I thought I'd wait for dust to settle before I write my thoughts on the wall of text that came out 2 days ago from Blizz about the Alpha Patch notes for Warlords of Draenor.
Naturally, I'm interested in the druid changes!
Healing changes
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| I don't know who made this pic, but I felt I must use it in a post SOMEWHERE about Warlords of Draenor! |
Healing changes
- Nourish has been removed. Good. This spell was hardly used anyway, even when they tried to make us use it more with the Glyph of Rejuvenation, which nobody takes.
- Symbiosis is being removed. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
- Smart heals are no longer smart - ie they will no longer heal the lowest health person, they will heal any injured person within range of the spell. I like this change - it makes you think about who you want to heal the most. At least it chooses people over pets though (much to Sev's chagrin)
- Wild Growth is no longer instant, and has a 1.5 second cast time. That will make me think twice about using it, that's for sure.
- Innervate has been removed. They did say that they are reducing our mana costs accordingly.
- Efflorescence is now permanently attached to your mushroom, which was previously done with Glyph of Efflorescence. Good, now I have a new glyph slot!
- Tranquility no longer has a hot attached to it on top of the healing that it did. That extra hot was useful, especially when you stuff up and tranq too early - at least there was a hot that could do some healing... I'll miss that.
- Nature's vigil has been tweaked again, increases single-target damage and healing caused by healing spells by 16% (down from 25%), and all single-target damage spells also heal a nearby friendly target for 35% of the damage done (up from 25%). So the healing boost from it is small, but you get more benefit if you're using it outside your spec.
Changes that have implications for PvP
- Removed ability to make cast time cc's instant with a spell. Nature's Swiftness no longer gives you an instant cyclone but then every other class has had their instant cc's gone too - Shaman hex with ancestral swiftness, Mage poly with presence of mind.
- Cyclone can now be dispelled or cancelled by immunity effects like iceblock and divine shield.
- Hunter pets can no longer crowd control. YES!!!
- Heart of the wild no longer increases Stamina, Intellect and Agility. Poopie. That's the second nerfbat hit :P I guess it was too good to last. And on a side note, I don't know how this ability is related to the herb, heart of the wild...
- Survival instincts is now not only for bears but for all specs! Yay, another survival cooldown for myself. It reduces damage taken by 70% (up from 50%) and is on a 2min cooldown
- Pallies lost Blinding light. Good. They had too many cc's anyway. In fact all their crowd control abilities had a change, including a longer cast time for Repentance and Turn Evil, and Turn evil will be shorter (down to 6s from 8s)
- There are less diminishing returns categories: All roots, all mesmerises, all stuns are each in their own DR category.
I read over at Lissanna's blog, Restokin, that there were other healing changes:
Mana management has become a focus again - we have had lots of mana since WotLK, and it looks like they're going to concentrate on conserving mana a little more. A lot of people who didn't play in Vanilla may not think about Rank 4 Healing Touch that much, but I will always think of that when I think of efficiency of time and mana.
It is early days yet and they were will be tweaking come beta when live testing is out. But as with all expansions, I can't wait to try it - but no, don't expect to see me on the beta doing any testing. I have a real issue with playing and progressing in something that does not get retained on live servers!
Increased healing to Healing Touch, Regrowth by 30%. Increased crit rate of Healing Touch on targets effected by Lifebloom. Increased HOT healing on targets effected by Ironbark. Increased living seed heal size by 20%.I'm not sure where she read that, but if those are true, it will be fun to see live!
Mana management has become a focus again - we have had lots of mana since WotLK, and it looks like they're going to concentrate on conserving mana a little more. A lot of people who didn't play in Vanilla may not think about Rank 4 Healing Touch that much, but I will always think of that when I think of efficiency of time and mana.
It is early days yet and they were will be tweaking come beta when live testing is out. But as with all expansions, I can't wait to try it - but no, don't expect to see me on the beta doing any testing. I have a real issue with playing and progressing in something that does not get retained on live servers!