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help in what elustriel? pve? not really. pretty much anything that needs to be cycloned at 30 yards in pve can be cycloned at 20 yards.

pvp? well, maybe. but we have to ask ourselves; is having three viable pvp specs of druid really that important? there are some classes who have one (1) viable spec for pvp, while most sit at two. more than that, druids get the benefit of having a tanking and dps tree rolled into one that also happens to be a decent pvp tree in its own right (ive seen ferals at the 2k+ rating in 5's).

the way i see it, and i stress that this is my opnion, is that other classes with more restrictive pvp spec viability should be worked on first. druids are, as of now, a pretty complete class. we successfully fill roles in pvp AND pve with a variety of specs, with the only place of "suffering" so to speak being at the high-rated arena level. the fact remains that a good group of players with a good druid could easily take said druid as any spec to the 1700 level, which is much higher than any group would be able to take a prot war, prot pally, survival hunter or destro lock.

then theres also the larger issue of balancing in general. how would you go about improving balance as a pvp tree without, pardon the pun, unbalancing things? ultimately you have to realize that even as a 61-pt balance spec a druid can still heal better than 5/8 of the remaining classes, not to mention provide significant CC on all classes during key moments, and some of the best anti-melee CC in the game on demand.

cause ill tell ya, ive thought about this a lot, and i cant come up with anything that will help balance without helping it too much. thankfully, thats not my job; its just a hobby. i dont envy the devs at blizzard, but at the same time i dont think theyre really worrying about it too much. its a lower priority problem when placed in the context of overall spec usage based on each class.

harsh? yeah, but when you really sit down and thing about it, balance druids really could have it a lot worse.

Hi krq! Remember me? It's time to make you cry and stop posting for about a few months again.



Inner Fire; it's undispelable!



Quick summary; if I'm alone, having isolated myself from my partner (who won't help me anyway, because he's a meanie), all of my easy defensive CC is resisted (including Nature's Grasp, Bash, and Warstomp if you're a Tauren) and he catches my Cyclone/Root in a Pummel... then and [/b]only then[/b] will I be in even the slightest danger of dying, although since I can just spam Travel Form away and his Intercept is down it's not much of a chance.

Good story.



That's a joke, right?

Druids got a nerf to one healing spell, combined with a buff to a different one. They got a bit of run speed removed off Travel Form and the range of one CC lowered slightly.

Priests got their primary support spell nerfed by 25%.

I mean, playing the victim is always amusing but you do have to recognize that there's limits. You're like the guy who got mugged complaining that the girl who got raped isn't being sympathetic enough to you.

Edited, Mar 24th 2008 11:25am by RPZip

Yes, but you were just talking about a Warrior attacking you. Disc/War isn't exactly the most common combo, but the point I was making is that Priests are vulnerable in different ways. Yeah, they have as much armor (or more!) than a Druid in caster form, but they also can't go into an animal form to escape mana drains or have that armor removed via Purge.

That works both ways, incidentally, but a straight comparison along the armor lines while ignoring other factors is just moronic.



Yes, I know that. The point was that the objections you raised were moronic, along the order of "but Cyclone isn't very good - people can resist it!"



If you cannot get away from a Warrior who is spamstringing, there is something truly wrong with you. Even ignoring the bit where Spamstring precludes, you know, that "Mortal Strike" thing with the changes to forms you can very, very easily get away if you're even halfway competent. And again, this is assuming that none of the other CC effects (Bash, Nature's Grasp, Warstomp->Cyclone, Cyclone, Entangling Roots, Feral Charge) work... and there's plenty of them.



Oh, snap! You got me! You got me good. You've insulted me and everything I stand for, and now I am defeated!

Deeeeffffeeeeaaattteeeeeeed!

Anyway... really, you don't drop competent Druids with anything even approaching reasonable speed. There is just too much CC even assuming the Druid is isolated, and while you can bring your partner in to help that also gives your partner the ability to disrupt my damage.



Not anymore, which was kind of the point. Back to the ranting and raving.



Yeah... and, honestly, who cares? Druids are far from the only class to only have one really viable Arena spec, and it's not like they were any good now; indirectly making them worse is a minor concern at best.



You're right, of course; removing 1/3rd of the range on one CC, thus making it comparable to the equivalents (hi, Fear!) and leaving the 30 yard range on your other primary CC is directly equivalent to lowering your damage by 1/3rd.



And again, you're either playing incorrectly or you're greatly overestimating the effectiveness of Spamstring/Shiv. It helps, to be sure, but by no means will it keep a Druid close to you for more than a few seconds at best unless you get a lucky stun off. This is true even on the PTR/TTR, where I've been spending some time playing. Try again?



Was there any actual doubt, or are you just a moron? Yes, it's their primary support spell, especially in smaller arenas. That's not to say that they don't have other support spells (Mass Dispel, mostly, although PS also comes in) but Mana Burn is definitely #1. lolwut?



I think this was trying to be insulting, but it just came off as rambling. Try again?

I love how he's QQing about how natural perfection got nerfed by 1%. Locks on the other hand originally got like what, 2% or so nerf PER RANK of imp shadow bolt? But no, this 1% loss of damage reduction deserves the QQ frenzy because druids should only be buffed and never nerfed!
Let's nerf warriors instead. If warriors are less powerful more druids will be asked to tank! So let's lower the armor on plate gear by 20%! Then we can give druids the ability to cast a hurricane while in bear form that will follow us around for 10 seconds like back in diablo 2, so we can have threat generation capabilities similar to that of a paladin! And hey, we need to be the most superior healers, so let us use healing touch in tree form! After that, why not make tree of life form also increase our bonus healing and mana regeneration by an additional 10%, and remove that pesky run speed debuff. While we're at it, let's make natural perfection a 5-point talent that goes up to 20% damage reduction!

Or we could accept that maybe druids aren't getting hit as bad as other classes, look at their forums and see if maybe you really deserve to QQ.

Edited, Mar 24th 2008 11:17am by skribs

thank you skribs.

this is essentially the core of it. druids are now a very strong class. we are nothing like we were back in the beginning of vanilla retail. we're actually pretty close to being balanced all things considered. as close as anything really gets in an ever-changing game.