29 Balance druid questions

LadyVache

Legend
Hi, I used to twink a lot in the 29 bracket pre bg change with the exp off feature. After that I stopped twinking, because my friends quit, not really because of the change, so I am really behind on all of the new gear, talents, and what not. However, I recently thought about making a new twink in my spare time and was thinking about making a 29 balance druid. Seems kind of fun to have typhoon and travel form in the 29 bracket now. It would be really helpful if anyone had any idea about BiS gear for a 29 druid caster. Also, how are the 29 bracket queues these days? Are they still restricted by scheduled times or are there finally random queues popping? Thanks in advance
 
scheduled at the moment, but numbers allow for random queues especially in high traffic times at the weekends.



They dont appear by themselves!



Balance druids do very very good damage when they are not being trained, the (inevitable) loss of the instant roots glyph will hurt and a balance druid friend of mine is weighing up the pros and cons of moonkin vs typhoon, the armor value on its own is very very nice to have.



Do you have access to boas or not? if so, put a bit of effort into a chardev.org character profile and then once youve shown your interested enough to not be spoon fed i can help you to the best of my ability to make it perfect to your needs, it's well worth doing.
 
Ok well I came up with this chardev 8 - Cataclysm Beta I'm not sure about a few pieces. I'm not sure about the cloak choice. Either BOA cloak or Battle Healer's Cloak? Also I couldnt find any good leather bracers and even the cloth choices seemed sub par so those are also iffy. Also, are there no low level relics? I guess take a look and tell me if anything is wrong. I also didn't bother putting enchants as those are pretty self explanatory.



PS. I'll be horde so troll or tauren? I'm thinking tauren because warstomp seems invaluable especially after the patch when its usable in form. However, teh troll haste seems like it would be fun with balance casts.
 
Your choice on the racial, i personally prefer the utility of warstomp because it can be used offensively as well as defense for an emergency roots or regrowth.



Good effort on the chardev, your hit was shooting too high and without enchants was hard to min max :)



chardev 8 - Cataclysm Beta



here is one ive done for you, with MotW up you should have 20% crit. it misses 57 SP from the heirloom wep because chardev is undergoing lots of changes and that isnt up yet. Took the boa staff as you had boa shoulders/chest. the cloak is prefer as haste is a cumulative stat and scales better the more you have of it. (also no IS/MF breakpoints are reached with that 3 rating.) Staff > one hand wep as the offhand offers pale in comparison stat for stat.



should be at almost 4% hit exactly,



(another reason im not a fan of troll is because berserking is a 3min cd in comparison to Lifeblood's 2 min and frustratingly cant be guaranteed to be up for when you want to burst, unless you dont use it on cooldown, which you should be)



Hope that helped.
 
Alright thanks. Is AGM still attainable? I think they changed the requirement to level 35 the last time i checked.
 
I play a balance and resto druid at 29. With my regular set, I have about 24% crit, 1800hp, 280spell power, and spell hit cap. Eclipsed starsurge is out of control, hitting for over 700 with no buffs. I once got a 2200 crit with berserking. Moonkin offers a lot of damage reduction and a 10% bonus to your damage, I have yet to try typhoon. I think you can probably beat any class 1v1 with equal gear and skill except enhancement shaman. Travel form is great, and instant cast entangle with glyph is great although its being changed soon.
 
What about that ring, the band of the arcanist, is that even attainable at level 29? Wowhead says that it requires level 31, and it's from a quest in SM that I can't take on any of my chars.
 
LadyVache said:
so are enhancement shamans and rogues with grandfathered weapons just out of control?
Click to expand...



Rogues don't have enough abilities at 29 to be out of control in my opinion. They don't have garrote, kidney shot, or blind. They just don't have as many tools as they need to kill a druid 1v1. They have shadowstep, cheapshot, vanish, and sprint, but that is all you have to worry about. You can easily faerie fire to prevent any vanishing so you don't get stunned a second time.



