Yes I was just going to butt in with some plinters about arcane mages. I really dont see how gemming for mana durability should always be considered a bad thing. Gearing up for a fight requires a lot of things and each class has their balance. If the only thing that counted was how many +12 damage gems you could cram into yer gear then why make nay sockets but red ones in the first place?
No what makes a good caster is gearing for enoughe stats of everything you need. Mana, stamina, regen, damage, spellhit. Its not just "who has the most spelldamage". And having a casting cycle that you cant sustain is a good thing. Not having any way to use up more mana than you regen means you get lower optimal dps where nukingpower is important. Its being able to adapt to the fight that makes you shine. Anyway I dont know much about how boomkins do in T6 content atm but I do know from the posted list that it sure was no impossible task to hit those 600 int and 400 spirit. Sure its not as easy to gear for as some other classes but boomkins arent the only ones suffering from gearing difficulties. Just take a loot at retridins, heck even mages have a problem since all fire and frost mages get their tier gear littered with spirit that does absolutley nothing for them.
Anyway long story short Im at a gearlevel where its actually a good idea so socket some spirit gems. They give enoughe mana to allow me to buy more damage than a pure damage gem would add over even a relativley short fight. When my high dps rotation is spammable enoughe I can switch to more offensive gemming. But that makes me a good mage isnt my +damage alone. Its me doing my jobb the full duration of any fight.
for a fight thats a little friendlier on melee, a balance druid should be able to stay in melee range regardless. The only reason people stay at range for the friendlier fights is for the luxury of the 20% extra agro window. If a druid is between 110% and 129% of his tanks threat he'll pull agro as soon as he runs into melee range ANYWAY, so he doesn't have the luxury of the agro window if he plans to use melee at any time during the fight.
With that considered, in a fight that doesn't punish you for stabbing things lets assume the moonkin can just sit in melee and have no 'travel time' running in and out:
Napkin math tells me that with high-end gear a moonkin that had battleshout and unleashed raid (but not windfury, heroism or BoM), should be able to reach about 1000mp5 from melee attacks. With no factoring of JoW, BoW, spirit regen at 100% or mana spring, it would take about a minute to fully restore your mana. With those things included, it'll take half that, probably less. I'd do the maths more thouroughly if I was more confident with melee buffs but its not my area of expertise. Point is - from what I can tell, the actuall regen mechanic itself is in no way broken, and its competative with gearing for regen to reduce melee time versus cast time. Yes, the regen mechanic is punished in a lot of fights, but so is every other class'. Lifetap is punished in fights with a lot of damage being thrown around, because it makes the warlock more vulnerable to a random death. Evocate is often ruined by badly timed AoE effects; You go and ask any mage if he often has to break his own evoc to 'get out of the fire'. So druids have a competative regen mechanic that isn't always viable for the boss at hand? Welcome to being a caster.
Johnny, if you're in melee range all the time, your party members will be out of range of your moonkin aura most likely. So that's a no-no, basically. As for threat - even if you're between 110 and 129%, the time it would take you to run in should be enough for your tank to get above you again. But then you're back at the "time running is time lost DPSing" point (which is the point locks bring up for lifetap, isn't it - time tapping is time lost DPSing).
As far as I see it, melee for mana is a mechanic that helps you cut down on drinking while soloing and leveling first and foremost, at least right now. If it will become more important at level 80? That depends a lot on, you guessed it, how itemization will turn out to be. If, for example, we get vastly more spirit as compared to now (since we'll share gear with the restos), we might still be just fine with Intensity, a shadow priest and pots.
The idea that any mana-using class shouldn't have to consider mana regeneration in their gear is absurd. As long as Active mana regen abilities/effects require a GCD(or otherwise staying out of your top DPS build), it will always be worth considering a passive effect in its place to increase DPS time. This is true for all casters.
I agree also, but Ocyr, please don't assume that is what I am trying to effect, improving mana regen is what I am suggesting not getting into a state that mana regen should have to be considered in gear. I went from the talent angle, by listing all talents that count just to give a rough idea of the current state, I do several times acknowledge however that gear will play a role, but I expect druid, shaman and priest dps caster gear to be pretty much the same as healing gear and very similar. They would all have similar spirit, Shadow priests will gain the most from having spirit on the gear it seems than either will, Moonkin's only gain comes from Innervate, provided innervate is used on him, Shaman will gain the least from the spirit lacking an ability or that directly benefits it, but that is not the only reason it has more talents for mana regen. I think taking the use of innervate into account shaman regen will still be more as will priests, the reason is simply because blizzard hasn't looked into mana regen for Moonkin yet, I think when they do, they will add a few more things, and I hope it would be interesting and nice things that are tied into various aspects of the druid class and allow the use of more of our abilities, both balance ones and the feral cores.
