RSS
 

Glyph Gabber

03 Sep

Let me open by offering my condolences to Lissanna who was suckered into being a moderation at TMR.  I mention that because I’m about to offer sincere condolences about her glyph hopes.  I know more than a few Balance druids who were hoping that our rotation would get some spice from glyphs.  GC says “no”.  Actually, here’s what he really says:

Prime glyphs aren’t going to be exciting in a “change up your rotation” style. We want primes to be unambiguous dps (etc.) increases so we figured they might as well be easy to understand rather than something so convoluted that everyone would just go to a fansite to see which 3 to pick.

The majors are more interesting, because they are either not dps increases at all, or dps increases in ways that are tricky to math out. We think players will debate and geek out more about which majors to use, and with the new glyph design, swapping them out once in awhile isn’t very painful.

Minors are basically convenience or fun.

We don’t want glyphs to change rotations. We feel that was a mistake in LK. Talents should affect your rotations, and glyphs should just provide a little bit of customization and power. We fixed some class problems with glyphs in LK, which was an easy solution to do at the time, but now is the time to undo all of that and let the classes stand on their own without the glyphs.

I’m not sure I agree with this. I can understand wanting to keep it simple, but like someone else said, if you’re going to have 3 glyphs that we’re always going to have with no variation, and none of them have any effect on the rotation… couldn’t we just stick with minor/major glyphs, and just remove the prime glyphs entirely?

First, it would be a weird world in which a warrior say could glyph Charge and Battle Shout but not Mortal Strike. It might make sense to savvy players who thought through it, but I’d wager you’d also see a lot of “Why don’t they make glyphs that affect the buttons I care most about? Blizzard is dumb.” (And to be clear, the point of that is not to defend ourselves against agitated forum posters, but that if something in the game is confusing like that in can get in the way of having fun.)

Second, gaining power when you level up is fun. Hitting a milestone where you get a noticeable damage bonus is fun. There is also some mildly interesting decisions about which prime glyph to use first. In other words, don’t view everything through the lens of the maximum level player.

Third, not everything in the game needs to be a nail-biting decision. We don’t for example really want Fury warriors to stress about whether to choose Raging Blow or not, nor we do we make it particularly challenging to choose your weapon enchant. Sometimes easy decisions make players feel more comfortable rather than every potential decision having a host of invisible pitfalls. This isn’t an issue of catering to the dumb players — it’s more about there being a few safe places in the game. [I feel nearly certain after re-reading that paragraph that it's going to be hard to understand and I will end up having to clarify it for months to come.]

Finally, I’d argue that the popular glyphs on live today already were the no brainers because in most cases they led to a consistent dps increase (for dps specs of course). When everyone uses those glyphs, then you aren’t making some interesting decision about how to use your abilities — you’re just doing what every other warrior out there is doing. The only way to deviate from that is to have two glyphs that affect your primary abilities in two totally different but equal ways. That’s a very tall order, because more than likely we’ll end up having to constantly adjust around that. “Encounter #4 in Grim Batol is unfair to warriors who use the Glyph of Furious Mortal Strikes instead of the Glyph of Meaty Mortal Strikes.” What I mean is that we end up having to support multiple play styles within one tree. We’re willing to do that to a limited extent (the TG vs. SMF Fury warrior for example, or the FFB mage), but it’s hard enough to develop 1-2 viable rotations per spec. We don’t want every important glyph bifurcating that rotation even more.

 

.

The sentiment expressed in this paragraph seems to be akin to the sentiments for interesting rotations, talent choices, and overall class designs.  All of which have fallen rather flat for the Balance Druid.  I really have a hard time imagining that Blizz would be able to create a situation where we (the players and theorycrafters) couldn’t pound out the math to find the best prime glyphs.  And if the glyphs become so situational that we would want to be switching often, then we’ll do the same thing for each encounter.  Long story short, I think it might be nigh impossible to have glyphs that alter rotation that offer choice.  But I’m more than willing to be proven wrong.

Oh, and speaking of glyphs, if you’ve been following along with mmo, then you know that these are no longer consumables.  You learn them once and then you swap in and out the ones you want.  While I like this change as I am not an inscriptionist (inscriber?), I wonder what that will do for the market of these things…

So now we are left with three types of glyphs.  Minor – the cosmetic or convenience glyphs.  Major – did you read that quote?  They are non-obvious dps increases or maybe not even dps increases.  I don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but I guess we’ll see.  On beta, the glyphs for the major slot are the same as we see in live.  Primes – these are the obvious dps increase glyphs that are unambiguous but possibly situational.  If you’re reading this and scratching your head, join the club.  Heck I’ll scratch yours, you scratch mine?

