It boils down to a couple options at this point. I say that, but know blizzard can make major changes in the middle of seasons i.e. augmentation evokers being put in game after launch. But, back to the options that I see.
Tune damage to represent what the concept is for a builder/spender class, with builders doing moderate damage and spenders feeling rewarding (hitting harder).
Tune the defensive and healing capabilities to bring us up to other classes standards. Renewal, frenzied regeneration, regrowth, barkskin, Moonkin form passives.
Regrowth needs an increase when other casters can almost heal to full off one button press. Regrowth heals for pennies on the dollar. The HoT is drops in the ocean that is our healthpool, and the initial heal feels remarkably weak.
Frenzied regeneration and a fine, but it’s 2 globals into a form that you cannot produce damage meaning it needs to have give and take. (Paladin bubble kept them from doing damage while bubble was up, only allowing for healing, now they just continue swinging with wings while being immune to 99.9% of anything) thus, needs an increase to the heal.
Increase there.
Barkskin for some reason feels like it’s not reducing what it says. Oakskin is a great talent that needs to be center tree so that all druid specs can take it.
Moonkin form needs an increase back to 150% armor and needs a magical defense, even if it’s small.
Complete rework.
But forums are just this. Where players that have 280 days or 6,720 hours worth of playing one character come to write good concepts to take inspiration from, or to know how they feel about a class, just to vent.
Personal opinion, ok while extensively playing Balance through Beta and now Prepatch, while I must admit it’s rather simple rotation design is appealing to newer players, like myself I do find the Eclipse system can be improved on, while mechanically it’s ok, 2 spells Wrath/Starfire create an Eclipse of the opposite.
I think Eclipse can be brought even with its rather streamlined gameplay and rotation give it a little extra flare and visuals to excite players and make the rather boring Eclipse system feel great through visuals.
Suggestions, (mind you most of the abilities are from the game files)
Solar Eclipse, while in Solar Eclipse our spenders should visually change to show we are in a more Empowered Solar State, Wrath turns into Flare, Starfire becomes Solar Collapse and Starsurge is now Solar Flare. All with new visuals to reflect the Solar Eclipse.
Lunar Eclipse, while in Lunar Eclipse our spenders should visually change to show we are in a more Empowered Lunar/Astral State, Wrath turns into Lunar Blast, Starfire becomes Collapsing Star and Starsurge is now Star Burst. All with new visuals to reflect the Lunar Eclipse.
I think this way not only will it make the Eclipse system more visually unique and more pleasing then how it is now, but then also gives a little more leeway in the sense if during either Eclipse if you have to ST or AoE due to mobs dying or being pulled or summoned/spawning in, it won’t be as bad and such a huge downside to being in the wrong Eclipse.
Example, I’m in Solar Eclipse ST a boss or Elite. Mobs are spawned/pulled in I can start to spam Solar Collapse while it’s not as effective as being in Lunar Eclipse it’s still gets the bonus 15% Nature damage for being in Solar Eclipse. Same goes for Lunar Eclipse if all adds are dead and need to ST using Lunar Blast gets boosted by the 15% Arcane Damage.
Essentially this suggestion is trying to make the Eclipse system less punishing for adds dying or being spawned in, but also help smooth out and slightly add a little more dps which Balance is severely lacking.
Not to forget to mention make it was more visually pleasing rather then just using the exact same spells over and over again.
— I’m just trying to improve on what we already have then suggesting a complete rework, which I do hope comes in the future.
—
I played a druid for 10 years and gave up on it this expansion. The rotation is dull and pointless. Spamming dots, Starfire and Starfall is your rotation. I likes it better when your damage was determined by the lunar and solar bar back in Pandaria but everyone kept complaining it was too hard and then they went to this uninteresting rotation. They slowly kept falling to the bottom of the pack every year and now it seems like they’ve hit rock bottom with the new expansion.
Chosen of elune is like 17% of your dps single target and even more multi target with fury of elune and dream burst is similar amounts st / aoe.
