Moonkin WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 53

• Adoriele · 09/16/08, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by Lorewanderer

I was disappointed to find out that I couldn't make it to the testing dummies on my own as a 70 (74 to get ported up, and I didn't catch any mages/warlocks on who could summon me), so I didn't do any testing on coefficients. When the locks I know get to 74 I'll copy over a fresh version and see.

Starfall:
This is is a very fun spell. Casting it then standing/running about while it rains down on everything around you is a blast.
The size of the AOE got me in trouble a few times early on, as I'd have four or five mobs on me to start and it would aggro an additional few I hadn't realized were close enough. Once I got a feel for the range though, I went to town with it.
It remains to be seen where the cutoff is for useful numbers of clumped mobs from a DPS perspective. I hope it is competitive, because it is so much fun I'd hate to see it get passed over.
I can see it having some very amusing PvP implications, as you can be doing other things while the stars rain down. My experience as balance is almost exclusively PvE though, so I'll leave it to those with more familiarity to comment on it there.

There are test dummies in Org =P Also, Starfall to bring them in, then Hurricane is complete win.

Montegomery · 09/16/08, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by erragal

*snip*

Do you feel it can solve assist trains if people are in front and behind you? The facing issue seems very inadequate for actually getting people off of you, and the knockback is very brief. I may be underestimating the range just due to the huge delay between cast and damage being dealt.

The new 51 point fire mage and frost mage talents are instant burst damage spells that are important part of their rotations, particularly Living Bomb which acts as a mana dump. Warlocks Conflag keeps getting tuned in a way that seems to be pushing them to incorporate it. Shadow Priests have SW

eath and Mind Blast as burst damage spells on cooldown. I don't even think a burst damage instant is the be all, end all...but it's easier to suggest a modification of Typhoon to fill a hole than being generic or making up talents.

I suppose my contention is that in arenas/pvp situations I've been in I would have valued a strong instant burst ability with the spell interrupt, over a mild burst ability interrupt hitting multiple people. I can definitely see the value as a support attack when a healer is being assisted on...but doesn't Starfall serve a similar purpose with the stun?

What type of thoughts do you have on a way to utilize our mana that doesn't just double the mana cost of Starfire?

Obviously Typhoon isn't 100% effective on an assist train that is spread out or surrounding you. However, the momentary reprieve it can give from at least some of the damage can be crucial in the razor thin lines of the arena. Additionally, it can be used to get people off someone else in which case facing isn't as big an issue. Facing in general is something that Mages have been dealing with for years, it's just another AoE mechanic that no one else has had to deal with before.

Starfall serves a similar purpose with the stun, but being able to stack multiple disruptive effects together is necessary to slow and even break an assist train. Having the stuns and the knockback is better than just the stuns.

You are correct that bursty instants are having a greater place in PvE, but their application is unique to the class. However, your argument is too general. Living Bomb is not burst in the traditional sense, it's a DoT with a direct damage AoE at its conclusion. Mind Blast is not instant, even if it is bursty.

The question therefore is, what exactly is it that we want? Are we looking for a mana dump or a burst damage spell? Are we looking for both in one spell, or could they be separate? I don't have any immediate ideas, but it strikes me that there are no new baseline Balance spells between 70 and 80. That leaves room for at least one new spell to address one or both of these issues.

Lambach · 09/16/08, 1:01 PM

Hey guys,
I havnt been able to find this in the last few pages, and its a recent bug I've had on ptr. Every time I put points into genesis, when I zone in or out of an instance, it untalents them. I keep any points spent above genesis, even if I dont have the prereqs for them. I filled out a bug report, but I wasnt sure if this was effecting everyone or just was something I was suffering with.

On the bloat of our tree:
I've been playing with the spec a lot on beta, and I'm fairly disapointed at its current state. It gives us a lot of options, but it seems that those options make it so that we have to almost respec per encounter. We have MANY buffs that are shared with other classes, and taking (some) of them prevents us from fully taking our single target or aoe talents.

It leaves us a great asset for a raid to have all those different buffs, but really seems to make it a pain in the ass for us when wotlk goes live. Some raids we'll use all of our raid buffs and greatly deserve our raid spot. Other raids maybe all the buffs are handled by other classes, and we'll be just sub par dps.

