FWSC: Upgrading from 4T12

In my last post I addressed the value of the 4T13 set bonus because before it was buffed in PTR patch 4.3.2 it was widely regarded as very weak and several people asked me if it was a set bonus people should strive for or just ignore it and use other gear.

I think I answered that question sufficiently last week, but I was surprised by how many of you asked when we should upgrade from 4T12, and weren't even concerned about 4T13 yet. I had assumed (somewhat wrongly) that upgrading to 2T13 was a given based upon my experience and where items fell on my gear list. After thinking about it a little bit, I realized it's not that easy.

In the past, upgrading gear between tiers had usually felt fairly clean to me. The values of the set bonuses did very some, but that was usually small and the difference was made up for with improved stats. However, with this tier, I didn't take into account the significantly weaker set bonus and I didn't realize that the ilevel upgrade was as small as it is. So, lets stop making assumptions and start looking at some simulations to see what the results actually are.

My Methodology:

• All of the results generated below were generated out of SimulationCraft using the simc-430-6 build.
• The gear sets used in the simulations were based upon my own. It was primarily a mixture of Heroic T12 gear and Normal T13 gear, but I did not have a single piece of the T13 Moonkin tier set due to some extremely bad luck with guilds. I chose these gear sets because it was clearly a realistic set up and was easy for me to upgrade the gear.
• iLevel gains were minimized to avoid confusion. For example, my T12 helm was from Normal mode, so I chose the T13 LFR helm as the upgrade in my analysis.
• I made a few changes to the default rotation used by SimulationCraft. The main change is that I had it cast Starsurge on cooldown rather then only in Eclipse.
• All results are from a Patchwerk style simulation.

The Results:

First lets look at the values of the different set bonuses. These will be a little different then what I presented last week, because I'm using a different gear/glyph set up and a slightly newer build of SimulationCraft. While there are differences, I don't think they are significant.

	4T12	Only 2T12	No Set Bonus	Only 2T13	Live 4T13	PTR 4T13
% Change	2.05%	1.71%		1.75%	1.23%	2.54%
Avg DPS	34,931	34,228	33,652	34,242	34,664	35,111

As you can see, both T12 set bonuses are better then the T13 bonuses that would replace them (at least until 4.3.2 is released). When we trade 4T12 for 2T13 currently we are giving up a 2.05% damage increase for a 1.75% damage increase, for a net loss of 0.30%. When trading 2T12 for 4T13 it's even worse with a net loss of 0.48%. The 4T13 set bonus does get significantly better when 4.3.2 is released, but we are not there yet, so lets see if improved ilevel can make up for our weakening set bonus.

This list represents a series of simulations I ran to see the value in transitioning from 4T12 to 4T13. It includes both the set bonus changes and the ilevel changes.

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iLvl Rank	Sets Used	Slots Upgraded	Avg DPS	% Change
0	4T12	None	34,922	n/a
12	2T12/2T13	S,G	34,952	-0.06%
12	2T12/2T13	S,L	35,151	0.51%
18	2T12/2T13	S,L,H	35,299	0.42%
24	4T13 Live	S,L,H,G	35,305	0.02%
24	4T13 PTR	S,L,H,G	35,755	1.27%

Column Definitions:
iLvl Rank: Represents how much my total ilevel increased in each simulation.
Sets Used: Indicates which set bonuses were used in the simulation. If the 4 piece is used, then the corresponding 2 piece was used as well.
Slots Upgraded: S=Shoulder, G=Gloves, L=Legs, H=Helm
Avg DPS: The average DPS from the simulation
% Change: The percent change in average DPS when compared to the previous iLvl Rank.

What this Table Tells Us:

1. Upgrading isn't bad: In all but one occasion, upgrading my gear in the simulation resulted in higher average DPS. The one time it didn't increase DPS, the decrease was just 0.06% which is really insignificant. And remember, these simulations were done using the minimum ilvl upgrade possible.
2. How You Upgrade Matters: The one time average DPS when down was when I upgraded using the two weakest tier slots (shoulders and gloves). When upgrading with the larger tier pieces (Legs, Chest, and Helm), the change in Avg DPS was more significant.

TL-DR:

As long as you use some common sense while upgrading your gear, you shouldn't see any significant DPS losses from going from 4T12 to 2T13 and beyond. That said, depending on what loot system your guild uses, it doesn't always make sense to go for an upgrade right away. If you have a choice, focus on upgrading the larger slots like Legs and Helm, before the smaller slots.

FWSC: A Look at Set Bonus 4T13

Since the release of patch 4.3 I've received several questions about the Moonkin 4 piece set bonus, and had been working on this post for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, it is now a little late given new information from the recent PTR build, but I would like to go ahead and get it out there to answer any questions that might be lingering.

Fun With SimulationCraft: The Moonkin 4T13 Set Bonus

When the set bonuses were reveled on the PTR months ago, the criticism of the 4T13 set bonus was pretty quick and pretty loud. I don't remember seeing a single theorycrafter or analysis that suggested it was a strong set bonus, and I like a lot of people thought it should and would be buffed. However, it quickly became clear that Blizzard wasn't going to buff it (at least before the patch), and the question became: should we use it?

