Tag Archive: balance

Moonkin guide 4.0

This post is no longer updated. For the updated Moonkin guide, please find it in the new and improved Cataclysm moonkin guide (which I will continue to update) in the top, or by clicking here!

Patch 4.0 is right around the corner, and with it comes a whole lot of changes to our class. For some reason, I thought I had plenty of time before I needed to re-write the Moonkin guide, failing to realise the abundance of questions that are bound to come when 4.0 hits the live servers.

So I buckled up and started typing. Obviously, some things are still the same. Professions and enchants hasn’t been changed on the PTR, so I won’t meddle with them in the guide before the changes are active. I assume that most enchants such as +81 spell power will be changed to +81 intellect, but until they do, I’ll keep those sections as they are.

Rest assured that I will keep updating this as 4.0 comes out, and naturally throughout Cataclysm as well. I’ll add this guide to the button at the top once 4.0 hits the live servers. I’ll also post this guide out to MMO-champion and the like when 4.0 comes around – you get to read it now, because you are here ;)

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There hasn’t really been a whole lot of moonkin info in the expansion. At least, not compared to what we see for other classes. Sure, there has been a ton of changes, and most of them are very good changes. A lot of our issues have been addressed, but we are still at a point where I feel that moonkins definitely needs a wee bit more of love.

For a while now, I have had this nagging worry that Blizzard would somehow swing around and pull “a resto” on us, and remove moonkin form from our spellbooks. Or make it a use ability like they are doing with restoration druids. Thankfully, Ghostcrawler mentioned the other day that they stand firm in the belief that balance druids are defined by their moonkin form.

There is a lot of grapejuice going around these days about moonkin form being useless in its current state. One argument is about the buffs it brings. We are already sharing all of our buffs with several other classes. So is everyone else. That it continues in Cataclysm is just fine, that’s really how it should be. Every buff should be covered by many classes – it has been Blizzard’s philosophy since Wrath of the Lich King came out, and people seem to think themselves useless if other people can provide the same buffs as them. For the rest of us, we are brought as another buff insurance and the damage we bring.

Sure, 5% haste is provided by other classes in Cataclysm, and there is merit to that argument. In its current state, it would actually allow us to do whatever we like when it comes to being in moonkin form. It would seem really pointless to have a form if we could simply decide to ditch it when were in a raid group. But that is probably going to change. We will get something that buffs us, like moonkin form buffs our intellect and mana regeneration on the live servers.

What would be fun could be further modifiers to our abilities, or if it had a chance to empower us with “Spirit of the Owlbeast”. How about SotO being a proc that empowers the next ability to increase the damage of the next spell by x% or which will automaticly cast the next spell on every enemy within 15 yards of your target. Imagine the AOE we could whip up with that?

I don’t know what Blizzard will do about moonkin form. I am confident that they will make us something spiffy, something that will keep us in moonkin form. And as for the talents, I’m hoping that they will give us some focus soon, much like the lines of the focus we’ve seen them give paladins and the like.

It’s still beta. Everything will be fine.

Tiny talent trees

The new talent trees are out. Yay. Not much to say about them though, but before I do say anything, there is one single word that I wish to embed in your brain with a hammer:

CHILL!

Already, a lot of angry and confused posts are popping up around the web, from people who think these are the final verions of our talents. It’s not. It’s probably not. Chances are, we are most likely going to see many more changes – maybe. We are still in beta, and there is plenty of time for Blizzard to tweak the trees.

It would appear that my previous assumptions on the talent tree changes were correct. Most, if not all, passive talents have been stripped away, and we will get these as we spec into balance no problem there. No new talents were introduced, although some of the ones we did see was chanegd slightly. Lets take a look at the current status.

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Blizzard plans to scrap the current talent trees, and trim the new ones down considerably. We will be going from 51 point talent trees, down to 31 point talent trees. I was a bit unsure if I would make a blog post on this now, or wait until the new talents get released, because right now, all I can say about these changes is “It’s a good idea”.

Thank you for rea–… oh, alright, I guess I can elaborate. The current 51 point talent trees has a lot of random stuff that you have to take, either because you need to accumilate the bonuses, or because you need to advance down further into the tree. For you and I, this might not be that much of a hassle, but for new players it doesn’t excactly help them. There are a lot of talents, and it can quickly become confusing. There are a lot of places one can go wrong.

Simplifying the talent trees is a good thing. What would happen if we didn’t? Do you expect 101 point talent trees in level 150? Jeez, what a mess that would be. Cutting down the talent trees is a great idea, especially if it all becomes a little bit more transparent. It might even root out some of all the inquiries from newly dinged level 80′ies (or, well, 85), because it will be a little bit more clear which talents they have to take.

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