r/classicwow • u/urlaub_in_italien • 4d ago
Forever Beta Feedback WoW Forever: Druids need a real hybrid stat-conversion talent
One thing about the current Forever beta feels strange to me: the class that is supposed to be the hybrid class has arguably the weakest support for hybrid gearing.
Several other hybrids/specs get talents that let one primary stat support multiple roles:
- Paladin – Champion of the Light 3/3: Intellect grants Spell Damage and Healing equal to 100% of Intellect.
- Enhancement Shaman – Mental Dexterity 3/3: Intellect grants 100% of its value as Attack Power.
- Enhancement Shaman – Mental Quickness 2/2: Intellect also grants Spell Damage and Healing equal to 30% of Intellect.
- Priest – Spiritual Guidance 5/5: Spirit grants Healing equal to 25% of Spirit and Spell Damage equal to 8% of Spirit.
Meanwhile, Feral Druids have no comparable bridge between their physical stats and healing/casting. Heart of the Wild gives 10% Intellect, 20% Stamina in Bear and 10% Strength in Cat, which is useful, but it does not make Feral gear meaningfully support the caster/healer half of the class and vice versa.
That feels especially unfortunate in Forever because the itemization direction is becoming more role-specific. The datamined Tier 1 already has four separate Druid sets: Feral, Guardian, Balance and Restoration. Feralheart Raiment (T0.5) itself still has its old all-stat pieces in the current data, but even its reworked set bonuses are moving away from one broad hybrid bonus, and future raid gearing clearly looks much more specialized.
Blizzard's own itemization philosophy says the unified hit/crit changes are intended to help hybrids such as Ret Paladins and Enhancement Shamans. I would love to see that philosophy applied equally to Druids.
I'm not asking for Feral Druids to heal like a fully geared Restoration Druid while wearing DPS gear. I just want the original Druid fantasy — shifting roles and doing several things reasonably well — to be supported by the talent and item systems rather than punished by them.
A Nurturing Instinct-style talent would be an obvious solution. TBC already experimented with converting Agility into Healing. Forever could introduce its own version deep in Feral or even deep in Resto, or expand Heart of the Wild so that physical stats provide a modest amount of Healing/Spell Power and/or Intellect contributes something useful to Feral forms.
The numbers can be balanced. The important part is the design principle:
Paladins and Enhancement Shamans are being given tools that make specialized gear more hybrid-friendly. Druids currently need hybrid gear itself to carry every stat they want — at the same time that endgame gear is becoming more specialized.
For the class whose core fantasy is literally changing forms to fill different roles, that feels backwards.
I'd really like to see Druids get some love here during the beta.
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u/Jocic 4d ago edited 3d ago
I just want to not be punished for shapeshifting between my 2 Feral forms when I take Furor, the talent that is supposed to make shapeshifting less punishing on my resource. If bearweaving being mandatory is a concern, make Lacerate and Rip mutually exclusive on mobs.
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u/tobiaspwn322 3d ago
Casual players have hated on bearweaving everytime it's existed. Same as how casual players have always hated on melee weaving on hunter, even though it was the single best part about hunter in tbc/wotlk and every competitive hunter player loved how deep the skill expression was.
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u/turikk 3d ago
im about as non-casual a hunter as they come (World #2 spec) and i dont like the idea of bearweaving. it feels artificial.
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u/tobiaspwn322 3d ago
you mean melee weaving as hunter? The top tbc hunters love it, in wrath we loved trap weaving. The alternative is a spec where your parse is entirely dependent on kill timers and rng elements.
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u/turikk 3d ago edited 3d ago
i didnt play hunter during those expansions, but i'd probably enjoy that since its just using your buttons in front of you. bearweaving is disruptive. im not saying its not authntic or some sort of "cheat" i just don't like the idea of it. planning to druid for Forever and hope it gets nerfed in some way.
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u/tobiaspwn322 3d ago
Bearweaving feels quite natural in wrath, until they nuked it ofc. Vanilla and tbc feral is and has always been unnatural in every way.
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u/TacoTaconoMi 3d ago
My God I loved melee weaving in hunter and it killed me to see other hunters complain that they want to just stand still and hit aimed shot every 6 seconds for max dps yet complain about a lack of depth in rotation
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u/logoth 3d ago
Nothing should make MM and BM hunters want to run into melee to hit things. If that's the best dps, IMO something is designed poorly. (not knocking the hunters that do it, I'm saying it's bad design for it to be better than staying at range)
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u/ljus_sirap 4d ago
As a more of a Classic player, it bothers me how the Forever Feral is feeling more distinctly divided into cat and bear lanes. To me the Feral identity is being both a tank and a melee spec at the same time. That's the feral niche. Tanking one boss, then changing gear and dpsing the next boss. Sometimes doing both in the same encounter, like Sulfuron, Majordomo, Razorgore, Anub etc. Arms and Fury are better melee dps than Feral, and Prot is a better tank. But Feral is a better tank than Arms or Fury, and better dps than Prot.
And this is not a Vanilla take. It stayed like this all the way to Wrath. In TBC I could catweave Brutallus during tank swaps. I remember in TotC, on the first encounter I would dps Gormok, then tank one of the Worms, then dps Icehowl. All with the same spec and gear. Then I'd go full dps gear for Jaraxxus, Champions and the Twins (I'd tank sometimes depending on raid composition, giving our group more flexibility). Then I would tank Anub while the other tank(s) took the adds. That's the Feral fantasy.
I could be top dps if I played straight dps on that first TotC encounter, but it felt good to tank and dps, because I knew no other spec could do it as well as I could. It's where Feral truly shines. Without a Feral you will have a subpar tank or dps half of the time.
I see the Druid class as the ultimate hybrid. And Feral specifically THE melee hybrid. We can "do it all" when it comes to melee.
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u/gabo2007 4d ago
I think there should be a cost talent-wise to do the double feral spec, but I agree it's a bit too much. The number of talents you need to invest in each focus (bear & cat) is a LOT.
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u/Cephell 3d ago
Currently you will probably go full cat, skip a LOT of the bear talents and hope you can still tank barely enough for an offtank role. The tree is stretched way too thin and I think trying to split cat and bear as dedicated roles is a mistake. The entire druid class fantasy is being flexible.
TBC added a talent that increases your +healing as a portion of your agility. You didn't have the mana or sustain, but you could throw some powerful emergency heals out.
WOTLK tranquility was mega bass boosted so even the feral variant was an extremely powerful emergency heal button, even with no heal gear equipped. It had a cooldown to balance it.
In Vanilla, TBC, WOTLK and Cata (didn't play MOP), cat and bear share the same spec.
This new direction is COMPLETELY going against the established class identity and fantasy.
