The talent calculator is here.

Balance
* Starsurge is now a baseline spell.
* Owlkin Frenzy is now a Tier 4 talent. Down from Tier 5.
* Lunar Guidance is now a Tier 3 talent. Down from Tier 4.
* Planetary Alignment is gone.
* Balance of Power is now a Tier 2 talent. Down from Tier 3.
* Lunar Justice is gone.
* Moonkin Form is now a Tier 3 talent.
* Typhoon is now a Tier 3 talent.
* Earth and Moon – Your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon effect, which increases spell damage taken by 2/5% for 12 sec. Also increases your spell damage by 2/4%.
* Nature’s Majesty – Increases the critical strike chance of your Wrath, Starfire, Starfall, Nourish and Healing Touch spells by 2/4%.

Feral

* Primal Fury has an additional effect – your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 50/100% chance to add an additional combo point.
* Ferocity is gone.
* Heart of the Wild is back as a Tier 1 talent.

Restoration

* Wild Growth is now a Tier 5 talent. Down from Tier 6.
* Swiftmend is now a primary skill.
* Empowered Touch is now a Tier 4 talent. Down from Tier 5.
* Natural Perfection is now a Tier 6 talent. Up from Tier 5.
* Fury of Stormrage is now a Tier 5 talent. Up from Tier 4.
* Master Shapeshifter – Grants an effect which lasts while the Druid is within the respective shapeshift form. Bear Form – Increases physical damage by 2%. Cat Form – Increases critical strike chance by 2%. Moonkin Form – Increases spell damage by 2%. Tree of Life/Caster Form – Increases healing by 2%. /



My notes:

Moonkin is back in the balance tree, so I thought that would make Starsurge the level 10 talent (they were deciding between Moonkin and Starsurge, earlier), but it’s listed here as baseline. I think this might be a misunderstanding of the word baseline (when I read baseline, I think that it’s available for all druids – but I think here it means baseline for Balance, at 10).

Nice to see the first tiers fixed up a bit, but I’m not happy having to dump 3 points into Natural Shapeshifter, an ability that I will use so rarely – that’s pretty crappy. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see if it stays like that. It’s required to get down to Master Shapeshifter, so we have to take it for a healing boost, but I don’t like investing 3 talents into something that is near worthless (even more than before).

Welcome back Gift of the Earthmother, glad you made the cut. Still mourning Imp Barkskin, come back to us!

Nom Nom Nom no longer has a “NNF” tag – is the name going to stick?

Hmm, no more Naturalist, did it get the bump? Will HT’s cast time be changed at all?

So far, fairly underwhelming, there still really aren’t many “choices” to make, unless you take a couple of points out of healing talents to put into Fury of Stormrage etc. I’m hoping that the trees are still really, really preliminary. I won’t be worrying too much until we see more information.



Armor specialisation bonuses

The new armor specialisation bonuses:

* Cloth Specialization – Increases Int by 5% while wearing only Cloth.
* Leather Specialization – Increases Agi by 5% while wearing only Leather.
* Wild Leather Specialization – Increases Stam in Bear Form by 5% while wearing only Leather.
* Wild Leather Specialization – Increases Agi in Cat Form by 5% while wearing only Leather.
* Mail Specialization – Increases Agi by 5% while wearing only Mail.
* Tribal Mail Specialization – Increases Int by 5% while wearing only Mail.
* Plate Specialization – Increases Str by 5% while wearing only Plate.
* Defender’s Plate Specialization – Increases Stam by 5% while wearing only Plate.
* Blessed Plate Specialization – Increases Int by 5% while wearing only Plate.
* Astral Leather Specialization – Increases Int by 5% while wearing only Leather.
* Elemental Mail Specialization – Increases Int by 5% while wearing only Mail.
* Furious Plate Specialization – Increases Str by 5% while wearing only Plate.

I assume the bolded line above is for us. So, wear only leather armor (cloak excluded, of course) and you’ll get a free 5% intellect. Put on some cloth boots that might normally be BIS, and you’ll lose that freebie 5% intellect. This is to encourage people to gravitate towards their class-appropriate armor, but not lock you out of upgrades entirely.

So if a cloth item drops and it’s a big upgrade, you can still use it, but you’ll need to weigh up the loss of mana/regen/crit etc. Edit: forgot that in Cataclysm, Intellect also grants Spellpower, so unless it’s a *very* big upgrade, 5% int will probably win out, meaning you’ll usually be hurting yourself taking cloth.