Druitt my apologies, I was referring to Ocyr a lot of the time while quoting what you said, apologies for lack of clarity.
and yes Druitt the posts have morphed over time, entirely due to feedback, which for me is an excellent way of demonstrating how feedback can fine tune concepts, it moved from a complex spell, with time limits and frames to merely just switch into cat or bear form and use any special ability to trigger 3 benefits, 1 is 10% mana per hit (up to 50%), the other 40% spell power to you for 6secs per hit (up to 30secs) and the final is 25% spell cost reduction to group for 6secs per hit. Depending on how often it is generally employed a cooldown of anything from 30secs to 10 mins could be slapped on.
Everyone has a different concept of fun, refer to post 141, I think more variation is fun, and using more of my class is, especially if employing such abilities in skillful ways can be quite rewarding.
At the heart of it, I'm simply an enthusiastic player that loves to see things improve, in nice ways too, blizzard have done many nice things, and many issues are tackled for balance druids in WotLK, two still in the dark that could use improvements from talents (not just gear) are mana regen and ofc having use for feral combat core skills, hence having seen an issue, I merely bring to light things I find about it, but never without suggesting ways it can change. None of the ideas are mine in origin, many have suggested them before, I just picked the ones I presented because they were my favourite and from feedback across several forums developed some of them further. So in a sense you can say the druid community thought up Mana on melee and the version of Moonkin Aura you see presented.
Originally Posted by Jonny_Monroe
The idea that any mana-using class shouldn't have to consider mana regeneration in their gear is absurd. As long as Active mana regen abilities/effects require a GCD(or otherwise staying out of your top DPS build), it will always be worth considering a passive effect in its place to increase DPS time. This is true for all casters.
I agree also, but Ocyr, please don't assume that is what I am trying to effect, improving mana regen is what I am suggesting not getting into a state that mana regen should have to be considered in gear. I went from the talent angle, by listing all talents that count just to give a rough idea of the current state, I do several times acknowledge however that gear will play a role, but I expect druid, shaman and priest dps caster gear to be pretty much the same as healing gear and very similar. They would all have similar spirit, Shadow priests will gain the most from having spirit on the gear it seems than either will, Moonkin's only gain comes from Innervate, provided innervate is used on him, Shaman will gain the least from the spirit lacking an ability or that directly benefits it, but that is not the only reason it has more talents for mana regen. I think taking the use of innervate into account shaman regen will still be more as will priests, the reason is simply because blizzard hasn't looked into mana regen for Moonkin yet, I think when they do, they will add a few more things, and I hope it would be interesting and nice things that are tied into various aspects of the druid class and allow the use of more of our abilities, both balance ones and the feral cores.
Druitt my apologies, I was referring to Ocyr a lot of the time while quoting what you said, apologies for lack of clarity.
and yes Druitt the posts have morphed over time, entirely due to feedback, which for me is an excellent way of demonstrating how feedback can fine tune concepts, it moved from a complex spell, with time limits and frames to merely just switch into cat or bear form and use any special ability to trigger 3 benefits, 1 is 10% mana per hit (up to 50%), the other 40% spell power to you for 6secs per hit (up to 30secs) and the final is 25% spell cost reduction to group for 6secs per hit. Depending on how often it is generally employed a cooldown of anything from 30secs to 10 mins could be slapped on.
Everyone has a different concept of fun, refer to post 141, I think more variation is fun, and using more of my class is, especially if emplying such abilities in skillful ways can be quite rewarding.
At the heart of it, I'm simply an enthusiastic player that loves to see things improve, in nice ways too, blizzard have done many nice things, and many issues are tackled for balance druids in WotLK, two still in the dark that could use improvements from talents (not just gear) are mana regen and ofc having use for feral combat core skills, hence having seen an issue, I merely bring to light things I find about it, but never without suggesting ways it can change. None of the ideas are mine in origin, many have suggested them before, I just picked the ones I presented because they were my favourite and from feedback across several forums developed some of them further. So in a sense you can say the druid community thought up Mana on melee and the version of Moonkin Aura you see presented.
Originally Posted by Munorion
As far as I see it, melee for mana is a mechanic that helps you cut down on drinking while soloing and leveling first and foremost, at least right now. If it will become more important at level 80? That depends a lot on, you guessed it, how itemization will turn out to be. If, for example, we get vastly more spirit as compared to now (since we'll share gear with the restos), we might still be just fine with Intensity, a shadow priest and pots.
