Blizzard’s entire approach to Druid class design for Shadowlands has been to BUFF resto. Largely at the expense of other specs.
Locking Typhoon to Balance spec? Resto buff.
Re-adding Heart of the Wild? Resto buff. Useless to bears/cats.
Re-adding Cyclone? Resto/Balance buff.
Swiftmend nerf? Nerf to everyone except Resto.
As I’ve posted before, the best fix to the Druid class is to bring back Tree Form and require it as the base form for Resto, putting it in line with the other specs.
Guardians have to be in bear form to use most of their abilities, and have to shift out to use a lot of utility.
Ferals have to be in cat form to use most of their abilities, and have to shift out to use a lot of utility.
Balance prefer to be in Moonkin form, and have to shift out to use some of their utility (although to a much lesser degree than Guardian/Feral).
Resto gets to do everything in people form.
That’s broken. They need to bring back mandatory tree form, and put most of the Resto Druid’s healing toolkit locked behind it, with non-healing toolkit locked outside it. Just like the other specs.
That way, if the Resto Druid wants to Cyclone, or cast Entangling Roots, or whatever, they need to shift out of tree form to do it. And then back to tree form again to resume healing.
That’s the fix.
I have also played all healers and it’s all the same in low keys, nothing matters and they are all strong enough to brute force your way to 15+ with ease, disc being the only exceptions during some bad affix weeks but they are getting so many tools in SL to deal with this, might even be the best healer to deal with this bad affix weeks in SL.
People have already posted evidence that resto is 3rd on completion success.
Good discussions!
I think this is the first time ive ever heard that rdruid were too strong because of dps. I dont think sunfire is the issue here, maybe its better in bfa with the balance sunfire azerite traits, but its pretty meh in SL.
Agreed, hand these out to other healers.
I think 3 of 6 healers can do this, no? Pally druid monk. Only priests and sham cant.
It is pretty good. I believe the design intent is that it exists so that you can drop it and hopefully get hots up on the target. It was nerfed in SL already to have a longer cd.
I mean, monks say hi. But other than that. Rdruid have to front load all heals, so you need to be putting up heals before damage. If that doesnt sound janky enough, rdruid also have some of the worst heals per mana costs of any healers in the game. Rej and renew, nearly identical spells, heal for almost the same, rej costs twice as much mana.
Sadly I think the easier fix is to change forms into aura’s and allow each specialization the use of all talents and abilities in caster form. They could throw an appearance glyph on the aura for players that want to retain their Druid forms and class identity. Travel form could remain the same with the same current limitations it has now. Breaking roots and snares could be accomplished by changing auras.
No Paladins you can’t have our shifting!
I’ve heard Resto is doing the second most dps for healers after Disc.
Ya but it’s just one more reason Holy and Shaman can’t compete well. It’s not my strongest argument but maybe this is where we could see a slight nerf?
In terms of physically moving yes but not in terms of instant casts. Monks have plenty of Hard Casts.
So you want us to all simultaneously have mana, rage, energy, and astral power bars?
I think forcing Resto Druids back into tree form is a much simpler option.
I don’t want to do that at all but I think they would have an easier time allowing us to use abilities that force us out or into form to use. With the old addon Druid Mana Bar from back in the day, most of us are use to monitoring 3 resource pools.
Like casting balance spells, or catweaving? Thats crazy if true.
I personally find it awkward to cat weave, with the burning globals to get in and out of cat form(assuming you are actively dpsing and have to wait on a free gcd to cast a heal to get out).
Tbh i don’t know what the exact breakdown is. I’ve just heard it does a lot of damage for a healer. I assume the reasons are what I laid out earlier with dots + cat or owl weaving
Mythic keys are all about small bursts of group damage due to tough the nature of there been only 5 players. So incoming damage has to be not too big, infrequent and trickling allowing the header to keep on top of it.
