Apaine

I liked Cycloni's idea too. It's simple, works with the skills and spells already given to us and what's most important - would be fun.

Only thing I'd disagree on, with such potent mana regen talent is it's placemnt. It should be somewhere way down in balance tree, or what's preventing restos from dipping 15pts into balance to pick it up. We all have seen the power of dreamstate healing builds in BC. Healing specs are supposed to be limited by their mana on healing - and should rely on spirit / intensity / downranking to get their mana. Having a healer pop to cat form to get 50% of his mana back while he cowers his threat away during a phase that doesn't need much healing would be awsome, but seriously, this isn't a talent for them.

I'd say move eclipse to be a 15pt talent, and put it in it's place as a 40pt balance talent. That would work.

 

Anedris

Is mana really an issue for moonkin?

I haven't played the class, but we have one, and he indicated that if he was going to get a shadow priest, he would not need to spec intensity for Brutallus. A shadow priest should be a regular group member for a caster buffer, so that can be all but assumed (same with a shaman, since a DPS group without totems if pretty gimped).

Keep in mind that no class is intended to be able to nuke forever. A mage will run dry in less than 5 minutes without group support if allowed to chain-cast.

 

Munorion

Right now, it isn't, provided you have a shadow priest. With the toning down of VT in WotLK, that question is open, but I don't think we can answer it fully until we see how the itemization will look like.

 

PSGarak

Is mana being a greater issue for moonkin than other classes based on personal experience playing those classes, anecdotes from others who are playing those classes, or speculation based on abilities? Ability costs are going up in WLK across the board, with shamans getting hit the hardest (over 100% in general), followed by warlocks. Just because druids are having more mana issues doesn't mean that the other classes aren't, and I'm under the impression that blizzard wants mana to be a pressing concern for all caster classes in most situations.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

Saraya

A lot of this will be determined by itemization in WotLK, but here's the gist of BC:
When your whole group is at the gear appropriate level for the instance or raid, a chain super mana potion chugging, innervating moonkin will still run out of mana until you hit the T6 level. A shadow priest will help alleviate these problems at low levels(since their mana regen isn't so hot at first either), and later on will basically make you not need to pot or innervate ever again.

Without a shadow priest, I'd always go OOM until the raid started to outgear the fight. Though this is changing in WotLK, a shadow priest currently provides more regen than chain chugging potions, intensity, and dreamstate combined. That's why the above poster's moonkin guildmate does not need intensity with a shadow priest present.

We have to see the items, skills, and talents before being able to say anything really. While mana may be becoming an issue for all classes, it is an existing issue for moonkins, so of course we'll be worrying about it in lich king, especially when it won't be possible to just grab a shadow priest and make all the mana problems dissapear anymore.

 

Cycloni

but the whole point of it is so you get to use your forms. Might as well increase dreamstate, increase mana on melee treants give back etc. Yes it will be dangerous to go into form to melee but the rewards are very good, you will have to choose the right moment which will take some skill and judgement, and for that skill you get a handsome reward.

I agree it should be given along with the other abilities so people don't feel they have to melee for mana in long fights all the time. maybe some are thinking it's something you'd have to do all the time in a boss fight. I don't view it that way, with mana on melee working for your treants also, less cost of spells after crits, mana pots, innervate, dreamstate, intensity (if you spec it) and mana buffs from group, really you shouldn't need to go in on a boss fight unless it's quite a taxing fight, and tbh, only a fraction of the fights are long draining mana fights.

The most valuable thing it does is not actually gaining back mana, it's actually given you a use for most of your cat & bear form abilities, which lie unuseable and meaningless.

Would anyone take Eclipse over Master Shapeshifter / Intensity? Seeing as we're not really going to have the mana regen to cast anything but starfire if something like Balancemoon's suggestion isn't given or some other extra mana help, I'd skip eclipse and go for intensity and master-shapeshifter.

 

Erdluf

MS/I: 15 talent points for a 33% boost to MP5 (in a no-shadow-priest situation) and a 4% boost to damage.
Eclipse: 3 talent points for about a 6% dps boost (at the cost of rotation complexity and some mana).

