I’ve been struggling with the fact that I rolled shadow priest and it isn’t quite ‘meta.’ m+ is my favorite thing to do in game, and grouping at higher key levels has been extremely difficult.
Moonkin seem to be in high demand, but I worry the spec isn’t fun to play. Am I wrong?
Stupidly, I made a monk and began to gear it. It is intensely fun to play (as is shadow priest) but the concern for me is that I will end up in a similar situation to where I currently am with my priest.
You’re wrong. It’s very fun to play.
The DPS is off the charts right now, too, and that doesn’t hurt either 
This is less important to me than the class being fun and finding groups a bit easier than my spriest or potentially my monk.
I appreciate your response though.
It’s fun.
I tried leveling a Druid a while back as Guardian and it felt like SUCH a slog. In an effort to really get a leveled Druid, I switched to Balance (keep in mind this is back when we had to through EVERY expansion).
Switching to Balance in TBC content was the best thing I could have ever done for that character. I enjoyed the class more, dungeon runs felt more fun to me, and questing in the open world was WAY easier than I thought.
It’s definitely worth doing. I highly recommend it.
Fun to play is very subjective. There are basically no procs and the rotation is fairly consistent, ebbing between solar and lunar eclipse. You do try to guide yourself toward one or the other, based on AOE or ST needs, but it’s a ping pong game the entire time. However, since it’s fairly predictable, the better you know a fight and when you need a burst, this can be planned
The toolkit is also quite good. There is a fair amount of self healing for solo play and you can actually help in group as well. Rebirth can be a wipe saver and it’s highly beneficial during raiding. Especially with my group. (I hope they’re not reading druid forums…)
So it’s really a matter of what you enjoy personally. If you like fishing for procs or being in a fairly regimented rotation. I personally really enjoy it. The dps is pretty darn good right now and I like being able to bring a supportive addition to the raid.
What you find fun someone else might find frustrating.
Balance to me is just awful to play as a spec. It’s saving grace for me is that it performs exceptionally well which allows me to put up with it. The moment it isn’t an S tier meta pick it’s in the trash can.
One thing I will point out though is that monks are also a meta pick atm and personally I’d say they are even better than balance druids unless you group is doing some huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge pulls and even then monk utility comes in super handy.
I find SPriest > Boomkin in terms of fun if we’re being honest.
Also, WW Monks are in a great spot for the melee position in M+ scene. Only problem, they don’t scale as well as other specs. So by season 3, they’ll have lost their stardom. Or, at least, that’s been the trend with them. Maybe they’ll stay in the spotlight this xpac
after seeing what our Moonkin did to Hakkar last night…I’d say that it is a very fun spec to play!
If it helps, I’d take a geared SPriest over a boomy if they were more qualified. Or both even. SPriest are great for Tyrannical weeks as they can do amazing ST. Plus Mind Soothe allows for skips that can’t be done without a rogue or DH or invis pots.
WW monk is in the Top pick along side rogue as they throw out great utility, and damage.
If you’re looking for fun and to push keys past 17 then boomy will be your safest bet.
If you’re going for KSM, all three classes work well enough.
The meta switches all the time so if your only wanting to roll a boomkin because it’s currently meta I would keep on rolling because 9.1 will have a whole new tier of meta classes.
I also have a shadow priest I played and abandoned for this Druid. It’s great for ST but I didn’t enjoy the ramp up time for AOE. I didn’t like having to mind sear packs till I had enough insanity to SN down the packs and on Tyran weeks by the time I built up enough insanity to start pumping some AOE the pack was dead and it killed my DMG. So I was praying packs lived long enough so I could put out some respectable dmg.
Where with boomkin it’s the opposite I start out with 50 energy pop off two wrath’s to get into my eclipse hit startfall and I’m
About to pump. If I use my cd’s aswell the pain train is coming.
Also switched because I like to heal as much as I like to DPS and as much as I enjoyed Holy it’s in a bad spot in all content and I didn’t enjoy playing Disc. Where I love the play style of Resto.
It’s less of a ‘meta right now’ issue than it is a ‘is this a relatively safe pick most of the time.’
Eh not really. Beginning of the expansion usually sets the scene for the meta. For the most part it’ll hold. A small nerf here to something being a bit “too good” but for the most part, your lower end will see small blanket buffs (3% aura buff anyone?).
That is, if they don’t do anything drastic between patches (which would be too much work for blizzard).
