In this thread, please discuss ongoing changes to the Druid class in the Guardians of the Dream PTR.
Balance
In Guardians of the Dream, we’d like to diversify Balance’s talent builds in different content and provide more viable options.
Wild Mushrooms was too expensive to compete with other talent options, so we combined it and Fungal Growth into a single point. Wild Mushrooms is now a choice node with a revised Orbital Strike that is no longer tied to Celestial Alignment – you can choose the steady damage of Wild Mushrooms or a less frequent, big burst of damage with Orbital Strike.
We also removed the conflict between maintaining Rattle the Stars and maximizing Starlord – we like the “save resources and spend during Eclipse” gameplay of Balance and feel Starlord epitomizes it better.
Damage of all abilities increased by 2%.
Nature’s Grace now grants 10% Haste (was 15%).
Power of Goldrinn damage increased by 20%. Moved to where Starlord was located in Fractures in Time.
Starlord has moved to where Power of Goldrinn was located in Fractures in Time.
Rattle the Stars has been redesigned – It is no longer a buff that stacks when you cast Starsurge or Starfall and is now a passive bonus that always reduces the cost of Starsurge and Starfall by 10% and increases their damage by 12%.
Orbital Strike has been redesigned – Call down a bombardment of celestial energy over the target area, blasting all enemies for Astral damage and applying Stellar Flare to them for 16 seconds. Generates 30 Astral Power. Orbital Strike still hits enemies in a 40 yard line and has a 90 second cooldown. Now a choice node with Wild Mushroom.
Fungal Growth has been removed. Wild Mushrooms now includes the effects of Fungal Growth.
Wild Mushrooms’ damage has been reduced by 20% and the Fungal Growth damage over time has been reduced to 60% of Wild Mushroom damage (was 70%). Fungal Growth’s damage over time now deals damage over 10 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Feral
Apex Predator’s value varies a lot in single target and AOE, so we’re evening that out a little.
We’re trying a new version of Ashamane’s Guidance, as we don’t love the randomness of the current version with the updated Berserk design – it’s hard to optimize its damage and resource generation without using external tracking mods. The new version will have more consistent value and rewards you for maintaining your most important bleeds.
Apex Predator’s chance to trigger is increased against a low number of targets and decreased against a high number of targets. Its chance to trigger is about the same as before against 4 targets.
Cat’s Curiosity has been replaced with a new talent: Saber Jaws – When you spend extra Energy on Ferocious Bite, the extra damage is increased by 40%/80%.
Ashamane’s Guidance’s effect for Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane has been redesigned – During Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane and for 30 seconds after it ends, your Rip and Rake each cause affected enemies to take 3% increased damage from your abilities.
Restoration
Cenarius’ Guidance’s Incarnation: Tree of Life functionality has been redesigned – During Incarnation: Tree of Life, you summon a Grove Guardian every 10 seconds. The cooldown of Incarnation: Tree of Life is reduced by 5 seconds when Grove Guardians fade.
Incarnation: Tree of Life now additionally empowers Wrath, causing it to deal 20% more damage and be instant cast.
Reforestation now grants Incarnation: Tree of Life for 10 seconds (was 9 seconds).
New Talent: Liveliness – Your damage over time effects deal their damage 25% faster, and your healing over time effects heal 5% faster.
Circle of Life and Death has been removed.
Grove Tending healing increased by 30%.
Grove Guardian’s Nourish healing decreased by 16%.
Grove Guardian’s Swiftmend healing reduced by 20%.
Grove Guardian’s Wild Growth healing from Wild Synthesis reduced by 20%.
Luxuriant Soil now causes Rejuvenation to have a 1%/2% chance to jump to a nearby ally (was 1.5%/3%).
Regrowth initial healing increased by 20%.
Regrowth heal over time effect increased by 42%.
Rejuvenation healing increased by 25%.
Wild Growth healing increased by 15%.
Wrath and Starfire damage increased by 90%.
Abundance caps at 12 stacks, for a maximum of 60% crit/cost reduction.
Cenarion Ward healing increased by 25%.
Swiftmend healing increased by 30%.
Inner Peace now reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 30 seconds (was 60 seconds).
Spring Blossoms healing reduced by 25%.
Sunfire now costs 1.8% base mana (was 2.4%).
Embrace of the Dream healing reduced by 30%.
Flourish now extends the duration of all your heal over time effects on friendly targets within 60 yards by 6 seconds (was 8 seconds), and increases the rate of your heal over time effects by 25% (was 100%) for 6 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Flourish procs from Convoke the Spirits now extends heal over time effects by 3 seconds (was 4 seconds) and lasts 3 seconds (was 4 seconds).
Developers’ note: We are reducing the effectiveness of Flourish and increasing the power of rotational heal over time spells with the goal of moving more power into the baseline kit.
Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible (2) Set Bonus – Now increases the healing of Regrowth’s periodic heal by 35% (was 50%).
Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible (4) Set Bonus – Now increases the rate of your heal over time effects by 26% (was 30%).
I guess we will see what the PTR shows, but I have never been this down on resto druid and healing in general. I’ve been playing a resto druid since Wrath, and I am truly baffled by what you guys are going for at this point. I get targeted nerfs, but this is the absolute decimation of the spec.
I really don’t know why the whole play style had to be thrown in the garbage.
And FINALLY this tier, mana wasn’t a big issue, and you guys are just making it be awful again. Managing mana is not fun, it’s never been fun, and it will never be fun.
