I must start this post with a "This is not QQ" but there are a few issues that are concerns to me as a raiding moonkin and I wanted to post something here to get some feedback from the other raiders before I pursue it any further. So below is a post about some issues I feel deserve to be addressed and what I am looking for is if I have missed something, or if I am off base with the rest of you out there.
Inc, wall of text:
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Let me start by saying I am extremely happy to have my favorite aspect of the druid class as a viable raid member. I was forced into tanking and healing from t4-t6 because the raid utility of a moonkin did not outweigh the DPS loss between me and the other casters (especially in Sunwell).
Now, that being said, moonkins still need some love and yes I know it is early into the PTR and there may be some for 3.1, but I want to express these beforehand.
PvE:
RNG dependency, you have stated that you don’t mind RNG as long as it is not making a huge difference (like a stun), and to be honest I kinda like the proc watching aspect of Eclipse, it definitely keeps you involved. There are two major problems I see with the ability as it sits now.
1. 60% chance on wrath crit is a killer. If I do not get an Eclipse proc early in the rotation the other DPS jumps so far ahead of me I will never catch up. There are times when I get long strings of Wrath casts that crit and get no eclipse. I am not sure how to adjust this, but maybe it would be an entire overhaul of the spell (see below)
2. Mechanics interfering with rotations, there is just too much randomness involved in the eclipse ability as it is now. On Thaddius I run out of the eclipse iCD and have both dots ticking, so I want to switch to wrath to proc my lunar eclipse, but there is a polarity shift incoming, do I risk DPSing and wasting precious eclipse time, or do I not DPS and waste that time? On four horsemen we are about to kill one of them which means I have a bit of a run ahead of me, but I have both DoTs on the current target, do I risk procing an eclipse that will be wasted while I run to the next mob? And don’t even mention how many times I get web wrapped through an eclipse proc. Yes I know these abilities are getting ready to get used by the mob, but I cannot control the procs which puts me in a terrible situation on pretty much every fight (literally every fight but Patchwerk and possibly gluth).
I am not sure how hard it would be, but I have read in other threads an idea that I liked. Instead of having duration, maybe let eclipse have a “charge” and once it procs your next 6-8 starfire casts will have the bonus crit chance? Now, you are worried about not having to proc watch, but there are a few things I think that could be done to ensure there is still a time limit, like having a new eclipse proc reset the count to 6-8, so if you have extra starfires they are lost and this will also prevent stacking up starfire crits for huge crit spamming. Or even have a timer on the “charges” so that when you cast a starfire it resets the duration, but if you do not cast a SF in 10-15 seconds after the proc you lose the charges? Not sure about the best way to handle it, but we would love to see some work done on this.
While we are on Eclipse you mentioned that there are plans to buff the Wrath portion of it to make sure it is equally attractive. Well, there is an extremely simple way to fix that.
- Make the GCD on Wrath allowed to go under 1 second. The biggest complaint with Wrath is simply that we are forced to clip the GCD using it during Heroism or Natures Grace, I mean, you gave us the ability to cast wrath in under a second, I think it is only right to allow the GCD to reflect that decision. Otherwise, no matter the increase to wrath, if we are suffering dead time like we do now, Moonkins will turn away from Wrath as much as possible.
Treants, this is a simple one I would say. Why am I hit capped, but my treants are missing? Can’t they be hit capped as long as I am too? And even after the stamina buff to them, they are still the easiest pets in the game to kill. Enh shaman wolves have way more HP and abilities. (Note: I don’t need treants to have abilities, but not having them die on any fight with a minuscule amount of AE would be awesome)
Glyphs: Please quit introducing glyphs that are worse than the ones we have already. Everyone will continue using the moonfire, starfire, and insect swarm/innervate ones (for PvE at least), so if it is not giving us a benefit that is equal to or better than those, there are no reasons to switch.
PvP:
You said you are looking into Typhoon which will be nice, and you gave us Survival Instinct which is a good on snap button, I still think moonkins have major survivability issues but I am content to see what you have in the pipeline for our current abilities.
Although is matches are going to start lasting longer, we could use that barkskin ability so my Innervate is not purged away through the countless other buffs I have on at the time.
To be perfectly honest I respect resto to go into arenas, so I can’t comment much on this aspect, I just hate dying so quickly in matches and BGs.
