This was also posted on the US forums, find the link here. Posting it on EU forums as well as this was a collaborative effort by the Dreamgrove Theorycrafting community.
Balance Druid 11.1 PTR Feedback
With the 11.1 PTR being up and work being done for the upcoming season, the Dreamgrove community wanted to share some thoughts and feedback about the state of the spec, and offer some insight that could help in fixing some of the issues with the spec currently, both short term and long term. Last time we did a similar feedback post was for the 11.0.7 PTR, where we brought up some underlying core issues with the spec, so this post will instead focus on coming into the 11.1 PTR specifically. For the “longer-term” / core feedback post that we will upkeep look here .
Current Bugs
1- Since the introduction of hero talents, Control of the Dream has had an issue with bosses being reset or your raid wiping while your major abilities are still on cooldown, resulting in not gaining the 15 second reduction for the beginning of next pull unless you swap talents back and forth in the choice node between pulls.
2- The DoT effect from Wild Mushroom required for the Season 2 4-piece does not activate unless you’re talented into either Sunseeker Mushroom or Wild Mushroom, making the choice node mandatory in every build.
3- When Arcanic Pulsar was removed back in the pre-patch for The War Within, an issue started where swapping between Orbital Strike and Greater Alignment (now Whirling Stars) would break macros mentioning Incarnation: Chosen of Elune or Celestial Alignment. This is only fixed by a full relog every time you swap the talent. This became noticeably more common after 11.0.5 when you are swapping talents in the choice node between builds, compared to previously where the choice was largely one-sided.
4-The Harmony of the Heavens talent was bugged throughout the entirety of season 1 where stacks would not reset correctly if you pressed Celestial Alignment after having used a spender inside Lunar Eclipse, or using a spender outside of Eclipse and transitioning into any Eclipse. This has been partially fixed with the 11.1 PTR, but there is still an issue where spenders used outside of Eclipse will count towards your next Eclipse or Celestial Alignment.
Class Tree Update
The updated Druid class tree has been well received so far, introducing some sorely needed defensive nodes and generally better pathing to access the utility you want for any scenario. Some of the defensive options are underwhelming, specifically Well-Honed Instincts and Matted Fur which don’t offer a lot of benefit relative to their position in the tree.
The class tree update also introduces a very degenerate gameplay loop through the addition of the Lycara’s Meditation talent for any Druid also talented into Fluid Form. When combined, creating a macro to cancelaura your Moonkin Form for the 6% haste buff and then entering back into Moonkin Form every 5 seconds with Wrath/Starfire abuses their intended effects and feels very disruptive to your rotation.
11.1 Tier Set
There is not a lot to say about the new tier set; damaging spells and pressing your major cooldown spawns a Wild Mushroom under your target, dealing damage. The 4-piece increases your spenders damage on targets affected by Fungal Growth, the DoT effect from Wild Mushroom. Wild Mushroom usually does a very small amount of your damage, where the active version of the spell is worth less than 1%, and the passive version is worth around 2%. The tier set also provides more passive AP generation, which we already have a fair share of.
Talent Build Diversity
The middle section of the spec tree is extremely bloated with “mandatory” passive nodes that all feel the same, making different talent builds very hard to select structurally. For any build to work, you need 2 points each in Cosmic Rapidity and Starlord, then points in Wild Mushroom, Astral Smolder, Celestial Alignment, Whirling Stars/Orbital Strike, Umbral Intensity, Soul of the Forest and Umbral Embrace. That is an 11 point investment, where the only ones that affect gameplay in any way are Starlord and Whirling Stars/Orbital Strike. If you wanted to pick interesting talents like Touch the Cosmos and Hail of Stars, this would be hard as you would also need Crashing Star and Stellar Amplification for synergy, essentially spending all your talent points only in the middle section alone.
Hail of Stars was introduced in 11.0.5, offering an interesting gameplay loop where free spender procs cast from Touch the Cosmos and Starweaver gave you 3 seconds of Solstice. Currently, any duration accumulated of Solstice resets back to 6 seconds whenever you enter an Eclipse/press Celestial Alignment. The spec currently has a lot of passive AP generation from procs or cooldowns, which lessens the value of free spenders overall, especially when considering the amount of interactions that include your builders compared to your spenders. Ideally we would want to see some more interactions with spenders to alleviate this.
Hero Talents
Elune’s Chosen has mostly revolved around taking Lunar Calling, going into Lunar Eclipse on all target counts and using Starfire to reduce the Fury of Elune cooldown funneling into Atmospheric Exposure’s damage increase. Lunar Calling is still a very uninteresting talent to take, despite it having seen numerous tuning passes since beta, and the requirement from Lunation to maintain constant uptime while casting can feel restrictive and punishing whenever you have to react to a scenario in front of you. There’s the other part of Elune’s Chosen that interacts with New Moon, which is interesting in theory, but with Celestial Alignment/Incarnation having a short duration and the spec having an abundance of passive AP generation, that talent is not playable in the current form of the spec, and when New Moon damage was buffed leading into 10.0.5, it was not received well and got nerfed in the tuning pass the week after the patch released.
The main issue with this hero tree lies in the mandatory talents you have to take from the spec tree to make it work, where Fury of Elune, Radiant Moonlight and Sundered Firmament are all mandatory picks in addition to the vast amount of passive nodes in the middle of the tree.
Keeper of the Grove has been the go-to hero talent for most content in season 1, being the clearly better choice on 7/8 mythic bosses and most M+ dungeons outside of the highest level. The main criticism relating to the hero tree is that Force of Nature is not a satisfying button to press, and does not offer anything special visually. Dream Burst being consumed by generators makes you restricted in what talents you can take from the spec tree, where talents like Bounteous Bloom, Starlord, Starweaver, Astral Communion, Hail of Stars, Fury of Elune/New Moon and Elune’s Guidance all prioritize spending AP as you get it and can make you scramble to spend your Dream Burst stacks before your cooldown runs out. Having Dream Burst interact with spenders instead of generators could go a long way in helping with overall build diversity.