Unless I'm very confident in my mana situation (or I see someplace really cool to spend the other 12 talent points), I'd go with MS/I.

As it is, the other 10 points spent in resto to get MS/I don't really help min/max raiding, but they aren't bad for solo/small-group play.

 

• Adoriele

From what I hear, Feral druids, especially bears, are really sought-after for their healing ability, and Resto druids are amazing at putting out the Spell DPS when it's needed. For that matter, Destro Locks aren't pushing themselves unless they have a full complement of DoTs on the target, and Marks Hunters are pretty much useless without their pets.


Welcome to Burning Crusade, you guys. You're a Balance Druid, not a Feral. Adding gameplay elements that force us into forms isn't a blessing, it's bad design. For example: How many people actually use the melee-for-mana mechanic we currently have? How many think it's a horrible idea? I guarantee you that the second number is larger by several orders of magnitude. Now you want to force us into forms to get the same benefit? No.

"But Adoriele," you say, "we'll get MORE mana back this way!" It will never happen. If Blizzard wanted us to be able to get mana back that quickly outside of Innervate, we would already have it with the melee-for-mana mechanic. We don't. Why? Because in PvP, getting that much mana back would be overpowered. If all I had to do was get off 5 feral moves to gain back half my mana (or even just 1 for 10%), with no cooldown, no limits, no nothing, there would be NO WAY for me to go OOM in PvP. Couple that with the fact that Druids are currently the HARDEST class to drain mana from in PvP, and it's obvious that something like this will NEVER be implemented.

Seriously, put some thought into your suggestions, people. We have mana issues, yes, but Blizzard's very firm in their stance that no caster should behave as if they have infinite mana. This will never change, but it's also most likely not going to get substantially worse in the expansion.

 

Abishai

Where are you guys getting this fantastic idea that dreamstate healers are amazing? I am incredulous that people are still even trying to say that dreamstate healing builds are even viable, much less powerful. Folks, this is not pre-BC where druids spammed healing touch to heal, things have changed drastically.

Additionally, Balancemoon provided a complete list of the mana regen talents of the various classes on page 7, so I suggest that you check that out before bashing him again on his lack of effort.

 

tadrinth

I can think of two good ways for blizzard to give moonkin more mana regen. The first is to make Treants behave like Shadowfiend and return mana on hit. However, the treants are currently designed to do damage, interrupt casting, and apply daze. The counter to them in PVP is to just kill them. The major reason shadowfiend is a reliable mana-regen source is that it has extremely high resistances and chance to dodge, so it rarely dies. It also doesn't do all that much damage. As it stands, making treants part of the Moonkin mana regen model in raids would require extremely careful usage so that they don't get taken out by boss AOE. Either that, or Blizzard nerfs their damage and makes them very hard to kill.

I think buffing passive regen would work better, if a buff to regen is needed. Either buff dreamstate or add regen to one of the deeper talents. I think that the addition of Flourish as a 51 point resto talent will make dreamstate+healing touch builds less attractive by giving Tree druids something closer to a direct heal. In turn, this allows Blizzard to buff dreamstate a bit as needed.

On the other hand, I think that the lunar guidance nerf is designed to ensure that Moonkin don't have to stack intellect over everything else. Right now intellect boosts spirit regen, gives mana/5, gives spelldamage, and gives a bigger mana pool. By reducing the spelldamage conversion, they probably hope to make spirit and spelldamage comparatively more attractive. If they want spirit to be the primary regen stat, they probably won't buff Dreamstate. There should be enough spirit on gear to make Innervate a full manabar. Its not clear to me whether a full mana bar every 6 minutes is enough.

At this point, I think the best thing for regen from Blizzard's perspective would be an additional motivation to stack spirit. Maybe make Lunar Guidance give +dmg as a percentage of both intellect and spirit, so that you have reason to stack both? Either that or a conversion from +spirit to +crit. That way you stack both intellect and spirit for regen as intended, you get your sufficient regen that way as opposed to relying on class skills like evocate/mana gems/lifetap, but you make back the damage output because you get offensive stats from stacking regen.