It was really great in TBC to be a buffing class and have a nice spot no one else could take in a raid, but in wotlk it seems much more like you have to also justify your raid position. And since we have to take something like 14 points in buff talents, it makes it difficult(not even including imp motw).

I just really hope we get another talent preview pass, and they streamline some of it. Generally I like balance, but I feel that besides eclipse(which is neat, but the uselessness of wrath makes it annoying), we only got some new aoe and some buff spells as our new abilities.

• Adoriele · 09/16/08, 1:20 PM

Originally Posted by Lambach

Hey guys,
I havnt been able to find this in the last few pages, and its a recent bug I've had on ptr. Every time I put points into genesis, when I zone in or out of an instance, it untalents them. I keep any points spent above genesis, even if I dont have the prereqs for them. I filled out a bug report, but I wasnt sure if this was effecting everyone or just was something I was suffering with.

On the bloat of our tree:
I've been playing with the spec a lot on beta, and I'm fairly disapointed at its current state. It gives us a lot of options, but it seems that those options make it so that we have to almost respec per encounter. We have MANY buffs that are shared with other classes, and taking (some) of them prevents us from fully taking our single target or aoe talents.

It leaves us a great asset for a raid to have all those different buffs, but really seems to make it a pain in the ass for us when wotlk goes live. Some raids we'll use all of our raid buffs and greatly deserve our raid spot. Other raids maybe all the buffs are handled by other classes, and we'll be just sub par dps.

It was really great in TBC to be a buffing class and have a nice spot no one else could take in a raid, but in wotlk it seems much more like you have to also justify your raid position. And since we have to take something like 14 points in buff talents, it makes it difficult(not even including imp motw).

I just really hope we get another talent preview pass, and they streamline some of it. Generally I like balance, but I feel that besides eclipse(which is neat, but the uselessness of wrath makes it annoying), we only got some new aoe and some buff spells as our new abilities.

I think this sums things up pretty effectively. We have too much raid synergy right now, and much as I hate to see it, I think we need to lose some. We have 12 talent points we spend on raid synergy, though one of those points no serious Moonkin would go without. That's a huge investment that we'd have to change up regularly based on who else is in the raid, points which could effectively be used elsewhere. Best place to drop would be Earth and Moon. It's covered in two other places, and represents the largest talent investment, as well as opening up a whole tier for more interesting talents for us to take. Perhaps by moving Eclipse there and making it 100% on crit. I don't get the point of having two percentages working against us on that talent, especially when we don't have an insta-crit talent like Paladins and Shamen.

Axanor · 09/16/08, 1:27 PM

On the bloat of our tree:
I've been playing with the spec a lot on beta, and I'm fairly disapointed at its current state. It gives us a lot of options, but it seems that those options make it so that we have to almost respec per encounter. We have MANY buffs that are shared with other classes, and taking (some) of them prevents us from fully taking our single target or aoe talents.

That's my fear as well, that we'll be the swiss army knife of debuff classes and keep having to change our specs on a day to day basis. Our buffs should be rolled into abilities we'll be picking up anyway for PvE (for instance, why is the spell haste attached to a PVP Starfire stun rather than Imp. Moonkin Aura.)

It almost feels like we need a "Moonkin Manifesto" or something to try and get the situation exposed to the development team. Our last talent tree evaluation didn't seem like it was focused on Moonkins, but rather that it was an attempt to make the top portion of the Balance tree attractive to Resto Druids. The changes have been good, but it seems like changes keep getting made, but there's no editor behind the scenes making sure the changes are cohesive.

erragal · 09/16/08, 2:12 PM

Originally Posted by Darian_TruBlade

The question therefore is, what exactly is it that we want? Are we looking for a mana dump or a burst damage spell? Are we looking for both in one spell, or could they be separate? I don't have any immediate ideas, but it strikes me that there are no new baseline Balance spells between 70 and 80. That leaves room for at least one new spell to address one or both of these issues.

I certainly agree that it wouldn't be unfair for us to get a third talented spell to address this issue, my thought was that it's more productive to suggest changes to an existing spell to allow it to better address our weaknesses/issues.

I feel we need a mana dump for PVE and a burst damage spell for PVP. It seems much simpler (And more likely) to put them into the same spell, as burst damage spells can be balanced by having a high mana cost (And we're going to be extremely vulnerable to drain teams already in WotLK, considering our only new regen is based on crit and innervate is easily dispelled by both priests and hunters).

