So far, I played my Druid full Feral and Full Restro when I was playing until I found the joy of playing a Moonkin. I haven’t had a chance to do raids/heroics as a Moonkin.

Wondering what's the word now on Moonkin/Balance druid in groups/heroic/pvp/raids?
5 months ago (just getting back) they wasn’t really accepted. Gear/aggro/cc was the issues I hear all the time.
Wanted to hear from other Balance build druids on what people are saying and your input on playing in groups/raids.

Its now easier to get gear for balance cause of the arena, bg items which give u a good start for raids.
The problem is that its raidleader depended if he wants a moonkin in his raid. In my guild balance is not accepted cause they are not taken into 25mans. Sadly:-(

So it comes up to your guild...just ask if a balance druid would be welcome and your good to go^^

I did some reading at shadowpriest.com about this. Raid leaders get to choose from shadow priests, warlocks, mages, ele shamen and moonkin. If you have fantastic gear, better than anyone else, and/or are willing to splurge on flasks and other consumables to buff your performance, then yeah, you'll get picked. But assuming similar gear and no consumables advantage, it's hard to justify taking along more than one. Their DPS doesn't take time to build up like locks and shadow priests, but their DPS is also not as high as the other casters, and they suffer from oom issues as well. The moonkin's +crit aura makes up for alot of this, especially if you have pally healers and fire mages, but still. Look at it from the raid leader's perspective.

That said, I've got a friend with one of the most pimped out warlocks on her server, and she swears moonkin raid DPS is out of control. Claims they always come in #2 and #3 after her in total raid DPS. Not scientific certainly, but still.

s3Rgio's post reminded me of something: rampant, mindless discrimination. It used to be that moonkin were pretty useless and no one specced balance ever. This was in, like, 2005. Three ****ing years later, alot of people (especially hard core idiots) still have the same biases they formed years ago, before Burning Crusade was even announced. Forget Moonkin, they don't think bears (or paladins) can tank, they don't think kittys can DPS and think the only raid-viable druid spec is resto. (Once upon a time, nervate wasn't a base spell, but was at the end of the resto tree.)

These people need to DIAF. Discrimination has no place in real life or WoW. This isn't idealism, this is math. A decent raid leader won't reject outright any spec of any class. No, not even ret paladins. The policy should be competition. Not just a flat-out DPS comparison, 1-on-1, though that can be really helpful. But rather: who contributes more to the raid? A ret pally is more than just her mediocre DPS, she buffs the raid and can use Divine Intervention. And the moonkin's crit aura? It helps both the other caster classes and the healers. And there's always Nervate and Rebirth.

Speaking as an (ex) raid leader, I would take a h00tkin on a raid - especially a 25 man raid - but I would make sure I looked carefully to pick the right h00tkin. My overall impression of balance druids is that there is a high proportion of 14 year olds, however I've also seen some very powerful, very well played h00tkins.
There are really so many different factors in deciding whether to take an individual on a raid, and your spec is just one of many considerations. Simply put, if you generate a reputation as being a good, professional, friendly player, you won't run into any problems.


-Annikk

Indeed Apple, pre-bc druids were not thought of anything but healing in most people's eyes - or unless they were so desperate they'd ask u along to tank :p

given i took a long break last year off wow and am now in a guild of 4 ;) i've never experienced playing properly with a oomkin druid. but i understood with recent buffs and talents they could do some serious dps.

its funny but in trying to do some basic 5 mans and Kara attune now i'm playing a bit again there is certainly still the view on my server that druids tank as their main skill followed by some healing.

but i agree a good raidleader should be considering a lot of factors in raid class / spec choice and not simply saying they dont want an oomkin.

Raid leaders do indeed have a lot to consider, but on the other hand some are just plain dumb. Depending on what you want, you may have to find a new home. I know in my case I've thought long and hard about moving my druid because the raid leader for 25 man content just constantly feeds the line, "These fights aren't really made for Druid tanks.... a warrior could do it better" line which just makes me want to pull my hair out. The same effect comes with BOOMKIN. Its a matter of the leader's preconcieved notions on a fight etc. I do think Boomkin can be competitive. However they are very much like a shaman.... you don't bring the shaman because he's gonna be #1 on the DPS chart.... you bring him because he made the four other casters go through the roof.... or the rogues dps double... that is why you bring them.

