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Analysis of Druid changes in 3.1
Earlier today, Eyonix released some details on some changes that we can expect in patch 3.1. They're not exactly earth-shattering like some classes' changes, but there is still some interesting stuff in there. Let's get down to analysis. Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done. Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation. I'm going to take these two points together, because they're inseparable. Savage Defense is interesting, and you certainly can't call it a direct copy of some other class's ability (an issue that's plagued us in the past). Let's look at the numbers involved, since it's hard to make sense of the ability straight off the bat (at least for me). In Dire Bear form with my heroic and crafted blues and epics, self-buffed, I have right around 4,000 AP. So when I crit with a melee ability (I have a 27% crit chance), I get a shield that absorbs up to 1,000 damage from the next hit.
A look at the stated Priest changes for patch 3.1
By now you've seen that Eyonix has started announcing some class changes for the upcoming patch 3.1. Priests were actually the first class up to bat this time around, and there are a handful of really cool changes in there. Some of them way cooler than they really need to be, so we'll see how things work out. Let's take a look, eh? Divine Spirit - this spell is now a core ability available to all Priests. Adding Divine Spirit to every Priest's repertoire is, by itself, a pretty fantastic change. Now that Spirit is used by more classes than just the Priests themselves, Divine Spirit has awesome group utility. I suspect Improved Divine Spirit will remain a talent, but even without the improved version of the spell, it's a great little boost. I love this change so much that I'm actively looking for problems with it, so I can curb my enthusiasm. Hmm. Oh, I know! This will make me spend more money on reagents. Ugh, clearly this is just another money sink. How dare they! Slap in the face!Nah, it's pretty cool.
Raid Rx: Are you ready to be the healer leader?
Raid Rx has returned from retirement! Every Thursday (usually), Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Today, it is all about the healing leader and what you need to know if want to do it. Organizing healers is often difficult (and sometimes) a thankless job. Having a healing leader to quarterback and direct the efforts of the other healers in your raid increases the overall survivability of the raid instead of just having healers on free for all healing. I've handled healing assignments in no less than 4 different guilds and it becomes a new experience every time.
Shifting Perspectives: Patch 3.0.8 for Druids
Every Tuesday, or sometimes Friday when the writer's internet has gone AWOL between Sunday evening and Thursday afternoon, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week we take a look at the upcoming patch 3.0.8. while penning an angry letter to our ISP.Greetings, folks. Patch 3.0.8 is coming, bringing a few significant changes for the Druid class. Feral attack power is disappearing from the game entirely alongside bonus armor contribution from non-leather items. Restoration is receiving a nerf in the form of a 6-second cooldown to Wild Growth but is otherwise getting some buffs. Balance is also getting a few buffs, including one that will make a big difference to PvP combat versus Rogues and Hunters. But I think, dear readers, we are overlooking the most important part of patch 3.0.8:Fixed a bug with a Wild Mustard plant that was under the ground in Dalaran. Oh, thank God. That drove me nuts.(Really).(I'd also love to see them do something about the underground Tiger Lily spawn in Sholazar).(It's just south of River's Heart).(Really annoying).(Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?).
Spiritual Guidance: 4 different ways to diagnose your healer
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Today Matticus checks out common problems healers run into that stall them from being effective. Every healer in their life time will experience a situation gone bad where they try to figure out what went wrong. It usually goes something like this: "What's the problem?" "Lack of heals." "Okay, more heals please!" If I had a copper every time I heard that phrase, I would have enough for a mammoth by now. After every wipe or death, the first person that gets blamed is the healer. Big props to all of you right now no matter what class you are for sticking through it and helping your friends, guilds and raids out. I know I put up with a lot of stuff when crap hits the fan.
The Queue: The loot blues
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Merry No Maintenance Day, everyone! Let's not waste it and jump right into things. Chilblain asked...When my guild does 25-mans, it's not uncommon to have 2-3 Priests, 2 Warlocks and 2-3 Mages. Nearly one third of the entire raid is all rolling on Cloth armor, yet we go entire evenings where not a single piece drops.If Blizzard insists on the ridiculous notion that cloth should be all things to all people, have they addressed the poor drop rate in comparison to other items? Our Resto Druids and Shaman are all decked out in 213 and while our Priests are still healing in Heroic blues.
The Queue: Shields, forums, and more on raid difficulty
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.I have an extra-special request for all of you! We've had a few people asking for recommendations on other class-specific blogs, and I think that's a good thing to light the Reader Signal for. So in addition to your questions and feedback, recommend class-centric blogs in the comments below! Personally, I read A Dwarf Priest and World of Matticus when I'm looking for something Priestly. Now, to the questions... shadowsun asked...I have yet to get Wrath (I know, "PRAISE BE") although I am getting it this Thursday. I was wondering about the new raiding system. Which is harder, 10-man or 25-man? For example is the 10-man easier in the point that you need less players but harder as in they need to be more well geared? Or is the 25-man harder?
