[Balance] Some Clarification

[Malarde]

Hello all, my name is Malarde and I have been playing a Balance Druid for roughly 5 years now. Now i'm sure most of you balance druids at 5.0 are saying to yourselves "Finally some real cooldowns we can use!" but this has made our class a bit harder as you have noticed. Now there is alot of mixed talk about the level 90 talents and which is better for PvE. Now just to be clear, Dream of Cenarius is a spell to use in almost no occasions. In order to use it, you need to use a full heal i.e. Nourish, HT, or regrowth and the only heal that is required from moonkins sometimes is tranq. Now DoC is most optimally used by casting a heal in the beginning of each eclipse phase and then re-applying DoTs but I don't think that can outscale the other 90 talents.

Say this out loud to yourself, "What is better, 6% Int at all times or 20% damage for 30 seconds at a 3 minute cooldown". Now I personally said to myself the 6 percent damage increase unless there is a boss fight with a initial burning phase i.e. Alysrazor, Beth'tilac, and etc, then I would use Nature's Vigil. So just to be clear, Heart of the Wild > Nature's Vigil > Dream of Cenarius.

Now these are just my personal opinions, I do like that extra cooldown from NV but HoTW is sounding very good in my head right now. None of this is for sure yet until the first raid week when alot of facts will be posted, now its all just opinions.

[land]

Most ppl are saying Dream of Cenarius is better single target and I'm yet to test it (adding a healing spell as part of my rotation), 50% dto damage boost seems very worth it not to mention you are saving your healer's mana a bit if you use ur healing spell wisely (think about a macro on focus/tank). I'll run some tests tonight with Dream of Cenarius, pretty interested to see for my self how it plays out.

However, I've been using *a lot* hurricane for big packs (4+) of mobs when they are stationary, pulling ridiculous numbers on aoe packs in dungeons and here the 6% int from Heart of the Wild wins, and being able to off tank when shit hits the fan seems a pretty good utility thing to have while questing/dungeoning.

[Sunfyre]

Hamlet's calculated the numbers post the DoC nerf, and HotW is actually showing the best bet. Obviously, certain fights that have weakened phases, Nature's Vigil will be better.

[crunk]

doc is such a theoretical gain. if you have to move even once before reapplying your dots it messes the whole thing up if you don't have NS available. i see it being the most useful in 2v2 and maybe sometimes 3v3 arenas where you'll be tossing out the occasional offheal anyways

hotw, however, is a great passive + raid utility once per fight, on demand. the jury is still out on if using cat form for a burst CD is a dps gain, but if it is, the choice really couldn't be any clearer.

i mean, mooncat? MOONCAT?! yes please.

[Malarde]

Now DoC makes your rotation alot harder and not mentioning if your dots fall off before you reach eclipse because of a moving mechanic of some sort. To be honest, I really like NV for the heroics grind, but for raiding I will be using HoTW along with incarnation. Now my question is if I should get my first breakpoint for my DoTs or stick with crit for now. I am at 11.74 percent in boomy form, I don't think I will be able to get to the 21 percent break point till later this teir. So should I just stack crit for now?