A bit detailed suggestion on the Dragonflight Druid class tree

Classes Druid
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Feedback about Druid talents
Little background on me, I am playing a druid since vanilla and have primarily played feral, resto, and guardian. My balance experience is limited. I am primarily playing PvP with some raiding, so this is my perspective on druid talents.

First, I would like to say something regarding general talents and how they feel for a casual PvP/raid focused feral. My primary feel about these talents is:

  1. Losing a lot of utility from the general druid abilities, or being pushed into completely useless stuff
  2. No cross specialisation interesting abilities being shared though general tree

My main concern is that the general druid tree is limiting instead of enabling interesting choices and gameplay. We should have a feel of broadening our abilities through an expansion and having a choice whilst we do not have that.
The lower part of the general tree is very important to be interesting for every specialisation so as to enable viable choices. These abilities should be boosted through specialisation trees. For example:

  • A resto druid’s today have an option of “catweawing” – using restealths and prowl for starting CC chains in arena. Removing stun from Rake is completely killing this playstyle. Why do it?
  • Cyclone is essential for a feral druid gameplay. Locking it behind 7 completely useless talents for feral really makes me feel bad for picking it instead of feeling good.

Therefore, my first suggestion regarding the general tree is that those abilities should have an option to be made “empowered” by the specialisation trees. This enables different combinations which are viable like bear/balance or cat balance. Currently, cat/bear, cat/healer and bear/healer are interesting and boosting each other, but balance is forgotten. For example:
If I have to take Starfire and Starsurge as Feral, can we somehow look and make those abilities useful for Feral via the Feral tree, for example to them be castable sometimes in Cat form, for example as a finisher we can cast Starsurge if we have to do some ranged DPS, or if we are not in range of the target and target has some bleeds we get a proc for a free Starfire?
My second suggestion is bringing the more druidic feel for all specs. As a feral I would like to be a druid, not a rogue with a only a subset of abilities. One of the solutions would be making some iconic abilities available via the general tree and returning some. For example:

  • Starfall
  • Tranquillity
  • Survival instincts…
  • Symbiosis (if it is a problem to balance disable it in PvP).
    My third suggestion regarding the trees in not locking some really important stuff behind talents which feel “forced”. This primarily involves cyclone or skull bash. I am a resto PvP druid. I would really like to have an interrupt. It would be great if I could pick either skull bash or even solar beam. Picking Killer instinct feels really bad because it is completely useless for me.

Furthermore, I am giving some suggestions regarding the general tree.

  1. 1st row - Rake should have a stun included. This is needed due to catweaving gameplay. Other first row talents are fine.
  2. 2nd row – all are fine, hibernate should be moved to 2nd row and connected to Rejuvenation and Starfall. It is super niche CC, and it should not be locked behind 3 balance talents.
  3. 3rd row – most talents are fine but some modifications should be done. Moonkin form should be base. It should be replaced with Force of nature. This adds an interesting much wanted talent and makes the early balance tree much more attractive to other specs. the Also, improved Frenzied should have a connection to Ironfur for Restoration druid who are PvP-ing. Also, there should be a talent in the restoration tree which buffs Ironfur based on Intellect percentage.
  4. 4th row – all talents are fine, except 3 points for filler talents, make them only a single point, also hibernate should be replaced with Typhoon, so it is more accessible to Guardian druids who really prefer having it. Add survival instincts below Improved frenzied regeneration.
  5. 5th row – major modifications are needed. Skull bash should have no prerequisite and should be a choice node between Skull bash and Solar beam, it should be moved to the right and in this place should be placed Brutal Slash. This way we add iconic abilities from other specs to the general tree broadening the possible choices. Cyclone should not have a prerequisite. Healing received should have a connection from a Survival Instincts and so should Thick Hide. Feral charge should be base, and the choice should be between Tiger Dash and Displacer Beast.
  6. 6th row- change Tireless pursuit with Powershifting – shifting does not trigger global cooldown, but you can not return to your previous form for two seconds. This would encourage more engaging gameplay with interleaving different forms especially for feral and guardian. Soothe should be replaced with something more epic, like Symbiosis, whilst Shoothe can be placed in the resto pathway. Below a brutal slash should be a new talent – Wild Retalliation – Active ability which gives a chance on hit on the druid to cast Brutal Slash. Brutal slash should be buffed by intellect in Resto and Balance trees via some talent. It adds a thorns based protection while helping with farming multiple mobs in solo content. Typhoon should be replaced with Aviana’s Gust – A druid unleashes a tornado around him which cyclones all targets in the range - an escape for Balance druid. Add Faerie Fire below Thick Hide, as this was really a cool and druidic ability and serves as a somewhat counter to Rogues and other Druids.
  7. 7th row – Ursoc’s endurance should be replaced with Grove Protection – current PvP guardian talent. Rest can remain as they are.
  8. The last three rows have been modified into “survival”, “cross form capability” and “support” endings.
  9. 8th row – Improved rejuvenation should be replaced by Tranquility. Lycrass teaching should be a 1 point talent, as well as Ursine Vigor. There is no need for multiple talent point spenders.
    1. 9th row – Furror should be swapped with Reneval. Last three branches should be “specialised” to “survival”, “cross form utility” and “support” endings.
  11. 10th row – HoTW should have severely reduced cooldown such as 3 minutes. Also, it should increase the armour in bear form. I would use that if sometimes a tank dies, and I need to take his place in a clutch Raid or Dungeon.
  12. In this way it seems we would have much more choice and those choices could feel rewarding.

