Smo over at his blog posted up our first look at the Alpha testing talent trees for druids. I'm just gonna work my way from the top down in the Balance tree so don't take my first comments as the ones that I feel strongest about. It's just easier to organize that way.

Tier 1

Starlight Wrath
This still decreases Wrath's cast time. I was hoping this would interact with Wrath in a different way, but I suppose they wanted to make sure that Wrath and Starfire don't feel like the same spell. I appreciate that sentiment, but will be very irritated if the haste scaling issue for Wrath continues past WotLK.

Genesis
Boring. Looks like its still going to be a filler for Resto druids to get through the tree. I will say that the verbiage is currently unclear, but it looks like it only affects the periodic portion of our spells. Since it looks like the direct damage of Moonfire will have some significant boosters (including during movement) and IS looks weak, I'm not seeing this talent as useful.

Tier 2

Moonglow
Unchanged. A 9% Reduction in mana cost might seem trivial, but I understand that we might actually have to give a damn about mana. It sure could make a rotation interesting if we had to worry about going OoM.

Nature's Majesty
Unchanged.

Improved Moonfire
Revamped. It now only increases the direct damage of your moonfire spell. This, compounded with a few other talent changes looks like a herald to the return of "Ye Olde Moonfire Spam".

Tier 3

Celestial Focus
Pushback on everything . . . but Wrath and Cyclone? Maybe spells under 1 second won't be able to be pushed back. But this seems like a pretty poor design considering how crucial Wrath and Cyclone are for our PvP arsenal.

Solar Beam
Well, I'm charging my lazer cannon. But let me see if I've got this right. Solar Beam will call down a big, highly visible ray of light. Moonfire shoots down a distinctive arc of silver light. Another talent is going to leave a silver ray over a dead body. Maybe if we're lucky, we'll get a talent that puts a perma-mark over our heads letting people know where we are at all times. We better hope that people fear us in PvP or we'll be a gank magnet.

Ok, that was a rant and said nothing about the actual talent so I suppose I should get back on track. A guaranteed 3 second disorient on an instant cast with at least 1 more second of silence as they run out. Combined with roots, this COULD be very powerful. It can also act as a barrier in doorways and things like that, forcing people to either stay out of los or bite a few seconds silence and run into full view.

Nature's Grace
I'm shocked. Stunned. Flabbergasted. What in the name of Zeus's butthole is this talent doing here? Still in tact. Still causing scaling problems with haste. Maybe they are hoping that with the new changes to DoTs with haste that we won't care. Maybe that's true. Blah.

Nature's Reach
Nothing new here.

Tier 4

Nature's Splendor
Same-ol' same-ol'

Lunar Justice
This is the marker spell I was talking about earlier. I don't really understand it's point outside of leveling unless mana is going to be a huge issue without raid buffs. I sincerely hope that it is not a problem to such a degree that I have to pick this talent up and carry it around in my raiding build. Very nice leveling implications for us though. And AoE grinding will be fun.

Tier 5

Brambles
This talent makes a large jump from tier 3 to tier 5. I find it funny that a talent that we barely consider taking now would be budgeted to a higher tier without any improvements, practically assuring that we won't need to put points into it. Especially considering that this tier contains Vengeance, one of our must have 5 point talents.

Starsurge
Well here it is. This is the "Nature's Torrent" that we heard tell about. It comes with a knockdown so it definitely will help our peeling ability in PvP. I'm actually glad it's not instant. It will make planning a bit more interesting in PvP and maybe even PvE. We see an Eclipse meter interaction from a later talent, but it seems rather minor (especially if the bar is 100 Lunar and 100 Solar).

Vengeance
Still rockin out that increased crit damage. It's no surprise this talent didn't change.

Dreamstate
Could be key again if mana goes down the pooper. I suppose it all depends on how high our int numbers go. It got moved up one tier. It also now leads to Euphoria. More on that later.

Tier 6

Gale Winds
Up a whopping 3 tiers from its original place, Gale winds remains unchanged. I think they just ran out of creative juices. Where's the addition of increased Starfall damage?!? And Wild Mushrooms! Cause that wouldn't be OP at all. C'mon Blizz, let us have the one button press to kill everything ability!

