Shadowlands: Druid Design Philosophy

[Beatman]

Kind of disappointed with the druid changes.

I don't like the idea of having to choose two different talents to perform another role for a few seconds. Switching forms and doing meaningful stuff while shapeshifted should be something natural for druids and not bound to talent choices.

The abilities granted by the affinity talents are so weak that it wouldn't hurt if they baked the core functions of HotW into them. IMO, the bear form HP boost and stackable Ironfur should be part of the package if you pick guardian affinity. Why? Because without these buffs you can't even emergency-tank five mobs in a +7.

If you pick Resto Affinity, Rejuvenation and Wild Growth should heal more than 0.1% of max health (exaggerated) per tick. Resto Affinity shouldn't be picked solely for Swiftmend and Ysera's Gift.

If you pick Balance Affinity you shouldn't be forced to play with HotW as well to do reasonable(!) damage in Moonkin Form for a short to medium timeframe.

[huth]

Kind of disappointed with the druid changes.

You're always going to be disappointed unless you adjust your expectations. What you're asking for is essentially making Druids overpowered.

Hybrids don't work when the entire game is balanced around groups of specialists, and they have to balance around that or those groups wouldn't be able to finish content.

[Beatman]

You're always going to be disappointed unless you adjust your expectations. What you're asking for is essentially making Druids overpowered.

Hybrids don't work when the entire game is balanced around groups of specialists, and they have to balance around that or those groups wouldn't be able to finish content.

Everything can be adjusted by tuning. None of my suggestions make any druid spec overpowered.

[huth]

Everything can be adjusted by tuning. None of my suggestions make any druid spec overpowered.

No, some things can't. Because the issue with them isn't tuning. Being able to turn into a full-fledged Tank or healer at the drop of a hat isn't exactly balanced in any situation.

[Lucrece]

No, some things can't. Because the issue with them isn't tuning. Being able to turn into a full-fledged Tank or healer at the drop of a hat isn't exactly balanced in any situation.

But the point is, making frenzied regen or wild growth/swiftmend or ferocious bite+rake+rip WILL NOT MAKE YOU ONE.

Because you're missing the mastery benefits. Because you're missing the supporting talents that make a tank a tank and a healer a healer. Because you're missing trinkets. Because you're missing the covenant abilities working for the spec you're trying to fill.

What it will do is not make your form totally useless, because that's what they are without the affinity. We've had access to rejuv and healing touch before they pruned it into resto affinity. We had access to bear and cat form abilities before affinities. That didn't break druid at all.

What bear form amounts to me right now as a balance druid is I see a big hit coming in, I shift into it, and that's the extent that form will ever see use. Overaggro some mobs in the open world? Useless form, all you do is die slowly without frenzied regen and you do no damage to boot, might as well try to burn all the mobs down as moonkin with a cooldown.

Same principle applies to guardian druid, why in hell would I touch cat form while out in the world or even during a dungeon unless I'm offtanking?

At some point balance, feral, and guardian have to stop paying the price of resto druids constantly being overtuned in output or toolkit.

[Beatman]

No, some things can't. Because the issue with them isn't tuning. Being able to turn into a full-fledged Tank or healer at the drop of a hat isn't exactly balanced in any situation.

20% extra HP and being able to stack Ironfur doesn't make you a full-fledged tank. You still lack most offensive bear abilities, defensive CDs, talents etc.

That aside, if you can't be a semi-viable tank for a short amount of time, then guardian affinity and HotW are useless. Why even add those things when they are just there for show?

[huth]

20% extra HP and being able to stack Ironfur doesn't make you a full-fledged tank. You still lack most offensive bear abilities, defensive CDs, talents etc.

That aside, if you can't be a semi-viable tank for a short amount of time, then guardian affinity and HotW are useless. Why even add those things when they are just there for show?

No, but being able to tank 5 mobs does. Most of this stuff is just for flavour, because making it remotely competitive would be impossible to even roughly get into balance with specialist specs.

In other words, it very much would hurt the game if they baked HotW into them. Stop thinking only about yourself.

