tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post1223631547381387579..comments2023-12-13T05:38:56.001-06:00Comments on Gray Matter: The New Talent System: A Moonkin's ViewGraylohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12928540421337175942noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-43157851357933724632011-10-31T09:03:10.454-05:002011-10-31T09:03:10.454-05:00For me it is to early to say - I like the changes ...For me it is to early to say - I like the changes or not - it depends so much how they define our basic spells and abilities. What troubles me however is: It seems we loose "exclusivity" of our signature ability: FoN which is now available to all druids (...can be casted in all shapeshift forms). Which I really liked and is part of my moonkin identity. On the other side, it seems blizzard tries to obliterate between druid specs, encourage shapeshifting and usage of more than one form. I fear the price is: less total dps and the return of the discussion: hybrids vs. pure dps damage.Moonwhispernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-33571799047879868242011-10-29T17:31:25.178-05:002011-10-29T17:31:25.178-05:00I haven't played for a wee while, but early on...I haven't played for a wee while, but early on in WotLK there was a point in time where a PvP resto could go half feral/half resto (for a laugh). It meant you were nigh on unkillable (except for DK's of course) due to massive health/survivability and mana regen from melee.<br /><br />Anyways - that style of gameplay was really enjoyable, constantly switching forms and being an actual druid. Alternating heals with bear for stuns/charge or to absorb damage and cat to stun and run. It will always be there in some way for PvP but it's almost non-existant for PvE of course.<br /><br />So going back to Teir5... imagine if they could build in actual talents that assisted with raiding, based around shifting. Something like if you melee once you get a 20% damage bonus to your next 3 spells. Sure it won't help everytime - but a good moonkin would do it while transition or dodging fire with someone in range. Or if you HoT someone, your next nature spell is an insta-crit? <br /><br />Anyways - as you say, talent choices that focus on something such as Bear that is currently not useful to a Moonkinl are bad. The opportunity here is for them to recognize that the benefit from shifting needs to be in the main raiding form and significant.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-70737936755435173362011-10-27T14:00:03.705-05:002011-10-27T14:00:03.705-05:00Gus
Wondering if the dps between all the clases re...Gus<br />Wondering if the dps between all the clases remain the same it would seem druids would get more utility as they have fewer dps talents or will the hybrid tax return since we have more utilityAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-91602227715256535112011-10-27T05:59:35.196-05:002011-10-27T05:59:35.196-05:00Totally agree with Moonhugger.
Also in my opinion...Totally agree with Moonhugger.<br /><br />Also in my opinion if there is an ability that is a out and out "dps increase" "must have ability" then Blizzard has failed in its goal.<br /><br />Sure some will be better than others but hopefully not by much and there will be oppertunities to switch to different talents for specific encounters.<br /><br />I real hope is that druids, mages, spriests may all be to fill a role as add kiter (for example) but using a new talent without affecting overall dps by to much ('Too much' being the key point)<br /><br />For me the next expansion is looking very promising if they can achieve all that they set out to do.Dannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-53432474047529677682011-10-27T00:05:49.623-05:002011-10-27T00:05:49.623-05:00I think you're underestimating ursol vortex. ...I think you're underestimating ursol vortex. Think of situations like Knock, Knock, Knock, where you needed to group up the adds and aoe them down away from the raid. This kind of ability could allow a moonkin to assist in the "getting everything clumped up" department for someone else to root everything in place. The talent says nothing about taunting everything, so it is essentially a reverse thunderstorm. Think of every situation where there is an add chasing someone and you needed to slow it by any means possible, this is another way to do that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-29480258335648021162011-10-26T11:42:29.250-05:002011-10-26T11:42:29.250-05:00So we gain 6 natty abilities but in the mean time ...So we gain 6 natty abilities but in the mean time lose 3 (FoN, Typhoon, disintanglement) so end up 3 up on the deal. Do the other classes get similarly screwed?<br /><br />(restos lose two?)Berdachenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-5500228594382871472011-10-26T00:37:35.319-05:002011-10-26T00:37:35.319-05:00I want "Shroom Forest" - Places and deto...I want "Shroom Forest" - Places and detonates all your shrooms in one GCD 30s/1m CD!Tjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15271234801535822974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-29291362164512800012011-10-25T21:24:34.514-05:002011-10-25T21:24:34.514-05:00I've been reading your posts for over a year n...I've been reading your posts for over a year now, and I generally find you to be the leading authority when it comes to moonkin dps. (I'm sure you feel the “but” coming). However I think you’re getting the wrong idea from these talents. Most of these are not design to help you in your particular spec, everything you’re going to need to be a moonkin is going to be fed to you, this is just flavor/sprinkles/frosting. The spirit of these talents is to bring out the druid in you, not the balance or feral druid, but the "Druid", in