Worgen Druid; what do you think?

Classes Druid
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TLDR: I honestly, truely want to change my Night Elf Druid into a Worgen… But I’m having a few hiccups.

  • I’ve had my Druid as a Night Elf since he was first created, and it’s hard to let go of that. How do I move on?

  • Lore wise/RP wise how do you go from being a master Druid of thousands of years old, with all the wisdom and battle experience to being a Druid of 5 years? It’s kind of a step backwards as far as personal head cannon goes.

  • Racials… Shadowmeld > Dark Flight.

  • My Trial character’s Worgen bear form doesn’t have pupils… I’ve tried messing with the graphics, but it’s just the glow effect with no actual pupil… Looks weird. Iv’e tried all the other tints, but nothing changes. My cat form has pupils… What’s the deal?

  • How do you gain Gilnean rep as a L120?

Hey, so I’ve been thinking about changing my NE druid over to a Worgen recently. The Gilneans are my favourite race in the game, and I really love Genn as a character, and I’m super happy that he’s finally in the spotlight more. Legion and BFA have been great for him.

However, I have a few issues that come up every time I go to purchase a race change. Here they are, and maybe you guys can help me through this. (or maybe I don’t really want to change? I don’t know… Lets talk about it.)

The first issue I have is that I’ve been playing this game for the better part of 13-14 years now. I came into the game half way through Vanilla, and my Druid was my third ever character created. He is the only character that I have never deleted or changed in any way. In my eyes, he’s been the same way since day 4 of me playing this game.

I’ve changed his name (which I’ll be changing back to what I had it originally. Yes, I saved the name) and he’s been a Tauren for about 8 months when I played Horde, but when I transfered him back to Ally, I made him the same way he was before changing him over. It’s hard to drop all that. Every other character was either deleted and re-created in the early years, or I’ve never hesitated to race change them. (some several times… This mage for example has been race changed 6 times. Never once thought anything of it.)

The second issue I have is all about the Druid lore and my own personal RP/Head cannon for my character.

NE’s are arguably the most powerful Druids in lore. (It’s not really arguable… They actually are. It’s kind of fact.) and I have a little back story for my character. (Even though I don’t RP, it’s kind of cool to think of what my character was before I created him.)

So switching him to a Gilnean who’s only been a formal Druid since Cata (which in game lore time is only about 5 years.) and has only lived for 20-60 years compared to my NE who’s been a proper Druid for thousands of years… It’s kind of… a step back?

Third issue is the racial. Shadowmeld is just too OP. Especially in open world content. I can just run through any number of mobs, and when I get to where I’m going I just vanish and drop all my aggro. It’s also great when another player will kite their mobs into me while I’m AoEing, and I can just ditch them all and watch all the mobs run after him. As a Worgen, I can’t do that. I do get an extra speed boost however… But it doesn’t stack with travel form so… How worth it is it really?

The fourth and final thing that I’ve come to learn (as of last night) is that on my L110 trial Worgen Druid the bear form eyes are all messed up. They don’t have pupils. I think they’re supposed to, but mine doesn’t. The glow effect is there, but it’s just a “hollow” eye. My cat form has pupils. I’ve tried different skin tints to see if it was just the one I was using, but it seems to be on every skin tint for the Worgen bear form. Not sure if this is supposed to happen, or a bug, or a graphics thing. I’ve messed with all the graphic settings and nothing brings the pupils to the surface.

With all that whining about not wanting to change to a Worgen… I really do love the Gilnean race. They’re my favourite in the game, and I have several Worgen already and I love them. I just for some reason have an attraction to my Night Elf Druid that I can’t seem to shake.

Ps. How does one go about getting Gilnean rep at L120? I know they’re coming out with heritage armor soon and my other Worgen are already exalted, so I’m not worried about them… But my Druid is only honored.

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I mean, lore-wise you don’t race change. That’s a gameplay handwave :stuck_out_tongue:

Gilnean Rep comes from a lot of the old-world questlines, mainly in Kalimdor. There are a handful of worgen quest hubs, like in Felwood. Also the tabard to turn dungeon kills into rep.

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Sure, but I would essentially be re-creating/re-inventing the character. He wouldn’t be the same character that he has been previously. I would essentially be deleting my current Druid from lore/RP and re-inserting a new character with a new story/background into the lore/RP.

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Honestly I feel like it’s a much more interesting story. Night elves were just kind of all druid all the time, but Gilneas develops.