I'm pretty sure either Starfall or Typhoon is already our 70 to 80 balance spell. Feral and Resto each only have one new activated ability that is talented, as opposed to our two. That doesn't mean we couldn't use a new spell to address these issues (Look at Lava Lash being recently introduced rather late to address enhancement shaman), but the important part is to identify what isn't being covered by our trees.

On the raid synergy/talent bloat:

I'd much rather see us lose IFF or Insect Swarm than E&M. E&M is powerful in so many different parts of the game, and it opens warlocks to damage curses during raids. IFF is so unintuitive with our current rotation, particularly with the odd duration.

I agree we may have one too many utility options, and our spec is going to be highly dependent on the rest of the raid composition (I don't know if I am against that). Eclipse is definitely a bit vulnerable to the RNG with it's current percentages, and that's my only complaint with the talent at this point that could be easily fixed with some tweaking.

• Adoriele · 09/16/08, 4:42 PM

I suppose I should add IS and FF to our list of raid synergies, though again they can be covered elsewhere (FF can be covered by a large number of people, much like E&M).

Anyway, I'm attaching a copy of the Spreadsheet I'm working up. It's still preliminary, a lot of talents aren't working yet (Namely Eclipse, FoN, Insect Swarm). If you spec into E&M, it assumes 100% uptime for calculation of your DPS, but it will also give you an estimate of your uptime. You can select raid buffs provided by others, and it will assume they're fully-talented by their providers. Raid buffs selected will override your buffs if possible (i.e. when I implement E&M uptime affecting your DPS, if you select Maledicted CoE as a raid buff your uptime won't matter). Only spam rotations are implemented right now, including SF spam with a Moonfire rider if you have the SF Glyph activated. OoC is assumed to be a 10s cooldown, 6% proc. Hit has been added to the model.

For general gear input, I've been using 1700 spellpower, 20% crit, 100 haste and hit, 600 Spi, 900 Int, 215 MP5 (from Mana Spring and BoW).

Montegomery · 09/16/08, 5:16 PM

Originally Posted by erragal

I certainly agree that it wouldn't be unfair for us to get a third talented spell to address this issue, my thought was that it's more productive to suggest changes to an existing spell to allow it to better address our weaknesses/issues.

I feel we need a mana dump for PVE and a burst damage spell for PVP. It seems much simpler (And more likely) to put them into the same spell, as burst damage spells can be balanced by having a high mana cost (And we're going to be extremely vulnerable to drain teams already in WotLK, considering our only new regen is based on crit and innervate is easily dispelled by both priests and hunters).

I'm pretty sure either Starfall or Typhoon is already our 70 to 80 balance spell. Feral and Resto each only have one new activated ability that is talented, as opposed to our two. That doesn't mean we couldn't use a new spell to address these issues (Look at Lava Lash being recently introduced rather late to address enhancement shaman), but the important part is to identify what isn't being covered by our trees.

*Snip*

Firstly, getting a new talented spell defeats my point. With BC each class got a total of 5 new, untalented abilities, most between level 60 and 70. In LK the current Druid untalented abilities are Revive, Nourish and Savage Roar. None of those are Balance abilities, hence my suggestion of a baseline ability to fill the gap. The BC paradigm is not necessarily going to be the LK paradigm, but the point remains that all new Balance abilities are talents.

Secondly, combining the two effects is probably simpler than creating two new spells, but that doesn't make it simple. Tune the damage/spamability too high and the ability becomes overpowered in PvP. Tune the damage too low and it stops being worth casting in PvE (see Earth Shock). Susceptibility to drain teams is an appreciable risk, but it barely matters if by the time the drain team forces you OOM one of them is already dead from your burst.

I'm second guessing whether a burst PvP ability for Moomkins is even necessary, though I'm not a expect. You have Starfall with the potential to both stun and proc Nature's Grace Cyclone, Typhoon, Entangling Roots and Treants. That's a lot that you can near simultaneously throw at your opponents. The disruptive potential of a Moonkin is very high.

Axanor · 09/16/08, 8:17 PM

Ghostcrawler just posted that Spirit->Crit might be dangerous because of the way Moonkins stack crit.

I'm truly scared that they don't get the class in the slightest.
WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> Re: Balance @ GC or Koraa
We've been +damage/haste based throughout TBC raiding, and I'm frightened by the fact that they don't seem to have a handle on how the spec at this point.

