By now, you’ve almost certainly heard about the change to itemization whereby the +Healing and +Spell Damage stats are being retired for the less specialized Spell Power stat. What, exactly does this mean, though, and what can you expect at the release of Patch 3.0?
Edit at 8:08 AM MST: Added changes discovered from comparing the Alpha talent trees to the Beta talent trees.
Edit at 10:26 AM MST: Added static tooltips for some new abilities. Thanks, WotLK WoWHead!
Table of Contents
- General Changes Affecting Druids
- General Druid Changes
- Balance Changes
- Feral Changes
- Restoration Changes
- Impressions
- More Information
The Wrath of the Lich King beta has officially started, and Blizzard has lifted the Non-Disclosure Agreement previously prohibiting participants in the Friends and Family Alpha from sharing information about the expansion. Along with the newly-begun beta, a new version of the WotLK-ready game client and patch notes have been released. Much of what has been previously reported and discussed is included therein, but I’ll bold the Druid portion of the notes below with a discussion about things I believe to be new at the bottom of this post:
General Changes Affecting Druids
- Spellpower
- All items and effects which grant bonuses to spell damage and spell healing are being consolidated into a single stat, Spellpower. This stat will appear with the same values found on items which grant “increased spell damage and healing” such as on typical Mage and Warlock itemization.
- For classes which do not heal, they should see no change in the character sheet other than new tooltip wording.
- Healing characters will see their bonus healing numbers on the character sheet decrease, however, all healing spells have been modified to receive more benefit from spellpower than they received from bonus healing, with a net effect of no change to the amount healed by their spells. Some talents have had to be rebalanced to accommodate this change, but the amount healed will remain roughly the same. In addition, some talents will provide only healing spell power.
- Overhealing is now reported in the combat log.
- The Warrior skill Hamstring now only has one rank and no longer causes damage.
General Druid Changes
- Brambles (Balance): Now increases the damage done by your Treants, and also damage caused from your Treants and Barkskin has a 5/10/15% chance to Daze the target for 3 sec.
- Thorns damage reduced to 73 from the Alpha value of 141. With Brambles, that number is 147, down from 246.
- Entangling Roots: Can now be used indoors.
- Improved Mark of the Wild (Restoration): Now a 2-point talent, down from a 5-point talent.
- Nature’s Grasp (Balance): Can now be used and can proc indoors.
- New Spell: Revive – Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead target to life with health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat.
Revive Rank 7
72% of base mana 30 yd range 10 sec cast
Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead target to life with 1800 health and 1365 mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. - Omen of Clarity (Restoration): Now a passive spell. Now also works for spells (healing and damage). Proc rate is roughly 6% with a 10 second internal cooldown.
Omen of Clarity
Each of the Druid’s spells and attacks has a chance of causing the caster to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the Mana, Rage or Energy cost of your next damage, healing spell or offensive ability by 100%. - Soothe Animal can now be used on Dragonkin as well as Beasts and is now instant cast.
Balance Changes
- Celestial Focus (Balance): The stun proc now works with Starfall.
- Focused Starlight (Balance): Now also works with Starfall.
- Force of Nature (Balance): Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3.
- Hurricane: No longer has a cooldown (was 1 minute).
- Moonglow (Balance): Now also works with Starfall.
- Moonkin Form (Balance) no longer increases your attack power or causes you to regenerate mana off melee attacks, but now has a chance to cause you to instantly regenerate 2% of your total mana every time you critically hit with a spell.
- Nature’s Grace (Balance): Now also reduces the global cooldown of your Wrath spell by 50% while in effect.
- Nature’s Grasp (Balance): Can now be used and can proc indoors.
- Nature’s Reach (Balance): Now also reduces threat generated by Balance spells by 15/30%.
- Balance-specific threat management for Balance can now be found in the Balance tree, within Nature’s Reach.
- Vengeance (Balance): Now also works with Starfall.
- The proc from Improved Moonkin Form (Balance) now lasts 8 seconds instead of 10 and has a 30 second internal cooldown.
- Tier 10 talent Nature’s Fury (Balance) talent (applies a debuff increasing Nature and Arcane damage taken) has been renamed as Earth and Moon.
- Brambles (Balance) now only increases the damage from Force of Nature by 15% instead of 75%.
- Force of Nature (Balance) cooldown restored to 3 minutes (was 2 minutes in Alpha).
Feral Changes
- Faerie Fire (Feral): Now an 11-point talent, down from being a 21-point talent.