That is how I see it, especially for people who find it too risky to use in raids, the bore of just churning nukes in solo has more fun because when you're low you can go feral forms, and all you need to do is hit about 5 times, to avoid drinking. Fun because you do use your feral forms and instead of just one ability, you use many (maul, claw , swipe etc), you make a decision which form is better to use, if it's a tough mob, go bear, if not get a damage headstart in cat. You mana pool will last you probably about 5 or 6 mobs with using innervate, and using the treants who's melee also restores mana, then you'll run out, too low to shift, whack in moonkin form first, get enough to shift, shift, get a lot more, do something other than churn nukes out and use other aspects of your class previously unuseable.
Some off course would prefer to drink instead, it is safer to drink, go ahead, most warlocks life tap in solo then bandage, you go to forms instead, or not. In raids, it is riskier, but you can master it, Cycloni made a good post on how the mechanic would work, on post 173, page 7 - have a quick read. I'll just say here that if it proves too difficult to use in raids, you might be better of taking intensity in the resto tree instead. But it can be used, high rewards because of high risks and difficult to master, but how and when you use is entirely up to you, you would get extra mana help from less spell costs on crit, and the treant meleeing, also speccing intensity instead (or as well) would mean you don't have to use it. Those who don't like it don't have to take it, not everyone likes or uses everything that is available to them in their class cores or in their talent tree. Having options though is good, especially when you're ready to try other approaches.
Johnny, if you're in melee range all the time, your party members will be out of range of your moonkin aura most likely.
If its safe your your moonkin to stand in melee, its probably safe for his group to move 10yards closer in. Christ, shadow priests have to opperate at 26yards and its rarely a game-breaking problem for them.
As for threat - even if you're between 110 and 129%, the time it would take you to run in should be enough for your tank to get above you again.
This depends on how long the fights gone on. if you're at 115% of 400,000 threat then I doubt the tank is gonna make up 20k in ~7 seconds. If you've already blown off a full mana bar then you're probably a good way into the fight already.
I agree that melee-->mana is more functional while grinding, but so is every other active regen mechanic. As I stated above, everyone gets their regen punished in some form or other. Warlocks probably have it easiest since the situation where a lifetap gets them killed isn't that common. In a lot of raid fights I have to break my evoc because of random AoE, which forces me into my lower DPS cycle for well over a minute to make up for it - effectively throwing the fight for me.
PS - balancemoon, you might wanna edit that post above this one.
Dire Cat Form
Instant cast
35% of Base mana
Shapeshift into dire cat form, increasing melee attack power 110% of your agility, armor contribution from items by 180%, feral attack power contribution from your equipped weapon by 100%, and allowing Off-hand attacks. Also protects the caster from Polymorph effects and allows the use of various cat abilities.
The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of Polymorph and Movement Impairing effects.
is the new dire cat form, and with new skins for both, i must admit, mana on melee talent is looking even more attractive, it would be a shame not to have any real relevant use to use the feral forms or enjoy the new sleek look. But if it does come, I shall find it satisfying and a pleasure to watch as I spend a few seconds meleeing in my new cool looking forms to replenish some of my mana andboost my spell power.
is the new dire cat form, and with new skins for both, i must admit, mana on melee talent is looking even more attractive, it would be a shame not to have any real relevant use to use the feral forms or enjoy the new sleek look. But if it does come, I shall find it satisfying and a pleasure to watch as I spend a few seconds meleeing in my new cool looking forms to replenish some of my mana andboost my spell power.
i'm sorry but melee to recover mana is one of the worst ideas for caster i never heard. Are you telling me trees has to run and melee also to recover mana ? stop healing ?
considering most fights in high end content when balance druids may have his spot as decursers or group boosting, just considering stop this to recover mana is crazy.
- If you are as decurser you cant go melee, your duty is being decursing all the time, no switching
- If you are boosting group, cancel aura, go melee ,nerf your dps and raid dps, will made RL kick you from raid
I'm raiding BT atm, when i have SP use more mana to nuke and taking gear with more haste or spell damage, when i lack SP i just go starfire spam, chain pot, and innervate, also using spirit and innervate weapon.
the point is make moonkin form reliable to recover mana due casting, as clearcasting for mages or priest, instead to recover % mana from our AP, also a build with Intensity and Dreamstate will made you viable to recover mana from spirit and intelect ( im using both atm ).
My suggestion as i wrote in Blizzard forums is change Moonkin form ability to recover mana.
