Omen of Clarity will be one of the new “must-have” talents for all Druids, proccing off not only melee abilities but spells of all types. Learn about the expected proc rate and estimated MP5 value of this 11-point Restoration talent.
More follow-up from Blizzard Poster Ghostcrawler on Feral itemization concerns:
Armor is one of the most important stats a tank can have. We aren’t trying to keep bears from getting it.
The change to itemization was done solely to avoid having so much diversity in the items we could drop. It’s lame when you’re leveling up to keep seeing quest rewards that are itemized for your spec (which TBH is still a problem we haven’t solved for Feral weapons and idols). It’s lame when your raid kills a boss and he drops say elemental mail, healing leather, and a spellpower mace, none of which your group can use. Having bears, cats and rogues all desire the same leather drops isn’t a panacea — it helps some problems, but it creates others. Having bears run around with as much armor as a rogue would be a big, big problem.
Fortunately there are plenty of ways to give bears the armor they need — through talents (like the crit resistance one) or through Dire Bear form itself for example. Even if another tanking class ends up having slightly more armor than a druid, the differences should be so minor that neither of you is at a significant disadvantage on a boss.
I am glad someone mentioned the hunter example. I am really hoping you guys have the same reaction when you see the next pass on druid talents.
Further confirmation that we won’t see any leather items with green armor on them in WotLK. Which is odd because Druids have been forced to pick up less than optimal pieces of what would have previously been considered Rogue armor in the past. Why shouldn’t Rogues conversely see a couple hundred extra armor in “wasted” stats on occasion? They seem to imply that Dire Bear Form may get an armor boost, which I imagine would likely be talented to avoid giving it to Restos, too (which means it would need to be deeper than Thick Hide is currently).
Finally, it sounds like we’ll see another iteration to our talents – possibly Restoration and Balance included. I’m guessing we’ll see those changes “soon” otherwise Ghostcrawler might not be so optimistic about how he thinks we’ll feel.
Developer Koraa responded to concerns that the downranking change would unfairly prevent Shamans from using a cheap, Rank 1 Earthshock:
We’re working on a rank-1 Earth Shock equivalent spell. Not sure when it will be in, though.
Okay, but where is my Rank 1 Moonfire equivalent? I use that in PvP to knock people off the flag, keep people in combat so they can’t drink in Arenas, and kill Shaman totems. Priests, Mages, and Warlocks can use a Wand; Druids cannot. Wands don’t put their users back into the 5SR; Moonfire does. What is the point of the downranking nerf if not to stop people from using Rank 1 spells – like Earthshock – to accomplish something significant without a significant mana investment? Was the whole point just to buff Shamans relative to everyone else? We should all have access to a cheap, Rank 1 version of our abilities.
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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...
HEY GUYZ I CAN’T BLOCK OR PARRY AND MY ARMOR IS PRETTY SHITTY NOW TOO, LOL!!!!!!! HOPEFULLY THE RNG IS GOOD TO ME AND I DODGE 4 LOTZ!!!! WOWZERS!
^how I feel about feral dr00ds in WotLK
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Good call on the down-ranking. I understand Blizzard not wanting folks to use down ranks as a means to save mana via a “cheat” in the system. But sometimes down ranks aren’t cheating, but have a simple purpose (like totems, or in-combat status, etc.)
And while you are talking about it, why the heck don’t they give trees some means to do ranged damage while in form. I always think it is cool when I see my buddy’s resto shammy blasting away at the last trash mob or two in 5-mans. What are you suppose to do as a tree? Just stand there? You can’t run in close and do melee as it would greatly imbalance threat tables.
I know in the end the DPS doesn’t really help at that much, but I’m sure it gives non-tree healers a warm fuzzy feeling that they are at least helping rather than standing around waiting for the next pull.
Thanks for the link to the dev’s posts. I read through the entire set of comments looking for blue ones, because they’re the only ones that really make mcuh sense. I love reading that Blizzard designers have in store for ferals.
I find it bizarre that so many players assume they understand the game better than the designers. How could this be?
1) they are less than 10 years old, and therefore living in a very different world from adults.
2) they are brain dead from too much wow and not enough RL
The overwhelming majority of comments on those forums (and even blog pieces like yours) and PAINFULLY partial.
