Are affinity talents supposed to make you as good as that other spec?

[stormgust]

That's because they didn't bother to make it strong enough, though. Not because they couldn't.

They hotfixed HotW DPS/ Heal down within weeks of release because it was too bursty. It's not that they didn't try, it just did not work.

[huth]

They hotfixed HotW DPS/ Heal down within weeks of release because it was too bursty. It's not that they didn't try, it just did not work.

But it was also a cooldown, not something you have permanently. They have a few more knobs to adjust this time.

[Nythiz]

Obviously not as good.

The thing is. You lose out on:
a) Talents
b) Several abilities
c) Certain mechanics
d) Cooldowns

But what you DO get SHOULD work to substantial potential.

Take for example Balance affinity for a resto druid. He won't be able to starfall stuff, he won't be able to benefit from the talents that really drive balance; but his potential with what he does get is pretty solid.
The ability to use Moonkin form + Sunfire + Solar Wrath + Lunar Strike + Starsurge is a huge upgrade from what resto gets now (moonfire + wrath spam); plus you get full benefit of the Astral mechanics that Balance druids make use of.

I think the affinities allow blizzard to give druids a bit more goodies from an offspec, without giving too much. Which is practically where HotW (when it was OP) went wrong; as you got ALL THE GOODIES for a short amount of time.
You can't give a balance druid the benefits of a guardian druid's cooldowns and tankability plus the heals from a restoration druid without it being OP. That's why what we currently get on live is a pretty watered down version of all offspecs.
A balance druid now is 3/4th balance, 1/12th feral, 1/12th guardian and 1/12th resto. In Legion they're trying to allow you to pick one of those 3 off-specs and flesh it out a little bit more, so you're more 3/4th balance and 1/4th whatever you chose. (Not entirely true, because you'll still keep certain components. But you get the idea).

It reminds me a bit of secondary class specs in GW1, which is a concept I quite enjoyed.

[dixincide]

The salt in these replies is annoying the guy just asked a question.

Your losing the ability to do anything in specs you aren't specced into come legion. IE. a balance druid won't have feral spells or bear spells.
The affinity will give you access to 1 of the other specs core abilities so you'll have the ability to shift into them.


Think heart of the wild scaled down so that it won't be a 6 min cooldown and just a flat amount but only for one form. You'll likely be as powerful as you are now specced for one form and doing damage in the other.

the idea behind affinity is to make each druid unique to 1 spec and 1 sub spec. Rather than 1 spec and all sub specs.

[Tiberria]

I fully expect that the affinities will end up being a balancing nightmare. Basically, I don't see how they can tune them so they are anywhere close to able to partially fill the offspec role. Otherwise, the following issues will crop up.
- If a Guardian affinity feral/balance Druid is capable of offtanking a raid boss for a few seconds every minute or two, that is probably enough to be able to get rid of the second tank raid spot on a lot of bosses.
- If a Guardian in Feral (or even Balance) affinity is able to do significantly more DPS when not actively tanking the boss than they would by staying Bear, they become significantly better than every other tank on any fight with a lot of tank switching/single tank taking at once type mechanics.
- If a Balance (or Feral) Druid is able to take Resto Affinity and Resto Affinity isn't complete garbage, on a fight that is 4 healed because of high healing requirements in some burst phases, but only needing 2-3 healers the rest of the fight, the Balance Druid could go Resto/Rejuv spam for those high healing moments, potentially eliminating the need for a 4th healer.
- On a similar fight with a lot of downtime and high healing requirements, if a Resto Druid in Boomkin form can do significantly more DPS than other healers, you could just have them switch back and forth. This would have the potential to make the new Disc Priest spec design completely redundant.

I really can't see them being able to tune the affinities in such a way that any of the above are realistic scenarios. People will not tolerate raid spots being made redundant by offspec hybrid switching. Either that, or they will have to tax the DPS/HPS output of Druid specs to compensate for their ability to partially cover other raid roles - making them weaker than other classes when sticking in their primary role.

Realistically, the most likely scenario is that the affinities end up being tuned in such a way that you are only taking them in a raid environment for the passive damage reduction/movement speed/spell range/Ysera's Gift buffs.

[huth]

You're kinda missing the part where you show why these are issues, and not just situations that can happen.

[stormgust]

You're kinda missing the part where you show why these are issues, and not just situations that can happen.

They are issues not because they can happen, but will happen, and thus will have to be accounted for in encounter design, that is things certainly will be harder for raids not having access to several druids (resp. the opposite way as laid out by Tiberria). Alternatively, we could go back to hybrid tax.

[BedlamBros]

Will the affinities make you as good as another spec?

Um no. As said before, you're missing too many talents, passives, masteries, glyphs, etc. to be as effective.

What affinity seems like to me is that a Guardian Druid who has picked up Restoration for example is now capable of doing a little bit of healing while tanking. If that Guardian picks up Balance, then they get some long ranged attacks and increased range. If they pick up Feral, then they move faster, and have a few more damage abilities to add to their rotation. At the very least, if you choose an affinity you can temporarily add some support to a role. I.e. if the healer dies, a Resto affinity could add some spot healing for a short amount of time.

