Mists of Pandaria: All Specs

♦ Carebare · 10/26/11, 5:31 PM

Please use this thread to discuss Druids in the Mists of Pandaria expansion. Avoid excessive wish-listing and whining. Constructive criticism is fine. Make sure you are making a useful post. "I like X" is not useful. "I like X because it allows this or that" is useful. Common sense applies, if you're not sure feel free to PM a moderator or administrator. Thanks.

Nihlo · 10/27/11, 9:40 AM

I collected the Druid-information I found so far. Maybe to edit the first post or to delete it.

General:
There won't be Pandarian-Druids.
Relics are gone.
Druids now have four specs: Feral -> cat DPS. Guardian -> bear tank. There are some overlap between the two and all druids can still go cat or bear form.

Moonkins:
In 5.0, Hurricane will have a new arcane version.

Bears:
Bears are losing their strong cat DPS.
Demoralizing Roar will be removed.
Active tanking should be like Death Knights: focus talent trees on staying alive, rather than threat.

Cats:
No plans for druids to equip two fist weapons for DPS.
Cats twill not have frenzied regeneration.

Trees:
Resto druids have decent single target healing, but mindless AoE healing. A new type of wild mushroom could be introduced that makes people heal when it explodes.

MoP Druid Talent-Calculator

Vaccine · 10/28/11, 4:04 AM

Q: What will happen to passive abilities like trueshot aura, arcane tactics, improved icy talons and unleashed rage? Where will they go in the new talent system?
A: Many of those become passive abilities you get for your spec. We are removing some of the less interesting buffs and debuffs (+bleed damage, armor, 3% damage, resists are all on the chopping block at the moment).

Interesting snippet from the GC Q+A last night, Mangle debuff on the chopping block for removal. I wonder where that leaves Cat Mangle in regards to the Feral Cat priority list. It may just be a filler move when you can't Shred now and completely absent from normal cat rotation, which is rather odd. They also had a question they answered saying they're pretty happy to have seperate effects in PVE to PVP for abilities which is kind of rubbing it in a bit with their constant reluctance to remove the Shred positional requirement, at least in PVE.

Ultis · 11/09/11, 6:21 PM

I guess it will be reported on several sites, but it currently hasn't been on MMO-Champion at least, so here are the most relevant quotes from the 9 Nov 2011 Class Q&A regarding druids.

I only added those bits that contain new information and don't repeat information included in the talent preview.

Feral

Feral druids (but not Guardian druids - the new bear spec) learn Infected Wounds [as a spec ability].

in 5.0 Mangle will no longer cause a bleed damage debuff and so no longer be required in the rotation. At that point, the two abilities will be interchangeable, changing only by whether a Feral Druid can attack from behind or not

Our own internal numbers show that once the Glyph of Shred works from Mangle as well as Shred, the difference between a Mangle and a Shred rotation is actually fairly small (in the 5% range).

Resto

Our current plan for Mists is for Intellect to no longer directly increase the size of player mana pools. We intend for our mana-based DPS and Tank classes to be entirely self-reliant regardless of mana pool, so the gameplay impact for those players will be nil. For healers, Spirit will remain as the pure regen stat, and healers after multiple tiers of raid progression will clearly have far more mana at their disposal, but there will be more of an inherent tradeoff between regen and throughput stats. A healer with amazing regen will have amazing regen because of a choice to focus their stats in that direction.

One of the new abilities Resto Druids will get baseline is a replacement for Barkskin that can be cast on others with the same effect and cooldown

Cross-spec

we have a new level 87 ability abiltiy in mind for all Druids called Symbiosis that will blwo your mind and potentially add a lot of flexibility and utility, including survivabiltiy options.

Ferals and Guardians will have Nurturing Instinct, which increases spell power based on Agility, and Balance and Restoration will have Killer Instinct, which increases attack power based on Intellect.

nephyron · 11/17/11, 6:06 AM

Balance
The new talent "Incarnation" will transform a moonkin into "the Chosen of Elune form" increasing damage done and energy generated.

Restoration
Wild Mushrooms will heal friendly targets on detonate

WildGarden · 11/17/11, 7:04 AM

Originally Posted by nephyron

Restoration
Wild Mushrooms will heal friendly targets on detonate

Go you have a source for that? The Open Q&A from BlizzCon includes mention of one planned ability "like the wild mushroom to detonate to heal people", but that may either replace or be in addition to the Wild Mushroom spell.

spiritryu · 11/23/11, 1:19 AM

From the MoP Talent Calculator on: Talent Calculator - Game - World of Warcraft!

Symbiosis
Creates a symbiotic link which grants the druid one ability belonging to the target's class, varying by the druid's specialization.
In exchange, grants the target one Druid ability based on their class and combat role.
Lasts 1 hour and persists through death.

Wild Mushroom: Bloom
Causes your Wild Mushrooms to bloom, healing all allies withing 6 yds for X

Kluian · 11/23/11, 2:18 AM

Other interesting things to note

Insect Swarm (balance only) - Increases damage taken by your wrath / starsurge / starfire by 30%. one target only. Appears to no longer be a dot, just a "curse of elements" but for the druid only.

