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Old 07/29/08, 11:25 AM   #476
Erdluf
Great Tiger
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Echo Isles
Originally Posted by Adoriele View Post
How on earth did you get that? The glyph text says that it only extends MF's DoT by 3 sec, not 12. You'll need to chain-cast SF to keep the MF DoT up, occasionally popping in an IS or Wrath or iFF.
Making assumptions before first cup of coffee in the morning is bad.

IS SF*5 maintains MF DoT, without clipping IS. 2978 DPS.

If IS, SF, and MF inscriptions are all greater (meaning you can't have all three), the IS (with 2% hit reduction) makes this rotation 2906 (slightly better than SF spam, but giving your target 2% miss).

SF*4 Wr*2 is 2950 DPS. It is also 12.1s, so you'd sometimes have to drop to SF*4 Wr*1 which is 2928 DPS for a 10.9s rotation.

You'll want to your MF timer high, so it survives interruptions.

The rule will be something like: MF < 10s left? SF.
IS still ticking? Wrath
Otherwise? IS

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Old 07/29/08, 11:43 AM   #477
Soultrigger
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Warsong
Originally Posted by Adoriele View Post
How on earth did you get that? The glyph text says that it only extends MF's DoT by 3 sec, not 12. You'll need to chain-cast SF to keep the MF DoT up, occasionally popping in an IS or Wrath or iFF.
The dot duration is 12 secs, if you keep chain casting SF, even without haste, it should lower the dot time to 9 secs, but get aditional 3 secs from the glyph, putting it back to 12 sec. So you have some "free room" to move or do mistakes.

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Old 07/29/08, 11:49 AM   #478
Erdluf
Great Tiger
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Echo Isles
Throwing Eclipse into the mix

20% uptime, 10% Wrath damage, Use MF+Wrath*9 Rotation: 3116 DPS
20% uptime: 10% SF Crit, Use SF-spam (MF dot in background): 3142 DPS
60%: SF*4 Wrath (MF dot in background): 2928 DPS

Average is 3008 DPS, about a 2.7% boost over the non-eclipse build. Not bad if you can get the 20% uptime with just 1 talent point (not sure of that).

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Old 07/29/08, 12:02 PM   #479
Septus
Piston Honda
 
Blood Elf Death Knight
 
Ravenholdt
I still don't think I understand eclipse. 30 second duration? Does that mean that once every 2 minutes, the talent becomes ready again, and then I crit with either wrath or starfire, and for a whole 30 seconds, my wrath damage is boosted by 10% if I procced eclipse with starfire? I'll be able to chain cast wrath at 10% more damage for 30 seconds?

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Old 07/29/08, 12:20 PM   #480
Munorion
Piston Honda
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Silvermoon (EU)
One thing I'm very interested to see now is how mana management in raids will look like. With the change to potions (only one per fight), will it still be possible to forego Intensity and/or Dreamstate?

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Old 07/29/08, 12:26 PM   #481
Panoramixe
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Nordrassil (EU)
I think you'd be better of if you get dreamstate and intensity and OoC, combined with moonkin form proc.
But also depends on your glyphs and group set-up, for example
Glyph of Innervate - Your innervate ability now has an additional 20% strength mana regeneration effect on you in addition to the effect on your primary target.
could help a lot.

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Old 07/29/08, 12:54 PM   #482
IRAM
Glass Joe
 
Tauren Druid
 
Doomhammer (EU)
Sources for mana regeneration in group or raid.

Shadow priest

disciple returming mana to raid 2.5% total healed.

hunter 2% mana back

improved rejuvenation 2% mana back ( 15% every tick )

improved moonkin aura 2% after critical

clearcasting next free spell

shamans totems raid wide

paladins JOW

, thinking blizzard wish us to use specs from diferent classes to keep mana in raid.

how much in total mana regeneration all of this would be ?

my opinion is until the first 10-25 men raids, is going to be difficult to see, also until inscriptions are full implemented, just i hope, blizzard adjust some problems in the talent tree, we have many high level tier abilities all desirable for dps and raiding.

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Old 07/29/08, 12:58 PM   #483
Melador
Soda Popinski
 
Melador's Avatar
 
Troll Druid
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Septus View Post
I still don't think I understand eclipse. 30 second duration? Does that mean that once every 2 minutes, the talent becomes ready again, and then I crit with either wrath or starfire, and for a whole 30 seconds, my wrath damage is boosted by 10% if I procced eclipse with starfire? I'll be able to chain cast wrath at 10% more damage for 30 seconds?
Yes, that's how it works at the moment.

