A little over a year ago I wrote a series of posts about Blizzard combining the 10man and 25man formats into a single lockout with the same loot and other rewards. As I'm sure many of you guys remember, those posts generated a lot of comments. Some people agreed with me, most disagreed. In the end the nay sayers where predicting doom and gloom, while the 10man fans were predicting sunshine and rainbows.
For obvious reasons, it was impossible to say who was going to be right and who was going to be wrong, but here we are a year later with 6months of Cataclysm under our belt and the first tier of Cataclysm raiding nearing a close. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at my reaction and the reaction of some of my commenters and see what ended up happening.
Quick Disclaimer: I'm assuming that tensions over this issue (and the way I titled one of my posts) have calmed down quite a bit over the past year. I don't expect any of the drama that resulted last time. However, in an effort to prevent any issue I want to acknowledge one thing. Most of my "evidence" comes from personal experience or observations I've seen on the servers I've played. I do use some numbers from WoWProgress.com, but none of it is scientific.
Personal Experience:
The Concern: My first reaction was very negative. Most of my 10man experiences in WotLK were very positive. My groups were filled with 25man raiders so we overgeared the content, and we had a lot of funny joking around in a way that wasn't really possible in the 25man raid. After a little thought I still had my doubts, but I also saw some of the potential of the change. I could man a chance to raid an alt in a meaningful way or just sleep more once the allure of the 10man rewards was removed.
The Result: A year later and a year wiser, I must say my second reaction was much more correct then my first. When I wrote my first reaction post the best days of my 10man groups were behind me. My 10man group like my guild saw a lot of turn over and we had trouble building a group. We did eventually end up killing heroic Lich King, but that was only after a massive effort from a few dedicated players and was months after it should have happened. In the end, it was the people that made my 10man experience so great, and that couldn't last forever.
The second reality is that I don't have much of an interest in maintaining that type of schedule anymore. To do the 10mans, I was staying up to one or two in the morning several nights a week. On the other nights it wasn't unusual for me to stay up late leveling an alt, crafting for my AH businesses, or doing some other activity. I didn't sleep a whole lot and it had an impact on my life in the game and in my normal life. There are still nights where I stay up very late playing the game, but not having the 10man raid has removed the obligation to doing so. If I stay up late one night, it's likely that I will go to bed early the next. My play time is much more balanced now, and that is probably for the best.
Balancing: Can 10man Equal 25man?
The Concern: I and many other 25man supporters questioned if Blizzard could balance the 10man and 25man formats to be relatively equal. While the gear ilevel difference was the main balancing difference between the two formats in WotLK, it wasn't the only difference. Converting a 25man raid to a 10man or vice versa isn't a simple fix where you just have to adjust a bosses total health. Spread out mechanics favor smaller groups because they have more space to work with. It's unavoidable that Room design and boss abilities will have different levels of significance for different sized groups. Some mechanics will be easier for 10mans because they have more room to spread out or fewer targets to deal with. Other mechanics will be easier for 25mans because they have more people to fill the needed rolls and players are allowed to specialize their responsibilities more. Skeptics like me were unsure if Blizzard could counteract these inevitable balancing differences between the two formats.
The Result: With Tier 11 raiding, Blizzard did a pretty good job. I've done very few fights in the 10man format, but what I'm told by people who have raided in both formats is that the lead up bosses are fairly well balanced, but there are/were a few balancing issues with the end bosses. Nefarian and Cho'gall were much tougher in the 10man format and had their damage nerfed significantly in patch 4.1. On the other hand Al'Akir is significantly easier in the 10man format, and several 25man guilds have gone in and killed Al'Akir on 10man to get the kill and ranking just as some of us skeptics worried might happen.
All in all, I can't really expect Blizzard to do a better job then they did. This type of thing is never going to be perfect the first time. I'm also pleased that they errorred on the side of 10mans being to hard (though I don't know if this was by choice). The fact that 10mans were a bit harder on some of the end bosses may have prevented a mass exodus of progression guilds switching to the 10 format.
Destabilization of Guilds:
The Concern: Organizing 10 to 15 people is easier then organizing 25 to 35. There are a lot of tasks involved in running a guild/raid that just get harder with the addition of more people. It's more people you have to evaluate, it's more people you have manage, it's more whispers and PMs you have to respond to. The question was, why would a GM stick with the 25man format when they can get the same rewards from the 10man format with less work and few problems. Not only that, but a 25man GM could take his best 10-15 players and form a more successful 10man they they could have at the 25man level. It seems like a perfect situation for guilds to abandon the 25man format for the more accessible but similarly rewarding 10man format.
The Result: There has definitely been some movement away from 25mans to 10mans. In the past six months I've seen several 25man guilds reform as 10 man guilds due to recruiting and other issues. I've also seen very few new 25man guilds form, but I've seen many recruiting posts for newly formed 10man guilds.
That said the 25man format definitely isn't dead. Progression raiding still seems to favor the 25man format, while 10man seems to be favored by casual raiding. Looking at numbers from WoWProgress this division is clear. Of the top 100 guilds in the world only five are 10man guilds and of those only one is in the top fifty. The 25man format also has a much higher participation rate in the heroic modes then the 10man format. This is probably an indication that many of the historically successful progression guilds have stuck with the 25man format.