We have one balance Druid, in our guild. I've only run with him once (successfully). I would love to raid with him more often to see him in action, but he never seems gets the first invite. In the past the raid has always opted for a mage or even a hunter. Poor Moonkin gets passed over.

As far as I'm concerned, with a Druid's versatility, (3) different-specced Druids running the same raid would be a rather good time. Battle-rez / Tranquility FTW!

It looks like the Druid still have to prove and make believers again. At L60 I was restro, but off tanking in Raids (8/11/31 build). It was fun getting ppl saying, "wow your great as a tank" only to find out I'm not. "Say what!! your restro build!! OMFG!!!. LOL. It took a while as restro to gain our place and in BC took us a while to get tanking/Cat DPS place in raids. Thanks for the input, I myself need to look into some PvP (not very good myself) but great gear. I do feel I need to watch my aggro and control my threat I generate also. The good news, my guild asked me to respec to moonkin, since they love it when I went moonkin for kicks. Runs was 5-man was fun and successful. So far 602 spell damage with all Blue quality-leather gear, socketed and enchanted.

I am glad that your guild like having a h00tkin around :>

There are quite a few subjects you touched on there.. itemisation, pvp, aggro control.. I'm sure if you have any questions there will be some friendly druids to help find the answer.. :>


-Annikk

In our guild of 250, I'm the only lvl 70 Balance Druid, and I think I'm beginning to break the stereotype as I consistently hit #1 or #2 in party DPS. Woot....over a million damage in Shattered Halls yesterday.

Now if I could just do decently in the arena.......

I have a friend who's levelling a druid with the intent of taking her balance because "moonkin are fluffy and cuddly." :3

It's true... :>


-Annikk

I just recently had a first hand experience with the discrimination moonkins get. I'm the druid class lead for my guild, and we've been raiding with 2 ferals and 2 restos per raid for a while now. Well, in the back of my mind I had been looking for a good moonkin candidate to join the guild and join our raids, I honestly love mookins when played well. I've seen a lot of bad ones of course, but the couple good ones I've seen just add so much to the group they're in.

A couple months ago we had a druid join who was specced resto at the time, but she told me that her love was balance. So I thought to myself "awesome, just what I need!", so I tried my best to encourage her about the whole moonkin thing. I helped her gear up, encouraged her to run heroics for the badge gear, run Kara for the prince dagger, etc. Her spell damage was still pretty low at the time, too low for SSC/TK, but she pretty quickly got it up there. I ran some heroics with her, loved how she was quick to offheal/brez. So I decided to try and get her into our SSC/TK raids.

Well... let's just say I had a hard time. The other officers were pretty against the whole moonkin thing. The mage and warlock officers in particular were totally against it, said that there's no way her DPS was competitive. She came to a couple runs where we only brought her in because we needed an extra, and I thought she did fairly well. However, they didn't. I was kind of angry because she picked up 2 pieces of T5, yet still wasn't brought in on any raids unless there was absolutely NO ONE else to bring in.

Long story short, the other day she was asked to respec resto if she wants to raid more often. The officers just don't think there's a spot for a moonkin in our raids, or that there will ever be. To be fair, it's tough. We usually run with 2-3 locks, 3-4 mages, a shadow priest, and an ele shammy, and it's hard to justify who to get rid of exactly.

I understand their reasoning to a point, I mean a raid only has a certain number of spots... but I do think they were being a too stubborn about it. Unfortunately majority rules in that type of situation, and I was the only officer who really felt she deserved a permanent spot as moonkin. I feel kind of bad about the whole thing, since I was the one who encouraged her, but I really thought she had a shot. Hell, I remember what it's like being feral and being freaking asked to heal ALL THROUGH MC, even when we had 293829392 healers, and our warrior "tanks" sucked ***.