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u/ljus_sirap 4d ago
Yes, I agree there should be a cost. But the cost shouldn't be as big as it currently is. 5% dodge and 5 rage per dodge is a very strong uniquely bear talent, and +60 energy from TF is a strong unique cat talent. I'm not even talking about Primal Bite (Mangle) being bear only, or Berserk being so bad for cat.
Imo the difference from hyper-specialized talents should be in the 1-3% performance realm.
We still have itemization to further make a bear tankier and a cat more deadly.
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u/gabo2007 4d ago
Yeah those talents specifically I think should be reduced.
I would take cat from 3 points to 2, bear from 5 points to 3.
Even after that change, there are still 40 points or more I'd want to invest in the tree if I could.
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u/Ursa_Solaris 3d ago
Imo the difference from hyper-specialized talents should be in the 1-3% performance realm.
Wait, so you think it should be 97% Tank and 97% DPS in one spec?
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u/ljus_sirap 3d ago edited 3d ago
Wait, so you think it should be 97% Tank and 97% DPS in one spec?
From talents, yes. When you take BiS gear into consideration, the gap would increase considerably.
You can only be in 1 form at a time anyway. It's not like you'd do 97% of tank performance + 97% of dps performance. You'd do something like (70% x 97% tank) + (30% x 97% dps) = 97% total performance.
Unlike Paladins for comparison, Feral tanks cannot heal or "dispel" while tanking. That's our hybrid limitation. It's balanced.
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u/tobiaspwn322 3d ago edited 3d ago
The value of the resto tree is dead now anyways, and you only need 7 or 9 points in balance depending on if you the crit (don't remember if that crit works on melee abilities). Feral is easier to build now that powershifting is killed, You would be capable of going full tank and grab almost everything that's specifically cat related.
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u/Salphir 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yep, 100% nailed it. This is a massive part of what makes feral fun in classic. And to the other comment about needing a cost in order to play a hybrid; feral has this in vanilla - the damage numbers of the spec are much lower than warrior. The tradeoff for not getting the dps of warrior is that you get a flexible off tank that without breaking combat can fluidly perform both roles.
IMO they just need to add bloodthirst/mangle/whatever to bear, give swipe more ap scaling, and leave cat untouched from vanilla and you’ve got a fun and well designed spec
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u/Paddy_Tanninger 3d ago
On the other hand, and this is probably a bad thing...but I'm seeing basically zero interesting talents in Balance/Resto that I'd want to add to a Feral talent spec anyway aside from 7pts in Balance to pick up 5% more periodic damage and 4% crit.
Furor is looking pretty useless now which means that you also don't badly need the -30% mana cost for shapeshifting either.
So that leaves you with 44pts to spend in Feral which can pretty much get you every single talent in that tree with very few decisions you need to make between bear and cat. You'll end up trading points between Natural Reaction (dodge% and rage per dodge), Thick Hide (armor), and King of the Jungle (tiger's fury gives energy) depending on how focused you are on cat vs bear.
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u/Visual-Gain-2487 3d ago
OP wants to be able to tank/dps/heal/ranged dps all in the same spec/gear.
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u/Rubzje 4d ago
Yeah, this is bothering me a lot. I am playing druid for the hybrid RPG fantasy. Why can we now not utilize feral in a tribrid sense. The conversion talent should help a lot.
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u/Lars5621 4d ago
Are druid and warriors the only classes to get just straight nerfs for wow forever?
I understand wanting to nerf warriors, but what about druids ever made them feel op in a vanilla environment?
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u/Subjectxy 4d ago
2/3 druid specs are getting big buffs you can not compare current druid to current war xd
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u/LivingBowler1041 4d ago
Answer is simply incompetent designers
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u/Lars5621 4d ago
I mean the two things we have learned is a bed rock of Blizzard's development strategy are:
1: Paladins will always be op no matter what.
2: Druids will get almost no attention aside from haphapzard and over reactionary nerfs and buffs
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u/Dr-Enforcicle 4d ago
haphapzard and over reactionary nerfs
I still remember that one time in SoD when phase 2 launched, and balance druids became pretty strong because one of their new runes was double-dipping on its effects. Lasted literally 72 hours and instead of simply fixing the double-dip, blizz applied 3 different nerfs that smacked balance druid right down to mid-low tier.
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u/DionxDalai 3d ago
That being said, balance druid were great for most 60 SoD phases (and even top 1 spec during aq tier I think?)
So when they want, they know how to design/balance druid well
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u/mad-suker 3d ago
I mean, they fixed a lot of Druids flaws. Damage scales with weapon, which mean no more stat sticks; tauren warstomp can be used while on form; you can now drink pots while on form; you can use windfury while on forms; you have access to nature grasp without talent points.. there are a lot of classes who had little to no changes. This is a bit overreacting imho
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u/rcanhestro 3d ago edited 3d ago
druids were buffed to the tits.
Omen of clarity is now a passive (and a skill as well, not a talent), that also works with spells.
Improved mark of the wild is a baseline
Moonglow now reduces the cost of damaging spells by up to 25% (instead of 9% although it also included heals)
Faerie fire works with forms on default (no longer a talent)
Feral dps scales from weapon
damage/healing over time can now crit
no more buff/debuff limits, so druids can actually play their classes to the fullest.
regrowth was massively buffed with the reduced mana cost
Wild growth is available as a full party heal
druids get a normal revive on top of combat res (ok, this might actually be a nerf, since druids are now expected to res people on wipes)
Gift of the Earthmother talent to reduce the global cooldown when you use HoT heals
Nature's grasp is a skill, not a talent
roots are no longer restrained with outdoor only (which means druids get a strong cc for dungeons/raids)
Natural weapons talent is not called Nature's Majesty (improves critical strike of spells as well instead of melee only)
Heart of the wild is now in the 1st row of feral, instead of almost last
Reflection goes from 15% mana regen while casting to 50%.
Blood frenzy and Primal Fury were merged into a single talent
Mangle (now called Primal Bite) also added for feral.
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u/Rubzje 3d ago
This is completely true and it was note than necessary. But there just remain the 2 points and that is that the APM is now super low and boring. And due to the spell power changes feral lost spell power effectively. Top complaints.
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u/Curmudge_Unit 3d ago
This is an oil change when other classes got new paint jobs or rims (and some got maintenance as well). Sure, we needed the oil change but the fun stuff isn't there.
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u/rcanhestro 3d ago
how is it not?
Boomkin is actually useful/good now to play, bear got a nice rage "dump" ability to increase it's damage/dps, and so did cat.
resto got a ton of buffs, and it's no longer "restrained" by player buffs.
and both resto and boomkin got a ton of mana regen (which was an issue for both) with the Reflection talent update and mana costs update.
the only nerf that i can see is the end of powershifting for cat, but considering they now scale their dps from weapons, it might still be better overall (and no more gnomeregan farm)
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u/Curmudge_Unit 3d ago
I can't speak to booking or resto but as feral, I'd rather have classic druid. Berserk should be good for bear but pure cat might not even spec into it. And DPS scaling with weapons isn't a good trade for a fun rotation.