Since the 4T13 set bonus is being change on the PTR to also buff Starsurge's damage by 10%, the answer to that question is a bit obvious now. Of course we will want the set bonus when the 4.3.2 patch is released. But lets take a look at the numbers anyway. Who knows when the new patch is going to be released some of you might find this info helpful in the mean time.

My Methodology:

• All of the results generated below were generated out of SimulationCraft using the simc-430-4 build.


• Most of the results were created using the Moonkin Heroic T13 build that comes with the program, but a few of the results were created using a Normal mode Moonkin T13 build that I created. I did this to answer a specific question that will be come obvious later.


• SimulationCraft obviously isn't updated yet for changes that occurred last night. So, I estimated the benefit of the new 4T13 set bonus by increasing Starsurge's DPS on the old 4T13 results by 10%. I think this is a reasonable estimate, but it may be a little generous since that assumes the buff is multiplicative and it may not be. Either way, I don't think it changes my conclusions and I don't have a way of getting more accurate results at the moment.


• Rotation Change 1: The default SC Moonkin Rotation has you detonate Wild Mushrooms at the start of the fight when not in Solar Eclipse. I added a condition to only detonate it when Solar Eclipse is up. It was a tiny improvement.


• Rotation Change 2: The default SC Moonkin Rotation has you only cast Starsurge while you are in Eclipse. I changed it to cast Starsurge on Cooldown. I can see delaying a Starsurge cast a little right before Lunar Eclipse, but it doesn't make sense to me at other times and my results agree with my logic. Let me know if I'm missing something.


• All results are from a Patchwerk style simulation. I did run the simulations on helter skelter, but it didn't change the results significantly.

The Set Bonus Valuations:

From what I can tell most moonkin are using Glyph of Wrath for most fights in Dragon Soul because Glyph of Starsurge doesn't make sense with a few exceptions. That said, I ran the results using both glyphs for a comparison.

Glyph of Wrath:

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	No Set Bonus	Only 2T13	Live 4T13	PTR 4T13
% Change		1.8245%	0.8344%	2.2134%
Avg DPS	44,724	45,540	45,920	46,548

As you can see from these results the Live version of 4T13 buffs Moonkin DPS by about 0.8344%. This is easily one of the weakest Moonkin set bonuses in the history of the game. However, that doesn't mean it's useless either. While a 0.8344% buff isn't particularly strong, it's not something to be ignored either. I've seen plenty of players expend a lot of effort for a smaller bonus.

Glyph of Starsurge:

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	No Set Bonus	Only 2T13	Old 4T13	New 4T13
% Change		1.7154%	1.2554%	2.6435%
Avg DPS	44,480	45,243	45,811	46,439

These results might give us a little clue as to why Blizzard was hesitant to buff the 4T13 set bonus before the patch went live. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard was expecting some level of Synergy between the 4T13 set bonus, Glyph of Starsurge, and Lunar Eclipse. These results show us that that expectation isn't completely baseless since the 4T13 set bonus is significantly more valuable when using Glyph of Starsurge instead of Glyph of Wrath.

That said, the results also show that Glyph of Starsurge isn't always the best choice even if it does synergize well with the 4T13 set bonus. These results are from a single target patchwerk simulation and Glyph of Wrath out performed Glyph of Starsurge in every simulation. Glyph of Starsurge would be better in multi target situations, but only two of the Dragon Soul raids fit that description in my opinion. In three of the fights it may be useful, but somewhat iffy, and in the other three fights Glyph of Starsurge would clearly be bad.

The Alternatives:

Before coming to any conclusion on the usefulness of the 4T13 set bonus we have to look at the alternatives. It's not enough for the set bonus to be bad or sub par. We have to have a better alternative to replace to declare the 4T13 useless. Luckily answering this question proved to be easier then I expected it to be.

Heroic Gear Level:
At the T13 heroic gear level the answer is easy. There literally are not any ilevel equivalent alternatives. The only head, shoulder, chest, hands, and leg option we have at the 410 ilevel are the tier pieces. To be fair, you could use the resto tier instead of the moonkin tier but that only seems to make sense in the chest slot. The other option is to use lower ilevel items, but doesn't make sense either when you look at Normal Mode gear.

Normal Gear Level:
At the normal gear level there are some non-tier options for four out of the five slots, but none of them are a clearly better choice. In most cases you would be trading one secondary stat for a lesser secondary stat like trading Haste for Mastery. The other issue is that the non-tier items have a lot spirit on them that could be difficult to get rid of and balance around. In short, if you ignored the set bonus in this way, you would be losing the set bonus without any significant stat gain. Obviously this is a DPS loss.

Using 2T12:
The final option would be to use two items from T12 so in hopes that the 2T12 set bonus is better for your DPS then the 4T13 and better stats from a higher ilevel. Anyone who has played this game for a while knows this isn't unheard of. In ToC during WotLK all moonkin continued to use the T8 items because the 4T8 set bonus was extremely over powered. A more recent example is that before patch 4.2 was released may moonkin were going to continue to use their T11 gear to keep the 4T11 set bonus, until Blizzard announced a nerf to the set bonus.

