As someone who has mained a druid for a very long time, one of the very greatest feelings the class gave me was when I could instantly mount into flight (or ground) form, pick herbs. Just a general feeling of freedom and speed. In fact the entire reason I even picked herbalism and inscription was because you could pick herbs in flight form.
Will the ability to fly in earlier parts of Dragonflight be limited to only dragon mounts? Because if the answer is yes then on top of all the other gripes people have about not being able to use mounts they paid IRL money for, I add druids will be slighted a mechanic they’ve enjoyed since literally Burning Crusade.
Removing borrowed power each expansion makes sense as much as I and others dislike it, but removing a mechanic a class has had for nearly 2 decades is (as much as this phrase is heavily over-used) a massive slap in the face to druids.
Ion already said it will be in one of his interviews, I forget which one. Druid will still have travel form and wild charge I would imagine, but that might be it.
And that right there is the problem and why it needed to be removed. Druids have had a wildly unfair advantage for years on the gathering angle of the game with their ability to hover, gather herbs and fly off. There is a reason almost all farmer bots are Druids. That ease of gathering.
It needs to be removed and should of never been a thing to start. Mounts that allowed it for other classes were and are a solid gold sink, but if dismounted you fight the mob. No if’s ands or buts. Unlike the rest of the classes in the game however, Druids didn’t ever need to dismount and could not be dazed into humanoid form. So they could just fly away.
Were they to be dropped from Flight Travel Form into Land Travel form when dazed, then it might be a worthwhile discussion to have. But as we both know they can’t be. So no, it’s right for Druids to have to deal with the same thing every other class in the game has to deal with while gathering materials.
Dragonriding will allow players who aren’t Druids to put in the same effort a Druid now must to get the same materials. This isn’t a slap in the face. It’s just a long, long overdue case of bringing the Druids back into line with all other classes. As it should be, and should of always been.
Guess we’re just gonna disagree then. Also I just learned that this will in fact not be removed, since normal traditional flying will become available later in the expansion, so druids will remain herb gods, just not for a little while at the beginning
Nah druids can live with using a mount to fly for a bit. I’ve missed my Zen Flight for years since they cut it down badly in MoP beta with druids worried about losing their class fantasy and since and turned into an all but useless ability to the point, I’m not even sure if we still have it anymore.
You think they’re gonna just disable normal traditional flying and prevent people from using hundreds of mounts, including mounts people paid money to get? You’re fooling yourself if you actually believe that.
Wouldn’t be outside of Blizzard’s purview, given the fact Ion was fully ready and willing to do just that during WoD and only rethought after the massive backlash they received.
I sincerely hope they think about Druids here because I would be very sad to lose flight form for an expansion.
I don’t out anything past them. And Wowhead says they talked to Blizz who confirmed no traditional flying this expansion. Ion made a vague comment about “at the start” for dragon riding, but it wasn’t expanded upon and there’s been no word since.
I’d like straightforward blunt confirmation before I make assumptions like “oh, they wouldn’t do that!”
Ion and other WoW devs have made it very clear that they don’t like flying as a game mechanic and only include it in WoW because of the overwhelming player backlash they would face if they attempted to put that genie back into that bottle. The only time I ever unsubbed was back when Ion and the devs talked about not allowing flying in Warlords of Draenor. When they backtracked, I re-subbed.
WoW is a game for which flying is a core mechanic, and if they are using dragonriding as a way to boil the frog, so to speak, then it’s just a matter of time before I transition all of my Blizzard gaming activity to the new Diablo games.
Don’t get me wrong. I respect your view, and understand it. I have a Druid also, but the primary reason I created it was expressly to Herb / Ore. So from my perspective friend, if that’s the main draw of the class for many it’s a matter worth considering.
Im not gonna stop playing my favorite class and the best class in the game of course, just annoyed about something that existed for 18 years they change only to add some gimmick flying system.
We can’t fly at the start of any expansion though. Our travel form is only a ground mount. As long as we can fly eventually then we will get our flight forms back.
Obviously you’re getting some disagreement from non-druid players who are mildly salty that druids have always had such top-tier mobility, but I don’t think we have too much to worry about. For me flight form is just icing on the cake for my feral druids, so it wouldn’t make the class worthless to me, but I think they’d have a hard time justifying removing a core piece of the classes identity.
IMO removing druid flight form would be akin to removing mage portals/teleports. They’re both core pieces to the classes identity that offer them unique and superior travel options to most other classes. What I would LOVE to see is if druids, or maybe just Zandalari troll, get dragon-flight forms while in the dragon isles. It would be cool, though it would probably detract from the new dracthyr.
P.S. I think it’s funny some people gripe so much about harvesting herbs in flight form when the sky golem is a thing and is a far superior gathering tool. It’s also one of the cheaper “expensive” mounts you can find on the AH in my experience.