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u/SilverSpecial91 4d ago
just another thing that supports the idea that druid was last on the priority list of class changes.
Shit is so undercooked. (minus resto)
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u/BuilderVisual1721 3d ago
Honestly I think both balance and resto look alright. Bear druid looks alright in terms of gameplay, but the talents are scuffed that you have to go monobear or monocat now. Cat looks like a fucking mess unfortunately, it's probably the worst spec in the game in terms of quality of updates (not numbers).
It's classic feral except
- You can't talent for effective bear and cat at the same time anymore
- Powershifting is dead so the rotation has tons of downtime and you no longer care about mana for damage or shapeshifting as a core fantasy
- Your baseline spells and heals are much, much worse due to the itemization changes, making you much less of a hybrid and more of a rogue that looks like a cat but with less tricks/tools
- You have low talent diversity due to a bunch of mandatory damage talents that add zero gameplay (+20% crit damage on melee abilities, +10% damage on bleeding targets, etc.) - tbf feral in classic also doesn't have a ton of talent diversity but, I was hoping for improvements here
- Leader of the Pack shares the same crit aura as Moonkin now, so feral doesn't even have a unique thing to bring to the raid; DPS druids are the same in this regard
I will say the systemic stuff looks great. Thistle Tea and Rage Potions + consumes in form is super hype. Weapon damage scaling in form is hype. On-hits in form is hype. If they give us a talent tree that's functional and has interesting gameplay we'll be in a good spot.
Just make Tiger's Fury 0 cooldown and cost mana and you've solved most of the gameplay problems for feral, then you just need to make the talents a bit more flexible.
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u/Lars5621 4d ago
Um just look at patch notes for proof.
Blizz spends 3 pages of very minute specific paladin changes including the smallest possible details.
For druid they just list random shit like "your main damage spell now does 50% more damage."
You can obviously tell which classes they are testing and which they are just annoyed exist
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u/Dr-Enforcicle 4d ago
For druid they just list random shit like "your main damage spell now does 50% more damage."
to be fair, Wrath WAS heavily fucked and doing way too little damage. It was doing approximately 50% less damage than vanilla and spellpower/talents didn't make up the difference.
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u/Lars5621 4d ago
Exactly. And it still has a looong way to go to be classic level.
Imagine how little thought they put into druid to allow the beta to release like that.
Did any developer level druid internally? Doesnt look like it.
During the official blizzard podcast this week they talked about which of the devs was stuck trying to play druid this week and you could tell its the least respected of the classes.
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u/Dr-Enforcicle 4d ago
Yeah, Druid in general has been kind of a slog compared to the other classes.
-Balance is still pretty weak, your anti-pushback talent is in the Resto tree so you have to be 5 points behind on your main tree while leveling
-Bear is absolutely fucked, you have awful rage gen AND pretty much no threat modifier. Holding threat is impossible; I tried tanking a Deadmines and was just spamming taunt on CD the entire run since none of my buttons did any real threat
-Cat is also neutered because no more powershifting, so now we're a "sit around and wait for energy regen" spec like Rogue
-Resto seems actually okay, but historically, HoT-based healing does not fare very well outside of boss mechanics specifically designed to complement healing over time.
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u/whimski 3d ago
Outside of leveling stuff, Resto Druid has the 2nd most buttons outside of Priest for raid healing which means its generally going to be more engaging.
Balance druid is going to be legitimately strong as it stands now, very good scaling with spell power as well while bringing crit aura, innervate, gigathorns, brez.
Feral I dont really know. I don't like the direction theyre going trying to split up cat and bear, I really think it should be both at once, but it should be one of those things where you're putting basically every talent point into Feral and nothing else if you want both roles, kinda like how Frost Mage just clicks all their frost talents and thats it. Ive seen people happy that powershifting is gone but all I see is homogenizing and getting rid of a lot of the cool emergent gameplay that classic had.
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u/Dr-Enforcicle 3d ago
Resto Druid has the 2nd most buttons outside of Priest for raid healing
Raid healing that is going to be sniped by other healers. That's the point. Healing over time does not do very well outside of things like "aura fights", you know those bosses that just constantly tick damage on the whole raid. Those are pretty much the only place where Druid is good; every other place, you're just there to HoT the tanks and innervate the other healers.
Balance druid is going to be legitimately strong as it stands now
But still awkward at leveling and very reliant on stacking as much SP as you can.
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u/whimski 3d ago
I mean, healing in this game outside of giga speedrun guilds is really just about what has engaging gameplay, and less so about the raw numbers. The raw number fights are the ones like Sapph that typically benefit a lot from HoTs and stuff like the new Tranq and Wild Growth.
Holy Paladin was OP in Wrath but it was the most boring spec alive, especially once things went on farm youd just get sniped and do no healing because you had 2 buttons that both basically did the same thing. Hots and balancing Regrowth/Downranked HT/Swiftmend at the very least is engaging, and Swiftmend is probably one of the better instant buttons on any of the healers.
As for leveling as Balance, we don't know how it will be. It probably won't be as good as Feral, but thats fine? A spec shouldn't really be considered that much for how it levels, thats pre-game, and you can easily just spec into something else to level. Shadow sucks before Shadowform, so you go disc and wand till then. Doesn't mean Shadow sucks.
Also, NGL once you hit Moonkin form and get 200 or so SP which should be very easy at that level, your thorns are going to do a lot of damage, aoe Moonkin farming into melee mobs might actually be legitimately strong just multidotting and barkskin Hurricane 5 mobs at a time.
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u/Dr-Enforcicle 3d ago
really just about what has engaging gameplay
The gameplay can be immensely mind blowingly engaging, and yet your HoTs will still get sniped by the other healers.
/shrug
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u/whimski 3d ago
If youre getting sniped to that degree you have too much healing anyway. Swiftmend is pretty much THE snipe heal too. I feel like youre complaining just to complain.
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u/Substantial-Oil7569 3d ago
I actually laughed when I scrolled down to rogue and it was a single line about fixing Sap in PvP.
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u/Fankine 4d ago
Even resto is undercooked, they just gave it WG and called it a day...
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u/Colonel_Planet 4d ago
except hots crit now, so itemization for rdruid isnt ass, regrowth is now the single most efficient mana/healing spell in the game, and gets 50% base crit
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u/SayRaySF 3d ago
lol I can’t take some of these replies seriously
Baseline healing spell gets buffed pretty hard
“Yeah but that’s not resto, that’s baseline”
Lmao what?
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u/Fankine 3d ago edited 3d ago
I guess you cannot take basic logic then...
The point : Resto spec got almost no direct changes.
The counter : Hots can crit
The refutal : Hots/dots critting is not a changed aimed directly at rdruids, it's a global change for every spec.
