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Thankfully (for Restoration-specced Druids, at least), these changes appear to have been false.
MMO Champion is reporting on class changes that may be included as part of Patch 2.4. They are currently assigning the likelihood of these changes being accurate a 50% chance:
- Cyclone range reduced to 20 yards, down from 30.
- Lifebloom healing coefficient reduced by (?).
- Natural Perfection now reduces damage by 2/3/4% down from 1/3/5%
- Tree of Life: You may now cast any Restoration spell in this form.
- Improved Tranquility: Now also reduces the mana cost of Tranquility by 10/20%.
- Moonkin Form no longer gains 150% attack power or mana returned from melee hits, but now refunds 2% of your total mana every time you critically hit with a spell.
- Force of Nature: Treants now have a 15% chance to proc Entangling Roots on the target.
- Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 25/50% of your Attack Power.
If true, these changes would represent an enormous nerf to Restoration Druid viability in PvP (and depending upon the reduction to the +Healing coefficient of Lifebloom — PvE). In my opinion, these changes seem far too severe for a single patch and would undoubtedly cause a large number of Restoration Druids to quit the game entirely. I’m definitely (extremely hopefully) leaning towards these patch notes being fake.
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@Kiryn: Have you considered the fact that Rejuvenation + Swiftmend is a 1.5 second cast while Regrowth is only 2? I know that you aren’t having trouble with mana, but a Regrowth will hit harder and provide more potential benefits (crit = Nature’s Grace and possibly Living...
If these are true I’ll be so pissed. Resto druids are already the weakest healing class in the game. Sure we have good luck in 2v2 with a warrior but is that enough of a reason to nerf us? I’d nerf the warrior IMO.
If any class needs a nerf its resto shaman. They can spam chain heal all day long and have the game play their class for them. I pop a LB on a target and 1 second later a chain heal auto-heals my target to full. I wish Bliz would design decent PvE boss encounters instead of the current “zomg raid-wide dmg” fights. I blame the fact that Blizzard plays horde (shaman) and tailored the game to this fact. I went to Blizzcon and talked to the devs…yeah, they all play horde.
Oh I’m also happy (not really) they reduced the mana cost on our terrible AoE heal. This may save some scrubs in a 5man but it does nothing for raiders who *gasp* heal more than their own group.
I would agree that these changes seem extremlly radical. Blizzard HAS however has made many drastic changes in the past and trimmed them later. I would agree that this would cause many druids to respec, possibly stoping all together. The fact that some of these changes (the moonkins and Nurtering Instinct) are all changes that the other specs have been asking for dose not bode well. I do hope they change there minds if these are real.
Wether or not these are real it still dose not bode well for us trees. We are under the gun. I will be VERY angry if they kneel before the QQers.
This is what i hate about being the “FoTM”, all the whiners who cant play get on the crybaby machine and make a river for Blizzard. /Sigh
Hey! It doesn’t bring me to the submit blog info anymore when I click comment.
Anyway, some of these possible changes are obvious. 10/20 % reduced mana to tranquility, Tree of life casting any Resto spell are the 2 I’d say are most likely to happen.
The others are somewhat strange. While Moonkin form DOES need a buff like the one mentioned, that’s a large change. I like the idea though. Also, Treants having entangling roots would have no effect on bosses. While getting NERF QQs in pvp forums. (perhaps). Treants do need a change/buff, but this is only a pvp change (maybe that’s intended.)
The Natural Perfection change is ridiculous. Not necessary. If that does happen, I will go moonkin and never come back, just because they spent the time to take away 1%, rather than doing something more important. If they make resto worthless I refuse to play the style anymore.
Anyways, thank you for keeping us informed!! <3 (I think fixing tauren females perma-closed eyes and inability to walk thru 1/4th of the doors in azeroth is more important than 1% reduction to the Natural Perfection Talent…)
Personally don’t see any point in doing HT. too much of a mana hog as it is and doesn’t even compare to pally or priest heals. keep ur ht in tree form and no touchie my LB.
“Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 25/50% of your Attack Power.”