The question now is how is this going to change in the future. Is the 25man format still in decline or has has it stabilized? How many of the 25man guilds in WoWProgress are dead guilds that failed after a couple of months of raiding and won't be active in Firelands? It's going to be really interesting to see the progression numbers at the end of Tier 12 progression cycle. It's my guess that 25mans will still be the dominate format in progression raiding for a couple of progression cycles. However, it's quite possible that the 10man progression guilds needed the Tier 11 cycle to get organized and come out and take the T12 raids by storm and dominate the 25man format.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Great 4.2 Nerf
Just in case you haven't seen it, though I'm sure most of you have, Blizzard announced yesterday that the T11 normal mode raids will be nerfed significantly when 4.2 is released. Here's the quote:
My Perspective:
In all honesty, I don't understand why anyone really cares about this change. Seriously who does this help? If you take a look at WoW progress you can see almost 19,000 guilds have cleared Nefarian on normal mode. Even more have cleared Cho'gall and Al'Akir. If you haven't cleared the T11 normal mode bosses at this point of the expansion, you clearly aren't serious about raiding or progression. For the casual player this allows them to see some content that no one is going to care about otherwise.
If anything, this change helps the serious raiders out there more then any one else. Raiders tend to get locked into playing one character for very long periods of time. Raiders spend so much time learning, optimizing and gearing a particular toon that it's hard to switch to something else even after they've grown bored of their main toon. This change will make it easier for players to gear an alt or main switch if they so choose.
I am a sensitive to the argument that these nerfs will cheapen the rewards of titles and such. However, I think this argument is being over blown a little bit. The "Defender of a Shattered World" title will become more common, but was it really all that impressive to begin with?
I'm more concerned about Heroic titles and Meta achievements that signify the rare accomplishments in raiding. I still think these types of rewards should be removed in a timely manner, but that is irrelevant to the 4.2 nerfs since the 4.2 are being made to normal mode bosses only.
Legendary Concerns:
The silliest complaint I've heard about these nerfs is that they will some how make the Legendary staff easier to get and more abundant. Yes, you have to complete the T11 raids to be able to pick up the first quest leading to the legendary staff, but it's not like that was a significant barrier in the first place. There are already hundreds of thousands of players who meet that criteria already. The real barriers to the staff are the 25 Living Embers you will need to create the first step, and the 25 Seething Cinders needed to complete the second step. The Heart of the Flame needed to complete the legendary might also be a big issue if it only drops off of Heroic Ragnaros. The simple truth is, if you haven't completed T11 raids yet, you probably don't have a snowballs chance in the Firelands to complete the legendary staff anyway.
Some people may argue that this nerf sets a precedent that the Firelands raid will be nerfed at some point in the future. Thus making the staff easier to obtain when Tier 13 is released. I agree there is some merit to that argument, but I think history shows that to be an insignificant concern. Let’s use Ulduar as an example. The legendary mace [Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings] was the BIS healer weapon right up until the release of Cataclysm. Yet, it wasn't a very common item to have even at the end of WotLK when Ulduar was easy to clear. The reality was that you still needed close to a full group to clear the instance, and most players weren't willing to run the instance for weeks on end just so that a healer could get the mace. I expect the same will be true in Cataclysm. There will be plenty of caster DPS that want to still run Firelands to try and get the Legendary, but only one player can work on it at a time. It will be difficult to get the necessary tanks, healers and other DPS to fill out the group. Thus the legendary staff will still be very rare.
Encounter Journal a Nerf?
I find it very strange that some people are upset that Blizzard has added the Encounter Journal to the standard UI. Complaints that it "gives too much information and will trivialize learning the fights" seem silly to me. Have these people actually looked at the Encounter Journal or paid any attention to how guild prepare for raids these days?
The fact of the matter is that Blizzard isn't providing anything new by adding the Encounter Journal. All of the information it contains has traditionally been provided by third party addons and websites. If this information trivializes learning the fights then it's been trivialized since TBC. Almost nobody goes into a raid encounter completely blind any more. The elite guilds have tested most of the encounters on the PTR and have a good idea of what to expect when the content goes live. The rest of us comb the internet for kill video's and strategies before we make any serious attempts. For the people that want to go in blind, they still can. You don't have to look at the Encounter Journal if you don't want to.
I don't see a good reason for anyone to be upset over the encounter journal. It's just a list of abilities and loot, with some lore thrown in. It doesn't tell you how to deal with those abilities and kill the boss. The Encounter Journal is just a quality of life change. It makes it easier to find fight information, should limit the amount of misinformation that is pass around while people learn the fight.
With the upcoming content patch, 10- and 25-person Normal mode raid encounters will be receiving a comprehensive set of tuning adjustments to decrease their difficulty.The general reaction to this change is about what I would expect after playing this game for four years. The casuals are happy, but some seem to be more excited to troll the "incoming QQ from raiders." A few "raiders" are happy to provide the whining and say all sorts of stupid stuff on the forums which I will get into later. However, I think most serious raiders are like me. We just don't care about the nerf.
These changes will allow players, groups, and guilds who have yet to experience the content in Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the Four Winds an opportunity to do so.
With the addition of a new tier of armor and weapons, we want to make the previous tier more accessible in ways other than just a shift of currency type, so we are making item level 359 gear purchasable for Justice points in the upcoming content patch.
My Perspective:
In all honesty, I don't understand why anyone really cares about this change. Seriously who does this help? If you take a look at WoW progress you can see almost 19,000 guilds have cleared Nefarian on normal mode. Even more have cleared Cho'gall and Al'Akir. If you haven't cleared the T11 normal mode bosses at this point of the expansion, you clearly aren't serious about raiding or progression. For the casual player this allows them to see some content that no one is going to care about otherwise.
