Planning to play arcane mage or balance druid. I have not decided yet. I think I will be waiting 9.1 and see how things will go.
So in your opinion:
1.) Not especially. I think the Druid in general is fun because you have a lot of tools to get out of sticky situations. But offensively, Balance is a bit dull. You use 1 of 2 builders, both of which are unimpressive damage wise and you just haphazardly use whichever one is associated with your current eclipse âfor reasonsâ. You then use your Astral power that you were building spamming the aforementioned spells until youâre out of astral power. Unfortunately there is literally 1 spell you use astral power for to kill things while the other was used to proc stellar drift but will soon be used simply for uninspiring AE damage. Nearly all of the balance druidâs offensive power comes from their legendary and their covenant which is also quite boring.
2.) Iâll leave others to answer this one as Iâm fairly new to Druid and donât really play on PTR to test things first hand. Iâm honestly not too worried on the PvE side of things because the legendary and solstice nerf will be compensated for with another legendary more than likely and I donât even use stellar drift in PvE, just PvP.
3.) Itâs honestly up to you. Having played Arcane as well, itâs also not that mind blowing of a spec but at least you can fall back on Frost (which I find a lot of fun) or Fire which is always fun when you pop your cooldowns. For me, I prefer playing hybrid classes that use heals moreso than shields and invuln class mechanics and while offensively balance isnât much fun (imo), being able to get out of every situation is fun for me.
I tried balance. I hated it. I found it to be THE most boring spec Iâve ever tried. To each their own of course. Just not my vibe.
Just like fire mages, specifically in M+ scene, they will remain meta. Their group utility is insane and highly valuable, along with uncapped AoE.
Do you plan on doing M+? If yes, then forget about Arcane. Sadly, I am not kidding. It is simply not viable, especially when even frost mage will outperform you. Iâve seen a few Arcane mages (and I am tripple KSM on tank/dps/healer), so I play a lot of M+ and I donât raid.
I keep hearing frost is fun. Not nearly as good as Fire when it comes to raw damage in M+ scene, but fun supposedly. Fire is still, by far, superior to any other spec.
What a great reply. Thank you
This is kind of a loaded question cause fun is subjective.
Balance druid is relatively simple but a spec you can play well relatively easily. Maximizing of course takes more skill but the skill floor for balance druid to be relatively effective is pretty low.
There are people who think being able to be effective with a relatively simple spec is fun, and as Nvs said a lot of people derive enjoyment from maximizing the druid utility which is something we truly have in spades. In raids we can help with add control with roots and typhoon, innervating healers, stampeding roar to move the raid, and battle rezzes. In M+ we have all that plus treants are probably the single best tanking assist on difficult fortified weeks, particularly for necrotic resets.
Druidâs very simple damage profile wise, but more intricate in terms of total spec package, how much fun that will be for you is a personal decision.
The other two posters are sugar coating it, itâs a problem.
So there was three major nerfs that are currently on the PTR
The solstice nerf is less significant but mainly annoying because we really donât have any good alternatives. Even with the buff to new moons recharge rate itâs still not a viable talent currently, itâs still clunky to use and difficult to maximize. Weâre likely going to be just going with Fury of Elune which is moderately interesting but very lackluster in single target and only really good in heavy grouped AOE situations.
The Stellar drift nerf is easily the worst of the nerfs. I donât think any druid wouldnât concede that SD was overpowered but it was overpowered due to the movement while casting, not the damage. Starfall is easily the most overblown damage in the game because of one stupid fight, council of blood. Because we dominate that fight so badly, overall rankings on warcraft logs are skewed horribly. If you look at a per boss basis itâs the only fight we are top ranking when you compare 90 percentile parses of all specs.
Now their idea is to destroy the talent by making you sacrifice 50% starfall uptime in order to use the talent. The problem is that is such a dps loss it makes it not viable in aoe situations unless they are intermittent. Now we lose the boost to starfall damage because we canât afford a 50% uptime loss and are force into twin moons, which is really only a convenience talent with a paltry 10% damage boost to moonfire.
Overall boomkin if left unaltered on PTR will be middle of the pack at absolute best in 9.1 and likely will be bottom third. People can claim Iâm being chicken little all they want but the numbers donât lie at the moment.
Cause you enjoy one more than the other? If youâre asking why you shouldnât play arcane in general the answer is âFire is betterâ in almost all situations.
Feral is a lot more fun than balance but Iâm probably melee biased because I find range to be pretty boring in general.
Balance felt better back in bfa. I still play it now and again but iâve found myself more into feral and guardian.
