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Ghostcrawler Defends Druids’ Out of Combat Rez
Published on October 8, 2008 by Phaelia 
Blue, Spells and Talents 
39 Comments
You may have heard about the new out of combat resurrection spell finally being given to Druids in Wrath of the Lich King:
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Apparently not everyone drank the Kool-aid. Beta Tester Presarius of Northrend (US) objects to the addition of Revive, claiming the resurrection spell is “unbalanced” and “unfair”:
It kind of irks me now that Druid’s have an out-of-combat rez (Revive). You see, everything was well-balanced around the fact that Druid’s have the game’s only in-combat rez, and everyone was cool with that. Seeing as how they didn’t have have an in-combat rez, it was all balanced, and nobody had a problem with it. But, now that Druids get Revive, it throws everything off, including balance.
Now, where are all the other healers’ in-combat rez to compensate?
I’ve been pretty vocal about this issue in the past. To summarize, though, an ability that has no effect on combat cannot affect game balance. Rezzers who begrudge Druids this one core ability do so because they want us to be arbitrarily less desirable than they are because of the inconvenience we cause the people who choose us as their healer. Alternatively, they want us to be forced to build our group around the inclusion of a Retribution/Protection Paladin, Shadow Priest, or Elemental/Enhancement Shaman, classes which provide no notable forms of crowd control and make these groups disadvantaged in harder instances like Heroics.
Revive is perhaps THE ability I am most looking forward to in the expansion because it represents the end of an era where Druids were relegated to sub-par healers because otherwise “there would be no reason to play with other healing classes at all” (Vaneras, June 2008). Clearly, giving us an out of combat rez has brought us one step closer to “morphing all classes into one big green blob that all have the same skills” (Bornakk, April 2008) I don’t know about you, but I prefer my uniqueness to be related to my abilities, not my disabilities. Thankfully, it seems that Blizzard developers have been brought around to our way of thinking since Developer Ghostcrawler responded to Presarius’ concerns with the following:
We don’t think an out of combat rez for druids is a balance problem. We did it to make druids more attractive healers for 5-player dungeons. It was frustrating for someone to die and have to run back nearly every time with a druid healing.
The only possible balance issue that comes to mind is the druid who stealths into an instance and brings back the whole group to get around respawns. But really, that seems like such a minor concern compared to he major hassle of not being able to rez fallen comrades more often than once every 10 min, that we thought it was worth just making the change.
Presarius later admits that the motivation behind his original post was a desire for a 20-minute cooldown on the Shaman’s ability, Reincarnate, to mirror the 20-minute cooldown on Rebirth (Reincarnate is currently limited to a one hour cooldown). I don’t have a particular objection to such a change, but wanting a buff to one’s own abilities is no reason to demean a long-awaited and needed change to another healing class.
And because I’m not sure if I’ve said it yet, THANK YOU, BLIZZARD! <3
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I am excited that BRK is back, though!
/cry I love you, ty for everything.
That just reeks of jealousy indeed. Everyone who has ever grouped with a resto druid in a 5 man with the inevitable party death has wanted OOC rez. It’s a nice touch that druids deserve, to be more viable in instances as balance or resto druid. I am all for druid love!
I have to say that was rather low of Presarius. I understand where it comes from, however, if he/she really wants a shorter cooldown on Reincarnate, go lobby for it the way we did for OOC rez. We have been trying to explain forever why this was a good idea and finally Blizzard listened to us. We didn’t do it by demeaning other classes though, only truly by pointing out our own flaws and the annoyances to others did we finally get our OOC rez. Let Shamans do the same if they want a smaller time on Reincarnate.
Otherwise it’s nice to see Ghostcrawler out and about without the nerf bat. Next time if he brings a card and some Godiva maybe we can actually be friends =)
Even as a feral druid I’ve been looking forward to this one spell addition. I just played a 5-man today with a resto druid as healer. And it truly sucks that even though we had a warlock who could soulstone, we just couldn’t do any wipe recovery. The closest we could get to it was if one of the druids had the soulstone and the hunter managed to feign death. Then the druid could use Rebirth on the Warlock who could then summon the other two.
As much as I love getting an out-of-combat res for my tank, I think that it would have been more appropriate to introduce the skill as mid-tier resto talent, and thus only available to proper resto druids. To compensate, some other talent would need to be reduced by a point, so as not to totally screw with resto.
