Please check out our new Hero Talents preview and let us know what you think in this thread.
10 Likes
This. Looks. Amazing! Omg please make it to live. Lol! /prays
6 Likes
For…testing purposes…yeah! Yeah that’s it!
1 Like
Please rename “Massive Attack”… feels likea placeholder.
20 Likes
Also, Tear Down the Mighty. I’ll assume you’re doing SOMETHING with Pulverize, but right now, nobody EVER takes that, so that talent is effectively nothing.
4 Likes
Empowered Shapeshifting feels like a set and forget. Wildpower Surge feels like it is extra complexity for no added benefit.
5 Likes
Massive Attack: proc from auto attacks… eh. Not a huge fan of RNG procs from auto attacks.
Wildshape Mastery: This is neat. Will be fun to bear/cat weave in PvP and in PvE it will just be nice to have the extra survivability. An interesting and very fitting way to add survivability to the class.
Empowering Shapeshifting: Boring for Guardian, but really nice for feral druids.
Wildpower Surge: I like the concept on these, but I don’t see how these would be used in PvE currently. May need some tuning or adjustments. Looks great for PvP though.
Claw Rampage: I hope Berserk is getting some baseline changes because this for a capstone seems very weak unless you are specced into Incarnation.
The rest of the nodes are just passive increases, procs, etc. No need to comment on those other than they are boring, but overall not a bad tree, looking forward to trying it.
The magic DR sprinkled in is nice touch, but unless they buff the armor and HP thing to be 100% for 10+ seconds, that’ll never matter. You won’t ever drop 20% of your tank to rip something. Likewise, you’re not gonna toss your energy to swap over and thrash. I wish they’d stop trying to make master shapeshifter a thing. I’m gonna spend a risky 3 globals for an extra rip? Please.
Just make it, instead, empower your own abilities. Something like “momentarily shift into a cat on your next mangle to also apply rip”. Animation change only, doesn’t actually shift you. Then the ursine one “your next swipe/thrash momentarily shifts you into bear form and deals 100% extra damage”.
As it is, those whole side of the tree is kinda stupid. 4 Forms. 4 Roles. You’ll never make “master shapeshifter” a thing. Stop trying. You killed that possibility when you gave forms a cd.
9 Likes
I don’t even play druid, and I came in to say this lol
Another for renaming Massive Attack. Call it Stormclaw and give it some lightning damage perhaps?
10 Likes
Here from a Guardian perspective: the tree mostly seems to do what it’s supposed to do, though to me it does seem as though this is “TnC’d Raze: The Tree” with how Massive Attack works pretty similarly to the existing Tooth and Claw talent.
Wildpower Surge is a neat idea and seems as though it should be the thing in this tree that really changes how you play, but I do not like the implications it will have for tanking and trying to play in a way that maximizes DPS. The loss of survivability and the idling of GCDs when you shapeshift back and forth do not sound like fun gameplay to me. If the GCD cost on shapeshifts wasn’t there I could live with the survivability loss of being in cat form for a little over a second, but otherwise I am not a fan. Choosing not to use Wildpower Suge in that choice node also gives a much less interactive option in a flat magic DR and damage buff as well as making the preceding Wildshape Mastery much less useful.
I am very for the idea of trying to find ways to make cat form as relevant as it was to old Wrath Feral back in the day where you could spend half the fight when you weren’t tanking doing adequate DPS. I do not think this is the solution.
Hopefully there’s a better way Blizz is willing to do this because I am super unexcited about another expansion of arcane bear.
EDIT: Also the Stampeding Roar buff talent not giving a radius increase makes me sad.
While the theme is bear cat i think wildshaper mastery would be better overall if it worked going from bear to anyform. For feral its a nice passive to remove the need to sit in bear form all the time but for guardian its very niche as is.
Unless youre re-doing kite meta the only time bear will really be shifting to catform is when they arent actively tanking and dont need to keep the massive defensive; in raids the extended buff in catform could be used on bosses that taunt swap with a dot you shouldnt be taking in unbuffed kitty but those are also very situational.
If it was reworked to work in leaving bear into any form it would open up the ability for them to throw out an extra heal, try for a cyclone, travel form for repositioning, ect.
Other then that it seems like a nice tree, more cohesive then wildstalker and keeper. Little gcd heavy with the shapeahifting but workable.
I really like this tree. My main concern is that for Guardian Druids who take Empowered Shapeshifting, Wildshape Mastery becomes a dead node. I actually like encouraging both Feral and Guardian to use the other form more and I think the way you’ve done it is fine, but Guardians who don’t want to interact with that part of the hero tree should get more benefit from the Wildshape Mastery node.
Overall though I think this tree is great from a Feral perspective. It makes it much easier for us to use Bear form and makes us much more survivable (which we need) and I like the way it changes our rotation and allows for more skill expression. It’s much better than Wildstalker for sure.
I am hoping though that this comes off the back of a Druid class tree rework for War Within. That class tree is very weak for all four specs and it’s been wanting some love since Dragonflight beta. There’s only so much patchwork the hero talents can do without a rework to that tree.