Spiritual Guidance: 17 trinkets for healing raiders
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. How do you feel about trinkets? This week Matticus will examine a wide variety of trinkets in the game obtainable in Northrend for healers! Trinkets are interesting items. They have different abilities and uses best suited for the situation at hand. Here is the majority of trinkets that I believe us healers would be interested in the most and my initial thoughts on them. I've even recommended a few of them for us Priests!
Shifting Perspectives: Let my kitties go!
Every Tuesday/Wednesday/some sort of day occurring midweek, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert yanks John Patricelli's column again, hoping to make good on a threat previously made concerning her "dissatisfaction" with Tauren cat form. And by dissatisfaction she might mean something else.I'll level with you; we have a huge Druid post in the pipeline that's going to round up the changes to the class in Wrath, new talents, new skills, new everything, and frankly I'm sick to death about reading or writing anything having to do with the expansion. So, just to buck the overwhelming trend that threatens to drive us all to the nuthouse, I'm going to turn to a topic that's plagued Druids for a while.By this I mean the perennial form issue, something that my Druid colleagues on the blog have previously termed the Same Old Animal Posterior, or SOAP. But it's one that we've been given reason to believe will change in...Wrath. Well, that didn't last long. You'll note that David's article was written in October 2007, more than a year ago, but the same thing could have been posted in 2006 as well. Druid forms haven't changed since launch*, and while they were never really at the cutting edge of Blizzard's art direction as a result**, they look more and more shabby in relation to the higher-polygon models and landscapes. As everything around you gets better and better -- more evocative lighting, more intricate details, fantastic animation -- it's hard not to feel a strange sense of displacement as you shift into a 2004 form within a 2008 game.But at long last we may see Druid form customization, an overhaul to the default forms themselves, or possibly (hopefully?) both.
WoW Insider Show Episode 63: Healing for fun and phat loots
It was all healers all the time this past week on the WoW Insider Show. Special guest tree Druid Phaelia joined us from her site, Resto4Life.com, and our good friend Matt "Matticus" Low brought his priestly insights from World of Matticus (and our own Spiritual Guidance column), and our producer Elizabeth Harper brought some Paladin judgement to the table. We chatted about how healing is going lately in the game, which classes are doing well lately (and which are doing not so well), and what Ghostcrawler might do for healers to make things more fun than whack-a-mole. We also talked about the 3.0.3 patch, and where we've been in the beta, and where we're going first on launch day.Additionally, we talked with Phaelia about how she started in WoW and decided to start blogging about it, and we answered your emails, including what's up with those dragon heads you sometimes see outside of Stormwind and Orgrimmar, and the best glyphs for healers. If you've got a question or comment for the show, send it along to theshow AT wowinsider dot com, and you might even hear it on next week's show.Lots of ways to listen to the show after the break -- don't forget that the earliest you can listen to the show is on Saturday evening: we've got the Ustream recording up right after we finish making it. But the best time to listen to the show is during, because every Saturday we do this live on our Ustream page (and you even get to attend the non-recorded aftershow). If you've never been, check it out next week.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. (will be updated soon)[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Shifting Perspectives: State of the class, part 1 - Balance
Every Tuesday, or possibly Thursday when the writer votes on Tuesday and spends Wednesday screaming and beating her laptop over formatting errors, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert steals John Patricelli's column once again, secure in the knowledge that she will never be forced to atone for her crime as long as she writes something nice about ferals and keeps a respectful distance from Dan O'Halloran's whip.I hate Tauren cat form.Good. I got that out of my system and can write something productive. Although, believe me, if I could get away with it, an entire Shifting Perspectives would be devoted to just how much I hate Tauren cat form. I mean, just look at it! Look at the angle on the horns! The cat can't bite anything! Christ, I just -- hi, Dan. Yes, I'm totally writing the column! Look at me go!This week, mindful as always of American election-year politicking, I'm going to borrow a page from presidential duties and write a little something I like to call "State of the Class." Druids have undergone a number of changes in the transition to Wrath of the Lich King, and will acquire even more as they level to 80. We are one of Blizzard's primary targets for both gear and role consolidation, which raises a few questions over how comfortably we're going to scale in relation to pure classes and what we can realistically expect on the march to a new level cap.The TL:DR version of this article -- I believe our future is generally bright, the Druid community continues to have a few concerns over certain aspects of the class, our focus in PvP seems to be changing the most, and I hate Tauren cat form. This is a three-part post, so let's get started with balance. However, if you want to jump ahead to feral, you'll find that here; and the third part, restoration, is here.
