Munorion

New changes up at MMO, two of which are relevant for druids, I guess:

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...s/MuLepton.png

 

Beace

If one considered using the weapon stamina enchant before, it now seems to be pretty much a no-brainer to go for mongoose to me for general tanking.

 

hquest

Why, I repeat, why does Blizzard "balances" Druid classes by nerfing them, while all classes are being buffed? I mean, Starfall has a high cooldown already, so we can't just sit and spam it and gain tons of haste from Celestial focus and left up to 20 mobs stunned forever, so what is the point of taking out this from a 3min cooldown spell?

I have never saw my Starfall stunning mobs or whatever, but surely the haste proc from Celestial focus were handy.

What will be the next? "Moonkins are too OP and we are removing them from game to balance other QQ classes:"

Seriously now, can one explains me this change?

 

Munorion

I would guess it's a change due to arenas mostly. Starfall is kind of unique in that it's a fire-and-forget (possible) AoE stun. Mind Sear + Blackout might look similar on first glance (if Mind Sear can proc Blackout), but it's channeled.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...s/MuLepton.png

 

Fallenangel

What haste proc are you talking about, CF gives straight up 3% haste and that's not changed. What is changed is the stun proc (dunno if it ever worked, not a moonkin).

 

Eilt

It did work(the stun portion), and it was an amazing ability. At first we were going to be able to use it to get the jump on stealth teams, that got taken away. But at least if we were close enough and the target was visible we had a CHANCE to stun the target (pretty much needed to get away from melee with a CD on typhoon and natures grasp being pretty useless on most classes), and now that is being taken away.

I am really surprised Blizzard would nerf Starfall this huge (and yes it is a HUGE nerf to moonkin PvP), starfall may be reduced to a PvE spell if this nerf trend keeps up.

e: for clarification

 

Poromu

Without the stun it'll just go to 50/0/21 specs, which is pretty useful in pvp to have a good instant root, cyclone, wrath, or even a heal. I disagree with it because I've only seen it stunlock a person 1v1, almost never versus 2-3 people. The proc was never high to begin with.

Maybe not though, Starfall is still good aoe dmg in 5v5's and still decent in 2's/3's.

I think the previous poster on the haste proc is referring to nature's grace, which starfall will still provide.

The 50 stam needed to be done kind've, for any tank it'd be 75 stam straight up over any enchant currently in the game. This will somewhat balance that, or at least make you think about what you'll be tanking and which would be more beneficial, mongoose or stam. I've only geared up a tank set for Sarth+3 and I don't know, i'd probably use the stam enchant even nerfed for that.

 

Mijae

We really need new 2-hand enchants. The only new ones in LK period are for just AP. Both mongoose and this stamina enchant are balanced for 1-handers. This makes them greatly underpowered for us. At least in BC they gave 2 different agility enchants.

Feral DruidStats spreadsheet
v3.2.0.0.xls - updated 8/4/2009

 

• Adoriele

The problem being that in BC, there weren't any classes that could wield two 2hers. Don't personally think that's a huge issue, given how they've stopped trying to balance TG, and are now balancing around it, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's their reasoning.

 

david0925

Commenting on the Starfall Stun removal: This is a needed change. There should be no class balanced around the RNG. If moonkin PvP was fine before but isn't anymore because this element is taken away, then it needs to be remedied in other ways that is not as RNG related. It is entirely stupid that a class is balanced or good for pvp because he has an AoE stun that is entire RNG-based, and as dumb if said class loses all viability because such ability is taken away.

As for enchant, there just needs to be a new version of Major Agility for 2H weapon. Mongoose has pretty much been replaced by berserking, which is nice in a way that it integrated the need for all melee physical class (Mongoose was biased towards agility-favoring classes, AP's discrepancy isn't as high.)

Maniq is my hero

 

◊ Lord BEEF

WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes

Barkskin is now off the global cooldown.

This should help tremendously in pushback situations.

 

Zakariya

I'm tired of the PvP nerfs to Starfall. Moonkin do not need nerfs in Arenas, we need buffs. Every arena fight for me is the same: the moment I come out of cat form I am targeted and killed before I can take any action. Very often all I can manage to get off before I die is Starfall or treants. The rest of my time is spent stunned/trinketing/barkskinning and trying to stay alive.

Starfall stuns were one of the only things I had going for me when 2 rogues jump out of stealth and start stunlocking. Honestly, the continued nerfs to Starfall have made it less and less attractive, to the point where I don't even see myself speccing into it any longer.

Edit: Since this post earned me my 1st infraction for whining about speccing out of Moonkin, allow me to clarify: I have no intention of speccing out of Moonkin, as i think is evident from the statements I made above. However, Starfall is, as of 3.0.8, of questionable usefulness in Arenas and I think 50/0/21 offers far more value, hence my comment about speccing out of STARFALL.

 

• Adoriele

To be honest, my first reaction to this change was fairly similar. But David's right, this needed a change. AoE chance to stun every second with such a huge range is on the same order of magnitude as Mace specs used to be, and we all know how that turned out. This change lets blizzard balance Moonkin PvP around not having this ability, rather than chaining us to it. Who knows, it might be enough to allow the spell to stay on in other forms, but likely not.

