Feedback: Druids

In Development Midnight Beta Test
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This thread is dedicated to leaving feedback on Druids in Midnight. Look in this thread and in the Midnight Alpha Development Notes for adjustments and bugfixes made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

Apex Talents

Many Apex Talents are available for playtesting and may be selected using specialization tree points in the final specialization tree node. The current User interface (UI) is temporary for playtesting purposes and will be replaced with a final UI later in development. As with any test cycle, we will be adding more Apex Talents to the test over time and not all will be available with the start of the alpha test.

To help us refine Apex Talents, please consider the following questions as you playtest:

  • How gameplay-impacting, exciting, and fantasy forward is your Apex Talent to you?
  • Are your Apex Talents and new Hero Talents meeting the approachability goals laid out in our Combat for Everyone in Midnight article?
  • Are there cases you would consider not selecting your Apex talent?
  • Does the Apex talent disproportionally favor a particular talent build or Hero Talent tree?

For feedback regarding the changes on making the combat system more approachable for players of all skill levels, leave your feedback in the Combat Approachability feedback thread.

Thank You

We greatly appreciate all your feedback and are very excited for you to test out all the changes in Midnight!

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Balance

The design of how you enter and maintain Eclipse is changing in Midnight. Weā€™d like to introduce more gameplay to it. Eclipse before Midnight is so important that you immediately drop everything to refresh it when it ends. Thereā€™s no timing or strategy to it, and it can be a struggle during phases with high movement. In Midnight, Lunar Eclipse and Solar Eclipse are an active ability that instantly enters Eclipse for 15 seconds, has a 30 second cooldown, and can be talented to have two charges. The goal is for Balance to prepare for each Eclipse and choose the perfect moment to activate it. Depending on talents and the pacing of a fight or dungeon, you might have an Eclipse up 60-80% of the time. Youā€™ll want to spend your time in Eclipse spending Astral Power and dealing damage, and your time out of Eclipse building resources or refreshing DoTs to prepare for your next Eclipse.* *Balanceā€™s Mastery has been changed so Sunfire and Moonfire no longer increase damage targets take and Waning Twilight has been removed. This allows Balance to start dealing damage faster and improves its strength in split cleave fights. Moonfire and Sunfireā€™s damage will be tuned to keep them as strong, efficient damage dealing spells, but the damage of your other spells will be less conditional.

Feral

Feral Druid is changing in Midnight to address some important mechanics that are based on information that is hidden to the player. Bleed snapshotting, where the damage a bleed deals is increased for its entire duration, is now applied only by Tigerā€™s Fury and Prowl. The icons of empowered bleeds change to show theyā€™re strengthened. Bloodtalons has been removed. These changes also aim to reduce the complexity that could go into choosing the best builder to use in the moment, putting more of Feralsā€™ focus on maintaining bleeds and building and spending combo points. While some abilities like Brutal Slash and Adaptive Swarm have been removed, Feral has gained some new tricks that lean into their flavor as deadly hunting cats. Frantic Frenzy is a multi-target upgrade to Feral Frenzy and Blood Spattered makes them even stronger at taking down a primary target while fighting many enemies.

Guardian

Guardian Druidā€™s Rage economy is very oversaturated, particularly during cooldowns and in multi-target contexts, resulting in excessive APM and unintuitive resource management. Weā€™re aiming to smooth out Rage income and provide healthier outlets. Additionally, weā€™re pulling back in areas where survivability feels contingent on having multiple layers of defensives, and improving a smaller set of baseline abilities instead.

Restoration

We are significantly reducing the number of buffs Restoration Druid can apply to allies to make raid frames and target frames easy to parse and always show your important effects. Restoration Druidā€™s Mastery will also be much more effective per healing over time effect active, as they can now only apply up to 5 heal over time effects to allies. We are also streamlining several cooldowns and actives we felt were redundant with other tools in the kit by either removing them or combining them with other abilities. Finally, we are reducing the amount of maintenance buffs by making targeted changes to Lifebloom talents and offering a way to maintain Efflorescence automatically on your Lifebloom target.

