moonkin-druid
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Shifting Perspectives: Moonkin, a history
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we are dusting off those moldy tomes we have stuffed away in our forgotten bookcases. Mold can be deadly, you know! Plus, you know, we might actually read those someday. To start randomly off topic, is anyone else a fan of the show Greek? I was for the first few seasons, but, like most things, I eventually lost interest in the story arcs and characters. As much as I do love some shows, I am exactly like a cat with string and shiny objects. Anyway, if you did ever watch the show Greek, then I'm sure you remember the character Cappie. My college life was quite similar to his. Not at all really. I wasn't in a fraternity, I didn't binge drink every single night and I didn't have horribly complex, awkward and pissy relationship strings. We did have one thing in common, sorta. Cappie was notorious for his line of "I was an X major once" after any insightful comment he actually made. Though I didn't change majors at the drop of a hat, only switched once actually, I did coin a similar phrase during my time. "I dated an X major once" was something I was often heard saying when I made any reference to something outside of my own field; and let's face it, the depths of literary content don't often come up in normal conversation. A brief repose into my past may seeming meaningless, but I swear I have a point to this story. You see, I dated a history major once, so I picked up a few things about the subject. Perhaps that's a lie, given that I don't actually recall any deep form of discourse occurring between us. What I do know is the history of balance druids, though. That's a subject I'm well versed in. As history majors are often noted for saying, at least I've been told they are noted for saying it since I don't recall my history major ever making the comment, "We must understand our past in order to create a better future." Normally I'd call rubbish, but there is a note of wisdom there. It is important to know something past. Even though knowing and the application of knowledge are two entirely different points, I did date a philosophy major after all so I should know, the one thing that history can give us is perspective. With little fanfare, I would like to present to you a CliffsNotes version of the history of balance druids.
Shifting Perspectives: Changing Nature's Grace
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we're heading back into the world of nasty, little over-budget talents bothering balance druids as we fight to save our 1 keys from total disaster. It's been a harsh week in my little corner of the world. Between attempting to get up for work, falling back down to sleep for 5 more hours, taking medications that I can't even pronounce the names of, and several other unpleasant things that have been plaguing me for the past five days; there's been little time for actual coherent thought in my life. So forgive me if this week's article is a little short (I can already hear people cheering) and slightly confusing. I promise to try and make this post as readable as possible, but I am bound to ramble on incoherently at some point; though I'm not entirely sure how that's any different from normal. Last week, Shifting Perspectives took at look at the various possibilities for changing Eclipse. This week, that trend will continue as we explore ways in which or other problem, if less vilified, talent can be adjusted. Yes, folks, I'm talking about Nature's Grace. This long-standing talent that has been a staple in balance builds since WoW was released. Much like Eclipse, Ghostcrawler has already stated that Nature's Grace is high on the list to be changed. Also like Eclipse, many people wonder why Nature's Grace hasn't already been changed as it is so problematic. While Ghostcrawler mentions it's a big deal, many people fail to understand how big of a deal Nature's Grace really is. Nature's Grace is an awesome talent. It is a tad over-budget, but not nearly as much as Eclipse is, and, honestly, having an over-budget talent here or there isn't necessarily a terrible thing in of itself. The only thing that plagues Nature's Grace is how easily it allows for Wrath to be GCD capped. Again, though, this isn't so terrible of a prospect in of itself. After all, this is a mechanic that balance druids have been dealing with since haste was introduced into the game. Wrath ramming into GCD issues like the Titanic hitting an iceberg only became problematic when balance druids also failed to turn just a little to the left during patch 3.2. Prior to patch 3.2, Wrath was maybe only 10% of our overall damage done, so any scaling issues that it had was fairly trivial. When patch 3.2 came around and Wrath jumped from 10% of our damage, or less, to being 40% or more of our damage, the scaling issues became a real problem.
