Blizzard Response to Shadowlands Balance, Feral and Restoration Druid Class Changes

Shadowlands Posted 2020/04/13 at 5:09 PM by Squishei

Astral spells getting double benefit in CA is currently intended. We’ll have to see if the mastery double-dip is too much.

AP costs and generation are generally slightly reduced to allow for better pooling (a few weren’t, such as New Moon, with the intention of buffing them). Starfall instead got a big damage increase, so you cast it less often but it’s more of a moment when you do. Stellar Drift’s utility may still be too good with the new Starfall.

Bloodtalons: The goals of Bloodtalons were 1) to keep the things we think people saw as cool about it (adding some planning to the rotation, snapshot bleeds are a good payoff for a bit of complexity) while getting rid of the weirdness of using Regrowth as a trigger. Many people dislike the latter, and frankly we think it’s pretty weird too. We don’t have an exact further revision to report yet, but the feedback is making me think it still needs to somehow buff spells other than Rip.

Stampeding Roar can still be used in Cat Form.

The “30 sec ICD” on individual Eclipses sounds like it’s drawing more attention than intended. The goal is to make Eclipses alternate while in continuous combat, but allow restarting with either Eclipse after any break. Since Eclipses often last 16 sec, plus a short gap between them, the idea of an “ICD” that matters while you’re in combat shouldn’t be too relevant or need to be tracked. There might be a clearer way of doing this.

Swiftmend will try to consume Regrowth, then Wild Growth, then Rejuvenation, so that its behavior is predictable.

Systems

Character Customization

Lore/Quests

Armor

Creatures

123 4 5

Comment by Bearyco0LFeral was my favorite spec in Wrath and I just simply have not had as much fun playing it as I used to so they need something more than this to really bring me backComment by Bearyco0LGIVE FERAL DRUIDS THE FOLLOWING:

1. Leader of the pack passive (baseline only on feral, not a talent) to bring something to raids. Just like demonhunters, since we have NOTHING that is unique for the spec at all, since the only utility we had (stampeding roar) became baseline and maim kan be specced into by going feral affinity. I feel like this change is mostly needed. Blizzard we NEED this. What else do we bring to raids? not even stampeding roar is unique for us anymore - what do we bring? NOTHING AT ALL.

2. Make savage roar baseline (not a talent), Does not need to be 10% dmg increase, but this is an interesting ability to keep up! Adds to the rotation very nicely. Heck even 5% would be good enough imo.

3. Change bloodtalons completely or add a new talent or something - putting bloodtalons up on a target then let it be there permanently due to that you specced into sabertooth is just plain booring. I would prefer something like empowering the first rip and rake or making 2 ferocious bites hit even harder or something. To be honest I like bloodtalons as it is now in BFA except for having to use regrowth. Not sure on how to tune/change this talent, but something needs to be changed. Please comment and give suggestions on how to change this.

4. Our defensives are so weakened by the removal of 2 x survival instincts, barkskin is never gonna make up for it, and needing to talent into Heart of the Wild just to survive a little bit like other classes do is pure stupidity. So we need some other defensive too or add a charge of barkskin or something. Not talk about the 5min CD on this talent which makes it a really weak talent for survival in general in raids. This talent is more pointed towards offtanking as of how I look of it.

THEN feral might be FUN and able to contribute with something in raids. Otherwise the spec is completely dead.

Oh, not to mention the removal of jungle's fury and Wild Fleshrending (as well as Blood of the Enemy increasing our crit) will feel horrible in overall for the spec. We will lose a %^&* ton of crit basically. And shred will automatically get nerfed due to the damage increase the azerite talent Wild Fleshrending gives us in boost.

And please, feral druid mains - let us be heard, or blizzard will never change us in time before release.Comment by NimokuWith balance I always feel like I'm being penalized for being able to tank and ranged DPS on the same character. I actually *like* the current BFA iteration of the spec (it's an opinion, not me stating a fact that it's good, I'm super casual and don't enter "optimal" conversations), and I just hope that I can easily wrap my head around the new version. People are comparing it to MoP, but I skipped MoP so we'll see haha!Comment by justkbmtI'm still waiting for them to add healing touch back... as baseline... any other druid agree? rather that than spam regrowthComment by CowboydupbapI hope your being ironic. Druids are Blizzards favorite class by far. It's amazing the amount of special attention they get.Comment by lenowell78Give me back my Claws of Shirvallah talent as a starter.Comment by xxlikeicarexxI hope your being ironic. Druids are Blizzards favorite class by far. It's amazing the amount of special attention they get.Comment by xxlikeicarexxNo mention of sabertooth
No mention of the terrible utility balancing for feral
No mention of the loss of survival instincs for feal.

what in the f...Comment by AxtriasI seriously for the life of me do NOT want the eclipse system back from MoP. It was an awful system, and I suspect that regardless of what they do it will just be an updated pile of !@#$e. Being forced into a specific eclipse isn't fun for anyone, and if they're introducing something where I can just keep pooling into a specific eclipse, then you might as well keep the current system.Comment by CowboydupbapI wish Blizz would commit to giving druids the hybrid theme that they need.

