Mists of Pandaria: All Specs - Page 15

♦ Tecton · 04/11/12, 8:27 AM

Originally Posted by nephyron

If anyone want to add the new JC gems' values to WrathCalc:

If we can have only 2 JC gems and the Enchant ring provides a +160 stat bonus it means that every profession must give a +320 stat increase thus making me think that the new gems will be +160mainstat making the JC profession provide an extra +160 in 2 gem slots giving the same bonus as every other profession.

Yeah, I'll add all the new stuff that appeared today with gems/professions/items and do a quick tidy up once Hamlet pops up a new version (since I'm guessing he'll have worked on the level 90 ratings and will be adding today's talent changes too). Can discuss that more over in the Wrathcalcs thread though.

magojo · 04/11/12, 8:52 AM

I wonder why they haven't thought of making Incarnation just have us keep the Eclipse buff untill we proc the opposite Eclipse. Or would that make it to powerful? If so they could just add a "But you deal x% less nature and arcane damage" to it.
That would give us 30 seconds of Eclipse uptime, that seems rather sweet.

♦ Tecton · 04/11/12, 9:04 AM

Originally Posted by lissanna

The problem with Incarnation not buffing damage when we are out of Eclipse is that the % then has to be twice as high to be a decent DPS increase compared to what it would have to be if it buffed your casts for the full duration. It's a move in the right direction, I think, but it's still wrong.

Just spitballing how we could use it single target, (and obviously, the effectiveness of it fully depends on the percentage damage gained), but I think the following situation could prove pretty potent, especially on fights with heavy burst requirements/extra damage taken periods:

Pop Incarnation prior to the cast taking you into Lunar.
Starfall, Moonfire (it's probably worth putting up even though it won't run it's full duration, I think?).
Move out of Lunar under NG, pop CA after the final cast in Eclipse.
Starfall again, put up both DOTs, cast whatever ends up being better DPS.
Refresh both DOTs prior to leaving CA with a Starsurge near the end.
That means you'll be able to keep Sunfire rolling when you get to Solar too, saving 1 GCD with NG up and keeping the DOT with Eclipse, +20% from CA and the Incarnation bonus rolling.

That will take up the majority of the Incarnation timer, with probably only a few seconds at the end (if you time it with Heroism, granted, there will be more time left over) without Eclipse being available. This is all assuming it interacts with CA the way you might expect, though.

[edit] It's also probably worth noting that it'll be very strong to time with potions (25 seconds) and on-use trinkets. [/edit]

thedopefishlives · 04/11/12, 9:24 AM

Doing some quick napkin math with a naive implementation (basically treating it as a 30-second Mastery clicky on a 3-minute cooldown), and totally picking a random number of 25% for the value of the multiplier (it's an even 10 mastery points), at first blush, it appears to suck. Now one thing that Rawr doesn't yet take into consideration with on-use Mastery items is timing them to an Eclipse to try to squeeze more value out of them. Also, as mentioned, I do not yet have Celestial Alignment implemented. Both of these factors should increase the value of the talent, especially if I can have it line it up with both as Tecton pointed out above. It may have some impressive burst potential, but as a sustained DPS cooldown, it doesn't look like it'll fare so well.

As an interesting aside, increasing the duration of our treants to 60 seconds puts it on par with the math for Soul of the Forest. I'm guessing that that is the level of DPS increase that Blizzard is shooting for.

♦ Tecton · 04/11/12, 10:12 AM

If it does wind up being more useful for burst, but less so for sustained, I think that would be a net win for us anyway. The ability to really push numbers in a short period of time compared to other classes has been a weakness for some time (most obviously seen this tier when dealing with Spine's tendons). It'd be nice if it was tuned to provide equivalent single target, but if it's only useful on burst/increased damage taken style fights it's still a useful talent to have in the back pocket if used intelligently.

It's just a pity that we'd need to sacrifice sustained DPS to pick it up if that works out as being the case.

