Epic Dolls cohosts Leala and Rae chat Resto4Life author Phaelia up about all things Druid in an 84-minute podcast revolving around the Balance, Feral, and Restoration specs.
Edit 11:34 MST: I had to make several significant updates to this post as I missed some important changes in my hurry to meet my instance group. Please reread the following, and sorry for the confusion!
For Graylo’s Balance perspective on these changes, I encourage you to check out his recent post Raid Stacking in WotLK.
A significant change to the way buffs and debuffs will stack is being made, ostensibly to make raid composition more fluid and less subject to optimizing every slot. Developer Jimmythenumbers explains:
As Ghostcrawler has been posting recently, we’ve decided to make a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs to stack exclusively in a raid. For the most part, what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs which were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs which only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations. The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance. Raid composition will still matter to some extent, but without this change, it would have overwhelmed every other aspect of raid planning (as we added new capabilities to each of 30 different talent trees). You no longer need to rigidly control the melee/spellcaster balance of your raid, or make sure every group has all the critical buffing classes, etc. This change has many class balance implications. Before we are done, we will thoroughly test the performance of every class. Do not assume that the classes’ current performance relative to others in the beta is final. Some classes (and specializations) will need to be reduced in power and some increased. Many will complain the change has more impact on class X than class Y. We will address all those concerns via our internal testing and community feedback.
He goes on to detail that 30+ new buff/debuff categories are being created, within which only the most powerful of the effects will be affect raid members. Here’s a breakdown of the categories affecting Druids:
- Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire (1260), Sting (Hunter pet) (1260), Curse of Recklessness (800)
- Melee Critical Strike Chance Buff: Leader of the Pack, Rampage (5%)
- Bleed Damage Increase Debuff: Mangle, Trauma (30%)
- Spell Critical Strike Chance Buff: Elemental Oath, Moonkin Aura (5%)
- Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer (13%), Earth and Moon (13%), Curse of the Elements (10%)
- Increased Spell Hit Chance Taken Debuff: Improved Faerie Fire, Misery (3%)
- Percentage Haste Increase (All Types): Improved Moonkin Aura, Swift Retribution (3%)
- Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff: Infected Wounds (4% x 5 = 20%), Judgements of the Just (20%), Thunderclap, Icy Touch (15%)
- Melee Hit Chance Reduction Debuff: Scorpid Sting (5%), Insect Swarm (2%)
- Healing Debuff: Wound Poison (10% x 5 = 50%), Aimed Shot (50%), Mortal Strike (50%), Furious Attacks (25% x 2 = 50%)
- Attack Power Debuff: Curse of Weakness (416), Demoralizing Shout (410), Demoralizing Roar (406)
- Stat Add Buff: Mark of the Wild
- Percentage Increase Healing Received Buff: Tree of Life (25% x Spirit), Improved Devotion Aura (3%)
In the above list, I’ve bolded the buffs or debuffs with the highest positive or negative effects and reordered them in terms of greatest benefit to least benefit. In the case that two entries are listed in bold, their effects are equal but only one will be active at any given time.
Other significant changes being made to talents and abilities include:
I will also list the changes to abilities which exhibit new behavior regardless of the exclusive categories. The changes usually mean the old behavior was removed and replaced by the new behavior. Numbers listed are for maximally-talented versions. Here is that changelist:
- Improved Moonkin Aura: Grants 3% haste of all types.
- Earth and Moon: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.
- Improved Faerie Fire: No longer benefits melee and ranged hit chance, only spell hit.
- Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
Tree of Life aura will no longer stack with Improved Devotion Aura. This is especially significant with the simultaneously-announced change whereby Tree of Life grants 3% healing in the same way that Improved Devotion Aura does. If it’s true that the above changes are for maximally-talented versions of each ability, there will be no raid-wide benefit to having a Tree of Life if a Paladin with 18 or more points in Protection is present.
If, on the other hand, the 3% is solely for Tree of Life and does not include the 15% bonus from Improved Tree of Life, a Druid with 44 or more points in Restoration can have an aura at 3.45% strength. This is a very important distinction, and one that I hope is clarified soon. And while I would certainly prefer that our spec-defining form trump the 18-point Paladin talent, it’s kind of sad to think that taking a point in IToL will invalidate a Paladin’s 3-point investment in IDA, making the talent almost superfluous (although it will still afford an additional 600 armor).
