New Cata Eclipse Bar pictures

By Lissanna | Published: September 2, 2010

So, this latest patch brought us a new Eclipse bar and some UI improvements.

The new bar looks more night & day themed, and one side glows light after you get the Eclipse proc. The graphic is really neat. Even your spells on the bar are highlighted (Lunar Eclipse has moonfire & starfire light up on your bar. Solar Eclipse has wrath & insect swarm light up).

I think it really looks good. Here’s some pictures! (click on each one to see it full size).

Posted in Cataclysm, Moonkin Balance DPS | 4 Comments

Surviving the expansion transition: Guild woes

By Lissanna | Published: August 31, 2010

Okay, so at this point, we’re deep into the pre-expansion rut. People’s focus has shifted from current raid content to Cataclysm content that isn’t yet available to us.

Guilds who killed Lich King long ago have attendance problems, and guilds who haven’t yet killed the Lich King are still feeling the pinch.

As members get bored, frustrated, tired, or just burnt out on the game, it becomes harder and harder to get together a group of 25 people to run ICC in the months leading up to a new expansion release. I’m not here to offer solutions, because at this point, I don’t have any. At this point, my goal is just to keep my guild (Conspiracy) running at all costs, with a constant battle of recruitment (at this point, anyone interested could still apply… even resto or feral druids).

At this point, Conspiracy got set back a bit in progression, and has always been a more casual guild, so we still haven’t killed the Lich King on 25-man (though we have killed him on 10-man and have been making pretty good progress on our 10-man hard mode runs!).

For Conspiracy, we’re still hanging on, but having battles over things like whether to do hard modes before we have LK dead on 25-man as a gearing tool & morale boost, but we still have some members who feel like buying a LK kill for a member just to unlock hard modes feels like cheating. I’m sure we’ll eventually kill LK 25-man before the next expansion, but being locked out of hard modes completely for now really sucks because full clears are potentially boring and LK is still just outside our grasp.

I really wish that doing Hard Mode Gunship & the easier hard modes didn’t require a LK kill, because it locks a lot of guilds out of having a progression path that allows them to work at their own pace. I really wish Blizzard would reconsider their Hard Mode lockout system for Cataclysm, and instead build a more flexible system that allows all guilds more flexibility & options.

That said – I just wanted to pose some questions out to the community: How is your guild surviving the pre-expansion slump? Has your guild considered buying your way to hard modes if you are stuck on the Lich King? Or, if you are already on hard modes, how are you keeping people interested in the weekly grind?

We’ve been doing off-night runs & achievements to try and fill the time with more fun activities, along with gearing up alts on alt run nights.

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments

Cata: Effloresence graphic update

By Lissanna | Published: August 28, 2010

So, the graphic that I posted for effloresence (the healing lava) didn’t last very long, and so last night I took pictures of what it looks like now. They took away the green ground-covering effect, and left a circle ring of leaves & such that spring up around the edge of the radius:

So, now it looks less deadly. I still have to convince people in instances that standing in it is good, but that’s going to be a problem for all the class’ effects that are ground-targeted.

In terms of the spell mechanics, the healing it is doing is about 400 to 500 per tick at level 83, which actually makes it sorta average in terms of power, which I think is probably fine since it’s a talented bonus to regrowth, and NOT it’s own spell. Keeping effloresence from being overpowered is really important, because it would be a shame if we were encouraged to spam our flash heal (regrowth) until OOM as our primary healing strategy.

However, a 4 yard radius is really too small, because most of the time, the AOE heal effect is only going to hit one person. I think an 8 yard radius would be better.

In the current build (12803), regrowth’s crit rate is 60%  from talents, before gear. This feels like a talent bug to me because it really makes regrowth overpowered as a spell compared to other class’ flash heals, and compared to the other healing tools we have available. Either that 60% crit rate is supposed to be on people below 25% health, OR they need to have a lower (maybe around 20%) bonus crit rate that we have all the time. Leaving it at 60% before raid buffs or gear means that it will devalue crit as a stat, because it gives you a pretty low soft-cap for crit before it does nothing for Regrowth (and that is really what Blizzard has been trying to avoid by removing all the crit & haste bonuses from the various class’ talent trees).

So, in conclusion, effloresence in the current beta build has:

  • Okay graphic
  • Okay amount of healing done
  • Too small of a radius
  • too high of a regrowth crit rate

If they increased the radius & fixed the regrowth crit rate bug, it would be easier to evaluate the talent. As it is, I’m already spending too much time focusing on one of our many talents. However, having Effloresence be good without being overpowered will go a long way towards us being able to have our actual problems addressed, rather than just having regrowth + effloresence carry us through being a 1-button spammer through Cata.

Posted in Cataclysm, Restoration Healing Trees, Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Should the Moonkin Repository “branch out?”