Just one bears thoughts…..
Karthiss last blog post..Reexamining Weapon Enchants
I look foward to this with some trepidation, means I am going to be expected to rez after a raid wipe instead of getting a drink. I like Karthis’s idea, umm yeah sorry I didnt spec that , afk…
Omg.
“around the fact that Druid’s have the game’s only in-combat rez, and everyone was cool with that”
Who the heck was “Cool with that”!? No one was, that’s right! We were Hated, we were Shun, we were The Frustration because mistakes were expensive if you screwed up in a 5-man.
And no I’m not going to be picked over any other healing class, battlerezzes in 5-mans are mostly useless anyway, and in raids there’s a spot for every healer. I certainly won’t see myself being able to shackle the undead anytime soon in Karazhan, nor am I able to give cool buffs to other classes by aura’s or totems. And that’s Ok. And added to that, we can actually start to enjoy doing instances because we won’t be spending hours running back.
Ofc I don’t need to convince you of that Phae – but as you can imagine, reading this just made me want to rant.
/rant over
I realize we talked about this earlier in the day, but why not revisit?
I actually really like Karthis’ idea, and I know it’s also something we mentioned way back when; throw Revive in as a deep Resto talent and appease the bitching masses. I’m perfectly cool not having to waste my already minimal mana rezzing. But of all classes to complain, Shamans? Cry me a goddamn river. When you can stack an entire raid healing corp. with Resto Shamans (and Warlocks, lulz), you know that maybe there isn’t too much to complain about.
That being said, I’d really hate to see the healing classes suffer a similar fate as the tanks. Keep it interesting, keep the niches, and don’t exchange every unique ability for the sake of “ease” and “fairness.” Did you know I have a 20 yard Growl now and the ability to summon an army of Liches to take damage for me?
It’s true.
No, really.
Just a quick comment on Ret Paladins having no CC. It looks like the mob types affected by Repentance will be expanded (humanoinds, demons, undead, and dragonkin, I think) and it will be a 1 min incapacitate with a 1 min cool from a 20 yard range. Just FYI.
And yes, healy Druids NEED OCC rez. If I am up front DPSing, and we are about to wipe, I would like to have the option of putting DI on the Druid so he can rez us post wipe. It is really just a convience item. Sorta like having A/C in your car. You don’t need it, but almost every other car has A/C, so why not.
So maybe they should take redemption and ancestral spirit out paladins and shamans respectively so priests can be unique on that; after all, they’re the TRUE healing class. Then take Healing Wave out shamans, so paladins can be the strongest direct healing class, while priests remain as true all-around healers. Nevermind, just take renew out them so druids can be the true HoT healers.
It’s all about balancing the game and making it interesting for every class.
“LFG Mech, need two healers and a tank.”
(My little remaining faith in humanity just *has* to be tested every single day…)
Edit: keep reading the WotLK druid forums, that shaman is on a QQ spree.
I love the car metaphor, Ryukyu! And yes, this will save me some copious apologies in 5-mans for having rolled a druid. However, I am very used to a little afk break during rezzing in 25 mans. Sigh, no more potty breaks for me! I’ll have to hold it.
I think GC hit the nail on the head; it doesn’t do anything for raids, but for 5 mans it means there would be a reason to bring a resto druid. I think everyone’s been on the wrong end of the ’sorry i’m a druid guys, have fun running back’ stick.
it makes me happy to see that the Dev’s are on our side with this issue, and are really standing beside their decision to give us this rez. I personally look forward to being a more viable healer in the new instances coming up. New instances = lots’ o’ death, and now not lots’ o’ runnin’!
“Alternatively, they want us to be forced to build our group around the inclusion of a Retribution/Protection Paladin, Shadow Priest, or Elemental/Enhancement Shaman…”
You say that like it’s a bad thing
Seriously, I’m all for the druid love. The only time another healer could ever feel threatened by this is in five-mans — and since when have healers had a hard time getting into heroics?
Merlots last blog post..The divine shadow
Well, they are not taking Revive away. Pop the champagne!
Honestly? First thing I did on the PTR was to grab a group, go into Slabs, make sure we pulled enough mobs (“oops, sorry, FF macro bugged on me!”) and VANISH, BABY! I never had so much fun Reviving the shit out of my teammates (and, unsurprisingly, they all cheered for my new toy – all normal players know to “phear da drood heela”.)
