Balance Affinity - Weapon

[Dradux 0]

Hey, 

I read the feral guide of Pawketsz as well as the guardian guide of Noawh. Pawketsz mentioned, that it would be beneficial to use a spellpower weapon, while beeing a moonkin as a feral druid. 

Quote

[...]  Note that when doing this, you should switch to a Spellpower weapon to increase your spell damage.

Naowh doesn't mentioned that in the guardian guide. So I was wondering, if it really would be beneficial to use a caster weapon.

 

Therefore I made some assumptions:

1. Guardian and Feral "Balance Affinity" Talents behave similiar (-> Test as Guardian)
2. Spellpower weapon means caster weapon (since there is no more spellpower in the game)
3. Only wear the staff while testing - nothing else
4. Cast 50 times Solar Wrath, which comes with the affinity and does not have any other effects, then direct damage

In fact I had only a 710 caster staff, while having multiple agi staves, but none with item level 710. So I decided to test it with a 700 agi staff and a 735 agi staff and then use linear interpolation to get an estimated value for 710. 

Test results

Main Value	Item Level	Average Damage
Agility	700	5.3k
Agility	735	6k
Intellect	710	4.4k

 

In fact there was no need to linear interpolate the agility results, because the intellect's average damage was below the agility results.

 

So does the "Balance Affinity" Talent works different for feral druids? Did I oversee something? 

[Krazyito 521]

It was my assumption that if your main stat was Agility, the intellect would not be usable?  Does Feral and Guardian still have the passive that converts Agility -> Intellect?  If so, then you shoudn't need to use a spellpower weapon, but mainly because spellpower got consolidated to Intellect, which you can't use any more. 

 

The guide may have simply overlooked that.

[Tarazet 144]

7 minutes ago, Krazyito said:

It was my assumption that if your main stat was Agility, the intellect would not be usable?  Does Feral and Guardian still have the passive that converts Agility -> Intellect?  If so, then you shoudn't need to use a spellpower weapon, but mainly because spellpower got consolidated to Intellect, which you can't use any more.

There was no such passive, only one that works for Balance/Resto Druids to convert Intellect to Agility in Cat or Bear Form to allow Restoration Druids some ability to quest without wanting to gouge out their eyeballs. As a Feral, the only feasible reason why you might want to nuke is if you are forced to be at range and still need to do DPS. Such encounters should be few, far between, and brief.

[Dradux 0]

Yes it is also my assumption, that this was overlooked in the guide. And yes there are only a few encounters, where it could be useful to be a moonkin as a feral. I wanted to use this affinity for Iskar, to make some damage, when he is flying.