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There is no such thing as perfect class, each one has some weakness(es). Which is fine by me but some things are just plain horrible and I can’t understand why steps have not been taken to correct them. Or maybe there is something in the works but I seriously doubt we’ll see anything before Cataclysm. Here’s two things that piss me off the most.

Eclipse

In Burning Crusade the casting rotation for balance druid was very simple; dots up, spam Starfire. It was boring but it had predictability and control. Then along comes the pre-WotLK patch with new talents and Eclipse is introduced. Certainly it made the casting rotation more interesting and you had to pay a little more attention to it but the downsides of the mechanic are just freaking annoying.

Basically the casting rotation is just one big RNG fest now. Only way you can control the proc going off bad time is not to DPS at all beyond applying dots. Also with the rather short duration of the Eclipse proc came debates when you should apply dots during Eclipse or should you do it at all. This is something people still don’t seem to agree about. Thankfully Eclipse improved a little in patch 3.2 by Lunar and Solar procs having their separate cooldowns. That was the end of debate which proc is better and at very least meant applying dots at ‘wrong time’ would not cost you so much DPS as it previously did.

However the fact that you still can’t control it makes it very frustrating mechanic. How well you know the class, push your buttons, what kind of gear you got and how well you minimize movement during encounters are the main contributors to your DPS. But once you perfect that you’re going to hit a wall, and once you bump into it you can’t help to notice how someone has spray painted ‘RNG’ on it with big pink letters. No matter how well you know your stuff a big chunk of your DPS will be determined by pure luck. If it does not proc, or it procs in bad time you’re pretty much screwed. Sure you can stack crit rating like mad to try and maximize the odds but is not going to solve it – you’ll still have awkward times when the bloody thing just is not playing ball. I’d rather have DPS rotation with 10 different spells than this. At least I would feel like I’m in control and can actually do something to improve rather than this.

Movement

Many encounters are heavy on the movement, which is fun, I like those more than tank and spank fights. However high movement fights are the ones where your DPS will be even lower compared to pure DPS classes because they got some ability to help their movement. Warlocks got teleport, mages can blink and hunters got disengage. Sure they’re not perfect but balance druid does not have anything – and neither does other hybrid ranged DPS either (elemental shaman, shadow priest).

I don’t mind being slightly lower on potential damage as hybrid vs the pure but I think the movement fights give unfair advantage to the pure classes. Also with the unpredictability of Eclipse you often just waste most of your proc because you had to run somewhere.

Well aren’t they the unholy duo, Eclipse and movement. Gragh. Often I just feel like I’m dragging this huge iron ball in a chain on my feet while trying to play. What balance druid really lacks in my opinion is the feeling that you’re in control. Too many vital things are just based on pure chance. These two things are what I would really want to see improved in Cataclysm but I don’t have very high hopes about it happening. Let’s keep fingers crossed anyway.