Serious Changes to Balance for Raiding, please give feedback!

[Töasty]

Sorry if I'm posting more QQ, but I think balance needs some key changes to gear, talent trees, and glyphs for raiding. If you don't want to read my QQ, just skip down to the end to see my suggestions for improvement.

First off, gear:

There are two pieces of level 80 leather caster gear in the game with hit rating on them, Tier 7(7.5) Helm and Shoulders.
There are 40 pieces of level 80 cloth gear with hit.

So now, not only do I have three other classes rolling on my tier gear, but I'm rolling against mage/lock/spriest for cloth hit rating gear. I know there's the badge neck, offhand, and cloth belt, but shouldn't we have some more of our own gear with hit? I don't know why they even released the windripper boots and leggings without putting some hit rating on them? Those pieces would have been perfect additions to help raiding moonkins reach hit cap.

And since most of our leather gear has spirit on it, we roll against our resto brothers, and I myself feel forced into specing into intensity to keep from going OOM.

This leads me into our talent trees, very bloated. I'm spending 16 points in resto, and find myself having to choose a spec divided between mana efficiency, single target dps, or AoE. I think some of our talents need a serious rework, particularly, improved insect swarm, and eclipse.

Both shadow priests and affliction locks have talented abilities to reset the duration of one of their main DoTs. Warlocks have "Everlasting Affliction", which makes haunt and drain life reset the duration of corruption, and shadow priests have "Pain and Suffering" which makes mind flay reset the duration of shadow word pain. We currently have to spend two glyphs to change our moonfire into a decent DoT, and the change to glyph of starfire only increases the moonfire duration by 9 seconds. Not to mention, why is the Tier 7 two-set bonus a buff to insect swarm?


Here's my suggestion to fix some of the above problems:

1) Remove spirit from balance tier 7 gear, and some other leather pieces, replacing it with similar MP5 value (while adding some hit to select leather pieces). This would allow us to drop intensity from the resto tree, freeing up 3 points to put back into balance, and give balance druids a few pieces of gear unique to them. I know armor doesn't matter for PvE, but I like leather, I didn't roll a clothie.

2)Drop the cooldown on innervate to 5 mins (mages have 4 min evo with 2 mins talented), and change innervate to increase all mana regen while casting by 400%, (not just spirit based mana regen). This would make innervate useful to all mana based classes, not just those with spirit.

3)Change "Improved Insect Swarm" 3 point talent to give wrath a (33/66/100%) chance to reset the duration of insect swarm. This combined with the Tier 7 bonus, and glyph of insect swarm gives us a nice dps boost without having to refresh another DoT.

4)Change the eclipse mechanics to: All spell criticals have a 20/40/60% chance to cause eclipse. For the next 15 seconds, your wrath casts will cause the next starfire to have an additional 30% chance to crit, and your starfire will cause your next wrath cast to do 20% more damage (keeping the 30 sec cooldown before eclipse can proc again). This eliminates the 2 current problems of eclipse: procing off the wrong spell, or the problem of eclipse procing off of wrath when you are already casting another wrath, and you lose about 2 seconds of the 15 second duration. So basically when eclipse procs, you alternate back and forth between wrath and starfire, and each spell buffs the next one cast.

5)Throw away glyph of starfire. Balance druids will now use, glyph of insect swarm, glyph of moonfire, and glyph of innervate.

6)Make an updated idol of the unseen moon, so that moonfire casts have a chance to increase spell power for 10 seconds.

That's all. Please give some feedback. I love my moonkin, but it needs a little work.

[Edeila]

1) Remove spirit from balance tier 7 gear, and some other leather pieces, replacing it with similar MP5 value (while adding some hit to select leather pieces). This would allow us to drop intensity from the resto tree, freeing up 3 points to put back into balance, and give balance druids a few pieces of gear unique to them. I know armor doesn't matter for PvE, but I like leather, I didn't roll a clothie.

I scanned the post and saw this. You obviously haven't played a druid for long. Intensity is a MUST need if you even plan of raiding. Spirit gives you more SP in moonkin. Who cares if you have to wear cloth. You sit in a fat chicken owl thing. You gain your 360% armor and you don't see the gear, what else is wrong there. Spirit is superior to a druid over mp5. HENCE INNERVATE IS ONLY GOOD FOR CASTERS THAT HAVE DECENT AMMOUNTS OF IT.
Pls give back your character back to whoever you ebayed it from.