[exochaft]

No, but being able to tank 5 mobs does. Most of this stuff is just for flavour, because making it remotely competitive would be impossible to even roughly get into balance with specialist specs.

In other words, it very much would hurt the game if they baked HotW into them. Stop thinking only about yourself.

I think that's the issue I have with the system as a whole, as flavor vs function always runs into issues, especially with the track record of hybrid powers with druids. If you prioritize function, it could easy turn OP. If you prioritize flavor, it could easily be useless. There isn't exactly much wiggle room, hence why I think Blizz is going back to HotW.

The problem we keep running into is that not all specs are designed to fluidly switch between roles. If there is a case to be made for one that works pretty well, that'd be resto druids being able to weave in offensive spell or kitty dps to offer some benefit/gain to the group. However, the only reason it works for resto druids is because they don't need to heal constantly to be an effective healer, leave lots of room to either do nothing or DPS via balance/kitty spells. Guardians are probably a distant second nowadays, since either content is designed for tanks to constantly be active tanks or migitating damage, leaving very little room to kitty DPS (and the gains just aren't worth it, even if there is a gain). For Balance/Feral, we're basically designed to always be able to DPS, and switching between caster/melee pretty much never occurs outside of super niche areas, going bear is usually just for the extra HP, leaving off-healing the best yet mediocre capacity for the DPS specs.

Back to HotW, the aforementioned Affinity off-role issue just amplifies abilities that still won't/can't be used with current game design. The reason HotW worked back in MoP was mostly because the class had access to Tranquility for bears/kittens/boomies, and it gave non-healer druids the option of a massive raid CD. For resto, you could use HotW for solid DPS output for the duration. Also, there were niche areas where Hurricane was used with HotW for massive AoE damage. Even then HotW was fairly niche in general, as the rest of the talent row (Dream of Cenarius and Nature's Vigil) were really strong options if your raid didn't need that extra healer CD.

Fast forward to what we have today and know of SL, the uses of HotW don't exist anymore as we don't have the spells/abilities to make it worthwhile... resto druids being the only exception. Even if they buff the Affinities, tying CC's to the Affinities just makes the chances of using HotW lower if the associated Affinity doesn't mesh with the CC you want/need.

Anyways, trying to keep this short, but as things stand right now I can understand what Blizz wants to do but I think they need to overhaul the hybrid system aspect of druids instead of trying to stick with and double-down on the Affinity system. Also in light of how things are, I think HotW would be best applied as a baseline druid ability versus a talent, then you have a higher chance of balancing the system under the assumption everyone has access to the ability, avoiding potential under/overpowered scenarios.

[huth]

Anyways, trying to keep this short, but as things stand right now I can understand what Blizz wants to do but I think they need to overhaul the hybrid system aspect of druids instead of trying to stick with and double-down on the Affinity system. Also in light of how things are, I think HotW would be best applied as a baseline druid ability versus a talent, then you have a higher chance of balancing the system under the assumption everyone has access to the ability, avoiding potential under/overpowered scenarios.

You'd need to go much further. Like having raid compositions locked down for an ID, so you can't just switch healers for DPS and such. Then, and only then, do Hybrids actually start making sense, with being able to fill both roles as situation demands.

As is, the game is designed around you always having a team of apropriate specialists at hand, and either the "hybrids" can compete with a specialist in their primary role or nobody would take them along. But that also requires that they can't compete in any other role at the same time or they'd simply end up being way overpowered compared to others.

[Beatman]

No, but being able to tank 5 mobs does. Most of this stuff is just for flavour, because making it remotely competitive would be impossible to even roughly get into balance with specialist specs.

In other words, it very much would hurt the game if they baked HotW into them. Stop thinking only about yourself.

Dude, I play all classes except DK throughout an expansion. I simply think about what is fun and what isn't. Talents shouldn't and don't exist "just for flavour".

Stop trying to derail threads just for the sake of it...

[lappee]

Dude, I play all classes except DK throughout an expansion. I simply think about what is fun and what isn't. Talents shouldn't and don't exist "just for flavour".

Stop trying to derail threads just for the sake of it...

And your opinion of fun is yours alone, other people might find it fun and useful to have HotW semi-tank capabilities.