If this is true, that means I could be pulling in an extra 1125-2250 +healing onto myself if spec’d feral, and when I’m catting with an enhancement Shammy. There is no way this is for real. This would push Feral arena viability up quite a bit.
I definitely call fake. That Nuturing Instinct buff would be a HUGE buff to feral tanks. At level 66, I’m rocking around 1k, maybe a little more attack power. That would be adding 500 healing to every heal cast on me for 2 talent points. The amount it would be healing at 70, even just in kara tanking gear is ridiculous. And the lifebloom nerf…yeah, total crap.
I am hoping that these are fake, because I will pitch a hissy fit if a Resto PvE nerf comes out of all the crying about 2v2s.
Beyond wishful thinking, the Nurturing Instinct change is worded wrongly, or it’s retarded OP.
Also, they have said that they will not be making any sweeping class changes. If that Lifebloom coefficient nerf is anything bigger than say 5%, it’s going to have a huge effect on PvE. And putting HT in treeform doesn’t make it a great heal to use; it’s still too slow to be competitive in raids.
Though, for a well-geared Druid, even a 5% coefficient nerf, with my napkin math means losing about 55 hps on each stack of lifebloom at 2200 heal.
(2200 x .718 = 1579, 2200 x .668 = 1469. 110 healing difference per lifebloom. (110 x 3)/6 = 55)
If true, and if more than 5%… Jesus my brain goes to plaid and I don’t WANT to know.
Completely false. Mainly for the simple reason that every single thing falls into the aspect of buffing feral and balance, while nerfing restoration and giving a ‘freebie’ buff to PvE restoration. Blizzard is good and all, but we all know that they don’t go this crazy with buffs and nerfs.
Not to mention the warlock nerfs flying around in those notes as well. Blizz never nerfs locks. Duh.
Just look at the other classes’ changes and you’ll see they’re all fake.
- (Priest) Mana Burn effect reduced roughly 50%.
- (Warlock) Life Tap: Spell coefficient reduced by $
- (Warlock) Life Tap now consumes toughly 10% more health when used.
- (Warlock) Improved Shadowbolt: Now only works for the Warlock.
- (Paladin) Turn Undead now lasts 10 sec. in PvP.
- (Shaman) Earth Shield now has 6 charges, down from 10.
It’s just weird that a site like MMO-Champion posted such amount of BS.
As the point of using HT on tree form, I COULD understand: I’d love to be able to use my NS/HT without having to waste mana shifting out/in. But that’d make no sense: trees shouldn’t use nothing but HoTs after all.
“* Improved Mend Pet now has a 50/100% chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect, up from 15/30%.”
That seems super pointless to me, IMP already has pretty much a 100% chance of proc’ing anyway, it just might take ten seconds or so.
I call fake…
I call BS on it too. Most changes just don’t make sense. The Natural Perfection/Focused Will “proposed” change would make the full stack reduce damage by 12%. I rarely see talents where the final, fully talented are not rounded to 5s (5%, 10%, 15%, etc.).
Wow, I must say I’m extremely surprised by the responses and reactions. IMO, these notes are real.
-Resto druids need a nerf in 2v2 & 3v3 arena. This takes a step towards it.
-Even with a nerf, resto druids are still very needed in PvE since they heal differently than other classes. Silence and other factors that stop healing for a few seconds are countered by HOTS.
-Mana drain teams are overpowered and this is taking steps in the right direction.
-Balance and feral do need buffs for PvP and this is a small token
-Cyclone is extremely strong and this is a way of controlling the power.
There are other changes not mentioned (since this is a druid blog) and I think most sound very reasonable. Paladin’s being able to fear demons (warlock pets) for instance. Lightning overload changes, mystical skyfire diamond, everything I read actually makes sense.
Why would moonkins want mana return from crits? We advise our moonkins not to stack crit since consecutive crits = more threat and moonkins have no way of mitigating that threat. Yes, the “hit stuff with a stick to get mana back” is kind of unhelpful, but giving moonkins a reason to get crit-happy seems counterproductive. After all, the mana is great and all, until you pull off your tank and die. Mana’s not helping you much then, is it?
Yeah, these sound fake. Every patch, you always have fake patch notes floating around.