[Degrador]

There are two pieces of level 80 leather caster gear in the game with hit rating on them, Tier 7(7.5) Helm and Shoulders.
There are 40 pieces of level 80 cloth gear with hit.

Add to that that some guilds (like my own) don't let you roll for main spec on lower class armor (eg, druids can't roll on cloth).

I myself feel forced into specing into intensity to keep from going OOM.

This leads me into our talent trees, very bloated. I'm spending 16 points in resto, and find myself having to choose a spec divided between mana efficiency, single target dps, or AoE. I think some of our talents need a serious rework, particularly, improved insect swarm, and eclipse.

I don't see any issues with this at all. In fact, I think we're far better off by making choices in our specs - if you could get everything you wanted then everyone would have exactly the same spec, or you'd end up complaining that you've got spare talents for stuff that's useless. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with our talents.

Not to mention, why is the Tier 7 two-set bonus a buff to insect swarm?

There have been quite a few threads to show that Insect Swarm isn't worthless for balance druids, and hence the two set bonus isn't a waste. It's similar to Resto druids - Nourish isn't all that great and has very limited use until you get 4 piece T7.

1) Remove spirit from balance tier 7 gear, and some other leather pieces, replacing it with similar MP5 value (while adding some hit to select leather pieces). This would allow us to drop intensity from the resto tree, freeing up 3 points to put back into balance, and give balance druids a few pieces of gear unique to them. I know armor doesn't matter for PvE, but I like leather, I didn't roll a clothie.

2)Drop the cooldown on innervate to 5 mins (mages have 4 min evo with 2 mins talented), and change innervate to increase all mana regen while casting by 400%, (not just spirit based mana regen). This would make innervate useful to all mana based classes, not just those with spirit.

You do have other options for mana regen talents - Moonglow, Dreamstate and OOC would be plenty enough mana regen, and if you didn't want to go into Resto at all to get OOC then you could still make up for it in other ways (stack Int to improve Replenish regen).

Change "Improved Insect Swarm" 3 point talent to give wrath a (33/66/100%) chance to reset the duration of insect swarm. This combined with the Tier 7 bonus, and glyph of insect swarm gives us a nice dps boost without having to refresh another DoT.

Boomkin DPS is already decent enough without this, not to mention that our rotation is complicated enough without having to cast Wrath every 12-14s.

Change the eclipse mechanics to: All spell criticals have a 20/40/60% chance to cause eclipse. For the next 15 seconds, your wrath casts will cause the next starfire to have an additional 30% chance to crit, and your starfire will cause your next wrath cast to do 20% more damage (keeping the 30 sec cooldown before eclipse can proc again). This eliminates the 2 current problems of eclipse: procing off the wrong spell, or the problem of eclipse procing off of wrath when you are already casting another wrath, and you lose about 2 seconds of the 15 second duration. So basically when eclipse procs, you alternate back and forth between wrath and starfire, and each spell buffs the next one cast.

Personally I reckon it'd be worse to have to switch between Wrath and Starfire - at least with the current version of Eclipse you do get a bit of consistency in casting the one spell.

Throw away glyph of starfire. Balance druids will now use, glyph of insect swarm, glyph of moonfire, and glyph of innervate.

Why get rid of a glyph? As before, having choices to make is always a good thing.

Make an updated idol of the unseen moon, so that moonfire casts have a chance to increase spell power for 10 seconds.

Not sure on the big requirement for this one, but either way, I'd prefer if all classes who use Relics weren't forced into such limited options particularly when they rely on particular drops (such as the starfire one from 25 man Naxx).

[trim]

Previous posters dealt with the OPs post in detail. Just adding my reply for emphasis...

- MP5 is a horrible idea. It does not return 15% to us as spell power like spirit does, and it makes it impossible to switch spec to resto without swapping all our gear. I don't have to do this, but if I need to, then making it easier is a good thing for Druids. The gear I am most happy to find has no spirit or MP5 - that makes me a happy Moonkin when it drops (and the restos are happy to pass on this 'Moonkin' loot).

- As for mana regen, in 25 man raids, you don't really need any as gear level improves.

