Balance in MoP: Talent trees as of 23-11-11

Well Blizzard have updated their Mists of Pandaria information today with a sneak peak at not only updates to the talent calculator since a month ago at BlizzCon, but they've also included the new spellbooks for the current 10 classes! While this is all still pre-alpha, do make note of the fact that anything said in this article today can change at any time, so future developments may make this post invalid.

Today, I'm going to be looking at what's changed in the talent tree to begin with, then look at the Balance spec's new specialisation. For clarity purposes, and from what people seem to be getting confused about lately:

• The talent trees refer to the six-tier, three-choice trees we were shown at BlizzCon, that are shared between all three (or four) specs of the same class. Meaning a Guardian Druid can pick up Nature's Swiftness, etc.
• The specialisations (specs) are the three (or four) different choices that each class can choose at level 10, each having their own perks that only THEY can get. People seem to be thinking that Blizzard are dumbing the game down by doing this, but in my opinion it doesn't - Blizzard in MoP are essentially making the talents that everyone takes baseline, for example how many half-brained MM Hunters do you know that skip over Careful Aim? It's now baseline. Or more closer to home, how many half-brained Balance Druids do you know that skip over Euphoria? That's also baseline.
• Class abilities are ones that all specs of that class will have as baseline, for example Wrath or Cyclone.

Now that that's out of the way, let's have a look at the changes to the talents! Following this link here should direct you to the right place if you want to compare.

Tier 1) Unchanged. So as before, we'll likely be taking Feline Swiftness (Increases your movement speed by 10% and by an additional 20% while in Cat Form.) as Moonkin in PvE. Especially as Dash does the exact same thing as Tireless Pursuit, and Displacer Beast could end up being detrimental in some circumstances. The only fight I'd see Tireless Pursuit talented into would be on a fight like Atramedes and gong duty.

Tier 2) Again unchanged. Likely to be a toss-up between Nature's Swiftness and Renewal, depending on fight mechanics. You may need to emergency heal yourself back up by 30% health (useful in conjunction with a class ability later) and get a bit of survivability, or you may want to be able to insta-Rebirth without dropping form.

Tier 3) Once again, no change. We'll get to the actual changes soon, I swear. The choice is between snaring (single), rooting (AoE) or knocking back (conal). Quite a bit of choice to have there, depending on boss mechanics.

Tier 4) Changes! Kind of. More clarification than anything else really, but we now get to see the rest of Wild Charge and Incarnation's capabilities:

Click on the images if they're too small to read.

Wild Charge hasn't changed Moonkin's specific utility, however don't forget that you can also use Bear Form's charge-with-immbolisation-and-haste, jump back and enjoy 45% haste with Eclipse (or 31%, if the tooltip for new Eclipse is to be trusted), although Stampede at the moment (what it seems to be replacing) is only melee haste, so we'll have to see. But we now see that the cat section of Stampede is also included with the free ravage. Travel form gets some survivability for getting out of crap, and then some extra damage reduction after that, and flight and aquatic form both get movement increases with the rabid seal lion also enjoying travel form's 20% damage reduction. Looks like a lot of fun for the shapeshifting Druid, and even Moonkin-focused ones get fun with Disengage.

Incarnation now gives us what we want - something to pop for Time Warp, and a nice damage bonus to boot. It's spec-focused, so we'll only be getting Chosen of Elune for now, but I'm happy with that. We give up Treants for Incarnation however, so if you usually forget to pop the trees before Time Warp, this might be the better option - sims will only tell which provides the bigger DPS increase in the long run however.

Force of Nature is still unchanged. It's meant to do something different for each spec, but there's been no clarification on that as of yet.

Tier 5) No changes here either. A choice of disorientation (AoE), Death Grip (AoE) or stun+damage (single).

Tier 6) No changes here, but a bit of clarification for other specs on Heart of the Wild:

Not a lot new for Balance, but we now know what Guardian and Resto Druids get from this. And it's about as much as we could have asked for when looking at the preview for Balance and Feral a few weeks back. An interesting, yet useful, tidbit is that Restoration Druids using HotW don't use mana while casting damage spells, which would help a lot in phase 3 Raggy - just a pity HotW isn't used until level 90 in any case.

