A balor is a type VI (6) Demon, as shown below. It being called a "Balor" was a late 2E thing when they were brought back for Planescape. It should also be noted that "Balor" is the name of a specific Type VI demon, not the "class".
I mean, might be more uniform in the 2034 MM.
It was 2e but earlier than Planescape and generally earlier era 2e. The 2e Monstrous Compendium Appendix 8 came out in January 1991, predating Planescape by three years. 2e came out in 89 so two years into 2e's eleven year run.
So, this seems to confuse the multiple levels of category:I would disagree.
Balors in the 5e 13 MM are "Figures of ancient and terrible evil, balors rule as generals over demonic armies, yearning to seize power while destroying any creatures that oppose them[/B]." while "Vrocks are dull-witted, capricious fiends that live only to create pain and carnage".
Mostly both are engines of carnage and destruction.
So the big difference is general who likes to destroy versus mid level carnage demon. The role of general is different but more like having a hobgoblin general and a hobgoblin legionnaire.
The situations where you would want to use a vrock or balor as a DM I would think are more likely to be based on CR and the fact that they are demons than the other specifics of the individual demon types.
My first thought was as a DM having a demon summoner who can summon a demon of X CR, so you would want to have them together for flipping through to see details and compare specifics of ones with similar CRs (vrocks can fly, hezrou cannot, etc). If you are powerful enough to summon a vrock as your attack beast or guardian instead of a dretch you do so. If you are an archmage demon summoner and you can flat out summon a balor instead you would.
Second situation I thought of would be something where a portal has allowed a demonic invasion so you want different types of demons of the appropriate CR for your chaotic horde. Third would be something in the abyss where you want demons to predominate but I would also generally expect mixes of demons and not just vrocks and only vrocks (although an aerial migration of a giant horde/flock of vrocks would also be cool).
Since D&D does work to make demons a distinct thematic group for the blood war and for alignment and such compared to devils or yugoloths (yugoloths depending on edition), grouping them as such for the DM to use them as thematic groups makes more sense to me.
It is good they have the table at the end, but it is less useful for trying to compare individual demons than if their entries were grouped together on the page.
I'll have to attribute that to my faulty memory (again). Could have sworn it was late 2E when the Tanar'ri, Baatezu and Yugoloth returned to the game (I was thinking at best months before Planescape), but I guess when you're in college 2-3 years might as well have been an age.
I only got Planescape stuff way after the 2e era (Greyhawk and Ravenloft were my 2e foci in the 90s) but I borrowed MC8 from a friend when he got it when it came out and I loved the lore development for the fiends and the Blood War. 1e had fun demon lords and archdevils with very cool art, but 2e provided a lot more lore development with different lore niches for balors and mariliths and such.
Without checking, my first thought was the three fungi weren't creatures.
Heck, if they made a bigger thing of demons being different types, I would definitely agree they should group demons under those types. So we would have the group "Demon, type [number]" with stat blocks for two or three demons of that type.
Just checked, and they were all listed together under Fungi for 2e as well, so at least WotC is being consistent there.