By Lissanna | Published: August 27, 2010

So, the Moonkin Repository is a forum designed for moonkin to post on (as the name implies), and moonkin of all types (pvp, pve, experts, novices, newbies, alts) come to the forums to discuss, well, anything related to being a moonkin! If you are a moonkin and haven’t been to the moonkin repository, you should check it out!

Recently (as in late last night, or early this morning) I got suckered recruited into being a moderator on the Moonkin Repository’s forums, to help out with keeping things running smoothly. (The position comes with a free can of troll repellent, or so I hear).

In addition to adding me as a moderator, there are other changes up for discussion related to TMR. The most exciting of which (that impacts a lot of my readers) is the possibility of expanding into having a restoration druid & feral druid forum, in addition to the currently existing moonkin one. These new forums (after some discussion) will likely be separate forums that are all cross-linked together (so, you would have something like: the moonkin repository, the resto repository, and the feral repository – or whatever the name of each forum would be).

There is one discussion going on in the WoW druid forums. There is also additional information in the original post on TMR, as well as more recent updates about conclusions made from the feedback they received. Please go and express your opinions on the idea (either positive or negative feedback is welcome). You can also give your opinion on what the new forums should be named.

Also, if the resto & feral forums DO go live, we’re going to need the support of other resto & feral druids to help with increasing publicity, generally posting there and being helpful, and potentially even volunteers to help moderate those forums.

If it’s something you think we should do and something you think you would visit, please let me know. I know one person expressed concern about the resto forums possibly stepping on the toes of other forums like the Plus Heal forums, however I haven’t seen a big resto druid presence on the plus heal forums in a while.

It’s going to take some time to get a resto & feral forum up and running, but I will make sure to post updates here as things develop.

So, what do you guys think? Are the new forums a good idea? bad idea? Is a new feral & resto forum something that you would use, or think the community needs?

Posted in Druid - General, Feral Bear tanking, Feral DPS Cat, Moonkin Balance DPS, Restoration Healing Trees | 14 Comments

Lord of the Rings Online – Going Free to play

By Lissanna | Published: August 25, 2010

So, my other MMO is Lord of the Rings Online. I have 3 characters, all of which are way below the level cap (under level 40 out of 65 max). I dabble in it some, and keep it active mostly because I enjoy their housing system so much (and it’s nice to play in a game where I don’t already know every little detail of it). In all my time, I never hit end-game in it because, well, I just don’t have time. I may average about one hour a week of playtime, which ends up meaning that the game is a pretty big expense for how little I actually play it.

However, starting September 10th, the LotRO game goes to a “free to play” model, and I’m one of the people who could benefit from just paying for what I need, rather than maintaining a paid subscription.

As someone with a currently active subscription, it looks like I start out at a “VIP” tier, where it seems mostly like what my paid subscription is now. When I stop paying that subscription, however, I only drop down to a “premium” tier, which still has slightly more benefits than the normal free player tier (ie. more than people who never bought the game). I also get to keep the perks I bought through the expansions.

I’m looking forward to this, and have already pruned my characters down to the 3 I’m allowed to have on a premium account for when I stop paying for it (lets face it, I won’t play LotRO all that much this winter when Cataclysm is released).

Posted in Lord of the Rings Online | 4 Comments

Stand in the healing lava (Cataclysm – Effloresence)

By Lissanna | Published: August 23, 2010

Okay, so for most of people’s raiding experience, they have been trained to move out of bad looking stuff on the ground.

However, in Cataclysm, they have moved to a system where there is going to be positional healing, and you’ll have to stand inside of “good” ground-covering effects. However, Effloresence’s graphic is a little bit over-done, so now it looks like a slime puddle, especially if you have more than one stacked on top of each other.

Also, Effloresence is down to a 4 yard radius, which looks big, except that it’s really not.  So, the beta forums have reports of tanks & DPS moving out of the effloresence procs, because they didn’t know what it was, and it looks more like green lava or Putricide’s slime pools than something beneficial.

The instant-cast regrowth is working in tree form now, which is why some of my pictures are in tree form.

So, please don’t move out of effloresence, or it won’t heal you. /sad face

Personally, I think the graphic may need to get toned down a bit, so it looks less like something designed to kill you (especially when you stack up a couple procs in the same place, like I did for the last picture). Just about anything else in the game I’ve seen resembling effloresence is something that’s going to kill you if you stand in it. I’m not sure they want to train people to sand in green lava, and then move out of the other green lava that has a larger effect (slime pools in ICC and such).

They could also make the radius larger than the graphic, so that when people move out of it, they will still benefit from the heal.

I would discuss the other actual problems with the talent, but it’s hard to figure out what is intended versus a bug in the latest patch, so I’m avoiding making a blog post about it for now…

Posted in Cataclysm, Restoration Healing Trees | 17 Comments

Cata beta build 12803 – moonkin

By Lissanna | Published: August 21, 2010

So, I’ve been focusing a little too much on Restoration druids lately, and I think I owe moonkin a post to go along with the latest beta build. Unfortunately, this build has a lot of crashing problems, making testing challenging at best. Also, resto is harder to evaluate this build because some things look like obvious bugs (or not so obvious bugs), but without confirmation on what is intended or not, it’s hard to tell. So, balance is just easier to test this build.