If anything, this change helps the serious raiders out there more then any one else. Raiders tend to get locked into playing one character for very long periods of time. Raiders spend so much time learning, optimizing and gearing a particular toon that it's hard to switch to something else even after they've grown bored of their main toon. This change will make it easier for players to gear an alt or main switch if they so choose.
I am a sensitive to the argument that these nerfs will cheapen the rewards of titles and such. However, I think this argument is being over blown a little bit. The "Defender of a Shattered World" title will become more common, but was it really all that impressive to begin with?
I'm more concerned about Heroic titles and Meta achievements that signify the rare accomplishments in raiding. I still think these types of rewards should be removed in a timely manner, but that is irrelevant to the 4.2 nerfs since the 4.2 are being made to normal mode bosses only.
Legendary Concerns:
The silliest complaint I've heard about these nerfs is that they will some how make the Legendary staff easier to get and more abundant. Yes, you have to complete the T11 raids to be able to pick up the first quest leading to the legendary staff, but it's not like that was a significant barrier in the first place. There are already hundreds of thousands of players who meet that criteria already. The real barriers to the staff are the 25 Living Embers you will need to create the first step, and the 25 Seething Cinders needed to complete the second step. The Heart of the Flame needed to complete the legendary might also be a big issue if it only drops off of Heroic Ragnaros. The simple truth is, if you haven't completed T11 raids yet, you probably don't have a snowballs chance in the Firelands to complete the legendary staff anyway.
Some people may argue that this nerf sets a precedent that the Firelands raid will be nerfed at some point in the future. Thus making the staff easier to obtain when Tier 13 is released. I agree there is some merit to that argument, but I think history shows that to be an insignificant concern. Let’s use Ulduar as an example. The legendary mace [Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings] was the BIS healer weapon right up until the release of Cataclysm. Yet, it wasn't a very common item to have even at the end of WotLK when Ulduar was easy to clear. The reality was that you still needed close to a full group to clear the instance, and most players weren't willing to run the instance for weeks on end just so that a healer could get the mace. I expect the same will be true in Cataclysm. There will be plenty of caster DPS that want to still run Firelands to try and get the Legendary, but only one player can work on it at a time. It will be difficult to get the necessary tanks, healers and other DPS to fill out the group. Thus the legendary staff will still be very rare.
Encounter Journal a Nerf?
I find it very strange that some people are upset that Blizzard has added the Encounter Journal to the standard UI. Complaints that it "gives too much information and will trivialize learning the fights" seem silly to me. Have these people actually looked at the Encounter Journal or paid any attention to how guild prepare for raids these days?
The fact of the matter is that Blizzard isn't providing anything new by adding the Encounter Journal. All of the information it contains has traditionally been provided by third party addons and websites. If this information trivializes learning the fights then it's been trivialized since TBC. Almost nobody goes into a raid encounter completely blind any more. The elite guilds have tested most of the encounters on the PTR and have a good idea of what to expect when the content goes live. The rest of us comb the internet for kill video's and strategies before we make any serious attempts. For the people that want to go in blind, they still can. You don't have to look at the Encounter Journal if you don't want to.
I don't see a good reason for anyone to be upset over the encounter journal. It's just a list of abilities and loot, with some lore thrown in. It doesn't tell you how to deal with those abilities and kill the boss. The Encounter Journal is just a quality of life change. It makes it easier to find fight information, should limit the amount of misinformation that is pass around while people learn the fight.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
A Fee to Play with Friends
In case you missed it Blizzard made a new announcement today that they are working on a new service that will allow players to group with friends on your Real ID friends list even if they are on another realm. There's just one catch. You'll have to pay extra for it. Here's the entire announcement:
Those of you who've read by blog for a long time may remember that I'm not against Micro Transactions and Premium Services as a general rule, but I do think there is a line that shouldn't be crossed.
On one hand this really doesn't have any impact on how we play the game. If you don't buy the service nothing changes for you. Nothing is preventing us from starting a toon on a new server or transferring a toon to play with friends. It's also worth remembering that this is a bit of functionality that players have been requesting since Real ID and the LFD tool were created. Creating it costs money and without the fees it might have not been a priority for Blizzard to create it now.
On the other hand, it really feels like a fee to play with my friends. I've played this game for a very long time and have friends from almost every guild I've played with on several different servers. It is literally impossible for me to be on the same server as all of my friends because they are on multiple servers. The only other solution would be for me to level multiple toons on the different serves which I feels is both an unfair and impractical solution. The Real ID service was designed so that players could more easily stay in touch with their friends. It doesn't feel right to monetize it by charging people to be able to group with people on their friends list.
With the continued popularity of the Dungeon Finder, many players have been asking for a way to group up with real-life friends who play on other realms to take on instances together. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about a new feature currently in development that will allow players to invite Real ID friends of the same faction to a party regardless of the realm they play on, and then queue up for a 5-player regular or Heroic dungeon.
As this is a fairly complex service to develop, we don’t have a release date to share quite yet. It’s important to note that as with some of the other convenience- and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, though only the player sending the invitations will need to have access to the premium service. We'll have more details to share with you as development progresses -- in the meantime, you may begin to see elements of the feature appear on the World of Warcraft PTR.
Those of you who've read by blog for a long time may remember that I'm not against Micro Transactions and Premium Services as a general rule, but I do think there is a line that shouldn't be crossed.
- Micro Transactions: Being able to purchase pets and mounts doesn't bother me because they have no game impact.
- Mobile Services: The Mobile Auction House and Guild Chat don't bother me because they extend the game to device beyond your computer and they are fairly small aspects of the game.
