Finding Balance: a Return to the "Core Fantasy" of Druids

[Wildmoon]

From the interview in the front page, it's clear that plant/life/weather themed offensive abilities will belong to restor's kit. They will use hurricane for AoE dmg and they will use thorn for solo leveling.

- - - Updated - - -

This is exactly the type of thing I was hoping the devs would introduce for balance druids. No where in lore do druids have any kind of celestial affinity. It feels more like a mage than a druid. You should tweet this @warcraftdevs and hopefully someone reads it. At this stage they won't change the entire spec but maybe they'll add one or two of the abilities as talents or baseline spells. One can dream anyway.

Druids already have decent amount of life/plant/weather themed talent options. The vortex and Force of Nature being the notable ones.

[huth]

They could draw some stuff from the Botani as well for Resto...


Still trying to come up with a better name for Balance though. I rather like Keeper for Restoration, and Guardian works just fine for bears, but i'm kinda drawing a blank on Feral and Balance. Anybody got some ideas?

We could also come up with some titles for the various affinity combos.

[Deleted]

Vortex is rarely used (think I used on socrethar for ghosts but that's about it) and FoN is never ever used in pve. Not sure about pvp but I think boomkins use incarnation in that too. I kinda want abilities to do with nature that I can put on my bar and use often and not be gimping myself :/

Maybe replace stellar flare with thorns and make it baseline but then again if we use both celestial and nature themes in the dps rotation it would feel kinda weird. I'd rather they focused fully on one or the other I guess, preferably nature as I said before

[Falerin]

Cenarius, Son of Elune. It wouldn't be surprising if he had a hand in this, and he provides another link between WarCraft Druidism and these astral powers.

Besides, i wouldn't mind Blizzard doing Druids a bit differently from the common fantasy style, and harken back to the actual druids of our world while they're at it. There isn't much lore support for this back in WC3 and early WoW, but there's nothing that speaks against it there, either.

That's an interesting point. The whole story of Elune x Marlorne has always been left (perhaps deliberately) ambiguous, but I suppose if Cenarius hasn't straight up denied the legend's veracity, we can take his word that he is the offspring of a true goddess and a giant white stag. Still, he was essentially raised by Ysera, so while a case could be made for some celestial connection, I feel like his primary affiliation would remain with the Dream and the forests of Kalimdor.

Very cool idea, quite well thought out and a refreshing read!

I have a couple of comments (some on the mechanics side and some on the thematic side).

Mechanics:
In order to avoid clunkiness and confusion I would make it so that Awakend/Dreamstate abilities are an empowered mirror of eachother. So basically when you switch states your bars remain the same but the functionality of the spells changes.

So thorns would be castable in Dreamstate but Hail of Thorns would be castable in Awakened state.
Wrath could also cleave in Dreamstate, or just hit for more.
Impaling roots I just don't like/find fitting. I think your idea of a wisp pathing and exploding on the primary target is a much better spell to fill a similar role.

Theme:
I enjoyed the general theme you propose but I don't like the seemingly heavy focus on roots/ground manipulation effects. Seems to be creeping dangerously into Shaman territory again (earth manipulation). Roots are cool for CC, not so much for direct damage. Perhaps wisps, mushrooms or even fairie dragons could get the job done.

Glad you found it refreshing! I had indeed considered having several abilities that transformed between dream and awakened states, though they should have similar functions and be paired in a way that expresses some kind of dichotomy/polarity. As for the ground effects, I wanted to emphasize manipulation of the plants' extensions (roots, vines, etc.), not directly moving earth/rocks as shaman do. But I'm all for shrooms!

I didn't put it in my original post, but at one point had written up a section for a new Wild Mushroom. Activate in dreamstate to plant/grow a mushroom that does an AoE pulse to apply Volatile Spores (light DoT debuff). Activate in awakened state to blow up the mushrooms and trigger explosions on spored enemies caught in the blast, consuming the debuff but chaining to more nearby enemies (chain explosions!)

They could draw some stuff from the Botani as well for Resto...


Still trying to come up with a better name for Balance though. I rather like Keeper for Restoration, and Guardian works just fine for bears, but i'm kinda drawing a blank on Feral and Balance. Anybody got some ideas?

We could also come up with some titles for the various affinity combos.

The Botani were certainly a part of the inspiration for my proposed redesign of balance druids; WoD saw quite a few new and interesting spell animations from the Botani and other Primals, which could easily be used as assets for new plant-based druid spells.