Here’s to hoping it turns out better than it sounds.

 
No Comments

Posted in Beta, Cataclysm, Glyphs, Rotation

 

Beta Build 12857

31 Aug

There is new patch data available on mmo-champion and I warily post this here.  I say warily because to be honest, it’s not in the game yet and mmo has been wrong before.  So while things this time around don’t look terrible, I’d avoid taking it too far until this shows up in the beta itself.

Balance

  • Hurricane base damage increased by 33%.
  • Innervate now regenerate mana equal to 20% of the casting Druid’s maximum mana pool, down from 33%.
  • Starsurge now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
  • Entangling Roots now has a 2 sec cast time, up from 1.5 sec.
  • Starfall now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards. Base damage increased by 33%.
  • Lunar Shower now increases damage done by your Moonfire by 15/30/45% (Up from 2/4/8%)
  • Force of Nature now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
  • Solar Beam now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
  • Lunar Guidance no longer increases the radius of your Solar Beam.
  • Moonglow now reduces the mana cost of all your damage and healing spells.
  • Nature’s Majesty now increases the critical strike chance with all spells.

Feral

  • Thrash now has a 6 sec cooldown, up from 5 sec.
  • Swipe (Bear) base damage increased by 33%.
  • Swipe (Cat) now deals 215% weapon damage, up from 125%.
  • Furor now increases your maximum mana by 5/10/15% instead of increasing your intellect by 2/4/6%.

Restoration

  • Lifebloom now heals over 10 sec, up from 7 sec. Costs 7% of base mana, up from 5%.
  • Omen of Clarity is now properly flagged as Passive.
  • Regrowth HoT effect reduced by 60%, now heals over 6 sec instead of 21 sec. Cast time reduced from 2 sec to 1.5 sec.
  • Natural Perfection is now a Tier 5 talent, down from Tier 6.
  • Swift Rejuvenation is now a Tier 6 talent, up from Tier 5.
  • Revitalize revamped – When you periodically heal with your Rejuvenation or Lifebloom spells, you have a 8/16/24% chance to instantly regenerate 3% of your total mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.
  • Heart of the Wild no longer increases maximum mana by 5/10/15%, now increases Intellect by 2/4/6%.

 

.

It looks like they went through and cleaned up our cast range.  At the same time, Solar Beam got reduced a little and the damage on our Hurricane and Starfall was increased.  Innervate begins to look even more bleak for the Feral Druid.  Lunar Shower received a significant buff and I’ll go into detail on that if it shows up in the next real beta patch.  Starsurge finally got grouped with our other nukes as far as talents go.  Lastly, Entangling Roots gets bumped to a two second cast time, likely an oversight from the previous CC cast time overhaul of last build.

 
No Comments

Posted in Beta, Cataclysm, Talents

 

Shared Topic: Helping Your Group

26 Aug

There is, of course, the obvious reason why you are chosen for a group over someone else. You dance one hell of a dance. And your lazercannons make baby jesus cry. But what can a Moonkin do for the group, outside of the primary role of DPS? In recent WoW history, dungeons are burned through with AoE and crowd control? Who even knows what that is anymore? So lets dissect the toolbox of a Balance Druid to see what else he (or she) can bring to a group.

The Obvious

There  are a few things that the druid brings that are included in our DPS.  I called it obvious not because everyone knows it, but because it’s probably something you’re doing without even thinking about the group.  There’s nothing as nice as double dipping when you benefit too. Read the rest of this entry »

 
7 Comments

Posted in Guild, Shared Topic, Talents

 

Beta Build: 12803

21 Aug

Spell Range

Good news everyone!  I’ve perfected the. . . errr. . . sorry.  Too many Putricide attempts.  Good news!  The base range on all of our spells has been increased.  We are now able to stand 40 yards away from all of those smelly monsters that are trying to get us.  Exceptions to this rule are Entangling Roots and Faerie Fire which both weigh in at a solid 35.  Since we won’t be casting FF for the hit buff anymore (and feral’s will have a more efficient version due to a talent) I’m not too miffed about the FF part.  Entangling Roots being shorter is interesting but given the lack of PvE purpose for roots in many fights, I don’t feel too bad about this one either.

Cyclone

Cyclone is now a two second cast.  As one of the more interesting (and in my opinion powerful) short term CC options, I think the cast time is justified.  I’m positive that there will be some QQ over this, but it’s not the worst nerf in the world.

Thorns

I’m excited to see thorns become active!  Unfortunately, I can’t say i “love” the way it became active.  It was probably the least creative way of making it an active ability, but beggars can’t be choosers.  I do wonder if it will be enough damage to deter melee attackers.  I also wonder if it will be useable in cat or bear form.  It would be quite nice if we could use it in feral forms, much like Faerie Fire.