HotW seems to be the most useful out of the three at 90, although I'm sure that there will be some encounters that make use of Disentanglement's heal/root-break, and depending on how Symbiosis will work, Master Shapeshifter might look more enticing.

Now onto the spellbook for Balance Druids! Instead of going through every single spell like the talents and saying that 80% of them haven't changed, I'll focus on what has to lower the crit on the wall of text, and most spells have had the levels they're learned at changed - look at the link at the start for the detail of when we get what:

• Leather Specialisation has been moved to level 1, from level 50. This hasn't changed for classes like Warriors or Shamans, as they change armor at level 40, but it's interesting that we get 5% intellect from the get-go for wearing all leather.

• Rejuvenation now has an instant heal, then heals over time. Nourish has been removed from Balance's arsenal. Regrowth and Nourish become Resto-only, as well as Revive, our out-of-combat res. Good luck explaining to pugs that the only way you can res them now is via Mass Res or using a 10min cooldown on them!

• Bash no longer has a rage cost AND shifts you into bear form - you can now simply stun without macro no matter your spec, just remember to change back to Moonkin afterwards.

• Eclipse now has two talents baked into its baseline "giving you an eclipse bar" - Nature's Grace and half of Euphoria. The tooltip appears to be incorrect however, as the haste you gain (on each eclipse now, rather than when you cast MF/IS - sadface) is only 1% as opposed to 15%. The half of Euphoria we're getting is the mana return whenever we enter a new eclipse.

• Starfire is now Balance-only. Restoration, Feral and Guardian will only be using Wrath as their spell nuke for damage. It also appears to be 0.5 seconds faster cast baseline than it used to be.

• Starsurge is now at level 12, but appears to be unchanged otherwise. Starlight Wrath appears to be removed however, so this is the fastest cast nuke at our disposal now, with Wrath at 2.5sec cast and Starfire at 2.7sec.

• Moonkin Form now has 20% increased Nature and Arcane damage, up from 10%, and has Moonkin Aura split from it for use later on.

• Insect Swarm revamped. Now no longer deals damage, but increases damage from your Wrath, Starfire and Starsurge spells by 30%, but can only be cast on one target at a time. Nerfs our multi-boss damage, but in turn increases our single target damage, which should make us more valuable in the long run with more fights having one boss than two or more.

• Swipe seems a little confusing - it looks like that it's castable in all forms, but damage changes depending on what form you're in.

• Remove Corruption is Balance only. Restos get Nature's Cure, which includes Magic effects, but Feral/Guardian loses out on the spell entirely (not that you'll often see them switch forms to decurse mid-combat).

• Dash activates Cat form, no need to switch first and cast later like Bash earlier.

• Solar Beam is given to Moonkins now, whether you want it or not.

• New spell: Killer Instinct. Moonkin's version of Nurturing Instinct from Ferals of today, grants 100% of your intellect as agility when in cat or bear forms. This increases the value of Heart of the Wild, to make 150% of your intellect as agility if you choose to go cat or bear form during HotW.

• Euphoria, as mentioned, now only does half of what it used to, and gives you a 24% chance to double your lunar/solar gains outside of eclipse.

• Hurricane still does nature damage, seems the devs have forgotten about the arcane damage component of it to make it desirable in lunar eclipse for the moment.

• Barkskin is listed as a spec ability, but that's mainly because it's been removed from Restoration and replaced with Ironbark, which is essentially Barkskin, but is able to be cast on other players. For the rest of us Druids, it remains unchanged.

• Moonkin Aura now gives party and raid members 5% crit, instead of 5% haste. With Wrath of Air totem being removed too, this means that the only way to get your haste buff now is from Shadow priests.

• Owlkin Frenzy is now 3/3 and fully in our spec now, which should please a fair few Druids that couldn't afford the points into there because of the speculation about what actually triggers it.

