The quote was from the druid perspective so could be that IMKA only stacks for the druid itself and could be counted as an outside buff for groupmembers.

My apologies if I'm a tad sceptic, I'd just like some concrete moonkin info from the beta forums of which we have none yet.

yes, it's possible, but highly unlikely, we've always lagged in everything we're given behind other classes, I see no reason why the Glyphs will be different, simply because if they are better for druids, other classes will moan, they will then nerf the druid glyphs and buff the other class glyphs and once again druids will be looking up at every other class.

Off coruse I hope this doesn't happen, I hope that WotLK finally breaks the trend of druids nerfed to sub-par basis always and blizzard in every change rigrously ensure the druid isn't unfairly or accidentally penalised either through negligence or multiple effect.

Saying that, Improved Moonkin Aura, needs a cooldown reduction, not a s low as 8secs perhaps, but in the region of 12-15secs which is half it's current cooldown, it's overall dps contribution is about 6-7 % with a 11secs cooldown and 40% crit, Improved Scorch and CoE will give you more dps. So, maybe 8 secs is not such a bad idea. You want moonkin presence felt, not barely noticed. You should be tired of being marginalised in a big setting. Not content to just let it go with Warlocks churning out up to a third more dps and being more useful to have around.

Improved Faerie Fire alone would be powerful enough to bring us to a raid. It almost seems like those clamoring for these enormous buffs to IMA, totally ignore everything else we have. I think part of it was that original ridiculously stupid version that had 100% haste, making everyone believe THAT talent was our big WOTLK buff.

Honestly Cycloni, I'm surprised you're not complaining about the new Winter's Chill being unacceptable because it's better than our basic moonkin aura. Maybe you just don't know about it yet?


No one wants to be marginalized, but as I keep trying to stress (Apparently on deaf ears), pick fights that you know you can win. Things like getting our talent bloat shaved a few points, or getting our two top tier pve talents adjusted to be powerful instead of minimal. Those are things you can argue at this point. It's really difficult to argue numbers and "Our class vs. this class" at this stage because classes are still getting talent passes and rebalanced. No one's numbers are set in stone or near final. Why make suggestions based on "Oh we need a XX% reduction in the cooldown of IMA" when you don't actually have any statistical proof to base that statement on. You're just saying it because you want it. It's good to get rough ideas of how we compare to the other classes at this poiint (Thanks to Roywyn and Erdluf), but it's not going to sway anyone making your suggestions based on that math (Mage talents have changed four or five times at least in the past two weeks).

On the other hand if you make the honest suggestion that "Earth and Moon is not providing enough value for its' place in our tree and the number of points you use on it" you can SHOW how that's the case. You can SHOW that Eclipse is a weak talent that has serious logistical problems. You can SHOW our talent point crunch (Thought it may be intentional?).

Trust me, I want this spec to be the best it can be in a raid setting. But it's important to know that a developer will value positive constructive ideas, not the concept that we deserve more because we never had anything.

The major issue right now is that the PvE balance druid got 15 pts worth of PvE talents added to the deep end of the balance tree while only 10 talent points in total were given to us. (Resto stayed the same, from 15 to 15.) The bottom of the tree IS bloated at this point, and really needs to be re-examined as we're stuck putting 4/5 1/3-type specs in stuff like Earth and Moon, Eclipse, and Improved Moonkin Aura instead of topping them off.

True, for the first Moonkin in a 25-man raid. Should it be a major sacrifice if the raid decides to bring a second Moonkin rather than a second Warlock (on that night where the Scorch mage can't make it)?

In a ten-man, IFF will make up for perhaps 15-20% poorer DPS, not more.

Five of six friends are going to run a tough 5-man. Equal gear levels. Prot-Warrior/Holy Priest/Rogue/Mage/Warlock/Moonkin. Who do you leave behind? In TBC the answer should usually be "the Druid." I'd like the answer in WotLK to improve to "have the four DPS /roll."

