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Author: meumesmo
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Druid Class - Part 1 - Balance Tree
Hello,
This is an introduction to the Druid class; I have divided this guide into three parts for an easier navigation.
Part 1
What is a druid, why choose the druid class, the role in WoW, a brief intro of its talent tree and a more detailed introduction of the Balance tree.
What is a druid?
The druid is the master of nature. One who posses such a power that can transform itself into a beast, call upon nature and work together with nature to aid its allies in battle.
Why choose a druid?
The druid class is a very versatile class, they can perform various roles and unlike many might think they can and will excel and succeed in one particular role. The druid is provided with Balance powers being nature and arcane damage. Feral combat being able to compete with the warrior and rogue in tanking and DPS respectively. Restoration being able to call upon the most powerful gods of nature to heal and cure its allies.
What is the role of a druid in WoW?
Like I said before, the druid is very versatile and can be used in different ways. But don’t forget you cannot do everything at once, and must choose a path. But always keep in mind if you decide to go healing and someday happens to get tired of it simply re-spec and you will basically have a totally different character.
Now for a brief introduction to the druid’s talents:
Balance: the druid using the balance tree is a very powerful spell caster, they may not be able to compete with a mage or warlock in spell casting, but they have something unique that makes them almost a caster in a warrior’s body and that is called the Moonkin Form. Providing 400% increased armor and 5% to spell critical to itself and its allies, it can be a powerful choice for solo play, raids and especially for PvP, when used in PvP prepare yourself for a huge battle, because even the least experienced players will know when they look at you that you are there to show them a real good time… in my opinion if you want to have fun this is your best option.
Feral: in this tree, the druid is capable of enhancing its already powerful animal forms. This tree will turn the druid into the real beast that it is, being able to take the role of a warrior in tanking in bear form and even of a rogue in DPS in cat form. This tree is considered by many the best tree for soloing and one of the best in the whole game for solo play, but it’s also powerful in dungeons, raids and very sneaky and powerful in PvP.
Restoration: here is where the druid relies on the super powers of nature, to soothe, heal and cure its allies. Being able to take the Tree Form and enhancing its healing abilities, this is where the druid is best loved in raids, dungeons and of course everyone loves a healer in battlegrounds, but with all this power, consequences come and this is where the druid will lack the solo play ability and being less effective than the other trees. A healer druid when used right, knowing the little tricks and how it performs can be one of the most powerful healers in the game.
Races:
The druid is only playable by two races being the Night Elf on the Alliance side and the Tauren in the Horde side since they are so powerful only mystic ancient beings can dominate the powers of the druid. They have no benefit over one another, except for personal preference and different racial abilities, and at the end your preference will overcome everything else.
Investing in the Balance Talents:
This tree is used to enhance the druids spell casting capabilities, I will be posting what I think in my opinion is a good talent to invest here or not, but then again this is from my experience and it’s merely my opinion:
Starlight Wrath 5 points: This one is a must if you are investing in the Balance Tree, cutting the casting time of Wrath and Starfire by .5 seconds is crucial to a balance druid, with a low cast time you will sometimes find yourself spamming wrath like a machine gun.
Nature’s Grasp 1 point: The judgment on this one is based upon your preference it is not a must but it’s only one point, If you’re going all the way balance then I would invest into Control of Nature and skip this one but I would suggest taking this one just for those sticky situations if you’re a feral druid, it can be a life saver sometimes.
Improved Nature’s Grasp 4 points: With all 4 points invested in this you will be sure to root your enemy, but is it worth investing 4 points in this? In my opinion no, for others especially feral is a must were some say it’s better to be safe than sorry, as in my opinion as a balance druid you will hardly ever have any enemies getting close to you unless their dead. There are better talents to spend your points on.
Control of Nature 3 points: With 3 points invested in this you will suffer no interruption from damage for your entangling root or cyclone, this talent sometimes is useful and sometimes it’s not, it is because if a melee class is on your face you can either cyclone or root it and not worry to be interrupted, also in order to go down further in the balance tree you will have to either invest 2 points in this and 1 in nature’s grasp or three in brambles or 1 in nature’s grasp and 2 in improved nature’s grasp. But I would go with 3 with this one.
Focused Starlight 2 points: It’s going to up your damage and critical with wrath, it is also a pre-requisite for Vengeance, so this is basically a must if you’re going for the Balance tree.
Improved Moonfire 2 points: Other non-druid players hate Moonfire but you will love it, so increasing its damage and critical is a good thing, this is 2 well invested points.
Brambles 3 points: In my opinion this is one of the worst talents in whole game, how much damage from thorns do you really put out? Do you want a melee player on you, when you’re a spell caster? I don’t think so, just skip this and never look back.
Insect Swarm 1 point: This talent spell is a really nice damage over time spell and also decreases the chance of an enemy to hit you by 2%, this one deserves the 1 point.
