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 newsPatch 3.1 PTR build 9658 Druid changes
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 6th 2009 at 7:30PM
As far as druids are concerned, Build 9658 is a Balance build. Sure, there are a few token changes for the other two trees, but Boomkins get by far most of the attention here. I'll get the lesser builds out of the way first:
- Faerie Fire and Faerie Fire (Feral) now reduces the armor of the target for 5 min. (Up from 40 sec) I am actually really pleased with this. Having my FFF fall off the mobs is simply irritating, and I don't always have space in my rotations to re-apply it.
- Restoration: Tree of Life mana cost has been changed from 28% of base mana to 13% of base mana. Can't complain about that.
On to the main substance of the Druid changes: Balance.
- Starfall cooldown has been lowered from 3 min to 1.5 min. "Please use Starfall more often."
- Eclipse now gives you a 33% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 30% (up from 20%) when you critically hit with Starfire. Eclipse has had what I think is called a "checkered past," which means it's been everywhere from in the gutter to sky-high. Buffs are buffs; no complaining from me here.
- Owlkin Frenzy now affects all attacks. (Old - Physical melee and ranged attacks only) That will significantly increase PvP defense against casters, I expect.
- Celestial Focus now reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Starfire, Hibernate and Cyclone by 23/46/70% and increases your total spell haste by 1/2/3%. Less offensive, more defensive. It will now be more attractive for soloing; the previous stun was pretty much PvP-only.
- Nature's Grace now increasing your spell casting speed by 20% for 3 sec. (Old - Reduced the casting time of your next spell by 0.5 sec.) This is slightly difficult to interpret for me. I guess it makes spells with long casting times easier to cast; if you're casting for three solid seconds after you gain the buff, you gain 0.6 seconds instead of 0.5.
They've also altered the re-worked Glyph of Starfall; the previous PTR build had it at a 90-second reduction to Starfall's cooldown. The new one is a 30-second reduction. But do note that the base cooldown of Starfall has been lowered from three minutes to 1.5 minutes, so the previous glyphed cooldown is the new base cooldown, and the new glyphed cooldown is a mere one minute. It seems they really want to push a 51-point talent that is often skipped - but is a talented AoE worth it in a world where "trash doesn't matter?"
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
TJ Mar 6th 2009 8:37PM
Super-fast Wrath cast does you no good when you can't do anything for 1.5 seconds no matter what because of the global cooldown
keith Mar 6th 2009 9:22PM
Actually, this change to Nature's Grace seems to be a buff in almost every context. The way it's worded, it seems that it will be lasting for 3 seconds, regardless of how many spells you cast in that time. Since your spell cast time is decided by your haste rating when you START casting your spell, you will easily get two Wrath casts in and start the third before the buff wears off. 20% faster cast time on 3 Wraths is better than 40% faster on one (in your haste-stacked scenario).
And for everyone doing Starfire spam, it will be a HUGE buff, because it will reduce TWO Starfire casts by 0.6 seconds each.
This is only a nerf for solo/leveling boomkins, if they proc Nature's Grace on a killing blow, where you might need 7 or 8 seconds to get to the next mob. I guess it could also be a PvP nerf if you find yourself unable to start your cast withing the small 3 second window of opportunity.
Hope this helps!
mitch Mar 7th 2009 4:30AM
You again?
Jesus - "sneaking in super fast wraths" what are you on? When it procs, you get usually get 30% starfire crit with it. So naturally you cast that instead.
The whole purpose of Eclipse is to wrath spam, then starfire spam with it procs.
Far out L2Boomkin.
Dale Mar 7th 2009 4:57PM
The guy above who said NG change was a nerf has no idea what he is talking about, try casting a wrath with NG up with 500 haste and experience the awful clipping, this change is long overdue.
Also Feral druids are one of the whiniest specs in this game about time the Moonkins got some attention in the patch notes.
matomon Mar 6th 2009 8:28PM
Thank you blizz finally a little boomkin love
Zeplar Mar 6th 2009 8:36PM
If you were using Nature's Grace on wrath, you were nerfing your DPS Heilig. Nature's Grace cannot increase the speed on Wrath over time, because you just end up waiting for the GCD.
Koleckai Mar 6th 2009 9:01PM
Savage Defense is on the PTR. Servers went down and haven't come back up last I checked though.
Jack Mar 6th 2009 9:29PM
According to the MMO-Champion talent calculator, Eclipse is now a 100% chance to proc the wrath buff on a starfire crit, not 33%. Also, Owlkin Frenzy is just being changed back to how it is on live.
