I shapeshift, therefore I am.
I know a lot of people out there don’t like the Tree of Life form – but I also know that MANY people DO like it, and don’t want to see it go to a cooldown ability. No other druid form is forced onto a cooldown – bears, cats and moonkins don’t have to give up their iconic forms and have them relegated to the status of a trinket.
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Keeva,
I couldn’t agree more! I am not a happy tree after reading today’s announcement! We deserve the say in this matter. Shifting should be a choice, not regulated by cool down!
-Liferoot
Liferoot´s last blog ..So You Think You Can Heal…?
*Tree Cheer*
Pike´s last blog ..A Girl And Her Super Heroes
Totally agree. When do we start the pitchforks and torches march?
Analogue´s last blog ..Vote to Kick
I support this. I want to keep my form. Stupid update…
Floella´s last blog ..DNS Editing Deployed
Analogue: lucky we can use Pitchforks now, huh!
They’ll rue the day they patched in the ability for druids to use polearms!
[...] Image by Keeva [...]
So since you have the epic blog maybe do a mail in campaign of sending in seeds or something?
I seriously hope this doesn’t make it live
Beruthiel´s last blog ..Ya’ Mon…this sucks. 
Are there really a lot people who can’t stand it? Even the trees who refer to it as “wilted broccoli” seem to do so in the way that someone might call their dog “the ugliest dog in the world” while still loving it to death.
I need to level my resto alt while I can so I can be a tree for a few months. :\ (I’m just nerotic like that. I have to level as my main spec.)
Hana´s last blog ..[Druid] Preview’s Up! Changes Are… Interesting…
Yeah, there’s quite a vocal group that wanted it gone. But from the reaction on the forums, it seems (at the moment) to be the minority. There are many, many more people fighting to save it than there are people glad to see it go.
Stealing it, putting it up on my blog, going to post on the forums once I reach the end of the thread.
Analogue´s last blog ..Vote to Kick
I’m going to have to disagree here. Restos dont get a whole lot in this class preview, but the announcement that tree form is going away makes it the best class preview ever.
Jasyla´s last blog ..Hunter Preview
Oh Jasyla, how could you? You treetraitor!
“Totally agree. When do we start the pitchforks and torches march?”
Wouldn’t torches be a bad idea for trees?
Tree Form graphics are old and outdated.
Tree Form is iconic and core to being a Resto Druid.
It’s funny – I’ve been thinking to myself all week that I’m disappointed in how much QQ I hear on every class preview. And yet, here I am, doing exactly that. But then again, I can’t think of any other class who can say that they’re losing something that defines their class and spec.
If someone asks you “what kind of Druid are you?”, what are you going to say? “I’m a bear. I’m a cat. I’m a moonkin.”
“I’m an elf druid?” “I’m a cow druid?” It’s like playing a different class.
Sigh. Very hopeful that this doesn’t go through.
We aren’t going to be trees any more so bring on the torches.
Grrr…
Analogue´s last blog ..Vote to Kick 
This priest is going to go farm a pitchfork for ToL riot. Too bad they’re polearms. But I’m significantly less motivated to get my baby tree/bear the last 20 levels now.
Fairly pleased with the priest changes (though i lol at holy’s chakra’s). Notice that we’re apparently going to be running around a lot more in Cata, what with FailGrip, Inner Will, Stampeding Roar, and some of the other talents.
[...] above image comes from Tree Bark Jacket, a great druid blog. Spread it around and post it on your site if you agree with the sentiment. [...]
Save the trees! Save the world!
Love,
A Sympathetic DK Tank
Askevar´s last blog ..3rd Anniversary!
The reason behind this change is a good one. It’s true we give up utility to heal as well as other classes.
However, I LOVE tree form and it is what initially made me want to be a druid. Leave it and Blizzard can take away alllll my utility.
“You can have tree-form-castable Thorns back, Blizzard! I’m sorry! I won’t complain anymore!”
It makes me very sad and angry to hear that Blizzard seems to feel Druids need to show off their armor more and therefore that means taking away tree form.
