We have actually swapped Furor (now in Feral) and Heart of the Wild (now in Resto).


We want you to get your 31 point talent and most of the time that's what players want too. When they skip that talent they feel, as you seem to express, that something is wrong with the talent, not that there is a really fun choice in another tree. So once it's a given that we want you to spend 31 points in the main tree, then spending points in another tree as you level is just going to force you to eventually respec to get that 31st point anyway. (Technically, you don't need the bottom-most talent -- you just need 31. But we still consider it a problem when you don't want that bottom talent for some reason.)

Your buttons: Rejuv, Regrowth, Lifebloom, Nourish, Healing Touch, Wild Growth.
Buttons you probably push in a raid: Rejuv, Wild Growth.*

Solution 1: We add Regorge and Rejuke as new heals. You push Rejuv and Wild Growth.
Solution 2: We get you to push Rejuv, Regrowth, Lifebloom, Nourish, Healing Touch and Wild Growth.

In Solution 1, you get new heals and still only use 2. In Solution 2 you use 6 heals. I suppose we could posit a Solution 3, where you get 2 new heals and use 8 buttons, but since we can't even get you to Solution 2 yet, that seems quite ambitious.

All of this belies the fact that there *are* new mechanics in your tree, even if there aren't new action buttons. Tree of Life and Efflorescence do things for which there is no current comparison.

* - every time I say this, druids will respond "Check my logs! I push all my buttons!" The sad truth is you likely don't need to. You can be a very good druid with those two buttons.

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We just don't think the data bear that out. I'm looking at a random parse for a heroic Icecrown 25 druid who healed 80% of his or her damage with Rejuv, 17.5% with Wild Growth and 2.3% with Swiftmend. That is literally 99% of healing, though I suppose you could be charitable and assume the Swiftmends did something with Regrowth. This result is very typical. Presumably this healer is no slouch, since he or she is handling the most challenging content in the game. You could argue I suppose that he or she would have been an even better healer with more buttons, but the fact is, the raid cleared the instance. This healer is not doing anything wrong. This healer figured out that ignoring those other buttons didn't really slow the group down much. We think that is a design flaw. If we saw, say the two-button druid healing Vault of Archavon and Marrowgar and the five-button druid healing heroic Sindragosa and Lich King, then it probably wouldn't be the kind of thing we were so aggro about.

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See my post right above yours. Rejuv and WG can clear heroic ICC 25. Happens every day, and even before the buff grew so large.

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I'm not blaming the players at all. They are doing what makes the most sense in the current game environment (i.e. the fault is ours). I am trying to explain that we are changing the game environment to more heavily reward players who use their entire arsenal of healing spells instead of just a few. We think that will make the game more fun, though we understand that there are healers who are perfectly happy using only a couple of spells.

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I think some of you misinterpreted what I was saying.

I said: We think druids are too effective when they only use a couple of spells. Several players called me on that saying they used all of their tools and only "bad druids" used two spells. I called them on that, saying that these so called "bad druids" were clearing every boss in the game, on heroic mode, using only two spells. So if they are truly the bad druids, there isn't enough separation between good and bad. More than likely, I think there aren't many bad druids beating LK 25 heroic, and that some druids are giving too much credit to the size of their toolbox when only a few tools are doing all the work.

It doesn't really matter though, because if you like using more tools, you should like Cataclysm healing.

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Tell me why you think it's wrong.

In our minds, you have efficient spells that can't keep someone alive in dangerous situations (Rejuv and Nourish). You have expensive spells that can, but are expensive. Regrowth isn't mana efficient. Swiftmend has a cooldown. Lifebloom is efficient on one target with many stacks, but can't be tossed around randomly. Then you have a slow spell that can help keep someone alive through heavy damage (HT). On top of all of that, you have an AE hot (WG), a zone-based but unreliable AE (Efflorescence), a short term cooldown (ToL) and a long-term cooldown (Tranquility). You should have a tool for almost any situation that arises.

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There are 10 hard Blood Council druid healers where Rejuv is only 30% of healing (awesome!) but there are plenty for whom Rejuv and WG are still over 70% (sad face).

I agree with some of the posters above though that the discussion of how many buttons it takes to heal ICC has played out. We can look at the empirical data. Of more interest to us is what the healing environment will be like in Blackwing Descent and Bastion of Twilight.

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The thread is labeled "Beta PvE update."

Are we? Because I'm pretty sure nobody ever stated that as being the claim and I don't personally appreciate the comparison. Welcome to beta, where things you don't like happen with great frequency.

As has been stated in the main thread, combat numbers are continuing to be evaluated. Feedback on Outland and Northrend are actually very much appreciated as the new numbers do reflect on those areas as well. It is highly likely that we will be bumping up experience gains in Northrend to match the increase(s) we made in Outland when Northrend launched.

In the last patch we made some major changes to the way that Hyjal flows.

The Good News: As you progress through the zone, you'll no longer need to keep flying back and forth to the World Tree to notify Ysera of your progress.

The Bad News: Beta players who were halfway through the quest chain when the patch hit will not have received proper credit for earlier quests, and won't be able to progress.

We're sorry for the trouble but it's all in the name of making a better game.