- The only problem with eclipse imo is that you can miss out on the eclipse window in a movement heavy fight. I wish it was done with accumulated charges rather than a timer, but I doubt this will change....

P.S. I was hit capped before Naxx, with mostly leather. Necks, trinkets, gems and rings are all slots in which you can usefully find +hit. My current problem is getting rid of hit so I can keep my Dying Curse Trinket without going over the cap :

Moonkin are OK - although a DMG buff to replace starfall post nerf would be nice

Edit: Removed grammar bunnies

[Degrador]

Moonkin are OK - although a DMG buff to replace starfall post nerf would be nice

They can't really do a flat dmg buff to starfall though as the nerf didn't nerf damage - the stun had no real benefit in PvE (other than maybe for Gluth) so to buff the dmg is to buff PvE for no real reason.

[Töasty]

Wow, some people really have some positive reponses.

Boomkin DPS is already decent enough without this, not to mention that our rotation is complicated enough without having to cast Wrath every 12-14s.

In response: what the hell else are you casting that's so complicated yet does not include wrath once in 12-14s? Before the most current changes to starfire glyph, most people just threw up moonfire, and spammed starfire til the cows came home, never having to refresh moonfire. Having wrath reset the duration of insect swarm would not only be a buff to dps, but a more simple rotation. With an upgraded moonfire idol like I am suggesting rotation would be: throw up moonfire, insect swarm, cast starfire, when my version of eclipse procs, you alternate between wrath and starfire, until eclipse wears off, and then throw moonfire back up, and spam starfire until eclipse, rinse and repeat.

Trim, how much hit rating did you have before naxx? I am calling BS unless you were going into naxx with lvl 70 gear just to stay hit capped. Did you spec into IFF? You do realize that even with IFF, you need 263 hit without a draenei in your group to be hit capped, and 342 hit rating with just balance of power?

Giving us 15% of our spirit as spell power is blizzards attempt to make us happy wearing healer gear we are forced to wear, especially guilds put restrictions on us rolling on cloth like Degrador posted. Maybe I want to wear leather because I rolled a druid and not a mage/lock/priest, and blizzard fails at making gear for us. If you look at the majority of current high dps end-game raiding gear, you will not find spirit on it. Go ahead and stack spirit for that 15% spell power and you will fail at dps.

[Töasty]

I scanned the post and saw this. You obviously haven't played a druid for long. Intensity is a MUST need if you even plan of raiding. Spirit gives you more SP in moonkin. Who cares if you have to wear cloth. You sit in a fat chicken owl thing. You gain your 360% armor and you don't see the gear, what else is wrong there. Spirit is superior to a druid over mp5. HENCE INNERVATE IS ONLY GOOD FOR CASTERS THAT HAVE DECENT AMMOUNTS OF IT.
Pls give back your character back to whoever you ebayed it from.

That's why I proposed changes to innervate, as it would be more useful to all mana using classes. And if you know what you were talking about at all, you would know that as gear progresses, all the spirit disappears, thus making intensity less important, but at the same time nerfing innervate. If you do the math you'd be better off stacking int over spirit.

Int increases your mp5 thru dreamstate talent (10% of int=mp5)
Int gives you more spell power through lunar guidance (12% on int=spell power)
Int gets buffed in moonkin form through the furor talent (10% more int)
Int increases your crit strike chance.
2% of your max mana given back thru crits can actually give you more mana then spells cost if your mana pool is large enough. For example, wrath without moonglow talent costs 11% of base mana. Base mana for druid is 3496. 11% of this is 384 mana. If I have 19200 mana, 2% of that is 384, so I get free wrath when it crits.

[Anturum]

Who cares if you have to wear cloth.

The cloth wearers who have to roll against us, for one.

Spirit is superior to a druid over mp5. HENCE INNERVATE IS ONLY GOOD FOR CASTERS THAT HAVE DECENT AMMOUNTS OF IT.

If they implemented the change he suggested for innervate, this point would be moot.

[zera]

Why do ppl really whine so much about gear? I know there are still cloth items that are better for some spots but compared 2 bc and vanilla wow it's pretty good and without any great dps loss u could wear 100% leather.
About the hit problem I seem 2 have no problems. I only wear leather, I have no trinket for extra hit, and even though I have a wep just for the hit that also happens 2 be the best weapon I have found so far due 2 drop rates and such.
with hit u can always gem for it or use trinkets and rings if u still have problems.

