So many issues with druids stem from the fact that we now spend all of our time in one form. In truth all of our utility and survivability has been here the WHOLE time. 90% of any druid specs issues are solved in another specialization.
Think about it. Feral ST dmg, boomy (human) aoe and utility, bear tanky, travel mobility. Individually none of these would be good on their own. But give us better affinities and a smooth shapeshift and we can start combining the strengths of our forms into one complete class.
I think Blizzard is spending so much effort trying to make each spec stay in their given form 100% of the time. But why fight against they core design when you dont have to?
You’re taking one shapeshifting class and making it 4 separate classes. Its 4x the work because each spec now has to stand alone. But it’s not a cat class, a bear class, a moonkin, and a tree. It’s one class. A shapeshifter.
BUILD A SHAPESHIFTER CLASS
This is really easy to do. The forms are there and you even have a whole row of affinity talents that, at the moment, are 98% useless except for some passive effect.
You remove gcd and make affinities legit and druids regain their soul
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I love this idea. I’ve said for a long time I love shifting and the affinity row is disappointing as best. This is something to look at in the future because it would take a full class rework. Let’s be honest Blizzard we are the hybrid class, so make us a hybrid class and give us the class fantasy of shifting to what we need at anytime.
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Wanna fix Druid. Figure out a way to separate pvp pve balancing. I fee like once gets wrecked because ppl complain about pvp Druid and then pve gets nerfed as an aside
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I really want the shapeshifting fantasy to shine. As feral, I’m always in cat form. As moonkin, i’m always in owl form and actually change more into a bear only in pvp. As feral I don’t even bother with bear form much. I switch between cat and travel more as feral.
I really like this idea. Maybe not take shifting off of the GCD but possibly making it so that the affinity you choose, removes that specific GCD so that way you can’t pool from every form’s utility and it’ll make you choose which one you want, while also providing a fun and interesting and more in depth class fantasy in our rotations.
One of the reasons that I even started a druid in vanilla was because you could shapeshift into different forms. I always thought it was awesome. Feral spec was fun to me because you could go from being a bear to a cat on whim and still be useful (for the most part)
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Agreed! I want to power shift again. Being able to run and immediately shift into one for or another on the fly to fit any situation was what drew me to the class in the first place. Seriously. Having to wait to shift from one form to another feels extremely clunky.
I’m literally spending a longer time to do something that every other class can do in a shorter time period.
I understand that they wanted to cut down on power shifting a little bit to make rooting/snaring Druids easier, but that was our whole thing. We can’t be sheeped and we can’t be tied down. We’re supposed to be mobile.
Why do you want to nerf a Buff? Why not just put it back to what it used to be? Off the GCD…
You sound like the Devs “No… No that won’t do. Making something fun would be going too far. We have to tone it back. Make it so you can only shift into one form fluidly. Forget the other 3 forms. You don’t need to make use of them that well at all.”
Its not that I want to sound like I’m making things unfun, I’m just being realistic. As a druid main for so long would I like them off the GCD again? Absolutely, but if you look at the way they do things, there is VERY little chance they’ll remove every form off the GCD.
I’m personally trying to give insight and opinions on things I think blizzard could and actually would implement. I have many things that I think would improve the class fantasy etc. but I’m not going to say it if it doesn’t sound like a realistic change to me.
Druids have decent utility and a battle rez. There’s a reason why they didn’t get Mark of the Wild back when the other buffs came back as well. As far as it stands, being able to shift into all forms at will could possibly make druids utility skyrocket above all classes. (That’s just an assumption haven’t done real thinking into that point)
Without majorly overhauling the way druids work (which are usually changes done for an expansion) I feel like adding a little more into the affinities would make for enough of a change for druids to head in the right direction.
So you’re wanting to take the one class that can fulfill any role, and merge it all into one class that focuses on power shifting in and out of its forms?
Eh, as a Guardian/Feral Druid (albeit fairly new), I run Balance Affinity and find myself swapping into the Space Chicken form quite often. As Guardian i like to LoS pull with Sunfire ![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
it’s a great tool for grabbing quick aggro and adding a bit of damage initially. And as feral, certain boss mechanics require you to “gtfo”. Going Boomy for a little bit allows you to keep dps’ing.
But I do think the affinity talent row needs a buff in a sense. Give us a reason to actually use the affinity aside from the passive.
No I want the scenario you describe to be common place and part of class design. Shifting and doing something from another form takes too long with gcd.
I think buffs to the affinities and removing the clunkiness of shifting opens they door for druids to bring way more utility to the table.
At the very least it would make druids 2 dimensional where they choose an affinity to be a true hybrid as opposed to choosing them for a passive or swiftmend.
The gcd part is so it doesnt take them an extra 3 seconds to get it done.
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Well in that case, I’m game. I’d be happy with just removing shape shifting from the gcd.
That alone would increase Druid utility a ton without causing too many issues. But could it be abused in PvP?
Only thing is if you take it off gcd the ability to remove snares/roots as a druid by shapeshifting becomes a little broken for pvp. Also I can see some macros like bear form, enrage rejuvenation and back to cat in a split second be pretty strong. A lot of classes are in the same spot when it comes to gcd, though and I’ll be honest it feels clunky.
Edit: Frenzied rejuvenation
Are you referring to frenzied regeneration from bear form? I think that’s Guardian spec only buddy.
If you take the guardian aspect, you can use it as feral.
I think thats where a lot of the problems with shifting for druids is. For PvP balancing reasons, which sucks. I wouldn’t see the FR thing being such a bad thing in PvE, but PvP could be a little unfair.
Assuming they buffed the affinities, taking guardian affinity would just give you more survivability at the cost of losing damage from the others. So in a PvE aspect, sounds like a good trade off. Either more survivability or more damage or utility.
As feral, in pvp, dungeons, raids, and even open quest zones, using balance affinity I almost NEVER go in moonkin form. Ferals have a talent for moonfire in cat form which generates a combo point. But now, since the resto affinity is stronger than in the past, I do pass out heals more.
As a long time guardian druid, balance affinity right now is useless. You’d much rather the heal from resto than a +3 yard range. You also have moonfire so there is no need to shift into balance for sunfire.
Oooh i like that, druid affinites should remove take that form off the gcd
How would it work for Resto aff which has no form? Maybe just a halved gcd.
I don’t understand why there’s a GCD for forms. Just let it be that the form you exit triggers its own internal cooldown… that way, everybody wins. Power shifting isn’t abused, you can drop form and heal in a single GCD, and you can transition forms and use the ability immediately as well.
For example, as boomy I typically take guardian affinity. I could go bear-FR immediately, as well as a barkskin if need be, and then if I’m not satisfied, I can pop out, use Regrowth and then boomy-moonfire without incurring a GLOBAL CD to cast my spell.
Everything for druids takes an extra 1.5s and when the 1.5s we save to go to travel form doesn’t even benefit from mount speeds like devs said they would, it’s not really worth it…
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