There’s no chance in hell Blizzard will allow druids to cast Healing Touch while in Tree form. The limitation is there for a reason.
Regarding Moonkin’s getting back mana for critting… why not? Their not using their current ability now (melee for mana). Even if they keep their exact same build and gear as they have now then they will have more mana for the boss fights. Just because Moonkins get a buff when they crit does not mean, necessarily, that they should gem for crits.
I agree that the Moonkin change would be cool. I wouldn’t go crit-happy, I’d just be getting extra mana back for the crits I already get. I VERY rarely use the “melee for mana” thing, so any mana back from crits would be more than I’m getting now.
All that being said, some of those notes sound more plausible than others, but until I hear more official word, I won’t be giving them any thought.
Also, copied from MMO Champion:
“The list posted yesterday IS NOT from the patch notes, it’s more than likely a leak from an internal mail/meeting discussing potential changes for classes. 90% of them probably won’t be in the initial release of the 2.4 Patch on PTRs and even if they’re added later, keep in mind that you’ll be playing on a TEST server used to … test changes and see how it works with enough people to gather an accurate feedback.”
Moonkin Form no longer gains 150% attack power or mana returned from melee hits, but now refunds 2% of your total mana every time you critically hit with a spell.
I’m effing giddy if this is in any way true. I’m in a solid little Kara team that’s beginning to cycle in alt caster DPS. That leaves me as senior DPS, and going all out to get us through Prince Phase 2. I don’t gear for crit, but my yellow and reds and almost always Potent NTs(I’m hit-capped). That leaves me starved for mana in every long boss fight, as I save my innervates for priests. I’ve actually been forced to melee4mana on Nightbane and Illhoof the past few times. If I can estimate a 40% mana recoup in the fight, it will help a LOT.
While I anticipate some moonkin might get crithappy, and gem specifically for it, I think it remains to be seen, and calculated by ElitistJerks whether a high-crit, low-spellpower moonkin is more mana efficient or more threat crazy than the expected high-spellpower, ~20% crit moonkin —like myself.
@Lemo: I agree that HoTs are a painful way to heal when so many other classes have auto-pilot skills to top off the raid members upon whom you’ve just cast a Lifebloom. It’s one of the reasons I /boggle when someone states (incorrectly) that Druids are great raid healers. No, that would be Shamans, though I don’t necessarily object to the dynamics of Chain Heal — so long as I’m not asked to raid heal as my main focus and in tandem with them.
@Zackoria: Looks like your prediction and worry over a PvE nerf due to PvP concerns was not unfounded. I wish I knew what % reduction would be applied to the Lifebloom healing coefficient. It probably isn’t small, though. T_T
@Silmae: I’ll be very happy for Moonkin if their change does go through. It’s about time they got a mana-regenerative technique that makes sense! And yeah /boggle at the Natural Perfection change. I haven’t tried the “new” Natural Perfection; was it really THAT good?
@Skarrde: Healing Touch is a viable spell if you talent for it. Until now, though, having ToL made talenting for it kind of superfluous. But imagine if you dumped 55+ points into Restoration and were able to use HT any time, Tree or not. And then imagine if HT was also afforded the 20% mana reduction from Tree Form. I certainly don’t want to see the effectiveness of LB reduced, but I will be overjoyed at the addition of HT to ToL.
@Slippir: That’s a crazy amount of self-only +Healing. BUT it would kind of make sense in a “reverse Warrior” sort of way. Rather than reducing healing done to your opponents, you would increase healing done to yourself. Looking at it from that perspective, it seems more and more plausible.
@Kaera: If these notes were “internal” notes, it’s quite likely that they aren’t in the finished form that we’re accustomed to (in terms of wording, grammar, punctuation, etc.) since they likely wouldn’t have been through a copy writer yet. So I would hesitate to deem them fake based solely upon oddly worded descriptions.
@Kai: Blizzard has nerfed Warlocks the past two patches, haven’t they? It stands to reason that Feral and Balance would receive buffs to help them in PvP. I can’t rule them on that basis. =/
@Pike: I don’t know very much about the dynamics of Mend Pet, but do you find you frequently get 10 seconds of Mend Pet off in an Arena?