It's also worth noting that the Faerie Fire change is great for moonkins casting IFF as well as for ferals.
Lagren Mar 6th 2009 9:43PM
I wonder if they're going to remove or change the stealth removing part of Faerie Fire then. It'd suck to not be able to stealth for five minutes as a rogue. (though CoS might help with that)
Marveen Mar 7th 2009 9:04AM
The pvp duration is still much shorter than the new 5-minute duration.
szimm Mar 8th 2009 12:21PM
ye, the pvp duration is still 40 secs, just like it was before.
Faar Mar 7th 2009 12:09AM
They made tree-mode cheaper, no complaints there really. I am curious what prompted this change though, it was already pretty cheap, and now with thorns castable in treemode and a 5-minute FF there's pretty much no reason to leave it either...
How about making boomkin-mode cheaper instead? It costs considerably more, plus owls aren't allowed to heal, thus neccessitating a lot more shifting as well - and aren't allowed to cast mark of the wild either.
What I would also like to see is letting trees cast FF, let owls cast MoTW, and make thorns last longer than bloody ten minutes. Now that inner fire was bumped up to 30 minutes (FINALLY), what logical reason is there to restrict thorns to such a short duration?
Hell, make all regular selfbuffs last at least 30 mins, including pally blessings. It's just a freakin' hassle when they keep expiring all the time.
Araeyn Mar 7th 2009 1:06AM
I doubt they are going to consider changing the duration of thorns since the minor glyph (Glyph of Thorns) increases thorns when cast on yourself by 50 minutes making it a 60 minute buff to yourself.
What I would like to see is at least some changing so at least if you have this glyph it would also last longer on other people, maybe 30 minutes.
I must say considering I have played a boomkin since awhile before bc came out its nice to see boomkins getting some real love. Although my raiding guild loved me before wrath came out its still nice to be a little more useful than just having a nice aura.
Tom Mar 7th 2009 5:01AM
Most of you misunderstand how haste works.
20% haste doesn't mean your spell cast time is reduced by 20%. It means your spells are cast 20% faster and that is different.
For a 3 second cast a 20% reduction would equate to 2.4 seconds.
A 20% increased casting speed equates to 2.5 seconds.
If you're having trouble seeing the difference, imagine it like this:
"Imagine when casting you generate "spell points" at a base rate of 100 per second. A 3 second cast time spell is equivalent to one which says "Requires 300 spell points to cast". So you start casting, when you've generated enough spell points (after 3 seconds) your spell is cast.
20% reduced cast time would be to say "Spell requires 20% less spell points." So it would need 240 spell points. And you'd generate that in 2.4 seconds.
20% increased casting speed means "You generate spell points 20% faster". So you still need 300 spell points, but you generate then at 120 per second in stead of 100 per second. So to get the 300 needed for your spell you would take 2.5 seconds.
You can confirm all this by stacking some haste and checking how long it takes you to cast a few spells. I believe it's also outlined on Wowwiki.com
So the change to Nature's Grace is NOT a buff when you are casting longer casting spells. 3 seconds of 20% haste is exactly the same as 0.5 seconds off your next 3 second cast.
The change as far as I see it is aimed at stopping you clipping the GCD.
trombone Mar 8th 2009 3:03AM
It is a boost to SF, as I can get 2 hasted SFs in the 3 second NG window.
Tarien Mar 7th 2009 6:36AM
Tom is right, and so NG will be much more usefull for wrath then for starfire :)
Hmm interesting, together with the eclipse buff this could make it worthwhile to change from a haste+starfire eclipse rotation to a crit+wrath rotation.
This would be lovely, Lunar eclipse is less RNG depended and it hurts less when you have to move. This would be very nice when Ulduar is indeed a keep-running-or-die instance :)
Link Mar 8th 2009 10:42PM
Am I the only one that is super-excited about NG taking 1-1.5 seconds off of hurricane? That is freaking amazing. Starfall + Hurricane spam = win (well, for trash anyway).
Ashivor Mar 9th 2009 8:01AM
So is it confirmed that the FF change does work with Moonkins IFF to that my IFF will last 5 mins? I know I wouldn't mind that extra GCD on a boss fights since my raid now counts on IFF being ~100% up on boss fights.
As for eclipse, does the Wrath --> Eclipse --> starfall change at all or just the Starfall --> Eclipse --> Wrath?