Balancemoon, your ideea will never be implemented as it raises too many issues, both pve and pvp wise. You're a caster and mana/buffs on melee attacks will never be raid viable for end game raiding no matter how you chose to tweek it. A version of your spell is allready implemented and I'm sure you know it's a total failure. You want to have fun melee'ing? There's a simple solution: respec. You have use of some feral abilities balance spec'ed as you should atm so you can't say you're the only class that has no use for its other tree skills, but you have so much use of Maul (for example) as a combat/swords rogue has for Ambush.
from the druid forums on wotlk info, and it's a very reliable source. It's looking quite juicy.
Oh and balancemoon good luck in re-explaining the idea of mana on melee to the new guys. As for me I think it's a great idea, the issues regarding it are not as much of a stumbling block as first time readers may think if you give it more consideration than in passing, a lot of time and discussion has been poured into this, and most are in favour. The thing is because it's such an abstract idea, I think explaining it is hard as most won't get it, how it can work or why it needs to be straight away. I say this due to the fact that nine out of ten times (myself included) initial reaction ws "WTF??!" and after re-looking and thinking more about it actually turned out to make a lot of sense.
Anyway, we don't have much to talk about tbh, it's pretty exciting stuff for balance, and striaght forward, we need more examples of gear to really start making decent calculations and many more of us need to have a feel around too. The only real issue remaining seems to be that of mana, and use of feral abilities, might as well talk about that and ways to improve balance until we get more substantial info.
There is also this rumour that Moonkin form might be getting new skins for WOtLK, one of which would be the Keeper of the Grove/Dryad form, and the other would be Drakonid form, apparently the lore is that Moonkin or Kin of the Moon do not only apply to the Owlkin, but to the Cenarius and his Ilk, and the Chimera who are also dragon kin. Whether true or not, the thought of having a Keeper of the Grove skin or a Drakonid skin is just as exciting as new Dire cat and Dire Bear form skins
He doesn't have to re-explain the ideea, I've been reading this thread sience the first day it appeared on the forum just cba to post untill now. Just because you love the ideea doesn't mean it's a good or that it could work. Feral ablilities are as much use to you as a moonkin as all other ablities in the game for it's class.
You say most are in favor? I'd like to see what you mean by that and who are these "most" you're talking about.
The only real issue remaining seems to be that of mana, and use of feral abilities, might as well talk about that and ways to improve balance until we get more substantial info.
Just an observation: This would not be an improvement. An improvement would be giving us a clearcasting talent, or upping the regen on dreamstate, or lowering the ilvl cost of spirit and putting it on all our gear (Not haphazardly where 5/8 T6 has spirit and the other 3 has MP5). If there's a lot of spirit on all of our gear, innervate will be able to fill us to full from 0 every time, regardless of mana pool. Already in live I can innervate in my resto gear and have too much mana even while chain casting. A more interesting talent idea would be a long cooldown preparation style talent that refreshed starfall/typhoon/innervate/FoN cooldowns. That's obviously way too strong for a hybrid class, but it's at least more fitting of ranged DPS/raid utility focus of the spec.
I don't understand this push to 'use feral abilities' as balance. If I enjoy the feral playstyle, I can pay 50 gold and play it.
Complaining about having to go 13 or 15 points into resto to be effective in raids, isn't helping. Most hybrid style classes have significant reasons to go into their other trees for around the same number of points.
There's definitely a little bit of bloat in the balance tree, but a lot of it could be solved just by making moonfury a 2 point talent.
the push I am sure is to raise awareness, something needs to be done sometime, it might as well be now.
Mana may be an issue, but what about dps?! - is anyone not just a little worried about dps? with NG broken for wrath with no fix in sight, not enough mana to cast more expensive cycles, and a seemingly low dps contribution from new talents.
Already most moonkins report lagging behind ele shaman, locks and mages, but then that's largely with a lot of starfire nuking, if we had mana for more, than maybe, but NG and wrath problem.
the push I am sure is to raise awareness, something needs to be done sometime, it might as well be now.
Mana may be an issue, but what about dps?! - is anyone not just a little worried about dps? with NG broken for wrath with no fix in sight, not enough mana to cast more expensive cycles, and a seemingly low dps contribution from new talents.
Already most moonkins report lagging behind ele shaman, locks and mages, but then that's largely with a lot of starfire nuking, if we had mana for more, than maybe, but NG and wrath problem.
that's 12% dps rise, unless you stretch to master-shapeshifter and get 16% roughly. Would it be enough?