The question though, is 2T12 that good? The answer is, that it's not.

Using a 397 ilevel gear set I ran two simulations, swapping out the chest and legs of the Normal level Deep Earth moonkin gear for the chest and legs of the heroic level Obsidian Arborweave. The simulation with a full 4T13 set bonus had an average DPS of 37,697. The simulation with 2T12/2T13 set bonuses had an average DPS of 37,661.

While it is clear that the 2T12 set bonus is better then the 4T13 set bonus, it is not so much better that we can ignore the ilevel difference and continue to use the 2T12 set bonus without a DPS loss. Since the two numbers are so close it's not a big loss, but given that there is a clear advantage to upgrading to the heroic level tier gear it doesn't make sense to stick with the T12 level items.

TL:DR

The live version of the 4T13 set bonus is one of the weakest I've seen in my years of playing a moonkin. However, due to a lack of alternatives, there is no reason we should ignore it, especially considering the buff it has received on the latest PTR build.

MoP: Celestial Alignment and other Talents

There is a new Mists of Pandaria talent calculator up with some fun stuff to discuss. Many of the changes are Mana cost changes and error corrections. For example, Moonkin Aura grants 5% haste again instead of crit. Nature's Grace is back up to 15% instead of the 1% listed before, but nobody is interested in this small stuff. On to the good stuff.

New Ability: Celestial Alignment

Celestial Alignment: Grants you the simultaneous damage benefit of both your Lunar Eclipse and Solar Eclipse, increasing damage done by your Nature and Arcane spells by 25%. Activating this ability consumes all Lunar and Solar Energy and prevents gaining more during its duration. Lasts 15 sec.

Having an additional DPS cooldown will be very nice, but I would like to learn a little bit more about the ability before I get all giddy. The way the tooltip reads I've had a couple of thoughts about how this could work, but some of them seem a little strange.

My first question is how does the buff work? Does it just proc the existing Lunar and Solar Eclipse buffs or does it proc a new buff that gives our nature and arcane spells and additional all 25%? Having the buff use the existing Lunar and Solar buffs would be bad because it would make it easy to waste the buff by using it during eclipse. I think this option is unlikely, because it would be a clear trap for players, and Blizzard has said they don't want to create traps. It makes much more sense that the buff would stack with what ever other buffs we have at the moment including Lunar and Solar Eclipse.

My second question is how does the ability consume our Eclipse energy? Does it move you to neutral once you proc the ability or does it consume the energy at the end of the buff. If it consumes the energy at the start of the buff it's probably that it would shift you out of Eclipse, since we loose the Eclipse buff when we reach zero energy. This would create another trap where it is bad to use the cooldown at the wrong time.

Even if it consumed your Eclipse energy at the end of the buff, I'm not sure how I feel about the consuming mechanic in general. Since the buff both consumes your energy and prevents you from generating more energy. There are points within the eclipse cycle where it would be better to use Celestial Alignment then others. For example, it could be best to use the cooldown at the end of Eclipse so that you can extend the existing buff and have the spell consume as little energy as possible. This would ultimately give the better players a bit of a skill advantage that I know a lot of you would support, but I'm not as sure that would be a good thing.

Incarnation Change:

Balance: Chosen of Elune - Improved Moonkin Form that also halves Lunar and Solar Power generation while in an Eclipse, and doubles it while not in an Eclipse.

It's hard to know how significant this change is given how little we know about DPS in MoP. However, I do think this change is interesting given the creation of the Celestial Alignment cooldown discussed above. First, the two abilities clearly shouldn't be used together. Since, Celestial Alignment prevents you from generating energy, clearly a buff that changes how you generate energy would be a bad thing. This again creates a potential trap since one buff could possibly negate another in a way that is not obvious to more casual players.

Mists of Pandaria Calculator Changes

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday I checked out of the World of Warcraft for few days and didn't see that Blizzard added a Mists of Pandaria talent calculator with an updated list of ability changes until Monday. So I'm behind the curve, but I'm going to hope that my response is better late then never.

There was a lot of interesting stuff in the Mists of Pandaria information I want to talk about, but there is also some stuff in there that at this point I don't think is all that important (and I think Blizzard would agree). Since we are in a very early stage of development, I am more worried about the structure of the changes then the actual details. For example, changes to spell mechanics like Insect Swarm being turned into a pure debuff is interesting, but the fact that Moonkin form grants a 20% damage increase in MoP instead of the 10% we have on live is uninteresting for me.

The structure is important be cause it defines how our spec will play. The structure determines if it's too easy, too hard, and if it's fun. The details while important in the long run, don't matter a whole lot if the structure isn't right, and there will be plenty of time to address those issues when we know more about the structure and how all of our abilities will interact.

Insect Swarm:

Insect Swarm: The enemy target is swarmed with insects, increasing all damage taken from your Wrath, Starfire, and Starsurge spells by 30%. Limit 1 target.

I have absolutely no problems with losing a DoT as long as the end result is a design with balanced and competitive DPS. However, I don't what Blizzard's goal is for this change, and I worry that it will turn out to be pointless or annoying for the player.

