A ranged silence would be great and a welcome addition. I really don’t care if we have Moonfire or Faerie Fire, they ended up being the same, functionally.
“Moonlit Mumbles” - Your next Moonfire silences its target. 30 second cooldown.
And how long ago was the Legion pre-patch? I was speaking literally, not proportionally.
Yeah, a DoT versus a damage boost for every auto-attack and Physical Ability on the target are readily comparable.
Why can’t Affinity allow for casting those specified spells in Bear form but they could consume Rage instead of Mana. They couldn’t be too expensive since we wouldn’t be generating much Rage while casting them, but there would be a cost. In exchange for consuming Rage, the spells would have to be strong (maybe based on our primary resource). Then you’d have the choice of consuming Rage for a strong Wild Growth or Rejuv in lieu of spending it on Ironfur. Or a strong Starsurge at the pesky ranged enemy across the room. Power would be a percentage of our Attack Power instead of Spell Power. Just spitballing some quick thoughts here.
Because they don’t care 
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Whoa, this topic is still around? … Oh wait, nevermind - just confirmed Guardian is still boring. Guardian, Feral, Balance, and even to some degree Restoration are going to somehow feel wrong because there’s no consensus on “Druid”.
Here’s my thinking…
- Druid means shapeshifter.
- Druid means nature.
- Druid means weather.
(Furiously erases…) - Druid means … space… laser??
… The confusion on what cosmological force motivates the mysticism behind druid has done something to create a tension in the fantasy. Prior to October 2005 (1.8, Vanilla), the “balance” force of druid came from the power of the storm and it was cosmologically akin to the shaman. In patch 1.8 though, you see the first fracture - Moonkin Form. While today, there’s plenty of lore, some invented and some tangential, to justify and there are several who tenaciously defend the form’s existence, it still seems to have created a fundamental misalignment for a segment of the class fantasy.
Today, assuming Moonkin Form never came to be and we still see a similar celestial spell kit for balance, the identity of the “destructive force” of druid clearly rests “above” nature. You see connections with the titans and arcane magic, almost as if balance could never fit within a pure planetary Druid fantasy and balance itself lives as its own class - the druid orange only exists for practical purpose.
This tension between order and life invokes a question something like What did I even mean before when I said “Druid means nature”? Surely, in the idea of nature there is a cosmological chaos - a wilderness and a strangeness. A forceful disordering that brings terror, awe, and wonder. With that, structure from the titans is embedded into the idea of World of Warcraft’s Life cosmology (kind of, but not perfectly - the Emerald Dream a good example of the strangeness). Cosmologically then, does all life intend to live forever? Is death from a planar life not a component of this greater order? Thinking on the Spirit element defining Life, and the Spirit “living” beyond the World, could that convey a “Life Beyond”? But Life, in the Druid sense, seems to only capitulate a definition of Life Eternal - one of Restoration. This, I believe, is the greatest flaw of Druid design. The idea that Druid Magic, except with some recent and beautiful work in Drustvar, hints only at this one piece of Life - Restoration.
Rambles on for five more minutes, blaming all the problems that exist on the lack of singular thematic focus.
Don’t get me wrong, when the druid community (we) invented the ideas of “hybrid” and “parent class” and demanded to let bears be Warriors and cats be Rogues, we spun off an entire design philosophy. Specializations, as a system, would not exist if it wasn’t for the well-deserved focus that was placed onto the philosophical underpinnings of this class.
My current wishlist (changes daily - just not here):
- Balance moved to a separate class
- Druid death magic
e.g. Insect Swarm and Drustvar Witch tree-grown-through-goblin - All druid magic incorporated into shapeshifts (“Unify The Class”)
- Forms exclusive to shapeshifting specializations
(or with the proper affinity)
’
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I remember getting Moonfired by a Night Elf while talking to the bear spirit for that quest. I remember Moonfiring back. This was on launch day. The first space laser was there long before the chicken known for the space laser. I can’t say if Starfire (the heavier space laser) was there equally as long, as I bounced between servers and characters a lot in those days, so I couldn’t tell you when it was implemented, though Gamepedia notes it mentioned Patch 0.7 (about June before launch) that it was being adjusted.
That having been said, I can’t disagree. Let the priests and spirit walkers have the lasers.
Um, no. Keep it as Balance, but change the art and names to reflect it’s properly named nature, and maybe a slight change in affects. The Scythe of Elune will be an interesting factor involved here, though.
Balance was used to indicate the balance between the need to take life to prolong life. While it shouldn’t be “death magic” per se (that is the field of Death Knights and Necromancer), it should represent how death is used to progress life. Weather-styled affects should be used in this as well.