Personally I don’t know why they don’t just give us each one type of armor, lock us out of the other types, and fix the available loot so that we don’t covet another class’ gear all the time. I’d *like* to only wear leather, and I don’t think we need incentive programs or punishments for deviating – get rid of the problem at its root and restrict us to one type each. Then there won’t be any crying over pallies taking cloth, or everything being hunter armor, or whether it’s fair for balance druids to compete for BIS cloth pieces. Restrict us to one class, but make sure there are fair amounts of drops (with desirable stats) for everyone.

My two cents!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees
• Slayer of Dragons



Q. Will druids finally get shapeshifting on a separate global cooldown like hunter aspects & warrior stances?
A. We have no plans to remove shapeshifting from the global cooldown. Shapeshifting can be used to escape Root and Polymorph mechanics, and so cannot have no global cooldown.

Q: Any plan to make “Crit Immunity” passive from choosing a tank tree instead of spending talents on it?
A. No, and you can blame the druids. We want a tanking specialization in Bear Form to feel different from a DPS specialization in Cat Form, otherwise it doesn’t feel fair to other classes when the Feral druid can do everything with the same talent specialization. We try to put crit immunity in talents you would normally take.

Q. Is Moonfire designed to be a damage-over-time spell with an instant cast nuke, or the other way around?
A. Both. We want the instant nuke to be more meaningful in Cataclysm, especially on the move.

Q. Can we expect more fun talents and maybe even shiny new abilities in further iterations of the new talent trees?
A. Yes, the current beta trees are still very much works in progress. As paladins in particular will see shortly, that ongoing work certainly can include fun talents and shiny new abilities.
Note: I put this in because I’m fairly certain it applies to us as well. Hopefully we’ll get shinies.

Q: What is the conversion rate for intellect to spell power for Cataclysm? Will it differ with each class?
A. Each point of intellect grants one point of spell power, excepting the first 10 points. This is vaguely similar to attack power, where each point of strength or agility gives two attack power, excepting the first 10 points. We realize this slightly reduces the spell power per budget on items, so we also increased the amount of spell power granted by caster weapons, and that increase entirely makes up for the deficit. Those weapons will continue to have spell power as well as intellect, and the amount of spell power will be significantly larger than in 3.3.5.

Q. Last time I checked the Feral druid tree, there were only 5 points in the first tier which means NO choices. Is that getting fixed?
A. Still working on early Feral.

Q: Cat and Bear builds are only off by about 3 talent points. Why not just consolidate fully at that point?
A. This is definitely one of our concerns. We don’t want a player to be able to have an optimal DPS specialization in Cat Form and be able to tank. We will definitely engineer the Feral tree such that being a viable tank, or even off-tank, will have some cost in terms of lost DPS while in Cat Form. The druid talent trees currently in beta are very rough and need more polish.

Q. What’s the deal with Typhoon? Is it going back into talents or will it be a standard druid spell?
A. Typhoon is now back in the tree. Sorry about that. : )

Q: Any word on that cosmetic Tree of Life Form glyph? Some players are sad to lose Tree of Life Form completely.
A. The only new glyph we are ready to announce right now is the Glyph of Divine Shield, which reduces the cast time of your Hearthstone whenever Divine Shield is active. ; )
Sigh, making light of something that concerns a lot of people, and that we’ve waited months to hear news about… poor form. Why not just say “not at this time”?

Q: Moonkin: What are your plans for Eclipse, and why does it infect so many of our talents? What are your plans to make Moonkin fun?
A. The model we are trying now lets Solar and Lunar Eclipse procs last for about 45 seconds, and each spell of the appropriate type that you cast moves the bar back closer to the middle again. The buff is canceled by reaching the middle. This should let Moonkin “hold” the buff for short periods of time when they need to move or get out of the fire.

Q. Why was the Feral druid’s mana reduction cost removed from King of the Jungle? And what happened to two combo points on critical strikes?
A. These are data errors that will be corrected. Neither is intended to be cut.

Q. Skull Bash has a 1-minute cooldown. Is it supposed to be that way, or can we expect it to be lowered to the likes of Shield Bash?
A. The base cooldown is 60 seconds to keep the ability from being used by Balance and Restoration druids to layer too much crowd control. A Feral tree talent reduces the cooldown to 10 seconds, putting it in line with Kick and other similar interrupt abilities.