@Akia: Why is the limitation there? To be honest, I’ve never understood it. It’s ostensibly intended to be our healing form (like the Shadow Form is the damage form for Priests). Why deny access to what was once our key healing spell?
“Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 25/50% of your Attack Power.”
To continue what Slippir was saying. . . yeah, this is a huge giveaway, right here. While I’d love to main-tank some content, I would be joining the crowd crying nerf if that one were real and went live.
Does anyone remember the old fake 1.12 druid notes that circulated for a while? I seem to remember there being a deep feral talent that increased healing taken by 20% or so. At the time, I thought if it were real it would be an incredibly huge step toward making feral tanks viable. But at the time, we actually needed boosts like that.
@ Phaelia -
Basically what Improved Mend Pet does is every time your pet is healed with Mend Pet (an instant cast, heal over time spell), it gives you a chance to clear a poison/disease/curse/etc from your pet. So with each “tick” of the HoT, you have a chance to clear the debuff, and because the HoT is ticking for 10 or 15 seconds or something (can’t recall the exact amount of time)… I can’t even think of a time that it hasn’t proc’d in those 10 or 15 seconds.
As for arena, I have to admit I don’t do a whole lot of arena, but I’ve played a lot of battlegrounds, and while regular Mend Pet can be good in PvP situations because of stuff like mage AoE, Improved Mend Pet really isn’t that necessary just because people usually don’t focus on the pet. I can’t think of a warlock that would rather DoT my owl up instead of me. IMP is much more of a PvE thing from when your pet is tanking and you need him to be healthy all the time.
So I honestly wouldn’t think Mend Pet would be necessary at all in arena when fights are so short… but again I haven’t done much arena, so I can’t say. The Mend Pet change described there though… it doesn’t seem like a bad change, it just seems overly silly to me, but hey, maybe there are benefits to it that I can’t think of right now!
@Phaelia
Why? I can’t say exactly why other than the limitation was put there by Blizzard which means there was a reason. Allowed HT isn’t some “oh, need to add +2 to a healing spell.” It’s true or false; they choose false. Why? I can’t say. I just know there is a reason for not allowing it.
(My guess is the coefficient of HT combined with Tree Form might really outbalance HT)
I’d say nothing is eaten as hot as you boil it.
We’ll have to see what the future brings, then cry, then get buffed into ridiculous overpoweredness again when the nex expension comes out.
(LolferalbackwhenBCwasreleasedrofl111)
And I’d say: some fakes. The lifebloom change would be totally devastating when you look at it first, though on the other hand, spell haste reduces the GCD now, so you are allowed to lifebloom more often.
What the devs didn’t notice is, that lifebloom still only stacks up to 3 times, making it absolutely useless for 5-man-healing <..>
Enough tiktalk
Kay?
Moo!
For some reason…
Your blog has EATEN like one page of my tremendously important post O.O!
Perhaps because I used those smilies?
“>.>” and “<.<”
@Phaelia
Personally, I’m quite appalled that WOR was so irresponsible to post these ‘notes’ and that people are even discussing them. We already received a huge nerf with the trinketed lifebloom mechanics change. LB’s are a resto druid’s defining skill in pve, HT’s are next to useless in end-game, and I find it highly improbable that Blizzard would hit us with the nerf bat twice in so many months just satisfy some QQ’ers sniffling about one small aspect of pvp. Even if it was true resto’s were unfairly OP’d in 2v2’s (we’re not), it’s well documented how much resto’s struggle in 3v3 and 5v5. Sounds like poetic justice to me.
Additionally, some of these ‘changes’ are OP’d to the point of incredibility. There’s no way these ‘patch notes’ are real. It’s disturbing and sad to find out that after all this time we’ve given WOR much more respect than they actually deserve.
Cheers!
I never quite understood why people would call for nerfs for healers in pve. If the paladin only has a 60% mana return on crit rather than 100% it is going to hurt his or her healing performance and gear itemisation, as well as ultimately the performance of the particular guild in progressing. Sure, fine if its unbalancing the content, making progression too easy (remembering the effect of vamp embrace overheals on paladins’ mana efficiency - op synergy), but it really irritated me reading QQs before Paladins were nerfed complaining that “zomg I don’t top healing meters on my priests cos Paladins are OP.” Especially back in the day when guilds were progressing through Kara, longevity (and big crit heals) of Paladins were great, especially in long tough fights like nightbane.
