Oh I am so fickle. I hit 60 last night, and had been contemplating partial feral builds. But I think what I need right now is a build that raids well and can solo OK. I need to grind stuff and run PUGs for Tier0, and most of the grinding I do with an enhancement shaman, so standoff nukes and heals work nicely there. So I returned to efficient heals (moonglow/nature's swiftness), but this time skewed it balance. I leveled up in balance, and like it alot. I have a 60 war so tanking is not something I am up for doing much of on this char. So I came up with this variant on the 30 balance, 21 resto standard.
In balance I get optimal starfire and wrath with grace and vengeance 5. I skip moonfury which applies 10% to base (not after +dmg stuff). With this allocation for nukes you have 6 points left to spend. Right now I went 1 into base grasp (defensive use only), 3 into improved thorns, and 2 into reach. I figure people like their thorns buff and I am seeing how painful it is on a PvP server going without natural shapeshifter.
On the resto side I toyed around with a lot of stuff, and finally decided to max improved mark, improved HT, nature's focus, and tranquil spirit. Running the numbers on reflection for my spirit, I came up with about 5-6mana/s which did not seem to justify reflection. I was not too impressed with insect swarm...just more mana for a marginal DoT. I couldnt really add it to my grind routine with any hope of efficiency, and for raiding the debuff value is marginal. I considered subtlety, but most of my aggro issues seem to center not on relative threat levels of me v. tank, but on the fact that someone forgot to pick up a loose one who went to me on the first heal. Maybe if I start raiding a lot in places like BWL it might be worth going for that instead.
The whole wrath/starfire thing makes me want them both. Good point on wrath not breaking roots. My problem is I have to fight/grind a lot of elemental stuff, all of which seems to be immune to nature, which means if all of my DPS is from nuking I have to have a backup damage type = arcane. Many times I will starfire while duoing with the shaman simply because I like the big numbers. Starfire gets more return off of grace than wrath too. My solo sequence for balance grind is something like wrath, wrath, root, back off to 30-36yds (look for when hibernate grays but still in range for wrath), then wrath a few more and moonfire at about 1K HP then melee. This keeps it rooted the longest, and lets me begin the out of 5s casting mana regen during the mop up...a few staff hits supplemented by thorns and moonfire at the end works fine, and the damage I take seems to come back by the next pull.
For the shaman I'll moonfire then wrath to about 1K hp, and let the shaman finish it. If I am chain pulling, Ill moonfire pull then root it, then go get another while the shaman takes out the rooted one. If I do it like this, I can go 1 bar, innervate, another bar, drink, repeat. With the long range of reach, I really complement the shaman nicely since he has slow lightning bolts which suck up mana or short range shocks as pulls.
If I am in a contested area, what is fun is to let the shaman grind while I hang out in cat form stealthed, tracking humanoids. Then when that decked out guy decides to gank the shaman, he gets a nasty stealth nuker surprise. My only annoyance here is I find myself wishing for fast prowl....I had fast prowl on my feral druid before, and I really liked it alot. Anyway the stealth kitty nuker thing annoys the crap out of them, and we have driven guys off of spawns until they can waaaaambulance up a crew of 5 allies to come gank us off the spot.
As far as dungeon raiding goes, this spec has been working out just fine. The efficiency of moonglow and tranquil spirit work out great. My problem healing with this spec is no real quick heal short of natures swiftness. I find myself having to rejuv to take the edge off of how fast they plummet in life total, and then this lets me land those big HT's. If all the lifebars are ok and I have a lot of mana, I can just drop a few starfires or wraths without having to swap gear and supplement DPS. This spec seems to work nicely along side a priest who can flash heal guys who are rapidly plummeting. I can see where swiftmend might be a huge plus for PvP healing or serving as the sole healer though. I am still in learning mode for raid healing though, and have to remember to bear or barkskin if I am in trouble, and look to priest mana bars to see who needs the innervate. Wrath is more burst DPS for raids, but drains my mana out more. Starfire is more mana efficient and the 3s stun proc does seem to give the tank a bit of relief when it happens. What makes starfire so mana efficient is the long cast means it will cancel if it dies before you complete the cast, so mana isnt really wasted. Wraths with grace roll off in a rapid stream and it is easy to wrath one time too many.
For PvP I am more of a support role. Healing, shifting to run from stuff, or rooting, or maybe lighting that rogue up with faerie fire. I am sure having bear charge and improved bear stun would be amazing, but you have to give up something somewhere. I need to do more of it to see if only base grasp is enough. On the wrath/starfire question, I like to open with starfire from stealth. It is a big hit early and can stun, and it can be devastating particularly if they did not calculate me in the equation as they are fighting someone else. It is also nice doing this spam from behind a tree, since there is no visible sign of origin. Wrath is fast cast and great for the quick beatdown on a rooted foe.
