What buff to Swiftmend on Regrowth?

Used to consume 15 sec instead of 18 sec.

I don't see how swiftmend was buffed, in fact it looks as if they've doubled its mana cost.

Don't forget that Lifebloom will also be usable in Tree of Life form.

It'd be nice to know how +healing effects are divided between the HoT and Direct Heal portions of Lifebloom before passing further judgement on it, though. At first glance it seems to be primarily a pvp spell -- in a raid environment the majority of the heal could go wasted much of the time.

This kinda bugged me, but why did they feel a need to change Omen of Clarity from a passive chance to a self-cast buff?

OoC has always been a self-cast buff. It used to last only five minutes, too, but they changed it to 10 in a recent patch.

I'd actually want them to remove the snare on tree form first. Think about how mobile many fights are in naxx, then think about how happy you'd be to have the slow bus in your raid. Alternatively make the aura apply while I'm dead, and code in a nifty "tree on fire" graphic for when I die to AE effect 1001. I'll be sure to exercise my cunning and die stylishly. (No, I'm not a fan of the priest SOR aka "Improved Dying" either) I'd also like insect swarm to have it's duration increased to a minute (with a coresponding damage and mana cost increase) because I find it to be pretty flaky as a resto talent atm. Giving up 5 cooldowns per minute is irritating. Lastly, I'd prefer to have the Natural perfection talent changed to mimic spell warding - pick something (ranged/mellee/spell) that feels like the right type of damage, and give us a static reduction in damage taken by that type. It's high enough in the resto tree that no bears are getting it, so having it be criticals is dissapointing. I'd rather have guaranteed mitigation of all aoe at a reduced amount than situational mitigation of crits at an increased amount. Maybe it's intended as a pvp talent. I can't really evaluate it there because so much of pvp on a druid is staying mobile.

Assuming balance had the bugfixes re-moonfury, & NGrace+Wrath vs global cooldown it's workable. I'd be very happy for them to give up on the "Hit things with your end of dreams while chicken formed, but maybe they'll realize we're not shamans in a patch and rework OOC/Chicken Mana Bonus. Hope springs, nay leaps, eternal I suppose. Treants need to scale with gear for me to spend points on them, and they'd better kick ass if they want my talent point over NS or feral FF. I'm actually kind of sad that the damage tree grabbed pets. I'd much rather have a posse of grinding thugs when healbot specced (Something to heal! Hurray!) than when dps specced (Stuff I can pull argo off of, meh!) I think blizzard really missed a chance here to help out the healing specs by putting pets into those trees. Speccing healing looks really silly when you go solo and there's nothing to heal.

That leaves the elephant in the room: Feral. I wonder when blizz is going to realize that the balance/resto druid should be class A and the Cat/Bear druid should be class B? At this point it would almost be easier to split the class in two and buff accordingly than to try and resolve the "STR/AGI/Hit/Crit!" "No! +Dmg/Heal/Int/Spi!" Dillemmas. Regardless, the feral talents (as usual) are fine, it's itemization and core abilities (parry? Procs?) that are going to be the difficulties for bear/cat. Nurturing instinct is awful, but hey we all get to have bad talents. Nurturing instinct doesn't feel worthwhile at all, and I can't imagine speccing into it. I'd be much more interested in "First spell after coming out of forms is instant" than "First spell after coming out of forms gets +heal". Because that's more relevant to that playstyle. I'd also probably move some stuff around, it's irritating that climbing the "obvious" paths to 41 points usually end you up with 42+ points in feral, or a bunch of 3/5 type selections. I'm certainly not convinced that itemization budgets support the "dance into and out of forms as you like" theory in TBC either. Lastly, having predatory strikes apply to moonkin is cute, but without most of the other talents in that tree applying to moonkin as well, there's very little reason tp spec bal/feral (as usual, they fight like, well, cats and chickens.)

Overall some interesting ideas. Of course the druid has never been short of interesting ideas, we've been short a designer who could mold them into a cohesive whole. Still no sign of him, but at least we get to be flaming dead totems!

What about Lifebloom? Anyone understand the wording. I assume each druid will get a buff on the target for it and that will stack. Not 3 stacks by any druid. Would it work like:

Cast Initial

get 234 healing from 6 seconds, second cast

get 468 healing for 6 seconds, third cast

get 819 healing after 7 seconds, then 1800 when it expires?


234 + 468 + 819 + 1800 = 3321 healing for 660 mana with no +healing. 5:1 ratio.


Sorry for the noobish question, but "Claw" on the MT?

...

Yeah, I have no idea what's wrong with me. Massive mental lapse. Ignore me.

I recalled swiftmend doing only 15 sec of regrowth, I must have been mistaken.

The mana costs as the level 70 versions, so it is cheaper to cast at 60.

See I went the opposite with my thoughts - It would be very irritating to blow up the raid while injected because you run too slow, and burning 800+ mana every time I need to adjust doesn't seem too hot.

I definitely _like_ the talent idea, I just think the snare + no casting HT is an odd choice. The snare makes you want to stand still, but casting rejuv/regrowth/lifebloom/swiftmend urge mobility. I'd rather they remove the snare, because I find the highly mobile hot + swift healing to be a more enjoyable playstyle.

We'll see how it developes.