Shamans however have instant cast ghost wolf that is faster than travel form (because of the talent that adds 15% movement speed) and frost shock. They have over 300 spellpower as enhancement so they can heal pretty well. Their melee attacks regenerate their mana so it is hard to run them out of mana. They have purge to get rid of all your HoTs. They have wind shear to interrupt you. They have glyphed healing stream totem and usually +15 nature resistance to cloak so they have unreal nature resist.



Basically as a resto or balance druid, 1v1 against an enhancement shaman, I'm going to die. The ghost wolf is so fast there is no chance to get any room to cast. The only time I can possibly win is to get off an entangle roots and then get a 1500 starsurge crit and then a 700 wrath crit. The shaman I played against casted his heal ahead of time while entangled so that when my starsurge went off, the heal went off right after. I can go from 100-0 in about 6 seconds or less depending on his crits.
 
Obe said:
What about that ring, the band of the arcanist, is that even attainable at level 29? Wowhead says that it requires level 31, and it's from a quest in SM that I can't take on any of my chars.
Click to expand...



You are absolutely right and i knew that before i posted, was clearly having a broken moment!



Here is how its meant to look



chardev 8 - Cataclysm Beta
 
Well that sounds unpleasant. So are enhance shamans the kings of 29 or are they just good against druids?
 
LadyVache said:
Well that sounds unpleasant. So are enhance shamans the kings of 29 or are they just good against druids?
Click to expand...



Of 1v1? Probably. I don't see what they would lose to.
 
well i was searching around the forums for fun since i'll be trying to get my first twink together soon, i think i've decided on making the balance druid, and someone mentioned them probably losing to some other melees. Probably ones with a kick im guessing? I had considered making one but not having the grandfathered weapons would just make me angry :( lol. Off topic, but how are rets at 29? TV seems pretty good and post 4.0.6 they'll have a trained kick instead of in talents.
 
With my druid in my damage/crit gear with no HP enchants ( 1700 hp), I don't lose to anything except enhancement shaman. It isn't because I'm even that amazing at this game, its just the abilities and things you can pull of as balance. I faced a prot warrior with 3000hp (charge in combat) and he was so easy to kite. Rogues can't shadowstep while rooted and can't vanish while faerie fired, sprint is scary but we have entangling roots. I don't even use a PvP trinket because it isn't necessary to win. Ret will probably be good when the patch comes, haven't seen to many players right now.
 
Yeh that's one of the reasons I wanted to roll a balance druid. I've always liked the control that druids have and I figured that it would be even more powerful at lower levels where the skills to counter them don't exist. Between roots, travel form, typhoon/moonkin, and bash druids seem like they are in a good position. Although it seems like 29 overall is a pretty well balanced bracket compared to some other ones which is one reason ive always loved the bracket, outside of the old 29 hunters :p. I just wish dual talent was 1 level sooner ><. Sorry about all the random off topics but i figured it was better than just making an entirely new post every time i had a question. The only problem I see with rets is the same thing they've always suffered from at every level, being kited forever.
 
Yeah and the fact that freedom isn't available in the 29 brackets anymore, the kiting is worse than it used to be
 
so as far as professions are concerned, I'm guessing that herbalism is required for a boomkin. Is engineering still the nuts as a twink or is the static crit from skinning better?
 
Its up to you. You can go mining for 10 stam, skinning for 12 crit, or herbalism for 35 haste (I think). Engineering has access to spell pen enchant to cape I guess and you can use some stuff in BGs. Nothing is required for boomkin really. Personally I would pick skinning because I love crit.
 
Spell penetration is really a must for casters I'd say - else you will be missing out on 18%~ish damage in BG, and the risk of getting crucial spells resisted (BOK + cloak enchant gives 20+ resistance, and in BG it seems that almost everyone sports this). 18%ish damage vs. a few % crit (if that much), is really not a contest.. Resistance is really out of control atm! The speed boots are also still really nice in arena I believe (and TBC enchantable), and engi also offers a few other tools that are quite beneficial at 29 - iron grenades, the belt, net-o, cloaking device, the list goes on and on. 12 crit is tempting on the paper, but really it is not that great compared to the potential game-breaking abilities you will get from engi imo. At least not for mages :)
 
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