OK, so. Blizz says the Tree of Life (ToL) form is slowly becoming a pointless costume, rather than a useful shapeshift. Cats and bears have entirely new abilities and gameplay while in their forms; trees do not. Shifting into tree restricts us and hides our armor. Whether or not we agree with that, it’s what Blizzard believes.

But a huge number of trees don’t want to lose their tree look to a cooldown. Some people are saying “stop whining, you aren’t losing tree form, it’s just on a cooldown.” Whoosh. That’s the sound of our concern flying over your head. We want to be able to continue to walk around town as a tree if we want. To fight as a tree. To just be a tree. Putting our identifying form on a cooldown is a horrible prospect.

Yes – I’m sure the ability or buff they attach to this cooldown will be great. I’m not saying it’s a nerf to our performance – it will be a gain, I’m sure. That’s not the issue either. We just want to be able to be trees. Whenever we like.

Here’s what I think should happen.


Keep legacy tree form, but put it on an optional toggle.

The current tree of life form (legacy tree) should stay in the game, but be opened up only when you spec deep enough into the resto tree to pick up Blizzard’s new uber tree cooldown (which, I assume, will be at the same spot in the tree anyway).

Speccing this deep “unlocks” the ability to look like legacy tree, if you wish.

Legacy tree is activated through a Two Forms toggle spell, à la Worgen:

Two Forms is a racial ability available to worgen which allows them to freely transform between their human and worgen forms while outside of combat. The transformation is purely cosmetic.


Worgen will already have Two Forms to toggle their humanoid form, so it would have to be a different ability. Let’s bust out the imagination and call it Tree Form.


  • If you wish to look like a tree, you hit Tree Form. You will now be a tree for as long as you like, until you hit Tree Form again. Just like a “real” shapeshift – except it is basically just a costume. Like Worgen’s humanoid form – it adds nothing to your character in terms of performance, just flavour/art/RP/etc.

  • If you hate legacy tree form and wish to never ever look like it again (because you think it’s hideous, or you want to see your gear while you fight), don’t ever hit Tree Form. This also helps to be less of a target in PvP.
  • When the uber tree cooldown is activated and we transform into New Tree, both tree lovers and tree haters alike can go “ooooh” at Blizzard’s new model. Then we can save the day, transform back into whichever form we choose (legacy tree or humanoid/”caster”), and go along our merry way.



See how easy it is to keep the tree “flavour”, but allow the people who hate tree form to never use it if they don’t care to?

Those of us who love our legacy tree can wear that shapeshift “costume” whenever we like. And those who hate it won’t ever have to wear it, ever again.

Plus, Blizzard doesn’t have to balance around a shapeshift that restricts our offensive casting and doesn’t add any unique abilities. They can balance around “caster form”.

And, importantly, nobody has to invest talent points into a talent that is chiefly cosmetic rather than functional, which is one of Blizzard’s main concerns. The costume toggle is simply attached to the new cooldown ability talent – which will likely be a core talent in the resto tree, so you would be picking it up anyway. No wasted talent points, no imbalance, no forcing people to look a certain way if they don’t want to.


Everybody is happy!*




(*This statement is never, ever entirely true, but for the purposes of this scenario, I believe that almost everyone would be happy.)



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