I’d like to clarify if we’re getting a pre-launch set of patch notes on Monday or Tuesday?
I’m trying to choose which class I will play and some of the changes that have been data mined have a significant effect on that choice.
It seems like a no-brainer that changes wouldn’t get pushed to live without proper notes, but… given that I was planning to play Resto Druid I have a vested interest in the answer to this question.
We won’t launch with significant class changes and no notes… right?
At the time of this posting we are 4 days away I’d say.. it’s hard to say. Is there a possibility we will see another round of tuning before Launch? Of course. Will it happen? Only Blizz will know and for us to find out. -IF- there isn’t one before launch can almost guarantee there will be at least one before the raids come out out in December. Just play whichever class you really want to play at the start and just stick with it.
I do want to play the best class for “flavor” but I can do that after launch, once things settle out.
I genuinely do not want to be stuck spamming Healing Touch for weeks to months until they fix the spec (if ever).
I can play Priest and have a Druid alt, no huge loss to me. I will say before the changes RDruid was looking pretty fun.
Anyway, it’s not like a “meta” thing as much as I want to play the game and not be relegated to spamming 1-2 spells.
If they’re going to push significant changes in the week just before launch they could at least tell us when they’re planning on publishing those so we know what’s real for Wednesday.
This, once everyone gets past level 30 and we have actual data instead of simmed assumptions, there’s no doubt Blizzard will be making changes. Happens every time there’s a new expansion, I don’t see forever being any different.
Priest is meaningfully more engaging in PvE. You have two specs, far more spell choices.
Resto Druid has been relegated to HoT overheal specialist. No interest in that.
Numerical nerfs would have been fine, but they gutted all the cool stuff they were going to get, at least that’s how it’s looking.
I was originally going to play Priest anyway, but Resto Druid was looking really interesting. Guess, I’m cured of that now. The functional changes are significant.
So there’s only faster than everyone hot sniping or hot overheal specialist, nothing in between? I think resto druid is going to be just fine, even if it’s closer in relative power to the other healers, which I know sucks for people that like to feel like they’re more powerful than others.
Regrowth IS the most powerful heal in the game by a large margin, followed by binding heal. Healing Touch spec is still extremely powerful as a ST healer. Era/TBC druid was a tank healer it only became a raid healer in wrath.
The time is unknown but it is likely that we will get a set of patch notes before launch.
The launcher says there’s scheduled downtime on Forever servers Nov 4 from 10 am PST until launch time, so given the pattern for beta notes, I think it’s most likely we’ll get the launch patch notes somewhere in that timeframe.
Regrowth is still one of the best healing spells in the game, which is great, until you realize that half of it’s healing is inside a HoT component that inversely scales with Bloom (from new Resto Tree).
I’d happily have taken numerical decreases if it meant the mobile fast-paced playstyle remained. My complaints are not HPS related.
Druids were always going to be mogged by priests in raid healing by the simple virtue that Priests don’t rely on HoTs nearly as much. Predictable damage is easily sniped from druids by Priests/Shamans and probably now also HPals with their new AoE ability. Paladins are still best tank healers. Chain heal is still the most efficient AoE heal in the game.
Druids are sort of just bad at all of it. Does it mean you can’t bring a druid to heal? No. But it would be nice if the developers would decide on a design direction. It seemed like they had, but now I’m less certain.
PoM is going to be better in PvP than anything Resto Druids ever had. Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing are both far more reliable healing than Wild Growth. Renew is better than Rejuv. Notably Prayer of Healing is better than Wild Growth at baseline now.
All Wild Growth really had going for it was the cast time, everything else is functionally worse.
If I’m playing the entire spec so I can cast Regrowth with a bunch of %Crit then that’s sort of lame, isn’t it?
I know I can simply play Priest and have 2 functional healing specs, but I was looking forward to something different.
Instead, the direction is now… “regrowth and healing touch are still pretty good”
If your main focus is dueling outside ogr/sw druid is the spec for you. Its clearer and clearer with each patch that both balance and resto druid are being designed and tuned around the 16 11 24 build. Aka the i tell people im a balance druid so i dont have to say i duel as a healer. Every talent swap. Buffs nerfs removal and addition of talents have done nothing but make that specific build stronger.