It feels more gated and disjointed than it was before. Examples - Skull Bash was easy to get to as either Feral or Guardian. Now it’s in the middle of the tree as a “final” node through several others. Ironfur is now gated by improved Barkskin (or whatever it’s called). Seriously? It’s a core ability and should be the second node down like Rip is for Feral.
And then there’s Moonkin form. I really don’t get this. If they want all druids to have access to all forms, then just make it baseline like the other three. Is it really intended that only Moonkins have access to Sunfire? Rather ironic actually ("Moon"kin → Sunfire).
There’s no doubt that some pathing and placement improvements were needed, but this seems to go too far. In the interest of making everything accessible, they’ve actually made many things less accessible.
Well, we’re certainly on the same page about that. Not sure why they would want to make an “animal form” kick (Skull Bash) less accessible for Guardian and Feral and more accessible for Balance/Resto. They have to shift and then kick? So clunky, just give them their own kicks.
Ironfur should definitely swap places with Verdant Heart (sorry to be so far off with the improved Barkskin refence). Also the left and center bottom nodes seem backwards - i.e., the left side (closer to other feral nodes) is practically all survivability, while the middle has more damage boosts. I guess one could argue that’s meant to shore up weaknesses, but it doesn’t feel that way.
I think a lot of this can be chalked up to the basic nature of the class. Due to the way forms work, in conjunction with “hybrid” or “offspecs” not being a thing in retail, each spec really feels and acts like its own class. There just aren’t enough general abilities to make the class tree work well. Nodes either get silod like they were before, or too spread out, like they are now. Neither is particularly good.
This boils literally down to the ridiculous Talent “Fluid Form”, even on the PTR I argued it needs to be baseline like multiple skills prior to the introduction, example are Stampeding Roar and Incapacitating Roar, to use a Talent point for a class to function how it should baseline is ridiculous.
Are you looking at the new Talent Tree? That’s in Season 2? Because I think Ironfur placement is decent. I really have no issues with that. Improved Frenzied Regeneration is a solid Talent that’s used by all specs either for Frenzied Regen, Barkskin or both for the 20% extra Healing Received.
But I strongly agree with the Sunfire node placement.
I think the owlbeast form should just be baseline. I do like that they added more interesting abilities to the class tree - my issue before was that it was just so bland, with no real choices to make…
I like the idea of having druids choose an “affinity” with specializing in physical (cat) or magic (owlbeast), but the only difference is that Owl form requires you to take an entire node…That’s a bit much in my opinion…you don’t have to do that with Cat or Bear - and still reap the benefits like armor bonuses, speed, stealth, etc.
Make owlbeast form a standard and just use the tree to expand on the form, or improve it - like you do with Cat and bear.
The idea was to remove the need for others specs to have to path through completely useless abilities trying to reach defensives or utility and make resto choose between physical or magic damage instead of the dot juggling hybrid profile we’ve had since bfa.
Feral isnt wasting 2 points in magic damage to get its group utility in innervate or vigil anymore.
balance can get its bash/incap without 2 points in physical damage.
No one has to pick up a rejuv that heals for nothing to access cleanse or increased range now.
Every defensive can be reached by picking up our best defensive/self heal, frenzied regen.
Boomy had their solarbeam improvement moved out of the spec tree where it was competing with dps nodes and resto can reach and use skullbash for an interrupt without wasting points in thrash, iron fur or rip if theyre going magic damage focus.
Also we all got buffed up to 3 baseline talents now from 2 so the new stuff hasnt removed any of the previous baselines, ironfur is still the first thing bear will buy, they just get 20% bonus healing during frenzied and barkskin now as well, balance will still always have moonkin form and sunfire is still the first pick, theres just always an aoe component now. Feral just got thrash for free and restos the only healer with their full cleanse baseline again.
Overall its a pretty big improvement. It could still use some changes; make symbiotic useful to feral or balance, make the new lyraca’s not a shapeshift spamming mess, add fluid form to baseline, but it definitly acheived their stated goals of better pathing and no forced useless nodes.
Since the class has 4 specs and all three roles, there is always going to be an element of “useless” pathing (suboptimal is probably a better way to put it). Only real way to avoid that would be to make there be NO required pathing, just open node selection with investment requirement to move further down. Nodes should align with the form/spec with which they logically and thematically fit. E.g., Skull Bash (sorry to keep harping on it) should be on the feral/guardian side. Placing it in the middle of the entire tree so resto/balance can access it easier feels very forced. Likewise with cramming Moonkin back in.