If you really want to DPS while healing, just stay out of tree form. There’s no law that says you have to use it. Furthermore, your twiggy hits will have little impact on threat, if anything, they’ll have far less impact than Moonfire/Insect Swarm/Starfire/etc. If its an issue of range, I can only suggest that you do so toward the end of fights, when the threat list should be well established. Range has rarely had gamebreaking effects for me. More often than not, the issue with range is more cleave and aoe attacks from mobs.
Myself, I am just fine with healing, and doing just that, maybe occassionally some CC, if needed.
The trouble with using a full rank Earth Shock as an interrupt is not really its mana cost. Even as Enhance, we shock frequently at full rank for DPS, holding off our shocks to catch interrupts costs us DPS, we have no qualms in using a full rank then. Restos would probably rather conserve for healing, but spell is pretty reasonably priced.
The problem is when you’re using a spell that can do 1k+ damage as an interrupt, god help you if you crit, or are an elemental or resto with a lot of spell damage under your belt, aggro becomes an issue. You can’t really interrupt a caster to pull it towards a group with a spell that does that much damage if the tank hasn’t had some lead time on it. And while it’s possible to just pay full price for a rank 1 and still get your interrupt in wrath, it ends up being way more expensive than another interrupts whose job isn’t damage, it’s just interrupting, and are far cheaper on resources for those classes.
Just a quick piece of advice about stopping people from drinking in arena. You can use Faerie Fire for this. If you are in Cat or Bear form this is extra useful since it’s ranged. If you notice someone far off in arena heading off to drink you can go cat, dash and then faerie fire them to interrupt them very early on.
@Runycat: So where’s your post on the matter? Hmmm??
@NotAnIssue: I actually don’t object to Tree of Life not being able to do damage. I wouldn’t mind seeing it able to do some debuffing, though (for instance, a Glyph could remove the damage component from Insect Swarm but leave its hit % reduction so that it could be used in Tree From). It would be especially nice in 5-man instances to be able to IS and FF. And in WotLK, I’m kinda sad I won’t be able to use Roots for CC and heal from Tree Form.
@JKD: A lot of players feel like they understand certain mechanics better than developers because of the history that developers have had of implementing changes that seem ill-conceived or untested. Also, this is a DRUID blog. Of course it’s partial to Druids!
(And I don’t think anything I said was over the top or especially biased.)
@Yggdrasil: I don’t really have anything to add, but I didn’t want you to feel left out. Good comment!
@Kaera: Thanks very much for the explanation of the concerns regarding Earth Shock. That is very interesting. However, I am also under the impression that it’s frequently used by Restoration Shamans in Arenas to interrupt opponent spell casters. I don’t have a problem if they present a solution to continue to allow this; I just think it’s only fair that Druids be afforded the same type of utility for Moonfire.
@Oni: Yes, but shifting into Cat Form consumes a lot of mana in and of itself. And Restos don’t have Feral Faerie Fire. Good suggestion for Ferals, though!
Goodbye rank 1 roots. I shall miss you. You always served me well.
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In regard to the changes to Feral itemization, I’m still going back and forth on how I feel about it. On the negative side, it’s going to be hard to break my long-fostered distaste for “rogue gear.”
I’ve always found the Feral Druid’s preference for high armor and pure stats to be fun and unique. Every time I see Crit Rating on an item instead of pure Agility, I twitch uncontrollably! “Begone, foul Rogue gear!!!” 
And then on the Bear side of things, I’m sad to see green armor values going away. While they were sometimes a pain to find, it was always a lot of fun when you did. It not only provides an exciting boost to your performance (more so than most single item upgrades can!), but also gives a unique feel to being a druid. If you combine this loss of armor with less Stamina, the reduced benefit we’ll be getting from Agility, and the complete lack of Intellect (which I feel is still nice for any Druid), I can see why Blizzard is still figuring out what to do with us.
But on the more positive side, once they do balance these issues out (of which I’m sure they’ll do a great job) the prospect of being able to share more gear (all gear?) between my cat and bear forms might wind up being a lot of fun! As it stands now, if I’m playing a DPS role in a group, and I need to shift into Bear Form for emergency tanking duty, my durability is marginal. But if, with new talents and itemization, I have all the armor, health, and crit defense I need in my “rogue gear,” there can be some actual menace behind my efforts!
