What really is a Balance Druid?

Lore Story Forum
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According to lore, there are a few abilities that are connected to the Sun and Moon that most druids have access to, but why is that actually?

Sure, the Sun and Moon can be associated with the broad sense of “nature”, but do they actually have much to do with the Life themes that druids’ magics are supposed to use. Why do we have a specialization for what are supposed to be masters of the wilds using moon and sun magic?

I think the true answer is pretty clear when you think about it: It’s the Night Elves. The original masters of nature, the original druids. The Night Elves’ religion involves the moon, of which their goddess Elune represents.

That explains why Druids are so close to moon magic, but why sun magic? Well, as far as I’m aware (I could be very wrong) that was only added later on in Wrath, Cataclysm or Mists of Pandaria to include more actual “Balance” to the Balance class. As well as to hint to the Tauren religion which holds similar beliefs about the moon, but also the sun.

Well, now that we actually know where this association comes from, what about it? Well I personally think that this should change, as the modern interpretation of the druid is much different than it was before, much like other magic-based classes. There’s more races being included in the druid fold, and they have nothing to do with Night Elves or even the Cenarion Circle, at least in the moment.

Zandalari have their own War-Druids who were taught by Gonk the loa of shapes, his teachings are very similar to the Frost Wolf Clan of Draenor’s values. The Kul Tiran Druids on the otherhand are a very strange case indeed. Where most druids value life and death the Thornspeakers as they are called, take this to the extreme and tap power the witches in the area do, using soul magics.

These two groups have been shown off using moon based abilities, and having explanations for them. For me this seems extremely out of place for these things to even exist in the way they do. It got me thinking that Balance Druids should change their ways to become true masters of nature and leave the moon worship to the priests and priestesses of the Moon.

Summary/TL;DR Balance Druids should be changed to fit into the modern interpretation of what a druid is beyond Night Elven identity.

Now for some bonus fun: What should this “New” Balance specialization look like? Well I was thinking perhaps they could change the visual aspects of it, as the gameplay features seemingly work well as they are now. Visually though? Perhaps something like a dps Restoration.

Imagine this: A druid steps forth from the forest into the clearing, supposedly out of his element, a Forsaken Archer jumps from the bushes on the other side and goes for first blood. The arrow hits! But,… the arrow didn’t land on the Druid, in fact it hit a giant root that the druid sprung up from the ground!

The Druid smirks and casts something at the Archer, all of a sudden she’s being swarmed by locusts, flies and mosquito. The Archer dashes to the side and tries to hit him down with a few more shots, but misses all three times, and before she could try to reach for another arrow, she’s gripped by something. It was a spiny vine, and she can’t escape from it’s clutch! Before she knew it , she starts to rabidly decompose with various forms of life eating away at her undead body until there was but a skeleton left hanging from the vine, and the druid continues on his way.

That is what I want a Balance druid to be.

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Well I know that in WotA Malfurion practiced during the day as it was more beneficial to druidism so there is a connection to the sun. I also think that they can can on rubber moons power because it holds a place in nature.

I think lore druidism is a lot closer to what the class was in Vanilla. Now it’s sort of celestial focused.

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Indeed, it’s like some kind of Space Wizard or something more than a “Druid”

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I know other than Gonk, the Zandalari have a sect of Druids that are called the Lunalai. I don’t know much about them. They seem to be Balance Druid flavored and worship a mysterious deity that gets derided as “not a true Loa” by other Zandalari. There is speculation that they worship Elune or some celestial creature like her.

I am hoping they expand on the cosmic nature of Balance Druidism. The theme of Balance Druids harnessing the energies of the Sun, Moon, Stars, and other Astral powers.

I would like to see how the stars are involved in what happened to Ysera after she died. Why and how souls can become star like spirits, and such.

And if a soul can become a constellation… a “circle of stars”, if you will … could that “circle of stars” be made flesh?

:thinking:

Perhaps it is too small a detail for Blizzard to focus much attention on. But I am interested in where it goes.

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I use to call it weird astronomic magic.

