balance-druid-gearing
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Shifting Perspectives: Building a better Insect Swarm for Mists
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or @murmursofadruid. Greetings, druids. Last week we talked about the new changes that had been made to the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator, which held a few good changes for us. This week I want to focus in on two criticisms that I've had growing for a very long time. It's no shock to anyone that reads my column or follows me on Twitter that I abhor the new direction of Insect Swarm. I've talked about this topic before, but I want to discuss it further. Looking into the why In the essence of fairness, I feel that I should go into why it is that I believe Blizzard is tweaking Insect Swarm the way that they are. To start with, Insect Swarm has been an extremely problematic spell ever since it was created. In TBC, it didn't deal enough damage in order to be worth using, the same was even true at the start of WotLK, and it nearly fell off the map again late in the expansion as well. It hasn't been until Cataclysm that Insect Swarm has finally become a sold piece of our rotation, and even now it's still the weaker of the two DoTs.
Shifting Perspectives: A ray of hope for druid shifting and talents in Mists of Pandaria
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or @murmursofadruid. There's nothing I like more than news, especially when it's about upcoming content. Each bite of information that is released offers a new insight into the design direction that Blizzard is taking, which is an extremely touchy subject at the moment. On the horizon is a new expansion, and with it comes the generalized revamping of class design that Blizzard tracks on to each time one of these comes around. With Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard really wants to push druids back to their roots, the roots of shifting that is. Blizzard wants for druids to shift more. It wants us utilizing our various animal forms, talents, and skills instead of the current model where we have a singular form and stick to it -- or at least, that is what Blizzard had originally intended when it first set out designing MoP. Many of the druid community have been rather skeptical of Blizzard's intent, myself included. For us, it seems that this latest batch of updates holds quite the shining ray of hope.
Shifting Perspectives: Are druid abilities getting a trim in Mists of Pandaria?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or @murmursofadruid. Stop the presses, guys! There's eventually at some point in the distant future going to be a new expansion on the horizon for WoW, and in it, Blizzard is going to completely redesign the ability system again. We saw it happen for The Burning Crusade, and then it happened again for Wrath and once more for Cataclysm. Now, it's going to happen again for MoP. Every expansion has come with some amount of trimming of useless abilities (hello, Sentry Totem) and even more so, the addition of new abilities to fill in the missing gaps that classes still have. What about optimizing the abilities that we already have first?
Shifting Perspectives: What balance druid design can take from SWTOR
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or @murmursofadruid. Welcome to a new year, balance druids. It's been a flurry of a holiday season for many folks, although things have been rather quiet on the Blizzard front. In terms of any new information being released, all that we've seen thus far is a minor patch announcement that does hold some good news: Our four-piece tier bonus is getting 10% Starsurge damage tacked on. While this isn't monumental in the sense that it suddenly turns the bonus into a must-have, it's a good boost that was sorely needed. Instead, the major release of the holiday season was the highly anticipated release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I myself have been glad to officially have my hands on. WoW-killer, front-runner MMO of the new year, or potential flop, it's far too soon to tell -- but what is telling is how new game designers approach the MMO genre and what Blizzard can learn as other companies look to emulate its success stories. What then could SWTOR possibly have for balance druids? Quite a bit.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid guide to Dragon Soul, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or @murmursofadruid. And we're back once more! In our last edition, we went into some of the tricks that you can use in order to boost your DPS in the first four encounters of Dragon Soul. This time around, we'll be rounding out the rest of the encounters from the instance. Overall, the second half is a bit more challenging than the first half, both in terms of DPS requirements and raid coordination. This is where you're going to have to push yourself the most, so be prepared to pull out all the stops. Ultraxion You'll need two tanks for Ultraxion, which will taunt off each other as they get Fading Light. There have to be three players who stay out for every Hour of Twilight. These players will have to use heavy damage reduction cooldowns or immunities, or they will die. There are three different crystals that spawn for healers, each that have their own unique buffs to help the raid survive. Let them fight over who gets what.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid guide to Dragon Soul, part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or @murmursofadruid. Overall, the first four bosses of Dragon Soul are a fun lot that focus more on your ability to raid overall and less on your specific capabilities. There is a solid chunk of movement in them, so you should be prepare to deal with that. Practicing how to drop Mushrooms while on the move is a huge asset in this raiding tier. Styling this week's advice after McCurley's 5-second strats, I'll briefly detail the encounter and any tricks that you should know about heading into the game. Keep it simple, after all. Morchok Morchok should be tanked relatively where he stands. After each Blood phase, the tank can just pick him up where ever he happens to end up. No real positioning is needed unless you start to wander too far to the sides. The raid team should all be grouped up within 25 yards of the boss as often as possible. A dedicated group of ranged DPS should run out to every crystal that spawns. You need seven players for this in 25-man. Run and head behind spikes once they've spawned, positioning yourself either between two spikes or just at the side of one so that you can continue to DPS.