It looks like Shaman’s Elemental Oath is being reduced from 6% to 5%, making it equal to the +crit benefits of Moonkin Aura (at its previous value of 6% it would have trumped Moonkin aura). The change to Earth and Moon is great, an increase from 6% stacked to 13%, presumably with a single application. Unfortunately, Insect Swarm’s chance to hit debuff will no longer be useful in raids where at least one Hunter is present; Scorpid Sting will overwrite it. Obviously, though, its DPM makes it more than worth having for any raiding Balance-specced Druid.
A further implication of this change is that only one aura from any given class will be active at a given time. In other words, the Restoration Druid with the highest Spirit will be the only one whose aura is effective when not trumped by Improved Devotion Aura. Whether or not this would end up being the case, was previously the subject of much debate that can now be put to rest.
While I feel the goal of this change is an admirable one (making all classes more equally desirable), I believe that it will actually have the opposite effect. If several classes can provide the same buff (or debuff), raid leaders won’t have to worry as much about raid composition. But worrying about raid composition to optimize the stacking of buffs and debuffs has previously created opportunities for many classes and specs that might have otherwise been passed over. If everyone has roughly the same utility, then you will only want the classes/specs that excel at their primary role (DPS, healing, tanking). If Balance and Feral can’t match the DPS of their parent classes, Mages and Rogues, and yet no longer provide any unique utility, what will be the point in bringing them along?
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Misery is going to change to +3% hit chance.
Near the end of the blizzard post it says:
Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
So talented ToL (from a deep resto druid) will be the same as fully improved devo aura.
They also recently said Earth and Moon is being changed to 13%.
Thank you for all the corrections. I can’t believe I missed that entire section of additional changes being made. I believe that the above should be as up-to-date as possible now! ^^
wouldnt someone still want to be a tree because of their personal mana cost to spells be less in tree form? I guess I dont really care so much where that 3% comes from be it pally or druid, if I still get to have mana conservation because of my form. I kind of like the change but I am pretty sure I havent thought about is as deeply as you have, but it makes sense in regards to planning 10 man raids and its nice because you will be able to be a lot more flexible with 25 man raid comp.
I find in my guild now, in regards to your last line, is that I would much rather take someone thats GOOD (really good) at playing, than another shaman, for instance, because another group needs BL or whatever. You get to pick the skill of the players more so than the talent and buffs they bring. I think that will be the point of bringing them along. Maybe people will have to prove their worth more by their skill… I dunno, but I know there are a lot of raids out there right now with subpar players because of the specific buff they bring.
In response to:
“If Balance and Feral can’t match the DPS of their parent classes, Mages and Rogues, and yet no longer provide any unique utility, what will be the point in bringing them along?”
As you quoted earlier, and as fb said:
“We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance.”
Instead of being forced to bring along a less desirable player to get their class buff/debuff, you can bring multiple other classes to get the same buff/debuff. Yes, some top guilds may still attempt to min/max, thus proving your point, but for everyone else it will just allow more freedom of choice when it comes to bringing along friends.
Rogues and mages may be able to put out a small amount greater DPS, but it won’t make or break the majority of raids to bring along a druid or six.
This really, really all comes to how well they plan out the scaling of the classes now. It works in theory to have everyone being able to provide about the same and equal DPS/HPS between the classes, but if those scaling actions they did now will falter later on and they’re just doing minor patching-up kind of changes this will go in the drain for Ferals, at the very least. Right now we give least benefits all around with 0 unique talents and our award-winning 5% crit aura is also shared now. Balance have gotten the 13% damage of all spelltypes, 3% spellhit and 3% haste to whole raid of all type, so they’re pretty much going to be a necessity now, amazingly enough.
And Resto are what Resto does… heelz (especially with ress, AoE heal and new direct heal you guys are going to do real well I think).
Glargh, can’t I log ur keys Phaelia?
All these changes makes me eager to find out first-hand what will happen!
Oh my god, 13%!? From all magic sources? That’s insane. They nerfed shadow weaving to 10% when it only affected locks! Who’s going to raid without a boomkin now?
Merlots last blog post..Why a VT nerf is not the answer
Well, we Shadowpriests can only hope that our Shadow Weaving (now a self-buff) will be increased as well.
As for the Misery change, I can either specc into it and drop almost all Hit from my gear (1% Draenei, 6% talents leaves only 2% to fill to 9% as advertised), or I can choose to not specc it, get bigger DPS talents and tell my raid to “suck it up and max their own damn hit rating”.