“We don’t think an out of combat rez for druids is a balance problem. We did it to make druids more attractive healers for 5-player dungeons. It was frustrating for someone to die and have to run back nearly every time with a druid healing”
LOL
pfff… What is this “death” he is talking about? oO
No one dies in 5-mans when u have a resto druid in your group! But if they do its their own fault and deserv to die and run the whole way back!
Now that we have OOC rez ppl are going to “BRB I HAZ DOODOO IN MY PNTZ” etc after a wipe and wait for us to rez them when we are back… Soooo annoying tbh
But then again if that happens its a instakick or I HS out
As a resto shaman main who is releveling my feral druid as well after rerolling, I say: “YAY! GO OOC COMBAT REZ FOR DROODS!”. I don’t feel in least bit threatened by it, and I’ll love having it on my bear too. Because deep down, every bear wants to be a tree sometime. Well, I do anyway
Balance schmalance. More rezzes is faster wipe recovery. It’s a Good Thing(tm)
Retribution paladins WILL have CC though, repentence is being buffed ^_^ Looking forward to releveling my paladin too, hehe
It’s definitely a good move – in Vanilla WoW I healed in nearly every single instance and it was always ‘Sigh, we need a healer, we can’t get a ‘proper one’ with ooc rezing so we’ll have to take you’.
It was horrible playing 5-mans feeling that the other players didn’t really want me there, ideally – and all because of not having ooc rezzing.
It wasn’t so much of a problem in TBC as feral tanks became very good for 5-mans and there always seemed to be a priest or pala healing, but still this change is fantastic – you shouldn’t be punished for not having read WoW-head when you roll a class and want to heal – you should expect that from 1-80 you will be a viable healer.
I can agree with the arguement that druids having an out of combat rez was needed, but as a resto shaman I have felt the other end of the stick. I have been passed over for druids or priests simply because I have no form of CC and won’t get one until 80 in the xpac, and lets face it in heroics some form of cc is better than the inconvenience of running back. With the addition of riptide giving shaman a Hot this may change a bit. I am concerned with the direction Blizzard is going with the classes, enhance shaman were denied ghostwolf breaking cc because it was determined to be a druid core ability and then they turn around and grant the priest racials to all priests. Weren’t their racials core abilities?
I think it would be a horrible idea to give OOC-rez as a deep resto talent as someone pointed out.
However, if something like that has to happen, I’d rather have Rebirth as a restoration talent than Revive. Makes more sense in my book
Hornss last blog post..l2pvp: Fakecasting
I don’t see why people are complaining. Pallys have divine intervention, shammys have ankh, druids have battle rez and priest have warlocks soul stones. The only issue I have with this is people afking after a wipe and wanting a rez, lazy ass mofo’s.
Ghostcrawler can I be your butt buddy, you sexy sexy crab man?
@Hoofbeat: I don’t know what kind of ingenious druids and priests you have on your servers, but I certainly never used any kind of CC except for Hibernate in SP and UB. (and for fun I did once entangling roots in Durnholde, but that sure was useless) A good group does CC by using their DPS or Tanking classes, not the healers. If you’re a good healer and get set aside for others because of classtype, then maybe ’something’ is wrong with the people you’re grouping with.
Is it bad that, while I think the new ability is great, my favorite part of the article is the graphic at the end?
Teshs last blog post..Fly By, Butterfly
I’m definitely in agreement with the points made in favor of a standard out-of-combat rez for Druids. As for the original claim that our combat rez means we shouldn’t have a standard rez, I can actually share a real-world (of Warcraft!) example of why that’s *hogwash. Just last night, I healed a 5-person run in which we had myself (Resto Druid), a Druid tank, two Hunters and a Lock. One of the Hunters was an engineer w/ Goblin Jumper Cables.
So between the five of us, we had no standard out-of-combat rez, but 4 different “specialty” kinds: 2 Rebirths, a Soulstone, and Jumper Cables. It was a challenging run, so there was plenty of dying and wiping. Over the course of the night:
- The Rebirth cooldowns were pretty much all used out-of-combat to save time (and those few that were used in-combat never changed the fight’s outcome).
