Another patch has hit the PTRs, and it looks like Wrath has been tweaked based on our feedback.  I think they’re much closer to the right track now for Wrath, and Hurricane definitely looks neat.

What are your thoughts?

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The 4.3 PTR notes have been updated once again, and once again, there is silence regarding moonkin.  I primarily take this as a good thing, as they don’t see to nerf us, our mushrooms, etc.  That being said, I was kind of hoping for a mechanic change to Starsurge to justify the new 4T13 bonus.  I guess we’ll have to keep waiting.

That being said, Swipe (Cat) did get nerfed a considerable amount.

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I’m… still alive?

Here’s a recap of Balance changes in 4.2.

• Entangling Roots and the equivalent spell triggered by Nature’s Grasp no longer deal damage.
• Innervate now grants an ally target 5% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds, but still grants 20% of the druid’s maximum mana over 10 seconds when self-cast.
• Omen of Clarity clearcasting buff from now lasts 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
• Starfire damage has been increased by approximately 23%.
• Wrath damage has been increased by approximately 23%.
• Earth and Moon’s duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.
• Fungal Growth spell visual effect has been updated to be less visually intrusive and more aesthetic.
• Lunar Shower has been redesigned. When casting Moonfire, the druid gains Lunar Shower. Lunar Shower increases the direct damage done by Moonfire by 15/30/45%, and reduces the mana cost by 10/20/30%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 3 seconds. While under the effects of Lunar Shower, Moonfire generates 8 Solar Energy, and Sunfire generates 8 Lunar Energy. The amount of Lunar/Solar Energy gained does not change based on the number of points spent in the talent, or stacks of Lunar Shower. Those druids who wish to delay transition in or out of an Eclipse state should now cast the one of their two basic attacks which will not move the Eclipse bar (either Starfire or Wrath).
• Solar Beam has a new spell effect.
• Wild Mushroom: Detonate can now also trigger Earth and Moon, in addition to Starfire and Wrath.

Obviously, these are buffs all around, except for the change to Lunar Shower.  Lunar Shower had become so powerful in it’s current state, that they had to make changes to it.  It’s obviously still a great utility while on the run, however, the ‘moonfire/sunfire spam’ component has really been removed.  The odd thing, though, is it appears that you can Moonfire right into Solar Eclipse, but you can’t Sunfire into a Lunar eclipse (since Sunfire becomes Moonfire again).

Comments?

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It has been announced, at last :

Wrath of Tarecgosa – When you deal damage, you have a chance to gain the Wrath of Tarecgosa, duplicating the harmful spell.

Expect a high proc chance to make it Legendary. I suspect this kind of working like the Ele shaman mastery, except for full damage.

In other exciting news, the full Tier12 has been discovered, and it looks %&”$ awesome. What do you think?

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Some news from the PEE TEE ARE

All class abilities which place a buff on friendly targets no longer generate any threat. This goes for raid-wide buffs like Mark of the Wild and Power Word: Fortitude, as well as triggered effects such as Blessed Resilience or Fingers of Frost, and single-target buffs like Dark Intent and Hysteria. The exception is buffs which directly cause healing or damage, such as Thorns or Renew. Abilities such as these still generate normal threat.

Omen of Clarity clearcasting buff from now lasts 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds.

Earth and Moon’s duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.

Fungal Growth spell visual effect has been updated to be less visually intrusive and more aesthetic.

Lunar Shower has been redesigned. When casting Moonfire, the druid gains Lunar Shower. Lunar Shower increases the direct damage done by Moonfire by 15/30/45%, and reduces the mana cost by 10/20/30%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 3 seconds. While under the effects of Lunar Shower, Moonfire generates 8 Solar Energy, and Sunfire generates 8 Lunar Energy. The amount of Lunar/Solar Energy gained does not change based on the number of points spent in the talent, or stacks of Lunar Shower. Those druids who wish to delay transition in or out of an Eclipse state should now cast the one of their two basic attacks which will not move the Eclipse bar (either Starfire or Wrath).

Solar Beam has a new spell effect.

Wild Mushroom: Detonate can now also trigger Earth and Moon, in addition to Starfire and Wrath.

They were clearly trying to prevent people to stay too long in an eclipse state (probably about the solar eclipse overpowerness) and it seems they found the way to incorporate it.

What this means to our AOE rotation :

• We still want to be in solar eclipse. The damage increase to our Wild mushrooms, Typhoon, Hurricane and Insect Swarm is still pretty considerable. The only difference is that we can’t spam Sunfire anymore. Doing so will push us out of the eclipse state.
• The solutions we have  :
  • Shrooms on cooldown, hurricane while we wait. Typhoon if it’s safe.
  • Shrooms on cooldown, insect swarm spam while we wait. Typhoon if it’s safe.
  • Shrooms on cooldown, starfire while we wait.
• On another note, Wild Mushroom triggering Earth and Moon is a huge but subtle buff, making all our attacks deal an extra 8% that we would probably not have otherwise.

Testing is needed.

In other exciting news, the stats on Tarecgosa’s Rest are out, and it seems like it will not be so fitted for us ! We’re talking about hit and crit. Thanks to reforging, we’ll be able to get a few of that hit replaced with tons of haste. And the insane amount of red sockets makes it definitly best in slot! ilvl 404 wuuuut ?

To conclude, I will say that the new Tier 12 models are available (except the shoulders). Looks like it’s made out of a treebark which is kind of cool. What do you think?

