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Q u o t e:

We have a fix for the current set bonus to make it work the way you imagine it should at a 7 or 8% proc chance. It's our policy not to announce patch dates ahead of time, but it will be long before 3.2.

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NARRATOR: And so Arthur and Bedemir and Sir Robin set out on their
search to find the enchanter of whom the old man had spoken in Scene 24.
Beyond the forest they met Launcelot and Galahad, and there was much
rejoicing.
ALL: Yay! Yay!
NARRATOR: In the frozen land of Nador they were forced to eat Robin's
minstrels. And there was much rejoicing.
ALL: Yay!

---

Q u o t e:


Ah... no. Nobody was deceiving anyone. I have explained the way it works the way it does technically -- you can label it what you want. Most of all, I would definitely *not* attribute getting upset here to getting anything accomplished. Your getting upset, emotional, insulting or going over the top is never justified and will never persuade us. This was not a "we showed them" moment, and if such is your conclusion then I fear you will continue to be frustrated when trying to get us to see your way.

Blogs like Graylo's had a lot more influence than this thead (even if I did piss him off). :)

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Yay, Now I have to fanboi's?

Need to go change my signature.

On a more serious note, I think it is great that people get up set or passionate about changes that are made or comments posted. It shows that they really care about the game. However, I think we all need to remember that we need to focus that passion in a constructive manner.

In the future lets try not to post things like " 4t8 and Night fall are the same thing Copy/Paste." Instead a more constructive post would be to ask why it won't work like Nightfall. You still get you point across with out tempting a ban and you might get some useful info in the end.

Plus, we still need him to take some of the spirit off of our tier gear. :P

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Q u o t e:


Ah... no. Nobody was deceiving anyone. I have explained the way it works the way it does technically -- you can label it what you want. Most of all, I would definitely *not* attribute getting upset here to getting anything accomplished. Your getting upset, emotional, insulting or going over the top is never justified and will never persuade us. This was not a "we showed them" moment, and if such is your conclusion then I fear you will continue to be frustrated when trying to get us to see your way.

Blogs like Graylo's had a lot more influence than this thead (even if I did piss him off). :)

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The first post I was referring to was this one: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16473761559&postId=168868989609&sid=1#495

Admittedly you didn't say outright that the buff was compensation for an as-yet unfixed bug, but that's what most of us took away from it. You certainly could have done better by us if you had been forthright in saying that the buff was considered to be the actual fix. In either case, you made it clear in your first post of this thread that at least initially, you considered the buff to be the actual fix and that you considered it to be a closed issue. Well, I'm rather appalled by that, because a work-around is not a fix, and it's not something you could say meets Blizzard's usual standards of quality. The fact that you changed your minds later doesn't alter the fact that up to a certain point, you were content to live with a fix that wasn't really a fix.

Could we please make sure to run the numbers on a 15% proc before bringing it down to 7 or 8? The last thing we want is to finally have the 4pc bonus fixed, but to then have an issues with the proc rate diminishing it's usefulness (and it's dps in comparison to our old T7). With our T8 having poorer stat itemization as well, keeping the proc at 15 percent might be a good compensation.

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Q u o t e:


The first post I was referring to was this one: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16473761559&postId=168868989609&sid=1#495

Admittedly you didn't say outright that the buff was compensation for an as-yet unfixed bug, but that's what most of us took away from it. You certainly could have done better by us if you had been forthright in saying that the buff was considered to be the actual fix. In either case, you made it clear in your first post of this thread that at least initially, you considered the buff to be the actual fix and that you considered it to be a closed issue. Well, I'm rather appalled by that, because a work-around is not a fix, and it's not something you could say meets Blizzard's usual standards of quality. The fact that you changed your minds later doesn't alter the fact that up to a certain point, you were content to live with a fix that wasn't really a fix.

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Water under the bridge... let's not try and rehash old arguments or misunderstandings. I think both sides have learned and moved on towards the same goal now.

GC WAR MY BOOM FIX?!

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Q u o t e:

If your purpose here is to post garbage about how we don’t care about your class, please please please just spare us.

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What about our class, huh GC? Don't you care about us? :)

jk, I have no class.

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Q u o t e:


Ah... no. Nobody was deceiving anyone. I have explained the way it works the way it does technically -- you can label it what you want. Most of all, I would definitely *not* attribute getting upset here to getting anything accomplished. Your getting upset, emotional, insulting or going over the top is never justified and will never persuade us. This was not a "we showed them" moment, and if such is your conclusion then I fear you will continue to be frustrated when trying to get us to see your way.