The big question for me is what's the duration of the new Insect Swarm? I can see this going a couple of ways.

Short Duration: If the new Insect Swarm has a short duration of 18 seconds, this is really just a nerfed version of the current DoT, and changes the moonkin rotation in a bad way. With a short duration, the new Insect Swarm doesn't reduce the complexity of the moonkin rotation at all and is an actual nerf to damage since won't benefit moonkin DPS at all while moving and has a single target limit. In short, a short duration is bad and annoying.

Long Duration: If the new Insect Swarm has a long duration or a mechanic that extends it automatically with a glyph of something, then what's the point of having the spell at all? Why not just buff Wrath, Starfire, and Starsurge by 30% and get rid of the spell completely? Since all moonkin nukes are single target abilities, the fact that IS is limited to a single target is meaning less. All it does is limit how quickly moonkin can start DPSing a new target since we will have to put IS on the target before we can start nuking. In short, I find this model of IS to be pointless.

New IS means One DoT?:

Not everyone is as carefree about the possibility of losing Insect Swarm as I am, and some players were worried. When a Grayfox (no relation) expressed concern about moonkin having only one DoT on the forums, Blizzard responded with:

I just wanted to drop into this thread and let you guys know that we currently plan for Moonkins to have two DoTs: Moonfire and Sunfire will be able to stack (both applied at the same time).

Now that's really interesting.

I'm assuming that Moonfire and Sunfire will still be a single button in MoP. As in we push one button to cast both spells, but which spell is cast depends on if you are in Solar Eclipse or not, but Moonfire and Sunfire wont overwrite each other anymore. If that is the case I love this change. And I think it helps moonkin in a couple of ways.

First, it lessens some of the impact of losing for Insect Swarm as a DoT. Traditionally DoTs have done more then just damage. We have had trinkets, set bonuses, and abilities that proc or stack based on how many and when ticks hit their targets and losing those IS ticks could affect how we value those gear choices and abilities. Assuming MF and SnF are a single button, this change won't make up for all the lost ticks from losing IS, but it will help.

The second big benefit is that I think it makes the rotation more obvious, and could really help make Glyph of Starfire more useful.
One of the current issues with Eclipse is that it forces to make some choices on the fly, which can lead to small errors that add up to significant DPS loss. For example, if you are about to transition out of Eclipse should you refresh your Moonfire DoT even it has 8 seconds left? Not refreshing the DoT can lead to lost uptime or having your DoT not buffed by Eclipse. However, refreshing the DoT unnecessarily means you lose damage because you could have spent that time casting another damaging spell like Starfire.

I think this change will reduce that confusion because it should become obvious that you should only cast MF/SnF while eclipse is up and even if it results in a lower uptime. Also, clipping should never be necessary with the Glyph of Starfire, because you an easily transition from one eclipse to the other in 27 seconds.

One final comment, if my original assumption that Moonfire and Sunfire would remain a single button is incorrect, then this is a horrible change. In that case, they are just replacing IS with SnF, which makes no sense and just increases the rotations complexity.

Symbiosis: The Three Paths

Symbiosis: Creates a symbiotic link which grants the Druid one ability belonging to the target's class, varying by the Druid's specialization. In exchange grants the target one Druid ability based on their class and combat role. Lasts one hour and persists through death.

There is obviously a whole lot of information we don't know about this spell yet, but I am very intrigued by the spell so far. It sounds really cool, but after thinking about it I'm not sure how it would work and could be a balancing nightmare for Blizzard. I'm not predicting failure, but the headache on this one could be so large that Symbiosis goes the way of the Dance Studio and it all depends on the path Blizzard takes with it. At the moment I see three paths.

Utility / Long Cooldown: I like the idea of trading Utility spells and long cooldowns between classes. For example, if Blizzard went the pure utility route if a moonkin linked with a Death Knight, the DK could gain Cyclone while the moonkin gained Death Grip, which could be a big help if your raid is lacking a particular ability needed to complete an encounter. The problem with that approach is that not all utility spells are significant that often, and by extension Symbiosis may be insignificant in most fights because it's not really necessary to trade abilities.

Long Cooldowns on the other hand would be significant in a lot of fights, but also might be overpowered. From a DPS perspective it could really work by trading Starfall for Elemental Mastery with a Shaman, but from a healing or tanking perspective it could be an issue. For example, lets say if a resto druid cast Symbiosis on a Holy Pally that the druid gains Aura Mastery and the pally gains Tranquility. Additional cooldowns could make some fights trivial, unless Blizzard really increased the incoming damage, which could lead to class stacking which isn't a good thing.

I think this is the most likely path but it could have some balancing issues.

Core Ability: My original thought was that Symbiosis would trade core abilities between players. For example, if a moonkin linked with another DPS we would both gain a new DPS spell, like the moonkin would get Corruption and the Warlock would get Moonfire if the link was with a Warlock. Obviously in that vision if the druid linked with a healer they would gain a healing spell and so on.

