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Q u o t e:


So wait, I'm confused, is the present/ongoing philosophy for ferals to get the same gear and just gem and enchant it to be more tanking oriented, or we find the rare tanking leather pieces in the game, or that at some point you want Bear and Cats to eventually share gear.

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Yup... Rogues/Bear/Cat are all supposed to be rolling on the same pool of Agi/Stam leather. We might not find the same pieces BiS, but we are itemized the same.

Rings/Trink/Neck we pull from the general 'tank' pool, with us focusing more on the Dodge/Defense pieces.

Origin of Nightmares was an exception to the rule, and was BiS because of it. From what I am seeing from future gear, it isn't an exception they are planning to make again.

Kinda sad that we pull from the same leather pool as DPS really, considering how little hit I have in the 7.5 set (seems like the T8 addresses the lack of hit on feral sets, and I'd gladly give up a little AP for hit on tank gear to help threat without having to gem for it and screw up my mitigation/HP).

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Q u o t e:

- not to mention how our numbers have been shown to be in range with other "hybrids"...

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I don't know who you're talking about. I'm not a serious raider, but I've seen tons of serious raiding cats in forums, not to mention players on Live, affirming that cat dps is quite good if not OP right now.

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Q u o t e:

Bash on a 30 second CD with talents,

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You think that's BAD?

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Q u o t e:

maim which needs several combo points to be useful,

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It's not the best thing since sliced bread, but it's okay.

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Q u o t e:

Cat charge is terrible. Most of the time if the mob/player is moving and I'm stealthed, I'll get the awesome 'out of range' which totally defeats the purpose of me using cat charge while stealthed.

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I think you're mostly referring to times that players are MOUNTED and moving, OR if a walking player/mob is moving DIRECTLY AWAY from you at maximum charge range.

If they're mounted and you simply want to get hold of them, you can cast roots after the charge. I do this a lot. Otherwise, sorry but there aren't many specs that can get a stealth stun opener on a mounted player from 25 yards anytime they're nearby.

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Q u o t e:
Players have also been discussing how they feel the overall playstyle of a Moonkin is just not very exciting. The best damage dealing rotation for them requires very few spells and a deep Balance spell like Starfall doesn’t help them very much.

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I want to know who these losers are. I for one love my simple spell rotation; have you people ever tried something complex like cat dps? I love only having to worry about only a few simple spells and when to use them, it's a lot less hassle and stress when it comes to raiding I think. If you seriously think it's that boring, go try/fail at a complex one or something and come back.

Otherwise, insightful look into their view of druids, even though a few of the remarks raise red flags.

Dear GC,

If you make tree form into a metamorph type ability with a long cooldown, I'll play my druid again. I don't hate the tree form. I hate ALWAYS being in tree form. Or if you just make it worth my while to shift between caster and tree form during a fight to the point where I spend about 50% of my time in each form, I'll play my druid again.

Fact of the matter is that I want a healer character, and I'm leaving my 70 druid to rot and leveling a priest instead. I'm doing it for no other reason than because I refuse to look like a potted plant for 100% of a raid.

Right now it shouldn't be called 'caster form' it should be called 'auction house form'. The fact that I often mistake force of nature treants for resto druids doesn't help matters either.

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Q u o t e:


Near the beginning of the Q&A, you have stated that the unique thing about Druids are their forms and we all agree with that. Hence reading this statement we can't help but feeling confused, and seeing sort of a contradiction here. I understand how you feel that Resto Druids are sacrificing a lot just to heal, but as you said, forms are our specialties.

We would really prefer (or in other words, would really want ) Tree Form not being turned into some sort of temporary boost, a metamorphosis as you worded it. Because... well, simply, that's one of our forms right ? And we're not the Warlocks. We really enjoy the aspects of form changings, the ability to shift at will, we're the shapeshifters as you have always intended for us, right ?

