Balance Raiding in Cataclysm - Page 9

Lucrece · 07/17/10, 6:51 PM

I wouldn't see equal cast times as being all that bad. It would need some getting used to see smaller starfires, but we are also getting used to wraths no longer being little machine gun nukes.

It would also provide a viable alternative against lockouts on spells, be it boss interrupts or pvp. I'd like to see more interrupt mechanics in pve come cata as an additional mechanic.

Homogenization of wrath and starfire would certainly be argued to water down the interesting aspect of the nukes, but as it stands bigger damage/longer cast vs. smaller damage/faster cast isn't too interesting an implementation to be honest.

Particularly around the idea of balance, the nukes being equal would somehow fit the theme they're trying to place on the spec.

lissanna · 07/17/10, 8:45 PM

Most of the "gain Eclipse energy" talents won't be as useful when they implement the new version of Eclipse, so I'm interested to see what the talent trees look like when they do the change. They do want us to use both lunar & solar Eclipse, so they'll nerf wrath if we never want to use starfire. Also, if the arcane buff increases our moonfire damage when we're running, we may want the Arcane damage buff more often in heavy movement fights since moonfire will be our "on the run" DPS.

aceofsween · 07/17/10, 9:01 PM

I'm not sold on the idea of Eclipse buffing Arcane or Nature damage anymore simply because it makes everything we do revolve around Eclipse. They would have to balance our DoTs, cooldowns and nukes around it instead of just our nukes.

Make no mistake, I think they do need to integrate our DoTs somehow, but I'm not sure if Eclipse is the right idea for that.

lissanna · 07/17/10, 9:09 PM

Everything is going to evolve around Eclipse regardless. We'll just have a better motivation to actually use our other spells if they are buffed by Eclipse.

• Hamlet · 07/17/10, 9:17 PM

I'm not sure it's all that necessary, and might even lead to overcomplication. A solid Eclipse system defining the interaction between Starfire and Wrath seems fine, while you have DoT's and Starsurge layered on top. DoT's will already have some interaction with Eclipse due to refresh timing. Starsurge needs to affect energy in a more interesting way, which I think it the only major piece missing.

Lucrece · 07/18/10, 12:33 AM

That's if we're stuck with refreshing DoT's. Affliction locks don't have to renew Corruption, and spriests SW:P. We could get mechanics like those. Warriors are getting an ability that lets them refresh rend indefinitely, and hunters will refresh serpent sting indefinitely via cobra shot.

I just wish our spells had more binary natures and interesting debuffs/procs unique to the spell, instead of being "oh, look, another damage spell". They already removed the binary penalty with frostbolt, so it's not like the spell needs to be penalized if it gets some unique utility.

Shamans will now have unleash weapon to increase fire damage. That's what I'd like for balance druids, some more quirks to play with.

I actually am a bit annoyed at the moonfire change because it tells me that instead of designing a new spell for us, we will have a DoT redesigned to attempt to fill that niche. Has anyone asked about the DoT clipping aspect of spamming moonfire? Will it stack the newly applied DoT to the preexisting DoT ticks, and will such a mechanic support enough dot stacks for a moonfire spam?

The balance tree simply needs more abilities. On my warlock, hunter, shaman, and mage, I can easily fill 2 bars alone with DPS/utility oriented spells. Not resto spells, not feral spells. Spells relevant to the role I'm serving. Not trinket macros or macros/pots/items of any other kind.

By comparison my balance druid has wrath...starfire....IS/MF...starfall...FoN (crappy ability I' really praying for a revamp to these treants like they're doing with the warlocks' doomguard/infernal)... typhoon.

That's it. The rest are macros not related to bread and butter offensive spells.

I was also perplexed by soulburn and demon soul mechanics for the warlock. They said they added this because the warlock had no button to press to temporarily beef up damage, particularly burst. Balance druids don't have any button for burst/damage, which owlkin frenzy could easily fill. Starfall got gutted so there went our big damage ability.

