Feedback: Keeper of the Grove in The War Within

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5 Likes

Blizzard, I actually never post on the forums and was super excited for TWW until I saw your plans for Resto Druid clear as day and felt obligated.

Over a decade of playing and nothing irked me as much as this to actually access the forums.

Please stop leaning into Treants and pets doing more work that our character should be the one doing. I want to heal.

As a Resto Druid main, I want to be the one doing the healing, not an army of pets that I have to increasingly rely on because they streroid my entire kit and were forced to become the backbone of Resto Druid.

Treants are fine as they are, as a small portion of our kit. They should not be the over-arching theme at all.

You say choice is important here, but all I see is, “If you’re a Resto Druid, your kit is pets and relying on them heavily. Resto Druid is now Treants.”

We rolled Resto Druid because we enjoy HoT-based healing. We did not sign up to rely on an army of Treants to do a large majority of the work and be forced into them.

I very much dislike that the only mostly HoT-based healing spec in the game is being forced into a pet spec.

Pet healing is objectively boring because you are transferring power from the player character to the pets when balancing healing output. That means that we are personally healing less overall, while the pets make up for the difference. Again, I want to heal.

Not to mention various other issues with them that the community has brought up, like being LoS’d, out-ranged, etc.

Very cool design when my tank walks around a corner and all of my Treants that are out along with their heavy (Hero) talent investment instantly turns useless. Really great…

Resto Druid is all about HoTs, so where are the talents that relate to them? Feels like a massive stray from the core of Resto Druid like I’ve never seen.

Where is more of the below? It’s like almost for a moment, Blizzard remembered what Resto Druid actually is…

Casting Regrowth, Wild Growth, or Swiftmend increases the healing of your next Regrowth, Wild Growth, or Swiftmend by 10%, stacking up to 2 times. Casting another spell cancels this effect.

I really hope this is heard, as I’ve heard that many other Resto Druids share this sentiment.

I really hope that I am wrong and that the alternative tree shows heavy investment towards actual HoTs, or that this “Treant empowerment” ideaology you got from somewhere is abandoned entirely.

31 Likes

I actually really enjoy the trees doing a good chunk of our healing, and I would love more talents that synergize with them and create more of them. Give me a whole grove of heals!

32 Likes

Actually just here to disagree with the first post. Ents are the best thing they did to resto like ever. Before healing pets it was boring and mindless reju spamming machine and the pets really gave this spec some depth.

Only thing that resto is desperately missing is an absorb or group def cd. Maybe fyrakk seeds could be an inspiration :stuck_out_tongue:

21 Likes

Just here to remind everyone that the druid base talent tree is still in beta…

15 Likes

In M+, Rejuv is never touched outside of very specific circumstances.

Except when you move out of range, LoS them, or fly off the platform watching your little "special " friend still healing as the tumbleweed rolls by.

3 Likes

What even is this? 5 of the 9 middle nodes don’t even interact or have anything to do with Force of Nature, Grove Guardians, or the “keystone” talent. Having a completely separate Balance/Resto portion in each talent ability with no synergy to each other doesn’t make sense for a hybrid class or the Keeper of the Grove fantasy.

It would make more sense if the keystone talent replaced both Force of Nature and Grove Guardians (like how priests get Premonition instead of Power Infusion) with an actual Grove consistent for both specs consisting of like 1 tank, 1 dps, and 1 healer treant.

4 Likes

For grove guardians to work, there needs to be interaction between them and the kit. Right now they’re just a boring fire and forget button, with little to no ways to use them better or to mess up using them. Its just an extra button, an extra stack of charges to track, and has no skill floor or ceiling to speak of. They arent fun to use, and theres no way to better yourself as a player by utilizing them better other then to just not overcap charges. Its a boring mechanic that isnt skillful to use and doesnt feel impactful for a player. Id argue to remove them entirely, but if blizzard is insistant on adding them, they need to have more interaction with the kit, even if its as simple as a flat healing buff per ent alive. But id like to see other, more interesting interactions, such as them being placeable when casted and dropping efflos, or storing overhealing like the old blooming mushroom from mists of pandaria. Right now this tree is mostly buffs to them with no interactions, and buffs to spells with no interactions. It doesnt add anything to my class except doubling down on the mechanic most hated about it.

7 Likes

Wonderful news PVP community! One of the worst new abilities in the game is being pushed hard via hero talents. So when the rare occurrence of a resto druid sitting in a few cc’s comes around, the AI pets can do even more work for you!

And the Meld/drinking while treants do work for you is even better!

