---

Q u o t e:



I would also like to see this.

A few reagent vendors, flight paths to Org and Theramore, and possibly a portal to Cenarion Outposts would be nice.

Moonglade is supposed to be the center of Druidic power, from a lore standpoint. Its a pretty sorry place for all that, wouldn't you say?

---

I'd REALLY like to see a reagant vendor there, but there is already a FM you can use to get to org and theramore.

It would be cool if there was a portal there that we could use to get to the Cenarion Refuge in zangarmarsh and perhaps someplace in northrend as well. Restricted usage by level of course, perhaps for use by druids only as well?

Any chance of Moonglade barbershop?

Custumize form tattoos, Markings, Hair colors, Skin Tones, Horns, Ect..

---

Q u o t e:
I'm a Bear Druid.

1. Why is there no weapon upgrade for me in all of Ulduar?
2. If I've chosen the 10-man progression path, why is there no upgrade for my level 70 badge idol?
3. Why am I seeing far fewer upgrades in Ulduar10 than my similarly-geared friends/alt?
4. Why do I have to do Arena to get the best gear for PvE?

---

All of this. Crygil was listening to the gear issues here - http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16474114599&sid=1&pageNo=12. Bottom-line is that not all feral gear is tanking gear, but Ulduar doesn't recognize this.

I would add -

Why is our T8 2-set bonus worthless for bears? Clearcasting is like pouring more water in a full glass.

Are you satisfied with Swipe's initial agro? Only class I have problems with consistently is ret pally. Running the hallway on Thorim with one of them blasting away and you start to get pretty frustrated.

Any chance of letting us cast a couple of extra spells while shifted? Battle Rez and Innervate are the obvious choices, with the former so useful that it alone can justify an OT role for bears. We could suffer the same penalties as pallies casting a heal if we tried to rez someone while tanking.

Will it be possible to keep the old bear and/or cat forms?

---

Q u o t e:
lol I love how the "question & answer series" consists of tons of great questions, and no answers. That sure is a good way to continue getting people to post, by making them feel like you listen and care what they have to say... : /

---

I did a little hunting in different class forums and apparently what they plan on doing is waiting a while for the questions to fill up. Then, a few weeks later they will post answers to one or two classes a week.

Check back in two or three weeks and hopefully we will have the answers to our questions.

The Balance Druid Feedback Post:

First off, I love the Balance Druid spec and the way you guys have improved it since TBC. I work at a Mobile Publishing company that builds games and applications in general for the majority of carriers and manufacturers. The work you guys do takes tremendous time and money to release. That being said, I have no complaints on how much time it has/will take[n] to further enhance Druids as a whole; and, more specifically, Balance Druids. The only time I ever get flustered with new content changes would be committing to a release date and not making it. Blizzard does a good job of not leaving themselves open to such heat thanks to the “we don’t give out release dates” response. I have been playing since December of 2004 with two sabbaticals. I’ve witnessed the lows of the Balance tree when I leveled painfully to 60, and the high’s when I was steamrolling through quests and raid content in early WotLK.

Now that that’s done, I can provide some of the key problems I’ve seen in our tree by severity:

1) Random Number Generator (RNG) dependency: It’s no unknown fact that a lot of Balance Druids are upset with this particular feature; more so in Ulduar. There are many elements that build into the damage any class can do. The primary element, and the most tangible to players, is gear (or stats). Second would be skill. The third element can be generally categorized as Network/Graphic lag. Last, but not least, RNG. The two counter-arguments to RNG are that it is “unique” and “balancing.” Fact is, we could do more DPS if we knew exactly when to use what; or, could wait to get into position before popping Eclipse. The balancing act is that we have highs and lows. This is parallel to the “bring the player not the class” slogan. Outside its obvious frustration, it causes play-style oriented content, from a raids point of view, to be a marker for how well we can perform. My point being, under the generalized categories of Caster DPS, Melee DPS, Ranged Melee, Tank, and Healer, they all have similar The per play-style. The variance of the advantages/disadvantages is what causes each encounter to be unique. For the most part, DPS on these fights are particularly balanced by “This is a melee heavy fight” or “You need casters for this one.” Most moonkins are feeling like we can no longer be covered under the umbrella of Caster DPS anymore as our dependency on RNG carries a higher variance of advantages/disadvantages (emphasis on the disadvantages) per individual fight’s play-style. It’s not so much that “we can’t keep up with other Caster DPS classes” as it is “we can’t be dependably comparable to other Caster DPS classes.” The “unique” factor can’t be argued, but can be debated. The necessity for new and unique things is generally meant for the entertainment of the consumer. Yes, Eclipse is unique; and, as stated above, it is balanced; but, I would bet that the current state of Eclipse is not high on consumer’s entertainment at the moment.

