Going Forward: Cataclysm Discussion - Page 11

ttyl · 04/16/10, 9:05 PM

From Developer chat:

Q. Why are Restoration druids the only spec in the game not receiving a new spell?
A. Restoration druids are actually getting a fair bit. For one, Tree of Life is getting a whole new model (think Ancients of War) and will also “morph” some of your spells to do crazy things while in the form, such as cause Regrowth to be instant, or Lifebloom to apply two applications at once. Tranquility will be raid-wide. We’re also touching nearly every Restoration druid spell to make sure each has a niche and feels good. In general, playing a Restoration druid should feel a lot different (better!) in Cataclysm than it does today.

Very exciting. I'm glad our cooldown will do more than +X% healing. I can see instant Regrowths being our equivalent to Flash Heal now.

weaselmortis · 04/16/10, 9:57 PM

From the Developer chat as well:

Q. What change are you most excited about?
A. Some of the new Balance talents for druids, like Solar Beam, which works like Freya’s spell where it instantly silences a target and they have to move out of the beam to get rid of the debuff.

I was wondering just how much would change in talent trees since everything from eclipse to vengeance and the other "passive" talents are disappearing, sounds like talents may fill up with fun toys.

Rijndael · 04/16/10, 10:00 PM

Originally Posted by ttyl

From Developer chat:
Very exciting. I'm glad our cooldown will do more than +X% healing. I can see instant Regrowths being our equivalent to Flash Heal now.

It makes more sense for our spells to break down like this (regardless of what GC said):

nourish - fast, expensive,
healing touch - big, expensive,
regrowth - medium, cheap, go to heal (they will tweak it, plus there is a long running hot to boost it by 20% on subsequent casts with the glyph).

I don't think the cooldown making regrowth instant will really affect these roles.

I am somewhat worried that if tree of life will turbocharge tranquility also, we will mostly use both cooldowns together.

Playered · 04/16/10, 10:16 PM

Originally Posted by Rijndael

I am somewhat worried that if tree of life will turbocharge tranquility also, we will mostly use both cooldowns together.

I doubt there will be many events where you need an uber Tranquility in comparison to having the option of two cooldowns which could be used on separate events though - how often do tanks pop all their cooldowns together in lieu of using them either consecutively or at differently timed intervals (ie Mimiron P1 lazer)?

Quite honestly having Tranquility as a 5 player version of Divine Hymn(3) even with no bells and whistles on it is going to be incredibly powerful and useful in raids compared to what we have now. I'm expecting the TBC change to be reverted so that we need to prop it up via talents to be as strong as it seems in potential and quite frankly that should cause no real issue compared to the huge gain we get from the mechanic change for it.

• Hamlet · 04/17/10, 2:28 AM

I read that as saying that Tranquility will be raidwide by default, unrelated to the comments about Tree of Life. Gave my thoughts on all the Druid info in the Q&A here: http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/arawet...hat_today.html

Norfair · 04/17/10, 5:42 AM

After reading those comments, I cannot but think that they will make Regrowth a faster cast and Nourish a slower cast and adjust the amount of healing that they do. This way Nourish can be the 'go to'-tank-heal that it should be (comparing with other classes). Regrowth's hot would become something that can be more useful on raidmembers, as right now you will find it mostly on tanks. Also instant Regrowths wouldn't be as OP as it sounds.

aceofsween · 04/17/10, 4:28 PM

After thinking over some, this "Solar Beam" spell/talent can't possibly be an instant cast. I'm assuming that, as it's mechanic is some what unique, the effect of the spell will likely last longer than the typical 3 second or 6 second silences. If it lasted a whole 10 seconds though, Roots + Instant Solar Beam would be a deadly combination. It will still be lethal, even with a small cast time due to the fact that dispels are going to be more tactical than they are today and with proper timing you could catch a healer casting a large heal with roots and then Solar Beam them before they have a chance to cleanse themselves effectively locking them out for the full duration of Solar Beam or Roots, whichever ends first.

