Moonkin may receive a buff soon
by Allison Robert 
Jan 15th 2010 at 8:00PM
Blizzard has known about this for a while, but the issue with Nature's Grace and the soft +haste cap isn't easily fixable without impacting both Restoration and Starfire (where the NG proc is still useful), and the +crit cap is the effect of unintended stat inflation in Wrath. Enter Zarhym on Wednesday to announce news of a possible change to the Earth and Moon talent in a future mini-patch, granting 2/4/6% spell damage to the moonkin, up from 1/2/3%. While this isn't set in stone (and Balance players are already aware that an overhaul to the Nature's Grace issue probably won't happen until the Cataclysm content patch at the earliest), it's been greeted as a decent short-term fix. It's also a means of improving the scaling of what remains the moonkin's best stat (+spellpower).
Zarhym did warn that the change may not go through in this form, and we're also waiting for news on when this mini-patch will hit. Stay tuned for future announcements.
Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Classes, Buffs
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kristensen18 Jan 15th 2010 8:07PM
its on time that they get a buff i my self dont play moonkin but i think its a importent role in a raid with the 3% hit and aura so i hope they will be able to be on same level as a mage
Magma Jan 15th 2010 8:14PM
Uh, how about no on being the same as a mage? No hybrid class should be able to beat out a pure class in dps. It's as simple as that.
Kristensen18 Jan 15th 2010 8:20PM
That is true but i do still think that they need some kind of buff as they dps seems to lackin behiend (atleast on my realm) but what about same level as a frost mage then? (lol)
Ilunc Jan 15th 2010 8:19PM
Is it as "simple as that" the wow dev team had a chart in which they showed that they wanted them only to be what, 2-3% below a "pure" class. Man that sounds so much like dog breeding lol.
Karuna Jan 15th 2010 9:42PM
It might be a hybrid, but if it's fully specced for damage and not healing etc, it should be able to fulfil the damage to an adequate level.
Qot Jan 15th 2010 10:00PM
Unsolicited, I shall share my theory of hybrids. On a target dummy, both classes should do identical damage. However, the hybrid should buff the group in a way that increases everyone else's DPS. As a result, in a mixed environment, the hybrid will be at 100% and hybrid will buff the pure to (let's say) 110%, making the best raid composition a mixed hybrid/pure one.
Anyways, on topic, this proposed fix is kind of useless. It's basically giving a slightly bigger knife to someone who brought a knife to a gunfight. It won't change the haste cap or the soft crit cap, it'll just obscure them under a wave of bigger damage numbers. If they decide to put a new tier of gear before or with the Cataclysm opening event, are they going to bump it to 3/6/10%? I'd much rather see a mild retooling of Eclipse, perhaps giving Starfire a reduced cast time rather than crit (I don't think moonkins have the 3 second Starfire haste-capped).
The only upside to the proposed change is that I'm sure those who are still having knife fights (heroics/lower tiers of raiding) will see benefits.
Mike Jan 15th 2010 11:25PM
@Qot I totally agree with that assessment. In a raid environment, where detailed min/maxing is often required, then yes pures should beat out hybrids. But for casual play in 5-mans and more importantly soloing, then damage specs should be roughly equal regardless of class. Though on top, I also think the pure classes should be given some semi-hybrid roles, so that, for a raid they're still the best damage to take and you wouldn't take them for anything else, but for 5-mans they could provide an additional role (some examples I've thought about: a healing Warlock minion or tanking with a Felguard, tanking with a Hunter pet, Rogue poisons that heal, or Mage tanking with Frost abilities - of course, each of these would be damn-near impossible to balance, but they're just ideas!).
Sorcefire Jan 16th 2010 2:03AM
@Qot - The core problem is that +haste has serious diminishing returns for Balance druids since 1/2 of our spell rotation (Wrath) hits the cap quickly. Additional haste on gear is wasted on a spell we can't make any faster.