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Anything in there that has been missed or overlooked? Feel free to PM me with a response, if this post gets an infraction for being "whiny" so that no others receive warnings. Okay after re-reading by the Glyph section may need some work to have a bit more constructive comments in it, feedback would be appreciated!
I don't have an issue with 60% chance on Wrath crit. Seeing Wrath crits go by without proccing is irritating, but it's only psychological. Keeping the expected time to proc constant for both Eclipses probably makes balancing easier (especially if they actually try to make both Eclipses important again).
Eclipse as a timed buff with charges is a neat idea at first glance. The little bit of twitchiness as it procs is a bit unwieldy, and robustness against interruption is something I've posted about before.
I don't now how to fix Wrath GCD clipping. I agree that it's a very awkward part of our mechanics, but I wouldn't violate the gamewide 1s GCD minimum--there are lots of good reasons for it to be there. Longer base cast time on Wrath is probably simplest.
1. Eclipse RNG - I disagree with this being an issue, in general a moonkins dps will vary maybe 500-1000 at high end level. Theres some expected medium & then you go 5-10% above or below - Nothing major, if nothing else it adds excitement to have something to hope for.
2. I love how it works now. Movement bosses are designed with HP pools matching lowered dps from forced movement -- Everyone has it & moonkins are better off than others, with several viable on the move casts. Without sounding too harsh I think its a matter of thinking & planning ahead, sure Eclipse might loose potential but it does not matter that much, clever use of your instant casts is how you make world top 10 owl scores on fx Grobbulus+Thaddius.
Lowering RNG & movement penalty is just two ways less to seperate the good player from the bad one.
Treants - Fragile yes, strongest instant spell ingame if used right though. They do a sick amount of dps, of course all buffs are nice, but if more survival comes at the cost of damage potential then no thanks.
Glyphs - Starfall is a serious alternative for Insect Swarm in 3.1. On the other hand theres a glyph for all spells apart from Hurricane by then, so I dont see them adding more before next expansion.
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In general I think you are indeed being too "whiny" about Moonkins current state - I was pleasently suprised when 3.1 didn't have notes for us, if anything our dps potential is too high.
Its fun to play in its current state, we have awesome utilility, highest caster hybrid dps potential - On top of that a decently fun rotation & the clever owl gets rewarded for planning his actions ahead of time.
Offtopic:
The PvP issues I agree on - Owls die too fast. But im not really too fussed about arenas so perhaps its just my lack of skills
On #2 and your "in general" section about rewarding those who plan ahead.
I know how long a fight duration is, and I have things timed like an iCD coming up as drake#1 lands on Sarth 3d, but these are not things I can control, it just so happens that us casting heroism and burning down the first drake usually works well with my Eclipse coming of the CD. However, if you have perfected some way to predict exactly what is going to happen and not have any downtime waiting for boss mechanics, I would certainly love to hear it.
Don't get me wrong, I do very well on every fight according to WWS and make the most out of my DPS time I can assure you. But there is no real control over my proc time. Do you have a response to the specific situations I listed above? Have you honestly NEVER encountered a time where you had to move soon and iCD was up and you had both DoTs up? Yes I know there are treants/starfall but those come at set times, not just randomly when I need to take up spare time with extra buttons.
And I will be the first to admit that I do not know much about other classes, but who has it worse? The closest thing I can think of is Hot Streak, but they get 10 seconds to cast an INSTANT spell, which is much easier to manage and their DPS does not rely solely on this to be effective.
Treants - Like I said I don't want them to have damage increased or abilities, but they are still the easiest to die especially in raids, I don't suggest sacrificing any DPS but merely bringing them up to a respectable level.
Glyphs, an alternative assuming your guild forces you to apply IS for the -hit portion of the spell, which I can not imagine.
Yes we are the highest DPS hybrid, but ele shammies have closed the gap and spriests provide replenishment/hit (easier than we can) and are not really that far behind anyways.
@Eilt
Im well aware that eclipse might proc at bad times - I think you are heavily over estimating the penalty for it though, like I think you are asking for unrealistic treant buffs.
My point on our precious plants is that their damage is high because they are indeed fragile (High potential, high risk, reward for using them properly).
Not all fights are perfect for owls, but at the end of the day good planning places us very well on damagelists while providing amazing utility -- What more do you expect? (I.e. whats wrong with RNG & risk of lucky/unlucky procs if the end result is good? - Why dumb this game down even more?)
