Community class review from the EU: Druids
by David Bowers 
Oct 18th 2007 at 1:40PM
Now he's come up with the first draft of his compilation on Druids. He asked forum-goers what their main problems with the Druid class are, sifted through all the responses, and put them together in a very readable format for the Blizzard devs (and other players) to have a look at.
It seemed to me that most of the Druid issues had to do with items and abilities not scaling so well in endgame raids after Karazhan. There were some points that addressed other general issues, as well as arena PvP, but overall casual druids seemed pretty content. There wasn't even any mention of the graphical updates to the shapeshifted forms that many druids have been asking for.
Keep checking the thread to see what additional thoughts the players had, and to see future drafts of the compiled suggestions.
Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ezkial Oct 18th 2007 1:55PM
the only thing i NEED to see corrected/fixed/reviewed is the cat form range issue. the rest is just butter on bread.
Justin Oct 18th 2007 1:56PM
A lot of good ideas, but I think a majority of them will be turned down because of balance issues.
However, I am all for druids getting an OOC rez as they are the only healing class w/o one.
hpavc Oct 18th 2007 2:08PM
This makes the last Rogue /whaaa looks modest. Is there one aspect of the class they missed? I mean I looks like they took every buff, spell, talent, aura, shapeform and make a complaint about it. The high lights being allowing roots indoors, adding out of combat rezes, +dmg to thorns and complaining about cyclone. Oh wait adding "Feline swiftness" to non-feline forms thats the best.
Being 1/0/51 myself, tree of life does suffer at times. Sure it has some implementation problems. But there are other classes that can do those spells. And raid leaders that want to move the tol buff to other groups well, they know best now don't they. Asking for some insane overpowered buff seems silly.
Grind for that Crystal Spire of Karabor, imo.
draeth Oct 18th 2007 2:21PM
Theyll QQ until they pewpew roflcopter
Cailleach Oct 18th 2007 2:45PM
Huh??? Oddly enough, my Rebirth works just FINE out of combat. The price we druids pay for being able to use it IN COMBAT is a 1/2 hour cooldown under any circumstances. I'm fine w/that, thanks. Is my class perfect? Heck no. Is any class or will any class ever be perfect? Heck no.
In fact, other than it would be nice to have quests for the forms that don't currently have them (cat, moonkin, tree, dire bear), I'm a pretty happy doomkin. Thanks, Blizz guys!
Urthona Oct 18th 2007 2:52PM
I DO pewpew tyvm.
Let the Tree of Life out of combat resurrect.
Let Moonkin root indoors.
Let Leader of the Pack swiftshift*.
*Allow for instant shapeshift from one feral form to another, while also receiving the benefits of Furor.
MacKoroni Oct 18th 2007 2:57PM
I'm ToL and an ooc would be awesome. These could be talents put at the bottom of talent trees! Great idea. Would help a lot in 5 mans.
native Oct 18th 2007 3:01PM
yep. if i had an OOC rez i'd spec back to resto.
currently bal. spec and no real complaints. except maybe so many of our spells falling under the nature catagory.
other than that no real complaints.
Justin Oct 18th 2007 3:09PM
Wow...some people are so dense.
Of COURSE you can use rebirth out of combat, but the cooldown is prohibitive. If you're running a 5-man and 2 people die do you rez one and tell the other to hoof it or just make them both run and save your cooldown.
I'm not saying the cooldown on rebirth should be removed, just add another spell that doesn't have a cooldown and can't be used in combat (and doesn't cost a reagent).
Vestras Oct 18th 2007 3:09PM
All excelent points. A lot of what I see here is to help druids be more desirable for raids and to scale better like the other classes. Nothing wrong about that.
Will any of this make htem OP? not a chance. Druids will never be as good as mages, rogues, palis or warriors. What they SHOULD be is able to keep pace and be equally acceptible to those other classes while offering other forms of compensation: damn good buffs, auras, and the quick switch to adapt to any given fight.
native Oct 18th 2007 3:20PM
i think the fact that rebirth can be used OOC as well as in combat is so obvious that its assumed that we're talking about the cooldown period when discussing its usefullness.
how bout something on the talent tree that reduces that cooldown and removes the need for a reagent.
we don't need another rez. just modification to the one we have.
and whether it really needs modification at all is debateable.
Dan B. Oct 18th 2007 4:32PM
I don't know if any of their concerns will make it through (really, most are stretching it). The only ones I'd really like to see are Mark/Gift of the Wild buffed (slightly) - even just granting extra magic resistance and longer duration for cyclone.
The hardest issue is help for high-end druid tanking help (really, once you hit T4, you're really close to the armor cap, and I've heard people say that by T5, you're essentially there. A little something besides raw damage mitigation would solve it - even just adding parry to our defensive abilities would probably be enough - but might make us OP tanks. It's a tough spot to be in - we're so close to being in a good spot that most of the simple changes would be too much.
Siedre Oct 19th 2007 11:14AM
WTH? A lot of these issues are flat out wrong or don't make any sense. And, since he's posting this today, he didn't do his homework with what is planned for the next patch.
Feral Item stats - Done
Balance Druid leather - Done
Scaling into BT/Hyjal - They're testing it by changing Attack Power and Heart of the Wild. Also, haste does affect feral forms. I have Abacus of Violent Odds and cat form hits every 0.8 seconds with it active.
Decursing - Done
Insect Swarm - most druids? I doubt it. This spell, which stacks, is HUGE against hard hitting bosses.
Moonkin Form - you don't get mana back from being hit, you get mana back from hitting something.
Force of Nature - Priests can't control their shadowfiends
Feline Swiftness - misnamed. Feral Swiftness. And it speeds up cat form, not travel or seal. Completely misreported.
Consumables - Done: use macros with consumables that don't hit global cooldown.
I see some druids reported other glaring mistakes in the summary on that forum post and Schwick removed some things. I wish I could post there!