What 'more expensive' rotations are you talking about? We have 4 DPS spells, one of which scales horribly and is best dropped by early T5 (unless your tanks want you to put it up for them), and one of which gains little benefit from raid buffs. Realistically, you're talking about Starfire spam, and possibly adding in Moonfire, and once you're into T6, there's no reason to drop Moonfire, as you're not going to run out of mana if you're smart about preparing for it. There may be a magic combination of Haste and Damage above which a rotation that doesn't include MF will give more DPS, but it's realistically unattainable. So we have, effectively, one rotation. Yeah, you can add Wrath, but not really. You'd be spending more mana, and most likely losing DPS for it.
Realistically, we're in a bad spot, yes. Looking at a Warlock, we give less group benefit (passively, we grant our aura, which is a less-than 5% increase in DPS to five casters, including ourselves. They grant 10% spell damage to most casters, raid-wide. This alone leads me to suspect our Aura will be raid-wide in LK, but I'm not ready to hinge everything on it yet), and do less DPS. I'm sure that this is why, in anything other than a min-max raid scenario, we're not widely accepted, and even then we're only grudgingly brought to raids. Of course, I'm also sure Warlocks will be brought more into line in the expansion, but this isn't a warlock thread. Compared to mages, we bring greater passive benefit to counter our lower DPS, and our passive benefit compared to an Ele Shaman is comparable, and our DPS, at least at the raid level I've seen, is also comparable.
I believe that the improvement to our aura will greatly increase our worth (I'm in the "Windfury for Casters" camp on this). The best way to effect a change to bring us the rest of the way would simply be to raise our base DPS. Nature's Fury does this very well, and it remains to be seen whether Eclipse will be even useful in a raid scenario (mostly, as I've stated before, hinging on whether Nature's Fury stacks with CoE and Stormstrike. If it stacks with CoE, we're back where we were before NF in terms of relative benefit between SF and Wrath. If not, Wrath may be pulled out of the all-but-useless-in-raids area it lives in now).
Moonkins also look to locks for utility? Heh, that was kind of a nice insight as a mage. Anyway Im sure that blizz will add both damage and utility where needed to all classes. Hopefully they will realise that they overdid locks slightly in this expansion. even if they did tho the current situation is way better than pre TBC. Anyway since boomkins traditionally are a support caster class methings there will be nice stuff added. Hopefully they wont make your support raidwide (unles they redesign it somehow) since that would mean it gets weaker and there would never ever be room for more than one boomkin. Not to mention it would be bad for 10 mans since while being a group buff a boomkin mostly benifits all casters present in a 10 man raid. Perhaps they intend for raids to bring one boomkin, no less no more. But it would be more fun if even a seccond moonkin brought to the raid could match the utility and damage of other possible classes to bring. Making you stackable could be one way, or keeping you as group buffers is another.
Moonkins also look to locks for utility? Heh, that was kind of a nice insight as a mage. Anyway Im sure that blizz will add both damage and utility where needed to all classes. Hopefully they will realise that they overdid locks slightly in this expansion. even if they did tho the current situation is way better than pre TBC. Anyway since boomkins traditionally are a support caster class methings there will be nice stuff added. Hopefully they wont make your support raidwide (unles they redesign it somehow) since that would mean it gets weaker and there would never ever be room for more than one boomkin. Not to mention it would be bad for 10 mans since while being a group buff a boomkin mostly benifits all casters present in a 10 man raid. Perhaps they intend for raids to bring one boomkin, no less no more. But it would be more fun if even a seccond moonkin brought to the raid could match the utility and damage of other possible classes to bring. Making you stackable could be one way, or keeping you as group buffers is another.
The current Lock/Shaman situation has shown us that making a single class excessively stackable is bad class design. I very much hope that we end up treated as necessary, but only in single quantities. Again, I don't care what my personal DPS is (okay, that's a half-lie), as long as the benefit I bring in Raid DPS outweighs the benefit brought by another caster.
And yes, I look at locks as an example of passive utility. Mages bring Int and Imp Scorch as passive effects during a raid encounter, which are less useful than CoE/S and CoR, CoT on some fights (though that lends more to being considered an active ability). Spriests bring VT, VE to a lesser extent, and Misery. Ele Shammies bring their Totems, though really it's just ToW since the rest can be dropped by a Resto Shammy if needed. And we bring our Aura. Those are really the only effects which are deemed 'constant', either on or off for a given encounter (looking only at casters atm), and Locks tend to take the cake in that area. It's hard to argue against 10% spell damage for almost all of your casters, and a second will bring a good damage increase for your Melee as well. Hence why I'm pretty sure we're going to see Destro DPS toned down in LK.