With this change (and especially to out Vampiric Touch) Blizzard is now required to increase our DPS to the level of mages and warlocks, because otherwise we will not get into any raids. We have lost all our uniqueness now, so if we have to jump on the bandwagon, give us also the not-unique 1300+ DPS they do currently.
I see big issues where people refuse to specc into these “situational buffs” because others will provide it, leaving the raid without anyone to provide these buffs. Or, force people to take a specc in order to provide this buff. “Because we have no Moonkin today, specc misery please”.
I am somewhat desillusioned by Blizzard taking this way out, removing uniqueness. Especially because it seems like a knee-jerk reaction, not well thought out.
Our new mana regen, now shared with hunters and paladins, will restore huge mana to the caster classes. But the poor hunters and paladins themselves will suffer due to their smaller mana pools.
And then I am not even counting in the issue that “10 people in the raid” means that I – as the casting shadowpriest no less! – am left without the buff because I happen to have a little more mana then the rest.
Anyway, I will see how this plays out – there is promise, there is pain.
Natarumahs last blog post..Debuffs made easy – Blizzard’s way out
As for the change in the Tree of Life aura…is this a buff or a nerf?
If healing is increased by spirit vs. by 3%, at what level of spirit or + healing does that 3% weigh up?
I would say that:
Assuming a heal with 50% coefficient, healing for 1000.
This means you have +2000 healing.
If you heal for 1000, 3% is 30 extra healing.
If you would have gained 15% of your spirit to healing, you would need only 200 spirit to gain the same result.
I haven’t done the big maths (sorry) but I think that most healing spells have better coefficients, and Trees have more than 200 spirit.
What are your thoughts on it?
(And apologies for the atrocious math – I am just starting to read up on Tree of Life theorycraft and healing) ^_^
Natarumahs last blog post..Debuffs made easy – Blizzard’s way out
I agree with your closing comment. With these changes they’re trying to get those excluded classes back to raiding (like boomkins and ret pallies), but it’ll have the opposite effect: more and more cookie-cutting. Classes that used to have more utility than DPS are on a bad spot, like shadow priests and locks of any spec.
Also, some changes are really silly. Totem of Wrath now have to be in range of the mob instead of the raid…? And what’s the point of the new imp. Faerie Fire? Every caster class is supposed to be raiding hit-capped.
I don’t like to be the “half empty” guy, but I can’t see anything good coming from this change.
The point is exactly to make nobody essential. No raid shall be cancelled, because the enhacement shaman is offline. We have to accept that the same is true for us. We won’t be essential, a raid can operate without a single druid.
I personaly like this new system. A choice we made long-long ago (druid or shaman) and another we made long ago (resto or feral or moonkin) made bigger difference in raid composition than our player skill.
Now with new itemization healer can switch to spell DPS and tank to melee DPS. So now 10 randomly selected good player, if 2 or them are paladin, warrior, druid or DK and other 3 are paladin, shaman, priest or druid can make a 10 man instance.
Don’t hope to be taken because your buff makes or brakes a raid!
Be skilled enough to be taken! If too many healers already, you can come as moonkin!
On Imp Devo Aura vs. Tree of Life…
I wouldn’t worry about ToL being beaten out or equaled by Devo Aura because I doubt any Protection Paladin will take it. The tree is chock full o’ talents, and I could spend another 5 to 10 points before considering dumping three into Imp Devo Aura.
I originally thought it was a nifty change, but knowing that it won’t stack with Trees, I will definitely skip it over in every talent build I try.
Walkeres last blog post..If Only You Could Preview Battlegrounds…
What if the raid has both Improved Devotion Aura and Tree of Life aura?
How can we choose which of the buff to get without loosing the benefits of being in tree Form? O.o
@Ghostboci: the point is, if your raid already have a DK, a ret pally and a shaman (they cover increased spell dmg, haste and crit) why to bring a boomkin?
That’s only an example for a new rule that will apply for most of classes: if you provide a debuff that other already covers, whoever can provide the most dps will come and the other will go home. For these classes, unless you’re on a friendly environment, you’re warming the standby bench.
That’s why I said SPs are doomed. Their DPS was top notch before BC, BC made them almost exclusively utility classes (as their DPS couldn’t get anywhere near a lock), and now who knows.
One note on the Improved Devo Aura v. Tree of Life discussion.
I play a prot paladin. The paladin talents are in a bit of flux right now, but as it stands, I’m not taking improved devotion aura regardless. I tank with ret aura up, and that doesn’t appear to be changing.
