Legion Class Preview Series: Druid

[huth]

Looking good overall, but eh.

Moonfire for Guardian Druid?

Ranged pull.

I wonder how much of the other specs toolkit you get from Affinity. Seems like you get the respective passive for your main spec as well, judging by the range on the Balance spells.

[Deleted]

Ranged pull.

To me it's looking like the rotational filler if I'm being honest.

[Lucrece]

Why did they make Wrath a 1.5 cast, when the very issue was haste and bloodlust making it an issue.

And they insisted on keeping that stupid 2.5 sec Lunar Strike, so we're still an immobile turret caster whenever we got to use this spell, which seems to be the favored spell over wrath.

I'm fine with targeted Starfall, never liked Starfall aggroing crap unless I glyphed to multidot before being able to starfall.

More importantly, why would I ever use an empowerment on Wrath instead of Strike now?

[huth]

To me it's looking like the rotational filler if I'm being honest.

The initial damage isn't really worth talking about. More likely just a replacement for Faerie Fire.

I wonder if Lunar Strike comes with a new graphic to go along with the new name, though i'm not sure what the point of renaming it is.
Also kinda wondering what Astral damage is under the hood.

Does Starsurge give you one of each empowerment or just one empowerment that effects both spells?

One charge of each Empowerment. You'll want to use one Lunar Strike and one Solar Wrath to spend both of them.

So there's our incentive to use both.

[Sylar Hao]

About damn time Savage Roar is not a must. I've been hating this ability since it was added to the toolkit, the only ability I don't like from druids, it's sad it's not completely removed (I can somehow understand some crazy people out there actually like it) but it's a relief to have other options than that boring forced plain with no spice +% damage bonus ability.

The new feral talent, pretty interesting for PvP, specially when playing alone, not so sure in PvE.

Also glad to see they don't try to fix a spec that's not broken (for good or bad), unlike Destruction that was perfectly perfect and they've tinkered so much with it it kind of lost its glorious MoP incarnation... Sad times.

I hope they finally find the direction for Balance, every expansion it gets reworked over and over, which has caused it to lose its identity.

Guardian spec seems solid, but I did like that bear dodged a lot, with this change and the lack of parry and block, bears are gonna be immobile furry punching bags. I hope they reconsider adding some dodge and parry, because being hit by absolutely everything is not exactly funny, even if you can survive through it.

Almost no changes to Restoration, that means the spec was and is a fine spot.

[Adramelch]

On the matter of Ironfur, if it does overlap (it says "may"), it will go like this, according to @WarcraftDevs:

Time 0: Use Ironfur +100%
Time 1: Use Ironfur +200%
Time 6: Ironfur 1 expires, back to 100%
Time 7: Ironfur 2 expires, back to 0%

Which sounds really insane.

From: https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/sta...16834142879744

More importantly, why would I ever use an empowerment on Wrath instead of Strike now?

One charge of each Empowerment. You'll want to use one Lunar Strike and one Solar Wrath to spend both of them.

From: https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/sta...20247542988801

[huth]

I think the may is in regard to it being allowed(i.e. "you may do this"), not that they are considering it.

[Adramelch]

I think the may is in regard to it being allowed(i.e. "you may do this"), not that they are considering it.

Yeah probably. So yeah it's kinda insane, but leaves some really good potential for experienced tanks.

On the matter of starfall: https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/sta...17583765667840

This talent he mentions sounds amazing.

[Pyrianis]

I wonder if Lunar Strike comes with a new graphic to go along with the new name, though i'm not sure what the point of renaming it is.

To better distinguish the star-themed spenders, I imagine. Though I'd go with a fancier name like, say, Fist of Elune.

Also kinda wondering what Astral damage is under the hood.

Likely just Spellstorm renamed.

[huth]

There's even a talent that makes all of your damage (including bleed ticks) have a chance to fire off Moonfire beams!

For bears. That's... kinda silly.

- - - Updated - - -

Likely just Spellstorm renamed.

Yeah, they just confirmed it on twitter.

[Nerxyrall]

Starfall should not have a targeted area, its "our" thing......
no other class can hit everything even if its not that much dmg....

