Posts with tag druid-balance-shifting-perspectives

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.

Welcome back to another week, my favorite space turkeys. This week is one of those that I happen to detest and often wish that we could find a way to remove the from the calendar; alas, I've been told that this isn't possible. Next week is a holiday, and the next patch is expected the week thereafter, leaving this week simmering in nothing but anticipation. As anyone will tell you, I'm not a patient person.

Still, that doesn't mean that we're all dead in the water. True to form, I'll be putting a spot of my predictive powers to work. It'll be the last topic about Pandaria for a while, I promise you that, but this one is important to lay some groundwork. All of our talents are going away -- a great idea in theory. However, the problem comes in that some talents are important to keeping the spec engaging. Merely shuttling them off to the nether isn't an option; some will have to be baked into the class as a whole. But which? Let's speculate!

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.

So on Wednesday, there was this small little thing that you may have heard about called a little live Q&A with the devs about classes and systems in WoW. While there were a few mentionings of things in the near future, most of the night's focus rested on the next expansion rising over the horizon. Highly understandable. There are a wide variety of changes coming in the next expansion for all of the classes, and I don't think that druids can claim to have a monopoly on the biggest ones.

The latest direction that Blizzard wants to steer druids, however, is certainly an odd one, and it may not be all that it's cut out for. After BlizzCon, I spent some time talking about the released talents and the design considerations that came along with it. I also spent a spot of time guesting (is guest a verb now?) on Team Waffle Cast along with Arielle and Lissanna, when we talked about the druidic future. In the live chat, I fear that my suspicions were confirmed. Join me for a trip to the future that will never be.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin!

Last week, I broke down the new druid talents that were released at BlizzCon with lots of discussion about how this may lead ferals in a new direction. I've had a week to think about things more, and I'm still blown away by the magnitude of the changes Blizzard is making to the specializations. Much of the fundamental assumptions about what drives our characters is being reworked, and we're not discussing the implications because OMG pandas! (For the record, I have a 3-year-old. Team Pandaren > Team Worgen.)

To quickly review, the traditional model of abilities has always been strongly tied to classes. If you were a druid, you got all the druid abilities as you leveled, regardless of what talent points you invested. There were a few key abilities for each spec that were unlocked via talents, but that was it.

With Cataclysm, Blizzard took its first swipe at reducing talent trees by introducing specializations. This served two purposes. First, it let specs have "cool" abilities earlier, instead of waiting until they were near max level to unlock them. And second, it once and for all eliminated the ability to have hybrid specs, such as the Dreamstate resto druid from The Burning Crusade. Previously, you were merely limited by your talent points; now, if the ability you wanted existed in another specialization, or below tier 2 in an off-spec tree, it was completely inaccessible.

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.

Last week, we talked about the oncoming change to the talent system and what the previewed talents mean for balance druids. Understanding that everything we see now is very much in the pre-alpha stages and bound to change, talents are still but one aspect of the class that is going to need to see some changes in the next expansion. As we all know by now, Eclipse too needs to change. I'm sure that this is one topic that people are about tired of talking or hearing about, but it's simply unavoidable. Eclipse is the core of our DPS; it is everything to us. If it fails, we fail, pure and simple.

Unlike the past, we won't particularly be discussing the same old boring flaws that we have with Eclipse today. Many of those are known factors, and we already know that Blizzard is looking at addressing them. Instead, we'll be discussing some of the things that balance druids have known for a long time that Blizzard has not, as of yet, mentioned. We'll also be looking into the way in which the system does need to change in order to survive into the next expansion.

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.

We are back for the first article post-BlizzCon, and as with many of the other writers for WoW Insider, it's time to talk about what the next expansion holds for balance druids. Mists of Pandaria looks to hold many exciting new features for the game on top of an entirely redesigned talent and specialization system. While how everything will pan out is still nothing but speculation, there are a few things in particular which are worth exploring, especially for druids.

I'm no stranger to hand-waving, crackpot theories; today's article is no exception to that. No one knows precisely what the next expansion is going to hold for WoW, not even the people working on it, but I can give you my observations from the outside looking in. Keep that in mind, however, this article is merely how things seem from the glimpse of the future that BlizzCon provided. Everything is subject to change, rebalancing, and various other changes. That over and done with, let's get started.

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 from the slums of BlizzCon! Although I sit at home in eager anticipation as I write this, by the time you read it, things have likely already spirialed far beyond control. The build-up, the thrill, all of it finally releasing on this day -- and look, I get this poor little column fighting against all of the headline news. How special I must be. While at the time of your reading, there is undoubtedly a barrage of new information to sort through, I want to take a slightly different turn, to change the relative pace of the day, if you will.