So, a resto druid’s offering the equivalent bonus is actually wonderful, because it means I don’t have to feel pressured to take talents in and use an ability that doesn’t make sense for me to be using.
Does this mean mark of of the wilds meager stat increases are going to be over written by blessing of kings? The only stat add buff in the table is mark of the wild is that a mistake?
The problem I see with making no one essential is that everyone becomes expendable. Raiding guilds will still stack their raids to maximize their efficiency. It’s simple human nature. The difference now is that they will be able to do so with fewer specs and classes, which means someone becomes redundant. I understand the reasoning behind it but I think Blizzard is trying to stop a raging rhino with a fishing net.
Hunters, the most insulted and overplayed class is going to likely suffer the most from this homogenization, especially the Survival spec. Which is a shame, since I rather was working hard to have my hunter be a viable utility buffer. -_-
While I’m pretty upset over these changes, I’m trying to withhold judgement until I see what other changes they make to compensate the affected classes.
@FB: Unfortunately, raids won’t want Trees for their lower mana cost to spells. That’s a personal benefit, not something they bring to a raid. Don’t get me wrong; I love the mana cost reduction, but I’d like my raid-wide aura to be desirable, too. I concede their are plusses to the system, though, including more flexibility.
And it sounds like we’re in similar types of guilds. However, neither of our guilds are probably doing Sunwell with such a laissez faire approach to raid composition.
@Symbiode: You’re right that this change will benefit non-top-tier guilds. However, Blizzard generally makes balance changes based on what those guilds are doing, which is why the whole system seems peculiar to me.
@Andrige: You could log my keys but, as Runycat told me, “OMG YOU HAVE NO FERAL GEAR WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS?!” You’d probably not find my account especially useful for testing Feral things. ^^
@Merlot: Well, each of those buffs brought by a Moonkin can be matched by someone else. However, they do have the advantage of bringing “the whole package” which is why I’m leaning toward Balance for my alternate spec when my guild raid has too many healers.
@Natarumah: GREAT post on the subject over at your blog. It’s here if anyone missed it. Your blog is also very sleek-looking so bonus points in that department, too!
Interestingly, their decision to separate the amount of mana regeneration provided by a Shadow Priest from the amount of damage she’s doing could easily be seen as a positive indication that they wanted to increase your damage output (or its scaling) but previously could not because of the implications it would have for mana regeneration. I’d try to be hopeful for some changes that will improve your DPS to closer than that of Mages and Warlocks.
As for the change to ToL aura, I hope to have an article with some analysis up later today. Thanks for the suggestion.
@Hokuto: Haha … well maybe Imp Faerie Fire is supposed to help out schmucks like me who will use Balance for their off-spec but not necessarily gear for it the same way they do their healing spec!
@Ghostboci: No raid should be canceled because they lack a Druid, but I’m not aware of that EVER having happened before! I just don’t like the idea that a 44 point talent investment in a healing tree should be equalled by an 18-point investment in a tanking tree. There’s some serious cognitive dissonance there.
@Walkere: I’m beginning to get that impression from things I’ve read about Imp Devo Aura. Most Prot Paladins don’t feel they have the talent points to spare to pick it up and, like you, will probably forego it completely knowing that ToL aura is the same. Still, that hardly seems like a good solution to me. ^^
@Kringol: You won’t have to choose between the two buffs. You’ll just get the 3% bonus. Whether that bonus comes from DA or ToL, you’ll still benefit from your form’s mana cost reduction to HoTs.
@Luke: That’s definitely good news. Thanks for commenting!
@Lotha: I believe Mark and Kings should still stack. They’ll likely create a “% bonus to Stats” category to account for BoK. Otherwise, Mark would be worse off than it was in TBC.
@Amradorn: “The problem I see with making no one essential is that everyone becomes expendable.” < This. While, as others have suggested, this could be a positive change for the non-elite raiders, it’s probably going to mean certain classes will be sidelined in endgame content. Unless, of course, they bring those formerly utility-based classes more closely in line with the pure DPSers.
@Sorayn: I was really surprised to see Expose Weakness changed, but I suspect it was so that the ability would continue to have SOME personal benefit to the Hunter. If they had lumped it into the same category as the other abilities, it would have been completely obsolete, right?
Hi Phae.
The problem I see with this changes, is that practically all classes bring good utility to raid, making hybrid classes less valuable, given that their utility is not unique anymore.
Given these changes, pure dps classes such as mages and warlocks, provide great utility, great dps and on top of that, have their own unique uses in raids, they have their own nice role, such as tanking in fights in Grull/SSC. Hunters have aggro management and kiting, things that are very important in fighths like Vash and Hyjal.