Off-topic: From a shadow priest perspective, the Balance tree bloat is ridiculous. I can get every single PVE oriented talent in the shadow tree even after spending 14 points in discipline for my version of Intensity. My bloat actually went down from TBC to WOTLK.

 

• Adoriele

I actually don't see a problem with adding a shadowfiend-like ability to Treants melee. As you said, in PvP, they tend to die quickly, but Druids don't really have mana problems in PvP anyway. We really need it for Boss fights where it's impossible to drop OOC and drink. It also gives us what would amount to a mini-Innervate on half the cooldown of the true version. The only downside is that, in order to get the best benefit from the Trees in terms of damage, you need to pop them at the start, and every cooldown after (as long as you're timing it for maximum effect, I.E. not right before raidwide AoE). In order to get the best benefit from the regen, you'd have to wait until you can get the entire amount of mana back without wasting any. Depending on how much % of damage they do as mana return, this might mean waiting until you're half-empty on mana, which is likely pretty far into the fight. It does have the upside of making when to pop the trees a choice, though, which adds more skill into the equation.

With my gear, Trees do about 12k dmg per cast on a cloth boss (Rage). 25% of that to Mana would be about the same as an extra Mana Pot with 1.5 times the cooldown. Or it could be a % of base mana per swing, with each tree doing about 20 swings over the duration. Say 2% base mana per swing, or 120% of base mana regened per cast, which is 10 times the actual casting cost (Trees cost 12% base mana, not sure how much that ends up being, since I never looked), and has the benefit of scaling with level.

 

Apaine

LOL this made me laugh. Druids being the HARDEST class to mana drain? Adoriele, you are on BALANCE druid forum.... not resto one. The druid that is hard to mana drain is a resto bitch who heals with hots and hugs a pole at first sign of trouble. They typically have healer's gear that traditionally has lot's of spirit and mp5 and can always go to bear form to make themselves drain immune while their spirit regens their mana and hots do their work.

So, given that you are in balance druid forum, how do you say a moonkin druid is hard to drain??? Please explain it to me?
We use wrath and moonfire in pvp - both mana heavy spells, we are not immune to mana drain in moonkin, and if you shift to bear as balance druid, you effectively give up the fight. You got no spirit gear to help regen mana in bear, mp5 doesn't work, and your bear does no damage and has no feral charge. Did I mention your hots are half as effective (when compared to resto druids) too?

So please don't spurt out blanket statements like "druids are hardest class to mana drain" when it clearly doesn't apply to ALL the druids in ALL cases. Now if balance druid could be specced 51/51/51 then there could be basis to this argument.... As far as I know, from dps classes, warlocks deserve that title most. Affliction warlocks even more so, as they can actually hug the poles to avoid the mana drains while their dots do the dirty work. But all warlocks get lifetap, making mana a non-issue for them.

The ability suggested here should apply as deep balance talent precisely so the "hard to drain" resto druids could not take advantage of it.

And in PvP - with the way things are now, seriously, how many times did you loose the game cause you went OOM? OMM doesn't kill us in pvp, unless it's against a healing class... and without an interrupt, we can't kill healing class anyways. In a duel, you can wrath/moonfire a shaman or a priest or pally all day long and he will just heal all that damage up. Seriously, nothing would change if we'd have 300% more mana in PvP for moonkins... the dynamics would stay the same.

Besides, if you'd actually bother to read, the mechanics described here to give you mana requires you to go to cat/bear form and do 5 special attacks for 50% mana. That's what? 10 to 15 seconds? In pvp, are you going to walk up to someone, do piss poor damage for 10 seconds to regen mana, and expect them not to do anything? A mage can gibb a person in that 10 seconds easily, and also has way more options to regen their own mana. (talents, mana stones, evocate - 8 seconds for 75% mana back). Giving druids a viable PvE mechanic to their mana problems won't change PvP that much.

 

Saraya

This is starting to turn into a flame thread... calm down guys.

Mana regen is a problem. Giving us mana regen in feral forms is not the solution. Letting trees give us mana on melee is one easy solution. Letting eclipse reduce the cost of the spell it is currently affecting might be another. Regardless, the whole mana on melee concept is already awkward, and further developing it and adding it to feral forms is even more so.