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Hey! Iā€™m a Balance Druid theorycrafter and guide writer at Dreamgrove.gg and just an overall Moonkin guy. The Dreamgrove community has posted our feedback and thoughts in a different thread that you can find here. We also posted an identical thread over on the US forums since those are historically more used.

Anyway, I would like to give my thoughts on the questions asked in the OP of this thread.

The Balance Druid Apex Talents do not feel very impactful by themselves. The Solar/Lunar Bolts that get sent out when you enter Eclipse helps with providing some visual and audible effects whenever you enter Eclipse, but they donā€™t impact your rotation outside of that. The top Apex Talent increases the damage of your first 3 spenders in Eclipse which is largely unnoticeable and give you an instant Wrath/Starfire at the start of your Eclipse.
The free Wrath/Starfire cast is also currently consumed by Natureā€™s Grace.

I would say the Apex Talents hit these points considering they are purely passive nodes that donā€™t impact your gameplay much in general.

Currently on Alpha, the Solar Bolt and Lunar Bolt spells do not get sent to your current target, meaning they can hit mobs that are heavily DRā€™d, immune or irrelevant. Convoke the Spirits also has issues with fights like this, which from recent memory affected Forgeweaver Araz, Mugā€™Zee, Cauldron of Carnage, Nexus King Salhadaar and Dimensius. In fights where adds like this are present you would very likely not talent into the bottom Apex Talent.
For the Lunar Bolt it makes sense for them to not fire at your current target considering they are AoE spells and you normally only enter Lunar Eclipse on AoE situations, but the Solar Bolt would consistently get sent on a random target on encounters where single target damage matters.

The Lunar Bolts do not interact with Lunation on the Eluneā€™s Chosen tree and they do very little damage on Single Target encounters. Since Lunar Calling exists and you wonā€™t be able to enter Solar Eclipse I would say the Apex Talents favors Keeper of the Grove more than its counterpart. However, the relevant feedback to take away from that would be to make a viable Single Target option for the Eluneā€™s Chosen Hero Talent tree that opens up for entering Solar Eclipse.

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I am no class theorycrafter or expert by any means, but Iā€™d like to add my two cents on Feral. I have mained Feral for the past 6 years, mostly M+ but also casual raiding. No pvp.

My first experience with Feral on the alpha was not great. At all. So far the only positive I can name, is Swarm being gone.

The loss of Bloodtalons and Brutal Slash makes the spec feel like a shell of its former self. Itā€™s as if Windwalker lost their combo strikes. The whole gameplay the spec was built around is gone.

The first new ability, Chomp, does not feel fun to press. The design of this ability seems like something youā€™d see out of the first 3 expansions of WoW and not something from the 11th. Only being able to cast it below a certain amount of energy makes it a very awkward and classic-wow feeling ability that seems really out of place in our kit.

The 2nd ability Iā€™m still unsure about, I forgot the name but its the ā€œAoE Feral Frenzyā€ ability. Itā€™s a great ability on paper and I think a good addition to our kit, however using it felt like I was doing nothing. But that might just be a tuning issue.

Playing the intro and the campaign was a struggle, and I did actually swap to my Rogue after a while. I kept dying despite only pulling one or two mobs, the damage felt lackluster, and with Renewal also gone, my ā€œim in troubleā€ button is too. No amount of Predatory Swiftness procs is saving me if I drop below 30% HP.

Iā€™m sure this might not be helpful as Iā€™m not a high-end Feral player, but from a casual pov and feels alone - Not great.

For reference, the moment I swapped to Rogue (assassin) I had a much easier time doing the campaign, I only died once, and I could pull way more mobs in one go. The only downside was that I had to use Recuperate instead of my own healing. I hadnā€™t played Rogue in that entire 6 years so to be so much better at that all of the sudden wasā€¦ concerning at best!