Eclipes chances make us a fairly random caster, dont take the one "special" thing away.

sadly i cant post on the US forums and no one important reads the european ones.
i hope enough moonkins make a deal about it....

so if you want to do me an favor make a deal out of starfall.

[Zathan666]

I've been playing resto druid as a main for years (but I also play all other healing classes) and I'm pretty disappointed by the preview. I know it's still very early, but I've got this feeling that we'll get the shaft in terms of healing output. I feel like our toolkit will consist of a lot of low power HoTs than we need to spam. All I'm saying is our throughput seems low on paper right now.

Mistweaver looks like a better rdruid so far.

[Brilynn]

I've been playing resto druid as a main for years (but I also play all other healing classes) and I'm pretty disappointed by the preview. I know it's still very early, but I've got this feeling that we'll get the shaft in terms of healing output. Mistweaver looks like a better rdruid so far.

Our spells didn't change much. They received HUGE changes. Keep in mind that none of these things are balanced right now. We're just looking at play style and abilities. If our heals don't hit as hard as they need to, they will be adjusted and vise versa. Don't panic about numbers right now, there's no point.

[huth]

Eclipes chances make us a fairly random caster, dont take the one "special" thing away.

We haven't had that for 5 years or so.

And while Starfall pulling everything, their mother, their dog and the kitchensink was funny at times, mostly it's just goddamn annoying.

[Tiberria]

On the Balance side, Starfall change makes me sad. Lunar Strike better have a new visual.

On the Restoration side, I'm curious as to why all of the HoTs -- even Lifebloom -- will only heal for a "moderate" amount, whereas Renew and Renewing Mist heal for "large" and "huge" amounts. Such wording that indicates damage/heal potencies has been very deliberate in the preview series, and the Restoration section makes it look like the only particularly powerful spell is Swiftmend.

Flourish sounds amazing.

I think the wordings of those are just conceptual, and the actual amounts they heal for will have to get balanced during beta. They needed to increase the relative power/efficiency of Swiftmend to make it still worth casting with the mastery change. If it isn't tuned around being more powerful/efficient than any other option, we won't have any reason to ever cast it without the added benefit of extending Harmony.

The only thing about these changes is - didn't they say they wanted to reduce the amount of Rejuv spam from where it is on live? If anything, that mastery change makes us never care about casting direct heals - outside of maybe OOC procs, and will incentivize even more Rejuv spam.

[thsevecha]

Really like the changes so far and can't wait to see all of the new talents. THank god they got rid of that awful eclipse bar. That was the main reason why I stopped playing my Balance Druid. I'm only sad to see Starfire go, really liked the spell effect and sound associated with it! I also dig the change to Starfall, maybe we can throw 2 at the same time now the same way Warlocks can do with Rain of Fire and that talent that makes the radius large and let us cast while inside it seems very promising and fun!

I might drop my Mage and main my Druid again <3

[Nerxyrall]

And while Starfall pulling everything, their mother, their dog and the kitchensink was funny at times, mostly it's just goddamn annoying.

in an raid environment it wasnt. outside there was a glyph.

and even outside it was really great, you could just pull everything if you wanted to. no other class was able to do it.

[Arlee]

The Bear and Cat changes sound interesting, still feeling good about wanting to be a druid next xpac... Looking forward to seeing all of this in game!

[Deleted]

More importantly, why would I ever use an empowerment on Wrath instead of Strike now?

My guess is that starsurge will give us one lunar and one solar empowerment each time we cast it, so u will prefer to cast an empowered wrath over non-empowered strike at some point.

[JFrombaugh]

Although I know a lot of people are going to disagree, I for one will definitely be missing the Eclipse bar. I really thought that the alternating between sun & moon spells (combined with the Starsurge charges) added a new dimension to the spec, made it much more interesting to play, and very different from, say for instance, Ele Shaman. And the visuals look pretty too!

Of course, there is always going to be that portion of the playerbase (usually of a specific mentality) that isn't going to do well with such a rotating bar - but I always used to tell people that Boomkin was one of those specs where "you have to learn how to play it".

The WotLK Balance Druid was a cool caster spec but did not take my breath away, there just seemed to be something lacking from it to make it one of my favorite classes to DPS as. Obviously I'll have to see more of the planned abilities before I make any judgement, but atm it seems like the rotation is definitely going to be dumbed down...