[Druid] Cataclysm Changes Discussion

[Deleted]

This will be the place to discuss the info released on the 9/4/10.

I would like to ask you to contain general comments on the changes to this thread. We don't need 15 topics saying "Awesome changes!" or "I want what I had in vanilla!" - you can do this in just one thread.

If there is a need to discuss one specific change more in depth - and I suspect there is - feel free to create a new topic on that. Before you do, however, check and see that nobody else has. Duplicate threads will simply be merged or deleted.

We highly suggest you review the forum rules and guidelines. We expect an influx of posts in the coming hours, and we won't hesitate to ban you for breaking the rules. Lets be civil please.

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm we’ll be making several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the druid. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Let’s kick things off by checking out some of the new druid spells and abilities!

New Druid Abilities

Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit while tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal more damage to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

Stampeding Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all allies within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used in cat or bear form, but bears might have a talent to drop the cooldown. The goal of this ability is to give both bears and cats a little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No cost.

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.


Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to the new abilities listed above, we intend to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics with which you’re already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of our goals for each spec.

• All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form.
  
• Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.
  
• We want to add tools to cat form and depth to bear form. If a Feral cat is going to fill a very similar niche to that of a rogue, warrior or Enhancement shaman, it needs a few more tools -- primarily a reliable interrupt. Bears need to be pushing a few more buttons just so the contrast between tanking and damage-dealing is not so steep.
  
• Barkskin will be innately undispellable.
  
• We will be buffing the damage of Mangle (cat) significantly so that when cat druids cannot Shred, they are not at such a damage-dealing loss.
  
• Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the dispel mechanics change, but Restoration druids will gain Dispel Magic (on friendly targets) as a talent. All druids can still remove poisons with Cure Poison and remove curses with Remove Curse.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.
  
• We want to make the Feral cat damage rotation slightly more forgiving. We do not want to remove what druids like about their gameplay, but we do want to make it less punishing to miss, say, a Savage Roar or Rake. The changes here will be on par with increasing the duration of Mangle like we did for patch 3.3.3.
  
• Balance druids will have a new talent ability called Nature’s Torrent, which strikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do the most damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more (details below). The improved version of Nature’s Torrent also reduces the target's movement speed. 10-second cooldown.
  
• Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth.
  
• We plan on giving Feral cats and bears a Kick/Pummel equivalent -- an interrupt that is off the global cooldown and does no damage. We feel like they need this utility to be able to fill the melee role in a dungeon or raid group, and to give them more PvP utility.
  
• We want to make sure Feral and Balance druids feel like good options for an Arena team. They need the tools to where you might consider a Feral druid over an Arms warrior, or a Balance druid over a mage or warlock. Remember that the PvP landscape will probably look pretty different for Cataclysm with a focus on rated, competitive Battlegrounds.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Balance

• Spell Damage
• Spell Haste
• Eclipse

Eclipse: We are moving Eclipse from a talent into a core mechanic of the class and making it less random. Balance druids will have a new UI element that shows a sun and a moon. Whenever they cast an Arcane spell, it will move the UI closer to the sun, and buff their Nature damage. Whenever they cast a Nature spell, it will move the UI closer to the moon, and buff their Arcane damage. The gameplay intention is to alternate Arcane and Nature spells (largely Starfire and Wrath) to maintain the balance.

Feral (Cat)

• Melee Damage
• Melee Critical Damage
• Bleed Damage

Feral (Bear)

• Damage Reduction
• Vengeance
• Savage Defense

Bleed Damage and Savage Defense: Feral druids will receive two sets of passive bonuses depending on whether the druid is in cat or bear form. Bleed Damage will be improved for cats. Savage Defense is the current bear mechanic for converting crits into damage absorption and will be improved for bears.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn’t fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character’s unbuffed health. For boss encounters we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Feral tree and the druid is in bear form -- these values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Feral tree and are in bear form, so you won’t see Balance, Restoration, or Feral druids in cat form running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today -- there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so the Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is that all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

Restoration

• Healing
• Meditation
• HoT Scale Healing

HoT Scale Healing: HoTs will do increased healing on more wounded targets. The mechanic is similar to that of the Restoration shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct heals. In Cataclysm, we anticipate druids using a greater variety of their spells so there is a distinction between healing and HoT healing.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind, what you’ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to the Cataclysm beta, you’ll see these changes as well as others continue to develop in response to testing and feedback.

[Deleted]

is it safe to already post in here? if not, just delete this.

anyway, i just wonder how they are dealing with Feral. tank trees have -damage taken, + threat (vengeance) and a special mastery. however, -damage taken and vengeance seem useless for cat druids, and that special one also seems rather hard. it is extra damage for DPS specs, and extra mitigation for tanking specs, but having those 2 combined seems a bit ludicrous for PvP.

i think they will either make it too generic (like +AP, vengeance, +AGI), or have a double mastery for feral.

[Deleted]

Sure, its safe to post. I am just considering if i should clean up any replies that has come so far, when the news go out, so people don't have to go to page 4 just to start the conversation

My guess would be that feral mastery adds to bleed damage, which would affect kitty's rip and rake, and bears lacerate for threat. Basicly, you should probably consider a feral mastery that is universal for both specs.

[Manglespam]

For feral, I was thinking they may have your masteries change depending on which form you're in..Thoughts?

