Update at 2008-02-15 2:01 CST: Community Manager Nethaera has posted concerning the set bonus change for both Feral and Restoration:

The Restoration 4-piece Gladiator set bonus has been changed in the next PTR build. It is now the old Stormrage set-bonus, which is -0.2 seconds off Regrowth. In addition, the speed bonus to Cheetah will remain on the Feral 4-piece Gladiator set bonus.

Oh well, at least I can remember using Regrowth in Arenas.

World of Raids is reporting as yet unannounced changes to all three Druid 4-piece set bonuses from Arena Gear from its current value:

4: Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.

to three distinct set bonuses for the Balance, Feral, and Restoration sets. The new 4-piece bonuses being reported from the PTR are:

• Balance: Your Wrath casts have a chance to reduce the cast time on your next Starfire by 1.5 sec.
• Feral: Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear Form or Cat Form. Only active outdoors. The Feral 4-piece set bonus will remain as listed above.
• Restoration: The casting time on your Healing Touch spell is reduced by 0.25 sec.

The change to the Restoration set bonus is devastating. As Runycat stated on an earlier post, “I can’t remember the last time I ever cast Healing Touch in an Arena match.” I cast them all the time in Arenas … but only in conjunction with Nature’s Swiftness! This one single change could topple Druids in 2v2 Arenas, while nothing is being done to help improve their standings in 5v5. The Feral change is plainly a nerf and an unnecessary one at that; admittedly, I am not very familiar with Feral Arena PvP, but I don’t think they use Travel Form very often. The Balance change (either one) is the only one I would consider positive, especially the occassional reduction on cast time for Starfire. That might actually be a nice PvE bonus (so too might the HT bonus, at least for Dreamstate healers).

Related Posts

• Arena 2 Class Set
• Cheetaz R 4 Run
• 15% Speed Bonus (Not) Restored

Edit on 2/21: Community Manager Kalgan (US) has announced that this change will now only be active in Arenas.

Players on the 2.4 PTR are reporting that the method by which drinking restores mana has been adjusted so that the amount returned starts off low and increases each tick. It was originally reported by Matthan of Endor (EU) and later confirmed by Community Manager Hortus to be an intentional change:

This is an intentional change to how drinking works. The amount of mana regenerated now ramps up, so you will see little or no mana regen the first few seconds and then it will increase as the duration continues.

It appears this change did not make it into these patch notes, I’ll see about getting it added to future notes.

Community Manager Vaneras later responded to the resulting outcry from this change on another thread:

It is true that a change in 2.4 in regards to drinking. The intention is to offset some of the mana regeneration from drinking so that the mana gained from drinking will be less in the beginning of the duration, but it will ramp up and increase towards the middle and end of the duration.

It should be noted that we specifically made sure that there would be little to no change in the amount of mana regenerated by players, who drink between pulls or during gauntlet runs. There should be almost no difference in the amount of mana yielded if you sit to drink for at least 6 seconds, which most players do.

Many players accurately assumed that this change was made in response to complaints about casters — and especially Druids — drinking [Star's Tears] to restore mana in Arenas. This supposition was later confirmed by Vaneras:

The change is being made to have as little impact to PvE players as possible, but it has to affect all water as this fix applies to Arenas, battlegrounds, and world PvP, which will have specific emphasis in the upcoming expansion.

For those wondering about the nitty gritty math behind how this currently works on the PTR, Vaneras explains:

After the change you will gain little to no mana after first tick(~2 seconds), the second tick(~4 seconds) will give you the normal amount of mana+66% extra and the third tick(~6 seconds) will give you the normal amount of mana+33% extra, and then it levels out after that. This means that you will still gain mana before the ~6 second mark (before the third tick), however it will be less than what you are used to now. At the ~6 second mark you will have gained as much as you would have before the change.

Ironically, Druids will likely be the class least punished by this change since running HoTs allow us to stay away from combat longer and at least half of us have the racial ability, Shadowmeld, to protect us while drinking. And as other healers derive less benefit from drinking, our relative longevity will actually improve.

Thanks to Currant of Druid Tank and reader Bullar for clueing me into this change!

