The Moonkin Repository

I started a 2-part series on my blog about moonkin pvp, trying to figure out what went wrong & possible ways to fix it. I have part 1 up today, and have most of part 2 ready to go for tomorrow. I tried having it all as one long post, but it was too long, so I broke it into smaller chunks...

http://restokin.com/?p=1221

It would be nice if I could get additional feedback from moonkin who actually pvp.

I've PvPed on my moonkin and on my feral, so I think I have a good understanding of both sides of the story.

Since I PvPed on my feral before I ever touched my moonkin, I'll start there. The single most-frustrating thing was getting chain-feared. They fixed that by giving us Berserk. The problem with these anti-fear, anti-CC, anti-movement-impairing-effects ... effects ... is that it royally screws over casters. Frozen? Rooted? Feared? Pff, no problem.

Meanwhile, on my boomkin, I've seen the other side of things. Melee have their stuns and their snares, they have lockouts and silences and pushback. They fixed that by... oh wait... they didn't fix that. Moonkins are lucky enough that we can break snares, and we're somewhat resistant to pushback, and we're even somewhat blessed for Glyph of Barkskin (so that pesky rogue or ret pally has a harder time owning us while we're stunned), but while melee can break anything we have, we can do nothing to counter their abilities. Keep them from getting to us? We have Typhoon, sure, and Entangle (which breaks on one Starfire cast) and Cyclone (during which time we can't damage them), but whether it's a long-range HoJ, a sneaky rogue, a warrior charge, a DK death grip... they have ways of making sure we're in melee range.

The game is unbalanced for PvP, plain and simple. As for your suggestions,
- it'd be nice to have non-nature spells, but it's not really fitting for a druid (remember, this game is based in lore, not convenience)
- Starfall is too nice for PvE to have it balanced around PvP as well -- especially for a top-tier talent

Nonetheless, you're absolutely right that something needs to be done. We (casters, not just moonkins, as you point out) need a way of countering melee and we don't currently have it. I think they could do a lot with Owlkin Frenzy to this effect. With 70% reduced pushback from Wrath and Starfire from talents, Owlkin Frenzy's value is greatly diminished. Give it a different effect -- make it so our nature spells can't be locked out for the duration (they can still be interrupted, but not locked out). Anyways, just my take on it...

They could just give us 400% armor again like in BC so we can moonfire spam and kill every single melee class again. Because that was balanced.

I was going to respond on your blog but this seems a better place.

PvP has been shifting away from player-centric to class-centric combinations. There is a reason we talk about PvP strategy in terms of team compositions. You formulate your plans based on what you are facing in the arena, not to counter the player moves as they happen. In addition, there are now two distinct types of damage dealing. Either you are a cooldown based burst DPS or you are DoT based DPS. The problem with Moonkin is that we don't really fit into either spots. If eclipse were to be an on-use ability, we would fall into the burst DPS category. If we had more consistent DoTs and/or DoT critting, we might fall into the second category. As it is, we have to ramp our DPS too much to be effective.

A few ideas that had good PvP viability without compromising PvE DPS is to have a skill that consumes DoTs for a lessened up-front damage of some sort. Also, having the daze on the treants acting like a slow has proven to be useful, but I'd much rather have a single treant that would cast roots (much like the mage's minion). Our trees are so susceptible to AoE right now, they would be a little more resilient if we pooled them into 1 bigger badder tree.

These thoughts are just off the top of my head. I agree that an addition of a spell to help PvE will also help PvP especially if this midrange spell was arcane.

I hadn't thought of it that way. With the high amounts of resilience most people are sporting, being a "crit-chicken" isn't exactly the greatest thing going. Your suggestion of a spell that deals bonus damage based on DoTs sounds a lot like Murmurs's suggestions, except I think he wanted it to be nature damage. Either way, I think it'd be a great addition for both PvP and PvE.

I think the second half that I saved for tomorrow addresses some of these concerns. I just had to cut that one at a good stopping place 'cause I was rambling on for like pages. Thanks for good feedback for me to address more in tomorrow's post (that's already pretty much done, but I left a little growing room for feedback I got from people today).

Biggest problems with moonkins is they have no silence/school lock vs. healers. No instant cast root/snare vs. runners and no effective finisher move. Cyclone starfires don't count because it only works in 1v1.

Fight the good fight, lissanna.

good luck based on how CG handles a little hard feedback on the t4pc my guess is that 3.2 means nothing for moonkin

Well we'll never get anything done if we don't provide feedback. It just wouldn't do if they thought we were satisified with our current state.

