Transmog yourself into an Avenger!
6 blue posts to read before Diablo 3's launch
Cross-realm zones coming soon
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: What one buff would you give your class?
by Dan O'Halloran 
Aug 19th 2007 at 8:00AM
.jpg)
Dolarhyde of the Boulderfist server posed a simple, but interesting question on the official forums today: what one buff would you give your class? The reason I almost always choose druids in the multitude of MMORPGs I play has less to do with RP and more to do with versatility. I love hybrid classes, especially the more offensive ones that can still heal (hello shammie alt!) So when it comes to what's missing from my class, it's hard for me to put my finger on it. Hybrids tend to do so well, but to give them another major ability could water down other classes.
Many fellow druids believe this class is missing some serious crowd control ability, though we have it in limited forms through Cyclone, Entangling Roots, Force of Nature (aka treant pets), Hibernate (beast and dragonkin only) and off tanking in bear form. I'm not sure we need a Priest level AE fear or a Rogue sap. Other players have called for more aggro tools for druids, especially Balance druids. But the class is built to survive a beating and isn't as squishy as those with better aggro management abilities.
I'm stumped on what buff I would give druids, but I'm interested to see what our readers would give their own class. Let's hear it.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Classes, Buffs
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
alex Aug 19th 2007 9:07PM
Pally- holy tree give a HoT, Prot more hp, Ret change the 31 pt talent to a fade esque thing and make the 51 pt talent dual wielding
G Aug 19th 2007 6:01PM
As some have already said, druids in bear form need some other way to stop trash casters besides Bash, with its too-long cooldown. Maybe a 'Roar of Silence' for 2-3 seconds, with its own cooldown. Anything. And speaking of which, resurrect and tranquility cooldowns are simply too long. One already takes a reagent, and the other takes a ton of mana (ok, it seems like a ton to a feral drood).
Oh, and the cooldown on cat stealth is just plain annoying. Rogues can reduce that with talents. In cat form, I'm often done killing something long before I can re-stealth, so I just sit there, waiting. Or I'll get bored and run up to or pull another mob. But then the whole starting-move benefit of being a sneaky cat is useless. We can't use it during combat anyway, so why not?
Elra Aug 19th 2007 6:24PM
warriors: a midlevel lifesteal talent, like 2% life siphon per white dmg hit. warriors really are healer pets. we cant do cock arse without a healer.
ringu0 Aug 19th 2007 6:21PM
> Many fellow druids believe this class is missing some serious crowd control ability
Uh, WHAT???
klink-o Aug 19th 2007 6:59PM
Two things I've always thought warlocks need changed:
1. Why don't soul shards stack? Every other reagent I can think of stacks (symbols, candles, etc.) as well as things like food for hunter's pets, so why not soul shards? I'm tired of having a bag slot wasted just so I can have enough shards for a raid.
2. Why can't warlocks decurse? Warlocks are like the masters of applying curses, it just seems kind of silly to me that they can't remove them as well.
I would also like to see them get some sort of useful group buff that's not dependant on having a certain pet out, but I can't think of a suitable one. Possibly do something to detect invisibility to make it useful more than once a year.
dixonij Aug 19th 2007 8:03PM
Hasn't Blizz said that Prot Pallies are getting more HP love in an upcoming patch/expack?
Hell, I'd love to have a better chance at being uncrushable than some HP love (since we know its coming).
Ghost Aug 19th 2007 8:31PM
Rogues are the only class that give no sort of buff to other players. Druids get LotP, warriors have shouts, hunters get TSA, rogues should have something to bring to the table, even if it is talented for something like threat produced by non high threat attacks (ie sunder armor or shield bash) is lowered or maybe a chance on hit to gain some melee or spell haste? That would be nice.
RaydenUni Aug 19th 2007 10:44PM
I would like for my shadow priest to have some sort of AOE damage spell. As it is I can't solo a large group of "easy" mobs, but I can dish it out vs a single target.
foxkreig Aug 21st 2007 7:02AM
a small change would be nice. have Silencing Shot have an Interrupt function for raids. to be able to help rogues kicking bosses and other mobs
Fish Aug 20th 2007 1:36PM
I think cat druids need a kind of vanish ablity like rogues. I also agree that druids in forms should be able to use pots and healthstones.