The example : Warlock dots can crit (again, baseline change affecting all specs in the game) but their dot spec got a lot of changes. Resto basically got WG and that's it, only minor changes/no changes.
The point is that resto got undercooked while affliction and other specs got cooked. They spent a lot of time on other specs but spent low effort on druid.
Do you understand now ?
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u/SayRaySF 3d ago
I like how you omit a huge point of theirs to make your examples look better 😂
Regrowth is now the most cracked single target healer spell rn. Why did you ignore that part lol?
Disingenuous as a mf 🙄
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u/Fankine 3d ago
That's not the point ? I'm not talking about power, i'm talking about change and effort spent to give the class something interesting to play with.
Having one of your spell being suddenly OP as a side-effect of a global change is not "cooking" nor really interesting.
Funny you call me disingenuous when you purposely avoid the point and move the goal post.
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u/SayRaySF 3d ago
To each their own. Turning rdruid into a machine gun that can heal thru damn near anything if they got the mana is pretty fucken sweet to me and is a departure from classic.
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u/Fankine 3d ago
That is subjective and i cannot argue that with you, and i understand that's your pov, i share some of it as having at least the spec being stronger is a good feeling.
But i still have a bitter taste that they could have put more effort into the spec. I still have hope for the future, maybe even set bonuses...
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u/necrologia 3d ago
What's to be bitter about? The resto druid fantasy has always been lots of hots. Hots have been buffed globally, and between WG and the reduced global cd on Rejuv (which is huge) it's obvious that Blizz is letting resto do what's it's always wanted to do.
There aren't huge changes to the spec because their problems were with how the raid healing worked in general. Druid healing in vanilla was spamming down ranked Healing Touch. No hots in sight unless you were the druid with the highest +healing. In which case you could keep a single Rejuv up on the MT.
Resto druids looks to be much better off. Riptide being able to crit doesn't take away from Druid at all. Comparison is the theft of joy.
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u/InformalEngine4972 4d ago
The differences is that rets and enhance weave spells into their rotation and ferals don’t.
It’s the same people that made sod as lead dev , feral was amazing all the way from phase 1 till the last one so think the spec will turn out fine.
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u/LoLModsAreCancer 3d ago
Yeah if anything enhance is the most underbaked here because 30% SP from int is a very small number and won't get them anywhere close to old base damage numbers.
Shaman will be fine due to WF, but I doubt enhance competes with resto.
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u/Terrible_Tadpole_861 4d ago
Ya but it's not just for DPS, these talents help with the "hybrid" aspect of these classes.
Healing/moonfiring is not unheard of while leveling/pvp/dungeoning
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u/jermikemike 3d ago
And they still can. Just not as well as someone who built to heal and moonfire. As it should be.
Just like a priest who stacks shadow dmg gear can't heal as well as one who stacks healing gear.
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u/Terrible_Tadpole_861 3d ago
Feral has nothing of the sort of talents that Ret or Enhance has, and don't gear for any healing or spell damage. Do you see the difference between these examples below?
~Shadow priests generally have spell power on their gear, so they have decent off heals. No one has only shadow spell power on their gear, plus they gear for Int.
~Moonkins generally have spell power on their gear, so they have decent off heals. No one has only nature/arcane spell power on their gear, plus they gear for Int.
~Elemental generally have spell power on their gear, so they have decent off heals. No one has only nature/fire spell power on their gear, plus they gear for Int.
~Rets will generally have spell power through their talent Champion of the Light, so they have decent off heals. Up to 100% of int on gear will be converted to spell power for ret.
~Enhance will generally have spell power through their talent Mental Quickness, so they have decent off heals. Up to 30% of int on gear will be converted to spell power for enhance.
~Ferals have nothing.
I would suggest a talent akin to "Nurturing Instinct," a talent originally added during TBC for ferals to keep things feeling "hybrid-y" for feral, but I'm not a developer so who knows 🤷
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u/Sparru 3d ago
~Rets will generally have spell power through their talent Champion of the Light, so they have decent off heals. Up to 100% of int on gear will be converted to spell power for ret.
~Enhance will generally have spell power through their talent Mental Quickness, so they have decent off heals. Up to 30% of int on gear will be converted to spell power for enhance.
My guy for example classic naxx bis rets have 186 int. You really think 186 +damage turns rets into "decent off heals"? Also considering they go oom with just few heals and start doing no damage at all afterwards? Enhancement shammies will have even less, like half of that. I'm sure that shammy with 60 sp has "decent off heals".
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u/Sparru 3d ago
The differences is that rets and enhance weave spells into their rotation and ferals don’t.
Yeah I think OP misunderstood the changes. They aren't there to make enhancement shamans and rets better multirole hybrids, infact the stats they get from those are so minimal it'll barely change anything in that aspect. They were made to make them slightly better on their main role. They are there to give a small dps boost.
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u/rainbrostalin 4d ago
Ferals were required in SoD because of WF but they were pretty middle of the pack DPS-wise.
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u/Huntermaster95 3d ago
Middle of the pack is a pretty good place to be for providing a mandatory buff.
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u/jermikemike 4d ago
Key point right here. The ferals just want more spell damage so they can do rogue dps and then pop out to do priest healing. Hopefully that's not gonna happen.
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u/Zero3020 4d ago
Ferals want spell power/healing power so their spells actually do anything.
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u/InformalEngine4972 4d ago
Slap on a healing staff with a macro , problem solved.
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u/Dr-Enforcicle 4d ago
And yet, paladin doesn't have to slap on healing weapons. Shamans don't have to slap on healing weapons. Why is Druid the only one with this limitation?
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u/Colonel_Planet 4d ago
you are drastically overestimating how much spellpower paladin/shaman will get. Shaman getting a measly ass 30% from int will be like AT BEST 50-100 spellpower at 60. Less than a healing weapon has AT LEVEL 20
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u/sprignot 3d ago
No, but druid don't need to use their mana bar to dps, shamans and paladins do. Apples and oranges.
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u/tinylittlebabyjesus 4d ago
I know in wrath at least, you get some heal scaling off of agility I believe. It's been a while.
But on the other hand I remember Wrath Feral as lacking in kit compared with rogues, and getting roflstomped by Rets, and Prot warriors.
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u/tinylittlebabyjesus 3d ago
I just remember getting stunned and 100-0 by Ret Paladins in BGs very frequently. Rogues having more control. And Prot warriors were just an incredibly difficult, uphill battle for a feral since they dispel hots or barkskin with their shield, chain stun you, and take very little physical damage.
To be honest though, these are honest impressions I formed back in OG Wrath. It's been so long. I could be wrong, or I could've been bad.
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u/Ursa_Solaris 3d ago
The ferals just want more spell damage so they can do rogue dps and then pop out to do priest healing.
While also being a tank in bear form.