Q. Druids were always a “jack of all trades, but master of none” and usually mocked when specializing. Will new talents change this?
A. In my own raids, I find druids of all 3 specializations that excel at their chosen specialization. So, I don’t understand your question.

Q. Druids now get Swiftmend at level 10 for being Restoration, but it is a talent in the tree. What is the plan there?
A. This was a data error and has been corrected.



These are just for fun.

Q: Are there any plans to add Ghostcrawler in-game as a critter or elite crab?
A. Ghostcrawler would be very emo were he to gaze down from his Throne of Lies and behold the mass crustacean slaughter that would result in having more manifestations of his persona in the game.

Q: What size shoes does Ghostcrawler wear?
A. I generally go barefoot on the yacht. Around on the office, I am often carried on gnome palanquin, so shoes are not required.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees

A summary of the changes to talent trees in Cataclysm:

1. Each tree/spec has been reduced to 31 point length. There are more than 31 points in each tree, but the last talent is the “31 point talent”, the one that requires you to spend 30 talents in the tree.
2. Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.
3. When you hit level 10, you will be asked to choose a spec. This will unlock a unique spell/ability and some passive bonuses, and will also lock you out of the other two trees, until level 70. After level 70 you can put points into the other trees.

Blizzard have mentioned that this is a “first pass” for all of the trees, and some clases, including druids, are not as far along in development – so expect changes. The work-in-progress talent tree is here if you want to play around. In the meantime though, here’s a quick idea of how things like for now:


What cool stuff do we get at level 10?

Balance: Starsurge + pushback reduction on balance spells
Feral: Mangle + ? + Vengeance (damage taken in bear converts to AP)
Resto: Swiftmend + pushback reduction on healing spells + Meditation


What’s our 31 point talent?

Balance: Starfall
Feral: Berserk
Resto: Tree of Life (duh!)


What’s changed, or new?

There’s nothing *new* in the tree (since the official preview) – the new talents are the same that they had already announced. So no new toys.

However, they’ve removed the “+X% spellpower” type filler talents, meaning that our trees are now all “meat” and no cheap fillers.

Nature’s Focus (pushback protection) is stitched in. Subtlety is gone. Good riddance, you point-leeches.

I believe we will be getting a talent point every second level or something like that – so at first glance, it seems like we’re getting all our talents super early – but I think they’ll be stretched out. Even so, great talents like Imp Rejuv, Living Seed, Nature’s Bounty – they’ve all been moved further up, which is nice. Strangely, Empowered Touch is quite far down – I would have thought we’d be given that earlier, for dungeon-ing.

The really nice toys are at the bottom – Efflorescence, Swiftmend, Emp Touch, Emp Rejuv, Wild Growth, and of course, Tree of Life.

In the balance tree, I’m sad to realise that Solar Beam is now out of reach for standard X-0-31 builds. Bum. I kinda liked that idea. Looks like Genesis and Moonglow are it.. still not sure what’s happening with Nature’s Grace. With only 10 points to spend, we can’t get any further down into the balance goodies.



Notable omissions/scratched talents

- Imp Tranquility
- Imp Barkskin
- Subtlety
- Naturalist (will the cast time of HT be reduced?)
- Omen of Clarity (to be trained)
- Improved Tree of Life (will the cooldown be reduced?)
- Master Shapeshifter (why bother with Natural Shapeshifter at all?)
- Gift of the Earthmother (boo, I was looking forward to the T8-style heal)
- Nature’s Splendor (from the balance tree) – will our HoTs be short now?



AMG IT’S BROKEN

Don’t stress, the trees aren’t broken, they’re just REALLY preliminary. Look at the resto tree – Master Shapeshifter is gone (since it was a flat buff to output), leaving only Natural Shapeshifter – but what do we trees care about saving a few hundred mana every 5 minutes? That means we have to waste 3 points to get to the next tier.

Bears, too, are forced to waste points in cat talents just to progress.

The balance and resto trees are both showing their Level 10 freebies as talents, so I’m not sure what the story is there. Update: Blizz have said they’re considering giving balance druids Moonkin at 10; Swiftmend is probably just a mistake, since the trees are so early in development.

I think what we have here is all of the talents that Blizzard wanted to keep, but thrown together in a hurry to release. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pushed it out ASAP in order to distract people away from the Real ID drama. So what we have is a super preliminary glance at what the trees MIGHT look like – but until they reshuffle, it’s hard to know what our specs will turn out to be. The scrapped talents might come back, the talents may be shuffled around, etc. We really know very little, so far.