I think all of them have their benefits, and really come down to personal preference.

[Imatapir]

Hybrid tax concept was pretty dumb, but you don't have to tune the affinities so they can be a viable alternative to an off tank for example.
It just need to be tuned so that they can work in a "Oh Shit" moment.

Being able to pop in bear and hold the boss a bit while the tank is being rezzed - it will drain mana from healer faster but you won't get squished in 2 blows.

[Inukashi]

Well, not as a typical raid role, but I think there will be cool abuses

Look at the heal artefact / talent tree and now imagine guardian affinity

You will have perma heal on yourself while in bear form (mark of shifting), spreading flowers and everything by just being afk.. maybe even with good equip you can be the tank AND healer together in a 5man dungeon? lfr? Depending on equip for sure.
You can do a lot of hot increases like 'ever heal of time 10 seconds longer' .. so we will have 80% uptime with the new frenzy reg? This will make us nearly immortal as resto with guardian affinity. Just think about someone trying to nuke you in Arena .. You.. a bear with 80% uptime of frenzy reg + perma flourish and reju?
We will be able to cast tranq once a minute with 20 seconds uptime as a bear

And this is just by looking at Resto with Bear.. I think there will be a lot of more things that are really strong.

I don't hink its about 'you can play cat with a resto spec' .. because why should you? There is no dualspec anymore. You can just switch to the spec you want. Its more about the abuse. Maybe there will be bugs like 'Galactic Guardian procs so much as moonkin, you are doing more dmg as Bear with moonkin affinitiy, then a real moonkin'
or
'Blood claws + Jagged Claws + Embrace of nightmare (all 3 from guardian artefact) are so strong, not to mention the self heal you get from bleeding dots. If you want to play cat in arena -> spec guardian'

[Pyrianis]

You will have perma heal on yourself while in bear form (mark of shifting), spreading flowers and everything by just being afk.. maybe even with good equip you can be the tank AND healer together in a 5man dungeon? lfr? Depending on equip for sure.
You can do a lot of hot increases like 'ever heal of time 10 seconds longer' .. so we will have 80% uptime with the new frenzy reg? This will make us nearly immortal as resto with guardian affinity. Just think about someone trying to nuke you in Arena .. You.. a bear with 80% uptime of frenzy reg + perma flourish and reju?
We will be able to cast tranq once a minute with 20 seconds uptime as a bear

You're tremendously exaggerating what each of those talents/traits does.

[Sunfyre]

I just wish resto affinity gave tranq. But then I suppose you wouldn't need resto druids.

[Deleted]

I fully expect that the affinities will end up being a balancing nightmare.
- If a Guardian affinity feral/balance Druid is capable of offtanking a raid boss for a few seconds every minute or two, that is probably enough to be able to get rid of the second tank raid spot on a lot of bosses.
- If a Guardian in Feral (or even Balance) affinity is able to do significantly more DPS when not actively tanking the boss than they would by staying Bear, they become significantly better than every other tank on any fight with a lot of tank switching/single tank taking at once type mechanics.
- If a Balance (or Feral) Druid is able to take Resto Affinity and Resto Affinity isn't complete garbage, on a fight that is 4 healed because of high healing requirements in some burst phases, but only needing 2-3 healers the rest of the fight, the Balance Druid could go Resto/Rejuv spam for those high healing moments, potentially eliminating the need for a 4th healer.
- On a similar fight with a lot of downtime and high healing requirements, if a Resto Druid in Boomkin form can do significantly more DPS than other healers, you could just have them switch back and forth. This would have the potential to make the new Disc Priest spec design completely redundant.

And why exactly is that a bad thing? It just gives raids more choices on how to approach things. Do you wanna go with a fourth healer for safety or do you want to use a druid with resto affinity having the extra damage but less healing? It opens up so many great possibilities for both the raid team and the class wich will become fairly unique again. This system is similar to the old bearcat model which was great. Bears used to do more dps than most tanks when not actively tanking. Yet you didn't see every raid ever having a bear. It just made the spec more fun, more unique and more competitive.

[Tiberria]

And why exactly is that a bad thing? It just gives raids more choices on how to approach things. Do you wanna go with a fourth healer for safety or do you want to use a druid with resto affinity having the extra damage but less healing? It opens up so many great possibilities for both the raid team and the class wich will become fairly unique again. This system is similar to the old bearcat model which was great. Bears used to do more dps than most tanks when not actively tanking. Yet you didn't see every raid ever having a bear. It just made the spec more fun, more unique and more competitive.

It's a bad thing because it will create huge balance issues - especially for Mythic progression. For example, if you are able to drop a tank or drop a healer for progression fights in favor of an extra DPS, you absolutely will want to do so. That eliminates tank and healer raid spots, creates roster issues, and makes all Druid specs have significantly more value than other specs that don't have the option of potentially replacing a tank or replacing a healer for specific portions of a fight. How do you think your second tank or fourth healer will feel about being potentially rendered useless for several fights because of a talent selection? This is especially true, because you won't be able to replace raid spots with affinities on every fight, and will still need that extra tank and healer on your roster.