Matt Clemson Aug 20th 2007 8:36PM
I'm a prot pally, and the tiny changes that would make all the difference for me:
Either increase the duration of Holy Shield by 1s or reduce the cooldown by 1s, allowing it to be active permanently like Shield Block is.
Make Ardent Defender useful in endgame; I'd suggest that as soon as one hit occurs that would take you under the 35% boundary, you should take full damage up to the boundary and then the reduction should kick in immediately on the remaining damage. Effectively, if my maths is correct, that works out as a 15% health bonus.
Juliah Aug 20th 2007 3:20PM
It's ridiculous that priests can't cure poison. I understand that they were trying to spread the abilities around and make druids appealing, too, but I'd be just fine with druids having a non-timer rez if priests can have cure poison. Crikey.
Vestras Aug 23rd 2007 3:44PM
my biggest gripe is that the Moonkin aura is party only. I really think it should be upgraded to a raid-wide, but still limited range buff. the main reason is that we Balance druids would look a bit more desireable to raids, and maybe even earn some DKP
Other than that, I too would like to see a non-cat form way for druids to lose aggro and the non-combat Rez, which is the only thing holding druids back from being full time main healers for 5-mans.
Other classes
Warriors: a talent or ability which would mitigate some of the durability loss in normal combat since that's what is killing my guilds tanks to pay for those repair bills.
Hunters: A beast mastery talent to summon your other stabled pet for like 15~45 seconds at 51 points. I just think that would rock.
Mages: More arcane damage spells. That and the already coming buffet tables.
Warloks: None, they are too haneous as is.
Rogues: A reversed blink, basicly jump backward away from the mobs. No real reason, but it seems to fit in my head.
Paladins: honestly do not know the class well enough to know what to give them.
Priest: more love for the disipline tree
Subdivisions Aug 23rd 2007 2:40PM
I would give rogues a 3rd arm so they could dual wield a 2-hander and a 1 hander....or tri-wield 3 1 handers.
:D in my dreams
justin Aug 25th 2007 4:41AM
Warlock: I would take away resilience to DoTs and make demon armor scale to level 70 kinda like fel armor since its pretty much useless after you get fel armor.
Warrior: Make tactical mastery a 5 point talent instead of 3 with an extra 10 rage holding ability.
Shaman: Give back dual windfury abilities.
Rogue: Increase the range of shadow step and give almost like a cold blood effect. Its hard enough to shadow step and hit a moving target. Also make cheat death a cool down and have it be 100% chance of avoiding any attack that would kill you. Adding a little more survivability to rogues.
Druid: If anything id nerf them but if i had to buff them id allow them to cast their ressurection in out of combat too and allow an ankh type self resurrection spell. Cyclone is perfect with 6 seconds since it doesnt have diminishing returns.
Fionann Aug 24th 2007 3:31PM
each class was given some sort of resist, if you want a nature resist, pair up with a hunter.
a class that needs something is a shaman need an agro dump
a enchanced shaman has no aggro dump and makes it hard on tanks
Aggreko Sep 12th 2007 8:30AM
Warrior with heals :)
ibenumba1 Oct 18th 2007 9:09PM
Well, the OOC res and the Fade ability are all well and good, but since most people arent very versatile as Balance, it seems that most raiding guilds don't care much for having one in their raid. Not to mention, if u use a threat meter you can work without pulling aggro, and wiping the group. The fact is, being hybrid, Blizzard already gives Feral druids the ability to top DPS charts, but without threat reduction, a Balance druid won't with other good class players. I'm fine with that, but they could at least make us better for pvp. At first, Rogue's could kill us easily, then they gave us treants, which evened the odds a little, even with OP 8 sec blind, and seemingly limitless stuns. Not to mention they give us slowing poisons, which we could shift out of, but only by exposing ourselves to major damage, thus limiting our greatest defense in our armor. So, I appreciate the fact that were going to be able to decurse in form, which helps raids, and one or 2 dots in pvp, but if you're going to go that route, cure poison would be more helpful, since the main thing that makes us resort to being moonfire spammers is no ability to create distance wihtout being stunned. It would be more fair to give us a short-lived aoe fear(eyes of the owl;-), or a short silence. yes, we have several forms of CC, but roots are easily dispelled, or disappear if any dot is applied, cyclone doesnt have the duration of similiar cc, and hibernate never seems to last for more than 3 or 4 secs in pvp, and is only useful against feral druids now, since hunters are always beast master, and make their pets immune!