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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: 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: First look at tier 13 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 something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Welcome back, druids! Last week, we started the discussion on how to properly read and review your World of Logs parses in order to spot any places where you might be having issues. While I would like to complete that series, recent events rather pushed that back for the moment. In case you aren't in the know for some strange reason, Blizzard has released patch 4.3 onto the PTR and with it, a slew of new information. For good or ill, there hasn't been any balance druid information as of yet. Druids for the most part remained pretty much untouched, with the only spec seeing any changes being a minor restoration nerf. We have, however, seen the set bonuses for the upcoming tier 13, and that alone is enough to worry about. Normally, I'm rather passive when it comes to set bonuses; they are bonuses, after all. While some might be weak or strong, generally sets are pretty well balanced. This time around, though? I'm left with my head scratching to figure out what Blizzard was thinking. Let's take a look at why.
Shifting Perspectives: Reviewing World of Logs parses, 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 something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Greetings, druids. This week, I'll be pulling out an email request for the discussion topic, which is great as we wait for more 4.3 information. There's always tons of requests by players for others to review their damage because they don't quite measure up to where they think that they should be. While there are guides a-plenty all across the internet, one of things often not mentioned is how to make these reviews yourself. Asking for help is a great step, but as the adage goes, it is often better to teach a man to fish rather than to merely give him one. What am I talking about? Reading through damage reports, of course! We always talk about how to deal damage and what you should be doing, but we all know that encounters are chaotic. Even the best of us can't hold to what's technically the best option in any given situation. To that end, we'll be discussing those things to look out for in log reports in order to determine where it might be that you might having a few slip-ups. Hold on to your hats -- this one is going to be a thrill! Disclaimer: While there are multiple sites out there designed to track this form of data, we'll be focusing exclusively on World of Logs. Finding many of the items that you need can be hidden in different parts of different sites; WoL holds everything that you need and in easy-to-find locations. If you use another site, you may have to look in different locations for the information you need.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid feedback
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 something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Early on in the week, Blizzard started threads in each of the class forums on the official website asking for players to provide feedback regarding their classes and specs in preparation for 4.3 and the next expansion. For any of you who have not yet posted, I highly encourage you to go do so. No matter how late it may seem or how buried among the pages your post might end up, Blizzard representatives will be reading those threads, and it is the absolute best opportunity for you to let the development team know how it is you feel. They expected that these threads would grow to a vast size; they're prepared to handle the volume of feedback and report their findings. I, too, have posted in that thread, stating what it is I think and feel about balance druids. In doing so, however, I felt that I was rather limited by the system in which I was posting. Writing for balance druids every week, it's obvious that I've got a lot to say about the spec, so attempting to cram all those thoughts into a condensed forum post was difficult. This week, I'd like to take the opportunity to expand upon the feedback I provided, and invite you once again to go and leave your own.
Shifting Perspectives: Avoid these common balance druid mistakes
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 something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Welcome back, my little space turkeys. It's been a fun couple of weeks here recently with all sorts of nothing announced for us. Despite Blizzard's new plan to be speedy like the rabbit, it doesn't quite seem to have gotten a handle on what that actually means. Information about the next patch in slow in the making, and all that we have gotten so far hasn't really been of any use to us here in constantly-in-the-shape-of-a-fat-mutant-chicken-form-land. Shouldn't complain, I suppose. It could be worse -- it could be raining. Oh wait ... it is raining. This week, in light of the dreary New England mood that's been permeating my area for the past few days, we'll be going over some of the common mistakes that balance druids make (and sometimes those who think they know balance druids). I'm not entirely sure how the weather is related to this topic, but I promise you, the correlation is there. Prepare for a mildly exciting read that's also rather informative -- like a science textbook only better, and it doesn't cost you several hundred dollars.
Shifting Perspectives: DOT changes 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 your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Oh druids, my lovely little space chickens, I am frankly at a loss. I am at the end of my rope, so to speak. For a while there, I thought I had Blizzard all figured now -- but now? Now, the developers are throwing curve balls left and right, and I just don't know what's going on any more. Things are changing. They want to change something ... But what is it that they are looking to change? We've all seen the previous changes that attempted to break our multi-DOTing and the random running around in a Solar Eclipse spamming Sunfire. Shortly thereafter (probably due to the numerous reports that the system was absolutely terrible, by all accounts), it was changed once again. Now I don't know what it is that Blizzard is attempting to break anymore, and I don't even feel like guessing. Don't believe me? Take a look.