Going a bit off-topic from this thread about balance druids, but perhaps Feral could be rebranded as Ravager (in memory of the now removed ability). If it weren't already a title from the Tanaan achievement, Predator would have been nice. "Jaeger" actually has a nice ring, although that's straying from the English language.

I think Grovekeeper might be a bit more descriptive for a resto druid, and avoid overlap with the Keepers of Ulduar. Or maybe maybe Mender for something more generic, but evokes a stronger sense of the healing aspect.

I'm also stuck on a good name for the existing celestial-themed Balance (another minor reason for redesigning the spec). Astrologist sounds goofy. Stargazer? Star-sage?

[huth]

Going a bit off-topic from this thread about balance druids, but perhaps Feral could be rebranded as Ravager (in memory of the now removed ability). If it weren't already a title from the Tanaan achievement, Predator would have been nice. "Jaeger" actually has a nice ring, although that's straying from the English language.

I think Grovekeeper might be a bit more descriptive for a resto druid, and avoid overlap with the Keepers of Ulduar. Or maybe maybe Mender for something more generic, but evokes a stronger sense of the healing aspect.

I'm also stuck on a good name for the existing celestial-themed Balance (another minor reason for redesigning the spec). Astrologist sounds goofy. Stargazer? Star-sage?

I think Predator is a tad to generic, and Jäger is just german for Hunter. Including the class, so it's already taken. Ravager could work, i guess.

Grovekeeper would work fine, Mender is probably to generic, as you could apply that to just about any healer. Would also go nicely with them having the more nature based spells.

For Balance... building on the astrology theme, maybe Soothsayer, Prophet, Oracle, Augur or Haruspex? I think i'd go with Oracle, myself, if i had to choose from those.

[Deleted]

I can't believe I've not realized this before. Balance Druids absolutely should be more about using the offensive energies of Nature, Wind and The Dream. Could someone with access to the US forum perhaps make the suggestion there also? I feel if this gathers enough attention, it is still early enough we can make some change.

[huth]

I can't believe I've not realized this before. Balance Druids absolutely should be more about using the offensive energies of Nature, Wind and The Dream. Could someone with access to the US forum perhaps make the suggestion there also? I feel if this gathers enough attention, it is still early enough we can make some change.

It's been 11 years. It's way, way to late.

[Juvencus]

Nature describes everything in the universe. Ferals/Guardians represent living organisms, Restos represent Azeroth and Balance represents the celestial. Sounds like a much more inclusive class theme to me, compared to the old one.

Although I have to admit, some of your concepts are pretty cool :P

[Falerin]

Nature describes everything in the universe. Ferals/Guardians represent living organisms, Restos represent Azeroth and Balance represents the celestial. Sounds like a much more inclusive class theme to me, compared to the old one.

Although I have to admit, some of your concepts are pretty cool :P

I dunno...it seems a stretch to include extraterrestrial bodies under the umbrella of "Nature". Always viewed druids as stewards of the Azerothian ecosystem, so I have difficulty accepting the argument that balance druids have taken the role of being "guardians of the galaxy" (that would put balance druids on a whole different level above all other specs/classes...which I guess is cool?)

[huth]

I dunno...it seems a stretch to include extraterrestrial bodies under the umbrella of "Nature". Always viewed druids as stewards of the Azerothian ecosystem, so I have difficulty accepting the argument that balance druids have taken the role of being "guardians of the galaxy" (that would put balance druids on a whole different level above all other specs/classes...which I guess is cool?)

Nature, in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, or material world or universe.

First sentence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature.

Not that big a stretch, when you view it that way.

As for your view of their role... i think it's better to view this from the PoV that they're all stewards of the ecosystems they have access to(and they haven't limited themselves to Azeroth ever since they were able to get to Outland), but focus on different parts of it. Restoration on flora and regrowth, Feral and Guardian on fauna and Balance deals with the influence of outside factors. Which, under normal circumstances, would probably mostly be celestial objects.

Put another way, a Restoration Druid would be most appropriate when you've got problems with plants not growing right, Guardians and Ferals when the animal population behaves oddly, and Balance would have a field day with what the heck is up with Shadowmoon's eternal night, and what effects it has on the area.

[Falerin]

First sentence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature.

Not that big a stretch, when you view it that way.

