Some Druid Questions

[Watto44]

I thought I should preface this with a little back-story. My druid was my first WoW character, which basically means I stuffed him up a bit. (Example: I just got journeyman first aid at lvl 44. :blush: ) Up until now he has pretty much been a feral/rest druid. However, I've just respec'ed to tidy things up a bit and in the process I threw a few points into the balance tree. (Imp Wrath 5, Imp Moonfire 5, OoC 1.)

My question(s) is something that must seem ridiculously simple to people who've played a balance druid for a while, but I've got to ask. How the heck do you do it? I get the impression that I'm going about it the wrong way. My current strategy is to open with starfire, wrath, then moonfire. Whack the mob until Omen procs, then blast with another moonfire. The problem is that it seems to take forever. Am I missing something, or is it just my imagination? (Just as a sidenote: I've tried using entangle to give me time to cast more spells, but I just eat through my mana at a ferocious rate. At least with my current method I'm not stopping to drink after every second fight. :D )

Question 2: What are people's thoughts on barkskin? I know this skill is going to be useful, I just haven't wrapped my head around it yet.

Would love some feedback and advice (on anything druid related, really).
Cheers.

[Bun-Bun]

I thought I should preface this with a little back-story. My druid was my first WoW character, which basically means I stuffed him up a bit. (Example: I just got journeyman first aid at lvl 44. :blush: ) Up until now he has pretty much been a feral/rest druid. However, I've just respec'ed to tidy things up a bit and in the process I threw a few points into the balance tree. (Imp Wrath 5, Imp Moonfire 5, OoC 1.)

My question(s) is something that must seem ridiculously simple to people who've played a balance druid for a while, but I've got to ask. How the heck do you do it? I get the impression that I'm going about it the wrong way. My current strategy is to open with starfire, wrath, then moonfire. Whack the mob until Omen procs, then blast with another moonfire. The problem is that it seems to take forever. Am I missing something, or is it just my imagination? (Just as a sidenote: I've tried using entangle to give me time to cast more spells, but I just eat through my mana at a ferocious rate. At least with my current method I'm not stopping to drink after every second fight.  :D  )

Don't wait for Omen to proc before launching another Moonfire. Do it when the DoT of the previous Moonfire wears off. It's also a fine opportunity to pitch a Rejuvenation on yourself to stay healthy. If you do get an Omen proc, don't use it until the regular Moonfire cycle time, or burn it on a nice but mana-sucking heal like Regrowth or Healing Touch. This keeps you out of the 5-second no-regeneration time as long as possible.

You'll find that as you get to higher levels, the Moonfire damage becomes a much larger percentage of the damage you do to a given enemy.

You'll still not kill as fast as other classes, but it's better than what you're doing now. :)

Question 2: What are people's thoughts on barkskin? I know this skill is going to be useful, I just haven't wrapped my head around it yet.

Would love some feedback and advice (on anything druid related, really).
Cheers.
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Barkskin is for when things go badly. It ensures Tranquility channels without interruption, or lets you have very high damage mitigation when tanking as a bear. I haven't really worked it into my repertoire myself, but that's how I see it.

[Sir_Die_alot]

Barkskin is for when things go badly. It ensures Tranquility channels without interruption, or lets you have very high damage mitigation when tanking as a bear. I haven't really worked it into my repertoire myself, but that's how I see it.
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Maybe you didn't build as much of a healbot druid as I did but I LOVE barkskin. As you pointed out it fixed much of what was wrong with tranquility, but it's really about letting you stay in caster form even though you might have picked up some aggro (which druid heals LOVE to do). It's essentially the bear form for those who need to keep the heals coming.

It's also great for running away. :D

[Watto44]

Thanks for the responses guys. I've been messing around with things over the last couple of days, and I'm starting to get things sorted out. I'm starting to get a feel for barkskin, but unfortunately haven't run any instances yet - and I think that is where it will shine. (Still too busy sorting out various bits-and-bobs.)

If you do get an Omen proc, don't use it until the regular Moonfire cycle time, or burn it on a nice but mana-sucking heal like Regrowth or Healing Touch. This keeps you out of the 5-second no-regeneration time as long as possible.
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Now this IS interesting. I was playing this morning (killing Gnoll Alphas in Feralas) and I noticed something with Omen. To the naked eye, not only does casting a spell when Omen has proc'ed NOT restart the 5 second timer, it actually seems to abolish it! I noticed this doing those nasty 3on1 pulls. I was laying down some starting fire before switching to bear, when Omen proc'ed. Since I was going to go bear anyway, I thought I'd slam a quick Moonfire down. (I needed to take down one of the three gnolls asap, so went damage over a quick refresh of regen.) Loandbehold, moonfire hits and my mana goes up! Having just cast 4 spells in quick succession there was no way I had run through the timer.

I'm about to jump back on, but I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this?

Thanks again for the responses. :)

[Bun-Bun]

Maybe you didn't build as much of a healbot druid as I did but I LOVE barkskin. As you pointed out it fixed much of what was wrong with tranquility, but it's really about letting you stay in caster form even though you might have picked up some aggro (which druid heals LOVE to do). It's essentially the bear form for those who need to keep the heals coming.

It's also great for running away.  :D
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I was tanking Devilsaurs last night, and Barkskin came in rather handy. I was mainly in bear form, using a few different tactics to keep my bar green. Frenzied Regeneration worked for a while, then I'd Bash and pop a Nature's Swiftness/Healing Touch, and if the battle lasted long enough, a Barkskin with a Regrowth and/or a Healing Touch. It worked pretty well.

My current build is 5 Feral, 32 Restoration, 14 Balance.

[Watto44]

Regarding that whole omen thing, I finally got off my backside and took some screenies. There are a couple of issues with these though. First, they were all taken before v1.4. However, going by my shammy's clearcasting, nothing seems to have changed. Secondly, my lag. Being in Australia means that my latency is usually pretty high, but when these were taken, it was under 500ms, so that shouldn't affect it much. Finally, I have serious doubts about the accuracy of the WoW buff timers here, not to mention how fast I can take screenies. <_< Anyway, here they are. Make of them what you will.

First Image

As you can see, Omen has just proc'ed, my mana's at 797, and the countdown on MotW is at 24:12.

Second Image

Ok, this is a nice one. Two seconds have past since omen has proc'ed and I've cast moonfire. My mana has gone up, but that doesn't mean that much as this could have happened due to the normal 5 second rule.

Final Screenie

Three seconds have passed since casting moonfire, and my mana has gone up yet again.

Again, I don't know if this is common knowledge, but I thought I'd post it - if for no other reason than that the last pic is a nice one of me stabbing the gnoll. :P As I said before, make of this what you will.

Cheers.