As I see it, there are the major issues with our talent tree-

A) Too many added mandatory PvE talents, not enough PvP talents.

B) Our debuff and buff talents do not provide a personal self-buff that makes picking them up beneficial to us when there's a duplicate buff up. (Earth and Moon, IFF, Imp. Moonkin Aura)

C) Earth and Moon is 5 talent points. Any Warlock has a 10% version. Affliction has 3 points to increase it to 13%. Death Knights have 3 points for 13%. In addition, its position in the talent tree is somewhat ridiculous, given that other DPS classes have a very specific personal DPS benefit from taking points 46-50 there. We just get a Curse of Elements for when we're soloing. This ability needs to be 3 points, and needs to be moved out of Tier 10.

D) Improved Faerie Fire is just silly at this point. It's a physical dps debuff, and the melee +hit actually made sense on it. It should be reverted to melee +hit and given to our Feral Friends as an extension of Feral Faerie Fire. We're bringing too many debuffs as is, and this is the one we'd be glad to jettision.

E) Eclipse is bad design. There's nothing wrong with wanting us to switch between the two. But this isn't the way to do it. The Starfire/Moonfire glyphs encourage us to use those two spells exclusively (possibly weaving Insect Swarm into the mix.)

F) Balance should provide Balance pushback resistance. Including pushback resistance on Starfire for PvE. There's no good reason to be putting it in the Resto Tree. That should be reserved for Balance alone. Owlkin Frenzy is a PvP ability for when you're getting beat on by a Rogue or similar class.

G) Moving Master Shapeshifter to Tier 2 would free up 2 of our talent points, and be greatly appreciated.

• Adoriele · 09/16/08, 9:22 PM

Originally Posted by Axanor

Ghostcrawler just posted that Spirit->Crit might be dangerous because of the way Moonkins stack crit.

I'm truly scared that they don't get the class in the slightest.
WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> Re: Balance @ GC or Koraa
We've been +damage/haste based throughout TBC raiding, and I'm frightened by the fact that they don't seem to have a handle on how the spec at this point.

As I see it, there are the major issues with our talent tree-

A) Too many added mandatory PvE talents, not enough PvP talents.

B) Our debuff and buff talents do not provide a personal self-buff that makes picking them up beneficial to us when there's a duplicate buff up. (Earth and Moon, IFF, Imp. Moonkin Aura)

C) Earth and Moon is 5 talent points. Any Warlock has a 10% version. Affliction has 3 points to increase it to 13%. Death Knights have 3 points for 13%. In addition, its position in the talent tree is somewhat ridiculous, given that other DPS classes have a very specific personal DPS benefit from taking points 46-50 there. We just get a Curse of Elements for when we're soloing. This ability needs to be 3 points, and needs to be moved out of Tier 10.

D) Improved Faerie Fire is just silly at this point. It's a physical dps debuff, and the melee +hit actually made sense on it. It should be reverted to melee +hit and given to our Feral Friends as an extension of Feral Faerie Fire. We're bringing too many debuffs as is, and this is the one we'd be glad to jettision.

E) Eclipse is bad design. There's nothing wrong with wanting us to switch between the two. But this isn't the way to do it. The Starfire/Moonfire glyphs encourage us to use those two spells exclusively (possibly weaving Insect Swarm into the mix.)

F) Balance should provide Balance pushback resistance. Including pushback resistance on Starfire for PvE. There's no good reason to be putting it in the Resto Tree. That should be reserved for Balance alone. Owlkin Frenzy is a PvP ability for when you're getting beat on by a Rogue or similar class.

G) Moving Master Shapeshifter to Tier 2 would free up 2 of our talent points, and be greatly appreciated.

I agree (mostly) with all but your last 3 points. Eclipse is fine, even with improve IS. It even meshes pretty darn well with it considering they are actively trying to get us to mix up the rotation. Spam one filler, make sure its DoT effect is up, but every 30s you switch to the other nuke to keep the right Eclipse up. It's just enough time to be useful, but not so much that we're constantly swapping back and forth.

Pushback protection makes more sense as one single talent. If you're PvPing, you're going to want it on both your Balance and Resto spells, and it's better to get one talent for 3 points to cover them all rather than 2 talents over 6 points. It's a BUFF that they're this way. And Blizzard is definitely trying to make people shy away from 61 points in a single tree, this is the way to do it.

