Balancemoon

hmmm, it was largely with regards to PvE I was speaking. In pvp, I must confess I never stayed long enough in cat form to maim, but using in an opener is at least some use (abandon my resto druid a while in favour of my holy priest). Lacerate one does use in pvp if u got the Furor skill or intensity for a rogue, never really maimed, but still most of the feral abilities aren't used. We are talking about all the animal forms, dash, prowl, pounce, bash, lacerate, maim (if u are resto pvp), it still has no theme througout the class, in resto pve, balance. The point is there is no reason to use the majority of the feral school, and note I never said all of it, just most of it. Balance even looking at WotLK which finally has it's spell casting issues fixed, will still feel 2/3 of a class until it has some meaningful utilization of it's feral abilities. Give balance druids a reason to use their abilities in feral forms, it broadens the spectrum of play, if feral uses healing spells once in a while to get health, can't some sort of neat mechanism exist for balance to melee once in a while for a few seconds to get mana? That way you'd be using your rakes, claws, mauls, rips, swipes though not for damage but at least once in a while. That's what I meant.

And talking of restoration, I'm really remembering how pre-TBC the 0/20/31 builds were quite popular, it was even more common for a resto druid to spec down feral instead of balance but both were used. If you specced down balance, fine, most of your feral school became obsolete (not good that) but, at least it was viable to spec feral because for resto druids, feral and balance provide some damage as it's a healing tree, just like resto shaman can go down elemental or enhancement.

To be honest I'm just hoping that the new abilities have relevance to all the specs and that the feral ones aren't just only relevant to feral druids, or resto arena pvp, which since feral charge has moved to 20 pts, I'm guessing won't. They may have compensated balance and restoration by given them more abilities in their trees to even things out there. However I am also concerned in the long wrong, for I view the druid, particular the balance druid the only class in the game that in some builds have a situation where the majority of a school isn't used, so if you were ever looking to finally polish off the class now that WotLK seems to have done a pretty decent job for each trees roles as spell dps, melee combatant and healer, the final part will to make sure the class has it's full diversity and there is always some occasion to use most of the abilities and never in any build an occasion where up to a third (almost an entire school) is redundant, it's not good class development that you use more of your class as balance druid in the 30s-50s than you do at 70.

I hope you will forgive me over the not quite so accurate statement of the maim/lacerate but also remember there is still this issue of relevance of most Feral school abilities to balance druids and most resto druids, which can be addressed. I must say it is part of the reason I don't play my balance and resto druid and only play my feral druid, because only with my Feral druid do I get the feeling I am using most of my class. Yes I have 3 druids, actually 4. Stopped playing the balance one because spell casting was not on par with other casters, all groups I went to I made (no one really wants to take you), and when it came to leading my guild, I knew that as balance especially in 10-mans I was wasting a spot when the ele shamans/shadow priests etc were online, and in 25-man raids room could be made but still that's a different topic we all know .
That would be nice, I would like that. It would mean more effective off-role. Meaning Feral druids at least have more use of their other abilities in PvE, the ideal would have been to have nature's swiftness, so you only pop out to pop an innervate or that massive heal then back to cat. With the feral crit working on spells, it would help. Ferals don't spend time healing, using multiple roles seriously became extinct just before TBC, however that doesn't mean you can't occasionally shift out and land a heal, or help keep someone up at the tail end of the fight, or pop out and cast a hurricane +barkskin when you're about to tank an AoE group or pop a nature's grasp indoors, buff yourself with thorns or toss the odd cyclone, tranquility when the group is really down (even moonfire a fleeing mob out of charge range if i'm indoors and can't cheetah form to catch up or dash, in fact only starfire and wrath are what feral druids don't ever use).

Do you see what I mean? As feral I have occasion to use resto and balance abilities and all the better if it was more meaningful. I remember the days when people use to think feral damage attack power from gear also counting as +heal was overpowered, they could never answer how that was different from a shadow priest or elemental shaman or balance druid who's plus heal was the same as damage, answer is, it isn't. [the objection was almost purely based on envy, the "I don't want any class but mine to get buffs" syndrome. This is why even with unified power, crit and hit, it doesn't affect any balance issues, and in fact encourages a bit more use of hybrids using their rather unscaled abilities, afterall, does a fire mage use frost spells for his role despite the fact that his gear boosts frost damage as well? No, off course not, fire spells are his main damage, but he does have use for frost and arcane spells, now imagine if they got no benefit from gear, ouch, that would make only the spells with utility useful and even then not inspiring.

Yet this is what druid's suffer the most from, it's the other schools a bit dereft. Power will help a bit, especially in the case of resto druids, but as mentioned for balance it won't mean anything unless off course you gained more mana if you attacked in feral form based on damage done. Shaman suffer a bit too, although not as much, the reason is because most of their school abilities do not lie in straight off abilities but in totems, same with paladins who the majority of abilities are in seals & judgments. Most of the enhancement school, elemental school abilities are totems, which will see use regardless of your spec, so they don't suffer as much. Paladins have a different issue however, the fact that theyy have to split between two opposing stats, except for the healing spells, half the abilities used are boosted by melee, the other half by spell damage, paladins are melee orientated they rely on whacking. It is a most interesting issue.

However since on a balance druid, power for melee on gear would make no difference, they don't need to resolve that issue to address making Balance able to use much more of the feral abilities than (dash/stealth/pounce/bash/lacerate), just give it a reason to spend a few seconds meleeing once in blue moon, if it has that it can use it's rips/rakes/mauls/swipes/FBs/shreds/demo etc during those few seconds restoring full use of it's class. That's what I'm meaning.