The power of Druid lvl 90 talents

[Sunfyre]

Moonkin get a choice at level 90 between watered down hybridization and watered down hybridization, since we can already break snares by shifting into Moonkin Form.

There is no current spec-supporting abilities at level 90. The other hybrids (Paladins, Priests) have options which morph based on your spec to make them valid for all specs. You don't see a holy paladin getting avenger's shield.

[stormgust]

Actually as PVE Feral or Guardian, I'm inclined towards taking Dream of Cenarius just to combo with Nature's Swiftness...

As a Guardian I'd be more inclined towards Renewal than Nature's Swiftness to be honest. That Heal should be quite a bit stronger than a HT, one that will really save you if needed. Though as for feral you may be right, that could indeed prove to be useful. Yet I do not think that a talent should require another talent for it to become useful. They ought to stand on their own ...

[todzilla85]

Moonkin get a choice at level 90 between watered down hybridization and watered down hybridization, since we can already break snares by shifting into Moonkin Form.

There is no current spec-supporting abilities at level 90. The other hybrids (Paladins, Priests) have options which morph based on your spec to make them valid for all specs. You don't see a holy paladin getting avenger's shield.

QFT

i mean just look at the pally tree. that is what ours should look like(and the majority of other classes look like).
movement
cc
heal
mixed tree cd/cc/situational
power
new rotational ability

[Sunfyre]

QFT

i mean just look at the pally tree. that is what ours should look like(and the majority of other classes look like).
movement
cc
heal
cd management
power
new rotational ability

You know, I'm even fine with disentanglement as an option, and a hybridization as an option for those who want that. But right now HotW and Dream of Cenarius are both weak talents. Combine them into some sort of decent hybridization option, but also give us a talent that applies to our current spec.

[todzilla85]

You know, I'm even fine with disentanglement as an option, and a hybridization as an option for those who want that. But right now HotW and Dream of Cenarius are both weak talents. Combine them into some sort of decent hybridization option, but also give us a talent that applies to our current spec.

totally agree sun, hybridization may have a place(i personally dont see it having one since the seperation of trees), but not as a 90 tier. that basic formula is being applied every talent pass they make to a class, which we currently do not follow in our tree. i hope this changes, and i think it will, but im impatient so i gotta voice my opinion now lol.

[Teriz]

I disagree for pve. Spending 2+sec casting a non mastery/spec boosted wrath to get 30% on one heal is not worth it. You'd be better off just casting 2 heals. Same for dpsing. The only time its worth it is to get a 30% boost to Tranq or to combo with NS. At least for pve, DoC is basically reads, makes your Tranq/NS 30% stronger at the cost of a 2+sec cast. And that's assuming it doesn't need to hit, 17% miss chance for resto would SUCK if it has to hit to work. That's rather limiting and boring imo.

In PvE, you can procc Omen of Clarity, and make Wrath instant cast. That can be used either when you have the 30% damaging buff, or to get the 30% healing buff that will increase your heals.

Debatable, you'll be missing mastery, spec bonus, several key abilities, CD's, gearing/trinkets, etc. At best this is something that will be OP to the point of stacking abuse, or UP and only rarely applicable.

The talent significantly boosts your opposing stat, and the Nurturing and/or Killer Instinct talents handles the rest.

personally not interested in pvp. HoTW and DoC have more use in pvp than in pve, but if you are going to pvp, Disentanglement beats the other 2 by a mile.

I agree that HotW and DoC are a bit more situational in PvE, however other talents in the tree in conjunction with the end talents make them a lot more powerful than you're letting on.

Its mediocre in pve as just a self heal cd, its nice, but not exactly tier 90 quality - especially since there is a self heal CD option in tier 2 already. In pvp its so good the other 2 options are completely out-shined.

