PTR Notes: Resto set changed again
by Eliah Hecht 
Feb 15th 2008 at 3:40PM
When I reported this morning that the Restoration Druid arena sets were having their four-piece bonus changed from +15% outdoor movement speed to -0.25 sec to Healing Touch casting time, many druids were, reasonably, upset. Perhaps you will be pleased to learn that in the next PTR build, the bonus is being changed again, this time to -0.2 sec to Regrowth casting time. Furthermore, the Feral four-piece bonus (movement speed increase) will now apply to Cheetah again (source). Are you druids mollified now?This is another good example of the progressive testing nature of patch 2.4. Sure, the blues always say "don't panic, it's testing, it might change" when people complain about things on the PTRs, but more often than not the initial PTR changes survive largely intact into the live patch. Not so in this patch so far, which is good if you ask me. I like to see Blizz take player feedback more seriously, since sometimes we do indeed know what we're talking about.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Buuty Feb 15th 2008 3:52PM
So I guess since no one plays Shaman anymore BLizzard won't be making any desperately needed buffs t the shaman class. What a dumb proposal.....class that test gets changes.....
Don't they realize that their gimping of the Shaman has caused many many peole not to play theirs...so why would BLizz see and complaints in the PTR is no one is playing Shaman?
Roboticus Feb 15th 2008 3:59PM
I heard of a bot program once called Shaman-Instinct that auto-replies to any blog post with a randomly generated "Why Haven't They Fixed Shamans Yet?" post. The program even works when the original blog post doesn't have anything to do with Shamans!
Arturis Feb 15th 2008 6:11PM
As #postreply.username# was saying, why don't they fix the Shaman class yet? It's not like they ar-
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my2cents Feb 15th 2008 7:36PM
I think the reason he's bringing up the Shaman class is that Blizzard yet again appears to be ignoring Shaman while quickly fixing any other class "boo boos" that might frustrate players who play classes such as Druids.
I would imagine the class discussions at Blizz go about like this:
"Oh no! The overreprestented (in arena), wonderfully balanced Druids are slightly upset. Fix it! Oh yeah and what about that 3 year running Shaman Problem?
"Meh who cares. Just give them a new icon or something."
It's almost comical at this point.
Snarl Feb 15th 2008 4:11PM
Well, it has been an interesting day on the Druid forums, I will say that. Massive amounts of trolling, crying, and a petition that actually got a response made for an interesting read at work. Heck, once the dust clears the results may be viewed as not half bad: abandonned nerf to ferals, buff to moonkins, and 2v2 nerf but small 5v5 buff to restos.
BTW, I think we could have done without the "Are you druids mollified now?" comment Mr. Hecht.
Ruby Feb 15th 2008 4:11PM
I want my fast travel form back.
blitzkrieg999 Feb 15th 2008 4:13PM
Blizzard is starting to act like Dynamix did back in the day. You keep listening to every whiner that posts on the forums, you will disenfranchise a lot of people with constant changes and unfocused balancing.
Pick a f#$(&*ing change and stick to it. You'll never please everyone, so stop trying!
Blackfish Feb 15th 2008 4:17PM
I think it's important to remember that they're making these changes on the PTR. So that when whatever they decide on makes it into the public realms, they can stick with it. Hopefully.
Pzychotix Feb 15th 2008 4:19PM
The problem with the previous change was that it helped NO ONE.
-0.25 seconds off Healing Touch is a horrible bonus that no druid wanted to see. Every druid was horrified that we got that bonus. If you knew anything about druid healing, we will never cast HT outside of a Nature's Swiftness macro, which gives us instant cast speed. There's also the fact that no one specs for faster HTs, so this bonus would still be, by and large, useless.
Naix Feb 15th 2008 4:34PM
Please fix Priests crappy 4 set bonus. We wish we had +healing or +stam. Just not the crappy 2 sec reduced lolbubble.
Fenom Feb 15th 2008 4:38PM
if i was still playing my druid i'd be so pissed about this change, -0.2s on regrowth is still stupid, when you use regrowth, it's because you know you have plenty of time anyway, so much time that you don't need to reduce the cast time, if you were so pressed on time you'd just be lifeblooming, rejuvenating, swiftmending, and running away with your speed bonus
and now resto druids can't run flags either
Gyondas Feb 15th 2008 4:40PM
This new change is even worse.
Bloodlusted Healing Touches might have a place in 5s. A good resto druid does not use Regrowth very often at all. He gets lifebloom and rejuvenation up on the target and cyclones or roots the DPS.
Not to mention Regrowth costs 845 mana for a 2k heal, 3k if it crits; and if you spam it, you overwrite the HoT portion.
Make the 4-piece bonus that Rejuvenation now blooms as well, so we don't get destroyed as easily in 5s by dispel trains.
Fizzed Feb 15th 2008 4:49PM
They replaced a useless bonus with a mostly useless bonus. Nope, not mollified.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy they listened to the druid community...but they still didn't get it right.
censorman Feb 15th 2008 11:19PM
I got banned for making a post which used profanity in the title, on the shaman forums. Sure, sure, no reason to QQ with bad words, BUT the point was to show how long it took for CMs to ban me.
It took 3.5 hours. The post got to 5 pages and over 1500 views. Atleast a few people now know just how little Blizz reads the shaman thread.
oh wait....they have the 'how can we fix your class' thread, right. Ok. Whew. Cause they surely read all that, we aren't wasting our time at all.....
thank god Death Knights are our out.
callenn Feb 15th 2008 7:40PM
I do not want to lose the speed bonus, it helps with escapability and flag running. If I have to loose it then give some plus stats. Faster regrowth is utterly worthless unless they make it instant.