As far as i know, those druids who use powers from those celestial bodies (the sun, moon, and the starts) are druids from races that in some way or another worship them or have some bond with them, like nelfs and taurens. Of course, Worgen will wield that kin of powers because they were taught by the nelfs.
For example, about Darkspeare it never was told if they learned this branch of the druidism, we only know that were introduced into the Cenarion Circle after that Loa (wich name i don’t remember now) teach them to get into the Dream. Bu t we don’t know if they were taught in the cosmics arts byt the others druids, we can just supose it. We could say the same thing for the others druids from others races, except Zandalari druids that they have their own group of druids out of the city life that they are worshiping something related to the moon.

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The player character Balance Druid is something of a weird outlier, much like the playable Druid in general, when it comes to their abilities. In lore we rarely see druids with more than even two forms, with only a few exceptions. This seems to hold true for all branches of Druidism, thus far, with exceptions for particularly powerful or talented or favoured practitioners.

Balance Druids, more so than the other specs, suffer from this weird lore identity crisis, that’s only really become more marked since the move was done to make them more ‘celestial’ themed. A lot of the Balance Druid’s spells, the combat ones at least, are shared or taken from Priestesses of the Moon, such as Starfall and Moonfire.

Sunfire and Solar Wrath are, frankly, very weird outliers at this point since the vast majority of the Boomkin kit is pretty much entirely fixated in night elf themes. Moonkin form, taking on the shape of a being that is canonically favoured by Elune and guards a lot of blessed relics, all the moon based spells, and so on.

Basically all we have is something that is parallel to, but not necessarily the same thing as, what Priestesses of the Moon do, and what Astromancers do. Maybe using the raw power of stars and moon, and the sun, where Arcane magic or Elune blessings, or calling on An’she, might offer something more variable and refined.

You can fairly safely assume that night elf druids wouldn’t be using Sunfire and Solar Wrath (barring Malfurion), while other races might be more inclined to do so. The only in-game things I’ve seen that reference an actual sect of druids that fit Balance druid at all are the Druids of the Moon NPCs in Val’sharah, and maybe the Druids of the Talon. Of course the Zandalari, and by extension the Darkspear, have the Luna’lai.

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A fat feathered moonkin descends into the room and raids your fridge

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I’ve been a Balance Druid main since my first days many many years ago but I always wanted Balance Druid to be more sorta like an agresive “Plant-bender”. Something like calling forth nature to attack my enemies with Treants or using razor leaves or vine whipe like grass type pokemon. Solar beam being our big attack.

I like the concept of current balance druid but I just wish Blizzard’ be willing to do what they did to Warlocks when they removed most of their abilities to introduce Demon Hunters so that Balance druid gets reworked and all those celestial themes be given to a Priestess of the Moon class.

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Honestly I want balance to go back to what it was in classic. I miss my green wrath spell, and insect swarm, and fairie fire, and moonkin needs to go!

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I don’t mind Balance as it is, but maybe because I see them as the closest analogue to what we think irl druids were. Celtic priests who worshipped nature, part of that being celestial positionings and alignments. Just as nature had cycles in the seasons, and life and death, it had them in the sun, moon, and stars: certain constellations being in the sky in Summer, different ones in Winter, paleolithic monoliths that mark the position of the sun or moon on the solstices or equinoxes, eclipses happening every X number of years. Things like that.

Throw in an actual Moon Goddess, who loved a Wild God and mothered another Wild God who taught the first Druids, and made a sacred moon creature, and I’m moderately pleased with where they’re at. I’d just like more exposition on how they work.

This is honestly what I want the offensive spells Resto uses for questing to be.

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Balance Druids are sort of a serious outlier and the lore we have for them can pretty much fit on an index card. As such I can really only give you my current headcannon:

Proposal: What if the underpinning practices of the Druids of the Moon are old, really old. As in, pre-Kaldorei old.

In Zandalar there is a backwoods cult called the Lun’alai strongly suggested to worship Elune—Which Troll society at large finds heretical as the Lun’alai ‘matron’ freely gives her devotees power instead of requiring bargaining for it as a proper loa would. If one takes as a presupposition that the Lun’alai devotional practices originate from the Dark Trolls, back before a formal priestly caste was structured by the emergent Kaldorei, you could say the Lun’alai are Zandalari who had partial dark troll heritage, and upheld their ancestral traditions despite widespread condemnation.

Among the Kaldorei, however, such early traditions were totally forgotten over time as the formalized practices of the Sisterhood of Elune took hold and the Kaldorei empire developed. Millennia later these practices were rediscovered by the early Kaldorei druids after the sundering through dealings with the Moonkin, who had upheld the ‘old ways’ even when the Kaldorei forgot them. Having forgotten their ancient past the Kaldorei of course interpreted this as a learning instead of a relearning.

