Make Moonkin Form Cosmetic

[DaHomieG]

I mean I GET what you're getting at OP, seeing how Moonkin form only increases like armor and damage. But instead of removing it, make it as you said, a requirement like Feral and Guardian. Maybe add some cool mechanic that only happens in Moonkin form that is part of the baseline playstyle of the spec.

[Mythabay]

That's true... the Resto change, i.e. Tree Form not necessary anymore, puzzles me.

There is a talent for resto Druids that allows healers to change into treants for boosted healing power.

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So, nuance and hyperbole escapes you.

Either way, yes det, a forum featuring, at least, thousands of posters, that is relevant to a game which features a userbase in the millions is bound to have conflicting and mutually exclusive opinions. Shocking!

This is a forum where everyone is supposed to give their ideas on the subject, in this case, whether or not moonkin should be compulsory for Balance Druids. It is not, however, to make an attempt at roasting each other constantly.

So, I say this in the nicest possible way, shut the hell up. Thank you.

[WhiteEagle888]

Complete non-argument in this context.

Feral Cat - a 4 legged feline predator using abilities like rip, shred, pounce, claw, bite. Class fantasy is being agile and damage dealing via bleeds and melee damage with razor sharp claws and teeth
Feral Bear - a 4 legged thick skinned bear using abilities like mangle, thrash, maul, swipe. Class fantasy being a massive and durable animal with enormous pain threshold complimented by adrenaline (rage) and abilities like ironfur and frenzied regeneration.

Removing those forms make either of these specs ridiculous as their look is vital to their class fantasy and any logic surrounding their abilities and roles.

Resto Druid - 2 legs, 2 hands for weaving and casting nature spells to heal allies courtesy of relationship with the moon goddess Elune. Used to have to be in tree form but Blizzard decided this wasn't needed for class fantasy and if anything tree form should exist as a cooldown in which being a tree is beneficial for a short period
Balance Druid - Same as Resto druid but to damage rather than heal and therefor must either be a chicken or blue for no real good reason other than it's always been a chicken and recently allowed to be blue.

Removing Balance druid form, and even maybe replacing with a CD where you can go chicken for a bit, is completely reasonable and absolutely not the same as bear or cat

This is exactly what I had I mind when I created this post - so nice to see some people with clarity of mind still exist

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Let's have another take on this - for the moonkin enthusiasts in the thread would you like to see Starsurge activate Moonkin Form immediately like Void eruption activates Shadowform?

[Meerkatz]

Balance is offspec for me. I think the moonkin form is ugly and dated. I use the glyph of stars. Otoh, I love the resto druid treat and use that a lot for funsies. Also it counts as a "spell" on the second boss in Vault so that's handy.

That said, if they made me a better looking moonkin, I'd consider taking the glyph off. I'm super super jelly of feral/bear skins this xpac. A nice looking staff does not even come close to feral artifact skins.

[Gemini Soul]

Glyph of Stars and toys.

/thread

[Evangeliste]

So many people are literally ignorant nowadays in why Balance is Moonkin based. It's not about enthusiasm, if that's so then your same logic should apply to Bear and Cat forms. That said, not sure how many actually got to see the old quests that explained said reason behind it, but check these quests here:

Favored of Elune? > http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=3661
followed by
Moontouched Wildkin > http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=978
Which eventually leads to
Guardians of the Altar > http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=4901
and finally
Wildkin of Elune > http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=4902