- Feral Charge (Feral) is now a 21-point talent, up from being a 11-point talent.
- Feral Charge (Feral): Can now be used in Cat form.
- Feral Instinct (Feral) no longer increases threat generated in Bear form, but now increases damage done by your Swipe ability by 5/10/15%.
- Improved Faerie Fire (Feral): Now also works with spell hit, in addition to ranged and melee hit %.
- Mangle (Feral): Now increases the damage done by Maul in addition to Shred.
- Primal Tenacity (Feral) now reduces damage while stunned by 5/10/15%, and reduces the duration of fear effects by 5/10/15%.
- Survival of the Fittest (Feral): Increased to 2/4/6%, up from 1/2/3%.
- The mana regeneration penalty when in Bear Form, Dire Bear Form and Cat Form has been removed.
- Lockjaw (Feral) (Finishing move that dealt damage and stunned for X+1 seconds.) has been replaced with Savage Roar:
Savage Roar Rank 1
25 Energy 100 yd range Instant
Finishing move that increases attack power by 25%. Lasts longer per combo point:
1 point : 9 seconds
2 points: 12 seconds
3 points: 15 seconds
4 points: 18 seconds
5 points: 21 secondsRestoration Changes
- Improved Tranquility (Restoration): Now also reduces the cooldown of your Tranquility spell by 25/50%.
- Nature’s Focus (Restoration): Now a 3 point talent, down from a 5-point talent. Also moved to Tier 1, up from Tier 2. Now also includes Nourish.
- Subtlety (Restoration): Now a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point talent. Also moved to Tier 2, up from Tier 3. Also now only reduced threat for Restoration spells, and reduces the chance that your healing over time spells (Lifebloom, Regrowth and Rejuvenation) will be dispelled, rather than all Druid spells.
- Tranquil Spirit (Restoration) now also includes Nourish.
- Tree of Life (Restoration): 30% snare penalty has been removed.
- Tree of Life (Restoration): Can now cast Dispel Curse.
- Tree of Life (Restoration): You can now cast all Restoration spells (Healing Touch) in the form, but Tree of Life now only reduces the mana cost of your healing over time spells (Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Regrowth and Flourish) by 20%.
Tree of Life Shapeshift 28% of base mana
Instant cast
Shapeshift into the Tree of Life. While in this form you increase healing received by 25% of your total Spirit for all party and raid members within 45 yards, and you can only cast Restoration and Barkskin spells, but the mana cost of your healing over time spells is reduced by 20%. The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of Polymorph and Movement Impairing effects.
- Improved Tree of Life (Restoration) now only grants 100% additional armor instead of 360%.
- Improved Tree of Life (Restoration) now boosts the Tree of Life aura by 15% instead of 3%.
Improved Tree of Life Rank 3
Increases your Armor while in Tree of Life Form by 100%, and increases the effect of your Tree of Life Aura by 15%. - The healing done by Flourish (Restoration) has been increased from 672 to 4410. The mana cost has been tripled from 450 to 1425.
Flourish Rank 4
1125 Mana 40 yd range Instant cast
Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 4410 over 7 sec. The amount healed is applied quickly at first, and slows down as the Flourish reaches its full duration.
Impressions
There were several very nice surprises for those who have been following the Alpha changes. I think I’m most excited about Omen of Clarity as a passive effect that procs on both healing and damage spells. Finally, Restoration Druids will have a viable form of clearcasting, making this talent a must-have (and fun)! Tree of Life is losing its silly movement restriction and gaining the ability to cast Remove Curse and Healing Touch. This means we’ll no longer have to shift out to use our Nature’s Swiftness + Healing Touch macro. All positive changes that shouldn’t prove unbalancing. The news of an out of combat resurrection spell, while expected, is definitely a welcome confirmation. In terms of PvP, Subtlety no longer providing dispel resistance to Innervate is a very annoying change.
Balance Druids are probably Chris Farley dancing in Moonglade with the incredible changes to their Chicken Form. No more silly melee/AP mechanic! Maybe they heard the Epic Dolls podcast where that was lamented… The change to Nature’s Grace so that it actually lowers the Global Cooldown of Wrath is phenomenal, making Eclipse-based rotations like those described by Graylo more viable. Brambles will no longer add a Daze proc to Thorns as previously reported but instead will give the Daze effect to Barkskin. Interesting change; I now hope that Daze doesn’t increase threat because it will make Barkskin a less desirable means of dealing with unwanted aggro.