This is due to a heap of modifiers, which star surge still hits harder with Goldrins.
Is meant to be a tree that passively buffs you a lot, dream burst is a lot of fun in aoe packs and allows you the nature version of boomy. treants were doing 7% of my damage but details was not adding it to my dps, which is why it seems so low for a lot of people.
This guy hasn’t really played boomy properly because its damage is actually insane atm aoe wise, it only suffers in single target which can be helped by buffing starsurge or wrath.
Tettles doesn’t play his boomy right, he misses half of his passives and just plays like it is DF. Feels really good in any 2+ target cleave or spread aoe, just sucks at single target which it will probs get a buff.
While I appreciate all of your input, most of the balance druid community is still not happy with the end result that has come about.
We should not need a random proc chance to equivalate more damage in this way. While they are tied to one another, Starsurge and Godrinn are two separate abilities. Proc damage is one of the things that the Balance Druid community has been disgruntled about. Procs should allow for us to have something to press for extra damage with some minimal random proc damage being mixed in. Right now we have Goldrinn, Shooting stars, orbit breaker, Fae dragons, extra dot based on wrath/starfire crit’s, ect. All of those are passive and dont allow for dynamic gameplay.
Great. With a standard druid tree and a spec tree that seems to only buff us by 4% here and 6% there, we all just want more talents that do the same… No my friend. We watch mages summon a phoenix, shamans throw down impressive totems, Warlocks summon massive demons, death knights summon the 4 horsemen, paladins raining down hammers, ect. Balance druids don’t want more buffs to existing spells that we have had for the past 2 expansions, we are looking for that new spell that is just as flashy as the rest of the classes. They could have changed the mechanics for Force of Nature for balance to be like Resto, but they didn’t. We could have had Force of Nature like we did in MoP and WoD. That would have been the move.
I am FAR from the best Boomy PvP’er out there, and you can put me under a lie detector on this next hot take, and it sounds harsh… but I genuinely believe that most players, especially PvErs, and even the WoWhead editors who play for Mythic guilds don’t have a hollistic understanding of their classes and specs, at all. Why I claim this, is quite simple in-fact… PvP’ers, or yet better – players who dabble in all aspects with different builds and such… Obviously go a longer way to theorycraft down to the absolute building blocks of their ability interactions, talent combinations, shenanigans, and learning to utilize their entire toolkit to maximum effect. I honestly think the go-go-go mentality and the shear speed of the game nowadays has really detracted from the sort of depth people used to analyze their gameplay at… And I’m not talking just MoP when we had 40 abilities (and when I used to sit in front of the dummy for days), but EVEN BfA, ironically, in my opinion, had the most hollistic Boomkin toolkit. Sure, it was barer and slower, but it had weight… impact, your choice at the moment really mattered (not in a way of ruining your rotation, but rather, just to make the most out of the situation).
I think Eclipse is the problem. Is it because Empowerments had a Starsurge-first priority? Or because of the ramp-up and ability lock with Eclipse? Well, I suppose the problem is just really deep, and that we need an entirely new look taken at the spec… yet again… To make it more interesting, and the talent choices even more meaningful.
Regardless of what is or isn’t done with the Eclipse system for our gameplay feel… Can we just talk about how badly the opportunity here has been missed to enter an Emerald Nightmare hero talent tree? Let’s say for the sake of the gameplay it would switch Eclipse with something else… Imagine an upgrade where the spells are Red-Shifted, deal more damage, build up to cool, active mechanics… Anything goes. I imagine Guardians, or even Restos could gain cool visuals and mechanics from this option (rather than Keeper of the Grove in particular).
What I’d say is common between my two replies here: is that better and more frequent testing, earlier into the expansion’s development cycle… with more robust feedback loops, would go a very, very long way.
