Tired of the shapeshifting into the same low-quality forms that have been in the game since day 1? Andrige has created a beautiful selection of modified form skins to make your life as a Druid a lot more enjoyable.
Because I know that some readers rely on Resto4Life for their Druid news (silly people), here’s a distilled summary of the Druid-related information from BlizzCon. Most of this information comes from the Class Panels at BlizzCon and has been gathered from WoWInsider’s extensive coverage.
Dual-Specs
While not immediately available with the release of Wrath, Blizzard hopes to patch them into the game with Patch 3.1. They may feel like they have a brief reprieve because the need for two specs is generally greater at level 80 when many players engage in both competitive PvP and endgame PvE content. Unfortunately, healers would really benefit from this option, as well, since it would be nice to be able to grind solo and switch back to healing for instances.
You’ll be able to switch to your alternate spec “whenever you want,” including in raids. Your Glyphs and hotkeys will switch automatically when you do. This is wonderful news because it means you won’t have to continue buying the same Glyphs to switch them for PvP or off-spec raiding. Of course, this is bad news for Inscriptionists. Sorry, guys!
Sharing In-Combat Rez
Q: Really happy we’ll be able to do 10-man raids all the way up. But in 10-mans losing one class can hurt. What about giving another class an in-combat rez?
A: … which class specifically?
Crowd: (various classes)
Since Paladins and Shamans already have specialty forms of wipe recovery/prevention (Reincarnation and Divine Intervention), it make the most sense to me that Priests be the ones to receive an in-combat rez. Of course, Priests and Shamans are still so desirable that it would perhaps make more sense to give them to Paladins. Naturally, I prefer that we keep our Rebirth. We wouldn’t want all healers to become Big Green Blobs after all.
And to the crowd member who yelled out “Rogues” in response to who should get in combat rez … /sigh
Spirit Not Just for Mana Regeneration
For a lot of classes, Spirit isn’t mana regen anymore, it’s something people stack for the spell damage bonuses.
I don’t know if I agree with this statement. I’ll probably continue stacking Spirit for its mana regeneration benefits, just as I did in TBC. I personally view the fact that it also grants +Healing as a nice bonus! The Spirit –> Spell Power bonus does mean that staying in Tree of Life will be very important, though, which is likely intended to negatively impact Restoration PvP since Tree of Life loses the ability to Cyclone and cast Entangling Roots.
Hybrids vs. Pure Classes
Hybrid DPS has been increased as a result of the changes made to the debuffs/buffs system, and hybrids are benefitting from gear streamlining and the dual spec system. To help counter this overall increase in desirability, pure DPS classes are intended to do the “best” damage, but “player skill should enter into it as well.”
Improvements to Forms
Blizzard has been talking about Feral form improvements for a while, but it’s a “question of time.” We’ve heard before that this is an improvement that’s intended very early on after the release (and subsequent bug fixes) of Wrath. According to the “Notes from the BlizzCon 2008 Art Panel” by WoWInsider author Daniel Whitcomb:
When a questioner asked if it was possible for Feral Forms to have visible armor, the Artists seemed very enthusiastic about the idea, all but saying it’s coming. Later, when another young man asked if Druid trees could change leaf color, Chris Robinson said he’d been talking with a designer who was very much a fan of allowing more Druid form variety. So without outright saying that it is coming, it seems like the designers have revealed that it is high on the priority list.
Earlier on in the article, Daniel also wrote “The artists all but said that giving visible armor to Druid forms is in the works!” but I couldn’t find anything in the summary that lead me to believe this is the case. I personally think visible armor could have the potential to look really goofy and am more enthusiastic about other types of form customization.
Teh Pee Vee Pees!
- The Orgrimmar Arena will include moving pillars that change line of sight and DoT fire hazards, making “pillar humping” more interactive and potentially more dangerous.
- The Dalaran Arena will include a pillar of water that temporarily obscures line of sight but also performs a knockback. There are also a couple of stacks of crates that block line of sight, but they aren’t as effective as the pillars players are probably accustomed to in TBC Arenas.
- Travel Form and Ghost Wolf will work in the Dalaran Arena, but mounts will not.
- Moonkin damage output in PvP is satisfactory, but they’re taking a look at its survivability (the armor nerf certainly didn’t help).
Q: Druid PvP (boos). Resto is powerful and I want it nerfed, but I don’t want to hurt Balance or Feral. How can you fix that without killing the other two.
A: Tom: Wrath is a very different beast than the live servers. Lifebloom lost a lot of power, so you can’t rely on it. There are changes, along with the new talents, that from the beta test we’ve seen, Druids aren’t the dominant force they can be in smaller brackets today.
Did anyone ever rely on Lifebloom? Really? I couldn’t. I was generally too busy running the hell away from the 1-3 people trying to kill me!
Q: Wintergrasp. I’m a healing Druid (boos). Before you were able to group in BGs, it was hard to heal, will there be any mechanic in Wintergrasp.
A: Tom: We’ve avoided groups so far, mostly because of the AFK problem. Our grouping system won’t go above 40 players at this point either, so for the moment, it’s group on your own.