The ultimate result will be that other classes will complain endlessly about the offspec affinities if they are actually strong enough to replace entire raid spots on anything higher than a 5 man dungeon. They will either have to be neutered to the point that we only take the talent for the passive buff in a raid environment, or they will have to make Resto/Balance/Feral have lower DPS/HPS than other comparable healer/ranged/melee specs to account for that extra flexibility.

[Sunfyre]

And why exactly is that a bad thing? It just gives raids more choices on how to approach things. Do you wanna go with a fourth healer for safety or do you want to use a druid with resto affinity having the extra damage but less healing? It opens up so many great possibilities for both the raid team and the class wich will become fairly unique again. This system is similar to the old bearcat model which was great. Bears used to do more dps than most tanks when not actively tanking. Yet you didn't see every raid ever having a bear. It just made the spec more fun, more unique and more competitive.

The damage from bearcat was one of the prime reasons on why it was split into two distinct specs. We're not supposed to actively fill two roles satisfactorily at one time.

[Deleted]

It's a bad thing because it will create huge balance issues - especially for Mythic progression. For example, if you are able to drop a tank or drop a healer for progression fights in favor of an extra DPS, you absolutely will want to do so. That eliminates tank and healer raid spots, creates roster issues, and makes all Druid specs have significantly more value than other specs that don't have the option of potentially replacing a tank or replacing a healer for specific portions of a fight. How do you think your second tank or fourth healer will feel about being potentially rendered useless for several fights because of a talent selection? This is especially true, because you won't be able to replace raid spots with affinities on every fight, and will still need that extra tank and healer on your roster.

The ultimate result will be that other classes will complain endlessly about the offspec affinities if they are actually strong enough to replace entire raid spots on anything higher than a 5 man dungeon. They will either have to be neutered to the point that we only take the talent for the passive buff in a raid environment, or they will have to make Resto/Balance/Feral have lower DPS/HPS than other comparable healer/ranged/melee specs to account for that extra flexibility.

Being a 'warrior copy' it was the ability to dps when not actively tanking that made bears stand out amongst the other tanks. Their ability to do so didn't make the spec overpowered or abused and there were more than a handful of raid teams that didn't have a bear in their roster. What flavor bears got in their abilitie to dps other tanks found in some other form via some of their abilities. For example paladins were appreciated for 'divine shield' and 'lay on hands' abilities no other class could provide.
I know things have changed since then and i see your point. I admit that i have turned away from tanking (and in a certain degree from pve) focusing more on rated pvp. Thus i don't know how things are atm. I'm just saying that if it worked in the past it could work again in some form or another. I might be wrong but regardless affinities are a really cool idea so, one can hope i guess.

- - - Updated - - -

The damage from bearcat was one of the prime reasons on why it was split into two distinct specs. We're not supposed to actively fill two roles satisfactorily at one time.

I agree but i don't think that affinities are supossed to be that powerful. Druids using guardian affinity should be able to tank on the spot in case of emergency. However it's probably going to be pretty stressful for the healers trying to keep him alive and the druid shouldn't last long regardless.

[Seref]

As someone whose dream since Vanilla has been to have a Raid of ENTIRELY Druids in different Specs, I don't see the problem with Druids being the best Class to take for Raids because of their [newfound] flexibility/utility..

I for one am ready for our new Druid overlords!

And I think that the Affinities will be better than HotW, since they said that a Guardian Affinity would be able to Tank, so it'd have to be good enough to do that. And Balance Affinity would need to be able to deal decent enough damage to be worth using as a Feral, etc..

Besides, with Talents being easily swappable now, the only thing holding back a Feral respecing to Guardian for a Boss Fight is how much progress they have on their Off-Spec Artifact..

I'm just afraid of the Affinities being useless more than anything, because I really miss the Jack of All Trades aspect of Druids from back in the day and stancedancing...

And I'm really conflicted on what Spec/Affinity combo to go, for PvP.. Feral+Resto to off-heal in Arenas if needed? Feral+Guardian to maybe double as a Flag Carrier on some BGs? Guardian+X because the Affinity turns out to not be enough to Flag Carry, or because the Artifact Traits are so overpowered for survivability? Balance Affinity so I can Moonfire spam for days? So many choices.. >_<

[Nevcairiel]

All I hope to get out of affinity is to be able to realistically level to and solo at 110 with Resto Spec / Balance Aff. If thats something that works and is not totally inadequate compared to speccing balance, I will do it.

[Sunfyre]

All I hope to get out of affinity is to be able to realistically level to and solo at 110 with Resto Spec / Balance Aff. If thats something that works and is not totally inadequate compared to speccing balance, I will do it.

When they're giving us quad specs, and since the gear pretty much translates, why bother when you can just respec?

[stormgust]

When they're giving us quad specs, and since the gear pretty much translates, why bother when you can just respec?

You'll loose out on Artifact power, though wether that will really matter comes down to how fast you can catch up on that.