Wrath of the Lich King made a number of fundamental changes to the game, many of which went through so many iterations that it can be difficult to get the facts. You can find a summary of these changes as related to the Restoration Druid in this extensive FAQ!
The Public Test Realm patch notes for Patch 2.3 were released yesterday. While most of the changes related to Druids were already announced, there were a couple of notable additions. Here is the complete list of upcoming changes along with my comments:
- Barkskin: It is no longer possible to cast this spell while Cycloned.
You can’t be damaged while inside a Cyclone, so you’d only be wasting your Barkskin if you used it.
- Cure Poison and Abolish Poison are now usable in Tree of Life Form.
Huzzah! Finally, fewer ToL Limitations. While nice, I’d say that removing poisons is only about 30% of the reason I’m forced to shift out of ToL. 70% goes to Remove Curse which seems a far more popular debuff type for mobs to throw around.
- Cure Poison, Abolish Poison and Remove Curse range increased to 40 yards.
This is really great news for Arena play. It was so annoying to be in range to heal a teammate but not close enough to him to remove his Curse of Tongues.
- Entangling Roots: It is no longer possible for multiple Druids to have Entangling Roots on the same target. In addition, it will now always be removed correctly if multiple Druids overwrite each other’s Entangling Roots.
Hrmph. So double Druids can no longer give each other “back up” in terms of one set of Roots breaking early (likely eating into each other’s DR in the process).
- Feral Attack Power: Items that granted bonus attack power in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin forms have been re-evaluated. In almost all cases, the attack power on the item has been increased. This change corrects an issue where feral weapon damage was not keeping up with other classes in its rate of increase.
This seems like a great change pretty much across the board for Ferals.
- Force of Nature: This ability will no longer automatically break stealth on victims in its casting area. Nearby stealthed characters may still be attacked if they are too close to the summoned Treants.
- Heart of the Wild: This talent no longer provides 4/8/12/16/20% bonus Strength in Cat Form. Instead it provides 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack power.
There is some debate over whether this is a buff or a nerf and whether it’s intended to push Ferals toward picking up Rogue gear.
- Hibernate: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Druids overwrite each other’s Hibernate.
That would need to be a whole lot of Druids in one Arena for this to matter. ^_^
- Intensity (Restoration) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
This is the change I’m most excited about from the upcoming patch. It should change the way I value Spirit, at least in PvE.
- Primal Fury: This talent will now be learned correctly even if purchased while the Druid is dead.
Bug fix.
- Rebirth cooldown reduced to 20 minutes, from 30 minutes.
Another nice change. I still want regular resurrection, though.
- Remove Curse is now usable in Moonkin Form.
VERY nice change. Now Moonkins can really be Mages and complain about having to take time away from boom boom to decurse. =)
- Shapeshifting Spells: Some of these spells were causing additional unintended threat. That additional unintended threat has been removed.
I’m curious which forms were receiving unintended threat. I knew those Mudfin Frenzy were just a little to persisent in attacking my Seal Form!
- Soothe Animal: This spell now properly consumes Nature’s Swiftness.
When I first saw the words “Soothe Animal“, I was expecting something more along the lines of “Soothe Animal is worthless and has been replaced with a spell that conjures a giant chicken on your head. We felt that players would get better use out of this spell.” Darn.
- Tranquility now gains additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses.
Wow. It already seemed pretty powerful to me. I wonder why spell damage bonuses are included, though.
- Grounding Totem: This totem is now destroyed upon redirecting any spell to itself.
This means that a Cyclone will destroy the totem rather than simply putting it on cooldown.
- Items: Arena Relics: New relics have been added to support all talent trees for relic users. In addition, most of the arena-system relics have been renamed so there is a more consistent naming convention.
This will be nice for Ferals and Boomkin participating in Arenas and will hopefully provide some additional options for tanking. /crosses fingers
- Items: Overseer Disguise: It is no longer possible via use of this item to be on a mount while in Moonkin Form or Tree of Life Form.
Some players can be quite creative.
- Zul’Aman: Zul’Aman is a 10-player, level 70 outdoor instance located in the Ghostlands. Players will be able to confront six new bosses including the Forest Troll Warlord Zul’jin.
This is worth mentioning because of it supposedly being a great source for off-spec itemization, particularly Moonkin.
