BC - New talens and spells - official!

[Sandrion]

I just found out that Mangle is an instant ability in both bear and cat form. It will pressumable be the highest DPS skill in both forms. No word on rage/energy cost and how much threat it generates yet.
 
It may be nice to have as bear if it turns out that lacerate doesn't become an instant ability. Perfect as a rage dump or even as primary threat generation ability if it has the 175% multiplier attached to it like maul and swipe do.

[Sandrion]

Saw a post earlyer that they will make this one instant, so you can choose between swipe and this. Not sure how acurate info is though.

It has been confirmed by the Blizz's lead designer himself. Lacerate is an instant ability that does not reset the swing timer. This is great news :clap: , now every class can nuke their behind off without having to worry about pulling aggro. Let the wars between prot warriors and bear tanks begin :narnar: .
 
You can view the post here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=28355629&pageNo=8#147

[Akall]

Imo Imp. Leader of the Pack is not so bad, as Sandrion said the ammount healed is not much but is always good to have some "free" healing when melee/hunters makes crits, it would help a bit healers to keep up rogues, dps warriors and hunters.
 
I was thinking of:
 
Feral DPS/Healing
 
Full Balance
 
Healing
 
I think I'll go for Full Balance for levelling up to 70.

[Bastet]

5000 hp rogue, 2% is 100 hp every 6 seconds, for 3 talents, its a total waste

[Sandrion]

Oops, I misread the tooltip of imp LotP, it's when you crit, not when you get critted. I thought it was a even more useless copy of bloodcraze :biggrin: .
 
But yes, it's free healing although the amount is not really impressive (17HP per second max if you have 5k HP), it might be somewhat usefull for classes that crit a lot like rouges. But then again, in a 10/25 man raid, how often will you be in a group with more then two rouges while you are in a feral form?

[Sandrion]

I've just been playing around with the balance tree a bit and I think it's about as good as full restro for healing.
 
This is what I came up with: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-druid/talents.html?5003500002553130230000000000000000000000000050500320531000000000
 
You will be able to get the most important restro spells, but some talents in the balance tree as just as good (or even better) then the lower tier restro ones when it comes to healing power.
 
Gift of Nature vs Moonglow. Personally I don't think Gift of Nature is not very good, since it only effects base spell damage. Most of the time you're using low rank spells anyway. For HT rank 4 it will give you about 40 +healing, which isn't that much. Moonglow will give you -9% mana cost, so in terms of HP/mana this talent will (most probably) make your healing spells more effective then Gift of Nature. Additionally it will increase your damage with balance spells as well, so this talent wins hands down.
 
Lunar Guidance vs Empowered Touch. If you got 500 +healing and 400 intellect these spells are equal. However Lunar Guidance will influence all your spells.
 
Living Spirit vs Dreamstate. Well no competition here, Dreamstate all the way. Especially if you're a HT spammer and are within the 5 second rule most of the time. But even during normal regening, I think Dreamstate will give you more mana/sec the Living Spirit will.
 
The only real downside is that you lose Swiftmend and can't reach Empowered Rejuvenation (a spell that doesn't seem all that impressive anyway). Nor can you get the tree form, whos use is also very doubtfull since it restricts you from using HT and cures.
 
If you really love balance but want to be good at healing as well, this is the way to go imo. There is not reason anymore to spec full restro to be a 'proper' healer.
 
Like I said before, I'm not a fan of balance. But this might make some people really happy :smile: .

[Bob]

Just got to give you that Sandion: I really like those analysis you're pooring out here

I don't have a head myself to get such a good overview over the different build and what really differes the various talents from eachother.  I kind of manage to get the big picture, but not by far this much details!

Keep it coming


Btw, any thoughts perhaps on the build I mentioned in a previous post?

Have been playing a bit more around with the new talents, and I think this might be an ok healing/resto combination. Since healing is what I love, I still think I want to keep most of my points there, but as a combination of that I'm not too improved by the new resto talents, and also that I think being able to do more than just healing will be more important in the expantion, I think this is a build that can suit me pretty well.

But this should be said: I'm a complete n00b when it comes to feral, so I would really like some input from some of the more experienced feral druids in the guild on what could be good, what could be bad and so on

[Sandrion]

Well regarding that spec Bob. It really depends on what you want to do. Are you looking for a healer/hybrid PvE combo or are you considering feral to improve your PvP performance?
 
I would however want to highlight the following things:
 
Feral Instinct
Since it has been confirmed that both lacerate and mangle will be instant abilities (which seems a bit overpowered if you ask me) there is no need for this talent. You'll generate more then enough threat. I'd only take this one if you consider becoming a bear tank.
 
Nurturing Instinct
The only use I see for this one is in PvP, when you're lacking +healing. I don't think this is much use in a PvE environment. But then again, it really depends on what you want to do.
 
Nature's focus
This one is only usefull when you're getting hit. In instances you usually have a tank that's taking the hits for you; you're not supposed to get interrupted. When you do get hit you either die or go to bear form and hope someone gets that mob of you (at least that's what I do most of the time). Usefull in PvP, but for PvE I'd pick Tranquil Spirit in favor of this talent.
 
But apart from that :thumb: .