My concern at the moment isn’t really the talents, but what is happening with TOL. So far, it’s a pretty mediocre ability – 45s on a 5min cooldown, to get a 15% buff, throw instant Regrowths (okay), double Lifeblooms (but we can only have them on a single person at a time, so that’s pretty crappy), 2 more WG targets, and we’re not sure about the rest. I’m not really sold at this point, because it’s basically a 15% healing buff with some weak bonuses sewn in. I want to know, at the very least, if they are going to let us shift in and out (to get to safety) without losing the rest of the buff.

I guess the only thing about the talents that worry me (at this early stage) is the fact that it looks like you can max out your tree easily, and there’s really no room for individuality or thoughtful decisions. I think the 31 point trees look to be moving us towards being even more “cookie cutter”, which is odd, because Blizzard made statements that they wanted our choices to be more meaningful. I wonder if anything will change in that respect.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Slayer of Dragons

http://greyshades.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/an-open-letter-to-blizzard/

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs

Blizzard has decided to scrap the current talent tree design. The original announcement is here, but here are the main points:

• The talent tree goals from Blizzcon 2009 were to remove the mandatory passive talents, and make talent choices more fun.
• After releasing the previews for druids, priests, shaman and rogues, and getting feedback, Blizzard realised that the new trees didn’t fit the design goals.
• In a future beta build, the talent trees will be overhauled dramatically.
• The goal is still to remove the “lame” talents, but Blizzard don’t think it’s possible with the size of the current trees.
• To resolve this, the trees will be reduced down to 31 points.
• This will reduce the number of total talent points and the speed at which they are awarded while levelling.
• Your rotations won’t change and you won’t lose any cool talents. What will change are all of the filler talents you had to pick up to get to the next fun talent, as well as most talents that required 5 of your hard-earned points.

Talent trees as you know them: GONE.

Here’s a summary of how it will work:

When players reach level 10, they are presented with basic information on the three specializations within their class and are asked to choose one. Then they spend their talent point. The other trees darken and are unavailable until 31 points are spent in the chosen tree. The character is awarded an active ability, and one or more passive bonuses unique to the tree they’ve chosen. As they gain levels, they’ll alternate between receiving a talent point and gaining new skills. They’ll have a 31-point tree to work down, with each talent being more integral and exciting than they have been in the past. Once they spend their 31’st point in the final talent (at level 70), the other trees open up and become available to allocate points into from then on. As characters move into the level 78+ areas in Cataclysm, they’ll begin seeing items with a new stat, Mastery. Once they learn the Mastery skill from their class trainer they’ll receive bonuses from the stat based on the tree they’ve specialized in.

My first thoughts were, “AMG, my precious talentz,” but if you read it all and take time to absorb it, it does make sense. This is the part that I particularly liked:

We want to focus the talent trees towards your chosen style of gameplay right away. That first point you spend in a tree should be very meaningful. If you choose Enhancement, we want you to feel like an Enhancement shaman right away, not thirty talent points later.

When talent trees are unlocked at level 10, you will be asked to choose your specialization (e.g. whether you want to be an Arms, Fury or Protection warrior) before spending that first point. Making this choice comes with certain benefits, including whatever passive bonuses you need to be effective in that role, and a signature ability that used to be buried deeper in the talent trees.

Basically, we’ll have access to some of our abilities earlier, rather than having to slog through lots of 3/3, 5/5 type talents to get down to what we want. For example, say it was Swiftmend (just an example). Imagine having Swiftmend as a baby druid. Or Starfall. Or Leader of the Pack. These are all just examples – we’ll have to wait for the trees – but you get the idea.

I’ve been levelling another druid lately (surprised, aren’t you?) and whining my way to 40 about how I need Innervate so badly. In Cataclysm it looks like Innervate will be learned at 28 – that makes me really happy. A tiny change like that will make a huge difference to uptime while questing.

So imagine having some of our “signature abilities” unlocked from level 10. Here are some examples that they gave:

For example, having Lava Lash and Dual-Wield right away lets an Enhancement shaman feel like an Enhancement shaman. Other role-defining examples of abilities players can now get for free at level 10 include Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, Mutilate, Shadow Step, Thunderstorm, Earth Shield, Water Elemental, and Penance.

