Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

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Zodan
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Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

Post by Zodan »

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 7043&sid=1

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

Feral (Cat)
Melee Damage
Melee Critical Damage
Bleed Damage

Feral (Bear)
Damage Reduction
Vengeance
Savage Defense

Restoration
Healing
Meditation
HoT Scale Healing

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.



CLARIFICATONS/ETC


We knew changing Tree of Life to a cooldown was going to be controversial. There was just no way a change this big would be unanimously accepted. My apologies if being a tree was what really drew you to the class.

We didn't add new rotational spells to Restoration or Feral cat because, good lord, you have enough buttons already. We tried hard with Cataclysm to not add new spells just because. The specs that got new spells were ones we think had big holes in their rotation. You'll still get new talents and mechanics so I expect there will be a lot to learn when the big game-changing patch rolls around.
Last edited by Zodan on Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Zodan
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Re: Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

Post by Zodan »

Hmmm, nothing to ZOMG WTF BBQ! here.

It would be nice if Balance would work with feral druids enough to make it non-mandatory for ferals (tanks or dps) to spend 11 points in the Resto tree.

The new abilities seem nice, and the interrupt is really welcome. We'll see what they do about the rotation and the 'forgiveness'.
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Elle
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Re: Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

Post by Elle »

I'm still processing the info. I am not sure about that Magic Mushroom. Im gonna have to see it, but I feel skeptical about it. The new Eclipse has me interested, and FINALLY a stun for ferals. So far it sounds like shammy and druid for the expansion for me ^^ I totally want to level a worgen and troll druid, that will put me up to 4. Happy happy joy joy!
Benediction
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Re: Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

Post by Benediction »

haha not even a passing mention of kitty threat problems.

Good times!
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Willow
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Re: Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

Post by Willow »

I'm a weeping Willow :cry:

Being a tree has become part of who I am in the game. It's not why I chose the class, since there was no tree when I joined, but it is now an integral part of this game for me. I'm glad if they redesign the tree model, but what's the point if you only get to be in it for a short time. And what's the point of giving the tree form better healing, if you can only use it for a short time. Your resto shamans, priests and pallies will still outheal the druid for the majority of the time. If they're worried about asking druids to make the trade off of offensive skills and the other healing classes aren't, IMO they just need to make more offensive abilities available in tree form, or make the other classes have to take that trade off. But I guess changing just one class is easier than changing 3. As for armor, people who care about what their armor looks like can just stand around in Dalaran or w/e all day and look at themselves in the mirror.

I think we should all be naked. Just buy or receive stat upgrades for our bodies :lol:

Magical mushroom? That sounds more like an April Fool's joke. I think a Blizz developer went and saw "Alice" before coming to work one day. Or maybe he ate one of those magical mushrooms.
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
Really? FLowers? Is this necessary. I'm sorry, I think it's silly. Why don't they just have flowers sprout from the person's ears.
All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm
How often do you see crit and haste on the same piece of gear right now? Are resto druids going to be hampered by having a large supply of one or the other? Will their benefits on HoTs be different, and we will have to choose which direction to go in? Or will they finally put both on one piece of gear.

I guess the feral and balance changes look OK, but since I've never played feral, and only do balance on one fight or soloing, I can't really comment on them.

I'm not looking forward to the expansion at all, and I'm just getting tired of being a resto druid. Honestly, half the time I feel I'm just dead weight now, if all the changes really did help the healing abilities, maybe it would be worth it, but I'm skeptical. Is it time to level something else? I don't know, Willow is who I am, and frankly, I'm not as enamoured of this game any more to want to put in a lot of time on more characters.

Sigh. Done QQing now :sorry:
Willow

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Emerson
Zodan
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Re: Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

Post by Zodan »

They said they *might* make a minor glyph for people who like to look like a tree all the time. I think the vast majority of druids didn't really like the form, but perhaps the bear/cat form treatment would have been enough.

They've said they want to boost druid healing so that healing in forms = all the other healing specs/classes. Tree form will be a short-term buff, like other healer cooldowns.

I'm kinda glad they are getting rid of it, every patch they add more and more to tree form, and at some point you are just a caster who looks like a tree. No flavor, no point. Plus to me, it's hideously ugly, worse than the cat/bear forms of old.

The flowers seems like a druid version of Lightwell to me, maybe without the 'you have to click on it' part.

We don't know what caster gear will look like in Cata, it's all being reworked. There might be alot of pieces with haste and crit, or maybe you have to balance gear with each stat. I hope they get this right because there isn't alot of flexibility within a spec for what stats you want right now. In any case, even at status quo it's better to get some bonus out of what haste and crit you have, since you're getting some if it on gear regardless.
Zodan
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Re: Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

Post by Zodan »

Benediction wrote:haha not even a passing mention of kitty threat problems.

Good times!
What threat problems? :) Do you mean tank threat problems? :P I'm sure all that is up in the air, with the built-in scaling mastery junk and such.
Oroveso
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Re: Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

Post by Oroveso »

Zodan wrote:Plus to me, it's hideously ugly, worse than the cat/bear forms of old.
Uh oh...

Let me get some popcorn.
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Elle
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Re: Cataclysm Class Prevew: Druid

Post by Elle »

Solar Beam! Oh my! Excitement!
Q. What change are you most excited about?

A. Some of the new Balance talents for druids, like Solar Beam, which works like Freya's spell where it instantly silences a target and they have to move out of the beam to get rid of the debuff.




Eeeeeee! Come on Beta, im about to burst in excitement!
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