Now resto is all about hots… Hots are the perfect type of healing mechanism to counter this type of incoming, and somewhat random (player error) damage fluctuation.
So resto will generally be the meta healer for 5 man content.
Plus br.
Guardian issue. Not related to resto.
Feral issue. Not related to resto.
Balance does not struggle with utility.
You’re delusional.
Clearly the answer to these problems is to address how they affect the spec. Not go after resto and force the same restrictions upon them out of spite.
Garbage ideas from Tewa who does not play balance,feral, and most importantly, resto.
Imagine spending 2 years crying about how forms impose limits on our shapeshifting specs, only to turn and wish the same on resto druids.
Absolutely pathetic!
I don’t think its Resto Druid that needs nerfs but more that other healers could use some buffs and, in some cases like Mist Weaver, even full-on revamps.
Homogeny be damned, all healers should have something they can do while moving that should allow them to continue healing, or keeping them engaged whether it involves MW kicking for heals, a small dot to toss out. Or even if they are planted to cast while heals give them more mobility in between casts, whatever fits that particular class specialization narrative the best.
Also, Shamans could likely be fine with going ahead and making their Battle Rez more worthwhile and useful. It sucks so bad most folks don’t even know they have one since you have to use it seconds before someone is gonna die and it’s mostly overshadowed by other talents on the tier that you can reasonably expect to get use out of.
Also, could have a baseline spell for Disc to be able to cleave heal a small portion of their Shadowmend to others with Atonement on them to help with healing outside of combat.
These are just mindless, off-hand idea’s, I’m no developer like everyone else, so don’t @ me.
There’s a ton of little things Blizz could do to narrow the gap in “content superiority” some classes have but they for some reason neglect to do.
If I wasn’t paying 15 bucks a month or whatever it is to play, I could easily mistake this for a Free to Play game as far as their class balance and some other features are concerned.
My guess is they blow 97% of their budget on art and music since its super phenomenal in this game and don’t have enough left over to pay people to internally develop and playtest the game.
Not baseline but the new Shadow Covenant is looking perfect for dealing with high burst healing via shadow mend spam along with high atonement burst with Mind Blast and Seer being available now.
And the Boon of the ascended allows them to burst atonement heal on the move.
Yeah, Ive been meaning to either look or ask somewhere but is it verified that Disc is getting Mind Sear back as well?
I’ve been super torn between what 2 Healers Im gonna be maining this coming X-pac and I really dig my Priest but have always felt super bored when it comes to AoE damage/attornment healing.
Is this a real thing? Haven’t looked as hard at Disc because I was leaning really hard towards MW Monk being my “main alt” but with the gutting of Way of the Crane and Chi-Ji it looks like that damage/healing style I wanted is all but gone from Monk…
Anyways, Mind Sear would be amazing to have along with SW:P for AoE situations!
Yeah, I did see that on one of the Youtubers channel. Looks like it could be situationally nice for M+.
Blast, Seer and Death are all available for disc on beta.
Death does not trigger atonement without a legendary tho.
I think ironbark is still a little too strong considering how strong our single target healing is. I think that blizzard wanted us stronger in raids compared to bfa, where we never really shined but now we have even better healing in m+ it seems like.
Been playing in SDL and played extensively BfA (~2.5k io on my main).
The issue is, in my humble opinion, is two things:
Blizz has a design philosophy? news to me.
Monks: tune fist weaving so it’s effective in Dungeons.
Shamans: take the legendary that makes Chain Lightning instant after Casting Chain Heal (visa versa) and make it a talented ability that can stack twice. Then give Earth Shield a small DR component.
Paladin: already has tools, just needs Battle Rez and the right tuning and better options for Holy Power generation at range.
Disc: just needs the Battle Rez
Holy: similar to Shaman, lacks a DR ability and is stuck hard casting much of the time with no way to easily contribute damage.
No need to nerf Druids, if anything give Druids another raid cooldown and bring other classes up to scratch in Dungeons.