 

Cycloni

There are many solutions Saraya, and I agree with balancemoon that giving mana regen in feral forms should be given but not as the only one. It is not anywhere near disruptive as some people are painting it out, to go to melee form, but there is some risk element involved, that's why you get a kick ass reward like up to 50% of your total mana back, 25% spell cost reduction to your group for up to 30secs and 40% extra spell damage for up to 30secs also (if you do 5 special moves)

I agree it should be deep down in the tree, in fact, you could view the mechanic as an alternative to taking intensity if you're pressed for points. If you can master going into melee, by knowing the melee strat and right timing, you wouldn't need passive mana regen of 30%. But you could also take both and use this as a last ditch effort.

What makes it necessary I keep reminding people is not necessarily the mana regen, but the fact it gives some use to feral forms and the school, Feral school is about 40% of the core class, balance only ever uses 7% of the school, that's poor, it's great to give it a role, and I agree spot on with balance that if you can't and you shouldn't need to use feral forms for dps and tanking, then they need another use, and mana makes the most sense. I agree also using feral forms once in a while like we do healing spells is both refreshing and a lot of fun for style of play and doesn't de-rail balance from it's spell caster major. That makes if very necessary to have and why I'm in agreement with the idea.

People will use them in this fashion with such rewards, and no caster can complain either that its high reward because it is trickier to handle. Although if it really becomes popular and appears to end balance druid's mana problems, I’m sure devs would slap a cooldown on it.

But to back to you Seraya, I think it may not be good for it to be the only improvement to mana regen, which I think is why he also suggested Mana on melee apply to the druid's FoN guardians, which gives them a shadowfiend like effect, and also give some spell reduction based on crit. I'd much rather have mana regen in the form of mana on melee for treants and feral forms, and mana savings from crits, than merely boosting dreamstate or making the spells cheaper, and while moonkin currently can cope with mana, it doesn't mean it can't afford a bit more mana regen help as it has the worse of the casters, even though it can cope. [Giving an arm and a leg, but it can].

Yeah, in fact I think it's great. Everyone's pets have loads of abilities, and they get them as base abilities. Force of Nature just does damage, so it gets some abilities a daze, through the brambles talents, and mana regen through the Mana on melee talents, yeah, that's 3-6 points for extra pet abilities to add to the fact that it itself is a talent. Don't think any can complain really. Not when you look at Balancemoon's list and all the other regen stuff avail to others.

 

Ocyr

Actually in his original post he made claims, then listed all the classes, then left the space next to the class names blank.

In his second post, he listed talents, but his list just shows he doesn't know what he is talking about.

For instance, he lists:

Lightning Overload as a mana efficiency talent for Shaman. It is a threat reducing talent, not a mana efficiency talent. Shaman do not save any mana by taking it, nor do they gain any mana regeneration / recuperation

Unrelenting Storm - a talent he uses as an example of how good Shaman have it compared to Druids, but he forgets to mention Shaman pay 5 points and Druids only pay 3 for the same thing

Mana Spring totem -- this totem actually costs the shaman mana + a GCD, the only real beneficiaries of this totem are the 4 other people in the Shamans group -- like say, Balancemoons Druid would gain mana from this

Elemental Mastery -- listing a gimmick once-every-3-minutes spell as a "mana efficiency" spell in a discussion about raiding is silly. It is a PvP talent with almost no usefulness outside of making a crit video for youtube. Force of nature can be called a Druid mana efficiency talent with as much of a straight face as Elemental Mastery can be said to buff Shaman. As in, not at all.

Thunder -- can not even be taken by any serious raid-spec Shaman in WotLK. I may as well point to the 51 point Feral talent as a reason why balance Druids are overpowered -- the comparison is that silly.

Instead of presenting any serious evidence for debate, Balancemoon has only sought to whine about how he thinks Druids will suck and everyone will be better, and how Blizzard is out to get him. The facts are; balance Druids get the 3 most powerful forms of mana regeneration in the game that every class wishes they had -- and Druids get them all at once without having to spend more than a very few points outside of their pure DPS tree. Spirit based regen? Check. Intellect based regen? Check. Trainable 100% mana bar refill on command? Check. No other class gets all three of those. And every other class, even shaman who only get 1 of the 3, pays more in talent points for what they get (above listed, plus moonglow et cetera).

