Balance Druid 7.2.5 Patch notes

[Hellshout]

I think this is actually what's making me most likely switch mains for ToS. I just don't enjoy the AoE playstyle of balance at all. I think it took me a while to realize it because at the beginning it was just so nice to be viable in AoE, but I just don't enjoy it, and it has seemed to scale poorly because other classes are putting out so much more AoE now it's making ours worse as well.

It sucks that elemental and shadow are down in the logs like us because our raid needs ranged, but I hate not playing a hybrid class :/

I haven't played ST surging in over a month. HC farming is aoe, m+ is aoe, wq is aoe... we'll go into nhM soon, hope I'll get some ST there.

[Bugg]

I don't enjoy ED because of the haste to latency playstyle after the nerf.

I'm in the same boat.

[huth]

I haven't played ST surging in over a month. HC farming is aoe, m+ is aoe, wq is aoe... we'll go into nhM soon, hope I'll get some ST there.

About half of NH is single target on all difficulties, although specific bosses may vary. Personally, i also run ST for Upper Kara due to the sparse trash.

[Polarthief]

About half of NH is single target on all difficulties, although specific bosses may vary. Personally, i also run ST for Upper Kara due to the sparse trash.

To be fair though, no bosses on Mythic are 100% single target.

- Skorp: Scorpion babs
- Chronomatic: 2-target cleave/5-target AoE with the adds
- Trilliax: Almost exclusively ST, but 2-target cleave during the Imprint
- Spellblade: AoE for the adds, and very good-for-Boomkin-AoE while I'm at it
- Krosus: Mostly ST, spread cleave/AoE after Burning Pitches (your guild may vary)
- Tichondrius: Depends how your guild does it, but for mine, the adds are up more often than not
- Botanist: Mostly ST, cleave for Lashers/Orbs
This is as far as I've personally done, but the rest of the fights:
- Augur: Like Trilliax, almost exclusively ST. P4 has some cleave, though it's the quickest phase (besides P1)
- Elisande: Mostly ST, still some cleave moments though
- Gul'dan: Plenty of cleave moments (adds, eyes, and whatever is P3 because I have no idea)

On top of that, the fights with some ST does have some movement, making ED a bit worse:
- Trilliax: Medium-to-heavy movement. SD helps tremendously on Annihilation
- Krosus: Lasers, Orbs (if you get it), Pitches, etc.
- Botanist: "Time to Surgewea--" *DEAD*
aaaand I can't speak for the last 3 since I'm only 7/10M (have yet to even attempt Augur on top of that)

[wewe]

in progression (depending on raid setup) you might actually have to run ST on most bosses (I was ST on 6/10 bosses in M NH for progress), i know moonkins that were ST for everything except Spellbalde and Skorp.
ST dmg output is and will remain a really important part of any DPS.

[Hellshout]

About half of NH is single target on all difficulties, although specific bosses may vary. Personally, i also run ST for Upper Kara due to the sparse trash.

True, but when you farm, all bosses can be done in AOE spec. I'm looking forward for M as I heard it's a lot of ST. Let others burst AoE, I'm bored of spamming SFall.

[Deleted]

In other news I got IFE.

Yay

- - - Updated - - -

- Botanist: "Time to Surgewea--" *DEAD*

Could you elaborate?

[Polarthief]

I mean it really depends on how late you start progressing (post-nerfs? World first racer?). I for example was part of a Heroic-only guild until just a few months ago. Now I'm choosing to stick with the same talents for pretty much every fight (SL, SOTF, ShS, SD), mostly because I'm lazy, but I rather dislike the raw ST rotation, especially when you have 2 or 3 targets occasionally. Even on Botanist and Krosus I ran with Memekin and it still works out fine.

Of course, I'm not a world first racer and my guild's shooting to get Cutting Edge weeks before the next tier drops, so it's a lot more lenient but it's not like I'm ever feeling forced to go pure ST builds for anything.

Could you elaborate?

In the sense that you have to move, if even an inch, like every 5-10 seconds. Whether it's a Solar Collapse, Spore, Fetters (the Lasher or a debuffed player too close to you), Chaos, etc. There's just a lot of shit to avoid.

[huth]

Tel'arn isn't a ST or AoE fight, it's more of a ballet, really.

To be fair though, no bosses on Mythic are 100% single target.

