Patch 3.1: Speccing Resto and Balance

So, when is 3.1 going to arrive? The current tea leaves are a bit mixed. It feels fairly close, as the PTR builds haven't seen major changes lately. We heard yesterday that Arena Season 5 will end on 14 April, and Noblegarden is currently scheduled to start 12 April (though they will delay it if needed).

The Arena season info is dispositive for me. I can't imagine they'll drop 3.1 on 7 April, with so many talent and balance changes, just for the last week of the arena season. That to me says that 14 April is the most likely date for the patch. That would probably delay Noblegarden by a week, starting it on 19 April. We'll see if that's how it plays out. It's also possible that it will be even later, but Children's Week is supposed to start 1 May, and they're unlikely to overlap the two holidays.

So, we've probably got a couple weeks to get ready for the patch. I've spent a little time on the PTR. I haven't done any raiding there yet, so I don't have a firm opinion yet on how much the regen and Lifebloom changes will hurt. Still, I picked provisional specs for both Resto and Balance, based on talent changes.

Resto in 3.1

Here is the 11/0/60 spec I'm considering:


This is a raid-focused, mana-conservative spec. I'm worried about running out of mana, so I put 4 points into Tranquil Spirit. If mana turns out to be OK, I might steal those points back and put them elsewhere.

One place I didn't put points is into Nature's Grace. I've written about this before, but after reflecting a bit I think its value is a bit less for Resto druids than the previous flat .5 sec savings. To take advantage of the buff, you'll have to react to the NG proc quickly to cast a couple non-instant spells. But we do a lot of healing with instant-cast spells, which don't benefit, and they will use up the 3-sec buff. Also, I believe Nourish won't play nicely with this either, as the faster cast time will just bump up against the GCD. (I need to confirm this on the PTR.)

I put a total of 6 points into Living Seed and Revitalize, even though I'm not completely sure of their utility yet. For now though, I'll take the talents and see how much difference they make. Living Seed I feel better about, as the change to reflect overhealing will really help, and I think Nourish in particular will be a bigger part of our healing. Revitalize is a difficult talent to evaluate, but the addition of Wild Growth should make a big difference. If it goes well, this should actually bring a slight DPS increase to your raid.

If I pulled points out of Tranquil Spirit, Living Seed, or Revitalize, I'd be inclined to put them back into Natural Perfection, Empowered Touch, or possibly Nature's Grace. I would grab Improved Tranquility if I was doing 5-man heroics or PvP, and I'd definitely grab Natural Perfection and Improved Barkskin in a PvP build.

Balance in 3.1

Here is the 68/0/3 spec I'll probably use:


First, note that this is not a pure raiding spec. I expect to use this for a combination of raiding, battleground/Wintergrasp PvP, and solo questing. So I've taken a wide range of talents that won't help much with raiding. This spec will certainly do decent DPS, but if you really want to maximize your raid DPS, you'll need to look at your gear and the other players in your raid. Based on that you can decide whether talents like Improved Faerie Fire are useful.

So based on my desire for versatility, I've taken just about everything in the Balance tree. I took both IFF and Balance of Power, but these might be droppable if either I assume I won't be raiding as DPS, or if I collect enough Hit on my gear. (I should have plenty of hit for Heroics, even without these talents.) On the other hand, Eclipse is only really useable on longer fights, so if I were to stick to PvP and/or soloing, I'd probably shed those 3 points. Owlkin Frenzy is another talent I might sacrifice, particularly if I wasn't concerned with PvP.

If I pulled those points back, I'd put them into the Resto tree. The goal would be to build into Master Shapeshifter via more points in Furor, Improved Mark of the Wild, and Natural Shapeshifter. I'd also look at Intensity if mana is an issue.

So there are a couple provisional specs for 3.1. The big wild card in both specs is mana viability. Some of that can be theorycrafted, but a lot will depend on how the raids play out in both fight design and raid membership (particularly for 10-man). I can't promise that these will be the best specs, but I'm fairly confident that they'll provide a good starting point.

T8 set bonuses

I know Lifebloom, regen changes, and dual specs have occupied my attention with patch 3.1. But there's a ton of other stuff going on and some is very interesting. I saw the T8 set bonuses today on MMO-Champion and they're pretty sweet.

DISCLAIMER: All subject to change of course! So don't assume this stuff will really happen. But it's cool enough to think about anyway.

Tier 8 of course will be the new sets that come from Heroic Ulduar. They have an iLvl of 226, compared to 213 for heroic Naxx/OS and normal Ulduar, or 200 for normal Naxx/OS. But the set bonuses are exciting:

T8 Feral Druid

2 pieces: The periodic damage dealt by your Rake, Rip, and Lacerate abilites has a chance to cause you to enter a Clearcasting state.
4 pieces: Increases the duration of Savage Roar and Survival Instinct by 8 sec.

I don't know feral well enough to give a full analysis here. But the Clearcasting proc seems like it could be fairly powerful, depending on how often it procs. Free abilities are pretty cool. The 4pc duration increase isn't sexy but it has punch. For Savage Roar, it depends on how long a combo point cycle takes. If it allows you one more 5-pt finishing move before you have to reapply Savage Roar, that will be a sizeable buff for cats. For bears, adding 40% duration to Survival Instinct sounds like a big enhancement for a major panic button.

T8 Balance Druid

2 pieces: Increases the bonus granted by Eclipse for Starfire and Wrath by 6%.
4 pieces: Each time your Insect Swarm deals damage, you have a chance to make your next Starfire cast within until cancelled instant.

As of WotLK, a big question for Moonkin is how to manage your Eclipse procs. Do it well, and your DPS goes way up. The 2pc bonus really rewards skilled Moonkin with a 6% buff to the talent, which is great. The 4pc bonus could really multiply that even further, depending on the proc chance. If you get a few instant-cast Starfires in your rotation, that's huge. If you can work in 1-2 extra instant Starfires while under Eclipse, that's immense. It also sounds like a fun mechanic to work with. I hope it has a distinctive sound and/or a nice visual effect when it procs.

T8 Restoration Druid

2 pieces: Increases the healing done by your Swiftmend spell by 10%.
4 pieces: Your Rejuvenation spell also instantly heals your target for its periodic healing amount.

The 2pc bonus here is both boring and useful. I have to admit that I'm not great at using Swiftmend, and I need to do more to work it into my rotation. But it's a great spell, and buffing it by a straight 10% is fairly big. Now, the 4pc bonus is slightly vague to me, but it really sounds like it gives Rejuv an instant heal in addition to its HoT component. Really? Because that would be amazing! If Rejuv becomes an instant-cast mini-Regrowth, then you've got a damn powerful tool at your hands. It could be useful for tank healing, but it would make Rejuv the hands-down best option for raid healing, no question.

Edit: Tree Bark Jacket confirms this as an instant heal for a single tick of Rejuv. That makes a lot of sense but not a "mini-Regrowth". That's still a fairly powerful ability however; Rejuv ticks are sizeable and usually the first one is 3s away.

The only thing depressing about these set bonuses is how difficult they'll be to acquire. I haven't looked yet but it's clear that some tokens are going to drop from some difficult bosses. So, getting to your 4 piece bonus won't be trivial. Of course you want great gear to be hard to get, there's nothing wrong with that. But some of these bonuses — Resto, in particular — can really change the way you play. It seems odd to give game-changing abilities to such a small percentage of Druids.

Switching to Balance: Stacking Hit

Last time out I posted about key Balance stats, and in particular hit rating. If you've read that, you know why Hit is important.

Suppose you're a resto druid who's decided to switch to Balance. Maybe you've got Naxx on farm now, so you need fewer healers. Or maybe patch 3.1 has arrived and you want Balance as a second spec. Either way, your Resto gear in general will do pretty well for Balance. The exception is Hit Rating. You'll want to stack up some hit to do good DPS as a Moonkin.

To stack up some hit, take a look at your weakest current gear pieces. Try to replace those with some easy-to-find gear with hit rating on it. There's quite a bit out there that you can get rather quickly.