The self heal from Disentanglement is on a 30 second internal cooldown. If you've already used the self heal, and need it, the talent from tier 2 is there to back you up with an additional heal. Speaking of Renewal, do we know if it counts as a heal spell? If so then it works with DoC, and makes the talent more useful for Bears, Cats, and Moonkins that may need a powerful heal during PvE.

Which does squat for those of us more interested in PvE

When judging a talent, you need to look at its PvE AND PvP applications.

[tangedyn]

I disagree for pve. Spending 2+sec casting a non mastery/spec boosted wrath to get 30% on one heal is not worth it. You'd be better off just casting 2 heals.

If you use it on a Healing Touch or Rejuvenation, then it will not be worth it. On a Swiftmend (also boosting Efflorescence) or Wild Growth (especially glyphed), it's quite likely to be worth it.

[Keiyra]

In PvE, you can procc Omen of Clarity, and make Wrath instant cast. That can be used either when you have the 30% damaging buff, or to get the 30% healing buff that will increase your heals.

Um.. I can't get to the calc atm, but unless something major has changed for MoP, Omen of Clarity makes a spell cost zero mana, not be instant cast. So scratch that, you still are giving up valuable cast time.

The talent significantly boosts your opposing stat, and the Nurturing and/or Killer Instinct talents handles the rest.

Again, it still does not address mastery bonuses, lack of actual spell/ability selection (since spells are spec specific), gearing/trinket issues, etc.

I agree that HotW and DoC are a bit more situational in PvE, however other talents in the tree in conjunction with the end talents make them a lot more powerful than you're letting on.

Really? What in the tree would make HoTW or DoC significantly better for pve? Disregarding the fact that the talents should be acceptable on their own, not fully depending on another tiers choice to be usable.

The self heal from Disentanglement is on a 30 second internal cooldown. If you've already used the self heal, and need it, the talent from tier 2 is there to back you up with an additional heal. Speaking of Renewal, do we know if it counts as a heal spell? If so then it works with DoC, and makes the talent more useful for Bears, Cats, and Moonkins that may need a powerful heal during PvE.

So you are spending 2 talents to get 1 useful ability. Sounds like a raw deal compared to other class's talents.

When judging a talent, you need to look at its PvE AND PvP applications.

Agreed, and I think you keep showing how great they are in PVP, when I keep saying: sure, but they are pretty shitty for PVE - why cant we have talents that work well in both, like most other classes.

[Dasani]

They are crap because in any given spec you won't have access to the standard abilities of another spec, coupled with the even further discrepancy of differences in mastery, it just means you'll never, ever, even come close to someone of the other spec so having talents oriented around trying to do two things at once are ultimately just gimping druids. Only way it would work is if it transfered your mastery and unlocked the special abilities of the other specs.

They're either gonna buff it or get rid of it, because right now it IS garbage.

[tangedyn]

As a Guardian I'd be more inclined towards Renewal than Nature's Swiftness to be honest. That Heal should be quite a bit stronger than a HT, one that will really save you if needed. Though as for feral you may be right, that could indeed prove to be useful. Yet I do not think that a talent should require another talent for it to become useful. They ought to stand on their own ...

Nature's Swiftness is a no-brainer choice over Renewal.

1. Nature's Swiftness has a 1 min CD, Renewal is 2 min
2. Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch can be used on anyone, Renewal can only be used on yourself
3. Nature's Swiftness can be used for Rebirth (and other stuff too, but those are probably useless)
4. There is no confirmation that Renewal heals more than Healing Touch.

[Keiyra]

If you use it on a Healing Touch or Rejuvenation, then it will not be worth it. On a Swiftmend (also boosting Efflorescence) or Wild Growth (especially glyphed), it's quite likely to be worth it.

Perhaps, but that is still getting only 1 boosted WG, or Swiftmend/Efflo every 30 secs for the cost of a slow wrath cast. It's less distasteful to me than HoTW but that's not exactly singing praise.

Anyone in the beta test whether it works on wrath cast or does it actually need to hit? Having to hit with a miss chance would make it a worse deal.

