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Phaelia PTR Patch Notes and Epic Flight Form

Published on April 18, 2007 by Phaelia
Patches
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Patch notes for the Public Test Realms were released on Friday and include several changes to the druid class along with the addition of the druid epic flight form quest.

The Class Eliminator™ in its most recent incarnation

Druid Epic Flight Form:

The Druid Epic flight form will be available through a series of quests, similar to the Warlock and Paladin Epic mount quests before it. This quest series will also open up a new boss in Sethekk Halls, and ultimately lead to the epic flight form.

Druid-Specific Changes:

  • The Druid Epic Flight Form is now available through a series of quests.
  • Barkskin now reduces all damage taken, with its duration reduced to 12
    seconds and cooldown reduced to 1 minute. The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate this ability can be used while frozen, incapacitated, or cowering in fear. That functionality was already present, but not listed in the tooltip.
  • Bear Form and Dire Bear Form: The bonus health from shapeshifting into these forms will again be removed correctly when shifting out of these forms.
  • Cyclone: This ability will no longer work on hunters with The Beast Within active or hunter pets with Bestial Wrath active.
  • Feral Charge now suppresses all Slowing effects while charging the target.
  • Fixed a data error that caused Swiftmend to generate more threat than intended.
  • Force of Nature: These pets will now come into the game with full health, including that gained from a percentage of their master’s stamina.
  • Gift of the Wild, ranks 1 and 2, are now available on trainers.
  • Gift of the Wild: Rank 3 of this ability now has the same range as ranks 1 and 2.
  • Improved Leader of the Pack: This ability will no longer generate threat.
  • Lacerate: The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate it does initial bleed damage when the ability first lands.
  • Lifebloom: Each additional application of this spell will now include the full bonus from effects which increase healing. The final heal, however, is still unaffected by stacking multiple applications of this spell.
  • Mangle(Bear): Damage increased by 15%, but bonus threat reduced so that overall threat generation will be unchanged.
  • Nature’s Grace: This talent is now triggered by Swiftmend and Lifebloom, and is triggered by and affects Cyclone.
  • Nature’s Grasp: The mana cost has been removed from all ranks as intended.
  • Omen of Clarity: This spell is no longer castable in Tree of Life Form or Moonkin Form.
  • Prowl will now be broken correctly by damage shields such as Oil of Immolation.
  • Rake: The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate the initial damage done is bleed damage. In addition, Rake can now always be re-applied, even when Mangle is active.
  • Shapeshifting will no longer remove the Rotting Putrescence creature debuff.
  • Subtlety (Restoration Talent) now applies to all spells, not just healing spells.
  • Swiftmend: This ability will now be correctly penalized for casting low rank Rejuvenations and Regrowths just as other healing spells are penalized.
  • Teleport: Moonglade: This spell is no longer castable in Tree of Life Form.
  • Tree of Life Form: The tooltip has been corrected to indicate Nature’s Swiftness and Rebirth are castable in this form.

My Impressions:

I think that the epic flight form looks amazing. I was afraid that we’d have to spend vast sums of money on material quest components the same way that paladins and warlocks do for their epic mount quests,
but judging from an epic flightform quest walkthrough, that doesn’t look to be the case. One of the rewards in the quest chain is a 10% to flight speed trinket which compensates for the leatherworked riding crop not affecting flight form (and saving me 110 gold), and the form looks amazing so I’m quite pleased.

They keep fiddling with Barkskin and Tranquility, I suspect because they’re so often used together for the interruption prevention. The additional reduction for spell and ranged damage is great, even with the duration reduction. I’m ashamed to admit I wasn’t aware that I could use Barkskin while incapacitated but look forward to utilizing the ability more often in PvP.

The range increase on Rank 3 of Gift of the Wild will help a lot during wipe recoveries in Karazhan, and I’m glad that I wasn’t just imagining that the range was larger on Rank 1 and 2 pre-BC.

Lifebloom stacking is finally a viable strategy, and I’m surprised they didn’t have the spell function this way from the outset. As for the changes to the spells castable while in Tree of Life, I’m disappointed to see the form remain unable to perform one of the primary roles of a healer: decursing and removing poisons. It’s frustrating enough to have to shift in an out to cast Mark of the Wild and Thorns, but the decursing is one factor preventing the form’s use in large portions of several 5-man instances.

The change to Subtlety is nice for Restoration druids (and particularly Balance druids who suffer from threat problems across the board), but I know that some ferals pull groups using direct damage spells. This change discourages them from bolstering their healing ability with a talent I consider essential for any main healer, further widening the gap between Restos and Feral/Resto hybrids. Of course, overall it’s a very positive change for the class, especially for our Boomkin brethren.