1. Give Ferals moonfire baseline.

2. Heart of Wild and Mark of the Wild(or Leader of the Pack) should be baseline for all specs.

3. This is never gonna happen but just convert int = agi based on spec so that hybrids don't have to farm separate sets of items. Hybrids are already penalized by not being able to use all specs and by being weaker than the main classes: Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Priest. BIS will still exist and even if hybrids just need 1 set (excluding trinkets and weapons with procs) to be basically able to play a role, we will still need to farm to be viable for high-end content (raids and MDs). I just don't want to have a druid (or other hybrid) coming into battlegrounds qued as a healer wearing agi items or a bunch of green and blue items.Comment by KachiryGIVE FERAL DRUIDS THE FOLLOWING:

1. Leader of the pack passive (baseline only on feral, not a talent) to bring something to raids. Just like demonhunters, since we have NOTHING that is unique for the spec at all, since the only utility we had (stampeding roar) became baseline and maim kan be specced into by going feral affinity. I feel like this change is mostly needed. Blizzard we NEED this. What else do we bring to raids? not even stampeding roar is unique for us anymore - what do we bring? NOTHING AT ALL.

2. Make savage roar baseline (not a talent), Does not need to be 10% dmg increase, but this is an interesting ability to keep up! Adds to the rotation very nicely. Heck even 5% would be good enough imo.

3. Change bloodtalons completely or add a new talent or something - putting bloodtalons up on a target then let it be there permanently due to that you specced into sabertooth is just plain booring. I would prefer something like empowering the first rip and rake or making 2 ferocious bites hit even harder or something. To be honest I like bloodtalons as it is now in BFA except for having to use regrowth. Not sure on how to tune/change this talent, but something needs to be changed. Please comment and give suggestions on how to change this.

4. Our defensives are so weakened by the removal of 2 x survival instincts, barkskin is never gonna make up for it, and needing to talent into Heart of the Wild just to survive a little bit like other classes do is pure stupidity. So we need some other defensive too or add a charge of barkskin or something. Not talk about the 5min CD on this talent which makes it a really weak talent for survival in general in raids. This talent is more pointed towards offtanking as of how I look of it.

THEN feral might be FUN and able to contribute with something in raids. Otherwise the spec is completely dead.

Oh, not to mention the removal of jungle's fury and Wild Fleshrending (as well as Blood of the Enemy increasing our crit) will feel horrible in overall for the spec. We will lose a %^&* ton of crit basically. And shred will automatically get nerfed due to the damage increase the azerite talent Wild Fleshrending gives us in boost.

And please, feral druid mains - let us be heard, or blizzard will never change us in time before release.

And blizzard for the love of god please make us transmog and keep our weapons while transmogging our druid forms! it's annoying to only be able to transmog into our legion artifact weapons and not keeping the look of our staff/polearm/whatever we use in each spec. It's a slight change but been waiting for this one forever now.Comment by daughterofhorns"Many people dislike the latter, and frankly we think it’s pretty weird too.." So it just took them a couple of expansions to find a way around this, if you found it weird, why the late fix? Feral druids really hasnt been "much" in terms of raiding since WoD :<.

Just had to get this off my chest. Anyway, really glad to see its being reworked and given thought to feedback.No mention of sabertooth
No mention of the terrible utility balancing for feral
No mention of the loss of survival instincs for feal.

what in the f...Comment by Moltke"Many people dislike the latter, and frankly we think it’s pretty weird too.." So it just took them a couple of expansions to find a way around this, if you found it weird, why the late fix? Feral druids really hasnt been "much" in terms of raiding since WoD :<.

Just had to get this off my chest. Anyway, really glad to see its being reworked and given thought to feedback.No mention of sabertooth
No mention of the terrible utility balancing for feral
No mention of the loss of survival instincs for feal.

what in the f...Comment by armoredaggroIt's called "Bloodtalons". Why is there a Ferocious Bite in this at all? Thematically it should be Rake>Shred>Swipe/Brutal Slash/Thrash. Just my 2 cents.Comment by shadey81Druids are Blizzards favorite class by far. It's amazing the amount of special attention they get.Comment by AesiriaWow. Reading these comments its clear druid main players are disillusional.
"Boomkins have no AoE" -> except aoe is what you excel at!
"As soon as druids get good, we're nerfed to the ground" - except this couldn't be further from the truth. Resto druids have been the best healer for both M+ and pvp for the last several expansions. The other specs - and especially boomkins - have also been in demand in top raiding and even class stacked from time to time.
STOP CRYING when there are other classes and specs that are worse off BY FAR! You are one of the most loved classes by Blizzard already. Stop crying for attention when you're already one of the favourite children together with mages and rogues.Comment by elmurbalance will be much liek wotlk balance it seems while it wasnt bad not sure how the damage will turn out i didnt mind it then u kept ur dots up starfalled for bigs pulls and took turns spam wraith til u got lunar proc and then vice versa main thing thats missing is they r not giving back thunderstorm ( or whatever the aoe spell was called) over not the best but way less boring than balance nowComment by Itacolomi"Many people dislike the latter, and frankly we think it’s pretty weird too.." So it just took them a couple of expansions to find a way around this, if you found it weird, why the late fix? Feral druids really hasnt been "much" in terms of raiding since WoD :<.

Just had to get this off my chest. Anyway, really glad to see its being reworked and given thought to feedback.Comment by HebusOfTroyPoint A: Keep the current Boomkin resource mechanic in BfA. It's the best we've had in-game in the last 15-16 years.

Point B: Bring back WoD Ferals. I want to hit hard, fast, and ANGRILY.

Point C: Give Guardian druids an anti-magic buff to their mastery. I don't mean Health, Armor, or Attack Power. I would like them to not be a joke once magic damage is introduced.

Point D: Resto is in a pretty good spot, keep them as is and add in some old missed spells. Bring back Mark of the Wild please (not as a dumb PVP-only talent).Comment by bloctoadIon hates druids.

123 4 5