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Old 07/29/08, 2:07 PM   #484
Septus
Piston Honda
 
Blood Elf Death Knight
 
Ravenholdt
Ok good, so there's not really an issue with having to hotswap what spell you're casting like I had heard. Maybe you crit a wrath and waste the first 1.5 seconds of your 30 seconds, but then you just switch to a constant spam of starfire.

Is our shift back towards starfire from the imp. scorch change going to be immediately negated since Curse of Elements now affects nature?

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Old 07/29/08, 2:26 PM   #485
Vodrin
Don Flamenco
 
Tauren Druid
 
Magtheridon (EU)
Originally Posted by Septus View Post
Ok good, so there's not really an issue with having to hotswap what spell you're casting like I had heard. Maybe you crit a wrath and waste the first 1.5 seconds of your 30 seconds, but then you just switch to a constant spam of starfire.

Is our shift back towards starfire from the imp. scorch change going to be immediately negated since Curse of Elements now affects nature?
They both gained 10% so yeah its back to a few days ago, both having a use.

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Old 07/30/08, 12:51 AM   #486
Carnacki
Glass Joe
 
Tauren Druid
 
Nagrand
One thing I haven't seen mentioned in the eclipse "value" debate is the fight mechanics. Obviously we don't know them yet but it's possible (heck, likely) there will be phased fights where you alternate between moving a lot and stationary tank and spank. Eclipse makes more sense if you can cast wrath during the high movement phase and proc the starfire boost so you maximise it's damage during the tank & spank phase. Similarly during that phase you spam starfire and the wrath boost procs so you gain benefit for the next mobile phase.

Alternatively there could be fights where you get lots of adds with lowish health that you'd knock down quickly with wrath and then refocus on boss with the boosted starfire damage.

My DPS in TBC suffers most on those two styles of fights for the simple fact my best spell takes so long. Maybe this is another way to address that issue.

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Old 07/30/08, 6:24 AM   #487
Vodrin
Don Flamenco
 
Tauren Druid
 
Magtheridon (EU)
Originally Posted by Carnacki View Post
One thing I haven't seen mentioned in the eclipse "value" debate is the fight mechanics. Obviously we don't know them yet but it's possible (heck, likely) there will be phased fights where you alternate between moving a lot and stationary tank and spank. Eclipse makes more sense if you can cast wrath during the high movement phase and proc the starfire boost so you maximise it's damage during the tank & spank phase. Similarly during that phase you spam starfire and the wrath boost procs so you gain benefit for the next mobile phase.

Alternatively there could be fights where you get lots of adds with lowish health that you'd knock down quickly with wrath and then refocus on boss with the boosted starfire damage.

My DPS in TBC suffers most on those two styles of fights for the simple fact my best spell takes so long. Maybe this is another way to address that issue.
I don't see how a phased fight helps eclipse. Lets take supremus, so you are casting wraths during the movement phase, it proc's and gives you 30 seconds of starfire. Starfire takes too long to cast and keep up with the boss so you stick to wrath totally wasting the proc. You then enter the next phase and it comes off cooldown, you are casting starfires as its stationary. Again after the eclipse proc you can choose between 10% boosted wrath and carrying on with starfire.

Best case scenario: It proc's at the end of a phase change and you bring the full 30 seconds of optimal spell into the next phase. You don't get to choose when it proc's, however, lets take the fact that it does exactly on the 2minute cooldown and you are casting your optimum spell and the phases last 2minutes each. You are always casting the boosted spell during its effect.
That would give 12.5% uptime of +10% damage on wrath and 12.5% uptime of 10% crit on starfire.

+1.25% Wrath Damage and +1.25% Starfire Crit averaged for 3 talent point investment in a best case scenario. Ignoring lots of circumstances that would make it less effective easily: forced movement during uptime, starfire boosting moonfire duration making wrath less spamable, arcane/nature immunity, spell lockout.

If we are going to be forced into a spell rotation it has to provide more benefit than many tier1 talents. Currently, +1/2/3% crit would be a much better investment that eclipse and not require lots of circumstances.

