Balance Raiding in Cataclysm - Page 37

mdgamefreak · 10/07/10, 5:21 PM

Firstly, the Innervate glyph no longer buffs Innervate when used on yourself. Only when used on another. As for the oomkin issue, yes, balance still sucks for mana. It seems that the developers are having a hard time balancing hybrid mana while not making healers overpowered at regen. Both shadow priests ( last i checked) and balance druids are having serious mana issues. I am not quite sure about elemental shaman.

hec · 10/07/10, 5:50 PM

Originally Posted by mdgamefreak

Firstly, the Innervate glyph no longer buffs Innervate when used on yourself. Only when used on another. As for the oomkin issue, yes, balance still sucks for mana. It seems that the developers are having a hard time balancing hybrid mana while not making healers overpowered at regen. Both shadow priests ( last i checked) and balance druids are having serious mana issues. I am not quite sure about elemental shaman.

thank you.
i was not aware they had changed the innervate glyph.

i'm just hoping they'll resolve the issue in a manner that does not involve melee'ing the boss (to those who remember the good old days).

though i do wonder why they don't implement a regen mechanic in one the higher tiers of the various hybrid caster-damage trees. (i.e. moonkin form, elemental oath or shadow form).
similar to moonkin form currently on live.
with 41 points to spend a heal spec could never get the talent anyway.

aceofsween · 10/07/10, 6:01 PM

1) The innervate glyph doesn't do anything when you cast it on yourself.
2) Raid environments have more regen (Replenishment, particularly).
3) Haven't heard of anyone having any problems with mana yet. You get something stupid like 26% of your mana back from innervate, if I'm remembering this right. I'm assuming the Dreamstate bonus is applied multiplicative like most of these effects.

All in all, I'm not worried about mana as a Balance druid. It's not the infinite resource we have now, but it's also not going to be hard to manage. I'm sure it's something they'll sort out soon enough. All it might take is a Dreamstate or Euphoria buff.

Starfox · 10/07/10, 6:34 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

3.) Haven't heard of anyone having any problems with mana yet. You get something stupid like 26% of your mana back from innervate, if I'm remembering this right. I'm assuming the Dreamstate bonus is applied multiplicative like most of these effects.

Additive, 50% maxmana per innervate with 2/2 dreamstate

aceofsween · 10/07/10, 7:00 PM

So, we spend more than 50% of our mana in 3 minutes? My guess is that people aren't used to having to rely on Innervate so they aren't sure how to time it.

Hyperion · 10/07/10, 8:11 PM

Technically, Innervate should become more powerful as the expansion continues, as spell cost is based off our base mana, and Innervate (also Euphoria) is based off our max mana. This also increases the value of the Furor talent.

Treyce · 10/07/10, 9:57 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

So, we spend more than 50% of our mana in 3 minutes? My guess is that people aren't used to having to rely on Innervate so they aren't sure how to time it.

We spend much more than 50% of our mana in 3 mins, current OOM time on a test dummy is sub 2 mins, with self innervate. In a 5 man with might (nee mp5) its slightly improved, only slightly.

beromar · 10/07/10, 11:18 PM

I'm not sure what gear level you're at, but with mostly 264/277 gear, I can hit a target dummy infinitely, using innervate on cooldown (I am specced into Dreamstate).

Arythorn · 10/07/10, 11:27 PM

There is a significant difference between 85 in blues and 80 in BiS gear. That said, as crit rate goes up and number of spells between Eclipse procs go down plus max mana goes up, the value of Euphoria procs will take care of this issue to where I'm sure we are giving our Innervates away. Level 85s pre-tier gear will have to be more diligent.

Mews · 10/08/10, 12:26 AM

Originally Posted by mdgamefreak

I am not quite sure about elemental shaman.

Elemental is fine, mostly due to Rolling thunder. Clearcasting helps a bit with auto LvB crits and then Thunderstorm too.
Shadowpriests are fine as well, they just need to work SW

into their rotation. Combined with Dispersion and Shadow fiend they're pretty self reliant.

All 3 Hybrids have specific talents that improve mana without detriment to DPS and too deep for healie specs; Rolling thunder, Masochism and for us it's Euphoria as well as Dreamstate. It just seems that Balance is harder to get right because our "Evocation" can be shared with others, mostly healers.

I'd expect them to resolve our mana issues in Dreamstate, it's the only way to make it reliable without breaking Resto regen and Innervate. I'm just stoked that our mana isn't tied to Moonkin form anymore.

Hardane · 10/08/10, 12:44 AM

Wild Mushroom is currently applying Earth and Moon on beta. Don't remember it ever doing so.

aceofsween · 10/08/10, 1:16 AM

I'm just stoked that our mana isn't tied to Moonkin form anymore.

That's funny, I have the opposite reaction. They've kinda taken the "crit" out of my monicker as a "crit chicken" first by taking the regen out of crits in moonkin form, then the changes to Euphoria and Nature's Grace but all in all I'm not complaining really. Balance looks like it's in a much better place now than it has ever been before an expansion. There are certainly a few tweaks I wish we had, but all in all, like I said I'm not complaining.

Arythorn · 10/08/10, 1:33 AM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

They've kinda taken the "crit" out of my monicker as a "crit chicken" first by taking the regen out of crits in moonkin form.

The way I read it, they really haven't completely taken regen out of crits -- they've just abstracted it a bit and made it indirect vs direct. Due to Euphoria double energy on crits, you will have on average fewer casts between Eclipse / Euphoria procs with a high crit rate than with a low crit rate. Fewer casts means less mana used between procs means better overall regen. So aside from damage, crit will still have an upward effect on our regen as well.

Pretty much, the way I look at it is:

crit = better damage directly, better damage through increased Nature's Grace uptime (Euphoria procs in non-Eclipse moving you between Eclipse faster), and better regen (fewer casts between Euphoria procs)

haste = better damage directly and better damage through increased Nature's Grace uptime (faster casts moving you between Eclipse faster).

We are still very much a crit chicken for my money.

Mews · 10/08/10, 3:29 AM

Euphoria got changed to a chance proc from a crit proc a few builds a go, when we got all those new toys like Shooting stars.

I just never liked that Moonkin form had so much tied into it, especially for PvP. It was/is a detriment to the spec and is just restrictive.

Crit really is a "secondary" stat - We have no on crit procs, crit buffs, regen on crits or anything really crit related. It's not surprising, considering the impact on PvP crit depression has for the spec, and the way that stats got out of control on Live atm.

aceofsween · 10/08/10, 4:18 AM

Right, neither Euphoria nor Nature's Grace has any relation with crit anymore, which was kinda what I meant. We don't even bring the crit raid buff anymore; it's been replaced with the Haste raid buff. That's a good thing I suppose considering that crit is not a very worthwhile stat for us anymore. It's only just barely better than Mastery, but as they've said Mastery is something they can easily tune up or down depending on how that pans out. There is a good chance that once they realize that Mastery is kinda garbage for us, they will tune up the conversion. It's kind of strange in a way. They worked so very hard to make stats less cap-able and therefore more appealing across the board, but the end result is a spec that almost assuredly always reforge Crit and Mastery into Haste, which is nearly twice as good as Crit and Mastery.

Also, on a PvP note, crit is no longer as bad as it was comparatively because Resilience is no longer reducing chance to crit, but that no longer makes a big difference to us really since crits no longer have an impact on our rotation.