Balance is⊠not for me.
I personally prefer feral for DPS.
I find the eclipse system clunky and bad.
These are my personal preferances.
Balance is a truly great spec and many people love it.
My advice to you OPâŠ
Make a trial character balance druid on the PTR and play it for a couple hours.
Make sure you spend some time on the training dummies and run a dungeon or two.
Then check out arcane and see which you like most, if you like both, or even if you dislike both.
Thereâs a wide variety of pop tart flavors out there. Some like cherry, some like strawberry, and some like a bowl of plain oatmeal instead. Find the answer thatâs best for you.
No itâs not, in my opinion.
Only range class Iâve found fun and interesting is Shadow Priest. I used to enjoy warlock but it hasnât had the same appeal to me in awhile.
The real fun of Balance is seeing what the next expansionâs version of Eclipse will be.
Personally, I love balance. I also play an affliction lock, fire mage, and marks hunter. Balance is easily my favorite of the those. Itâs not for everyone. You do have some times where youâre casting wrath into an AoE pack, but thatâs kind of the nature of the beast and part of the overall skill cap in balance, managing your eclipses.
As for 9.1, the ptr changes have me at a ~2k dps loss over live for 5 pack aoe and 1.1k loss for single target. (3.5 minute fight). The utility is still good, but itâs âsupport levelâ dps at this stage. I fully expect some more changes to offset the BoatVoke nerf, but every week that passes makes me a little more nervous that itâll go live like this.
I appreciate this joke so much.
I think at this point most people would agree the WoD version of eclipse was the worst with the swinging pendulum that you had no control over. Most seem to appreciate the MOP version as the best version.
That was the one that was on a timer, right? That was indeed the worst.
Yep, and everyone ran Euphoria to make it cycle faster since otherwise you spent so much time waiting for eclipse peaks.
Frost actually pumps some sick consistent damage, the rotation is simple and itâs hard to mess up. I prefer it to Fire or Arcane.
I tried it.
I didnât like it at all. Iâll take not getting invited to pug M+ as feral over playing boomie. Iâd rather go resto or bear instead of boomie.
I think I fall asleep almost anytime I try it.
Iâm not arguing its numbers or status as a top tier DPS. I love having them in my groups. But I canât do it myself.
Iâve ended up playing a lot more Balance this season than I had anticipated, just because I needed to make room for another healer in our M+ group fairly frequently. I donât really enjoy the changes from BfA. Being at the mercy of the eclipse system isnât very fun. A lot of times I want to be able to do an AoE focus, but canât because Iâm in solar eclipse. With the way most other classes seem to work, a group is dead, or mostly dead, before I can get into the eclipse I want. It requires a lot of forethought to try to prep myself, which isnât necessarily a bad thing, but Iâve found itâs hard to break that cycle and still stay effective.
Balance has proven to be extremely effective and potent, but itâs just not terribly engaging to play unfortunately.
I donât typically play on the PTR, but Iâm not sure. The big concern is that the Stellar Drift changes will make an awkward spec even more awkward. This also comes at an apparently significant multi-target DPS loss, which might shift the talent preference away.
It depends on what youâre looking for and whatâs important to you I guess. While I donât really like how Balance works (and it seems a lot of others donât as well), it may well resonate with you. As folks have pointed out, Druids come with a ton of utility and, in groups that can utilize that, itâs a really fun way to play. Your rotation in and of itself involves a few more buttons as well. A friend has been playing his Arcane Mage alt and while it does a lot of DPS, he says itâs literally mashing Arcane Blast or Arcane Explosion, as the situation demands.
If youâre on the fence, maybe play both to around ilvl 200 (in the current season), and see what feels the best to you?
Iâve played both at normal raid levels this expansion.
Balance is very unrewarding gameplay. Most of your high dps moments have little to nothing to do with your gameplay. Itâs also pretty forgiving as long as you try to stay in eclipse and spend in eclipse.
Arcane can be very rewarding. But itâs equally as punishing for mistakes. You dps blasts when you do things right and it absolutely tanks when you donât. From what Iâve seen the reason Arcane isnât taken more for mythic+ or raid is cause itâs so easy to screw up and requires better setup and management. Where as Fire is incredibly mobile and forgiving while having frequent burst windows.
Currently I would much rather play Kyrian Arcane than any covenant of Balance. But I do miss my Druid from time to time.
I wish Balance were more about⊠Balance. Healing and utility. I like red mage gameplay and there are plenty of âpureâ dps classes that cover the glass-cannon niche.