Balance gear: pieces with Hit Rating and Spellpower
Purchasable, quest reward, or 5-man drops; 187 <= iLvl <= 200

Slot	Name	Source	Cost	Hit Rating
Head	Hat of Wintry Doom	Crafted	~300g	44
Head	Titan-forged Leather Helm of Dominance	Wintergrasp MoH	40	44
Neck	Necklace of Taldaram	Drop - OK (H)		43
Neck	Chain of Latent Energies	AH - BoE drop (Naxx)	~3000g	34
Neck	Hateful Gladiator's Pendant of Ascendancy	PvP - honor	38000	34
Neck	Encircling Burnished Gold Chains	EoH	25	25
Back	Hateful Gladiator's Cloak of Ascendancy	PvP - honor	38000	34
Back	Dark Solider Cape	Rep: Revered - Ebon Blade		29
Back	Cape of Seething Steam	Drop - HoL (N)		29
Back	Shroud of Akali	Quest - Gundrak (N)		24
Chest	Ebonweave Robe	Crafted	~1500g	68
Chest	Water-Drenched Robe	Drop - VH (H)		62
Chest	Robes of Lightning	Quest - HoL		55
Hands	Ebonweave Gloves	Crafted	~750g	51
Hands	Lava Burn Gloves	Quest - VH (N)		36
Waist	Girdle of Bane	Drop - UP (H)		48
Waist	Belt of Unified Souls	Drop - CoS (H)		42
Waist	Sash of the Wizened Wyrm	Rep: Honored - Wyrmrest		40
Waist	Plush Sash of Guzbah	EoH	40	33
Waist	Flowing Sash of Order	Drop - HoL (H)		31
Feet	Titan-forged Boots of Dominance	Wintergrasp MoH	15	36
Finger	Ring of Northern Tears	Crafted	~300g	31
Finger	Voodoo Signet	Quest - Gundrak		24
1H Wep	Flameheart Spell Scalpel	Rep: Revered - Kirin Tor		34
2H Wep	Grand Staff of Jordan	Stone Keepers Shard	325	68
2H Wep	Chilly Slobberknocker	Quest - ZD		50
Offhand	Telestra's Journal	Drop - Nexus (H)		39
Offhand	Ward of the Violet Citadel	EoH	25	38

Note: The [Deadly Gladiator's Focus Staff] also has hit, but it's a fairly difficult arena item (1930 rating required). Wowhead also lists Hateful and Savage versions of the Focus Staff, but I can't find any other reference that they exist in-game.

Don't be afraid to lose some Spellpower or other stats in favor of hit. A spell that misses does 0 damage regardless of how much SP you're stacking. And how much Hit will you need? Check out the WoWWiki article for a full breakdown. Assuming you have 2/2 points in Balance of Power and no other buffs:

• Heroics: 53 Hit (0 with IFF up)
  
• Raids: 342 Hit (263 with IFF up)

For raids in particular, it's unlikely that you'll have no other buffs, so 342 is probably more hit rating than you'll need in most situations.

Balance gear weights, revisited

This is another followup to my post on stat weights for trees and Moonkin. Last time out I dug deeper into Resto stats, and I wanted to do the same for Balance.

Here are my current Balance weights:

Balance weights:
Spellpower:   12.1
Hit:          11.3
MP5:          10.0
Crit:          6.3
Haste:         5.7
Intellect:     3.8
Spirit:        1.5
Socket-Red:  230.0
Socket-Yel:  140.0
Socket-Blue: 140.0
Socket-Meta: 360.0

Most of the stats are similar to what Resto needs, so I'm not going to revisit everything I talked about last time.

Hit Rating
The one big addition is Hit Rating. This used to be "spell hit" but this was merged with melee hit along with all the other stat normailzation that came with 3.0.2. It's a confusing stat. The WoWWiki article has a comprehensive definition. But the stat stems from the fact that there is a static % chance for your spells to miss, based on the level difference between you and the boss you're fighting, as follows:

Boss type  Level  Base % chance to miss
Heroic      82           6%
Raid        83          17%

To look at it another way, without hit rating, your DPS will go down 6% against Heroic bosses and 17% against raid bosses. That's huge!

This miss chance is reduced by talents and debuffs. Moonkin should always take 2 points in Balance of Power, which cuts that miss chance by 4%. Furthermore, Improved Faerie Fire will increase your hit chance by 3%. (There are buffs from other classes that help with this too.)

Even with those in effect, your miss chance on raid bosses is still 10%. That's why you need Hit Rating. The goal is to reduce your miss chance to 0%. >WoWWiki has a complete analysis, but generally the magic number for a Druid with Balance of Power and IFF will be 263 hit rating.

Hit rating has a hard cap: once you have enough to reduce your miss chance to 0%, more hit has zero benefit. That's why it's a funny stat to weight: it's hugely important until you hit your cap, but more is worthless. But adding Hit can increase your DPS by 10%, with no other improvements; that's a huge benefit.

Other Stats
Otherwise, your Balance stats are very similar to Resto. In general, MP5 and Spirit are worth less, because mana regen is somewhat less important. DPS can stop casting for a few seconds if necessary, in order for mana to regen. Healers generally don't have that option. Intellect also adds Spellpower through Lunar Guidance, raising the overall importance of Intellect.

Crit Rating and Haste are much more important for Moonkin. Every damage spell you cast, except Insect Swarm, has a chance to crit. That's a huge increase to your damage, so you want a good bit of Crit on your gear. Crits also have knock-on effects: they will speed your cast times through Nature's Grace, and to regen mana through Moonkin form. (Increased crit chance also adds to the value of Intellect for Moonkin.)

Unlike Resto, most of your spells (notably Wrath and Starfire) have significant cast times. Haste helps with that. Haste also reduces the time for a full channel of Hurricane, landing its full damage over a shorter time. So Haste Rating will increase your DPS quite a bit.

So to summarize: Moonkin need Hit Rating, probably up to 263 total. They want more Intellect, Haste, and Crit than the trees do, but less Spirit. MP5 is also not as important.

But having said that, your Resto gear is not bad balance gear at all. If you respec from Resto to Balance, you can start with your Resto gear and you'll do OK. The most important thing when you switch is to look for Hit Rating. I'll add a post soon with easy sources of Hit Rating gear.

Evaluating Druid Gear - weights for Moonkin and Trees

I wrote up an earlier post on ranking resto and balance gear. I want to talk about the tools I use to rank gear, and also the specific numbers I use for those rankings.

Ranking tools

Easy: Wowhead and Lootrank
The easiest ranking tool is Wowhead. In fact, it's built in. I wrote a whole post on ranking items in Wowhead. Here for example is the list of leather helms ranked by Resto value. I do not agree with the default Wowhead rankings -- they vastly overvalue MP5 and Spirit relative to the other stats. (More on the values in a moment.) But you can edit in your own values — click on Show Details and then enter the values you'd rather use.

The alternative is to use Lootrank. It's similar to Wowhead, but gives you somewhat better filtering options, and the capability to save your weights. I use a combination of both tools.

Detailed: Spreadsheet
The most detailed way to rank gear is with a spreadsheet. You can put items into it and do the math based on your weights to rank the various items. Here's a sample from my spreadsheet, showing the ranks I put on helms:



The spreadsheet is great because you can cut out extraneous items, only listing what you want to see. But it's a lot of work; you'll end up copying data from Wowhead. I do it anyway because I can print out a copy and keep it next to my computer. It's especially great for tracking what BoH items I want to buy, or what Heroic to run for any needed upgrades.

In-game: Pawn
The best way to evaluate gear in-game is the Pawn addon. It will show your relative values directly in item tooltips. This is hugely valuable when gear drops. You can look at what you have and what dropped, compare the two numbers, and get a quick gauge of whether something is an upgrade or not. I definitely recommend using a bit of sense with this too; for example, if the upgrade is minimal, it's probably not worth the expense of adding new enchants and gems. Still, Pawn definitely makes your gear choices easier.

