Forums and blogs have been buzzing with talk for months now, ever since we saw the first alpha leaks on MMO-champion, and with the official information released by Blizzard.
And there are mixed feelings about all of these changes. Some people, myself included, are jumping up and down, clapping their hands, wearing their Blizzard fanboy shirts. Other people seem very negative towards all of these changes, filled with an age old mistrust to Blizzard, thinking that no matter what Blizzard does for us, it’s “not going to be enough”.
Blizzard hates druids
By now, we have a fair idea of what direction Blizzard wants to take us. I also think that we need to give Blizzard some credit. Say what you want on their personal preference towards a class, but they are running an amazingly complex game. Even if you feel slightly underpowered in a certain situation, it is astonishing how close most classes are anyways, how talents have a sort of synergy, how classes can work together in a multitude of ways. I’m sure they are not making decisions by rolling a dice, or based on what class they like to play.
I think it’s borderline paranoia when someone sais that Blizzard hates a particular class, and wants to keep that class under the boot. It doesn’t make sense, for why would Blizzard supress 10% of their playerbase? I do understand the massive undertaking it is to make everybody happy. In truth, I think most people feel like their class could need buffs. Their class is underpowered. Everybody else is overpowered. So in truth, we are all more or less equal. Whatever balance issues one class might have over another is minor in the grand scale of things.
What we want
Throughout WOTLK, there has been a lot of concerns from the moonkin community. We have had some challenges throughout the expansion, but nothing that put us too far behind. There have certainly been other classes that has been worse off, namely shadowpriests and shamans, but we have always been able to prove our worth and fill our raid slot. In the end of the expansion, we are still quite capable, and if we are played well, we can even be an invaluable asset to the raid group.
So what do we want? To sum it up in a few bullets:
- Less randomness with our procs
- More cooldowns to play around with
- Less punishment for moving
- Better scaling
What have they done to solve these issues, and is it enough?
The Eclipse system
I think some people have yet to realize just how massive the change to eclipse is. For new players, it actually makes balance just as viable as feral – if not more viable. New players will have the eclipse meter right out of the box, and we can expect that the first 20 levels is going to go a little bit faster with an automated buff to spells.
For raiders, it will mean a complete change in how we approach moonkins. We are now in complete control of our eclipse proc, and know when it will happen. We will no longer have those nasty RNG moments where we fire off wraths for a whole minute and never see an eclipse proc. My wrath has about a 67% chance to crit during raids, and I still get crit droughts. Once Cataclysm comes, this will be a thing of the past.
This is a huge buff to moonkins. We can now plan accordingly during a raid fight, and we can decide when and if we want eclipse to proc. No longer will we get an eclipse just before we have to move, and waste 50% of the duration and no longer will we have periods without eclipse where we are at the mercy of the RNG Gods.
Crit will still play a vital role for our eclipse: Whenever we crit, we generate more Eclipse Energy than a non crit, and as we get more crit, we can get eclipses faster. But crit is no longer the central part of our eclipse, and we are no longer dependant on crit for proccing it.
More cooldowns
Be it for PvP or PvE, we have sort of been lacking stuff to use on a regular basis. We have Typhoon, which is hardly used, Starfall on a 1 minute cooldown and Force of Nature on a 3 minute cooldown. Typhoon can act as an interrupt with travel time, and while starfall is very potent, its easely countered with a stun, and treants can be wasted completely on a fearing, moving target. We now have the means to avoid this.
Solar Beam – an awesome AOE silence – sounds very powerful, and is sure to have some uses in PvE as well. Starsurge is both a stun, a DPS move and a way to further control our eclipse procs. Wild Mushroom becomes both a DPS move, a trap and a snare. We are finally getting what other classes have, means to protect ourselves and to further become more useful in a raid or PvP setting. If you, as a moonkin, cannot already begin to imagine all the wonderful uses we can have from these effects, then something is really amiss. On top of that, we still have barkskin, Nature’s Grasp, Roots, Typhoon and hybrid capabilities that makes us a fearsome fighting force.