 

Maeltne

My latest perusal of the patch notes turned up the following new items for me, hopefully they aren't all old :P.

# Dreamwalker Battlegear: The Rip bonus is now 4 seconds instead of 3.
# Druid Feral Tier 7 Set: The 4 piece bonus now also decreases the cooldown on Tiger’s Fury by 3 seconds.
# Druid Restoration Tier 7 Set: The Rejuvenation bonus has been changed to affect Lifebloom instead.
# Shield Wall, Barkskin, Guardian Spirit, and Divine Protection are now off the Global Cooldown.
# Deadly Gladiator’s Refuge has had its 4 piece set bonus changed. It now reduces the cooldown of Swiftmend by 2 seconds.
# Opening: Opening doors and objects should no longer cause shapeshifted forms to be cancelled.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Ghostcrawler just posted that they intend to remove all random stuns eventually, including things like blackout and even celestial focus on starfire, but they'll want to give compensation so they didn't put it in yet.

I've got to agree because random stuns are just a terrible gameplay element

 

Ja7us

Got a source? Did he mention (rabble rabble) Frostbite, improved hamstring, or glyph of same?

 

david0925

Good changes on these changes overall
-Rip having 3 seconds has always been awkward, it should be either 2 or 4. Glad they went with 4
-TF reduced by 3 seconds= 10% more energy gain from TF assuming you hit it as soon as it comes up (so actual yield is lower)= 6 energy every 30 seconds = 0.2 energy per second.
-Barkskin off GCD will help PvE o-crap situations greatly, while having some effects in pvp against pushback. In other situations in pvp since it's used a lot during stun, the off GCD isn't as useful in that situation
-PvP resto bonus is pretty huge imo; many druids used 2 piece t6 (usually out of sunwell) fo the bonus
-Cancel shapeshifting was annoying as hell, should've been fixed 20 years ago

Now if only we can get double shapeshifting so I didn't have to AFK under AV bridge to get my 50 kills as a Christimas Helper done...

Maniq is my hero

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Didn't mention those, looks specifically to be targetting stuns, not immobilizes.

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Remove RNG stun = buff damage?

 

Lilija

I do agree that RNG is annoying in PvP but then again all classes should have it removed. Also, balance PvP was not fine ... even without this nerf we suffer from very low survivability. Now it will be even worse cause Starfall stun was a part of our survivability.

Personally, I will find this nerf justified if we get anything to solve our pvp problems.

 

• Adoriele

Did you even read the quote BEEF linked? GC says they know that removing the stuns is an issue, and that we'll be compensated. They're pulling the AoE ones out now because they're the most problematic, and when they pull out the single-target ones, they'll add in the compensation. Balancing around overpowered abilities is a very bad idea, look at rogues with their Master Poisoner bug (that got fixed), HAT bug, hell, the entire Ret paladin issue. So you're going to suck a little bit more at PvP for 3.0.8. Wait it out.

 

• sordee

This is definitely a nice change, and maybe I won't be breaking my barkskin key while tanking anymore. And in general for all the oh-shit buttons out there.

I swear there seems to be a problem with the current implementation where it doesn't properly cue it as the next action unlike Mangle or Swipe.

(Go-go Twilight Torment dance swing/immediate barkskin on miss)

 

Zakariya

So, I like GC's post.... but I hate the starfall nerf.

Moonkin PvP is currently abominably bad. As I posted above, I am targetted and/or CCed into oblivion. Starfall with stun was a major portion of my survivability (and often my only source of damage) in arenas. It sucks that we're losing even that, at this point in time. I'll agree that we'd need to lose it eventually, though. And I am happy that they're going to remove blackout and other random stuns (though I will miss CF!).

What kind of annoys me as a player is that we have 4-5 specs/classes running around dominating Arenas, while GC says: "resilience may fix it, we'll see" and they go and make balancing changes for a class or classes who are underpowered.

tl;dr version: I'm impatient!

 

Lilija

As it seems from my own experience and what I read on different forums moonkins do suck at PvP already. Noone reasonable would say anything against this nerf if we received so needed survivability buffs before. I mean how many arena teams that accepted a moonkin at the moment will carry them thru 3.0.8. Personally I decided to keep trying arenas anyway but my team is ambitious and I am not sure how far we will be able to go with me included - and I definitly don't want to sit and wait while others have chance to gear up and practice their favourite PvP playstyle in arenas.

Anyway, I do like the preasure that people create about Starfall and moonkin PvP in that Blizzard forum topic.

 

hquest

First, sorry if my previous post sounded as a QQ, I guess I had not done enough PvP to realize how OP Starfall could be in there. Although I hardly believe it would ever stun all 5 opponents in an arena match when casting Starfall (which may hit up to 20 targets), it has such chance. As WoW is based in chances, then yes, it makes sense to call this a Balance fix -- although nerf is still more appropriated for PvE players using this spell on trash waves or bosses' adds.

Either way, Moonkin survivability may be, let's say, improved this time, as Barkskin is now out of GCD (check updated 3.0.8 patchnotes), but either way it is still weak. On the other hand, racials will now be mitigated. I have no idea what may happens with, ie, War Stomp. They are quite interesting changes.

 

Beasty

Great news about barkskin, I'd been hoping for that change for a while; now just frenzied regeneration! although that may be a little ambitious.