No. Comparing the IS Glyph to the Starfall Glyph puts them about even.
I apologize, I was wrong. I thought with higher IS uptime it was pretty easily outweighed.
@Asheara, I see your points, and I can see leaving treants slightly more vulnerable, but at least the hit cap would be nice :P
I suppose we must agree to disagree, but I will end with this
whats wrong with RNG & risk of lucky/unlucky procs if the end result is good? - Why dumb this game down even more?
I don't mind the RNG aspect to the extent that you can not control procing eclipse, but I do not think be able to control how you use the buff it gives you is dumbing down the game. In fact I feel it is exactly the opposite and in taking away the RNG portion in that respect, puts more power into the player and how they respond to it. However, I do see how it can be portrayed as dumbing down the game as well.
I wouldn't mind a change to the wrath-proccing-eclipse mechanic if it's possible without upsetting the expected time to proc balance between the two versions. Having something like an inverted Combustion where you need X wrath crits to proc it, instead of the double randomness required today. It would still be random and based on crit, but it would give me a better chance to prepare if I had a stack counter to watch. At least I would get some feedback that I was working towards my proc instead of feeling like I was waiting for the bus or something Also, being able to cast just a few wraths without fear of procing eclipse would make a big difference on some movement bosses imo. I don't think something like this would "dumb down" the owl play, since there's still the same amount of planning ahead involved. It could even encourage planning
That said, I don't really have a problem with the current eclipse mechanics. I like the fact that you can have those insane lucky fights where you just proc off the first wrath you cast. It keeps your head in the game. I would just like to get rid of the possibility to go an entire fight without it proccing. Even the half-assed idea I came up with would still allow the daredevil approach where you go with gut feeling and start casting SF before seeing the proc. "be the proc"
As for making the solar eclipse viable, I can't see an easy solution. Lowering gcd below 1s is not gonna happen, and increasing cast time with 1-2 sec would either make it into another starfire or still subject to clipping during hero/bl, seeing as our SF is already close. Having a talent to make it even longer than SF and up it's coefficient could be interesting, as could increasing it's crit coefficient turning it into a frostfire kinda thing. But both those options smell too much like mage (perhaps because my alt is one^^) Perhaps changing aspects of the spell during eclipse could work? "your wrath takes twice the time to cast but does double the damage" sort of thing? Meh... I don't recall seeing any really good ideas on how to "fix" wrath. Has there been any?
btw, is the hit cap issue with Treants due to melee needing more rating per % hit, or do they simple have a set amount of hit?
I'd like to chime in with moonkins needing help in pvp, though to me it feels more like other classes need to be brought down (dk lockdown abilities/spell survivability, ret pally lockdown/chase skills, rogue lockdown etc) because I can't really think of a way to boost kins without making us overpowered.
For pve we are pretty spot on, and though it is a bit too lame to go 2x moonfire durations (no sf) with wrathspam without proccing eclipse, I will live through it.
That said, blizzard has stated that they are looking at wrath in relation to eclipse for 3.1 (I dont have link, just remember seeing it). So I expect they will up the % chance by 10-15% or something to make wrath-eclipse a viable alternative.
What about adding a charge mechanism to Wrath that adds 10% chance to proc Eclipse for each crit you get? That way, you're at max going to get 4 Wrath crits before Eclipse is guaranteed to proc.
Actually - as has beend pointed out - our DPS is ok. So that kind of buff to triggering an Eclipse (or any buff for that matter) would just mean we'd get a nerf somewhere else - and I'm really fine with how we are PVE-wise.
Only thing I'm missing is a balanced solar eclipse - I'd like the possibility to just go mad on wrath-spams for a change. Although I don't think Wrath will ever be better than Starfire due to latency and GCD.
Just hope they won't fix it in a way that you won't be punished for triggering the wrong eclipse.
It's hard to imagine a practical scenario where both lunar and solar eclipses will be useful within one max-DPS rotation. One Eclipse will always provide more of a DPS gain than the other, and so long as they share a cooldown, the rotation will always focus on exclusively proccing whichever one is stronger.
Not all fights are perfect for owls, but at the end of the day good planning places us very well on damagelists while providing amazing utility -- What more do you expect? (I.e. whats wrong with RNG & risk of lucky/unlucky procs if the end result is good? - Why dumb this game down even more?)