Please play around with Tree Form and tweak it as you see fit, but honestly, making it just a temporary boost is the last thing we would like to see here. Some might agree with me, some might not, even flame me, but I firmly believe what I have spoken to be the wish of many other fellow druids as well. And I hope you would perhaps take some of it into consideration for the future of Resto Druids, please :)

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Amen to that sister. Making Restos shift back and forth just because someone "thinks" we don't shift enough is crazy and stupid. Don't break what isn't broken.

Hmm i dont feel like they answered all the questions concerned.

I also like my Tree of Life form, having it on a CD would not help :(. I also shift out of tree form to help with dps or cast entangle roots but dont do it often due to the mana cost.

Also looks like they not really addressing questions we asked about tranquility and HT really. Little disappointed :S

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Q u o t e:
Community Team:
Q: What do we think about making spells like Warstomp and Innervate usable while in forms?

Ghostcrawler: We like the fact that Innervate requires shifting. We want druids to shift more. Warstomp I could see an argument to allow in forms since it’s nice (but not mandatory) that racial benefits are useful to a variety of classes.

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Um, wasn't there a blue (I believe you in fact, last Q&A for priests) that said that you want racials to require shifting and such, specifically in regards to Shadowform?

Wouldn't giving the healer an AE stun be worse than giving a dps a HoT without wasting insane amounts of mana to shift back into shadowform? I mean, Boomkins don't require much mana after talents, at least not as much as Shadowform.

If Warstomp is added to all forms, will you allow Shadow Priests to cast GotN without shifting, as it is a racial as well, and as you said, racial benefits are useful to a variety of classes, which does exclude shadow priests, just like warstomp excludes druids who are shapeshifted.

And yes, I'm aware this is a druid Q&A, and I don't actually see any issues that I can think of, I quite enjoy the whole "Loathed by the artists who redid Bear & Cat" part XD But I just want clarity of more hypocritical comments.

Posting on my druid to say I enjoyed this QA a lot. It was much more interesting than some of the other ones. I like the idea of changing forms more often, and perhaps even staying in human form. I've been doing a lot of that while leveling and it's a fun way of playing. I did not enjoy the "meh" attitude about non-resto druids in PvP, but appreicate that the devs are looking at the spell rotations and gear choices for non-resto druids in PvE.

That's basically all my feedback, hopefully I'll be 80 by the time the new forms drop :)

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Q u o t e:

Ghostcrawler: Feral druids have Bash (which they can improve through talents), Maim and the Feral Charge stun. We think their tools are sufficient for PvP and there are other melee classes that can handle it in PvE. It’s not a strength of the spec for sure, but we’re okay with that. We don’t want all melee to be identical.

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Ghostcrawler, please tell me you are kidding. Next patch with our damage nerf and the change to resilience, Druids will find themselves more so energy starved and unable to kill a Healer. We'll hit lighter, have no viable interrupt and no mortal strike debuff. Switching to bear form for a short stun and sacrificing all our DPS is hardly considered sufficient.

I couldn't even read past a few of the questions before saying "This man has no idea what he's talking about"

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Q u o t e:
What we don’t want is a class that can do all things with a single spec -- do damage like a rogue, then tank if the MT falls down, then battle rez the MT and heal her back up, etc. That might sound like a lot of fun, but that’s because you’re fulfilling the role of half the raid all on your own

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As an Ulduar raiding Cat Druid, I can safely say that you're completely wrong. My damage is inferior to a Rogue. Before you Druids start jumping in and acting defensive I do 6k+ DPS on a regular Ulduar fight, less than the smarter Rogues. If the MT falls down, I switch to bear form and die in two hits. 24K HP, low armor and low dodge doesn't make for a lot of survivability. I'll die in two hits. You honestly think I can bear tank in cat gear/spec? Laughable. Now on to healing. Yes, I switch out of cat form at 5% health. By the time I've healed from 5%-100% I'm at 20% mana. However a Ret Paladin heals half his health pool in a single heal. We're nothing close to a class that can do all things in one spec, so please don't even go there.

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Q u o t e:
In addition to having to give up utility in order to heal as a Tree of Life, we have become less enamored with druids locking themselves into one form. In fact, you really never see the basic tauren or night elf druid form (you know, the one that actually shows off the awesome armor art)

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The reason you don't see the basic form is because it's ugly. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but "awesome armor art" isn't the word the WoW community would use; try disaster. The Tree of Life is the whole uniqueness to the spec. Why would you remove it? Please don't even consider this idea.