(we still had to wait for one other person to run back)
- The Soulstones were useless for wipe recovery, because saving the rez for after a fight just meant 1 or 2 less people having to run back.
- The Jumper Cables were used once… mostly just for fun.
So essentially, without an out-of-combat rez to work with, all of those fancypants specialty rezzes did nothing for us (and did nothing for making the game fun). If I’d been a Shaman, on the other hand, I could have self-rezzed 3 times per hour (Reincarnate/Soulstones) and recovered the group. Likewise, Jumper Cables used on me would have allowed me to bring back others (after the smoke cleared from my ears!). And any Rebirths would have been used in-combat, as they’re intended to be… and probably still wouldn’t have changed the fight’s outcome.
The dungeon would have still been the same fun challenge, just with significantly less wasted time. Why would anyone argue for more wasted time (wine and potty breaks aside!)?
(* Did I just use the word “hogwash”??
)
Did any one read in GC comment he said “fallen comrades more often than once every 10 min” I think that might have been a typo, but can you imagine if it is not a typo. 10 MINUTES? that would be a nice buff to rebirth.
I don’t play a druid. I DO play with druids.
I WELCOME this change.
I wish druids had it a level 60!
I used to secretly dread if one of my guild-friends came as a resto-druid.
What a pain when a party member dies to a trash pull.
Sorry! Corpse-run – we need to save that battle-rez for the boss!
So YAY! for Blizzard. At last druids get something that everyone else can use.
It is NOT overpowered. Its nice for everyone.
It’s not like Druids can rez themselves is it?
@kwast: You sure have used a lot of CC as a druid. I’ve used Hibernate in Magister’s Terrace at the second to last boss, when the hunter is there, then I sleep his pet. Doesn’t really do much, but better then nothing.
I’ve also used root in Zul’Aman for the scouts leading up to the Dragonhawk boss.
But that’s pretty much it, when it comes to grouping / raiding. I don’t think I’ve ever used them post-expansion for my own neededs. I did use them in the old world to tackle some Elites on my own, mainly to “soften them up” a bit with roots + starfire and possibly for healing.
Concerning the cooldown on Reincarnation, I kind of agree and disagree with that shaman at the same time. It has always seemed like an okay cooldown to me, but a quick wowhead scan of the various tools of wipe prevention and wipe recovery tells me that the cooldowns are all over the place at the moment.
Druids
- Rebirth: wipe prevention and wipe recovery, cooldown 20 minutes
Shamans
- Reincarnation: wipe prevention and wipe recovery, cooldown 1 hour (can be talented down to 40 minutes)
Paladins
- Lay on Hands: wipe prevention, cooldown 1 hour (can be talented down to 40 minutes)
- Divine Intervention: wipe recovery, cooldown was 1 hour, will be 20 minutes in WotLK
Warlocks
- Soulstone: wipe prevention and wipe recovery, cooldown 30 minutes
Engineers capable of Vanish or Feign Death
- Goblin Jumper Cables: wipe recovery, cooldown 30 minutes
So from the “it’s only fair” point of view I understand where he’s coming from when he says that the Reincarnation cooldown is too long. However, neither Rebirth nor Divine Intervention are self-cast, which might explain their relatively short cooldown. My guess is that it’s because these two spells are harder to exploit.
Anyway, on topic: it’s about time that druids got an OOC res! Congratulations. You guys have just moved up a few spots on my resurrection picking order. Now give me a hand ressing the rest of the raid
I don’t think OoC ress is such a big deal for other classes. The main complaint is “oh so now they can ress OUT and IN combat, how’s that fair for the rest?”, but that’s a silly argumentation because it assumes the only way to balance that out is to make everyone able to ressurrect players under the same circumstances. Apparently people forget about “minor” stuff like fortitude, mark of the wild, paladin auras, totems, shields, shadow resistance, reincarnation, divine intervention..
Healing and ressing is just an -important- part of the game; talking about “balance” just refering to how healers are able to ress is nonsense. Specially when shaman have been able to ress themselves (way more useful than rebirth refering to wipe recovery) and others all this time and people haven’t complained (not that much anyway).
It also makes other druid specs more interesting, like Oni and others pointed out. Another reason to bring a kitty or wise owl to a party too!
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said: “an ability that has no effect on combat cannot affect game balance.”