Many, many months ago, back when I first joined the WoW Insider staff, I wrote at length on the history of balance druids, how we had changed as the face of WoW itself developed beyond anything that we could have possibly imagined back in the days of Molten Core. I would like once again to reflect upon our past, the trials and tribulations that led to what we are today. It has not always been easy to be a balance druid, and certainly we have much to be thankful for. In tune of celebrating all things Blizzard, I want to take joy in the strides that have been taken in making balance the respectable spec that it is today.

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.

Once again, we're in another slow patch week. Oh, sure, there've been some good developments in regards to enchanting and alchemy, but nothing that really impacts balance druids (or any class) as a whole. If you're of those professions, grats on your gains, minor as they may be, but really it's all inconsequential. Oh yes, and there's some deal about Hurricane getting a new animation; it's pretty cool, if only I used the spell with any frequency.

With that aside, it's time to get serious about looking into the next expansion. Although we still have a raid to go in this one, we all know that Blizzard will be announcing plans for the next expansion at BlizzCon next week, and it's never too early to look ahead. That in mind, we'll be spending our time looking at things that balance druids lack. Getting new abilities is a mainstay of every expansion, and we all know that this is quickly becoming a touch-and-go endeavor; characters can only hold so many abilities. Given that, let's look at what it is balance druids are currently missing from their tool set, those abilities we could use to really flesh out our gameplay.

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.

Druids, moonkin, nature'y folk, lend me your antlers! Did you know I once actually played the part of Marc Antony? I was downright terrible at it. Not that I'm a good actor, besides, but that part in particular was way out of character.

Another out-of-character thing for me to do is not continue with what I had originally set out to do. PTR information is light this week, and while I would like to go back and finish talking about how to read your World of Log parses, I received a particularly interesting email that I thought was best to address right away.

I promise, promise that I will return to World of Log parses, because I know that you all love numbers as much as I do, right -- but for this week, we'll take a bit of break from all the deep, mathy stuff. Remember, if you have any questions that you would like to have answered, don't hesitate to email me about them! I'm always happy to help, and if I can't answer it in an email, you never know, it might just turn into a whole article. Wouldn't that be nice?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is fairly common knowledge that I am not an avid PVPer. It isn't so much that the balance spec is weak in PVP (even if it is); nor is it a matter that I find the system frustrating. It more has to deal with my having to be exceptional at what I do, or I won't do at all. Sure, I may not be an instant superstar at everything, but normally I feel I can learn, improve. The PVP learning curve is steep, further complicated by playing a very difficult spec in that environment -- so for me, I avoid it.

That being said, I do throughly enjoy watching PVP, theorizing on the balance of PVP, and keeping up with the scene in general. This week, I want to bring my newest PVP observations to you in hopes that I can help those out there who want to give balance PVP the shot it deserves. We aren't as terrible as people would lead you to think!

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.

Glory to the moonkin! Since the initial release of information, transmogrification has pretty much been the dominating topic around the WoW sphere. Naturally, being a druid, I really didn't care much about it. That's untrue. In fact, I went through what I've coined as the five stages of druid patch notes:

1. Excitement
2. Realization that it doesn't matter to me
3. Deep depression
4. Angry resentment
5. Giving up, defeated

Any time that Blizzard makes some new fun, silly project for the game, these are the exact steps that I follow. All those neat transformation items? Worthless. Pretty new mounts? Please, I already have Flight Form keybound and it's instant; why would I need anything else? Suffice to say, druids always do seem to get left out of all the reindeer games -- that is, of course, unless you're a restoration druid. Trees don't, well, have to be trees. They stay unshifted, which is the downfall of all other druid specs.

I'm not alone in this, and the introduction of transmogrification has brought about a new surge of players asking for the removal of Moonkin Form. This week, we'll lend an ear to those complaints.

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.

Last week, I allowed the unthinkable to happen: I allowed myself to be out-DPSed by an elemental shaman. It was a terrible day, one from which I don't think I shall ever recover. It happened the day that I had finally gotten my new, shiny four-piece bonus. I was eager to try it out, estatic that I finally got myself out of that god-awful dress. Then something just fell through. This week was more of a redemption, but I will still never forget losing out that one time. If anything good did come of it, at least you could say that it got me thinking.

Upgrading from tier 11 to tier 12 should be a pretty big deal. The set has more and better itemization, the set bonuses are pretty spectacular -- so what could possibly be the issue? This week, we'll be talking about how tier 12 is great but not the bundle of roses that you might think it is. Depending on the encounter in question, which tier is actually better can change on you. Given that, should you ever go back to your old tier 11?