This sounded really cool at first, but the more thought about it this path didn't seem all that realistic. The basic problem is that those core spells are designed with a specific class in mind and the other buffs and abilities that the class has. For example, Starfire is a solid spell for a moonkin, but if you gave to a Warlock it would be weak without Eclipse. Ultimately I think this would be a balancing nightmare. The other issue I have with this path is that it could add significant complexity to our rotation. I don't want to have to work a new spell into my rotation and I really don't like the possibility of having that spell change depending on what class I link to if the fight requires it. In the end, I don't think this path is likely.

Passive Buff: We don't really think about passive buffs as "abilities," but it is possible that Symbiosis won't trade any active abilities. For example, by linking with a tank a moonkin might gain 5% damage reduction, or gain 5% Crit by linking with a Mage. This is probably the easiest path, because it shouldn't be difficult to balance, would provide an obvious benefit, and wouldn't change either class’s rotation. However, it's boring and would easily be math out. There would never be a discussion about which class or player to link with because we would just put it on the class that helps us the most much like players already do with Focus Magic and Dark Intent.

Final Thought: I think Symbiosis has a lot of potential but there are some pitfalls as well. It will be interesting to hear more details about it.

Starfall:

Starfall: Triggering Lunar Eclipse resets the cooldown of this spell.

I absolutely love this change. I recently had some discussions about where Starfall fit in our rotation and if we should cast it on cooldown or wait for Lunar Eclipse. In the end it was obvious to me that it's a problem without a good answer currently. Casting Starfall without Lunar Eclipse is a significant DPS loss, and not casting Starfall on cooldown can be a significant DPS loss. Sure there are ways to line Lunar Eclipse up with the Starfall cooldown using Glyph of Starsurge, but the benefit of GoSS is limited in Single garget encounters.

This change effectively ends those conversations and I love it. It's another situation where blizzard is taking the ambiguity out of the situation and making the rotation more obvious. In short, it turns Starfall back into a "cast on cooldown" spell.

Nature's Grace:

Eclipse: When triggered, both Lunar and Solar Eclipse also grant 15% haste for 15 seconds.

At first I thought they might have gotten rid of Nature's Grace, but turns out that they just baked it into Eclipse and improved it. Having the NG effect proc when Eclipse is triggered makes a lot of sense for several reasons.

First, having the buff proc based on a DoT cast doesn't make a lot of sense when the class has only one DoT (if my assumption above is correct). It would seem almost cruel to have the spell that benefits most form the haste buff not to be affected by it because it has to proc it. Second, since the cooldown on the current Nature's Grace is reset when Eclipse is triggered, the effect is procced shortly after you enter Eclipse already most of the time. Having Eclipse proc Nature's Grace is just taking out the middleman, and it prevents the possibility of overlapping Nature's Grace procs which is possible in the current system.

The Trend to Simplify

Many these changes don't seem that big when you look at them on their own, but when I look at them as a whole I see a very welcome trend. In my opinion, the moonkin rotation during cataclysm has been filled with ambiguity and on the fly choices that has lead to an overly complex rotation for an average player like me. We have questions like: Do I clip my DoT to maximize dot Damage or can I just power through to the next eclipse? Should I cast Starfall on cooldown or wait for Eclipse? How can I maximize the benefit of Nature's Grace?

A lot of these changes are very welcome in my opinion because they remove a lot of the ambiguity from our rotation. Starfall will be cast on cooldown most of the time because the cooldown will be reset when the spell is most significant most of the time. Assuming Moonfire and Sunfire are single button and the Glyph of Starfire doesn't change significantly means that we will only cast the DoTs once during Eclipse and shouldn't have to worry about clipping or overwriting an existing DoT.

If it is Blizzards goal to simplify the moonkin rotation a small amount, I fully support and appreciate their goal.

Patch 4.3 Gear List

I've updated the gear list for the new patch. It's a little rough due the limited amount of time I had to create it. I do plan on going back and fixing it, but I wanted to have a draft out there for people raiding tonight.

The things that I need to fix are:

1. Locations: I haven't added many of them for the new items yet, but that will be correct.
2. Proc Valuations: There are a lot of good procs in this patch that I need to take a closer look at.
3. Do I have everything: I built the list using WoWhead, but I'm worried that I missed something. For example the list doesn't include any random stat items.

As always, if you see an error in the list please point it out. I will try and fix it as soon as possible.

Finally, I know Blizzard released a lot of new info regarding Mists of Pandara just before the holiday. It hasn't gone unnoticed. I had planned to comment on it today, but didn't have time since I was rushing to get the list out. I hope to have one posted tomorrow or the day after.

Class Q&A and Blizzcon Follow Up

I already took a look at the big talent changes announced at Blizzcon, but that wasn't the only thing that happened there. Plus, Blizzard has been busy doing Q&A and other things to get word out on the new talent systems and such. In this post I want to try and round up round up some of those items I haven't commented on yet (and even a few I have).

Putting the Hybrid back in Druids:

In the Class Design & Balance Q&A there were several questions about, Hybridization for druids and the "Hybrid Tax," and I think Blizzard's response is summed up best in these quotes:

The overall philosophy of the Druid talent tree is to bring some hybridization back to the Druid class. The 4 Druid specs have become very focused on never using the forms that they do not specialize in. We would like to bring the whole class back together more. So, interesting functionality themed around the different combat roles has been introduced.

