Doubt it, that wording is under many of the class changes
The only other class that has that present is Warrior, who also needs work.
Color me hopeful.
It is funny that wildstalker got nerfed. The underperforming resto hero tree…got nerfed. It’s just laughable at this point
I’m 99% sure druids don’t even have a class dev. Even without one, there’s been more than enough feedback in the last 2 years on how to unsuck the trees and specs. But here we are… sosdd.
1 Like
Well…I legit think every Alpha/Beta cycle the same thing this time seeing everyone else get changes/feedback - its more apparent than ever.
Blizz : Guardian? Never heard of them.
Blizz is telling those of us Bear enjoyers – to go play another Tank spec and we dont exist to them. Or go play Blizz’s favorite class - Mage.
I dont think we have any Devs. They need to just make a council of the Dreamgrove TC people for each spec and take their feedback and run with it – but that would require them to communicate and listen - which they arent doing now.
We ask for simple fixes and we offer suggestions/feedback, goes ignored.
At least after all that time they said -something- to Shaman and did something for them. To us? Naaaah. They’ll be surprised when no one plays and they wonder what happened. Then just shrug it off and go back to petting Mages on the head.
1 Like
Good changes, this is the tree with the better gameplay and theme for balance, so it should be tuned up to always be the good one.
If this is what you’re doing to Keeper, Why are Fury of Elune and trees 2 different buttons? Gameplay wise, with current design they do the exact same thing, except Fury is easier to use, interacts with the rest of your kit, and fits the theme of the spec way better.
I’ll pick this class back up in season 2, too many other healers have a change in gameplay for me to stick around with Drsgonflight - Remastered
I just wish they said something like; we hear your feedback were working on something
8 Likes
They are bad at that. Maybe they will like with shaman, maybe they won’t… I wouldn’t bet on communication.
If we get anything, it will likely just be a surprise.
1 Like
Druid Class Tree:
In three sections, top to bottom, the druid tree is:
-
Buy back your spec’s core abilities (rejuv, starfire, ironfur, etc) then buy some that you will never use because you need the pathing.
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Figure out if an encounter requires a specific utility and buy it if so. Otherwise, buy it anyway because you need the pathing. Then buy a bunch of strong-but-passive boosts, such as think hide and natural recovery, that you will never be aware of while playing the game. Balance druids: be sure to buy really exciting nodes like killer instincts or ironfur, so that you can get to your mobility node. Feral druids: be sure to use some of your limited points on magic nodes so that you can get renewal in order to RP a ret paladin once every 1.5 minutes.
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Figure out if you will need oakskin to live something and if incap roar or innervate will be required of you. If so, buy them. Otherwise, buy them anyway because what else are you going to spend your capstone points on?
Throughput Nodes
There are far too many tuning/throughput nodes. The truth of these nodes is they do nothing. If they didn’t exist and the class was too weak, it would get aura buffs; if the class picks up these nodes and is too strong, it will get aura nerfed.
They are filler nodes, but it’s okay to throw in a few and, especially for tanks and healers, give compelling choices between throughput and utility from time to time.
However, instincts of the claw and lore of the grove are the worst of the worst.
They:
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Are in the bottom tier, where nodes should feel interesting and impactful. End goals that you are excited to work toward
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Exclusively gate multiple useful (read: mandatory) talents, so there isn’t any choice involved in taking them
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Soak up two points instead of one (or four instead of two when taking both sides)
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Do nothing for some specs of the class. (And as from earlier, essentially do nothing even for the target specs of each.)
Solution:
Delete Instincts of the Claw and Lore of the Grove and replace with nodes that provide universal benefit. Ysera’s gift moving from the resto tree to lore of the grove’s location would be a great example. Ideally Killer Instinct and Nurturing Instinct go to 1 point nodes.
Useless Bloat
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Sunfire is an AoE spell, it shouldn’t take an extra point to make it that way
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Ironfur needs to just move baseline. It’s useless for three of the four specs and will never do anything other than get in the way
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Improved Rejuvenation is another spec-specific tax that exists only to soak up one point from one spec. Why doesn’t a node like this also increase the duration of rake, ironfur, and moonfire?
Lack of Exciting Capstones to Work Toward
It doesn’t feel like there is much in the way of fun or exciting nodes to work down the tree for. Instead of grabbing a fun button to press like convoke, we’re picking up things like innervate to throw on a healer. It’s not a bad button, but it’s not really fun for the feral druid who wasted a bunch of points to get it and then gets nothing out of it when it’s pressed.
The whole point of Heart of the Wild is to stop doing the thing that your role is supposed to do. Again, not a bad button, but if I am playing balance druid because I like shooting stars and lasers at things, it’s not really fun to stop doing that so I can spend a bunch of GCDs spamming heals.
Not saying all the nodes at the bottom are bad. There are plenty of strong nodes, there just aren’t any fun nodes.
Solution:
Spells along the lines of convoke in the class tree. Passives like oath of the elder druid that reward fluid decision making and utilizing different forms for moment to moment gameplay rather than a 5 minute CD forcing a different role on you. Make Nature’s Vigil a one minute CD if it is going to be relatively weak and stuck as a capstone.
