Level 25 Balance Druid SoD Talents and Runes

A First look at the Talent build possibilities and Runes for being a Balance Druid in Season of Discovery at level 25. Not many options, and we are back to being limited on a lot of spells, so I'm hoping the few runes we did get, help us have fun and have a raid spot!

[@Mack-i2u]

Starsurge is an instant cast nuke that benefits from talents. Of course its going to be part of the rotation.

[@zoogie980]

can proc the improved starfire stun which is huge in pvp

[@Niimsy]

As a pvp player and druid main, I'm excited about the looks for boomkin this season. Having that extra DoT via sunfire will be nice. And the fact that you can refresh it while in bear form is a nice touch. Don't think it will be suuper strong but I am very interested to push it as far as possible. The first bracket 1-25 will be very weird though as in order to survive pvp you have to spec talents for feline swiftness so you can kite and do extra damage. But all your gear will be tailored towards having the bulk of damage come from moonfire and sunfire. Definitely interested to see how it goes

[@Orgrimmar21]

Starsurge is instant with 10s cd so weaving starsurges while kiting will be good and saving instant healing touches when needed. Also I wonder if starsurge benefits from the fury of the stormrage rune since the rune says the spell benefits from all effects that affect wrath so.. might also be a 0 cost spell. We can go Moonfire + Sunfire + insect swarm and just bring them down with dots + instant starsurge and look for roots + bash stun to look for instant healing touches.

[@Criixus1]

How do we know it’s the instant cast starsurge it used to be casted

[@Niimsy]

@@Criixus1 Because there have been videos of people in game going over all the runes and it was an instant cast

[@zoogie980]

I think boomkin will be the new NS/moonglow hybrid spec for WPVP. Fury of Stormrage, if used right, is just another NS so you can go down to insect swarm in resto and put the rest of your back into balance for more dmg. You can also be viable dps in PVE now so no need to go healer to farm PVP gear.

[@rivsy4423]

wish boomkins got some more love, this is lacking atm. As good as free wraths sounds ( this is gunna be great while levelling) its significantly worse dps than starfire in raids due to a lack of a nature resistance lowering curse so once we get that .5 seconds off the cast time this will become fairly useless, granted you'll be spamming wrath early game. The heal also will become a hassle later once you get moonkin form if you want to heal having to shift out to cast the proc and shift back never feels goood (plz blizzz let us cast innervate and abolish in mooonkin form) . The oomkin meme is partially a myth in classic with innervate mana pots and demo rune spam you will wont go oom on 99% of fights especially if you're raid team kills bosses fast. What they really need is more damage whether it's from extra or improved other abilities. Starsurge and sunfire seem like a good start but we'll have to wait and see how powerful they are in game (although with sunfire if starfire is the way to go later in the game this may become less usefull as some of our best options were items that had pure +arcane damage on them and balance are already lacking gear options). I say this as someone who played boomkin all throughout classic and got 99% parsed on most fights. I'll still probably end up rolling balance just hope the next set of tunes has more stuff to help our dps especially as other dps classes will probably get many pure damage runes which may actually increase the dps gap on the already worst perfoming spec in the game. Hopefully we get proper Balance runes later on in SoD sorry for rant

[@ClassicGho]

Well said rant! I'm looking forward to level 40, where we should start to see some improvement hopefully!

[@g.g.2359]

Blizzard dont know what they are doing really. It seems they are trying to help with Boomkin viability…while making ONLY cat and bear form provide windfury for melees which is the single most wanted melee raid buff/proc ever existed and now when alliance finally gets to feel how crazy it is… Blizzard tied it to cat and bear form only. This will be the single reason why every fast clearing raid will want a feral person each melee grp and i doubt a moonkin will ever pump so high that ppl will prefer it instead windfury enabler in raids.

[@maggyinahat]

I do think that the Stormrage rune is just a big help for leveling. It gives balance the ability to really have the same uptime between mobs as feral does and makes it a viable option for questing. For the end game, I'm expecting more runes to come in to change up the dps meta game, because as is you're right that these runes won't make a massive difference.

[@ClassicGho]

@@maggyinahat Hopefully we can get the rune early!

[@adam6228]

Boomkins at max level with 0 mana wrath and healing runes are going to be world pvp kings at 60.

[@ClassicGho]

I'm so hype for wpvp.