We don't intend for that added hybridization to be offset by any sort of DPS nerf. While DPSing, a druid's DPS will be entirely competitive with other DPS. We hope to see druids that do things like, "DPS in Cat Form most of the fight, but during one phase, when healing is super difficult, pop out of Cat, hit Heart of the Wild, Tranquility, and spam heals on the raid to help top everyone off, then go back to Cat and resume DPSing."

From a high level perspective I support this design goal. I like the idea of Druids being able to temporarily fill another role, and that's why I suggested it back in June of 2010. Theoretically it makes a lot of sense. From a raid composition stand point, you don't have to bring as many core healers if you were only bringing that many handle a few sort periods of high damage. Or, you could stack a few restos and have them pop their cooldown for a temporary burst of DPS.

That all sounds good in theory but I worry about how it will work in practice. For example, the version of Heart of the Wild previewed at Blizzcon said "Healing spells generate Lunar or Solar energy and will benefit from Lunar and Solar Eclipse." Unfortunately, that's a horrible idea. The concept of Eclipse works for moonkin, because DPS occurs over an extended period of time. As a moonkin, I know that I am going to be switching between Lunar and Solar multiple times in a given fight and good and bad luck should balance each other out. For a temporary buff like Heart of the Wild that falls apart.

How would Blizzard balance Heart of the Wild? Should they balance it around having Eclipse? If that is the case then Moonkin heals could easily be too weak to be of any significance when not in eclipse. What if they balance HotW around not having Eclipse? In this case, HotW could be way to strong. Obviously, there would be an advantage for holding Eclipse to use it if possible. This could be devastating to class balance in PvP. Balancing it round some point in the middle would just be picking up the disadvantages from both sides.

My other concern is that applying Eclipse to healing might be too foreign of a concept for players. By doing so, Blizzard is basically adding a second healing style to class that already has a healing spec. Moonkin that are already familiar with resto would be forced to learn a new style to take advantage of the ability. Moonkin, who do not typically heal are already learning something foreign, but Blizzard would be missing a big opportunity to introduce them Resto, but continuing with the Eclipse concept.

My suggestion to Blizzard is to keep it simple and to not get to creative. You're already asking someone to do something they are not necessarily familiar with. There's no need to complicate it further. The buff should be consistent and include a mana cost reduction so that players don't need to concern themselves Eclipse or mana over these short periods of time. The suggestion I made a year and a half ago was to allow moonkin to heal in moonkin form temporarily and buff the heals by some percentage. I think this would meet all the goals Blizzard has in mind.

Troubled Tier Six and Master Shapeshifter:

As I said in my last post, the tier 6 options at level 90 were some of my least favorite, and after looking around the internet it was clear to me that a lot of moonkin agreed with that sentiment. So, it's not surprising that the tier 6 talents were addressed in the Class Design & Balancing Q&A. Unfortunately their response only made my fears worse.

The level 90 Druid talents deliberately come in 3 different levels of work required. Heart of the Wild is perfect for an encounter where there is a period where increased healing is needed for a short time, and dps is not the need of the encounter. Something like the Chimaeron encounter where more healing is needed at certain times, and dps is less important. Master Shapeshifter targets the Druid who is willing to do a lot of work shifting back and forth or occasionally needs to heal or damage, such as Blood Queen Lanathel, where a Tranquility boosted by the talent would help your group a lot during her air phase. Disentanglement is there for the "lazy" Druid who doesn't want to do that work, but still gets some benefit from a well-timed shapeshift.

Though I am sure Blizzard doesn't intend for us to interpret the comment this way but here is the way a majority of players will apply this comment. "Good players will take Heart of the Wild or Master Shapeshifter depending on the fight. Bad players can take Disentanglement so they can at least have something." I'm honestly really surprised Blizzard would make a comment like this, because it's such an obvious trap.

The comment I particularly hate is when Blizzard says "Master Shapeshifter targets the Druid who is willing to do a lot of work shifting back and forth or occasionally needs to heal or damage." If Blizzard actually believes this it shows a shocking lack of understanding of the player base by Blizzard at least from the moonkin perspective.

As you know Master Shapeshifter as we know it allows a druid to buff his primary role by doing something out side of that role. The example provided by Blizzard was that our melee abilities could buff our spell power and vice versa. If this buff is significant then it becomes a required talent, because as Blizzard knows, there is no such thing as an optional DPS talent. That simple truth is the entire reason for the last two Talent System redesigns. If Master Shapeshifter provides a significant DPS buff then, no one would take Heart of the Wild or Disentanglement, because that would tell all of the other players and potential guilds that "Hey, I'm a bad player." And no, one wants to think that they are a bad player or to tell other players that they are bad.

To be fair, Master Shapeshifter does make a lot of sense for someone specced into Resto or Guardian spec. I could easily see a healer doing a little DPS when things are not busy to buff the heals for when they are. Tanks are in a similar situation when in between add phases and tank swaps. But for cats and moonkins this makes little sense and could over complicate two already very complicated rotations.