What the heck is the point of making it an ability on a cool down? Leave it in as a passive talent and change it, or take it out entirely.
The whole point of being a druid is to have those iconic forms. If they’re taking away tree form then why not moonkin form?
I can safely say that I am not sad to see tree form go. To me, tree form is just boring. Static bonuses and a model that has been around since vanilla do not appeal. I like druid healing, but other than the iconic look of tree form it does not affect my gameplay. Tree form was an interesting idea that fell flat because tree form doesn’t do what druid forms were originally designed to do: switch gears. Excluding pvp, tree doesn’t change anything. I’m really not happy at all at it being turned into some kind of metamorphosis, but at least something is changing. Hopefully it will be for the better in the end.
What, really? Getting rid of ToL is the best part of the preview. Good riddance
You could say the same thing about bear form, cat form, and moonkin…they are the same forms no matter if you’re level 20 or level 80.
But they aren’t getting removed.
Think about why not.
The possibility of not having to be in TOL form while healing is the best druid update in the last 2-3 years. I can’t believe people are QQing about this – but I guess there must always be QQ even if the changes reflect what the vast majority has been wanting, nay, begging for for years.
I might even buy Cataclysm if this goes live.
I’d like to see you support that “vast majority” claim.
They can take away our branches, but they will never uproot us!!!
SAVE THE TREEES!
<3
Angelya´s last blog ..Cataclysm Druid Preview
I am thrilled with the change. The tree form model and the concept are uninspired and gimmicky.
There is so much more to being a druid than shapeshifting! I like to think of my character as an actual druid – you know, a pagan priest who calls upon the power of (nature/the earthmother/elune/pick one) to aid and defend her allies. That and look like a badass.
Why do I have to be a *tree* to do that? Why can’t I be the adorable tauren I fell in love with at level 1?
As an aside, in Everquest II you can choose to toggle your shapeshifts on and off (visually) as a druid while keeping the benefit. Of course shapeshifting in EQII doesn’t play the same integral role as it does in WoW, but it’s still an interesting mechanic.
I’m not against druids keeping tree of life in some iteration, I just want to be free of the mandatory need to use it while resto. I *love* my tauren, I love my gear, and I love to heal.
Heidi´s last blog ..let me take you there
I was originally a NE, but swapped to Horde after 2 years.
I didn’t like Tauren at first, but they grew on me.
I missed my slender, pretty, flipping NE caster.
Appearances matter. I say let the tree-haters be humanoid, and let the tree-lovers be trees. Why the drama? Let us choose to take on the shape if we want to.
(and while we’re at it, do the same for moonkin)
The idea of being to toggle it on and off as in EQ2 would be great I want to keep my treeform, If they need to introduce a proc make it give us extra leaves or something like that while active but I wanna be a tree!
It would be sweet if they did the same for moonkin! I have been able to live with tree form because I love the spec that much, but every time I have tried to spec balance for any length of time a little piece of me dies.
Heidi´s last blog ..let me take you there
It’s the same situation though – some people absolutely despise the current moonkin forms – they think they are comical and humiliating. But others adore them.
Why not make both camps happy? *shrug*
Oh, by “do the same for moonkin” I meant if they made it a toggle, or available both ways. I could live quite happily with no shapeshifts at all personally, but I know others would be heartbroken.
I don’t want anything to be taken away from anyone – I’d just like options
Heidi´s last blog ..let me take you there 
Exactly!
I’m very sad about the deforestation of WoW.
All reasons posted by GC is just silly:
- Not able to do offensive abilities? Ehm, I spec resto to heal, not dps.
- Show off armor? Really?
Save the trees!
I don’t really see the point to heal in human form. I mean, druids ARE shapeshifters. That’s what making us unique. Without a tree form we’re just like everyone else with green colored heals.
As you are, I’m disappointed.
I was hoping a redesign of ToL, as they did for bears and cats some months ago.
The word “underwhelming” is actually very appropriate for these changes.