Since Cataclysm removed them, a lot of people scream about it's irrelevance because Legion made a massive parade on the Forms themselves, yet before Legion, the same applied to Bear and Cat Form... Tree Form was even worse than those two. |You hardly saw NPC's be in Tree Form and instead it was just Treants themselves. Out of all of them, Moonkin actually had a purpose. Others were quite literally based off of existing characters as a sake of "others could do it" like the the Druid of Claw/Talon/etc. or Wild Gods.
The only reason I can see Bear/Cat having little hate is because they make sense, they are real animals which automatically carries weight and assumptions that work well with it compared to a giant original Owl Bear, least Tree Form had the RPG famous element of Dryads. Including the imagery they convey, who doesn't want to be a badass Bear or Cat? It's been made more obvious with Legion's artifacts - which will be disappearing too ironically.
Tree Form was rather off if you consider that it's always been suggested that Nature is harmonious with healing. Pretty much every Form has a self heal - it's ingrained into Nature magic. Even Shamans use Nature Magic and all their specs can self-heal. Thus, why do you need to turn into a big are Tree to better heal someone when you already mastered the ways of Nature magic by being a Druid? I mean, come on, at max level you basically are a grizzled war veteran and an Archdruid.
It's most likely why Tree Form was removed, it wasn't really fitting anymore as the universe progressed.

The simple fact is, when one with Nature magic and trained in the way of a particular shape-shift, you become a form that best represents it and empowers you. It's also why things like Goldrinn and the Wolf-form in lore isn't in-game, Elune scorned upon him and Druids were forbade to be Wolves - hence the hidden artifact skin of Balance Druids.
Elune favoured the Owlkin and their cousins. They are the closest beings to interact with the celestial powers they can get.
It shares no difference with other forms prior to Legion and in truth shares the same lack of awareness all round on their lore.
If you're going to play a game that uses little lore originally to be a Bear or Cat and whine about the other forms then you really need to switch classes if you don't get why Resto and Balance have their ways on shape-shifting.

[Kynario]

So many people are literally ignorant nowadays in why Balance is Moonkin based. It's not about enthusiasm, if that's so then your same logic should apply to Bear and Cat forms. That said, not sure how many actually got to see the old quests that explained said reason behind it, but check these quests here:

Favored of Elune? > http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=3661
followed by
Moontouched Wildkin > http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=978
Which eventually leads to
Guardians of the Altar > http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=4901
and finally
Wildkin of Elune > http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=4902

Since Cataclysm removed them, a lot of people scream about it's irrelevance because Legion made a massive parade on the Forms themselves, yet before Legion, the same applied to Bear and Cat Form... Tree Form was even worse than those two. |You hardly saw NPC's be in Tree Form and instead it was just Treants themselves. Out of all of them, Moonkin actually had a purpose. Others were quite literally based off of existing characters as a sake of "others could do it" like the the Druid of Claw/Talon/etc. or Wild Gods.
The only reason I can see Bear/Cat having little hate is because they make sense, they are real animals which automatically carries weight and assumptions that work well with it compared to a giant original Owl Bear, least Tree Form had the RPG famous element of Dryads. Including the imagery they convey, who doesn't want to be a badass Bear or Cat? It's been made more obvious with Legion's artifacts - which will be disappearing too ironically.
Tree Form was rather off if you consider that it's always been suggested that Nature is harmonious with healing. Pretty much every Form has a self heal - it's ingrained into Nature magic. Even Shamans use Nature Magic and all their specs can self-heal. Thus, why do you need to turn into a big are Tree to better heal someone when you already mastered the ways of Nature magic by being a Druid? I mean, come on, at max level you basically are a grizzled war veteran and an Archdruid.
It's most likely why Tree Form was removed, it wasn't really fitting anymore as the universe progressed.

The simple fact is, when one with Nature magic and trained in the way of a particular shape-shift, you become a form that best represents it and empowers you. It's also why things like Goldrinn and the Wolf-form in lore isn't in-game, Elune scorned upon him and Druids were forbade to be Wolves - hence the hidden artifact skin of Balance Druids.
Elune favoured the Owlkin and their cousins. They are the closest beings to interact with the celestial powers they can get.
It shares no difference with other forms prior to Legion and in truth shares the same lack of awareness all round on their lore.
If you're going to play a game that uses little lore originally to be a Bear or Cat and whine about the other forms then you really need to switch classes if you don't get why Resto and Balance have their ways on shape-shifting.

Really good post. Well explained/put.

[Ifeanychukwu]

Would rather have custom moonkin skins

[Riistov]

OP posts lame poll, then argues with every single person who responds that its not lame. Par for the course here in general discussion.