Incarnation:

The Blizzcon version of Incarnation didn't mention how it would impact DPS in moonkin form, but Blizzard was nice enough to address this talent in the Class Design & Balance Q&A. The

Incarnation for Balance transforms the Druid in to the Chosen of Elune Form, which currently increases spell damage done and Solar and Lunar energy generated. That is, of course, subject to change.

This seems fairly straight forward and I'm fine with that. It's still impossible to say if we will use it or not yet since we don't know the math behind it or the MoP version of Force of Nature, but it's obviously a promising DPS buff.

That said, I've seen some comments indicating that some people are upset that it doesn't do more. If I am reading them correctly they would like it to be more unique like Tree of Life form or the Warlock Demon form where we would get new abilities or have our current ability's modified in ways other then pure damage. I can see that perspective but at the same time I don't think it's really necessary.

Bi-Polar Hurricane and Moonkin AoE

During the Blizzcon Class panel it was said that "In 5.0 Hurricane will have a new arcane function to make sure you can use it whenever you have to," according to MMO Champion. I interpret this to mean that Hurricane will behave in a way similar to Moonfire. As in it will be buffed by Solar when in Solar and buffed by Lunar when in Lunar. If that's true, I think it's a good change, but I don't think it will have a huge impact on Moonkin AoE unless there are other changes as well.

Current Moonkin AoE center's around Wild Mushroom because it's the strongest whether that's by design or not. We hold solar during AoE periods because all but one of the spells we use in an AoE situation are buffed by Solar Eclipse. Giving Hurricane an arcane function won't change this situation because we would still be encouraged to stay in Solar for WM and the DoTs.

So, if that comment was a small preview into a larger goal of revamping Moonkin AoE, I think Blizzard will find a lot of support among players. I and a lot of players I've talked to haven't been happy with Wild Mushroom in AoE situations because placing three mushrooms feels contrived and difficult during the run of play, in fights like Maloriak and Rhyolith. However, in fight's like Rag where we can place the mushrooms before the Elementals spawn, it works great. I think it would be nice for Moonkin AoE to follow a model of WM being a DPS opener, but Hurricane providing a bulk of the damage done. However, Hurricane would have to be buffed (or the other spells nerfed) to make this happen, and Blizzard would have to address how WM is affected by Eclipse or we will still hang out in Solar during AoE phases.

One possibility suggested to me would be to turn Wild Mushroom damage into fire damage for example so that it's not buffed by either Eclipse and can be balanced around a consistent damage output. I find this idea very appealing since it should make holding Solar Eclipse insignificant because only Insect Swarm would be buffed by Lunar Eclipse.

Good Riddance to Relics:

I know there are druids out there that are morning the loss of relics, but I couldn't be happier that they are getting the boot. While relics did provide a few interesting gear choices in TBC, in most of my years with this game they have been more of a headache then a help. For most of TBC there was only one option. In WotLK, the Tier 8 relic was worse then the Tier 7 relics. And when they were converted to stat sticks in Cataclysm they were boring and almost impossible to upgrade. I say good by and good riddance.

The New Talent System: A Moonkin's View

I must admit that when I heard there was a new talent revamp I was extremely sceptical that it would be worth while or have a good impact on the game. In fact, when I was reading through the opening comments on WoW Insider and MMO Champion I jotted down "Cookie Cutter Builds: Blizzard's Exercise of Futility" as the original title of this post, because I truly believe that it is impossible for Blizzard to prevent the cookie cutter builds. That said, after hearing more of the details of the new plan, I am a little less critical. Here's my take on the new talents tier by tier.

Two quick notes: First all comments are based on the limited information we have and assume that the talents go live as we currently see them. That is of course not true, but we have nothing else to go on. Second, the wonderful images below were taken from the MMO Champion website. If for some reason you don't know about MMO Champion, please check them out. They are hands down the best WoW news site out there.

Tier One: Mobility Tier

• Feline Swiftness - It's not sexy, but it's a solid buff. This will probably be the most common choice of the three options.



• Displacer Beast - At first glance it looks to primarily be a PvP/Leveling talent. However, it might have a role in PvE if it can remove Boss DoTs.



• Tireless Pursuit - This one seems out of place given the other abilities we traditionally have. For example the speed boost is cool, but we already have that utility with Dash, Stampeding Roar and possibly Darkflight. In fact, I would probably replace this one with Stampeding Roar.
  


• Tier Summary - I'm not that impressed with this tier, but it is the level 15 tier so I'm not sure how much could be expected.

Tier Two: Healing Tier

• Nature's Swiftness - Making Cyclone and Roots instant cast could have some PvE and PvP benefits for Moonkin, but I doubt they are huge. Could also act as an "Oh Sh*t" button when macroed with a healing spell.
  


• Renewal - This is a pure "Oh Sh*t" button. Assuming it maths out better then Nature's Swiftness, this is the talent I would choose for raiding.
  