He doesn't have to re-explain the ideea, I've been reading this thread sience the first day it appeared on the forum just cba to post untill now. Just because you love the ideea doesn't mean it's a good or that it could work. Feral ablilities are as much use to you as a moonkin as all other ablities in the game for it's class.
You say most are in favor? I'd like to see what you mean by that and who are these "most" you're talking about.
Originally Posted by Antipater
Balancemoon, your ideea will never be implemented as it raises too many issues, both pve and pvp wise. You're a caster and mana/buffs on melee attacks will never be raid viable for end game raiding no matter how you chose to tweek it. A version of your spell is allready implemented and I'm sure you know it's a total failure. You want to have fun melee'ing? There's a simple solution: respec. You have use of some feral abilities balance spec'ed as you should atm so you can't say you're the only class that has no use for its other tree skills, but you have so much use of Maul (for example) as a combat/swords rogue has for Ambush.
You're a caster, get used to the ideea.
You can’t say his idea, or I’d like to think of it as our idea, because we’ve all contributed to it, won’t be implemented because mana on melee is already in the game: Read the moonkin talent. So saying it won't be implemented because casters dont' go into melee when the talent already gives you mana for going into melee, and saying it won't be implemented because you don't view it as raid viable is saying that nothing is given unless it's raid viable which means blizzard ignores other facets of the game, or you just don't see how it can be raid viable
Originally Posted by IRAM
i'm sorry but melee to recover mana is one of the worst ideas for caster i never heard. Are you telling me trees has to run and melee also to recover mana ? stop healing ?
considering most fights in high end content when balance druids may have his spot as decursers or group boosting, just considering stop this to recover mana is crazy.
- If you are as decurser you cant go melee, your duty is being decursing all the time, no switching
- If you are boosting group, cancel aura, go melee ,nerf your dps and raid dps, will made RL kick you from raid
I'm raiding BT atm, when i have SP use more mana to nuke and taking gear with more haste or spell damage, when i lack SP i just go starfire spam, chain pot, and innervate, also using spirit and innervate weapon.
the point is make moonkin form reliable to recover mana due casting, as clearcasting for mages or priest, instead to recover % mana from our AP, also a build with Intensity and Dreamstate will made you viable to recover mana from spirit and intelect ( im using both atm ).
My suggestion as i wrote in Blizzard forums is change Moonkin form ability to recover mana.
Let’s feel the negativity flow, some people exist to knock down every idea presented without even giving it a chance because they like to be negative. We’re talking about a Druid caster, not a mage or warlock who have 3 out 3 dps caster schools. Really, going into melee is already part of the balance druid playstyle, or have you forgotten Antipater/Iram? Mana on melee is in the game, and whether you find it a hard time to go close to bosses to use it or not, entirely up to you but it is there and melee is 40% of the druid class, it is not unreasonable to employ use of feral forms for the balance build even if it’s an occasional use, it actually is in line with theme.
I think balancemoon through feedback from the community has evolved the feature into a far better version. Now it's not just applicable to moonkin form but to any melee the balance druid does, including his treants. This is a big improvement on it's current state, especially if it's based on damage done, i.e 1 mana for 1 melee damage. Also the additional bit added for using Feral abilities, is great, you get a much bigger buff if you did that melee up close in feral forms rather than in moonkin form. Meaning you could cower or demo roar or maul or rip, or claw, using a host of abilities you never used before. How can you even think it is a bad idea. Not only is that suggested but other extra means.
Some of you say no more mana help is needed, that is based on opinion, the majority feel more is needed, not less, there are many ways to give more, it's better for talents to provide extra help than rely on gear to do it as itemisation budgets will undoubtedly lead in sacrificing dps for it. So why not give a little help using existing abilities. It's as good as any to give spell cost reduction on crit, and to extend mana on melee to treants and feral forms.
It becomes important to extend mana on melee to feral forms because balance doesn't use most of that school's core skills which make up 40% of balance's ability arsenal. So if it makes that bit useful, you might as well throw it in. You have to do a little bit more than make mana on melee simply apply to cat and bear form, because you want people to use it more, so you buff using cat and bear form for getting mana via meleeing over using moonkin form. What is so wrong with that? it's clever and useful, and more fun, mana on melee isn't weaker, it's stronger. There are rewards to it.
Not only that, it can be something you can take instead of innervate. It is wrong to argue that a reason for this is so you shouldn't have to take intensity, that is just balance moon's error in presentation, but you can see that this can work as an alternative to intensity, and though some of the reasoning he presents is not really correct, it still is a great idea and a good mechanic, you already have it, make better use of it. You feel you don't need more mana, than fine, having it won't make any difference to you, you don't have to go into melee range and whack, you got intensity, just continue casting.