Shifting Perspectives: Lunar Shower update and Celestial Alignment
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or @murmursofadruid. Balance druids everywhere are currently rejoicing. Why, might you ask? Well, you see, the Eclipse energy portion of Lunar Shower has finally been removed from the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator. That it took this long is something else entirely, but that isn't even really the point. First, I wish to express a slight personal issue with this revelation. When the Pandaria talent calculators were originally released, it was stated directly that Lunar Shower would be "working differently in the future." While I suppose accurate on the most technical levels, reverting a broken talent to the slightly less broken state that it was already in before it was made worse is not working differently. A bit harsh? To say that Lunar Shower is a broken talent, to suggest that it was always a broken talent? Well, I would apologize or choose better language -- however, this is the case. Lunar Shower has never truly fulfilled the function it was intended to serve, to offer balance druids a mobile DPS option. In defense that the current Lunar Shower on the live servers now is broken, I don't really think I need to put forth much evidence. After all, no one specs into it. Every single guide tells players to avoid it. And there's at least a thread a week complaining about it on the official forums. The issue speaks for itself.
Shifting Perspectives: Patch 4.3 gear list for balance druids
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests for something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or on Twitter @murmursofadruid. Hail, druids, and welcome to the wondrous world of a new patch! This patch didn't hold much for us in the ways of personal meat. We got a wicked-awesome new Hurricane animation and a neat new Wrath one as well, but otherwise, things trudge along as normal with our lot. That's perfectly dandy in my book. We're still going along strong as a solid DPS choice, and things are good. This week I'm dedicating to gearing ourselves up in all of that lovely new content that has just been released. Whether you're a dungeoneer or a hardcore raider, there's tons of new loot to look at, and that's exactly that we're going to do. As a side note, I do have to say that I am super-excited about having patch 4.3. The content so far has been gloriously fun, and though I'm sure I'll change my mind once I've done enough of these heroics to last a lifetime (as with the troll versions of last patch), I'm content to make do with what we have. Let's get to work, shall we?
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid gearing from Firelands
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. A few weeks ago, we talked about the various items that you can get from the new daily quests as well as items that you can get from the new raid faction, all of which are really good things. This week will be about new valor point items and items that you can get from boss drops themselves. While gearing is a little bit different in this expansion than it has been in previous expansions, there is still a little bit of choice and options involved. Before getting started, the first thing that we need to keep in mind is not to forgo items from the previous tier. Tier 11 gear is still really, really good, and if there are slots that you could still use from that raid, then I would highly suggest trying to find ways to go back and get them. Firelands isn't a cakewalk for most guilds out there, so it is important that you gear yourself as best as you possible can. With the change to justice points and the nerf to the actual raid content, it shouldn't be too difficult to get your hands on a lot of the items.
Shifting Perspectives: Building a better AOE balance druid rotation
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Last week, we talked about the fine art of gaming Eclipse, annoying as it might be. To play a balance druid is an excessively fun experience; to try and deal chart topping damage as one is going to leave you pulling out your hair. Although the so-called "skill cap" for balance is prohibitively high, never let it discourage you from actually playing the spec. Getting getting to the high damage part of the spec takes some work, but after time it becomes second nature; tweaking Eclipse to work for you just becomes a habit that you do without thinking. That aside, this week we'll be getting into what's honestly the best part of playing as balance. AOE takes just as much work as balance, but it's a fun type of work and comes with a really sweet pay off. Balance has some of the strongest sustained AOE in the game; now you can enjoy it too.