To progress on this theme, concepts like Insect Swarm replacing Moonfire is good, but allow it to provide opportunities to strengthen ourselves and allies near those struck would enhance that idea. A Talent Row which would provide certain benefits on the kill could be interesting, like Mass Entanglement, Effloresence, or AoE Faerie Fire options being cast around those who die under the affect of Insect Swarm as an example.
No. All strong druid magic should be incorporated in to shapeshifts, but leave the regular form some basic abilities, like Moonfire/Insect Swarm, Regrowth, Rejuvenate, and such.
Again, no. Just because every other class decided to go whole hog in to narrow-focused specializations doesn’t mean we should. Druids are the last of the hybrid classes, and that should not be let go.
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I have been thinking a bit more about HotW and the interaction with Affinities. Those abilities could have differentiated a bit better across all druid specs. Guardian affinity is about defense, Resto is about healing (remove Ursols), Feral can be about damage (so remove Maim)
- Why not have balance about control and procs (remove all damage abilities, add Solar beam, potentially magic resist, and a proc chance (low) for your c/ds to be reset). Then the HoTW interaction for Balance could be (resets all c/ds (or adds charges as the case may be).
Obviously, for this to work boomkins would naturally need a % change for their c/ds to rest and a base magic resist.
Never gonna happen - but i did think it would at least mean all each Affinity/HotW combination would have an interesting and useful niche.
We fundamentally disagree here. Can you explain why you feel it’s a hybrid over another, say Paladin or Monk?
Currently with Restoration Affinity, we have more healing options than non-Healing Spec Paladins and Monks.
With Guardian Affinity, we have off-tank options than non-tanking Paladins and Monks have.
With Feral and Balance Affinities, we can alter how we do damage if we’re not in the middle of healing or tanking.
Those options just aren’t available to Monks and Paladins like they were (in Paladins case) or really have ever been (in the Monk’s case). For them, their hybrid-ness is in their spec options, not within the class itself like Druids can do and have always done (though less since MoP than before, and worse since Legion).
In a PVE context Guardians are locked to a role in the vast majority of cases, they usually just cant shift out of bear to access the hybrid toolkit or they get trucked.
Granted heals and dps can shift freely but as far as I am aware encounters are never designed to make this a desirable strategy.
Not necessarily. In teamed PvE content, yes, shifting out is discouraged for anything besides movement. However, not all PvE content involves that exclusively.
And while it is a Bad Idea to shift out to accomplish these things while tanking for a group, the fact that Druids are available TO DO them is what makes the capacity to be hybrids.
And the general consensus of this threat is that it is boring to play guardian for this reason, they are simple and lack the opportunity to make use of their hybrid-ness.
The abilities are in the toolkit, the opportunity to use them is the problem, maybe an innate ability for bears to maintain the bonuses of bear form for ~5-10 seconds might add some spice… maybe there are a lot of things they could do… blizz just dont seem willing to give it much thought/consideration “meh whatever” is how it feels.
PS: and this is coming from some one whose 4th alt is a bear, its not even my main.
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It’s actually not THAT different. Your mana bar is just about enough to maybe top yourself off, that’s it. Same with paladin/monk spamming their heal until their out of mana. In a PvP setting, the only setting where you’d be able to pop out of bear form to drop a heal, the GCD cost is almost not even worth it, it certainly won’t be worth it when swiftmend requires two GCDs to do anything.
I’m sorry, but neither balance or feral give enough toolkit to make any sense to pop out of bear form to use. The only time you’d even be able to pop out to use them, are in situations with two tanks (raid settings), MAYBE PvP. Either way, two GCDs to do the swap back and forth, maybe 3-4 combo points worth of stuff before you ferocious bite for some trivial amount of damage. All while risking a situation where you need to take the boss back early. That’s even on a simple tank swap fight, it makes even less sense on a fight where the off-tank has to do something else.
Are you arguing that because the druid class gets theoretical hybrid abilities, they should be punished by having the weakest tanking spec?
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Again, capacity exists, even if opportunity is not as prevalent as desired.
And my oldest character is a Tauren named Greybear.
Aoe heal says, “hi”.
Again, it is still possible in a PvE environment, just not a PARTY environment.
Hardly. I’ve used Cat form in Guardian spec when I’m soloing when I wanted to keep my damage to single-target and still be effective. I’ve used Moonkin form in Feral spec recently because I was out of range and wasn’t likely to get back in to clawing range soon enough to stop.
Druids being able to Stealth allow them to provide full support to groups that can fully Stealth around content instead of bulldozing through. Admittedly, that doesn’t come up very often because those groups could only have Rogues and Druids.
If you think that, you have ignored what I’ve stated in this thread. I’ve been saying that to help make things interesting, Druids should have access to their actual tools (they aren’t theoretical, just locked by desirability) in ways that they haven’t been able to. In fact, that is how this particular statement came about.