I really don't mind having too many talents to chose from. If the balance tree had 700 places to spend a talent point, and any talent point was a 10% boost to DPS, I'd settle for my 710% increased DPS (although I'd lust after the potential for a 7000% improvement).

It's really annoying to spend "garbage" points to get to the good talents. If you take any of the tier-3 resto talents, you'll probably take them all (or at least most of them). Master Shapeshifter is not worth 12 talent points, Omen of Clarity is not worth 11 talent points, and Intensity is not worth 13 talent points. Bundle them into a package, though, and getting all three for 16 points starts to look attractive.

Imagine that NS allowed for instant-cast Hurricane. You'd start to see 50/0/21 builds. In a sense Balance becomes "stronger" even though it also becomes more bloated.

Don't know about you, but with our CC finally getting on equal footing with rest of the classes - I'd say rogue would get left behind (for tough 5 man - CC is key, and ours is usable in combat - unlike sap). I am talking of course about roots... not cyclone.

Anyone notice his mana bar?
He unloaded Regrowth + 1 more heal, Moonkin shift, Starfall (awsome animation), One unknown aoe (typhoon?), 2xHurricane, and by the end of it all, his never dropped below 90%, and by the end of the chain went back to 100%. If this is how mana regen is in beta for moonkins, then it's much better than it is now.

Hybrid DPS specs are all designed around you wanting one and only one. Shadow priests, moonkins, enchant/elemental shaman and ret paladins are all in the same boat there. It seems to be a deliberate design decision to make the first one add a heap to the raid and the second add nothing. Even some of the DPS classes are seeing similar things, you're ideally going to want one and only one affliction and demonology lock too.

Given they've said 5 mans are going to be balanced around the idea that a DPS specced warrior can tank them, I think it's a safe bet you'll be able to take whatever DPS you want. Heck, if they hit the mark they say they're aiming for you should be able to leave the prot warrior or the holy priest behind and have the moonkin fill that role without a respec.

I did say "tough" five man. You seem to be saying that WotLK will have no tough five-mans (not even heroics?). Or maybe they're just a different kind of tough. Well, if a Fury Warrior (or a Moonkin specced 30% -threat) can tank it, it probably means that a Balance druid can heal it with a Prot Warrior for a tank. If that is the case all six can /roll, since anyone is replacable.

I'm also not sure that I'd call Roots superior to Sap. Advantage of roots is that it can be cast during te fight. Advantage of Sap is that it can easily CC a caster (or other with ranged abilities). I suppose roots has a chance of not breaking when somebody hits him by accident. For a "random" TBC five-man, Sap sounds better to me.

Critical hits from starfall are taking advantage of the moonkin effect of gaining 2% max mana on spell crit. No idea if it'll stay that way though.

I also got lucky and got a clearcast making the second hurricane free, so it was all regen time. You can't count on clearcast but when it happens it's nice.

I meant more that if a fury warrior can tank it by throwing on prot gear then a moonkin should be able to tank it by throwing on their bear gear.

I don't know what the challenge level is intended for 5 mans. If they're balancing around the idea non-prot are expected to be able to tank them, they can't be that hard. Although threat for non-prot specs should be better now, which was a major issue before. I guess you'd be giving up mitigation more than anything, which can probably be compensated for by using more CC (and just about everyone has some form of CC now).

The warrior goes from 80% (or is it 70 now ?) to 145% threat when switching stances. We stay at the basic 100% for feral moves or 70% if trying to moonkin tank.
So no, it's definitely not the same thing. We might heal an easy instance but we shouldn't tank it, not for survivability reasons but simply threat generation.

I'm really interested in what stacks with what and what is raid wide and party wide, i think that's some information that we really need to better undestand synergies and stuff (though that's more the raid lead in me than the moonkin speaking).

All tanking classes got their +threat rolled into the basic "tank stance" (defensive/bear/ice/righteous fury), so every druid gets 145% threat in bear form. Sure, lack of mangle is going to hurt a resto or moonkin's threat generation, but if you need a tank and there's no other option, I don't think tanking an instance is out of the question if they're balanced around the idea a fury warrior can tank them.