Talents also often exist for flavor (aka they were made beause of it) but because its an MMORPG they need to (try to) balance it with that in mind. Affinities and HotW are the perfect example of it. Those talents aim to get the druid flavor of being able to do multiple things, but balance it so that you mostly get just flavor abilities that rarely have impactful meaning.

[Dastreus]

best druid design was cataclysm

[Azzurri]

SO correct if I'm wrong, but I've been watching some balance alpha on twitch.

The problem I see is with AoE v ST fights, you have no real control of when to AoE or ST since eclipse proc every 30sec. So you can proc wrath or starfire during wrong times because you don't have much control when to proc the eclipse unless you're timing every fight. SO if you proc wrath during an AoE fight it seems you'll be spamming a ST spell when you should be casting your Starfire?

[Anastacy]

SO correct if I'm wrong, but I've been watching some balance alpha on twitch.

The problem I see is with AoE v ST fights, you have no real control of when to AoE or ST since eclipse proc every 30sec. So you can proc wrath or starfire during wrong times because you don't have much control when to proc the eclipse unless you're timing every fight. SO if you proc wrath during an AoE fight it seems you'll be spamming a ST spell when you should be casting your Starfire?

That sounds horrible, so of course they're going to implement it!

[Azzurri]

That sounds horrible, so of course they're going to implement it!

I mean I don't know if that's 100% true, but it's what I'm seeing. I could be completely wrong, so it would help if someone who has played and knows the spec in alpha to chime in.

[lappee]

SO correct if I'm wrong, but I've been watching some balance alpha on twitch.

The problem I see is with AoE v ST fights, you have no real control of when to AoE or ST since eclipse proc every 30sec. So you can proc wrath or starfire during wrong times because you don't have much control when to proc the eclipse unless you're timing every fight. SO if you proc wrath during an AoE fight it seems you'll be spamming a ST spell when you should be casting your Starfire?

If you can't plan 30 seconds ahead, then sure. Otherwise you have more or less full control over it (would have full control if you could cancelaura one eclipse). You'll take a hit on ST dps when you plan for AoE, but that should be a default mindset anyway.

Then again it all depends on tuning, currently it seems like Solar Eclipse is the way to go for AoE as well due to moonfire being so useless.

[huth]

If you can't plan 30 seconds ahead, then sure. Otherwise you have more or less full control over it (would have full control if you could cancelaura one eclipse). You'll take a hit on ST dps when you plan for AoE, but that should be a default mindset anyway.

Then again it all depends on tuning, currently it seems like Solar Eclipse is the way to go for AoE as well due to moonfire being so useless.

It annoys me a bit that it's just a 25% chance, but yeah, unless your problem is that you can't plan, this shouldn't be too hard to pull off. We've been doing that stuff for years, after all.

I do think they should adjust proc chances to have roughly equal time to proc for both, though.

[Whitepaw]

The discussion about whether SL should change certain classes into having true hybridity is moot at this point - Blizzard has decided to go that way with Shaman, Paladin and Warrior, based on content from the Alpha on YouTube. Enhance Shaman can off heal quite a bit, Retribution Paladin likewise, Warrior can off tank etc.

So, the design decision has been made - and it is AWESOME! I’ve been asking for this change since Legion destroyed the hybrid gameplay we still had in WoD. I don’t necessarily like the Affinity talent row, but I understand the necessity for balancing purposes.

Druids being able to achieve true hybridity (changing role during combat) is THE defining gameplay signature for Druids and I cant wait to get it back.

Oh, btw: Since a LOT of classes will be able to change roles in combat, does that mean that it will become required to do so to win in PvE content? Will it be expected that DPS players can off heal or off tank iot complete 5 man instances? It probably will!

Gone will be the days when we only looked at the dps meters to decide who was the better player. Now, if you don’t handle your class correctly and fx off heal correctly, you risk defeat. Potentially, it will open up for more complex gameplay - fantastic!


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[PickleballAce]

All that is good and well, just don't expect to ever do more damage than a pure DPS class.

[huth]

All that is good and well, just don't expect to ever do more damage than a pure DPS class.

You're a bit stuck in the past, aren't you?