Originally Posted by sprintlphie
Overall, I feel like the balance druid in 5s is very mediocore. We are able to do alot of things, dd, cc, tank melee in moonkin, and even heal if needed. Most of the time I'm not able to do everything because of the global cooldowns. If we get an instant RANGED interupt then it would improve our class alot. Only thing we can do now is switch to cat and maim. With that, it's not instant, takes alot of mana, plus its melee. Warstomp (race permitted) is probably our best atm lol. Bad thing about moonkin's is that our burst isn't the best even if we were free casting. It's because the low amount of crit that the arena gear provides which isn't even comparable to shamans, mages, or locks.
It would be great to hear other people's experience in 5s. I always do research on armory to see what lineup the top moonkin players run and its usually a 4 dps team.
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I have very similar experience on my 5s teams. I rarely play more than 10 games a week (not by choice) so I don't have THAT much experience but 'Jack of all trades, Master of none' pretty much describes the Balance specs. I've tried 42/11/8, 46/0/15 and even went resto with the Wyrmhide set to see what all the QQing was about.
42/11/8 gives you the ranged interrupt with feral charge - but it's not instant, it takes the GCD to get off. Problem with the spec is that it is extremely mana inefficient, even after the patch. The most successful 5s team I was on was 4 dps and we only got to 1750. Felguard lock/ele sham/Moonkin/MS war/HPally (the lock changed his spec frequently going from Felguard to SL/SL) and I ran the 46/0/15 spec. ALL of your points ring too true to my liking
. I've been used instead of a mage in a 2345 team but the lack of counterspell made it hard to finish off a target.
Compare as we dare, Balance druid to Frost mage;
-For melee we bring roots - mages bring nova and frostbite
-For general CC we bring cyclone - mages bring sheep (interesting though is that druids are the best at CCing druids with hibernate and no immunity to cyclone in any form) Now however, with only a 20yrd range on cyclone and a duration that is almost half and a far less forgiving DR, polymorph is just a better CC.
EDIT Then there's counterspell for mages. How many matches have been won or lost by a pally being counterspelled at just the right time?
-For DPS...well even with the 2.4 set bonuses, a Moonkin can't match a shatter combo for pure burst. It has improved mind you.
-For survivability we have great physical dmg mitigation but the only defense we get to magic is from our resists (woo hoo go go MoTW!) and BoP for the 4% spell avoidance - Mages have a few tricks up their sleeve with iceblock, frost barrier, mana shield and blink, heh even Blazing Speed for the weird mage specs. They also have the fire and frost shields vs. some types of spell damage and ice armor helps alot for getting away from melee.
-For lasting power we have Innervate and cheetah to run away and drink - Mages have mana gems and evocation.
*We can heal. Mages can't.
All in all we look almost equal on paper. But in fact it doesn't feel that way. I have a 70 frost mage with under +500 spell dmg and I do surprisingly well compared to my Moonkin in BGs. It feels like I need much less skill and gear to make an impression as a mage than I do as a Moonkin. So if I were on a competitive team, I would rather have a mage than a Balance druid simply because the mage doesn't have to be stellar for it to work but the Moonkin does.
A question was asked earlier about Haste effecting the GCD on shapeshifting - has anyone tested this?
The MSD provides 320 haste for 3 seconds and I've found it more useful when healing than when DPSing. Getting a 3 stack of lifebloom up in about 3.5 seconds is great. But with NG + Wrath of Elune and Focus procced, .8 second Starfires are nice...especially when it stuns