Admittedly, that argument could be used to give ANY class an out of combat res, though doing so wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever (the assumption is that the ability to ressurect another character is one that is intrinsict to a given character having healing abilities to begin with). An OOC res just makes it more convenient to have a druid healer.
For those who scoff at the idea, perhaps they have never had the delightful opportunity of a party member refusing to run back to their corpse after a wipe, INSISTING that the druid res them (this rarely happens to resto druids, of course, but when I’m DPSing as a boomkin I’ve gotten this demand on more than one occasion). Really? You think you’re THAT valuable to the team that you can’t go through all the effort of running back AND you want me to waste my combat res, one that perhaps I could use to avoid the NEXT wipe? Alas, and for shame!
Non combat res doesn’t just make druids better, it makes any run with a druid better for the whole team.
Honestly, I’m surprised there hasn’t been more of a clamor about having entangling roots work inside (that’s still happening, right?). If anything that’s more of an effect on game balance for those fearful of losing their spots in raids to druids. But that’s just me.
I for one greatly anticipate the coming change of resses. If the non-combat res was the ONLY change being made to resto druids I’d be happy. Everything else is just a bonus!
C. Joness last blog post..WotLK System Requirements… and also Tabards!
@Kadomi: Thanks for the support. I’m sure a Druid will rez you in thanks.
@Andurial: Agree 100%. To all the people who posted “this is a dead horse WAH WAH!” on all the “WAAAAHHHH We need a normal rez!” threads over the years, “NANNY NANNY BOO BOO!” (What can I say? It’s Friday, and I’m not feeling especially mature. ^_^)
@Oni: Oh, I think Ferals are going to really like having Revive, at least in 5-mans. They will be able to resurrect their healer if things go bad, just like Paladins. I can’t count the number of times I’ve died only to see the rest of my group win an encounter. It’s quite depressing when it happens, because you still have to walk back!
@Karthis: Yes, but Ret/Prot Paladins, Shadow/Disc Priests, and Elemental/Enhancement Shamans have access to a resurrection by virtue of having a healing-based tree. It wouldn’t make sense to deny it to Feral and Balance Druids, at least in my mind.
@Lotha: Slacker!
@Kwast: We might not have Shackle Undead, but I think both Entangling Roots and Hibernate will see much more use in the Wrath 5-mans! Woot!
@Runycat: If by “army of Liches” you mean, “unfortunate healers,” I’ll believe you!
@Ryukyu: I didn’t know that about Repentance. That’s really cool. And I hadn’t even though of the possibility of Divine Intervention, either. It will be a lot easier to call out over Vent “DI me!” than scrambling to find someone else that’s still alive and able to rez.
@Hokuto: Thanks for the heads up. I read a lot of his other threads, and he is indeed a QQ-troll. He’s also complaining of our ability to shapeshift out of the Shamans’ Hex spell and whining that the HoT associated with Riptide doesn’t tick quickly enough or for enough health (it’s a 15 second HoT that ticks every 3 seconds … just like Rejuvenation). Someone pointed out Presarius’ trolling antics to the Shamans in their class forums and Spottedcow of Northrend (US) responded, “I appreciate you bringing us this trolling moment. I would promise to keep our idiot in the village, but he has a tendancy to wander sometimes. Thank you for returning him to us.” I LOLed.
@Sydera: I’ll probably blow all my mana as quickly as possible rezzing and then sit to drink while I go to potty.
Problem solved!
@Rob: Or worse yet, “Sorry, we need a rezzer.” >.< @Archmera: I agree. It’s great to see the development team pull a 180 on this issue.
@Merlot: Oh, it’s not a bad thing, but there aren’t a lot of those people around. So instead of just having to LFTank, you’d have to LFTank + LFRezzer that doesn’t heal!
@Jezzabell: See, the first thing I did after training it was ask the guy standing next to me to jump off the cliff beside Loganaar so I could rez him. ^_^
@Slapzz: ROFL … I’ve already seen the darker side of rezzing when my own HUSBAND refuses to walk back. The joke’s on him, though, because invariably I need his help to find my way to my body.
@Melanie: Good to know about Pallies. And grats!
@Simon: I’ve been fortunate enough to only very rarely PuG, so I didn’t run into the “no rez, no deal” descrimination myself, but I can imagine how frustrating it must have been.