Ranking weights

OK, so those are the tools you use. What are the weights you should use?

I wrote a whole post about this early in WotLK, which took a very rough look at gear evaluation. I've been using that basic approach, but with more refined values.

Resto (Tree) stat weights
For resto I'm still using the weights I ninja'd from this EJ post. I rounded those a bit, and did some adjusting for the gem values, giving me the following:

Resto weights:
MP5:          10.0
Spellpower:    9.4
Intellect:     5.8
Spirit:        5.1
Haste:         2.9
Crit:          2.0
Socket-Red:  180.0
Socket-Yel:  130.0
Socket-Blue: 110.0
Socket-Meta: 320.0

Pawn string:
( Pawn: v1: "Resto PvE": Intellect=5.8, RedSocket=180.0, CritRating=2.0, ColorlessSocket=180.0, MetaSocket=320.0, HasteRating=2.9, BlueSocket=110.0, YellowSocket=130.0, SpellPower=9.4, Spirit=5.1, Mp5=10 )

Balance (Moonkin) stat weights:
I did a bit more research here — mostly because I didn't like the Moonkin values I saw in the EJ thread.

With all specs your weights should really change as your gear changes. That's even more important with a stat like Hit: it's very important until you reach the cap, but after that it's not very valuable. So for Balance I took my values from Rawr. (I would have done the same thing for Resto, but Rawr doesn't give you stat values in its Tree model. Shame, that.)

These values should be good at low to moderate gear levels, but as you get maxxed out your values will change. In particular, you'll weight Hit much less once you reach the cap.

Balance weights:
Spellpower:   12.1
Hit:          11.3
MP5:          10.0
Crit:          6.3
Haste:         5.7
Intellect:     3.8
Spirit:        1.5
Socket-Red:  230.0
Socket-Yel:  140.0
Socket-Blue: 140.0
Socket-Meta: 360.0

Pawn string:
( Pawn: v1: "Balance PvE": Intellect=3.8, RedSocket=230.0, CritRating=6.3, ColorlessSocket=230.0, MetaSocket=360.0, HasteRating=5.7, BlueSocket=140.0, YellowSocket=140.0, SpellPower=12.1, Spirit=1.5, Mp5=10, HitRating=11.3 )

Those numbers should get you started. Use them in Wowhead or Lootrank, in your spreadsheets, or in Pawn. And don't be afraid to change them — if you're going OOM a lot, rank Spirit and MP5 higher, for example.

Still to do: create values for PvP. I have no numbers, but I can provide hints for what I'd look at. PvP weights will add value for Resilience, Armor, and Stamina, but you'll need to decide the weights for survivability vs. damage. And it also adds value for stats like Spell Penetration, and will probably lean towards more bursty stats like Crit.

Our long patchless nightmare is over

All 3.0.8 posts

It's official: 3.0.8 is going to drop today. OK, semi-official. For whatever reason, Europe always announces maintenance and patches before the US. (UPDATE: it's now official, announced via the log-in screen.)

As I said yesterday, this patch is a bit unusual, in that there aren't any headline additions, but there are a huge list of minor tweaks that will add up to significant changes. I encourage you to check out the MMO-Champion 3.0.8 roundup for details, as they include a lot more than the official patch notes.

There is one significant caster druid change that I forgot to mention yesterday:

Shield Wall, Barkskin, Guardian Spirit, and Divine Protection are now off the Global Cooldown.

This is designed to aid tanks — our bear brethren will be able to pop Barkskin without stopping their threat cycle. However, it's a nice little buff for caster druids, especially when soloing.

The best time to use Barkskin when soloing is to aggro a herd of mobs, pop Barkskin, and start a Hurricane.Prior to today, that Barkskin would start the GCD, so you'd have to wait up to 1.5 seconds to start your Hurricane. That's significant because of their relative durations: Barkskin is 12s while Hurricane is 10s. So until now, you would essentially get off one Hurricane under Barkskin, but after the change you'll have a couple extra seconds to work with, allowing you to at least start a second Hurricane. I believe that will help; today it takes me a bit more than 2 Hurricanes to kill most level 80 mobs. So those two extra ticks will most likely save me a good bit of casting.

The other changes I'll point out is to cooking. We're getting a recipe for Fish Feast which will be a great group buff. From what I've read, the PTR recipe only requires 1 Northern Spice (not the 4 listed here), which makes the mats for this very reasonable.

The other recipe to watch for is Kungaloosh. It's available to you from an NPC in the Dalaran sewers, if you've completed The Taste Test quest in Sholazar Basin. The great thing about Kungaloosh is that the cost in mats is around half the cost for Honeymint Tea.

I'll update later today if any other significant changes show up. Until then, here's wishing for a short maintenance window and quick updates to all your addons!

The caster druid 3.0.8 wrap-up

All 3.0.8 Posts

Is patch 3.0.8 going to hit tomorrow? I asked my Magic 8 Ball, and it said "Most Likely". Last Thursday, Blizzard poster Zarhym said he'd wager it's imminent. The patch has been up on the PTR for something like a month now, so it does feel like it's getting close. I'd give it about a 70% chance.

Anyone in Naxxramas has dealt with painful lag at times, and there are 3.0.8 fixes to deal with that. Hopefully it will help. There are also fixes in the works for Wintergrasp. When it's under attack, it causes lag throughout Northrend, which is both incredibly annoying and horribly funny. I can speak from experience that the lag in a pitched courtyard battle is insanely bad, as in a personal FPS of something like 0.5 to 0.2. Hopefully that gets fixed as well.

There have been a few more tidbits in the latest builds. One is a nerf for Moonkin, most significant for PvP:

- Celestial Focus (Balance) no longer includes Starfall.

Translation: you'll no longer get a random stun-chance on Starfall hits. Blizzard poster Ghostcrawler has stated that their goal is to remove random-proc stuns. Basically, it's OK to decide to stun someone and use an ability to do it, but it's not OK to randomly stun someone as a natural result of something else you're doing. That's why mace spec stuns for Rogues are gone, for example. Thus, we'll probably see an eventual wholesale replacement for Celesital Focus as it stands.

But that won't happen in 3.0.8. For full details, start with the patch notes. I have also written a few posts on 3.0.8. But the biggest caster druid changes are:

• 6 second cooldown on Wild Growth.
  
• Wild Growth now affects Nourish (as other HoTs do).
  
• Moonglow now affects Nourish (3/6/9% reduction in mana cost)
  
• The Genesis talent now affects Tranquility and Hurricane.
  
• Starfall now cancels if you shapeshift into an animal form.
  
• Abolish Poison can be cast in Moonkin form.
  
• Set bonuses for the Deadly Gladiator's Refuge, Dreamwalker Regalia, and Valorous Dreamwalker Regalia sets are changed.
  
• [Idol of the Emerald Queen] is getting a bug fix (which is a nerf).

All in all, caster druids won't be majorly buffed or nerfed. The Wild Growth and Starfall changes are definite nerfs, and may change your playstyle significantly. However the subtle talent changes to Moonglow, Wild Growth, and Genesis will balance that out.

The big changes are really for feral druids, including serious changes to both armor calculations and feral attack power on items. I haven't found a great overview source, but this ThinkTank article is a good start. Suffice to say that you'll change how you rate gear for both DPS and tanking.

All in all, it will be an interesting patch, with a huge number of small changes, affecting just about every aspect of the game. Will it drop tomorrow? We'll see!

3.0.8 updates from 7 January

Previous 3.0.8 posts:

• Patch 3.0.8 for Balance and Resto Druids
  
• 3.0.8: Bits of News
  
• More on 3.0.8 for Caster Druids

No sooner do I post some news, then we see more arrive later that day! 3.0.8 is shaping up to be a fairly significant patch — no new content or huge changes, but a whole host of minor changes that add up to a lot.

Let's see, where to start? How about level 16? You'll now be able to train Aquatic Form from the trainers, rather than running the quest line. I get why they're doing this; the quest line takes a good bit of time due to a lot of travel. Still, it's a bit sad; the druid form quests really add to the flavor of the class. It's unclear whether the quest line will still be available or not.

