A “hybrid” is when a resto or balance druid switches to cat form to continue killing instead of stopping to drink (letting his mana regen in cat form).
It turns out that a balance druid, in balance gear, kills mobs faster in cat form than in moonkin form. Let that sink in for a moment. That’s how bad balance is for leveling.
With proper consumeables, flasks, buffs, weapon oils, bis gear, and enchants, raiding moonkins can certainly do average dps on any fight lasting no more than 90 seconds.
This is true. Just takes that extra effort everyone around here carries on about. A cool guild helps though. Pugging moonkins may find it rough though.
Play whatcha want to play. Find a cool guild and pwn on.
Allegedly it was actually pretty good for PvP when geared… I can’t confirm that from 1st or even 2nd hand experience however, as my server had zero boomkins of note.
Like many hybrids they had a near inability to get decent gear from raiding because the spec performed so poorly in pve… which in turn directly impacted how many you saw in pvp, and the average gear level (and with how important gear was back then, how strong the average player of a given spec appeared in general).
The fact there isnt really any “balance” gear at that point it doesnt surprise me. At that point all youd have is +int and + spirit gear which might cut down on wait time but doesnt speed anything up.
As Ogimirak said, balance druids have certainly pulled their weight in damage in raids with enough effort. They were also very versatile and fairly viable in pvp if I’m not mistaken.