Moonkin Form

You might recall that I posted GC talking about changes to moonkin form as Blizz maded the move to have “Balance = Moonkin Form”.  A baked in increase in damage is a rather uninspired way of doing that.  Much like with Thorns, the intention is good, but the implementation lacks . . . oomph.  Just to be thorough, Moonkin Form now increases Nature and Arcane damage by 10%.  At one point, I was under the impression that flat modifiers were going to be reduced in the talent trees, but now I’m not so sure.

Starlight’s Wrath

Finally adjusted to a full 0.5 seconds for the three points.  The way in which it is done is interesting, and results in the second point actually feeling a little weaker than the first.  It now goes 0.15/0.25/0.5 sec reduction in cast time.  I haven’t verified it yet, but this does not seem to affect Starsurge, which is mildly disappointing.

Wild Mushrooms

Shrooms get nerfed before they even get out the door.  Or do they?  They limited the number of mushrooms that we can have active at once to 3.  In my mind (and this is completely unsubstantiated), this is because they’ve decided to let each shroom deal more damage.  This might be an attempt to have it functional within a single target rotation.  Here’s to hoping!

I’ll be looking for more changes as I log in tomorrow and  will update this post if I find any.  If you have a change I missed, leave me a comment and I’ll get it in here!

 
8 Comments

Posted in Beta, Cataclysm

 

Build 12759

13 Aug

Been out of town at the PHISH concert, so here are the updates!

New changes are in the wind.  Lets start with this:

Moonkin Form to Receive changes!

We’ve had a lot of discussions about Moonkin form, as you might guess. We know opinions range among the player base from “cut it” to “make me stay in my adorable form all the time.” At first we were trying to make it more of an option, so that cuddly-hating Balance druids could choose the spec without the shapeshift. After much discussion though, we’re going to go back to a Balance druid = Moonkin Form design. We’ll put some more damage into the Moonkin Form.

 

.

I’m happy and sad here.  I was really pulling for a cooldown based Moonkin Form because apparently I like to push more buttons!  But seriously, I’m glad to see Moonkin get some much needed attention.  As it stood, it was a cosmetic ability to apply a group aura.  Another talent gave it some independent benefit.   But on the whole, it felt pretty weak and superficial.  There are no changes present yet, but I expect to see them in the next build or two. Read the rest of this entry »

 
7 Comments

Posted in Beta, Cataclysm, Talents

 

Synergy, Complexity, and Predictability

13 Aug

These are three pillars of a rotation or priority.

Predict – to state or make a declaration about in advance, esp on a reasoned basis; foretell

Predictability is the ability to know your key presses in advance.  It can also be defined by the ability to anticipate upcoming changes in spells and things of this nature.  It is based on logic and an understanding of the system.

Complexity – the state or quality of being intricate or complex

Complexity is the number and order of key presses and their predictability within a DPS cycle.  Predictability falls into complexity, but doesn’t make or break it.  Within a rotation, complexity is usually determined by cooldowns, timers, and the need to switch spells.  TBC Shadow Priests have been given as an example of a complex rotation due to divergent timers that was still predictable.

Synergy – The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects; the cooperative action of two or more muscles, nerves, or the like

Synergy is a little more difficult to define within a rotation.  Graylo is right when he says that it is the combination of forces to create a total greater than the sum of the individual parts. However, it goes beyond the damage results.  Synergy touches playstyle in a unique way.  It allows parts of the rotation to work together in a meaningful way.

I will talk about two types of rotations below.  The first, a transparent rotation is a rotation that has the user always cast the greatest DPET spell, regardless of any synergy, perceived or otherwise.  The second I will call an enigmatic rotation.  This rotation will cast spells of inferior DPET because, thanks to synergy, these spells will work together withing the rotation to create the best possible DPS.  Let me lay out an analogy for us.  We get two dollars a day.  A transparent rotation would have us spend those two dollars every day.  An enigmatic rotation would have me spend one dollar today and deposit the other dollar in a CD that will give me two dollars tomorrow.  So on the first day, I have less than the transparent rotation.  On the second day, I have more (4 instead of 2).  And that difference will continue to grow as long as I stick to an enigmatic rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

 
8 Comments

Posted in DPS, DoT, Rotation, Talents, rant

 

Shared Topic: Vanilla WoW Meta Achievements

09 Aug

As a raider in Vanilla WoW (that’s the original version, if you didn’t know), I absolutely loved The Ruins of Ahn’Quiraj, better known as AQ20.  Not only was it preceded by what I consider to be one of the finest attunements in Blizzards WoW history, but it offered 40 man guilds, like mine at the time, to chop off some excess fat and run a blistering 20 man encounter.  This week’s shared topic asks us to create Meta Achievements for our favorite raid, and I choose you, AQ20!

