Results tagged “Balance” from From the Abbey to Outlands

While many of watch the crawling progress bar of our installs for patch 3.0.2, I thought I would let you know what talents I recommend for a couple of my classes. These will be for the specs I choose to play, and are not necessarily going to reflect what you will, or may choose to select for your characters. Next up, I am going to shift to my roaring Doomkin Druid, and their Ret build. This will be a 61/0/0 build.

Let me start off by saying that, while I thought Ret was hard to choose, this tree is so full of the awesome talents I have always wanted, there is too many for a mere level 70. Hell, there are not even points at 80 to get everything, though I suppose that's the point. I would have loved to take Improved Paw, but I think it will be a struggle at 80 to scrounge 2 points to fill that one out, so at 70 I had to ditch it. In tier 1 I chose Starlight Wrath over Genesis because I don't often find myself using moonfire spam to bring something down. If I have that much mana, especially now that pushback is better, I will just Wrath or Starfire something to an early grave.

There were a total of 4 empty talents and 1 partially full talent left in my Balance tree when I was hitting on 70; Genesis, Improved Faerie Fire, Wrath of Cenarius, and Eclipse. Earth and Moon was the one talent only partially filled up in my level 70 tree. At 80 I will only have the first 2  empty, as I will fill out Earth and Moon, and pop the rest of my points into Wrath of Cenarius and Eclipse. I may scrounge a point here or there in the tree, like I said to improve my paw, but at this point I am not sure I really need to do that, especially with the diversity the trees get and the ability of a Resto Druid to actually stay Resto through the leveling process.

Some of the key talents I hit on were Brambles, Dreamstate, Owlkin Frenzy, Typhoon, Gale Winds, Earth and Moon, and of course, Starfall. All of these abilities either boost my DPS or lower my threat, which will only help me as I level through Northrend, and in the pre Wrath month it will help me a lot in raids. Typhoon has a nice knock back which, while it won't give me time to do a HoT or two before going back into Moonkin, might just keep those mobs off me that one or two seconds I need to use a Fel Blossom and Wrath them down.

I will point out that in beta I have done almost no work on my Druid, choosing instead to focus my early beta days on Medros, since I have two characters who use his leveling spec, but from the stats alone this spec should rock the house. It boosts just enough for other classes to make a Balance druid worthwhile in raid, and much nicer in soloing. We will see what happens in the coming hours, days, and weeks as we learn the new way of things in the Wrath era of Warcraft. Patch progress: Complete. 

We are currently in the beta phase of the next expansion, as you are all well aware. All of the classes have new talent trees, and some have spectacular abilities that totally kick ass. Some, not so much. I understand that some all players want those OMFG abilities to be seen. Not all will get them. Some may get them eventually. Everyone wants a Divine Storm, a Titan's Grip, a Beast Mastery, a Typhoon to be given to their class. Not everyone can. This is a fact of life that we will just have to struggle to accept and live with.

The way I see it, having a Hunter, 2 Paladins, and a Druid at 70, is that the big skills are being given to those classes and specs within classes that really, really need them. Hunters have long been the mockery of gaming. Ret Paladins too have suffered being the butt of all DPS jokes. Many raiders seem to feel that Moonturkey are carried, not doing real damage or contributing much to a run other than the aura. I play all of this. I see why we are getting the OMFG talents. We need them.

In a most recent Ask the Beta Tester segment on WoW Insider, their rogue columnist said that Rogues aren't getting any must have talents. He admitted that they will still do massive damage in any raid or group. No doubt rests in my mind that without the changes to Paladins in Wrath, Rogues would still be the hands down favorite for any raid or group. As it stands now, I have a small chance I could win out if their was a choice in a raid, especially with buffs to auras which make them raid wide and the talents and improvements to Retribution Aura that I have taken in the Retribution tree.

Changes to spell power will definitely affect Arita, my druid(renamed Aritas due to name change), but I am trying to get Medros to Dalaran in order to see the amazing city of magic. He only just dinged 71 last night, so it will be a bit until he hits the 74 minimum, but I will then spend some time learning the druid abilities to see how they do in solo and group play. I pretty much stuck to the prospective talent tree I posted about, and I will be sure to report here when I begin doing more than mere fedex quests on the Doomkin.