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u/thrillho145 3d ago
It's not just about rotation. Feral is extremely punished in pvp and open world by these changes
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u/Zerogravyti 3d ago
Bro, we need to talk about the bigger issue. Swipe still doesn't scale with anything.
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u/Ok_Assignment_2127 3d ago
Swipe is in a weird spot because if swipe scales, there’s a world where cats just go bear form for all non-boss pulls and swipe spam. I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s an awful thing to have happen, but I believe it would be counter to the dev’s goals of keeping classes as distinct as possible. Like the same reason rogue doesn’t have Fan of Knives.
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u/Ratax3s 3d ago
Dont tell em you can already shift and hurricane aoe pulls and do 5x the damage catform would do, on every druid spec, hurricane is very good even at 0 spellpower. It will also have no cooldown instead of 1min in forever, its best even for bears to just barkskin hurricane tank pulls of multiple non elites since hurricane has thunderclap effect.
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u/Cronimoo 3d ago
I think feral would be more interesting if you'd sure both cat and the bear for dps. Start off as cat -> more targets appear -> switch to bear for swiping -> switch to cat when back to less than 3 targets. That's help the spec feel like a shapeshifter instead of warrior/rogue at home
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u/Ashmedae 3d ago
Well said, I couldn't agree more. I sincerely hope Blizzard sees this and takes it to heart.
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u/Mjolnoggy 4d ago
Can't wait for the inevitable Xalatath avatar going "it feels super strong to me at level 16! you're just whining, it's fine!".
That being said, it really does look like druids got the short end of the stick in many ways. Used to always alt a druid but I don't think I will this time around.
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u/welcomefiend 4d ago edited 4d ago
i always feel this way about resto druid, conceptually it could be really fun, hotting a bunch of people and having them slowly tick up, but the reality is the hot will tick for 24 and then the target will get blasted by a 12000 penance that shields him for 4000 and you will be "asked" to play boomkin, which is in classic wow historically, a mascot / totem of wrath hybrid in the party, every so often you can become the personal mana tide of a guy casting 75 arcane blasts per minute, that's neat
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u/Mjolnoggy 4d ago
It's more actually being able to survive as a feral.
Right now, and as it always has been, the premier druid PvP spec is balance/NS rot spec, because it enables a hybrid playstyle with self-healing.
I personally much prefer it, but it's also dead in the water as it was low damage before and now you'd actually heal them with moonfire/insect swarm.
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u/welcomefiend 4d ago
i like tbc ferals healing playstyle but it sort of only works the way that it does is because lifebloom is so good that even when you only have 100% of your agility in healing and virtually no other healing unless you switch weapons, it could actually keep someone alive
In forever we've skipped lifebloom and went straight to wild growth which is obviously not baseline for ferals like lifebloom so you'll have to rely on only rejuv with 0 healing, which means you may aswell not do it at all and you are just a rogue with a different skin
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u/Lars5621 4d ago
Im kinda shocked they didn't add lifebloom.
Its critical important to having druid healing do anything.
Imagine your a druid trying to raid heal while you have a pally and priest raid healing. Your WG hits a party but the paladin insta heals all the damage with their new super spell. The priest then mops up the other groups with PoM.
As bad as that sounds when your competing with shamans ripride chain heals its even worse.
I just dont see a way forever can keep lifebloom out. Unless ofc the idea is for resto druids to be a joke.
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u/RoundAffectionate424 4d ago
What should they do to make it more hybrid?
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u/Stregen 4d ago
I’d look towards TBC’s Nurturing Instinct, which added some % of your agi as +healing.
Problem is that unlike the other classes, druid kinda already does hybridise better. Cats already get double benefit from strength compared to rogues, and get a greater benefit from agi than any other dps class apart from rogue. Additionally, they don’t cast spells offensively, so hybridising for that doesn’t make much sense.
Unironically, as much as druids had their problems in classic, this just helps bring the other hybrids up to their level.
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u/RoundAffectionate424 4d ago
Yes the post mentions nurturing instinct, but what do we remove from the tree to put it in?
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u/Stregen 3d ago
Maybe make it part of King of the Jungle? I dunno. It's usually a cat talent, and King of the Jungle is simultaneously rather unexciting. and probably a must-have.
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u/RoundAffectionate424 3d ago
Man it's true that talent is so bland. Well maybe we'll end up with nurturing instinct, I like that talent, more healing is less op than more spells that's for sure.
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u/Mjolnoggy 4d ago
Honestly just adding a 2 or 3 point talent that gives some conversion from agility to spellpower would go a long way. They already did something similar back in WotLK, and every other hybrid has gotten something similar thus far in Forever.
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u/RoundAffectionate424 4d ago
Agi to spell power is risky for pvp, it would incentivize a geared feral to not fight melee and just kite with moonfire and insect swarm. So nurturing instinct, I'm not against it, it just eats more power budget from the feral tree, the question now is what do you remove to give room for those talents?
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u/Mjolnoggy 4d ago
>it would incentivize a geared feral to not fight melee and just kite with moonfire and insect swarm
... That's the premier build right now for druid, agi to spellpower wouldn't change that as it was already a low damage build and will be dead in the water now with how much spellpower you need to do damage.
>the question now is what do you remove to give room for those talents
That's very easy, bake Rend and Tear into Predatory Strikes and make it a 5 point, put in a 3 point conversion at the bottom.
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u/RoundAffectionate424 4d ago
And don't you think there should be a valid feral melee playstyle instead, considering feral is getting : crits on bleeds, energy burst with tiger's fury, bonus direct ability damage on bled targets, and berserk? HotW style druid existed because all those tools didn't exist. It was low damage because crit scaling didn't exist on dots and you had to compromise on a lot of stats.
It has to be one or the other though, because the classic era pvp spec does not allow for actual melee playstyle. HotW style takes up the toolkit of a boomie, a hybrid healer, but also now you get the scaling of agility, so a melee getting close to you has to deal with a scaling bear form on top of a scaling caster form. I hope you see how broken this idea is.
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u/Mjolnoggy 4d ago
>And don't you think there should be a valid feral melee playstyle instead
That exists, you just instantly blow up because you're an energy user with no actual CC capabilities in that form.
>HotW style druid existed because all those tools didn't exist
It exists because you require control in order to not die as a druid. You can't cast Entangling Roots in form, and it has a cast time. "Moar damage" won't solve the inherent issue that ferals do need hybridization in order to survive, because you sure aren't going to get the CC tools that it requires to survive.
>It was low damage because crit scaling didn't exist on dots and you had to compromise on a lot of stats
Nah, it was low damage because it's just low damage, it didn't scale that well with spellpower. T2.5 gear + ToEP and your Wrath crit for just about 1k, Moonfire + Swarm ticked for a total of like 180-ish damage, while that sort of gear on any other caster were closer to 2.5k+ on their main nukes.