@Hoofbeat: As someone else points out, there’s really no Heroic where Druids are going to be preferred to Shamans because of crowd control. We haven’t been able to cast Root indoors before Wrath, Cyclone has horrible DR, and there are very few mobs where Hibernate makes a difference (and honestly, they’re generally the least troublesome of the mobs). Now Wrath … that might be a different story.
@Horns: I don’t think anyone was suggesting that you should forfeit Rebirth to pick up Revive. I agree, tho — that would be terribad, at least when raiding.
@Eggo: Whoa there … TMI! Do crabs have butts? Don’t answer that.
@Tesh: I’m so glad you liked it.
@Tone: That is an excellent example of why all healers should have a rez. Even with all the specialty toys around, lacking a normal rez is a huge inconvenience to the people who group with you.
@Drun: That would be pretty awesome, but I suspect it was a typo. They don’t want to lower the cooldown below the 15 minute mark or it would be usable in Arenas. Then Druids would HAVE to be first on everyone’s targetting radar (not fun).
@Rochmoninoff: No, it’s not like Druids can rez themselves. Maybe that should be our rez-related new campaign …
@Witch Doctor: I don’t know if I’d necessarily use the word “exploit” with regard to Divine Intervention/Rebirth, but I agree that the longer cooldown on Reincarnate is likely because it’s so much easier to use. If the Reincarnate cooldown were lowered to 20 minutes, a raid with two Shamans in it could feasibly recover from wipes 6 times an hour, even AFTER all the trash had respawned!
@Ermengol: It’s also a silly argument because it assumes that being able to rez outside of combat somehow makes the game “easier” instead of “more convenient.” Of course, by the fifth time *I’m* walking back to an instance, I’m not necessarily on the top of my game (or at the top of the bottle). ^_^
@C. Jones: I think there hasn’t been a lot of clamor about Entangling Roots indoors because most player recognize that Moonkin needed a viable form of CC indoors, Ferals can’t cast it outside of Nature’s Grasp, and Restos are going to have to work it into their healing which is a lot more difficult than working it into a DPS rotation! I’m really looking forward to it, though. Now if only I could convince my groupmates that I have CC…
A Shaman was bitching about an out of combat rez?
They have self-rez. I don’t see the problem.
@ C. Jones- Well, lets also remember, Entangling Roots isn’t all that awesome as CC. Better than nothing, and better than what we had (next to nothing), but hardly fantastic at all. It will only be helpful in keeping another melee-only mob from joining the fray (generally the easiest type of mob to deal with in my experience), and lets not forget the “chance to break on damage” mechanic it has (painful because it can break on its own damage), meaning that an early break will be quite possible, and totally unpredictable.
I don’t think anyone will be (or should be) afraid of Druids taking their raid slot through CC alone, although that does depend on the amount of Dragonkin/Beasts we see in instances in Wrath, but that has very little to do with Entangling Roots.
@Stupid Mage: I tend to agree. Reincarnate is supposed to be their special answer to Rebirth. It’s essentially a guaranteed “do over” in raids.
@Yggdrasil: I agree that Roots isn’t as easy to use as Polymorph, but it does work on far more targets. You can even use it on a casting mob as long as you root her out of line of sight (and move into line of sight to refresh it). This, combined with a 6-3-1.5 second Cyclone change can be debilitating to a spellcaster mob.
I was also under the impression that Blizzard has said that roots cannot break from its own damage?
Whereas giving druids an ooc rez is perfectly fine for dungeons, those of you who think it doesn’t effect balance must not arena much. Giving the most dominant arena healer the ability to run away->stealth->rez team member is certainly a balance adjustment, to say the least.
@Aleketa: Everyone should be able to interrupt a 10-second cast. It isn’t as though teammates don’t know where the deaders happen to be.
It does make sense though. Tht was the Druid’s advantage to being able to rez in combat, so now that they have both is somewhat unfair, but not game breaking, more like a hook-up for having a druid in the party that can rez in any situation (except their own death)
Willy Donutss last blog post..I’m stuck
@Willy: The Druid’s advantage to being able to rez in combat has nothing to do with their ability to rez out of combat. The former affects how successful a group is in combat, the latter is simply a way of making it convenient when someone dies. It was an arbitrary handicap designed to make Druids less desirable.