World Of Warcraft Legion Beta: Boooooomkin!

By: Lilou

So, the second thing I did with my beta access was to log in and check out the changes to balance druids. I had heard that they had completely redesigned the gameplay AGAIN and I was very curious to see what that entails.

If you've played a boomkin, you will know all about the balance bar that you have to juggle, going from lunar and solar and back again, over and over. Blizzard's concern with this was that the balance bar reduces boomkin gameplay to watching the bar go back and forth and there's not a lot of room within that mechanic for changing things up.

I'm not going to say that I'm an expert in the new spec, but I can say it is dramatically different from the old boomkin. It's also (maybe disappointingly?) like other caster specs that I've played. It's now more about keeping dots up (which you also had to do before but it was a little more challenging because of the balance bar) and building up astral power so that you can cast your big dps spells. So it feels like destruction warlock or even frost mage a little where you are casting certain spells to get others to proc or to reach a certain power point which makes your spells more devastating.

They took Mark of the Wild away from balance druids. It's funny but it's actually disturbing to me to not have that buff. That spell is such a huge part of my druid identity that I feel bereft without it. One of my favorite things to do used to be just running around buffing lowbies, so it's sad to not have that ability anymore.

So far in the beta I feel very weak, but it's probably because I haven't figured out how to make the best use of my new spells and I may not have taken the best combination of talents. So I'm not terribly worried about it at this point.

To sum up, I'm cautiously optimistic. I never really liked the balance bar mechanic; it always seemed limiting. Only time will tell if this new concept is more enjoyable to play. I'm looking forward to exploring further!