[Clawtrocity]

I definitely have a feeling that with recent changes they will be overhauling all 3 level 90 talents. They are giving us plenty of abilities that give us that hybrid feel already. Topping them off with mandatory hybridization is a little off putting.

Something I could see them implementing is a spriest type talent where our damage in DPS specs goes toward healing and our healing goes toward damage. That accomplishes the same goal, but makes it automatic and position based. (Tanking could be threat?)

Another talent they could use if they want us to actively be switching forms is to create personal aura buffs for each form when you enter them. If I'm a tree then when I'm in tree or humanoid form I get no buff. If I shift into bear I take 10% less damage from all attacks(On top of what it already does). If I shift into cat I gain a stacking debuff that grants extra speed for every second I'm in cat form that persists outside of it. When a big attack is coming up instead of just popping barkskin I would jump into bear form and pop it. When I shift into cat to speed a group up I get a slight bonus for when I get out of the cat form for helping out.

Bears could get a humanoid buff and a cat buff. Humanoid buff could be increased healing received for bears and cats?
Cats could get a bear buff and a humanoid buff.
Moonkins get the same as resto

These two abilities make it so you're not getting choosing to shapeshift because you have to, but rather because you're choosing utility over being in your normal form to do your thing. I can't cast wrath in bear form so when I go to bear form I don't expect extra numbers I expect survivability. I go to cat form for speed and quickness. These are the types of abilities we need to see.

[stormgust]

If you use it on a Healing Touch or Rejuvenation, then it will not be worth it. On a Swiftmend (also boosting Efflorescence) or Wild Growth (especially glyphed), it's quite likely to be worth it.

I'd like you to explain on how you plan on getting the DoC buff timed correctly, so it doesn't turn into overheal almost completely.
Certainly you will not stop healing top keep onto the DoC buff, nor will you spent time casting wrath, when there's heal needed right away.

It maybe worth it in the case you're describing, but those rare cases won't occur unless the stars align.

[Sprucelee]

The whole concept of casting a damage spell reactively when you see the need for increased healing is awkward at best. I am supposed to intentionally delay that critical heal just for 30% more healing? I bet the tank getting gibbed as I wait 2 seconds to get that wrath off will really appreciate that....

At most using it with swiftmend/efflorescence on cd makes the most sense.... But that's still weird and clumsy and going to lead to overheal. We are already so slow compared to ther classes when burst healing this would just compound it....

Honestly , someone already nailed it "improved tranquility" or maybe "improved starfall" lol.

Hotw is a joke, done talking about it. Won't even be used in PVP .

[Kaeth]

I've resigned myself to remaining optimistic that the entire tier will be scrapped and replaced in the next few weeks. I also play a hunter, warlock, and rogue, and the former two classes on that list are undergoing so many exciting changes in the beta that I'm keeping my focus on them while hoping I still have an active interest in my only tank (well, unless that whole demon tank thing stays in) and healer when 5.0.1 arrives.

I was excited for a while about having multiple AoE interrupts and positioning tools for tanking (Typhoon and Ursaul's Vortex in Bear Form), but the sixth talent tier's continued existence in its present state is souring me on the whole concept.

[exochaft]

And it isn't problematic in your eyes, that the only use you can attribute is either not of use at all (malygos) or on a extremely gimmick fight (chimaeron), where on the later you'd actually do something wrong if you needed your DPS/Tanks to offheal. The problem resto druids had there was: Regrowth fails 40% of the time.


Very specific examples indeed. Probably one of the few you could find. You're requiring abstruse enviromental conditions to be met for a talent to become useful.
That's not fun, that's something you can hardly (never) influence, and you'll end up useless as soon as one of those conditions is not met.
Also your assumption on encounter design will not happen. Blizzard won't design encounter with druids as a requirement.

In my Opinion you can rename DoC/HoTW Improved Tranquility(non-resto), because they basically are.