Also I had my “superior paint skills” making how a tree could look, but sadly I can not include the link in my post for some reason so I inlude it in marks: https://imgur.com/sdkjJSl .

2 Likes
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I like most of these changes, they really improve the tree, but there’s a few little issues:

Ursoc’s endurance should be replaced with Grove Protection – current PvP guardian talent. Rest can remain as they are.

I don’t think this really has a place in pve, since it’s a really overpowered version of Anti-Magic Zone. Even if it was heavily nerfed, it shouldn’t be a thing because it’s basically the same spell, unless it would only work on physical damage, which could be cool, but I don’t think druids need more unique utility.

Improved rejuvenation should be replaced by Tranquility.

Unless this is a nerfed version for other specs, it could be problematic in raid since it can interfere with healer cd rotations, or so I heard.

in this place should be placed Brutal Slash.

This could have a similar issue for feral as it has in the current tree for M+, that it replaces Swipe, meaning our main aoe couldn’t be spammed, and we’d have to resort to spamming trash. This isn’t really a problem with your tree, since it isn’t mandatory, just a problem with the ability in general.

Symbiosis

This isn’t a problem. Blizzard, if you’re gonna let abilities like Power Infusion stay, bring back the coolest ability in the history of WoW.

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Thanks for the feedback. As for Grove Protection, yes it is overpowered 40% as opposed to AMZ, and it is all damage, not just magical. It is overpowered. My point was that passive absorb is really a not innovative or interesting option for this tallent.

As for Tranquility, I was thinking about general version being much improved by Restoration talents (cooldown, strength, immunity), but to offer still other specs a powerful, very druidic cooldown.

As I am aware Brutal Slash does not replace swipe in the Alpha (might be wrong). I envisioned this talent as an interesting, more leveling thing or a thing for PvP and some encounters where there are a lot of adds.

I think that all of the Druid population would rejoice if Symbiosis was back. It was the most fun tallent ever to be done for druids. Other than that, for Feral I would really love Claws of Shirvallah to be returned in some form, even as a cooldown (This alternate Cat Form allows the use of all non-damaging Druid spells while shapeshifted, and increases Versatility by 5%).

1 Like
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I’d like that as well, I even packaged it with a DPS bonus and put it on my Feral tree rework concept:

My concept for a rework for the Feral Spec tree as feedback

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The thing is that, aside some minor changes like allowing you to use basically most of your druid abilities without going out of form, what does it actually do?

It’s basically just a minor change at the end of the day, and different aesthetics.

If you really want to you can get bloodtalons and lunar inspiration, and there you go, you get basically the most important abilities you could ever want to use in feral.

I think they should use the time to develop better options personally.

Aside that, i like it that they are going for a more spammy and a more dot focused build. And that if you want you can go somewhere in between.

Can it be improved? Well, like anything, the answer is yes.

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Yes, that’s what it does.

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That is the key thing. Now when I cast clone i lose a global shifting back to cat. Why? Also, why would we not cast Hibernate? It is niche, but it is also a needed spell. Additionally, that talent was adding 5% versatility if I remember correctly.

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The 5 % versa is irrelevant for gameplay, it’s just there to make the talent better in terms of numbers.

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That is true. If this could be a new talent designers need to have a way to include the remaining druid toolkit in it.
Why not have Starsurge as a ranged finisher for Feral? I mean the spell is there, the effort of development and design is almost non existant just to include it so we can have some ranged CP spender when we have to move from some melee AoE or for PvP.

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Maybe it could work.

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