But bringing this onto the topic, from what I’ve read resto Druids don’t really merit a nerf in pve? As I understand it they can put out a massive volume of healing (hotting sounds so much fun,my druid is 69 :), but aren’t so fantastic healing through spike damage. And also with the limited number of druid buffs (Mark, thorns, aura buff), there hasn’t been much of an incentive to take more than one resto druid per raid? Is this about right? But yea bottom line re: pve, in my opinion powerful healers mean better progression and thus more gear for me. Good for everyone no?
As for pvp, well its more than just a few snifflers QQing. You are incredibly imbalanced in 2v2. This means you can get higher ratings easier, you accumulate points faster, its easier to get weapon and shoulders, and basically you can get gear a whole lot easier. Thats pretty much what its all about at the end of the day. Its not just a small aspect of pvp, its what pvp is all about - thats why in its current state pvp is just a joke.
@Lovemace (btw I’ve read the whole thread, I just happen to be answering the last post first ^^): It’s always amazed me FoL’s efficiency, way beyond any other spell with the exception of a stacked lifebloom (which has some obvious limitations). It is crazy considering its casting time, so I wouldn’t complain much in that direction
@Slippir, Malfean, *: I think there’s no way that change on Nurturing Instincts will ever see the light. Different figures maybe, but not like that. 1k extra healing on feral tanks is absurd, I mean, my ToL aura gives like 100 to 5 people. I believe nowadays kitties go beyond 3k AP. 1500 healing? If that’s the case I’m going resto-feral for PvP with next patch
@skarrde: I totally agree. I don’t use HT except on heroics or panic situations (”ZOMG enrage, everyone spam heal the tank!”). Sure, fully talented is great (easily 5k per touch) but you just can’t use it propperly in raid because of flash of light, flash heal, etc. I’d rather have some casting time reduction over the possibility of using it in ToL form, even if that means less efficiency. That would make dreamtouch specs more viable (which I strongly believe are NOT in 25-man).
It’s plain stupid that they’re changing a lot of things in PvE just because of arena. For example, blind & cyclone sharing DR was just a simple (retarded?) way to fix rogue/druid domination in 2vs2. If cyclone was of any use in 5-man instances, now it’s even less.
A nerf on lifebloom would make druid healing even harder in PvE. It would make sense, however, to reduce the direct portion of the spell. It would have a limited impact on PvE healing while it would answer some of the complaints in arena, so people don’t cry when purging it.
@Bellwether: Well, the change on mana regen for moonkins would certainly destroy the oomkin myth
Jokes appart, balance is already crit-oriented. Raiding requires picking up some resto talents because yes, there’s no aggro dump mechanism, but 100% extra damage on crits and chance of 0.5 casting time reduction pretty much says it all. All raiding moonkins I know (not many, I must admit) go for high crit, and PvE gear has a lot of it. They just have to check metters more carefully than other classes, but that’s it. I’m sure they’d love this change.
About the oomkin thing, I was just thinking..
Let’s just imagine this modest moonkin with 8000 mana and 25% crit chance during a wrath-spamming phase. 2% of 8000 = 160 per crit. 5*0.25*160/1.5 = 133mp5.
Ouch?
In case those things hit the production, even the PTR, lots of people will be very frustrated…
From the changes above, the only one that bothers me is the lifebloom one, since I m a PVE freak. I don t care about PVP other than getting 10 games a week for some easy survivability epix.
I like playing my druid as it is. And I find it both easy and difficult. It’s easy to heal large quantities of normal damage in PVE and outheal/incapacitate normal classes in PVP. And it is diffcult to heal through spread spike damage in PVE and fight against a priest or a warlock or a rogue in PVP.
In any case, it all comes down to gear.
IMO the druid is a well balanced class as it is.