Lets make a quick check how much hit u could get from items in spots which armor class isn't there. First u could get a lot of hit from trinkets. 73 from the blue in VH and 71 from the one in naxx. Next rings, if we keep it at lvl 80 items u can only gain 49 from 1 ring from naxx. then u get hit from ur boot enchant since there ain't really other options. offhand, u would get 38 from the badge one. weapon u could get 48 if u use haunting call from naxx or u could skip those last things and go with a 2h wep that could have 95 hit raiting. cloak only have one from naxx with 28 hit and prob just skip that. neck u could get 33.

So this all ends up 2 352 hit raiting and u could get hit capped without any items in other slots, which u would prob have and the hit cap is only 263.

Ps. just for a side note I have no problems having spirit on my gear and I never use dreamstate or moonglow beside 1 point. in 25 man raids u get replenish and with 19k mana or so u really shouldn't have any mana problems and having no mp/5 is rather good since it did nothing for dmg and spirit wins out due 2 innervate and mp/5 costing so much budget whise

[Töasty]

Those trinkets you posted are starting points, anyone who raids seriously replaces those trinkets asap, the badge one that give you crit strike and 590 spell power blows those out of the water, another good one is the embrace of the spider, 98 spell power, chance on 505 haste. As you progress, the 25 man sarth trinket is awesome, its guaranteed 200 spell power as long as you are continually casting. So there went 144 hit rating, now what?

Only 77 hit rating comes from two pieces of T7, you get 38 from the offhand, another 33 from the cloth badge belt. That's 148. But the saddest part, you won't get that 77 hit rating until you can down 25 man naxx content, which makes zero sense that the only time you can get leather gear with hit, is after you clear 25 man content, but you need 342 hit to do so?

[Degrador]

In response: what the hell else are you casting that's so complicated yet does not include wrath once in 12-14s?

Current the 'standard' rotation is to start with DoTs up then Wrath 'til Eclipse->SF during Eclipse->Refresh DoTs or SF 'til Eclipse cooldown over. Given the eclipse itself plus the eclipse cooldown are both 15s, it means you must get at least one maybe two wraths in between the SFs during eclipse and the cooldown. Currently you can ignore the DoTs during eclipse because the dmg done by the dots is not as much as the SFs will do, however if you combine a wrath plus the dot refresh, then it's easily going to be more DPS and hence the rotation is now more complicated (if you want max DPS that is, and who doesn't).

when my version of eclipse procs, you alternate between wrath and starfire, until eclipse wears off, and then throw moonfire back up, and spam starfire until eclipse, rinse and repeat.

Yes, ok, your version of eclipse changes that, but as I mentioned before (and I think I won't be alone on this) having to rotate every cast between SF and Wrath would make for an even more annoying eclipse.

Trim, how much hit rating did you have before naxx? I am calling BS unless you were going into naxx with lvl 70 gear just to stay hit capped. Did you spec into IFF? You do realize that even with IFF, you need 263 hit without a draenei in your group to be hit capped, and 342 hit rating with just balance of power?

If you do the right quests and choose the right rewards 263 hit rating really isn't that hard with just quest rewards and maybe one or two dungeon blues. For example, the Wyrmrest Temple quest trinket gives 55 hit rating, then add glove enchant, boots enchant, and 40 hit rating food and you're already half way there.

Giving us 15% of our spirit as spell power is blizzards attempt to make us happy wearing healer gear we are forced to wear

Yes, Blizzard directly said that they've added these talents to make Spirit more attractive to casters, but then, why is that so bad? Personally I think it's a great idea as it means there are in fact more options available to you for gear - they said that one of the big things they want to improve is having more gear available for everyone, rather than items being so specific to particular classes / specs. Be happy that you can use resto gear - you'd get even less gear if you couldn't.

Go ahead and stack spirit for that 15% spell power and you will fail at dps.

It's not about stacking it specifically, it's just about it not being worthless to you when you find gear that has it.

[Dreg]

Before you QQ about gear you obviously never looked in to the fact that blizzard has already specifically stated that gear was itemized incorrectly on purpose.