Those are the facts, along with this: with the 20% haste buff to go with the 5% crit buff and the 6% arcane damage buff and the melee debuffs, a balance Druid can show up to raid and watch TV all night. The buffs are so good, virtually no DPS is needed to justify a raid spot. And every raid will make a spot, no matter how bad you are. Just like they do for Enhancement Shaman.

Instead of breaking EJ forum posting rules and whining about how much he thinks his class sucks and how much he thinks blizzard personally hates him, maybe he should actually take a look at everything balance druids got and how beneficial these changes are for their raid viability. They are going to do more for casters than enhancement shaman do for melee, when it comes to buffs. And they will put out very high personal DPS doing it.

 

Saraya

I see you guys are trying to get more usage from feral forms as a balance druid. I'll agree to disagree with this point, because while it might be nice to use all your forms, it's not like shadow priests and elemental shaman really use holy spells or windfury much either. It's just not appropriate for the spec. Trying to combine it with mana regen just makes it even more awkward.

The concept is such a huge gimmick that it'll either be overpowered or unusable. Also, I realize this is just a game and things don't necessarily have to make sense, but a balance druid shifting into cat form and clawing stuff result in reducing spell costs for your whole party is way past left field. It'd make more sense(and it really doesn't many any sense) to have the moonkin melee for mana give your party a temporary stackable buff that reduces mana costs for x seconds instead.

Only resto druids get 100% mana with innervate. Balance and feral... 30-50% depending on how many tiered pieces you're wearing. It's a great skill, but it definitely ain't 100%.

With mana costs increasing across the board, the haste aura may be dependant on having external mana sources feeding you mana for the whole fight. If everyone's so strapped for mana that they barely last the fight with chain chugging potions/using cooldowns, then the haste aura won't give much benefit. This is a wait and see issue.

 

Benita

Mana as it is now has the problem of being too harsh on disadvantages if you run out of it. That means you always need to have enough for any fight. The bad part is that this is always hard to achieve at the beginning of reaching the lvl cap and easier as you gear up. The implementation of haste worked somewhat against that, but still is only in a 10-20% change while gear often enough doubles your stats after going through all raid instances.
Fixes for this would change the game considerably and im guessing is more stuff for a WoW 2 than anything.

Bandaids like melee for moonkins are the worst choice to solve this, as they get obsolete or unusable methods over time. The spriest change was early on a too powerful, but in theory very well done, synergy change for raids. The nurf in wotlk is needed, but not as harsh as some might think. While their VT effect gets reduced to 2% instead of 5%, their personal dps is increasing, making up for part of that nurf. Spirit priests get a mana regen effect, that will have to be tested and totem changes could also affect raid mana regen. Raid viable retadins might change this in the beginning aswell and who knows what other stuff happens to that support class.

One thing is sure, if mana will be a serious issue accross all classes, moonkins will have the easiest way to gear out of those problems giving them an advantage. If it won't be a problem for anyone they got very nice synergy buffs to make them more raid viable.

Having to go melee as a ranged and into forms that take no benefit at all from the gear you use is clumsy and hardly beneficial. Only instants like Life Tap, Shadowfiend, Mana Tide or Innervate have their place in raids. Abilities with only a small timeout like Evocation is often enough not used at all and a trinket like [Glimmering Naaru Sliver] is laughed at for a reason.

 

Cycloni

Benita there is obviously some disagreement, I for one don’t think it is a band aid feature at all, because employing it in the way I think it can work actually makes sense in a fun way. As I observe it’s main purpose is to give relevance to the missing school, so from a pure mana perspective it may to some appear a band aid, which is why you would give other features like it applying to your treants and cheaper spells on crit

So I don’t see what the problem is with having this available along with other aids to mana regen. Given that the feral bit of the mana on melee extension opens up more of the core class it warrants a place. Again I also don’t see why it can’t be a talent, and would be a perfect candidate for an alternative to Intensity, I mean, those who master this won’t really need intensity. And depending on its power you can slap a cooldown on. If you want to open up the feral school to balance druids, this is the way.