It was an icky situation. I feel bad for her, and all the other moonkin out there that have to deal with that ****. It's not fair. I can only hope that they continue to buff the balance tree more, to the point where people can see how awesome it is. :(

Anyways, I don't mean to sound so negative, just sharing my experience as class lead. I hope that moonkin raiders find guilds out there that aren't like mine to find a home in.

Khar, can you go over their concerns with us? So far the only one you mentioned was the fact that there's only 9 spots for casters in your raid group. A geared moonkin's DPS should be able to put her on par with alot of those casters, her combat rez and nervate are both invaluable, and +5% spell crit aura buffs the DPS of all those other casters, as well as priest and paladin HPS.

If the math doesn't work out, okay then. I'm a math bigot. But I cannot stand nor forgive discrimination based on anything other than cold hard facts. I mean, on the face of it, what the **** is that ele shammy doing in there if they're not going to accept a moonkin in partial tier 5?!

What did the damage meters how? WWStats? If she is really sub-par I can understand, but what you described sounds more like DPS'r jealousy (or maybe paranoia).

I can feel for her a bit. For some time there was quite a bias against BM hunters in raids. It wasn't until quite a few folks (and the damage meters) starting showing it was the best 5-man-->T5 spec that guild leaders started to allow the spec.

Ya, an equally geared ele shammy puts out the same DPS as a moonkin druid. If elementals are aloud in than so should boomkins. I dont know where people get it in their heads that its a crap spec.

Update.

Well, I got myself in Kara. Unfortunately, I was ask to join in Curator, Chess, Shades and Prince fight on 2 seperate runs in the weeks. Well, this is what I got so far from the people who I was blessed playing with who game me a chance.

"Thanks for the off heal, dam it really help us out"

"I'm critting more with you on, had to hold back cuz I was about to pass on the aggro meter"

"thanks for the innvervate! perfect time to"

"Did you see that! He battle rez the off-tank, changed to Bear form and took over off-tanking!, GJ!! that was quick thinking"

"geez, thought I was a goner, thanks for pulling that mob off of me"

I asked after the run: "how did I do?",
Raid Leader: "you finished 2nd to last on the damage meter =(", but I have to say, you did come in the middle of the run and judging by how much you put out on a average, you be at lease #3, besides, you played support role to a tee. This was one of the easiest AND fun runs we did!

Well. I agree, playing a Moonkin, gear or talent tree needs some love, but when using all our gifts as a druid, it can be rewarding.

I'll keep everyone posted. Only sad thing, I pass on 2 items. It is just me, felt the progression for the guild, and felt it was better for the people who Raids every time then for a part-time, retired raider like me to get it.

Well done!

Sounds like you utilized all 3 of our trees at the right time!

Don't go doing it too often though, we don't want everyone to know how awesome we are do we?

:D

Well, part of the problem, and one of the parts that upset me the most about the entire thing, was that the officers that were most opposing her were using their own personal damage meters to judge her performance instead of our WWS reports. I think they were using Recount, which I'm told is indeed decent, but I'm not overly familar with it.

They were also using "DPS" figures instead of "Damage done", and I'm still kind of a novice when it comes to this number crunching stuff, but I didn't really understand where their numbers were coming from. The mage class leader said that she consistantly does around 580-600 DPS on a boss while his precious mages all do over 900-1000. The raid leader heard that and of course got alarmed.

When I tried to get the mage class leader and raid leader to look at the WWS for one specific raid, the one I was looking at showed her as 2nd on Al'ar, then 6-8th on VR/Solarian. I thought that was excellent, especially on Al'ar. The mage class leader just kept spouting me the 600 DPS number junk, refusing to look at the WWS report.

I honestly don't know which is more "valid" in judging DPS, DPS numbers or placements on a damage done chart. The problem is that most of my guild's class leaders use the DPS numbers. I don't even understand that, is that PEAK DPS, or average? Cause if it's average... well, obviously hers is going to be lower, when she pops out to rez and offheal! If it's peak... well, no offense, but that should not be used to judge. Anyone can get lucky with trinkets procced and get crazy crits that sends that number skyrocketing. Then pull aggro and die or some ****.