For more substantive issues, the first thing to note is that it's now confirmed that Nourish will now benefit if a Wild Growth HoT is present on the target. This will increase Nourish's viability as a raid healing tool.

A bigger buff for Nourish is that it will now be affected by the second-tier Balance talent Moonglow, reducing its mana cost by 3/6/9%. Moonglow is a common talent to take in Resto builds, if you build up to Nature's Grace and Nature's Splendor. So this will be an instant buff to Nourish for many Resto druids. I'm starting to find a lot of use for Nourish, and these buffs will pump it up even more. Now, if we could just get a Nourish glyph...!

In items, the set bonus for the Deadly Gladiator's Refuge has changed. The old benefit was a .2 second cast time reduction on Regrowth; the new benefit is to reduce the cooldown on Swiftmend by 2 seconds. The Deadly Gladiator gear all requires high arena ratings (though they'll be reduced by 100 with the patch); you'll need an 1750 rating to get even one piece, and a minimum of 1950 to get the four-piece bonus. I'm more likely to become a GM than to get a 2000+ arena rating, but I wish you luck!

The two-piece bonus on the Tier 7 Heroes' Dreamwalker Regalia (10-man) and Valorous Dreamwalker Regalia (25-man) are changing. The old bonus reduced your Rejuvenation cost by 5%, but that's changed to reducing the mana cost of Lifebloom instead. Rejuv fans will see this as a nerf, but Lifebloom is such a staple that this should be a buff for most of us.

Here's a bug fix that's a bit of a stealth nerf:

[Idol of the Emerald Queen]: This idol was providing greater healing than implied by its tooltip. It has been reduced to correct value.

Ouch! If you read the comments on the [Idol of Lush Moss], people have tested it and found that it provides only a small benefit over the Idol of the Emerald Queen. The assumption was that the Lush Moss idol was bugged, but it turns out we've had an overpowered idol ever since regular Slabs.

There are a lot of profession changes piling up. I've focused mostly on Leatherworking, but if you chose something else, take a look and see what's new. For example, miners will find that it only takes one whack to extract all the ore from a node. Also, the passive benefit Toughness will now affect your stamina rather than directly adding health. That will be a big help if you have buffs that leverage stamina, like Blessing of Kings.

But the big change for leatherworkers is another nerf:

The epic leg armor patches now require a [Frozen Orb] in addition to their other materials.

This means [Frosthide Leg Armor] and [Icescale Leg Armor] just got a lot more expensive to make.

My advice is to make as many of these as you can before 3.0.8 hits, but hold on to them; the AH price will probably rise. If you use them yourself, you might want to make a handful and hang on to them. They are also the easiest and cheapest way to level leatherworking from 430 to 440, so if you plan to do that, do it sooner rather than later!

Those are the biggest changes for caster druids in the latest batch. I'll post more as they arrive!

More on 3.0.8 for caster Druids

I find myself talking more and more about "caster druids". I'm using that term as a blanket for both Balance and Resto druids. I play both specs, and they share lots of concerns, particularly since Spellpower was consolidated. The two trees are suited to switching back and forth, both due to gear and to play style. So when I (for instance) look at notes for a patch, I'm looking at things that will affect both Moonkin and Trees.

Contrary to my earlier thoughts, we haven't yet seen patch 3.0.8. It might happen today, but current thinking is that it won't. Still, changes are on the way, and we'll probably see them before the end of January at the latest.

I've heard a few more changes beyond what I've discussed before. The one that will hit me hardest is a nerf to the [Battlemap Hide Helm]. It's a drop from Heroic Utgarde Keep, and I've been wearing it since it dropped. I got it for Moonkin but it's darn good for Resto too. Too good! It's somehow well over budget and it's getting nerfed, losing 16 Intellect and 32 Crit rating. Ouch.

Not specific to casters, but Enchanting recipes are changing by quite a bit. The short story is that WotLK recipes will require less dust/essences than before and more shards. On the whole, this should make enchants easier, but it will definitely pump up the value of shards. (Hmm...)

We will now be able to spend those Wintergrasp marks on a wide range of gear. It's PvP gear, so you'll give up some other stats to gain resilience, but still the items will be rather nice. And Wintergrasp is a lot of fun anyway!

Two new Kirin Tor rings have been introduced; healers will be most interested in the [Loop of the Kirin Tor]. Moonkin will probably still prefer the [Signet of the Kirin Tor]. All you need is 8500g for an epic iLvl 200 ring. It doesn't get easier than that!

There are also two new Leatherworking patterns, most interesting to Moonkin. The [Windripper Boots] and [Windripper Leggings] are itemized nicely and will probably be the pre-raid gear of choice for our feathered death-dealers.

Skinning is getting a Moonkin buff too. The passive benefit, Master of Anatomy, will increase its benefit from 25 to 32 crit rating.

Finally, there are two new interesting Balance glyphs. The [Glyph of Focus] will reduce the diameter of your Starfall but increase its damage output, while the Glyph of Typhoon will remove the knockback of Typhoon and reduce its mana cost. Both spells will be more usable in instances as a result.

So that's what I've seen so far. Overall some decent stuff; Moonkin will be especially happy about the glyphs and leather patterns. We'll see if new notes come out tomorrow!

3.0.8: Bits of News

Well the 3.0.8 patch didn't drop on Tuesday. If it's not tomorrow, I would bet it'll come on 30 Dec. A couple notes to my earlier 3.0.8 post:

Regarding the Starfall change: evidently, the tactic of concern was to pop Starfall and change into Travel form. You could bop around at speed and drop stars on quite a few enemies. I don't really think this was a big deal — the cheetah is pretty squishy — but I can see where it'd be painful in arena. Either way, I'm OK with the nerf here.

Regarding Polearms: Evidently the current best-in-show polearm is [Black Ice], which drops from Malygos in both Normal and Heroic. Still nothing for caster druids.

An update on Wild Growth: Official talk now is about a possible change that would allow Wild Growth to benefit Nourish as other HoTs do. That would be pretty cool. I keep wanting to like Nourish. It's a handy spell to have, and I think we'll find a good bit of use for it. But as Phaelia has shown, it isn't really advantageous either in efficiency (HPM) or sheer healing throughput (HPS). The WG/Nourish change would really benefit Nourish as a raid heal, especially from painful burst AoE damage. Here's hoping that it goes through.

Other than that, not a whole lot to report. Had a fun weekend, with runs into regular Halls of Lightning and Culling of Stratholme, and heroic Nexus (good) and Violet Hold (not so good). In Heroic VH we got stuck on the first boss, who was Xevozz for us. With three spheres we'll really have to work out our strategy for DPSing on the move. After three or four wipes — including once when we didn't realize a player was AFK — we gave up on it and ran Nexus instead. The good news is that Nexus appears to be very doable on Heroic. We did struggle with Keristrasza, probably because our DPS was moving/jumping too much, gimping DPS more than required.

Next up for me: complete the Merrymaker achievements, including runs into Ahn'kahet for the hat for Tis the Season, and run battlegrounds With a Little Helper from My Friends. Curious to see how annoying that will be — it kinda sucks to be a druid that can't shapeshift. Probably the best option will be to heal like crazy on defense in AV or something similar.

Patch 3.0.8 for Resto and Balance Druids

Today's long maintenance window may indicate the arrival of patch 3.0.8 (which happens to follow 3.0.4). That's very quick, as the PTR only went up a week ago. But I would bet that Blizzard is eager to start Arena season 5 before Christmas, for players who have time off from school or work. So we'll likely see the new stuff today.

So what's happening? The 3.0.8 patch notes from yesterday show a lot of changes. There's some general fun stuff — Tauren on raptors! — but for the most part the general changes are bug fixes. One in particular that we've encountered:

The Wintergrasp Aura should now properly update in all instances, transferring the buff when the zone control changes.