Anyway, I find these ideas fascinating, if it makes playstyle even more fun then go for it, Balance could certainly use even more flavour than it's getting.
1.For me, being able to afford to cycle spells using eclipse and moonfire is more fun than almost always nuking with starfire.
2. Having mana regen that is gotten back from the meleeing of my treants and me in feral forms is better than passive regen, both would be good but (3 points in mana on melee and 1 in intensity would do fine for me)
3. Also having to go into feral forms once in a while, heal once in a while and nuke/aoe/cc most of the time is more fun than just casting most of the time and healing once in a while.

None of us are developers, so we don't know what the best values to give. So balancemoon's numbers are more placeholders
a) But mana regen that scales with gear is good,
b) mana regen that involves something like using your Treants more in PvE is also good, and
c) Making some use of your feral forms for balance is good especially when it gives mana.
d) Some spell cost reduction from crits is based on the crit mechanic balance has going, it ties in, this is also good.

As to what numbers, cooldowns if any etc, should be given, only they can tell, however having all of these is certainly much more fun and an improvement to the build than not having them. So if it takes some tuning of spell mana co-efficients or differnt positions of talents etc then go for it. What i woudln't want is to lose any ability. Just add these few.

 

Anedris

Adoriele said it and I'll repeat it: PvP.

Mana-through-melee is one of those things that will never happen because to be good enough to use in PvE it would have to be far too powerful in PvP. Mages try to avoid evocating because it's a major DPS loss - that's 10 seconds for 75% of their mana bar. To be worth using, your feral mana regen would have to be enormous, making you more or less impossible to oom in PvP.

(This is aside from the other issues, like the loss of the 130% threat ceiling and the travel time.)

All indications point to Blizzard wanting all mana-using classes to have mana issues in Wrath. Mages have a spell in deep fire that burns more of their mana, VT is being nerfed, spell costs have increased across the board, and there may even be something in the works to kill chain-potting. You are intended to have to worry about mana. Blizzard is not going to give you a mechanic that allows you to nuke freely forever without a care for that blue bar (if they did that - and indeed it has become that for most classes in BC with a shadow priest, and a moonkin will always have a shadow priest in any coherently assembled raid - why not just give you an energy bar like a rogue?).

Treants giving mana and mana return on crit could both work (though they're both kind of boring, having already been done).

 

Ocyr

That's because Balance Druids by and large don't gear properly. Or maybe Blizzard doesn't itemize their gear properly, if you want to argue that? Either way, I see raiding Shadow Priests take gear with Spirit. I see raiding mages take gear with Spirit. I see Balance Druids take gear with maximum spell damage / spell critical, and little or no stats. It has nothing to do with the talents themselves. The talents Balance Druids get are superior to the talents every other class gets, where mana return is concerned -- assuming the Druid player gears/itemizes properly to take advantage of the talents. There is absolutely no excuse for a Druid not to gain most or all of their mana back when in raid gear and raid buffs, from innervate. The numbers you are putting out, 50%, only occur in PvP geared players and poorly / improperly geared players.

 

Abishai

Still, he did make a list of talents and abilities that the other classes have, which you claimed he hadn't done. Granted, Balancemoon takes some liberties in defining mana regeneration talents that he shouldn't have taken in order to make his point, but I don't see how you can accuse him of whining about how bad his class sucks. He is honestly trying to provoke some discussion and provide solutions to the problem of moonkin mana, which most people agree is an issue, although I for one do not agree with his proposed solutions at all.

I personally find the idea of "melee for mana" distasteful. I see no need to incorporate feral abilities into a balance spec, and I find it unnecessary. I also do not want moonkin druids to get a mana regen mechanic that is a mere copy of something other classes have, such as clearcasting or a pet that restores mana.

