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I am focused on tanking an awful lot right now. It's just a part of the game we think needs some help. It's certainly not the only part that needs help, but it's what I'm doing and I tend to post a lot so you see a lot of discussion about tanking. I actually appreciate the Balance community a lot because somehow you guys manage to stay fairly positive even though you have not gotten the attention you deserve (either from blue posts now or all throughout BC). I started to go through your tree in more detail today so I understand why you think there are too many mandatory talents, and I promise to get back to that soon.
What do we want balance to be able to do? What's your role? You're a caster. Surprise, I know. But we think we didn't always give you the tools to be a good caster before. You need:
* Competitive dps. Mages and warlocks just tend to get a lot of attention, maybe because there are more of them, or more races of them, or they are more archetypal classes (in the familiarity sense).
* Good AE utility. Encounters and dungeons tend to get designed with the assumption that the ranged dps can do AE. Hurricane is phenomenal now. I healed a run today and did really competitive dps with Hurricane on the ranged pulls. And I wasn't even Balance! I love Starfall. It's a rare spell because it feels new -- it isn't single target and it isn't classical Hurricane-style AE either.
* CC. If a group has a choice between a druid and a mage and only the mage can CC, the decision gets a lot easier. With Entangling Roots used inside, problem solved.
* Group utility. I think deep balance provides that now. Even Insect Swarm and Faerie Fire have a better role now. Without the vicious cycle of Curse of Shadows buffing warlocks which lead to inviting more warlocks somewhat solved, I think it will be easier for Balance druids to get into raids regardless. We've just opened space for more classes now.
* The ability to keep causing damage. I think the oomkin thing was largely addressed in BC, but it's still something we need to keep an eye on, or at least try and banish the stigma that other players still think it has.
So that's it for role. Beyond that, what I think Balance needed was a means not to go insane by mashing the same buttons all the time. My favorite talent for attempting to solve this is Eclipse. Eclipse almost by itself "saved" Balance for me. Several times I tried going Balance in Classic and BC and just couldn't do it. But Eclipse is fun just because sometimes you want to Wrath and sometimes you want to Starfire. Improved Insect Swarm starts to get at this kind of mixed up of rotations too, and even the haste benefit from Moonkin a little as well.
Those are my thoughts. I don't think Balance is done yet by any stretch, but I don't hesitate to go Balance in a dungeon or raid now, which actually says quite a lot. I think the designers have done a good job with the tree so far. (Source)
What do we want balance to be able to do? What's your role? You're a caster. Surprise, I know. But we think we didn't always give you the tools to be a good caster before. You need:
* Competitive dps. Mages and warlocks just tend to get a lot of attention, maybe because there are more of them, or more races of them, or they are more archetypal classes (in the familiarity sense).
* Good AE utility. Encounters and dungeons tend to get designed with the assumption that the ranged dps can do AE. Hurricane is phenomenal now. I healed a run today and did really competitive dps with Hurricane on the ranged pulls. And I wasn't even Balance! I love Starfall. It's a rare spell because it feels new -- it isn't single target and it isn't classical Hurricane-style AE either.
* CC. If a group has a choice between a druid and a mage and only the mage can CC, the decision gets a lot easier. With Entangling Roots used inside, problem solved.
* Group utility. I think deep balance provides that now. Even Insect Swarm and Faerie Fire have a better role now. Without the vicious cycle of Curse of Shadows buffing warlocks which lead to inviting more warlocks somewhat solved, I think it will be easier for Balance druids to get into raids regardless. We've just opened space for more classes now.
* The ability to keep causing damage. I think the oomkin thing was largely addressed in BC, but it's still something we need to keep an eye on, or at least try and banish the stigma that other players still think it has.
So that's it for role. Beyond that, what I think Balance needed was a means not to go insane by mashing the same buttons all the time. My favorite talent for attempting to solve this is Eclipse. Eclipse almost by itself "saved" Balance for me. Several times I tried going Balance in Classic and BC and just couldn't do it. But Eclipse is fun just because sometimes you want to Wrath and sometimes you want to Starfire. Improved Insect Swarm starts to get at this kind of mixed up of rotations too, and even the haste benefit from Moonkin a little as well.
Those are my thoughts. I don't think Balance is done yet by any stretch, but I don't hesitate to go Balance in a dungeon or raid now, which actually says quite a lot. I think the designers have done a good job with the tree so far. (Source)
Now this is stuff I wanted to hear! While I do love the balance changes, I did feel like there just seemed too much "Must have" but the fact that they are still planning on taking a good hard look at us, what else can I say but "YAY!"