Salthem: Mark Buff "Relatively Small"

Synneth of Executus made a lengthy set of posts on the European Druid Forum entitled “The Druid: Our Problems which details the issues widely perceived by the Druid community for each of our specs. I won’t quote everything she wrote, but here’s a sample of what she had to say regarding our class buff, Mark of the Wild:

Any Druid putting points in restoration must choose between Improved Mark of the Wild or Furor. A restoration Druid speccing for healing will most likely go Improved Mark of the Wild however the buff itself is very weak when compared to other class buffs, and the 5 points to improve it add such an insignificant difference that many raiding guilds do not care whether their Druids have improved Mark or not.

What is interesting about this thread is that not only one but two Community Managers, Salthem and Tharfor, have replied to it multiple times, openly discoursing with the European Druid community. The number of responses are too great to repost here (and the majority revolve around Feral concerns with which I am unfamiliar), so I recommend reading the thread for yourself so you don’t miss anything. However, I would like to draw attention to this statement by Salthem, made in response to the assertion that Mark is a weak buff:

I disagree with the point that Motw is such a weak buff, yes in untalented form it only buffs a relatively small amount, but a buff to every stat and resistance and armour is quite important as it gives a benefit to every class where they need it most. I personally feel the difference when grouping or raiding without it, and would expect the raid buffer to talent to improve it.

A small percentage improvement to a small number will still result in a small number. Even a medium percentage improvement to a small number will generally result in a small number. By admitting that the base amount improved by our Mark of the Wild is “relatively small”, Salthem should logically conclude that the 35% (solidly within the “medium” category) improvement acquired through a 5 point talent investment is insubstantial and hardly justifies the expense. Synneth responded to Salthem with the following:

The problem with MotW is that as a buff, it is OK, but that most classes only benefit from around half of it’s “stat budget” and the armour and resistances are negligible or over-written.

The resistance stats are flat out useless in nearly all situations. In PvE a resistance fight will make use of Paladin auras, Hunter auras, Shaman totems – all of which over-write the resistance portion of MotW. In PvP every serious player has 30 spell penetration from the cloak enchant and rings which almost completely negates the resistances from MotW.

The armour bonus is tiny, having almost no effect in PvE (% increase for tanks is marginal, non-tanks shouldn’t get hit by melee attacks) and limited effect in PvP.

To which Salthem responds, “I still like it as a buff though “

/sigh

Edit: A further post from CM Tharfor is much more promising:

I forgot to mention that the issue with Mark of the Wild not scaling has already been passed on. Since it has been a recurring issue for a while now it was easy to isolate and send it on. We still haven’t had any feedback about it though.

Related Posts

• Eyonix: MotW Possibly Updated for WotLK
• Forum Watch: Talent Survey
• Forum Watch: Class Feedback for WotLK Solicited