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

12 35

Comment by thedutchelf"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 jjonessecbeen 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 WasselinDruids are Blizzards favorite class by far. It's amazing the amount of special attention they get.Comment by Warder117Where's Leader of the Pack baseline for Feral? This is supposed to be a 'great unpruning' LotP should not be relegated to a pvp talent! Feral needs something more to bring to group content as it seems to be left behind as of late. Tbh LotP prob should be given to bears as well.Comment by frostyfire14This iteration of Balance in Shadowlands Alpha is .... it doesn't feel good. Something about the windowed eclipses makes it feel ...bad. Situations are not cookie cutter like the Eclipse system is leading the spec to be. If we're stuck in a Solar Eclipse when we need to AOE and can't change the eclipse; well...then i guess we do not ideal damage for what the situation calls.Comment by ThulynNo 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 Solartis29still waiting for racial druid form glyph for treant form,empowered cat and bear form.Comment by vfaulkonI 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 baskevbeen 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 omedon666With 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 NinjaFlibbleface tank arthas riding deathwing while being powered up by n'zoth.Comment by PanthraxThe eclipse system from mop was horrible. I will not go back to it, I will just skip SL.Comment by MurrfangNo 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 FriedPickledDruids are Blizzards favorite class by far. It's amazing the amount of special attention they get.Comment by GrimoraPoint 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 infekDruids are Blizzards favorite class by far. It's amazing the amount of special attention they get.Comment by navysilanYou have 10 people and 7 chairs, what you do?
ME: Bring 3 more chairs
Blizzard: Kill 3 people

So far about shadowlands changesComment by NimokuI 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 turborinoGIVE 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.

12 35