Not all, but those that aren't outright AoE fights generally don't have enough to really justify speccing for it. Especially if you have players that can deal with it without weakening their ST.
If you can AoE on Krosus, you could probably do better on Pitches.
For that matter, Things That Should Not Be can't really be cleaved, since they should not b... er, have to be tanked far away from the boss.

True, but when you farm, all bosses can be done in AOE spec. I'm looking forward for M as I heard it's a lot of ST. Let others burst AoE, I'm bored of spamming SFall.

In the same vein, you can just play all bosses in ST spec as well, though. So that's not really saying anything.

[Polarthief]

Tel'arn isn't a ST or AoE fight, it's more of a ballet, really.

Ain't that the truth.

Not all, but those that aren't outright AoE fights generally don't have enough to really justify speccing for it. Especially if you have players that can deal with it without weakening their ST.

For sure, though I wasn't saying to outright always spec AoE (even though that's what I do, but more because I'm a Lazykin who enjoys the Memekin build).

If you can AoE on Krosus, you could probably do better on Pitches.

My bullshit rank 19 (at the time) can attest to that. More or less because my guild derped on our first kill and I got to cleave a ton with Starfall. If your guild is on point, speccing AoE for Krosus is obviously a loss.

For that matter, Things That Should Not Be can't really be cleaved, since they should not b... er, have to be tanked far away from the boss.

Most other classes, sure, since they usually have a small range to cleave but ours more than enough to let Starfalls hit both (and Voidlings) as well as DoTing them both up, and with me specced how I am, it's overall a DPS gain to DoT and Starfall instead of Starsurging the Thing. I'll let the ST DPS handle the priority stuff while I clean up Voidlings and hit both Augur and Thing.

[Hellshout]

In the same vein, you can just play all bosses in ST spec as well, though. So that's not really saying anything.

You could play ST in M+ also, but do we want to go back to the "are you balance?" "yes" Denied! days?
It's much more convenient and also helping the raid to play AoE all the time, than ST, considering 7/10 fights are AoE. But I was complaining that I'm fed up with all this Starfall and I want to play some ST without gimping my damage THAT much*, or pulling down the raid, hence my eagerness to go into Mythic and my hoping that ToS has few AoE and more ST.

*you know, kinda like a warrior or dh or hunter or dk or mage and no, I don't want to roll any of those thx.

[huth]

You could play ST in M+ also, but do we want to go back to the "are you balance?" "yes" Denied! days?

That's not really a comparable situation, now is it? At least try to make a proper argument.

[Hellshout]

That's not really a comparable situation, now is it? At least try to make a proper argument.

I still don't get why most of you here are so aggressive. I thought we're all exposing our opinions. Maybe this is the new EJ forum and I didn't read the label well.
All I did was state that in the HC environment, you can run full AoE spec and that I miss the ST part. Argument of what? Do I need to get my license in theorycrafting to post here? Because I did my fair share in Cata and I can pick up the dusty books to elevate my posts into a proper argument of nothingness.

Do you guys have life issues and pick up fights on a forum or what? Jeez...

[Caprisonne]

I still don't get why most of you here are so aggressive. I thought we're all exposing our opinions. Maybe this is the new EJ forum and I didn't read the label well.
All I did was state that in the HC environment, you can run full AoE spec and that I miss the ST part. Argument of what? Do I need to get my license in theorycrafting to post here? Because I did my fair share in Cata and I can pick up the dusty books to elevate my posts into a proper argument of nothingness.

Do you guys have life issues and pick up fights on a forum or what? Jeez...

answering bold text. I'm currently 9/10m so a bit overgeared for heroic but I run it most weeks for leg chance and I go singletarget for:
Chromatic Anomaly
Trilliax
Krosus
Star Augur

i've noticed that it often comes down to, "are you willing to use a tome to respecc" at which I'm at an extreme; I respecc for trash. In my opinion: sure memekin is perfectly fine for all bosses in NH Hc but I'm not having fun doing "fine", therefor I adapt my specc for each and every boss (some bosses are the same, for an example botanist and spellblade). tichondrius and elisande I go with something in between, Inc, ShS, SD just because the adds die to quickly and I have bracers so I can bank a starfall.