6 Likes
PvE crit immunity is tied to bear form, so that needs to be in Wildshape mastery as well if you want bears to be swapping forms. Also consider preserving rage or increasing the base amount granted when entering bear form when using this tree.
It is odd for Wildpower Surge to have 0 defensive benefit for bears, when not only does the alternative choice directly reduce damage taken, but using the talent at all puts you in extra danger. That said I think being able to opt-out of this talent is important. The other hero tree was not very single-target focused, and it would be a shame if all raiding bears feel forced into a shapeshift-heavy playstyle that they may not want to mess with.
I am optimistic about shapeshifting while tanking being possible to do, especially with small things like Ursine Vigor from the class tree potentially getting to see use. But making yourself vulnerable to crits is definitely not ok, and it will be a very hard sell having to get back to tanking with 25 rage and a bunch of expiring ironfurs.
Edit: Also, could Wildshape Mastery last 6.5s instead of 6s? At the very least the duration of the tankiness buffs for cat form. Cat GCDs are a flat 1s, plus the 1.5s/haste from the initial shapeshift cast, so the extra half-second would remove any awkward decision making around haste values or potentially sitting in cat with no defensives for .2-.5s to sneak an extra cast in.
E.g. the sequence (entering with Wildpower Surge active)
Cat Form → Rip → Rake → Shred → Shred → Ferocious Bite → Bear Form
is a neat, self-contained sequence you could do every time you have the proc without wasting CPs, but wouldn’t work without taking a risk or having 50%+ haste with a 6s duration.
3 Likes
Honestly much better then Wildstalker since both specs can use and get everything so that is a plus. Though focusing primarily on Ferocious Bite is kind of annoying, like sure it’s %80 of our damage but would love to see that moved to other abilities like Shred for instance but at least a good hero tree.
Bestial strength: I don’t understand the up front primal wrath direct damage? Like that should be Thrash or Swipe/Brutal slash as a %100 increase or even %50 damage increase to those abilities would be much more impactful then just ability that is used for AoE applying Rip.
Pack’s Endurance: Pretty nice to gives us back some power that Resto and Balance can never get as %25 more roar duration is nice.
Empowered Shapeshifting: Great for Feral as being able to cast another heal and one that is actually strong will be nice and actually pretty decent for bears.
A big gripe I have though is if you are going to push shape shifting, you need to fix and allow tigers fury not to be knocked off when you do. Also for Massive attacks please lower the energy cost some as 50/100 energy is not great considering everything.
Though I am curious how this compares for guardians when it comes to their more arcane tree? Also Guardian’s should keep their full tankiness when they switch out to cat form and that should be longer. But I will say compared to Feral right now, Guardian has two usuable and good trees. Where as Feral will only be stuck with this one, unless Wildstalker gets reworked but yeah that’s my thoughts for now until we know more when the testing starts
1 Like
I don’t think it’s that much energy. I’m pretty sure it’s the exact same cost as Ferocious Bite. Since Massive Attack replaces Ferocious Bite they needed to move Ferocious Bite’s energy scaling into Massive Attack as well.
Aight so my quick immediate reaction;
I like this tree! I am mainly interested in Guardian, and I can see the interest for it, but… I mean if the choice is this or Elune’s Chosen, I 100% choose Elune.
One thing that could make it better (and I think I just read that in the previous post quoting it:)
This - to encourage quick swap, Rip, back in bear form, should be some leeway for bears to do so mid pull and feel the hero talent fantasy in play!
4 Likes
My initial reaction is that I really like the tree. I am still worried that the defensive bonuses here will mean that the Druid Class Tree doesn’t get as much attention, because lack of meaningful defensives is one of the biggest drawbacks of the Class Tree.
The only thing I think I’d like to see changed is in Wildpower Surge – I don’t feel like 100% damage on Mangle is really anything exciting to build up for, and I get that we don’t necessarily want it to be all that exciting because I don’t think anyone is asking for Bearweaving as a part of Feral’s rotation, but I think it’d be much better if it did something like extend Feral bleeds or apply Rake and Rip if they’re not on the target.
This tree goes a really long way towards addressing a lot of the issues Feral has with Bear Form, but one of the remaining issues is that we can hardly do any damage in it, and this tweak would be pretty much all we need to fix that too.
Otherwise, pretty cautiously optimistic about this tree. I think it looks good.
2 Likes
I don’t hate it, but I don’t like it either. Remove the GCD for shapeshifting and maybe then.
Feral perspective
Wildpower Surge - Eh.
Tear Down the Might - Ugh.
6 Likes
I think I’m confused by this. To me, this seems like an ideal choice node. You have one talent which provides some amount of passive offensive and defensive benefit, and another which provides a great deal of active offensive benefit. This is exactly the kind of node I’d love to have where I take one for progression, and another for farm or if I can squeeze out the extra damage.
I agree with everything else you’ve said though. I love the idea of where they’re going with this tree (i.e. making going into Cat actually beneficial and not a death sentence) as long as it’s executed properly.
2 Likes