There are so many potential abilities for mana regen that it isn't necessary to use something that is already in place for another class. For instance a new DoT that regenerates a fixed or scaling amount of mana, or a cooldown ability that returns mana based on the damage of your next spell. The new functionality of spirit tap for priests is a perfect example of a unique mana regen ability. Given that druids are spirit based casters it might make sense to add another talent for spirit regen. The possibilities are endless.

It may not even be necessary to give druids more mana regen in WotLK, depending on how big of a role spirit plays. If spirit regen is increased and balance gear has appropriate amounts of spirit on it, intensity could become very powerful. Coupled with an innervate that restores a full mana pool, more mana regen may be unnecessary. Only time and more experimentation from alpha/beta will tell for sure.

 

Abishai

You could get about 9000 mana back from an innervate if you had 600 intellect and 400 spirit. Interestingly, you only get 123 spirit with 8/8 T6. Considering that there are zero high level epic DPS caster mainhands, offhands, rings, necks or cloaks with spirit, it makes it pretty hard to optimize gear to take maximum advantage of intensity and innervate. Itemization problem perhaps, but there isn't much point in getting into that.

As far as balance druids having superior talents than any other class, I don't see how you can argue that. Even if you cared to try, it doesn't change the fact that currently, druids have mana problems and by and large most other DPS casters don't.

 

Balancemoon

Don't you think you are being a bit presumptious there? If you read my post I believe you would find nothing to indicate I feel this build of druid "sucks" as you put it and in no way am I whining. I present an issue observed with this class and suggest an array of solutions. I highlight other needs and suggest ways I believe will improve it and make it more fun whilst helping those needs.

I think you are confusing me with someone else because I certainly don't think anyone hates me, do you? You seem awfully angry and seem to be inventing many things about me and the balance druid, not to mention 100% mana bar and the rest? Well, if you feel moonkin mana regen is so wonderful, I suggest you play one and see how wonderful having to spam starfire to have enough mana in every fight is, you may think the mana regen is most powerful of all, but it's not enough for moonkin, and in order to encourage a more diversified spell cycle and a playstyle that incorporates the use of the Feral forms, the suggested changes can do a pretty good job.

On these forums, we do not appreciate rants which you have clearly made, have something constructive to say, present it in orderly mana stating and outlining your facts. I painstakingly took time on my birthday to write down what every ability that contributed to replenishing or conserving mana in every other class gave. The list was made so you could assess the contribution each made and make up your own mind as to the effectiveness of the regen.

Thank you Mr Warlock, but I'm not having a dig at any class if you haven't noticed, just making a case for more mana regen help for druids. Just enough is not good enough, every dps caster class has more than just enough for most fights, they can cast there most efficient cycles, whiles balance druids must cast their cheapest cycles, with this extra help:

1. Balance druids can cast an efficient cycle that isn't the dead cheapest i.e. includes just starfire.
2. Balance druids can utilise an aspect of their class, i.e. feral combat school abilities in a relevant way to them by using the melee to gain mana which they need instead of melee damage or tanking which they don't need. WIth an attractive ability, for which it does not hurt at all including, those more adventurous can pick it up and wouldn't have to take intensity, those less adventurous can avoid it and take intensity.

It does no harm to have, and the playstyle of many in this build will be much richer and more rewarding, as you get a more diverse spell casting cycle as you have more mana to juggle now, and you can sometimes use your feral forms to aid you.

 

PsyBomb

Guys, come on, we can quit the itemization debate until we see more of what the Balance Druid will be wearing at levels 78+. All we have right now caster-wise is a necklace, a ring, and 2 capes. Necklace and ring have MP5 rather than Spirit, one of the capes is Power/Haste with no spirit, the other has more stats (plus a good chunk of Spirit) but no haste. None of them have any hit or crit. However, ALL of them are lvl. 75 or below (most are 71).

In addition, please don't use someone's class as a derogatory until they show that they have no knowledge at all of the class they're talking about. I'm willing to bet that most of us have more than one 70, and most of us look to the mechanics of most (if not all) classes to help understand what we need to be doing.

To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.