I think this is something they will continue to struggle with unless there is a fundamental shift in gameplay, which is not going to happen. The nature and breadth of the class just does not fit well with the min/max single role focus, particular as relates to the now ridiculously cumbersome talent system/structure. Remember when they basically removed talents altogether (was that MOP?). The pendulum has now swung all the way over.
You do know for Balance Druids they don’t get Skull Bash as an option, it becomes “Light of the Sun” essentially Improved Solar Beam and Resto Druids do opt to use Skull Bash.
But I do agree Moonkin Form is ridiculous to be a talent option. Honestly I’m more frustrated Soothe/Cyclone is still forced to get to access the bottom of the middle tree, a very niche and situational skill depending on content, dungeon, and so on regardless if needed or not.
Useless was the correct word with the old talent tree, balance was never going to use 5/10% damage to thrash mangle and rip but had to path through insinct of the claw for incap/bash and WHI which was useful and near mandatory in all content.
Lore of the grove was slightly less offensive because lunar inspiration exsists, but if feral wasnt taking it they still had to pay 2 points to access innervate or vigil which are pretty major group utility.
Bears and feral having to take rejuv, which wasnt worth the gcd in for its heal and removed you from form when cast to reach cleanse, which could be cast in bear form and was a pretty major part of their group utility last season was useless.
The only thing thats close now is innervate blocking vigil for non-resto solo content (and i do think they should be switched) and the cyclone/soothe node on fights with no cc-able mobs but that was a problem on the previous tree.
And skullbash was moved to the middle because it combined with balance’s CDR on solar beam, its not going back to the feral/guardian side because a solar beam node wouldnt make sense there and theyre not splitting them because they dont want balance having access to 2 interrupts.
If you want to argue resto should have solar beam instead of skullbash go for it, but the shared node wouldnt move.
Skullbash is also now cheaper for bear to reach from a baseline node, going from a 3 point inevestment to a 2. Feral is also the same point buy just picking up 2 defensives now instead of 2/2 killer instinct.
There certainly are some talents that have additional pathing requirements a druid may have chosen not to take before to get to things they will, that’s true. But on the whole, I really don’t think there’s any leg to stand on that this is the case for more abilities in TWW than existed in DF for any druid spec.
In the case of Skull Bash, by having it be a terminating node, feral and guardian don’t need to pass through it for encounters that don’t need an interrupt (like many raid fights) in order to get Primal Fury. I’m curious where you would suggest Skull Bash should be placed that wouldn’t result in odd pathing for somebody when feral, guardian, and resto all want to get to it.
And in the case of Guardian, 11.1 gives all points required to path to Skull Bash except Improved Barkskin for free; it’s literally one talent point 100% of bears would have taken anyway before Skull Bash for guardian.
While I can understand the logic behind making a choice between physical or caster DPS (feral and guardian don’t really want to be using Sunfire and it felt clunky many times having to weave both balance and feral DPS as a resto druid), I do agree with your overall premise here. I don’t understand the harm in making moonkin form baseline at this point.
Outside of skull bash, do you have a single example of something that is less accessible in TWW than DF? Because as a feral druid, this take is completely out to lunch. I just looked up the last M+ build for feral from before 11.1 launched. There is not a single utility or defensive node that I had with the pre-11.1 build that I don’t have with the 11.1 build, but I gained Typhoon, Hibernate, Improved Stampeding Roar while also taking the returning 90 second Well-Honed Instincts.
I only have one completely useless talent point for pathing in 11.1 (Rejuvenation) compared to 3 from pre-11.1. And while the 2 points of Nurturing Instinct aren’t useless, those are points I would have preferred to give up pre-11.1 if I needed to take other utility pieces for a given encounter, but was hard locked into taking because of the aberration that was Rising Light, Falling Night.
My main problem with it is that it was made with restoration druid in mind and the other specs are kept to the side. The took base damage out of the other specs and made them talents to purely benefit resto, some of the new talents, symbiotic relationship are useless except to resto. In my opinion it could have been way better if they were just more creative and came up with some more original talents that benefit the other specs as well. Putting these baseline damage buffs into the tree just limits what we can pick as you have to pick basically talent any throughput node in the tree. Switching the places of skull bash talent with the cyclone soothe one i think is a good suggestion soothe and cyclone are niche talents that you only use it specific scenarios and having to talent it 100% of the time is annoying when their uses are limited.
I guess by the time you’re max level, it really doesn’t matter because you have plenty of points to get to everything you could want (given how the class currently plays - i.e., you’re silo’d into one of two “categories”, animal forms or humanoid forms). And I have to imagine they are going to have to do some major overhaul for the next expansion, because it seems they are already at the end of the road with the current system.
