I love all of these, except for removing Barkskin. A second charge of Survival Instincts (at a 3 minute recharge) is not so incredibly overpowered that we would be too strong defensively – again, it’s only a 6 second wall. Barkskin would nicely fill in the gap of our defensive cooldown rotation if we had two charges of Survival Instincts.
Additionally, I’d love to pick up Tireless Pursuit, Forestwalk, and an additional Renewal talent – and your ideas for buffing them are fantastic – but it really is dependent on an overall reduction in wasted talent points in the tree. In PvP especially, our talents are locked because of the 6 talent points we essentially waste to get Cyclone. If I had to spend one or two for Balance Affinity and that branched to Cyclone and Astral Influence, most of this would be a non-issue, since I’d be able to comfortably pick up Feline Swiftness, Ursine Vigor, and still have a point or two to throw around as I please… but that’s just not the case right now.
We really need a talent point reduction, and I think the place it makes the most sense is in the top third. Roll all of these off-spec baseline abilities into “Affinity” talents, and give us back a few talent points to actually have some freedom to choose.
Indeed as I noted I’m not sure if it’s actually a good idea (would depend on execution really). Probably easier to just keep Bark as it would require editing a bunch of talents. I did like the 2x 2 min charge in BFA though, and thought it might be cool with various talents to buff SI, and then we focus on using Bear to cover any other gaps - notably because Bear defensive talents in the Druid tree have a tone of potential.
But I will say though Bear still feels a bit clunky, and I actually somehow forgot to mention in my original post but I would like to see a lower GCD for Bear shifts (as a talent even). But anyway that’s just me cooking.
Yeah for sure, I was kind of writing with the assumption they would free up a bunch of points that we’re currently wasting on random things. Could easily free up 5+ points and then yeah that opens up interesting little utility talents like Tireless Pursuit and Forestwalk.
Thank you OP, for such a well thought out post. I recently returned to the game and one of the first things I did was to go through the new talent trees to reacclimate myself with the classes- especially those I enjoy.
I was kinda taken aback by the druid tree. It honestly feels like a rough draft. As you pointed out the lack of horizontal movement, the dead end paths, and the 3 point node are just not seen in other class trees. Its also understood that all specs have to spend points on abilities that used to be baseline, but none have to spend points on talents they can’t even use like druid does. ‘Can’t’ might not be the right word, but you know what I mean.
Its a head scratcher, and honestly why my druid is on the back burner.
This is so well written, and its sad that there are not more replies or support shown here.
Everything you brought up is such a big issue, yet it’s gotten no attention.
It’s shameful that we cannot get a blue post to at least explain why they feel our tree is okay the way it is. The entire intent behind these trees was that they said they would listen and fix where it makes sense. Specs like Paladin and Rogue have had complete overhauls of trees mid expansion, but we can’t even garner some much needed quality of life changes.
We are going into The War Within and at the moment, we are just to assume the class tree will remain exactly the same. If that’s the case, then I will be absolutely mind blown.
Dont know how this can help but it has taken me literally 3 months to learn Druid (and im still pretty bad against melee classes in PvP)
I spent about 1 month on a level 40 learning the basics then i went to a 70 and im still learning after 2 or so months.
I die and i realize that i had 5 other spells / abilities i could have used…
Our cooldowns are also a joke…5 minutes for a 45second heart of the wild lol.
Im also a returning player no idea how a brand new player is supposed to learn this class…its a joke but so fun
After seeing the Wildstalker Hero tree, I think it is clearer now more than ever that the Druid Class Tree needs to be addressed.
Originally, the main mechanic of the tree, the Bloodseeker Vines/Symbiotic Blooms were procced by Wild Growth, Rejuvenation, and Efflorescense, meaning that Ferals not only had no way to proc this in Cat Form, but also had to spend talent points in the Restoration area of the tree – and despite the fact that Rejuvenation is at the very top of the tree, because our points are so restricted (again from a Feral PvP perspective, but from what I see in this thread, from many other perspectives too), it ends up being a choice between Rejuvenation and relatively critical talents like Rising Light, Falling Night or Heart of the Wild.
Once this was pointed out, the Wildstalker Hero Tree was quickly changed to interact with Regrowth instead of Rejuvenation. While this change makes the Wildstalker Hero Tree interact with Feral’s base kit much more seamlessly, the problem still remains that our Class Tree talent points are so tied up that it’s incredibly difficult for a Feral to take many healing or Resto related talents. Few, if any, Ferals have taken Natural Recovery or Forestwalk, for instance. They would certainly be interesting to play around with if we selected the Wildstalker Hero Tree, but at the moment, they’re simply inaccessible.
Additionally, when Rejuvenation was still an activator for the Symbiotic Blooms, it would have been nice to take a talent like Tireless Pursuit to enhance the gameplay of changing forms, but again, this talent is not only inaccessible, but a dead end too.
