I have taken a break from the game until recently. I plan on leveling this druid up in preparation for the next expansion. I know it’s too early to tell anything for the balance of what the game will be like then but i’m wondering if a druid is a safe bet. I prefer playing balance/resto to the other 2 specs. Do you think that it’s safe to say historically speaking that i’ll be okay if i plan to main a druid?
Resto has historically always been a safe bet. Very rarely is it not top tier.
All the other specs have their cycles. Balance is in a decent spot.
This toon is my new main, I enjoy the current balance playstyle.
It’s been said by devs that there is no major changes planned. So if it’s a solid and enjoyable bet for you now, it is highly likely it’ll be the same in shadowlands
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Resto is probably going to be top in M+ pretty much forever just by design (mobile, puts up hots between pulls and can DPS more), but we’re very, very rarely more than middle of the pack in raids.
Balance tends to be somewhere between middle of the pack and good depending on how much of a love affair the raid has with ranged multi-dot. Any range class is likely to be at least middle.
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If you want to level, now is the best time due to anniversary buff and korrak av
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With 4 specs, one is bound to be good for any given tier. I’d highly recommend Druid to almost anyone.
It’s worth noting, the 4 specs have some overlap in their abilities. It’s not enough to be boring, but it’s enough that if you’re good with one spec you’ll be decent with the others. For example, if you’re good at catweaving as resto, you’ll be decent with feral.
Regardless of class balance, Druid has fantastic QoL in open world content, so your questing adventures will always feel fluid and fantastic. Instant mount speed and an AoE pulling tool. Feral basically has infinite energy in open world content and the other specs can pretty much pull whatever and be fine.
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Balance druid is a safe bet. It has had pretty much the same playstyle for the last 3 xpacs. It has also generally been middle of the pack (never bottom 3, one tier top 3).
Resto druid had a hiccup of bad in Uldir, I think that was their only bad tier. The nerfs to resto mastery today on the ptr means it might be in for a redesign for shadowlands.
Thanks for all the responses. Im going to stick with the druid. Having a lot of fun with both balance and resto at the moment.
We’re honestly worse in Palace, since all the particularly hard bosses deal in massive infrequent nukes or short heal windows and we’re terrible at that. Plus a couple like QC that make you take an additional healer just to survive one event, and then the druid gets sniped to death for the rest of the fight.
Uldir at least had several AOE rot fights like Vectis, Mythrax, and G’huun, which is supposedly what we’re supposed to deal in.
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I think feral is incredibly fun in open world, you have mobility, healing, stealth, and a mix of dots and burst. Moonkin is doing really well in M+, and resto healing is fun. Don’t know much about bear, but I don’t really see many of them anymore.
As a druid healer I would not bring a druid healer to Amy raid fights.
There is no reason to if you have other healers to pick from
Guardian does fine but again why take one when you only have 2-3 tank slots
Feral again why take one with limited melee spots up for grabs and the mandatory dh plus rogues and maybe a warrior take the rest.
Balance is good. Getting numerical nerfs in 8.3 but so are other multi dot classes because multi dot cleave is so prevalent in the fights so it will still be strong
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Well. For a very long time I played a warrior and watched while they broke other classes and upset people. When they broke my warrior with the fury changes I rolled a Druid thinking surely they couldn’t break four specs of one class. Well at the start of bfa they almost did that.
I wouldn’t count on anything.
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People are praising druid because it’s very powerful atm. However it’s also had it’s bad times where all of it’s specs are just a bootleg version of something else. In addition, the class is extremely popular (probably tied with Paladin for #1 spot) which means it’s hard to stand out from the crowd.
Play it if you enjoy it, don’t do it because it’s fotm.
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I would say yes. Can’t go wrong with 4 different specs. There’s no way to tell what will be OP or underpowered until the shadowlands beta comes out, anyways. Best to level a few alts if you’re undecided.