2) Spirit’s Value as a Stat: Let me clarify, this is not the bullet point for itemization. Though spirit is on most of our gear, this battle is with the stat itself. As we’ve seen lately, Spirit continues to get a buff in the Caster DPS world. Mages now have use for such cloth gear with +XX amount of Spirit on it. Moonkins,on the other hand, have a very limited use for Spirt. Seeing as how the majority of World of Warcraft’s high end raiders have chosen not to get Intensity or Dreamstate due to Mana regeneration not being an issue, our while-casting mana regeneration is not affected by Spirit. Now, I know that comment was very elitist of me. Let me explain. WotlK was designed to incorporate everyone into raiding (or at least as many people as possible); but, the theorycrafting community has devised weights that most people don’t look at for Intensity and Dreamstate. Most of the druid community that still uses these talents is either building gear, clueless to said weights, choosing to copy a spec off a website, or lacking replenishment in their raids (rarely happens). If Spirit’s value was built around the MP5 benefit, then a grave mistake was made on our classes basic statistic values. I would firmly stand by the fact that, much like Bladed Armor is to a Death Knight or Armored to the Teeth is to a Warrior, adding the bonus of Improved Moonkin Form was just another way to try and push us back into Leather. The two counter-arguments to Spirit is that MP5 isn’t where Blizzard wants it to be, and as such, spirit’s value to MP5 will be more of a necessity in the future; and that Blizzard is trying to push us into Leather; which leads me into my next major point.

3) Balance Druid Itemization: I know, you just read the bold text and physically “/facepalm’d.” Not at all unlike what I thought you would do. This problem has been an ongoing struggle since the beginning of time. The balance spec has never had a clear-cut set aside from tier. We have to share loot with multiple Caster DPS and, occasionally, vie for that gear over our tier. In my honest opinion, tier gear is meant to be end-game, and as such, should be the quote “Best in Slot (BiS).” However, this is not the case for most classes. Now, for Moonkins, it was originally advised by the theorycrafting community not to get the 2pc or the 4pc tier bonus. Reverting back up to the 1st issue, our RNG was just too much with such a low proc rate and high icd. Now, with the fixes and proc changes, it is viable. I say viable casually. There are better pieces of gear out their individually. The only thing keeping the Balance Druid community from attaining said gear is now the 4pc tier bonus and those amazing double takes I get when someone, for the 100th time, feels the need to comment on how much our helm looks like Sailor Moon. Part of my argument goes hand in hand with Spirit on the 2nd issue. The Moonkin tier gear has an odd amount of Spirit on it. That’s as far as that comment goes as I would just be repeating myself. On a similar note, almost all leather off-set gear is also consistent with Spirit for the exchange of other, more vital, stats. This topic I really don’t see any counter-argument. So, I will just ask a direct question: Why is the gear you’ve provided as “for Moonkin(s)” considered low on the scheme of things to other pieces of gear not in our armor priority? If the answer is that “the leather gear provided in Ulduar is ambiguous to Restoration Druids”; or, that “there is no leather gear tailored specifically to Moonkins;”then I have two more questions. “Why are we vying for leather gear with Restoration Druids?” and, “Why don’t we have Balance specific gear?” (respectively). The argument that was stated about not adding Feral and DK tanking weapons in the game has no real base to stand on on this question. The only negative to adding leather Balance Druid gear would be the effects it would have on one other class that is in the same itemized condition we are, Elemental Shamans. To which I would happily suggest doing the same to them (keep in mind these are ideas that are not relative to time and money. A response yielding a “time and money” excuse isn’t the only boundary for this question).