>HotW style takes up the toolkit of a boomie, a hybrid healer, but also now you get the scaling of agility
Brother, what part of "put in a 3 point conversion at the bottom" makes you think it would be a part of the NS rot playstyle? It's literally just to give Feral the tools to not die to basically any class.
EDIT: I don't understand this track record of any druid player I talk to is inherently allergic to having actually good specs.
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u/RoundAffectionate424 4d ago
Feral melee dps in pvp had a huge scaling and meaningful cooldown issue, this is addressed in forever.
If you think critical strike not working on dot damage isn't part of the equation, idk what to tell you.
You want a caster spec in the feral tree, that's what HotW is. Except now the caster dots scale with critical strike, agility, and you can be a bear with high avoidance and high crit chance, moderate spell power and moderate healing power.
If I spec into a high mitigation and mobility spec, with berserk cooldown, that doubles as a caster spec named feral, why would I spec into the balance tree ever?
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u/Mjolnoggy 4d ago
>If you think critical strike not working on dot damage isn't part of the equation, idk what to tell you.
In terms of NS rot? Crit enabling doesn't even begin to tackle the immense lack of damage you will have.
>You want a caster spec in the feral tree
No, I want the ability to play feral without dying instantly in PvP. If you have played feral, you absolutely would know this.
>You want a caster spec in the feral tree
"Feral needs offhealing in order to live"
"YOU WANT FERAL TO BE A BOOMY"
Christ.
>If I spec into a high mitigation and mobility spec, with berserk cooldown, that doubles as a caster spec named feral, why would I spec into the balance tree ever?
Because you fucking want to? What an absolutely stupid non-argument. You will have FAR more spell damage and self-healing if you do NS/rot, and slightly less bear mitigation. The only thing you "gain" is a substandard DPS cooldown that's not even worth taking.
"Man if warriors exist, why should I play mage?"
Yeah I dunno man, preference is a fucking mystery.
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u/RoundAffectionate424 4d ago
Bro the way you respond is unhinged, you really don't care about overloading the budget of the feral tree, just say it. You want cat form to be strong or not? You think goving spell power is solving healing issues? Why did you talj about scaling agi to spell power? You want healing power instead then. But just glad you'r enot on any balance team.
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u/ljus_sirap 4d ago
You're describing the basic Classic Druid PvP build. DoT and HoT. But it's more of a Resto/Balance than Feral. And you don't always kite, you can just sit in bear form and melee.
As something that has existed for a long time, I can tell you it's far from being OP. But it does have some value against specific specs, especially those reliant on burst dmg.
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u/Duncan_PhD 4d ago
One person said that about the xal’atath avatar and now I guess it’s gospel lmao. Classic players are the best.
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u/Weltenbaum 4d ago
Guilty as charged
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u/Duncan_PhD 4d ago
I asked the person that made the comment if mine counted but I didn’t get a response 😞
On a serious note, how is a retail Andy saying that any worse than a classic Andy assuming it will always be the same at every level? Both are assumptions.
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u/LuchadorBane 4d ago
If they pin the blame on a retail player they get brownie points with the classic players. It's genius really cause you can turn around and just do the same thing too when there is a trash classic andy take.
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u/unnone 3d ago
The SP is a huge issue with the base power removed from spells. We will essentially not have heals at 60 and there’s zero chance they just give us extra stats on our gear to compensate.
They also need to not make feral 2 different item sets as well. Feral is feral. It’s not bear or cat, those are retail specs. It’s one talent tree and was always intended to lean into both. Blizzard is going in the wrong direction. Bear and cat separately do not have enough buttons or talents to justify them as separate specs.
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u/Bio-Grad 3d ago
Eh, I like having different gear. The bear wants more stam, defense, dodge. If the one intended for cat wear has all that and isn’t OP it will have a bunch of “wasted” (perceived) stat budget and they’ll wear something else that’s better itemized for DPS. If it does have all that and is still on par with other epics it will be OP in PvP.
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u/Boring-Passenger-598 3d ago
Feral heals at 60 are only have about a 100 raw healing difference than their era version.
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u/RealBiasedGaming 3d ago
I am confused here. zero chance? There is a ton of healing on gear already at 20. AND blizz has stated clearly that they will be itemizing every spec and you will have access to gear specifically for you.
Their whole intent is that resto, if they gear as resto, will have good heals. but if you are geared as feral then yes your heals will be quite poor. Is that what you are complaining about? Because it seemed like you were saying that you cant be a healer because you wont have healing gear. While that was the case in classic, that is explicitly and demonstrably not the case in forever.
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u/unnone 3d ago
I'm saying with the SP scaling changes on spells, the base value is lower, so we are healing less than the OG version with no healing, that means equipping SP only begins to pull us to baseline instead of past baseline. This is fine for Resto and Moonkin because they baked more SP into weapons and gear but feral just get screwed here because we have to spend slots on non mainstats just to be where we were in classic, IE we got caught with an unintended nerf. Our heals were already heavily punished my mana usage, but now they just heal less.
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u/RealBiasedGaming 3d ago
hm, yeah I see your point. It is in fact a nerf for feral in pvp. I am curious what the final numbers end up being and if some specs, like feral, just suck for pvp situations.
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u/kispingvin 4d ago
Yes yes yes this is the thing that bothered me as well, druid is the only hybrid without this according to my knowledge!
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u/JigglesofWiggles 3d ago
Honestly all I want to do is re-live playing my druid from launch to Wrath. It's been a bit discouraging to see that they seem forgotten about in this way. I want to play an actual hybrid and have fun in dungeons and the open world doing roles like 80% as well as the specialists. I don't really need to be the mix-maxed raid monster so I don't mind speccing into some otherwise unneeded talent to make that happen.
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u/etsurii 4d ago
I just want the original Druid fantasy — shifting roles and doing several things reasonably well
Thats the jack of all trades master of none philosophy that druid was originally designed around. Thats what actual hyrbids are. In retail you arent a true hyrbid class anymore, you pick a spec and you can compete in that role with everyone else and your other abilities are neutered.
People cried that druids couldnt get into raids as a cat druid in classic so now they are balancing the game so that they can. Unfortunately game balance would mean that druids who do as much dps as rogues cant heal and tank by simply pressing 1 button.
Also, i think the reason druids arent getting a hybrid conversion talent is because you dont need intellect to do damage or tank in feral.
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u/jancithz 3d ago
People gatekeeping endgame content that anybody can reasonably complete with a modicum of experience and itemization was ALWAYS the problem
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u/No-Mud-4890 3d ago
Let's not forget about shapeshifting, Point of druids is being a shapeshifter and when changing shapes costs 20% of your mana each time it sucks ass. Even more so in PvP.
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u/Sulinia 4d ago edited 4d ago
This is my #1 concern as well as a feral druid player as well after having lost powershifting and not really seeing any form of buffs/updates which gets close to that powerlevel powershifting gave. I don't want druids to be OP, but I definitely want something like Nurturing Instinct which makes us able to scale our healing with better gear, otherwise our healing is going to fall behind as we progress and have no way of scaling it.