I too am really disappointed about losing tree of life form if this goes through – it’s one of the things I love most about my druid healer. I think it gives real character and the animations are such fun – nothing quite like tree-dodging or seeing a tree jumping around flinging hots left, right and centre
We can’t heal in bear/cat/moonkin form, can’t cast balance spells in cat/bear/tree, or cast bear/cat spells in tree/moonkin etc. I don’t really see why tree needs to be different to allow offensive casting. Perhaps the PVP angle? As a raid healer I can’t say I have much use for spells other than resto… we wouldn’t ever be expected to contribute to dps in a raid unless it was outgeared. Hmmm. I’m just going to hope that there will be enough resistance to the idea that it will be scrapped! *fingers crossed*
I am a tree … people don’t say “stand on the resto druid”, it’s “stand on the tree”, “tree has agro” and (quite frequently) “res the tree”. I’ll absolutely agree that the tree model could do with a wash & brush up but forms are (to me at least) an integral part of the druid experience and to not have the tree form dimishes the character of my character.
P.S. I’ve been a druid for 5 year and can’t remember the last time I was worried about showing my armour!
To clarify my above short comment:
Tree Form was, quite honestly, the only reason I rolled druid. I know this may come as a shock to people who hate the form, but I’m into things like silliness and fun and /dancing in Dalaran and all that jazz. Over time, I came to love druid healing for what it was, too– but there’s a reason I made a druid healer and not a priest. Because I wanted to be different and fun.
Honestly I don’t know why the change bothers me so much; a.) Druid wasn’t even my main, and b.) I don’t play WoW anymore– haven’t in months. But I was seriously considering perma-switching to druid if I “came back for Cataclysm”, but taking away what drew me to the class in the first place– even if it is silly and trivial– is really changing my mind.
Call me crazy, that’s fine. But I will miss my Tree.
Pike´s last blog ..A Girl And Her Super Heroes
This has nothing to do with our other forms so I don’t know why people keep going back to that well.
If this goes through then I probably won’t be buying Cataclysm.
I personally find the reason they gave for it to be silly. So we can use offensive abilities. How many healers go on offense?
If Blizz is going to screw over my main toon’s main spec then I’ll just walk away.
Worst.
Idea.
Ever.
Oh, and my 2 cents on the form. Yes, it needs to be cosmetically updated, not done away with. A level 60 horde restoration druid and a level 80 alliance restoration druid look the same. That is what needs to be changed, not the core mechanic of the spec.
People can already do attacks while casting. they just sacrifice some healing ability to do it. these days, wit everyone over gearing stuff, I do that fairly often. But I sure as heck dont do it to see my gear. Whoopty freaking do. I like my trees damnit. And they are taking them away so they can balance pvp? What the heck. This is one of the biggest things I have ever seen out of bliz demonstating a complete lack of understanding of a subset of players. I have never met anyone that actively plays resto that did not like it. Why try to please people that dont play the spec? Every argument they made applies to all the druid specs and forms. I don’t get to cast healing spells while in bear. Is that fair? Pallys can do it. But do I complain? well sometimes… but not most of the time because tanking not in bear form would be dumb.
ReversionLFM´s last blog ..Vote to Kick
A First Reaction to the Cataclysm Druid Changes…
See here….
I don’t currently play a druid, but was planning on rolling a Worgen one when Cataclysm hits. This change saddens me greatly.
When it comes down to it the argument for or against keeping Tree of Life is purely a cosmetic issue. Blizzard could have accomplished the mechanical changes in some other way – giving Trees the ability to cast more DPS spells, and adding in some sort of cooldown to improve healing and include the banish immunity.
They chose not to do this because they listened to those QQing about not seeing their armor artwork. They are proud of that artwork and feeling justfied in sticking with decision because some people agree with them.
They are ignoring the massive number of pleas on the forums to keep ToL, using arguments like, “I would not ever try to interpret volume of posts on any topic on the Internet as meaningful data” and “there were also a lot of the same people posting over and over (and some using different characters on the same account)”. This feels very lazy to me and has me convinced they’ve already made up their mind and are determined to not let public opinion sway them, because they don’t let players “vote on game change”.
