Druid Woes

[Jaewalk]

the utility you posted is either so minor it doesn't really matter or not actually utility.

That's why you see nothing but DK/DH/Paladin running high keys right? cause of their minor or "not actual" utility...

Right now Guardians are the worst tank for M+... and they are doing nothing but being further downgraded in BFA. I am not sure why you don't understand this.

[intrinsc]

Reading the OPs rage-filled, keyboard-blasting, angry posts versus the well-written, well-thought out, well-structure posts Polarthief is replying with is entertaining.

[Jaewalk]

I get all my news from Twitter and buzzfeed.

You are someone we should take seriously ?

[dkderek]

Just a heads up, I don't know the changes for DKs, so I'm just going by Legion's stuff.

- Tied to a defensive. You can't always outright use it for stun immunity.
- Yes, this is their biggest utility.
- Also decent utility, but nowhere near as big as Gorefiend's.
- Meh. You're counting very small stuff now.
- Snare from what? A talent? If you're gonna talk about talents for Druid, you can't just skip over talents for DK.
- I mean ROTS is arguably a better CD. Even still, you didn't bother to mention Incarnation for Druids or the fact that they have CDs too.
- Which is being nerfed so DKs don't dominate magical mitigation. We also have a much larger HP pool and can mitigate physical damage way better overall.
- Equivalent to DRs, both give you eHP. Druid has plenty of DR cooldowns and even passive base DR.
- Alright I'll give you this one too, though it's not intended to be like this in raiding (similar to how Immunities don't cheese anymore).
- Uh, what?
- Which we have to.



- But you're giving up one or the other so you still are guaranteed to have one of them.
- Which is still helpful, moreso in M+ than anything but it's still good.
- Can't comment on the range. Tiger's Dash is for some reason on Guardian talents which makes no sense. Until I get proof the range increasing talent is legit gone, I'm going to assume it's still massive.
- This is actually pretty bullshit TBH, especially with a cast time.
Now I won't deny the fact that there's also a bunch of utility you simply can't do in Bear Form (which means it's useless for in-combat M+ stuff), but there's still some useful things you will have:
- Hibernate (CC for Beast/Dragonkin)
- Soothe (Enrage dispel)
- Entangling Roots (CC for pretty much any melee/close range target)
- Curse/Poison Dispel

The best way to fix Bear utility is to allow all of these spells to be castable in Bear Form, maybe also allowing Dash to be usable in Bear form too (maybe at a reduced effect?) to give it some decent movement too. AFAIK, Druids are still the only class that's completely hindered (instead of bolstered) by their shapeshifting/stances. Warriors and Priests used to have these limitations too, but they've all since been removed by either removing spells that they shouldn't be using out of spec, or replacing them with ones that matter (Priests now have Shadow Mend over Flash Heal for example). Again, Druids are still the only one that cannot use their entire toolkit in a form. That's the issue with the utility, not the amount of utility itself.

Stampeding roars cooldown has been increased to basically once per encounter, and the range has been reduced to 15 yards. Gutteral roars is gone, therefore stampeding roar is basically dogshit.

[Calfredd]

My opinions are right and yours are wrong

Are you someone we should take seriously?

[Polarthief]

That's why you see nothing but DK/DH/Paladin running high keys right? cause of their minor or "not actual" utility...

I actually don't run keys past 15~20 because I don't see the point on live, but do remind me, why do people bring DKs to high end keys? It's mostly for the self-healing, right? This is more of a case of bad tank design because healing damage back will always either be overpowered or make for a very squishy tank. If it's for the utility, then that can be fixed by giving Guardians more tools/letting them use tools in form. Like I said, it's not perfect.

Also I want to point out that your OP mentioned NOTHING about the content you specifically cared about. Guardian is a great tank in raiding right now, especially against physical damage. Is it the best? Not necessarily, but it's still a great pick.

Stampeding roars cooldown has been increased to basically once per encounter, and the range has been reduced to 15 yards. Gutteral roars is gone, therefore stampeding roar is basically dogshit.

