Post by morff on Mar 7, 2007 10:14:00 GMT -5
After playing through an instance last night and experiencing nerfday for the druids, here’s my experience on how it affected us. I don’t think the reduction in armor health and attack power was all the gloom and doom that people on the WoW forums make it out to be. I did definitely notice the reduction in attack power last night especially on elites. I hope that when I get to level 70 I can gain better weapons and trinkets to change that. The thing I worried about most was being able to hold agro which didn’t seem to be a problem last night. And they did change our rage normalization which was noticeable, I gained rage more easily than I was used to meaning more special attacks to help hold agro.
I haven’t had the time to PvP yet, but I’m sure bear form does suffer there versus warriors and paladins decked out in epics but the jury is still out on that since I haven’t had the chance to try it. But I think we have our work cut out for us there.
On the subject of the 25% health reduction, also consider that they raised our stamina by 25% also. So the drop in health is not as drastic as it first appears.
All in all the biggest changes were to the bear form; they didn’t touch the cat form.
Let me say that I never thought the roll of the druid was to be the best tank in a group or even the one dealing the most DPS or even being the best healer. The druid should be able to fill any one of those rolls adequately to bolster the group and be able to change as the situation demands to cover any gaps that open up. The feral spec still does this very well I think.
Here are the changes they made to the druids in the last patch for you to look at in case you haven’t been able to check them out.
Druids
When the duration of "Cyclone" ends, area buffs such as "Leader of the Pack", "Tree of Life", and "Moonkin" will now be correctly resumed.
"Bear Form" now grants 25% increased stamina instead of 25% increased health.
"Dire Bear Form" now grants 25% increased stamina instead of 25% increased health. In addition, the armor bonus has been reduced from 450% to 400%.
The multiplier on base weapon damage for "Mangle (Bear)" ability has been changed from 130% to 100%. In addition, the bonus damage has been reduced by the same ratio.
"Savage Fury" no longer affects "Mangle (Bear)".
"Savage Fury" no longer applies to "Maul" or "Swipe".
The critical damage bonus on "Predatory Instincts" reduced from 3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10%.
"Improved Leader of the Pack" can no longer get critical heals.
The armor bonus from "Moonkin Form" has been increased from 360% to 400% (to match Dire Bear Form).
The rage normalization equation has been adjusted to grant more rage.
I haven’t had the time to PvP yet, but I’m sure bear form does suffer there versus warriors and paladins decked out in epics but the jury is still out on that since I haven’t had the chance to try it. But I think we have our work cut out for us there.
On the subject of the 25% health reduction, also consider that they raised our stamina by 25% also. So the drop in health is not as drastic as it first appears.
All in all the biggest changes were to the bear form; they didn’t touch the cat form.
Let me say that I never thought the roll of the druid was to be the best tank in a group or even the one dealing the most DPS or even being the best healer. The druid should be able to fill any one of those rolls adequately to bolster the group and be able to change as the situation demands to cover any gaps that open up. The feral spec still does this very well I think.
Here are the changes they made to the druids in the last patch for you to look at in case you haven’t been able to check them out.
Druids
When the duration of "Cyclone" ends, area buffs such as "Leader of the Pack", "Tree of Life", and "Moonkin" will now be correctly resumed.
"Bear Form" now grants 25% increased stamina instead of 25% increased health.
"Dire Bear Form" now grants 25% increased stamina instead of 25% increased health. In addition, the armor bonus has been reduced from 450% to 400%.
The multiplier on base weapon damage for "Mangle (Bear)" ability has been changed from 130% to 100%. In addition, the bonus damage has been reduced by the same ratio.
"Savage Fury" no longer affects "Mangle (Bear)".
"Savage Fury" no longer applies to "Maul" or "Swipe".
The critical damage bonus on "Predatory Instincts" reduced from 3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10%.
"Improved Leader of the Pack" can no longer get critical heals.
The armor bonus from "Moonkin Form" has been increased from 360% to 400% (to match Dire Bear Form).
The rage normalization equation has been adjusted to grant more rage.