- Premium Services: Fee's for server transfers and race changes also make sense to me because they are a bit of an extraordinary situation. Plus you want some disincentive to prevent people from using them frequently and fees are good at that.
On one hand this really doesn't have any impact on how we play the game. If you don't buy the service nothing changes for you. Nothing is preventing us from starting a toon on a new server or transferring a toon to play with friends. It's also worth remembering that this is a bit of functionality that players have been requesting since Real ID and the LFD tool were created. Creating it costs money and without the fees it might have not been a priority for Blizzard to create it now.
On the other hand, it really feels like a fee to play with my friends. I've played this game for a very long time and have friends from almost every guild I've played with on several different servers. It is literally impossible for me to be on the same server as all of my friends because they are on multiple servers. The only other solution would be for me to level multiple toons on the different serves which I feels is both an unfair and impractical solution. The Real ID service was designed so that players could more easily stay in touch with their friends. It doesn't feel right to monetize it by charging people to be able to group with people on their friends list.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Lunar Shower Details
Update - I added a section on the possibility of skipping the Lunar Shower Talent all together.
Yesterday, I posted about the data mined info showing that Moonfire/Sunfire would now generate energy if you were buffed with Lunar Shower, and guessed that it was a replacement of last weeks patch notes indicating all DoTs would generate energy. That has now been confirmed. Here is the official patch note.
Since this is what I assumed was being implemented my comments yesterday about how this would affect our rotation still stands. Single target fights should see little impact. Even dual target fights won't see a lot of impact if you time the refreshes correctly. Mostly this takes away a tool for us to delay an eclipse transition using Lunar Shower and Moonfire/Sunfire. Oddly enough this should nerf the elite players but have a smaller impact on the more average players. That said there are two interesting parts to this patch note.
Delaying Eclipse: One of the main criticisms of the old patch notes was that it took away the ability for players to delay eclipse transitions by using Lunar Shower and Moonfire. I find it interesting Blizzard addressed this concern directly. They said:
I know some people won't like the answer, but you have to like the direct way they addressed the concern.
Movement Stacking: The other interesting thing I saw in the patch note is that there is no mention of Lunar Shower Stacking with movement like in the current tool tip. This is a suggestion Hamlet made to the developers and it sounds like they have taken them up on the idea. Instead it sounds like Lunar shower will stack with multiple applications of Moonfire.
If I'm not reading to much into the patch note this is a bit of a nerf to our movement DPS, because it will take longer to stack Lunar Shower. However, I doubt it's all that significant. Movement generally isn't that long anyway and not it's not a huge part of our DPS total.
Edit - Skipping the Lunar Shower Talent
Now that Lunar Shower is being redesigned many people are asking, can we skip Lunar Shower the Talent?
This is in no way conclusive or scientific, but I tried to do a little backwords math using a WoL parse for Imsupersdw of Method. He is obviously one of the elite moonkin players out there and has the overall number 2 ranking on heroic Maloriak. I used this parse to back into some numbers.
To give it a best case senario I assumed that ever Moonfire and Sunfire cast was done with a full stack of Lunar Shower. If that was true then the Lunar Shower buff was responcible for 2.0% of is overall damage on the fight. However, the real impact is obviously less then that since there is impossible for him to have a full stack of Lunar shower for all of those casts. In fact, his Lunar Shower uptime was 45%. I did the same math for his Chimeron kill and found that Lunar Shower was worth at most 1% of his DPS, with a 25% uptime on Lunar Shower.
This says to me that the Lunar Shower buff doesn't have a big impact on DPS, since it's worth at most 2.0% on the optimal fight for one of the best moonkins in the world. It has to be worth significantly less on an average fight my an average player.
If Patch 4.2 went live today, I could see dropping Lunar Shower entirely since it would make our lives a little easier without a huge drop in DPS.
That said, I wouldn't expect this to go live as is. The forums have been very busy talking about the possibility of dropping Lunar Shower from the talent build and I'm sure Blizzard has seen it. The entire purpose of this change is to prevent us from staying in Eclipse and doing Multi DoD AoE and Moonfire spam. Blizzard won't want their efforts to be avoided. I expect we will see another change that will bake some DPS into Lunar Shower and make it a Mandetory Talent.
Other Changes:
The lunar shower change was the big thing but there are a couple of other little changes that you may be interested in.
Yesterday, I posted about the data mined info showing that Moonfire/Sunfire would now generate energy if you were buffed with Lunar Shower, and guessed that it was a replacement of last weeks patch notes indicating all DoTs would generate energy. That has now been confirmed. Here is the official patch note.
Insect Swarm now generates 8 Lunar Energy for Balance druids.Moonfire now generates 8 Solar Power for Balance druids.Sunfire now generates 8 Lunar Energy for Balance druids.- Lunar Shower has been redesigned. When casting Moonfire, the druid gains Lunar Shower. Lunar Shower increases the direct damage done by Moonfire by 15/30/45%, and reduces the mana cost by 10/20/30%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 3 seconds. While under the effects of Lunar Shower, Moonfire generates 8 Solar Energy, and Sunfire generates 8 Lunar Energy. The amount of Lunar/Solar Energy gained does not change based on the number of points spent in the talent, or stacks of Lunar Shower. Those druids who wish to delay transition in or out of an Eclipse state should now cast the one of their two basic attacks which will not move the Eclipse bar (either Starfire or Wrath).
Since this is what I assumed was being implemented my comments yesterday about how this would affect our rotation still stands. Single target fights should see little impact. Even dual target fights won't see a lot of impact if you time the refreshes correctly. Mostly this takes away a tool for us to delay an eclipse transition using Lunar Shower and Moonfire/Sunfire. Oddly enough this should nerf the elite players but have a smaller impact on the more average players. That said there are two interesting parts to this patch note.
