If this was your takeaway from what I’ve said, then I really don’t know what I can say in response. I have not once said a throughput talent like convoke couldn’t live in the class tree. I have not once said the druid class tree capstones should be the model Blizzard uses for other classes. The druid class tree is a mess.
All I’ve said is that if Convoke/Incarn is brought over to the class tree and is the only good option in the tree, that would be far worse for enjoying the class than having it duplicated into each of the spec trees. Every druid would have to path to it regardless of the cost, reducing flexibility for other options. Right now, I can live without Heart of the Wild, meaning I can avoid Improved Roar/Forestwalk (in the current TWW tree). Throw Convoke in that slot and those become mandatory point expenditures. If we come up with 2 more options that can compete that go on the same row as Convoke/Incarn, then I would be much more receptive to the idea.
Yeah but Convoke fills the fantasy of Heart of the Wild, but better. It’s the reason it ended up in every single tree. Since it is in every tree, why isn’t it just in the class tree like most other classes got with their iconic spec agnostic Covenant abilities?
Who else got Covenant abilities in their class trees as capstones instead of in the spec trees:
Death Knight (Abomination Limb)
Demon Hunter (The Hunt)
Hunter (Death Chakram)
Mage (Shifting Power - not even a capstone, very high in the tree)
Paladin (Divine Toll - two talents with enhancement choice)
Rogue (Echoing Reprimand)
Warrior (Champion’s Spear)
Mindgames was included for Priest in DF but only recently removed in TWW and turned into a PvP talent with the revamp, but was arguably less universal for Priests (ie: didn’t really fit with Holy).
I can only speculate, but would assume it’s down to just how different each spec is from one another for druid. From a game design perspective, most of those other specs have abilities that can compete with them. I suspect that very few (if any) of the Covenant abilities have a 100% pick rate in those other classes even within high end content.
I feel like a broken record at this point, but my reservation is with the relative power level of the covenant ability in relation to what it’s going up against. I am not fundamentally opposed to any of our covenant abilities going into our class tree except ravenous frenzy, there just needs to be adequate competition for those abilities to create for a choice. Otherwise we just recreate the Dragonflight situation where 100% of druids have single-target Sunfire, Starsurge, and Moonkin Form, despite 2 of the 4 specs essentially never using any of them. It’s equivalent to making Convoke and those pathing talents baseline but reducing the total number of points available to select in the class tree.
I’d wager, given it competes with Incarnation on every spec, that they just don’t like the gameplay of lining up these cooldowns like we had in Shadowlands.
Truthfully given that Incarnation is also spec agnostic, they should put that in the class tree up the top (like what they did with Mage Shifting Power), with an option to auto-cast Convoke on activation of Incarnation as the capstone, and tune it accordingly.
most specs want Incarn , it should also be at the bottom center of the tree,accessible by everyone . that doesnt mean to fill up a great wall of china 2 poiinter talent nodes in order to block access and sacrifice every meaningfull utility.
convoke should be up middle-ish on the tree,on the second tier , after you unlock it .
Convoke nowadays is more fun than substance , there is 0 harm in doing that. it could use buffs or whatsoever but the fun factor it brings is priceless. ( and no not everyone really cares about min/maxing, sometimes fun in a video game is equally valuable) .
all and all the druid class tree is horrible. good ideas are left in the shelf to gather dust and we move forward with more questionable decisions. Removal of moonkin for rdruid and bear . WHy?? affinities were so much better also
i feel the oposite about capstones. i feel like capstones on class trees should have 1 per role for multi role classes that is a i need to take this. having capstones that dont feel that need just feel like they can be put anywhere in the tree and its the same. the end of the tree should always have stuff that makes you feel like you need it otherwise why bother putting it at the bottom. i will always use the dk class tree as a example of this. those are talents you want to have and not just a ill take this i guess talent. sure having mandatory talents you need to pick is bad since it reduces choice and freedom but the stuff at the bottom should always have some kind of i need it feeling
You’re taking what I’m saying out of context here. I agree that capstones should be impactful, but only if it has meaningful competition from the other capstone choices. I would prefer we had three meaningful capstone options, but having zero is better than having one. Having only one worthwhile capstone makes it completely mandatory including any pathing required to get there. And that’s how we arrive at the place where 100% of feral druids have Sunfire and Starfire 100% of the time…
yes but atleast with convoke it will get used compared to sunfire and starfire which never got used. they were dead talents needed to be taken to get the range that should have been baseline for feral where as convoke atleast gets used. i would love 3 meaningful capstones but lets face it whoever is working on druids has shown that this class is well beyond their skillset so we will probably never get that. that being said having atleast a convoke/incarn choice as a capstone would give something worthwile. our class tree is so depressing compared to others
Every time I take a capstone I use it. My concern isn’t that Convoke wouldn’t be used. It’s that whatever points I have to spend to get to Convoke may not. And it’s a complete cop out of a talent system if the points leading to it are all completely mandatory anyway.
We might just have to agree to disagree here. My preference is to have 3 impactful capstones that compete with one another in different situations. But if we aren’t going to have that, I’d prefer the situation like it is now with having all rather weak capstones that I can live without whenever my points are stretched too thin rather than having a singular mandatory option in all cases.
That just seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I’d rather have at least one interesting capstone than none. With the TWW changes we will probably all want the left capstone, but it is just a promoted non-capstone talent that isn’t even as good as the original 2-point talent was - yet it is still better than the other options which speaks volumes about how bad they are.
just throw it where heart of the wild is. we probably will because while i to want 3 impactful capstones im willing to settle for having something that makes me want to take it
To each their own. I don’t want to continue having completely mandatory talents I have to take 100% of the time in 100% of specs in my class tree. Especially when we’re talking about something I can already access pretty easily in the spec tree. If this were something completely new or it was clear what would replace it in the spec tree, perhaps I’d feel differently.
I don’t agree with this, at least not for all the content I’m playing. When I heal keys, unless survivability is truly an issue, I would run Heart of the Wild and possibly even Nature’s Vigil before I took Well Honed Instincts. I may not have the points to path down to Vigil and wind up with Instincts, but that will be strictly after Heart of the Wild.
Heart of the Wild is the most interesting capstone in the tree, at least for me. Like I mentioned in the paragraph above, I will get more use out of it when I heal keys than either of the other two current class capstones.
honestly the reason why I dont use berserk is because graphically its crap, it doesnt really provide any cool changes like Final Fantasy 14’s inner release. Power is cool on paper, but a long cooldown on something that doesnt feel cool kinda sucks, Ill never build into berserk until they make it very obvious Im berserking