Shifting Perspectives: Building a better balance druid rotation -- gaming Eclipse
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Out of all of the emails that I get, out of all of the posts that I see on the official forums and other sites, the single most common problem that people have as a balance druid is damage -- which for as a damage-dealing spec only makes sense, right? I mean, it would be a little bit weird if the largest problem we saw from balance druids was that they weren't tanking well enough or something. The thing is, most of these people aren't "bads." More often than not, these aren't people who haven't a clue how to spec, gear, or enchant. They probably do follow the rotation that's listed on the official forums sticky or in one of my guides. All in all, these aren't bad players -- they just can't seem to get something right. Something isn't clicking. Well, let's talk about what that something is.
Shifting Perspectives: Why there are moonkin in the world
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Owlbears, I spend an awful lot of time discussing Eclipse and the various ways that I'm just a little bit unhappy with the system of DPS that we have. To be quite honest, I'm tired. For one day, can't we all just be faceroll arcane mages, casting nothing but Arcane Blast, maybe a Missiles here and there? I'd really like that, really I would. I don't think anything would quite make my day as that would. Alas, it is not to be. The real question is why anyone should bother their pretty little heads playing possibly the fattest characters in WoW. Face it, folks: Moonkin are huge. And despite what some people may have been saying lately, it seems we do have friends -- or at least people who are willing to keep our fluffy feathers around. Which, you know ... I'll take that.
Shifting Perspectives: First look at balance druid tier 12 bonuses
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Right then -- on the off chance that you happened to miss the massive rant that was last week's Shifting Perspectives, made in reaction to the horrible, horrible changes that Blizzard had originally planned for balance ... ,you don't quite have to read it. Actually you should read it, because the reasoning behind the change is still there and Blizzard is going to try something to make it happen, but that specific method is off the table for the time being. There's already a new attempt out, but frankly, I don't think it's worth spending every single week hammering down a new flop on the same tired design. Instead, I think it's rather a good time to take a first little glance at our newest tier set bonuses that were datamined about a week ago. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of datamined information; it's nice to look at, but it can often be incomplete or missing perspective that allows it to make sense. This is a bit different, though; it's spell data pulled straight from Wowhead, so it should be rather spot on. Doesn't mean it's final though, so do keep that in mind.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid gearing and stat break points
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. I think I have said it once before, but I swear I'll end up saying each and every raiding tier: I do not like gear guides, especially best in slot lists. While it is good to have a list of gear that you want and a goal to reach for, aside from Graylo's posts back in Wrath, I have never seen an actual list that is realistic. Yes, it's nice to know what you'll want to have once you've been farming a zone for months, but when you're just starting out, you take what upgrades you can get. Period. More so now with reforging, getting new gear is a huge PITA, and I've yet to see a gear guide that could actually help a player address those issues. I wouldn't ever expect it to; it's unreasonable to make a contengency plan for every single gearing combination possible. Plus, half the slots are always Get the only pair of X that drops in this raid or Get the tier gear. Duh. What I do like, however, is information on gearing. Gearing can be tricky, and it's nice to know some of the ropes so that you can make informed gearing choices. With that in mind, let's talk about gearing.
Shifting Perspectives: PTR 4.0.6, balance and you
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids.This week, I'm going picture hunting. If you happened to send any in last week, chances are I didn't get them. Our emails over here recently changed, and I can now be reached at tyler@wowinsider.com. So send your pics! Okay, okay, so I know that I had originally promised to start doing the raiding guide this week, and I was so totally going to do that, but the information that's currently up on the latest PTR is just too juicy to pass up. Like the mythical GC pony, the raid guide will come next week, I promise. The PTR doesn't hold a lot of information for balance druids overall, but what it does hold is amazingly amazing. (Props to those who know where that one comes from.) There are a few nerfs, and they come in areas where we really needed buffs instead, but there are quite a number of buffs out there as well that can certainly whet the palate. There are also some important profession and general changes that will help everyone, including balance druids. I'm normally not a fan of huge balancing patches such as these that come out so soon after an expansion is released -- rage, what good was beta, and all that -- but at least we are finally getting these changes now. And what changes are those? Oh, why, I'm so glad that you asked.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid pre-raid gear guide
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. If you've been like me and chain running dungeons day in and day out, there are probably a few things that you are ready to wish never existed. Don't worry, I've got a plan to get rid of all those pesky rogues ... Another week, another week. It seems that every week is another week, which I suppose it is. It's all philosophy, of course, which is a topic that I happen to enjoy just about as much as theorycrafting. That is why I also want to start today off with a little bit of both, but in a very light sense. Now that most players have their mains up to level 85, the next grind is for gear in order to enter raids. Gearing is an essential part of the game; in fact, I'd say that half the battle for downing a boss starts before you even make that first pull. As during every new tier of gear released, everyone and their mother makes a best in slot list. I hate BiS lists. Best in slot is highly debatable terminology, and there aren't many cases wherein any one particular item actually fits into that category -- even more so now, with the introduction of mastery and reforging. Generally speaking, an item is only going to be the universal best if it falls into one of two categories. Either that particular item is over-itemized in comparison to similar choices -- it's usually trinkets that fall here -- or there simply aren't any other choice at that item level. When you build a gear set, there really is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. That is why I rarely ever refer to things as being BiS, and that is why I am writing a gear guide and not a BiS list. The other issue I have with BiS lists is that they are highly specific. In many cases, they are only going to work out to be the best if you have all of the items on the list, particularly in respect to hit. That simply isn't always a feasible goal, especially if you run in a 25-man raid and there are multiple items that you have to win over several other people. Philosophy and theory out of the way, let's get start on that gear list, shall we?