Blogs like Graylo's had a lot more influence than this thead (even if I did piss him off). :)

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Glad to hear you read his blog. So then I can assume you have looked at the numbers on out 4pt8. So even if you fix it you then now that dropping the proc rate down to 7-8 percent will not make an improvement to our dps over what 5 percent crit does. Now that being said then I can assume you will not drop the proc rate below 10.5 percent which is the lowest the proc can be to equal the dps of out 4pt7 bonus.

I can also assume you have read that we lost 10 percent crit when entering into ulduar with no compensation to anything but our imp moonkin form, which since you read those forums and these you would know that the 5 percent increase in dps that you quoted is more like a 3 percent increase in damage and does not negate the 10 percent crit or the increase in spirit on our ulduar gear. Now I can only assume that you put so much spirit on our gear to help with innervate while not knowing that the change to innervate was coming. So how about lets look again at the moonkin gear the proc rate on our eclipse's and the proc rate on our 4pt8.

Since you have read and read this and other blogs then you have seen the math you have seen the recommedations so I would assume since in the last 6 months we have had more nerfs than buffs that you guys have us on the short list to correct some of these issues. Then again I am assuming things and you know what they say about assuming things.

Keep us in the loop guys dont let us get upset over small nerfs to us like the thorns nerf cause we are being dismissed as a spec. We dont want to QQ but after all the numbers we have showed you what else is there left. Now if you guys think we come up with the numbers incorrectly then correct us. We do want the right equations if we are not using them.

The wording for the bonus in the last patch notes was deceptive. If it mentioned that the 'bug' was in fact the intended mechanic, I doubt people would be all up in arms about it. We would have just kept the 'our tier set is crap' mentality that we've had when the stats were first released. The problem is that when the change was announced, it made it sound really good and would make up for the lackluster stats of the set. People started collecting more than the 2 pieces in anticipation... but now those are worthless. I am upset that i picked up the chest before I found out that the mechanic wasn't a bug.

I wish we could get a rebate on our previously purchased tier 8 so we can get some attractive off spec resto gear, but this would never happen.

I may be mistaken, but fixing the insta-starfire bug would look something like this:

if(player.lastspellcast.name == STARFIRE && player.lastspellcast.length == 0)
{
remove buff
reset starfire cast time
}

Or it could just be really crazy code...
Either way, all you need is a check to see the last starfire's cast time. If it was instant, then remove the buff. Otherwise, keep the buff.

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Q u o t e:
I may be mistaken, but fixing the insta-starfire bug would look something like this:

if(player.lastspellcast.name == STARFIRE && player.lastspellcast.length == 0)
{
remove buff
reset starfire cast time
}

Or it could just be really crazy code...
Either way, all you need is a check to see the last starfire's cast time. If it was instant, then remove the buff. Otherwise, keep the buff.

---

You have 4 years of stacking code on code so I am very very sure it is more complicated.
And besides who knows how many dev's they still have that started wow in the first place.

What about the starfire still useing a global cooldown? Would it be too much of a dps increase to have the "instant" starfire off global cooldown? That is how I imagined this proc to work. I realize that being able to cast a starfire while moving is very usefull. A global cooldown is what you use as a ranged damage dealer to optimize moving while doing damage, i.e. reaplying a DoT. Being able to drop a Starfire crit while moving out of a void zone is pretty awsome. But I also belive, to make this set bonus amazing and a true must have for any balance druid, the starfire would need to be off global cooldown.

I'd like to see GC expand a bit on why the 7-8% is the sweet spot for being enough of a proc rate to justify the 4-piece, instead of closer to the 10-11% quoted by others in the thread. Is their math incorrect, or are they failing to take something into account? Honest question, it just seems like it is not enough procs considering we still have a GCD for each. Also would love to see some dialogue on how they show our 4-piece lining up with other caster specs' 4-piece sets taking into account our relatively poor itemization compared to every other tier caster set.

Despite GC's take earlier in the thread that he will now be hesitant to answer us unruly balance druids I for one just want to stress that I really get a kick out of the well-reasoned posts he sometimes makes that give us a glimpse at their design process and thinking for the changes to our spec. However, us disagreeing with what is said or lambasting what we feel may be lame excuses for not fixing something shouldn't dissuade that communication from continuing to occur. And if I may say something he dislikes to read, I think our spec's issues were overdue for some attention and keeping that in mind he perhaps shouldn't take our obvious frustration with what we felt was not a sufficient effort to fix our tier gear personally. I felt the "You don't like what I said, fine I'll take my ball and go home next time" tone was a bit uncalled for. Again, that said I hope GC continues to post his reasoning and thought processes on the Balance spec, I really enjoy reading them.

So, Ghostcrawler, would you be so kind as to explain to us exactly why changing the 4pc bonus would be impossible? I know you stated it could be a solution, then why not change it if the current one generates so much anger towards our beloved crustacean?