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Old 07/30/08, 9:48 AM   #488
Erdluf
Great Tiger
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Echo Isles
I've put a very simple WotLK Balance calculator at wotlkbalance.xls - FileFront.com

This is .xls. Seems to work fine with my copy of Open Office.

Owlkin Frenzy is not modeled at all.
For Eclipse, you put a %uptime. The wrath damage multiplier, and SF average crit, is updated accordingly.
For IMkF aura you put an average %uptime.
For E&M you put an average bonus.

Calcs include:
  • Character and spell levels from 70 to 80 (full rotations only use level 80 spells, though).
  • Damage/DPS/DPM for Starfire, Wrath, Moonfire, Insect Swarm, and Entangling Roots.
  • You can play with talents, to see their relative value.
  • CoE for both Nature and Arcane.
  • Scorch for Arcane.
  • 30% IS Glyph
  • MF -90% Direct, +75% DoT Glyph
  • SF Glyph assumed to be 3 more seconds of MF on Starfire. Any rotation with more than 1 SF every three seconds gets a Free MF DoT if you have the glyph equipped (Don't put MF in the rotation).
  • Hit mechanics use TBC rules. I haven't seen enough confirmation of something else to change this.
  • Using percentages rather than combat ratings for crit/haste, since most people (me included) don't have a good feel for level 80 ratings.
  • Assumes downranking penalty is zero at the level where you learn the next rank, and goes up by 5%/level after that. I haven't seen authoritative evidence of that, but it does seem to get repeated.
  • Short rotations aren't smart enough to clip DoTs, so IS spam has really high DPS.

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Old 08/07/08, 6:16 AM   #489
Cycloni
Glass Joe
 
Tauren Druid
 
Jaedenar (EU)
I am very interested to see how our current dps measures up against other dps casters. With the state of our talents somewhat confusing, and a lot of worry over the likes of Lunar Guidance nerfing our scaling, and the weakness of the likes of Eclipse/ImkA questions is were they right to nerf Imp Moonkin Aura?

Certainly for relevance in raids, we need the old Improved Moonkin Aura of the Alpha back, without I personally feel marginalised for the 25-man scene as all the other goodies like Earth and Moon, Thorns, AoE functionality don't quite measure up or are that relevant or impactful as the aura, they are small buffs. Imp Mk aura stood out in it's older form, and should the aura not be stacking, as it is, it is almost no advantage or a very small one to have.

This will hit us hard on the raid scene where we've always been viable since TBC but sub-par, and if that aura stands as it is, that wouldn't change, if it reverts to it's alpha version, they will take note.

So the question falls back to our dps, because it might be the aura was nerfed because of our personal dps. Mind you the aura was also an important reason for Moonkin to be included in 5-man and 3v3 arena for pvp.

Gathering our dps boosts:
2-3% net from Eclipse
6% from Earth & Moon
4% from Master Shapeshifter
6-7% from imKA (alpha version - assuming 40% crit chance, 11sec cooldown - down to 2% in beta version thanks to lengthy cooldown)

10% when attacked from Owlkin Frenzy (15% chance to Frenzy): - pvp based bonus

Take into account nerf to Lunar Guidance: - but hard to give equivalents not knowing what itemisation will be like:

My conclusion is that we definitely do need the old Improved Moonkin Aura back, and I'm not satisfied with Eclipse and Earth & Moon, everyone seems to have scaled now more that that. Flametongue weapon alone on Shaman give a flat 15% spell increase, wanna add 10% haste (flat again), 73 damage (not sure what the), 6% spell crit bonus - to name a few. Is dps a thing to worry about?

Really, we have no choice but to compare, because our value or worth is purely relative. If every other dps caster is trouncing the balance druid on damage and all provide more substantial contributions in raids and parties via support, utility or function, then no matter how nice the new stuff for balance druids is, it will remain a sub-par. The new stuff is nice and relevant, in particular the new AoE and the rotation of eclipse, they're just a bit limp. All need tiny boosts to either power, or functionality (like Typhoon having a slow) or cooldown adjustments (mainly ImKa, Starfall, Eclipse).

Like most of you I think we want this tree to finally come of age and not continuously remain in the shadow or eclipsed by every other dps caster.