Why? Because blizzard does not want later raids to only give minor stat upgrades but slowly give more optimally itemized gear for greater upgrades. (Aka why bother with t8 raiding by the time t9 comes if its all just small stat upgrades instead of large itemization upgrades from t7 content.)

Also stop complaining about hit already. This is NAXX this is the beginning of all content in Wrath. You guys are so used to BC that you obviously don't understand this anymore. Were you hit capped with just Kara gear WAY back in the day? Were you hit capped in t1 MC gear WAY back in the day? No you were probably not because it was the lowest and first tier of raiding. You do NOT need to be hit capped to do the introductory raid and IF you wish to be capped then you have to make a sacrifice. Sure the trinkets from badges or naxx are very nice BUT IF you want hit you CAN use those slots. The way you keep talking about "oh X item is better and Y item is better so you can get no hit" just shows how really ignorant you are. If you LOVE being hit capped so much you would sacrifice that trinket slot or get some cloth gear to get to that level of the stat you want.

Is there anything wrong with wearing a blue in naxx? No.

This is somewhat unrelated but I tank sarth 3 drakes with 2x blue trinkets on cause they are worth using for that fight (and I have been wearing them both since before I got any epics and will probably not change them even in ulduar based on blizz's failure at trinkets.)

There is nothing shameful about wearing something of lower quality to get the stat you want. So what if you are full ilevel 223 (or whatever) epics in every single slot. When you miss a 10k? (dunno what balance does these days) starfire thats a LOT more damage wasted then a stupid trinkets 90 spell damage.

Just my 2 cents.

[Dreg]

Hate to post right after my own post but whatever...

You do realize that droping spirit form leather is exactly the opposite of what blizzard is trying to do as well?

Blizzard wanted to make LESS gear drop so MORE people could get loot instead of D/E'ing loot every week cause the boss has 500 items in its drop table. Face it bunch3r comparing leather to cloth like that is stupid. ONE spec uses leather for healing and ONE spec uses leather for DPS but in the case of cloth THREE class/specs use it for DPS and ONE uses it for healing. Now if you think of it by "spec" then one spec uses leather that has hit and as for cloth 7 specs use it for dps. Leather is already filled to the brim with haste and crit (which all but useless to resto) and you want it to be itemized even MORE for boomkins?

Again as I said in my previous post. Get gear with good stats. If you are stuck on the thought that "OMG I'm a druid I can't possibly use anything but leather!" face it eventually you will suck. Blizz likes to add in those random items that best in slot for everyone. (Cursed vision anyone? Every warrior/shaman/hunter and their mother wanted to steal it from leather users.) There is a high chance one day that some "best in slot" item for boomkin will be cloth deal with it cloth will usually always be itemized better for caster dps and drop more than caster dps leather ever will just due to the increase in people who (can) use it.

[ziria]

Go ahead and stack spirit for that 15% spell power and you will fail at dps.

To start off in a positive way, considering your previous replies, you are the one who fail at dps.

Now off to other business.
-Regarding leather gear lacking hit. Yes, it does, but as ppl already have pointed out, its not hard for you to get this from trinkets/rings/offhand/enchants/food when you are ventured through Naxx a couple of times the problem for you will not be lacking hit, but having too much of it. I can agree it might have been nice with a leather belt with hit rating to buy from badges, but the cloth belt will have to suffice, when it comes to drop however blizzard have stated they want drops to be useful for more than one class/specc, thus the recent change to feral weps for example. And if you have problems getting to roll/bid on cloth gear in raids, talk to your officers about it, but check first what leather pieces can work as an upgrade too, and swich around some gear.

-Regarding spirit and "bloated" talent trees. Yes, balance tree have lots of talents, and you can't get all of those you want, but almost. Spirit on gear is nice when you start raiding, since it will help you with your mana regen. But when your gear improve, and if you get another raid member with replenishment in the raid you will not need as much regen anymore. Most well geared balance druids now specc out of Intencity and the only "mana helping" talent they have is OOC, and even then i'd rather have spirit on my gear than mp5. Also as one poster mentioned, the gear is not optimal on stats at this level. I would very much like to see a change to increase all dps casters mana regen from spirit, and also an increase to 30% spellpower for balance druids. One thing that hit me is how its almost impossible to go OOM as a balance druid atm unless you are doing malygos/sarth3D without replenishment, and i can almost feel a nerf inc there.
This brings us in to the innervate change you talked about. I would very much like to see a change to innervate that return mana based on your max mana. that would make it really nice for feraldruids and also to cast on paladins. But at this point a change to innervate is not needed to help you from getting OOM in normal raid situations. I have not used a single manapotion in naxx the last 4 weeks neither in 10 or 25 man, and innervate is usually casted on another raidmember during bosses. Decent gear make a huge difference.
Also, what you said about removing glyph of starfire. I hope you are aware that that glyph increase the dps from moonfire quite a bit since you wont have to cast it as often.