I admit I didn’t pay as much attention to the Feral changes over the course of the Alpha (but certainly welcome commentary from readers). One significant new development is the change to mana regeneration in forms. I was under the impression that Druids in Cat and Bear Form were regenerating mana at the same rate as in caster form in live, but apparently such was not the case. It was also rumored in the Alpha that Ferals wouldn’t regenerate mana at all in forms, which would have been a blow to both PvP and PvE. The Feral ability Lockjaw (a CP-based stun) has been replaced with a Finishing Move similar to the Rogue’s Slice & Dice that buffs Cat Form’s AP for a duration based on the number of CP when used.
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One more big change to Tree of Life: “all friendly party and raid targets within 40 yards have healing done to them increased by 5%.” Note the word “raid” there, folks!
Looks like some nice changes there. Though, I’m not quite sure how the warrior skill hamstring being changed affects druids though.
like Riverrun said.. I think that one of the most important change would be converting TOL buff into raid buff.
However I’m very disappointed because of ‘no mana regeneration in feral forms’ change.
I think that this is connected with Blizzards plan of removing ‘unnecessary’ stats from items, so more items would be common for more classes.
(removing spirit and intellect from leather items with AP and agility.. can you hear the bell?)
currently its very common that during our raids I shift out from cat form, cast rebirth, LB,LB,LB, Rev, innervate on priest, shift into cat form, proceed with DPS.. without mana regeneration this will be a lot harder.
As a feral I don’t like the Feral Instinct change. As written that is huge nerf. I wonder if all bears will get a threat boost and no longer need the talent?!?!?
I wonder if this means that we will have to use +spellpower as the metric for what instances healers can handle? Or will a +healing stat still exist that reflects the healing power as converted from spellpower? I hope so.
Hepzibah, I think that you will have only one stat on items – spellpower.
However you will keep +healing stat in your character sheet.
so, e.g. (for this example Ill take that 1 spellpower is 3 healing points)
if you have +1000 spellpower bonus from items.
on character sheet you will see:
spell damage bonus: 1000
healing spell bonus: 3000
if you have +10% of healing from talents, you should see:
spell damage bonus: 1000
healing spell bonus: 3300
is that right Phae?
Warscreamer, I think you read the mana regen in feral forms wrong, unless I’m misunderstanding you. The mana regen PENALTY in forms will be REMOVED. This means you will regererate mana at the same rate in feral forms as in caster form…which is friggin great. I hate switching out of kitty to pop a heal or two, or even a rebirth only to find out that my mana is too low.
Losing the threat buff in bear form may make things a little tougher, hopefully the added damage to swipe will make up for that.
Oh man. Flourish is insane now. It’s a ton of mana, but what an “Oh Crap” button for resto druids.
But look more than that. Flourish off a Clearcasting proc? The problem is that’s not something you can count on, however, I don’t think it can really hurt things, now can it.
Are you sure about the Force of Nature Cooldown being 3 minutes?
The official beta notes have it at 2 minutes.
“Force of Nature (Balance): Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3.”
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8199569973&sid=2000
Graylos last blog post..BETA Patch Notes!!! OMG!!!!!
Sfinx: thanks!!!!
In fact I was thinking only to get out from the office:]
this is in fact great news.
Currently I always have some mana pots for moment like
*Tanking Netherspite green beam, and stuck in non bear form when its my time to take red.
*casting battle res on Supremus, throwing some HoTs… getting gaze alert and no mana for shitfing into cat form
in WotLK if we will get a chance to use pots perhaps Ill use them more often, but now its just great news.
However, please keep in mind this information about removing stats from items.
(If anyone can find the source.. please let me know.. my memory is good but short)
Savage Roar!!! I like that (though Lockjaw was nice for PvP) But I wonder if it stacks? Seems like we could have 2-3 stacks up at the same time if it does. If not, we’d have to alternate between Rip and SR every 2-3 cycles.
@Warscreamer- No, I believe you will see the same number for both unless there is a specific talent modifier being applied to spellpower. Its just that the healing spells will receive far more benefit from spellpower than damage spells, but the number of spellpower will be the same.