Gear wise I have feralheart belt, gloves, wrist and no other tier 0. The rest of my stuff is +dmg/healing gear, and I am around +165 dmg/heal- not spectacular, but enough to do the usual 5-10 man dungeons. I have been squirreling away feral pieces for maybe a future try at a blend between healing/feral or maybe balance/feral.
In balance I get optimal starfire and wrath with grace and vengeance 5. I skip moonfury which applies 10% to base (not after +dmg stuff). With this allocation for nukes you have 6 points left to spend. Right now I went 1 into base grasp (defensive use only), 3 into improved thorns, and 2 into reach. I figure people like their thorns buff and I am seeing how painful it is on a PvP server going without natural shapeshifter.
On the resto side I toyed around with a lot of stuff, and finally decided to max improved mark, improved HT, nature's focus, and tranquil spirit. Running the numbers on reflection for my spirit, I came up with about 5-6mana/s which did not seem to justify reflection. I was not too impressed with insect swarm...just more mana for a marginal DoT. I couldnt really add it to my grind routine with any hope of efficiency, and for raiding the debuff value is marginal. I considered subtlety, but most of my aggro issues seem to center not on relative threat levels of me v. tank, but on the fact that someone forgot to pick up a loose one who went to me on the first heal. Maybe if I start raiding a lot in places like BWL it might be worth going for that instead.
The whole wrath/starfire thing makes me want them both. Good point on wrath not breaking roots. My problem is I have to fight/grind a lot of elemental stuff, all of which seems to be immune to nature, which means if all of my DPS is from nuking I have to have a backup damage type = arcane. Many times I will starfire while duoing with the shaman simply because I like the big numbers. Starfire gets more return off of grace than wrath too. My solo sequence for balance grind is something like wrath, wrath, root, back off to 30-36yds (look for when hibernate grays but still in range for wrath), then wrath a few more and moonfire at about 1K HP then melee. This keeps it rooted the longest, and lets me begin the out of 5s casting mana regen during the mop up...a few staff hits supplemented by thorns and moonfire at the end works fine, and the damage I take seems to come back by the next pull.
For the shaman I'll moonfire then wrath to about 1K hp, and let the shaman finish it. If I am chain pulling, Ill moonfire pull then root it, then go get another while the shaman takes out the rooted one. If I do it like this, I can go 1 bar, innervate, another bar, drink, repeat. With the long range of reach, I really complement the shaman nicely since he has slow lightning bolts which suck up mana or short range shocks as pulls.
If I am in a contested area, what is fun is to let the shaman grind while I hang out in cat form stealthed, tracking humanoids. Then when that decked out guy decides to gank the shaman, he gets a nasty stealth nuker surprise. My only annoyance here is I find myself wishing for fast prowl....I had fast prowl on my feral druid before, and I really liked it alot. Anyway the stealth kitty nuker thing annoys the crap out of them, and we have driven guys off of spawns until they can waaaaambulance up a crew of 5 allies to come gank us off the spot.
As far as dungeon raiding goes, this spec has been working out just fine. The efficiency of moonglow and tranquil spirit work out great. My problem healing with this spec is no real quick heal short of natures swiftness. I find myself having to rejuv to take the edge off of how fast they plummet in life total, and then this lets me land those big HT's. If all the lifebars are ok and I have a lot of mana, I can just drop a few starfires or wraths without having to swap gear and supplement DPS. This spec seems to work nicely along side a priest who can flash heal guys who are rapidly plummeting. I can see where swiftmend might be a huge plus for PvP healing or serving as the sole healer though. I am still in learning mode for raid healing though, and have to remember to bear or barkskin if I am in trouble, and look to priest mana bars to see who needs the innervate. Wrath is more burst DPS for raids, but drains my mana out more. Starfire is more mana efficient and the 3s stun proc does seem to give the tank a bit of relief when it happens. What makes starfire so mana efficient is the long cast means it will cancel if it dies before you complete the cast, so mana isnt really wasted. Wraths with grace roll off in a rapid stream and it is easy to wrath one time too many.
For PvP I am more of a support role. Healing, shifting to run from stuff, or rooting, or maybe lighting that rogue up with faerie fire. I am sure having bear charge and improved bear stun would be amazing, but you have to give up something somewhere. I need to do more of it to see if only base grasp is enough. On the wrath/starfire question, I like to open with starfire from stealth. It is a big hit early and can stun, and it can be devastating particularly if they did not calculate me in the equation as they are fighting someone else. It is also nice doing this spam from behind a tree, since there is no visible sign of origin. Wrath is fast cast and great for the quick beatdown on a rooted foe.
Gear wise I have feralheart belt, gloves, wrist and no other tier 0. The rest of my stuff is +dmg/healing gear, and I am around +165 dmg/heal- not spectacular, but enough to do the usual 5-10 man dungeons. I have been squirreling away feral pieces for maybe a future try at a blend between healing/feral or maybe balance/feral.
Creator of the Barbarian variant