The Mists of Pandaria talent calculator was heavily updated recently and while we are still a month or two away from Beta we are starting to see the direction Blizzard wants to take for the Druid class. Our particular portion of the talent calculator received some heavy changes, some for better or worse. Let’s take a look shall we?
Tier 1
Feline Swiftness- Increases your movement speed by 15%
The talent didn’t really change for Resto as much as it did for Ferals. Cat Form now has a movement speed increase of 15% baked in and this talent just improved upon that. We’ll have a 15% movement speed increase in caster form and a 30% movement speed increase while in Cat Form. Still our best option for PvE.
Displacer Beast- Instant Cast. Teleports the Druid up to 20 yards forward and activates Cat Form and Prowl. 3 min cooldown
This spell went from almost completely awesome to borderline worthless in one fell swoop. The previous iteration had a component that purged all DoT affects, similar to what Cloak of Shadows is to Rogues. The fact that it doesn’t purge DoTs pretty much makes it worthless in arena and most PvP situations. It’s essentially a 3 minute Mage Blink now. Yuck.
Wild Charge: Caster Form- Fly to an ally’s position
Travel Form- Leap forward 20 yards. 15 second cooldown
This talent has been moved to tier one and is definitely now our best option for PvP. It’s a shame the damage reduction component was removed from Travel Form, but I could see why it would be too powerful. The fact that we have a “Blink” spell now available to us will improve our survivability by quite a bit. Keep in mind that it cannot be used while incapacitated and it does not remove snare effects.
Tier 2
Nature’s Swiftness- Instant Cast. When activated, your next Cyclone, Entangling Roots, Healing Touch, Hibernate, Nourish, Rebirth, or Regrowth becomes instant, free, and castable in all forms. The healing and duration of the spell is increased by 50%. 1 min cooldown
Now THIS is a Nature’s Swiftness I can get really excited about. 1 minute cooldown? Check. Free mana cost? Check. Instant cast? Check. 50% healing increase? Check. 9 second Cyclone? Check. This is an amazing improvement over what has been looked upon as a lackluster cooldown. The 3 spells I would primarily use with this would be Cyclone, Healing Touch, and Regrowth. Regrowth in particular would receive a double benefit from this spell increasing the healing done and adding extra ticks to the HoT. Definitely our best PvP option for this tier.
Renewal- Instant Cast. Instantly heals the caster for for 30% of Maximum Health. Usable in all shapeshift forms. 2 min cooldown
With Nature’s Swiftness being so good, I don’t really see any benefit to this talent anymore. Nature’s Swiftness allows us to make choices for either healing or CC twice as often while this talent pidgeon-hole’s us into a longer self-healing cooldown. There’s just no reason to even consider this talent anymore as a Resto Druid.
Cenarion Ward- Instant Cast. Protects a friendly target, causing any damage taken to heal the target for 4,015 every 2 sec for 6 sec. Gaining the healing effect consumes the Cenarion Ward. Useable in all shapeshift forms. Lasts 30 sec. 30 sec cooldown
I’m always excited for new and unique healing spells and this one isn’t any different. While it’s not as good as Power Word: Shield it’s fairly similar in theory. It’s meant to be a buffer for heavy damage. It will likely overheal for some, but we are Druids right? We are use to overhealing. It’s in our DNA and is completely acceptable for us. With some tweaks (maybe a lower cooldown) I think it has some potential to be a useful addition to our toolbox for PvE.
Tier 3
Faerie Swarm- Grants an improved version of Faerie Fire that also reduces the target’s movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds. This talent replaces Faerie Fire.
This hasn’t changed since the last time we saw it. The spell is really meant to give Ferals and Guardians a snare. And while it looks nice, I think we have better options, especially for PvP.
Mass Entanglement- Instant Cast. Roots your target in place for 20 sec and spreads to additional nearby enemies. Affects 5 total targets. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Usable in all shapeshift forms. 2 min cooldown
I have mixed feelings about this spell. I like the idea, but I think it’s usefulness is throttled by it’s lengthy cooldown. I love wreaking havoc in Battlegrounds and rooting multiple people at once has me salivating, especially an instant cast spell. But once every 2 min? Especially since roots are so easily broken by most classes these days? Give it a 30 sec cooldown and then we’ll talk.
Typhoon- Instant cast. Summons a violent Typhoon that strikes targets in front of the cast within 30 yards, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms. 20 sec cooldown
That’s right guys. Treephoon is here. Got some obnoxious Rogue harassing you at the Lumber Mill? Treephoon him off the edge. Got some ADD Mage spamming Arcane Explosion around the flag in Eye of the Storm? Treephoon him into oblivion. Hands down our best option for PvP AND PvE. Typhoon has seen major usefulness in PvE content as well (see Ragnaros).