Delaying Eclipse: One of the main criticisms of the old patch notes was that it took away the ability for players to delay eclipse transitions by using Lunar Shower and Moonfire. I find it interesting Blizzard addressed this concern directly. They said:
Those druids who wish to delay transition in or out of an Eclipse state should now cast the one of their two basic attacks which will not move the Eclipse bar (either Starfire or Wrath).Blizzard's basically telling us they hear the concern but tough. We will have to deal with it because that is the activity they didn't like.
I know some people won't like the answer, but you have to like the direct way they addressed the concern.
Movement Stacking: The other interesting thing I saw in the patch note is that there is no mention of Lunar Shower Stacking with movement like in the current tool tip. This is a suggestion Hamlet made to the developers and it sounds like they have taken them up on the idea. Instead it sounds like Lunar shower will stack with multiple applications of Moonfire.
If I'm not reading to much into the patch note this is a bit of a nerf to our movement DPS, because it will take longer to stack Lunar Shower. However, I doubt it's all that significant. Movement generally isn't that long anyway and not it's not a huge part of our DPS total.
Edit - Skipping the Lunar Shower Talent
Now that Lunar Shower is being redesigned many people are asking, can we skip Lunar Shower the Talent?
This is in no way conclusive or scientific, but I tried to do a little backwords math using a WoL parse for Imsupersdw of Method. He is obviously one of the elite moonkin players out there and has the overall number 2 ranking on heroic Maloriak. I used this parse to back into some numbers.
To give it a best case senario I assumed that ever Moonfire and Sunfire cast was done with a full stack of Lunar Shower. If that was true then the Lunar Shower buff was responcible for 2.0% of is overall damage on the fight. However, the real impact is obviously less then that since there is impossible for him to have a full stack of Lunar shower for all of those casts. In fact, his Lunar Shower uptime was 45%. I did the same math for his Chimeron kill and found that Lunar Shower was worth at most 1% of his DPS, with a 25% uptime on Lunar Shower.
This says to me that the Lunar Shower buff doesn't have a big impact on DPS, since it's worth at most 2.0% on the optimal fight for one of the best moonkins in the world. It has to be worth significantly less on an average fight my an average player.
If Patch 4.2 went live today, I could see dropping Lunar Shower entirely since it would make our lives a little easier without a huge drop in DPS.
That said, I wouldn't expect this to go live as is. The forums have been very busy talking about the possibility of dropping Lunar Shower from the talent build and I'm sure Blizzard has seen it. The entire purpose of this change is to prevent us from staying in Eclipse and doing Multi DoD AoE and Moonfire spam. Blizzard won't want their efforts to be avoided. I expect we will see another change that will bake some DPS into Lunar Shower and make it a Mandetory Talent.
Other Changes:
The lunar shower change was the big thing but there are a couple of other little changes that you may be interested in.
- Earth and Moon's duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.
- Wild Mushroom: Detonate can now also trigger Earth and Moon, in addition to Starfire and Wrath.
- Fungal Growth spell visual effect has been updated to be less visually intrusive and more aesthetic.
- Solar Beam has a new spell effect.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Patch 4.2 Built 14040: More Eclipse Changes?
I maybe jumping the gun here a little bit, MMO Champion has posted some details about an upcoming build of the PTR. I want to make one thing clear. This is Data Minded information which is not official in anyway. It may be something as stupid as a tool tip fix (though I don't see how that is possible in this case). In short, Read With Caution!!
Lunar Shower Change:
I find this change interesting, but it's only one piece of the puzzle and we are short on details. To be honest this raises a lot more questions then it answers.
Question #1: Is this in addition to the changes released last week? For example, will Moonfire generate 16 Solar Energy when Lunar Shower is active?
My Guess: I highly doubt it. Having Moonfire and Sunfire generate more energy then Wrath or Starsurge doesn't sound right. If this is in addition to last weeks change, I don't have a clue as to what the purpose of it is. The base level DoT energy would already discourage "Solar Cleave" type rotations and DoT AoE. This would just magnify the change. As a result, I'm assuming that this replaces the base level DoT Energy introduced last weak at least for Moonfire and Sunfire.
Question #2: If we assume this replaces the base DoT energy, does that mean Insect Swarm no longer generates energy?
My Guess: This is a complete guess, but I don't see a purpose to having Insect Swarm generate a energy at a base level but Moonfire and Sunfire to not. That said who knows. This is Data Minded info after all.
Question #3: What does this mean for Moonkin DPS?
I'm going to assume that this replaces the DoT energy introduced last week in it's entirity. Meaning that I think none of Balance DoTs will generate any energy unless we have lunar shower. If that is the case I like this change.
It's a small improvement over the previous version; it limits the impact on more normal styles of play. For example, on a Patchwerk style fight this should have absolutely no impact because there is never a reason to spam Moonfire or Sunfire and no extra energy will be generated. On a dual target fight like V&T skill players should be able to limit the impact by spacing out the DoT refreshes. I think Hamlet said it best on EJ when he said "it accomplishes the goal of removing endless Sunfire spam, but doesn't affect our ordinary single-target rotation. So in that sense, it avoids a lot of the side effects and complications of the prior version."
I still have concerns that it creates a bit of a trap when it comes to movement DPS, since there will be times when it's bad to spam Moonfire while in Eclipse, but there is probably no way around that.