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Old 08/07/08, 7:20 AM   #490
Roywyn
Bald Bull
 
Roywyn's Avatar
 
Roywyn
Gnome Mage
 
No WoW Account (EU)
Originally Posted by Cycloni View Post
I am very interested to see how our current dps measures up against other dps casters. With the state of our talents somewhat confusing, and a lot of worry over the likes of Lunar Guidance nerfing our scaling, and the weakness of the likes of Eclipse/ImkA questions is were they right to nerf Imp Moonkin Aura?
I've been toying around with different caster classes and it looks like you're 10% ahead of shaman, 10% below mages and 30% behind warlocks. That's just damage on the meters, not including synergies at all.
I didn't model priests, but they are still way behind as their main filler can't crit and scales badly with spell power.

There's still lots of tuning going around and simple talent changes (Scorch/Winter's Chill affecting Arcane) can throw everything around.
It also assumes Druids use the Starfire/Moonfire glyph combination, and no glyphs for other classes.

That's just early simply models, but it's not looking bad so far.
I used 3k spell power to set the focus on scaling, not base damage.

Chaotic Meta Gems in Cataclysm: http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t106009-...2/#post1794256

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput
The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

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Old 08/07/08, 9:33 AM   #491
Melkortopia
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Moonrunner
Grinding/AoE

I have a beta resto druid that I have specced Moonkin and I've found something that's rather cool. Solo-AoE ability:

Owlkin Frenzy: 15% chance when hit, increasing damage done by 10% and being immune to balance spell pushback.
Improved thorns: Makes thorns do 120 damage or so per hit with my spell power and Owlkin Frenzy up
Gale Winds: +50% damage on Hurricane
Starfall: (Currenly broken; there's only one rank) But it's instant cast, so might as well put it up there and let it nuke stuff.

So what I've been doing is getting on my mount, running around and gathering a ton of mobs, hitting barkskin, then buffing myself with starfall, and casting hurricane with starfall active on me. With all the damage multipliers above, almost every mob dies in the first hurricane. (Sometimes an extra hurricane on top of that is needed too.)

(Starfall isn't really needed, but when it's fixed, the AoE damage output will be even more insane.)

Anyway, I don't know if they'll "fix" it or not, but it's pretty powerful - and fun! Owlkin Frenzy is not to be underestimated.

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Old 08/07/08, 9:46 AM   #492
Panoramixe
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Nordrassil (EU)
This is a post of mine on the official EU forums, just wondering if people could give some feedback with theorycrafting, experience, ideas on the issues. (I'm just hoping it will end up on the beta forums so we might get some concrete answers.)

Pve issues:

The spells: Starfire and Wrath
The issue: Very low base damage compared to spells of other classes, already ruins single target dps a little.
The solution: Buff the base damage?

The talent: Improved Moonkin Aura
The issue: It has way too long of a cool down, combined with it not stacking with wrath of air totem makes it lack buster.
The solution: Lower the cool down to about 8 seconds, to make it acceptable.

The talent: Earth and moon
The issue: It is just weak compared to improved scorch since the buff, imp scorch buffs 3 schools for 10% damage.
The solution: To buff earth and moon to an acceptable level it should go to 15% for 2 schools would make sense relatively speaking. Most druids, however, would be glad with it becoming a 10% buff.

The talent: Eclipse
The issue: Has a very long cool down, making more than one point in it useless. (Theory crafting has shown that one points will result in a ~1,6% damage increase and three points a ~2,3% increase, a bit bad for three points imo.)
The solution: Either buff the talent or lower the cool down to one minute.

The talent: Lunar Guidance
The issue: It has been nerfed, for the healing part I believe.
The solution: Make it have double effect in moonkin form. This would make it balanced for healing and not nerf it without any reason damage wise.

The talent: Brambles
The issues:
- Thorns doesn’t depend on the caster’s but on the target’s spellpower.
- Force of Nature could do with some more love
The solution: A change for thorns is quite needed and buffing the damage of the treant by 30/50% would be appreciated by many too.

The talent: Dreamstate
The issue: Due to some mana mechanics changes this talent became less useful than it should be.
The solution: Add some extra synergy with spirit to the talent to get our gear and talents in line, for example add a crit from spirit or extra mp5 from spirit to the talent.

Resto talents are tailored for feral druids at the lower tiers, moonkin; however, need to pick up two useless points. A fix would be to swap master shape shifter to tier 2, but keeping the prereq.

Pvp issues:

The talent: Starfall
The issue: It can be dispelled and spell stolen. It has a long cool down and its use is quite situational.
The solution: It needs dispell resistance; it would also be awesome to add a mana burn effect similar to the engineering arcane bomb. It’s a 3 minute cool down and fairly weak in its current state for pvp, add to that the fact moonkin have nothing to counter casters and you have a perfect solution.