I don't know. I tried my best to argue/reason with them about it, but I guess I lack the knowledge to break their thinking.

Long story short, yeah, they seemed to be pretty unreasonable about the whole thing, which is why I got so upset. The final decision wasn't even made with me present.

Our Ele shammy is an officer, so his place is kinda... set, sadly, although sometimes he brings in his ret pally instead (yeah, get a hearty laugh out of that one, they'd rather have a ret pally than a moonkin). The mages/locks are convinced Ele shammy totems help them more than a moonkin aura, but yeah, as far as I'm concerned, Ele shammy/moonkin DPS is on-par, and moonkin DPS is way higher than ret pally DPS. Shadow priest... the mages are in love with the shadow priest, they're all fire or arcane, so there's no breaking that up.

That leaves the only spots she could take are mage/lock spots. Which means the mage/lock class leaders get a say... which means no. -_- I honestly don't think we need 4 mages, but the mage leader insists they all deserve spots because they're so uber, plus have been in the guild longer than her.

The way I see it, they have a stick up their butts about moonkin.

I'm not giving up on her though. At one point I actually encouraged her to leave the guild because of all this, but her husband is finally raiding with us on his hunter (the officers had some problems with his DPS at first, too, but they've finally come around), so I think that's the main reason she's willing to stick it out and hope for a spot. I'm personally planning that whenever we get a ranged DPS spot to open up (and it eventually will), I'll snag her in there, make them see what she can do.

Our Ele shammy is an officer, so his place is kinda... set, sadly, although sometimes he brings in his ret pally instead I stopped reading at this point. **** your guild.

WOW! I rather let ANY Under geared Moonkin into my raid over a ****ing ALT ret pally. Seriously there is something wrong with that picture.

We used to bring a moonkin with us through 6/6 ssc and 3/4 tk until he emo raged, caused some weird drama and is subsequently no longer in the guild... but he did good damage and dps. And people were always fighting over his aura. Pallys won usually (I think they get mana back when they crit heal). Occasionally the mages / destro lock would get him and /drool.

Khar - We use WWS too. Thing rocks. The thing about damage done vs dps is that many fights, damage done is dependant on class, and duration of the fight. If you have 1k dps but die on alar from buffet or standing in the fire on the ground in phase 2, your damage done will be super low. And vice versa, if you are the last one alive on a wipe, your damage done will be higher than the others, even if you were doing overall less damage per second than the rest of the raid. And if you keep having to go under water and are not able to cast anything while the beam goes over your head while melee can go under water and still wail away, melee dps / overall damage done will be greater.

The hard thing to measure as far as guilds go is raid utility. Moonkin as you said offer clutch BRezz's and occasional off heals if needed. Eleshammies offer Bloodlust and a +hit / +crit totem. Neither class, if played well, should be judged based solely on their dps IMO.

In many cases, if there are too many players to come to raids, all else being equal, unfortunatley it comes down to who is more friendly on vent, and more talkative in gchat, and is thus known by more of the guild. Or just who has been with the guild longer and 'proven themselves' or something.

I know in our 25mans I'd give my right arm for a balance druid any day of the week. Sure maybe they only do 500dps instead of 600dps, but I put them in with four mages who regularly do 650dps and suddenly they are doing 700dps. So as far as I'm concerned the Balance druid just did 700dps compared with the 650 the mages were doing. The utility of the class is what makes it shine. Battle Rez, Auras, Improved Fairie fire, Leader of The Pack etc... the list goes on and on. Feral and Boomkin have to fight for the spots. I know most raid groups just would kill for the resto tree druids.

I have to say that I am a raiding Boomkin, and my guild actually has 2 of us that they consistently bring to raids.

I am usually grouped w/ the mages, and sometimes a shadow priest. They love me for my aura yet I'm not expected to shift out of form to heal. We have enough dedicated healers for that.

Every now and then I will need to rez someone which I obviously do, and my innervate is available for someone though no one ever really asks for it.