As far as stacking goes, from the blue comments it sounds like that's all under review. It certainly sounds like the current intention is that things wont stack, thus giving you multiple options from where to get the various buffs.

Bear form gets 145% threat now no matter what you're specced.

That said, nobody is going to try to bear tank with balance talents nor should we be able to. That's a stupid idea and is a dumb line of discussion so let's stop.

I never complain about the buffs of another class being too powerful. When they raise other classes I play beyond another class I play unfairly, I would comment on the left out class insisting that it gets buffed to compensate.

I ask you this question, why on earth would you play or role a moonkin in WotLK? With Warlocks, Mages and Ele Shaman like they are, shadow priests even?

Yeah, but if you don't present all the aspects that you are really concerned about they would only pay attention to the ones you are in this stage, and then when you bring up the other, you'd have to wait till the next patch, and you will be perpetually one or two patches or up to an entire expansion behind everyone else. I am agreeing wtih the people who insist on saying it all and not holding back, the balance community has seldom been ambitious about getting fair treatment, only going for one thing at a time being fully aware the are about 8 that need redressing.

It is almost impossible without sinking huge amounts of time very few people have to accurately portray numbers, I agree with you there, but if you're looking more "crap" and lesser than your peers, come on you do notice it, --- feel the druid man, it's weak, it's got some nice stuff, but you're looking at a spell caster that does not measure up to the other dps casters in any department, worse, is that you are quite limited, you are only using a 3rd of your core class, so have tons of your core abilities either totally useless (feral ones) or marginally useful (resto ones), I was reading some EU posts about that the other day, and wondering why blizzard hasn't even bothered to make druid core abilities in feral and resto schools do something for balance dps casting seeing that a balance druid doesn't really melee for melee damage/tanking sake, and rarely heals for healing sake, surely effort should have been made to use those core abilities to aid spell casting, there aren't that many, why do you think I supported Balancemoon (who must be Ravenmoon's) mana on melee thing so much.

Less of a class in every respect, in WotLK, it looks like all balance has going for it that the others don't is AoE tanking/utility. But in every other department of spell casting it is either the worse of the 9 specs or the second to worse. And it has such poor class utilisation.

yes you can, and it's great that you and others like Lisana, Ravenmoon, Heavenfall, Delphine etc are doing that, but don't forget the bigger picture, you have to measure up in the end. Why on earth play a balance druid?

Just that you have failed to explain so far when another class got buffed "unfairly" over us. Not to mention that I find the concept of "fairness" pretty funny in the context of balancing the game.

On another note, mages seem to expect getting AoE avoidance for their water elemental, as Lhivera wrote in their trhead:
The logical extension of that would be to give it to treants as well, who are even more in danger of getting hit by boss AoE than the water elemental.

Roots will no longer break on any damage. The mechanics of roots, fear and maim is changed so it will keep working until certain % of mobs health is gone. It is a good change, since it will make roots more reliable against melee than sheep. And a warlock can even dot the guy without worrying it'll break.

I was really thinking of things at the heroic level. For "leveling" instances, you don't need tank-specced tanks or holy-specced healers. At least you usually didn't in TBC or old-world leveling instances. Having them made things easier, but they weren't necessary. This made sense, because not many people liked to level with resto or prot specs.

I was certainly bear-tanking and healing Hellfire and Zanger-marsh instances with a 48/0/x spec and gear. That just doesn't make sense in a heroic.

I'd assume that a level 71 instance will be tuned for pugs with eight hours (each) /played at 70. That means that even an off-spec will be able to heal or tank it if they have T4 or S1 gear and reasonable skill.

On the other hand, I'd expect 80 heroics to require tanks, healers, and DPS to be properly specced and geared (gear should mean something better than the stuff from outdoor quests or leftovers from SWP content). You aren't going to bring DPS that can't contribute.