Tier 4
Soul of the Forest (Restoration)- You gain 50% Haste for your next spell when you cast Swiftmend
This is a new talent that replaced where Wild Charge originally started. Quite frankly I’m a bit disappointed with this talent. It’s just not interesting. This talent is competing with one of our signature healing cooldowns and I just don’t see the output benefit, especially in a raid environment where your raid succeeds or fails based on cooldown usage. For years Druids have complained about the lack of cooldowns compared to other healers so why would you give up one for this ability?
Incarnation (Restoration: Tree of Life)- Tree of Life form that increases healing done by 15%, increases armor by 120%, and enhances Lifebloom, Wild Growth, Regrowth, Entangling Roots, and Wrath spellcasts. 3 min cooldown
Our Tree of Life form has been baked into this new talent and it’s still our best choice for PvE and PvP. It’s still a powerful healing cooldown and provides us with our best defensive cooldown for PvP (increased armor, instant Regrowths).
Force of Nature- Instant cast. Summons 3 treants to assist in the Druid’s current combat role. Treant capabilities vary by specialization. Usable in all shapeshift forms. 3 min cooldown
I really can’t say much about this talent until I see how the Treants perform in combat. My one concern is the fact that Blizzard tends to design pets to be….. how do I say this…. stupid? Trusting your healing to a herp derp pet is a scary thought. Hopefully they are smarter than Warlock or Hunter pets.
Tier 5
Disorienting Roar- Instant cast. Invokes the spirit of Ursol to roar, disorienting all enemies within 10 yards for 4 sec. Usable in all shapeshift forms. 30 sec cooldown
A huge improvement to this spell is the fact that it doesn’t force you into Bear Form anymore. It’s more of a quality of life change for Resto Druids and it’s appreciated. This spell is very powerful for PvP, especially Battlegrounds and 5v5 matches. I’ll definitely be picking this up for PvP.
Ursol’s Vortex- Conjures a vortex of wind at the destination location that pulls all enemies within 15 yards towards it. Lasts 15 seconds. Useable in all shapeshift forms.
This spell has changed a bit from it’s previous form. It’s now targetable (previous one just pulled enemies to the Druid) and is useable in all forms. I can see this being very powerful for more control, especially for tanks who have add duty. Extra add control should always be welcome as long as the tank is anticipating it. I can also see it wreaking some havoc in Battlegrounds, especially if there is a glyph that gives it a snare (suck on that Frost Mages).
Mighty Bash- Invokes the spirit of Ursoc to stun the target for 5 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms. 50 sec cooldown
A nice CC cooldown for PvP. However, I see it losing out to Disorienting Roar in anything more than 2v2 matches. Disorienting Roar is available almost twice as often which diminishes the potency of this talent. And since I don’t participate in 2v2 I see this talent gathering dust.
Tier 6
Heart of the Wild (Restoration)- Grants 50% of Intellect as Agility and grants 100% of Spirit as hit rating and expertise rating, and increases armor by 95% while in Bear Form. In addition, damage spells cost no mana. 6 min cooldown
I hate this talent right now. Period. I like the concept, but it’s execution is still awful and completely useless for PvE and PvP right now. I think being able to DPS during a “burn” phase brings a lot of utility for a healer, but it’s just how it’s executed that needs to be fixed. A word to the wise: I don’t want to Bear as Resto. I don’t want to Cat as Resto. I’m OK with standing back and spamming Wrath and Moonfire. Take a hint.
Dream of Cenarius (what we care about)- Wrath, Starfire, Starsurge, and melee abilities increase your healing done by your next healing spell by 30%. Bonus lasts 30 seconds and cannot be gained more than once every 30 seconds.
This talent officially replaces the awful Master Shapeshifter talent and I have to say I’m happy with it. It might need a tweak here and there (the ICD might need a reduction, especially for Feral and Balance), but overall I like this idea of a passive healing increase every half minute or so. And throw in the fact that many bosses nowadays have points where you can throw in a Wrath or two and you have a pretty viable talent. Could you imagine a 30% buff to Tranquility? I know I can!
Disentanglement- Shapeshifting now removes roots. In addition, shapeshifting into a form heals the Druid for 20% of maximum health. This heal cannot be received more than once every 30 sec.