Overall there are a couple of nice changes for Restoration druids on the immediate horizon (Lifebloom stacking and a versatility increase for Barkskin), though nothing so exciting that I’d want to try it out on the Public Test Realm. The epic flightform looks really promising, but I have a whole lot of farming and fishing to do before I even consider beginning the questline.

Related Posts

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  • Patch 2.4 Official Class Changes
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Guest Post: Leveraging Shadowmeld (23)

Penguinator
Our guild tried instructor Razuvious in H naxx and we had to try many different strategies, wiping a bunch or times because we had only 1 priest. Most of the time, i was assigned to raid healing and could heal in a corner above the arena. Whenever our tank died and he started one-shotting our raid (90k on a clothie, 30k on a tank) i shadowmelded and could start rezzing people. This was very useful, especially when the pallies ran out of reagents to DI.

Riverwish
As far as i’m aware they changed it so that when you meld in a raid instance you don’t leave combat so you can’t drink/eat or reset pot cooldowns in a raid bossfight, this is why you have to be quite lucky at escaping combat in a raid situation. I did manage to escape for Patchwerk numerous times but other bosses are trickier, I think it depends really on who your fighting and what room you’re in :) All these things can be done in 5 mans though. Riverwishs...

Vreenash
Thanks for posting this up Phae :) Keep the ideas flowing guys. It’s good to hear the different ideas and situations you’ve all been using shadowmeld in. Here’s another one for you: While leveling my way to 78 (still with the ground mount in northrend), there were quests that required killing a normal mob boss. They were usually in the centre of a town, camp or cave. Instead of killing all the mobs on the way to boss, just mount up and run directly to him....

Bearess
One note about SM that should be brought up. Yes it will bring you out of the fight in a lot of cases, but some bosses can still find you. AOE attacks will bring you out of a SM. So watch that. I learned that the hard way when Instructor Razuvious broke loose, and I skittered off a corner and SM. His next “victim” was too close to me when he let out his “Distrupting Shout” and I became next on his list. Figured I’d drop a line since it is a weakness to SM...

Arcaedus
Great info! I’ve often used SM to get out of combat when soloing but have put it to limited use in the instance/raid environment. @Riverwish: I’m not sure that you have to be the last player alive/targetable. I’ve had both successful and unsuccessful attempts with SM hiding on a wipe. My main example is on Patchwork. When multiple tanks go down and its a sure wipe, you are able to run behind one of the pillars and meld. As long as no one drags Patchy to you he should...
Living Seed, Replenish, and Gift of the Earthmother (13)

Werebeef
I don’t think viewing living seed as a % of total healing is really the best way to look at it. It’s great for helping a player that is at very low health get back up to very high health and do so quickly. You don’t look at nature’s swiftness as a percentage of overall healing. I don’t think it makes that much sense here either. It’s also a talent that is better when the content is hard, when you have less overhealing. There’s also something...

Kalfurion
Hi Phae, long time no talk. I want to point out that I’m 0/0/71 and I love it. I don’t really find the talents in the balance tree to be that useful for my needs. I’m in a raiding guild as I’m sure you know and the three talents you spoke about suit my needs so well. My rogues, DK’s and our feral druid love me when I keep a rejuv on them for replenish. I’ve joined pugs and people look at my spec and make silly jokes and I don’t know why,...

Kiryn
I really like Replenish, personally. I find myself with far more mana regen than I need in most boss fights, so mana conservation isn’t much of an issue for me. I don’t even know why I carry mana potions if I never use them, and I’m far more likely to be innervating the priests than myself. I often treat rejuv-swiftmend as a near-instant 8k heal on a 15 second cooldown. It isn’t cheap, but it can bring someone back from the brink of death in a little over a second...

Perrin
Phae, One thing that needs to be pointed out clearly to everyone is the misconception about “After spell haste” and the tooltip for GotEM. GotEM removes 0.3 seconds from your GCD. It doesn’t matter if its applied after or before spell haste, because its a factor of the 1.5 BASE GCD. Spell Haste is also a factor of the 1.5 BASE GCD. Therefore they don’t affect each other. The tooltip says 20%, but unlike the usual use of % based talents, the reduction is additive...

Phaelia
@Flynx: Thanks for the link - I’ve added it above to help flesh out the section about GotEM and spell haste! And I’m never sure whether information like this would be better suited to the Healing role forum or the Druid forum. >.< @Pike: I’m glad to hear that you’re still leveling your Druid. I imagine there is a lot of overlap between Hunter fans and Druid fans! (After all, as a Druid, you’re your own pet!) @Pfooti: Thank you! I’m glad you found it...
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