Not a DoTkin. Stellar flares placement and being mandatory was not a good idea.
Meanwhile, Just grouped with a Shaman blasting 225k + 80K Elemental Blasts.
18 Likes
Yep. Pretty sad that they’re turning my second favorite spec in the game into a starry/nature themed Affliction Warlock.
Honestly, if they wanted more DoT classes in the game they should give Demon Hunters a third DoT spec, Evokers a third DoT spec, or even make a Necromancer caster class with a DoT spec or something.
I don’t mean to sound entitled, but it really is the definition of unfair to so drastically change the play-style of a spec people loved for being bursty “Boom”kins.
13 Likes
They’re literally redesigning the balance tree
2 Likes
They made the tree worse than it is now. The tree redesign doesn’t do anything to fix the way Balance plays the game, or the fact we play like Affliction Warlocks. Our main spells like Wrath, Starfire, Starsurge are all hitting like wet paper. We play around our DoTs totally now, and even our new Mastery requires us to have DoTs up on targets to get our full DPS.
Also, we’re forced to take things we might not want, to get talents we do want. The new talent “Cosmic Rapidity” replacing Circle of Life and Death is a nice change… except for the fact that instead of 1 point, now you have to spend 2 points for essentially the same effect to our DoTs. Astral Smolder for example is now required to get Stellar Innervation. We have to spend 2 points to get Power of Goldrinn now instead of 1, and you have to take it to get to Starweaver/Rattle the Stars. Wild Mushroom is really low in the tree for essentially a required rotational spell, and it forces you to use 2 points to get the DoT/Slow effect on our mushrooms with Fungal Growth.
A lot of the fun/good spells Balance is able to reach now on the current tree, we are no longer able to reach anymore, like upgraded Convoke the Spirits (Elune’s Guidance), Radiant Moonlight, Friend of the Fae. Friend of the Fae being a capstone talent feels really weird to have as a capstone talent anyway to me, being that it’s essentially passive RNG DPS.
Shifting around a few talents on the Balance talent tree is not going to fix how we play. It’s just really sad to watch them turn us into a DoT class overnight like this. I don’t think anyone wanted that.
14 Likes
That is still this alienish dot&rot playstyle except it might have become even more annoying now and they still are trying to push dead concepts like Eclipse.
I too want Balance druid to be more like a Balance druid and to actually do direct burst dmg.
I want
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huge Starsurges
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meaningful AoE dmg from Starfall and 9.0/Pre-SL Stellar Drift mechanic back with it
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New Moon like it was in legion (it absolutely topped the dmg meter if you could cast one full moon at the correct time, especially within CA)
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worthy builders and a mechanic around them that actually makes sense and does not feel like a deadweight(eclipse)
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CA again being powerful possibly with a way to reduce its cd like in Legion (fel essence legendary ring maybe on choice node with pulsar)
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a mastery which respects the above
From the current tree for example look at Orbital Strike. That talent is absolutely fantastic to play, but it alone is useless and is not even used on higher keys for a reason…
For such changes I guess we would need a new dev, one who actually feels like working on this spec, because DF Balance druid is a result of utter negligence and ignorance and this “rework” too reeks of it. I honestly had a hard time to believe that someone actually got and still gets paid for what we call DF Balance druid…
After dots are back to where they belong to (supplementary dmg, not main source), they should start thinking of what should replace Eclipse. Somewhere I’ve read a suggestion that said Eclipse should instead just rotate on fixed timer and our spells should change with it. Now even if this change would be only visual for the sake of RP, it could look really cool. Balance druid class fantasy is pretty good, but for like 3 expansions now they keep adding things that do not work at all instead of an actual refresh.
Legion Balance druid was very nice and I would much prefer it over what we have now if they are not willing to spend time on it, but imo this spec could really really really use now a vast rework with new spells, animations and mechanics which are not just stolen from the museum or other unrelated specs and which most importantly do remain within the bounds of the “Boomkin” term.
17 Likes
“I literally don’t know anything about the spec, nor did I look at the redesigned tree.”
-Dragonqt~
The new tree is an abomination. Thx.
2 Likes
what bothers me the most about boomkin is having to cast 2 starfire an aoe to empower my single target wrath spell. Like wtf design is that.
9 Likes
Yeah, the whole Eclipse mechanic is just really strange.
Forcing you to cast two Wraths to get into a Lunar Eclipse, on top of watching your DoTs, watching your Astral Power, and making sure you get the full use/benefit of your current Eclipse state before it falls off, makes the entire spec convoluted and all about ramp up.
Ramp up just doesn’t work on Boomkin. Eclipse needs to be scrapped or someone needs to sit down and really think about a good way to implement the mechanic. The current iteration is bizarre and counterintuitive.
8 Likes
Yeah by redesigning it they are further nerfing and already f-tier spec.
3 Likes
At least we got mushrooms.
MUSHROOMS!!
2 Likes
Yeah… which are two points (pretty much required), and they’re being pushed even further to the bottom of our tree.
But I digress. MUSHROOMS!!!
2 Likes
95% chance we wont be taking mushrooms in new tree. As they no longer proc circle of life and death… (well the new version of it).
2 Likes
There are cool things like the faes and mushrooms BUT the treants are completely useless, they dont do any damage nor are usefull in pvp or pve, just help tanking for a few seconds in world content.
Meanwile the rotation is very boring, having to dot everything before doing damage, and we do very low damage, no more BIG convokes, starsurges or full moons… All the damage simply feel very weak.
1 Like
They could make treants and mushrooms a 50% slow or small healing reduction effect so they could be usefull in pvp.
They are really cool alongside faes, i would like to use them but they dont seem to be usefull…
The mushrooms have a second talent underneath that give a 50% slow effect. And honestly, that should be PART of the main Mushroom talent baseline. 2 talent points to get that slow and DoT effect is dumb to me.
7 Likes
I get what you’re saying, this new playstyle is different than what we’ve had in previous expansions, and there are issues with the talent trees both class and spec. I enjoy this new playstyle now I’ve got my head around it all. Btw, my experience is not yours so im not saying you’re wrong to feel the way you do about balance currently. In M+ AoE pulls are great, and there is time for hard casts or weaving in some focused target damage. And on single target it plays just like it has for the most part, except you have choice over what eclipse you want to be in, pop some mushrooms and starfall is worth pressing during movement.
The biggest issue from my perspective is we do have some interesting talents that do change the way you play, but they are tuned so badly you don’t take em, or don’t care about them, and that really sucks.
I feel the changes in the .5 patch are along the right lines but need some more iteration, especially location of talents and pathing. And other talents need buffs so we actually have meaningful gameplay choice
1 Like
I feel you completely as well. I can play Balance very well and understand all the concepts and mechanics just fine, I just don’t prefer it compared to past iterations. But that’s totally a subjective thing for sure.
U should make a video and post it on youtube.
Im serious.
1 Like
All they would have to do for me to enjoy the class again is change how eclipse is gained. Just make it so when i cast wrath twice it give me solar empowerment and when i cast starfire it gives me lunar.
If they did that then atleast the opening rotation makes a bit more sense and has some actual flow instead of the chaotic mess it is right now.
4 Likes
Yeah after playing one for raid last night because we had a healer surplus, I really feel for you guys. That was the least fun I’ve ever had in a raid from a class enjoyment perspective. The raid was still a great time, but babysitting a handful of dots and spamming a couple of the same boring, low damage spells feels awful. On AoE they are fun even though that was my first time ever playing one lol. Starfall feels cool with a bunch of targets and Orbital Strike is awesome. Single target though? Nah.
2 Likes