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: A first look at balance druids in patch 4.2
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 your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. If you keep tabs on the goings-on in the WoW world, then you probably know by now that the initial notes for the upcoming raid patch 4.2 have already been released. While 4.0.6 was supposed to be the large rebalancing patch for Cataclysm and many classes didn't see any significant changes during 4.1, it seems as though Blizzard may have broken down and changed course for this next installment. There isn't yet much information released in the current patch notes, and most classes aren't seeing any changes as of yet, but balance druids are certainly looking at something that is going to vastly shake up their current playstyle. This is the earliest release of the PTR, and things are probably going to change, but one thing about the PTR is that feedback needs to be given, no matter how absurd or unlikely the change might be.
Shifting Perspectives: How to make the switch to balance
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. It's another glorious patch week. Patch 4.1 had a few major balancing changes, but a majority of them were to address specs that were a little low or weak in certain areas. Balance druids, although taking a hit, didn't have too much going on for them this time around. Rather understandable -- we're in a good place damage-wise, and this patch was more a focus on new content and features anyway. Instead of spending gross amounts of time rattling on about such small things, I thought this would be a good time to address a question that I get asked pretty frequently. Cataclysm brought about a lot of changes, both to healing and DPS. Each player reacted differently to the new design, and there are many restoration druids out there who find they just aren't quite happy with the way things are for them any more. And I mean, who could blame them? They have to be trees -- who wants to be a tree? Trees are boring. The natural thing to do is to flow into balance; the gear is kind-of-sort-of the same, anyway. So how is it done? Well, I guess that's what I'm here for.
Shifting Perspectives: Total Eclipse, 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 your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Eclipse is probably a rather worn topic for many balance druids. People love it, people hate it. The new design is great, the new design is terrible. It's too mathy, it doesn't function well in PvP, it's too gamey. There are a lot of positive and negative things that can be said about Eclipse. No matter your side of the fence, there are always attempts to improve upon Eclipse, to make it more viable for PvP or less annoying in PvE. A fair warning, as I attempt to deconstruct both the Eclipse system itself and the common suggestions that arise: It will be impossible to avoid all math. Theorycrafting may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I promise to keep it as minimal and easy-to-understand as I possibly can -- for both our sakes.
Shifting Perspectives: Addons and UI tips 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 your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. As you read this, I will be stalking the home territory of my mortal enemy: Fox Van Allen. I cannot give you my exact location, as I don't wish to divulge information which the vile shadow priests might use to ferret me out and prevent my mission, but know that I plan on striking a decisive blow against them at some point. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe later on; you never know, but do know that it's to come. In preparation for my little excursion, I've been going about the business of revamping my UI. It happens from time to time; everyone needs a change here and there. Plus, new mods are released, while some die by the wayside or are upgraded in ways that just don't suit to taste, so there's always something that can be done to tweak it up. Since I was digging through the vaults of Curse and Ace, I realized I hadn't done a new addon update for Cataclysm, and things have certainly changed since then.
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: Balance druid talents and the illusion of choice
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 lazer turkey! Questions, comments, or something you'd like to see? Email tyler@wowinsider.com. I often wonder how many people still remember beta. I mean, people will sometime reference beta now and again, but I often wonder how many people really remember everything that even just their own class or spec went through. For balance, one of the larger issues that we had was one of talent choices. The talent spec then was excessively bland. There was no choice, no variation, only the single option. Balance has changed since then -- quite a great deal, in fact -- yet how much of a choice is there within our talent choices? How much of a difference does choosing the "right" or "wrong" talents really make in our performance? There are lots of variables to choose from, but how much of them are actually a choice and how much of them aren't truly an option?