Noted, and that's retarded as hell. In an expansion where they seem to want to push utility, I don't understand why they nerfed both Stampeding Roar as well as Innervate (they might as well remove it from Balance because adding a GCD makes it uncastable).

[Tiberria]

I actually don't run keys past 15~20 because I don't see the point on live, but do remind me, why do people bring DKs to high end keys? It's mostly for the self-healing, right? This is more of a case of bad tank design because healing damage back will always either be overpowered or make for a very squishy tank. If it's for the utility, then that can be fixed by giving Guardians more tools/letting them use tools in form. Like I said, it's not perfect.

Also I want to point out that your OP mentioned NOTHING about the content you specifically cared about. Guardian is a great tank in raiding right now, especially against physical damage. Is it the best? Not necessarily, but it's still a great pick.



Noted, and that's retarded as hell. In an expansion where they seem to want to push utility, I don't understand why they nerfed both Stampeding Roar as well as Innervate (they might as well remove it from Balance because adding a GCD makes it uncastable).

The way they are handing Innervate is still silly. At least they finally added 2 seconds to compensate for the GCD for Resto. However, Resto still doesn't like it, because it's still 12 seconds less a GCD when you use it on yourself, but using it on any other healer gives them the full 12 seconds to use. That doesn't make sense; they should have just removed the GCD rather than giving it +2 seconds.

That said, saying it's uncastable for Balance is really kind of silly, especially with it being 12 seconds and a lot stronger than in Legion (12 seconds means you can cast a 10 sec CD high mana cost spell twice). It's a strong healer utility, and if healer mana is relevant at all to your success on a fight, Balance Druids can and will use it. Saying it's uncastable is like saying that casting a Roots on something that needs to be CCed for your strategy is not usable because of the GCD/cast time, or like saying that it's not worth bothering casting a b-rezz because it costs you a GCD (and now a cast time). Most forms of utility have a GCD type cost.

If you have a Balance and a Resto Druid in your raid, your most optimal use of Innervate will be to have the Boomkin Innervate the Resto, and have the Resto give his Innervate to whatever other healer benefits from it the most. That way, the Resto will be able to get a full 12 second Innervate, including the ability to use it for 2 Wild Growth casts, and the Resto Innervate will go to better use than if it was self cast.

[Hypasonic]

Getting 2 WG casts off is gonna take some insane synergy with your boomkin

[Jaewalk]

The way they are handing Innervate is still silly. At least they finally added 2 seconds to compensate for the GCD for Resto. However, Resto still doesn't like it, because it's still 12 seconds less a GCD when you use it on yourself, but using it on any other healer gives them the full 12 seconds to use. That doesn't make sense; they should have just removed the GCD rather than giving it +2 seconds.

That said, saying it's uncastable for Balance is really kind of silly, especially with it being 12 seconds and a lot stronger than in Legion (12 seconds means you can cast a 10 sec CD high mana cost spell twice). It's a strong healer utility, and if healer mana is relevant at all to your success on a fight, Balance Druids can and will use it. Saying it's uncastable is like saying that casting a Roots on something that needs to be CCed for your strategy is not usable because of the GCD/cast time, or like saying that it's not worth bothering casting a b-rezz because it costs you a GCD (and now a cast time). Most forms of utility have a GCD type cost.

If you have a Balance and a Resto Druid in your raid, your most optimal use of Innervate will be to have the Boomkin Innervate the Resto, and have the Resto give his Innervate to whatever other healer benefits from it the most. That way, the Resto will be able to get a full 12 second Innervate, including the ability to use it for 2 Wild Growth casts, and the Resto Innervate will go to better use than if it was self cast.

Don't worry! We have holy priests with renew > rejuv now and basically raid-wide innervate for the healers baseline. Why bother - and the innervates get a better return on a MW monk or disc priest fyi

[cparle87]

I do wonder if they've gone too far nerfing guardian raid utility and it has never had anything commending it as a serious M+ tank but the other specs look fine to me. I'll be maining my druid for sure.