• Cenarion Ward - Some resto's have been asking for a shield type ability for a long time, and this is it. It looks like cool ability to my inexperienced eyes, but I don't see any purpose for a moonkin to pick it up.
  


• Tier Summary - I think this tier is pretty well done. Healers have a definite choice between a shield and a cooldown. Non-healers have a solid choice in Renewal, and Nature's Swiftness might be useful in some situations.

Tier Three: Crowd Control Tier

• Faerie Swarm - It's a Faerie Fire that you don't have to stack and that has a slow effect. Sounds great for bears but I see no use for it as a moonkin.
  


• Mass Entanglement - A poor man's Frost Nova for Druids. I see some potential with this talent especially when used with other talents and abilities, but the 2 sec cast time has me a little turned off on it.
  


• Typhoon - What's interesting about this one is that the damage portion of the spell seems to have been removed. That's not a huge deal, since the Typhoon is currently used more for the knockback then it is for damage, but it's interesting none the less.
  


• Tier Summary - Another pretty well done tier. I think Typhoon will be the most common choice for moonkin since a knockback is generally more helpful then a mass root, but I can think of several situations where I would want to have Mass Entanglement instead.

Tier Four: Cooldown Tier

• Wild Charge - This is an interesting option, because the effect is tied to your form and not your spec. Basically, you're picking up 4 abilities with this choice rather then just one. In Moonkin form it's a Disengage that generates energy. The caster form example could also be used as a movement cooldown if needed.
  


• Incarnation - The tool tip doesn't list a moonkin example, but judging from the examples listed it looks like Moonkin finally will have the option to have a real DPS cooldown.
  


• Force of Nature - Will summon three trents that may or may not behave the way it currently does for us. My guess is that this will be the same basic spell we've always had from a moonkin perspective, but maybe they will be casters for us instead of melee.
  


• Tier Summary - We don't really know a lot about these options from the information given, but they are definitely some interesting options. Wild Charge seems to be a utility choice, and we will only pick it up if it provides something we need for a particular encounter or maybe for PvP. The choice between Incarnation and Force of Nature is likely to be a math problem. One of them will end up being stronger and that is the one we will pick..

Tier Five: Bear Tier

• Demoralizing Roar - Nice utility, but is extremely situation and shifts me to Bear form.
  


• Ursol's Vortex - This one has some potential, but again seems very situational. I can see where it might be helpful in PvP, but for PvE I think it's fairly limited.
  


• Bear Hug - Again, it's interesting but very situational. I like that it does damage, but I don't like being taken out of the fight to use it. I also don't like being shifted to bear form.
  


• Tier Summary - Of the six druid tiers previewed at Blizzcon this is my least favorite. There is just very little there for a moonkin to work with. All three abilities have their uses given the right situation, but my guess is that those situations will be fairly rare.

Tier Six: Shapeshifting Tier

• Heart of the Wild - I get the concept. Create an ability that allows druids to be good at their other potential rolls, but it rubs me the wrong way. If I'm in a situation where I need to heal or tank we are likely screwed already, and this ability won't help. Additionally, as a moonkin, why would I ever want Agility and Expertise? If I'm going to DPS I'm going to do it as a Moonkin, not a cat.
  


• Master Shapeshifter - Horrible! Just Horrible! So by shifting out of Moonkin Form to use a few cat or bear abilities I can get an average of a 20% buff for three spells. Minus what ever damage I would have done by staying in Moonkin form instead of shifting to Cat or Bear form. This wouldn't be so bad, if moonkin regularly had to switch into feral forms, but in my 5 years of playing this game I very rarely have had shift to use my melee abilities.
  


• Disentanglement - Shapeshifting removes roots like it currently does but will also real you for 20% of your health. In short, it's a healing cooldown.
  


• Tier Summary - I know I said that tier five was my least favorite tier, but tier six is making me seriously reconsider my words. Heart of the Wild and Master Shapeshifter are at best very situational and at worst completely useless. Disentanglement is good utility, but boring. For the top tier of the expansion I expect something better then this.

The Death of the Cookie Cutter?

Is this the death of Cookie Cutter builds? Will this, as Blizzard puts it, "give players interesting ways to customize their characters according to their preferred playstyle?"

In my opinion, it will not.

The problem Blizzard is up against is that there will almost always be a "best option," and players will always be able to identify that "best option" based upon the needs of the situation. In this post, I looked at all six tiers and in most of them I told you which would be the most common choice, and I could tell you the exceptions for most of those choices. The only time I can't is tier five, because all three choices are extremely situational and near useless from a moonkin perspective.

Final Thoughts:

Given my comments in the last section, I wouldn't be surprised if some of you though I hated this new system, but I don't. It won't eliminate the cookie cutter builds and some of the options are pretty bad. However, this new system has some advantages as well.

I really like the "theme" structure of the choices. I've always hated having to justify taking survivability talents over even the tiniest of DPS upgrades. DPS isn't the only raider quality that has value, but is the one that is focused on 99.99% of the time. I like having to make choices based upon something other then DPS.

The simplicity of the new system is also very nice. Having to make just six choices will make life a little easier and I'm glad that we won't have to go back to a trainer to change those choices.