One of the techniques demonstrated by Gronzy in his Restoration Druid Arena Video was the use of Cyclone spam. Assuming your chosen target won’t or can’t use his trinket to dispel the effect, you can effectively lock a caster out of play for 10.5 seconds (6 + 3 + 1.5). This sort of efficiency takes some time to intuit since you have to begin your recast before the target has broken free, and can easily lock you out of play for the duration. However, you can set up a macro that will allow you to divert your attention to other tasks (such as healing your teammates) rather than solely keeping an opponent incapacitated:

/clearfocus [button:2]

/clearfocus [target=focus,dead]

/clearfocus [target=focus,noexists]

/focus [target=focus,noexists]

/cast [target=focus] Cyclone

The first time you target someone and press this button, it will set them as a focus. What this means is that you can perform actions upon them without having to switch back to them as your target, allowing you to target someone else for another purpose. Pressing this button again will recyclone your original target (the one you set focus to) without changing your current target. To change the person with whom your button is associated, target someone else and right click the button (this refers to the “/clearfocus [button:2]” line). Your focus will automatically clear should your focus die or leave your arena instance.

This macro (adapted from one of those listed at WoWWiki.com) can greatly enhance a Restoration druid’s efforts to assist her team with crowd control while not hindering her ability to heal teammates (or herself).

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Jon623 shares a video of a 5-Man Moonkin Arena Team from the Public Test Realms. While the music accompanying the fights is well suited, the opposing team voice chat would have been even better: “Guys, I think I’m bugged. All I see are 5 dancing Moonkin…”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvpcskbLU-A]

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Good news to the forest of druids lamenting over their inability to decurse and buff while in Treeform. Nethaera posted today that the spells available to this form are still under review and, while she does not promise a quick response, it’s nice to know that the topic is under consideration:

We realize that people want Tree of Life form to have more of those types of spells available. In fact, I’ve mentioned it before on a thread awhile back. However, there is a lot of debate going on about which ones would be valid additions without being overbalancing or skewing something else. We will let you know what is decided as we move forward, but please don’t expect anything immediate. I can’t promise you that. All I can do is tell you that we know these are requests people have and are pondering the fate of the trees.

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European CM Vaneras responded to complaints about the druid class’s lack of a standard resurrection spell without cooldown today:

1. The Druid have a resurrection ability, which can even be used while in combat. Albeit it has a long cooldown, but it is a resurrection ability nonetheless.
2. If Druids had the same abilities as other healing classes, then why choose to play with those classes at all?

My point is that all classes are different from one another, and it is supposed to be that way.

…

Interesting suggestion indeed, which I will note down for sure, however I personally do not think that we will ever get to see a “normal” resurrection ability being given to Druids.

To Vaneras, I would pose the question, “If other healing classes all have the same much-desired, time-saving ability but the druid does not, why choose to play with the druid at all?” In fact, this question was later posed to Vaneras in the same thread, to which he responds:

Because of the many other abilities that Druids have, which the other healing classes don’t have… Do you see what I am trying to say with this?

If one healing class has the same abilities as other healing classes plus a little more, then there would be no reason to play with those other healing classes at all. Each healing class are good and strong at their own particular thing, as is intended, and that is why we have different healing classes. One group of players might prefer one type of healer that is strong in one field, whereas another group prefer another type of healer that is strong in a different field. If all healing classes could do exactly the same, then there really wouldn’t be a reason to have different healing classes… It all comes down to choice really, because you cannot have it all.

Fruitcake of Aggramar responds to this assertion with a statement about endgame progression through Heroic instances:

Not having an out of combat Resurrection with [no cooldown] is too much of a drawback. In Heroics people die all the time, like I said in an earlier post.
In a game where you can get 1-shotted due to a polymorph resist or a dodgy crit, a Resto Druid isn’t going to get very far only ressurecting once every 30 minutes.

Vaneras admits that having an out of combat Resurrection spell is “very important” but asserts that we — unlike all other healers — should have to bring along another healer to perform the role of rezzing:

This is true… Out of combat resurrection is very important in Heroics, but that does not mean that Druids are not useful as healers in Heroics just because they don’t have that ability. There are 3 other classes that can resurrect out of combat(plus jumper cables if you have a lucky engineer in your group), so if you have one of those classes with you in your group, then you are covered fairly well… Nobody says that the main healer has to be the same person that is also has to do all the resurrecting.

As I said before, out of combat resurrection is indeed important in Heroics especially if the Tank is poorly geared. And it is also clear that having no out of combat resurrection is a drawback for the resto Druid who plays in Heroics… But limiting yourself with specific class combinations in groups and pigeon-holing those classes with specific class roles can be an equally large drawback… Especially when it comes to Heroics. If you are having trouble with forming a group and are unable to find a specific class and role combination for your Heroics group that you would like, then you have to compromise and look for other ways to form a group. A Druid can function very well as a main healer in a group, and if the group for an example has a Shadow Priest or a Shaman with them for DPS, then the lack of no out of combat resurrection issue is covered right there.

