Life at the bottom of the meter
Or, how Balance is so strong it can hold up everyone else at the bottom...
So it's been a few weeks now since the big move to Treehugging Hippies on Silvermoon, and my trial period has now been successfully completed.
Cushty
This is despite the fact that Balance, for the present moment, is the weakest damage specialisation in the entire game in the current content, or at my play level, farming Heroic & progression in Mythic Nighthold.
My own learning curve with the spec notwithstanding, given that it's still less than two months since it became my main spec despite never playing it before, I'm enjoying learning the little secret backwaters of being a Boomkin. It was only this week that it became apparent that damage output could be greatly enhanced by simplifying my rotation.
In short I wasn't getting out anywhere nearly enough Starsurges, particularly in a single target encounter, like Krosus for example. Previously my best there had been 412k DPS. but with the revelation supplied by in-depth reading of the SimC sample priority list and the subsequent refinement, it should be possible to crank out another 120k minimum by my estimation.
Patchwork encounters (yeah right) where casters can just stand and tunnel, sim out at just under 700k DPS. And this holds up, as I'm seeing this sort of damage soloing the Elite mobs in Broken Shore with over 60 million health. Sometimes that extra Boomkin armour is handy
Speaking of Nighthold, we've now killed Heroic Gul'dan twice. First time through was as Balance where I was residing towards the bottom of the meters on most encounters.
This week however I got the chance to experience the entire raid as a healer in my Resto Spec. Resto is in a far stronger place than Balance in relation to the other relevant specs in the game, borne out by the fact that I was actually competitive with the other healers in the guild over the two nights, especially after I got the first 7.2 trait acquired on my Resto Artifact Weapon, increasing healing done by 10%.
Sure, again there's a learning curve as it's the first time healing Nighthold, and the fact that I've not raid healed, even in LFR, in over 4 months. But at least healing I felt I was making a solid contribution to the team effort.
And it looked like for a short while that I would be asked to go Resto full time, but the Officers in THH decided to keep me as Boomkin with a strong Resto off-spec for the time being.
Either way I'm honestly happy. As Balance I get to keep improving and creeping up the DPS rankings, whereas with Resto I'm already up there and justifying my presence.
