“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

@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.

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

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.

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?

@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.

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.

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!