The main thing I'm there for is to offer my dps and provide some extra crit for the casters in my group.

It's too bad utility can't be measured on a damage meter.

Yesterday in heroic shatt halls I averaged 500 dps, did about 950k in total damage, and prevented two wipes with heals and b rez. Not bad I think since I've only been 70 for a week and a bit.

Then spent the rest of the night in lfg watching groups come and go, and seeing comments like 'People still spec Oomkin?' and 'Moonkin? Ahh, no thanks.'

Oiysters, the biggest problem facing Oomkin in 5 mans is the complete lack of CC. I mean, yeah, you can Chain Cyclone, but that's not anywhere near as effective as a sheep / sap / trap, and it hurts your dps cause you have to be ready to cyclone right when it breaks, and cant be in the middle of a SF cast or something.

Same problem exists with ele and enhance shamans for 5 mans. I can understand PuG's being wary of a boomkin (hell, even a really poorly geared half blind rogue or mage can still sap / sheep) as usually pug tanks arent up to par with tanking multiple mobs, so 2-3 CC classes are desirable.

Though i've been farming Heroic SH on my lock recently with a druid tank, priest healer, and 2 other high dps random classes and we clear the whole thing without any CC at all in like 1 hour. Somehow he's able to hold aggro on the mobs when I'm hitting 1200+dps with Seeds of LoL on those multipulls.

Its all about finding a good group that you fit in with, and kicking ass with them :) *easier said than done, I know, but its possible*

*edit: grammar / spelling

You're right, of course. I specced back to Dreamstate Restokin today and started working on getting my heal set back up to par. A few more points of + heal and PuG problem solved.

Though i've been farming Heroic SH on my lock recently with a druid tank and we clear the whole thing without any CC at all in like 1 hour.I'd like to know how that is done. Last night I ran hSV with 1.5 CC (hunter/warlock) and we wiped so many times I think I spent more time ghost walking than actually in the instance. I think it was a 3-3.5 hour run.

Sometimes I think it is group skill as well as the tank's skill that makes it possible. Waiting on initial heals, waiting for tank to build threat before DPS, etc.

Very well geared group that play together a lot. I'll throw out curses of shadows (no threat) on all the targets while the tank builds aggro, and maybe throw a Shadowbolt or two at his primary target, or just chill for a little bit.

Pretty soon, he's got threat on all of them, the frost mage we bring locks the mobs down on him, our ele shaman starts going nuts with chain lightnings, and I start Seeding like a madman (1300 or so +shadow dmg = ridiculous SoC's). Things die so quick that the druid barely has time to lose aggro.

It gets ugly every now and then and a mob will come back to me, but I'll either fear it back behind me, death coil it, or it will just flat out die by the other two standing next to me focusing it as they see it running at us slowly. If it gets really ugly I'll soulshatter to drop my threat by 50% and just stop casting. Shaman occasionally helps with off heals too.

This works amazingly well with pally tanks too. (lolaoe)

I wouldn't recommend this at all with a pug, or with people that dont have really good gear. We clear Kara in ~2.5 hours this same way.

And on a side note, pls blizz give balance druids some indoor CC. WTB more boomkins. Thanks.

^ With a good group you really can do just about anything that a PUG would struggle with. From about level 20 to 70, I played with the same group. There were four us: feral druid (me), holy/disc priest, aff lock, and shadow priest. Our regular fifth alternated between a rogue and a hunter (so we had some CC, I guess).

We did H-SH with the rogue when we were doing our Kara quest (to give you an idea of what our gear was like). It wasn't wipe-free, but even with our sub-par group composition we were able to clear it. Three well-coordinated AoE fears helped a lot.

I lead most of our raids for my guild. I am an officer and the only time someone else leads a raid is when our Guild Leader wants to lead the first raid on new content. We are 5/6SSC, 2/4TK, and 1/5MH currently.

We always have 1 Boomkin in our raids, and we just picked up another one. One is usually right below the middle fo the DPS chart and the other, new one, has been in the top 4 or so each raid.

We also almost always have 2 RetPallies, one raid recently we even had 4 (7 total Paladins 8P).

