For most classes, there are 3 combinations of selecting 2 talent specs out of 3 total choices. Making 3 hero talent tracks provides perfect overlap.
With Druid, there are 6 combinations of selecting 2 specs out of 4 total. Making only 4 hero talent tracks would “leave out” 2 possible combinations (likely Guardian Resto & Feral Balance).
I am playing with the thought of whether this is extra design space for two future Druid hero tracks to fill the gap, or if it makes more sense to try and let up to 3 specs access any one Druid hero track (making 4 possible combinations of 3 specs of 4 total choices)?
Is it too late to see a Nightmare tree available for Guardian, Feral, and Balance?
(I am interested to know how Wildshaper and Druid of the Claw will differ, since they sound like the exact same thing.)
It’s Wildstalker, which are cats that prowl stalking their prey waiting to pounce and claw their target.
Druids of the claw are bear druids, but were loosely also cat druids until blizzard made an offical order for cat druids called “Ashen” dedicated to cat druids who revere Ashamane.
The only connection of hero talents to specs are Guardian druids having “Druids of the claw” and “Elunes chosen” since as guardian you have a talent row dedicated for a elune moonfire build.
The outline for Druid now is Grove will be Resto Balance and Elune will be Balance Guardian.
If we assume Wildstalker is Feral Resto (kitty weavers, mostly) and Claw is Feral Guardian, that would mean there will be no hero representation of Feral Balance or Resto Guardian.
The “triangle” graph becomes a square with missing diagonals, but only for Druid. It seems to be a design gap which dissociates these specs, despite talents like Brambles and DoC for Guardian (Resto flavor) and Lunar Inspiration for Feral (Balance flavor).
Considering the druid class talent tree is still in beta, I assume the lowest amounts of resources or least qualified dev is working on the druid class.
At blizzcon when talking about hero specs Ion said Druids are usually first because of having 4 specs making them more difficult.
Every spec in the game is only going to get 2 hero spec choices. That just seems to be the approach they’re taking, probably just to lessen the balance load/game design. So ya, it will be a square diagram with no diagonal lines.
Guardian: Druid of the Claw & Elune’s Chosen
Feral: Druid of the Claw & Wildstalker
Restoration: Keeper of the Grove & Wildstalker
Balance: Keeper of the Grove & Elune’s Chosen
I’d bet money it’ll be the hots/dots focused tree since overtime affects is what resto and feral have in common; a more traditional alternative to the grove wardens treant focused build we’re getting a taste of with the current tier set for resto.
And kitty is the best way for resto to dps in keys so there’s overlap there too.
The spells they showed also had completely different affects based on the spec even if they’re the same ability in the tree, like buffing lunarbeam for bear but fury of elune for boomkin in the elune’s chosen tree they showed, so they just need to share a theme not really spells.
Brambles, After the Wildfire, Dream of Cenarius are great examples of Restoration and Guardian synergies that likely won’t be explored in Worldsold Series.
I honestly would like them not to lock the “Hero Talents” behind specializations. There are already several talents done that way in current talent trees. Allow the player to select the “Hero Talent” tree that they want to utilize.
In my head I was thinking that guardian/resto has synergy due to a focus on survivability. I’m not sure why I wrote there is no synergy there. Maybe I was thinking in terms of them needing different stats.
In strict combinations, allowing 3 (out of the 4) specializations to pick any hero talent tree allows for 4 total combinations (equal talents to hero talents). It also would pull the class toward a single unified class, by hero talents being “anti-specialization” features, i.e., what spec is left out.
I suppose thats what’s they’re trying, but Druid is getting more cut than the others. And truthfully, the heart of my issue is this:
Ever since Wrath invented Eclipse (and it sucked) and it continued to get reinvented (and sucked), I’ve wanted damage caster Druid to feel closer to Nightmare Druid, a combination of Rot and Drust. Balance being kept between Dream and Nightmare, with the Nightsky dividing them.
Every spec isn’t going to connect to every other spec, each spec is a node that exists in relation to its 2 closest. Look at DH. They’ll have 2 hero specs with only 2 specs, in your model, they’d only have one.
What’s the 2 closest to guardian? Feral to me is obviously a clear choice for one connection. But then is it Resto or Balance. I’d said Resto is since its more about protecting your group.
Which is a good demonstration of doing more work when it suits them, because they’ve effectively created a redundancy.
Unless they’re poorly coding the system (completely likely), it’s no extra work to extend diagonals (3 specs per hero). Yet here, DH demonstrates that 2 hero specs are missing–FB and GR.
Personally, I’m tired of paying premium quality prices for minimum viable products.