[@g.g.2359]

Mhm and also Boomkins in raids are going to be so …. wait … non existent since cant provide windfury like ferals. 😂

[@dantelabella9753]

they need to change omen of clarity, theres no reason it should be in the balance tree if its a melee talent.

[@ClassicGho]

There’s a ton of things that make 0 sense. The physical damage Thant to unlock omen doesn’t belong in the balance tree either!

[@Nemtudoknevetadni]

Starsurge is instant with a 10sec CD. It was shown in one of the blizzcon streames, but i forgot the stremers name :(

[@maggyinahat]

If this is true then our ability to kite and do damage is going to be super high as balance and I'm looking forward to leaning in to that play style for pvp

[@spyderguy9000]

It is so tempting to go caster druid, I'm still torn.

[@Mscmann]

gonna be interesting to see how viable would it be to get full nature spell dmg gear at 60 and just spam wrath, maybe throw in some spellhit as well

[@amanuelle]

I believe moonfire is a trap. It's high mana cost for so-so damage, and so early in the game crits are incredibly unlikely. Instead with wrath costing no mana imo a better build would be 5/0/11, taking Furor for the guaranteed Skull bash over Starsurge because who knows what we may need to interrupt opting for full nature damage gear using wrath, sunfire, an insect swarm Which reminds me, Blessed be thy swarm But who really knows!

[@ClassicGho]

You just want the Swarm! I respect it lol. That build/idea sounds good for PvP imo.

[@amanuelle]

I definitely have a Swarm bias, but it remains that the mana cost between them is VAST, and the pure nature damage pieces would make IS out weigh MF in every metric@@ClassicGho

[@mimo5383]

Woo. Might make a come back and do a fresh oomkin for this.

[@ClassicGho]

Yes! Looks better than SoM was!

[@sergeantdoomkin8873]

Gho, which professions will you choose for Season of Discovery? Tailoring will give the bloodvine set at level 60, and +7 spell power boots with +1% spell hit at lvl 25. Leatherworking will give +10% dmg for 10 seconds + 1% spell hit at level 25, and maybe more at later levels. Engineering will give 21spell power head goggles at level 25. Not really sure which to choose.

[@ClassicGho]

Tailoring/Leatherworking pieces look great. I'll have to wait and see what all the gear looks like. Maybe the crafted gear will be BoE and I can craft them on an alt and trade them over. I've never had Engineering in Classic Era, so I wanted that, but the Hit gear is really enticing.

[@tomasratislav9306]

we are going to have OP tanks and OP healers, there will be not much space for "support" classes imo

[@armandovercouteren7638]

Having no natures grasp for pvp is a nogo its best utility for pvp

[@ClassicGho]

I like having it for WSG for sure, handle in the open world as well.

[@mephstv]

Druids just got even crazier in pvp

[@maggyinahat]

Do we know for sure that the fury of stormrage is a permanent change and not a cooldown that lasts for a short duration? If it is permanent then I'm really excited for balance. If it is just a CD for 15 seconds or something I am less excited.

[@ClassicGho]

It's a passive ability, will be there 100%!

[@tomasratislav9306]

Boomies lack damage in classic, there is no improvement in that aspect, RIP my boomie :( 2min CD AOE hurts, no crit, no hit, and nature spell sucks, other. Warlock got like 60% dmg boost, mage got 15% crit chance, boomie got another useles dot :D f my life

[@maggotthemadman8142]

Where the hell do you get the moonkin form from? I can't find it anywhere online.

[@ClassicGho]

Wish it was in at 25, not in til level 40.

[@maggotthemadman8142]

@@ClassicGho ty!

[@timtimini7641]

I thought they said you wouldnt know what all the runes were until you get out there...are we already min maxing the undiscovered discovery?

[@robertallen1717]

they're releasing more runes for a few more slots later on after the 25 cap is raised and we have no idea about those are, so there should be even more runes added and we still have no idea where to pick up the runes in the world

[@ClassicGho]

Like Robert said, we know these are our lvl 25 runes to choose from, but each level band will give us access to more Runes to find, discover, theory-craft, and explore! Each class has 12 to choose from for now.

[@CatKingCole82]

Balance tree needs a total revamp let's be honest

[@Rev0UK1]

does starsurge trigger the stun talent?

[@ClassicGho]

It does!

[@Coriore445]

I think i will put the points into resto for the insect swarm dot, i assume it will be more damage than the 10% to moon and sunfire right? suppose we'll see

[@HamsterWheelGaming]

Gho will you check out Cata classic? It's considered to be a really good expansion for boomies in PVE

[@ClassicGho]

I will! But I can’t stand the eclipse system in it!