Less punishment from movement
If the new eclipse system wasn’t enough of a treat, it seems that Blizzard is aware of what happens when moonkins have to move. We lose Nature’s Grace as well, and we only have some weak DOTs to throw up on the target as we move to another position. This disappears with the return of the Moonfire Spam. Since we will probably be running with different glyphs, the initial damage of Moonfire will play a might larger role than the DOT. We get talents to increase the direct damage from moonfire, and a super special talent that even increases the damage of Moonfire as we move. We will probably not use it very often as we stand still, but it will be an awesome tool for when we do have to move. And don’t forget, should this moonfire cast crit, Nature’s Grace will be up when you stop – although Nature’s Grace is still marked as “To Be Redesigned/To Be Removed”, so we may still see some changes to this talent as well.
Better Scaling
Scaling has been a thorn in the eye for moonkins, namely because our two main nukes stop getting the full benefit of our stats. Our DOTs have been weak because they largely only scaled with spell power, and while crit and haste are still wonderful stats, they lose some value when their respective cap has been reached.
With the change to Eclipse, Starfire does not gain extra crit anymore. Just by this, it is pretty safe to say that we wont ever reach the soft crit cap. Ever. If I had that change right now, I would still be 33% crit away from the soft crit cap, and I doub anything will change in Cataclysm.
Haste is a different matter. If Nature’s Grace is not getting a revamp, our haste cap will still be relatively low. We have lost a lot of haste from generic talents, yet we will gain it from our mastery bonus. But even if our haste cap is relatively low in Cataclysm, we must not forget that haste is suddenly affecting more than just two spells. Even if your wrath is haste capped, you will still benefit from haste on your starfire and on your insect swarm. Insect Swarm, with haste and the ability to crit, will be a much larger part of our DPS in Cataclysm.
And considering that we get a buttload of haste from our Moonkin Mastery, I find it likely that Nature’s Grace will be changed to something else, or removed completely. Just changing Nature’s Grace would move our haste cap much further up, and I think it’s realistic to expect that soft caps is going to be a problem of the past.
What’s the verdict?
I feel like Blizzard has heard our concerns and acted accordingly. They have proposed changes that will make everything less random, they have given us a load of situational skills, they have shown that they are aware of how movement affects our DPS and have taken steps to remove our caps.
What it all boils down to is the end result. What kind of damage will we do? Well, nobody knows yet, which is why I haven’t really talked about it. Fact of the matter is, Blizzard has addressed every major concern that we have had throughout Wrath of the Lich King, and after this, it is just a matter of putting the right numbers on the spells. I don’t know what kind of damage Starfire will do at level 85, and neither do you, but as long as the fundamental problems with the class has been fixed, the numbers are easy enough to fiddle with.
So, long story short: No, Blizzard doesn’t hate druids.
I completely agree with everything you wrote here. But I still have some concerns. I’m thinking about the end of BC/Start of WOTLK – Retribution Pallies.
I’m currently much deeper in PvP than PvE and I have to say, that these new abilities are very potent and I’ve already set up several possible uses/combinations in my mind to bring down enemies. My main concern is, that it may be too strong in the PvP aspect.
As of now, we have (too) many weaknesses in the PvP environment. For example it’s impossible to beat a Warlock, that isn’t too dumb and somewhat equally geared. (Note: I play a Warlock in PvP aswell). These changes will make us way more viable and give us bigger chances against classes we barely had a chance. Yet we may end up as a “faceroll” class with too many strong abilities. (It’s probably more of a personal thing, I hate playing a faceroll class)
But… Other classes/specs gain some new things aswell, this may compensate it.
I gotta say that I largely agree with your assessment of Blizzard’s changes.
I’m still holding out for a different Eclipse mechanic and a major Nature’s Grace overhaul (which I predict will lead to even greater qq’ing because it will become much less powerful).