Overall, the moonkin playstyle is starting to feel good. We aren’t quite there yet, but things are really starting to come together.

So, lets start with moonkin form. The current beta build makes moonkin form do 10% more damage when you are in form. This is fine, as we really didn’t need a creative damage increase. Sometimes, passive bonuses on things like shapeshift forms becomes the right way to get the form to be useful, and that’s fine with me. This actually partially makes up for the fact that the int increase from Furor is active outside of moonkin form now. So, moonkin form is essentially fine at this point, in terms of conceptual design.

Next, lets look at Eclipse & our direct damage spells:

Eclipse now requires us to move along a slider from -100 to +100 Eclipse power. When you reach -100, your Lunar Eclipse gives you a bonus to arcane damage. When you reach zero power, your Eclipse proc goes away. When you reach +100 power, you gain a Solar Eclipse proc, and that increases nature damage. It actually is a fun mechanic, except that you have to cast a lot of wraths or starfires to go from one end to the other, so it feels a little spammy. However, it has a neat interaction with Starsurge, since Starsurge will increase how long your Eclipse proc stays up, by moving you away from the mid-point when Eclipse is active (and pushes you closer to an Eclipse proc when Eclipse isn’t active).

So, wrath, starfire, & starsurge have a really great interaction with Eclipse that ends up being pretty fun. We also don’t have to worry about movement as much, since we get more time to use the Eclipse proc than it takes to actually use it. Moonfire & insect swarm do benefit from the damage increase from the proc, which is nice. Starsurge also works pretty well as a burst damage ability, and the cooldown is short enough that you get to use it pretty often.

Changes to Thorns: Has changed to a 20 second duration, 45 second cooldown ability. Only does damage when something hits you. Shifts you out of bear & cat form. Appears to only work as a resto or moonkin PvP ability at the moment.

At level 80, with 2557 spell power (in moonkin form, with moonkin talents), thorns hit for 620 per tick. However, thorns requires something to hit you. So, the current version really has a narrow range of use. At the very least, it’s not something that feral druids or PvE druids of any type will find useful at all in the current beta form.

DOTs (insect swarm & moonfire):

Insect swarm is currently something that packs a lot of punch, but it has no more utility (the -hit debuff is gone). It also has no real interaction with our rotation or talents, other than benefiting from Lunar Eclipse.

Moonfire is currently the weakest link. I’ve spent a lot of time & effort over the course of beta talking about moonfire. At this point, the direct damage portion of moonfire is less than a tick of the DOT portion of the spell. Even with all the talents to boost the direct damage, it still doesn’t pack enough of a punch. It’s not a huge deal, but it makes me feel like those talent points aren’t worthwhile. Basically, my insect swarm ticks for about the same (or more) than the direct damage over moonfire even if I have 3 stacks of Lunar Shower up.

At this point, I’d still like to see moonfire become a stacking DOT (where more of the damage is tied to the direct damage portion, and then the DOT is weak at one stack, but does a respectable amount when it stacks up 3 times). Another option is to leave the DOT as-is, and just boost the direct damage portion so it hits a little bit more respectably (but that balancing can always be done at 85, I suppose).

Not enough talent points in the balance tree:

Just about every other beta, I’ve complained about “bloat” (having too many talent points). However, we currently don’t have enough talent points to make anything resembling interesting choices in the talent trees. Tiers 3 has five points, tier 4 has six points, and tier 5 has 4 points.

I don’t really feel like I get to make interesting choices much at all. I think that one more talent, worth 2 or 3 points – in either tier 3 or 5 would have a huge impact on the ability to choose what talents I really want. Since we’re badly in need of something making our DOTs more interesting, I would suggest putting a DOT-related talent in Tier 3 or 5, to give us the option to better spice things up a bit (something that isn’t just a flat damage increase, but adds some of the interesting synergy back into the trees).

Waiting for glyphs:

One big unknown is what glyphs will look like. They are supposed to impact our rotations in interesting ways and allow for choice (and most of the existing moonkin glyphs won’t work that well in the Cata rotations). Glyphs could be where our DOTs are better tied into the rotations (I hope!).

Conclusions:

The design of the current Eclipse is fine. How our direct damage spells work is fine. Our DOTs need a little more attention & need to be better tied into the overall playstyle to make it a little more fun. We have a lot of good elements that just need more glue to hold it all together. Eclipse is fun, but it’s going to be either predictable or frustrating. I’d rather have something in addition to Eclipse to watch for that adds a little more spice.

Posted in Cataclysm, Moonkin Balance DPS | 5 Comments