Needless to say, this is sounds like a very fun and interesting talent. I'm greatly looking forward to it's application.

Bearcowcat · 04/17/10, 5:07 PM

Originally Posted by Norfair

Also instant Regrowths wouldn't be as OP as it sounds.

Instant Regrowths would be very similar to 4T8's Rejuvenations, but with a longer lasting heal over time.

On another note, if mana becomes a serious constraint to druid healing, I assume 5x1 will fall out of style. During the previous expansion, Druids provided a stabilizing stream of healing to tanks with the use of Lifebloom, and in Vanilla, they Innervated Priests.

Any speculation as to how limited mana will be reconciled with our current spam-happy raid healing style?

Playered · 04/17/10, 6:30 PM

Originally Posted by Bearcowcat

Instant Regrowths would be very similar to 4T8's Rejuvenations, but with a longer lasting heal over time.

What? 4T8 was a weak direct heal on a cheap efficient spell we would naturally cast on pretty much every GCD while Regrowth (assuming it retains a similar output/cost style in Cata) is an expensive and moderately strong heal we tend to use sparingly even now. While they share some components (a direct heal followed by a hot) that's pretty much where it ends and by your logic Flash Heal is very similar to Greater Heal due to the sole fact they have a cast time and cause a direct heal.

Obligatory · 04/17/10, 7:02 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

After thinking over some, this "Solar Beam" spell/talent can't possibly be an instant cast. I'm assuming that, as it's mechanic is some what unique, the effect of the spell will likely last longer than the typical 3 second or 6 second silences. If it lasted a whole 10 seconds though, Roots + Instant Solar Beam would be a deadly combination. It will still be lethal, even with a small cast time due to the fact that dispels are going to be more tactical than they are today and with proper timing you could catch a healer casting a large heal with roots and then Solar Beam them before they have a chance to cleanse themselves effectively locking them out for the full duration of Solar Beam or Roots, whichever ends first.

Needless to say, this is sounds like a very fun and interesting talent. I'm greatly looking forward to it's application.

I can't really imagine that the spell will have a cast time, for three reasons:
1) All other interrupts are instant and off-GCD
2) Even instant/off GCD, with a 10 second duration, the spell is still roughly on par with counterspell: it requires a full-duration root to be casted first (meaning that it can only be used reactively every 3 minutes via NS, and the root must be off DR, so no using roots to break up a team, and you better hope there isn't another uncontrolled dispeller or paladin nearby), and because of the root, you cannot use your most powerful cooldown (starfall) during the lockout period. For all these drawbacks, and under ideal circumstances, you get 2-4 seconds (depending on what talents the target has) more lockout time.
3) Without roots, you will only be getting a second or two of lockdown (unless they make the area of effect insanely large)

My guess is that the spell will go one of two directions: either a long-duration, long CD (10+ seconds, 45 seconds to 1 minute CD, possibly even longer) that will mostly be used with NS+root to exacerbate pressure from other sources while going for a kill, or a short duration, short CD (3-5 seconds, 10-15 second CD) that will be used like wind shear or kick (i.e. the primary source of pressure), but with a small bonus if the target is rooted.

Originally Posted by Bearcowcat

Any speculation as to how limited mana will be reconciled with our current spam-happy raid healing style?

There are a lot of possibilities, but personally, my guess is that ICC will mark the end of the raid-wide damage aura, and we will see a return to a more TBC style of raid healing, with things like blood boil and meteor slash where only a portion of the raid is getting slammed with damage, and the occasional brief phase of intense full-raid healing a la Illidan phase 2 or reliquary phase 3. There will probably also be more RSTS effects like incinerate flesh or solarian's arcane missiles.

Basically, I think encounter design will make doing 5x1 on the entire raid unnecessary. I also wouldn't be surprised if spell numbers or mechanics were changed around to make 5x1 less effective in general.

aceofsween · 04/18/10, 12:11 PM

Solar Beam isn't an interrupt though. It's a Silence, completely different effect. Silences completely prevent you from casting any spell at all. You don't have to be casting anything to be silenced. Interrupts cancel the spell you are casting and lock out a specific spell tree. Sure, sometimes they are combined into a single effect (the Felhunter's Spell Lock or the talented version of Counterspell) but they are not the same.