The main reason you bring DPS is to boost single target DPS (duh). Our general utility (healing/CC/AoE) is getting a big boost in WotLK. I still think our DPS needs to be close (10% ?) to the top DPS classes to be useful as anything other than "we can't find a mage/rogue/warlock/hunter, so lets take the moonkin."

Well they have said they didn't think the effort/reward ratio was there with the heroics. Whether that means they're buffing the rewards, reducing the effort, or both, who knows?

I think the way buffs look to be going (multiple classes can provide them) you have to expect hybrid DPS to be closer to pure DPS across the board. Giving a buff is not enough if that buff can come from other places.

For 5 mans I'm not sure raw DPS is the problem anyway. The difference between in DPS between a good player and an average one is easily 20%, and between a good one and a moron more like 50%+, so the class isn't so much of an issue. For getting into a 5 man, it seems CC has always been more of a sticking point than the ability to do DPS. I know one mage who did horrifically bad DPS (struggle to beat the tank level) who a tank friend of mine would always take because he is "very reliable at keeping a mob sheeped".

I'm not sure that is a recent change. My hypothises is (no quantitative data, just a qualitative feeling) that the break mechanics are approximately:

At every root tick:

1. Add the mob's spell-miss (1% if you were hit-capped) to the fraction of total health the mob lost since the last tick.
2. /roll 50
3. If (2) <= (1), roots break.

Roots will usually, but not always run to full duration if you are hit capped and do no other damage to the mob.
Roots + IS + IS (taking a mob to 50% health) seems (very very roughly) 50% likely to run to full duration.
MF Roots IS seems to often (50% ?) break before the MF DoT is done. SF MF Roots IS has the same behavior.
SF during roots for a normal mob will usually, but not always cause them to break. SF during roots for an elite mob will usually not cause them to break.

If anyone wants to get quantitative numbers, an easy place to test the elite/non-elite thing is the SSO Blood for Blood quest in Hellfire.

disclaimer: wall of text incoming of a non-native speaker...so stay nice!

Erragal and Cicloni both approaches (pragmatism vs. idealism) during beta test have their merits. They are actually complementary. So, I like to encourage you to not struggle with each other.

Why?
A.) We need facts about spells/talents/mechanics of the Moonkin abilities within WotLK.
AND
B.) We need to define a Baseline, better Targetline, to measure balance druid modifications in WotLK from a Druids perspective.

For solving A.) it is obviously easier to start with the things where we know more details and expect less change, but nevertheless we should do with all expected changes something like a "sensitive analysis" or in other words:
Does it bring Balance druids closer to our target role?

and there we are at B.)...
I think it is a reasonable point of cicloni to make us aware not jumping to short and underestimating our needs in comparison to other classes. We want to be equal "viable" as other caster classes in PVE and PVP.
Viability = Ability to fill a certain (PVE/PVP) role when competing with other classes.
What kind of role? - It is surely something between "King of Damage" and pure Utility (grp/raid enhancement)

From all the discussions here you can identify several key abilities for such a role:
- doing comparable damage
- offering unique support to raids/groups/PvP
- having comparable survivability

Probably this seems rather basic to all of you. In fact it is.
The problem starts when you want to be equal viable but not identical with other classes! This is called "Balancing" and in my opinion ultimately NOT our task! This is Blizzards task.

In my opinion, our task at this stage of development is to provide Blizzard with a judgement about the level of fullfilment of the aforementioned key abilities from our subjective druid perspective with as many facts as possible and we should ask for change of every talent/spell/mechanics/etc. which interferes with our target.
Keep also in mind: Getting nerfed is easier than Getting Improved!

Thanks at this point to the Beta Testers that provide us with detailed information.

My hope/expectation is shorter Heroics. I think the difficulty and rewards can be the same on a per-fight basis, you'll just have fewer fights. If you still want to kill 4 bosses (rather than 2), just run two heroics.

Currently a casual player can queue and run a BG in a 30 minute session, and six or more SSO dailies in an hour. The penalty for /afk in either case is small. To put together a heroic pug and run the instance pretty much requires a commitment of 2.5 hours or so, isolated from random RL interruptions.