As for your view of their role... i think it's better to view this from the PoV that they're all stewards of the ecosystems they have access to(and they haven't limited themselves to Azeroth ever since they were able to get to Outland), but focus on different parts of it. Restoration on flora and regrowth, Feral and Guardian on fauna and Balance deals with the influence of outside factors. Which, under normal circumstances, would probably mostly be celestial objects.

Put another way, a Restoration Druid would be most appropriate when you've got problems with plants not growing right, Guardians and Ferals when the animal population behaves oddly, and Balance would have a field day with what the heck is up with Shadowmoon's eternal night, and what effects it has on the area.

Okay, fair point about druids taking an active role in the (terrestrial) ecosystem on Outland, and taking an interest in the botani and arrakoa in A.U. Draenor. Obviously the Sun provides energy for photosynthesis. Azeroth's moon/Elune produce some magical/supernatural effects. Shadowmoon Valley is admittedly weird (was it always eternal twilight, or was that after the void transformation of K'ara?) However, can you list some specific examples of the influence of stars on natural ecosystems "under normal circumstances"? Using "astral" power and having Starsurge and Starfall as our strongest spells would suggest that potency of stars exceeds that of the sun/moon.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, this brings up a whole host of interesting questions about the nature of "celestial systems" (which deserve their own thread). Azeroth, Draenor (before blowing up and fragmenting into M.U. Outland), and presumably all other "worlds" are spherical planets. Azeroth has 2 moons (the larger of which may be a manifestation of a Goddess or a cocoon of sorts), which we can assume orbit the planet. What isn't entirely clear is the relationship between Azeroth and its sun. The Tauren believe the sun is a manifestation of An'she, the right eye of the Earthmother and counterpart to Mu'sha (Elune), but to my knowledge there are no reports of An'she ever intervening in the affairs on Azeroth. Thus, does An'she truly exist (as a sentient deity), or is the sun just a great big ball of plasma like real-world stars? Does the sun orbit Azeroth (geocentric) or is it the other way around, like Earth orbiting the Sun (heliocentric)?

Following these question of geocentric vs heliocentric Azeroth, what is the nature of stars in the Warcraft universe? Are they actually the suns of other planetary systems in the Great Dark Beyond (outer space)? If Azeroth is geocentric, orbited by its sun and two moons, does that mean that the stars are also "bound" to Azeroth, orbiting/enveloping it? Could constellations visible on Azeroth also be seen on other planets, or does each planet/world have its own "astral nebula"? If the latter is true, then I think a stronger case could be made for tying the celestial sphere to natural ecosystems, with balance druids serving to monitor and maintain the equilibrium.

[huth]

At that point we're sadly running outside established lore, though i'd posit that after the developments of the last decade or so, the more learned people on Azeroth are probably likely to connect the Titans to the stars to a degree, especially our characters who had rather close run-ins with some of their more advanced stuff, and they were(are?) undeniably quite powerful.

But for the most part, we don't really know much about how space in the WarCraft universe works(obviously not quite like ours, or Shadowmoon couldn't exist). Might be reading a little to much into game mechanics as well.

[Juvencus]

Actually, this brings up a whole host of interesting questions about the nature of "celestial systems" (which deserve their own thread). Azeroth, Draenor (before blowing up and fragmenting into M.U. Outland), and presumably all other "worlds" are spherical planets. Azeroth has 2 moons (the larger of which may be a manifestation of a Goddess or a cocoon of sorts), which we can assume orbit the planet. What isn't entirely clear is the relationship between Azeroth and its sun. The Tauren believe the sun is a manifestation of An'she, the right eye of the Earthmother and counterpart to Mu'sha (Elune), but to my knowledge there are no reports of An'she ever intervening in the affairs on Azeroth. Thus, does An'she truly exist (as a sentient deity), or is the sun just a great big ball of plasma like real-world stars? Does the sun orbit Azeroth (geocentric) or is it the other way around, like Earth orbiting the Sun (heliocentric)?

Following these question of geocentric vs heliocentric Azeroth, what is the nature of stars in the Warcraft universe? Are they actually the suns of other planetary systems in the Great Dark Beyond (outer space)? If Azeroth is geocentric, orbited by its sun and two moons, does that mean that the stars are also "bound" to Azeroth, orbiting/enveloping it? Could constellations visible on Azeroth also be seen on other planets, or does each planet/world have its own "astral nebula"? If the latter is true, then I think a stronger case could be made for tying the celestial sphere to natural ecosystems, with balance druids serving to monitor and maintain the equilibrium.

