Compilation of Questions for CMs/DEVs-Part II

Hello, i'm back with a followup from the thread i made a few weeks ago (*) that got us a few attention from vaneras and here goes another set of 10 quick questions i've managed to compile from the last few days digging on the druid foruns. I'll try my best not to duplicate my questions from the previous post although some topics may overlap a little.

(*) - http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=84108466&sid=1


So brace yourselfs for a rather big post and, here it goes.


1- Direct Shifting Between Forms.

Based on Ommra (hello how are ya?) previous answers about shapeshifting, it was made clear that the devs want our shapeshifting to be balanced around the concept of having a cost to prevent abusing and overuse of our anti-snare,etc. That is perfectly understandable, but druids still think that the shapeshifting should be encouraged, and at the present time feels a little "slow". To increase our utility in shapeshifting, a lot of druids are saying that a direct shapeshifting between forms or a lowering of the Global Cooldown after shifting would encourage a more frantic/fun kind of pvp with a good possibility of better sinergy/combos between forms. Have the devs thought about it or have any plans to allow direct shapeshfing and/or any kind of fix/alteration to shapeshifting?

2- Magical AOE ability

I think the majority of druids think that hurricane is realy lack-luster in therms of utility, especialy if you are in Moonkin form trying to "replace a mage/lock" or at least trying to help them in those duties as a Magical Nuker in the AOE department. Currently with the prohibitive Cooldown and a rather short duration, hurricane cannot be remotely compared to any other kind of magical AOE, making especialy the moonkin druid a non-so desirable element in the majority of 5 man instances and could never realy "mimic" the parent classes in therms of such an important aspect of the game - AOE. Is there a plan to rework Hurricane or even making a new AOE type of spell, even if only on the balance tree?

3- Feral 21 point - Feral Faerie Fire

Its a rather old issue unfortunately. Although Feral Faerie fire is usefull to use in feral forms, most druids think that FFF compared to other classes (and even druid) 21 talent point is realy realy weak. Of course you can say that we have more talents on that tier but it IS a single point ability on the 20/25 talent tree like other classes, and comparing FFF with deathwish or Natureshiftness or RUIN makes some people argue that FFF should have a little more "juice", since we already have Faerie Fire in trainable (caster) form anyway.One sugestion was even to remove the imp. FF from balance tree and add it to the feral 21 point. Are the devs planning to change the talent or improve it in any way or the devs realy think that a spell that decreases a little armor and has an extra usease against 1 (ok 2) classes is worth a 21 talent point?

4- Cyclone Usefulness & DR in PVE

Cyclone has been discribed by the druid comunity from a "disapointment - useless spell" to a "midly-useable-slow-spell-interrupt". From the majority of posts i've read, we all agree that cyclone is VERY situational spell in PVP, and in PVE the diminuishing return is very penalizing in order to be usefull anywhere. Its too slow as a spell interrupt (acounting human reaction time and lag), its too short in duration to make it a usefull CC ability, Its kinda an ability that you look at it and realy dont seem like a worthwhile level 70 ability. Most druids complain that we lack a interrupt ability in caster form. Druids dream that this could be our "Druid-Coil" if instant cast with a generous Cooldown (3-5 minutes?). Are the Dev's happy with Cyclone or still tweaking it ? what was the usease the devs were hoping for it to be used?

5- Moonkin Threat

We are all very excited about the recent moonkin buffs/corrections in therms of dps. Itemization sure is helping a lot, the mana issues are much better, but one thing remains (well 2 if you account for question #2) that is the threat a moonkin gains is realy out of the roof in high-end content. Some people say that the high threat is in fact good to combine with the fact that the moonkin has high armor to hold the hits and sometimes its even diserable to catch agro in order to protect the other clothies, but i think the scales tip more to the side that most moonkins / balance druids would like to see some kind of agro reducing ability for damage spells (preferably something that could be switched on/off). Are the Devs aware of this? is this intended to be like this in order to cap the damage the moonkins can produce in order to keep them lower than "parent classes" ?

6 - Out of combat Ressurection

Its no surprise to say that BattleRez is in fact one of the most powerfull skills the druid has and many times can save the raid group. We do understand that the druid was originaly not even suposed to have this kind of rez. But then we come to a point of debate wich is : Druid is perfectly capable to main heal a full group, like a priest should, or even shaman/paladin, but we are the only healing class without the possibility to ressurect the party, meaning that many times we are neglected to main heal expect if a shaman/paladin is around to cover for that shortfall. But (this is the big but) we are considered as primary healers. We don't have "the parent class" versatility (bubble, fast heals, etc) but lacking a OOC rez seems to harsh for a main healing class (if specced that way). What is the true reason for this, balance reasons? i mean, an OOC rez would only allow ppl to recover faster from a death in the party...

7- Crow Form - 5th ability?

Many people are arguing that Crow form is fun... but for 2 levels only. Then we get the possibilities of much faster mounts and quite frankly, apart from being instant cast, we will rarely use that ability on end-game. Imagine for example our cheetah/travel form if it was only castable out of combat.... who would use it after getting an epic mount? humm.... Ppl are sugesting making an "epic" version of it, close to the other mounts' speed (with a quest like warlock epic mount), or give us a new ability. Are the devs aware of the usefullness (or not) of the crow form when druids reach level 70 ?

8- Talent Trees

Creating naturalist was a good step into the right direction. Hybrid classes need "hybrid talents", that is the way to go in most cases, what is needed is more imagination. We do know its tricky to find balance with talents like nurturing instinct that affect more than one facet of the hybrid class, but most druids would realy like to see more of those talents "merged" like for example clearing up a little the resto tree (too many 5/5 talents) for little gain, and especialy too little damage in resto tree. My question is pretty simple, are the devs still working on this "merging" of hybrid talents or we can consider ourselfs "mostly fixed" in our trees?

9 - Itemisation

Recently, with the apearance of more and more items druids are starting to be a little concerned. We all know that giant steps have been made in therms of itemization for druids of all kinds, but mostly the tanking druids are a little concerned about things like the amount of armor in blue items or lack of STA/AGI/Resiliance/defence in tier4, or that all trinkets are mostly for warriors/paladins (block, parry, defense mostly), and that a lot of clearly "feral items" seem to be forgeting STR values (great for our HOTW talent). My direct question is : Are epic items of extremely high levels going the same way as the green/blue items so far in therms of "off-spec" allowing tanking/moonkin/cat duties to be performed all the way to the maximum level?

10- Mark of the wild

With the recent jump in stats for all gear, classes, etc, MOTW seems to scale rather poorly and lets face it, it's now far from the "best buff in the game", even with the high cost of 5/5 Imp MOTW (that scales rather poorly btw). With classes at level 70 with 20000 armor, 10000 Health, etc, MOTW seems like a drop into the ocean. Devs still want the druids to have the "one of the most powerfull buffs in the game" or want to slowly let it fade in importance? because comparing HOTW with (for example) paladin buffs that are a percent increase rather than a static figure seems more and more a rather "losing / losing" situation as buffers to the druids.


P.S. Dont forget about the cat/bear range issue, ehehe....

That's all folks, now its a question of praying for some answers and wait and see if vaneras or other Blue will grace us with their attention. I know its prolly asking a lot after the last 10 questions on the last thread :P , but what tha heck, i had fun compiling this info anyways ;)

If all went well, Vaneras is prolly now cursing me for giving him another head-ache, if all goes well ;)


Cheers