Reminiscing
I’ve been thinking lately, about all the changes Blizzard makes over time – some of them are applauded, others are opposed. Some are things that we all believe that we should have had a long time ago. For example – remember when..
- HoTs didn’t stack, so the only druid who could use them in a raid was the person with the highest +healing (A more powerful spell is already active) and everyone else was stuck with HT spam duty?
- Gift of the Wild was cast group-by-group?
- Omen of Clarity was cast, and lots of new druids didn’t know it? (so they couldn’t work out why they never got any procs!)
- there was no mailbox in Nighthaven?
- we could wear costumes and use Noggenfogger?
- ToL aura used to affect healing done, not received? (mmm stacking healers)
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Do you remember when…
Innervate was resto-only!
Hurricane was the 31-point balance spell, and no one knew it except temporary respeccers who sat around IF/Org making pretty lights by the bank!
“we could wear costumes and use Noggenfogger?”
WHAT?
We were able to use constumes and Noggenfogger without shapeshifting removing the effect, is that what you’re saying? :O
When cats didn’t have any finishers besides rip… which was actually useful, since it took mobs like 3 minutes to die anyway since we were all resto spec.
lissanna´s last blog ..Azeroth United HHV charity drive for child’s play update
One of the very first patches to the game actually increased bear & dire bear armor values…
lissanna´s last blog ..Azeroth United HHV charity drive for child’s play update
No, seriously, 1.2 gave us:
# New Spell: Gift of the Wild (Level 50) – Longer lasting Mark of the Wild spell that buffs the entire group. Requires a reagent to cast. (Spell is available via loot drop only.)
# Bear Form: Armor bonus increased from 65% to 180%.
# Dire Bear Form: Armor bonus increased from 125% to 360%.
I was still pretty low level when this happened, though.
lissanna´s last blog ..Azeroth United HHV charity drive for child’s play update
I’ve been a Druid for four years as of this December, whoa! Had to go check under account management to figure that one out. :p
Like Buttercup said, I remember when Innervate was resto only.. and I was MAD when they gave it to everyone else and in turn gave us some stinky Swiftmend spell to compensate us. If only I knew! :>
And oh man, the days of Rejuv not stacking. We had /four/ resto Druids in our MC group. All of us would constantly compete for the highest plus healing on our gear.. and whoever was on top week to week would feel like a GOD for being able to toss rejuv around so liberally and not be spammed with “a more powerful spell is already active”.
hee, so many memories. :] My love for this class will never falter!
Remember when Tree of Life was so slow, with a 30% movement speed decrease?
Try running around with Thaladred the Darkener chasing after you… yeah our tree got scolded a bit, back in the day. =/
omg thats crazy im almost 6 months with my druid thats alot of changes. Im lucky
Remember starshards? Ok, it was a NE racial but it was handy.
I haven’t been a druid too long, but these are what has changed for me since I started leveling a druid.
20% spirit nerf
LB change to stack and bloom respectively
LB bloom nerf and spell coefficient nerf
Innervate no longer based on spirit (/cry)
Innervate 1/2 as effective 2x as often
Moonsinnah´s last blog ..Get Down Anub’Arak!
Buttercup: I do! I remember I was worried when they made it a trained spell that the number of resto druids being taken to raids would decline, since Innervate and Rebirth were two of the main reasons we were taken along – and now the ferals (not that there were many of those at the time, I suppose..) could do that for us.
Kae: I wasn’t around early enough for that one.
Keldara: we used to be able to be skeletons but kitty, for example, so run around as a skeleton but fight things in cat form. Apparently that was too OP for PvP (because people couldn’t tell if it was a cat/bear/humanoid etc, so they nerfed it. Unfortunately it also means that we lose out with other things like Halloween costumes, Orb of the Sindorei, and any other fun costumes – as soon as we shapeshift, poof. It makes me sad. Surely they would be able to attach a condition to the costumes that makes them unable to be used in BGs etc? If it’s world PvP – well, I think anything goes – and people should be able to use costumes to their advantage. It also makes it very difficult for ferals to get the Xmas PvP achievement where you have to get 50HKs as an elf.
Lissanna: I used to love playing feral while I was resto! Sure it was slow, but since I had never actually specced feral, I didn’t know any better. I loved my “feral set”. I distinctly remember farming yetis in Winterspring – I think I was still a skinner back then. And I had almost forgotten that our group buffs were from books originally.
Sound: I’m 4 in 2 days!