Balance will be in a safe spot all expansion, but probably dropping off a bit towards the end of the expansion.
Once you learn to walk the tightrope with balance it can def be fun (I do mostly m+).
You gotta play by certain set in stone rules like capping AP at the end of a pull so you can start with a starfall / starsurge on ST, holding your eclipse at the end of a pack so you come into a new pull with a full lunar eclipse for big pulls and other stuff like knowing what conditions need to happen for you to sunfire and moonfire, but once you know the dungeon flow enough, and get to high enough m+ keys where trash lives longer, it actually feels good and the damage is super sustained outside of our 2/3min big CDs. You’ll get smoked in low keys where bursty classes kill trash before you can even get into a lunar eclipse though.
Utility is great; insane mobility, offheals, ursols, mass root, typhoon stealth, low CD bark skin, innervate, emergency bear form and probably a few other things that really help out in m+.
Outside of all that, you have 3 other specs that you can play if you get bored, and most of your gear will at least suffice until you can work on your stat priority for off spec pieces.
I say absolutely go for it, uncapped consistent AoE and insane boss melting ST with convoke are really fun tools to play with!
I thought I would hate the Eclipse mechanic (and did briefly), but it’s really grown on me. Balance is pretty fun (though I am still leveling after being parked for a while).
Balance is top tier. If u like high burst, go as balance. In term of fun, spriest is dot dps class and balance is half dot half casting. SPRIEST requirest long fight to shine. Spriest might not be ideal for mythic+ but might be great for raiding.
In my opinion, I don’t enjoy it in raid/ ST but in m+ I really enjoy it
Let’s be honest.
You rolled priest because in pre-patch everyone was saying how OP shadow was. It got nerfed.
Now you want to roll balance because everyone is saying how OP balance is. You will level one. It will be nerfed.
You say your monk is “intensely fun” yet you are choosing not to play it.
There are plenty of people who will take someone who loves their class and knows it inside out. There are also plenty of people who can right away see the person who thinks the meta and fotm is the most important thing. They don’t generally get friended for future runs. shrug I eat crayons, what do I know.
These people who you say worry about meta are called 1: any serious raiding guild/ member and 2: anyone leading a pug. What a moronic thing to say LOL passive aggressive much there bud?
He is asking a perfectly legit question and rather than give him so much of a crumb of an answer you go on to play captain know it all.
Are you saying it isn’t hard for certain specs to pug raids or even get a raid spot in a guild???
maybe read the post like when he says “grouping at higher key levels has been extremely difficult.” or how about the freakin title asking if boomkin is FUN. FUN did you see the word FUN in the title… he said FUN do you know what FUN means?
Most serious raiders and guilds do worry about fotm and meta… oh and pugs apparently care also… lots of people are playing specs/classes that wouldnt be their first pick due to meta/raidspot and here you are shaming him. Get a life.
So what’s your point other than being self righteous? Theres a way YOU want the game to be and then theres the way the stupid game actually is. Shaming/belittling folks for adhering to the current game state is ridiculous. I know a frost mage thats skilled/geared and can do just as well and sometimes better than fire mages yet has an atrocious time finding any higher cr rbg because everyone knows you want a fire mage. His is a life of constant frustration and he also has to play under a constant microscope. He loves frost and yeah sure its technically playeable but what a bunch of grief…he has to deal with stupid people all the time. I mean the backlash over picking the wrong “covenant” has been insane for alot of people nevermind class/spec lol what game have you been playing?
Don’t hate the player, hate the game. It’s not like this guy made it the way it is
Max, Fluff, I want to give you both great big, hugenormous hugs! It seems like both of you have had rough days, which considering how the world is lately, I can dig.
You both have points worth noting:
Solution? Um… yeah, I don’t have one, although I can say that I’m personally focusing on playing what I enjoy and working with friends. Then I’ll see just far I can get via those means.
I just hope you both can find some peace and proffer a smidge of patience toward our fellow gamers. Blessings to you both!
This is the only thing you typed that I’m going to respond to.
I know shadow priest far better than you know any character you play.
Full stop.
Not really sure where your animosity is coming from, but it’s fine. Keep lurking on the forums and posting flame bait from an alt because you’re not only a garbage player, but you’re also a garbage person.
Edit-
Thanks for the actual answers folks. Still mulling over if I want to make a change or not, but most of the posts here have been very helpful =)