I thought we were making the game more reliant on the person playing the class, not the AI doing a chunk of the work for you?

Or are we pushing hard in ‘bring the class’ direction for things fully now?

12 Likes

Could not agree more.

They are already boring as is.

3 Likes

Ive played resto druid since Wrath and so ive been there to see the many changes to Resto druid over the years. That being said… Treants for healing is by far the worse idea or at least the recent version was so poorly executed that i really considered wearing my season 2 set for the entire season so i could spec out of them. It is still in my bank and i just might switch for giggles. In my other posts i gave specific reasons why they are so bad to have as a resto druid. Their heals are uncontrollable by the caster where the whole kit is centered around controlled HoT healing. They do not benefit from any other base talent in the druid’s kit. Mastery stacking is utterly useless but lets face it… it was that way since WoD. Treants dont move, fly, and are LoS-able.

It would be one thing if they were SOLELY used to buff the druid, allys and abilities but making them heal is just bad. Resto druid is a controlled healing class much like shaman but in a different way. Could you imagine how bad it would feel for shamans if they got an elemental that did auto heals via lesser healing surges? It would ruin their overall output.

My only hope is that there is a hero class for resto druids that has nothing to do with treants.

7 Likes

Yes this, god i am sick of how strong and boring the ents are in pvp. Blizzard killed orbital strike for balance druis, a cool af ability because their half brain cells couldnt balance it for pvp, but then left ents in as powerful as they are? Oh yeah, thats loads of fun.

4 Likes

Dream petals seem very inconsistent an problematic. Most players will not know what they are let alone want to move to them. Devalues groups with range dps, and further makes problems already inherent to Efflow. I would recommend exploring something else with that. healing spheres was removed for a reason back in the day for MW and this is a rng low to no value version of that, unless it is over tuned which creates a different set of problems. I would strongly advise moving it into a different design space.

3 Likes

So we don’t get an actual interview? Just some youtuber with 20 subs talking about stuff? Are the druid devs ok or is this a cry for help?

3 Likes
  • I really want to know if the Dream Petals are something that will have to be interacted with or if they will automatically heal. Makes a big difference
  • I love that Grove Guardians lets me stay in cat form more as Resto, but since this tree is shared with Balance, is it going to push me towards more of a casting style for damage? It appears that most of the damage buffs are Balance-specific, but also I feel like more of the talents should be fully shared, or have benefits that deliver damage to Resto and healing to Balance?
  • Looks cool for Balance spec.
2 Likes

From a Balance Druid perspective, these options need work.

I have a few comments to make on the current iteration of the talent tree in no real order:


Uninspiring effects from Force of Nature

I understand the thematic tie for Restoration and Balance being Treants, but from the Balance Druid side, this hojpoj of random buffs coming from a 1-minte cooldown is sadly uninspiring.

If I take every treant-option, the only transformation to my gameplay is 15 Astral Power over 10 seconds (not noticeable) and 6 moonfire casts (this is actually a really good addition if it works with Twin Moons) when I cast Force of Nature. Outside of those I gain minor damage amps which do not change how I would play or make me feel like I’m in a meaningfully stronger window.

Furthermore, the Power of Nature / Durability of Nature choice node is bad. I shouldn’t need to choose between damage and utility when Treants have, historically in dungeons, been very based in their utility. Realistically, Durability of Nature will not even do very much since enemies will be doing far more damage than the treants have health. Interestingly, the node reveals a flaw with many of the treant talents. In practice, you will almost never actually want the treants to taunt anything at all since a lot of the talent tree isn’t based on gaining treants, but based on the treants being active.


Oppressive Talent Combinations

Leaving treants, there are a few talents which heavily favor specific talent settups and won’t leave room for creativity.

While treants require a talent point (essentially killing Warrior of Elune) it isn’t as egregious as the “Expansiveness,” “Cenarius’ Might,” “Power of the Dream” combination. Without any talent points, a balance druid can cast 3 Starsurges in a row with the 120 maximum astral power though Expansiveness. However, by coupling Rattle the Stars with Incarnation’s Elune’s Guidance, that number jumps to 4. Adding Astral Communion takes it to 5 and Fury of Elune can take it to 6. Combine Orbit Breaker procs and quickly, a Balance druid is shooting many many sequential Starsurges. While the prospect of finding this “Exodia” combination is exciting, I fear it will force a specific build of Balance druid to be played throughout the entire expansion, as the talents needed are numerous, span the entire tree, and occupy 3 of the most interesting choice nodes on the tree (Incarn/Convoke, Rattle the Stars/Starweaver, New Moon/Fury of Elune)


Likes

Protective Growth / Blooming Infusion combination feels thematic and positive for the resto/balance toolkit. Having a quick spot heal for oneself or an ally can feel really empowering. I would hope that Regrowth will be tuned a little higher for The War Within, as my current regrowth is only healing me for 10% of my maximum health. Alternatively (and what would probably be better) a % effectiveness modifier can be added to Blooming Infusion to make it feel more rewarding.