Raid... utility? You mean brez and stampeding roar?

[Polarthief]

Enjoy the following wall-of-text rebuttal that is just all about how I feel Innervate is stupid and worthless as a whole.

That said, saying it's uncastable for Balance is really kind of silly, especially with it being 12 seconds and a lot stronger than in Legion (12 seconds means you can cast a 10 sec CD high mana cost spell twice). It's a strong healer utility, and if healer mana is relevant at all to your success on a fight, Balance Druids can and will use it. Saying it's uncastable is like saying that casting a Roots on something that needs to be CCed for your strategy is not usable because of the GCD/cast time, or like saying that it's not worth bothering casting a b-rezz because it costs you a GCD (and now a cast time). Most forms of utility have a GCD type cost.

There is a significantly huge difference between mechanical utility (casting EntRoots/MassEnt/Typhoon on the elementals on Aggramar), which can-and-will wipe you if you're not careful, and giving a healer no mana casting. It's already one of the most awkward cooldowns in the game but to now force you to give up a GCD to cast a spell that does literally nothing to directly benefit you is insanely stupid and shows extremely poor insight into the devs' mindsets.

Spells that are similar to Innervate: Darkness, Commanding Shout, Stampeding Roar, Vampiric Embrace, a bunch of raid-wide utility that also direct affects you. Then comes Innervate: A utility spell that only buffs a healer to have no mana casting. This means that:
- You can't use it on yourself (and as such, this utility spell might as well not exist when not grouped while the other "raidwide utility" still helps you in solo play)
- It costs a global (which means a DPS loss for something that, again, DOESN'T directly help you) [while the others cost a GCD as well, this one that DOESN'T HELP YOU still does too]
- It (eventually) gives some healing, which is reactionary, which is almost always worse than just taking/preventing damage taken.
- It isn't all that impactful, especially to the casting Druid. While sure it's helpful to a healer, it's not that amazing and is never once required or really even thought of. I've been in plenty of guilds that, in the past, haven't even bothered to ask their Balance Druids for it because it just didn't really matter. You really, REALLY do not feel any effect from this spell whatsoever. Not a single time have I ever felt like "Yeah, you see that? I did that", while I definitely have when using some of the other aforementioned spells. Seeing people get very very close to death but not outright die after a successful Commanding Scout or seeing people barely get out of mechanics after a Stampeding Roar actually feels good (assuming you notice it).

If you have a Balance and a Resto Druid in your raid, your most optimal use of Innervate will be to have the Boomkin Innervate the Resto, and have the Resto give his Innervate to whatever other healer benefits from it the most. That way, the Resto will be able to get a full 12 second Innervate, including the ability to use it for 2 Wild Growth casts, and the Resto Innervate will go to better use than if it was self cast.

I'm aware that this is optimal, but the more optimal thing to do would be for your healers to simply not need it. Again. Balance Druids are never outright taken for their utility while I could definitely see some classes/specs that are sometimes mandatory. You always need a Shaman/Mage/Hunter for Mythic raiding (losing 5% Haste for 40s during Hero/Lust would be a massive loss), Warriors with Shout are so helpful, DPS Shamans and SPriests provide decent healing in high damage moments, Warlocks are always helpful for Healthstones (always better than non-scaling Healing Potions), Gateways, and Summon Closets (out of combat utility that still saves raid time for the occasional late person or someone who needs something from not in the raid). Also, up until ABT, Immunities for the longest time have been considered the ultimate utility, so Rogues, Mages, and Paladins were usually brought in abundance for a multitude of cheesing mechanics.

All that said, Balance for the last lord knows how many expansions were never taken because "oh man Innervate is so good and we totally need it" and like I said, plenty of times, it's outright ignored, especially in non-Mythic raiding where it's definitely less used than more often and even in Mythic raiding where plenty of guilds just don't bother with it. Top that off with a GCD and now I guarantee you not even half the Balance Druids that were using it will continue to use it.

