I have an update on this change:
We have been working on making changes to Lycara’s Meditation to prevent unintended gameplay for Feral Druids where it is optimal to frequently enter either Moonkin or Bear Form during downtime in their rotation. We don’t want to reduce the Versatility bonus in Bear Form like we did the Mastery bonus from Moonkin Form because it’s a valuable survivability perk. However, the unintended rotation is still optimal with the above change.
We are working on a hotfix to undo the above change and add a requirement to stay in any shapeshift form for a short time before its bonus can be retained with Lycara’s Meditation:
Druid
- Lycara’s Meditation: Players must remain in a shapeshift form for 2.9 seconds, modified by Haste, in order to retain the Lycara’s Teachings bonus from it. The ability description string will be updated in a future patch.
- This changed has been reverted: "Lycara’s Meditation does not retain the bonus from your last shapeshift form if you enter and then leave caster form.
The duration was chosen so that if you spend a GCD entering a form, perform an action (2 actions in the case of Cat Form because of their shorter GCD), then leave the form, you will retain the bonus.
Because these changes are being made so close to the start of Season 2, they may not be applied at the same time as other tuning changes, but they will go live as soon as possible.