So, where does this leave hybrid dps classes now that their unique contributions to a raid are not unique anymore?
What can a moonkin, a shadow priest, or a retribution paladin can provide to a fight that only they can do? What are their niche roles?
I think its OK to try to balance class/spec utility and dps, but most importantly is to make significant improvements in the playstyle of each spec, making the game more fun and less monotonous; and in this area is where I think balance druids, shadow priests and retribution paladins are being left out. They should provide more than just static utility and dps.
I think these changes don’t affect healers and tanks as much as dps, because each healer has its own unique healing style, and each tank has its own advantages, depending on the dynamics of each fight. However, hybrid dps classes are very affected by these changes.
For example, there should be more fights where a boss polymorphs its target, where a Moonkin Offtank could be useful.
As a Balance Druid, I’m worried with the current state of beta. Balance new abilities just increase dps, but don’t improve the playstyle of the spec.
An example of improving the playstle is to change Typhoon to: “Summons a typhoon for 3 seconds, knocking back enemies who come near it 5 yards and causes damage to them. Party and raid members inside the typhoon area take 10% reduced damage.”. This would make the spell useful for splash damage, and could also help a Paly in AoE tanking. It would also be a great defense against melee in PvP.
What are your thoughts on this issue?
“The change to Earth and Moon is great, an increase from 6% stacked to 13%, presumably with a single application”
It actually may not be as good as it appears. I haven’t seen it first hand but there is apperently a debate over which is better Ebon Plaguebringer or Curse of Elements. Ebon Plaguebringer would act much like Earth and Moon in that it provides a flat 13% increase in Spell Damage. Curse of elements on the other hand offers an increase in spell damage but also a reduction in spell resistances. And some of the people on the Beta were saying that an untalented CoE is better than Ebon Plaguebringer because the resistance reduction represent about 4% or 5% increase in spell damage taken by the boss.
If this is the case then Earth and Moon is a useless talent because Curse of Elements would be clearly superior.
I had always heard that you couldn’t reduce a Bosses resistances and that was why Spell Pen was such a bad stat. However, according to a couple of Moonkin on the WoW forums Bosses to have some resistances that can be reduced to the minimum by Curse of Elements. They say the evedence is in old WWS reports. Apperently you can see a noticable uptick in partial resistances when CoE isn’t on the boss. In other cases they had CoE up on the boss but not CoS, and apperently the parcial resists of Shadow and Arcane spells was higher then that of Fire and Frost spells.
I don’t have any evidence of this being true, but it is coming from knowledgable people that I trust.
I like you think this change was made with the right intentions, but will ultimately have the opposite affect. They’ve taken almost all of the uniqueness out the classes. This changes opens a whole can of worms that I don’t think they are expecting.
There is one thing I don’t think blizzard is considering. Employees at blizzard definately know more about game design then most of its players. However, as I said in my blog, the collective mind of 10 million players is smarter then the collective mind of several hundred bizzard employees. There will be loop holes, we as players will find them, and this will ultimately throw the game out of balance.
Graylos last blog post..Raid Stacking in WotLK
@Karadrum: As we were discussing at lunch (Mr. Phae, Valenna, and I), it’s likely that someone soon will come out with a list of 6 or so classes/specs that are best to build your raid around because they can provide the most number of buffs that don’t overlap but meet the most important needs. The remaining slots could then be optimized based on who performs the best in their primary role. As you point out, this is most likely to affect DPSers (since you’ll always need at least X tanks or Y healers), which includes all of the hybrids you’ve mentioned (Shadow Priest, Moonkin, Ret Paladin). In short, I agree with you, pretty much completely. Top-tier raiders are going to min-max. Blizzard will have to build content with this in mind and so will eventually realize that people are bringing the aforementioned composition + X healers + Y tanks and filling the rest of their spots with the class/spec that does the best DPS.
One thing to note is that I don’t anticipate Moonkin tanking anything in the expansion; they seem to want to move away from having Warlocks be magical tanks, and I can see a strong correlation between Warlocks tanking and Moonkin tanking. Anything that Polymorphs could be tanked by a Bear, anyway.
Thanks for the great comments!