I REALLY love some of these changes. I only hope they make it to the game. Barkskin stuns is alright, but I really liked the stuns proccing from Thorns better. I guess Blizzard didn’t like the idea of Druids being able to indirectly stun things by casting Thorns on other players, which is understandable. thing to me is, I don’t know that I can ignore the Healing Touch talents anymore. Tranquil Spirit, Empowered Touch, etc. I’ve ignored up until this point, but with the change to ToL, I’m afraid I can’t. Poop.
Still VERY excited by the additional armor in ToL (even reduced), and the ooc rez. Those were the 2 biggest problems I saw with the class in 5 mans. The Omen change has been long awaited, but, even better, the way it is positioned now makes it a logical choice for a talent point, instead of the awkward way it fell for Resto Druids before.
@Riverrun: That’s really exciting, but it’s something that we knew about from Alpha. I’m really glad to have had it confirmed, though.
@Dyera: Haha … haven’t you heard of Spamstring? Not having it do any damage will mean that it cannot proc things like Mace Stun or Skillherald! It’s actually a very nice buff for Druids.
@NotAnIssue: Mr. Phae (who plays a Warrior) thinks that the threat boost is going to be rolled into Bear Form; they’re doing something similar for Defensive Stance and Warriors.
@Hepzibah: I’m guessing there will only be spell power. Talents that boost the amount of spell power applied to individual spells (like the one that affects Healing Touch) will probably be treated the same as before and not show up on your character sheet.
@Warscreamer: As someone else mentions, Ferals weren’t regenning mana in forms during Alpha. Luckily they reverted that change and even increased their regeneration. Sorry for the confusion!
I don’t think we’ll see a healing spell bonus; I’m guessing that will be removed entirely. They’re compensating for the change by increasing the scaling on individual heal spells. It sure would be nice if they would provide that information up front, though.
@Sfinx: Thanks for clarifying the mana regen change.
@NotAnIssue (Part 2): I’m guessing that Savage Roar doesn’t stack as it’s something whose duration increases based on the CP you have when you activate it. It probably works similar to Slice & Dice (which also doesn’t stack).
@Yggdrasil: I also much preferred the Daze on Thorns than on Barkskin. And excellent point about the placement of Omen of Clarity!
@ Phae- I’m surprised you haven’t said anything about “rocket bear” being less accessible to you. You must be heart-broken.
@Yggdrasil: I am heartbroken. That’s like my favorite skill evar! I’ve started using it in Heroics, too, probably to the chagrin of my MT. Hahahaha!
I originally planned my PvP spec to include 21 points in Feral (picking up all the nice utility talents like Thick Hide and Feline Swiftness along the way), but I think the value of Flourish in PvP is just going to be too darn good to forfeit. T_T Maybe I’ll level a second Feral Druid just to rocket around …
@Phae: Boo. I would definitely miss the +healing stat on the character sheet. Some changes I’m too lazy to adapt for.
On the other hand, you get to be a rocket kitty too…;)
Thanks for the great summary. Wow, there’s so much new Druid info! My… my brain’s freezing up!
Here are my thoughts on some of the stuff that stands out to me (from a mostly Feral perspective):
“Omen of Clarity (Restoration): Now a passive spell. Now also works for spells (healing and damage). Proc rate is roughly 6% with a 10 second internal cooldown.”
I’m really happy about the new ‘passive’ status for Omen. It’s something I’ve always wished for. Not only do I sometimes forget to reapply it (usually in groups, when I have so many buff icons that it’s easy not to notice one gone missing from the herd!) but isn’t this also a nice change for PvP, since it will presumeably no longer be vulnerable to dispels? I’m also super excited to see that it’s finally useful for all Druid specs, though the 6% proc rate seems a little low to me, compared to what I’m used to now as Feral. I could be wrong, but I feel like it goes off much more than that currently (I think it’s based on “procs per minute” in the live game) so it seems like it may have been reduced in effectiveness for Ferals to accomodate the new, wider application. Cat Form attacks so quickly, that ~6% might still be plenty, but Bear Form is much slower, so 6% won’t go as far in saving rage. Still, I’m happy to take one for the team, so that Balance and Resto can come to love Omen too!
“Moonkin Form (Balance) no longer increases your attack power or causes you to regenerate mana off melee attacks, but now has a chance to cause you to instantly regenerate 2% of your total mana every time you critically hit with a spell.”
I know I’m probably the only player in 10 milion that feels this way: but I’ll be sad to see the melee aspects of Moonkin go! I actually play my Moonkin as a melee/caster hybrid, as awkward as that can be.