There are level 40, 50, 60 talents and abilities in there.. that’s pretty exciting. We could see things like Nature’s Swiftness, Swiftmend, Wild Growth.. or even Tree of Life (which, with its damage buff component, would actually make sense, for levelling). All those times I’ve hit my WG button in lowbie dungeons.. maybe we’ll actually get it early, now.

Level 10 Boomkins, anyone?

I’m really excited to see more of this – levelling in this game is something that I love to do (hence the billion baby druids), and the possibility of having more of our cool abilities up front, as soon as we start doing dungeons and getting into the meat of levelling.. that would be really great.

And, the other thing that I like, is the fact that I never really enjoyed splitting talents between trees, in the early levels. Do I work down to Omen, or do I pick up my feral stuff first? Ugh.. decisions. This way – with linear trees to 70 – I don’t have to worry about that. Of course, the flip side to that is the concern that the linear trees will be too… linear – affording us little individuality and wiggle room for “fun”. For now though, I’m looking forward to seeing the new trees, and how it will affect us at early levels.

Hopefully the beta build won’t be too far away!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees


I don’t have a beta key (yet, I hope!), so I can’t experiment personally, but I’ve been digging around in Wowhead’s database to see if I can find some more information.

Unfortunately there’s still nothing on the buffed spell effects in the new Tree of Life form, but there are a few interesting tidbits. Here are a few I’ve found. Remember, though, that none of these are final, they could be incomplete or incorrect (and I could also be misinterpreting tooltips, missing something, etc). Remember also that the Wowhead database contains old abilities mixed with new, so sometimes it can be hard to work out what is correct. But – nonetheless – here are a few snippets to tantalise!


Cat form learned at level 10, bear form learned at level 15



The druid abilities section shows that cat form is now learned at level 10, along with Claw (Demo Roar is also in the list, but that is an example of an old ability in the new database).

Bear form is learned at 15, along with Maul and Growl. Dire Bear Form doesn’t seem to exist anymore, but shows up on bear form ability tooltips. Hey, it was never very “dire” anyway, so if it’s gone, no biggie – just means adjusting the numbers at later levels of bear. Beta testers will be able to confirm.. but it’s not exactly ultra-important.

Cat at 10 will mean faster levelling, rather than enduring the 5-year swing timer on Maul. Not that this will be a problem anymore anyway, since Blizzard is doing away with “on next attack” mechanics like Maul and Heroic Strike. So that might make bear-ing a little less painful when all you have is Maul.


Insect Swarm trained at 20

It looks as though Insect Swarm is a trained ability, picked up at 20. This was guessed by a lot of people when IS disappeared from the talent trees.


Remove Corruption

Remove Corruption is trained at 24 – removing 1 magic effect, 1 curse, and $3 poison. Not sure what the $3 will end up being.


Innervate at 28, based on the caster’s max mana pool

Holy moly, Innervate trained 12 levels early!

It’s also going to be based on the caster’s max mana pool, not a percentage of base mana. So it will still give the same amount whether you use it on yourself, a hunter, a mage, or a paladin – but I assume the “max mana pool” allows it to scale according to level and gear, rather than just by your base mana at level X.


Lifebloom: one target only

As predicted by some, Lifebloom appears to be limited to a single target only. I assume this means LB will drop off your first target if you put it on someone else. This nudges it squarely into “main tank healing only” territory; it has never been as effective as a raid healing tool as it was in TBC, but this change will make it even rarer to “toss the odd lifebloom”. I personally don’t use LB much for raid healing, but I know some who do. And obviously this means you can’t slow stack LBs on two targets at a time – another fairly rare practice these days, but still handy.


Efflorescence numbers

Efflorescence, the “stand in my HoTs puddle” spell that you get after critting with a Regrowth, is worded: “When you critically heal with your Regrowth spell you also sprout a bed of healing flora underneath the target, healing all nearby friendly targets within 15 yards who stand on them for 10% of the amount healed by your Regrowth every sec for 7 sec.”

I am going to take this to mean that if you crit for 10,000, each person standing on your prize petunias will be healed for 1,000hp/sec for 7 seconds.


Master Shapeshifter DOES buff your caster form

Master Shapeshifter buffs caster form as well as Tree of Life, by 4%. This was a bit unclear to many people because some sites showed the “caster form” wording, and others didn’t.


Swiftmend heals for a static amount

Swiftmend will no longer heal for X seconds of Rejuv or Y seconds of Regrowth. Instead, it will heal for “5229″ (subject to change!), unbuffed/talented, regardless of whether you are consuming a Rejuv or Regrowth. This means that you’ll never have to try to Swiftmend a Rejuv for a larger Swiftmend than a Regrowth Swiftmend.