The entire point of the talents is to be OPTIONAL. Blizz even stated such, going so far as to mention that you get all the tools you need to do the job when you choose a role, not when you pick talents.

Even if we step back for a second, there are quite a few encounters in the past expansion beyond what I've mentioned where these talents could have been useful at one point, but nitpicking specific fights/strats isn't the point of this thread. The talents are there for the vast majority of players to enjoy, not a certain niche. If at any point, you are pushing progression at any point, helping someone else out in the raid when you have the time and won't be a detriment to the encounter, why not? DPS isn't always the solution to the encounter, it often lies in survival and/or execution.

Even if you've had the privilege of pushing for world/server firsts as a druid, you know that sometimes you are needed to step outside your role during an encounter or spec in a way to promote a method of defeating an encounter while being "undergeared" for your progression (aka, clearing heroics of a raid w/o having a full normal set of that raid like Blizz designs). Perhaps you're not in a super-stellar guild that has the option to min-max your way to victory... even then, these talents may be of use to help support those outside of your spec to make progression. Heck, we can go to the other extreme of those that just want the ability because they find it fun independent of encounters. This is essentially my same argument for Symbiosis and the options provided thus far: not everything is about maximizing DPS to win, and the other non-DPS increasing Symbiosis options will likely have their place.

The easiest way to think of the talents are as utility spells, nothing more. It's a tool you can have in your toolbox for whenever you need it, and it doesn't mean it's going to be used on every fight.

[Sunfyre]

The easiest way to think of the talents are as utility spells, nothing more. It's a tool you can have in your toolbox for whenever you need it, and it doesn't mean it's going to be used on any fight.

There I fixed it for you.

[Clawtrocity]

Cross posting from: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4253968723#1

To start off I think the new talents system is superb. This is exactly what you guys have been saying for a long time and you finally nailed it with these choices.

With that being said I believe that the idea behind the druid talents are interesting. You said at Blizzcon that you goal was to give each tier a theme which you accomplished well. One of the newer things about druid abilities is that you don't need to be in the form to cast them. That concept combined with the abilities in the first 5 tiers of talents show that you want us to be able to use these abilities on the fly for utility. The tier 6 talents contradict the overall nature of the rest of the talents.

You're most likely already going to be changing based on feedback you've already gotten. I'm just here to post some suggestions that I feel fit nicely with the overall game play of the druid.

I offer two new talents be put in place for Heart of the Wild and Dream of Cenarius. Let's call the first one Splendor of the Wild.

SotW is a shapeshifting talent that doesn't punish the user for not shapeshifting, but instead grants them utility for choosing a side shapeshift rather than their main one.

Splendor of the Wild: You gain extra benefits to morphing into your other druid forms. You do not get a benefit if you are the spec that uses that shapeshift normally:

• Bear Aura - 10% less damage taken from all sources. Stacks with other similar effects.
• Cat Aura - Every 3 seconds you're in cat form you gain a stack of "Light on your feet". This ability increases your movement speed by 5%, lasts for 15 seconds and stacks up to 5 times.
• Humanoid Aura(Resto/Moonkin) - All healing done to you while in this form increases by 15% and increases you're base regen by 15%.

Now the numbers are not up to me it's up to math guys and computers, but this allows someone to use the forms that would otherwise get stale in an actual fight scenario. The benefit to doing it this way is there is no downfall for not choosing to go into these forms damage or healing wise. It's like changing a seal for paladins. Yeah, you normally use that same seal all the time, but once in awhile it's good to use a different seal for AoE or possibly to stun someone. It adds depth to the game play and the mechanics are already there.

The second ability would be something along the lines of hybridization that you tried to do with Dream of Cenarius. This second ability will be called Ancient Harmony.

Ancient Harmony is a talent very similar to the Shadow Priests innate ability to heal while they do damage. When I looked at DoC I thought you guys were trying to figure out a way to incorporate the healing and damage factor into all specs while juggling positioning. Ancient Haromny tries to accomplish this by using the mechanic of the Shadow Priest and the mechanic of Efflorescence.