But really, the AP bonus was never all that substantial anyway, and Melee4Mana was always an odd proposition, with your swing timer getting reset so much. This new version is definitely an improvement, even for oddballs like me. 
“Nature’s Grace (Balance): Now also reduces the global cooldown of your Wrath spell by 50% while in effect.”
Aside from the exciting jump in Moonkin DPS, I think this small change is really gonna to dial up the fun of playing a Moonkin by a few notches. Maybe it’s just me, but Nature’s Grace is often a weird stumbling block while casting. The global cooldown problem with Wrath makes it sometimes more of a liability than an aid, just throwing off my timing without really increasing performance. I work around it, but I’d be really glad to see this change come through! It would greatly improve the play experience of Balance spellcasting.
“Faerie Fire (Feral): Now an 11-point talent, down from being a 21-point talent. Feral Charge (Feral) is now a 21-point talent, up from being a 11-point talent.”
Though it doesn’t really affect me as a Level 70+ Feral, I still find this change to be a little annoying. I understand they probably want to make Feral Charge harder to get for non-feral PvP specs, but it also makes low level Bear tanks have to wait 10 more levels before they get this great, somewhat essential tanking ability. I know it’s not a big deal in the larger picture (and having Feral Faerie Fire sooner is admittedly handy!), but I just feel the need to look out for my Bear peeps, and express my grizzly outrage!!
“Feral Charge (Feral): Can now be used in Cat form.”
This is pretty exciting, though I think I read somewhere that the Cat version functions in a different, more rogue-like manner (in Alpha at least). There’s a 0.75 sec cast time (and longer cooldown) and instead of immobilizing the target, you leap behind them and daze them. It sounds a bit more complicated to use (with the cast time, especially), but it should still be good fun! I’m not sure if it interrupts spellcasting like the Bear version, however.
“Feral Instinct (Feral) no longer increases threat generated in Bear form, but now increases damage done by your Swipe ability by 5/10/15%.”
While my initial reaction to this was to raise a furry Bear eyebrow of concern, I have to believe that Blizzard wouldn’t remove a core threat talent unless they were confident it wasn’t needed, or were simply moving it elsewhere (like adding it to the base Bear threat bonus, or increasing the individual threat bonuses of various abilities). So I won’t Enrage just yet.
“The mana regeneration penalty when in Bear Form, Dire Bear Form and Cat Form has been removed.”
Woo!! As a hybrid at heart, this is extremely exciting to me.
“Lockjaw (Feral) replaced with Savage Roar”
I don’t remember what Lockjaw was exactly (another stun, I think?) but Savage Roar seems pretty nice. I like the fact that it gives you a great way to use even just 1 combo point. In Cat Form, for shorter fights, you often find yourself using a 4 or 5 point Rip early in a fight, and then using whatever points you can build back up for an (often unexciting) Ferocious Bite. It’s nice to have more options for putting points to use, though it might be tricky deciding whether to use Savage Roar early in a fight (to feed more AP to your special attacks) or late in a fight (to put leftover combo points to use). It will probably be more straight forward in group content, where you’re often behind your targets the whole time, and not using stuns as much.
Beyond these specific comments, I’m just really excited to see many of the Alpha goodies still in effect. I’ll keep *rooting for them to make it to release!
(*both outdoors and indoors!
)
quote: One more big change to Tree of Life: “all friendly party and raid targets within 40 yards have healing done to them increased by 5%.” Note the word “raid” there, folks!
I am worried that this will mean that no matter how good healers are, people will frown on taking more than one per raid, like a ret pally, you only need one (not saying this is true but it is a common impression wether true or not) i’m not sure i like this change at all tbh
@Phae
Its been said directly by blizzard that we will more than likely be able to have ‘two specs’ on us at any given time. It wasn’t mentioned what the mechanic was for switching (I’d assume visiting a trainer or somesuch) but it would help most of us to have a spec for farming/dailies/pvp and a raid/instances spec. It would let you keep one druid for both healing and rocket-bear-ing.
It depends on whether the new aura stacks or not. Currently it does, not sure about in the expansion.
Besides, hots own pretty hard so I don’t think it’ll be too hard to fit two trees in a raid.
@nichgoul- I see your point, and for some classes their individual output is low compared to another class in the same role that their utility alone is what gets them there. An example would be Enhancement Shamans. They do very strong DPS, but a Rogue or Fury Warrior in the same spot does more. Therefore, the Shaman’s saving grace is that he offers more to his group than either of those other classes in terms of buffs, and those buffs make more contribution to a group output than an additional Rogue or Warrior. By the same token, an additional Enhance Shammy is superfluous. The buffs do not stack, there is usually only 1 melee group in a 25 man raid, and no other group will get nearly enough benefit from the buffs to justify the Shammy’s presence.
