I know a lot of druid players in the Druid Forum thread are primarily PvE players, but Balance Druid in PvP is outright outclassed. Mobility for us is a ting of the past being that all melee have a means of getting out of roots and a vast amount of gap closers. Casters are gaining new talents for dealing with incoming damage. Balance druid needs a new talent or PvP talent to not die being looked at.
Defensives for other casters:
(preface: I will not be including micro CC, Mobility, or CC that helps keep targets off i.e. Fear, Polly, Colone)
Mage: Block and Barrier. Barrier offers the micro CC in this case but still allows for a barrier from damage being taken. Block (unless dispelled or shattered) reduces all damage to zero while also healing back to full)
Ele Shaman: Wall, Earth Ele, Stone bulwark. The days of train the blue seem to be over. The amount of defense that they can throw out has increased with the addition of stone bulwark. They also can heal but for most hybrid classes, its not that much. Bulwark offers an immense shield from damage. Wall has always been there and it is on a longer cooldown, but offers a good amount of damage reduction. Earth Elemental is a small damage reduction, offers some damage, and give the shaman a health increase.
Shamans also have their healing and healing stream totem (though it is low healing, it does help. Any healing even passive from a totem is still a positive)
Lock: Wall, Barrier, Demonskin. Locks have their wall on a 1 min CD allowing for a massive barrier from damage. They have their traditional wall that reduces damage as well with talents that reduce its cooldown when attacked. With demonskin, Locks gain a passive wall and health throughout an arena match.
Locks also have Mortal Coil. though it is a CC, its also a major tool for them as well as a means to gain health. Lock Rocks are a great way to save yourself. It blows my mind that a non Hybrid caster can heal more than any of the hybrid casters.
Spriest: Dispersion, Fade, Shield, Void Leach, DoT healing. Spriests are some shifty casters. Fade allowing for them to avoid attacks every 20 seconds. A barrier that is on a less than 10 second cooldown. Dispersion that reduces damage by 75% and heals. A new talent in the hearo talent tree that heals 3% of total HP every 2 seconds. Healing from DoT’s. Shadow priest are incredibly tanky for a class that wears cloth and have a good amount of tools to survive.
Balance Druid: Bear Form, Barkskin, renewal, frenzy regin. I am having to include the healing cooldowns here due to Balance druids having 2 defensives: Bear form and Barkskin. Barkskin is a nice defensive that offeres 30% damage and increases healing received by 20% on a 1 min CD. Bearform reduces physical damage. Frenzy Regin gives 20% of your health in 5 GCD. Renewal heals for 30% of your total health on a 1.5 min CD.
In conclusion, all other casters have a means to either completely remove all damage completely or reduce it by a large margin, or have passive healing. Other than Ice Block, balance druids loose all pressure sitting in bear form, and I dont know if its just me, but barkskin (having to take a talent of Oakskin locked behind a feral/guardian druid talent) seems underwhelming considering its our only wall.
Balance druids need (NEED) something. Passive healing with Gift of Ysera brought back. Warriors have their passive healing, Spriest have theirs, shamans (though its low) have healing stream, but have more walls and barriers. If we tag on micro CC, roots mean nothing in this game unless spamable like frost mages.
Blizzard, I know some of you watched AWC. You watched as balance druids just fall over sitting in bear form not able to do anything. We had Alpha, Beta, countless patches. (thank you for the damage buffs) But still nothing to address defense. I mean come on, you buffed new moon and half moon (a talent that no PvP balance druid would dream of taking) before even addressing balance druid survivability.
Help. What can i do to convince you to help? How much money do you want? Please.