the hybrid sense. Now you don't have to shift to cat form to use an ability; now the ability will switch you into the form instead (2 GCD turning into 1). You are going to have to learn to utilize your abilities as a druid (and all aspects of druidism in the game). I realize it may seem strange, but that's because a true hybrid is just a foreign concept from WoW that it's like seeing a giant panda flying in the air... oh wait. (Sorry for the rant and any misspellings of grammatical incorrectness).Moonhuggernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-14457596490474495122011-10-25T07:14:01.179-05:002011-10-25T07:14:01.179-05:00The new system leaves me totally unenamoured. It f...The new system leaves me totally unenamoured. It feels like the current glyphing system where already we only have 4 out of 9 slots that really do anything useful/necessary. Blizz tried to improve this in Cata so that we could change glyphs in and out for specific encounters but failed to give us any choices to interchange, and it feels like they're trying to do the same with talents...Lespaulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-74089831357784741742011-10-25T00:32:06.926-05:002011-10-25T00:32:06.926-05:00No, Moonkin get rather boned by the current set of...No, Moonkin get rather boned by the current set of druid talents. You can tell that they are not complete yet, and there will be a lot of changes. The level 90 tier won't go live as is because we'll all default to disentanglement due to the other two talents sucking so bad. I also expect the druid talents to read like a novel due to how many things they will have to add to each one to make them worthwhile.lissannahttp://www.restokin.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-79677913629570503712011-10-24T23:57:33.473-05:002011-10-24T23:57:33.473-05:00Judging by the talents we have been presented I be...Judging by the talents we have been presented I believe we may be finding ourselves shifting more often than we do now. Back in vanilla I remember times when I would have to heal, Dps and tank in a single encounter if needed. With the current state of talents and specs we'd just be delaying a wipe instead of saving a raid if we tried that. Druids are about changing shapes and I welcome that. I'm more interested in seeing what our core abilities turn out to be and what new ones we receive at this point. Talents 2.0 generally seem to be neat toys to play with instead of role defining abilities. I do imagine though that what we have seen is pretty far off from what we will see once MoP launches.MadMerconoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-76183860737022783852011-10-24T22:16:16.227-05:002011-10-24T22:16:16.227-05:00I like the philosophy of the new system. Some of t...I like the philosophy of the new system. Some of the druid choices felt awkward compared to some of the other classes. I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll address the sore spots you identified.<br /><br />I'm interested to see what the different versions of the treants will be and what our "empowered" ability will be.<br /><br />I like the survivability options.<br /><br />I assumed that we were losing our current sprint and would need to pick it up in Tier 1.Ian Darkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12920625574492940862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-66441835329565420862011-10-24T20:58:03.308-05:002011-10-24T20:58:03.308-05:00@Erdluf
I think you make a very good point about ...@Erdluf<br /><br />I think you make a very good point about Faerie Swarm. I hadn't thought to use it as a kiting tool, but your other thoughts I'm having a little trouble with.<br /><br />Wild Charge may be able to keep you in Eclipse, but I would assume at the very least it's on the GCD and in which case your wasting valuable casting time. Though it may be a good way to get you to the beginning of an eclipse during down time.<br /><br />If the best thing about HotW is that it buffs Tranq then it has reall problems, and I personally hate the idea of having to do gimicky things like kitty DPS to buff my AoE.<br /><br />The good news is that these are far from final and in at least a few cases, what we see in a few months won't look anything like what we see now.Graylohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12928540421337175942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-61927565541670988862011-10-24T20:36:55.722-05:002011-10-24T20:36:55.722-05:00Orrak I agree. The Feral Bear/Cat tree needs to be...Orrak I agree. The Feral Bear/Cat tree needs to be seperated from the Boomkin/Resto in order to give meaningful choices. Most of the selctions have a feral component and arent ueful for Boomkin and Resto.<br /><br />Its seems like Blizzard wants us to convert to Bear, naw on the enemy and then change back to LAser Chicken.Drake/Convertiblenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-58163464097527755222011-10-24T19:21:22.704-05:002011-10-24T19:21:22.704-05:00I've been sitting here trying to come up with ...I've been sitting here trying to come up with a single elegant talent that's attractive to all 4 specs and has the same wow factor of -say- the warlock t6. <br /><br />All I've come up with is a deeper appreciation of how the druid class really confounds this system. Beyond being the only class with 4 specs, were also the only class that does not share a single ability between any of it's trees. <br /><br />Honestly what I think they need to do is split our talent trees. One tree for balance/resto and another for cat/bear. They don't need to be mutually exclusive. The first tier, for example, would work well for both. But I really don't see any other way for them to create compelling choices without weighing it down with massively complicated, and convoluted abilities. <br /><br />Also on an unrelated side note, I'm not a huge fan of how virtually every single talent is an activated ability. Most of the other trees have a mix of actives and interesting passives (eg.hunter t1). I'm hard pressed for key bindings as it is.Orraknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-62161484358122353122011-10-24T18:19:41.597-05:002011-10-24T18:19:41.597-05:00Tier 15: PVP/cat specific talents. Displacer Beast...Tier 15: PVP/cat specific talents. Displacer Beast is the only real PVE talent, however placing us in cat would cause a DPS decrease as we would have to move back to Boomkin form. Same could be said for Tireless Pursuit.