Please visit mmo-champion for all your pictures, details and daily dose of awesomeness.

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Had to share this with you guys. Here’s what’s new with Moonkin in next patch :

Many crowd control abilities no longer cause creatures to attack players when they are cast. The creature will not attack the player when the crowd control wears off, and nearby creatures will not become hostile to the player either. However, if a visible player gets too close to the target creature, the creature will remember and attack the player when the crowd control effect wears off. The intent is to make it easier for dungeon groups to manage crowd control assignments and pulling packs of hostile NPCs. The abilities affected by this change are: Hibernate, Entangling Roots [...]

Entangling Roots and the equivalent spell triggered by Nature’s Grasp no longer deal damage.
Innervate now grants an ally target 5% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds, but still grants 20% of the druid’s maximum mana over 10 seconds when self-cast.

Balance
Insect Swarm now generates 8 Lunar Energy for druids with Eclipse.
Moonfire now generates 8 Solar Power for druids with Eclipse.
Sunfire now generates 8 Lunar Energy for druids with Eclipse.

Glyphs
Glyph of Innervate now causes the druid to gain 10% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds when Innervate is used on a friendly target, in addition to Innervate’s base effect.

Allright so basicaly a buff to our damage, but a nerf to our utility. The CC change is pretty sweet, you don’t have to be scared of slow-on-taunt tanks anymore. Innervate : Really? 0.5% mana per second? I know I’m not wasting this 3min cooldown for another guy’s  500 mana! Hello new glyph choice. Monsoon or Focus, probably. I believe the Solar power changes are on apply only, which means you don’t get 8 power each tick (that would be awesome though), but hey, it does accelerate our transitions a bit. I believe that’s how the spell worked in beta (correct me if i’m wrong).

Any thoughts on this guys? How have you been performing in ZA and ZG with your druids? I find myself on top of dps alot of times. Getting those new epics help out too. Haven’t stepped in any raid so far. Guild pretty much dead. Server pretty much dead. Just enjoying the moonkin life.

Tune in later for more news!

Source : MMO-Champion

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• Cyclone now lasts 5 sec, down from 6 sec.
• Starsurge base damage has been reduced by 20%, from [ 1272 to 1756 ] to [ 1017 to 1405 ].
• Moonkin Form now frees the caster of movement impairing effects instead of slowing effects.

Thoughts?  Sound off!

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The initial 4.1 PTR Patch Notes have been released.  There’s only a few (but interesting) balance changes so far.

• Solar Beam is now more responsive when enemies move into or out of it.

This was inevitable.  It’d been acting pretty wonky since creation.  While this will be more annoying for us, it’s probably more fair.

The other change I thought was rather interesting, and it may just be semantics, but I guess we’ll see:

• All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Shield Bash, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.

This is going to be huge in the PvE environment for tanks, who often would wipe the raid (or couldn’t be depended on) to interrupt properly.  The interesting part is Solar Beam’s inclusion to the “all non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown”.  Now, I haven’t actually played for a few months, but I’m pretty sure solar beam is still on the GCD.  This may just be an oversight with how they worded it, or, a change to solar beam.

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Patch 4.0.6 is reported to be released this week. A few highlights of this patch, for the owl community :

• Mount Up: This guild perk now applies to Flight Form and Swift Flight Form as well.
• The night elf racial trait Shadowmeld can now be used while shapeshifted.
• The tauren racial trait War Stomp can now be used while shapeshifted.
• The worgen racial trait Darkflight now has a 2-minute cooldown, down from 3, and is no longer on the global cooldown. In addition, the movement speed bonus now stacks with existing bonuses, but cannot be activated while Sprint or Dash is active (and they cannot be activated while Darkflight is active).
• Moonfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
• Worgen and troll druids now have new art for Swift Flight Form.
• Fungal growth duration has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 10. In addition, it should now be much more responsive when detonating Wild Mushrooms.
• Moonkin Form now grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor. In addition, shapeshifting in or out of this form now breaks roots. Note this is not stated in the tooltip.
• The Shooting Stars buff duration has been increased to 12 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
• Starfall will no longer strike targets that are not in combat and will now drop stars at a slightly faster rate. (join me in a HIP HIP HOORAY)
• Sunfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
• Total Eclipse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.
• Typhoon mana cost has been reduced by 50%.
• Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 30%.
• Glyph of Wrath now increases damage done by Wrath by 10% and no longer requires Insect Swarm on the target.

Many other tweaks have influence on our gameplay, for all your theorycrafting needs, head to MMO-Champion or follow the link here.

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It looks like we may have spoken too soon.  There are some following 4.0.6 changes which begin to slowly balance out the recent nerfs:

• Fungal growth duration has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 10. In addition, it should now be much more responsive when detonating Wild Mushrooms.
• Moonkin Form now grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor.
• Starfall will no longer strike targets that are not in combat and will now drop stars at a slightly faster rate.
• Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 30%.

The fungal growth seems like it’s going to be our new main staple for snaring / slowing people on the run.  The Moonkin Form change is a nice buff for damage from spellcasters, but really still does nothing when we’re rooted in frost nova being shattered by a frost mage.  The starfall buff is GREAT for dungeons.  The Wild Mushroom buff is an additional 15% from it’s previously stated 15% buff.

Also, Zarhym hints that while Balance druids will not be able to get ‘Entanglement’ which removes roots when shapeshifting, there are other plans that will be released after the holiday weekend.

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