It's more likely that Elune manifests herself as the Moon goddess because her followers love the night, not because the moon is her actual incarnation. The tauren's Earthmother is probably the same deity.

The night elf lore is also more prominent in the druid history. The confusion comes from the two races assigning different gravity to the same things. For the tauren the sun and moon are the eyes of the Earthmother, for the night elves the moon is Elune itself.

[Wildmoon]

It's easier to explain that Druids use the energy of the moon,the sun and stars as whole to cast their spells than to link them heavily with Elune or An'she. Elune worshipping is not a significant part of Druidism in lore. It's an important part of the culture of Night Elves as whole. Yes, they do worship Elune but the worshiping of Elune is not a part of Druidism. It's a part of their culture.

[Owhale]

I think following a setup like Malfurion would be better than relying on the current meta.

[Falerin]

It's more likely that Elune manifests herself as the Moon goddess because her followers love the night, not because the moon is her actual incarnation. The tauren's Earthmother is probably the same deity.

The night elf lore is also more prominent in the druid history. The confusion comes from the two races assigning different gravity to the same things. For the tauren the sun and moon are the eyes of the Earthmother, for the night elves the moon is Elune itself.

That's an interesting theory: that Elune, who has sometimes been called 'the one true goddess' of Azeroth, is in fact the same entity as the Earthmother, rather than just one of her eyes (Mu'sha). Or perhaps similar to great goddess figures in other religions/myths, she has multiple aspects; the Earthmother representing her land-based or "fertility" aspect, and Elune representing her heavenly/celestial aspect.

Although, delving into these distinctions diverges from the fundamentals of druidic arts (tapping into "natural" forces/energies), into the realm of "divine magic" employed by priests (power drawn from faith/worship).

[Juvencus]

That's an interesting theory: that Elune, who has sometimes been called 'the one true goddess' of Azeroth, is in fact the same entity as the Earthmother, rather than just one of her eyes (Mu'sha). Or perhaps similar to great goddess figures in other religions/myths, she has multiple aspects; the Earthmother representing her land-based or "fertility" aspect, and Elune representing her heavenly/celestial aspect.

Although, delving into these distinctions diverges from the fundamentals of druidic arts (tapping into "natural" forces/energies), into the realm of "divine magic" employed by priests (power drawn from faith/worship).

It was more as an answer to "druids don't interact much with the sun and are only interacting with Azeroth and the moon". It just appears so because night elf history is a big part of druid history. There is nothing about the night that makes it inherently more druidic.

All three of these celestial bodies are as much a part of nature and relevant to druids as anything else.

[Falerin]

It was more as an answer to "druids don't interact much with the sun and are only interacting with Azeroth and the moon". It just appears so because night elf history is a big part of druid history. There is nothing about the night that makes it inherently more druidic.

All three of these celestial bodies are as much a part of nature and relevant to druids as anything else.

Never tried to argue that the sun/day was less druidic than the moon/night (in spite of the "moonkin" moniker). Certainly the sun has a much stronger direct influence on the natural environment than do the moon or stars. Problem is that the in-game representation of the spec fails to establish a convincing connection between the celestial and terrestrial parts of nature; just laserchickens waddling about firing beams/bolts of pure cosmic energy (nice signature, btw). Feels like nature-based abilities have been mostly shoved into situational spells/talents like unrelated afterthoughts.

At the very least they could do something like make treants a baseline core ability, and introduce a passive which causes the druid's solar spells to buff the treants in some way (to represent photosynthesis). For the moon, perhaps lunar spells can sometimes proc a swarm of luna moths on affected targets; another idea might be to turn the old Wild Mushroom into "Moon Mushroom"/"Mooncap", and have lunar spells charge up the power of their detonation. Something, anything to validate that celestial bodies play an important role in governing the natural world.

[huth]

I think that's more of a conflict with Blizzard's design philosophy putting gameplay over lore. Sure, you could do those things, but i'm not convinced they'd provide compelling gameplay.

[Falerin]

I think that's more of a conflict with Blizzard's design philosophy putting gameplay over lore. Sure, you could do those things, but i'm not convinced they'd provide compelling gameplay.

From our exchanges thus far, I don't think I have the powers of persuasion to convince you otherwise - and that's fine; everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Different players assign different relative values to gameplay and story/lore. The examples I'm throwing out are just concept ideas of how one might represent class lore/flavor through in-game mechanics. I would like to believe that Blizzard's dev team possesses the talent and resources to design a class/spec that provides compelling gameplay while remaining consistent with lore.