This situation where a raid leader has such membership at his disposal that he can pick and choose what he wants as far as classes and specs is ideal, but not necessarily reflecting reality for most players.
So what is the difference for a Resto Druid? Resto Druid output is high enough to justify their presence on its own. The output often leads over other classes by quite a bit. The utility of ToL even now is only effective if you are in a group with someone who is getting a lot of healing (the tank), and the benefit is not considered so dramatic that it is considered necessary for a raid to be successful.
So rest easy, we are only gaining here.
While I find the news of an out of combat rez welcome, I can see some problems in raids. Now I am going to expected to rez people after a wipe instead of fixing myself a drink.
/facepalm. I wrote up my reply to this yesterday and then ran out the door without posting it…
“30% snare penalty has been removed. ”
“now only reduces the mana cost of your healing over time spells (Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Regrowth and Flourish) by 20%.”
Blizzard still cant write patch notes, Should be 20% snare and STILL reduces mana by 20%. >.>… lol
A flash heal, a HoT AoE, and now a free spell proc, does it sound to anyone else that were slowly turning into Priests? XD I also see Ferals are getting an AP form of SnD, hehe.
@Nichghoul healing and DPS in these situations are completely different. DPS has to be at tip top raid capacity to earn their spots. Healers have to fit into the role they are assigned and fit well. Besides, all the other healers group specific buffs and spells are going raid wide as well as our aura, so rest easy. ^_^
And to cap off this post, i started this around 1, my friend comes over to help me with rotors and brake pads, and now its 9PM and i just finished… I cant win here. ><
@myself
I just wanted to mention that, according to the current tooltip, the 0.75 sec cast time for Cat Form Feral Charge has been removed. It’s now an instant cast!
/cat dance
Wow, never mind… I completely skipped over the (Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Regrowth and Flourish) only part of that sentence… No worries folks, im still terminally insane (or i need glasses that force me to not skip over things… XD) /faceslap
I just CAN’T wait ’til WotLK. So many welcome changes at once…
@Yggdrasil: Ohhhh, good point. And now there are two flavors of RAWR-bomb to be had. And the new version (kitty cat) is safer to fail!
@Tone: OOC being passive is a good thing .. and a bad thing, too. It used to be useful for helping to protect your HoTs from dispel since it was a buff and therefore benefitted from the pre-WotLK version of Subtlety. Overall, I’m pleased about it being switched over to an innate ability, but it does have its downside. I believe that I worked it out as a very slight increase to proc rate over what it is currently in live, so you should get more bang from your buck than you were.
I definitely agree that the change to Nature’s Grace is going to make playing Balance a lot more fun. That was a bizarre, broken dynamic from day one, and I’m glad to see that they listened to the copious player feedback asking for it to be revised so that it better complemented Wrath.
@Nichgoul: I have heard that the aura from ToL currently stacks. I can’t imagine it will go live that way though as it seems too good to be true.
@Zaira: Haha, yes, you’re right. And it’s something I’ve considered, but I think Phaelia’s “off spec” will probably be reserved for PvP or PEWPEW. I thought that leveling a baby bear would help me understand that other aspect of our class better than I do now. More than likely, though, I’ll get her to 30ish and she’ll start collecting dust. I have so many alts in that level range!
@Werebeef: /agree; it’s not uncommon for guilds to bring two Trees along.
@Lotha: Just do like me and keep the bottle beside your desk! I mean …
@Zackoria: I’m cool with turning into a Priest. They have prettier armor anyway. ^_^ It *does* seem like all of the healing classes are becoming more homogenized than before, but each of them seems to be bringing their own flavor to the spell type previously associated with another class. For instance, the Druid group heal Flourish is still a Heal over Time, but the majority of its healing is up front so it’s not as likely to be overwritten. Our “Flash Heal” gets a signficant efficiency increase when used on a tank who is likely to have Rejuvenation running on him.
@Tone: Huzzah for insta-cast Rocket-Kitteh!
@Hokuto: Same here. I’m not one to avoid spoilers myself (though I haven’t really looked into quests or dungeons or factions). The fun of thinking about new builds and abilities is just too tempting!