Before I write, I just want to say, this is not a whiney thread or a complaint thread it’s just a discussion thread. I’m asking for actual thoughts and not trolly opinions.
I didn’t play a druid until Wrath and I’m quite sure that by then they were not longer getting forced out of shapeshifting when performing an action.
I’m just curious to OG Classic and TBC druids, how did you feel about this inconvenience. Clearly you had to deal with it because that’s just how it was, but did it ever annoy you? While I tolerate it, it certainly bothers’ me, especially while killing a mob then having to perform a quest action like clicking an inventory item to drain the mob and that knocks you out of shapeshift and then the bigger inconvenience of not having the mana to reshift back into form.
While I know its a true classic experience, do you ever feel that if Blizzard made a few quality-of-life tweaks like preventing shape shift removal when performing actions especially when fighting mobs might make the druid experience better? (or any class for that matter)
What are your thoughts about quality-of-life tweaks in Classic in general? Is there something you feel could be improved or changed just slightly for a specific class.
To be honest, I don’t mind it/kinda like it. My main on retail back in the day was always a druid, and likewise in TBC classic is as well.
It’s not like you can’t interact with anything in forms - you can herb but you can’t mine, and I’m pretty sure certain quest items are even interactable. It seems to be about believability more than anything else? For instance, I can’t talk as a cheetah so I have to shift out to speak with a flight master. I can’t use a pick as a raven, so I can’t mine, but talons grabbing an herb is more believable.
One QoL change I’d gladly welcome is automatically shifting me out for flights, but I’m pretty sure you can’t even take a flight if you’re mounted so that’s not specific to druids I guess. I could be wrong there, though.
I had mining on my first druid, and herbing on this druid. The ability to herb in form is such an massive benefit, especially when we get swift-flight, that I just kinda take the bad with the good and consider myself lucky.
One of the caveats with our being forced out of forms is that quite a few things are dependent upon forms being present (or not). For example, Druids can’t make use of weapon enchants like Mongoose or Crusader because while in forms we aren’t using a weapon. Later, when we can do everything in forms, that restriction is lifted, so if we got that now we’d have Mongoose/Executioner/Crusader an entire expansion early.
On the other hand, I would love being able to do quests without having to shift 30 times to just smack a body with a energy zapping device and then back to forms to kill the next mob.
It is just something we all have to deal with. It isn’t notably fun, and macros cure most of our in-combat needs, but it is what it is.
It’s muscle memory now at this point—doesn’t bother me. Only thing annoying is having to burn all my mana shifting in and out of form to use items on mobs…those quests take just a smidge longer but not really a huge deal.
Not being able to use items in forms and not getting weapon procs was definitely one of the stupider design decisions of early druids. Not quite as bad as bad as not being able to talk to npc’s in form but in the same realm of this sounds cool on paper but is just really stupid in practice.
I didn’t and don’t really mind it other than not being able to open doors, which has been fixed. I’d be sitting on a nearly full rage bar in a place like scholo and have to ask someone to open the door so I didn’t have to dump all my rage lol. Shifting directly between forms is also a huge QOL improvement.
To actually answer your question:
I don’t take a hardline no changes position and I’m not opposed to certain minimal QOL changes, etc. I don’t know what those are, but I can see the case being made.
If we’re talking specifically about druid shifting…I don’t think anything should be changed. I’m glad they changed our energy and I was a supporter of that change. However, I never thought that druids were broken under the old energy system, or that anyone should have quit if they didn’t change it.
Just as a hypothetical, if I was tasked with making one change to druids it would be to allow roots and travel form to be used indoors. Not saying it should be done, just that if I had to vote on one change that would be it.
Calling “you can now use an inventory item to ‘drain the mob’ in bear form” a “quality-of-life tweak” is a prime example. On the off chance you truly do want dissenting opinions…no, I would not be pleased if Blizzard threw logic out of the window early in the name of their coding laziness and appeasing forum whiners, and said “you can now perform fine manipulation in bear form, using your mouth or something, I dunno.” (I would, in fact, be pleased if they announced they weren’t implementing such idiocy in WotLK Classic.)
I suspect Glinda is being sarcastic, but while exaggerated, I don’t think it’s strictly untrue to say that the homogenization of Modern comes from years of “it’s inconvenient that druids function differently than other classes; make the different forms strictly a defensive stance, an offensive melee stance, and a couple spec-based caster stances, with no other mechanical differences!”