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

1 234 5

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 KeanuCleavesFeral in 2020 KEKWComment by AzraelUltimaWow. Reading these comments its clear druid main players are disillusional.
"Boomkins have no AoE" -> except aoe is what you excel at!Comment by Cursed13I HATE SO MUCH BALANCE DRUID CHANGES SOOOO MUCH! WHY WHY WHY? We just wanted more damage on starfall so it could be viable. Nothing ELSE.Comment by KYZ123I'm irritated that they didn't mention Survival Instincts or other specs gaining Feral utility, but given that I wasn't expecting them to actually acknowledge Feral at all, I can't say I'm disappointed.

Good to get some clarity on the thought process behind the Bloodtalons rework, even if I disagree with it personally.Comment by Priscilla519I HATE SO MUCH BALANCE DRUID CHANGES SOOOO MUCH! WHY WHY WHY? We just wanted more damage on starfall so it could be viable. Nothing ELSE.Comment by SignmalionAnd 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.

PLEASEComment by PanthraxI HATE SO MUCH BALANCE DRUID CHANGES SOOOO MUCH! WHY WHY WHY? We just wanted more damage on starfall so it could be viable. Nothing ELSE.Comment by GenarosMeeeh. Pretty lackluster. Some changes for good, bringing back tons of utility from the class as a whole. But, in general, is hurting pretty bad the specs with the other changes. They need to find a middle point.Comment by AlixieIts great that they're doubling down on their awful feral/balance druid changes. Just one of many bad decisions that convinced me not to bother with Shadowlands.Comment by TheArchivist95As someone who criticized Blizzard when they deserve it: this is incredibly refreshing. They're clearly taking changes and feedback seriously, and communicating with us. Thank you, to the dev team for that. You guys have no idea how much that means to some of us.Comment by FreeasacarFerals definitely need love and attention but when will they also respond to Subtlety Rogue feedback? Surely they can't leave that spec dead for yet another expansion.Comment by camatronWell, they can't really just keep moonkin like it is, it is built around a single setup of azerite. Tho the current balance is terrible in M+ at the moment. My 420 BM hunter beats my fully mythic geared Balance druid in shorter AOE pulls, like in M+.
OFC balance is in a terrible spot in M+.

The changes they came up with will be terrible, if we halftime are forced into aoe, halftime are forced into singletarget. Without much control of it. Will be bad in both raids AND M+. But guess it will be the last nail in the coffin for balance, at least in M+.Comment by TomaotabcI hope your being ironic. Druids are Blizzards favorite class by far. It's amazing the amount of special attention they get.Comment by Lantokkbeen playing balance for several expansions now and it seems like every other expansion balance druids take a backseat to everything mechanics wise. Currently in BFA we have zero AOE.Comment by wodmarachThe reason? Holinka.
When he returned he was given full control of the combat team and the encounter team told to work off his direction.
Compare BfA where the encounter team seems to have been controlled by the gearing team and combat told to make it work.Comment by MagedraeneiI think it's less the special attention they get and more the attention they need. Highly versatile classes in MMOs, like druids here, can either be crazy overpowered and capable of handling every possible situation on their own, or simply inferior in every aspect to something some other class can do, which in turn makes them borderline useless in group content. In Legion and BFA they leaned heavily on each spec of Druid being highly divergent of each other compared to previous iterations, and since they're trying to reverse course on that idea across the board in Shadowlands, it's only natural they have to find a proper solution to the problem now.

If they get it right, Druids are gonna be awesome to play and to play with, so if that means they get more attention, I'm all for it.Comment by ArkamedesI stopped playing balance at the end of WotLK, played again in legion because of the eclipse systems. They are just a pain in the ass. They are simply not fun. Something to manage for managing's sake. Having no control, and doing single target to fish for aoe proc is and vice versa is just frustrating. Particularly when you have a lot of ramp time in dungeon packs.Comment by Elle11Balance: I have to play it to see just how bad it is, but the first thing I did when I read the changes was cringe. This was not a state that we needed to go back to. When I first heard that we were getting buttons back I thought of some truly old school spells that might be fun to see worked into the rotation. What a disappointment. Yes, I know some balance druids didn't like that the spec got 'simplified' after MoP. But at this point? Those people have long moved on. By now, most people who like playing balance Right Now do not want this. They should move forward with the class, not backward.

Feral: Great points in this thread, but I hated when Savage Roar was required. I don't want to ever go back to a time (like Cata) when every class was forced into tedious, maintenance heavy rotations. If they are so set on reverting classes, I don't know why they won't let ferals perform like they did in Wrath. That was a crazy fast, intense rotation where I really felt like I was shredding stuff up. Again, though, I agree with every other point made about the changes to feral.Comment by Nevcairiel
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.

1 234 5