AND BTW I hate PVP-arena for what it brought to the game. Either gear-wise and problem-wise… I would cut some slack to Blizz because with PVE only they had to balance the class abilities as a whole towards PVE. With PVP-arena they also have to balance them with each other while maintaining the PVE balance.
As for nerfing requests… what can I say… It reminds me an old Greek joke about a farmer who was envious about his neighbor’s goat. And when God appeared to him he did not ask for a goat of his own. He asked God to kill his neighbor’s goat…
Why do people really ask for nerfs? Because they know that their class is already powerful enough to allow any further buffing. So isntead of accepting the fact that some classes are more powerful against certain others they start whinning. And what blizz does for that? Well balancing it out is really diffcult, so they have to hear everyone and keep them happy “in turns” so that they do not lose clients… :p The Druid period is reaching its end as it seems… I yet have to see the rogue-paladin-lock period to come to an end though…
“Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 25/50% of your Attack Power.”
In terms of tanks we are all pretty close to equal. This will give any healer healing me +1000 or more healing without trouble before raid buffs. Druids will become the tank.
The real patch notes are out!
http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/02/08/2-4-patch-notes-up/
No nerfs. Maybe for feral DPS druids because of the 0.5 increase on GCDs triggered by mangle, I’m not sure.
Also…
- “Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit”
Waiting on new charts
@Hokuto; the mangle change was only done in bear form. It’s a change for threat, really meaning that each time you mangle you have .5 seconds longer before you can lacerate/swipe. Quite a difference, but as it is aggro was /never/ a problem, so it may help even the gap between druids and warriors.
Despite how happy I was for Moonkin and Bears, I’m relieved that these patch notes proved to be false.
@Ermengol: I would be really disappointed to see even the direct heal portion of Lifebloom nerfed. Already if you manage to stack 3 x LB on a target, a Shaman should purge them away since the healing output they would do if allowed to run their course far outweighs the comparatively paltry amount healed by the final purged stack (the first two stacks do not “bloom” when removed; only the last one). IMO Lifebloom is a failure as a dispel deterrent (unlike Unstable Affliction which kicks butt).
@Lovemace: Yes, Druids perform exceptionally well at the smaller format. However, we perform abysmally in the large format and only middling in 3v3. In a 2v2 environment, our versatility finally has a chance to shine. 1v1 has never been considered to be balanced. 2v2 will likely always suffer from the same problems.
Didn’t get to finish off my argument Phae
“As for pvp, well its more than just a few snifflers QQing. You are incredibly imbalanced in 2v2. This means you can get higher ratings easier, you accumulate points faster, its easier to get weapon and shoulders, and basically you can get gear a whole lot easier. Thats pretty much what its all about at the end of the day. Its not just a small aspect of pvp, its what pvp is all about - thats why in its current state pvp is just a joke.”
For the casual player, 2v2 is the bracket of choice. I’m not even that casual, but I still have difficulty finding active 5v5s. What I meant to say is, druids can get higher ratings in 2v2 easier, accumulate points quicker, and thus gear up quicker. It is far easier to find one other active and skilled player than it is to find five - and get them all on at the same time (I have the added difficulty of being from New Zealand, which doesn’t fit quite within either the US or Oceanic Server times - 3 hours ahead and 3 hours behind respectively). So in order to be successful in arena I need to find a good 5v5, whereas all a druid needs is a warrior/hunter/warlock for 2s.
As for 3s Paladins are also fairly middling. The general consensus at the moment (at least from what I have read) is that warr/pally/rsham and warr/pally/esham are about as good as it gets. Speaking from experience, these setups aren’t easy to play (not that I’m saying druid setups are - its just that the synergy we have is less than that of rmp, for example).
So the conclusion is that I wish that my full vind 4/5 s3 Holy paladin with 3 seasons experience was retribution (Holy just isn’t even remotely fun for me anymore), and that I’m playing my druid a lot more. Hit 70 a few days ago, and started arena with a warrior a few days ago. I’m still feral (while grinding up for epic flier), but its still a blast…we’ve beaten s1 geared warr/pally and lock/priest teams with our 0 resi greens and blues. I’m enjoying my scrub-geared feral druid more than I have my epic’d out paladin in a long time