RNG isn't skill, though. In addition, dealing with either good or bad RNG isn't a hard choice for players anyway-if you have bad luck, you keep on hitting the same button, if you have good luck, you hit another button. Also, because of this, as you noted earlier, there can be a variance in DPS of 500-1k. That's extremely significant. Without a detailed look at a WWS or other log, it's almost impossible to tell the difference between a very skilled, but unlucky moonkin and one that isn't as good.
Perhaps the problem is that the Eclipse buff is too good, like the original Sudden Death for fury warriors. Maybe it would be a good idea to nerf the buff slightly, but increase the Wrath proc rate.
2 things, one a response, and the other a question
In regards to Wrath proccing eclipse. The only thing I'd like to see is something like a Wrath counter. Meaning if you get 3 crits, it autmatically procs eclipse. Still leave the % in the chance, but if you get 3 crits, it auto-procs it.
And the question.
In terms of raw dps for fights like Patch, and 6min Malygos, which potion is better. Potion of Wild Magic, or Potion of Speed?
What I think would be a good change is to remove Wrath from Starlight Wrath, and give it a compensating damage coefficient boost instead (in the talent or baseline).
The talent is way too good anyway, and this would fix Wrath clipping, which is not only messy and annoying, but it would make Wrath eclipse compete at least a little bit better with Starfire eclipse.
Also, this change would not affect levelling or non-balance druids, like a change to Wrath base casttime or to Nature's Grace would.
edit: in fact another solution, to not step on the toes of pvp moonkins, would be to make a glyph for this. +0,5 sec cast time, +20% (wild guess) damage or something.
Regarding Glyphs and Insect Swarm in upcoming content:
If the Starfall Glyph is comparable to the IS glyph, wont it be better to go Starfall and ditch IS from the rotation (when standing still and nuking) and just use IS on the move and when the hit modifier is needed?
Also are the calculations that have been made to find where SFall and IS is comparable done with the t7 bonus included? I mean if we loose the IS bonus when getting t8 and then get a comparable Sfall glyph, I assume IS will bite the dust for a normal nuke situation and only be used when forced to move etc...?
Any thoughts on this subject?
On the whole eclipse thing, I like many other actually love Eclipse and how it works. The only "problems" I see is that we have no use to eclipse wrath atm. I mean it would be fun if they made wrath like f.x Arcane Blast, so that it becomes the clear DPS winner but takes out your mana if used..
That way it could be used when huge burst is needed, but would be unusable in a normal Damage over time scenario.
Would also be nice with a nuke spell that didnt proc eclipse (maybe a nature channel like lifedrain etc would be cool), so we could be more in control when we wanted the proc to occur. I also think they should just make both abilities 100% chance to proc so it can be alittle more controlled.
What I think would be a good change is to remove Wrath from Starlight Wrath, and give it a compensating damage coefficient boost instead (in the talent or baseline).
The talent is way too good anyway, and this would fix Wrath clipping, which is not only messy and annoying, but it would make Wrath eclipse compete at least a little bit better with Starfire eclipse.
Also, this change would not affect levelling or non-balance druids, like a change to Wrath base casttime or to Nature's Grace would.
edit: in fact another solution, to not step on the toes of pvp moonkins, would be to make a glyph for this. +0,5 sec cast time, +20% (wild guess) damage or something.
Alternatively, just increase the cast time on rank 12 by 0.5 seconds. That should take care of the coefficient and still wouldn't affect anyone leveling. The eclipse proc % would need to be increased to account for the lower number of wraths cast as well.
It does suck a lot when you have eclipse off cooldown and you know you're gonna be out of the fight for a bit. I especially run into it on p1 maly quite a bit, any time eclipse procs within the first few seconds. However, it's counterbalanced to an extent by the chance of getting disabled or moving right as eclipse ends, which is pretty sweet (though in the fights in game now I think definitely a bit less likely to happen).
I'd really like to see wrath eclipse changed to a charge system where it procs on 2 wrath crits rather than a chance to proc on one. Even at a nerf to average time to proc it'd bring the standard deviation on time to proc down quite a bit and I would consider that a buff.
I also think balance is in a pretty good place dps wise. To be honest, there are a couple classes that are just doing too much for way too simple a play style IMO, and much as I hate to see nerfs I think they need some toning down (read mages, destro locks) more than we need buffs. Most DPS classes compete with us pretty closely.