Instead of potentially destroying something that isn't broken why can't druids just have the option of "Show Form" in the interface? Getting rid of the permanent Tree of Life form just so I can see myself in awesome gear as an ugly cow while having a third trinket to boost my healing sounds completely insane to me.

Though I must say being able to heal in caster form as a night elf is appealing. It isn't so much as a tauren. But the issue can simply be addressed if our Tree of Life form didn't look like a dried up broccoli instead of an actual tree. Point is most of us Restoration Druids like the idea of healing as a powerful force of nature. Nothing symbolizes nature as much as a tree.

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Q u o t e:
24K HP, low armor and low dodge doesn't make for a lot of survivability.

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I'll agree that tanking in kitty gear is inadvisable, but 24k hp sounds really low. And personally my armor and dodge are roughly equivalent in kitty gear and bear gear (that might be due to your talents though - I take it that you're in a feral PVP spec right now, not raiding?).

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Q u o t e:


I'll agree that tanking in kitty gear is inadvisable, but 24k hp sounds really low. And personally my armor and dodge are roughly equivalent in kitty gear and bear gear (that might be due to your talents though - I take it that you're in a feral PVP spec right now, not raiding?).

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I stopped PVEing, you are accurate that it is a PVP feral spec. I'm not logged in at the moment so I had to guess what my stats are. Either way, I've tried to tank things when our MT dies and it is NOT at all viable. Hodir turns around and hits me once in bear form for 40k and I'm dead. Hardmode XT the same. I can take maybe one hit and no added damage. Other than that a Cat trying to bear is a lost cause.

As far as being in a tree all the time...

I'd hate it if we're forced not to be trees. Though it would be nice if we could more easily use our abilities. I would simply suggest the following: make everything in tree form work outside tree form, except for the armor boost or something. That way you don't need to go into tree form at all, except for certain encounters.

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Q u o t e:
It wasn't really avoided, the answer is just something players don't like to hear in that we feel it is okay to have a complex setup for the time being.

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So I don't suppose you intend to re-phrase all of the incorrect statements made?

1) Feral Charge Bear is not a "stun". It's an "immobilize".
2) Feral Charge Cat has double to CD for half the use. There is no reason for this.
3) Shred does not do "decent" damage without a bleed / mangle effect. It does horrible damage.
4) While the idea behind Feral Cat is good, it is essentially broken and does not work as intended.
5) Shred positional requirement makes it nigh useless in PvP - yet Mutilate had its requirement removed. Nobody knows why it is still there.
6) Feral arena rep is below hunters, yet you are concerned about hunter rep. Wha? I'm confused there.

Anyone else have any more?

I'm actually not to sure how to respond to this other than I still really don't think Blizz has figured out the class.

Right now, let's look at knowns:

1) A Druid's role is determined by the form he chooses: i.e.: bear=tank, cat=melee dps, Moonkin=caster dps, tree=heal.

2) The whole purpose of a druid is to have access to multiple roles through said forms (note I said "have access to" not "perform perfectly in every role"

3) The versatility of the class is the strategic use of forms

4) Singularly, each form should perform in line with similar roles in other classes (again, note "in line" versus "identically to"

So far, it seems as if the knowns are in line with what a Druid is supposed to be: a hybrid class, capable of the widest selection of roles based upon talent choice.

Why mess with that?

In all honesty, Blizz needs to look at the specs themselves. Moonkin DPS is horrifically complicated and totally random. We've had to give up monotony for ridiculous complexity. Frankly, Moonkin DPS would probably benefit more by going the feral route and have clearly defined sub-specs that can focus on different ways you can play an Moonkin. Maybe even play off the Nature v. Arcane aspect of Druid spells: so a Nature Moonkin v. an Arcane Moonkin, with the hybridization of the sub-trees resulting in a pvp spec. Following the Nature path buffs your Wrath nuke and gives you a nature-specific unique ability. Following the Arcane path buffs your Starfire nuke and provides an arcane-specific ability. Maybe, just maybe, an Arcane moonkin does not shift, but rather stays in caster form. However, if that's the case, you would need to give the Arcane Moonkin a little something-something to compensate for the loss of the Moonkin buff.