Lunarius · 04/11/12, 11:09 AM

As I have already stated I believe that CA with recklessness from a warrior would provide too heavy burst in pvp to remain as it is, with the change to Incarnation the potential burst damage of moonkins will reach ridiculous heights. As pvp is a big part of how Blizzard balance classes these days I'm certain that this will not remain as it is.

I've always been of the opinion that moonkins have lacked a good burst cooldown in pve (treants are just pathetic as they scale so poorly) but all of a sudden we have 3 cooldowns that if used together would make Deathwing's Cataclysm look like child's play. What's up with that?

I believe that the CA talent has been in DIRE need for ages, not being able to "start in an eclipse" for every fight felt really silly, especially on fights where maxing your dps matters (Moonkins aren't strong on singletarget to begin with and not being able to start in eclipse when progressing on fights like Ultraxion HC because of no CD/Critters to build meter on is just meh).

The treants are iconic for the spec so they need to remain, although it should SCALE better, in Cata they were decent in T11 (3% or so of your damage) but in T13 they're almost not worth casting (1-1.5%); changing the time from 30s to 60s doesn't change the scaling issue, and it'll be a much worse spell at the end of the expansion than in the beginning.

Blizzard seem to feel a bit lost on the incarnation talent in general, not really knowing how you could make a good, yet balanced burst cooldown for moonkins. Personally I do feel that incarnation having anything to do with eclipse will be impossibly hard to balance, at least if you're able to use whatever burst CD + CA at the same time (as you get recklessness from symbiosis), this burst would probably rival or even surpass a great combustion or a masterytrinket proc demon form with the additional benefit that you could still do insane damage even while moving (due to lunar shower/change to Shooting stars).

As I said we had too few CDs in all previous games, and all of a sudden we have too many, making balancing burst and overall damage very hard. An option would be to remove celestial alignment as a baseline ability and instead use it as the balance version of incarnation. This would, however, make me choose Incarnation over FoN/SotF every time as it's something I've wanted for a long time.

On a sidenote I'm also very disappointed to see that they still haven't added rebirth to glyph of the moonbeast, I really hope they will realise how weak it is not to include it.

Balancemoon · 04/11/12, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by magojo

I wonder why they haven't thought of making Incarnation just have us keep the Eclipse buff untill we proc the opposite Eclipse. Or would that make it to powerful? If so they could just add a "But you deal x% less nature and arcane damage" to it.
That would give us 30 seconds of Eclipse uptime, that seems rather sweet.

That would make it too similar to Celestial Alignment. I still think that CoE should not make us worry about casting the usual way. Possibly do something interesting like huge swings in eclipse energy while changing how some balance spells cast for its duration.

Altho the way it is now, you'd only be switching to CoE for fights you need a super burndown boost as you will trigger it with Celestial Alignment in mind, and otherwise use SotF or treants for most other occasions. A shame, I was hoping CoE would be the ONE talent that did something interesting for players who wanted a more complex playstyle since SotF is passive and steady, FoN is cast and forget.

Atm, I see myself using FoN a lot for levelling and pvping and more useful during AoE packs + situations that benefit from having pets/guardians. I see using SotF largely for raids and dungeon bosses straight up bread and butter nuking. I see Incarnation still adding very little value to my play, it's not interesting for me to use, it's not THE talent that those of us who wanted an option for a more complex rotation got which is exactly what ToL is for restoration [a cooldown that changes the rotation powerfully, while FoN is a straight forward cooldown boost. I only see myself using Incarnation CoE latest version on those rare fights in raids high dps burn phase is really necessary. The 3 min cooldown limiting the amount of times you would use that.