We saw this in Utgarde Pinnacle the other night. My computer locked up and I had to reboot halfway through the instance. When I returned, I could no longer loot the [Stone Keeper's Shard], though the rest of the group could. Best guess is that Wintergrasp fell to the Horde while we were in the instance, but the other players didn't get the message. So that will suck a little bit when you lose Wintergrasp, but will help when you seize it.

There are a few other minor changes like that in 3.0.8, and of course the rewards for Arena Season 5 are part of it too. But I mostly wanted to look at Druid changes, and specifically changes that affect Balance and Resto druids. The Feral changes are big, though, so if you're a bear or kitty, check them out. In short: armor calculations are a lot different, and the weapon-damage relationship is completely different. No more Feral Attack Power! There's a good first look from Big Bear Butt Blog as a start. It appears that this will be a minor nerf, but the challenge right now is more about understanding the effects of the change more than overcoming it. Ferals have some thinkin' to do!

So what about the rest of us? Here's the changes that will affect Resto and Balance druids:

Wild Growth now has a 6 second cooldown. This is the big one. You can get an in-depth look from Phaelia (with only a couple of tears shed). Wild Growth has been an amazing spell; it will be 90% as amazing after the change. For starters, this doesn't even really matter if you're running 5-man instances. Wild Growth hits 5 toons and HoTs for 7 seconds, so there's no benefit to casting it twice. It's a bit bigger nerf for 10-man instances and pretty substantial for 25-mans. But even there, the "smart heal" effect plus the HoT aspect means that spamming WG was subject to diminishing returns. So I suspect that Druids will move along just fine.

Genesis: Now works with Tranquility and Hurricane. This makes Genesis more attractive for Boomkin, basically buffing Hurricane damage by 5%. The Resto effect on Tranquility is probably less exciting — Tranquility already heals for a lot — but Genesis is already attractive for Resto anyway.

Remove Curse and Abolish Poison can now be used in Moonkin form. I'm a bit confused, because Remove Curse was already available in Moonkin form. My hope is that they really mean that Remove Curse can be used in Tree form. That current limitation is a bit annoying to Resto, and it would be nice to see it gone. But it's great that Abolish Poison is now available for Moonkin; it's a good solid utility we can provide to the group. Boomkin, help out your healers: remove curses and poisons! EDIT: I forgot that had changed for Trees. Obviously I was leveling as Balance when I posted!

Starfall: Instead of canceling shapeshifting, now cancels on shapeshifting into an animal form. (The "instead" clause here refers to a previous PTR build, and not current live behavior.) OK, now you can't cast Starfall, shift into Bear form, and blast your enemies with arcane bolts while you're armored. So don't do that. This must be targeted at Arena tactics that I'm not familiar with. If you're deep enough into Balance to get Starfall, you'll almost always have Moonkin form, which has a pretty good armor bonus too. Maybe the risk was Starfall + Cat form + Stealth? Or Sprint? Either way, it's gone now.

Nature's Grace - Now also effects Revive. You know what I hate? When people use "effect" where they mean "affect". If Nature's Grace really effected Revive, it would mean Nature's Grace procced Revive. Now THAT would be a buff! Instead, you'll occasionally get a half-second shorter Revive. I predict now that you will see this happen exactly three times in the next year.

Polearms: Now trainable by Druids. I like this, just because Polearms are IMHO the best looking weapons. But there are only 111 polearms in the game, and none of them have any Spellpower. (Two have MP5, but the best of them is the [Ethereum Phase-Spear], a vendor green from Netherstorm. Our Feral cousins will be eager to roll on stuff like the [Wraith Spear] that drops in Naxx, but polearms will be strictly eye candy for casters.

And... that's it for the mana-eater Druids. One noticeable nerf, and a couple of utility buffs. We're not buffed like Arcane Mages... but we're not nerfed up like Hunters either. Should be fine! I'll update if anything new or surprising shows up.

Evaluating Druid Gear (Resto and Balance)

TLDR version: Being really casual about it, here's a quick-and-dirty way to judge the Resto gear you'll see as you're leveling or running normal instances:

1 Spell Power/MP5 ~ 2 Intellect/Spirit ~ 4 Haste/Crit
1 reg socket ~ 10-13 SP/MP5
1 meta socket ~ 25 SP/MP5

And this probably works well enough if you want to switch to Balance sometimes too — or for a Restokin doing both like yours truly.

OK. Now for the full post.

I've struggled with how to evaluate Druid gear in WotLK. I had a pretty good process worked out for BC, based on a lot of data I'd stolen learned from Resto4Life, the Wowhead rating scales, WoWWiki, and other places. But there hasn't been a solid consensus on stat weighting that I'd found yet for WotLK, so I've been guessing more than I'd like.

So here's my numbers. First, let me say, this is for evaluating leveling gear: stuff you find as quest rewards, normal instance drops, and maybe earlier crafted gear. So there's no need to be super precise about things. You will replace this stuff pretty quickly with Heroic drops, raid drops, badge gear, and/or PvP rewards. So don't sweat it too much: get some good rough comparisons for now, and we'll do some real analysis for the purples later on.

The first question for me is whether I'm grabbing something for Resto or Balance. I switch back and forth a lot, so I want good gear for both specs (and Restokin too). The change to Spellpower from +heal and+spell damage makes "both" a more attractive option. I'm most worried about Resto, so my plan is to take good Resto armor and swap out trinkets and maybe a weapon for my Balance set.

For Resto I did find a good Resto itemization thread on Elitist Jerks. In particular I think I'm going to work from Whïspur's post for now. Rounding off, he comes out with the following relative weights:

• MP5: 100
  
• Spell Power: 94
  
• Intellect: 58
  
• Spirit: 51
  
• Haste: 29
  
• Crit: 20

Like I said, I'm really interested in quick-and-dirty comparisons. So we can simplify the above even further. So a casual comparison could use something like this:

1 Spell Power/MP5 ~ 2 Intellect/Spirit ~ 4 Haste/Crit

I think that is probably a close enough SWAG until you really start looking at purples down the road.

Now this ignores armor, stamina, resilience, and other stats. That makes great sense for high-end raiding but for a more casual player the other stats grow in importance. For example, if you're PUGging a heroic, extra armor and stamina will help you get through fights where aggro is a bit dicey. But if we're talking quick-and-dirty, for me (as a more casual player) this basically means I'll stick to leather armor, and mostly only worry about stamina if everything else is nearly equal.

The other thing to look at is gem sockets Sockets are even more important now because WotLK gems are more powerful — about double the strength of BC gems. The BC Rare-quality +SP gem, [Teardrop Living Ruby] gives +9 SP. The WotLK equivalent, [Runed Scarlet Ruby], gives +19 SP. So what does that mean for evaluating gear?

First, decide if you're looking at early gear (say, available at level 70-75) or later gear that you'll start Heroics with. For early leveling gear, assume that you'll use green-quality gems at best. For the later gear, assume blue-quality gems.

The formula above is way stronger at valuing Spellpower than the formulas Blizzard uses for gems. For example the [Runed Scarlet Ruby] gives +19 SP, but the same-level [Luminous Monarch Topaz] is +9 SP and +8 Int, which in our formula is equivalent to about +13 SP. Because of this, for quick-and-dirty comparisons, I won't use the pure spellpower gems for judging a socket. Choosing the Luminous Monarch Topaz as a baseline gives me a weight like:

1 socket ~ 10 SP/MP5 (green gem/early leveling gear)
1 socket ~ 13 SP/MP5 (blue gem/late leveling gear)
1 meta socket ~ 25 SP/MP5

Now again, if you're looking at purple raiding gear, you'll want to judge by specific sockets, epic gems, whether the socket bonus is worthwhile, etc. But for now I think these numbers to judge whether I'll keep the gear or not.

These are all based on Resto numbers. But how will this work for Balance? I haven't found anyone yet who's theorycrafted out the same kind of comparison for Balance that Whïspur did for Resto. I think — for me! — the above comparison is close enough. A serious Moonkin will value crit, Int, and maybe haste a lot higher, and Spirit and MP5 a good bit lower. But for leveling gear, I think the above numbers are close enough.