[Guidei]

They seriously need to buff the druids pvp. If you look at others classes for example rogues/mages/shamans. I think we are clearly underpowered, the best option imo is to take a balance guild and go spam wrath. They should buff feral a lot. For example, in bg.. i got 1 hitted by a shaman, attacking me for 3x1100 windfury crit and a frost shock crit for 1200. I know it's just a one moment, but druids aren't that good in feral pvp unless you are full of naxx items.

What do you other druids think of this?

Oh and btw, i'll definetly spend some balance points in BC, that +healing as a % of your intellect rocks !

[Bob]

Thanks alot Sandrio, lots of good stuff in that post for me

First of all: it is at this time a bit har to say what I really want to do at the expantion, e.g. based on how our role as a hybrid class will have to be in the new 25-man raids.
My main goal is to be able to retain my role as a main healer in raids, but also be able to step in and do some minor feral stuff if needed.  I also want to be capable to run as a main tank in smaller instance runs (5-mans, as today for instance Strat and Scholo - don't know what will be similar to these at lvl70).

Feral Instinct
I see your points about this not being necessary when it comes to generate rage, thus these points can be spent in other places (think I'll perhaps concider putting back points in Tranquil Spirit (don't know why I didn't take TS in the first place, think I just forgot it, cause this is a nice talent for resto), and also some in Furor.
The only think I think perhaps can be of value from Feral Instinct is the "reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling".  This because from 60 to 70 there'll be lots of quest 'n stuff to do for leveling, most likely also that is possible to solo, and than such a talent could perhaps be nice to have to be able to sneak past mobs and solo stuff you normally would need a group for?


Nurturing Instinct
I'm not planning on doing much PvP, so I might reconcider these points here.  But on the other hand, if you are in such a situation that you're getting hit by some mob, it's really nice to improve your chance to get in an extra heal to give the tank some extra time to take the mob of you.
But I'll have to think a bit more about this one.


I did some more mixing with the talents, and ended up with something like this.

The only thing that perhaps could be discusses, is if I perhaps should change the 5 points from imp. MotW and put 'em in Furor instead.  It will be good for me as a solo player, but it won't benefit the raid much <_<

[Sandrion]

Well you only need one druid with imp MotW really, just supply em with reagents and everyone's happy :narnar: . The build I have right now is the first one with furor in it and I love it (to bad they broke it twice). I'll definately get it again in my BC build.
 
The stealth reduction works in the following way: it'll raise your stealth 'level' by one. So if you're level 70 with 5 points in that talent, for creatures you'll be like a stealthed level 75 player, so indeed harder to detect. The rouge talent thingy works the same way. I've never had a problem with stealth, so I won't take it for those purposes; but that's just my personal taste.
 
 
Regarding PvP. Druids do ok in duels. We pretty much own warriors; fights vs tier 2+ / grand marshall like geared warriors are the most fun. Those are always pretty close even if you have blue gear (yes, I have screenies to prove it :norty: ). But our biggest problem is, druids rely on survival for winning fights and we can not to counter burst damage, nor do we have we got any reliable ability to diss out burst damage ourselfs. This will not change; however as you can see on the new PvP sets every class will get a shitload of stamina on their sets, essencially making fights longer thus giving us a better change to survive. Additionally all CC abilities will also be considerably shorter in PvP. Greatly reducing the use of fear for example. There is still hope for us druids in PvP :smile: .

[Akall]

Dunno if it has already been posted somewhere but Kalgan, a Blizzard designer, explained how Lifebloom works:
 

Currently, Lifebloom gains a little more than half of your +healing bonus over the course of the HoT, and also gains a bit more then 40% of the bonus at the end (on the "healing bomb" part of it).
 
To answer your other question, regrowth can be used in Tree form.

And how Maim and Lacerate will work
 

As far as the concerns with Maim breaking on taking bleed damage, we're currently planning on getting it to work such that periodic damage (bleeds, dots, etc) don't break the effect.
{...}
Lacerate is an instant attack that does not reset the swing timer.

[Bastet]

They seriously need to buff the druids pvp. If you look at others classes for example rogues/mages/shamans. I think we are clearly underpowered, the best option imo is to take a balance guild and go spam wrath. They should buff feral a lot. For example, in bg.. i got 1 hitted by a shaman, attacking me for 3x1100 windfury crit and a frost shock crit for 1200. I know it's just a one moment, but druids aren't that good in feral pvp unless you are full of naxx items.
 
What do you other druids think of this?
 
Oh and btw, i'll definetly spend some balance points in BC, that +healing as a % of your intellect rocks !

I think druids allready got enough of a buff w/ the current set of skills (theorycraft on the new 41 feral shows it to be about twice/three times as powerfull at level 60 then maul). The problem is not the druids dmg, its every1 elses. And AQ40 gear is better for druids then what you can find in naxx cept for 2 items if druid official forums is anything to go by (items are end of dreams and ghoul skin tunic).

[Sandrion]

And AQ40 gear is better for druids then what you can find in naxx cept for 2 items if druid official forums is anything to go by (items are end of dreams and ghoul skin tunic).

You forgot the Leggings of Apocalypse from the four horseman. For feral Blessed Qiraji War Hammer is just as good as The End of Dreams btw. With Blessing of Kings Blessed Qiraji War Hammer even wins DPS wise :narnar: .

[Sandrion]

Just found a funny post about our flying form in the expansion.
Hint: It involves air strikes :roflmao: .
 
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=1A6F3BA08F1309DD32F67D8BFA742D96?topicId=28546648&sid=1#0