Let's get started, shall we?
Now the first three tiers of talents bear minimal changes. They are shared across all the specs, and any changes they've received are purely numerical as rebalancing numbers begin to take place.
our level 60 tier is where some of the meat begins to set in.
Soul of the forest has seen a huge revamp for balance druids. In it's live version, this talent seems almost out of place. While it's sister talents deal primarily with boosting our damage in some way, SotF works as a booster to Astral Communion. It has been primarily seen as a weaker choice with extremely situational utility, often being overlooked for the more obvious dps-boosting talents.
In Warlords it's finally coming into its own.
Soul of the Forest (Balance) now increases the damage bonus from Lunar and Solar Empowerment by an additional 30%
Now, as we already discussed in Part 1, our Empowerments increase the damage of either our next three Wraths or next two Starfires by 30%, depending on our location on the balance bar. This talent will now increase that damage by another 30%, for a 60% total damage increase to Empowered damage. This is not a small thing, especially if regular Starsurge uses are part of your rotation (which, if you are balance, should be). This will give us a huge boost to our damage output during our rotation, though I'm not quite sure if it's enough to counter the benefits of Incarnation or Force of Nature. Regardless, this change finally makes this talent a real contender (finally).
Now, Incarnation hasn't received any changes yet, but given that it works in live only when eclipse is active, I believe some minor alterations may be necessary for its role in Warlords. My most preferred outcome would be just to have it apply it's damage boost whenever I choose to cast it; however, I can appreciate a potential nerf to it's damage boost if that were the case. On the other hand, as the balance bar naturally regulates the damage bonuses received, I believe that poorly planned Incarnations casts in or near the middle of the cycle would be a sufficient skill cap on it's own that a damage nerf wouldn't really be needed. Fingers crossed.
As an aside, I'm still waiting on my full-time moonkin armour pieces, Blizz :)
Force of Nature hasn't received any changes, and I don't really expect anything more than a balance pass. Since the treants don't benefit from eclipse bonuses anyway, the changes to the balance bar won't really affect this talent in any meaningful way. It'll still be a great choice for any druid.
The level 75 talents haven't changed, though I'm still not a fan of Mighty Bash. A melee talent just feels so antithetical to the balance kit.
Oh boy! the level 90 tier. The one everyone lovess because it makes us do a better job at everything but our job. The big changes here is that in Warlords, all these talents are losing their on-spec boosts; so it's basically just a choice between how you want to not do your role. Yay!
Heart of the Wild has really been put through the ringer in Mists. At it's core, it is about assuming the role of any and all of our other specs. It still makes us better bears, cats and trees, but it has dropped the passive stat boost, making it a much more situational choice. Now there may be times when putting out extra healing or temporarily covering for a downed tank is extremely useful, but unless your tanks and healers are dropping like flies and you are the only thing standing in the way of a wipe, this may not be the most useful talent choice in Warlords. Take if you want, but don't expect to use it much, unless you find yourself in "that" raid. Then I can only offer my sincerest condolences.
Dream of Cenarius is in need of updating. It currently adds 20% to our healing touch and rejuvenation spells, but also still has eclipse requirements and synergy with starsurge cooldowns. I'm wondering if we'll be tied closer with the Feral version that makes us heal ourselves when we heal others, or if there will still continue to be some interaction with our balance bar and starsurge charges. Seeing as they are trying to purge this tier of on-spec utility, I'm leaning towards something akin to the feral changes.
It doesn't seem like Nature's Vigil has changed much. It still throws a punch at someone when you heal, and still throws a heal at someone when attacking. Depending on how the numbers balance out, it may be the most useful on-spec talent in the tier, which is why I may be expecting a nerf somewhere. It pretty much depends on how Dream of Cenarius ends up.
Oh, the new hotness. Our level 100 talents have gone through a complete overhaul since Warlords was announced, in conjunction with the huge changes coming to balance. On reflection, it seems like this tier is going to fundamentally affect our rotation and playstyle in the end-game. It's pretty exciting.
Euphoria, we hardly knew thee, especially since you just keep coming back in some new and interesting way. Having lost this spec passive at the end of Mists, it is being returned to us (again) as a completely new talent. I guess the devs just really like the name.
- Euphoria grants the Druid a deeper connection to the stars, causing Balance Energy to cycle 50% faster. Additionally, Starsurge also grants 20% Haste for 6 seconds.
Datamining via MMO-Champion
Additionally, your Lunar and Solar Empowerments also reduce the cast time of the affected spells by 20%
So our balance cycle speeds along faster, and our Empowered spells' cast times are reduced by 20%. This is what I'll dub the Pro Talent. Since the balance bar will flow faster, timing becomes more important. It may have a seeming benefit of getting from one side to the other faster, but overall you'll be flowing at a faster pace between ends, forcing you to better time your spells. On top of that, it makes Starsurge's Solar/Lunar Empowerment drop the cast-time of their respective spells by 20%. This is real good as it will make the now 2.4 sec starfire and 1.4 second wrath much easier to juggle in the shorter solar/lunar cycles.
If you're wanting a bit faster flow in your battles, this is definitely the talent to choose, just make sure to stay on top of the faster cycles. This talent also has some good synergy with the new version of Soul of the Forest. More damage + faster cast times = good times for you.
Stellar Flare, you stole Insect Swarm from me! But that's okay, you're still awesome.
- Stellar Flare is a powerful spell benefitting from both Lunar and Solar Eclipse, dealing the most damage when they are equal. Burns the target for Spellstorm damage and cause additional damage over 15 seconds. The ability has a cast time of 1.5 seconds.
This is a very interesting spell. Whereas the goal for us is to try casting our spells as close to the ends of the balance bar as possible, we want to be casting this one as close to the centre as we can. This gives us a useful tool, and a powerful dot to add to our arsenal of dots. This definitely is an addition to our rotational, adding some interest to the middle. Depending on how tuning works out, this may prove to be a powerful option. I, personally can't wait to try this spell and see how it works in my rotation.
Balance of Power plays more into our dots.
- Balance of Power causes Wrath to extend the duration of Sunfire by 4 seconds and Starfire to extend the duration of Moonfire by 6 seconds.
Datamining via MMO-Champion
Also increases the periodic damage of your Moonfire and Sunfire by 10%
I like this talent. It has the potential of indefinitely extending our dots, dependent on how quickly we cycle through the balance bar. Plus it increases the damage of our dots to make extending them a little more worthwhile. Choosing this may put a little more emphasis on Starfire and Wrath. I see this as an easier talent of the three, since it changes our rotation the least, at the most just delaying when we refresh our dots, giving us more global cooldowns to focus on our direct damage spells (like Wrath and Starfire).
There are still a few unknowns regarding some of our talents that have yet to be updated into the new Balance paradigm, but I'm pretty excited about all the changes so far, especially the new lvl 100 tier. Having the opportunity to seriously adjust our playstyle in three very different ways is very appealing and has the potential of adding some much needed longevity to the balance spec.
Next time, I'll be going over a few of the miscellaneous changes to the balance class that are coming up in the patch notes and datamines. Until then, enjoy being the best class in WoW :)
