Druid
Druids were among the few classes receiving small updates throughout the years following our first round of Class Changes. The ability to equip polearms and the addition of Feral Attack Power on many of the more undesirable weapons found on Azeroth were a great boon to their itemization. While already receiving many alterations before, the Druid class and all its specializations still had some pain points that were in need of some ironing out.
Starting with their base spells and abilities, there have been many voices lamenting the power of druid's two Area of Effect spells: Hurricane and Tranquility.
The former has a very useful attack speed slow component attached to it, yet its long cooldown and meager damage output held it back in fights with multiple enemies. In order to rebalance its power, we removed the attack speed slow and moved it to the Balance tree as a talent. This allowed us to reduce Hurricane's cooldown by half, while also strengthening its scaling with the Spell Power stat.
Tranquility is an iconic spell from Warcraft 3. As the ultimate ability of the Keeper of the Grove hero unit, its World of Warcraft counterpart sadly does not live up to its legacy. More often than not it is not beneficial to use this spell when faced with a lot of incoming damage, as the other healing spells offer a stronger rescue potential. To grant Tranquility an effect worthy of its origin and visual, it will now affect all raid members in close range of the druid, at a significantly decreased healing power and increased cooldown. Only Restoration druids will be able to unlock Tranquility‘s true potential.
Baseline Changes
Druids will now be able to undergo a challenging and expensive questline to learn the Swift Travel Form. This form takes on a set appearance and has the same functionalities as any other epic mount, meaning it cannot be used in combat or indoors and grants a 100% movement speed bonus.
Manual Crowd Pummeler and Battery-Powered Crowd Pummeler now increases swing speed by 20% instead of increasing attack speed by 50%, meaning the haste amount is reduced from 50% to 20% and no longer functions in shapeshifting forms and the ability now has a 20 minute cooldown. Attack speed increased from 2.0 to 2.9, the DPS remains the same.
All ranks of Tranquility have been reworked. Here is an example of the new Rank 4: Regenerates all raid members within 30 yards for 87 every second for 10 seconds. The druid must channel to maintain the spell.
- Increased cooldown from 5 to 30 minutes.
- Doubled the mana cost.
- Healing tick rate changed from 2 seconds to 1 second.
- Baseline threat removed.
- Now affects all members of your raid instead of just your group.
- Ranks 1 to 4 now last for 4, 6, 8 and 10 seconds respectively.
New Spell: Ferocious Bite (Rank 1)
Learned at Level 24 Finishing move that causes damage per combo point and converts each extra point of energy into 1 additional damage. Damage is increased by your Attack Power.
- 1 point : 35-51 damage
- 2 points: 67-83 damage
- 3 points: 99-115 damage
- 4 points: 131-147 damage
- 5 points: 163-179 damageAll other ranks of Ferocious Bite have been upped by one number.
Cat Form’s Combo Points will no longer vanish upon switching targets, but instead reset when applying combo points on a new target.
Regrowth: Reduced Mana cost of all ranks by 20%.
Owlkin Frenzy: No longer a baseline ability and instead acquired as a new talent, refer to the Balance section for more details.
Hurricane: No longer increases time between attacks by default. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds. Scaling from Spell Power slightly increased to 9.6% per damage tick.
Swipe: All ranks of Swipe now scale with 8% of the Druid’s attack power.
Savage Bite: Increased threat from damage from 175% to 350%. Updated the tooltip to reflect this change.
Developer Comment: Savage Bite currently acts as a way to spend excess rage without any other purpose. To balance out the removed dependency of the Manual Crowd Pummeler, this ability will now cause additional threat.
Frenzied Regeneration: Healing formula has been changed for all 3 ranks to the following: Heals the Druid by converting 10 points of rage per second into health. Each point of rage equals to 6/7/8% of your total stamina. Cooldown increased to 6 minutes.
Druids will now be able to use consumable items in their Cat and Bear forms.
New Spell: Barkskin (Feral)
Learned at Level 44 with new ranks at Level 52 and 60. Requires Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, Cat Form The druid's skin becomes tough as bark, reducing the damage of the next 5/10/15 melee attacks by 50%. Movement speed is reduced by 20% during its duration. Lasts for 12 seconds. (10 Minute cooldown)
Moonfire: Duration of Ranks 2 to 10 has been increased to 18 seconds, adding two more ticks to the damage over time component.
Insect Swarm: Duration of all ranks has been increased to 18 seconds, adding three more ticks to the damage over time component.
Wrath: Increased base damage values and spellpower scaling coefficient by 5%.
Enrage: Now applies a physical debuff for the armor reduction part of the ability instead of being tied to the rage gain buff.
Tiger’s Fury: Increased the damage bonus of Rank 3 to 35 and Rank 4 to 50.
Rake: All ranks of Rake now scale 12% of their initial damage and 3% of their bleed effect with the Druid's Attack Power.
Balance
In the past, the Balance specialization has provided their fair share of indispensable utility and buffs. While highly beneficial to their group, the Moonkin itself suffered in a few select areas, both during leveling and endgame content. We set it our goal to uplift Balance druids and offer an engaging playstyle to alleviate the hurdles standing in the way of our druid players. This is done in part by allowing their two Damage over Time spells to augment their main spells Wrath and Starfire, creating a rotation between maintaining Insect Swarm and Moonfire and alternating Wrath and Starfire. New Talent: Sylvan Blessing (Row 1) (2 Ranks) Gives you a 50/100% chance after killing a target that yields experience or honor to allow your Mana to regenerate at a 100% rate while casting. Lasts 15 sec.
Improved Moonfire now costs 2 points instead of 5 points.
New Talent: Guidance of the Dream (Row 2) (3 Ranks)
Gives you a 23/46/70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting your Balance spells.
Improved Thorns: Removed.
Improved Entangling Roots: Removed.
Moonfury: Moved to Row 3. Now has 3 ranks (down from 5) and includes Hurricane and Insect Swarm.
Vengeance: Moved to Row 4.
Moonglow: Moved to Row 4. Now includes Hurricane and Insect Swarm.
Moonkin Form: Armor Increase has been reduced from 360% to 180%.
The talent has been moved to Row 5 and becomes available at Level 30. Instead, players can now learn an improved version at Level 40, regaining their 360% armor Increase.
Owlkin Frenzy: Can no longer be learned and instead is a talent in Row 5 with 3 ranks. Spell pushback protection reduced from 100% to 30% and now regenerates 1% maximum mana every second for 10 seconds. The effect can only trigger once every 25 seconds.
Improved Starfire: Moved to Row 5.
New Talent: Balance of All Things (Row 6) (5 Ranks)
- Damage from your Insect Swarm spells now has a 6/12/18/24/30% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Starfire by 0.5 seconds.
- Damage from your Moonfire spells now has a 6/12/18/24/30% chance to reduce the mana cost of your next Wrath by 50%.Both effects can stack to a maximum of three.
New Talent: Gale Winds (Row 6) (2 Ranks)
Your Hurricane spell now reduces the attack speed of enemies by 12/25%.
New Capstone Talent: Eclipse (Row 7)
Align natural and astral energies. Critical strikes with Starfire increase your Nature damage by 25% and critical strikes with Wrath increase your Arcane damage by 25%. Each effect lasts 15 seconds and has a separate 30 seconds cooldown. Both effects cannot occur simultaneously.
Omen of Clarity: Now acts as a passive effect when learned.
Nature’s Grace and Improved Wrath: Updated the talent description to properly show both talent’s functionality. Improved Wrath now properly displays the global cooldown reduction that was falsely part of Nature’s Grace’s tooltip.
Restoration
Restoration Druids are in a great spot at the moment. Their talents allow for a variety of playstyles, be it Moonglow, Regrowth or Tree of Life - there is a little bit of everything for everyone. With the addition of the Tree of Life Form, we tried to steer Restoration Druids into the niche of the ‘healing over time’ healer; and would like to continue that path. However, there is an obstacle in that path we need to overcome: the anti synergy of having more than one restoration druid in your group. We did not want Healing over Time spells to stack, as we deemed this approach to be too powerful. Instead we opted for a way to allow other druids to overwrite already applied healing over time effects and cause a direct heal. New Passive Spell: Efflorescence Learned at Lvl 60 Requires Tree of Life Form Any time your Regrowth and Rejuvenation effects are about to be replaced they instantly heal for a portion of the remaining duration.
Improved Rejuvenation: Removed.
Gift of Nature: Moved to Row 3
New Talent: Genesis (Row 4) (3 Ranks)
Increase the damage and healing of your periodic spells and effects by 5/10/15%.
Tranquil Spirit: Now includes Regrowth.
New Talent: Aessina’s Bloom (Row 5) (2 Ranks)
Your Healing Touch spells have a 30/60% chance to instantly heal a friendly target an amount equal to 6 sec of Regrowth if the target is affected by Regrowth. Any Druid's Regrowth is applicable for this effect.
New Talent: Preservation (Row 5) (3 Ranks)
Increases the periodic healing of Regrowth by 10/20/30% if the friendly target is affected by Rejuvenation.
Improved Tranquility: Moved to Row 6 and now increases the healing done by Tranquility by 20/40%.
Feral Combat
There are a few issues Feral Combat Druids are facing right now. The biggest contender is their relative dependency on the Manual Crowd Pummeler. Its item effect greatly amplifies damage for both forms and subsequently the threat gain for bears. To alleviate their need for this item for optimal threat, we introduced a few adjustments to abilities and talents. Furthermore, we lifted the restriction of feral forms not being able to use consumable items such as potions, healthstones and similar. A new defensive spell, Barkskin (Feral), will help them survive the more risky and unpredictable situations during combat. For the Cat Form Druids, we’re offering a way to utilize the player’s bleed abilities, by making them interact with their main attack skills. Additionally, a new early rank of Ferocious Bite at Level 24 will give druids more options during their leveling journey.
New Talent: Open Wounds (Row 2) (3 Ranks)
Increases the damage of Claw by 10/20/30% if the target is afflicted by Rake. In addition, your Rip ability increases your Claw damage by 3/4/5% per combo point spent for 15 sec.
Feline Swiftness: Name changed to Feral Swiftness and now grants its dodge bonus to Bear and Dire Bear form as well.
Blood Frenzy: Increased attack speed bonus from 12% to 30%. Now generates 10 rage when using Enrage, as a bug formerly made it generate double the intended amount.
New Talent: Feral Adrenaline (Row 5) (3 Ranks)
Suffering a physical critical strike while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form increases your chance to dodge by 15/30/45% until you dodge the next physical attack against you. This effect can only occur once every 30 seconds. Developer Comment: Critical strikes are one of the many dangers bear druids face when tanking powerful foes. To alleviate the peril after suffering a critical strike, Feral Adrenaline will offer a small buffer window for healers and the tank to react to sudden damage spikes.
New Talent: Ancient Brutality (Row 6) (3 Ranks)
Dodging an attack while in Bear or Dire Bear Form imbues you with the spirit of the Ancients, returning 5/10/15% of your damage dealt as healing and generating 1/2/3 rage per second for 5 sec. This effect can only occur once every 6 sec. Developer Comment: Although dodging is one of the few ways for druids to avoid damage, it is not as desired as a stat as one would assume. While blocking generates rage for warriors, dodging does not for druids. Still, they cannot avoid accumulating this stat due to how Agility grants additional dodge chance. This talent will allow druids to gain benefit from it by generating rage on successful dodges.UPDATES | Dated: October 21 2024Insect Swarm: Applications of the same rank now stack when cast by two or more druids. This does not apply to the reduced chance to hit component of this spell.
Mighty Rage Potion can now be used by Druids.
UPDATES | Dated: November 1 2024Blood Frenzy's attack speed increase reduced from 30% to 20% and the effect duration is increased from 12 seconds to 18 seconds.
Reduced Swipe's scaling for all ranks of Swipe from the Druid's attack power from 8% to 6%.
Reduced the threat modifier on damage from all ranks of Swipe from 175% to 140%.
Reduced the threat modifier on damage of Savage Bite from 350% to 225%
Improved Shred now also increases damage caused by Shred by 5/10% for 5 seconds after entering Cat Form.
Increased Open Wounds' damage increase for Claw from 3/4/5% to 2/4/6% per combo point spent with Rip.