I mean it would be fun if they made wrath like f.x Arcane Blast, so that it becomes the clear DPS winner but takes out your mana if used.
All casters (and caster specs, where relevant) need to get this option. Not necessarily in AB form, but some way for the highest dps rotation to be significantly separate from the highest dpm rotation. It's something that's been fundamentally missing for a long time now and really takes the fun out of caster gearing.
I wanted to bump the boomy raid page, since the ptr is up currently, and nature's grace has been changed, along with a few other talents. I wanted to begin by making the obvious observation that a solar eclipse-style rotation would probably not be preferable, since wrath is no longer clipped by ng, and until reaching a certain amount of haste it will continue to be preferable.
I've noticed the question brought up in other threads about heroism, and its effect on the benefits of solar eclipse. I haven't been able to test it yet, however it would seem that with the 30% from heroism, 20% from ng, and your baseline haste it may be preferable for a lunar eclipse. Has anyone been able to test this yet?
It seems as though blizzard is almost forcing us to use the solar eclipse, due to the ng nerf and solar eclipse buff, although would they really overlook something as simple as clipping during heroism? Well then again, they overlooked clipping without heroism before... D:
It seems as though blizzard is almost forcing us to use the solar eclipse, due to the ng nerf and solar eclipse buff, although would they really overlook something as simple as clipping during heroism? Well then again, they overlooked clipping without heroism before... D:
I think Blizzard wants us to use both. That may not be terribly realistic as I suspect people will gear themselves toward a goal of almost always using one or the other for maximum dps with as simple a rotation as possible, but I think it makes sense that they might want us using solar eclipse most of the time, but lunar in the contexts where it makes sense (such as heroism). It would be nice if it worked out such that solar eclipse is the high dps but mana intensive option and lunar is the lower dps but more sustainable option.
Insect Swarm: The bonus damage from spellpower on this damage over time ability has been increased significantly to match similar spells on other classes.
Ticks on Live (Raid buffed through WWS):
Avg: 949 dmg
Ticks on PTR (unbuffed)
ticks for 734-981 (it seems I get three tick values, either 784, 882, or 981)
For comparison, avg tick moonfire raidbuffed:
Avg 1338
3,50 second cast time - 20%(0,70sec) = 2,80 second cast time (old 3,00sec)
3,00 second cast time - 20%(0,60sec) = 2,40 second cast time (old 2,50sec) 2,50 second cast time - 20%(0,50sec) = 2,00 second cast time (old 2,00sec)
2,00 second cast time - 20%(0,40sec) = 1,60 second cast time (old 1,50sec)
1,75 second cast time - 20%(0,35sec) = 1,40 second cast time (old 1,25sec)
1,60 second cast time - 20%(0,32sec) = 1,28 second cast time (old 1,10sec)
1,50 second cast time - 20%(0,30sec) = 1,20 second cast time (old 1,00sec)
1,40 second cast time - 20%(0,28sec) = 1,12 second cast time (old 0,90sec)
1,35 second cast time - 20%(0,27sec) = 1,08 second cast time (old 0,85sec)
1,30 second cast time - 20%(0,26sec) = 1,04 second cast time (old 0,80sec) 1,25 second cast time - 20%(0,25sec) = 1,00 second cast time (old 0,75sec)
1,20 second cast time - 20%(0,24sec) = 0,96 second cast time (old 0,70sec)
1,15 second cast time - 20%(0,23sec) = 0,92 second cast time (old 0,65sec)
1,10 second cast time - 20%(0,22sec) = 0,88 second cast time (old 0,60sec)
1,00 second cast time - 20%(0,20sec) = 0,80 second cast time (old 0,50sec)
Starfire/unglyphed HT
Any druid above 2,5 second cast time is a small winner (low-average haste gear like myselve im at 2.59 in a raid)
Any druid with less then 2.5 second cast time is a small loser, his NG'd cast time will increase compared to the old NG system.
Wrath/Nourish
Any druid with more then 1,25 second cast time is a small loser, the loss is less hard for druids with no or nearly no haste.
Any druid with a 1,25sec or lower cast time on wrath will have nothing changes because they had to wait for the 1sec gcd anyway with the old NG system.
To me it seems its a punishment for druids with high amounts of haste.
And its seems to be a nerf to NG'd starfires, even for druids with no haste.
03/03/09, 3:43 PM
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