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Suggestion for the new Apex Talent: Rage of the guardian
Spend rage to activate and empower this buff. Each rage spent increases both the duration and strength of the buff up to a maximum of X seconds. If you fail to spend rage within a short window, the buff will completely drop and must be rebuilt by spending rage again.
Buff Effects at Max Strength:
ā€¢ Reflects a percentage of damage taken as Nature damage (an enhanced Thorns effect)
ā€¢ Increases Haste by x%
ā€¢ Prevents x% of incoming damage
ā€¢ Increases damage dealt by x%
ā€¢ Grants x% Leech (healing from damage dealt)
ā€¢ Applies the Rage of the Sleeper effect, significantly increasing the Guardian Druidā€™s size
This talent encourages active rage management, rewarding sustained aggression and defense through a dynamic, scaling buff that enhances survivability and damage output.

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Apex Talent: Protective Barkskin Aura
Activate to envelop your allies in a protective barkskin aura for 8 seconds. While active, all party and raid members gain:
ā€¢ Damage Reduction: x% reduced damage taken,
ā€¢ Healing Bonus: Increased healing received by x%,
ā€¢ Visual Effect: Enveloped in a protective layer resembling thick bark and leafy vines.
This aura empowers your team with enhanced survivability, easing the healing burden and mitigating incoming damage during intense fights. Strategic use allows the Guardian Druid to provide consistent, impactful support beyond personal defenses.

Cooldown: 45 seconds

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Feral Druid Feedback

Iā€™ve been testing the new Feral changes and wanted to share some thoughts. Overall the direction feels solid, but there are a few areas that could use more attention.

Gameplay Changes

  • Remove the Shapeshift GCD, instead give each form a 1/2s cooldown.

  • Swarm being removed is a very welcome change

  • Bloodtalons being gone definitely lowers the specā€™s difficulty. It feels more like a shift from a five-star to a three-star difficulty spec. This is happening across many classes right now, so I get it - but it does noticeably reduce the skill expression Feral used to offer

  • Chomp changing to a percentage threshold works better with energy-related talents, but it still feels like it needs an extra hook. Something like scaling damage based on number of bleeds, or granting energy depending on active bleeds, could make it feel like a more meaningful talent choice

  • The obsession with form changing on some talents is not fun; eg:

    • Stampeding Roar still shifts you into Bear form when formless. As a Feral this needs to be defaulted to cat.
    • Wildshape Mastery being a defensive behind 2 GCDs (shift changing & ironfur) feels terrible

UI and Visuals

  • Primal Wrath doesnā€™t gain any unique icon highlight when Tigerā€™s Fury is active.

  • More generally, icons/spells empowered by Tigerā€™s Fury could use a clearer colour shift, maybe a yellow tint. Right now they look too similar, and it feels like something players will prefer to ignore and use a buff tracker for

  • Haranir cat form animations donā€™t look right at all. They seem based on a fox rig, so the jump animation looks really off, and the run and auto-attack cycle looks off for a feline form

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Since Persistence now a Guardian talent ability, it would be nice to track as buff as itā€™s now harder to ignore cat-weaving even in dungeon environment when itā€™s possible yet itā€™s just not included to cooldown manager at all.

The biggest issue currently as for boomie main is the buff bars since i donā€™t need to see separate eclipses bars during incarn/double eclipse procs. For example it must be a single bar that show duration of incarn OR separate eclipse if not both from proc are active, not all 3 fixed bars that prevents us from positioning it for example between main CDs and utility CDs or right above main CDs tracking.

As there are no additional highlighting in CDM, it would be nice to glow up Action Bar buttons accordingly to active eclipse/incarn.

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Make Raze REPLACE Maul again. Dont want 2 keybinds for those.

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Chomp needs to be able at 50% (!!) of Max Energie . Sometimes you get so fast Energie back that you cant use it.

Matted fur shield size should be changed to 15/ 30% of Max hp. Currently itā€™s way too weak. With renewal gone and still no imunity we Need help with def .

Bleed dmg feels very weak. - fresh 90 !

cyclone still Not castable in catformā€¦ make it Instant with Predators Swiftness and give it a 20sec cd Like back in cata. I

PvP Talents are very boring and also Not very impactfull.wicked claws is mandatory and should be baseline at this point.

Feral still Lacks of Burst Potential

Feral still Gas no Execute mechanics

Utility Still very weak - looking at ret. We dont need big stuff here .

selfheal still weak. Casting 10-15times from 0-100 feels Not okay in this fast paced wow nowdays.

