AoE
AoE
Balance is also getting a boost to their AoE abilities, with three (two new) options.
Currently, Hurricane is the only AoE spell for druids, and when used with Barkskin, this channeled spell won’t be interrupted. Also, the damage reduction works nicely with Hurricane’s effect on attack speed (25% penalty).
According to the Beta notes, Hurricane will not only lose its one minute cooldown, but when Gale Winds is talented, its damage will be boosted by 25/50%.
Typhoon, a new tier nine spell that lets you instantly summon a Typhoon that does 400 nature damage when it comes into contact with enemies (presumably, your Typhoon wanders), and knocks them back five yards.
This should be valuable in PvP, especially in crowded situations, or even arena should you enter your Moonkin in battle. It would also be a good incidental spell interrupt, and another opportunity for you to shift forms and run. It even sports a meager 20 second cooldown. Typhoon, because of its wandering nature, will likely not see much use in dungeons.
It will also be buffed if you talent Gale Winds, increasing the damage done by 25/50%.
The new top tier talent, Starfall, is a new AoE that resembles a paladin’s Consecration. It allows you to summon a rain of stars from the sky that will deal 111-129 arcane damage to all targets within 30 yards. In addition, Any targets within melee range (5 yards) will take an additional 20 arcane damage. The effect lasts ten seconds, and is an instant cast with a three minute cooldown.
The one catch is that you may only summon twenty stars, and word on the Beta forums is that its effectiveness is inversely proportional to the number of monsters. In this way, with its current damage output (nerfed from the Alpha), it may be more supplemental than a stand-alone strong AoE attack.
Talented, this ability stands to see quite a bit of improvement. Celestial Focus would give this AoE attack a 5/10/15% chance to stun the target(s?) for three seconds. Focused Starlight, a tier two talent, will increase its critical strike chance by 2/4%.
If you talent Vengeance, the critical strike damage bonus will jump up 20/40/60/80/100% of the 50% untalented critical strike damage bonus. In effect, this means that your critical strikes actually double the base damage, rather than increasing it 1.5 times.
Finally, should you talent Moonglow, you can reduce the 655 mana cost by 3/6/9%.
Because Hurricane will lack a cooldown, and Typhoon’s is a mere 20 seconds, you should be able to start up a nice rotation of the three, should the situation (and your mana pool) warrant.
Filed under: World of Warcraft