Something that gives SP on top of that would also be interesting now that Thorns actually scales with SP, but I also think it would be cool to keep scaled Thorns for Balance so it's not something all druids can just provide.
Having semi-strong heals and using them in at least PvP is part of the Feral playstyle and class fantasy.
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u/Fankine 4d ago
Feral will for sure need this or they will fall behind hard.
Spell initial values have been gutted to account for additionnal sources of spellpower this time around. Ret and Enhance have both sources of free SP to counter this and retrieve more or less the same values but since feral doesnt, he will basically have his self healing severly gimped.
We can already notice this at lvl 20 where rets and enchance dont have their talents and they already self heal way less than normal
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u/Live-Habit-6115 3d ago
Feel like I'm taking crazy pills in this thread. Why does feral need spell power? They don't cast spells offensively as part of their DPS rotation. Enhance and ret both do. That's why they have talents for it.
Why does feral need to be able to do big off heals? It's a physical melee DPS of a rogue archetype. Rogues can't heal a ton. Why would ferals be able to?
If you want to be able to heal decently as a DPS, you can play balance
Like, what are people even complaining about here? It's totally misunderstanding the fundamentals of the game tbh. Just because shaman and paladin have those talents doesn't mean feral should. It's a totally different design philosophy.
Honestly if I were a dev reading this thread I'd be like, "wow no one this sub knows what the fuck they're talking about"
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u/Fankine 3d ago edited 3d ago
Spells got their base values reduced by a lot (sometimes halved) because there's now a lot more spellpower everywhere. So if you don't have spellpower, your spells will do half the effect of what we have on vanilla era.
Other specs got band-aid for that in the effect of talents giving spellpower (alongside better itemized gear), but feral got forgotten. Meaning ret and enhance will keep the same self-heal/assist heal values from era while feral will get shafted.
You should really dont throw things like "these people dont know what the fuck they're talking about" when you're that clueless. At least put the minimum effort to gather basic information before throwing those kind of statements next time... Or ask for them before being disrespectful....
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u/Stiryx 3d ago
Why does feral need to be able to do big off heals? It's a physical melee DPS of a rogue archetype. Rogues can't heal a ton. Why would ferals be able to?
Who said anything about big, we just want it to be viable in PvP. Rogue has about 15 CC tools to use, if they do the same DPS as ferals do then ferals would be incredibly underpowered. If they don't do the same DPS then ferals are going to be dominating PVE, so you can say goodbye to that theory.
It's a huge nerf on classic as you now need around 150 spell power at level 60 for your heals to be equal to classic levels, due to the changes. Rets and Shamans (being the other 2 hybrids) are much less affected because they have a talent that converts to SP.
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u/SgtDoakess 4d ago
"Class A has X, why shouldn't class B have it" is a terrible argument and the mentality most conducive to class homogeneity. Better solutions are available if you give it 10 minutes of thought:
- 75% manacost reduction on all spells for 10 seconds after leaving shapeshifting
- melee crits increase healing by 20%, stacking 5 times, lasts 30 seconds
- remaining Energy/Rage converted to bonus healing when shifting out, at a coefficient that makes sense at your level
- Improved Barkskin as a healing-improving cooldown, deep in the Feral tree
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u/urlaub_in_italien 4d ago
I like your criticism and would like to point out that Maelstrom Weapon buffing spells would be much more interesting than the conversion talent of enhancement shamans.
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u/HardLearningThings 3d ago
Yes, this whole pigeon holeing druids into being a specialized form/role is silly.
They are hybrids, jack of all trades, master of none. Give them a wide array of stats or something that converts int to AP, etc.
It's what I adored about classic wow and the druids pvp gear, it had all stats and really leaned into the hybrid style it felt.
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u/aiden2002 3d ago
I don't think boomchicken need AP. :D
But all jokes aside, shaman and paladins do hybrid damage in their DPS spec. That's why they get the bonus spell power so deep in the tree. Feral druids aren't shifting out to throw a starfire. Druids also have multiple hots, so they can shift out and heal them selves and it keeps on healing them when they shift back.
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u/Spanish_peanuts 3d ago
His point is though that Forever nerfed base spell dmg and healing values but since feral has no spell power, we are left worse off than we've ever been before. Our HoTs do jack shit compared to vanilla.
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u/aiden2002 3d ago
I still think you’ll be fine. It’s definitely something that will need to be balanced at 60. No need to address it in the beta when we are low level.
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u/urlaub_in_italien 2d ago
You are right in the effect that we might see conversion talents for druids after launch eventually ;-)
I do not really understand your point. Shamans and Paladins do hybrid damage and still receive a shit ton of free healing power with their conversion talent. Though - it will be just enough to compensate Enhancement for the reduction of base healing values of Restoration spells, so it should feel just like Classic WoW. Retribution Paladin on the other hand will have around 10-20% higher healing values due to their very high conversion talent rate. And druid? At the moment they will not only have 15-20% lower healing values baseline compared to Classic WoW - they also lack hybrid itemization.
You couldn't care less if the game would just be raiding. But it isn't. There is open world PvP, instanced PvP, dungeon gameplay, solo elite farming and much more - where even the purest feral bear or feral cat would like to be able to push offspec buttons and have at least a smiliar effect than that what we had during Classic WoW... It's part of the class fantasy, the hybrid aspect and the soul of WoWs druid.And I stress that the same is true for Restoration druid, they should be able to dish out some dps or tanking with some investment in specific talents.
0/31/20 for example has been a classic hybrid playstyle that just worked fine. Genesis Raiment or Feralheart Raiment were available if you wanted hybrid playstyle itemization.
Spells dealt more base healing and damage.All of that is gone at the moment in Forever to some degree. That's why I opened the thread here and a conversion talent would be just one possible solution of course.
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u/aiden2002 2d ago
I didn’t say we would get conversion talents. Druids don’t heal or dps in forms. They don’t need conversion mechanics. Shaman and paladin use spell damage and ap in their regular attacks. That’s why the dps specs specifically have those. They aren’t getting healing power, they are getting spell power, which also happens to be healing power. Healing power costs less in item stat weight than spell power.
Druids in PvP were the ultimate longevity class. Super high health. Super high armor. Stun shift out, heal to full, shift back. They’d reset the fight. They will be just fine with a 20% reduction compared to what they were in PvP before.
Putting in conversion talents for restored does make sense. All the other healers have things to give them 100% hit chance.
Again it’s something they will have to balance at max level, but so far, I think they’ve got things in a good logical place.
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u/Turbulent_Baker5353 3d ago
"The other classes have this, my class needs it!"
This is how it starts
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u/Nice-Entertainer-922 3d ago
In part Druid never got AP/SP conversions is because their builds do split the need of that already, feral doesn't use spells with SP as it is, and healer/boomkin don't go into melee to need the AP.
