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PTR: Cyclone Range Reduced to 20 Yards
Published on March 11, 2008 by Phaelia 
Patches, PvP, Spells and Talents 
24 Comments
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| Hurricane by Triggerman |
As previously predicted, the range on Cyclone has been reduced from 30 yards to 20 on both the TTR (Tournament Testing Realm) and PTR (source). With Nature’s Reach, the range drops from 36 to 24, so it’s an additional nerf to the benefit afforded by this talent. As of today, Patch 2.4 will include the following nerfs to Restoration-based PvP:
- Drinking nerf
- Nerf to end bloom of Lifebloom (the same heal that occasionally occurs when our HoTs are purged); this forces Restoration Druids to spec down to 5/5 Empowered Rejuvenation if they want to compensate for the reduction, locking them out of other talents from Balance and Feral considered to be synergistic and essential
- Reduction of Natural Perfection from 15% damage reduction to only 12% (it is worth noting, however, that NP was buffed so that it benefits from the dispel resistance provided by Subtlety)
- Removal of 4-piece set bonus from the Restoration set (+15% speed bonus in forms)
- Cyclone reduced from 30 yards to 20; Nature’s Reach reduced from 36 yards to 24
Sadly, this change is pretty much the nail in the coffin for Restoration-based PvP and will severely handicap already struggling Balance Druids in Arenas. I guess Blizzard is still working toward their goal of having no more than 60 Druids at 2200+ rating. So much for making incremental changes to see how they affect things.
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I am excited that BRK is back, though!
/cry I love you, ty for everything.
I’m amazed. GG really, thats a pretty long list of nerfs. When the hell will Blizzard learn that nerfing one class won’t necessarily serve to improve the ailing classes overall. I want my paladin to be COMPETITIVE with resto druids, not for my performance to improve because druids have taken a prison dose of the nerfbat. Ouch. You really do have my sympathies (heh my poor druid alt).
Added to that is the effect it’ll have on off-specs for the arena (no offence to those who spec balance as primary!). This is one hell of a frustrating game. I just wish I could afford the time to commit to pve, because pvp is SOULLESS and it SUCKS – just aint really fun anymore.
Sorry for the rant!
Did you have to make that post?
Seeing it all in one place makes me feel … sad. Don’t know what to say. Is it really justified to make ALL these changes? I have no idea. I can’t imagine they are.
Some of these won’t really affect me, my Arena performance can’t get worse. It’s not as if Resto Druids are an instant-win for Arena matches with the status quo. Even as a Resto you still need to know how to play in Arenas … I know I don’t.
These changes are supposed to nerf 2vs2 for Restos and 3v3 for Restos. What about 5v5 and the other specs?
I don’t really see the big deal here. Not everyone who plays druid is obsessed with being the most OP person in the arena, though even with these nerfs we are pretty powerful still. The drinking nerf does not just apply to resto druids…they apply to anyone who uses mana. Now we just have to work a bit harder.
I’m just happy that Blizzard have actually managed to do what they promised with PvP nerfs for once – not have them affect PvE! There’s nothing in that list that’s going to give my raiding Tree any cause for alarm.
Since all of the fake patch notes are coming true maybe will get:
# 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.
yeah since I only do pvp when I feel suicidal and want a reason to weap, I don’t care horribly much about this, none of it seems to hurt my PvE. It is soooo nice to see they try and not nerf everything, just because something needs nerfing.
Instead it seems we get a better regrowth
Oh, and gief decurse in treeform!
One last thought tho, I find it interesting how the developers of WAR have said that they -don’t- want everything to be perfectly balanced, and I wonder how some people would react to this :p
It is weird how the fake patch notes are somewhat accurate. It makes me wonder if blizz is really thinking about letting us use Healing Touch in treeform. I don’t pvp much but if I did I would be upset over the cyclone nerf.