The forced grouping was great for healers in places like AB and AV. Having to request a group invitation is a huge inconvenience and it incentivizes the player to only assist those players with whom she is grouped, making healing more complicated (and therefore, less fun).
Q: Are Feral Druids going to be different from Rogues?
A: Chilton: Feral druids have been a B-spec in arenas and PvP. I don’t know if it’s a raw damage output problem. [Might be] something with loosing mana. We don’t have a clear idea of how it’s going to play out. Unfortunately we haven’t seen a lot of feral druids in the beta arenas.
For those of you unfamiliar with the mana plight of Ferals, the lack of Intellect on PvP gear is causing a great deal of concern about needing to shift forms often and not having the mana to do so. According to Ghostcrawler, “We don’t want you to worry about Intellect … It’s definitely stuff that we’re looking at.”
Miscellaneous (I.e., stuff that didn’t warrant its own subheading)
- Players will no longer be dismounted when they enter water. Rather, their mounts will swim across. It’s not clear whether Druids will be able to remain in Travel Form when entering a body of water.
- There are still no plans to allow Taunt/Growl to work in PvP. Darn! If they did, a Druid could Rocket Bear into a healer from the opposing team, interrupting their spell cast and forcing them to target her, further throwing off their rhythm.
- Wrath goals for Balance were to give them a viable form of crowd control (indoor Root) and to eliminate the OOMkin.
- The retinue of healing spells available to Druids has been expanded to include the Flash Heal-esque direct heal, Nourish, and an AoE heal, Wild Growth.
- All tanks should see an overall increase in threat generation. The intention is that the successful completion of encounters should be more about healing and moving around. So seriously. Stop standing in the fire.
- Blizzard wanted to deemphasize the use of consumables through things like the Potion Sickness and Tinnitus debuffs. This has the obvious effect of increasing players’ reliance on the new Replenishment effect provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.
- Blizzard doesn’t want any class to have a buff that’s so powerful that the raid is canceled if it isn’t available. See also: Chain Heal, Circle of Healing (though I suppose those aren’t technically “buffs”).
- Blizzard is considering adding customization to player animations. Perosnally, I’d love to use the /cheer emote for casting Revive.
- Omen of Clarity procs will not be made undispellable. (The ability itself is now passive and cannot be dispelled.)
- Players can complete Tiered set bonuses by mixing equivalent 10-man and 25-man armor.
- Drops of caster and melee weapons should be about equal.
- There was a re-emphasis on the idea that Druids should be just as viable as Warriors as an MT, despite their lack of tools like Shield Wall.
- Ghostcrawler is a dude.
Additional Reading
- Lumey’s wonderful, multi-part writeup on his attendance of BlizzCon (/jealous): 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
- WoWInsider’s extensive BlizzCon coverage
- Joystiq’s coverage of the BlizzCon dance contest (because Druids LOVE to /dance)
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I am excited that BRK is back, though!
/cry I love you, ty for everything.
Hunters for in-combat rez!
…hey, we can rez our PETS in combat, so we already have the experience, right? Riiiiiiight? >.>
Pikes last blog post..R-E-S-P-E-C-Me
I must have completely missed these spirit = spellpower changes in WotLK. Or are you just talking about talents being added that do this?
“Players will no longer be dismounted when they enter water. Rather, their mounts will swim across. It’s not clear whether Druids will be able to remain in Travel Form when entering a body of water”
Doesn’t really matter. You would probably want to switch to SeaCow form anyway since it moves faster in water then Travel form does on land.
“Ghostcrawler is a dude.”
I have to wonder if Ghostcrawler was brought out primarily to show everyone he is a Dude. I naturally assume that everyone at blizzard is a dude until proven otherwise, but I started calling him a her when it seemed like everyone else was.
Graylos last blog post..Builds for Patch 3.0.2 – Mailbag
“Ghostcrawler is a dude.”
Definitely the biggest reveal of the con.
The movement impairment is removed from ToL in the Beta Talent Calculator. Any word on if this is going to go live?
Bailas last blog post..Can’t Say Goodbye
@Pike: Harumph…
@Thalium: I’m referring specifically to the changes to Tree of Life and Moonkin form whereby Spirit is converted into +healing or spell damage. From the Blue commentary, I imagine they much be doing something similar for Priests …?
@Graylo: The biggest problem with being dismounted in water was that you’d lose your horse when you go through a stream. The same was the case with Travel Form. This will be a welcome improvement.
@Minmon: I agree! Well, except for the imminent release of dual specs.
@Baila: Yes, that’s going in today!
“@Graylo: The biggest problem with being dismounted in water was that you’d lose your horse when you go through a stream. The same was the case with Travel Form. This will be a welcome improvement. ”
I hadn’t thought about it from that standpoint. I usually just jumped and made it over 90% of the time.