• Nature's Grasp is now 1 charge, down from 3 charges. Cooldown and duration are unaffected though.

• New spell: Might of Ursoc. All Druids get this spell, and it's essentially Frenzied Regeneration split into two, and then buffed a bit. Guardian Druids' FR is back to how it used to be however, with rage turning into health, but Might of Ursoc not only increases your health, but increases it by 30% instead of the 15% FR gives today. 

• Starfall has been buffed in a rather large way - whenever you proc into Lunar eclipse, the cooldown on Starfall is reset, so we should always have some form of AoE in Lunar now! It's a start, and I'd like to see either Hurricane, or better yet Mushrooms do Arcane damage to buff up Lunar's AoE capabilities, but it's certainly a good overall DPS boost so we don't have to wait for Lunar every time Starfall comes off cooldown.

• Lunar Shower is now a passive spec ability for Moonkin... Thanks Blizzard, really appreciate that. Seriously though, it nerfs our solar cleave, which in all honesty was overpowered for fights that require constant AoE. If we want to continue cleaving for mushrooms, we just give up using Sunfire and IS, and use some other spells (possibly whatever we steal in Symbiosis), or switch to cat and swipe, or whatever. We're Druids, we're versatile enough to work around it until Blizzard nerf us again.

• Stampeding Roar now removes roots and snares in addition to its current effects. Pretty nice, have to say. If we go for Tireless Pursuit, the name suddenly becomes incredibly apt: Frost Nova'd? Stampeding Roar. Followed up by Freeze? Dash. Followed up by a lucky Frostbolt freezing you in place? Tireless Pursuit. Angry Frost Mage? You betcha.

• Wild Mushroom is now Balance and Resto only. Wild Mushroom: Detonate is now Balance only, with Fungal Growth of today tied into it. Restos get a nice ground healing area akin to Efflorescence when they bloom their shrooms. Very, very nice indeed.

And now for the grand finale... Symbiosis!

This spell is potentially very awesome, what it does is:

Now that doesn't give a lot of information about the utility of it. 

1. It could be one random spell from their spellbook, and you give them one random spell from yours, which will likely end up spending about 5mins at the start of a raid spamming Symbi to get a nice swap for both classes. It says that it'll be useful depending on spec and class/combat role, but random spells are still random, so that'll likely not be implemented.
2. If not, it could send the Druid a useful ability from the target, and only ever send that spell, for example it would always be Arcane Blast from a Mage, or Avenging Wrath from a Paladin. For Restoration, it might always be Evocation from a Mage or Lay on Hands from a Paladin. This would be 40 new spells in total that a Druid would be able to use, or 10 for each specialisation, which is the most likely role Symbi would take.
3. Or it could send a spell depending on the target's spec, so a Frost Mage could send Frostbolt, a Fire Mage send Fireball, and an Arcane Mage send Arcane Blast to a Balance Druid, but to a Guardian it could be Ice Barrier, Dragon's Breath or Alter Time, respectively. This opens up to a whole range of abilities that would be VERY hard to balance on Blizzard's part, as potentially a Druid could use 33 new spells, including using Symbi on other spec Druids (for a Balance to gain Wild Growth, for use with HotW), or 132 in total - but some may be shared of course. Symbiosis likely won't be implemented in this form.
4. What we give to others would be interesting for classes such as Rogues, Warriors, and especially Monks, Hunters and Death Knights as they don't use mana. I'd imagine Rogues would get something like Rake which uses energy, and Warriors take Enrage or Maul as it uses rage mechanics. Unless the spell we send costs no resource, which would make Arcane Mages always want me for free Starfires, but yeah - it looks like Druids are going to have to do some research on this spell to not only see who benefits the most from our Symbi, but who we also benefit the most from in synergy. Across all four specs. Theorycrafting people, go!

It looks like quite an interesting expansion for Druids, and unless Monks end up being really, really awesome, I think I'll be sticking around on my little Boomer for the foreseeable future.

Wall of text crits you for Chuck Norris.