Why they nerfing starsurge

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday. Learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant lazer turkey! Questions, comments, or something you'd like to see? Email tyler wowinsider. New patches -- I'm still not sure how I feel about them every time that they come around. Sometimes, you get the overjoyed feeling of being buffed; other times, you get the heart-wrenching experience of nerfs.

I'm not quite sure if the pleasure is always worth the pain. All in all, though, I am not seeing 4. As of right now, there aren't too many druid changes in the patch notes, but what there is seems to be rather disheartening for balance. More specifically, though, I want to brush up on the hot button issue of the day: the nerf to Starsurge.

There are a lot of opinions floating around out there and a lot more misinformation. Although I wanted to avoid posting about the patch notes until there was more to tell, I think now would be the best time to go into this issue before something gets out of hand.

Why, oh why?! The first question on everyone's mind when they saw the nerf was why? Why reduce the damage of Starsurge? Our PvP damage isn't particularly high. Our PvE damage isn't particularly high.

So why is it that Blizzard would reduce the damage of Starsurge? No one but Blizzard could provide an answer for this, but I can give a very good logical guess: It's all about the burst. Balance druids are not really known for burst, but it is certainly possible. If people remember back in beta when Shooting Stars would be consumed without any benefit if you were already in the process of casting Starsurge, I had said that fixing this "problem" was probably not going to happen because it would allow the additional possibility of back-to-back Starsurges.

I was wrong about the fix, but it seems I wasn't wrong on the theory behind not making it. Starsurge hits like a truck, and it requires virtually no real setup as other burst abilities do.

Yes, we do need to have Eclipse up in order for the damage to be "excessive," and PvP Eclipse is an issue, but that is how many balance druids are playing in PvP these days. Eclipse is horrid to make use of, and there are still a lot of balance druids who do nothing but sit in Solar Eclipse spamming DoTs and using Starsurge for burst. Using this, the druid relies upon a partner to deal the bulk of the damage; instead, the druid is merely there for control and the burst of Starsurge.

If coupled with another debuff-based partner such as an affliction warlock, balance can be rather deadly in certain cases. Our DoTs become more difficult to dispel, and although we put out little pressure ourselves, hitting someone with even a 40k Starsurge is going to spell bad news for them.

On its own, a single Starsurge isn't going to be the end of the world for someone; it's the combination of back-to-back casts from Shooting Stars that makes Starsurge rather ridiculous. Aside from Pyroblast!

This is something Blizzard wants to address. PvP balance For all the power that Starsurge may have in the burst department, balance druids really aren't a strong PvP choice right now. This is mostly because all of our other abilities remain far too weak. Our control just isn't on par with that of other specs, and our ability to pressure outside of Shooting Stars procs is terrible.

Further, despite the change to Moonkin Form , our defenses still remain on the weaker side. The burst of Starsurge is really the only thing that balance druids had going for them, and it is quite obvious that it wasn't nearly enough to have us be considered a "strong" PvP option. Comment by For all those confused You gain this spell at level 10 when you pick the balance talent tree :D and fluff me does it own ; all i can say is.

Comment by At the moment, the only problem I have with it is that its appearance is rather "meh". Almost like a Chaos Bolt with an overload on the glowing. The knockdown effect might be really good. From the way those effects tend to work, it might be useful as an interrupt.

Comment by says that it does to damage at 85 but thats like what my 49 druid in the beta does. Comment by im critting like what 10k with it with starsurge but i know thats isnt good but i have 2 piece pvp healer and 2 piece pvp caser and the rest feral Comment by On low lvl 20 , this spell kills almost every 18 and 19 mob in only one hit. Its like a 15sec cd I-win button. Comment by Valiska I probably shouldn't post this, But Starsurge makes druids the new ''ambush'' rogues. On a semi-twinked Balance druid Heirlooms, etc - you can roll through the low level BG's and 1-shot-crit players with Starsurge.

If executed properly, you can drop a group of 3 before they got any chance to react. HoT as needed. If you want to get your Wrecking Ball , this is your easiest way of getting it. I'm still trying to wrap my head around why this is getting a huge nerf whereas for example, a slew of Mage spells are getting a significant buff.

Coincidence it hits for truckloads of damage? I think not. Comment by amgyn Question - if interrupted does this lock out nature and arcane spells?

Comment by guatafu You can cast this as long as one school is not locked arcane or nature. You died. Comment by Sparkfist96 hmmmm kamehameha? Comment by Pipkins After your Eclipse bar resets by relogging, entering instance etc.