The concept of Balance druid being easy for new players is a point that people use to glorify developers oversimplifying mechanics. World of Warcraft is an MMORPG where you level a character from 1 (10) to max level and learn your class and its mechanics. Unless you’re boosting every character as a new player, then sure, attempt to make that the argument. Just know that you cant claim that a class or spec is too hard because you didn’t take the time to learn it.
This. just this right here. Give Resto the ability to be scary in the arena, and give balance druid an interesting, visually pleasing, lorecentric, hero talent tree. Balance druids are roughly based on Malfurion, who was stuck in the nightmare. Would be interesting to weald that power and make it relevant.
Personally, I think boomy is the best of all the specs currently in the game. But nobody wants to hear that, so I generally don’t participate in these conversations.
My clear look at the forums tells me there is a vocal group of people that like to whine. It’s probably 10-20 people here. 10% of ALL WoW players play druids. That’s 10% of about 400,000 players. Do you really think they’re all participating in this forum?!? 40,000 players who have an opinion you know nothing about and probably don’t want to hear.
https\www.dataforazeroth.com/stats/classes/
https\wowanalytica.com/statistics/region/us
Now is the perfect time to switch classes. If you want totems or demons, or if you want a complicated rotation with lots of flashy procs, you know where to find them. It’s easy to get gear, and you could probably level a brand new toon before Monday.
For me, I want a class with a simple rotation, good mobility, invisibility, and a spammable self heal. Druid is the only class that can both tank and do ranged dps, which are really the only two roles I’m interested in for PvE. Oh, and I don’t like pets.
Depending on whose stats you believe, Druid, Hunter, and Paladin are the most popular classes and are all about equal in popularity. That’s about 30% of ALL WoW players who seem to like classes with simple rotations. (Yes, some of them are Feral, and Feral is not simple.)
Is that enough light? Of course you should speak your opinion if you want, but it should be pretty clear that you do not speak for “most of the balance druid community”. You have no idea what most of us think.
While I agree Druids are a popular class, but you mention self heals? Regrowth honestly heals for essentially nothing.
And if you think our class tree is great, you’re clearly insane.
But the rest I do agree with, it’s popular some people do like a simple rotation with zero thought. But that doesn’t really justify a lot of the issues.
Try healing yourself on a hunter or rogue. Regrowth and Renewal is enough for me, but for all your complaints about the class tree, have you even looked at it? You can also take Wild Growth and Rejuvenation, giving you 4 (!!!) heals for a DPS spec if you want it.
That’s just an insult, not an argument. And besides, I never said anything about the class tree.
I could play fantasy about being a class designer and how it should be, but really I just pick a few things I want and go with passives that fit my style or simplify things. I’m really looking forward to Lunar Calling, because it makes things more forgiving.
Fwiw, I like your idea about having surge/halt switch between flying modes.
To each their own, but I’ll never understand why people want a complicated rotation. I’m not interested in playing whac-a-mole and watching timers. I want to be able to watch for adds or mechanics in a raid/dungeon or focus the healer in a BG. Pressing buttons in a clever way is such an uninteresting part of the game to me, and some really great games have very few buttons (including most console games).
Only Renewal is decent, Regrowth I’m spending close to 8+ gcds to heal, don’t even get me started on Rejuv and Wild Growth as Balance…. You can’t compare.
Like I mentioned theirs a lot I agree with you and a lot you are right and honestly I can’t disagree.
Druids are popular, honestly love amazing class fantasy and lore, shapeshifting is awesome, but we definitely are also lacking severely in some areas that I wished Hero Specs would help alleviate.
Sorry I don’t mean to insult, just I’m very disappointed on how we are currently. I do apologise venting out on you, and I was definitely in the wrong doing so. I mean this full hearted.
I’m leveling 4 characters, Evoker, Druid, Paladin and Shaman (my warband) and I swear it’s day and night playing the other 3 compared to Druid.
Dps, self heals, so much quicker and efficient and great fun, they are all infinitely better not to mention the hero specs actually add great visuals and all. Which Druid essentially has none.
