned, although it doesn't really mix well with the UI, but that's workable (if not the most elegant - imagine a list of 8 possible target "levels").
I'm not sure if they changed it, but currently there's a big gap between the hit needed to cap against 82 mobs compare to level 83. If this holds, what about a fight in which the focus is adds? A cloth DPS can choose to focus on other stats, while the druid / shaman has to content with a sizable chunk of spirit, or (and maybe that's fine) use their set pieces exclusively.
Maybe the concern is not great here, but the itemization limits are not particularly clean.

There was always a big difference between lvl+2 and lvl+3 hit cap (6% and 17% respectively), it has been the same since at least BC if I remember correctly. So cata doesn't change this.

I'm sure blizzard will find a nice way to integrate this scaling hit cap in the UI. Maybe the value on the UI will change when you zone in the raid?

For the problems of adds, I think adds are lvl+3 in raids. So there is no problem here.

And I agree with Aceofsween, reforging solves any problem that could arise quite nicely.