Too much like that and they're a bigger balance nightmare than they already are.
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u/Xogenn 4d ago
Also give boomies some ap from int so they can smack with sulfuras :)
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u/tacticalmallet 4d ago
Honestly I kinda wish moonkin form was a side talent we cloud opt to skip...
Make moonkin the 21 point talent, give it 2 more linked talents for int -> ap, and spirit to sp aura.
Make eclipse (or starsurge) the capstone.
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u/tostatortilla 3d ago
Moonkin capstone is and always has been LAME. It’s mandatory for group content.
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u/Nippys4 3d ago
If your feral your a melee dps and rank hybrid.
What you’re talking about now would be a tribrid or even a quadbrid because you’d be able to cover all 4 specs.
The other specs get the hybrid talents because it dives them into a healer role but not a tank one.
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u/urlaub_in_italien 3d ago
in Classic WoW, you were able to quadbrid with T0.5 (Feralgeart Raiment), T2.5 (Genesis Raiment) and items like Mace of Unending Life. It wouldn't be possible in Forever due to new specialized item set design and reduced base damage and healing values of spells.
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u/Deeppurp 3d ago
Except each druid spec has no crossover requiring stat conversion.
Paladins and shamans are both partial spell casters as melee attackers and need the scaling for their damage.
Druids who go feral are explicitly physical attackers and do not require supplemental talents to make their kit better.
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u/Sh1rvallah 3d ago
Except we actually do more than just run a dps rotation against bosses in this game.
Baseline spells had their values lowered to make it more fun for casters to get increases from gear. Ok Cool but feral uses those same spells throughout the game and doesn't use gear with spell power / healing.
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u/Deeppurp 3d ago
That's not what those enhancement or ret talents are for though.
They are to add scaling to their spells used in regular rotation.
If you want a spell damage skill in feral, then I want their primary damage dealing abilities to scale with spell damage instead of ap while we're comparing oranges and apples here.
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u/Sh1rvallah 3d ago
I don't care about what the ret and enhance talents are for. Frankly I don't care if we get spell power in a talent, I just want the issue resolved in some way.
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u/Deeppurp 3d ago
But its not an issue, not having spell power causes no scaling problems for Feral.
Druids as a hybrid class is the only one where each spec is its own isolated pillar with 0 cross-over requirements to function. A Feral spec druid does not require spell power to be BETTER at its role.
Its not an issue, its intended. Im sorry you want to heal better as a bear/cat but I disagree with this take.
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u/Sh1rvallah 3d ago
It's absolutely an issue and you just never have leveled a druid.
Like imagine if when they fixed ret spell power talent after they nerfed baseline values they literally made it just spell damage and no healing, leaving their heals nerfed for no reason.
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u/SmokingPuffin 3d ago
The ability of druids to shift forms to change what they're doing is core to the class fantasy. Leaning away from shapeshifting not only is bad for class fantasy, but it leads to druid specs being simply less interesting versions of the class they emulate.
Druids should want to spend some of their time in offspec forms. Moonkin is currently doing this well. Dropping out of moonkin to cast some heals is routine.
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u/larsja83 3d ago
Are they doing something with wardrobe? Takes up some slots by having tank gear, dps gear and healing gear.
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u/thespike323 3d ago
I’ve always thought it would be cool if Druid talent trees had talents that made the stats you invest in somewhat support stats for other roles too so Druids could be truly hybrid. Like in the resto tree something that increases threat and armor in bear form based on healing power or spirit or something. Not enough to make you as tanky as a dedicated tank but it’d cool I think if a resto druid could tank an add in an emergency for example.
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u/Historical_Bobcat295 3d ago edited 3d ago
The only thing that makes Enh hybrid-friendly is the hamfisting of Bolt and Flame Shock into their kits, because otherwise those spells are downright stinky. Not complaining btw; just conveying the forces that be that keep their casting from being situational at best and complete and utter trash at worst, haha.
And just to function, Enh needs Int badly. Their Int scaling is mainly a reason for them to finally use it outside of trash pulls haha. Although 300+ AP and instant Ghost Wolf indoors for 5 measly talent points is definitely one of the biggest buffs in Forever - I wouldn't be surprised at all if Enh pops off at launch.
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u/Rubzje 3d ago
They should really give this another thought. For PvP especially, the need to have spellpower and int is crucial.
Please give us a deeper feral talent update that increases int + SP from agi or something. That should make agi less useless, too.
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u/Elmimica 1d ago
Resto and balance would need an equivalent int/sp to atk power. Feral isnt the real Jack of all trades that should be balance
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u/Frenzy_Q 1d ago
We dont need stat conversions I think, we need a different approach to stats/base spell damage/heal + gear that leans HEAVILY into hybrid play - like R13 Classic.
As a druid main im rly disappointed that Ive once again been split into 4 separate classes, just like in Retail
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u/buttseeker 3d ago edited 3d ago
Based on enhancement and ret itemization we can see so far in the beta, ret and enhancement will have spell power on their intended items on top of the conversion talents - a good indicator of this is the waylaid crate crafting sets that are clearly itemized for specific classes/specs. From looking at amounts of int you'd reasonably have with t1, t2, t3 item level gear, the conversions are basically just there to lesson the hybrid and int/mana tax of the item stat budgets and to make up for the fact that a lot of spell power is derived from your weapon - because spell power on weapons is "paid for" in the item budget by taking away weapon dps they are disincentivized from using a true spell power weapon.
Feral druid is in an awkward spot because they can't really apply the same itemization logic - they typically don't use the spell half of their kit in pve at all other than precasting rejuv before pulling as a bear tank, but not having spell power actually matters a lot in pvp when base spell values are so much lower. I expect that the compromise they will make is that druid items statted for pvp usage will have some spell power on them, but ideally I think a spell power (or at least healing power) conversion talent should be added somewhere deep in the feral tree.
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u/smellons 3d ago
I don’t really understand this. If I wanted to dual spec as a resto Druid I would be carrying around a second set of gear. That’s what I did in classic and TBC.
Is this for PVP? If so I think it’s even harder to justify a class that can melee dps, tank, ranged dps, and heal.
I don’t really mind the spell power issue as feral as long as the class is fun and competitive/brings benefits to the party.
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u/urlaub_in_italien 3d ago edited 3d ago
at level 60 Classic, you would deal much more spell damage and your healing spells would heal for more than in Forever - if you are naked. Therefore with specialized gear you will still be crippled in that regard. For raids it is ok, but for everything else it would be a sad loss of identity. Forever hybrids should be able to be jack of all trades and master of none if they want to be. It seems like there will be no hybrid sets for druids, so a conversion talent would solve the issue.
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u/tacticalmallet 3d ago
Tbh I think alot of the druid trees need alot of work.