[sethers656]

I am almost sure I saw a blue post saying that Bears would be getting 2 different set of masteries..... I'll have to try to find it.

Now I am just guessing that You will have 1 set in bear form(Or maybe some special new tank form?) and 1 set in cat form....

Cat/Bear
Dmg Increase/Dmg taken decrease
Melee crit/Veangence
Increased Bleed damage/Increased Savage defense....

Just my ideas.

[Zismofyx]

Having 1 post for all the changes seems insufficient, suggesting 1 for each spec maybe even 2 for feral xD

[bavarcarus]

Having 1 post for all the changes seems insufficient, suggesting 1 for each spec maybe even 2 for feral xD

QFT

I don't really wanna read about boomkins, and in a day there's gonna be 15 pages probably

[jr06]

I am almost sure I saw a blue post saying that Bears would be getting 2 different set of masteries..... I'll have to try to find it.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/3...80/#msg2284780

"# 2. How are ferals and Dks as tanks working with mastery system in place? Are they to care about it for threat or do they have separate bonuses?

Ferals will have passive bonuses that say Cat: melee damage done, Bear: damage reduction. For death knights we have a different plan in mind that we’re not quite ready to discuss. DKs are undergoing some slight changes so they aren’t so GCD constrained and are less limited by rune cooldowns."

[Deleted]

Having 1 post for all the changes seems insufficient, suggesting 1 for each spec maybe even 2 for feral xD

If there is a need to discuss one specific change more in depth - and I suspect there is - feel free to create a new topic on that. Before you do, however, check and see that nobody else has. Duplicate threads will simply be merged or deleted.

This has been sufficient for other classes. I dare say druids can live with this too.

[Codexandra]

I am almost sure I saw a blue post saying that Bears would be getting 2 different set of masteries..... I'll have to try to find it.

Now I am just guessing that You will have 1 set in bear form(Or maybe some special new tank form?) and 1 set in cat form....

Cat/Bear
Dmg Increase/Dmg taken decrease
Melee crit/Veangence
Increased Bleed damage/Increased Savage defense....

Just my ideas.

That would make Druids an unfair class to play, because Feral Cats survivability would be superior (Just changing to Bear form and you get the Mastery bonus of Dmg Taken Decrease or Increased Savage defense?)

Same goes for Feral tanks - by switching to cat form they can probably dish out very decent damage too..

I gotta say, the mastery bonus for the Feral tree will be very interesting if they manage to solve this problem!!

[Lyren]

This has been sufficient for other classes. I dare say druids can live with this too.

Actually shaman and warriors have 3 threads.

[Gathami-Ettrig]

QFT

I don't really wanna read about boomkins, and in a day there's gonna be 15 pages probably

Well some of us ARE boomkins, and Eclipse needs the most work of Druids spells. lol SO SHHHH

[Biotech]

why would changing forms for different masteries be OP? We do it know anyways when we are out soloing large groups, we engage in cat for some fast damage (swipe ftw) then proceed to bear to finish them off while taking minimal damage.

they would basically be removing Master Shapeshifter and using that for mastery.

[Munkey]

From what I have seen with the other classes released from the time of this post, some of the old ideas that they had before wrath have come back.
Warriors getting Heroic Leap and Hunters getting Camouflage revised. Makes me wonder if the Play Dead ability will make a comeback, not crossing my fingers.
Please don't ask for more cat abilities, they have far too much abilities available to them right now.
i'm awaiting any new Bear abilities, yes they do need one or two.
From what was mentioned in shadow priest post

Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gear themselves around a Hit cap that isn't variable depending on group composition

makes me wonder about improved fearie fire.

I will await the announced changes when they become available.

[Deleted]

Actually shaman and warriors have 3 threads.

And we're doing it with one

From what was mentioned in shadow priest post makes me wonder about improved fearie fire.

I will await the announced changes when they become available.

Most likely, Imp. FF will not add hit. Blizzard already stated that they don't want people to be lacking hit if they don't have a class that can bring it along, so it is very likely that they will do the same with Imp. FF

[Codexandra]

why would changing forms for different masteries be OP? We do it know anyways when we are out soloing large groups, we engage in cat for some fast damage (swipe ftw) then proceed to bear to finish them off while taking minimal damage.

they would basically be removing Master Shapeshifter and using that for mastery.

Well imagine the survivability we already get from just shifting form, if they made the mastery bonus apply to FORMS then thats basically adding even more unfair survivability other classes don't have... We already have Survival Instincts + Bear form to survive as a cat - but adding more DMG reduction too? Ohwell I don't mind, i just hear inc Q.Q from other classes...

[Findus707]

its the 10.04.2010 now, where is the so called release?

[Deleted]

its the 10.04.2010 now, where is the so called release?

It is still only 6 or 7 pm in the US, which is where they are pushing it from. However, they did post the hunter changes at 9 am, so I do feel that they are a little over due :P

[Zreo]

im looking forward to the boomkin changes to fix rng.. but atm i dont like the rage and maul changes. i hope they make ferals cats alittle easier and more like rogues.

[Findus707]

It is still only 6 or 7 pm in the US, which is where they are pushing it from. However, they did post the hunter changes at 9 am, so I do feel that they are a little over due :P

Meh, they are slacking.(Back in 9-10hours(sleeping) hope they are here by then, or else!)