No changes here. Still a powerful talent that I believe should be baseline for all Druids (minus the healing) so we can have a more interesting talent instead. It’s a bit of a letdown that this talent is in our final tier of our tree. I think I speak for all Druids when I say we’d like to see something new and more interesting.
Overall I think we are seeing some solid progress, but there’s still a lot of work to do. Some talents are still boring (Soul of the Forest), worthless (Renewal), or just plain bad (Heart of the Wild) in their current forms. Beta is due to start in the next month or two so I want ALL THE DURIDS to go into the Beta and tell Blizz what YOU want from our talent tree in MoP. Long-live the Durids!
“A word to the wise: I don’t want to Bear as Resto. I don’t want to Cat as Resto. I’m OK with standing back and spamming Wrath and Moonfire. Take a hint.”
I hate this argument when dissing heart of the wild or other concepts of druid hybrid DPS. I don’t want to fling ranged spells for DPS as a Resto, I want to melee DPS. If I wanted to cast spells to DPS as a healer I would be a priest. Take a hint…
What may work for you doesn’t work necessarily work for everyone else.
You can always dual-spec as cat DPS for doing damage outside of raids/BGs. Inside a raid/BG, you are much more likely to throw out a wrath between heals than go into cat and melee something.
Lissanna is correct.
The biggest issue with Heart of the Wild is the fact that Blizzard is trying to bake 4 different playstyles into one talent for each specialization. There is no reason for Feral to spam Wrath/Moonfire just as there is no reason for a Balance Druid to go Cat. It’s pointless and already makes a complicated talent harder to understand for the average player.
As Lissanna already said, you are far more likely to stand back and spam Moonfire/Wrath for the duration of this ability because 1. we are already usually standing with ranged DPS and 2. those 2 spells are ones that Resto Druids are most familiar with when it comes to DPS.
Having Heart of the Wild provide more than one benefit outside our normal role is complicated to balance and just unnecessary in the long run. The chances a Resto Druid will step in to “tank” are fairly slim in most cases. We just need one option and ranged DPS makes the most sense for us.
As a healer in a raid, I cannot imagine seeing myself stop healing, drop into cat form, pounce, DPS, dash and then start healing again. If anything, I’m probably going to RDPS. For example: oozes on Yor’sahj. It is far easier for me to cast a Wrath then a heal (2 GCDs) than drop into kitty, get into position, start a DPS rotation, move out and start healing again (7? 8? 9 GCDs?) And frankly, if I am healing, I want to concern myself with the health of my people. I’d much rather see a Boomkin tank (and by that I mean a Boomkin actually tanks, not shift into bear) than have to worry about stray adds on top of making sure my DPS aren’t dying in fire or my Tank’s health is dangerously low.
The only time I could ever have seen HotW as having any use was if we had it for Faction Champions, which is probably as close to pvp as a raid ever got.
As for the need to DPS? That’s why I am Balance/Resto. It’s cheap as dirt to get dual specs, we don’t need talents to give us what dual specialization already does.
The two biggest issues my druids have come to me with are: 1) the loss of resources, especially rage, if the druid feels like they are being forced to shift. My bear tanks are adamant they are not shifting into ANYTHING ELSE if they end up losing rage as a result. They don’t want to end up playing Dead Bear after trying to emergency Tree-age (sorry, had to go there) someone; and 2) most of the non-healery druids I spoke to simply see this design to be Blizzard forcing Druids to be healers, and I have a number of Druids queuing up other classes for Mists because they refuse to be forced to heal. I have the same issue with Paladins, btw.
A great write up Juvenate. Thanks for the great read.
Dream of Cenarius is just as bad design as Master Shapeshifter.
A basic requirement for it to be at least somewhat useful would be:
Have it stack (i.e. no ICD as well).
Else you’d need the stars to align and pray for it not be overheal.
It’s mostly the same for other talents, say may sounds nice on paper (and even then only when looked at in a vacuum, they are uninspired compared to what other classes have in their trees), but their practical application is doomed to fail.
HotW ? Excluding Chimaeron even during burn phases you will continue to heal. That alone should teach blizzard how flawed this idea is. We’re sacrifing real utility (look at other classes tier 90) for a tool used as a gimmick. Unless this ability allows us to take a secondary role at nearly it’s full power (80-100%, else it’d be useless anyway), at which point it would be considerably bad not to take as many druids as possible to dynamically adapt raid setup while an encounter is in progress.
Ursol’s Vortex? It’s a movement reduction effect. Blizzard won’t make it so you cannot escape from the eye of the storm.