The easiest way to get around the totem nuke problem is give faerie fire a 10 point damage component. It would also help with pulling trash and such (always find it very annoying to hit something with faerie fire to pull it when farming and some hunter or lock hits it when its close to you and takes your kill
Re partiality: I understand that this is a druid blog. But my point is that Blizzard have to deal with all the classes working together, whereas a player of a single class, in more cases than not, only cares about the fate of their own class, appartently mostly in isolation to the other classes in the game. Which is fine… most of us only have one “main”.
But what druid even pauses to consider a rogue’s point of view on leather drops in the game? What druid knows that much about rogues even? Blizzard is constantly considering multiple points of view in every decision. Most players on a class forum are not.
What players dont understand is that if Blizzard developers were to be that small minded, their beloved game would fall apart overnight anyway. That, I think is a big reason for the huge schism between blizzard developers, and so many of their ardent players. And that’s why I hate it when players assume they know more than the designers.
It would be kinda neat if in tree form we could throw an apple that caused an interupt.
Oh right. I forgot Feral Faerie Fire was a talent. :O But while shape shifting does consume a lot of mana, in some fights it worth “wasting” some mana to make sure an opponent doesn’t get a chance to drink IMO.
[begin off topic reply]
I’m fairly new to reading this blog (been reading it for a few weeks now) and while I play a feral druid (shun the non-believer! shun!) I do feel tempted to respec to resto to try my hand at healing and I probably will with the expansion (since the influx of death knights probably will mean tanks aren’t quite as rare as otherwise), especially if they come through with that “two specs you can shift between for free” idea they’ve mentioned a few times.
[end off topic reply]
I am very angry at the fact that i will look like Valenna!!!! I do not want to be a rogue! And I do not want to wear their gear…why can’t they wear mine?!?!?HUH HUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And I want rank 1 moonfire too!
@JKD
I think that, ultimately, many folks rolled druids for the insane versatility they offered and, to be quite honest, I’m really not sure if Blizzard anticipated the “beast” they created. Ferals have occupied a niche as superb OTs (and in many cases, main tanks as well) and very decent “off” DPS; the whole notion that everything will be changing and, as a beta tester commented, making us “flimsy” tanks thus far is a little scary, at best. Until we see the promised talent changes or something different in terms of itemization, I think we’re right to be worried.
Additionally, many of us play multiple classes, and some us of have even raided as such. It’s likely best not to make assumptions as to what we do or don’t know (for example, I have also raided on a holy paladin and a prot warrior and also have a frost mage and a combat rogue) and just take everything on a DRUID blog with a grain of salt.
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JKD said:
“I find it bizarre that so many players assume they understand the game better than the designers. How could this be?”
Resto Druid T6 4piece bonus. I rest my case.
On a more serious note:
So it was sharded, people moaned and we moved on. However, with 9 classes with three specs each, there is always a good chance that something drops nobody will need. It just happens or you turn every loot into badges which takes away the thrill of hoping that your desired item drops and turns everything into a tedious grinding fest (hello, badgegear!)
I see a problem with Blizzard beeing lazy and having lots of classes share gear (Rogues/Druids or Warriors/Paladins). To me it makes each class lose a bit of their own flavour and the fun of finding items that are for YOU and only for you. In the past it was very easy to distinguish Feral and Rogue loot. One had str/agi and armour, the other agi and ratings. And that was fine, sure you had bosses that dropped loot not suited for anyone in your party. I know we as Horde had a fair share of Paladin loot pre-BC
Removing downranking is another stupid idea, it removes both challenges (adapting your healing output/mana usage to a fight) and introduces new dangers because you’re bound to using only the highest rank. You don’t want to waste too much mana, so you have to wait longer to heal. The tank drops more in health before you heal him (to avoid wasting mana) and this increases the danger of him dying due to spike damage.
If anyone remembers pre-BC healing, I had four ranks of HT on my bars. I’ve always had fun playing around with different ranks and making me last longer. Casting only max rank HT would have killed my mana in 30 seconds! I’m kind of sceptical how they inted to make this work now.
I am not as worried about sharing the rogue gear as much as I am worried at the wording that the devs use. It frightens me when I hear things like “Even if another tanking class ends up having slightly more armor than a druid”. What else is a druid known for? I understand there will be many more changes coming but druids are known for high armor and high health. We cannot parry or block and with the agility nerfs I am not sure what would make people have us be tanks. This may all be moot though if they give us talents that would give us tons of armor but I am not holding my breath given their history.