The talent: Typhoon
The issue: There’s a delay on the knock back, which is also fairly low.
The solution: Make the knock back instant, like intended probably. It would also be great if the knock back would be buffed to 7-10 yards so we are actually out of melee range. An extra option would be to double the knock back on crits.
It would also be appreciated if a slow would be added to the targets hit by typhoon.

The talent: Force of Nature
The issues: Easily killed, little damage, no added effects, lack buster compared to other similar talents.
The solution: Give it either an added effect and/or reverse the brambles nerf from alpha, aka 75% more damage for trees. Added effects could be a random casting of roots from the treants, weak rejuvenations, tranquillity like spells or an explosion when killed causing a silence or something similar. In short a little bit extra to make it a worthwhile 41-pointer.

The talent: Owlkin Frenzy
The issue: Spell pushback is not useful for wrath, our main pvp spell and it can be removed by hunters
The solution: Either make starfire worth casting in pvp, like the current arena set bonus for example, or change the talent to also make you immune to silence/interrupt mechanics.

The talent: Brambles
The issues:
- A short daze on barkskin is close to useless
- The daze for treants is useful but suffers from the trees being a bit weak
- The added damage would be quite good if thorns depends on the caster’s and not the target’s spell power.
The solution: Either change thorns like before mentioned and/or add the daze to thorns again.

The talent: Subtlety
The issue: Doesn’t have dispell resistance for balance spells anymore.
The solution: Either add it to subtlety again or combine it with lunar guidance or a similar talent.

The spell: Thorns
The issue: It needs some love.
The solution:
- Brambles (see above)
- A damage reduction based on caster’s spellpower.
- A proc chance to give bonus spellpower or other sort of other beneficial effect.
- Just to mention again, make the damage dependant on the caster’s and not the target’s spellpower.

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Old 08/07/08, 10:11 AM   #493
erragal
Don Flamenco
 
Troll Priest
 
Wildhammer
Originally Posted by Panoramixe View Post
This is a post of mine on the official EU forums, just wondering if people could give some feedback with theorycrafting, experience, ideas on the issues. (I'm just hoping it will end up on the beta forums so we might get some concrete answers.)

Pve issues:

The spells: Starfire and Wrath
The issue: Very low base damage compared to spells of other classes, already ruins single target dps a little.
The solution: Buff the base damage?

The talent: Improved Moonkin Aura
The issue: It has way too long of a cool down, combined with it not stacking with wrath of air totem makes it lack buster.
The solution: Lower the cool down to about 8 seconds, to make it acceptable.

The talent: Earth and moon
The issue: It is just weak compared to improved scorch since the buff, imp scorch buffs 3 schools for 10% damage.
The solution: To buff earth and moon to an acceptable level it should go to 15% for 2 schools would make sense relatively speaking. Most druids, however, would be glad with it becoming a 10% buff.

The talent: Eclipse
The issue: Has a very long cool down, making more than one point in it useless. (Theory crafting has shown that one points will result in a ~1,6% damage increase and three points a ~2,3% increase, a bit bad for three points imo.)
The solution: Either buff the talent or lower the cool down to one minute.


1. Base damage is totally irrelevant in PVE, scaling is much more important. No one will have less than 1200 spell damage in level 80 greens/blues.

2. Way too many people seem to want the cooldown eliminated on IMA (8 second cooldown would effectively eliminate it). That's not going to happen, and I don't feel much is wrong with this talent actually.

3. I feel E&M is fairly weak for a 5 point talent as well. I don't know if increasing the raid-wide debuff percentages is going to be an option (Due to collective balance), but perhaps adding a secondary self-dps buff would be reasonable. Or perhaps even a defensive component (1% chance to miss stacking to 5%, doesn't stack with Scorpid sting. Ends up being a raid dps increase by allowing one hunter to use other Stings, and goes with the stated goal of making debuffs available from multiple classes)

4. Eclipse isn't good enough right now. This one definitely needs a good pass, once it's tuned properly I feel our dps will be scaling exactly like it should. Personally I would be happy with just a 3 or 5% flat crit rate increase. Boring but stronger than it is now. A real unique suggestion? Make it two talents. Make both of them activated cooldown abilities (similar to icy veins) with the same buffs they have now, and give each a two minute cooldown. It goes from a poor talent, to the two most versatile and play changing talents in the tree. It also plays nicer with our starfire until moonfire is stacked high enough rotation. That's not really going to happen, but it's clear this talent needs a significant change.