I really am waiting to see what the next build brings, because my expectations are for 3-4 more active abilities for the balance druid to alleviate such a small and seemingly redundant toolbox (damage spells and DoT's are not differentiated much).

aceofsween · 07/18/10, 1:10 AM

In regards to how DoTs no longer clip... It's the exactly same mechanic as abilities that refresh DoTs. The DoTs will go back to their original duration without interrupting the tick sequence. So let's say you refresh a dot when it would tick the next second. It will still tick at the next second and the duration will be extended to whatever the max duration for that spell is.

As far as Balance abilities trees go... Having fewer abilities is the price for playing hybrid class. Affliction Locks only get about 5 or 6 spells to work with for damage purposes. Hell, Arcane Mages only have 3. However, we do have DPS boosting cooldowns: Force of Nature and more importantly Starfall (whose damage is really just stupidly high now). Force of Nature doesn't do a lot of DPS, but it does do a lot of damage for 1 cast. I don't mind the Starfall nerf really. I don't think 1 spell should be able to do 100,000 damage in 10 seconds for only a minute cooldown. Even with only 1 target, it does around 50k to 60k and I still think that's a little absurd.

If you're really expecting us to get 4 more abilities, I hate to say it but you're going to be pretty disappointed. There's no way we'll have that many. We already have at 5: Moonkin Form or Starsurge, Solar Beam, Force of Nature, Typhoon, and Starfall. Maybe they'll give us something else to replace Starfall since GC said something about 31 pt talents needing more importance for single target damage, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Mews · 07/18/10, 1:29 AM

The fact is that we ARE getting some more of these utility spells that we lack; Shroom trap (Fungal growth), Solar beam and Starsurge - Which I can see being a pain in the ass for tanks on add fights, like Typhoon is now. I for one relish in the prospect that I could render entire caster packs useless for 10seconds or becoming a pack kiting machine with Fungal growth (I use to watch Faxmonkey videos religiously).

While I agree we're behind the pures in terms of these utility spells, that's always been the case with all 3 of our non-healing spec - We're always one expansion behind in getting the cool new stuff. It's just the "cost" of having our spells spread across 4 specs.

In terms of our combat system, there's just a huge lack of interaction between our spells outside of Eclipse. If you look at every other spec there is some debuff, system, proc that promotes a decision that's intrinsic to their damage or rotation/priority - Immolate, Haunt, Arcane blast stacks/Missile barrage, Molten core/Decimation, Rend/Rage, Combo points, Diseases, Maelstrom weapons...

Eclipse isn't a decision, it's just a proc that says press 2 instead of 3, and the difference between 2 and 3 is just a cast time. It's boring.

Lucrece · 07/18/10, 4:03 AM

Being a hybrid is not an excuse for a smaller toolbox, especially when they've stated their intent to make our non-spec spells not scale too well (healing for feral and balance, cat/bear for balance, spell damage for ferals) and drive hybrids to where hybrid is defined as being able to change specs, not being hybrid in play in any one spec.

They've pushed each hybrid spec into emulating more and more the specialized restriction of a pure, so naturally if we are to have our toolbox limited by nonscaling offspec spells, we should be afforded an equal breadth of utility in the role we've been forced to specialize in.

I don't mean utility in the sense of necessarily being utility to others. I mean spells with synergistic mechanics like haunt, procs that change spells significantly like backdraft and arcane barrage. Fingers of frost.

We need more to our spells than just "ok, this does damage, this other one does damage to, and you basically are going to go back and forth between these two spells."

Basically, I'm hoping they find a way to grant synergy.

As for treants, they're a crappy spell (it seriously is just a crappy water elemental/spirit wolves). It's not interesting, even if they do decent damage for one button push. Neither treants or starfall give the moonkin real, controllable, on demand burst. Starsurge is being poised to be our answer for lack of burst, but I'm not seeing the spell supported much by the balance tree like lava surge or chaosbolt are supported by several tree talents in their respective trees.