[@HamsterWheelGaming]

@@ClassicGho To be honest it felt a little lackluster compared to wotlk...nothing like getting a lunar eclipse when BL is popped and you become a machine gun of arcane energy. Though at least with the new system you're not relying on RNG to get a lunar eclipse which is one of my annoyances in wotlk and overall boomies should perform a lot better than how they're doing right now. Y'all have it rough compared to the other dps lol

[@ClassicGho]

@@HamsterWheelGamingI have a love/hate relationship with the RNG eclipse in Wotlk. Even last night in ICC with 260+ ilvl, I was struggling to get into eclipse on some pulls! I’m sure Cata will grow on me, and I’ll have fun trying to take advantage of each eclipse, but that’s if I have free time from SoD!!!

[@HamsterWheelGaming]

@@ClassicGho Dude that was my biggest annoyance lol. On warmane I had a 6k gs boomie and on pull, BL was popped and my wrath spamming was just kicking so hard against that GCD that it completely killed my dps in some fights. So your main focus will be SoD when that launches? Also it was fun catching you and the guys post blizzcon hanging out in the hotel room lol

[@ClassicGho]

@@HamsterWheelGaming yeah imma focus hard on SoD and raid log Wotlk I think. I love theorycrafting and crunching numbers, and ready to explore the unknown! The hotel parties were insane! Everyone was stoked to say hey!

[@MeezyPeezy]

Whats your rotation

[@ClassicGho]

Ff, Starsurge, Sunfire, Moonfire, wrath, Starsurge, wrath x3, rinse repeat.

[@sarahagreda]

☹️ the less buffed class of SOD…

[@ClassicGho]

Yeah, not feeling the love just yet in the first level band!

[@monocerotis6917]

have you seen ferals ? new abilitys?? Druid will kick so much ass in SoD!!! like Skull Bash, Lacerate , Wild Strikes!!

[@ClassicGho]

@@monocerotis6917 feral is lookin sweet!

[@timtimini7641]

Sunfire?.....Boooring

[@dipsy4005]

Surge is instant

[@ClassicGho]

Yup yup! Love it!

[@danmoyle1637]

Indoor/outdoor druid and other classes abilities needs to be fixed. Professions need to be fixed.. There are alot of other smaller problems that need to be addressed, like items and abilities useable in all forms. The "hybrid" classes need particular attention. Tweaks/rework of talent trees would have solved many problems, and added new game play without the need to introduce a ton of abilities and brought the OP classes back in line. The world is going to be made a side note if not buffed. Hopefully it is buffed in an interesting way like new mob abilities, but it will likely be just increase dmg and health. There is already too much focus on the player and not the world itself. Instead of making the environment/mobs more alive, believable and interesting, we get a shit ton of untested abilities thrown at us and say "here, take these into the old world, completely trivialize it, and hope for the best as your one shot constantly in Ashenvale trying to get your blue item". Will it be interesting? some what yes. Will I play? yes. but don't get too excited because there will be tons of issues. There is hope that down the road/in new phases things will be smoothed out and the world itself will get the attention it needs but its blizzard so its a hope that can't be relied on.

[@danielnator123456]

i want a Starfall option^^

[@ClassicGho]

Yes please!

[@Serenitieez]

I'm glad ya'll got something. But cataclysm is where it's at. I think everyone deserves to have a part of wow they will enjoy.

[@ClassicGho]

Cata made me nervous with Eclipse, which Cata Eclipse could make it's way into SoD, but I'm not the biggest fan of that change for Balance Druids from Wotlk to Cata, so this playstyle seems more appealing! I'll try Cata for sure, but we'll see how it goes!

[@Serenitieez]

Fair enough, good class coverage regardless.@@ClassicGho

[@timtimini7641]

Except...I play for Nostalgia, so Cata reminds me of when the spirit of old Azeroth passed away...hard times

[@davidwillis444]

7 months till cata so /shrug

[@StocksGoUp]

At 25 just go resto

[@ClassicGho]

No thanks!

[@StocksGoUp]

The spells are definitely underwhelming. I suspect we will get OP stuff once the Moonkin talent opens up.@@ClassicGho

[@ClassicGho]

I'm hoping so! I have a good feeling about lvl 40! @@StocksGoUp