 
1 Comment

Posted in Dungeon, Shared Topic, VanillaWoW

 

Possible Warning?

07 Aug

I was perusing the Blue responses today with the hopes that I might catch something vaguely referring to upcoming druid changes. Instead, I found what I feel might be a bit of a veiled warning to those of us who haven’t quite gotten the lion’s share of the attention lately.

Bloat vs. Choice
I think the word “bloat” has become like the word “clunky” in these forums. It’s so often used as a synonym for “I would have designed this differently” that it has lost a lot of specific meaning.

I think in the end one of the things we’ve really learned about what players are looking for in a talent tree is that they are often looking for different things. Some players are perfectly happy spending every point on say damage. Damage is what they do, so any point not related to damage feels wasted. Some players want every possible talent build to be legit. They don’t want there to be any wrong answers such that they could almost assign points at random and have something that was functional and diverse. Some players, and this surprised us a little, like to have the ability to make bad choices and are perfectly happy making wrong choices — to them the freedom to choose trumps the desire for power. Some players just want every point and agonize about having to leave anything out. Some get really bent out of shape at the thought of spending even 1 talent point on a talent that they may not use say once every 30 min or so. They would rather respec into a situational ability when that situation comes up rather than have it just in case. Some are mostly interested in just seeing something different. They are less interested in the perfect talent tree than they are in having them change over time. Even powerful abilities feel like old hat and they want the new hotness. You see this a lot for the classes whose talent trees changed earliest in Cataclysm, who are now wondering when “their overhaul” is coming. Opposing them are the nostalgia buffs who can’t stand the thought of any talent or ability going away because it’s iconic for their class.

I’m really not building towards any kind of conclusion with any of that. It has just been interesting to see the feedback. I guess I can offer that you might want to be careful about who you think you are speaking for when you say “we feel this” or “we don’t want that.” Players, even the microcosm of the forum community, want different things. (Source)

 
Read the rest of this entry »

 
2 Comments

Posted in Beta, Cataclysm, Talents

 

Reforging!

05 Aug

There is now an NPC in Beta that will allow you to reforge your gear. I was pretty pleased with how easy and intuitive the interface is. It has a nice stat summary with colors to indicate good and bad. I reforged all of my hit/spirit gear since I’m done with my dungeon stuff and I even put on some mastery gear I had picked up because with 40% of the mastery reforged, it was a clear winner.

So here’s how it work. You walk up to the Thaumaturge and simply click on him. The reforging interface pops up and you drag the item you want to reforge into the waiting box. Doing so will populate the reforgeable stats as well as a drop-down list from which you select which stat you want to reforge. Select your desired stat and BAM, he will make it so. It’s like a pocket genie with only 40% of the power of a real genie. But hey, it’s better than nothing. I’ve made a photo sequence below of the interface and me reforging a neck with spirit on it.

Very easy and very nice.  Now back to your regularly scheduled beta forum trolling!

 
No Comments

Posted in Beta, Cataclysm

 

DoTs And How To Fix ‘Em

04 Aug

Caveat: I do not believe Genesis is our most troublesome talent.  This is just a topic that is being discussed over at Gray Matter and I wanted to address it properly.

The Problem

Graylo is worried that myself and a few other Moonkin are making some false assumptions about DoTs and talents. While this primarily focuses on Genesis, the oft bemoaned “DPS” talent that Moonkin avoid, I believe it has to do with the nature of DoTs and how they act when compared to other spells in the game.

A DoT does a certain damage. This damage can be broken down into damage per tick or, as we would more commonly call it, DPS. The issue here is that this DPS is the same if we let the DoT tick for 1 tick or the full number of ticks (I’m assuming perfect ticks here).  So in essence, we should always let a DoT tick out for its full amount because we have already invested all of the casting time needed to allow that to happen. Cutting off ticks only reduces the efficiency of the spell.  Let’s say that a DoT lasts 12 seconds, such as IS. Then we can model the spell as if it has a 12 seconds cooldown and does all of its damage upfront. (I realize this is not accurate, but let’s do this as a mind exercise) This allows us to view the talent for its raw increased damage instead of its increased damage per tick. For comparisons sake, I will be using an identical character to Graylo’s character. Read the rest of this entry »

 
4 Comments

Posted in Beta, Cataclysm, Clipping, DoT, Graylo

 
Page 1 of 912345...Last »
 
Performance Optimization WordPress Plugins by W3 EDGE