Yep, I was a bit upset about Innervate too – I was just worried about being displaced. I saw Swiftmend as being pretty yummy from the beginning – but I was worried about every druid getting Innervate. And the non-stacking HoTs thing was so horrible, I hated it. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if we had 10/25 man raids back then, because there aren’t so many druids, but at times we would have 4 or 5 druids, and only one of them got to use HoTs. Everyone else was on HT cast/cancel duty!
Aerivore: how quickly I forget things! Seems like so long ago. I remember picking and choosing which fights I would do in or out of tree because of the snare. Oh, and because of decursing! I usually healed Archimonde in caster form because tree was slow, and decursing would pop me out constantly anyway. That seems like a lifetime ago!
Moonsinnah: you don’t like the new Innervate? I love it! I get to use it much more proactively now instead of saving it “in case” I might need it later (or someone else might). And the short cooldown means I can throw it around like candy on trash and in groups. I get such a kick out of hearing someone say “hey.. why am I at full mana?” or “thanks whoever Innervated me!” I can afford to do that more, now that I know it will be up again quickly. It’s also awesome for my ferals – it gives me a tonne of mana instead of a woeful amount. I had my doubts at first – but I definitely like this version of Innervate more.
Hey, I have more for you guys!
Anyone remember on Shade of Aran (pre-nerf!) how when he did his poly, we were immune? So as soon as he started doing his pyros, we could Tranquility and save the day – because we weren’t stuck like everyone else? Mmmm glory moments.
Remember when Barkskin was all about the interrupts, then they made it 20% damage reduction? It went from something I used before Tranquility/Hurricane to an awesome ‘uh oh’ button. I love it.
Remember when ferals couldn’t use potions, health stones, and food in forms? (at one stage, although brief, we couldn’t even use mana pots in tree form!) Remember the crazy macro to let you use a health pot and get back into bear form without being hit?
Remember when we could herb in flight form, and then we couldn’t, and then we could again?
Remember when we couldn’t use roots indoors?
Remember when Shadowmeld wasn’t an aggro dump?
Remember when we couldn’t go straight from one form to another – we had to go to caster form first, and then to the next form?
Remember when Hurricane had a cooldown?
Isn’t it weird – some of these seem like they happened so long ago.. it’s hard to remember some of them.
Keeva´s last blog ..Reminiscing
I remember having about 3 different ranks of Healing Touch on my action bar, and yet I never used the highest rank one! to sloowww
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@keeva
I love the change to the duration and cd, but miss the spirit bonus. I used to pop innervate when my 300 spirit procced from my darkmoon card and I would regen an entire mana bar.
I do like being able to use it every 3 mins for sure. Shaman love me because every 6 mins if not 3, they get an innervate. Hehe.
Moonsinnah´s last blog ..Get Down Anub’Arak!
Back in Vanilla WoW, Having the 11 points in feral it took to get Feral Charge meant that you were a feral druid.
lissanna´s last blog ..What’s up with 3.3 Resto druids? Changes explained
I remember when we had Swiftshifting in the balance tree, which reduced the mana cost to forms if we shifted into a second form within X number of seconds. >_>
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Errr, starshards was a NE priest thing. I R noob. /facepalm
/stillmissstarshards
That’s ok, you can reminisce about priesty stuff here too, I won’t kick you out
My druid is my main alt, and it is so fun to read all of these memories. Especially when I was into tanking and people tried to give me health pots for O Shit moments, I would be like seriously, we can’t use those lol.
I remember when we didn’t really have any aoe and boomkins had a 1 minute CD on hurricane, what happened? Now our AOE is crazy!! I remember when tanking I had to try to line up everything in front of me to make sure my swipe hit it all.
My favorite change we have had, is not being slowed by 20% in tree form, I hated that! And now we have a regular rez too? I am so used to only having a brez I still find myself waiting for people to rez others, and not really knowing how close I can get to the boss without pulling, hey all those other classes had a long time to practice!
I also remember not having Wild Growth, and the week it came out being number one in healing in Black Temple, then the nerf with the 6 second cd.
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i remember when the resto tree didn’t have the tree form and i used to look like a NE priest healing.
i remember HT was used like all the time and the HoTs were used like once in a while.
i remember when we got our tree form, i spec’d all the way to it, and then didn’t use it b/c it limited the spells i could use. no HT ftl.
and i used to get poly’d by Aran b/c i didn’t use tree form.
i remember the 20% reduction in speed while in tree form. i had set up my action bar so i could shift out of tree form if i needed to run fast, and would get those boot enchants that gave a slight increase in run speed so i could run almost at the normal speed.
remember when we didn’t have any out of combat rez, and we didn’t have glyphs to make BR regent free?
I remember non-cookie-cutter specs that were just as viable as “full” resto.