Major Pathing Issues
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Mass Entangle/Ursol’s Vortex > Soothe and/or Cyclone > Stampeding Roar > Lycara’s Teachings is going to feel awful in many forms of content. Stampeding roar is an important button is basically all content. Lycara’s is a very important tuning node in all content. But they are both gated behind two points of utility that can often be completely useless.
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Instincts of the Claw and Lore of the Grove as described previously. Incapacitating roar, innervate, oakskin are all going to be very important nodes for all specs.
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Thick hide being stuck behind killer instincts or ironfur
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The top right corner still looks horrible for feral and the top left horrible for balance but both are necessary to move to critical nodes.
Final Thoughts
I’ve tried to break down some of the issues I’m seeing, but I think it all ultimately boils down to the class tree being generally devoid of fun or interesting nodes. Because it doesn’t have a lot of generally useful/fun nodes, we have to insert a bunch of filler and spec-limited nodes like ironfur. Because we have a lot of spec-limited nodes, trying to path to the generally important nodes always involves throwing away points that will do nothing. And because we pathed through a chunk of garbage to get to the bottom, we’d hope there are some fun payoffs and decisions between cool abilities, but the lack of such things make the whole tree feel that much worse.
This isn’t a situation that needs some minor tweaks or a mandatory throughput node (Rising light, falling night) jammed into it. The druid class tree needs, and has needed since DF beta, a fundamental rework. You can’t change spec mid boss or mid arena. There is no advantage to a four spec class. But the druid tree is proof that there are definitely downsides.
12 Likes
Therse arent changes though. These are tuning.
Buffing sh*t wont turn it into gold.
The AP generation, and interaction between talents & hero talents is not working.
Dumping more AP outside eclipses than during eclipses.
Ramp is so long that Umbral Embrace procs and is gonne before you get to use it.
What do they do?..they buff convoke, that ability that puts you into afk mode and does random sh’t. (and its also the only capstone ability in game that can be completely negated in pvp by intercept )
3 Likes
Dear Devs,
We feel very ignored on this thread. We are seeing balancing as if things are in a go-ahead state despite several posts stating otherwise. Whats going on? Can we get a response?
Sincerely,
Druids
14 Likes
By all means, they should keep buffing the tree with Lunation and Elune’s Grace, that also doesn’t force you to take a spell that should have been pruned in Legion and never returned.
Not even mad anymore. Just disappointed.
5 Likes
While I agree your edit is definitely better than the blizzard class trees. It still suffers from some of the same issues as the Blizz ones. Specifically dead-end nodes and spec specific nodes. Also, honestly the spells from affinities should just be baseline. But well, it would be a huge step up. Plus they have professional game designers that they pay for this stuff. So the fact that yours is better at all, says something.
1 Like
The class design team is just god damn unprofessional, it’s as simply as that.
There’s no other explanation as to why guardian should be ignored for two full alpha/beta cycles.
2 Likes
I did it in mind with various pathways, although.
The affinities are definitely something I believe needs to be implemented or they could just dump the abilities into the spellbook baseline.
I’m confused about what deadends are present to help me make a modified one.
I wouldn’t mind spending more time on it I would love as much attention on it so that hopefully a dev will see it and take some ideas from it.
Hi devs, after inspired by Åurõra’s post in earlier days (and many other posts in this thread as well), I would like to propose my design of class tree following the philosphy of other classes that had redesigned during DF expansion.
Here is the preview of the tree and its connectivity:
drive.google.c om/file/d/1xsNWCnoZKzuyvy6Z9t7CSRPLUl4ZqI89/preview
(Sorry I cannot post link)
This class tree structure has 44 buttons with 48 total skill points (1 point be default to each spec). As comparison, paladin class tree has 44 buttons with 51 skill points; mage has 44 buttons with 53 skill points.
The overall concepts of this class tree follows what dev said: 4 trails each represents a spec. Additionally, this tree has three major changes:
- Increased horizonal connectivities.
- Reduce talent points that completely useless for certain specs.
- Improved the power of deep/capstone talents.
Here are details of all talents, note there will be a “*” mark for anything significant different than current talents.
Row 1
Affinity points. Moonkin form becomes baseline. Default available for corresponding spec.
Feral Affinity *
Gives Rake, Rip and Maim.
Guardian Affinity *
Grants Ironfur and Frenzied Regeneration.
Restoration Affinity *
Grants Rejuvernation, Swift Mend and Wild Growth.
Balance Affinity *
Grants Starfire, Sunfire and Starsurge.
Row 2
Feline Swiftness
Increases your movement speed by 15%.
Thrash
Grants Thrash.
Also improves the damage of swipe by 100%.
Improved Barkskin / Oakskin *
Improved Barskin:
Barkskin now have 2 charges.
Survival instinct’s cooldown reduced by 30 sec.
Oakskin
Survival Instinct and Barkskin reduce damage by additional 10%.
Barkskin’s duration increased by 4 sec.
Remove Corruption
Dispell (grant dispellability for healers) poison and curse.
Hibernate
Same as current.