<br /><br />Tier 30: No real balance selection, renewal would have some usage when healers are focusing on other targets.<br /><br />Tier 45: Typhoon would be out main selection. Would be better if it had a 360 degree spread which would help against rogues etc.<br /><br />Tier 60: Choices here, either Wild Charge or Force of Nature. Concern with Wild Charge knocking us out of range resulting in a dps decrease. Be interesting what the treants will do per spec. Unsure of incarnations efects...berserk? Would be mandatory if this was the case and that goes against Blizzards goals. Shame FoN is on the same tier.<br /><br />Tier 75: All 3 are mainly unsuitable for Boomkin. In no way do we want Ursols Verdict, apart from maybe a pvp situation where we wanted to pull a enemy into a hunter trap or pull mobs away from a healer etc. All other talents place us in bear form.<br /><br />Tier 90: Interesting talents, both Heart of the Wild and Master Shapeshifter indicate Blizzard want us to regularly move into to different forms in order to increase our dps. Wether boomkins are going to be content with this is another matter. Also, Blizzard has indicated they want to simplify the classes, this tier adds significant complexity to a Boomkin rotation. This will become a very complex class to master again.<br /><br />Overall combining additional complexity to the eclipse mechanic could make this a difficult class to play. Levelling in Boomkin will also be made more difficult via lower level feral focus. This class unfortunately become a bit of a mish mash due to the 4 specs. Most other specs seem to have a certain flow to them where Druids don’t.<br /><br />Suggestions: <br />We need a finishing move, or something to make non-eclipsed spells less detrimental in situations. Example: If a target is below x%, spells cast by the druid are calculated at a Eclipsed state on that target only.<br /><br />There seems to be a required symmetry between Tier 75 and Master Shapeshifter and Heart of the Wild with cooldowns. You need Bear Hug to make the Feral version of MSS and HotW useful.<br /><br />Alternatively Bear Hug should be able to be done in Moonkin form, perhaps applying another dot and re-porting you character to your original spot, allowing you to use Heart of the Wild to heal and still maintain some of the DPS lost while you are healing. Casting HotW would increase the dot strength so not increase the dps overall if you dont use HotW.<br /><br />Move Treants to Tier 75 and move Demoralizing Roar to Tier 60.Drake/Convertiblenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-54188795727678989022011-10-24T15:33:44.982-05:002011-10-24T15:33:44.982-05:00Excellent post:
Don't overlook Faerie Swarm. ...Excellent post:<br /><br />Don't overlook Faerie Swarm. There have been lots of situations where the ability to kite a non-boss has been important. We just haven't had good tools for it. No-cooldown, 50% snare for 15s can be very strong (would probably make it easy to solo Tank in TBP as balance).<br /><br />Wild Charge may be a no-CD way to stay in one Eclipse. Might become important if Lunar-Shower becomes baked-in to Balance spec.<br /><br />Demo Roar and Vortex are both caster interrupts on a 30s CD. Vortex has larger AoE (and pulls targets to those WM you placed). Roar gives a 4s disorient also (but puts you into bear form too).<br /><br />Hug might be useful just after a Frenzied Regen cast, but that seems terribly situational for Raiding.<br /><br />Disentanglement mandatory if any risk of being snared or rooted. Otherwise, HotW could give you a 60% strong Tranquility. MSS might be useful where bigger WM or Hurricane is important (short lived adds that must be killed quickly)Erdlufnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-79152052277953943472011-10-24T13:45:00.665-05:002011-10-24T13:45:00.665-05:00I think the new talent system as a whole is a good...I think the new talent system as a whole is a good thing. Other classes already have some very interesting choices and abilities available to them. Druids just throw a massive monkey wrench into all that. The highly compartmentalized nature of our roles/abilities mean that any ability geared toward one role is likely to be useless for all others. The bear tier is a perfect example of this; why would a non-bear want *any* of those abilities? I hope they figure something out for us in this regard, because I really do think the new system has promise. Let's just hope we don't all get left out in the cold because of it.Daedalushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12479897091838492713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-80019003662582474142011-10-24T11:52:43.356-05:002011-10-24T11:52:43.356-05:00These talents are going to change for sure. I thin...These talents are going to change for sure. I think it was a mistake to use a mix of existing talents and freshly made up ones for the purpose of giving an example of how the talent system will work.<br /><br />I think once the actual talents are implemented and balanced, the "cookie cutter" or "must have" builds will be gone.<br /><br />-MyraxaGamingLiferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02195336931104729563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-15863508901155762342011-10-24T11:33:41.211-05:002011-10-24T11:33:41.211-05:00@Jardal
