Druid shapeshift buff...

#0 - Oct. 31, 2007, 9:31 a.m.

Q u o t e:


... do they have any idea what's happening on 2.3 PTR to druids?

I'll preface with saying that I run a "scrub express" druid/warrior 2v2 (however I ran it since the beginning of s2 before it became the big craze) and druid/warlock/warrior is one of our 3v3 comps (war/pal/priest being the other). I know their strengths and limited weaknesses in smaller brackets.

Back to the point. Druids are slightly kept in check now by the fact that you can train on them and if you don't give them an out, they'll die under the assist when snared because shifting to human will get them gibbed instantly. However, come 2.3, this changes.

In 2.3, druids can shift from any form to any form (ie cat to bear; bear to travel, etc) without having to enter human form. But, it gets worse, they can shift from the same form to the same form also (bear to bear). Why is this significant? It's basically a free snare removal without ever having to expose themself in human form, making it much more difficult for anyone to kill them. It still costs them mana to do it, yes, but it's an easy trade-off for never being locked in caster form with no armor anymore to get away from a melee. So much for those well-timed caster-form kidney shots, right?

Druids needed help in 5v5 with a bit better caster form survivability, and they got that with the new Natural Perfection changes and a bit more utility. However, they did NOT need to be even harder to kill with this short-sighted change. Melee might as well not even attempt to catch a good druid anymore, and well, casters never could to begin with.

Now, it's my understanding that this could be a "side-effect" of the way they changed the way actions are performed while under different stances, like shadow priests trying to cast a holy spell will automatically drop them from shadowform, etc. But if this is an intended change, it's going to make druids more rediculous than ever to kill, and that's not what they needed.

Here's a video someone made from 2.3 ptr of instant shifting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Q5008l0SM

TLDR version: Druids are going IDDQD mode in 2.3, qq fest yet to begin.