And as for who's supported this, well I think many people see the merit of the idea. Use what blizzard has, and no harm in suggesting improvements to certain concepts. Mana on melee is concept that fits a class that has melee as 40% of it's core. And even though this is the spell caster build that nukes 90% of the time, no harm in making provision to heal 5% of the time and melee 5% of the time. Which is roughly what you will be doing if you used mana on melee.
Mana on melee was implemented as a bandaid quick fix for oomkins and never got anywhere but gimmicky or abused years later as an arena balancing byproduct. The skills you suggest might work or might just not, but they all are high maintenance.
The gain has to equal the trouble you go through, otherwise you just scrap it or it's plain overpowered, both not desirable. The trouble however is high, fights got alot more dynamic and some are plain melee unfriendly or at least somehow require you to bring extra melee survivability. High gain/trouble skills require alot of work for a niche skill. Keep in mind skills get touched maybe every 2 years in average, in my opinion this skill would break long before that one way or the other.
Moonkin melee, shockadins, hunter melee, rogue ranged, caster wanding and more i probably forgot are game concepts that are either unintentional or so poorly implemented that it would need too much effort to get those to work properly again. I'd much rather see those ideas scrapped and with gear and raid consolidation some real hybridization instead of further specialization (a fight where you play caster dps and healer during phases). Problem with this are talents, but that concept is much more appealing to me and would again move closer to the initial one of class setups (which made some sense aswell).
I'm guessing this is also why theres so much resistance to the idea. Melee/caster hybrid didn't work so far and a melee side that only fixes mana issues, which are a poor concept aswell, are not exactly popular as effort spent by blizzard to fix class issues.
You can’t say his idea, or I’d like to think of it as our idea, because we’ve all contributed to it, won’t be implemented because mana on melee is already in the game: Read the moonkin talent. So saying it won't be implemented because casters dont' go into melee when the talent already gives you mana for going into melee, and saying it won't be implemented because you don't view it as raid viable is saying that nothing is given unless it's raid viable which means blizzard ignores other facets of the game, or you just don't see how it can be raid viable
If you are talking about the talent where balancemoon wants Balance Druids to get the 41 point Enhancement melee talent Shamanistic Rage (mana on melee), there are several reasons it won't work and won't be implemented for Balance Druids. If you were to get the 41 point Shaman melee talent, what would you do with it as a caster? Spend several seconds running into melee range on a boss, spend 15 more seconds doing 150 dps while you gain mana, and then spend several seconds running back into caster range (assuming you aren't already dead from cleaves or whatnot -- there is a reason the real melee classes have high dodge / heavy armor etc). And then what? You just wasted 1/6 of a boss fight doing basically 0 DPS. Terrible idea. I can see it now, after that was implemented, balancemoon or someone else would be back on this forum whining for Balance DPS to be 112% higher than every other class to compensate for his "broken mana regen system."
Ocyr, you have bad attitude. I didn't want to say anything to you, but you've gone too far. If you'd actually read any of the discussions, all what you've said has been mentioned before. You are merely yapping because you want to find something to complain about, and an idea that you can't grasp because it may force you to be optimistic or adventurous off course you just go on with so much BS you could spare yourself by actually reading. You're annoying me now and are symptomatic with what's rotten on forums. Trolls that go round knocking everything said because they have nothing to do, no ideas of their own, but to attach themselves like parasites and spread their pessimism and negativity in a cloak of fancy language and irrelevant facts meant to disguise the fact that they simply don't like innovation, don't like new concepts and don't like changes.
You are talking about losing dps, when if you even read the ability you should be able to figure out that you do dps in cat form and the ability suggested gives you 40% spell damage back for 6secs per move used, compensating you adequately for time spent dpsing. I don't see Mana on melee in moonkin form doing that.
You just won't admit it because you've been shown wrong and are either too stubborn or too stupidly proud to do so or just love your pessimism. For crying out loud why bother to mention all this stuff you have done when it's been explained? I'm sure exactly to counter arguements like that or to point out to people to slow to get the full depths of it at first glance or too stubborn and caught up in their own noise to really pay attention or hear anything that others really have to say.
Maybe for a change in your life, listen instead of talk, don't just "hear" (i.e. in one ear, and out the other) but pay attention, and consider the merits of a concept, read all the angles before giving a response and making a fool of yourself. You probably read one paragraph, mis-interpreted something or disagreed with the angle and then you've screeched at the whole thing, Better consideration would benefit every reader who has a mind enough to weight and consider arguements.