Wild charge: no path found bug on serveral scenarios while leap from war or step from rogue works fine.

Bearform (feral pov) eighter need dmg buff or better hp/armor/heal (dampening Problem here) .so enemys have to swap.

Thorns dmg need a buff and make it punish casters also pls? (New PvP Talent idea?)

I wish tiger dash to be baseline as feral.

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I have given up on long feedback, as Im not sure how many people read it, however I want to point out that the Guardian druid talent - ā€œFront of the Packā€ which you can pick at lv 14, it reliant and interacting with a skill that you get at lv34 at the earliest (Stampeding Roar).

You need to rotate this with ā€œBramblesā€ - Brambles is a very useful tool during the leveling process.

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Probably the worse feral patch notes the spec has ever recieved.

The reason to remove thrash is baffling and amounts to them failing at being able to blacklist debuffs from name plates so we are removing a dot from the least played spec. I have never been so disappointed in my life.

Several of us have pointed out that In previous version of the beta Feral has to press shred way too much, so the devs turned it around and basically said what if shred is the only button you can press now.

It is pretty obviously blizzard has no idea how to balance dots in the game, every other dot spec in the game has transition to a point where dots are enablers for your other abilities to deal damage.

Feral was very unique in the way it was majority a dot spec. Removing a dot from a dot spec and relegating it to a shred spam bot completely kills any motivation for me to play this spec in its current state. There is no complexity the spec is not fun, you had a decent start but these most recent changes are a complete joke.

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Currently Feral feels like it is missing that one extra button for its flow. The removal of Brutal Slash has taken away a very satisfying button to press, both in ST and AOE situations for me. AOE feels extremely lackluster now without both brutal slash and thrash, swipe has always felt extremely mundane and is extremely un fun to press, it is just a shred replacement for AoE, you could just bake it into shred so it splits damage amongst targets and achieve the same feel.

To put it simply. Brutal slash or some form of it being re added would fix the feel for me, I greatly dislike the shred spam without a break in the flow.

Chomp iā€™m very 50/50 on, on one hand I enjoy dumping energy and doing a big chomp every 20s. however in practise it is frustrating, especially with higher gear, stats and raid buffs. Notably during Lust/Hero and Berserk, even with avoiding as many energy regen talents as possible it is extremely difficult to press it, resulting in this awkward feeling where Iā€™m supposed to be doing a lot of damage I simply cannot press the button due to being flooded with energy non stop.

I think the simplest fix for this would be for Chomp to be usable during Beserk/Incarn, it would make the openers on bosses feel a lot smoother, and during CD windows in general making it a button you can actually press.

Additionally regarding visuals and audio flare.

The loss of Brutal Slash and Thrash have greatly reduced the visual flare and audio feel of the spec, when AOEing especially it just feels like iā€™m not really doing anything, previously while enemies are ontop of you, you can still see and feel your attacks, now I just feel invisible doing nothing.

Swipes sound especially feels horrible, it has no power behind it, I could accept this if we still had Thrash, or at the very least Primal Wrath having more of a satisfying feel to press. AOE just feels bad.

Iā€™m assuming/hoping Chomps visuals and sound design are unfinished, currently it just feels like Ferocious Bite, but with even less flare. If its supposed to be a big hitter skill ability, it needs to be more visually interesting and pack a punch sound wise.

Iā€™m also assuming/hoping the same with our Apex talent. Conceptually I LOVE it, but with it being entirely passive it would be great to have some more visual flare to it. I do not see it procc unless I am massively zoomed in and trying to look for it, It would be nice if the colour of it was reflective of the selected form, and generally being visually brighter and have a marginally longer visual duration. It just needs that bit more extra for it to feel like it is actually there and doing something. It would also be nice to have a visual difference in Unseen Slash and Unseen Swipe.

The spec has become even more so monotonous with its red visually hard to see spells, with an explosion of colour and variety during convoke, it needs some extra visual flare to its core abilities.

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can we please just get rid of Eclipse, it was never a fun mechanic.