The other half of our rotation, Starfire, is not sufficiently affected by haste to be meaningful so we stack crit to get big hits on a long-cast spell. That gets wasted when raid-buffed because it will almost certainly crit with all buffs and Eclipse procs.
This leads to balance druids relying on their Wrath spells to proc Eclipse for big nukes on Starfire or longer casting Starfire to proc Eclipse for bigger (and faster) Wraths. Some even forego the alternation all together and just spam whichever spell they have the best stats for.
So we must stack both haste and crit to get the most of our core spells, but too much of either is wasted and there is little synergy between Wrath and Starfire to make one over the other preferable. Additionally a lot of the gear has had crit OR haste, not both so we have to pick and choose gear that complemented the emphasis of our rotation.
Qot Jan 16th 2010 2:29AM
Sorcefire -
I understand the gear assessment, though I didn't lay it out as explicitly. If Starfire Eclipse is changed to decreased cast time, then haste would be even less useful, but crit would become even better. You would basically trade having a soft haste cap (Wrath is below the 1 sec GCD with Nature's Grace) and a soft crit cap (Starfire crit is ~100% with Eclipse + gear + buffs) for having a hard haste cap (both Wrath and Eclipsed/shorter cast time Starfire would not benefit much from haste) and a crit cap beyond current gear levels.
Basically, using Eclipse to decrease the cast time of Starfire would allow moonkins to stack crit and ignore haste, creating a clearer gear itemization.
brian Jan 15th 2010 8:20PM
It'll be interesting to see how they 'fix' Eclipse and Nature's Grace in Cataclysm.
...then again, just about everything in Cataclysm promises to be interesting.
justincmorris Jan 15th 2010 8:59PM
I play a boomkin with 1z245 t9 3x 232t9 and rest of the pieces are 245/251 pieces and when I am playing with other players of the same gear score( just usuing it as a sum calculation of gear not skill) of 5187. The only class that will beat me are rogues(staionary fights) and hunters(mobile fights) being that said boomkins perform well enough but I will take any buff that blizz wants to throw my way.
Pyromelter Jan 15th 2010 9:37PM
You must be playing with a. undergeared rogues or b. baddies.
Nick S Jan 16th 2010 12:54AM
Boomkins aren't ridiculously behind; player skill can still close the gap in a lot of cases.
Hunters shouldn't really be the class beating you nearly so much as Mages.
Neirin Jan 16th 2010 1:07AM
This change is really aimed at keeping us hybrids from being obsolete. Even with a 3% dmg boost, we aren't gonna be threatening you mages and rogues any time soon.
Royal Jan 16th 2010 12:38PM
Show some parse logs...
Jo Jan 15th 2010 9:01PM
about damn time is all I gotta say
Aedilhild Jan 16th 2010 12:49AM
I don't play one, but I see far too many skilled and well-geared balance players dealing far too little damage. A lot of raids will benefit.
Moonkinmaniac Jan 15th 2010 9:19PM
We've needed a buff for a long time now. I hope they do something a little more than just this we're on the bottom of the dps charts class wise.
jaynitan Jan 15th 2010 11:34PM
In BC I was able to compete with mages on damage meters.
In Wrath the 'best' boomkin in our guild never gets above #5 on the damage meters with a gear score of 300-400 above most of our guild.
Gearscore to gearscore against players of similar skill my boomkin can rock the AOE, but single target (aka Boss FIghts) I am almost 1k dps below the pure classes, not 500 or 50 dps. . . .but a ful 1K below ppl with equal gear and roughly equal skill. Feral druids with a lower gearscore routinely beat me out by 2k.
Bunneh Jan 16th 2010 1:56AM
Why not make haste affect the travel speed of wrath (instead of cast speed or added to the cast speed decrease), because right now I'm fighting and trying really hard not to get too much haste or my rotation will be severely out of balance. 0.9 sec wraths just screw the feel up for your rotation and let's not get started on heroism. Every time someone yells heroism on vent I go *gulp* and hope that i get a lunar eclipse before the shaman finds his/her button.