That’s all for now!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees

*hyperventilates*

F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5

WHY ISN’T MY INVITE HERE YET

*languishes*

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees

When I posted on this subject last April one of the common responses I got was “I enjoy 10mans more but I raid 25s for the better gear.” I find that statement to be nonsensical. Does this person truly prefer 10mans over 25mans? In my opinion they do not, and their actions prove it.

While this person may prefer the 10man size over the 25man size, their actions prove that they value the 25man gear more then they value the 10man size. So they are not being forced to participate in an activity that they don’t enjoy. If that was the case they would stop.


My rebuttal: It’s perfectly acceptable for someone to make that statement – that they prefer 10s but still do 25s for the gear. This is not nonsensical at all. What is nonsensical, or perhaps just extremely naïve, is the statement that if they don’t enjoy a particular raid, they would stop. History shows us that this is simply not how the game works (and this is what Blizzard is trying to fix).


Why I prefer 10s, but keep doing 25s

So why the heck do I do 25s, if I prefer 10s?

A few reasons. First and foremost, I love my guild, I love raiding with my guild, and they raid 25mans. They do 10s on the side, of course, but these are often late at night, or full, so 10man raiding is sporadic. I want to raid with them, so I raid 25s. I could leave and find a cozy little 10 man guild, but my buddies wouldn’t be in it, so I don’t want to.

Second, to kill dragons. Until a while ago, I was still very competitive and wanted to “win” on the realm progression ladder. Not so much, these days. And, once, I was hung up on the fact that 25man raiding was “real” raiding (unfortunately – this is not a jab at 10man raiders), and I didn’t want to settle for anything less than the pointy edge of the game. More and more, though, I wish I could just raid 10s for fun rather than 25s for progression.

Third, to improve my character. Inexorable was a 10man guild through TOC, and I really enjoyed it. But wearing 10man gear felt unfinished; it’s like still having a Heroism badge item in your gear, or an ilvl 200 crafted epic; it might do the job OK, but you won’t be happy until you replace it with something that is better.

Now, some (many) people improve their gear so that they can show it off on the bank steps, or compare themselves with others, compete on the Gearscore ladders, on the wow logs rankings, or to see if they can get a new crit Eviscerate record. I don’t. I improve my gear because I enjoy working towards the next step – whatever that is. If my boots are a tier under what’s available, then I want to upgrade them. If I’ve been stuck with the same offhand since Naxx, I want to upgrade it – not so I can kick ass on the meters or put my spellpower over 9000 – but because it’s the next thing on my list to “fix”. I won’t be happy until I’m wearing BiS gear, not because I want to be uber, but because I enjoy that process of continuous improvement – it’s what keeps me playing.

Obviously, increased numbers come with upgrades, so without trying, I am improving my numbers, getting bigger crits, pulling higher figures on the meters. But I don’t strive for gear for those purposes.

For many people, this is difficult or even impossible to understand. I’m sure some will think I’m flat out lying when I say I don’t do it for the numbers.

They believe that 10man raiders go do 25man raids because they want bigger numbers, or to epeen in higher levels of gear. Some do. I do not.


Stopping short of the finish line

Wearing 10 man gear when there is better equipment available made me feel like I was stopping short of the mark. It made me anxious. Better gear was out there – I could theoretically keep improving my character – but not in the 10man raids. I didn’t NEED the gear in order to continue running our 10man raids; I wanted it because I am not satisfied with “BiS (out of what is available in 10mans)”.

For 10man strict raiders, that list IS their BiS list. They’re not settling for second best – that is their BiS shopping list. They have a finite list of items to work towards, from the same content they are running as normal.

But non-strict 10man raiders are kinda stuck in limbo.. they could write down a BiS-from-10s list, but those “real” BiS items are still out there, available through PuGs or GKP runs.


I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t be able to relate to this feeling, and would simply put it down to me wanting moar epix. But it’s not that. The idea of spending ages working on your character but still never quite being able to finish it off properly – well, to quote one of Graylo’s commenters, it just sucks.

As another commenter said – “When 25s have better gear, people feel obliged to raid 25s to get it, as “sticking to 10s” feels like an arbitrary stopping point.” I couldn’t have said it any better – arbitrary is exactly it. It feels like you’ve stopped short, stalled.