I remember speccing part feral in vanilla, without missing any key resto talents. What was it – 0/21/30 or something? Or 20/31.. I can’t remember – so long ago!
I remember speccing down to Insect Swarm in TBC, for that little extra damage boost (got a real kick out of doing Leo for the first time and being told by the raid leader not to be upset when I inevitably couldn’t kill my demons because resto druids “always” failed. I didn’t fail.)
Even those 11 points seemed a little naughty at the time.
And best of all, I remember Dreamstate being viable and fun, and not something that would get you lynched. I’m not sure I would go back to it now – but it was nice to be able to have a choice.
I love the idea that priests can complement each other in a raid by being different specs – I wish we had that, instead of every druid doing pretty much the same thing.
Perhaps the Balance tree could move towards being a little disc-y? I would certainly jump at the chance to have mitigation abilities, and to be able to work with other druids as a complementary team, rather than just a second copy of the same thing.
(Of course, I don’t want to step on the priests’ toes – but I really wish druids had more in the way of damage mitigation.)
You guys makes me feel like a Sproutling!
The worst I have is: Remember when there was no such thing as Wild Growth, lol.
/blush
Littlebark´s last blog ..Tale Forty Two: I honestly don’t why I put up with it.
Heya I can’t really think of anything that hasn’t been mentioned
But an idea would be the ability to cast your barkskin on others 
that would be a start for damage mitigation.
Learning to tank for the first time in Shadow Labs with 3 target frontal swipe and a seed of corruption happy warlock.
1. There was no Boomkin form
2. You heard rumors of Druid tanks but could never find one first hand (I spent months trying to find one that tanked Nefarian).
3. PvP consisted of spamming Moonfire on as many targets as possible.
4. When Arathi Basin came out you could kitty form and glitch under terrain to capture flags.
5. There was no Bear/Kitty dance.
6. LB was changed to increase the HoT portion and before it was even implemented live Druids warned of it being game breaking (BC)… I’ve always loved how well informed the Druid community is.
7. Bear Form + Hammer of Ragnaros + Essence of Fire + Thorns = Un-killable Druid (at least by melee).
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Weapon Enchants like crusader or mungo don’t work as a bear or cat:)
Remember when we put points into heart of the wild at the end of classic, that we get more mana for healing touch spam, at least I do so for some months;)
Wait wait wait.
There is a mailbox in Nighthaven?
NO WAY!
Two, that I know of! One when you port in, and one down near the trainer!
> * HoTs didn’t stack, so the only druid who could use them
> in a raid was the person with the highest +healing (A more
> powerful spell is already active) and everyone else was stuck
> with HT spam duty?
I miss HT4.
> # Gift of the Wild was cast group-by-group?
Gift of the Wild didn’t exist in the beginning!
It was fun buffing a 40 man Onyxia raid as a single druid.
> # Omen of Clarity was cast, and lots of new druids didn’t know it? (so they couldn’t work out why they never got any procs!)
OoC did only proc from melee hits and not from spells.
> # there was no mailbox in Nighthaven?
There was only a single AH in IF.
> # we could wear costumes and use Noggenfogger?
Yes, was removed because of double-shrink IIRC because you could get to places which were not intended to be reached.
You could also use Noggenfogger and be in a form as druid! This used to stack back in the old days.
> # ToL aura used to affect healing done, not received? (mmm stacking healers)
The old group wide auras were very strange in many ways.
> Your turn!
> How long have you been a druid? What are some of the things that you remember and look back on, and find amusing?
- You needed to do a quest for bear and aquatic form.
- There is a cat ghost in Moonglade but the quest was never implemented.
- Cat/Bear form used the weapon skill of the used weapon but you could not get weapon skill ups while in form. You had to level your weapon in caster form.
- Innervate was a 31pt talent.
- Hurricane had a 1 minute cooldown.
- … and was a 31 pt talent.
- … and was casted above you, without this target circle.
- feral charge was only bear and only 11 pt deep in the feral tree.
- you would put all your points in the resto tree if you skilled resto.
- brezz had a 30 min cd
- … and wasn’t really required because you had “out of combat rezzers” in every raid
- druids didn’t have a normal rezz which sucked while healing a 5 man
- … which had a lot of fast respawning trash
- the t0 head piece is a dead bird (or looks like one
- there was no non-healing set for druids
- running a raid (MC) probably meant that you removed more curses then you casted healing spells
- no one liked druids
- the 50s you paid for a battle rezz was really expensive
Not druid realted, but one of the 1.x patches when blizz broke FPs. And you could have people /follow you on the flight.
Also, Gurubashi was fun… and not camped by twinks.