I just made a poll and I am surprised that balance is at the bottom. I was expecting it to be at mid at least so I got the curiosity to ask you guys.
Do you personally find balance druid fun? if not why isn’t fun?
Poll results here:
https://strawpoll.com/NoZrzbeEaZ3/results
I’m like Natalie Imbruglia… Torn.
While I find that Balance is probably the most ‘satisfying’ spec to press cooldowns - there’s nothing better than seeing those arcane effects showeing - it’s also plagued by the terribly outdated Eclipse system, that just doesn’t feel fun to use, and sadly the alternative to rotating eclipses in EC’s hero tree doesn’t feel good either because Starfire feels too slow to be a spammable nuke.
In fact I think Eclipse’s premise was fine when it was introduced in the past, but instead of trying to tinker with it, they just kept overhauling until it became what it is today. The spec really needs a good developer to work on.
Other than that, I have the gripe of Balance being practically the squishiest caster in PVP, despite being historically known as a durable tanky ‘panzerkin’ spec in the past.
I enjoy it in group settings. I don’t much care for it in open world content though
I’m mixed enough on it now to where it is no longer my main. It’s fine in groups because you’re not getting punched in the face. You can hang back and nuke from afar. In open world content though you’re terribly squishy. Taking on 3-4 mobs at the same time with my boomy is rough because hits just chunk my hp, whereas with my fury warrior I can drop down like a wrecking ball and handle 3-4 mobs or even an elite with ease. Your heals if you aren’t resto specced are absolutely pitiful as well and the eclipse system needs to go the way of the dodo. All in all the spec really needs a developer to sit down, examine it, and do some tweaks. It’s not god awful but in it’s current state it’s just not fun enough anymore for me to play a majority of the time.
I have never found balance to be fun. It just doesn’t click with me. Even back in vanilla, for some reason, it’s just one of my least favorite specs. It probably doesn’t help that I can never seem to get the rotation down. I did manage to beat Zekvir ?? as balance (I main rdruid) but that didn’t help me enjoy it or vibe with it more. I like the concept of balance druid, but idk it feels not fun to play IMO.
It’s ok, Starfall is a great AOE tool. Being ranged is nice. In group content you can do pretty well on everything.
Starsurge is too weak for questing content and feels very unsatisfying. Gathering things with dots and Starfall is your best tactic to scale your damage but is very much living on the edge of pulling too much and dying. It’s very squishy and the self healing sucks, in general most casts feel too weak and unsatisfying.
I don’t like balance for many reasons, the main being I find the rotation incredibly boring. It feels like I have 2 buttons to press, a generator and a spender…which I don’t get the privilege of even starting to press until I place 2 dots on all the enemies which feels like a chore. This also means you lose a lot of value in lower farm keys where the mobs die so fast that it’s often not worth it to moonfire everything.
Having your main CD have 2 charges and be on a shorter CD is a big win, but I still feel that the duration is way too short. Reduce the damage and make that window bigger. It feels bad when you pop your CD’s and the pack melts and a third of your CD is wasted to traveling to the next pack.
Another reason I don’t like boomy is having such a long CD on interrupt. That feels awful in pugs when you stare at a dangerous ability being casted and can’t do anything about it. I could deal with the lack of interrupt if the rotation were more satisfying tho, the rotation is my main gripe and there’s no way I could main balance for long periods of time, but I play a lot of r.druid and don’t often have an agility weapon which kind of locks me out of feral…that and r.druid’s stat priority is usually the complete opposite of feral’s so my gear usually translates better to boomy…but I don’t enjoy it very much.
I think it can still be fun, but I totally understand why people would rank it so low. I’ve never been a fan of Eclipse in any of its iterations, and currently, we feel squishier than we have since before Moonkin form was introduced. Starsurge currently feels like throwing a wet paper towel at your enemy. And while I enjoy the build/spend play-style better than being an Oomkin like in TBC and Wrath, in the past our rather limited rotation was at least balanced by the fact that we had a decent tool kit from the other specs to pull from. That’s certainly not the case anymore. Our self-heals are waaaay to weak to be particularly useful, and while there was a time when you could off-tank some raid fights in bear form without switching gear (long time ago for that, probably), I wouldn’t even suggest trying it these days.
I also kinda feel like neither of our hero talent trees add much that’s exciting, visually or mechanically. Just boils down to some additional % so we don’t fall too far behind other classes.
It’s a bummer. We’re swimming in content for solo-players, and what should be one of the most solo friendly specs is in the mud.
I enjoyed it in BFA and Shadowlands. Boomy was boring before Arcanic Pulsar and a few other changes made in BFA, then it became more complex and fun. Things just felt smoother and flowed well together. It was at its peak when Venthyr was BiS and we had the thrill of Ravenous Frenzy. It was risky, but the payoff felt so great (I wish they would bring it back so bad).
