Hi,
The state of 5.4 Boomkin
This may be premature to any balancing philosophy for MoP classic that you wish to talk about. But with end patch tuning beiing the default state, it present some challenges for moonkin tunning throughout patches. The one change that I would place this at is the nerf to Shooting Stars that occured in 5.4 :-
- Shooting Stars now has a reduced chance to activate for each additional target affected by the same spell (Moonfire and Sunfire are tracked separately).
Why did this nerf happen? Conjecture but…
- T16 bonus - (4) Set: Your chance to get Shooting Stars from a critical strike from Moonfire or Sunfire is increased by 8%.
This bonus was directly interacting with Shooting stars, and buffing its chance to proc starsurge (SS). The bonus provided a buff to both single target and aoe, where as the nerf is aimed squarely at limiting the funnel damage, from starsurge procs in a multi dot setting.
- Gameplay
Arguably - in T15 with multiple targets to dot, balance druid was starting to get very decent strings of back to back SS procs. Maybe at the time, it was thought this gameplay would only get worse particularly with the incoming T16 gear.
MSV, T14 & T15 in classic
Without the T16 tier set in play to offset the shooting stars nerf, 5.4’s changes present a meaningful nerf both to the overal damage and gameplay experience. This is particularly exacerbated at low gear levels, where this is a fairly expensive haste cap to aim for before crit can be properly considered.
Solution
Would you be open to considering rolling back this specific nerf while T14 and T15 content are being cleared in classic, and reintroducing the change when T16 goes live?
I appreciate there may be other Specs, in a similar position that are also worth considering.