4) Balance Druid PvP: This bullet I’ll keep short and sweet as there is really no argument involved. In previous seasons, Moonkin’s have been viable in 2’s and 3’s and commonly wanted/needed in 5’s. Since WotlK came out, and after people started gearing up, Moonkin’s became very scarce in 2’s and 3’s; even 5’s was showing a low population of Balance spec’d Druids. This issue is simply a reminder that the state of Balance Druid’s in PvP is not just unbalanced, it’s almost laughable. Moonkin’s are supposed to be a combo of burst and utility (hence why one of the only decent combos in 2’s is with rogues). With Feral Charge and Improved Bash not exactly being tangible (or at least not without taking “burst” out of the clause), our CC utility is confined to Cyclone and Entangling Roots. I’ll let you decide if those are working as comparable to other CC’s; or, the developing choice of them “working as intended” which leads me to “why our CC is sub-par to other classes AND our damage is sub-par to other classes?” utility being the scapegoat.

I chose the priority of issues based off a PvE heavy game experience. Spirit is ranked above Itemization because I don't foresee Blizzard just adding 100 more pieces of Balance Druid gear into the game. Itemization is more of a long-term, TBD, future fix. Spirit is one of the issues that can be fixed within this raid tier.

Take this with a grain of salt, or take it to heart. Whatever you do, I would like to see some changes in the future to pull the class from it’s slipping hold on the Druid population.

Ferals do have a reliable interrupt in all forms, albeit not as nice as rogues'.

Second, I don't think shred should have its positional requirements removed. What you're talking about is increasing the amount of skill-less button mashing required to be good at druid. If anything, positional requirements should be put back on Mutilate. Personally I enjoy the challenge of using shred, and the damage done by it is rewarding enough.

I agree that it's broken that Rogues can always get the sap off on ferals. I mean seriously? If anything, cats should be harder to find - anyone remember how hard it was to find Bhag'thera? And it doesn't help that it's easy to create a Sap macro so that they can just jam it till they surprise themselves by sapping a cat. Maybe... make sap into what it used to be - you could only sap humanoids. After all, cats can't sap anything.

A couple of questions (that are echoed versions of previous questions):

1. I'm also concerned that DPS has gone down in Ulduar due to the mechanics of many of the fights. With the exception of a few fights where a moonkins can excel, many of the fights really hurt our rotation (where movement really disrupts good DPS).

2. I've been disappointed for quite some time that druids lose costumes in forms. I realize this is just a cosmetic concern, but it can be fun to be a pirate or ninja from time to time... or even an Iron Dwarf with flask... but that you lose it if you shift to forms. Will we someday get this ability back? I know that one of the previous concerns, was that it messed with PvP... isn't it just possible to not allow costumes for anyone in arena's or BG's to compensate?

Either way, I'll hope to see some responses at some point in the not too distant future.

---

Q u o t e:
Is the Blizzard team concerned with how complex Moonkin and feral cat dps rotations are in comparison to, say, Elemental shaman's and Enhancement shaman's dps rotations?

Are there any plans to make Balance spec less RNG-dependant as a spec?

~ Yogi

---

Please do not make the Moonkin rotation any simpler than it already is. I'd much rather be keeping 2 DoT's up and switching between two spells every so often than have a rotation as simple as the Elemental Shaman. (Can't speak for Feral at all).
I also like the RNG factor on Eclipse to a certain extent - I like the dynamic switching of spells (but not the inopportune procs that are then wasted by movement/fight mechanics).

As so many people have asked before, why can't performing -any- action that requires you to be in Caster form simply put you in Caster form and perform the action?
On a related note, why are there even actions you cannot perform in (at least Moonkin, since we're Humanoid :) )form? (I'm talking flightpaths and achievements, not spells)

Will the issue of being able to drop form but not shift back while stunned (i.e. when you get stunned right as you shift and get crushed by the melee class because you lost your armour) be looked at?

Druidic language:

I would love to see this. It would allow some communication cross faction. However if you look at the Cenarian Factions they really have an agenda separate and apart from the war.

Plus we already talk to npc races from the opposing faction as it stands now.

I would say lets the NE and Taurens talk to each other in their own special language.

Allow them to trade at least within the Moonglade.

Feral PVP questions!

Currently, it is very easy to inadvertently get caught in caster form during a stun or fear because we can only shift out of form but not back into form. Shifting at the same time you are feared or stunned means that you are caught in a very vulnerable state for the duration of the CC. What is the justification for this?