As others have suggested, all could be made happy by a UI toggle. Thats interesting to know that EQ II has that option already.
Save the trees!
Kaelynn´s last blog ..Rogue Cataclysm Preview Musings
I get that people got used to ToL by now and I’m personally a bit disappointed this is the kind of change we get. It’s undeniable, though, that A) you will now be able to choose a period when your healing will be much stronger (imagine that they buffed the benefits of ToL), not have a relatively small passive bonus and B) there was never a tree of life in the lore, it was only added in BC.
It always made sense to me druid healers stayed in caster and didn’t turn into some weird broccoli of sorts.
Aenokhe´s last blog ..RPPvP, and why it doesn’t work
So, I strongly recommend that other commenters here go and check out just how many responses GC has fielded on this topic.
The reason for the change wasn’t because giving trees back their offensive abilities was hard or anything; it was a matter of “why bother with a form, however visually iconic, that doesn’t do anything as a talent?”
The best response so far: the prospect of including a Minor Glyph that allows you to cosmetically shapeshift to tree form if you have the super treeform CD. That’s where this kind of ability will belong, anyways – just as glyph of polymorph: penguin is purely cosmetic.
As for the usefulness of your offense as a healer, I think with the return of CC, you’ll find a lot of pulls in content (especially the early stuff & 5mans) where the resto druid is asked to cyclone specific targets before the pull. It’ll also be a great griefing tool to keep you in line with the lolpriests that grip tanks away from their targets or grip mages as soon as they begin to eat/evocate.
[...] Tree Form will be going the way of the Dodo, making an occasional cameo as a healing cooldown. Many others have commented on this change, but I feel the need to add my 2 copper in as a [...]
[...] From all the class announcements, about the only change that I can see would cause real angst is the change to Druid Tree form. This one is a fundamental change to how you enjoy a class, not to a background mechanic. Hunters will still be able to shoot and have pets despite the change from Mana to Focus. A Tree Druid who’s not a Tree? That’s more problematic – support Tree Bark Jacket’s campaign! [...]
I would much rather a useful trinket than an annoying form that only gives 3-400ish SP.
I thought everything they talked about for druids was fine except taking away a fundamental property of druids, i.e., that they shape-shift to do special things. What are they going to do next, make kitty, boomkin and bear forms cooldowns? What’s the point then? Didn’t they bother to read the lore? Druids shape shift. It’s what they do.
i like being a tree. i want to continue to be a tree.
if blizz wants trees to have more utility, let us be able to have this extra utility while in tree form.
if blizz wants us to see our armor, design nicer looking sets like the t8 set, especially nicer helms. t9 and t10 are hideous and i’m really thankful for the ‘display helm’ option.
if blizz wants to relegate our tree form to a CD ability, do it for all druid forms. in fact blizz’s arguments for making tree form a CD ability could be applied to all druid forms.
other than that, let me stay as a tree!
Dont wanna see them changing it into a cooldown.
Had some thoughts on my own aswell, like making it into a stacing buff, the more heal crits you get the more you heal and transform into a Tree
Gathros´s last blog ..Tree Form
[...] am with Keeva on this one. I Shapeshift, therefore I [...]
My concern is more about when it will be necessary to use the Tree Form cooldown. I mean, is it only going to be used for “oh sh*t” moments, or is it going to be used every cooldown? I feel for you tree-lovers, but I am coming to terms with not having it. Tauren look good in most armor, anyway.
Yes, I agree, it’s sad… but I think the perma-tree shapeshift going away is a bit of a stealth buff. Think about it. We can hurricane, FF, or banish without switching from our healing form and that’s just a few of our abilities.
At least it’s not a total overhaul like the hunter class is getting. They’re switching from mana to ‘focus’, so they’re going to be playing essentially a totally new character with no idea which of their three similar trees is best for anything. High shock value.
Dammit, how do you make Kentucky Fried Critchicken, if you have no firewood with which to make a fire??? Also – I demand a free name change if this goes live. “Forreststump” just doesn’t work if it isn’t a native form anymore.