Soul of the Forrest? CD’s are always superior, even more so for a class already low on CDs (resto). The old wild charge was superior.
Cenarion Ward? Compare to Eternal Flame/Sacred Shield and realize how awful this spell is. Not to mention that we do not need a second Reju/LB with an added CD.
Displacer Beast? The worst of Vanish and Blink finally united … Just because it was nice for other classes and we do not have it doesn’t mean that we actually need it.
Wild Charge for low movement fight/Feral Swiftness else.
Renewal? No for Restos, Balance, Feral. Depending on how HP/Spellpower scales 30% it may bereasonable for Guardian to take over a 50% stronger HT.
Mass entaglement? Depengs entirely on how fast it spreads.
Dual spec isn’t even part of this conversation because I can’t change specs in the middle of an encounter. I also don’t accept the stereotype that resto druids are more comfortable with ranged dps, I’ve been healing since day one and I’ve never specced into balance until T13 because of a serious lack of range DPS in our raid and an over abundance of tank off specs.
I’m far more comfortable melee DPSing, I have no fear of standing with the melee while healing except those encounters where blizz had baked in silences into melee range (which I have a strong feeling are all past us with the introduction of the mistweaver). I want to be able to do meaningful DPS during madness, tendons, sons, mana voids, alys ground phase, and every other encounter where you only need that extra healer during parts of the fight.
I find managing energy, combo points, savage roar, and bleeds far more compelling than wrath spam and insect swarm every 15 secs. And maybe because I’m in a 10 man raid I know many of you are in 25s, I find the ability of maximizing your function in a raid where you’re always short on bodies to complete encounter duties more valuable than silo-ing up and just excelling at a single role at a time.
Heck its why I chose the druid class in the first place, we made an all druid guild that had people switching roles on the fly. Sure it only worked in low level instances but it was a blast, far more enjoyable class mechanics-wise than the tired old druids can do anything, but one at a time which we’re stuck with now (which is really no different that just having a bunch of alts with the same character name). Sure heart of the wild has its issues, but at least blizzard’s trying to go back to the promise of what druids were supposed to be, and the one thing I won’t accept is blanket statements of restro druids don’t want to melee DPS (or even DPS at all) or feral druids don’t want to heal. Sure there are plenty with that mindset and that’s perfectly valid for them but there are also those who want that simultaneous mix of gameplay, and where else is that style of gameplay going to be more home than to the class was originally described along those lines?
Let us not forget the sister blogs that have long championed the fun of bearcat-ing; obviously the ability to do both at will in the same encounter at near max capacity was overpowered and needed to be changed, but the fun of that gameplay is no less compelling and satisfying. Why can’t healers partake in the same hybrid gameplay? Again, dual spec isn’t hybrid, its not hybrid unless you can do it within the same encounter, otherwise its just a more convenient raider swap.
The real sadness is that it appears that the monk will be the home of the truest sense of this gameplay in WoW, and that the first steps were taken in the priest class. And I’ll say it again: if any place should be the home to this hybrid gameplay it should be the druid.
I agree with WeWhoEat.
Another point to consider is that there may be encounters who specifically advantage a certain spec. We could see scenarios where melee dps is just better suited than ranged, or when healing is more important than dps, etc. We’ve already seen this in previous tiers and we could see it in future fights.
If I am specced cat and there is that moment of the fight where we just need that little extra healing, my raid will certainly be glad that I have HoW. If I am specced resto and there is a phase where melee dps is the best option, then I can proudly raise my hand and go to duty. I fear there is still a problem with understanding the spirit of the new Talent System, it is NOT about having skills that you can spec into and just forget, there will (and there must) be decisions made on a per-fight basis. To that purpose, HoW is a great talent. Sure, you won’t be specced HoW for the entire expansion, but there will be fights when a good Resto Druid will take HoW and that’s the most important aspect of the new system.
I only hope that this hate against HoW isn’t due to laziness. Yes, people will have to get familiar with their other specs and yes, as a Resto you will sometimes have to move to melee range. Mastering HoW will become a good indicator of good Resto druid.
Alaron just posted a very good article on WoW Insider that kinda echoes what Lissanna and I agree upon with Heart of the Wild.
I agree pretty much with everything here. I would love for disentanglement to be baseline. I’ll probably pick Nature’s Swiftness over Cenarion Ward… but I love that I have the choice and both are viable options. I don’t really like tier four at all. It feels like we have to choose tree form. Of all the resto talents I’d always thought that tree form was our most mandatory. Now it’s an “optional” spell? Ugh.