“What is the point of the downranking nerf if not to stop people from using Rank 1 spells – like Earthshock – to accomplish something significant without a significant mana investment? Was the whole point just to buff Shamans relative to everyone else? We should all have access to a cheap, Rank 1 version of our abilities.”
Couldn’t agree more. What makes shaman so special? They really haven’t thought this through, have they?
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here is the mistake bliz is making with the downranking: not eliminating spell ranks all together. think about it. there is now no reason to use any rank other than max, and new ranks may even block lower ones, like it happens for rogues and warriors. instead, all spells and abilities should have one rank which scales with level.
heroic strike should add +level*x damage. rejuvination should restore level*y hp per tick. of course, more complicated formulas are fine. if f(level) = a*level^2 + b*level + c, that’s cool.
all multiple ranks do now is cost gold.
Returning after considering this for a bit, but I can see a way that our fine Feral friends can retain most, if not all, of the (relative) armor that they already have. The 1 item that a Druid has use for that no Rogue (or any Warrior or Paladin tank) ever will- the weapon.
Remove FAP from from 2 handed Maces and Staffs (since we want items to become more generally useful to more than 1 class, anyways, and Druids carrying Rogue leather means there will already be plenty of attack power). Invest the itemization points in additional stats and armor (probably more armor than anything) on the weapon. Extra bonus is that the weapons are now also somewhat useful to DKs, since they will supposedly not be using shields while they tank (at least, that’s what I understand).
I don’t know, I thought it might work. What do others think?
@Nyxtaru: Sadly, I didn’t realize Rank 1 roots were so effective until just recently. Poo.
@Tone: To be honest, the loss of green armor is a bit disappointing for me, too. With Improved Tree of Life giving an armor bonus, I was looking forward to finding some myself. Although I guess there wouldn’t really have been any with healy stats. ^_^ Definitely going to try to shy away from cloth, tho! Great point about being able to role-shift during combat.
@Tildir: That would be helpful, although the maximum rank of Faerie Fire is 3x as expensive as its first rank and more than 10x as expensive as Rank 1 Moonfire.
@JKD: I think you’ll find that Feral Druids are very conscious of a Rogue’s view on leather drops in the game. They have, after all, been competing for many of the same items in the past, items that often were better off in the hands of the Rogue because their itemization was more optimized but that the Feral had to roll on because there simply weren’t other options.
@Lotha: /agreed!
@Oni: Yes, but in that case, I’d just use max rank Moonfire or, if talented for it, an Insect Swarm. My point about losing access to Rank 1 Moonfire was that I would be forced to spend a lot of mana to accomplish the same thing.
I hope you’ll try out healing, even if it’s after the expansion’s release.
@Kuhbi: I think the downranking changes are going to be quite scary. If everyone is waiting for the tank to get low enough that their heal won’t heal for too much, they’re all going to end up healing at the same time, leading to a lot more overhealing. I wonder if Blizzard isn’t anticipating this since they’ve announced that overhealing will display in the combat log post WotLK. I think it’s going to make healing a lot more frustrating.
@FaceTank: Blizz followed up on that exact point with this statement today: “Bears need to be compensated for less bonus armor on leather and lack of parry and block. Period. We haven’t added those talents or bonuses or whatever they are going to end up being yet because the game isn’t in a state where we could say e.g. what amount of armor a L80 tank needs to handle Patchwerk. Pointing out where you think bears (or any class) fall short in mitigation (or any aspect of tanking) is helpful. This is a beta though, and there is going to be a lot of iteration until we’re happy with everything.” I just hope those talents arrive sooner rather than later.
@Merlot: It doesn’t sound like it, although they’re promising to redress any issues that crop up because of it. I seriously hope they don’t think caster Druids don’t need a ranged method of doing small amounts of damage simply because we have Feral forms.
@Thebitterfig: Actually, some lower rank spells do have their uses, even if they cost more mana. For instance, Mages use a Rank 1 Frostbolt because it’s faster to cast and get a snare on a target than their max rank version. There will be an option to hide the lower ranks, though, if you don’t want to see them.
