7.1.5 PTR Balance Changes (30.10.16)

Let us start with a list of all the changes.

• Our T19 4-piece have been completely redesigned. It now reads “Starsurge deals 20% increased damage to targets affected by both your Sunfire and Moonfire”.
• Our new legendary is shoulders with Haste and Critical Strike, that reads “Moonfire deals 20% increased damage and also hits another nearby enemy within 20 yards of the target”.
• Sephuz’s Secret now gives 25% haste (up from 15%).
• Warrior of Elune now has 3 charges (up from 2).
• Renewal’s cooldown has been reduced to 1.5 minutes (down from 2 minutes).
• Displacer Beast has been changed to only give the speed increase for 2 seconds (down from 4 seconds), and the cooldown was increased to 40 seconds (up from 30 seconds).
• Soul of the Forest now increases the damage bonus from empowerments by 20% (up from 15%) and reduces the cost of Starfall by 20 Astral Power (up from 10 Astral Power).
• Stellar Flare’s direct damage has been increased by 25%, and its damage over time has been increased by ~23%.
• Stellar Flare’s cost has been reduced to 10 Astral Power (down from 15 Astral Power).
• Shooting Star’s damage has been increased by ~31%.
• Fury of Elune’s damage has been increased by ~17%.
• Stellar Drift now  increases the damage of Starfall by 60% (up from 20%).
• Echoing Stars’s damage has been increased by ~31%.

New 4-piece

Our new 4-piece is certainly a lot better than the previously one that was rendered useless by any of our 3 best legendaries. However, it still leaves a lot to be desired. The fact that it only increases the damage of Starsurge has a ton of bad side effects:

• Our already best single target legendary, The Emerald Dreamcatcher is pushed further ahead, since it usually averages ~30% Starsurge damage (a total DPS increase of 6%), compared to ~23% without (a total DPS increas of ~4.5%. Our 2nd best legendary, Impeccable Fel Essence also increase the percentage of damage coming from Starsurge, but not to the same extend as The Emerald Dreamcatcher.
• The effect is completely dead in multi target scenarios, were we are not casting Starsurge. This also holds true for our 2-piece (that only increases the damage of our single target fillers). This means we will fall further behind when it comes to AoE once everybody start getting tier gear.
• It further incentivizes the use of our already most picked talents, Starlord, Incarnation, and Nature’s Balance, since all of those talents benefit from more Starsurge damage, where as their competitors does not.
• It does not work on targets not affected by our dots. This means that on very short lived priority targets (like the corruptor tentacles on Il’gynoth) our damage will be even worse than it already is compared to other dps specs.

Overall, an extremely disappointing  4-piece. A flat 5% damage buff would have been better way better, and quite frankly it is not like 20% more damage on a single spell is particularly interesting either.

New legendary

This is obviously a multi target oriented legendary, but let us consider it in a bunch of different scenarios in an attempt to gauge the value of it.

Single target

On a single target, Moonfire is ~8% of our damage, putting the legendary at a 1.6% DPS increase. This is by far the most common situation in pve (and arguably the most important). In this situation it is very weak.

Two target

Assuming that the targets are stacked so that we can hit both targets with Sunfire and Moonfire, and that we are using Starsurge as our spender, we can simply look at the single target value and multiply it by 2/1.16 (Sunfire and Moonfire simply deals double damage). This would put it at a ~2.8% dps increase. This scenario happens quite often in pve, however it is usually only for shorter periods at a time. Even with 100% uptime on two targets, it is weak.

Three target

We still assume that Starsurge is our spender of choice. This becomes a bit harder to calculate, since we have to spent an extra global cooldown on Moonfire, but to make it easier, let us just assume that Moonfire is applied to all 3 targets instead of only two. We use the same method as above and multiply by 3/1.32, putting it at a ~3.6% dps increase. However, this situation is very rare in raids, and will mostly happen in high mythic plus.

What about Starfall?

Well, the short answer is that if you are casting Starfall on a raid boss, you are probably doing it wrong. Our AoE costs us so much single target damage compared to most other classes, that it simply is not efficient for a Balance Druid to AoE.

Usually, the only time it is correct to cast Starfall is in mythic plus. In lower level mythic plus, everything dies too fast for Balance Druid AoE to even be relevant. Starfall simply has too long ramp up. So what about high difficulty mythic plus? Well, this is likely the best case for it, but remember that if it is actually a high difficulty, it is unlikely to expect huge pulls. The thing we can hope for us likely 6 targets that all live for ~30 seconds. So how good would the new legendary be in this potential best case scenario for us? Well, let us first look at the Moonfire damage. Depending on talents, we can expect Moonfire to be 20-30% of our damage. Let us just assume that it is ~25%. This gives us a DPS increase of 5%. Now let since the mobs only live for 30 seconds, will will only want to cast Moonfire once per target, which means the legendary effect would save us a total of 3 GCDs. With 30% haste, we have a GCD of ~1.15 seconds, which means 3 GCDs gives us ~3.45 seconds or ~11.5% of our total time. In the absolute best case, where we could fill that time with abilities that dealt damage similar to our usual AoE, that would result in a ~13% DPS increase. However, realistically, our filler spells will do significantly less. To conclude, in an absolutely best case scenario, the legendary is a 1.05*1.13=~19% dps increase, which is absolutely decent.