For example, allowing Guardians to cast Wild Growth with Restoration Affinity while in Bear form could helpful (so long as its strength was adjusted properly), or being able to cast Starfall for a larger AoE taunt than any tank currently has with Balance Affinity.
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I can fix HOTW for Guardians. Give a Bear Tranquility to pop during Boss Intermissions or Tank Swap in raids. Boom back to King of the Hybrids. Tranquility with the + Int Weapon Swap Macro was some of the best utility that we ever had.
Too bad that is just a band-aid on a broken arm.
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To all the many posters here debating Leishaan, I’ll give you a tip from the big Feral thread; he’s admitted he only does world content, no raids/mythic+ or anything high end. He has admitted tuning/classes should be balanced around questing. So I encourage you not to even bother debating him on Guardian’s use of hybrid abilities, because for a world quester and mount farmer like him they obviously have use. E.g. him saying he uses Feral affinity as Guardian or similar nonsense.
I coined a term for posters like him, he is a traitor, an enemy of the Druid, subverting us from within; there is a reason he posts on a DK. He has a big imagination, but his lack of knowledge of Druid’s in anything high end sticks out like a sore thumb in his posts, much like if the Soviets used one of their own as a cold war spy in America.
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Well that escalated quickly.
Anyone that plays a Druid has the right to express their opinions on the spec or changes to the spec. It does not mean that they are correct or people have to agree with them. Just because someone has a different opinion or mental design of a class doesn’t mean they are wrong. Doesn’t mean that they are right either.
There are plenty of unpopular ideas for every class that get brought up every day, sometimes multiples times a day. If they can’t or won’t discuss it in a discussion thread then there is no point in responding to them. The person that gets the last word in is not the victor. Most of the time they are the loser of the discussion because it becomes a “No U” argument.
Best to just move along if the topic degenerates.
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True to an extent, and the person you’re quoting probably went a bit far, but I can understand the frustration of watching people who either don’t play guardian at anything beyond an alt level, or at all, loudly saying everything is fine. When anyone who actually plays guardian, knows the spec has been a dumpster fire since the reflexive nerfs half way through legion.
As one of the two oldest viable tank specs, there’s no excuse for how neglected druid tanks have been. And to have people, people are who don’t even play guardian, say it’s all fine is just an extra slap in the face.
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Don’t just quote that one part of my post. The rest of the post makes a stronger point.
We’re in deep agreement here. Also, I agree somewhat against the semantic “all” that some things should be form exclusive. As a standard or motto though, I prefer to keep the universal term, else we risk losing the forest for the trees.
Unify The Class
I think you’re seeing a perspective that’s worth recognizing. There are some places where druid can excel comparatively to Paladin or Monk but they’re deeply nuanced, beyond the point of mere hybridization.
The major limiting factor for me to comfortably call Druid a hybrid is it cannot cease its primary role as effectively as competitors. That is, while it may fill every role, it can only really fill exactly one. And given the off-chance that a situation emerges to let you play as an off-role, Druid has an absolute limit of two roles based on whether or not you’ve selected the right affinity.
It takes roughly twice as long to make up for a lost GCD than, say, a Paladin as it does for a Druid. I think there’s some concession in your perspective to this underlying issue on wanting certain Affinity resources (e.g. Swiftmend, Rejuvenation, Wild Growth) from the forms. Stance exclusivity is an artifact from Vanilla and Druid seems to desperately cling. It’s time we let it go.
Further, the overall situation is made worse than mere time cost (again, that is being doubly penalized for trying to play as a hybrid) by wholly losing the ability to perform certain roles itself - e.g., Guardian cannot drop Bear Form if there are enemies attacking to Swiftmend an ally, while Protection Paladin may talent Hand of the Protector for reactive/adaptive play (assuming taking this talent is 1:1 with selecting Restoration Affinity).
There’s a lot of cross comparisons that can be made, but in my experience and generally speaking, I cannot call Druid a hybrid when other classes seem to be more capable of floating between roles when demanded. (I may admit that with Guardian Affinity and given a tanking gap, Druid is probably better suited compared to other classes. Other damage dealers may have personals that provide better raw mitigation, though often lack a taunt. Further, it’s probably balancing this fact that inhibits improving the other “hybrid” aspects of Druid. An off-tank that doesn’t need to be a tank or has great off-role availability would be a powerful spot and would likely end up obligating raids to take Druid in that spot.)
Edit: As a quick clarification to the above too. In these “tank down” situations, it’s better for highest threat to kite if the damage would be too high. Otherwise, it’s better for the druid to maintain Healing (keeping the damage alive to off-tank) or doing Damage (to try and kill the enemy first). It’s only when the tank and healer are removed that a Damage Druid can comfortably move to fill (but at that point, you’re more likely to still be in a position to keep blasting and kiting).
That’s why we talk about the arm.
Also, thank you for this - I loved reading your words.
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