Taking a so called “offspecced” healing class with you to fill the second spot is not necessarily a bad thing. Healing classes are often very good at other things than just healing or resurrecting, which is why you see so many “offspecced” healing classes that are not super interested in just being healers all the time. I think that the example I mentioned above with a Resto Druid and a Shadow Priest or a Shaman will be a good choice to bring with you in a Heroics group, even though they do not serve the traditional class roles. With two spots taken with for an example a Shadow Priest or Shaman and a Resto Druid, then you both DPS, Healing and out of combat resurrection. That leaves you 3 slots for Tanks, additional DPS, off-tanks or even secondary healers.

All in all, this is the lengthiest response from someone in blue type on the subject and — while offputting and upsetting — at least it shows recognition of the issue. One would only hope that “very important” would mean, “We recognize that Restoration-druids are unfairly handicapped with respect to other healers with whom they compete for group spots.” but unfortunately, it seems that the trend of giving druids fewer tools than are necessary to fulfill their chosen role will continue.

What many fail to recognize is that giving druids an out of combat resurrection spell would have no effect on game balance; the spell inherently has no effect on combat. Vaneras admits that the sole purpose for this arbitrary limitation is to make druids less attractive as main healers for instances relative to our competition. It’s notable that none of the traditional arguments against druids getting Resurrection (stealth, for example) are even mentioned. Druids are being penalized purely for the sake of making us less viable without any regard to game balance (or fairness to the spec). When will the developers figure out that this is not a good form of “game balancing”?

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The start of Season 2 Arena brought with it new sets of Merciless Gladiator armor, modelled after Tier 5 armor graphics in presumably more intimidating color schemes. As with Season 1, the Merciless Gladiator Gloves each have a special effect that — at least for many classes — make them a “must have” for PvP. This is not the case for druids, however.

As a frame of reference, here are some of the effects available to the various classes:

• Hunter: Increases the damage done by your Multi-Shot by 4%.
• Mage: Improves the range of your Fire Blast spell by 5 yards.
• Paladin 1: Increases the critical effect chance of your Flash of Light by 2%.
• Paladin 2: Increases the Holy damage bonus of your Judgement of the Crusader by 20.
• Priest: Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream spell by 1 sec.
• Rogue: Causes your Deadly Throw ability to interrupt spellcasting and prevent any spell in that school from being cast for 3 sec.
• Shaman 1: Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield by 8%.
• Shaman 2: Increases the critical effect chance of your Lesser Healing Wave by 2%.
• Shaman 3: Improves the range of all Shock spells by 5 yards.
• Warrior: Hamstring Rage cost reduced by 3.
• Warlock 1: Gives you a 50% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Fear.
• Warlock 2: Gives you a 50% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Searing Pain.

Going down the list, hunters get a 4% damage boost to one of their primary PvP abilities (Multi-Shot), mages get a 25% range increase to an insta-cast nuke (albeit, the benefit is less to Arcane and Frost mages), paladins get a nice crit boost to their primary heal (crit > all for paladin healers), priests get a 12.5% duration increase to their CC ability, rogues get an amazing anti-caster addition to Deadly Throw, shamans get a 25% range increase to all shocks, warriors get a 30% cost reduction to their anti-caster Hamstring, and warlocks get either 50% chance to avoid damage interruption to Fear or Searing Pain.

What do druids get?

• Druid: Reduces the cast time of your Cyclone spell by 0.1 sec.

That’s a 6.67% casting time decrease on the recently nerfed spell, Cyclone. And this lackluster, practically insulting set bonus is the same for all three sets, including ferals who can’t cast Cyclone in the form they rely upon to PvP.

To address this problem, each of the three druid spec-specific sets should have a clearly delineated gloves bonus that is more in line with the potency of that available to other classes. It should be obvious from the gloves bonus alone which spec the item is intended to best serve. Here are some possibilities:

0.1 seconds?!

• Restoration: 10% resistance to dispel of Rejuvenation and Regrowth, 25% resistance to dispel of Innervate, 10% resistance to Silence effects, or 10% bonus to the bloom effect of Lifebloom
• Balance: 33% chance to resist interruption by damage while casting Wrath, -15 seconds on the cooldown of Nature’s Grasp, or an additional 0.5 seconds on the duration of Cyclone (making the final cast last 2 seconds instead of 1.5)
• Feral: -10 seconds on the cooldown of Bash, 1 additional combo point awarded from Pounce, or immunity to Hibernate (say the gloves make their paws too itchy to be put to sleep)

The above suggestions are in line with those bonuses available to other classes and would improve the arena performance of druids from all specs. On the other hand, if our set bonus remains as it is, it will only reiterate the idea that Blizzard expects all druids (feral included) to be little more than Cyclone-spam bots in Arena.

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