Related Posts

• Tastes Great and Just as Filling
• Trinketed Lifebloom Nerfed on PTR
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There is some exciting news about Patch 2.4 from Community Manager Drysc today:

Although not terribly relevant to your discussion I thought I’d jump in and let you know about some Spell Haste changes in the upcoming patch.

In 2.4, Spell Haste will reduce the global cool down on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. It won’t apply to melee and ranged abilities though however.

Ironically, this news comes just days after an e-mail from Sydera of Vek’nilash (US) in which she inquires:

I have been wondering about something for a while and have no other resto druids to ask. Why do you think there is so much spell haste on the Zul’Aman and T6 content items? What are we going to be doing in Hyjal and Black Temple that makes spell haste necessary? Is this bad design, or is there something to be learned here?

My healing style relies almost exclusively on instants. My guild is 1/4 TK and 3/6 SSC right now, and I tend to use regrowth about once per boss fight and healing touch pretty much never. If I use HT, it’s with nature’s swiftness every time. My general rotation is rolling lifeblooms and rejuvenation on tanks. Is something going to change this for the T6 stuff?

In responding to her question, I generated a list of spell haste items that would be appropriate to a cloth or leather-wearing healer by filtering the armor on WoWHead. Those previously scoffable eight items are now looking a lot more attractive. Because in the now immortal words of reader Zackoria:

HAHA! LIFEBLOOM! LIFEBLOOM LIFEBLOOM!!! Castable healing? BAH! ONLY THE ACCURSED GLOBAL COOLDOWN CAN RESTRAIN US FROM WORLD HEALING DOMINATION AHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!

(Endgame-equipped) Druids just got (up to) 33% closer to World Healing Domination.

Read about 2.4 details as they arrive at ElitistJerks.com.

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• Impressions Solicited: Spell Haste
• Mailbag: Zul’Aman Healing Chests
• Armor Values on PvP Gear

A not-so-brave Druid brother recently posted an entreatment that Druids logically be given the ability to pick locks in Cat Form:

Druids should be able to lockpick in Cat Form. The reason?

Well, Priests steal our heal ability.
Warriors steal our tanking ability.
Shaman steal our casting attacks.
Warlocks steal our damage over times.
And Rogues steal our stealth ability.

So, we should at least be able to steal ONE ability from another class…. so I think that should be lockpicking in Cat Form.

Give Druids some love Blizz… stop letting other classes steal all our abilities. Thanks.

Typically not treating this subject with the sobriety it deserves, Community Manager Bornakk responds:

Is it not seen as love when it takes a list of five classes to talk about everything you can do?

So it seems that we will continue to suffer beneath this unnecessary and unfair handicap. Just as we cannot fulfill the task of resurrecting our fallen comrades, so too can we not perform this simplest of tasks: opening treasure chests.

P.S. I can’t tell you how much cat poo I’ve give Valenna about this same “issue”!

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Community Manager Hortus points out:

Abilities should not trigger from crits on sitting players; this is in the 2.3.2 patch notes but doesn’t seem to be very clearly explained.

Technically, it isn’t explained at all as the patch notes read:

Effects triggered from being critically hit: Many abilities and talents were changed in 2.3.0 to allow them to trigger from critical strikes that occurred while the player benefitting from them was sitting.

What’s the significance? Prior to patch 2.3.2, a Restoration Druid with the Natural Perfection talents could go behind a pillar and sit three times while a low melee DPS assailant (such as a Warlock’s Felhunter) was beating on them to guarantee a 3-stacked proc and 15% damage reduction for 8 seconds. I’m not surprised that this was changed as it definitely does seem exploitive. Keep in mind that this does not mean that you will not be critted while sitting (for instance, when you drink); it just means that these crits will not activate abilities that normally activate upon being crit.

Among the known issues with Patch 2.3.2 is that:

Shapeshifting does not remove the movement impairing debuff Frost Breath.

Since I don’t recognize this ability from the Mage retinue, I’m guessing this is an effect from one or more NPCs.

Related Posts

• Hortus: Lifebloom Cannot Trigger Nature’s Grace
• Guest Post: Leveraging Shadowmeld
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