Forreststump´s last blog ..Oh… eM… Gee
Im pretty okay with the change, we get combat utitliy back w/o the expense of losing cooldowns by shifting. ToL has no lore value, is outdated, and frankly is ugly as hell to look at. I was around pre-tree and liked it just fine, making non-shifted equal to current other healers plus gaining the ZOMG Tree cooldown will be a nice change. We lose nothing and gain plenty, if you soul really is hungering for the woody form go break the ToAU and load a skin mod.
SAFE THE TREEEEES!!
As a Prot War, all I have to say is:
I love my Trees!!!
Sure the Jeebus Beam Space Goats are ok, but… they have tails. Yuck.
Save The Trees!!!
Everyone should print out the “I Shapeshift Therefore I Am” graphic and send it to Blizzard via snail mail.
Save the trees!
Deja, you win the irony award for the day.
Jasyla´s last blog ..About to lose it
*giggle*
Keeva,
Do you have a higher resolution version of your protest sign? I would like to make it into a t-shirt on cafe press, but I keep getting an error with the resolution.
Thanks!
Liferoot´s last blog ..So You Think You Can Heal…?
I don’t think so, from memory I made it at a blog-appropriate size from the beginning. It was a very quickly thrown-together job
Keeva´s last blog ..Cataclysm preview thoughts #2 (TLDR: I’m excited overall) 
[...] image is taken from Keeva’s post at TreeBarkJacket.com. Giving is giving, taking back is stealing! Therefor, I support the movement against the druid [...]
[...] Well, they’ve stated that they might add a minor glyph that allows us to retain the form of Tree of Life without the functionality that the cooldown (whatever it ends up actually doing) allows, and until I see something concrete about that, I’m with Keeva! [...]
I would even settle for a minor glyph to make me a tree, at least something! Being a caster is meh, it feels like you are just like every other healer and as to the seeing your armour?! Puh-lease!! Most of our gear is smuggly, the tier 8 was awesome this bug bits of T10 are just icky and how many ppl fully match? There are lots of pieces that the offshoot can be better than tier, I loved my tree!! I was hoping they would update the skins and have options not give it the axe (/crai!) entirely!
Please please please Blizz at least make a toggle and the option have it the exact same as if you were in caster form, and then when you get the boost just have it boost which ever form you are in tree/caster. That way those that love it can keep it!
I love my animations there is nothing like a forest dancing! Or running around healing, or chasing ppl and /sleeping on them… there are so many awesome things with trees that we would lose if they killed it.
Save our Trees!!
I’m for saving the trees(I have 2 to save) If I want to kill I play my rogue. It really is that simple if someone don’t want to be a tree there are plenty if not too many other specs/classes to play. When not in higher level raids/ or instances i will shift to caster and help dps just for fun anyway, so I don’t see the need to change. This just appears to be more of an attempt to water down the game for the people who don’t want to roll another toon. If it fails to make the game more fun I may have to find something else to occupy my FREE time. Instead of pitchforks and fire I would suggest everyone vote with your pocketbook/wallet and hit Blizz where it really hurts. Thier profit margin
My friends and I want to use this picture to make t-shirts. We want to keep our Tree form!
I think Blizzard has lost their mind on this. People don’t like being a tree? Then why do we all walk around Dalaran in tree form? Save the trees!
[...] **Image borrowed from Keeva [...]
For the people that are saying tree form is tacky and ugly, heal out of tree FFS >:(. And if you don’t like it, don’t play a resto druid.. Simple as that. Tbh, I’d rather see that fat chicken form go than my tree form <3
Save teh treesssssssss.
[...] mentioned my displeasure in this post, but here is a nice post from Treebark Jacket. Someone should make a unified forum post on the subject that everyone can link to. I am sure there [...]
I hate looking like a refugee from an early Merry Melodies cartoon. They make this game hard enough on girls, now they want us to look completely ridiculous the whole time we’re raid healing. Way to go u Blizzard misogynists.