Spiritual Guidance: Everything you ever wanted to know about raid healing at level 80
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week Matticus offers his opinion and experience on raid healing at level 80. Find out about how Matt manages his mana, his take on whether Priests really are "useless", skills needed to thrive, and just how hard it is to heal tanks. When I write blog posts about Priests, I don't like to rely on speculation. I am certain there are many Priests (other healers even) who want to know what the next age of Wrath healing will look like. I am not a Shaman, a Paladin, or a Druid; therefore, I cannot speak from their perspectives but I have seen them in action. I am not a theorycrafter. I can't break everything down into numbers for you. There have been a few blue posts asking for healer feedback and maybe this post can offer some insight.That being said, this post is drawn from my experiences as a healer in both normal (10 man) and heroic (25 man) versions of Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum. I won't tell you what I think should get nerfed or buffed; I will, however, tell you how I coped with the challenges that the expansion brought forth.
Balance buffed, Resto nerfed in 8962
Druids still continue to evolve fairly rapidly. It makes sense that they would be undergoing a lot of change, because more than most other classes, Druids are almost like three classes in one (three and a half, when you consider how strongly they've been trying to differentiate bear ferals from cat ferals). There are a lot of changes in this latest beta build; I'm not going to list them all, just the ones that seem most interesting to me. For the full story go take a peek at MMO-Champion. Balance: Barkskin is now usable in all forms. The primary use I envision for this is bear form, which has suffered from a lack of "oh snap" buttons for a while now. On a one-minute cooldown, it actually adds up to more mitigation over time than Shield Wall, although of course it's less mitigation at any one time, which is what SW is really used for. Still, good to have. Earth and Moon buffed significantly; now increases your spell damage by 1/2/3/4/5% and is 100% to apply the effect at all ranks (previously did not boost spell damage and was 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply effect). Improved Faerie Fire now increases your crit chance against the target by 1/2/3%, as well as increasing the target's chance to be hit by spells.
Oh, the cleverness of me!
I'm not in the beta. I'm kind of uncomfortable with the notion of spoiling myself completely, and I'm a terrible leveler. I have the lurking feeling that leveling my main to 80 before Wrath actually went live would wreck a leveling pace that might otherwise have been driven by exploration and discovery. I want Wrath to be a fantastic new experience that will recapture the sense of wonder I felt leveling my first toon in a strange new world. Also I never got a key, but the other reasons are more important and influential.Yeah, even I don't believe me.While I'm certain I'll never make a Death Knight my main, I'm sure I'll enjoy leveling one. I'm sure I'm not going to enjoy trying to level one alongside 50,000 other people and their cousins and their friends and their friends' dogs and their friends' dogs' fleas leveling a Death Knight. So it's occurred to me that, OK as I am with the notion of waiting a few months to get started on my bouncing baby bundle of risen-corpsified merriment, I can capitalize on the coming rush of Death Knights in a completely different fashion simply by exercising a little foresight. All Death Knights are melee, right? None of them can really heal, right? People are already noticing un peu problem in the beta in this vein, right? And I can't level an alt worth beans, right right? Right. What's the one buff that makes all melee salivate, provided by an excellent healing class, during a time in which healers will never have to worry about finding a group or a tank?Bingo. I'm getting a resto Shaman to 58 and parking him in Eastern Plaguelands to twiddle his thumbs in anticipation of the descent of the Death Knight legion come Wrath's release. See you there!
Druid changes in 8885
The latest beta push, build 8885, had changes for pretty much every class. Druids, of course, were no exception. Balance received the bulk of the changes, though it's mostly on the level of small tweaks. A few talents were moved around in the talent tree. Notably, Insect Swarm has been pushed down two tiers and correspondingly buffed up to 5% reduced chance to hit. The really interesting part of the Balance tree changes is some great synergy for Resto druids. For instance: New Talent Nature's Splendor (Tier 3): Increases the duration of your Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom and Flourish spells by 10/20/30%. New Talent Genesis (Tier 1): Increases the damage and healing done by your periodic spells by 1/2/3/4/5%. Focused Starlight renamed Nature's Majesty and now affects Nourish and Healing Touch as well. Looks like yet another step in the new quest to open up the talent trees and give us more options. Oh, and the Moonkin Aura now hits any raid member within 45 yards. Edit: Nature's Grasp now trainable, 100% chance to hit.