I mean believe me, I hope it is a instant, but I just can't see that being the case.

Rijndael · 04/18/10, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by Bearcowcat

Any speculation as to how limited mana will be reconciled with our current spam-happy raid healing style?

Have you tried leveling a holy priest recently via the random dungeon system? With bind-on-account + blue gear, renew play a lot like I expect hots in Cataclysm to play: you have to judge whether a hot is sufficient to counter the damage needs incoming, and if so, you just let it tick and exercise discipline by not overwriting the hot with other spells. In lowbie instances, a well geared tank can be kept up with mostly renews, with an occasional direct spell over it. Doesn't feel spammy at all, and if you DO try to be spammy, you will run out of mana in lowbie gear. Of course, in raids this will present a coordination problem since you want _every_ healer to exercise discipline. I rather expect incoming-heal mods and mods which display hots from other people will become more in use in Cata, and healers will just learn to judge how much healing is enough.

aceofsween · 04/18/10, 1:42 PM

I did want to add one thing more as a food for thought. The Developer said "some" of the Balance Druid talents, which included Solar Beam. Because of the way the old talent system, our Talent tree has always seemed someone lackluster to me. There is a lot of stuff in the later half of the tree that just boils down to more damage. We couldn't really rely on having a lot of neat/useful stuff in the beginning of our tree largely because of PvP. It's a fairly common notion that Balance Druids can't get anything nice because of Resto Druids.

For me, this is what makes Masteries so exciting. All of our +dmg fluff is being removed and it's not going to be obtainable to a Resto druid because the Resto druid would be sacrificing Mastery in order to go deeper into the Balance tree. That frees the developers up to give us some really exciting tools and utilities, such as the recently mentioned Solar Beam skill.

And after all... the comment they made implied there are many other neat things to look forward to with our tree.

Obligatory · 04/18/10, 4:04 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

Solar Beam isn't an interrupt though. It's a Silence, completely different effect. Silences completely prevent you from casting any spell at all. You don't have to be casting anything to be silenced. Interrupts cancel the spell you are casting and lock out a specific spell tree. Sure, sometimes they are combined into a single effect (the Felhunter's Spell Lock or the talented version of Counterspell) but they are not the same.

I mean believe me, I hope it is a instant, but I just can't see that being the case.

I had a big long argument typed out, but I don't really think this much speculation on a spell that has had only the vaguest details released is terribly productive. I personally can't imagine solar beam needing to have a cast time simply because it can be countered both by things that counter silence/interrupt effects, and things which counter root effects. Adding a cast time into that mix just seems excessive, unless the spell has a *really* long duration. But in the end, we'll have to wait and see. Blizzard seems fully committed to giving every class/spec a real degree of PvP viability, and with the shift to battlegrounds and the stated implementation of an entirely new survivability paradigm, I would be surprised if any of us here managed to guess the specifics of how things will work correctly

I must agree with your latest post though, I am really looking forward to cataclysm, and seeing all the goodies in store for us. Blizzard really seems to have pulled out all the stops this expansion, and about the only thing I fear is having to find room for even more keybinds, and maybe having to decide on just two of our four roles.

aceofsween · 04/18/10, 10:31 PM

Well, I can explain my thoughts a little more but you're right, it might not be particularly productive.

They didn't say it was an interrupt, so you can use it whenever you want to silence someone. They don't have to be casting a spell. Because it's a silence, it also suppresses all casting while you're under the beam. If this works like Hurricane, you also won't be able to dispel it. Hurricane places a physical debuff on the targets caught within the AoE. This means that the only way to have the effect removed is for it to end naturally, be trinketted, or move out of the area of effect. If it works in this fashion, it might not even be possible for you to trinket out of it.

I'm speculating of course, but to me this is the most logical way that this effect would be implemented from the little details we have as of right now.