Will us ever get a deep down talent to remove GCD after shapeshifting for helping pvp?

Will u make Shadowmeld usefull for feral again, like it was in 3.0.1?

---

Q u o t e:
Druidic language:

I would love to see this. It would allow some communication cross faction. However if you look at the Cenarian Factions they really have an agenda separate and apart from the war.

Plus we already talk to npc races from the opposing faction as it stands now.

I would say lets the NE and Taurens talk to each other in their own special language.

Allow them to trade at least within the Moonglade.

---

It's not so much that this is out of bounds because of the lore. You quote right when you say that Horde and Alliance Druids share a common agenda.

The problem with your idea is parallel to a lot of people's "pissed off" ideals of changing a game (not intended to be of offense). The game logic will get exploited to the max.

Back in the day, players could speak through numbers. What people accomplished with just 1337 speak ... could be extrapolated x10 if druids could just fluidly talk to each other (mainly concerning PvP and old-school outside raid boss').

As for trade. They've nerfed the ability to trade to the same characters on the same account using the cross-faction AH in Tanaris. That step was a preventative to tweaking cross-faction economics. What one side considers cheap, the other might consider expensive. That's just asking for economic exploitation. An example would be HordeAlliance only pets.

Where the lore does hurt you is the linguistics. What, persee, "language" would you have them speak in? Druidic?

---

Q u o t e:


This isn't just about you and this thread. This is happening in multiple regions and takes time to gather, organize, and answer before we can post them. End result: If you don't any questions, there is no need to post.

To all the others posting druid questions, please focus on the class design side, anything on "what form updates will we get" will pretty much be yes/no/maybe stuff with no insight on them and probably not worth including.

Thanks for your help!

---

Psh, no love on my post?! /sadpanda ... it was constructive too.

---

Q u o t e:
Do you see gearing a druid tank as "fun"? Gearing up in dps gear for the purpose of tanking is, quite frankly, disappointing and un-fun. It simply takes something away from the gearing up process imo, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

Druid gearing again: Why are druids told we can't have tanking weapons purpose-built for us since it would "clutter up the loot tables" when you're already cluttering up the loot tables with all relics, rogue weapons, plate tanking weapons, tanking shields, tanking guns, spellpower plate, etc?

Other tanks, when gear drops that they can use, have only other tanks for competition. Why do druid tanks have to roll against hunters and kitty druids for weapons; rogues, cats and sometimes dps warriors or enhance shammy's for leather; and all other tanks for tanking non-leather gear, while plate tanks only have to roll against other tanks for gear? It makes gearing up a feral tank a much slower process when we have so much competition for the gear we are forced into using...

---

---

Q u o t e:


All of this. Crygil was listening to the gear issues here - http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16474114599&sid=1&pageNo=12. Bottom-line is that not all feral gear is tanking gear, but Ulduar doesn't recognize this.

I would add -

Why is our T8 2-set bonus worthless for bears? Clearcasting is like pouring more water in a full glass.

Are you satisfied with Swipe's initial agro? Only class I have problems with consistently is ret pally. Running the hallway on Thorim with one of them blasting away and you start to get pretty frustrated.

Any chance of letting us cast a couple of extra spells while shifted? Battle Rez and Innervate are the obvious choices, with the former so useful that it alone can justify an OT role for bears. We could suffer the same penalties as pallies casting a heal if we tried to rez someone while tanking.

---

I have to say, I'd really like to see some answers on those subjects.

Through heroics and naxx and OS I was a preferred tank, now alot of times I find myself being passed up for less geared tanks because they're preferable tanking classes. I'm duel spec'd bear and cat (yes, two feral trees), and I'm in much higher demand as a cat. I don't mind playing cat, but I prefer bear and I'm very disappointed.

1) do you plan on sorting out the idol issue? there's a new idol for every other druid spec from both hero's AND valors but not bear for either? come on.
2) do you plan on addressing the needs of bear tank gear? or do you feel that this is where we should be, fighting with cats and rogues for leather, hunters and cats for weapons, etc etc. we're the ONLY tanking class who fights with dps for tanking gear, the plate tank gear and plate dps gear are different enough that they can be easily told apart.
3)As a bear tank, I have very few buttons to push. In fact, most of my buttons are "oh ##%%" buttons rather than attack buttons. I have 4 standard attacks, most of which can be macro'd together for better threat gen, and these are the ONLY moves I have in bear that don't have CD's that go along with them. I have 2 taunts and a charge with less than 10 sec CD, the other buttons I have all have 1-20 min cooldowns. Is this really how you intend us to play?