I'll spend more time on the detailed numbers after I hit 80 and start raiding and running heroics.

Druid leveling in Wrath: Resto and Restokin

I did want to add a note about my leveling experience so far, with two specs.

I started out with a 5/0/56 full Resto build. The story in short: Yes, you can level as full Resto. It's not horrible, but it is fairly slow. After a while, I became annoyed with how long it took to kill things. I watched Recount for a while, and I was doing about 350 DPS, which is pretty much crap.

So yesterday, I respecced to the 31/0/30 Restokin build I talked about last Friday. No surprise, it's a lot faster to kill things as a Moonkin than a basic Night Elf. I collected a variety of stats, and as a Moonkin, I'm doing something closer to 610 DPS. It's not double, but it's not far from it, either. Moonkin can take a beating too, which helps. It's just a lot faster and easier, and I don't regret it.

The only remaining question is whether a Restokin can heal an instance run. My biggest problem is that I'll miss Wild Growth. Mana efficiency may be an issue too. I'm hoping to get a run into the Nexus soon, and I'll report back on that.

Restokin for leveling in Wrath

I'm struggling a bit with how I want to level in Wrath. I'm very hopeful to heal a good number of instance runs, so I want to keep my Resto build if possible. But I'm concerned that Resto will still be a bit too squishy for easy leveling. And respecs are still expensive, so I don't want to go back and forth too much, particularly when I need to save for Cold Weather Flying.

My current plan is to keep my Resto spec and see how that works for leveling. Maybe I'll try the slowest AoE grind possible:

1. Buff with Thorns.
   
2. Aggro a good group of mobs, maybe with Hurricane.
   
3. Pop Barkskin and drop another Hurricane.
   
4. Shift into Tree of Life form, and keep healing yourself while the remaining mobs kill themselves on your Thorns.

OK, that's a bit of a joke. Right? Ha ha? I've actually tried it a bit, and it does work... though it's incredibly slow.

If that plan fails me and I decide to move to Boomkin, I'll probably go with a Restokin build. That should give me the survivability and DPS I need to level, but leave enough healing power to heal instance runs. That's the theory anyway, and I'm hopeful that it will work.

I had previously guessed at a Restokin build. I think that's mostly right, but I came up with a new build that I think makes some key changes.

Here's the new build: Level 70 Restokin build: 31/0/30

Key changes from before are as follows.

I decided to take Genesis in Tier 1 of Balance. That helps a lot with healing, even more than DPS. But it comes with a cost, because you can't really afford to skip Starlight Wrath either. To do this, I sacrificed points in Brambles, Nature's Reach, and (most painfully) Dreamstate. I also put an extra point into Moonfury, since that now gets me to a full 3/3 in the talent.

On the Restoration side, the changes were less severe. I decided to move the build from Healing Touch to more of a Regrowth build. That meant that I stole points from Naturalist and Empowered Touch and gave the points to Gift of Nature, Improved Regrowth, and Tranquil Spirit (to make the rare HT more palatable). Regrowth is a more versatile spell than Healing Touch, and it has better synergy with Nature's Grace. It's less mana efficient, which makes Dreamstate that much more necessary. On the other hand, level 71 would likely see me pick up Swiftmend to add to my healing arsenal.

So that's my best-estimate Restokin build for leveling, starting at 70. I think my level 80 Restokin target would be 40/0/31 build, but that would depend heavily on what problems come up in both soloing and healing as I level.

Echoes of Doom: First impressions

Pretty chaotic last night! Shandris was several hours late coming back online, and seemed to be unstable at least early on. (I got a 5-minute "World Server Down" while in Ironforge at one point.) But by the end of the night, everything seemed to be working as intended.

Addons were a bit wonky. I got enough running that I could live with — Pitbull and Clique, plus some of Tekkub's pieces and a few other random parts. Some were pretty wonky. For example, Fubar was mostly working, but putting the wrong titles on the drop-down menus. And I'm still coming to grips with the new Cartographer — nothing to do with 3.0.2 though.

But with all that, I was able to get going. Here are my first impressions.

Druid abilities

I specced Alamein into Balance as planned, with a slight variation. I decided to take 3/3 in Nature's Focus, giving me 58/0/3. The resulting spec looks like this. If I were serious about doing damage as Balance, I'd spec differently, but this gives me a chance to try out just about everything in Balance.

I did a couple different things in my play time. After traveling to Moonglade to train and respec, I traveled to Winterspring and killed a few furblogs to try out my damage spells. Then I grouped up with Cargarios, Wyrmm, and Firegrin to take a stab at heroic Ramparts. I was healing with a Balance spec and we only had four people, so it wasn't going to be a clean run. But all of us were also trying to figure how to deal with the changes. Suffice to say: it wasn't pretty! But we learned a lot, which was the goal.

Subjectively speaking, I felt like I was doing a huge amount of damage. My Starfire crits were hitting for 4000+ damage. TopScoreFu wasn't working, but I'm almost certain that's about 30-40% higher than anything I've seen before. I don't know if that's due to talents, changes to the spell, or to the conversion from +heal to +spell power on my DPS gear (which actually uses a lot of my healing gear). From what I heard, everyone else was seeing similar improvements.

Starfall and Typhoon both were fun to play with. They do feel rather situational, and I'll have to play with them a while before I understand when to use them best. Starfall is probably the more powerful of the two. Hurricane is a better pure AoE spell, but Starfall is both instant cast and moves when you move, so it works when you're on the move. That will be nice, but the 3 minute cooldown will keep it very situational. And they key to Typhoon will be understanding when to use the knockback effect, which I'm not firm on yet.

With the passive talents, I was actually impressed with Eclipse. One point makes the proc too infrequent to be worthwhile; I think this will be either 3 points or 0. But the graphic on the proc makes it easy to notice, and it's powerful enough to make it worth following. I was also impressed by Improved Moonkin Form, at least subjectively. I felt like my casts were significantly faster and the GCD change really helped.

Earth and Moon was less showy, and for soloing furblogs it's not really useful. I typically couldn't get off more than one or two casts before they were dead, so no real chance to take advantage of it. I'm sure it will pay off for instances however.

Nature's Splendor made no obvious difference to my DPS — not against furblogs anyway. But in healing it was a huge improvement. The 8-second Lifebloom gave me a lot more time to cast other healing spells before refreshing my LB stack. I really think that a level-80 PvE healing build will spec into this more often than not.

I was surprised by the new audio effect for Insect Swarm... but I like it!

And finally, I had a few chances to use Revive. That felt really good! I used to feel a lot less useful when I had to ask a player to run back rather than get rezzed. No longer!

Achievements

Of course I knew this was coming, but it still captivated me. I'm sure I'll spend a lot of time on these. I am at heart an OCD completist, and this is a mechanism to feed that part of my personality. I was surprised to have slightly more achievement points than my friends, though in retrospect that's probably because I'm inclined to engage in exactly these sorts of quixotic pursuits.

I started down the path of completing some of the easier achievements before coming to my senses. I did however get the Going Down? and Captain Rumsey's Lager achievements before logging out. At some point I know I will spend a few hours crossing off fishing and exploration achievements.

I also like the announcement in guild chat. It's a nice way to share your activities with guildmates. I just wish there weren't so many achievements that require WotLK.

Other impressions

It was very nice to log in and find my PvP tokens gone from the bank — and into the Currency tab. I was disappointed however that things like Spirit Shards and Arcane Runes weren't included. They're soulbound tokens, used to purchase goods. They should be included!

It was also nice to get my mounts and pets out of the bank. I bought four more pets when I was in Stormwind; I'm sure I'll accumulate a lot more. I'm going to have to find an addon or macro to spawn random pets. I'm not sure whether I'll grab a whole slew of mounts or not. I will probably avoid flying mounts since Flight Form is so much better, but ground mounts are a different story. But that could be a real money pit.