Up until Dragonflight, it was actually more versatile and had more utility too. Now, talent trees stifle utility in all 4 specs, and create a convoluted yet boring rotation for Balance. Only one interrupt with a long cd and not having any burst to make up for the rest of the bad really kills the enjoyment. But hey, that’s what happens when your favorite class loses it’s dev 
I both enjoy and don’t enjoy Balance. I feel it could use some revisions to be as fun as other ranged damage specializations.
-The Eclipse mechanic is not fun for most players. Having to cast two Starfires to be able to deal an acceptable amount of damage with Wrath feels wrong. Not paying enough attention can put us into the wrong Eclipse state (or no Eclipse state if Elune’s Chosen) and cause us to deal lower damage.
-Many of our spells feel redundant. Do we really need two builders and two DoTs? Starfire used to do heavy damage on a critical hit and now hits like a wet noodle. Wrath has always felt weak but quicker to cast.
-I loved Starsurge more back when it dealt decent damage (it had a longish cooldown when it was added in Wrath of the Lich King and changing it to an AP spender reduced its damage by a considerable amount).
On the plus side, Starfall is always fun, and stacking casts makes me feel powerful.
I’ve always loved Boomy; I’ve mained it since 2012. I loved it most at the start of Battle for Azeroth, personally. For PvP, its toolkit felt cohesive and unique, and not too bloated. I still enjoy it, but preferred the Empowerments system.
If I could re-design Balance today, I’d further enhance the durability of Elune’s Chosen, grant an Astral Form more like Glyph of Shadow, and enhance the dynamism /reactivity of the rotation. For Keeper of the Grove, I’d cap-stone it with (barbershop customizable) Keeper and Dryad form selection, and that’d be the version that is more mobile and attacks with insect swarm and slows/poison debuffs. I also wish we had a Druid of the Nightmare variant, or even just that Elune’s Chosen had more Night Warrior aesthetics to choose from. I know the desire or even thinking of Hero talents as ‘spec re-skins’ was popular until (and after) their release. I think it would be a great way to further reconcile the different themes, and play to their strengths.
In short answer, Yes. I find it so fun and satisfying just dumping astral stars on enemys in big aoE. Being a massive lazer chicken just shooting beams and stuff is hilarious.
But overall, it can be quite a bit boring. You have to set up your DoT’s to be really effective. and then its pretty much a 2-3 button rotation…DoT’s → Starfire → Starfall and just keep it going.
And it’s single target or cleave rotation isnt really at all better.
But to me, druid was my first love when starting this game. i am going to main it again this season since ive been playing my priest for so long, and i am enjoying it very much so.
Its alright; eclipse has been tacked on to the spec in different ways across multiple expansion so ive just excepted it at this point, but i liked it best bfa with streaking stars and empowerment.
SL ravenous+leggo was good too when you landed it, but i was the .1% of druids who picked venthyr at the start of SL for the outfits/dungeon bonuses, so it might have been more vindication then actual enjoyment.
Currently i dont have much of a reason to play it, people are desperate for healers in pug keys or raids and bears safer in delves but if im asked to switch to dps i prefer it over feral.
Nope, too squishy currently in PVP. It was also my main all of DF(and played both feral and boomy in SL) but I’ve since dropped it. I hate how you need both dots, be in eclipse, have a third dot for waning, probably have trinket proc and weapon enchant proc, and get a crit, for Starsurge to actually feel like it’s doing damage.
The only way you actually feel like you’re doing damage now also is with Keepers and Treant’s up and getting a few fast wraths off. Everything else just feels like chip damage and centered around dot damage modifiers rather than big surges(and Elune’s Chosen/Full Moon isn’t viable at all both offensively and defensively).
Mobility also feels super outdated. Warriors, rogues, DHs, and WW monks(hell, pretty much all melee) have so much sticking power and disruption(WDP knock baked into rotation to just name one) that kiting feels horrible, and we’re too squishy to stand toe to toe. Which means we’ve been relegated to the cyclone juking, precog farming mini-game(which is becoming less impactful with cyclone nerf). I’m clearly salty at the direction boomy has taken 
Though I enjoy the theme and core of Boomkin like I said above, and even though we’ve received some slight improvements to talent sorting in 11.0.5 and 11.1, I agree there’s still a very long way to go.
The way you describe it is just right – outdated. Druid mechanics just need an overall upgrade to fit slightly better into the ‘modern’ meta and pacing, and I think Midnight 12.0 Alpha would be the fitting opportunity to do so 
We can only hope.
I don’t agree with this. A lot of power both last season and currently in the prepatch I don’t feel required to have my dots up to really do anything. They benefit of course, but I can kill equally as hard without.
Druids lost the mobility arms race. Been like this for a long time.
I like it, sparingly. It’s far too simplistic, and eclipses can sometimes be jank. Still can be fun every now and again for me. It just gets super boring really quickly.
That being said, after playing all my alts for a minute, I am getting close to finding a new main this season, and have recently ‘discovered’ Wildstalker Feral. IMO, wildstalker is miles more fun, way more interactive. And has the nature magic aspect I’ve been looking for in my Druid.
Playing Elune’s Chosen in dungeons with the latest talent adjustments is fun for me right now.