-Your suggestion of a change for improved insect swarm is nice. I like that idea, but im afraid it will not happen since wrath is spammable, and one of our main spells. If we look at the warlock version, Haunt have a CD and must be decently timed, and Drain life is not the optimal spell tocast for increased dps (i might be wrong on the warlock stuff since my lock is still at 70). But yes, something to reset IS duration would be really cool!

-Your suggestion for a change of Eclipse would likely result in lower dps since you'd clip all your wraths due to the crits from starfire. Yes its sad to loose 2 sec of eclipse, but we have to live with it.

[trim]

They can't really do a flat dmg buff to starfall though as the nerf didn't nerf damage - the stun had no real benefit in PvE (other than maybe for Gluth) so to buff the dmg is to buff PvE for no real reason.

True indeed, hence the 'nice' comment. GC did mention the possibility of compensation when they get around to removing the Starfire stun from CF, I personally doubt it will happen.

[trim]

Those trinkets you posted are starting points, anyone who raids seriously replaces those trinkets asap, the badge one that give you crit strike and 590 spell power blows those out of the water, another good one is the embrace of the spider, 98 spell power, chance on 505 haste. As you progress, the 25 man sarth trinket is awesome, its guaranteed 200 spell power as long as you are continually casting. So there went 144 hit rating, now what?

Other people addressed how to get the hit. I did forget to mention the badge OH, hit food and there is also ebon hold +hit cloak if desperate. There is also Rep MH with gobs of hit as well. The point here, is that cap WAS certainly achievable in mostly Heroic gear before walking in the door of Naxx.

Dying curse with 71Hit/765 Spelldmg proc is much much better than the badge sundial. I replaced my VH 73Hit trinket with it = no change to total hit.

[Nirual]

1) Remove spirit from balance tier 7 gear, and some other leather pieces, replacing it with similar MP5 value (while adding some hit to select leather pieces). This would allow us to drop intensity from the resto tree, freeing up 3 points to put back into balance, and give balance druids a few pieces of gear unique to them. I know armor doesn't matter for PvE, but I like leather, I didn't roll a clothie.

Spirit also contributes to your SP if you have Imp. Moonkin form and spirit with intensity is generally the better choice. The only problem here is that you pretty much have to spec Intensity while Dreamstate got nerfed for no reason. I'd say Blizzard should just make 30% mana regen in combat baseline to make spirit a more viable stat for casters other than resto druids and priests.
Agreed on leather itemisation as far as hit (and crit) is concerned, though.

2)Drop the cooldown on innervate to 5 mins (mages have 4 min evo with 2 mins talented), and change innervate to increase all mana regen while casting by 400%, (not just spirit based mana regen). This would make innervate useful to all mana based classes, not just those with spirit.

400% would probably a bit OP in that form (evocation used to be the same) but shifting it's use more towards evocation would be great indeed. Resto shamans would love it.

3)Change "Improved Insect Swarm" 3 point talent to give wrath a (33/66/100%) chance to reset the duration of insect swarm. This combined with the Tier 7 bonus, and glyph of insect swarm gives us a nice dps boost without having to refresh another DoT.

I like. The current form is kinda clunky and meh anyway. Then again, who'd spec 3 points into this? And isn't the original talent 2 points?

4)Change the eclipse mechanics to: All spell criticals have a 20/40/60% chance to cause eclipse. For the next 15 seconds, your wrath casts will cause the next starfire to have an additional 30% chance to crit, and your starfire will cause your next wrath cast to do 20% more damage (keeping the 30 sec cooldown before eclipse can proc again). This eliminates the 2 current problems of eclipse: procing off the wrong spell, or the problem of eclipse procing off of wrath when you are already casting another wrath, and you lose about 2 seconds of the 15 second duration. So basically when eclipse procs, you alternate back and forth between wrath and starfire, and each spell buffs the next one cast.