Nature’s Reach 2 points: Being able to cast from further away is priceless, this is another useful talent since being able to moonfire that fleeing enemy or catching the flag carrier is always good.
Vengeance 5 points: Anything that increases damage is nice, so 5 points into this is a good thing.
Celestial Focus 3 points: The stun chance of 15% for the starfire is not the best but it’s not the worst either, also you won’t be getting many starfire out in a fight, but the resistance of push back when casting wrath is a good thing, so taking this talent is a good decision.
Lunar Guidance 3 points: More damage = a good thing, so 3 points into this will be well invested.
Nature’s Grace 1 point: This can make you spam Wrath like crazy, being able to cut down your wrath for another .5 seconds and making it only a 1 second spell is really nice. It also helps out for those healing spells. One point well invested.
Moonglow 3 points: Cutting down mana cost is always good this talent in my opinion is a must, 3 points into this.
Moonfury 5 points: Always improving damage, so 5 points into this.
Balance of Power 2 points: Increasing your chance to hit with your spells is always good, also decreasing the chance you will be hit by spells is super good, so 2 points can go into this.
Dreamstate 3 points: Being able to regenerate mana even when casting is always nice, think more endurance less downtime, so 3 points well invested.
Moonkin Form: The famous Moonkin form! This is a must if you’re going for a balance druid; not taking this talent can actually get you in jail!
Improved Faerie Fire 3 points: Nothing useful here for a caster, of course melee and ranged attackers will love it but you can safely skip this one.
Wrath of Cenarius 5 points: For balance druids with lots of +damage gear you will really see this working, otherwise not so much. But if you’re this down into the balance tree you will probably have decent gear and some +damage so taking this talent is advised.
Force of Nature 1 point: This is one is entirely up to you, I usually take it because it’s fun and it really helps when soloing, it is also useful in PvP especially if you’re one on one.
Remaining points into the restoration tree.
Now that we have gone over the Balance tree and invested our points, we still have 13 points left, you may be asking where those can go, and I’ll tell you. These remaining 13 points can go into these talents over at the restoration tree:
Improved Mark of the Wild 5 points: This is a good place for 5 out of those 13 points, simply because it’s going to make Mark stronger and it’s going to get us we’re we need to go.
Naturalist 5 points: Cutting your healing touch cast time is always good since you will be healing yourself when soloing and even doing some back up heals in PvP and groups, so 5 points into this.
Intensity 3 points: This is where we wanted to get very well invested 3 points. This combined with Dreamstate and Moonglow will maybe make people stop calling us OoMKins.
Tips and Hints
So far we have gotten a good overview of our talents, now I’ll give some tips and things to consider when playing your balance druid.
1. Always remember that Moonfire and Entangling Roots are your best friends. Also those 2 combined with insect swarm you can let them tick to the end and have your target dead by the time roots end.
2. Moonfire is a powerful spell, it’s instant cast and no recharge time, but it costs a lot of damage so use it wisely, to make the best use of moonfire cast it once and let it tick to the end. If you feel like you need to spam moonfire, then do this: Cast your highest rank moonfire, and then cast a lower rank moonfire, and keep on doing this if you want. At least every time when you cast a lower rank the highest rank dot will still tick.
3. Starfire, this is a slow cast, heavy mana but powerful spell. But sometimes you do not have the time or mana to cast this so if you can afford and likes to cast starfire then do it. This spell is a great opener followed my roots and good against bosses, but sometimes it’s better to cast 2 wraths than 1 starfire, you ask why? In my opinion depending on the situation, if you cast 2 wraths these are fast to cast and you have 2 spells that can crit, and if one of them does you get to cast another wrath in 1 second, making your dps higher. But to consider starfire, you do have to take in account that starfire is of the most mana/damage efficient spells.
4. Roots and cyclone these are life savers, but have to be used properly, always take into account who, where and when to cast those, especially if you’re a group.
5. Hurricane, this is an aoe spell but it’s channeled, always best used if you must with barkskin.
6. Moonkin form , very dangerous to others and to YOU, it’s dangerous to you because you can’t cast restoration spells when in Moonkin form so you can’t heal yourself if you’re not in cast form a few tips to remember! NEVER wait until at 10% Health to heal yourself! ALWAYS remember that when you shift out of moonkin you won’t have that nice amount of armor, so you will be taking more damage, try to save Barkskin for situations like these. REMEMBER that shifting in and out costs a lot of mana so only shift when necessary.
Balance Build
Ok, last but not least I’ll post a full Balance build, that in my opinion has served me well and it works pretty good. Again I want to remind you that this is only my opinion from my experiences.
Balance Build
This is it right here, I want to apologize to everyone if I forgot to mention something and I’m always open to constructive criticism and opinions. Go try it out and have fun!
Remember that Feral and Restoration are coming, but I would just like to add that I do not have a lot of time so it may take a while.
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