Hunters. Huntards many call us. Too easy to play, too streamlined, too anti group. We are the most insulted group, and the least wanted in groups. In fact, I think that if a raid were to choose between a Hunter and a Doomkin, they would likely choose feather over fur. Not to mention that hunters are almost never allowed to bring out their biggest asset, their pets, in most raid or group encounters. While Beast Mastery will undoubtedly be the most popular hunter spec in Wrath, cause let's be honest, who doesn't want to tame a Devilsaur, but Chimera Shot and Explosive Shot seem to have some promise. I will be looking at my Hunter last in the line of alts I will bring to the beta.

I guess what I am trying to say is, if your class isn't broke, don't expect a fix. Blizzard is giving clothies spell power, which will automatically give you a buff in that all that juicy healing gear that used to drop will now be usable. They are still working on classes from the Death Knight on down, so don't think that just cause we might have a cinematic, that the beta is over, cause it's not. This change. Things will continue to change. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

So I spent a better part of yesterday on a new, unrevealed hordeside alt on Argent Dawn, but came over to spend some time PvPing with a close friend. When she had to go, I was lucky enough to see a call in guild chat "DPS still needed for Mags.   Anyone up?". I only have 1 toon high enough for 25 man raids, and that is Arita. I do have a wish list to get Medros up to the point where he meets my guild's list of Retribution Paladin stat minimums, but for now the Boomkin is the one who will see Zul'Aman, Magtheridon's Lair, or Gruul's Lair.

The run took awhile to get started. From that first call out to first pull was over half an hour. I logged over quick, made up some elixirs and pots, then accepted the summons. I ran in, drank and ate, then waited. I chatted with the other 3 guild mates who were in the raid, and got an idea of the place, which I now realize was a lot of worrying for almost nothing. I have never seen Ony, so the description of 'it's like Onyxia' tells me nothing. I was shocked when a few short pulls in I was staring into Mag's room, and they were explaining the fight.

I can't say it went great, we did wipe once, but I know it wasn't my fault cause all I had to do was do DPS on command. On the second run I was able to battle res a healer, and we got him down, my excitement and nervousness building with every percentage closer. I ran up to loot my badges, and noticed that there was a lot of purple there. 2 and a bit 'pages' of loot to be exact. There was 2 Chestguard of the Fallen Defender, 1 Chestguard of the Fallen Champion, Girdle of the Endless Pit, Crystalheart Pulse-Staff, Pit Lord's Satchel, and Magtheridon's Head of course.

I didn't win the roll on the Chest, but all but one of those who rolled above me were rolling for off sets, so I got one. The Champion and the Girdle both went to the Ret Paladin(yes, there was a Ret Paladin there!). I did roll highest on the Satchel, but I had already won something, so I agreed to pass on it for the next highest. In the end I was the only guildie to win something in the run, as one had to go after the wipe and the others didn't have anything drop they could use(Hunter and Warlock), but both were happy I won an additional piece to boost my stats. I added to spell damage, crit, and hit, which I believe now puts me fully over the top in specs for 25 person raids. /cheer

Take note that these are alpha talents and changes. These may and likely will change in some way between now and the live release of Wrath of the Lich King, release date unknown. Today we will look at Druids, a class I play. We will look at my other two classes, Paladins and Hunters, when they are alpha released.

Druids. Bear Butt. Boom Turkey. These are two of the common nicknames we have received in the community. Well, soon, that bear butt will look different, though we know not how. Also, we will also get a new Dire Cat, which will also look different from the non Dire appearance. We don't know what either of these will look like, nor what will make the new form so 'Dire', but I am sure most druids are excited about cross spec forms coming. This does not, though, affect the discussion I will make here. Perhaps Aly over at Bitter Roots will blog other trees(pun intended) but I will be talking balance in this post.

There are some really interesting changes coming to the Balance tree, and some even more interesting new talents coming. While there are no small number of things to mention on each side, I will go into the changes to see what points should be used on day 1 of patch 3.0, even before the expansion is launched. Before that, though, here is a link to my planned talent usage. Oh, and here is the talent build I currently use on my Druid, Arita.

Old Becomes New
Brambles - Currently: Increases damage caused by your Thorns and Entangling Roots spells by 25/50/75%. Alpha: Damage from your Thorns, Entangling Roots and attacks from your Treants increased by 25/50/75%, and damage from your Thorns and Treants have a 15% chance to daze the target for 3 sec. Thoughts: The addition of treants and the stun make this a great talent to spec in to, and with the drop of 3 trees, and 30 seconds per cast, you are nearly guaranteed to have that proc at least once.