Fixes to the Class Tree
Again, several fixes are necessary and have been reiterated again and again in this thread and many others, but they bear repeating until they are implemented.
1. Condense the Starting Talents into “Affinity” Talents.
Starfire, Starsurge, and Moonkin Form should be “Balance Affinity”;
Rejuvenation, Swiftmend, and Wild Growth should be “Restoration Affinity”;
Frenzied Regeneration, Ironfur, and Thrash (Bear Form) should be “Guardian Affinity”; and
Rake, Rip, and Thrash (Cat Form), should be Feral Affinity.
This would open up several points for utility, like Remove Corruption, Maim, or Hibernate, or just points for later down the tree. It would also cut down significantly on the points we need to waste to get to critical mechanics that used to be part of the baseline Affinities, like Feline Swiftness, Thick Hide, and Astral Influence. Frankly, it feels bad that these aren’t already included for your base spec – as a Feral, it feels bad that I have to spend 2 points to regain the movement speed I’ve had since as far back as I can remember, and it feels even worse that in most cases, I can’t afford those 2 points, so I’m just slower than I’ve ever remembered.
On the topic of wasted points, I have already frequently talked about how many points we have to waste on offspec abilities that we would hardly ever use and how this is disproportionate to other class trees, but here is a table that shows exactly how disproportionate it is:
Class
Active Abilities to Buy in Class Tree
Death Knight
16
Demon Hunter
9
Druid
27
Evoker
15
Hunter
18
Mage
17
Monk
16
Paladin
13
Priest
19
Rogue
11
Shaman
25
Warlock
13
Warrior
19
Druids have 27 active abilities to buy in our class tree when the average for all other classes is just under 16. Condensing talents into Affinity talents as I suggest would reduce this by 7 (not 8 because Thrash is counted twice), which would keep us above average, but bring us at least closer to that average.
2. Reorganize the Mid-Section of the Tree to Allow Lateral Mobility
There are a few options:
Move Wild Charge/Tiger Dash up and have it connect to Thick Hide and Natural Recovery. This would allow each of the endcap talents to be reached from Wild Charge/Tiger Dash.
Make Soothe connect to Matted Fur and Improved Rejuvenation. Again, this would allow each of the endcap talents to be reached from Soothe. Frankly, Soothe should be baseline and Stampeding Roar should be moved up to its spot, but that’s a different point, I suppose. Additionally, it would be great if Improved Rejuvenation was replaced with something more universally useful like Rising Light, Falling Night. Improved Rejuvenation feels much more like a top-third talent than a gatekeeper to the bottom third.
Make Ursine Vigor connect to Well-Honed Instincts; make Forestwalk connect to Innervate. I like this solution the least. While it would still grant increased lateral mobility, it is so far down the tree that the utility of that lateral mobility is significantly diminished.
3. Reorganize the Dead Ends.
Again, all other classes combined have 10 dead end nodes, with 7 of the 13 classes having none at all. Druids have 8 dead end nodes. Not only do we have the most heavily hybrid-taxed tree, not only do we have the least lateral mobility, but even when we spend those points in hybrid abilities that we will likely never use, they are often a mostly wasted investment because they lead to dead ends. The Balance side of the tree is particularly bad on this count. For any other spec besides Balance, Hibernate might as well be a 4-point node that is completely separate from the tree, and Cyclone might as well be a 6-point node because they do not continue on down the tree. Those points are locked in and have no further benefit.
Why can’t Hibernate connect to Typhoon? Why can’t Cyclone connect to Rising Light, Falling Night? Why can’t Tireless Pursuit connect to Primal Fury?
Why can’t Ursine Vigor connect to Well-Honed Instincts, and why can’t Forestwalk connect to Innervate? These two are real puzzlers for me because isn’t the point of these trees that we can take what we need for given fights, and choose to forgo what we don’t need for other benefits? On a fight where there’s nothing to use Mighty Bash or Incapacitating Roar on, wouldn’t you rather take Ursine Vigor and have that connect to Well-Honed Instincts? Or on a fight where there’s nothing to use Ursol’s Vortex or Mass Entanglement on, wouldn’t you rather take Forestwalk and have that connect to Innervate? Forestwalk might not be good, but at least it’s got some use as opposed to a situation like a fight with no adds where Ursol’s Vortex or Mass Entanglement would have zero use. Maybe we would choose to still path through Ursol’s Vortex/Mass Entanglement because it would cost one less talent point that we could make better use of elsewhere, but at least we’d have that choice, and I thought that’s what these trees were all about.
4. Reduce Lycara’s Teachings to be a 1- or 2-Point Node
Again, there are over 500 talent nodes across all 13 class trees, and this is the only 3-point node in any of them. Our tree is already disproportionately heavy and restrictive. We don’t need this added on top.