@Graylo: Thanks very much for the clarification about Earth and Moon. Obviously, I wasn’t aware of all the dynamics surrounding it and its competing buffs, Ebon Plaguebringer and Curse of Elements. When you say that some bosses can have their resistances reduced by CoE, do you mean TBC bosses or new WotLK bosses? In other words, could this be a new dynamic they’re introducing to try to give Warlocks some preferentiality (they’re loudly complaining to be among the hardest hit, especially Affliction).
I really enjoyed your point about 10 million players being able to out-group-think a team of a hundred developers. I’ll be sure to add a link back to your perspective on these changes.
Oh yes, that’s very true about the collective minds.
They can’t possibly fill the loopholes enough since there be plenty of them (there’s so much to take into account when the only difference is going to be raw output rather than utility).
But, I think the blue-post some days past that said that the next round on the PTR shouldn’t be disregarded since they have worked as much as 2 months on one patch in the past. But there just has to be a lot of smaller patches as the game progress in content to fix all the small scaling errors, so it will match up with this in my opinion, quite weird goal of theirs.
(P.S Ferals, have you read about the change to Furor? Check my name-link. Now that’s overhauling something really old)
Phae,
I don’t have any concrete info regarding CoE, EnM, or Ebon Plague. The guy who brought it up is a very knowledgeable min/maxing moonkin on the WoW Druid forums named Murmur. He says you can see the benefit of the spell penetration looking at Old WWS with and without the curses, and I half to assume that it is on BC content or earlier. Therefore I don’t think it is a buff to Affliction Locks.
I’m not a hundred percent sure he is correct, but he provides a decent arguement and he is some one that I trust so I some what forgive is lack of concrete proof.
Of course all of this could change. In fact, we have very little information right now. Blizzard is changing a lot of the talent trees to account of this change and we won’t know 100% what they are going to do until we see a new build. The problem is we are seeing the huge changes and then filling in the gaps using our knowledge of the game as it is currently. So this whole CoE vs EnM debate could be moot if they add the spell pen to EnM or if they take it away from CoE.
So I am not so patiently awaiting the new beta build. That is when the real panicing can begin. (I’m so optimistic.)
Graylos last blog post..Raid Stacking in WotLK
hi again phae, i should not be posting anything at 2 am. i see what you mean about tree being self only and that does nothing for the raid make up. maybe knee jerk thinking you were saying there would be no reason to be tree at all, but its more why will they stack trees or take any trees, etc. i still think there will be a place for trees.
my guild is a casual turned attempt at progression thats working on illidan atm, and let me see if i can try to better phrase what i was saying. guilds like mine see a lot of content right now but do have to try to take less skilled people to fill some roles, and often times just go without, we raid with two shaman usually, thats clearly not the model of todays raiding at high end, i think eliminating this will give more “casual yet progression guilds” an easier time to try to get to the content that only the elitist min maxers are now. my guild, for example wont turn into that KJ killing maxing everything out mentality overnight, and in the mean time, it will be easier for us to make better raids because we wont be stuck to adhering to such a strict raid make up model of today. easier model = more chance to make good raid make up, even if it isnt the “absolute bleeding edge content maxing of abilities” kind of guild.
its funny you mention trying sunwell with the laid back attitude, i’m actually not looking forward to it much but when we kill illidan i am sure we will be trying just that. and its gonna be paaaainnnnfullll.
@Andrige: I hope they are willing to make patch-ups to correct scaling errors, though honestly it seems pretty easy to avoid these issues in the first place. It doesn’t seem like Rogues suffer from endgame DPS scaling, so wouldn’t it be easy to simply mirror some of the same mechanics?
@Fb: I think that most raids will still have a tree. My concern is that raids that optimize to the extreme could end up discounting a Tree’s aura if it turns out that Improved Devotion is a frequently taken talent. From everything I’ve seen, though, it looks like most Paladins are looking at the ToL aura as an excuse NOT to take IDA, though, so all is well.
Best of luck with Illy-beans!
I see the good and the bad in the non-stacking. Makes me a pretty sad panda though. IMO, you lose the need for some classes, but it may give others an excuse to skip some talents. Too early to tell the big effect of it all, and who will feel it the most. My feral druid hubby has been on edge about the non-stacking though, so I sure hope it works out for the best! Mainly, my concern is your last sentence:
If Balance and Feral can’t match the DPS of their parent classes, Mages and Rogues, and yet no longer provide any unique utility, what will be the point in bringing them along?
@Emee: Sad panda? Is that a new Glyph for Bear Form? If so, awesome. ^^ And apparently the “point” is supposed to be that players should be brought because they’re well liked more than useful. Time to work on my voicechat standup routine, I guess …