Lets remember that the “fake” patch notes were not your usual pie in the sky notes made up by some random joe on the WoW forums. They were posted first on the Elitist Jerks forums and where fairly reasonable/possible changes. The Elitist Jerks forums only attract the most hardcore of players for theorycrafting, so if something was leaked it is not a supprise that it was done there. Second, a later post also said that they weren’t necessarily patch notes for patch 2.4 but things that Blizzard were thinking about implementing in a future patch or in the expantion. Third, most fake patch notes that are posted around are a particular classes wish list and basically had a class their very own and funtional I.W.I.N. button. These were not the case. Most of the changes were things I had seen suggested elsewhere and somewhat reasonable fixes for real problems.
I am not suggesting that all the druid nerfs are fair. I personally don’t PvP much and don’t really understand the changes or really care about them. I do think some of the nerfs will unfairly affect PvE raiders, but hopefully blizz will make changes to compensate for that, and a 20% mana reduction on Regrowth is not enough.
One thing I think Blizzard and the WoW community as a whole is missing is how different classes have different specs when looking at PvP.
Granted, a lot of number of druids are in Arenas, but in reality, druids and shamans are the only two classes with a full three specs that would be viable in arena. So, in essence, they would, by definition, appear 3 times more often than any other class when you take specs into account.
However, when put that way, Shamans are serious under-numbered in arenas.
I feel like this is a case where Blizzard is going back on one of the things they have said about PVP, namely that they were balancing PVP around 5v5 arenas.
Arena resto druids do well in 2v2, and less well in 3v3, primarily because of mobility. If the other team has a hunter then their pet is primarily used to keep a druid in combat. The drinking nerf is more of a nerf to druids then to other classes because druids can get out of combat more easily then other classes. The more people there are in the arena the less effective this is. Also in higher brackets it is more common for the other team to have a member dispelling offensively, which makes HoTs a less viable form of healing then direct healing.
I probably under-utilize cyclone in PVP so the nerf to that isn’t going to effect me that much compared to druids who are better at PVP then I am.
I think that a lot of druids have concentrated their efforts in the lower brackets due to a lack of success in 5v5. I don’t think that making us less effective in lower brackets is really a constructive solution to the situation.
All I have to say is that at least it doesn’t hurt PvE. /cheer
I do think that the inherent properties of the druid class will continue to make restos contenders in the 2v2 bracket. In 5v5, well, we were dead wood anyway. (yuk yuk yuk)
I love how people harp on the chart Kalgan listed, when he also stated that it’s not their master in looking at what classes need balance, nor is it the only chart they use. They also have unnormalized ones and I suspect others that are even normalized vs the Arena teams.
While I don’t like the fact we’re being nerfed, I agree with the fact that a lot of our abilities were stronger than should’ve been in the arena-setting. However, all told the changes are more PvP-centric than they were earlier, which is a differentation that I very much approve.
“Sadly, this change is pretty much the nail in the coffin for Restoration-based PvP”
Aren’t druids one of the most (or the most?) represented class in 2v2 and 3v3? And of this, wouldn’t the vast majority be resto?
I fail to see the nail, or the coffin.
“So much for making incremental changes to see how they affect things.”
Hrm? Isn’t that exactly what they did? I don’t think any two of those was added at the same time.
Personally I’d rather see my Paladin buffed, than your resto druids nerfed. Sure a druid nerf is an indirect buff for me, but I’m still dubious as to the extent to which it’ll make the Paladin more viable in arena.
Relative to other classes, the water change is perhaps a buff to druids. You will get out of combat easier, and therefore drink easier. I could extrapolate but have done so before.
How much will the “bloom” coefficient affect resto druids in arena in practise? As I haven’t healed as resto I can’t comment at all. Is it a significant nerf?
I can see the 4-piece bonus, cyclone range and NP down-scale affecting performance though. What do the experienced pvp resto druids think?
While I don’t see it the nail in the coffin, I still don’t think its a good thing.
@Sorayn: The only information players have to go on are those charts. Charts that listed us at a ridiculously overrepresented 276%. And charts that fail to consider the nature of people who play at that level of competition. They will be attracted to the class that performs well; it’s not fair to consequently penalize the class for having a low population due to its relative undesirability outside of PvP.
