[Bloodyhealer]

Eclipze said:

it's annoying about that Viper change .

you and ur viper <3

[Stado]

The changes to the druid's Balance tree this push really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The stripping away of all of our unique utility and the mere fact that these talent updates are a buff to Restoration druids more than anything really makes me question what it is that Blizzard has in mind for us boomkin come live. And while the advent of the Burning Crusade saw some magnificent changes to my fine feathered friends, especially in terms of itemization, many (including myself) only saw these changes as a sort of "bringing up to speed" with what most other classes and their various specs were capable of during vanilla WoW. If this is their so-called "polish pass", I woe to think that we'll be left behind more than ever before with the release of the Wrath of the Lich King.

[Nymrohd]

I think that moonkins currently can provide more raid buffs than anyone else in the beta. Ofc if they go for all those talents they have to skip dps talents, but this is a general issue with homogenous raid buffs (the fact that several people in the raid will have wasted talent points on raid buffs that someone else can provide that particular raid night).

[Eclipze]

Bloodyhealer said:

you and ur viper <3

I know, right! How dare they force me to conform to their expectations!

[Stado]

Nymrohd said:

I think that moonkins currently can provide more raid buffs than anyone else in the beta. Ofc if they go for all those talents they have to skip dps talents, but this is a general issue with homogenous raid buffs (the fact that several people in the raid will have wasted talent points on raid buffs that someone else can provide that particular raid night).

That's my point. Since Balance druids have so many [raid] buffs, all of which are shared by another class/spec (sans MotW and Thorns), there's really no reason to bring a boomkin to a 25-man raid at the moment.

Shadow priests have Misery, which is at least three times better than Improved Faerie Fire due to it always being up and not having to waste a global cooldown (i.e. DPS) to keep it that way. Elemental shamans have Totem of Wrath (as well as three other totems), which is just downright better than Moonkin Aura, no question about it. There's also a Retribution paladin's Swift Retribution talent, which, quite frankly, only compounds their massive and unique utility. Let's not even talk about the new Earth and Moon. In fact, if I have to tell anyone why this last one was both a major nerf and a slap in the face to Balance druids everywhere, they don't know squat about this game or the spec.

Now, since any 25-man raid is conceivably already going to have a Shadow priest, Retribution paladin, Elemental shaman, and a warlock (any warlock) because of their own comprehensive raid-wide buffs and utility come WotLK, what's the point in brining a Balance druid? I mean, their individual DPS will certainly be lacklustre as best, what with an absolute lack of talents to boost said DPS, so it's not like they're rogues in that regard (certainly not). Earth and Moon was actually suppose to be our only new DPS boost, but now it's currently been relegated to near uselessness when it comes to the raiding scene, utterly diminishing what gains we might have seen from it.

P.S. Keep in mind, my opinion comes from what I see before me. I'm well aware that things can and likely will change before WotLK goes live. It's just that, when looking at how things have gone thus far, the situation certainly looks grim.

[Hanoumatoi]

I was at PAX and got a chance to hop on a Beta Server for a bit.

Sword and Board does not currently refresh the cooldown of Shield Slam, and did not seem to be proccing at 15%, but I can't confirm the latter, as it was a small sample size.

It did not feel as though it would be "worth it" at the moment, but hopefully I'll have a chance to try it again once it's fixed.