Lunar Guidance
Providing a nice little bonus to the radius of Solar Beam and a small chunk of Eclipse energy from Starsurge. I think this talent is supposed to introduce "complexity" into the rotation because its damage will be so good that we will have to cast it. Things that make you go hmmmm....

Balance of Power
This is our hit talent. Converts spirit to hit and adds an additional 4% on top of that. No surprises here. Actually, the conversion ration of spirit to hit is 1:1. That's higher than I expected, so maybe one surprise.

Tier 7

Moonkin Form
Moonkin Form! Now with added armor and raid wide critical strike! In a bit of a switch of roles, Moonkin Form now offers a raid wide buff, which is nice. I'm glad to see them up this from the leak that had only increased armor.

Improved Moonkin Form
Switching from crit (as leaked in alpha) to haste, with this talent, we will now bring 5% crit and 5% haste to a raid. That's a nice little package. Not to mention our tangibles such as battle rez and innervate. It seems like a good day to be a druid when people start looking at raid composition.

Tier 8

Owlkin Frenzy
It seems like its reverted to the pre mana regen version. Not too awesome.

Wrath of Cenarius
So this is rather odd. It only affects Moonfire, and it only affects it while you are moving. Welcome back, Moonfire spam. How I have missed you! Goodbye Moonfire Glyph, how I have loved you! And that means Starfire glyph is probably going bye-bye too. So then . . . focus, starfall and IS (our least buffed dot) or if we're lucky we'll get a Glyph of Slow Wrath.

Tier 9

Eclipse
I'm having trouble reading this one. It will obviously be necessary, but it also looks like you will have an Eclipse Meter without this talent. Maybe we will see a hybrid resto/balance build with offensive possibilities in PvP, given that critical hits will move the bar. Anyway, speculation aside, this is gonna be a staple talent.

Typhoon
Still the same.

Force of Nature
No changes. I was hoping for one stronger pet, but I suppose the three pet thing has some validity. If we're lucky, blizzard will allow pets to stand at 135 degrees from the front of the mob to avoid dragon tails and poop effects. (Sorry, I seem to have lost my couth filter for the moment)

Tier 10

Earth and Moon
50% reduction on its effectiveness. I don't mind that though. It goes in line with decreasing the raid bonuses (which will really help them balance 10/25 man expected outputs). We retain the personal bonus, so that's a plus.

Fungal Growth
Here's the snare from Wild Mushrooms and ... treant death? Well, in PvP, that will be nice. But whatever happened to Wild Mushrooms being a synergistic piece of the Balance rotation? So far this is the only talent I see that impacts them. And that impact has a very limited PvE scope.

Tier 11

Starfall Not awesome. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I see almost a 400 base damage reduction with no splash damage. Are you kidding me? I'm not griping because I lost something that was OP. I'm griping because our 51 point talent is so lackluster that I wonder if I'll even want to take it. And Starfall has always been one of my favorite Balance spells since its inception. I'll take it because I love effortlessly aggroing a large number of mobs to Hurricane down. But I'm not gonna take it without saying that it seems like a pretty poor change.

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Resto Tree

Blessing of the Grove (BotG)
BotG is another talent that is synergistic with Moonfire. I can't imagine that we would pass on this for one of the other talents given that any time we move we will be spamming Moonfire.

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Summary

I'm pretty disappointed with many of the changes. They left an inherent haste scaling problem in tact. They eliminated most boosters to IS. They boosted the direct damage of Moonfire so much that it's hard to believe we would ever glyph for it and, consequently, Starfire. I feel like many of the spells gained a PvP aspect, which I am glad for. I would love to feel a little more secure in PvP. I dislike that many of our spells will now leave obvious markers of our presence. Moonfire was a tell-tale sign of our presence in a fight. Now we'll be seeing three beams of light! And a couple of them stay for 10 or more seconds!

While I still see the haste problem, especially given that it is both our Mastery and a passive on Improved Moonkin, I feel a lot better about synergy. I find Eclipse less than interesting and really wonder how boring GC's life must be for him to find it "really excit(ing)". Word on the street is that we will see different mechanics for Eclipse popping up. I pray the word is right.

I really wish I could get on and test the synergy right now but I don't have an alpha key so I can't do that. Here's to hoping those of use from the druid community that got a key are giving specific and prolific feedback.