Expansiveness will help mitigate the negative feedback of over-capping astral power. While Balance druid’s resource acquisition is generally predictable, the large spikes in resources that come from Orbit Breaker (A very difficult and unreliable ability to track) coupled with high-resource generating abilities like Convoke the Spirits or Full Moon will make an expanded Astral Power bar very welcome.

To reiterate, Treants of the Moon is a great effect to tie to Force of Nature. A pain point for balance druid, especially with the current Mastery effect added in Dragonflight, has been the efficiency of spreading Moonfire to many enemies. If treants are capable of choosing targets without moonfire and also benefit from the Twin Moons talent, this addition will feel impactful and positive.


Not Quite There

Control the Dream sounds like a pseudo-charge system for major abilities. While this does sound like it could be a very interesting option, 5 seconds is far too short of a period to make this feel impactful. If this number were increased, I could see it being used in niche scenarios for optimal timings, but the fact that it competes with Power of the Dream will make it really hard to take.

Thanks for reading, this post became a lot longer than I originally wanted it to be.

8 Likes

Feedback for resto

I hate the playstyle this tree and the tier its trying to replicate when healing raids. Its mostly uncontrollable chunk healing on 3~5 targets with no real kit synergy besides 2 talents you tacked on the same patch, its at its best in a 10 man raid build when youve made the hardest endgame 20 and super limits what we can do in a raid setting when combined with the other nerfs you did to promote this playstyle.

This playstyle does feel great in keys though. When treants can do their counter burst damage job, give us some extra dps time, empowered regrowth work well with our hots layering small group focus and the higher single target damage. Similar for small group pvp where treants can help take pressure off or serve as distraction, and the regrowth/swiftmend buffs can be very good on focused targets.

I like this tree for those bits of gameplay and am happy they are remaining as an option for that content. 10.1.7 treants really did save the kit after a horrible to heal season for keys. so i dont think its a bad option thematically or gameplay wise for resto.

This is assuming the wildstalker tree is focused more towards our aoe hots ramp playstyle to fix our current problems in raids. The interviews mention working with what we already know and do well; For a decade and a half, tbc to this patch that was blanketing and ramp in raids, so im gonna guess thats what the other tree focuses on. The more traditional spreading rejuvs, empowering all our hots, casting tranq ect.

Together they would provide 2 very good gameplay options for resto in all types of content which im all for.

Suggestions for the tree as is:

  • provide 1 charge of treant in the tree; currently it looks bad for boomy with its 1 minute charge and locks resto out of nourish entirely (it doesn’t get used but it could at least interact like our tier does now to feel less dead weight in spec tree)

  • rework/add the dr for others to protective growth at a lower % we need a group DR and this is a good way to make a small group one while still limiting it with cast time and mana.

  • make it sunfire not moonfire that they cast; Boomy gets ap from moonfire, current resto gets nothing, unless resto is getting some more moonfire interactions sunfires aoe would be better for us damage wise in keys

  • for the love of god make them interact with mastery both ways, i dont care if its only a passive for the keeper of the grove tree but if they’re gonna cast things like cenarion ward our healing needs to benefit too.

  • add innervate to control the dream, it doesnt get enough love as our only mana control spell that isnt super finicky to use. And while your at it everything that dreamstate affects should be there too.

  • something for barkskin/ironbark. Idk i just feel like they’re getting left out when turning into/turning others into part tree feels pretty thematic for this bit of druidism.

Edit - As far as hype for this; Resto was kinda done development wise in legion to me, the only actual improvement our kit has gotten since then is the dps options for keys.
This doesn’t give us legion’s better mastery and ramp playstyle back, let us cast a decently strong tranq while moving, give us better flourish/gift of ghanir back, or that absorb overheal from SL (The only post legion upgrade i think was a flat buff, and wasn’t even druid specific). If you want actual hype for class changes and to give resto players what they want, these are the things to look at.

6 Likes

Can anyone tell me what is Cenarius’ Might ? Cause when I saw that I was like what is that. Is it a new 5% dmg/healing buff that last all time?

1 Like

Dead center of the tree. Casting a limited selection of spells empowers those spells til you cast one that isnt them is a basic summary though.