If you insist on keeping Thrash a bear only skill, atleast change the talent that adds 1 more target to Rake to a 2 point node where each point adds 2 targets to Rake.

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Iā€™m still canā€™t get why it was reworked in such way.
The problem monkin always had - long ramp to build AP generation before being able to start dealing damage. What changed? Here, dots now does not affecting your damage, you can do damage from first second! And for that there is eclipse button! Oh yes? With zero astral power? So instead of doing your normal rotation you need to spend even more GCDs

And in the name of Elune. We donā€™t need three separate bars to track eclipse/incarn, only single one to tell which eclipse is active(properly colored) or both from proc/incarn are active

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I kinda like that you can use Eclipse when you want it, instead of having to game it as in retail now. Overall I think its better.

For Feral however, the fact DoubleClawed Rake doesnt work for Moonfire as Twin Moons i cannot understand. It makes no much sense. Especially now with Thrash gone.
Having only Shred as a builder for Single Target is just maddening - its like whoever is in charge of Feral has looked at the spec for years and gone ā€œIā€™ve been too inept to play it before so now iā€™ll make it easy for myselfā€.

DoubleClawed Rake tied with Lunar Inspiration wud give Feral more options for both ST and Cleave.
Overall I dont really mind us going back to using Swipe - I never really liked Brutal Slash for ā€œALL CONTENTā€. There was no variation - I like Swipe, but it needs to be different from Shred.

Why must Guardian and Feral be the dumbest specs in the game? Who made the decision to make Guardian the 'ā€œeasiest tank spec to learnā€ and therefore the dumbest of them all? I dont get it - and now Feral is somehow becoming that for Melee. Please, whomever is designing this, take a hard look at wtf youā€™re doing.

But please, dev, whoever you are, stop taking away bleeds from Feral - its the ONE THING this spec has had going for it for over 15+ years and youā€™re not doing all the players whose stuck with it any favours. We dont wanna just spam Shred and Bite. If we wanted that weā€™d play something else. Get your act together please.1

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One more important note.
Due to pretty random ordering, please, add a feature to filter out debuffs we want to keep tracking on nameplates, e.g., I donā€™t need to see any procs there, only moonfire and sunfire and only them

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How much do YOU as developers want to dumb down the game?
If you keep stripping away the small things that make Class Specilizations interesting then players who have to actually interact with their keyboard towards their class. Itā€™ll be ONE-BUTTON-ROTATION for everyone even at the highest level of M+ and Raiding. And as such the boss mechanics might aswell become just as dumbed down bcos why the hell not.

You actively decided to make the game more interesting from Legion and onwards but now youā€™ve decided the opposite?

I dont get it.

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its been like this since end of legion , bfa was a flop until last patch, shadowlands was a flop until last patch and then dragonflight was a plus in s1 and back to awfull and tww feral was amazing and now lets make it bad again , its like who ever is behind feral design hates feral and wants to reduce it to a rogue as tank spec , does 0 damage , 0 self heal, outdated toolkit and overnerfed and now they are taking aoe away , the devs have 0 vision for feral i lost hope after bfa but DF gave me hope that there might be a chance feral will go in good direction , tww proved me right but now we are going back to bfa and sl dumbing down killing the rest of the playerbase this spec had and it was low already but guess if they dont revert the thrash change il quit forever at this point, im tired of how ignorant the devs are and how they always ignore the feedback and always do what players donā€™t want.

for me as wildstalker feral enjoyer we lost swarm, thrash bleed and Brutal Slash ST , Blood talons that buffed rip and bite and what did we get in return? dumb ability that even blizzard probably memes behind their screens ā€œChompā€

I hoped we would get another bleed to the table after losing Swarm but nope, Back to shred spam and bite spam most dull design ive ever seen and if it will stay that way im done with this cash garbing game

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Thought Wildstalker missed the mark heavily. Especially as it doesnt have Moonfire Baseline. The whole ā€˜attack the growthsā€™ didnt work very good. I like hte Claw Ravage but compared to Tempest it hardly ever procs, very unreliable. Druids are just not designed well and havent been since they removed Tear Open Wounds after DF.

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