There was a thread a week or so ago bout mentioning possibly tree/boomkin form specific abilities (similar to say tigers fury for cat or frenzied regen for bear).

I'd like to know if you really are considering adding tree/boomkin specific abilities in the future? That would be really neat.

Also I'd like to know if resto druids will ever get a 3rd regen mechanic (the first 2 being spirit and mp5). With all the crit on gear it would be interesting to get either mana back on crit, +% more regen on crit (similar to priests) etc.

Will you be adding more idols for restoration? The current lack there of, and quality of what there is out there is rather disappointing.

I know this has been mentioned before but......tree form update, make it happen!

I'm mainly concerned about moonkin itemization and our interaction or lack thereof with spirit. Also while blizzard shows a lack of wanting to make moonkin itemized pieces why our tier set is itemized more like a resto set than a balance set.

Another question:

Do you guys think you would consider changing starfall at all, maybe through an additional glyph that shortens the radius of starfall? In heroics and some other situations I find it hard to use starfall as I'm scared of aggroing other packs. Starfall is a great addition to dps so I like to use it whenever it's up, but it would be wonderful if there was some way to decrease the radius.

Maybe a glyph that decreases the radius to 10-15 yards and increases the damage done by starfall by 15%? or something like that.

Does blizzard have any plans to add extra depth to balance pvp?

Atm I have tried out feral pvp (after a long time balance) for the first time and I am loving it! I have buttons for everything I might want to do and my damage goes up or down depending on skill in a complex rotation. I can go defensive and then switch whenever I want to put out damage. Even in bad gear my survivability with a healer was rather awe inspiring if I play smartly, and it seems like a really cool style!

But... I am a caster at heart, partly because I prefer the style for the possibility of being untouchable and cool (with enough skill) <3. And partly because ½ second lag makes playing melee a bit annoying sometimes.

Blizzards current attitude to pvp damage by my interpretation of ghostcrawler’s comments suggest that the thought is, some classes currently find it too easy to put out a lot of damage situationally vs others (primarily melee I believe) and that is what may be causing the imbalance a lot of people complain about. When I read that comment it did open up another method of thinking about damage I hadn’t really been looking through.

In my mind moonkin should be better taking hits instead of avoiding them since we obviously don’t have a bubble and we have casted cc and armour. But the whole experience feels sluggish, relying on cast times for a lot of major abilities and then trying to stay in form (now requiring the gcd) for mitigation when I am vsing any one or 2 of stuns, interrupts, silences or damage.

I just don’t have the options like I do as a feral druid. Lack of options mean the skill-cap is low and losing can be extremely frustrating. I know what I should have done but never see the time frames I can do it which makes it very much a frustrating class that loses out on fun.

whereas I can enjoy losing (rarely but still occasionally lol) as feral when I see what I could have done better and work around it for next time it’s a lot harder to see room for improvement when you’re taking armour mitigated damage vs a class with temporary snare immunity or stun and an interrupt and have to choose between healing and armour it just doesn’t seem like you have any worthwhile options. Same can be said for vs’ing ranged occasionally too, though it seems a no brainer to stay out of form for heals, you have no options to dps reliably and or heal enough, at the same time in a 2’s situation.
Some parts of this have come out half-baked switching between having a healer and not in 2’s or 1’s which is down to my personal experience (always played 2 dps for moonkin, lots of dueling as balance, feral/disc for feral, Lacking good experience in 3’s for both specs) and lousy method of explaining.

SHORT VERSION: To me Moonkin is a sluggish style to play in PvP with gcd restrictions, quick to take damage and options that a lot of the time, just don’t give much chance for skilled play to win out in a 2’s environment. I would like to know if blizzard feels there is a problem and if they are planning to solve one, if they’d be willing to give some ways other than passive or RNG to help increase the skill required while focused or otherwise.

hope that wasnt too long and i asked the right sort of question. >.<

**To all those who are asking about moonkin and tree of life forms check out blue feedback on the issue already out there, they are but they will be taking extra time about making it look awesome**