Row 3
Stampeding Roar: Bear / Stampeding Roar: Cat *
Same as current effects, but choice point of which form to shapeshift into.
Verdant Heart
Same as current.
Ysera's Gift *
Same as current. Taken from restoration tree. In exchange, may be put improved rejuvernation into restro spec tree.
Also can consider make another Ysera’s Gift talent in spec tree, and if this talent is selected, improve effects.
Typhoon
Same as current.
Row 4
Tireless Pursuit / Tiger Dash *
Choice point. Both talents same as current.
Improved Stampeding Roar
Same as current.
Skull Bash
Same as current.
Renewal
Same as current.
Nature's Vigil
Unworthy as capstone. Now at row 4.
Priest has vampiric embrace w/ 40% effect, at row 5. So maybe increase the effect of this spell a little bit as well.
Gale Winds / Incessant Tempest
Choice point to improve typhoon. Same as current.
Cyclone
Same as current.
Row 5 - Second section
Soothe
Same as current.
Thick Hide
2 points to reduce all damage taken by 3%/6%.
Natural Recovery
2 points to increase healing done and healing taken by 2%/4%.
Mass Entanglement / Ursol's Vortex
Same as current.
Row 6
Incapacitating Roar / Mighty Bash
Same as current.
Wild Charge
Same as current.
Rising Light
Same as current.
Row 7
Primal Fury
Same as current.
Ursine Vigor *
Stamina and armor increased by 10%.
For 4 sec after shifting into Bear Form, your health and armor are increased by additional 10%.
Fluid Form
Basically same as what in beta testing. Added skull bash to auto shift into bear form.
Forestwalk
Casting Regrowth increases your movement speed and healing received by 5% for 6 sec.
Astral Influence
Increases the range of all of your ranged abilities by 5 yards.
Row 8 - Third Section
This section has signifance changes to most talents.
Instincts of the Claw *
Critical strike and versertility increased by 1%/2%.
Physical damage increased by 3%/6%.
Lycara's Teachings
You gain 3%/6% of a stat while in each form:
No Form: Haste
Cat Form: Critical Strike
Bear Form: Versatility
Moonkin Form: Mastery
Lore of the Grove *
Haste and Mastery increated by 1%/2%.
Magical damage and healing increased by 3%/6%.
Row 9
Protector of the Pack * (Redesigned)
A strong roar that reduces the damage taken of and healing received by all party and raid member by 5% for 8 secs.
Effects increased by 100% while not in a raid group.
Well-Honed Instincts
When you fall below 40% health, you cast Frenzied Regeneration, up to once every 240 sec.
Innervate
Infuse a friendly healer with energy, allowing them to cast spells without spending mana for 8 sec.[Natural Wisdom: If cast on somebody else, you gain the effect at 50% effectiveness]
Convoke the Spirits (Moved from spec trees)
Call upon the spirits for an eruption of energy, channeling a rapid flurry of 16 Druid spells and abilities over 4 sec.[Ashamane’s Guidance: Chance to use an exceptional spell or ability is increased]
Row 10
Sorry for the bad naming for talents '_>`
Protector Heart *
Casting protector of the pack also increase your damage and healing by 20% for 8 sec.
Alpha heart *
Consuming every 5 combo points, 50 rages, 50 astral power, 10% of base mana and each stack of omen of clarity will reduce the cooldown of Protector of the Pack, Well-Honed Instincts and Survival Instincts by 1 sec.
Heart of the Wild * (Redesigned)
Improve your shapeshift forms for 15 seconds. 2 mins cooldown.
Cat form:
Gain 1 combo points every 2 seconds.
Bear form:
Increase 20% stamina and armor.
Moonkin form:
Cast time of balance spells decreased by 30% and damage increased by 20%.
Restoration form:
Your healing over time effects tick 25% faster.
Stellar Drift *
Cast innervate, incarnation and after casting convoke the spirits grants you ability to cast while moving for 12 seconds.
Improved Convoke
Convoke the Spirits’ cooldown is reduced by 50% and its duration and number of spells cast is reduced by 25%. Convoke the Spirits has an increased chance to use an exceptional spell or ability.
6 Likes
Can we trade our devs with some of the ones working on season of discovery? I constantly see them pumping out updates to that subset of this game. Maybe then our class wont hit launch as a dumpster fire
4 Likes
On your tree Feline Swiftness, Improved Swipe, Gale Winds, Innervate, Starlight Conduit, Tigers Dash and Rising Light all seem to be dead ends. The way Cyclone and Forest Walk gatekeep good talents I don’t like. Not sure what Improved Swipe does, but might want it on Feral and being behind Guardian aff isn’t great. Looks like all of the affinities might lock some good passives. (Though Balance aff, might just become the “typhoon” talent for guardian and feral) Killer Instinct locking Skull Bash and by extension Tiger’s Dash, isn’t great.
I think they just need to do the latter. Core rotational abilities don’t belong the in the class tree. Barely any other class has them at all.
It seems you’re class tree is mostly a reshuffle, and as a reshuffle I guess it’s fine, maybe even good with the limitation of what the talents are. But I still don’t think it would make a good class tree compared to other classes.
1 Like