[Kyanion]

OP posts lame poll, then argues with every single person who responds that its not lame. Par for the course here in general discussion.

Yup just report the thread and move on is all you can do. No point wasting time on the OP when they aren't here to have a discussion about a topic.

[Wildberry]

This is a forum where everyone is supposed to give their ideas on the subject, in this case, whether or not moonkin should be compulsory for Balance Druids. It is not, however, to make an attempt at roasting each other constantly.

So, I say this in the nicest possible way, shut the hell up. Thank you.

Did you even read the post I was initially responding to? Of course you didn't. Your criticism is far more valid to the initial post I commented on, than my own. I say this in the nicest possible way: Context is your friend. :^)

[nlc]

The simple fact is, when one with Nature magic and trained in the way of a particular shape-shift, you become a form that best represents it and empowers you.

Good post. Druids attune with and gain power from nature by shape shifting. It's fundamental to the class. There is a lot wrong with shape shifting being optional, IMO. If people want to be a caster in their true form then there are plenty of other options available. It would be nice to have some customisation and/or greater variety of glyphs for moonkin form though. There's no reason we all have to look alike!

[elaina]

3 pages in. OP still hasn't acknowledged existence of glyph of stars....

@WhiteEagle888

[Xandrigity]

I just want a hair bow and maybe a skirt

[TriHard]

Tbh, they should make a glyph that lets you play in your normal form without that astral bullshit that makes you near invisible and teal-ish.
That's my issue with druid, they never get to enjoy their cool sets in combat because they're forced into a form. I get it with feral and guardian, but definitely not moonkin.
So if they made a glyph that lets you remove the moonkin form and not be forced into some astral form, that'd be a welcome change.

Though it's Blizzard, we don't get cool things like that anymore.

[Snes]

Druids are known for their shape-shifting forms. Perhaps Feral should not use bear or cat form? Yeah, bad idea.

I've always wanted my Worgen to just slash shit with his claws, i'd be okay with that.

[WhiteEagle888]

We should have at least 1 DPS spec in our true form to level with.
We can feel a far greater attachment to our druid if it's truly our character and not some nondescript chicken which to add insult to injury only comes in 4 set variations instead of a customizable character we created at the very beginning of our journey.

That being said, the new direction is that abilities like Growl, Dash and Prowl automatically activate the respective forms, so it would be cool to actually have Starsurge activate a stronger form much like void Eruption does for Shadow Priests. This formula works with the audience since DBZ was invented.

[Spiral Mage]

Looked at this and was like "Wait, there's a glyph for this ..."

Shapeshifting may be central to Druids but Moonkin form has always had a slight contention on people liking it or really disliking it so a compromise here makes sense.

[Evangeliste]

Really good post. Well explained/put.

Thank you . I hope many other people see it who have the same feelings towards Moonkin, and are appeased a little by it because for such a big game it can be difficult to see these things and not to mention especially if they removed them.

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Good post. Druids attune with and gain power from nature by shape shifting. It's fundamental to the class. There is a lot wrong with shape shifting being optional, IMO. If people want to be a caster in their true form then there are plenty of other options available. It would be nice to have some customisation and/or greater variety of glyphs for moonkin form though. There's no reason we all have to look alike!

Thank you. I agree with you, I don't understand why it's acceptable to have some forms shape-shift and others not with no proper explanation as to why. If they could give a credible reason other than "It's outdated", even after the Moonkin models received an polygon update then I could understand, but otherwise it carries little weight in my mind and I guess Blizzard's too.
I do agree they needed to customise Moonkin skins as much as the Bear/Cat, in fairness I don't get why they still have refused to give that customisation and stuck to the racial fixation they had before and avoided in Legion artifacts.
Perhaps they will, and hope so too even if you can glyph it to other racial variants as a quick, stop-gap solution.

[Deleted]

3 pages in. OP still hasn't acknowledged existence of glyph of stars....

@WhiteEagle888

Yeah i don't really understand why OP does not take position about this glyph. I mean, he cuold say:" I know it exist but i don't like it".

But nope, no answer so far.