@yagamouth
I was leaning towards worry on the PvP front as well. One thing to keep in mind is that health pools will be getting much larger for non-tank characters. While this still presents a problem for the transition period, at 85 it should allow players to survive the uses of several cooldowns such as these. That’s my hope anyway. I am hoping for a return of battles like we used to see in Vanilla. I pine for the things long past…
Do you want a *different* eclipse mechanic than the one Blizzard has released so far? What more could you want?
NG being changed is a-okay with me – especially if it is equally powerful but not a haste buff.
I do want a different mechanic. This seems like a less random, more user controlled version of our current Eclipse. I do want something that involves spell twisting, for sure. But I’d like to get away from what I consider a static rotation of “Cast Wrath till proc. Cast Starfire till proc. Throw in Starsurge as needed/able.” It seems very dry when compared to the triage based rotation of a feral druid. I know some people hate the complexity of the feral rotation (John F*cking Madden!) but I truly enjoyed the challenge and need to know minute details about the encounters. I’d be happy if Eclipse could be fractured into a buff/debuff system that was applied with certain low damage abilities and optimal DPS was based around maximizing uptime of the buff/debuff system while minimizing the spells used to activate it (since they are either low or no damage spells).
Just spitballing here, but what if we had a debuff called Solar Burn that was applied by some event and a buff for ourselves called Lunar Pull applied by a separate event. Independently, they would provide minor boosts to our DPS (either through direct spell damage increase or by increasing a critical multiplier and consequently boosting the marginal value of crit). Together, they would act as a significant buff to DPS and motivate players to keep them both up. Place this all on a charge system where you can detonate the charges for increased up time (Wrath for solar charge, Starfire for lunar charge) and BAM, triaged rotation. It could possibly be way more complex than a simple slider based proc swinging from left to right.
As for Nature’s Grace, its a pretty darn powerful talent. I’d say over budgeted. When it gets changed, some people are bound to compare it to its current state and I’m thinking they will find it a little less powerful (as it should be).
There are very few classes that has such a complex situation as feral kitties. In fact, there are no casters that has that. Rogues are close, but this is all probably just because of their energy – hunters will probably feel it too.
Its going to be pretty difficult to do this for druids. Maybe the interaction between Wild Mushrooms and Starsurge in our rotation can offer some changes. I think starsurge will offer a few different ways to be used.
Yes, I realize that the feral situation is complex. But I came from playing a feral druid, and I developed a like for the rotation because it (imo) allowed skill to shine through. Some of that was eliminated by move predictors (which is too bad) but I felt that there was a much greater disparity between a good kitty and a bad kitty.
Have you been following the discussion on EJ? There seems to be a person there with knowledge that is beyond what we have seen and from this “source” we are led to believe that damage will scale with the silder bar in addition to the proc that we will receive from reaching the end of the meter. This means DoTs will be buffed in strength as we move along the slider as well as Typhoon, Wild Mushroom, Starfall, and Starsurge (offering some massive numbers on Starsurge and a pretty clear indication imo that we will use Starsurge to push us into the next Eclipse proc.)
Like I said, I can’t verify any of this myself, but that sure seems to have introduced some complexity with DoTs and cooldowns.
Personally I love the idea of something more in depth then cast X till Y procs and cast A till B procs. Then there is also the thought that i would have to spend so much more time learning my rotations, or triage if thats what it comes to, as well as boss fights. As I have never even dreamed of rolling feral dps i have no expertise on how they work but from all I have heard they are one of thee most complicated dps rotations out there. On the other foot they are also, when played correctly, one of thee highest dps’ing classes/spec’s out there. I would love to see that kind of complexity/skill required for my favorite class, the boomkin of course, so it no longer is a slightly faceroll dps rotation. I cant tell you how many other boomkins I see on my server with almost same or better gear score but anywhere from .1 to a couple percentile difference on dmg done meters at the end of the night.