[Hellshout]

answering bold text. I'm currently 9/10m so a bit overgeared for heroic but I run it most weeks for leg chance and I go singletarget for:
Chromatic Anomaly
Trilliax
Krosus
Star Augur

i've noticed that it often comes down to, "are you willing to use a tome to respecc" at which I'm at an extreme; I respecc for trash. In my opinion: sure memekin is perfectly fine for all bosses in NH Hc but I'm not having fun doing "fine", therefor I adapt my specc for each and every boss (some bosses are the same, for an example botanist and spellblade). tichondrius and elisande I go with something in between, Inc, ShS, SD just because the adds die to quickly and I have bracers so I can bank a starfall.

I'm not playing that cheese build. I use Starlord but with the AoE talents at the end. I consider CA an half aoe half ST fight, especially if you're not going to kill it in 1 phase (progressing), so 3/10 bosses for ST sucks. We got the helm for an even more complex ST play and 6-7/10 bosses are AoE, even on progress, let alone farm.
idk Mythic, as I haven't done it, but I hope Myth and ToS have more ST and less dull AoE fights.

[Ifeanychukwu]

I have a strange feeling that boomkins won't be addressed at all before 7.2.5 releases. It really sucks but I guess we'll know soon enough.

[Zan15]

I have a strange feeling that boomkins won't be addressed at all before 7.2.5 releases. It really sucks but I guess we'll know soon enough.

it will be like 7.1.5 is my bet. maybe an aura at the last moment or a few days in that won't really fix anything.
people will be excited the first few weeks till heroic pops, then mythic then it will be a slow ride down
i also dont think those rings will see the light of day

just my guesses

[Caprisonne]

I'm not playing that cheese build. I use Starlord but with the AoE talents at the end. I consider CA an half aoe half ST fight, especially if you're not going to kill it in 1 phase (progressing), so 3/10 bosses for ST sucks. We got the helm for an even more complex ST play and 6-7/10 bosses are AoE, even on progress, let alone farm.
idk Mythic, as I haven't done it, but I hope Myth and ToS have more ST and less dull AoE fights.

Padding asside, why not go singletarget for krosus, augur, trilliax and even chromatic anomaly depending on how quick the kill is?
Ofc aoe build will always pull ahead when padding is possible but we do have a fair share of fights where ST is the way to go.

Not speccing singletarget is up to you but you cant say there are no encounters favoring ST build. Also, in mythic also botanist is a ST fight which makes it 5 depending on comp, good ST fights.

[Myztikrice]

Trilliax DPS doesn't really matter over mechanics and if you're being a good boy going for a far off cake and the beam will completely fuck up your ST rotation.

Star Augur isn't really suited for the ST spec anymore, with the new traits overall DPS is higher so having as much ST DPS as possible to make tight phase checks isn't as important anymore. I got beaten by a similarly geared Boomkin using the AoE spec vs ED because I got Fel Ejection 4 times and every single mechanic in the fight fucks with your rotation (icy, fel, conjunction, turning from add). Although

So there's really only Krosus and Anomaly, and Anomaly it is perfectly valid to be aoe spec if you're with the add group.

Although one flaw in my thinking is that when I think of ST spec I think of ED, and with all the mechanics in the raid that fuck up surgeweaving it might be better to go ST spec on the bosses previously mentioned but using IFE/OI

[kosars]

it will be like 7.1.5 is my bet. maybe an aura at the last moment or a few days in that won't really fix anything.
people will be excited the first few weeks till heroic pops, then mythic then it will be a slow ride down
i also dont think those rings will see the light of day

just my guesses

My question is: how much visibility does the spec have? (I ask because I don't know!). I'm wondering because I read plenty of chatter here, and a few other "non-official" sources - but if I look over at reddit, I don't see much, if I look on official forums, I see absolutely nothing, I don't use twitter so I don't really have any way to know that - but then for example, you look at official forums, and you see 1k posts about brewmasters. Another 400 or so on WW monk, another hundred or so on outlaw rogues, another 100+ on dks, and shamans, and ass. rogues - but looking for druid stuff there, I found a couple (mostly ignored) threads with about 10 or posts and that's it.

I just wonder because outside of this forum (and I have no clue how much visibility this forum actually gets), I don't see too much discussion at all elsewhere. Maybe there are plenty of sources with tons of info being shoved in peoples faces, but then again, looking from my prespective (which is essentially an outsider one), it seems like practical radio silence, even from the players.