Shifting Perspectives: Entering The Bastion of Twilight as a balance druid
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 lazer turkey! Questions, comments, or something you'd like to see? Email tyler@wowinsider.com. And so it finally comes to an end -- or rather, a beginning. If you have been following my strange tangent, then you would already know that we have tackled Cho'gall and his devoted Council, leaving only the first two guardians left. In comparison to the end bosses, the first two encounters can be a bit hit or miss depending upon your raid composition. As always, certain encounters are easier in 10-man than 25-man, while some are actually more challenging in 10s. Whichever raiding style you choose to run with, both are going to have a running head start in this instance -- they have you! Balance druids are a force to be reckoned with in PvE right now. There are very few niches that we cannot fill, and our utility is rather useful during this tier. So, let's show these beasties a good what for.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druids vs. the Twilight Ascendant Council
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 lazer turkey! Questions, comments, or something you'd like to see? Email tyler@wowinsider.com. Greetings, most beloved druids. I find myself in an unfortunate circumstance this week in that I am slightly under the weather, which may be a bit of an understatement -- but I refuse to believe I am actually sick. So if the article is a bit more light or difficult to understand this week, then I do apologize in advance. My medication is being a little harsh on me. Personal issues out of the way, last week's column saw the fall of the exalted Cho'gall. Continuing with our strange, backwards running of the instance, this week brings us against the Twlight Ascendant Council, a rather vicious combination of elemental lords that will do anything it takes to prevent you from reaching their master. Prepare yourself for a rather difficult encounter with this one, folks, and the best of luck to you all. It's dangerous out there alone, so take a friend -- I'm all out of kittens.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druids vs. Cho'gall
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 lazer turkey! Cho'gall? The ending? But where is the beginning? Oh, you silly druids, why do anything in sequential order? That's so ... 2010. It's a new year, a time to do things differently! And I say that we start by going backwards through an instance. Yeah, yeah, I know, not really that exciting, but bear with me on this one; I promise it will be an epic adventure of grand proportions. This introduction is going to have to be cut a little bit short. Before going into boss information, there are a few unmentioned changes from the patch that need a quick review.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance in Throne of the Four Winds
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. This week, we'll fight a giant blob of wind ... or air ... or something like that. It'll be totally awesome guys -- I promise! Greetings once again, my druidic companions! In the previous weeks, we valiantly struggled once again to end the life of two of Deathwing's children. It wasn't an easy victory, to be sure. This week, we put ourselves against a new foe: the elemental lord of air Al'Akir. The elemental lords have always been quite chaotic in nature, once serving as a part of the Old Gods' armies when they ruled Azeroth. It comes as no surprise, then, that the wind king (much like the fire lord) has thrown his lot in with Deathwing. On a side note, I think this creates the perfect opportunity to bring up why this proves that druids are vastly superior to shaman. Sure, both groups may harbor some control over the natural forces of the world, but the shaman rely upon the elements in order to perfect their art. These elements are quite fickle. Oh sure, they can beg and plead to have the elements bless them, but what do they do when the elements say "no"? Druids don't have this weakness. We control nature itself; we are the rightful caretakers of this world. Personally, I say the next war should be between the Cenarion Circle and the Earthen Ring. We've pretty much fought against all of the elemental lords in one form or another; I think it's high time we targeted the root of the problem. I'm just sayin'.
Shifting Perspectives: Raiding late Blackwing Descent as a balance druid
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. This week, we'll be mopping up our adventures into a dragon's lair. That's always a fun task ... assuming you don't get eaten. Remember, you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup, so be careful. Welcome back to another week of basking in the glory of being an overweight hybrid space create that probably belongs in a zoo. Love me some Moonkin and all, but, let's face it people, we're a tad on the fantastical side; and I don't just mean the fact that we shoot crazy green balls of something that only the flying spaghetti monster knows what. In case you missed it, last week's part 1 of Blackwing Descent can be found here. As an aside, I should say that I am stoked to be a raiding balance druid for the first time in the history of WoW. It was a blessing to be one of only a handful of balance druids raiding back in vanilla, but I always felt that I was really only there because the guild liked me as a player and to prove that it could still be done. TBC was an improvement, but it was never about damage then; we were just group buff bots that offered an increase in group damage while only being mediocre ourselves. Wrath got a lot better where balance was finally recognized for the damage that it could pump out, but we never really had a moment in the sun where we were considered to be a powerhouse DPS spec to the point that a guild felt they were missing something by not having us. Now though? Now I cannot fathom to be a guild without a balance druid, and it's even worth it to have two sometimes! Our damage is more than acceptable; we're far more viable than we ever have been for raiding, and I love it. So let's talk about downing some bosses, shall we?
