I wrote it in a different thread, but it bears repeating here, and again this is mainly spoken from a PvP Feral point of view, but I think it is still applicable to Druids as a whole.
This is part of the tuning coming today. While I’m appreciative of the increased healing, and have called for as much in this thread already, I can’t help but feel that this highlights again many of the issues in the Druid Class Tree.
I see this un-nerf and I get excited, thinking “hey, Regrowth got un-nerfed, now Frenzied Regeneration… maybe Well-Honed Instincts and Protector of the Pack might be worth playing around with now,” but I look around for points to give up and find none, mostly because I have to waste so many points to get critical talents like Cyclone.
As I say in the TL;DR of the original post, the Druid Class Tree needs a full rework, but it also needs immediate attention. There are both long term and short term solutions. The rework is one of the long term solutions. But we could get short term relief easily in the form of several talent point reductions:
- Lycara’s Teachings should be reduced from 3 points to 2 points (if not 1 point).
- All of the Affinity talents should be reduced from 2 points to 1 point, meaning:
- Feline Swiftness should be reduced from 2 points to 1 point (see: Fleet Footed in the Rogue Tree, which gives 15% move speed for 1 point).
- Thick Hide should be reduced from 2 points to 1 point – if it needs to come down from 6% damage reduction to 5%, that is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
- Natural Recovery should be reduced from 2 points to 1 point.
- Astral Influence should be reduced from 2 points to 1 point – especially for Feral and Guardian, for whom the talent is already nerfed from 5 yards to 3 yards.
When you count the wasted points needed to even path into these Affinity talents, it is clear that their true cost is already more than 2 points.
Talent point reductions do not require a full rework – See: Patch 10.2 Notes, where the Monk Class talent Escape From Reality was reduced from 2 points to 1 point.
We could also get short term relief in the form of dead-end clean-up and making Wild Charge/Tiger Dash enable lateral mobility in the tree by moving it up one row and having it connect to Natural Recovery and Thick Hide.
There’s no reason to let the Druid Class Tree languish for another 6 months (at least) in this state when there are several simple and minor changes that would grant some relief until the tree can be deservedly and properly reworked.