The barber shop is fun, but the hairstyles are very limited. I wish there was a lot more to do with it. I did however get a haircut for Alamein... for the achievement, of course!

I'm disproportionately happy with the new loading screens, title screen, and title music. We spend too much time staring at these, so it's very nice to see some changes.

Finally: Stormwind Harbor is huge! I think I'd be disappointed if I played Horde — they kind of got shafted.

That's a lot of stuff going on. I will soon respec to Resto to check out the new spells there. I still want to visit the sites of Dalaran and Naxxrimas to see what's changed up there. And I'm most excited about the prospect of world events that lead to the launch of Wrath. Lots to explore!

First draft talent builds: Druid for 3.0.2

Well, it's official: 3.0.2 will arrive today. Official 3.0.2 patch notes are now available, and we'll definitely see all the new stuff when the realms come back up. Remember, all your talent points are refunded — on all your toons. So all those alts will have to respec too. And you'll want to visit a class trainer to learn new spells; some of them are available even at quite low levels, so everyone should train up.

Also: barber shops!

I spent some time last night taking photos around Dalaran and the old Naxxrimas; I'll post some comparisons later on. I'm curious to see how they change things. It was a little wistful, even though I'm looking forward to the new stuff. And that goes for talents as well as terrain; all my familiar specs and builds are out the window. What next?

I specced out three talent builds that I might try using in the next month. I'll share the details, but here are the constraints I used:

• 61 points: I built for level 70, as I'm only expecting to use these specs for the next month.
  
• All spells: I made a point to build out all the way to Starfall in Balance and Wild Growth in Resto. Part of what I want to do is learn how these things work, so I built all the way down.
  
• Casual play: I don't expect to do any raiding in the next month, so I'm less concerned about optimizing. When in doubt, I took talents with new mechanics (Living Seed) instead of generic boosts to healing or damage, so that I could learn how they work.

So: my specs.

Balance: 61/0/0

I am still not sure whether the change to Moonfury and Earth and Moon will be in effect for this build — will they be 5-point or 3-point talents? As it stands though, 3 points in each is enough to understand the effects, so I'll stick with that either way.

I didn't take Genesis, because I think that solo play won't give me enough chance to see the effects of more-powerful DoTs. I also didn't take Natures Focus in Resto, even though that's probably an important talent, because I want to understand more about how the new pushback mechanic will play out.

I was very tempted to take points in Resto. Eventually I think it might be important to build down to Omen of Clarity, and maybe even Natural/Master Shapeshifter. Furor could be very nice too. But I couldn't spend those points and take all the possibilities in Balance too.

I suspect that eventually I'll decide to skip Eclipse, and maybe some other talents too. But for now I want to understand how it works, and what proc-watching will entail. So I'll give it a try.

Resto: 5/0/56

This would be the spec I'll use to heal through some heroic instances prior to WotLK. So it's designed to both test out spells but also to make sure I can heal well enough.

I took 5 points in Genesis — unlike in my Balance build — because it should be a major boost to HoT-based healing. At level 80, I fully expect to try a build that goes into Nature's Grace/Nature's Splendor, but I can't spare the points just yet.

I'm a little worried about mana management — it's going to be worse than today, but I'm not sure how much worse. If it's really bad, I might regret skipping Tranquil Spirit. We'll see.

I didn't take Replenish. I'm inclined to second-guess that, because I'd really like to test it out. But I just don't see any way that the talent will pay off. Maybe I'll change my mind and give it a try — to make sure.

Restokin: 31/0/30

I also decided to take a stab at a level-70 Restokin spec. There's a good chance I'll choose something like this as my leveling spec when WotLK hits.

It's nice to see Dreamstate a tier below Moonkin form now. On the one hand, that means you can get 3/3 in Dreamstate with only 31 points in Balance. On the other, it means you could get a non-boomkin Dreamstate/Nature's Swiftness build that only takes 28 points in Balance. It really opens some options.

With both Intensity and Dreamstate, I'm less worried about mana management, so I feel OK about skipping Tranquil Spirit. I'm less sanguine about skipping Furor; I might move the points over from Improved MotW and Nature's Focus. I also might try for a build that takes Natural/Master Shapeshifter. But I'd probably have to skip Naturalist to do that, and I don't think I can give up the half-second savings on HT if I want to heal instances as I level.

So, there's some quick thoughts. I'll probably spec into Balance tonight to try out the fun new toys, but move back to Resto as soon as I can get an instance group together. We might try for an easy heroic tonight to test things out; Cargarios in particular is going to have to learn how to run his Paladin again as they have major changes. Should be fun!

WotLK: new balance druid talents

OK, I need to complete my four-part series. This time, I want to look at the new talents in the Balance tree. Get a beverage, because this will take a while. The Balance tree has changed a lot.

(I already discussed a few of the talents in my Resto talent post. These are all very relevant to healing, but they're also good for Balance of course.)

Tier 1

Changes start at the top: Nature's Grasp is gone, now available as a baseline ability. Gone with it is Improved NG, as the spell now has a 100% chance to proc. Very nice. This is basically replaced with Genesis, which boosts our DoTs — Moonfire, Insect Swarm, and (I believe) Entangling Roots. Meh, it's decent for mana efficiency.

Tier 2

Control of Nature is gone too. In its place we have Moonglow, reducing mana cost for a host of spells. Another spell that will greatly help your efficiency, but isn't an attention-grabber.

Nature's Majesty is really just the old Focused Starlight, but now also applies to Starfall, Nourish, and Healing Touch.

Tier 3

Brambles is more exciting than it used to be. Along with boosting the damage of Thorns and Roots, it also adds a daze effect to both your Force of Nature treants and to your Barkskin buff. That's going to be extremely nice for PvP, giving us a counter for both casters (by dropping the treants on them) and melee. It also boosts the damage of your treants by 15%, which will help in PvE too.

Nature's Grace is now a three-point talent but otherwise has the same effect. Nature's Splendor, which I discussed in Resto, also adds duration to Moonfire and Insect Swarm. Another example of an ostensibly boring talent that will probably prove to help with overall DPS and mana efficiency in raids.

Nature's Reach has an important change for Balance druids: more than just increasing your range, it now also reduces your threat by 10/20%. That's key because Subtlety in Resto will no longer reduce threat from Balance spells — only Resto — so we needed a threat drain somewhere. This is it!

Tier 4

Celesital Focus replaces its old pushback protection with spell haste, probably due to the changes in the pushback mechanism. Vengeance is basically unchanged, just adding Starfall to its list of affected spells.

Tier 5

Insect Swarm is now found here, rather than tier 3. It will be more of a defining spell for Balance druids now. There's also a Improved Insect Swarm talent here, but it's a bit weird. It's a synergy talent, boosting Wrath damage if the target has Insect Swarm on it. But it also boosts Starfire crit chance if the target's affected by Moonfire. Odd — but it gives you room to play with different spell rotations now.

Lunar Guidance is nerfed by about half, only giving 4/8/12% of your Intellect as Spell Power. Still pretty powerful though.

Tier 6

Fairly stable — neither Moonfury or Balance of Power have changed much. We've been told that Moonfury will be reduced to 3 points (instead of 5) but keep the same effect, to free up some of our talent "bloat". We also have Dreamstate here, down slightly from Tier 7. Speaking of:

Tier 7

Well, here we get Moonkin Form, of course. But the lazer chicken has changed:

                Old Moonkin      New Moonkin           Nerf/Buff
Bonus armor     400%             370%                  Nerf!
Spell Crit      5% to party      5% to raid            Buff!
Melee AP        150% of level    none                  Nerf - who cares?
Mana regen      Chance on melee  Chance on spell crit  Buff!

Ultimately, this is a big buff to the form. I don't know yet how much mana we'll get back from spell crits, but it's got to be better than the melee mechanism we had before.

We now also have Improved Moonkin Form. It's got two benefits: it gives 3% haste to Moonkin aura, and it gives you spell power equal to 15% of your Spirit. Finally, a reason for Moonkin to use Spirit!