Lvl 60 tier talents flushed out more

Wild Charge (cd unknown) -

Human form - Fly to an ally. Next heal costs no mana
Bear Form - Charge an enemy, immobolize them and grants you 30% haste (time?)
Cat Form - Leap behind enemy and cause your next Ravage to cost no energy, not require stealth, and have no position requirement.
Moonkin - Bound backward and gain 20 lunar or solar energy, whichever is more beneficial.
Travel form - Leap forward 20 yards and take 20% reduced dmg for 10 seconds.
Flight form - Increase flgith speed by additional 20% for 30 seconds.
Aquatic form - Increases swim speed by additional 200% and take 20% reduced dmg for 10 seconds.

Incarnation (3 min cd) - 30 second buff

Balance - Improved moonkin form that increases arcane / nature dmg by 20% and reduced damage taken by 15%. So while in moonkin form you now have 40% increased nature / arcane dmg and 30% damage reduction.
Feral / Resto bonuses seem the same.

Cylebren · 11/23/11, 2:28 AM

I admit, the Wild Mushroom change looks interesting, especially considering how they seem to have rolled Efflorescence into Swiftmend. Cenarion Ward also seems interesting. Kinda like Earth Shield but perhaps not quite as good? But at least we'll finally have a friendly target damage reduction.

I'm still very much on the fence with MoP 'flavor talents' for resto druids. But change is still possible and probable.

Vaccine · 11/23/11, 2:31 AM

And the worlds longest tooltip award goes to... Ferocious Bite!

Feral Changes:
- Ferocious Bite had Blood in the Water, Rend and Tear and Glyph of FB rolled into it.
- Swipe now deals 20% extra damage on bleeding targets.
- Thrash now works in cat,
- Savage Roar back to WotLK version, increases all Physical damage.
- King of the Jungle (TF) rolled into TF.
- Rend and Tear rolled into Shred.
- Glyph of Bloodletting/Shred rolled into Mangle/Shred.
- Shred still exists with it's positional requirement.

- NI changed to "Increases your nature spellpower by 100% of your agility". Should at least boost Wrath spam it would seem for time away from a boss.
- iLotP rolled into LotP.
- Ravage had Predatory Strikes rolled in, the ravage part.
- The other half of PS still exists as a trained passive.
- Skull Bash has the BI mana cost increase.
- New Might of Ursoc ability, a bit like Last Stand. Appears in the Feral part as well as Guardian so I guess this is some halfway ability to compensate for removal of SI from Feral.
- Infected Wounds now passive trainer ability for Feral but AS debuff removed.
- Symbiosis new class ability, lets you copy a targets spell and gives them one of yours. Lives or dies by what abilities we get to use.

Nothing too surprising except the SR change, I guess that's done with eyes on PVP/Arena.

Still not that impressed with the actual talent tree in that it doesn't really seem to force many decisions when I'm kitting it out for PVE Feral. Probably the only one that will be changed fight to fight is the level 60 tier depending on how good the Treants are and whether Charge is needed or not.

Kermit · 11/23/11, 2:58 AM

The Resto and Boomkin specializations have a new passive ability, Killer Instinct: "Grants 100% of your Intellect as Agility when you shapeshift into Bear Form or Cat Form". Nice for us resto druids to not have wrath spamming as our only choice when it comes to off-dpsing / questing.

EDIT: Another interesting thing is that Resto druids gain "Ironbark" instead of Barkskin at level 44. Ironbark is basically a targetable Barkskin. The CD is 2 minutes compared to 1 minute for normal Barkskin though.

a civilian · 11/23/11, 2:59 AM

The Nurturing Instinct change might make it worthwhile to use Predator's Swiftness procs on Wrath, especially with the Master Shapeshifter talent.

♦ Tecton · 11/23/11, 5:00 AM

A quick browse through the spell details seems to show the following notable details (i.e. not just the result of a talent disappearing) for Resto/Moonkin:

Revive is going Resto only? It's marked a spec specific spell now rather than class, which seems most likely a mistake.
Regrowth is having the glyph baked in (refreshes duration whenever it heals someone under 50% HP). Also now Resto only, as is Nourish and Lifebloom.
New base ability: Might of Ursoc. Increases HP by 30%, raises HP to 30% if below that for 20 seconds. 3 min CD.
Lunar Shower is going baseline, meaning we won't have the option (other than not training it, I guess!) to avoid having Moonfire/Sunfire generate energy.
Hurricane becomes Arcane Storm while in Lunar Eclipse.
Wild Mushroom: Detonate appears to be Balance only now, similar to Bloom being Resto only.
The cooldown on Starfall is reset when entering Lunar Eclipse.
Moonkin Aura now provides 5% crit to the raid rather than Haste.
Nature's Grace is now fired by entering an Eclipse state, rather than by triggering from a DOT.
Skull Bash now only available if specced as Feral/Guardian.

Not comprehensive, just what I noticed from my first read.

Rodpad · 11/23/11, 5:53 AM

A few changes that haven't been mentioned yet:

Moonkin Aura provides 20% extra damage, up from the current 10%.
Nature's Grasp now only has 1 charge.
Stampeding Roar now also removes roots and snares from all targets that are in range of your roar.

Vaccine · 11/23/11, 6:12 AM

Originally Posted by Tecton

[*]Skull Bash now only available if specced as Feral/Guardian.[/list]

I thought they might be removing healer interrupts but Holy gets to keep Rebuke and Resto keeps Wind Shear, albeit on a 15 second cooldown now. Not that it was the easiest thing to use but in some cases like Nef platforms it could still be handy for Resto/Moonkin.