Going into Shadowlands, there’s a few instances of Druids having two different abilities with the same name. In one case, the interactions of the two are even similar. These duplicate occurrences need to be revised for clarity:
- Druids as a whole are receiving Heart of the Wild as a talented ability in Shadowlands. However, Feral Druids still have Heart of the Wild as a PvP talent. The obvious change here is to rename the PvP talent since the iconic class ability should remain the same.
- Resto Druids are also receiving a new talent in Shadowlands called Nourish. Yet, if you were to check their PvP talents available on Beta, they simultaneously have the Nourish that’s currently live on BFA. These two function almost identically as a slower, strong heal. I can’t imagine it’s intended that these two can be picked alongside each other. Since Blizzard wants Nourish to be usable in PvE, the PvP talent Nourish should just be removed.
- Lastly, this one has been an issue since Legion. Resto Druid’s mass resurrection ability, Revitalize, is the exact same name as their PvP talent, Revitalize. The two have completely different functions, so it’s confusing why they aren’t given unique names. I’d vouch for renaming the PvP talent to something different, as I’m sure more people are familiar with it as a mass resurrection.
(Side note: I’d link the ability pages from wowhead if was able to.)
I realize that beta testing is still ongoing, but I thought I’d bring these issues up. Blizzard has recently removed the crowd control options from the PvP talent pane in Beta (Gladiator’s Medallion, Relentless, and Adaptation), so they are certainly making adjustments in this area. However, there seems to be some neglect when considering the addition of new abilities alongside some PvP talents (and vice-versa).
Now, you may be wondering why I care about something so trivial, or why this matters at all. Well, both new and veteran players will likely find these overlaps confusing. Additionally, it demonstrates a bit of laziness from Blizzard with regards to setting up unique abilities or passives. It’s a bit strange when three spells in the Druid’s class kit have doppelgangers. There should be clarity when looking at what your class has. I’m hoping that this post might catch Blizzard’s eye so that every ability can have its own unique name.