However, when we look at the overall picture, it will average way below that. It is hard to put an exact number on it, since how good it in raids will vary depending on the encounter, and how good it is in mythic+ will vary depending on the size of your pulls, how much you value AoE vs. Single target and etc. However, if I had to place it compared to our other legendaries, I would put it alongside Sephuz Secret, in the category of very niche, but potentially strong on multiple targets under all the right circumstances. And I might aswell mention here that this legendary, like many before it, favors not using Stellar Flare or Fury of Elune.

Overall, it is a weak DPS legendary, with a very strong but rare niche in sustained AoE. Would I be happy if I got this? Yes, but purely because I already have two strong single target legendaries.

Warrior of Elune

There really is not much to say about this change. We will still never pick it, because it does not fit any niches, and it is way behind both Starlord and Force of Nature on single target.

I think what this talent needs is to increase our AoE damage. I would love to see it increase the cleave of Lunar Strike to 100% at all times on top of its current effect (and just revert the increased charges, we do not need that). This would make it a decent choice if we wanted to AoE, where as at the moment, none of the choices in the row does anything on for AoE.

Renewal and Displacer Beast

The buff to Renewal was very needed, I honestly would not mind if its cooldown was reduced even further. The nerfs to Displacer Beasts are a bit of a bummer though. The duration of the speed increase is largely irrelevant,as we usually would not be moving for more than a second or two after blinking anyway. The cooldown increase however, makes us even less mobile than we already are. This change means that there will be a lot of situations where we will not have a blink available every time a boss casts a certain spell. For instance, if a boss casts a spell creating a huge void zone every 30-39 seconds, we would be able to blink out of it every time before the change, but after the change we will only be able to do it on every second.

Overall, the changes to this talent tier has close to no impact on our talent choice. Displacer Beast will still be the correct choice on any encounter where it could save our life (which is basically 99% of all raid encounters), and Renewal will still be the choice for everything else.

Soul of the Forest

The buff to empowerments is not enough to beat the other two options on single target, but it brings it closer, which is nice for people that prefer a passive talent, and in the case that you pick it primarily to AoE.

The cost reduction on Starfall is decent, but since you could already achieve 100% uptime on Starfall in most situations where you wanted it, it is not a huge buff by any means. It primarily helps players that had trouble managing Astral Power on AoE, by reducing their ramp up time by a second or two.

Overall, it wont change our talent choices much, it will mostly buff the players that already choose Soul of the Forest.

Stellar Flare

The damage buff should push it enough ahead that players without Impeccable Fel Essence and the Emerald Dreamcatcher should favor it for multi target raid encounters. Sadly, it is still a dead talent if you do happen to have one of our two best legendaries, and our new 4-piece further emphasizes this. The talent remains niche, as it requires multiple targets to live for the full duration of the dot to even see play in the first place. So what does this talent need to see more use? Well, considering that it is by far the hardest talent in the row to play with, it could just get a massive damage buff, which would put it ahead of Incarnation single target, even with the best legendaries. But what I would rather see is a mechanical change that makes it substantially better on multiple targets, so that when it is good, it is really good, even thought that situation might be rare. This would also push up our multi dotting capabilities to bring it closer to Shadow Priests and Warlocks, who are both miles ahead of us when it comes to multi dotting at the moment.

Overall, it should see more play by players without one of our two best legendaries, but for those furtunate enough to have one (or even two) of them, it does not change anything.

Shooting Stars

The damage buff changes absolutely nothing. The primary reason to pick it is the fact that it generates more Astral Power than the alternatives on two targets, the damage is largely irrelevant.

Actually, the only thing this might change is that it might see more use single target, because of the current bug causing it to give Moon and Stars stacks. And that would just makes Blessing of the Ancients redundant.

Fury of Elune

It is unlikely that the damage buff is enough to make it see any use outside of its rare appearances in higher difficulties mythic plus. The trade off is simply still not good enough. I will not go into details on it here, but the restrictions of Fury of Elune are simply too many to make it see any use unless some restrictions are removed, or it gets a massive (and I mean massive, 17% wont do it) buff to its damage.

Again, a talent change that will not affect our talent choices.

Stellar Drift

This puts the talent closer to what it should have always been. The 20% damage increase was honestly a bit of a joke considering how little of our AoE damage actually comes from Starfall. Will we pick this talent more often now that it actually increases our AoE damage by a significant amount? Likely yes. This should push it far enough ahead of Nature’s Balance that it should be picked  more often in mythic plus, as it creates a reasonable trade off between single target (Nature’s Balance) and AoE (Stellar Drift).

Overall, a very needed change, that should hopefully give us some more choice in the talent tier, at least for mythic plus.

Echoing Stars

This is honestly just a bad joke, Echoing Stars is the worst gold trait in the game, buffing the damage by ~31% wont change that. It will still do absolutely nothing, except for super heavy Starfall AoE, where it, just like right now, will only a a few percent of your total damage.