Graylos last blog post..Builds for Patch 3.0.2 – Mailbag
“Because I know that some readers rely on Resto4Life for their Druid news (silly people)” – not silly, just lazy. And we all know that you’ll deliver the knowledge much better than if we try to wrap out heads around it
“Did anyone ever rely on Lifebloom? Really? I couldn’t. I was generally too busy running the hell away from the 1-3 people trying to kill me!” – I loved the fact that as you ran around the pillar, the LB would compensate for damage being taken, and if you were cc’d then the bloom would remove you from the red (viz. execute) zone. I wrote a post about it somewhere
“So seriously. Stop standing in the fire.” <3
“Ghostcrawler is a dude.” – this was a bit of a shock when it was revealed ^_^
Beathoovens last blog post..Out Of Space*
Curious as to why you would emphasize spirit over intellect, given both offer mana regen (thanks to the new formula), but intellect now offers even more than before (thanks to the new % of max mana returns), spell crit and increased staying power.
Is this time for Phae’s Famous Mana Regen calculations Mk3? =)
@Phaelia: The priest holy talent ‘Spiritual Guidance’ has converted spirit into +healing for a while now. The changes you mention are just new for druids.
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=15031
Well the sad thing now is when people talk about PvP spec they mean arena spec, as any spec will work in BGs. But I like the idea of having dual specs, as some one that dose not do arena (and refuses to) dual specs will be really a major boon for me. I will keep my beloved Raid healing spec, and my “off spec” will be more of a feral spec (kitty mew mew spec) for dailies and soloing, and those times when dropping a healer for melee dps would be a good idea. As I already do my dailies and soloing in cat form with rogue gear I am quite comfortable with doing dps this way, I never got into nuking from a distance. The game I love is healing and melee dps (it rocks that druids give me this option) and even with out specing feral I can do well for myself with my feral gear.
If I am going to attack a monster I rather be up there and clawing and bitting at it. dual specs will server pure PvE’ers the best most of all, as we now have to things we can do, just need to make sure we gear up the “off spec” a little better. I will admit my cat set is mostly badge stuff and stuff that dropped that rogues and feral druids (main spec) did not want (2nd hand stuff) but I guess I will have to put just a little more care in to my cat set now, but it going to rock big time for me.
I <3 your kitchen.
*drools.
I have been reading your posts for quite some time and it has helped me TONS on my new druid.
Thanks again =^-^=
Lazy? nah, I have been checking other sources while anxiously awaiting your info, you simply distill it down and make it easy to understand as well as fun to read. Btw, both my husband and I think your kitchen is gorgeous!
::going back to sighing over my inability to log on and respec as well as check out the changes:: I had mercifully forgotten the previous similar event before BC, but I was still a young tree then, in my mid-40’s..
As trivial as it is, I would love for my tree form to look slightly different to all the other trees.
Being a Tauren, I can’t really make myself look nice – even the barber shop changes don’t do much for me, I can change my horns (goodie) and whether I have braids or what have you – but NEs can do a lot more. I like to look nice too! I’d love to be able to have a slightly different tree colour, maybe some flowers, etc.
The minor glyphs that allow us to change our cat and bear forms to something better are definitely a step in the right direction – why not a couple to change our trees somehow? And even as a resto druid, I would very much like to see some of our armor show up on our animal forms – or something to make us look more impressive and powerful than our level 10 bear and level 20 cat. We should look more “epic” at level 80.
I thought they took those glyphs out? They aren’t listed on MMO-Champion at least. I remember them saying that they were uncertain how to enable us to customize our appearances.
How does removing the forced grouping for BGs fix the AFK problem?
@Graylo: Your cheetah must have longer legs than my cheetah. That or you’re a cheater cheatah. Hax.
@Beathooven: I SUPPPPPPOSE that Lifebloom didn’t TOTALLY suck in PvP Arenas. ^_^ I always did think EVERY application should bloom from a purge, tho.
@Sorayn: You make a good point about Intellect and how it’s affected by the new Replenishment. That’s definitely something I need to look at, though I can’t make any promises about how soon a new calculator will be available. That thing took weeks!!
@Thalium: Oh, I didn’t realize that. You guys were clearly OP!
@Drun: I’m not sure that I agree that dual specs will help PvE’ers the most. My husband primarily PvPs and has been discouraged from PvE content because of the need to respec multiple times per week. With dual specs, he should get to enjoy both avenues of the game we play to spend time together.
So maybe it’s actually most beneficial to the SPOUSES of PvPers!
@Looshi-kun: Thanks for the kind words! I’m glad the blog is helpful!
@Kayeri: Thank you also.
I’m glad that there’s some value in the summaries I write.
@Keeva: Flowers would be amazing, but I’d also enjoy having my own army of wisps. I’m very curious as to what kind of new model we’re going to get for Tree of Life. I hope it’s substantially different since we’re going to be stuck with it for five or more years. ^^
@Sorayn: They did take those Glyphs out after outcry from the Druid community that we didn’t want to have to use our Minor Glyph slots to modify our forms.
@Hepzibah: I think the idea is ostensibly that AFKers will not bother to send tells to group leaders for an invite. Riiiiiiiiiiiight…