Skandranon,Sep 28 2005, 04:45 PM Wrote:Two replies up, Brista. You suspect wrong. Balance druids will outnuke mages, period.
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Yes I saw your post and I was meaning to reply to it sooner.
Fire does more than Frost. So using the Mage's weaker nuke to compare with the Druid's strongest is a false argument, unless you are specifically referring to MC. In which case your statement should be Balance druids will outnuke mages in MC, not will outnuke them period
Mana plays a huge part in this. If the druid can outnuke the mage for 20 seconds but then goes oom in half the time, the mage may still be the better nuker on a tough raid boss. Frost Bolt is the most mana efficient of the repeatable Mage nukes and can be specced for even greater mana efficiency
Next the Wrath/Moonfire druid is using two damage types so will not benefit so much from + damage items as a specialist like a Frost mage
Next the Mage can add two powerful instants in to the mix
And lastly in terms of pure dps output the Mage can raise the whole output by 33% and toss in a POM Pyroblast if the issue of burst damage becomes important
I'd like to be persuaded that druid offers a character where you can function in any of three different roles with acceptable performance. I'm not sure that this is true, although I'm more persuaded than I was at the beginning of this thread, so thanks for the illumination so far :)
Edit: cross-posted with Gnollguy