Balancemoon · 04/11/12, 11:39 AM

Originally Posted by Lunarius

Blizzard seem to feel a bit lost on the incarnation talent in general, not really knowing how you could make a good, yet balanced burst cooldown for moonkins. Personally I do feel that incarnation having anything to do with eclipse will be impossibly hard to balance, at least if you're able to use whatever burst CD + CA at the same time (as you get recklessness from symbiosis), this burst would probably rival or even surpass a great combustion or a masterytrinket proc demon form with the additional benefit that you could still do insane damage even while moving (due to lunar shower/change to Shooting stars).
....
On a sidenote I'm also very disappointed to see that they still haven't added rebirth to glyph of the moonbeast, I really hope they will realise how weak it is not to include it.

I very much agree here. I was hoping Incarnation would be the talent that took you back to the days you didn't have an eclipse, so you cast spells for differnet reasons, however it also modified the spells, amplifying them soulburn/metmorphosis/ToL style - giving the complex playstyle option for those who really crave it like me, who think atm our rotation is too predictable. I would love to be able to choose between a cooldown that is cast and forget like Treants or one that changes my rotation adding complexity.. this is what talents are for afterall? You don't like RNG? well you can have steady damage option instead wasn't that the point of giving the new talent system in the first place? You like added complexity? well you can take Incarnation instead of FoN.

As Celestial Alignment already doesn't make you worry about eclipse position while it is up, I was thinking Chosen of Elune could do something a bit random to eclipse while you were casting like suddenly invert your position and direction causing you to switch from wrath to starfire spams, and every time an inversion happens you get some sort of boost, and their frequency increases the longer into Incarnation you are. I mean in addition to altering how some damage spells work.

On Glyph of the Moonbeast
What is the point of moonkin form with glyph of the moonbeast? I think its a fantastic glyph btw. Personally I want moonkin form on a glyph like glyph of the treant for those who love it. Balance druids either also just cast in caster form or they have a form dps like Astral or Chosen of Elune taht is part of their playstyle, maybe like metmorphosis where you are not in it all the time and you can do things to extend its duration or what form you are in affects your spells, maybe caster form boosts AoE spells and new astral form boosts single target.. or caster form gives splash damage to spells and moonkin/astral gives overload to spells - so you are using the form based on encounter type or phase.. or it could be something that depends on eclipse.. certianly more interesting than passive buffs.

Lunarius · 04/11/12, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by Balancemoon

What is the point of moonkin form with glyph of the moonbeast? I think its a fantastic glyph btw.

I agree that it makes the moonkin form a bit obsolete, but what I mean is: If you want to add a touch of hybrid while in moonkin form, then why stop at reju, HT and Tranq when rebirth might be the spell we cast the most? It just feels odd to me. All other classes with a CR only have to cast it and be done with it, we actually have to cast it and get back into the correct form before continuing our rotation. Sure we have the added benefit of a 100% ress, but we have to use a glyph for that which is already a loss (in theory at least, in practice we don't have a lot of other beneficial major glyphs).

• Hamlet · 04/11/12, 12:30 PM

Short version w.r.t. new Incarnation ( Incarnation: Chosen of Elune - Spell - World of Warcraft ).
25% bonus for one Eclipse (just thinking multiplicative now for mental math, but that's probably wrong). 25% damage for 15s out of 3m is ~2% DPS. If you sync with CA for 30s of Eclipse uptime it's more like 4%. That's probably around where it should be--competitive with SotF on average output but unlikely to actually win.

Will see about the sheet later today, should be an easy change.

Balancemoon · 04/11/12, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

Short version w.r.t. new Incarnation ( Incarnation: Chosen of Elune - Spell - World of Warcraft ).
25% bonus for one Eclipse (just thinking multiplicative now for mental math, but that's probably wrong). 25% damage for 15s out of 3m is ~2% DPS. If you sync with CA for 30s of Eclipse uptime it's more like 4%. That's probably around where it should be--competitive with SotF on average output but unlikely to actually win.

Will see about the sheet later today, should be an easy change.

which makes me think Hamlet, do we need 2 nearly identical flat damage increase cooldown bursts? I'm trying to place this new version of Incarnation conceptually.