Nobody is forcing you to do something you dislike

Nobody is actually obliged to do raids that they don’t want to do. Gray’s argument is, “if you don’t like X, don’t do it” – ie, if you prefer 10s and don’t like 25s, stop doing 25s, silly. It’s logical. And it’s what many people want, too – we don’t want to grind instances because we feel obliged to.

But historically, that’s just not how it works. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn’t. At least not so far.

Look at TOC. Think about the thousands of people who ran four lockouts of TOC every week (more, if they did alt runs), loathing it, burning out on it, despising it. Wanting to punch Jaraxxus in his demonic happy place for never giving up the damn Solace. But they kept doing it, even when there was no challenge left, no more achievements, just a grind. Why? Why keep doing something that you hate so much? Gear, obviously.

At this point it probably sounds like I’m looping back and contradicting myself, agreeing with Graylo that gear is more important than my personal preference to run 10s. My point is basically that Gray (as I interpret it) is saying that my lust for epics keeps me going back to 25s, and if I truly disliked them, I would stop – but I don’t, because I want shinies (or numbers). This is an easy conclusion to make, because many people DO lust for epics and continue to run content solely for this reason.

But I can put my hand on my heart and say I prefer 10s but still want to do 25s because I’m not satisfied wearing second-place equipment. Not because I *need* better equipment to do my 10s, but because I will never be happy with gear that is simply adequate. My character can’t be “finished” if I settle for 10 man gear.

If a player chooses the 25man format for 13 extra itemization points then it is obvious that the raid size really isn’t that big of a deal.

If they still felt the need to do 25s for the improved gear then it is obvious that the raid size is really not that important to them.


The above statements tell me that Graylo doesn’t understand the mindset of many 10man raiders. Those 13 extra itemization points are not just about being uber, or doing more DPS, or looking cool. Those few points represent the final little step to finish off my character, to put the cherry on top of all my hard work. Not being able to reach that is incredibly frustrating, and in a game where personal progression plays a major part in most people’s gameplay, why wouldn’t it be? Why wouldn’t I feel short changed, settling for 10man gear when there’s 25man gear out there – regardless of whether I “need” it to play, or not? (again, stricters excepted!)


Analogylol

I have a lot of trouble playing alts that aren’t going to “go anywhere” in terms of end game. I can level an alchemy mule, I can level a herbalist/miner, because they will have a purpose. But I can’t level a character if I know I won’t play it at max level. I have to have a reason to continue to improve it, otherwise it’s just pointless busywork. I find myself dropping alts around 50-60 because I realise there’s no point in continuing to level them.

On the other hand, I consider my main, Keeva, to always be in a state of “not quite finished”, and I’m always keen to find the next piece of the puzzle to make her better. It’s what keeps me coming back – the next little goal on the list. And because I know she has a purpose, so far as end game is concerned, then I am happy to put in those hours to keep improving her.

Settling for 10man gear when I know there’s 25man gear out there – it’s like spending hours and hours on a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, but before you get started, you already know that there are 5 pieces missing because your cat took them behind the fridge.

You can see them there, slightly out of reach. You could get them back, I guess, but it would mean moving the fridge, which is something that isn’t terribly easy, and you don’t want to do it.

But if you don’t go do it somehow, you’ll have to settle for a mostly-finished jigsaw puzzle with someone’s left leg missing. Is that good enough?

Are you happy to settle for a jigsaw puzzle is “pretty much” finished? Does it worry you that those pieces are still stuck behind the fridge, or do you consider the puzzle “done”?


Cataclysm: No more stopping short (gear wise)

Blizzard has recognised that people want to do a particular type of raid, but still feel obliged to do the other, in many cases. Graylo’s idea of having two completely different paths of progession, 10 and 25, and making people choose, is nice, but Blizzard knows it won’t work:

We sort of tried that, Gray, and they all chose 25 (meanwhile telling us that they wanted to play 10 but felt stupid for doing so since they were missing out on gear).


Exactly – we can do 10s, enjoy them, feel like we’re progressing and doing well, but there’s always that nagging feeling that we’re missing out on gear that is sitting right there in front of us. We still love 10s, but we feel obliged to reach out and grab the 25 gear if we possibly can. That doesn’t mean we’re lying to ourselves about what we want, or cheating, or being dumb for raiding something that we don’t really want to do. It just means we want to keep moving forward. This isn’t nonsensical, it’s the nature of the game – to continue to improve ourselves.

