New Resto Changes
I must admit, I’ve been refreshing all day only to be utterly disappointed with the lack of anything overly interesting. I’m going to go over the upcoming changes to restoration for cataclysm here, but if you want to read all the druid changes you can find them at this link.
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.
Really? Come on Bliz… I’ve been waiting all day for that. After being wowed and amazed that priests would get something as cool as a life-grip (cooler than death-grip, saver of the stupid!) and that shaman would get an AOE hot that lasted 10 seconds and had a 10 second CD… after that, I find I’m getting… drumroll please… nothing.
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.
Yeah, okay this is a general change to mechanics (not just a druid change), but I admit it will favor us the most. And yeah, it takes what we love about rapid rejuvenation, and gets rid of what we hate… I really have no complaints about that. Actually I think it will be rather powerful. Makes me even more smug about my hots. Yes, I approve.
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.
Tree of Life is ugly, and I don’t like it. So the idea of being less hideous… thats seems good. But does this mean we will no longer give a healing buff to the raid? What about the armor buff we got with improved tree? And the spirit to spell power boost? So may questions, so little answers.
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.
Um… K. What do the pretty flowers do? Heal the target? Heal everyone standing on them? Increase my healing on people standing within them? I mean… I’m okay with a “bed of healing flora” but I’d love more specifics. Makes me wonder…
Barkskin will be innately undispellable.
I don’t really PvP enough to care… sorry.
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.
Yep… okay… dispelling magic on friendly targets… useful. Though as far as poison was concerned abolish > cure so… oh well.
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.
Well… okay. Better HoTs on the dyeing… except HoTs don’t really thrive on saving the low in health do they. I mean, we’re better at sustaining health high, then ninja-saving people with low health. Ugh I just don’t know… I hope I’m wrong and these changes are more exciting that they seem at first glance.
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[...] Oh… thanks. Yeah, thats… awesome. Yes, I’m bitter. Give me a few days to get over it… Anyway, I’m not going to rehash my disappointment here, I will instead direct you to my post on RestorationDruid.com. [...]
Well, I noticed in the first few class previews that nothing really revolutionary was happening anywhere. With only 5 levels, and 3 new skills, there isn’t much they can do.
I also agree with them when they say that resto already has enough heals. Before the preview I was hoping that they wouldn’t add any new heals. I already have enough buttons bound for heals (and for cat, for that matter). I didn’t really want more.
I’m actually quite happy with ToL being a cooldown. When outgearing content, I don’t usually use tree form anyway (as I’m busy hurricaning or wrathing). Though, I agree we may be losing quite a few passive bonuses that went with tree. That’s fine though. Like all expansions, it’s a reset button on stats anyway.
Hots critting + regrow crits causing flower beds == crit is a desirable stat. I’m happy with that change.
Haste auto-affecting all hots, in a way that doesn’t reduce durations == I get a new glyph slot freed up. Happy with that.
Hots affecting people more when they’re low health, I may be okay with. If it is true we can leave people at less than 100% health more often in Cata, as they’ve suggested, than this will be fine. Though, I agree, I would have been happier with the “mastery increases the duration of your hots.” But with the way they did the haste to hots change, I’m not sure that would have been really viable.
I guess maybe my expectations were lower than everyone else’s after having seen the other previews. No one’s really getting anything as game changing as mangle was back when BC came out, but since we’re only getting 5 levels, the talent trees aren’t growing, and the like, that doesn’t surprise me.
I was happy with how it all came together.
I’m completely with you on being disappointed. There are many questions to be answered regarding the HoT Changes, The New Flora Ability and I’m not quite sure I like the way they are taking away tree form and replacing it with a CD Tree form. I mean, I like my armor and I like to look at it, but I can do that when I’m standing around in Dal with nothing to do. Tree form for me, makes my healer who she is, I wouldn’t want to just stand next to a priest and act like a priest. I’m a druid and they shape shift it’s their whole premise. I mean how stupid would it be to give the same reasons for taking away bear form? So now you can act like a warrior or a pally but just use your bare fists to whack the mob. It just doesn’t seem right. Taking away my tree form makes me feel naked and not in a good way. I wish they would have updated the graphic like they did with feral cat form instead of taking it away and making it a cd spell.
But yes, I’m highly disappointed.
(
I thought I read that alot of the ToL bonuses they planned to make inate to the class so we wouldn’t lose our equality when not shifted in it. If they do that then im pretty okay with the change, being stuck looking at the same outdated model for so long it will be a neat flashback to vanilla WoW when our look changed with our gear. Im also assuming the Regrowth flora thing is going to be a mini WG kind of thing, giving tank healers a extra bit of healing on the melee/offtanks.
Im not over the top excited but neither am I sorely disappointed. We really do have a good arsenal, that because of content and other classes has not been utilized. From the other reads it looks like blizzard is working to kill the niches or at least reset them.
The entire appeal of the druid class as a whole is the shape shifting and I remember when they first added tree form! Everyone was so excited an (among other things) it MASSIVELY boosted the spec’s appeal.
Overall Blizzard’s reasoning behind the change it COMPLETELY pathetic and based strictly on a PvP perspective, there is no benefit to this for PvE raiders. Class changes should have balanced reasoning in PvP an PvE, you should never change it for just ONE area of the game when it so deeply effects another.
What offence could you possibly need while RAID healing in the raids to come? Ugh!! If they really think we should loose tree for “offense” then they aught to take out moonkin from to so balance can be more “defensive” and just ruin the whole class together.
Though in the end I think Blizzard will compensate us well for it, im am NOT HAPPY and do not want to see this happen.
Maybe the new tree CD is going to make us more potent tank healers and instead of having a player save (PS, GS) we were have a personal save to boost the outgoing heals to a target- because speculation the tree form would only be good nourish. Like- if we used our tree form cd and who ever we were healing got like a damage reducing buff, that would be neat.
-Ransky, Moon Guard
To be honest I think the only good changes they have made for druids are the new tree form apperance and the HoT haste + crit mechanics, that is it. We have been screwed over once again by blizzard…but anyways they are destroying the game in cataclysm with all the stupid changes to raiding which will just make people forget 25man and make it a too simple game, all the stats being removed etc how hard are they to understand?
First off, thanks for taking the time to go through these, I didn’t even know these changes were out.
I agree with Lawrence, there are a few good looking changes and a whole lot of bad looking ones. I love my tree, and I don’t give a crap about being able to see my armor. Casting in caster form makes me feel stupid, and I don’t need offense when I’m healing.
But the improvement to our HoTs is nice of course, and as said, I’m very proud of my HoTs as it is. So I can’t wait to shove em in the nearby Priest’s face.
I guess we’ll just have to see how it pans out, maybe I should start gearing up for Moonkin just in case I want an alternative.
Yes i am so disappointing about they are going to take away the tree form, instead of permanently is going to be cd form. Druid is one of the special class that can do shape shifting, the tree form make me feel what i am and who i am. I love standing next to pally, priest while i am in tree, make me feel that i am so speical. I am currently lvl up a druid just because i want to be a tree form and a boomkin, now i am so sad and disappointed. So is that even mean the boomking and cat will be cd too ?? 0_o?
as we get closer to cata… i get more worried…i def agree with what you said about the changes… and with the other classes getting better heals and us nothing, i am left feeling like the tree from the movie “evil dead”… i am already fighthing just to keep close to their healing (meter wise), i feel like blizz has give us a big stinking F.U…. i downloaded the ptr yesterday and am going to try it out today…lets see how it goes
Awesome job!It was like a step by step guide thanks a bunch.