As the precursor tradition such practices are of course quite different than those of the Sisterhood of Elune: They are more ‘primitive’, focused on developing an individual’s personal connection to Elune and living in harmony with the natural world—note Dark Trolls were stated in Chronicle as being different than the other trolls due to their desire to live in harmony—instead of relying on the doctrines of a rigidly structured clergy with a singular fixation on Elune. The result is the Druids of the Moon being seen as not quite heretical but heterodoxical enough to account for the lack of any serious influence in Kaldorei culture seen both in game and the books.

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A Balance Druid is blizzard’s issues about Owlbears never being playable in D&D.

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I’ve got to say, I mostly play my Balance Druid as a priestess of the moon who kind of dabbled in druidism briefly, so I only want MORE moon priestess flavor (not like they let the night elf priests have it!).

But slightly more seriously, astronomy is part of nature, and in WoW, knowledge is what you use during your raid boss fight. Studying the balance of the seasons and being in tune with the small natural changes is what I think balance is about. Which in WoW, translates as being able to throw stars at people, but eh.

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I’ve main a Feral since Classic, though I did play Balance at the start of BfA until the 8.1 Feral Changes that added Primal Wrath (amusingly named, in the contest of this thread) and promptly switched back, so I won’t comment much on what a Balance spec should play as.

But for the Zandalari and Kul’Tirans, I see them as “Druids” as much as I see Sunwalkers as “Paladins,” in that they’re really their own unique thing, not actually lore wise that class (except maybe the Lun’alai), just lumped in together to facilitate game design choices.

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I get this too. I just wish there was some larger aspect of nature in the class and not just celestial spells.

This would be so cool as a balance but it could also work for Resto too. I also miss typhoon, dont get me wrong In love starfall but I really miss that spell.

Hmmm. Intresting theory although I think, and I could very well be wrong, that the Trolls were and are very tribal and usually stick to their tribe and didn’t intermix with the others.

I love all of this. It’s a well thought out theory of how the Druids of the Moon started. I still think it doesn’t help us learn where the Zandalari Lun’ali came about as I don’t think that would mingle with the Dark Trolls are any that were not Zandalari. Another issue I have, not with your theory, is that the game does not present the class as it is in the lore. It still seems very classic wow druid.

I so agree. They used to have a spell called star shards, a dot that attacked enemy with stars. At this point they look like light worshiping elves. It’s works for the BE but not the NE. At least give their spells a silver appearance.

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A Big Bird Creative that Shots People with Moon Magic.

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Yeah, those were all cool, and I would enjoy having them back. Insect swarm is especially flavorful.

(flaps aggressively) Back the heck off. I love my boomchicken.

Do you mean cyclone? You can still do typhoon, with a talent.

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Noooooo! I hate that form in WotLK getting nice looking armor was pointless because you couldn’t show it off in raids. Not even with resto because you had to stay in treant form. Now I’m just stuck off being blue all the damn time.

No it’s completely different. I said typhoon but I meant hurricane. It was our mass AOE before they switched to starfall. A swirling cloud appeared over the marked area and would strike the enimes with lightning. I miss that spell so much. It came in handy in Zul Farak.

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Then it looks like one of has to be disappointed. :frowning_face:

Oh yeah, I loved that one! Cyclone too.

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Balance

The elements that carve form into the universe are fluid forces of nature. Some beings seek to bend the power of these natural elements to their will. Druids, however, worship the protecting spirits of nature. Long ago, nature’s equilibrium was thrown out of balance, leaving the world vulnerable to catastrophic events, including the first invasion of the Burning Legion.

By leveraging the sacred powers of the moon, the sun, and the stars, balance druids access arcane and nature magics—made more potent still through shapeshifting, when the spellcaster takes the form of the moonkin—to aid in the fight against imbalance that threatens the natural order of all things.

Moon Magic is Arcane Based, Star Magic is Astral(Nature and Arcane) Magic Based and Druidic Sun Magic is Nature Based.

There is Nature Sun Magic(used by Druids) and Light Sun Magic(used by Tauren and Arakkoa). There is also Arcane Moon Magic(used by Druids and Priestesses of Elune) and Light Moon Magic(used by Tyrande).

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