I don't feel the rest of the stuff is as pressing when it comes to PVE performance; our mana is looking to be very good if you're specced properly. Dreamstate may be a superflous talent with OoC and mana on crit.

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Old 08/07/08, 10:17 AM   #494
erragal
Don Flamenco
 
Troll Priest
 
Wildhammer
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
I've been toying around with different caster classes and it looks like you're 10% ahead of shaman, 10% below mages and 30% behind warlocks. .


I'll ask you this Roywyn, since you've been doing a lot of testing: do dots still only receive the benefit of debuffs if they are on during application?

This is an important point for our potential dps rotation, where currently you'd need to wait a good 10-15 seconds into the fight before applying your initial moonfire or you could see a huge drop in your DPS. Have to make sure E&M, Scorch, Focus Magic etc. are all up and running before you put that high dot moonfire on.

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Old 08/07/08, 10:25 AM   #495
Panoramixe
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Nordrassil (EU)
Originally Posted by erragal View Post
1. Base damage is totally irrelevant in PVE, scaling is much more important. No one will have less than 1200 spell damage in level 80 greens/blues.

2. Way too many people seem to want the cooldown eliminated on IMA (8 second cooldown would effectively eliminate it). That's not going to happen, and I don't feel much is wrong with this talent actually.

3. I feel E&M is fairly weak for a 5 point talent as well. I don't know if increasing the raid-wide debuff percentages is going to be an option (Due to collective balance), but perhaps adding a secondary self-dps buff would be reasonable. Or perhaps even a defensive component (1% chance to miss stacking to 5%, doesn't stack with Scorpid sting. Ends up being a raid dps increase by allowing one hunter to use other Stings, and goes with the stated goal of making debuffs available from multiple classes)

4. Eclipse isn't good enough right now. This one definitely needs a good pass, once it's tuned properly I feel our dps will be scaling exactly like it should. Personally I would be happy with just a 3 or 5% flat crit rate increase. Boring but stronger than it is now. A real unique suggestion? Make it two talents. Make both of them activated cooldown abilities (similar to icy veins) with the same buffs they have now, and give each a two minute cooldown. It goes from a poor talent, to the two most versatile and play changing talents in the tree. It also plays nicer with our starfire until moonfire is stacked high enough rotation. That's not really going to happen, but it's clear this talent needs a significant change.

I don't feel the rest of the stuff is as pressing when it comes to PVE performance; our mana is looking to be very good if you're specced properly. Dreamstate may be a superflous talent with OoC and mana on crit.

1 It wouldn't be such a concern if it wasn't for the 200 damage difference between starfire and other 3.5 sec cast spells, I know it's less of an issue than overall scaling but there is no reason for it either.

2 IMKA is group only and doesn't stack with wrath of air totem, so it's a 10% haste bonus with a maximum of 26% uptime. It's just pretty weak.
Edit: So far elemental shamans are the only ones that would be able to keep the buff up for close to 100% if they time their dps cyrcle around it, because of lava burst that is.
Every other class would be haunted by the RNG and it'd be very unlikely they'd come close to a 75% uptime of the buff, it would be more around the range of 30-50% with an 8 second cool down.


I just summed all the concerns I've read in a clear formot, so the devs could see easier what people think are the issues. Some are more pressing than others, but it's better sum up more than being quiet.

Last edited by Panoramixe : 08/07/08 at 10:36 AM.

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Old 08/07/08, 10:45 AM   #496
erragal
Don Flamenco
 
Troll Priest
 
Wildhammer
Originally Posted by Saraya View Post
1) Stacking of Shaman Totem and Improved Moonkin Aura
Yes, it stacks! Starfire:
2.84 base cast
2.58 totem only
2.37 aura only
2.15 totem + aura
1.79 totem + aura + ng
This is a relief, but the 30 second cooldown is still too long.


It does stack though.

EDIT: Elemental shamans won't be using lava burst in their rotation.