Can we please address the issues with the class tree?
issues (in my opinion):
-decurse 3 point investment
-cyclone too inaccessible for feral/guardian (make cyclone a choice node with soothe)
-lycara’s 3 points
-ironfur is a useless but mandatory point for non guardians to get thick hide
-forced to pick up starfire/sunfire/moonkin form for astral influence. I don’t mind talents being in front of AI but at least make it not be 0 value talents
-forestwalk kinda useless and expensive
-protector of the pack super underwhelming, takes too long to ramp unless its during huge aoe
-matted fur needs a buff
-well honed should be 1 point for 90 sec ICD
-heart of the wild cd too long, bring back oath as a choice node with it?
Technically Guardian is getting nerfed due to the new tier set bonuses aren’t nearly as good as the Aberrus tier bonuses. (Rage of the Sleeper is good, but not that good)
PLEASE DO NOT PUT MUSHROOMS ON A CHOICE NODE WITH ORBITAL STRIKE. I mostly PvP but with a 20% nerf to mushrooms this will make them a dead talent for me. Already in arena mushrooms are rarely chosen while orbital strike is widely used. Nerfing mushrooms and making it a choice against orbital strike will make sure that nobody uses mushrooms in arena. Orbital Strike and Mushrooms are the 2 amazingly cool new attacks that boomys got this expansion. I love playing with both of them. They are both staples of my build that I never give up. Please do not make them a choice node. I dont even really care if they get nerfed but please dont take one of these off of my action bar ):
From a gameplay perspective in PvP I will either loose the burst and dispel protection of orbital strike or lose the slow from mushrooms. Either way it feels like I’m losing a core part of my kit. Orbital strike feels satisfying to aim and fire and mushrooms feel good to slow people. They are also both very cool and fun abilities that add flavor to the spec, so much so that they made my swap my main to balance druid this expansion. Please do anything but this. PLEASE.
I didn’t see any changes to the Class tree, which definitely still needs some improvements. Here is my quick and dirty idea for better connections and flow through the tree, just working with what is already there, no new talents.
Key points:
Easier access to dispel without requiring 3 points. This could even be moved up one more row and just be a point by itself with no prerequisites.
Much easier access to Skull Bash, without requiring 5 POINTS to get to it that you may not even be interested in using.
More flow options all around to skip some points that might be completely wasted just to get to required things, like not requiring Moonkin Form to get Typhoon as Feral/Guardian.
Can you not just absolutely gut flourish. I get you want to tone down cooldown useage but that is a ridiculous change for a spells that remained pretty Constant for over half a decade now.
Unless raids are getting reworked along with these roll out healer cooldown nerfs to not need big bursts of healing the next tier is going to feel like utter garbage to heal, which is a shame since season the 2 raid was the one thing that actually felt good to heal.
lower it to 50% so it at least still feels like a decent cooldown.
Agreed on Flourish. Yes, it’s a powerful cooldown, but it also requires a ton of setup to MAKE it powerful. It’s not just hit one button and win. The hit to 25% is massive and probably rather unjustified.
yeah i agree that this looks like overkill on flourish, at first glance.
I have been experimenting with classic resto druid for a bit recently…so i really like the direction with rejuv & regrowth…hoping the idea is that the next season feels less “spammy”
I love treants, but the wild synthesis talent node feels really “empty” and not very impactful…i’m hoping they’ll add more to it, maybe a dps component or something…
Will we ever get an innervate that recovers resources for other classes? I feel like resto druid utility has fallen off a bit.
As a resto druid main, my favorite part of the spec was ramping and the cds. These changes completely remove both of those things. Plenty of other specs are good at single target healing, why does resto druid have to do the same thing? My favorite part was having to plan ramps in advance. This would just degrade the spec to mindless spell spamming! Not a fan at all.
Legendary should have been a branch of the new tree for druids, especially bear/cat.
Bear tier bonus feels super weak. We are losing 15% rage gain, 15-20% damage on nearly all our main spells, 15% max health, and gaining a mediocre bubble after 5sec more of RotS.
This might be the single biggest nerf Bear has ever taken. This combined with the smack in our face of the legendary… wow… I’ve never felt like playing a patch less.
Yeah, I honestly can’t believe that we’re going to have a patch set in the Emerald Dream and make the legendary weapon an 2H axe.
There are now three flavors of this game–retail, Wrath Classic, and Classic Era–and all three of them will have a current content 2H strength legendary. Wild decision.
As a long-time Druid main, I feel like this patch is absolutely crushing everything I like about the class and spec, and at a time that should have been an opportunity for druids to shine given the theme of the patch. If this doesn’t get rolled WAY back, I think I’m going to take a pass on 10.2.
Honestly, reading the patch notes has really brought me down on the whole game. It feels worse than 9.1 did. I’m so disappointed.
having tested if further, yah flourish doesn’t feel like a cooldown anymore. It was the completion of a long planned ramp, the reward for playing well and spreading/layering your hots.
Now its just there; the duration increase is still nice but its worse then our original stand alone artifact power, the 25% faster hots just feels like cycle, a previously passive talent, tied to an underwhelming cooldown now. I’d take moving flourish to a 2 minute cooldown and keeping it at like 75% or 50% at current duration since thats at least greater then the tier bonus we already had if it really has to be nerfed but it just feels useless now and its absence kills the ramp playstyle.
Druids are going to get some attention like this, Lycara is going to be reduced to a 2 talent right? The minor dps talents are going to be reduced to allow for more utility, right? Ferals and Guardians are not going to need to take 5 useless talents in their class tree just to get their class kit, right?