Also, a lot of players will still dislike how this affects a Moonkins ability to control Eclipse with Moonfire. This is one of the big things that separated the elite moonkin from the pack. I think this is going to be the real impact of this change. It's going to nerf the Elite moonkin because they can't use one of their tricks anymore, but shouldn't have a big impact on your more average moonkin, and that may be part of Blizzards goal.
Seven Bosses and Eight Skulls:
One thing that I found a little confusing in MMO Champions information was the pictures they had of the Firelands Raid instance. One of the big debates over the last week is how Firelands will have only seven bosses, yet if you look at the maps you see eight skulls.
There are three maps. The first is of the Firelands and has five skulls on it. The last is of Sulfuron Keep and has two skulls. The middle map is of a place called The Anvil of Conflagration, and it has a skull in it as well. The way you get there appears to be by a portal from the Firelands raid. If you notice the portal design in the Anvil's map is the same as that of the portal in the upper left hand corner of the Firelands map.
It's possible that there is some overlap her but I doubt it. What is the eighth skull for? Is it a Heroic only level boss like Algalon and Sinestra? Is it a minor optional boss like the animal bosses in Karazhan?
Tier 12 Druid Set:
I talked about the set bonuses last week, and now we get our first look at the stats on the set pieces. MMO Champion doesn't have the pieces grouped into sets yet, but you can tell by the names which pieces are apart of the Balance tier.
I took a look at the stats to see if there were any itemization changes and there were none. The Tier 12 set stats are the exact same design as the stats we have on our Tier 11 set. The sockets are the same, the socket bonuses are the same, and the only thing that is different is the amount of stats.
If this goes live it should make upgrading gear a littler easier because you want have to deal with big changes in your hit level when replacing tier items, but I wonder if these items are complete yet. I wouldn't be surprised if these are upgraded place holders at this point.
Lunar Shower Change:
Lunar Shower now has an additional effect: While you are under the effect of Lunar Shower, Moonfire generates 8 Solar Energy and Sunfire generates 8 Lunar Energy.
I find this change interesting, but it's only one piece of the puzzle and we are short on details. To be honest this raises a lot more questions then it answers.
Question #1: Is this in addition to the changes released last week? For example, will Moonfire generate 16 Solar Energy when Lunar Shower is active?
My Guess: I highly doubt it. Having Moonfire and Sunfire generate more energy then Wrath or Starsurge doesn't sound right. If this is in addition to last weeks change, I don't have a clue as to what the purpose of it is. The base level DoT energy would already discourage "Solar Cleave" type rotations and DoT AoE. This would just magnify the change. As a result, I'm assuming that this replaces the base level DoT Energy introduced last weak at least for Moonfire and Sunfire.
Question #2: If we assume this replaces the base DoT energy, does that mean Insect Swarm no longer generates energy?
My Guess: This is a complete guess, but I don't see a purpose to having Insect Swarm generate a energy at a base level but Moonfire and Sunfire to not. That said who knows. This is Data Minded info after all.
Question #3: What does this mean for Moonkin DPS?
I'm going to assume that this replaces the DoT energy introduced last week in it's entirity. Meaning that I think none of Balance DoTs will generate any energy unless we have lunar shower. If that is the case I like this change.
It's a small improvement over the previous version; it limits the impact on more normal styles of play. For example, on a Patchwerk style fight this should have absolutely no impact because there is never a reason to spam Moonfire or Sunfire and no extra energy will be generated. On a dual target fight like V&T skill players should be able to limit the impact by spacing out the DoT refreshes. I think Hamlet said it best on EJ when he said "it accomplishes the goal of removing endless Sunfire spam, but doesn't affect our ordinary single-target rotation. So in that sense, it avoids a lot of the side effects and complications of the prior version."
I still have concerns that it creates a bit of a trap when it comes to movement DPS, since there will be times when it's bad to spam Moonfire while in Eclipse, but there is probably no way around that.
Also, a lot of players will still dislike how this affects a Moonkins ability to control Eclipse with Moonfire. This is one of the big things that separated the elite moonkin from the pack. I think this is going to be the real impact of this change. It's going to nerf the Elite moonkin because they can't use one of their tricks anymore, but shouldn't have a big impact on your more average moonkin, and that may be part of Blizzards goal.
Seven Bosses and Eight Skulls:
One thing that I found a little confusing in MMO Champions information was the pictures they had of the Firelands Raid instance. One of the big debates over the last week is how Firelands will have only seven bosses, yet if you look at the maps you see eight skulls.
There are three maps. The first is of the Firelands and has five skulls on it. The last is of Sulfuron Keep and has two skulls. The middle map is of a place called The Anvil of Conflagration, and it has a skull in it as well. The way you get there appears to be by a portal from the Firelands raid. If you notice the portal design in the Anvil's map is the same as that of the portal in the upper left hand corner of the Firelands map.
It's possible that there is some overlap her but I doubt it. What is the eighth skull for? Is it a Heroic only level boss like Algalon and Sinestra? Is it a minor optional boss like the animal bosses in Karazhan?
Tier 12 Druid Set:
I talked about the set bonuses last week, and now we get our first look at the stats on the set pieces. MMO Champion doesn't have the pieces grouped into sets yet, but you can tell by the names which pieces are apart of the Balance tier.
I took a look at the stats to see if there were any itemization changes and there were none. The Tier 12 set stats are the exact same design as the stats we have on our Tier 11 set. The sockets are the same, the socket bonuses are the same, and the only thing that is different is the amount of stats.
