@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).

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.

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.

@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).

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?

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.

Couldn’t agree more. What makes shaman so special? They really haven’t thought this through, have they?

Merlots last blog post..Shadow ‘tweaks’ on their way

Resto Druid T6 4piece bonus. I rest my case.

On a more serious note:
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 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!)

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.