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Q u o t e:
Using Graylo's numbers from here: http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t37039-moonkin_raiding/p45/#post1221658

7%: 3625 / ((1 / .07) * 2) ~= 127dps
8%: 3625 / ((1 / .08 * 2) = 145dps

Just for the sake of comparison, the break even point for the 4T8 bonus to equal the 4T7 bonus would be around a 10.5% proc chance: 3625 / ((1 / .105 * 2) ~= 190dps

This is all given 100% IS up time on one target, normalized proc rate, no proc overwriting another, etc.

A 7~8% proc chance would be about a 20~30% less than the 4T7 bonus. The current 15% proc chance would be about a 40% increase over the 4T7 bonus, where I think it possibly starts becoming attractive.

It still feels like layers upon layers of nested RNG that diminishes a simulated 'calculator pew pew' value by a sizable amount. Perhaps it will feel better when I actually try it; Shadow Crash-buffed Starfire has been my favorite part of Ulduar thus far.

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Just quoting this for the math! Excellent work here.

5% crit off the 4pc T7 is 229.55 crit rating. That's a lot of stats to lose for a proc that only sometimes happens. And when it does happen, you still get a 1 to 1.5 second global cooldown attached to it. So it's not really a free spell is it?

I don't know Ghostcrawler. If it was up to me, I would scrap the T8 set bonus altogether and make a new one. We all liked the T5 set bonus of 10% more starfire damage when insect swarm was on the target. Maybe make it so we get 5% more wrath and starfire damage when either moonfire or insect swarm is on the target. That would be worth upgrading to.

Well, it doesn't matter if they fix it or not, now. Why would anyone wear more than 2 of this garbage set for a 7% chance to shave .8 seconds off a starfire? Oh well, back to non-set piece cloth.

There really is no reason to ask GC to explain this... He is basically a spin doctor that comes on forums to tow the company line and dismiss the concerns of the community. His posts are not a conversation starter, they tell us how it is going to be, and if we don't like it, quit or continue to whine about it on the forums. Either way, it won't change anything.

GC, any chance we can get the extra Starfire off of GCD (or reduced GCD)?

just one more thing to say that moonkins are being put on the back burner

In our next major content patch, druids will find a host of new textures for two major forms, cat and bear. There will be five different designs for each of these forms for the Horde and Alliance. Night elves can choose to change their cat and bear look at any time by visiting the barber shop and changing their character's hair color, while tauren will be able to change which look they use by switching skin tones in the barber shop -- a new feature for tauren in the next major content patch. Given that there are more hair colors and skin tones than unique form looks, some colors and tones will overlap with these new textures. The hair and skin colors chosen will, in most cases, correspond with the color seen in the look of each form. Some similar colors that may share a particular cat texture will not necessarily share the same bear texture.

We'd like to share with you this new art for each form and faction in four installments. So without further ado, our first preview is for the five new textures of the tauren druid bear form. We'll also show the current form design so you can easily see the extra detail and textures of the new art. Work continues on new looks for the remaining druid forms and we hope to add them in future content patches.

like seriously fix what u have before making new stuff???!!!????

o and i just read in 3.1.3 the procs being fixed,but lowered to 8% chance....better hope the dps factor outweighs the T7 crit from 4 pc otherwise its still a crappy set and no point really going for druid tier till next set is released imo

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Q u o t e:
just one more thing to say that moonkins are being put on the back burner

In our next major content patch, druids will find a host of new textures for two major forms, cat and bear. There will be five different designs for each of these forms for the Horde and Alliance. Night elves can choose to change their cat and bear look at any time by visiting the barber shop and changing their character's hair color, while tauren will be able to change which look they use by switching skin tones in the barber shop -- a new feature for tauren in the next major content patch. Given that there are more hair colors and skin tones than unique form looks, some colors and tones will overlap with these new textures. The hair and skin colors chosen will, in most cases, correspond with the color seen in the look of each form. Some similar colors that may share a particular cat texture will not necessarily share the same bear texture.

We'd like to share with you this new art for each form and faction in four installments. So without further ado, our first preview is for the five new textures of the tauren druid bear form. We'll also show the current form design so you can easily see the extra detail and textures of the new art. Work continues on new looks for the remaining druid forms and we hope to add them in future content patches.

like seriously fix what u have before making new stuff???!!!????

o and i just read in 3.1.3 the procs being fixed,but lowered to 8% chance....better hope the dps factor outweighs the T7 crit from 4 pc otherwise its still a crappy set and no point really going for druid tier till next set is released imo

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You have it right cats and bear get new looks. Trees get a better imp barkskin and moonkins get the t8 bug fixed. Hope for more to come our way but after all the math we showed them on numerous fronts concerning our itemization and set bonus we still didnt get thru to them.