We have 0 (zero) problem with progression. We have 0 (zero) problems killing "farm" bosses.

Sure our Boomkin won't top DPS meters... Who cares. What they lack in DPS, they bring in utility. Once you have the required mages for sheep, and the required Locks for banish, I'll sit the remaining mages/locks for a Boomkin any day.

Even if all they brought to the table, other than DPS, was a battle rez... Hell, when it comes to new content, and never seen before bosses, extra battle rezzes are awesome.

And on a side note, pls blizz give balance druids some indoor CC. WTB more boomkins. Thanks.


Came across this and had to note.. I just can't contain my excitement!

Revised Druid Abilities!!! (http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Druid)

I'm sure most of you already know but... I feel to the floor when I saw it, I'm already picturing what my tree will look like now!

And what is up with the guy's face for Gale Winds under the practice tree?

Sabines

I am eagerly awaiting Alamo's report on the new expo.
I can see it now.. "Tree is haf sum armorz now, lol!!"


-Annikk

I lvl'd from 1-60 as moonkin, then specced resto to raid. Normal thing to do, I guess, but when our guild (which was 2nd on server) progressed into AQ40 I specced back to moonkin. It was mostly for fun, to dance in the farm-raids, but somehow I found that the moonkinspecc had a use in 40man-raiding, even back pre-tbc. It wasnt pure dps, and i surely would never have gotten a spot if i wasnt the druid-CL and also ML.

When tbc came moonkins got so very buffed that it didnt take long before most of the others in the guild changed their mind and thought it did really make sense to give me a dps-spot. Not everyone, ofc, no I got flamed until i wanted to quit the game by guildies that thought i was just being selfish playing a pvp/fun/solo-specc instead of helping the guild/raid and such I shouldnt be allowed to be raid or even be an officer (which i had been for 2 years already).

The discrimination is very harsh sometimes, but nowadays most people see the value of having me around, and if they dont.. well, there's no 600dps vs a mage 950dps. My dps (and damage done) is a constant top3 in my guild, and that does not count for the boost i give my group, any innervate or brez.

Saying moonkins arent worth taking is just stupid, imo. Sure, we dont have any cc, but how many times can you cc a raidboss? And in 5mans.. well, I can offtank in moonkinform, mages cant ;)

Oh and really looking forward to the new changes for druids. Finally some aoe and cc, and aggroreduction. Pretty much solves all problems there is (except itemisation, but hoping for that too).

/ Shdarm, Moonglade

Bearing in mind this thread was created way back in January, I think the discrimination is becoming less and less of a factor in the daily lives of druids. We have been powerful for so long now that it's almost unfashionable to call us a waste of a raid spot. Druids have cultivated a reputation for themselves that can be summarised as "raid boss", joking of course that it would take a well-planned raid of geared people to kill a druid.

I think we are at a pretty nice stage now. Certainly on my own server, someone proclaiming that a Moonkin had no place in a raid would themselves be branded a n00b. The vast majority of people seem to subscribe to this notion so for the time being our feathered friends' spot in the raid looks assured.


-Annikk

(Hey I'm new)

What's funny is that I played a Moonkin back before they were cool and running around Shattrath all decked out. I mean, way pre-bc when it just came out. I got a lot of **** for it and time and time again had to deal with my guild leaders giving me crap about not being resto or not being able to go into a raid because this person was this and that. It was horrible before BC and now I find it very funny to see everyone switching to Moonkin because it's so viable now. A lot of people didn't even play the game pre-bc and when I explain how hard it used to be, they don't necessarily always believe me. I'm a veteran of being a resto druid, had my experience with that, but when I switched to the good 'ol bubbly Moonkin, I couldn't go back.

I always got crap from other dps classes as well because I would some how manage to outrank them in DPS in BC instances with less quality gear.

It's a shame that I still hear about discrimination against druids and what they should or should not be. For too long people have only considered our class a "Jack of all Trades" and won't even listen to claims that we can actually excel in a particular field.

Hi druid :> Welcome to our druid grove. ^_^


-Annikk