If this goes live it should make upgrading gear a littler easier because you want have to deal with big changes in your hit level when replacing tier items, but I wonder if these items are complete yet. I wouldn't be surprised if these are upgraded place holders at this point.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Tier 12 Set Bonuses
The information keeps flowing so here is my third post in three days. Today we are going to look at the Tier 12 Set Bonuses. Just want to remind everyone that this is data mined info and not directly from Blizzard.
First, I am assuming that a Burning Treant is similar to a Force of Nature treant in strength. Since the 2T12 set bonus comes with only one treant and lasts half as long as the FoC treants, I am assuming that the damage output from the 2T12 set bonus is a sixth of the damage out put from FoC.
Second, I am assuming that the proc chance of the set bonus is 20% (as indicated in the spell notes), and that none of the damage is wasted. The second part of that assumption isn't realistic of course, but I want to avoid making to many guesses at this point.
When I plugged these assumptions into Wrathcalcs (with the T11 set bonuses turned off) it increased the total DPS by 6.91%. That's not bad as far as set bonuses go generally, but it's a lot weaker then our current 4T11 set bonus that we would have to give up to use it.
Another concern with this set bonus is what level of control will we have over the Burning Treant. In the Tier 11 raids there are several fights were you don't want a pet beating on the wrong target. Let’s say we have this set bonus on Omnitron. What if a treant procs right before we have to switch targets? Will the treant run to our old target and start beating on the shield? This shouldn't be a concern for a majority of the fights, but it could cause headaches for a few of them.
If you assume that you have to refresh a Moonfire and cast Starsurge on your way to Solar Eclipse then the 4T12 set bonus wouldn't save you a Starfire cast. Since you would gain only 23 energy from that DoT and Starsurge I thought we would have to cast a fourth Starfire anyway, but I made a mistake.
That mistake was assuming that we would start at zero energy, which realistically shouldn't ever happen. The more likely scenario is that you will end your Eclipse with 3 or more Solar energy depending on how many Moonfire's and Starsurges you cast during Eclipse. The only time I found the 4T12 set bonus to not be helpful was when three Starsurges were cast in the transition from Lunar to Solar Eclipse. In ever other scenario I looked at the extra energy you leave Eclipse with was enough to prevent you from having to cast an additional Starfire.
I did look at the Wrath side to see if it had any problems. All of the scenario's I ran on that side resulted in us having to cast one less Wrath. There may be a situation where that isn't the case but I doubt it is that common or realistic.
To look at strength I hacked Wrathcalcs once again to try and get an idea of what kind of DPS gain it would be. It estimated that the DPS increase of this set bonus would be about 2.1%. That is a little lower then I would like it to be, but it is significantly better then the DPS gain we are currently getting from the 2T11 set bonus. Therefore it's a good trade.
The only question I have regarding 4T12 bonus is if it's affected by Euphoria. I'm assuming that it is since the Euphoria tool tip says it doubles the energy provided by Wrath and Starfire. Since it doesn't give a specific energy amount I would assume that the set bonus energy is doubled as well.
Balance 2 Pieces - You have a chance to summon a Burning Treant to assist you in battle for 15 sec when you cast Wrath or Starfire.At this time it's impossible to calculate how strong this set bonus is, but with the help of Wrathcalcs and some assumptions I think we can make a decent guess. In my analysis I made two assumptions.
First, I am assuming that a Burning Treant is similar to a Force of Nature treant in strength. Since the 2T12 set bonus comes with only one treant and lasts half as long as the FoC treants, I am assuming that the damage output from the 2T12 set bonus is a sixth of the damage out put from FoC.
Second, I am assuming that the proc chance of the set bonus is 20% (as indicated in the spell notes), and that none of the damage is wasted. The second part of that assumption isn't realistic of course, but I want to avoid making to many guesses at this point.
When I plugged these assumptions into Wrathcalcs (with the T11 set bonuses turned off) it increased the total DPS by 6.91%. That's not bad as far as set bonuses go generally, but it's a lot weaker then our current 4T11 set bonus that we would have to give up to use it.
Another concern with this set bonus is what level of control will we have over the Burning Treant. In the Tier 11 raids there are several fights were you don't want a pet beating on the wrong target. Let’s say we have this set bonus on Omnitron. What if a treant procs right before we have to switch targets? Will the treant run to our old target and start beating on the shield? This shouldn't be a concern for a majority of the fights, but it could cause headaches for a few of them.
Balance 4 Pieces - While not in an Eclipse state, your Wrath generates 3 additional Lunar Energy and your Starfire generates 5 additional Solar Energy.My first reaction was negative. The Wrath side of the bonus seemed ok, but I thought I saw a problem with Starfire side. Here was my issue.
If you assume that you have to refresh a Moonfire and cast Starsurge on your way to Solar Eclipse then the 4T12 set bonus wouldn't save you a Starfire cast. Since you would gain only 23 energy from that DoT and Starsurge I thought we would have to cast a fourth Starfire anyway, but I made a mistake.
That mistake was assuming that we would start at zero energy, which realistically shouldn't ever happen. The more likely scenario is that you will end your Eclipse with 3 or more Solar energy depending on how many Moonfire's and Starsurges you cast during Eclipse. The only time I found the 4T12 set bonus to not be helpful was when three Starsurges were cast in the transition from Lunar to Solar Eclipse. In ever other scenario I looked at the extra energy you leave Eclipse with was enough to prevent you from having to cast an additional Starfire.
I did look at the Wrath side to see if it had any problems. All of the scenario's I ran on that side resulted in us having to cast one less Wrath. There may be a situation where that isn't the case but I doubt it is that common or realistic.