@Yggdrasil: I think your idea sounds great, assuming Ferals can get enough attack power to remain competitive without having to rely on a FAP weapon (though admittedly, this would have more to do with scaling since Rogues and Cats will be sharing the same armor).
frostbolt is probably the *only* example of a spell which would still be useful in the new downranking paradigm.
some spells have simmilar effects at low levels, frost nova and frost shock are both instant cast, so while the rank 1 versions are popular, they gain nothing from a shorter casting time like many low-ranked spells. mind flay is channeled, so nothing there. earth shock has been discussed. maybe distracting shot (i can forsee a hunter on some rare occaision might want to use one with just a little little bit of added threat, with no damage, and leaving concussion shot free for another time.
of all the spells with shorter casting time versions, there are fireball, frostbolt, wrath, lightning, healing touch, lesser heal, shadowbolt, smite, healing wave. i think that is probably it. the only one anyone would realistically want to use is frostbolt. ok, maybe a heal while they are level 10-20 and they don’t have any options beside their one spell and want something with a 1.5 second cast time. all the healing classes get a fairly fast heal later on. again, not really a common situation, and usually a bad idea. but really, that’s it.
downranking a heal for lower threat is the only other thing i can think of for now… correct me if i’m wrong, but overhealing doesn’t add threat, does it? in that case, you are probably better just filling up whatever takes the hit to full, than trying to micromanage a lower level heal that won’t completely fill up the damaged character.
frostbolt, and maybe in some rare situation distracting shot. just give the mage a damageless, fast spell which does nothing but apply a snare if you feel fire mages need a 1.5 second CT snare, and frost mages need a 1 second CT snare.
I don’t know how many of you were reading up on alpha notes when they first got leaked, but the original druid talent trees has an additional 10% ac for bear form. This didnt make it to beta for some reason and the talent disappeared. I think blizz is aware of the problem and seem to think it was going to be an issue from day one. Remember that blizz prior to lich always intended that druids be the best off tank, and now they expect all tanks to be equally viable as end game tanks.
Separating the interrupt and damage part of earthshock makes sense, earthshock is an big part of enhancement shaman damage and having to hold off to interrupt casters is annoying with that 6 sec cooldown, it’s all about increasing utility for classes, and blizzard are doing the same with arcane shot and it’s dispel portion, i.e. they dont want dispel/interrupt coupled with a high damage abilities. Even though I play both druid and shaman disagree about needing the low rank moonfire, going to love my totems lasting longer against druids in that regard.
Oh and an idea struck me when reading that big feral concerns thread on the beta forum, it’s a bit out there so be warned:
Get rid of cat form! Give bear form a big damage increase, their niche then will be high stamina, high damage. Think about how a real-life bear could rip and crush a human to pieces if they wanted even if they were wearing plate with a shield. Their higher strength should allow them to swat attacks aside with their huge paws, i.e. parry. Compare that with a warrior who tank hiding behind a shield, would make bear tanks look very fierce then. Dire bear form could then be a talent in the same way as balance has moonkin, and resto has tree of life. Travel form could get the utility that cat currently has: prowl, pounce, track humanoids. Think there’s always going to be a problem with feral in that it’s shoehorning a rogue and prot warrior into a single talent tree.
@Thebitterfig: You may be right about Frostbolt being the only spell still useful under the old downranking paradigm. Although I’d argue that Rank 1 Rebirth is still useful for rezzing someone in combat that you don’t like so that they return with 100 HP and immediately die again. Not that I’d ever do that… *cough* You are correct that overhealing doesn’t generate any additional threat. And with the addition of Nourish, I don’t really foresee needing to downrank HT at all. We should have good enough “smaller” heals with faster cast times to not need to do so anymore. It does mean that Dreamstate healers may be going the way of the Do-do though, which kind of saddens me.
@Robert: Actually, no I hadn’t seen that. I bet the talent was removed because, as they’ve said, they don’t want to risk giving anything to Ferals that would positively affect Restoration’s PvP viability. What they don’t seem to realize is that shapeshifted and using an armored staff, I still only have 20k armor in Bear Form for Arenas (and that’s also with sacrificing a healing cape for one with Armor and Resilience). Restos don’t see the same high numbers that Ferals do and can’t really do their “job” in that form. I really don’t think Bear Form is the issue with Restoration (altho admittedly, Rocket Bear is pretty freaking awesome and is understandly being placed outside of our reach).
@Branoc: Interesting idea about the removal of Cat Form. I would cry, though. Cat Form is just too awesome. Besides, they’re moving more toward a model of Warriors being able to tank reasonably well while DPS specced and trying to improve the DPS output of Protection spec. If they make these changes while simultaneously encouraging Ferals to spec for either Cat or Bear Form, I don’t see the need to roll the two into one form (especially if they add the ability to switch between specs easily).