Or, you could set it up that caster form provides bonus damage to arcane, Moonkin form to Nature, and have the player shift from one form to the other depending on the situation (assuming, of course, you take shifting off the GCD and take away the mana costs). In any event, my thought is instead of coming up with these insane requirements to force us to choose between multiple spells, tweak the talents to we need to choose between one or the other school.

I also think that you could probably push the envelope on bear and cat sub-talents. The one thought in my head is maybe a long CD "frenzy" attack similar to the feral defender for "deep" cat specs. Not sure about bears though...and again, the hybrid spec would have a lot of the pvp talents.

Resto is rough. I'm not very fond of the Tree form at all. All of our other forms are animal. Why is this vegetable? However, being newly minted into Tree (as my dual spec), I would be horrified if I had to worry about shifting on top of healing. And frankly, there isn't much in the way of versatility, unless you amended the sub-specs to make resto druids a comparable single-target healer *or* a HoT healer. IIRC, there is no viable "single target heal" spec. It doesn't even have to be single-target. The thought is to keep to the two-sub-spec variation so that players need to commit to a particular type of game play above and beyond the commitment to the form they choose. And again, a "hybrid" sub spec would enhance pvp while the more powerful heals that would unbalance pvp would be out of reach if wanted to build a viable pvp spec.

I'm not saying that I am by any means right in my suggestion. i'm merely pointing out that it is possible to come up with dynamic and challenging gameplay considerations without forcing us to have to shift specs for no other reason than we can do it. We already have that mechanic in place simply by having travel, cat and bear accessible to all three specs.

And if you're wondering why I keep saying "hybridizing the sub-specs results in a pvp spec" the answer is simply I am absolutely fed up with my performance being negatively impacted because a few pvpers can't learn to play their class and want to one shot everything around them. So if you front load pvp talents, forcing players in a lower dps/heal/tank role to get the penetration and survivability benefits and place the higher performance talents in a tier you can't get to without committing to a raid build, you satisfy both player bases. You can then happily tweak the pvp talents and wreck performace on the pvp level without crippling us in PvE. And if someone decides to bring a raid spec into pvp, they end up getting roflestomped because they would not have the pvp talents...

Anyway, I am thankful Ghostcrawler and team spent the time answering our questions. They may not be what we want to hear, but frankly I prefer the truth anyway. I just hope that thesame team is reading the responses, and even if they don't walk away with our suggestions, at least if they walk away with the understanding that there is always a unique way of looking at a problem, I'd see that as a positive development.

editing to add: To force the pvp/pve, you chain the base talents, so you have to "eat up" tier points to end up with a viable pvp/pve spec. This should preclude people cherry picking certain talents to get the "best of both worlds"

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Q u o t e:


This has to be a two way street. Bear sees block value and thinks gear sucks. Bear sees block rating and thinks gear sucks. Bear sees parry and thinks gear sucks. A bear sees defense rating and thinks it's sucks. A warrior never sees a agility tank ring and thinks it sucks. Because you don't make them since it'd be bad for warriors.

If it's not going to be a two way street, if you're not going to make that agility tank gear(Which you're not), then effort should be made to put more block and parry on plate and less on accessories(Defense, well bears would live with it). Passing on 80% of tank gear because it's bad or lotting on against other tanks on something that has stats you can't use 'because it has high stam' and feeling guilty doesn't make looting interesting and rewarding.

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This. And this some more. And then some more on top.

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Q u o t e:


We appreciate the feedback from the community and try to make things better and better. We understand that not everything gets a fix just by being in the Q&A and so people end up hearing things they don't necessarily want to hear, but we still deliver the answers either way.

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How about the feedback from GC mentioning to spec resto and stop crying pvp wise?

GG other specs.