Based on Regrowth operation (Split total +healing up according to the fraction of overall Regrowth healing done by lump and HoT components, then scale the lump by casting time (2.0/3.5 sec) and the HoT by HoT +healing rules (21/15 sec), I would expect the following behavior:

1. Split total +healing up by fraction of healing done. HoT gets 31% of your +healing, lump gets the remaining 69%.

2. Scale the HoT by HoT rules. 7/15 sec = 47%. 0.47 x 0.31 = 0.15, you're going to get 15% of your +healing on the HoT.

3. Scale the lump by casting time rules. Lifebloom is instant cast and you get 43% (IIRC) of your +healing on instant cast spells. 0.69 x 0.43 = 0.30, you're going to get 30% of your +healing on the lump.

FWIW the Lifebloom screenshot has a druid in full Dreamwalker with zero weaponry getting a lump of 828 for +228 healing. +228 healing on the lump is +760 total healing, does this sound right for full Dreamwalker without any other kind of gear on?

I'm not positive either on which way it will go -- The change to Heal-over-Time stacking would indicate three stacks from one Druid would be the case, but we won't know for sure until someone goes in and tests it.

The main thing I'm worried about is yes, although a 5:1 ratio is pretty nice, especially before +healing is accounted for, how do you make sure you minimize the amount of the effect you lose due to the end-heal going off when the recipient is near 100% health? The best thing I can think of right now would be for fights that have timed damage abilities, similar to shadow flame, where you could apply the Lifebloom ~6 seconds before Shadow Flame goes off and have it heal right after the damage spike. Either that or there will be bosses that periodically dispel a la Garr and you can time the dispel to proc the healing from Lifebloom.

I like that idea. A healing timebomb. Sounds like fun. I think Resto druids are going to have alot of issues with heals being wasted with all the HoTs flying around.

No, no, no. I didn't say I'd use the ability on Grob. I was using the Grob fight as an example that regrowth chain-casting was possible with our current gear and mana pool. There are plenty of occasions though when treeform snare wouldn't hinder you right now - Patchwerk, Noth, Maexxna, Fankriss, etc. And obviously, there will be several more in TBC.

I wish we could get the threat numbers of Lacerate. If it's a set number like sunder I'm okay with it. If it's a multiplier like the other druid abilities I may end up being happy in the pants. Now druids have a high threat attack not linked to maul like warriors. With Survival of the Fittest and gems to customize gear for tanking, I think we can say we have honest competition for an MT spot. We still can't compete on magic midigation, but now I might honestly have a shot at tanking a non-farm status boss for once.

Bear tank talent spec that I just threw together,
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000

So much fun to contemplate

I must say these changes sure are making me think how to spec unlike currently where I saw a certain build I liked and just went for it. I'm trying to get a balance/resto combination going on but I just can't seem to get it right. Currently I'm just seeing Tree Form as weak thou I guess I would have to see it in action in TBC, with stacking hots it might just make this form nice to play.

Also a quick note if noone has said it, Subtlety along with the threat reduction also adds in the factor of 'reducing the chance of a healing spell to be dispelled' by 6% per rank.

Noth would cause issues due to losing the ability to Remove Curse. I wonder if the Abolish Poison ability would count as a HoT.

The issue with treeform is that it's so specialized, much like the Priest's AE renew. When it works, it's working great and could arguably be overpowered. When it doesn't work, the druid is wondering what they spent their 41 point talent on. Probably have to shift out to Innervate as well. If it eliminated certain spells and allowed a list of raiding specialized stuff and removed the snare, it would be a lot more fun. It just feels off compared to other 41 point talents, being so raid-centralized and specialized. Most of the other 41 point talents I can see a player using while soling, small-scale PvP, or 5-manning, in addition to using them in raids. Treeform I see as being only used in raids, and only on fights where mobility isn't an issue.

Of those four fights, maexxna requires a dedicated abolisher(and backup in case he gets webbed) and patchwerk requires burst healing inaccessible to hot spells. So while the snare aspect may not be be a disadvantage for every fight, the ability-snare is still there. Why make a 41 pt talent which throws out half the points you've spent in the tree to improve your healing touch?

Right, you will not be able to cast remove poison/curse (which will certainly be needed in some dungeons).

It is a special form, that seems great for raiding and mobility isn't as big an issue as you think, since you can move and heal at the same time. If you really love HoTs, it is the form to take.

Also, you can use Innervate while in tree form.

Well, you can easily put 41 talents in the Resto tree without getting a single buff to Healing touch at all (just have to get the -aggro talent and the Rage talent).

I think Improved Leader of the Pack will actually be a very nice talent. We know that health and armor are going to increase dramatically with the expansion (from Drysc and item screenshots). We know that every class is getting some sort of damage mitigation talent (be it less crits, chance to evade AOE attacks, priest shield wall, etc). I think it's safe to assume that Blizzard is aiming for fights, both PvE and PvP, that are less frenetic one-hit-kill fests and more of a slow strategic fight.

Think of it this way: every physical DPS class grouped with a feral druid is going to heal roughly 20% of their total health (which for Warriors and Hunters will likely be over 10k at level 70 with end game epics, if not more) every minute passively. PASSIVELY, with no one having to cast any spells or use any bandaids or even change their target.

That seems like pure gold to me.