Nature's Reach - Currently: Increases the range of your balance spells and Faerie Fire(Feral) ability by 10/20%. Alpha: Increases the range of your balance spells and Faerie Fire(Feral) ability by 10/20%, and reduces the threat generated by your Balance spells by 30%. Thoughts: Long overdue threat reduction for Moonkin druids, though for those who are used to being the aggro magnet that stands between a wayward mob and the healers, this could be a problem.

Lunar Guidance - Currently: Increases your spell damage and healing by 8/16/25% of your total Intellect. Alpha: Increases your spell damage and healing by 4/8/12% of your total Intellect. Thoughts: Unnecessary nerf to damage, though hopefully we will see some other stuff or changes coming to make up for this.

Dreamstate - Currently: Placed next to Moonkin Form on tier 7. Alpha: Placed next to Moonfury on Tier 6. Thoughts: Good spell, available earlier in the tree and allowing for earlier mana regen boost. Good change for leveling turkeys.

New Hotness
Improved Moonkin Form - Your Moonkin Aura also causes affected targets to have a 33/66/100% chance to gain 20% spell haste when they critically hit with spells for 10 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every few seconds. Tier 7. Thoughts: This will officially make Moonkins the must-have-in-my-group part of a raid set up when working out the casters, both healers and dps.

Owlkin Frenzy - Attacks done to you while in Moonkin form have a 5/10/15% chance to cause you to go into a Frenzy, increasing your damage by 10%  and causes you to be immune to pushback while casting balance spells. Lasts 10 seconds. Tier 8. Thoughts: This will make for a very interesting time soloing on my turkey, that's for sure-

Eclipse - When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 20/40/60% chance of increasing the damage done by Wrath by 10%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 20/40/60% chance of increasing the damage done by Starfire by 10%. Effect lasts 30 seconds and has a 2 min cooldown. Tier 9. Thoughts: Might be a good spell if you opened with Starfire until this procced, then switched to Wrath once the mob was coming at you, or used Wrath on a boss to minimize threat and then near death you used Starfire for the big numbers. Should be fun!

Typhoon - You summon a violent Typhoon that does 530 Nature damage when in contact with hostile targets, knocking them back 5 yards. 20 second cooldown. Tier 9. Thoughts: I assume this is an AoE, though unsure if it will be above the turkey by nature or if it will give a location choice like Hurricane. As it has a range, I assume it is like Hurricane, but that could, incredibly, mean it would be a 20 yard from the caster circle effect, which would be.... wow!

Gale Winds - Increases damage done by your Hurricane and Typhoon spells by 25/50%, and increases the range of Cyclone by 10/20%. Tier 9. Thoughts: Many folks were already angry in PvP about the current yardage of Cyclone, and this will only make that worse. The first part will be nice, especially if there are fights like the worms in Kara or Magister's Terrace in the expansion. 50% more damage on lightning bolts that, by the end, already leave the targets within a moonfire of death? Hell yes I'll take it!

Nature's Fury - Your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance of applying the Nature's Fury debuff on the target. The Nature's Fury debuff increases Nature and Arcane damage done to the target by 2%. Lasts 12 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times. Tier 10. Thoughts: I like the 100%. All I would need to do is keep casting Wrath throughout the fight and the debuff would never die. Arcane Missiles, and I suspect some Shammy spells, would benefit from this.

Starfall - You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yard of the caster, each doing 500 to 580 Arcane damage, and an additional 170 arcane to all nearby targets within 5 years. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 seconds. Tier 11(Final point). Thoughts: Whoa. We saw this in Warcraft 3 from Tyrande(interestingly a priestess) and it looked awesome. It sounds like this would not be a Volley like AoE, but more like the stars will fall on hostile targets only, not just randomly. Also, the nearby targets bit is a little confusing. It is like if you have like 5 or so targets all grouped within 5 yards, coming at you, it will not only do initial damage to each, but proximity to each other damage? I want to see this!

As you can tell, I have a... few opinions on this specific tree. As you will also notice, there is some changes over in the Resto tree. I have currently 13 points, and that will be lowered to 2. Not only because Improved Mark is changing to 2 points from 5, but I also don't think that the other spells will be that big of a deal in this current tree. I'll spend 2 over there, and save the other 11 for some of the changed, and more of the awesome new stuff coming in Wrath of the Lich King. Stay tuned, eventually, for the Paladin and Hunter tree reviews.