@Adam: Yes, Druids are the most represented class in 2v2 — but not 3v3 (the way they “determine” these statistics are completely ludicrous; there are certainly fewer Druids in top-ranked 3v3 than Priests). The phrase “Nail in the coffin” often means “the last thing necessary to complete something”. This is not the first or only nerf to the spec/class in PvP but rather one of five, several of which are equally grievous.
@Luke: They can’t have had enough realistic Arena testing to determine how these changes will affect Druids. Instead, they’ve piled all these nerfs on at one time (i.e. the same patch), and Druids will likely have to live with them until S4 … or perhaps even WotLK.
@Lovemace: The drinking thing is really up in the air. On the one hand, Druids can and do get out of combat more easily than many others. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean they can STAY out of combat and drinking the 6 seconds necessary to see normal returns. As such, they are likely more dependent upon drinking than others who don’t have the same mobility
As for the bloom coefficient, it’s only a slight nerf if you have 5/5 Empowered Rejuvenation. However, going that deep into Restoration reduces the points that can be allocated to things like Feral Charge or Cyclone interruption prevention.
@Phae – while it doesn’t mean that you can necessarily stay out of combat to long enough to get the 6 seconds of drinking, I guarantee that you have a better shot at it due to your mobility than a paladin has
The other thing to think about is that you can set HoTs and run…thereby buying you the time to drink. As our heals are all direct, we often can’t afford to stop healing for more than a few ticks.
# Tree of Life: You may now cast any Restoration spell in this form.
It’s probably a realistic option in 2.4 to stay in caster form and add healing touch rank 10 to your spell rotation. With a shadow priest and mana tide you can keep that rotation up forever and the GCD reduction from haste allows you a bit more room to work with.
However, I can’t think of a reason to do this if you are in a group with a normal number of healers.
My opinion on HT + ToL, I think this pretty much explains all:
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/2810/fullnd9.jpg
If that’s gonna be their reply to “change resto T6 bonus” complaints, it will be really disappointing.
Also tranquility cost reduction would be just stupid. I’d rather decrease its cooldown.
About the rest, I think all those PvP-oriented nerfs are understandable when considered one by one, but all of them at once may have an undesired effect. Time will tell.
“@Luke: They can’t have had enough realistic Arena testing to determine how these changes will affect Druids.”
Why not? The PTR (at least the PvE one) is packed basically all the time. I bet that have quite a bit of data. The fact that they’re pushing and pulling class changes tells me that they are, in fact, making changes based on observation of how their changes affect classes.
I’m really pissed about the set bonus nerf. This will affect gear I already have? I just spent all my honor and arena points to get the last two pieces! If it’s true, I’m ending my WoW subscr. Loss in revenue is the only thing that will make them change anything.
(HT in ToL would be a good bonus to PvE though. I’m always using HT+NatSwift macro when someone gets beat to nothing. But do i want to waste mana to get back to ToL? No, I usually just stay in casterform till the end of the fight.)
@JoeBull: Unfortunately, yes. Changes like this are generally retroactive (and, in this case, would have to be since crossing items from one Season’s gear to the next still grants the same set bonuses).
I really wouldent mind a nurf that made sense if they didnt always pull these ideas for nurfs out from where the sun dosent shine. I would love to really know whether. Cyclone range reduction isent exactly one of those first thought ideas. We have people who are complaining about Cyclone being arguably the most powerful CC in arenas due to it being used offensively and defensively because of its mechanic that makes everything you throw at the target ‘immune’ so they get the idea to reduce the range… /shrug This wont fix the “OP Cyclone” its more of an annoyance than anything else.
I am still holding my breath on how these bunch of smaller nurfs will affect us overall in PvP.
@Zackoria: I think that this nerf will actually have a bigger effect than you realize since Cyclone is helpful keeping Warriors and Rogues at bay (though less and less as Rogues’ mobility has improved). If suddenly you have to stand within 20 yards to use it on them, they’re much more likely to reach you and interrupt it before you can. =/ Ah well … I guess pendulum swings like this have long been a part of WoW PvP.