I love my Druid, I literally have nostalgia from back in 2004 exploring teladrasil and the music and ambience of the area, running around and all, I have such great memories, I’ve always been attached to him through good times and bad times but I was just hoping TWW would of been a high point.
Yeah, Renewal as a panic during a fight, and Regrowth between the fights when you’ve got time. Spamming Regrowth during a fight means things are going sideways, but Mage and Hunter don’t even have that option.
I’m back after a long time off, and I levelled 20 (!!) characters in Remix/Prepatch trying to figure out what I liked and wanted to play this time around. Druid (range and tank) is the one I like best, but Shaman (range) and Monk (tank) are good for me too. Shaman has flashy visuals, if you like that, but it has those silly maintenance buffs (shield and weapon), and I don’t like pets (elementals). I prefer Brewmaster to Guardian, but I don’t want to gear up two toons, so Druid wins over Monk. If Enhancement was a tank spec in Retail, Shaman would be a tie with Druid.
My biggest complaint about the current Druid is that they removed the bar for moonkin form from the other specs. The way I organize things, it means I have to choose between having the “caster” bar be range spells or heals when I’m playing Guardian. I think the super chicken form is goofy, but I want the bar back.
Anyways, people should complain on the forums if they want to complain - they will anyways I just think it’s silly to say “most” people who play Balance are unhappy with it, considering the huge number of people who play it and are NOT complaining on the forums. For me, it’s the best spec in an imperfect game.
I am happy to redact my statement with saying most. Even though it’s not generalizing, I can say, many balance druids feel this way. I can say this being that “many” is relative. Yet there are still strong arguments to why balance Druid doesn’t feel quite right.
Would like to know what a long time off looks like. An expansion? Or a few expansions?
The fact of the matter is that blizzard does not have a dedicated developer for balance Druid. It shows with the lack of changes with what we have had over the past expansion with the implementation of talent trees returning in their current form. A good amount, (if I can say that) of players on here have wonderful ideas with stats to back up their thoughts.
I started in Wrath, played through Cataclysm, stopped before Pandaria, came back in Legion, went back to WoD when it wasn’t current, and quit during BfA. I tried Shadowlands, but I didn’t like it at all. I played a week or two in DF (which I liked, but started really late), and then I went to Remix (which I loved).
Anyways, I have musings about how I would change the Druid class. For instance, I wish it was just one spec with a single huge tree and that it used talent “Loadouts” to switch between roles. One spec, not four. They could make it so that going deep in one branch meant you couldn’t go too deep in others, and so on… I’d be happy as a jack of all trades, master of none. I don’t expect many other people to agree with me.
I think losing Moonkin form from the other 3 specs is a step back from DF, and Lunar Calling is a nice step forward. So kind of a wash. I absolutely love “dynamic flight” with flight form, but it could be better with Pepino’s halt/surge idea. Resto feels like it doesn’t even belong in the class, but I got tired of healing a long time ago.
I hated the old left-right balance bar, so I played Feral back then. I also played other classes of course. I don’t like snapshotting, so I’ll never be good at modern Feral. Playing Balance, I mostly just use cat form for movement speed and invisibility, but it’s fun to run around and Swipe/Thrash trash to tag mobs on easy content.
I think every other class is less enjoyable, and I think talent trees are mostly an illusion of choice. You get to pick 3-4 extra buttons if you want them, and then the rest is just trying to stack percentages. I refuse to take buttons I hate, whether or not Icy Veins says it’ll give me 5% more damage. Gear is more important than rotation when it comes to numbers.
The only real change i think Boomies need is to swap around how eclipses happen, Stop making me cast aoe for my single target buff. Wish they would bring it back so casting starfall or starsurge procs eclipsed wraths.
I just think it’s silly to say “most” people who play Balance are unhappy with it, considering the huge number of people who play it and are NOT complaining on the forums. For me, it’s the best spec in an imperfect game.