I’d like to clarify I don’t wish to turn Boomy into SPriest or even Lock. What I meant by the scale of durability is: we’re supposed to be more durable than a Mage – who wears cloth and has blinks. That’s it… Which is why I think 1-3 of reasonable buffs along the ideas in this thread would suffice to start. I do, however, also deeply sympathise with the diagnosis that there IS something… just outdated, about how Druids can use their GCDs vs other classes. I think it’s a really, very profound issue… and that only a thorough revamp (hopefully in Midnight?) would be able to address.
It’s hard to even articulate honestly… but I think what I’m going for is that maybe forms need to provide a little more, or that it’s time for forms and more utility cooldowns to MAYBE get off the GCD? 
Just a thought.
Tuning stuff is always a viable solution too… but more of a bandaid than fundamentally addressing the problem.
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The GCD issue came about due to “bear healing” the ability to shift in and out of bear to heal for 3-4% every time you shifted. That’s long gone. The GCD of shapes gifting needs to go.
You’re right about being a softer target than classes that wear cloth. Last time I checked, if I fell off a motorcycle on the highway, I’d rather have leather everything over the table cloth on my kitchen table.
I’d say that Moonkin form should offer resistance to all damage. Even if it’s a small amount. It’s a magical giant owlbear, so it kind of makes since. And I will stand with my statement above, that boomie needs to revert to the kite and heal iteration while not having to jump into bear form the moment a fury warrior leaps to you meaning some defensive update.
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Yes! And it takes: 1 GCD to shift into Bear Form, 1 to press Frenzied Regen, 3 whole seconds (So really, 4) for it to heal (20% HP lmao while damage is ticking and being taken), and a third GCD back to Moonkin… 
Ofc you’d use Renewal after the FR GCD there but yeah, that’s also reduced by dampening and all MS effects.
IMO, FR should leech shielding and reward us AFTER we leave Bear Form.
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Even if they reverted the heal to the full 32%, we are still being hit, making it feel like your healing for 20%. And can we address natures vigil? How is that a capstone? No one takes it. I haven’t touched it since they nurfed it.
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I think that’d be a nice alternative, seeing as Vigil was nerfed because “hybrid healing the group was too powerful”…
As for healing outside of Bear… what if we had Swiftmends useable in Moonkin Form, even instead of Regrowth, maybe with a charge system on a relatively short recovery CD? And Owlkin Adept would reduce the recovery time when proc’ced. Let’s say, 3 stacks with a 20 sec base recharge, and Owlkin takes 6 sec off the next stack’s recharge timer if it’s active.
We’re talking a major heal, say 20%… So can substitute Renewal here in the naming.
This would amount to double Renewals with more agency. It could be huge esp. if OFF the GCD.
The Owlkin interaction would be a strong counter to melee cleaves hammering at the Boomy.
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That’s an interesting system. However the number crunching to not make it broken or underwhelming would be difficult.
An idea would be maybe owlkin charges could be used to reduce the CD of renewal when instant casting starfires. Or damage taken while in barkskin buffs the next cast of regrowth by 200%.
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Those ideas are even better! Yes, the point of what we’re looking for in Moonkin self-healing is to pay-off for dealing damage or taking damage without having to leave the form. That should be the take-away for anyone reading this later 
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Correct. It allows for play style, and for balance druids to do something for the reward, rather than most classes that just stand there and face tank after pressing one button. (The reward being that we can live) Bear form should be an absolute last resort with frenzy regeneration.
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Well put. And I also agree from the above that the rooting Treants in MoP were very nice indeed… and could potentially be added to Keeper of the Grove. With that being said, it already has (2?) rather nice defensive utilities… And if I were to make tuning for the next major patch, I’d be looking to add something more to Elune’s Chosen first. Honestly, even if it’s just, let’s say, buffing Glistening Fur: e.g. “enhance[s] the effectiveness of Thick Hide by 50% (so from 4% to 6%), in addition to reducing magic damage taken by 1%, and Arcane damage taken by an additional 2%” or something like that
(That is, unless the Gods of Tuning hear me and just buff Thick Hide lol)
I think that’d be a small but effective buff to start for that Hero talent tree
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I’ve been saying it for years now about bringing back MoP Force of nature. YEARS! When resto had their FoN brought back to the tree charges, I was so excited for Blizzard to do the same for balance Druid. (Still waiting)
Elaine’s IMO just needs the slow from moonfire un-nurfed to the 30% slow, increase the damage resistance from that one talent (don’t know it cause I pvp and Elaine’s chosen isn’t good) and the proc chance of fury of elune from moonfire needs to be increased. Maybe give a talent that allows for full moon to be instant after casted twice (that’s a long shot). If Blizzard did that, I’d play it.
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So when are you and I starting work at blizzard? We could fix boomie in a day. The ideas we just came up with are not broken, fit the class fantasy well, and I believe they are well within the realm of doing due to most of the ideas being tweaks to the system we already have. Some ideas are just copy’s of abilities that we had in the past and are in the system.
All in all, we don’t want boomie to be broken. IMO, I don’t even want to be on top. I just want to be competitive, and these ideas would fit that mark.
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All true & good points. I’d be totally fine with my spec being at the “middle of the pack”… I just want it to be at least bearable, if not somewhat engaging (or even fun 
) to play… if possible. 
I sent my list of suggestions on some Discord and a high rated Boomy reacted and said they’ve forwarded it so let’s see if something happens. Regardless, I have hope that someone will eventually read these threads… And even if not, just raising awareness always helps anyway.
If there’s one thing anyone who cares about their spec design can do, though,
is to submit in-game suggestions. I’ve done so frequently over the years… and I would swear they work, eventually… as I imagine the list is quite long.
So let’s all keep engaging to make the Boom chicken more engaging and hope that the team will in-turn engage with us. First, via patch fixes and tuning, and eventually – with a revamp EARLY into the Midnight expansion development cycle. Remember, this xpak we got minor class tree talent changes at 3 weeks prior to release… and had to wait two months for half a spec talent tree’s worth of “rework”.
More communication, faster, and more often over the client would be a nice thing.
Longer development cycles, panels, server walk-arounds and Dev+player tournaments… The list goes on. More communication goes a long way, so let’s all keep up the hard work!
Make Boomy Great Again lol
Druids have so many spells as it is.
I think first we should be thinking about buffing what we have already.
Now if we want to include talents… Talents should be just passive and improve or change how the abilities work altogether that way we keep the bloat down.
The first key element is bear form. Ever since Tank was morphed into a 4th spec, The defense bear form used to give us is potato on dog poop. If we are not allowing bear form to be an actual defensive form where we can tank and maintain ourselves strong and healthy during burst moments, then it has to go. We are completely unable to fight in this form as it is.
So if we remove bear form, then All spells should be castable in moonkin form. Thats one.
two, we need better heals. Bring back Healing Touch, Regrowth is a horrible choice as main heal since we can’t really capitalize on the overtime heal portion. It’s just bad.
three, design new defense for balance spec only.
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Agree I’m not so worried about where Balance falls on the meters, classes are all pretty close these days anyways.
I just want my Boomkin to feel good to play. Particularly solo play atm they feel really weak in comparison to any other class I play. They take way more damage and don’t have the dps output to feel like that weakness is being offset.
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