Ancient Harmony: Dealing damage or healing will activate an effect appropriate to your spec.

• Moonkin: 3% of all lunar damage is converted into healing which heals the closest three people to you. 3% of all solar damage is converted into healing which heals everyone within 8 yards of you.
• Guardian: 10% of the damage you cause is projected in a cone 8 yards to your sides. People in front of you or behind you will not receive this benefit.
• Feral: 5% of all bleed damage you do gets converted into healing. The healing is collected and released every time you use a finisher in an 8 yard radius around you.
• Restoration: 8% of all healing you do with coalesce into tiny spheres of energy that circle you. When you reach enough healing to create 3 spheres you deal damage to enemies in front of you in a 10 yard cone.

This provides that feeling of hybridization, but puts it in control of the user by giving them the ability to move where they want and heal who needs it. It works perfect because of the new Symbiosis ability that will require druids focus on where their partner is. Resto druids may need to be in Melee range if they want cloak of shadows from a rogue so they can use their unleashed energy on the boss. Others may use it on a shadow priest and can use the energy on small packs of adds. I hope by some miracle this happens across the desk of some of the developers and they like my ideas.

Thank you for your time.

TL;DR
SotW: Shape shifting matters, but shouldn't be forced.
Ancient Harmony: Hybridization and positional awareness at it's best.

[huth]

4. There is no confirmation that Renewal heals more than Healing Touch.

Renewal is 30% of your healthpool. That's around 45k selfbuffed for me currently. HT heals 26k in iLvl 405 gear.(In beta. It's weaker on live).

That's as a Moonkin. For Guardian, Renewal heals quite a bit more than HT. NS isn't quite as much of a no-brainer as you think.

Aside from that, i must say that i really don't like tier 6. Not so much because i don't like the abilities, but because i think that they don't make sense to have as talents on the same tier. They don't really compete with each other.
Personally, i think HotW should be given to all druids as a class ability and T6 redesigned from the ground up.

[stormgust]

The entire point of the talents is to be OPTIONAL. Blizz even stated such, going so far as to mention that you get all the tools you need to do the job when you choose a role, not when you pick talents.

Optional as in you choose whichever you like, fit for your playstyle - Not optional as in you choose which could at least occasionaly prove to be useable.

Even if we step back for a second, there are quite a few encounters in the past expansion beyond what I've mentioned where these talents could have been useful at one point, but nitpicking specific fights/strats isn't the point of this thread. The talents are there for the vast majority of players to enjoy, not a certain niche. If at any point, you are pushing progression at any point, helping someone else out in the raid when you have the time and won't be a detriment to the encounter, why not? DPS isn't always the solution to the encounter, it often lies in survival and/or execution.

The vast majority of the players enjoy to stay in their given role, they choose it on their own after all. Now why should we have a talent tier (the final one to boost it) aimed at a minority.

Even if you've had the privilege of pushing for world/server firsts as a druid, you know that sometimes you are needed to step outside your role during an encounter or spec in a way to promote a method of defeating an encounter while being "undergeared" for your progression (aka, clearing heroics of a raid w/o having a full normal set of that raid like Blizz designs). Perhaps you're not in a super-stellar guild that has the option to min-max your way to victory... even then, these talents may be of use to help support those outside of your spec to make progression.

May be ... no, blizzards aim for the new talent system is to provide talents useful in as many situations as possible. Not highly situational ones.

The easiest way to think of the talents are as utility spells, nothing more. It's a tool you can have in your toolbox for whenever you need it, and it doesn't mean it's going to be used on every fight.

You can only hold onto this point of view if you look at the druid talents in a vacuum. You ought to start comparing to other classes and realize that the druid tree is lacking considerably in terms of useability/creativity/concepts compared to those of other classes.