They should have leaned more into the form affinity side of the druid…
As a balance druid you could spec into feral and should be able to rip and rake as an owl. Makes sense lore wise. You would be turned into a massive dot based owlkin.
Picking up reato affinity should turn you into a cc sustain based owlkin.
Picking up bear affinity should become a more durable defensive based owlkin with thorns or abilities to punish people attacking you.
Druid has always had the identity of being able to change forms. But I think the true identity could move to the forms having choice of play style in each one.
Each form could borrow things from the other forms in a sense that would create many new utility playstyles or personal touches.
As a cat druid you could spec into balance and pick up some signature abilities that can be used in cat. You could have some ranged moon themed abilities like how lunar inspiration works. The same way galactic guardian talent is at the moment. These abilities should be tied to the affinity offspec of your choice.
The kits are already there for most druids. The only thing missing now is the choice inside each spec on how to play your druid.
Maybe it’s just me being hopefully. But the potential for diversity inside each druid spec seems something every druid has been craving to play since the concept of the class in vanilla. They keep flirting with the idea of giving you more options of shifting forms and having things to do inside them. But they are watered down and hallow to be in.
The only real two choices that worked out well in my eyes was resto druids speccing feral affinity in 2s arena. And guardian druids speccing balance affinity in this ridiculous kite to tank meta in M+.
This was exactly what druids wanted to do. Have the ability to play 2 styles at one time with their main spec being X and there offspec being impactful to participate in outside of just a convoke window or I’m gonna sit bear for 4 seconds while frenzied rejuvenate ticks.
I hope going forward druids are pushed more and more towards the fluidness of choice of a true play style inside your spec. Supported by flavor of that form we know and love. Not just a small window you sit in.
I personally find owl-weaving plenty of immersion, if they unpruned all the abilities we would just be gutted in terms of core playstyle and go back to the crappy version that existed in classic/TBC where the only useful spec was resto.
They re-released classic so players could go enjoy that if they want, personally I have 0 interest in it.
Also I just love the concept of affinities. I think every class should get to choose another affinity, outside of talents. I’ve always liked that Druids have that.
100% agree. Affinities do not feel strong enough. You just pick some weak passive that isn’t super impactful. I think it should let you cast the spells you get in your innate spec form. I really hate the aesthetic look of owlweaving as a feral druid. Pop in for sunfire - starsurge - back to feral. It just looks like a mess, let me cast it as a cat.
I agree that picking Moonkin affinity should unlock Moonfire in Feral and give it a Galactic Guardian style proc which turns it into a priority cast. Resto affinity could give back the old Claws of Shirvalla effect allowing you to cast all restoration spells in Cat form / Bear form. Bear affinity should give you frenzied regen in any form, and extra Survival Instinct charges.
I’d pose a question to the readers of this thread, would you rather have a talent row dedicated to your spec or the current affinity row? I find it strange that I have 2 rows which are homogenous across all specs personally.
I get the idea behind them, but at the same time I think it takes away from that specific spec’s options.
One of the main draws to Druid for me is the need to keep swapping in and out of various forms depending on what’s going on. I don’t really like the idea of talents discouraging this and instead encouraging us just staying in our spec form longer.
On the flipside, being able to use more skills while in our various forms would certainly be a beneficial change. But they could do this without affinities really. Just make it so all the base druid abilities can be used in every form and shuffle skills they don’t want to do this into the various spec spell list.
Take Resto affinity for example. Casting Rejuv alone while in a form would probably be quite overpowering even with the limited mana pool available. But rejuv and swiftmend and regrowth would be insane. Unlocking all of these additional skills is something I despise and is honestly the main reason I run guardian affinity on all of my builds–laziness.
See I agree with this completely. But the benefit of your affinity is such a small window for most and you take it for the passive part of it. I would love to see the core of the druid spec be based around using a second affinity of your choice. You would play between the 2 choices with the main one being what your kit is centered around while you are supported with your second choice.
I agree it shouldn’t just give you all of the abilities to be used in form. But there should be some flavor of different playstyle with the 2 affinities you choose compared to different second supporting one. A clear/simple example of this would be
Bear / Cat - DPS tank
Bear / Boomkin - Utility/kite tank
Bear / Resto - Self sustain tank
Cat / Bear - Defensive and bleed based
Cat / Boomkin - Control and higher damage but squishy
Cat / Resto - Self sustain and mobility
Boomkin / Bear - Cooldown based durable caster
Boomkin / Cat - Dot based caster with mobility
Boomkin / Resto - very much like it plays now. lots of supporting abilities more caster based damage and spells
And all of the resto affinities make some sense for the most part right now. They just aren’t impactful enough. But the play styles would just have to be tuned a bit to make them see play
Numbers wise, bears were objectively the best threat tank in Vanilla. In TBC, balance, feral, and resto were all pretty strong specs. We even had legitimate hybrid specs, like feral off tanking before going back to full kitty damage. Or moonkin that could competently drop moonkin to push heals.
I like the affinities in how they focus more on the utility side of the spec. It’s probably my most swapped talent, depending on needs.
I typically play Resto, so…
Do I want to weave in a bit of extra damage in a non-awkward way, and have access to a single target stun? Feral.
Do I want to have access to Disorienting Roar, which is super helpful in dungeons like Halls of Attonement or De Other Side? Guardian.
Do I want to be able to push bad guys away (especially helpful on Sanguine weeks)? Balance.
If you throw in the HotW talent, now you get some effectiveness at the role the affinity is suited for, and I think that’s a good fit as a temporary power gain. Being able to do all the things at all the times was the vanilla class design and it really sucked, because what ended up happening was that you could do all the things at all the times very poorly, and that was how they balanced it.
I’ve loved my druid on and off over the years since Vanilla, but playing Classic reminded me how hamstrung druids were at the start, paying that heavy hybrid tax. I like the way they play now. We still have that hybrid feel, but we can specialize and build a toolkit as needed with affinities.
This is the aspect I hope the keep building on with druids. Having meaningful choice in the shape shifting or forms you can have as a secondary role.
If any class deserves to keep the identity of the hybrid in all its forms. More so than ever druid should fill that niche. If they make you Jack of all trades master of none. I don’t think it really fits in the game anymore. It used to have a great spot in the game at 70 and 80 but more and more was pushed out when they homogenized classes.
I really hope they keep the identity of shifting as part of all of the specs. Not just your main form and caster form for the 3 shape shifting classes. I’d love to see an impactful reason to shift into cat as a balance druid in a raid. Or a cat druid shifting into bear to pull threat off mobs so a tank can kite.
I know these things can be done to some extent already. But it would be awesome to see these choices brought more into the spotlight of the choice you wanted as your affinity.
TBC/Classic Feral were a lot more fun though (from a cat/bear perspective)
I think weaving came in during mop?
And in dungeons Feral was awesome…in both vanilla/classic and bc it really seems to be top end numbers…which it has an issue with now still lol
Like you would actually shapeshift sometimes vs static cat all the time like now
I just don’t get the argument of:
“If affinities were buffed then everyone would need a Feral druid, or xspec druid”
(Not that Hounze was making this argument)
Like…Feral/Guardian was still a spec before and they still weren’t taken overwhelmingly, even in wrath and cata
But w/e I parked this guy halfway through the tier and will just be doing classic now.
I’ll miss the QOL stuff but the effort they put into the druid specs and trees is a joke on retail.