Gilneas clearly had a harvest druid circle before, but it was probably pretty niche until recently, and there’s a good chance you were one of relatively few prior to Cata. The worgen curse is basically druidism gone-wrong-gone-right-again (give or take some heavy medication). It gives every surviving Gilnean, druid or not, something even a lot of night elves can’t claim: a direct spiritual tie to an active spirit of the Emerald Dream. And not just any boring spirit, but one who was besties with Varian Wrynn, who you personally meet and rescue during the class hall, and who has probably himself undergone a decent amount of development in recent months (which would in turn affect the nature of the curse, since it’s basically just psychic bleedover from his WAUUUUGH). Gilnean druidism would’ve exploded with renewed interest, both because everyone got a heavy shot of nature 'roids, and because it’s how they control it better.

There’s a lot of room here, maybe not for backstory, but for dynamic story that got interesting at level 1.

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Side note, Darkflight works in bear form. Use it ALL the time.

Thinking of making my druid a night elf though, just so i can be a pink kitty.

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First of all, Tauren were the first Druids. (I mean I’m not trying to rekindle the age-old debate or anything :wink: )

After reading your entire post, I’d recommend staying NE. If you’re trying to convince yourself to change, it’s probably not a good idea. If I mained Alliance, I’d be a NE no question. They’re the elite Druid race for both factions imo. I’d roll a second Druid if you’re that into Worgen.

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The racial is the big thing for me. Meld is just excellent, from higher level m+ Tactics all the way down to accidentally getting combat locked in the open world. Huge QoL boost.

I should say I don’t care about the lore at all, so if that means a ton to the OP then the answer is not as black and white.

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" According to Tauren mythology, Cenarius (the patron for all druids) instructed them first in druidism as recounted in their myth Forestlord and the First Druids . As it stands, the Night Elves claim the first druid was Malfurion Stormrage, an idea challenged by the Tauren beliefs. This is clarified in Chronicle . Cenarius did live among Yaungol, the ancestors to the Tauren, when they settled near the Well of Eternity between the 12,000 and 11,900 BDP, but Malfurion was the first to be trained in the ways of the druid, around year 10,000 BDP. This is why Malfurion is referred to as the first mortal druid. The Yaungol could thus be compared to the early humans who used crude nature magic, a primitive sort of druidism, like the Gilnean harvest-witches."

Straight from WoWpedia. :wink:

I am looking for reasons to change. You’re absolutely right. The thing is, I absolutely love the Gilnean culture and race as a whole. But I just can’t get over Night Elf Druids.

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Did the change years ago. Who doesn’t love a good shapeshifter that has even more shapes to shift.

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Update: I ended up doing it. I was trepidatious at first, but as soon as I started doing my customization, and messing around with the hair colors to find out which form fur color I like the best, I started to get really excited.

All in all, I’m glad I switched over. (I do miss Shadowmeld though.) I’m still trying to come up with a good backstory/ head canon RP for my new character though.

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Why not just make a second character as a gilnean?

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And which one do I main?

What’s the point in having two druids? They would both be at different gear levels. If I have my Night Elf, and go play my Gilnean who is less geared, I might as well just play the more geared one and have more fun with it. So there’s really no point.

I never understood why someone would have two of the same class on the same server. (aside from one being Horde, and one being Alliance.)

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@Omniscience,
Let me be the first to say “welcome to the pack”. As for story wise, that is where the fun begins. For example, my guy was a Forest ranger, someone who would lead the searching parties for missing people in the woods, while having first aid training to help those who had been hurt. He has a green thumb for growing medicinal herbs and knows quite a bit about alchemy. Plus having darkflight is always great for bgs and raids. As a healer, I love healing and kiting those who would try to kill me

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Different specs for each? One could be balance/restoration, the other feral/guardian. Each uses different types of gear, has a different playstyle and abilities, etc.

I have two deathknights, for example - one is unholy/blood, the other is frost, completely different roles and styles =P

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You only have 1 druid? What’s the point in having only one? That’s not nearly enough.

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Darkflight is awesome.

Only bad thing about worgen is the females. They look like Chihuahuas.

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Darkflight is useless on a druid. Catform gives almost the same movement passive and breaks snares too. And it doesn’t even save a GCD since Darkflight is on it and you can leave cat with a non-cat ability. I’ve pretty much only ever used Darkflight while mog running old dungeons.

Probably good on a priest though.

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Dash breaks bear form. Darkflight does not.

Ive used it while actively tanking MOTHER during winds, or to rush over and grab adds.

Its great in combat when you dont want to or cant use roar.

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Fair enough. I see so few bear tanks anymore it’s easy to forget :stuck_out_tongue:

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To all the points of racials and whatnot that’s something you’re going to need to evaluate yourself.

Your question on rep I’m guessing is because you want to get the worgen heritage armor. To get rep at 120 buy and equip the Gilnean tabard and go run heroic TBC dungeons (you can run all the ones near shattrath)

If you want I would suggest waiting till you see what the heritage armor looks like to decide.

Me personally I admit that for my level of game play for raids and Mythic+ I should probably be a night elf but aesthetically I enjoy worgen more.

TLDR is choosing what you would want to play and look at more :wink: