While I don't necessarily disagree with the overall point of your post, improved tree of life brings the cooldown down to 3 minutes 30 seconds. I also agree that rumored empowered versions of spells in tree are not really very useful. What druids probably need is a shorter cooldown, shorter duration tree form which empowers our spells to give us AoE burst options (we are the only healing class without them in Cata, which worries me quite a bit). Even making some single target direct heal duplicate itself on the smallest hp raid target would go a long way, on top of hots (last I checked with current numbers, this would result in burst performance not unlike chain heal).

Am I reading Efflorescence correctly? My Regrowth crits for 9k, and I get a 10s, 15yd radius AoE that heals for 2.7k HPS per target per second?

The problem is that 3m30s is still a very long time and to get a second use in during one encounter on Blizzards typical fight length you would almost have to force yourself to use it very early on. It's hard to judge how we will use it in Cataclysm though and I'm generally thinking of it more as a panic button, a one phase button (LK transition, HM Mimiron P2 - granted you would have to declick it, Vezax Animus etc) and a general one use per encounter function rather than something you try to maximize uptime on for meters. Lets face it how many boss mechanics exist now with a 3m30sec gap outside of LK?

Quite frankly I'd rather have it set as a 3min cooldown with 20/40/60 sec cooldown reduction via Imp ToL but at that level I'm not sure how far they would have to water down the bonus effects to balance it but I'm fine with accepting it as a one use ability as we also have a great Tranquility too. It would also be preferable to me to tack on the LB refresh to ToL rather than a passive talent just so that it keeps some slight depth to tank healing and heck you could also potentially use the bloom then too (easier when tanks don't die in 2 hits).


[e]Erdluf yes that's seemingly correct but you also need to add Deep Healing and general strengthening of heals as you level up (I assume we haven't had a global downgrade of healing for Cataclysm) making the base higher still. You could also compare that heal to WG...

The thing is, Efflorescence has an awkward delivery mechanism which will cut down practical HPS a lot. Consider some realistic raid situations:

(a) You just got a Regrowth crit on a tank who got low. The tank now has a flower bed around him. The tank is also in front of the boss, so no melee will stand on it.

(b) You just got a Regrowth crit on a ranged dps that is spread out from other ranged due to fight mechanics. There are two ranged who are "close" to the flower bed, but won't sacrifice dps time to move over on it, calculating (correctly) that they can probably rely on smart heals/hots to keep them up.

(c) You just got a Regrowth crit, but it's a moving fight, so the flower bed gets left behind.

and so on.

A 15 yard range means that the diameter of this circle is actually 30 yards across. That's a pretty impressive area (94.25 yd²).

Doesn't seem any worse to me than Healing Rain, the HoT AoE spell that Shaman's have.

On a first read of the resto talents, it seems to me like the first two tiers of resto are singularly unattractive. Subtlety is TBR but still! You get your first 5 points in Blessing of the Grove and Nature's Focus, then you're forced to spend 3 points in Natural Shapeshifter and 2 points in Subtlety or its replacement to unlock the next tier. By comparison, Feral seems pretty solid. Lots of things worthwhile spending points on that'll be useful right away and in raids at the endgame.

The Feral Charge change looks interesting, but I do wonder why not allow Pounce to also be used outside of stealth, after a Feral Charge. Not that we couldn't root a target anyway, but it'd be symmetrical for the two stealth-limited openers.

[edit] Of course my view of the current tree assumes no major changes before release. I however expect more changes.

I see the core Cat build as Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft with 5 pts left. From the perspective of the only Feral in my raid groups. I will likely finish off Perseverance leaving 2 unspent points that will go to either Predatory Strikes, Infected Wounds or Primal Madness just to spend them. May also get 3/3 Imp Mangle and 4/5 Perseverance depending on how many Kologarn style fights there are.

Talents not taken;
Thick Hide: No effect on dps, Survival/Bear Talent.
Improved Feral Charge: PvP/Bear talent unless Ravage massively outweighs getting mangle/bleeds/roar up.
Brutal Impact: PvP talent. Possibly a Bear Talent for a second interrupt.
Predatory Strikes: PvP talent unless Ravage ends up being really good. Even then 2 points for an ability you may use 1-4 times max in the first 10% of the fight is expensive. Cast time reduction is nice but also not worth 2 points.
Natural Reaction: Bear Talent
Survival of the Fittest: PvP/Bear Talent
Primal Tenacity: PvP Talent
Protector of the Pack: Bear Talent
Infected Wounds: PvP/Bear talent, only current content this is good for is Valks during p2 LK.
Primal Madness: Trivial/Bear Talent, would be better if it also increased regen during buff duration or some other type of secondary effect.
Improved Mangle: Trivial dps boost with 1 minute mangle duration. Unless there are more boss fights(IE Kologarn) where we are stuck in front.
Pulverize: Bear Talent

Optional Talents taken, most taken to move down the tree.
Feral Instinct; AoE/Bear talent, with the apparent emphasis on CC and if future boss fights don't have clumped adds(like a majority of current bosses) then it won't be used except for some trash pulls.
Nurturing Instinct: Makes healers jobs easier, personally I like it.
Leader of the Pack: Assassination rogues are getting this buff, and Looking like the spec line they are going for PvE.
Improved Leader of the Pack: This pushes LotP back towards(but not to) mandatory as it is the only source of this effect.
Furor: Taken to move up tree.
Perseverance: 4%(10% maxed) reduction on Spell Damage taken.
Natural Shapeshifter: Taken to get Master Shapeshifter.

Mandatory Talents;
Sharpened Claws: 20% DPS Boost for Mangle and Rake
Ferocity: 5 point cost reduction for Mangle, Rake, and Swipe.
Feral Aggression: 15% DPS boost to Ferocious Bite, which is now an execute ability.
Shredding Attacks: 10 point cost reduction for Shred.
Feral Swiftness: 15%/30% move speed. Allows DPS enchant on boots.
Predatory Instinct: 10% more critical hit damage.
Feral Charge: Huge mobility talent.
Fury Swipes: Extra DPS + chance to proc OoC.
Primal Fury: Extra combo point on ability critical hits.
Heart of the Wild: 10% Cat AP.
Survival Instinct: Huge survival boost for 1 point. especially when combined with Barkskin.
Endless Carnage: 6 more seconds on Rake and Savage Roar.
King of the Jungle: 60 energy on a 30 second cd.
Mangle: While Sub rogues are getting the same debuff, strongest frontal attack that Feral Cats have.
Nom Nom Nom: 100% chance to refresh Rip to full duration when using Ferocious Bite on a target below 25%. Turns FB into an execute ability.
Rend and Tear. 20% DPS boost to Shred on bleeding targets and 25% crit chance increase to Ferocious Bite on bleeding targets.
Berserk: 50% energy cost of abilities for 15 seconds every 3 minutes.
Blessing of the Grove: 4% DPS boost to Shred.
Naturalist: 10% more physical damage. All Cat damage is physical.
Omen of Clarity: All auto hits and damaging abilities have a chance to make the next special used free.
Master Shapeshifter: 4% more critical hits in cat form.



Personally, with this talent tree I went from having 2 different cat builds(trash vs single target) to 1 obvious build that gets everything. I am going to miss 30% aoe damage reduction, 10 free expertise and 80% cost refund for missed finishing moves(unless they bake the cost reduction into finishers). I'll also miss all of the additional scaling we got from gear(2% to all stats from Imotw,20% more of the ap on a weapon from Predatory Strikes, 6% to all stats from SotF)

I thought that as well, but it could happen, and will be nice when it does. After all people will have more stamina, and stay at lower hp on average then now.

The way I read it though, Regrowth gets an extra crit bonus on a target with low hp. On top of the base +25% it shares with Nourish.

Note the last line of Nature's Bounty:
"Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth and Nourish spells by 10/15/20/25%."

I'm currently conjecturing that the last line is an error related to changing existing talents. You can see it with some other talents too.

It's interesting to note that Boomkins are the only spec that seems to have talents which prop up their Mastery. The "Improved Eclipse" talent seems odd to me. I don't quite understand why that's not baseline or at least something that's handled by our Mastery stat. Maybe because the Mastery being so familiar is why I'm not all that excited about the talent changes.

Also, Balance Druids in Moonkin Form now have less armor than Resto druids in Caster or Travel form. That strikes me as strange since Moonkin Form has almost always been on par with Dire Bear form. I somehow find it hard to swallow that this won't change (i.e. reworking of Improved Barkskin).

My biggest impression from a Moonkin standpoint is that we will not see a drastic difference in PvE, but we have been given a number of very useful PvP tools: Starsurge with the knockdown effect, Solar Beam with disorient and silence (deadly if combined with roots), and Fungal Growth. Even Lunar Justice could see some use in a Battleground environment.

This may be intentional. Moonkins are getting pvp utility in Cata, and are pretty mobile for a caster class, with lots of cc options. Perhaps Blizzard thought it would be prudent to ramp down their passive survivability vs melee.