And Master Shapeshifter is fine where it is.

Axanor · 09/16/08, 9:42 PM

Originally Posted by Adoriele

I agree (mostly) with all but your last 3 points. Eclipse is fine, even with improve IS. It even meshes pretty darn well with it considering they are actively trying to get us to mix up the rotation. Spam one filler, make sure its DoT effect is up, but every 30s you switch to the other nuke to keep the right Eclipse up. It's just enough time to be useful, but not so much that we're constantly swapping back and forth.

Pushback protection makes more sense as one single talent. If you're PvPing, you're going to want it on both your Balance and Resto spells, and it's better to get one talent for 3 points to cover them all rather than 2 talents over 6 points. It's a BUFF that they're this way. And Blizzard is definitely trying to make people shy away from 61 points in a single tree, this is the way to do it.

And Master Shapeshifter is fine where it is.

The Cyclone/Wrath pushback reduction being super-easy for restos/ferals to pick up in PvP just bothers me. Especially Cyclone. You don't see Affliction/Demo locks getting 70% pushback resist on their Destro spells in the top of the tree, for example.

pyroturtle · 09/16/08, 9:54 PM

Originally Posted by Axanor

The Cyclone/Wrath pushback reduction being super-easy for restos/ferals to pick up in PvP just bothers me. Especially Cyclone. You don't see Affliction/Demo locks getting 70% pushback resist on their Destro spells in the top of the tree, for example.

I see it more as giving more viable CC overall in pvp. Warlocks, Priests, and Warriors have fear that can be instant. Hunters have traps. Mages have freezing. Shaman have totem. Paladins have a ranged stun. Etc. So, making sure you can get that Roots or Cyclone off just helps. As for Wrath, it seems to be there more to help the healy types to be able to dps when they need (when farming/grinding). You're right, you won't see that in other classes, but they're not quite as dependent on it pvp overall. Although, the change to pushback being about a second at most seems to make these types of talents both worse and a whole lot better. That said, this is still a welcome synergy overall.

Kathbrian · 09/17/08, 12:21 AM

There's always Bash in emergency situations, and Nature's Grasp is becoming trainable. I don't think CMs are terribly versed in game mechanics, hopefully GC won't let his poor understanding of Moonkin mechanics get in the way of his job and give the suggestion to the devs anyway.

I'd like to see Eclipse be useful, and the Moonfire glyph somehow reworked to play nicely with Wrath/Eclipse.

Lambach · 09/17/08, 12:35 AM

Axanor,
I took your suggestion and posted this up on the test realm forums. And I qouted one of your posts that I thought was particularly insightful, i hope you don't mind.

Eclipse:
This is why it sucks.
Its a lot of fun, it a great idea. But wrath scales like crap. Currently, at 80, if I crit, my wrath is under the GCD, barely. In my sunwell gear, if I crit, I'm at like a .75 second wrath. Heaven forbid I'm lusted, thats more unused casting time.
Basically the bottom line is that wrath doesnt scale at all with haste, which is a good stat for most dps casters, and we can be sure will be on our gear. Forcing us to use a spell that is under the GCD, forcing us to have wasted casting time.
Its just a bad philosophy. If wrath was a 2 second cast, and scaled as such, itd be a MUCH better talent.

Axanor · 09/17/08, 12:47 AM

Originally Posted by Lambach

Axanor,
I took your suggestion and posted this up on the test realm forums. And I qouted one of your posts that I thought was particularly insightful, i hope you don't mind.

Eclipse:
This is why it sucks.
Its a lot of fun, it a great idea. But wrath scales like crap. Currently, at 80, if I crit, my wrath is under the GCD, barely. In my sunwell gear, if I crit, I'm at like a .75 second wrath. Heaven forbid I'm lusted, thats more unused casting time.
Basically the bottom line is that wrath doesnt scale at all with haste, which is a good stat for most dps casters, and we can be sure will be on our gear. Forcing us to use a spell that is under the GCD, forcing us to have wasted casting time.
Its just a bad philosophy. If wrath was a 2 second cast, and scaled as such, itd be a MUCH better talent.

Is the reduced GCD on wrath not scaling down with Spellhaste?

No prob with the repost on the general forums, I appreciate it. (Could you throw up a link to it, btw?)