I suppose my contention is that everyone wants it to be VERY powerful, but it doesn't need to be. Between E&M, regular Moonkin aura, IMA as is, and IFF we have a very large amount of utility. We're also currently balanced as the third highest caster DPS class, above Spriests and Elemental Shaman (And I don't see that order changing considering the amount of power shamans as a class bring to the raid). I'm all for fixing talents that just aren't worthwhile for the points (Like Eclipse and E&M), but I've always felt it's unproductive to ask for buffs in a place that they aren't necessarily needed. Focused suggestions with good analysis are met with more positivity than broad sweeping desires where if all of the changes are made would unbalance us.

I'd rather have a fixed E&M and Eclipse, with current IMA; As opposed to potentially getting a stronger IMA that leaves us with poor higher tier talents or a future nerf to our personal DPS.

I entirely agree that making a good collected post of ideas/potential changes is important especially during the key beta timeframe.

Last edited by erragal : 08/07/08 at 10:52 AM.

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Old 08/07/08, 11:00 AM   #497
Panoramixe
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Nordrassil (EU)
I'm not sure I trust that quote.
It's known that outside haste buffs don't stack on live at the moment, that was implemented 2 major patches ago I believe. So either they change the way haste works in WoTLK or that person made a mistake.

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Old 08/07/08, 11:07 AM   #498
erragal
Don Flamenco
 
Troll Priest
 
Wildhammer
Originally Posted by Panoramixe View Post
I'm not sure I trust that quote.
It's known that outside haste buffs don't stack on live at the moment, that was implemented 2 major patches ago I believe. So either they change the way haste works in WoTLK or that person made a mistake.
Well have you considered the possibility that IMA isn't considered a non-personal source because the caster who crits triggers the proc? Moonkin aura is a buff on a given caster, and the IMA proc is sourced from the buff (Not the moonkin directly). That's a very viable (If convoluted) explanation; or they changed the way non-personal haste works. Either one is plausible, and certainly not unbelievable.

That said if you read this entire thread (Which the quote is from) , you would know that Saraya has tested several things and I don't see why you wouldn't believe what she/he says. I'm not sure what kind of mistake there is to be made in that type of a test, other than the possibility that it's only stacking for the moonkin and not other group members (Or perhaps only the moonkin and the shaman?). Certainly more detailed tests need to be done, but that doesn't invalidate that one.

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Old 08/07/08, 11:28 AM   #499
Erdluf
Great Tiger
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Echo Isles
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
I've been toying around with different caster classes and it looks like you're 10% ahead of shaman, 10% below mages and 30% behind warlocks. That's just damage on the meters, not including synergies at all.
I didn't model priests, but they are still way behind as their main filler can't crit and scales badly with spell power.

There's still lots of tuning going around and simple talent changes (Scorch/Winter's Chill affecting Arcane) can throw everything around.
It also assumes Druids use the Starfire/Moonfire glyph combination, and no glyphs for other classes.

That's just early simply models, but it's not looking bad so far.
I used 3k spell power to set the focus on scaling, not base damage.
At 3k spell power, those glyphs boost our DPS and DPM by roughly 15%. If the other classes get a similar boost from glyphs, are we looking at:

1) Single-target personal DPS Druid < Shaman < Mage < Warlock
2) Raid single-target DPS buffs Mage < Druid < Shaman < Warlock
3) AoE DPS Shaman < Druid < Warlock < Mage
4) CC Shaman < Druid < Warlock < Mage

?

Also I'm not sure if you can do solid AoE DPS (Owlkin Frenzy and Gale Winds seem to be required) in a build which maximizes single-target DPS.

I trust Saraya's testing, at the time. Considering comments on other boards I wonder if a recent patch may have changed the behavior. If it stacks, the aura is worth perhaps 4% to the party's DPS. If not, that drops to 2% when the Shaman haste is present.

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Old 08/07/08, 11:45 AM   #500
erragal
Don Flamenco
 
Troll Priest
 
Wildhammer
Originally Posted by Erdluf View Post
At 3k spell power, those glyphs boost our DPS and DPM by roughly 15%. If the other classes get a similar boost from glyphs, are we looking at:
I just wish we could see the whole picture, so real analysis can be done with all the pieces in place before the beta is done. I understand numbers can be tweaked after the fact, but it's always easier to get things changed during a beta period. It's certainly possible other classes glyphs aren't as powerful as ours, or perhaps more powerful. I also haven't seen a single major druid pass since the open beta started, so we'll be due for one at some point before release (Mages and DK's have been getting the bulk of the attention recently, for obvious reasons.).

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