To look at strength I hacked Wrathcalcs once again to try and get an idea of what kind of DPS gain it would be. It estimated that the DPS increase of this set bonus would be about 2.1%. That is a little lower then I would like it to be, but it is significantly better then the DPS gain we are currently getting from the 2T11 set bonus. Therefore it's a good trade.
The only question I have regarding 4T12 bonus is if it's affected by Euphoria. I'm assuming that it is since the Euphoria tool tip says it doubles the energy provided by Wrath and Starfire. Since it doesn't give a specific energy amount I would assume that the set bonus energy is doubled as well.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Quick Updates on 4.2
There are a couple of comments on yesterday's post that I want to address and I would like them to be more visible then your standard blog post comment. So they get their own post.
4.2 Wording Revised.
Teranin made a quick post to give us a heads up that the wording on the 4.2 balance patch notes changed. The are now listed as:
Will DoTs move Eclipse backwards? - I doubt it. My guess is that the DoTs will behave like Starfire and Wrath in that Moonfire will move the bar towards Solar only after a Lunar Eclipse, and Sunfire will only move the bar towards Lunar after a Solar Eclipse.
Will DoTs get double energy from Euphoria? - Again, I doubt it, but I would like to see it happen. It would be a small boost to DPS, and I think it would make sense since the DoT energy design will probably be very similar to the Starfire/Wrath energy design.
Will it have an impact on our favored rotation? - There's the situation I wonder about. What if your are eight or less energy away from a Solar Eclipse? Which spell is better to cast: Insect Swarm or Starfire?
Insect Swarm will proc Eclipse sooner and does so without wasting much if any energy, but it's not being buffed by Eclipse and doesn't proc Nature's Grace. Casting Starfire will delay the Eclipse proc by a second and waste a lot of energy, but it has a lower DpET then Insect Swarm and will benefit from the Eclipse less.
My gut says that Starfire is still the better option, and either way I doubt it will have a big impact. I'm mainly curious to know if I need to try and unlearn a habit of delaying a DoT if I am one cast away from procking Eclipse.
To Harsh on Lunar Shower
Erdluf made this post in the comments:
Yes, there's a possibility that a single MF cast wouldn't cause you to lose a Wrath, but, for LS to be worth while you have to cast multiple MFs. In which case you’re guaranteed to lose one Wrath, and likely two if you’re casting three MFs.
You also have to worry about pushing yourself out of Eclipse. Overwriting an Eclipsed DoT with a non-Eclipsed DoT is a big damage loss. Since we can't guarantee when movement will be required this will limit the usefulness of Lunar Shower.
4.2 Wording Revised.
Teranin made a quick post to give us a heads up that the wording on the 4.2 balance patch notes changed. The are now listed as:
- Insect Swarm now generates 8 Lunar Energy for Balance Druids.
- Moonfire now generates 8 Solar Power for Balance Druids.
- Sunfire now generates 8 Lunar Energy for Balance Druids.
Will DoTs move Eclipse backwards? - I doubt it. My guess is that the DoTs will behave like Starfire and Wrath in that Moonfire will move the bar towards Solar only after a Lunar Eclipse, and Sunfire will only move the bar towards Lunar after a Solar Eclipse.
Will DoTs get double energy from Euphoria? - Again, I doubt it, but I would like to see it happen. It would be a small boost to DPS, and I think it would make sense since the DoT energy design will probably be very similar to the Starfire/Wrath energy design.
Will it have an impact on our favored rotation? - There's the situation I wonder about. What if your are eight or less energy away from a Solar Eclipse? Which spell is better to cast: Insect Swarm or Starfire?
Insect Swarm will proc Eclipse sooner and does so without wasting much if any energy, but it's not being buffed by Eclipse and doesn't proc Nature's Grace. Casting Starfire will delay the Eclipse proc by a second and waste a lot of energy, but it has a lower DpET then Insect Swarm and will benefit from the Eclipse less.
My gut says that Starfire is still the better option, and either way I doubt it will have a big impact. I'm mainly curious to know if I need to try and unlearn a habit of delaying a DoT if I am one cast away from procking Eclipse.
To Harsh on Lunar Shower
Erdluf made this post in the comments:
The Damage per Energy of LS3 DD is almost exactly the same (2% less on the WrathCalcs I'm looking at) as the DpE of Wrath.I hadn't done the math and now it's biting me in the but a little. Using Lunar Shower during Eclipse might not be quite as bad as I thought. I'm not getting the same less then 2% difference that he indicated, but when I considered an extra DoT tick in addition to the DD damage the numbers Damage per Energy between MF Spam and Wrath were very similar. When I considered four or more MF casts MF had significantly more Damage per Energy. So, it's not as bad as my gut feeling, I still think it hurts some.
Obviously that isn't the entire story. Not all MF casts will have LS3. Most MF casts will also give you an extra (eclipsed) tick. In some cases one more MF will cost you a full Wrath, and in some cases one more MF will not cost any Wraths.
I'm guessing that unless you are "saving" Eclipse for a burst event (in which case you stick to WM and heals or your off-nuke), you'll still want to strongly consider MF during any movement.
Yes, there's a possibility that a single MF cast wouldn't cause you to lose a Wrath, but, for LS to be worth while you have to cast multiple MFs. In which case you’re guaranteed to lose one Wrath, and likely two if you’re casting three MFs.
You also have to worry about pushing yourself out of Eclipse. Overwriting an Eclipsed DoT with a non-Eclipsed DoT is a big damage loss. Since we can't guarantee when movement will be required this will limit the usefulness of Lunar Shower.
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