 

Apaine

I personally don't see just how this can happen. No balance druids get 100% mana bar from innervate unless they wear high spirit gear and such is simply not available for dps classes. High spirit is found on healing gear. This is why you have high spirit weapon switch just when you are about to use innervate. And this is PvE geared moonkins that have t6 pieces (that incidentally have decent spirit) may see ~60% mana regen... their regen is indeed higher than seen in PvP, but then they also have bigger mana pools too. And innervate doesn't scale with bigger mana pool the way evocate does.

Innervate is spirit based, just as Evocation was for mages before it got changed. Please also explain exactly just how are our talent tree superior to that of a warlock? I grant you we are blessed with exceptionally good nuke - starfire, that being low cost and high scalability makes what moonkins are now - good dps with great aura, that have finite mana pool, and only passive ways to get mana back which out of all the dps caster classes come out to least amount of equivalent mp5.

You advocate druids use little stats and max out spell damage and spell crit? Well, with spell damage I would agree, but spell crit is ridiculously bad for moonkins as is. The only talent that we get that applies to spell crit is -0.5 second casting reduction. Spell damage bonus everyone gets, some classes having to pay only 1 talent point for it. (hallo ruin).

Since GCD is not affected, only starfire gets meaningful benefit from critting. All crits on any other spells are wasted if the next non-instant spell is not starfire. Our new aura, while a boon to other casters, actually hurts us more than helps. While 20% haste does affect GCD, hopefully moonfire and wrath will be affected, but what does not change is the mana issues we have. I find that mechanic to be a discouraging us from trying to crit often. Not only that stacking crit is less effective than spell damage, it also in our case makes us run out of mana faster. Also since the aura does not require the moonkin to crit for it to convey the benefit to the party (it is based on individual crit chances of other casters affected), a moonkin may not even have any crit chance to be effective.

As a matter of fact, a gear with spell power and spell haste is already shown to be better dps on the current BC moonkin DPS spreadsheets provided moonkin has shadow priest and/or other means of getting the mana he needs. Crit is a 3rd stat.


Yet you forget to mention the *real* mana regen talents that shamans have over us.

1. Water Shield - constant 50mp5 + large chunks of mana when getting hit. In raid setting it does not proc from aoe splash damage, but any single target ability works. Also some aoe damage auras bosses have are viewed as single target abilities that will trigger shields as well. Recasting costs GCD, but no mana (it doesn't trigger 5 sec rule either).

2. 40% mana reduction on next two consecutive spells after critting. This is values at over 200 mp5 when combined with the Lightning Overload. Why? Because Lightning Overload can crit with same chance as the original spell, it is free with no GCD cost, and LO bolts do not count toward the 2 consecutive spells cast limit on the talent. So often when casting the 2 lower cost lightnings, a shaman will get a 3rd lightning bolt from LO for free. with ~35% chance to crit (10% from talents), there is very high chance that any of the three bolts will crit too, perpetuating the constant state of 40% cost reduction. Ability to force a crit by lava burst, or Elemental mastery is discarded as PvP tricks, while it can be used as mana regen too. LO has been known to proc from itself unlike windfury anymore - a possible bug.

3. Mana Totem. While indeed costing GCD and mana, when talented for cost reduction, that most ele shamans get, it still brings a net positive mp5 effect to shaman in addition to large positive effect to his party. In WotLK, he would probably leech mana tide from rest shaman, since totems will be raid wide.

This is in addition to the mana reductions on all spells (9% for moonkin, 10% for shaman), and mp5 from int (24% for moonkin, and 10% for shaman).

Moonkins have one additional mana regen shamans do not - intensity in resto tree - 30% of spirit regen.

Sadly 24% of int as mp5 that will soon be nerfed to 12% and intensity does not equate to well over 250 effective mp5 in combat mana regen shamans enjoy.

But sadly I would like to point out another issue that this brings - I fail to see line of reasoning of a person that tells me that moonkin should be relying on all the mana regen of all the other classes in the raid to merely get by, while other classes clearly are equipped with clearly much more staying power, while remaining a competitive dps to us.

What good is a competitive DPS of a moonkin, if to be able to get it, you have to plan the raid around him, while a warlock does similar dps no matter which group he's in as long as a healer remembers to HoT him. And of course if you plan the party around such warlocks, their damage skyrockets to stratosphere.