I already have CA.. i already have an adidtional simple cast and forget cooldown burst in FoN, and if i don't like cooldowns I already have SotF which is doing more damage still...what does Incarnation offer me by being a flat damage increase? The number might be better than the previous iteration, but where is the fun? Now if Inc gave me something really interesting on cooldown, that was say more fun and more complex, it might be hard to model, but I'd sure have a reason to pick it then.

I'll plug the numbers in too and see what I come up with. At 25% SotF is still better, but the gap is much closer and their are situational benefits to having the extra cooldown..feels flat though.

• Hamlet · 04/11/12, 1:43 PM

I think it's still supposed to be the "cooldown" option as opposed to SotF's flat damage option (leaving up the air what FoN is for for the moment). It should be at just around the same damage as SotF but slightly lower to make that relationship work out--you take SotF unless you want a cooldown for a specific reason that fight.

The odd property of this implementation will probably be the strong synergy with CA. Having multiple 3m cooldowns is fine, lots of classes do, but the huge incentive to use them at the same time could make it very one-dimensional (contrast the initial Incarnation design which was completely incompatible with CA). I get why they tried Eclipse-only--completely flat damage increase would be really boring. But at this point the talent is probably better placed as a buff to CA than as a separate timer (of course, they can't actually do that because it doesn't fit the template from the other 3 specs).

Some synergy with CA is fine--I think it's pretty normal to have a benefit from syncing multiple timers. But only being able to use it for half the uptime unless you use CA is not only a huge variance, it's subjectively going to feel like a penalty rather than a bonus.

At first glance overall I'd put it in the "probably adequate for live" bin, pending looking in more detail.

Erdluf · 04/11/12, 2:12 PM

Coefficients:

Druid - Talents - Spells - WOWDB lets you see coefficients for most spells. If it is correct, WM and Starfall are strong again (both stronger than Hurricane). Starfall (10 stars) will do about three times the damage of Wrath. 2-target Hurricane is slightly higher DPET than Wrath.

The simulationcraft DB (build 15554) is not showing the stronger Starfall. WoWDB may be showing build 15589 (or may just be buggy, it doesn't list Starfire at all). MMO listed several spells with changed coefficients, but did not list Starfall so I'd like to hear from anyone on beta who can test it out.

magojo · 04/12/12, 2:46 AM

Originally Posted by Balancemoon

That would make it too similar to Celestial Alignment. I still think that CoE should not make us worry about casting the usual way. Possibly do something interesting like huge swings in eclipse energy while changing how some balance spells cast for its duration.

Possibly. Yes, it would be the basic understand that both spells would give 15s/30s of Eclipse uptime but i can still see the distinction as CA would give two eclipses.
Although i do agree with what those above me mentioned about getting something that alters the rotation would be MUCH more favorable.

Originally Posted by Lunarius

I agree that it makes the moonkin form a bit obsolete, but what I mean is: If you want to add a touch of hybrid while in moonkin form, then why stop at reju, HT and Tranq when rebirth might be the spell we cast the most? It just feels odd to me. All other classes with a CR only have to cast it and be done with it, we actually have to cast it and get back into the correct form before continuing our rotation. Sure we have the added benefit of a 100% ress, but we have to use a glyph for that which is already a loss (in theory at least, in practice we don't have a lot of other beneficial major glyphs).

This is how Rebirth works on beta at the moment, you can use it in Moonkin Form always, as baseline.

♦ Tecton · 04/12/12, 6:38 AM

It looks like we're losing all throughput abilities from Symbiosis and getting utility instead? While I realise that might be disappointing for some, it's good for overall balance. It would suck to be balanced around the expectation of having a DPS warrior in raid to get Recklessness from as I'm sure Moonkin who've not been lucky enough to get DI this expansion will tell you.

Also seeing from Twitter that apparently FoN is now getting bonus damage from Eclipse. That certainly wasn't the case at the beginning of the beta, so that's another thing to consider with the SotF/Incarnation/FoN discussion.