No, I got that impression as well. That&#...@Jardal<br /><br />No, I got that impression as well. That's why I said that the choice of FoN vs Incarnation will likely come down to a math problem. That said, just because one of these new talents is very similar to an existing talent or ability, that doesn't mean that the existing ability will go away. Does Faerie Swarm mean Faerie Fire will go away? I doubt it. Does Tireless Pursuit mean we lose Dash? Maybe.<br /><br />I agree that we can't assume we keep all of our existing abilities like the ability to break snares with shapeshifting, but we can't assume that we lose all of them either. <br /><br />@Ohken<br /><br />I disagree. I think you and Blizzard are making a error by only thinking of this in terms of DPS. Damage is only one form of performance, and just because some of the options can't be measured in terms of damage doesn't mean that they can't be measured at all. Any experianced PvE moonkin could look at these options and tell you what the best option is for specific situation. <br /><br />The problem that Blizzard is faces is that PvE is extremely structured and highly speciallized. The boss's abilities don't change, every player in the group is assigned a specific role, and we can plan for the encounter. As a result, it's not a question of which option do I like better. It's a question of which option is best for this particular fight.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong. I like how they have "themed" the tiers (though I don't like all of the themes). I think it's a good idea to force players to choose some utility. I also think that this system will work very well for PvP since it's less structured and less speciallized. In PvP Nature's Swiftness vs Renewal is an acutal choice. Do I want quick CC and a quick heal on a teammate or do I want a larger self heal witha shorter cooldown for myself? That's a legitimate choice in PvP, but in PvE it's just a math problem.<br /><br />Think of it this way, Ghostcrawler said that the goal was to have two Combat Rogues standing next to each other with different builds and not look at each other thinking the other one is an idiot. Well, If I'm standing in front of Ragnaros, and I look at a fellow moonkin with Mass entanglement instead of Typhoon, I'm going to think he's an idiot. PvE is too structured for there not to be a "best option."Graylohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12928540421337175942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-14789473110582241822011-10-24T10:21:51.057-05:002011-10-24T10:21:51.057-05:00Great post - I've featured it over at the MMO ...Great post - I've featured it over at the MMO Melting Pot as part of our talent analysis roundup. (That's also trending on Reddit just now, so hopefully you'll pick up a few new readers!) <br /><br />BTW, I wrote something up that might be handy to link to for this post - a <a href="http://www.mmomeltingpot.com/2011/10/druid-talents-in-mists-of-pandaria-feral-guardian-balance-and-restoration-%e2%80%93-new-wow-5-0-talent-system/" rel="nofollow">text transcription of all the Druid talents</a>. The screenies can be a bit hard to read, particularly if you're short-sighted (like me) - might be useful to offer an alternative. <br /><br />Hope you don't mind me butting in with that!MMO Melting Pothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13451099568021136442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-37102160428478792902011-10-24T10:06:12.428-05:002011-10-24T10:06:12.428-05:00The cookie cutter argument only applies to the tie...The cookie cutter argument only applies to the tiers that are pure dps talents. What the new talent system lets them do is move the cookie-cuttereness to just a few tiers, and to make the other tiers more interesting.<br /><br />As a concrete ex ample, suppose they design 3 dps talents and 3 utility talents and tell you to pick two of them. In the current talent system, all moonkin are going to pick 2 of the 3 dps talents and math out which one is the best. In the new system, however, you only take 1 dps talent. You have to pick one of the utility talents, and utility is much less practical to math out.<br /><br />From this point of view, it makes a lot of sense for them to make the last tier of talents not be a dps tier. They want the last tier to be interesting, not just something you automatically take once you hit the appropriate level.Ohkenhttp://shiftingnature.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-58775449501809889732011-10-24T09:19:28.545-05:002011-10-24T09:19:28.545-05:00I think you made a mistake in thinking that these ...I think you made a mistake in thinking that these talents are empowering current abilities. My thought process is that some abilities we take today are getting slotted in here as an option. For example: moonkin will likely lose treants and have the option of picking them back up here. Also, it's likely that disentanglement is the only way we'll be able to shift and remove roots.Jardalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3232240169123589462.post-80002298207935662992011-10-24T08:18:37.696-05:002011-10-24T08:18:37.696-05:00I just hope they're not sticking with the 6th ...I just hope they're not sticking with the 6th tier's theme. They'll most probably do something about MS and HotW, but having to spend your lv90 point on a PvP/survivability talent is pretty underwhelming, specially compared to locks and priests for example.Tsukihttp://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/alleria/Tsuki/advancednoreply@blogger.com