Balance Druid – Single-Target DPS Balance

[Gralle]

After discussing Balance Druid performance with other druids in the community, the main issue is clearly single-target DPS.

Looking at the current OctoWoW Molten Core leaderboards, the top DPS results show a very large gap:

* Balance Druid: 586 DPS
* Mage: 984 DPS (+68%)
* Enhancement Shaman: 1056 DPS (+80%)
* Feral Druid: 952 DPS (+62%)

Source: OctoWoW Chronicle – Molten Core Leaderboards
https://octo.chronicleclassic.com/leade ... olten+Core

This is particularly noticeable when comparing Balance with other hybrid specs such as Enhancement and Feral. Almost every class brings some form of raid utility or flexibility, yet Balance appears to be one of the few specs paying such a large personal DPS penalty for it.

The 3% spell crit party buff is useful, but it is difficult to justify this level of single-target DPS difference based on that utility alone.

One area worth revisiting is the latest Turtle WoW change to Balance of All Things. The current version provides 9% Starfire crit while Moonfire is active on the target. This makes maintaining the benefit awkward, particularly when you are the only Balance Druid and therefore have to maintain Moonfire yourself.

The previous version provided a stacking Starfire cast-time reduction, which worked much more naturally with the rotation. During Arcane Eclipse, you could continue casting Starfire and benefit from the stacking effect instead of interrupting the rotation to refresh Moonfire in order to maintain the current crit bonus.

Reverting or reworking Balance of All Things could therefore improve both the rotation and sustained damage. However, this change was not a massive nerf by itself, and reverting it alone would not come close to solving the current DPS gap. Balance still needs a meaningful additional buff to sustained single-target damage.

It is also worth remembering that OctoWoW inherited the final Turtle WoW class changes, and balance iteration was never fully completed before that project was discontinued.

We are not suggesting that Balance should compete for the #1 DPS position, but the current gap is simply too large. Balance Druid needs a meaningful single-target DPS buff, alongside another look at Balance of All Things.

[Dzielkus]

Balance druid suffer from lack of hit/crit, which most of t1 items lacks. Same as elemental shaman.
We need ES and ZG to get decent hit items to compete with any melee or mage/lock (which have hit provided by talents).
Then we can compare anything, now it's itemization issue.