Comment by heartlessnobody Starsurge Lunar and Solar Since this was nerfed to only give mastery to your linked partner it will unlikely see play. As it stands it gives 16 Niya mastery stacks and uses a deck of cards system which makes Convoke always cast 1 Full Moon in 2 Convoke casts. It also slightly more than halves the Starsurges and Wrath casts. Useless on single target but possibly good for targets as it allows for much higher uptime.

Increases the offensive swarms you get per cast from 2 to 3. Still does not make Necrolord competitive. Venthyr: Sinful Hysteria : Every time you cast a spell during Ravenous Frenzy its duration is increased by 0. Additional extends the buff another 5s after it expires without being able to stack further:.

Is currently by far the best legendary we have. In raid with Nature's Balance first 12 Astral Power gets reset to Venthyr specific notes will be marked with V at the start of a point and Night Fae specific ones will be marked with NF. Keep up Starfall at all times or use on cooldown with Stellar Drift. Use Starsurge to stop yourself from overcapping AsP until 6 targets at which point you should overcap. Refresh Moonfire if you are at 4 8 with Twin Moons targets or below if the targets will live through the next Eclipse.

The venthyr only version can be found here. Due to no longer using Balance of All Things there is no longer as compelling of a reason to Starsurge at the beginning of an Eclipse and thus you can often save Astral Power for movement without any relevant dps loss.

Starsurge Empowerment exists but it is a very weak effect. With Incarnation talented you should avoid using Starfalls during Frenzy as it is a much bigger loss but with Stellar Drift Starfall should still be used to avoid downtime.

When Lunar Eclipse is active use Owlkin Frenzy procs asap. Otherwise let it expire. Sim yourself using Raidbots Top Gear. Do not follow any stat priorities. Your personal best trinkets depend on more factors such as ilvl meaning the best option is always to sim using either Top Gear, Droptimizer or Gear Compare. Double on-use: This combination can prove to be the strongest from all the other trinket combinations IF you are playing Venthyr with the Sinful Hysteria legendary.

The only problem is that it requires specific trinkets and may prove hard to use. One on-use, one equip: This combination should be used whenever double on-use is not a viable choice. Double Equip: This combination is basically a budget version of the previous one, as in most scenarios the one of on-use trinket is going to outshine the 2nd on-use trinket due to the bursty damage pattern inside our CA paired with Convoke.

Notable trinkets: Inscrutable Quantum Device : This trinket has the potential to be the best on-use trinket by a large margin if the conditions found in 11 are met. You can adjust the value in sims using the IQD Stat Proc Chance option which will set the chance the trinket gives stats outside Bloodlust.

Instructor's Divine Bell : Unlike the Quantum Device, the bell is a very consistent trinket that gives us a lot of mastery inside our burst windows. The only downside of this trinket is its aquisiton, a very low drop chance from bastion callings, mission table rewards or a worldquest. Empyreal Ordnance : A pretty unique trinket that is split into two parts: a dot and a buff. After the dot finishes, the buff part of the trinket comes back to the caster.

Due to this trinket putting other on use trinkets on a 40 sec cd, it should only be used with an equip trinket. If IQD is not usable or the ilvl discrepancy between these two trinkets is too big, then this trinket might be the best choice as Venthyr. Forbidden Necromantic Tome : An overall solid trinket that can be obtained at higher ilvl than other trinkets.

Unbound Changeling : This trinket gains most of its value from the fact that it is convertable into a stat proc of your choice by eating the corresponding food. Once a day it has a chance to proc 3 secondary stats which further increases its value.

Mastery proc can be used a default but sim to find which secondary it should proc. Insignia of Alacrity : Another equip trinket which has both positives and negatives. The negatives being that the trinket has a low stat budget and the positives being that it can be easily acquired through PvP at ilvl if you can reach 2.

When using it mind that it has a short delay before getting the buff depending on distance to the target. Force of Nature? New Moon should be picked for any other covenant. The choice between Twin Moons and Drift depends on how long targets live and how much value the movement has. Soul of the forest should only be picked for bosses with extended stacked AoE.

You will want to use FoE whenever you have 4 sec left on Ravenous Frenzy inside Incarnation, and on cd inside any eclipse whenever outside of it. Moons should never get picked with this build as they are inferior to FoE in every scenario. Solstice is a better choice for this build when compared to Venthyr because of the fact that FoE is not as strong, meaning that you will have more oportunities to pick this talent depending on the raid fight. Moons should be picked over FoE as they are the roughly a 0.

Notes: Night Fae: Conflux is always used and the only choice to be made is between your 2nd potency slot which should be Fury or Umbral most of the time. Venthyr: Endless Thirst should always be used and Precise should be used if you have the Sinful Hysteria legendary equipped. Potion of Spectral Intellect for all situations. In Raid: Sinful Hysteria. Sinful Hysteria slot:.

Pulsar slot:.