From what I understand, the gear in WotLK will have stats that are unspecific to spells or melee, benefiting them both equally and bonuses coming from talents and spells.
That being said, melee dps for a boomkin will be supbar to casting, but not as bad as pre-WotLK. Cutting your DPS in half for 15s is better than doing 0 DPS for 10s, which is what Mages do for Evocation. Look at Shaman for example, they will likely be within 20 yrds casting Flameshock and Lava Burst and could potentially have a hybrid melee/caster setup that does equal damage on both fronts.
As stated before, it is very very dependent on itemization. One change could be a significant +damage bonus on Druid staves similar to the AP bonus that feral receives, giving you significant spell damage and AP from the same weapon.
Ocyr, at least survivability in melee wouldn't be any more an issue than it is for ret pallies or enhancement shamans. In WotLK, we probably could run in full leather gear (again the resto/balance homogenization), which would put us at high mail/low plate levels of armour.
The rest of your arguments (low melee DPS, running) is valid, and what makes this not work.
From what I understand, the gear in WotLK will have stats that are unspecific to spells or melee, benefiting them both equally and bonuses coming from talents and spells.
That being said, melee dps for a boomkin will be supbar to casting, but not as bad as pre-WotLK. Cutting your DPS in half for 15s is better than doing 0 DPS for 10s, which is what Mages do for Evocation. Look at Shaman for example, they will likely be within 20 yrds casting Flameshock and Lava Burst and could potentially have a hybrid melee/caster setup that does equal damage on both fronts.
As stated before, it is very very dependent on itemization.
Only ratings and healing/spelldmg get merged, the rest stays the same. Meaning the Moonkin hit talent still only affects melee hit and moonkin aura only spellcrit, same for other classes with similar talents. So only hit and crit rating of gear would increase the moonkin melee dps. Sad part about it is that those are % increases and not absolute, so your very low DPS gets increased by x% which results in still very low DPS.
A massive spellpower->ap scaling similar to enh shamans would be needed to make it even work in the slightest and still enhancement shamans dont do a serious part of their damage of spells.
The idea of a casting/melee shaman may get better, but its still far from usable besides shock which you use due to not having enough melee abilities. Equal damage on both fronts would be equally low.
If you are talking about the talent where balancemoon wants Balance Druids to get the 41 point Enhancement melee talent Shamanistic Rage (mana on melee), there are several reasons it won't work and won't be implemented for Balance Druids. If you were to get the 41 point Shaman melee talent, what would you do with it as a caster? Spend several seconds running into melee range on a boss, spend 15 more seconds doing 150 dps while you gain mana, and then spend several seconds running back into caster range (assuming you aren't already dead from cleaves or whatnot -- there is a reason the real melee classes have high dodge / heavy armor etc). And then what? You just wasted 1/6 of a boss fight doing basically 0 DPS. Terrible idea. I can see it now, after that was implemented, balancemoon or someone else would be back on this forum whining for Balance DPS to be 112% higher than every other class to compensate for his "broken mana regen system."
Does an SP need 112% higher DPS to compensate for "broken mana regen?"
The suggested talent was
Mana on Melee: (15 pts)
Melee attacks generated by the druid in all forms and his guardians (inc Force of Nature), have a chance on hit to regenerate mana equal to the damage caused. In addition: Any bear or cat form special ability including finishers will restore 10% of your total mana up to a max of 50%. When you return to caster form each move you did in feral forms would start a buff of 40% extra spell damage and reduces the cost of you and your party's spells by 25% for 6secs, up to a max of 30secs.
If a moonkin spends 15s out of every 45s in cat-form:
1) He will never run out of mana.
2) His party will use 16% less mana.
3) The moonkin will do about 90% of the damage he would have done had he never gone to cat form.
4) His party will lose 1/3 of the existing moonkin aura.
Aggro should be manageable. He is doing less damage, and some of that damage is being done in cat form (and cower can be thrown in). That should (almost) make up for being in melee range.
If WotLK gets a 10-man fight that runs 15-20 minutes, this will be extremely desirable (especially if you don't have an SP). In a 25-man fight, if you group with four casters who have mana issues (or can trade mana for more DPS or HPS) this will also be desirable.
If other Moonkin buffs (Eclipse, Improved Moonkin Aura) get significant cooldowns, item (4) on my list becomes less of an issue.
I don't think it is OP in PvE or PvP (although Pounce/Shred/Maim opener in PvP would be sweet).
Is Blizz likely to do this? No. Most suggestions never get implemented. Is it useful for every fight? No. Would it be fun for those fights where it made sense? I think so.
07/06/08, 7:41 PM
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