Shifting Perspectives: Gearing up your moonkin for Cataclysm
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. Itemization in Cataclysm is changing, and this week we'll be talking about how you can prepare yourself for the oncoming storm. I've talked quite a bit about various changes that are happening with balance druids in the coming expansion: the Eclipse changes, the talent tree changes, Moonkin Form and a slew of other topics as well. One vital change that I have somewhat neglected, however, is that to spellpower and intellect. Blizzard announced many moons ago that, come Cataclysm, the spellpower stat would be completely removed from the game; instead, raw intellect from gear would passively provide spellpower for all classes. The only exception to this rule would be caster weapons, which would still retain pure spellpower as a stat in order to balance the difference between a melee player's gaining strength/agility and weapon DPS versus a caster's simply gaining intellect. Unfortunately, this is a change that's come and gone untouched. As a core concept, removing spellpower to allow intellect to provide the same bonus is a strong change. To start with, it significantly reduces the time required to revamp lower-level quest rewards (despite the fact that most previous low-level quests are gone anyway, and thus, rewards would have had to be redone to a certain degree regardless), given that all of them already have intellect on them yet more often than not lack spellpower. This also allows for more commonality between all of the "base" stats: agility, strength, stamina and intellect (spirit is technically a secondary stat, not a primary stat). In removing spellpower and attack power as well, Blizzard allows for better balancing between spellpower and attack power values. Just as with spellpower, intellect is the new top dog in the caster stat options, especially for balance druids due to Heart of the Wild, Furor and leather armor mastery.
Shifting Perspectives: Gearing a fresh balance druid
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. So that picture has nothing to do with gearing nor balance druids, but it's a priest, on a stack of rocket clusters, and it amuses me. I tried to do it too, but Moonkin are too fat and I brokesded it. Also, there's some shocking revelations in this weeks episode! Stay tuned! I admit it; I'm a bit of an elitist. There, I've said it, please stop hating me now. I talk a lot about balancing this game, the deeper aspects of theorycrafting that drive it, and how to best optimize every aspect of your druid, yet I ignore a much larger portion of the community. I have a tendency to throw out terms and concepts that isn't entirely relevant to a significant portion of WoW players. For example, the discussion of when to limit Moonfire and Insect Swarm from your rotation is a very good one, but it only applies to those druids that are already fairly far along in Icecrown Citadel. While a resource to that portion of the community, it is largely useless to those whom only play mostly on the side, or PuG 10's and 25's when they can get the time. This week, I am going to change that stance. This week, instead of an article that isn't as useful to the more casual faction of players, I'm rallying against the more involved raiders. Fighting the man, raging against the machine, and all that jazz. If you're a raider deep in ICC, then I'll give you permission to stop reading now, because none of this is going to change how you play or raid. If you're not one of those balance druids, or merely have a balance druid alt whom you're a bit wary of playing, then I implore you to keep reading as I hope this can prove to be a solid resource for you. So, you've finally reached the goal that you've been working towards for so long, hitting level 80, or maybe you've been level 80 for a little while now and are just a tad unsure about where to go at this point. Don't worry, reaching level 80 in WoW, especially for the first time, can be a rather daunting experience. The game hasn't ended for you, no, it's just beginning. Level 80 is where everything changes, and you've got to be ready: Torchwood. Okay, maybe not, but I still think we should lock up all the Draenei like Weevels.