I'm thrilled by their comment that the druid trees are farthest behind in development, meaning the talents we've seen are most likely vestiges. I was particularly pleased to hear they're re-evaluating "leveling only" talents.

Because that means.... that garbage Lunar Justice might stop cluttering the tree and open up space for more interesting DPS/utility talents.

aceofsween · 07/18/10, 4:30 AM

We have:

The Only AoE Silence
Two AoE Snares (Treants and Mushrooms)
A Root
A Banish (cyclone)
A Knockdown
A Knockback+Daze

What more do you want in terms of utility exactly? Those are just our PvP utilities. As far as I know we still provide the magic damage buff and the lesser armor debuff, although Ferals will probably take over that role. What it sounds like you really want is syngergy between our abilities. That's not the same thing as more abilities though

Lucrece · 07/18/10, 6:11 AM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

We have:

The Only AoE Silence
Two AoE Snares (Treants and Mushrooms)
A Root
A Banish (cyclone)
A Knockdown
A Knockback+Daze

What more do you want in terms of utility exactly? Those are just our PvP utilities. As far as I know we still provide the magic damage buff and the lesser armor debuff, although Ferals will probably take over that role. What it sounds like you really want is syngergy between our abilities. That's not the same thing as more abilities though

AoE silence's effectiveness has yet to be tested. If it stays at 16 yards and opponents affected by it have no set silence effect, getting out of 16 yards is a matter of 2 secs of walking time, not much of a setback.

Treants as an aoe snare is hardly utility. The last thing you want is your 3 minute cooldown killed off for a measly 8 yard snare. You understand what 8 yards is, for it to be effective you basically have to layer 2-3 mushrooms around where you expect the treants to die in order for the snare to really become an effective trap area. Otherwise with all the charge/pull/movement increasing effects the 8 yard radius will hardly be a deterrent.

Cyclone is powerful, no question about it. Curiously enough it has benefited restoration druids far more than it has moonkins.

A 2 second knockdown, which requires a 2 sec cast. This goes along with entangling roots and why it simply doesn't work. Spell reflect, antimagic shell, the one and a million interrupts in game, charge, blanket silences, target drops (mirror image/feign death). Moonkin's survivability is still poor despite having roots and cyclone, because we work in an environment where utility cannot afford cast times that leave such big windows for reaction and interruption. Ypu will easily get shut down at the time you need the utility most, because of the lengthy cast times. This is why elemental shamans and frost mages have been successful in the defensive department-- their defense and utility is mostly instant, and with a few cooldowns so is their offense. Moonkin can pack a wallop, but the actual problem is that we're practically never allowed to because all our utility relies on lengthy cast times that are easily shut down.

Typhoon certainly has proved more useful in PvE than in PvP.

Those are just superficial impressions. Who knows, maybe you will be proved correct when new talent trees are released and the spells are more fleshed out and poised to work with each other more fluidly and practically, be it a PvE or PvP environment.

Ereshmilor · 07/18/10, 7:35 AM

They could make Starfire a channeled spell, let's say 3.5s channel time with 7 ticks. That way the arcane part of the "rotation" has a different playstyle and SF is more vital in PVP.

But the "rotation" would still be 'press button A or B, depending on the last eclipse' but they could make dots to be a reaction to a proc. For example IS does not deal enough dmg per GCD to be worth casting. But there could be a talent ala 'Your wrath spells have a chance to proc <insert funky name here>, that doubles/tripples the dmg of your next IS. Does not occur more than once every 20s' and the same thing for SF/MF.

Balancemoon · 07/18/10, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

For the last time: this is not how Eclipse works. Bar position has no effect on your damage in any way shape or form. We've been over this several times already.

Says who?, not all the eclipse mechanics have been implemented in beta, and it was originally stated that it would and makes sense for it to. So until they either says so explicitly or the final version does not incl this I wouldn't rule that out

Originally Posted by Mews

In terms of our combat system, there's just a huge lack of interaction between our spells outside of Eclipse. If you look at every other spec there is some debuff, system, proc that promotes a decision that's intrinsic to their damage or rotation/priority - Immolate, Haunt, Arcane blast stacks/Missile barrage, Molten core/Decimation, Rend/Rage, Combo points, Diseases, Maelstrom weapons...