Hybrid Theory: Yet another spell power discussion
Welcome to Hybrid Theory, where we discuss all things hybrid in the World of Warcraft. Hybrid Theory is brought to you each week by columnist/blogger Alex Ziebart. Last week we talked a bit about gear and spell power, and various related things. I mostly approached it as supplying my personal experiences, but a lot of people wanted numbers. Specifically, how your current gear will translate into the new spell power mechanic.A kind fellow named Dan helped us out with a little bit of that in the comments section last week, so let's expand upon it somewhat. Again, this will focus mostly on the Healer and Caster aspects of the Hybrids. You Melee guys don't really need to worry about how spell power will change your gear.Alright, so the question is this: If you have a choice between taking +Damage gear or +Healing gear in the current game right now, which would be a better choice for taking with you into Wrath of the Lich King leveling? Let's make liberal use of Wowhead, shall we?
Hybrid Theory: Healers, gear, and entering Northrend
Welcome to Hybrid Theory, where we discuss all things hybrid in the World of Warcraft. Hybrid Theory is brought to you each week by columnist/blogger Alex Ziebart.Remember a few weeks ago, I mentioned how if you want to be extra-cautious about preparing for Wrath of the Lich King, you should figure out a calm, easy way to farm gold that won't burn you out? After having hit the current level cap on the beta realms... I still recommend that, if you want to be extra prepared. If you're a very casual, don't worry about it too much, really. It's not that big of a deal. Leveling will get you enough for the bare necessities. If you're the type that wants to start leveling professions and gearing up immediately upon hitting the level cap though, think about going into Wrath with at least a couple thousand in your pocket, which really isn't that hard of a task.Moving past that, though, a lot of people have asked about gear across all classes, but mostly Hybrids. Hybrids have asked because all of the Healing classes are amongst them, and if you're a Healer you may not necessarily have a set of DPS gear. My first comment on this: Don't worry. Really.
Hybrid Theory: State of PvP in the Wrath beta
Welcome to Hybrid Theory, where we discuss all things hybrid in the World of Warcraft. Hybrid Theory is brought to you each week by columnist/blogger Alex Ziebart.Before I start, while you read this remember that the Wrath beta does not currently allow you to hit the level cap. Everyone is level 77, and there's a lot that is unfinished. This is more anecdotal about the state of things, and not really analyzing how things will look in the end. You still with me? Good.I decided to try out incredibly, insanely buggy Lake Wintergrasp when the beta realms went up yesterday, and later on I gave the new Battleground a whirl, too. Through all of this, there was one constant: Holy crap Ret Paladins are OP. No, really. I know, it blew my mind, too. Retribution Paladins. Overpowered. Hell has frozen over.
Hybrid Theory: Spell Power hands on
Welcome to Hybrid Theory, where we discuss all things hybrid in the World of Warcraft. Hybrid Theory is brought to you each week by columnist/blogger Alex Ziebart.We've chit-chatted about the new Spell Power mechanic off and on, but we've never gone into serious detail about it yet. Why? Well, we didn't really know how it worked. We knew what it does but very few of us had a real hands-on experience with it. That has since changed.Spell Power has done very very good things for the Hybrid classes, pretty much across the board. Obviously it will not drastically change Feral, Enhancement or Retribution, but it actually does add to those last two as well to some extent. Primarily it changes the Healing and Caster specs of the Hybrid classes, obviously. It brings back a lot hybridiness* to classes that... really haven't felt that way in quite awhile.
Hybrid Theory: PvP viability
Welcome to Hybrid Theory, where we discuss all things hybrid in the World of Warcraft. Hybrid Theory is brought to you each week by columnist/blogger Alex Ziebart.A pretty substantial point of debate when it comes to Hybrids is their place in PvP. The thought that only one spec is viable per class is most problematic in the context of Hybrids for a couple of different reasons. Some argue against every spec being arena viable, some argue in favor of it.The argument in favor of each spec being viable that I feel is the strongest is the fact that each Hybrid spec is vastly different from all of the others. In the arena, an Enhancement Shaman isn't doing the same thing as an Elemental Shaman. They are doing similar things like dropping totems and casting Shocks, but the role they play is different. Enhancement is in your face, Elemental throws lightning at your face, and Restoration is healing your face. This is not like Rogues in which all three specs are about hitting you until you fall down, just in different ways.Why is it a problem that all three of them aren't viable? It essentially feels like a forced block on your chances at success. "Just spec Resto" isn't really a valid answer, because it means you are not able to play your preferred role. Someone who rolled a Shaman to Stormstrike people's faces off are told to go get some Elemental gear, and that isn't very fun. To be successful in the arena, they are more or less forced out of how they want to play the game.