Nice idea, but blizzard seems too fond of the current mechanic to care.

5)Throw away glyph of starfire. Balance druids will now use, glyph of insect swarm, glyph of moonfire, and glyph of innervate.

More like a personal choice than a way to improve balance. Many resto druids argue the HT is stupid but it's there anyway.

6)Make an updated idol of the unseen moon, so that moonfire casts have a chance to increase spell power for 10 seconds.

There is a Venture Co version with spirit /chuckle.
Seriously though, it would be nice to have one rather than those situational wrath/starfire glyphs but overally I don't think thats the most pressing issue.

[Dobbel]

1) Remove spirit from balance tier 7 gear, and some other leather pieces, replacing it with similar MP5 value (while adding some hit to select leather pieces). This would allow us to drop intensity from the resto tree, freeing up 3 points to put back into balance, and give balance druids a few pieces of gear unique to them. I know armor doesn't matter for PvE, but I like leather, I didn't roll a clothie.

Don't touch my spirit! It is also extra spellpower and intensity is the best mana regen for balance druids. We can take all needed damage talents and spec for intensity. Why would you want all the AoE abilities as well? For trash? Since when is trash important? What you are asking for is for Blizzard to set us to "here! this is your talent spec! no other option!". I like options.

3)Change "Improved Insect Swarm" 3 point talent to give wrath a (33/66/100%) chance to reset the duration of insect swarm. This combined with the Tier 7 bonus, and glyph of insect swarm gives us a nice dps boost without having to refresh another DoT.

I'm able to get into the top of the damage on bosses. Why would we need another boost?

4)Change the eclipse mechanics to: All spell criticals have a 20/40/60% chance to cause eclipse. For the next 15 seconds, your wrath casts will cause the next starfire to have an additional 30% chance to crit, and your starfire will cause your next wrath cast to do 20% more damage (keeping the 30 sec cooldown before eclipse can proc again). This eliminates the 2 current problems of eclipse: procing off the wrong spell, or the problem of eclipse procing off of wrath when you are already casting another wrath, and you lose about 2 seconds of the 15 second duration. So basically when eclipse procs, you alternate back and forth between wrath and starfire, and each spell buffs the next one cast.

Asking for I-want-to-press-buttons-during-raid-while-watching-a-movie? Ever think of /stopcasting?

All in all I don't like any of the "improvements". It will put us in a small box with everyone having same spec. In pve we are doing fine at the moment. Yes there is not much leather hit gear. But while others have to gem for crit/haste we get that from all our leather drops. We just have to gem for hit.

[zera]

Those trinkets you posted are starting points, anyone who raids seriously replaces those trinkets asap, the badge one that give you crit strike and 590 spell power blows those out of the water, another good one is the embrace of the spider, 98 spell power, chance on 505 haste. As you progress, the 25 man sarth trinket is awesome, its guaranteed 200 spell power as long as you are continually casting. So there went 144 hit rating, now what?

Only 77 hit rating comes from two pieces of T7, you get 38 from the offhand, another 33 from the cloth badge belt. That's 148. But the saddest part, you won't get that 77 hit rating until you can down 25 man naxx content, which makes zero sense that the only time you can get leather gear with hit, is after you clear 25 man content, but you need 342 hit to do so?

The hit trinket from naxx beats the one from badges if ur not hit capped and when it comes to the proc it's proc have a higer amount of spell dmg which also increase it's value. and where do u get those 342 hit raiting from? Horde balance druids only need around 263 or so since every non tarded druid take iff if u haven't got a spriest in ur raid. I was pointing out how easy it was to get hit without it requireing ANYTHING from ur other items which also have hit and therefore make it less important with those items. the ring I mentioned is probaly one of the best in game at and thats also plenty of hit so saying omg those items aren't good is just a matter of u not wanting them but u like spell power more since it look hawt on ur char sheet.
If u don't wanna go for hit then don't but there are plenty of ways 2 do so so shut up about it and realise if u don't want hit u won't get hit

[SBS]

Where are the serious changes? I couldn't find any...