Eclipse isn't a decision, it's just a proc that says press 2 instead of 3, and the difference between 2 and 3 is just a cast time. It's boring.

That is so true. Very wise words I shall be quoting again and again. The eclipse mechanic can be cool, but the spec really needs that sense of depth it seems to have missing. They recognize this in paladins and are willing to give ret a host of new abilities a new mechanic in holy power, balance druids, need that extra dimension. They seem loathe to just introduce new things for fun. So there has to be a need for new abilities and then they can make the new thing fun.

Is there a need? Well yes, arcane and nature casting spells are too similar, and although eclipse makes casting wrath and starfire necessary, their is no intrinsic difference between casting nature or arcane spells as they both do exactly the same thing, nor is their a difference in style of casting under a lunar eclipse or solar eclipse - it's just a damage buff.

Overall, its underhwhelming, despite the new mechanic that is more interesting true, we could do with more.

1. Shapeshift to moonkin - why doesn't moonkin form make casting spells different from doing so in caster form? Changes the way the spells are cast - so for some types of encounters or situations it is clearly better to use one form over the other. It's a new mechanic, it adds flavour, it gives distinction to shapeshifting, and meaning to moonkin form. The passive buffs are available regardless of what form you're in. You will see a lot more of your caster form this way.

2. Eclipse buff does more than just increase damage, it alters how you cast your nature and arcane spells. During a lunar eclipse, not just damage is increased, but the way arcane spells interact is different... for e.g. if going to moonkin form gives starfire a dot component, then during n eclipse starfire can boost damage of moonfire and extend the DoT whiles during a solar eclipse wrath/IS/Starsurge interact in a totally different way.

aceofsween · 07/18/10, 2:14 PM

Lucrere, Solar Beam is an instant cast. You can easily root someone then hit them with Solar Beam and they are trapped. It would completely lock down any caster except maybe a Mage or Warlock. I for one believe being able to trap a healer under Solar Beam while they're rooted is more powerful enough.

Also, all 3 treants will drop the Fungal Growth effect. Considering how they usually surround and spread out about their target, it's very likely they will drop Fungal Growth in a triangle. 3 patches covers a very wide area. Also, Wild Mushrooms is probably going to end up being castable on the move just like Shadowfury (the only other .5 sec cast in the game that I'm aware of). The possibilities are endless. It's like having 5 positional frost traps at our disposal that we can trigger when we want. And as for Typhoon... Well I personally wish it was just a single target 10 yard knock back or that the distance it knocks you back is determined by how close someone is to you. Melee range 10 to 15 yards, max range maybe only 5 yards. I'll concede it's not the best spell except for in Arathi Basin...

Originally Posted by Balancemoon

Says who?, not all the eclipse mechanics have been implemented in beta, and it was originally stated that it would and makes sense for it to. So until they either says so explicitly or the final version does not incl this I wouldn't rule that out

The developers, actually. They have said that Eclipse is going to be a 45 second buff that will end when you reach 0 on the Eclipse bar. Where in that description does it say anything about position influencing damage? The mechanic you're describing is from the very first Mastery Preview which was a very basic and general description and quite a lot has changed since then. I wouldn't wait for them to confirm or deny a mechanic they never intended to implement. Their answer is in their silence and they do this quite a bit. Forget that you can move the Eclipse bar from one end to the other very quickly, rending such an effect useless. The fact that they have not said anything about position affecting damage is proof enough that this will never come to pass.

Starfox · 07/18/10, 4:17 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

Also, all 3 treants will drop the Fungal Growth effect. Considering how they usually surround and spread out about their target, it's very likely they will drop Fungal Growth in a triangle. 3 patches covers a very wide area.

Pet AI always tries to hit from behind, so they'll spawn fungal growth behind the target in nearly all cases :c