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?
The silence has been deafening.