And in case you missed them, there are some pretty nice changes to Leatherworking, as well:
- Stylin’ hats no longer require Zhevra leather.
- Greatly increased the radius of the Drums of Battle, Drums of Restoration, Drums of Speed, and Drums of War.
- Removed the casting time from the Drums of Battle, Drums of Restoration, Drums of Speed, and Drums of War.
- Slightly increased the radius of Drums of Panic.
- Reduced the casting time of Drums of Panic and added a global cooldown equal to the casting time.
- Drums of Speed and Drums of Restoration are no longer world drop recipes, and can now be obtained from the Mag’har and Kurenai faction vendors with revered standing.
- A new recipe is available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers to create glove reinforcements, providing a substantial armor bonus. Reinforcements are a permanent enchantment and cannot be placed with other permanent enchantments.
- New recipes are available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers to make 20 slot quivers and ammo pouches.
- New recipes are available from the Honor Hold, Thrallmar, and Lower City quartermasters to create 24 slot quivers and ammo pouches.
If you’re looking for other classes’ perspectives on this patch, I would encourage you to check out the following:
- Feral Druid from Of Teeth and Claws
- Priest from Priestly Endeavors
- Rogue from Parry, Dodge, Spin!
- Shaman from Resto4Now
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FYI, Sooth Animal is great while farming herbs. Know all those irritating nether ray things (or w/e they are) on that get in the way during your netherwing dailies? You basically have to be on them to aggro them if it’s up.
As for the HotW argument, well I haven’t done the math myself, but when I read through those posts, it seemed like most of the people who argued it was a nerf were missing some key points or hadn’t even bothered with the math. The only real reason for argument here I think, is the fact that now we’re going to piss of rogues even more. But hey, locks/spriests duke it out for the same gear. Why shouldn’t rogues have some competition too?
Oh ya, and http://www.wowraid.com has all the new badge rewards up. I’m hoping they buff some current gear. I really don’t think people should be replacing a TK belt (Girdle of Zaetar) with a heroic badge item (change is -2stam/spir, +11 heal, +2mp5, if you match sockets which I think you should in this case).
-Kalaghan, Nathrezim
I’m an idiot…it’s now http://www.wowraid.com, it’s http://www.worldofraids.com. Hopefully y’all know that, if not sorry for the miss-link.
-Kal
*not
While nice, I’d say that removing poisons is only about 30% of the reason I’m forced to shift out of ToL. 70% goes to Remove Curse which seems a far more popular debuff type for mobs to throw around.
It is nice for tree druids who raid SSC. Leotheras’ trash, Karathress’ trash and all of phase 2 of the Vashj fight have to be done in caster form because removing poison is key. Remove curses would be nice too, but I’m not complaining.
I really don’t think people should be replacing a TK belt (Girdle of Zaetar) with a heroic badge item
Not only is the badge belt better as you point out, but it is a guaranteed drop – if you get the badges it is yours. My guild is working on Kael’Thas and we’ve killed Void Reaver every week since the TK attunement was removed (4 months) and we’ve never had that belt drop. Now I can be guaranteed to get a better belt in exchange for running the joke that is Heroic Mechanar for a few weeks – how does that make any sense?
@Kalaghan: Good point about Soothe Animal. I don’t have any gathering tradeskills, but I DO sometimes use it when I’m fishing. Of course, you have to refresh it so often that if you’re planning on fishing a whole pool, you might as well just kill the darn thing (usually a giant firefly in Zangarmarsh). And while I was reluctant about mentioning the debate over whether or not the change to HotW is a buff or a nerf, I figured that someone (such as yourself) might be able to illuminate the issue. I’m in agreement on the Rogue loot. Most everyone else already has to compete with one or more classes for drops.
@Treibh: That’s good to know about SSC. My guild is just beginning to contemplate the possibility of us beginning work there, so it’s good to know that this change will be a positive one. I’m only familiar with the number of curses thrown around in Kara. And while Mages can remove them, I find it’s rare that they do, either because they aren’t accustomed to watching for them or because they don’t feel its their responsbility. I’d just as soon handle all the decursing if I could.
Thank you both for commenting!
I have the mages in my guild trained well enough now that curses are generally gone instantly.
Not enough shamans around to say the same so the ability to cure poison will be a big improvement.
Still, would be nice to be able to do both.