Blizzard clearly understands that the class trees might need to be addressed and iterated on in relation to the Hero Trees, as can be seen by the developer’s note related to the Colossus Hero Tree that said that they will be moving Shockwave to a more accessible spot in the Warrior Class Tree.
Well how about the Druid Class Tree? Each Druid Hero Tree that Blizzard has revealed has simply shone a spotlight on how inflexible and taxing our Class Tree is. When will we get any iteration? When will we get any comment that could speak to even an intent to iterate?
Simply it for you. Druid class tree trying to do much. Doesn’t work with there 4 different spec class tree need to have less nodes and more connection, less 2 to 3 point nodes. And remove all these % increase in healing, damage armor HP to base line. All druid spec should have Regen, rewgrwoth, mondire, sunfire, Vertox, typhoon CC spells base line.
I respect the hustle but this is absolutely an 11.0 thing at minimum.
Probably alpha next month at the latest? But I think Hero talents are 100p their main focus currently so I wouldn’t expect anything for Druid tree early on. They probably will want to make adjustments based on Hero talents at some stage later in development cycle rather than before. All speculation of course
Thanks! Yes, a full rework is not going to happen before 11.0, I’m not kidding myself into thinking otherwise. But they could implement some of it easily.
They could change Lycara’s Teachings to a 1-point node tomorrow, and just that bit would enough for now.
They could make Killer and Nurturing Instinct 1-point nodes, and just that bit would be enough for now.
They could make the affinity talents (Feline Swiftness, Thick Hide, Natural Recovery, and Astral Influence) 1-point nodes, and just that bit would be enough for now.
They could make Ursine Vigor and Forestwalk 1-point nodes—that probably wouldn’t be enough for now. But it’d be nice.
The tree needs a rework in the many ways and for the many reasons described above, but just because it can’t all happen right now doesn’t mean that some of it can’t happen right now. And, perhaps more importantly, it doesn’t mean that Blizzard can’t comment on whether it’s even on their radar. There is clearly no issue with communicating their intentions—as seen with the Warrior developer’s notes—so I think it’s a fair thing to be asking for. I also think it wouldn’t be unfair to assume in the absence of any comments—again, because there is clearly no issue with communicating their intentions—that it’s not on their radar.
Balance druid main here. For one, I feel awful for feral. Statistically in pvp, they are the most killed subclass out there. The stats show that they need some sort of defensive rework. But this goes for boomie as well, who are the 3rd or 4th most killed class in pvp.
Since the nurfs to balance form (Nurf to armor) ((most abilities in the game has magic tied to it so it didn’t do much anyway)) I haven’t played too much. OP put so much into perspective. The fact that most classes can hit one button for a wall, and for the most part live through the onslaught of a burst, while feral/balance have to have the foresight, spend 3 GCD’s (bear form/bark skin/frenzied regeneration) and still die is not right.
Soothe should be baseline imo. OP is right, its too niche. Its on the side bar and only moved into use when fighting a warrior. There are some PvE cases where its used, but it should not be a talent.
Furthermore, when the expansion came out, I remember going through every talent tree for every spec to count up the amount of talent points were in each tree. Druids having the most. On paper this makes since with having 4 subclasses, though OP makes a case for the Affinities to come back. Capstones and the bottom half of our trees are unreachable, or not taken due to being weak, or nurffed to where they are not taken.
Natures Vigil being nurffed made zero sense to me. if we are a “hybrid” class, then we should be able to help our team out.
Rising light, Falling night is an interesting talent, but the fact that we are at the mercy of the game to tell us weather its night or day is frustrating. (night elves already have this baked in) Not to mention, I love how it will be bright and sunny, and this talent tell me “nope, its night time with the sun out.” This should, imo, be a stance button that we can chose if we want “damage” or “verse”. Which, btw, is such a marginable amount that it doesn’t make much of a difference.
From a balance perspective, we are a ranged class that can not get away from melee. The new hero talents in Elune’s Chosen might help, (Glistening Fur: Form reduce arcane damage by 6% and all other forms of magic by 3%) and (Moon dust : enemies affected by moonfire are slowed by 30%)
I am hoping hero talents, like the ones listed above will help. fingers crossed.
I read this in here somewhere, but the druid tree needs to be looked at before implementing any “hero” talents. Keeper of the Grove is abysmal for balance druids and Elune’s Chosen is a step in the right direction for damage output, but core abilities need to be looked at for survivability. Again, I read this somewhere above, have the rogue dev help with feral, have the mage dev look at balance, have the DK dev help with Guardian, and the priest dev with resto.
We’ve been asking for any recognition from Blizzard that the Druid general tree is broken since the start of the xpac (beta really, though the Druid trees weren’t there for very long), but have never heard a word about it.
i feel like anyone still playing feral is a hardcore ive been maining feral since vanilla and its my favorite kinda person. i ran into someone who was new and playing feral but a week later he droped it for the same reasons anyone would