To wrap up Tier 7, Improved Faerie Fire now adds 3% immproved chance for spells to hit, as well as buffing your own spell damage on afflicted targets. It's nice that it does good for the Moonkin now, too.

Tier 8

Owlkin Frenzy looks like fun for PvP. It's a 'further improved' moonkin form that, when it procs, will give you both 10% damage bonus and spell pushback protection. Wrath of Cenarius is unchanged.

Tier 9

Typhoon was discussed in the new abilities post. Force of Nature is unchanged. But there's a lot more in Tier 9.

Gale Winds buffs both Hurricane and Tsunami Typhoon, adding 30% to their damage. It also adds 6 yards of range to your Cyclone. The latter buff is nice for PvP, while the former two will depend on those specific spells. Personally, I'm salivating over the AoE-tanking ability of Moonkin with Hurricane.

Eclipse is designed to be a tricky talent. Basically, it's designed to reward proc-watching, giving you a synergy where Wrath crits buff Starfire and vice versa. I suspect a skilled raiding Moonkin will take this and watch carefully for the right time to change rotation. For solo play or PvP this seems rather forgettable. It will however see a damage increase soon.

Tier 10

Earth and Moon is another raid-scale damage increase. This spell (which will, like Moonfury, be reduced to 3 points) procs off Starfire and Moonfire. It grants 13% damage bonus for all spell schools except, I believe, Holy. It also grants you up to 5% increased spell damage individually. This flat DPS increase would make it worthwhile, even apart from the aura affecting other raid members.

Tier 11

Finally! We've topped out on Starfall, which I've discussed previously. This is a spell which firmly falls into "wait and see" territory for me.

Resto Talents

There are also Resto talents that will benefit the Balance druid. Most notably, Omen of Clarity will now proc off spell casts, so it's very intersting to pick up. Along the way you might grab Nature's Focus, which adds 70% pushback resistance to Wrath, Entangling Roots, and Cyclone, along with a slew of healing spells. And Master Shapeshifter will give a tidy 4% damage boost to Moonkin form.

One other possibility to consider. When you reach level 80, you'll have 71 talent points to spend. That opens the possibility of a 50/0/21 build, taking Nature's Swiftness along with 50 points in Balance. You'd have to skip Starfall, but otherwise you could have a full-featured Balance build.

Summary

The balance talents are completely torn up and rebuilt. The tree is a lot better for it. I think that solo and 5-man play will be about equal to what they were before, but that was very good so we're fine. Raid play got a huge buff, with the raid-wide aura changes and increased utility. (And don't forget CC with roots!) I can't really assess PvP; it looks like we've got more tools to use but I'm not sure how well they'll stack up.

Hope you enjoyed this. Tomorrow I'll post my first-draft level 70 builds for both Resto and Balance. That's what I'll use Tuesday night when I respec.

WotLK: Balance druid abilities

Here's a new catchphrase for Alamein: "Balance for show, resto for dough."

Feel free to quote it! I may be goofy, but that's a pretty accurate way to describe my druid experience. Resto is the real payoff for a mana-using druid; it fills the biggest need in either PvE or PvP. But Balance is a lot more showy. I mean, come on... lazer chickens! Don't get me wrong, I love healing, and it's going to be my first preference in groups or raids. But I really have a lot of fun switching back to Balance.

So I did my look at Resto already, but now I want to spend some time with Balance. To be honest, I've spent less time with this, because I think it's easier to learn on the fly, simply because I can't learn healing skills in solo play. (Even with tanking, you can try your stuff for a while on your own. But there's nothing in solo play that's comparable to healing a group — your only practice option is to run battlegrounds.)

New Balance Abilities

There's only two new Balance spells, both coming from talents. I still don't feel like I have a firm grip on how to use them, but they both look like they'll be pretty cool.

Typhoon (talented): This is an instant cast cone attack; it does both damage and a knockback effect. (They should have named it Tsunami, which makes a lot more sense. The visual effect even looks like a wave.) It requires 40 points in Balance, so it's comparable to Force of Nature — deep Balance. It's got a chunky mana cost (36% of base mana) and does moderate damage; it's on a 20-sec cooldown.

This is a killer spell for PvP. The instant-cast damage is good, but its biggest use will be to knock away melee attackers. It'll also be good for interrupting spell casts. The knockback also has potential to be deadly if players are near an edge or cliff; I shudder to think of the carnage on the bridge leading to Dun Baladar, for example.

I'm less sure of its use in PvE. From a pure damage perspective, you'll want to save it for groups of mobs. Against single targets, Moonfire will do a bit more instant damage for 60% of the mana cost. So you about break even on 2 mobs, and get ahead of Moonfire against 3 or more. You'll have to be tactical about the knockback effect. I can imagine a Typhoon-Roots combo being useful against single mobs, or using it as an escape mechanism when you're jumped by a pack. But you'll have to be careful about where the knockback will take your mobs — don't knock them back into another group or (egads!) over a bridge in an instance. They'll come looking for you, and drag half the instance with them.

Starfall (talented): This is the new crowning 51-point talent: the ultimate Balance ability. It's another instant-cast effect, doing pure damage. It operates in a circle around the caster, dropping up to 20 stars on targets within 30 yards. If you move, the effect will move with you. The stars do direct damage to the target, and then splash damage to targets 5 yards around the target. Overlapping circles! Costs 35% of base mana &mdash about like Typhoon — and it's on a 3-min cooldown.

The interesting thing is that this is both an AoE and a single-target spell. If you have one target in range, it will receive hits from the stars every second. (I believe half the stars are 'lost,' however.) But if you add more mobs, the stars spread around, and you also get the splash damage effects. If everything is tightly packed, the synergy will grow quickly, as each target will get its own star and splash damage from all the other stars falling nearby. Damage will fall off somewhat if you can't get things packed in around you, but the stars will do good damage.

This will rock in both PvP and PvE; the only challenge will be the cooldown. It'll mostly be used to deal with groups, but I can also see popping it to up your DPS against a boss or other elite target. It'll be very cool for AoE grinding, except that it's only up once every 3 minutes. And don't forget, it's an instant-cast buff, so you can do other things while it's working. Even better, it uses Celestial Focus just like Starfire, so you can talent for a chance to stun the targets it hits (especially nice for PvP).

There you go — two new abilities. Pretty cool stuff! But there are big changes to our existing abilities too.

Changed Balance Abilities

Entangling Roots (baseline): This now works indoors. Wow — you'll be able to CC using roots in your instance runs. This burden will mostly fall on Balance druids; a druid who can kite and chain-root a mob will be really useful. Also nice in PvP of course. But remember, the target is still awake and active. Don't bother rooting a caster, and make sure everyone stays away from rooted melee.

Hurricane (baseline): Pretty simple, really: no cooldown. Hurricane still uses a big chunk of mana, so it's not like you can endlessly chain-cast this. But it's there when you want it. Nicest for AoE grinding and battleground PvP.

Hibernate (baseline): Now works on Dragonkin, which should help you CC in some of the WotLK instances. No PvP impact.

Nature's Grasp (baseline): Yeah, Nature's Grasp is now baseline. It's also bumped to a 100% chance to proc — no more Improved NG to worry about. This will be great for PvP and somewhat situational for PvE. It also means the damn button will stay on my action bars when I respec. Yay for that!

Soothe Animal (baseline): Now affects Dragonkin too. Um... might be slightly situationally useful in a few pulls in dragonkin-infested instances? I'm struggling here. The only time I use Soothe Animal is when I'm fishing in Terrokar Forest and want the wolves and warp stalkers to leave me alone.

This should really have been with the Resto stuff, but:

Barkskin (baseline) is now useable in Tree form. It's a great change for trees, and also removes the biggest source of druid irony.

So: some significant changes for Balance druids. The new spells are pretty cool, but the biggest effect is going to be indoor roots and dragonkin CC. These won't make Moonkin into CC kings, but they do make us a lot more useful, and will really change our playstyle.

The Balance talent tree has seen a pretty big overhaul too. I'll talk about that next.