This. I probably repeat myself 20 times (or more!) before I see what I've been QQ'ing about actually reach the Live game client. However, the day we all stop complaining is the day we accept what they gave us and deal with it.

Lissanna,

Just read your blog. Nice. Points out all our shortcomings and indeed, our strengths that we rarely get to use (standing still.) I always enjoy reading your posts on the Blizz forums, even though I rarely comment there.

I'm going to apologize in advance, but PvP is something close to my heart. I enjoy it. I took part in the oldschool "GM grind." (Although, I never pushed past marshal as I stupidly took part in a city raid with a DK happy pally...54% of my progress towards Field Marshal lost...in a matter of mere moments!) There were three moonkin on our server, the (in)famous Alaterial, myself and one other that thought carrying the Unstoppable Force was a good idea for "when I run out of mana." Ugh. Those were the days.

And in those days, I died. I died a lot. But because of the way we were made at the time, I expected to die, and it didn't bug me. Chain fears were the only thing that bothered me and the only thing that could have been considered "overkill CC." I had a 50/50 shot vs. rogues; it just depended on who got the drop on whom. And then I learned a valuable lesson. Moonkin were never designed as battle warriors, but as artillery cannons. Ohhh (insert dreamy music sequence here) the AVs with Alaterial and I standing shoulder to shoulder, dropping starfire after starfire (ZOMG did you just crit him for 2K??) from safety on the hill above the horde...

Then we got the BC buff...treants, armor. Life was good. I would laugh like a giddy schoolgirl while I beat the ever lovin' crap outta warlocks. Returning on them seven fold the agony I had felt for so long. SURPRISE! TREANTS! /pummel /pummel /nuke /lol

And now, we have our changes in WotLK. And I'm right there with you, I feel like survivability is the key. But I also feel the bigger problems lie in the players as a whole. Too many players see themselves as an individual on the battle field. (Maybe this is an alliance thing, but I'm betting it has spread across both factions.) We all seem to want more spells, abilities, CDs to help us beat X class. I can take Y class no prob, but I'm not OP because I can't take on X and Z solo! BUFF ME! I go out of my way to thank healers in BGs in tells, and to protect them. If there is a decent healer in a BG I can, and do live through ret pally onslaughts! Ok, ok, a FANTASIC HEALER...decent healers can only get me through rogue stunlocks LOL. If I see a rogue on a priest/tree/pally near me, damn straight I'm using typhoon to help them out.

I do not think I'm a great PvPer because I live long (because, well I still expect to die, and therefore tend to run into the fray. LOL) or because I can out damage people, or have the most HKs at the end. I think I'm a great PvPer because I'm a great team player. I support. It's what I do well. On the rare occasions that I raid with the guild that used to PvP with me, I play myself as a support class. It's nothing to see me popping out to heal. But the guild knows this, and rarely comments on my damage numbers being lower.

Geez Liss, I'm sorry I didn't intend to turn this into my own rant. LOL I do agree with you wholeheartedly...because I cannot rely on others around me to support me the way I support them, I feel we do need something else to survive. Personally, I think it would be wicked cool to be able to cyclone myself, but that the cyclone would whisk me away from the battle at a high rate of speed (say, 40 yards?) all while being immune to damage, dots and hots. Keep the mechanics, but use it to save myself. YEAH BABAY! lol But then...I have some odd ideas at times.

-I like your channelled roots, but feel if they are "strangling" roots, they should be the anti-caster roots.

-While reading your blog, all I could think was "Hunters have that stupid, at range disarm...I would love to be able to throw a log or something (what, logs are nature, right?) and disarm the melee classes. And then you called it too. You're still perfectly tuned to the moonkin psyche.

-You are my druid Kurt Cobain. You speak my heart to others so I don't have to!

So then, a thank you for your efforts, past and present, and a thank you for your continued efforts to help us.

i'm going to be waiting when 3.2 gets closer to coming out to post my ideas, or i was till this was placed :P So i'll wait for part to to say what i think needs done.

GC did say that the suggest to a passive dmg reduction to owlkin frenzy seemed like a logical choice when i talked to him, and yes, they are planning on removing some of the pushback talents and replace with hopefully something better.

Amen! I picked up the druid class specifically for my utility and support skills in PvP. Even when I was feral I would pop out and heal, root and cyclone for my teammates.


Got a link or proof? Id love to see some PvP comments from GC on boomkins.

Back to the top you go!