[Tiberria]

It depends on how tightly fights are tuned, but if healer mana is at all a limiting factor (which it should be if healing specs and fights are tuned tightly), it's absolutely something that is impactful, and having healers go OOM later into a fight because people didn't use things like Innervate because they were too tunneled on their DPS meters will wipe you just as much as missed CDs. It just isn't an immediate impact; it's a cumulative effect that you see minutes later.

But, yeah, I would love to see the spell just deleted, because it's a stupid spell in general.
- Resto Druids are just going to almost invariably use it on themselves, in which case it becomes something the throughput and mana efficiency of the spec is balanced around, and isn't really utility for Resto in any practical sense.
- Balance Druids didn't even like using it before the GCD. I have actually encountered many Balance Druids who (if they were going to use it at all) need to know ahead of the pull who to Innervate so they can set it in some keybind macro. If that person died or they wanted it on someone else mid-pull, they weren't capable of doing it, because apparently having unit frames set up for even basic access is impossible for a DPS spec :S
- In general, Innervate and Wisdom are dumb mechanics that screw up the healing meta, because some specs just feel awful without Innervate and/or Wisdom, other specs get very little gain, and in general it just doesn't feel good that you can't reach your full potential without having a raid comp/raid that allocates these resources to you. There's a reason similar stuff like Power Infusion being castable on others, DI, etc. were removed from the game - it felt bad. I don't know why these external mana support mechanics should exist.

The obvious solution - as has been the obvious solution since WoD beta - would be to delete Innervate and extend Stampeding Roar across all 4 specs as the unique Druid flavor utility spell.

[Jaewalk]

The obvious solution - as has been the obvious solution since WoD beta - would be to delete Innervate and extend Stampeding Roar across all 4 specs as the unique Druid flavor utility spell.

Best suggestion yet !

But I think the issue you run into would be feral/guardian would offer absolutely nothing at that point.

[huth]

Best suggestion yet !

But I think the issue you run into would be feral/guardian would offer absolutely nothing at that point.

Melees and range usually aren't interchangeable. Tanks and healers never are.

[Jaewalk]

Melees and range usually aren't interchangeable. Tanks and healers never are.

Yes, but there is a glut of melee right now and this would devalue roar if that’s the case making it harder for Ferals to find groups when every other melee at that point is better. Guardians as well for example were needed for mythic KJ- if your Resto Druid our balance Druid took care of the roars it makes them a whole lot less valuable.

It is very rare to see a guild/raid/m+ group that is LF melee. And if they are why feral.

[Tiberria]

Best suggestion yet !

But I think the issue you run into would be feral/guardian would offer absolutely nothing at that point.

That's not really an issue, because it isn't like b-rezz where once you have one, there's no real value in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. With Stampeding Roar, the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. ones available allow you to cover more raid movement mechanics than just having one.

[mob1lejunkie]

Now that Druids are shaping up to be one of the worst classes across all roles for BFA; what will you be rerolling to? And if not why?

I'm rerolling from Hunter to Druid. Balance looks good and it would be nice to play different role once in a while.

[kran1um]

Guttural roars was way overpowered in M+, this has been noted. Many high-ends have said its the main reason it was brought in M+. I'd rather have something than nothing.

[Jaewalk]

Guttural roars was way overpowered in M+, this has been noted. Many high-ends have said its the main reason it was brought in M+. I'd rather have something than nothing.

It has never been OP for mythic+ if it was so OP you would have seen guardians in the MDI.. but you didn’t..

It was OP for a select few mythic raid bosses. That is all.

[kran1um]

It has never been OP for mythic+ if it was so OP you would have seen guardians in the MDI.. but you didn’t..

It was OP for a select few mythic raid bosses. That is all.

It is very powerful, just because you dont see them in MDI doesnt mean its not powerful.

Everyone wants a self sustain in MDI because the healer only has to pay attention to 4 other players, has nothing to do about anything but self-sustain. And were you in the MDI? if not then bears are definitely fine.