But in Cataclysm, raid lockouts will mean that 10 man raiders won’t be left feeling like their finish line is 30 yards back from the “real” one. While I have concerns about making 10 and 25man lockouts exclusive, that’s a post for another day. Gear wise, the fact that shared lockouts will never make me choose between sticking with Tier XYZ gear or pushing myself into 25s to get Tier XYZ.5 gear – that makes me very happy. I don’t really care if 25man raiders get more badges than me – I can get the same over time – but having access to the same gear drops out of the raid format that I prefer – I’m quite thrilled about that.

I will never again have to decide between my preferred raid size or being able to “finish” Keeva – something that many 10man raiders have had to do in the past – it’s BiS gear OR your favourite raid size, not both (25man raiders on the other hand don’t ever have to make that choice, they get access to their BiS by default).

Now I’ll be able to do both – raid 10s with close friends, while never feeling like I’m “settling” for runner-up equipment.


You guys can crawl around with the dust bunnies behind the fridge, I’m doing 10s in Cataclysm!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees


Recap: before, we had no real reason to use our shifts during most fights. Blizzard stepped in to encourage us to shift more – because that’s what druids do. Cool. So, in Cataclysm, this means we’ll shift once (maybe twice) per fight – but once you’ve done that, you’ll do everything you can to AVOID shifting (or you pay a price).

What is this, I don’t even..

Gimme your hand again, I want to re-stamp it.

(FAIL FAIL FAIL.)


Make it an aura.

Please change it to an aura, Blizzard. The same way you changed Dash so that if we popped into humanoid form, we’d still have Dash if we popped back into Cat form (during the buff).

Change TOL to be a 45s aura that only buffs us while in TOL form. If we have to drop to cat form to sprint, or bear form to take a hit, or travel form to drop a snare – let us do it – but then when we go back into TOL form 10 seconds later, we can catch the end of our TOL buff, so that it’s not completely wasted.

I don’t mind losing part of my buff in order to run (just as any healer would have to stop healing in order to run away). Giving up part of my cooldown for survivability is the same as anyone in the raid – like popping Bloodlust and then having to run from Swarming Shadows. It’s annoying, but you don’t waste the entire thing. Please make it so that the TOL cooldown is like Dash, so that if we shift out and back again (during the 45 seconds), we can get the buff back for the remaining time. In this way, we lose part of our buff, but we don’t forfeit it. I don’t think this is an unreasonable request.

I can deal with my form being put on a cooldown. Honestly, I don’t mind the snare itself. I can handle that – even a horrible 50% – I’ll deal with it. I don’t mind being forced to choose when a buff will be a help or a hinderance, because we’re about to hit the phase of the fight where there are defiles or fire walls. That’s fine. I quite like having to decide when to use each of my forms – as we all should!

I get that you want TOL to be situational, so that we don’t just pop it every the cooldown is up. And that’s good, because I really don’t want another “On Use” trinket ability that I have to weave into my rotation to maximise my HPS. I want there to be an element of decisionmaking there. I agree that it should have some kind of drawback or risk attached, so that it’s not just being used on every cooldown, like a static healing buff. Making the cooldown shorter will make it into more of a “pop whenever it’s up” deal, meh. I’d rather stick with the heavy decisionmaking process, but not forfeit my buff if I do what I’m designed to do – shift!


In conclusion

With all due respect, devs – the statement, “if you waste it, you waste it” is a great big steaming pile of you-know-what.



Figure 1: A visual aid!
(I love WoW Model Viewer.)



TLDR: Let’s hope the “it may not stick” comment comes true. A 50% snare is hideous; a 50% snare that forces us to drop our deep resto cooldown to survive commonplace RNG is just plain terrible.

Premature screeching? Overreaction? Maybe. No doubt people will say “wait for more details” or “we don’t know what the fights will be like.” That’s fair. I still think it’s harsh, though. But I’m not saying “scrap it” – just reconsider the fact that it makes us forfeit our buff if we do what we’re built to do – shift in and out. Please!

Sincerely (no, really)
Keeva


PS: “The other consideration is that we plan on getting a new model that looks more like an ancient and less like a treant, so moving slower might fit.” – this is a direct quote from GC). Refer Figure 1 – since when does size govern movement speed? My multi-passenger mammoth mount prances like a ballerina when I jump, and I’m fairly certain that gnomes don’t run at 500% speed by default. I don’t think the WoW universe subscribes to the usual laws of physics, aerodynamics and whatnot.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees