Druid Class Changes and Developer Notes - Reducing Melee Range Talents Across Game

The War Within Posted 2024/04/18 at 4:37 PM by Squishei

Blizzard Development NotesClass Tree

There are updates to the druid class tree and several specs trees coming in the War Within. We’re excited for you to play with them in the Alpha, and we’d like to share some of the design and class philosophy behind the updates.
Druid Class TreeA core aspect of the druid fantasy is that they have 4 specializations with a variety of magical and physical powers. We want the class tree to embody druids’ ability to invest in the powers of other specializations for useful utility and defensive power. We kept the central design of there being four main sections, one for each spec. You can invest in the Guardian section to access their powerful damage resistance, or the Restoration section to unlock self-healing. Further, the talents in the bottom half of the tree are divided into “physical” and “magical” halves that you can access by investing in either Feral / Guardian or Restoration / Balance sections.This concept of investing came with some frustrations in Dragonflight that we are looking to reduce. Some specializations invested more points in abilities they didn’t use than others. Sometimes the rewards farther down the tree didn’t feel worth the cost to get them. In The War Within, it always costs exactly 2 points in a specialization’s section to access their more generally useful bonuses. We’ve redistributed talents so all specializations have some talents in their sections that other specializations will value. And while there is a cost to access the physical and magical sections at the bottom of the tree, there are strong, broadly useful talents in them.Overall, we want you to feel that you’re picking and choosing the powers of other specializations as you customize your druid, and that you have interesting decisions to make in every gate no matter your specialization or what type of content you’re doing.
Astral Influence and Increased Melee RangeAstral Influence no longer increases the range of melee attacks. We are revisiting increased melee range talents across the game. These talents make the melee experience inconsistent across classes in a way we’re not happy with, so we’re removing most of them. Default melee range has increased since these talents were originally created, allowing specs with increased range to attack from well outside where it appears they should be able to. Cat Form now increases melee attack and ability range by 3 yards, for the moment.
Berserk, Celestial Alignment, and Incarnation Durations ReducedFeral’s and Guardian’s Berserk and Balance’s Celestial Alignment have a 15 second duration in The War Within (down from 20). Incarnation forms, including Tree of Life, have 20 second durations (down from 30). Druid cooldowns’ long durations meant their power was more spread out than other class cooldowns, and the very long Incarnation durations made them hard to balance against other talent options.

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Balance Tree

Balance DruidOur top goals for Balance Druid in The War Within are to ease some of the constraints on their rotation, open up a greater variety of builds and play styles, and tune their balance and resource generation.
Primordial Arcanic Pulsar RemovedPulsar is an undeniably powerful effect, granting a strong damage buff and triggering Eclipse effects. However, it’s extremely constraining, reducing the value of any effects that don’t align with its 40-45 second cadence. Plus, since its progress is based on resources spent, encounters with intermissions or mechanics players can’t control can misalign their ability timing with no real recourse. Similar to Rune of Power, we believe Pulsar’s power is constraining Balance Druids too much, and we are removing it. You’ll be able to choose between Orbital Bombardment’s 2 minute cooldown and an empowered version of Celestial Alignment with a 3 minute cooldown.
Build VarietySecond, Balance uses similar builds for different types of content, with very little variety. Removing Primordial Arcanic Pulsar will help by reducing the power of “required” talents that synergize with it. We’re working to even out the power of talents in each tier of the tree and adding some new talents to allow you to specialize more in different aspects of your toolkit like periodic effects, stronger builders, or free finishers. Our goals are that there are different ways to play that you can try, and that you have more power to customize your build for different fights or types of content.
Astral Power Generation ReducedBalance’s Astral Power generation increased a lot in Dragonflight. We’re pulling back some of those increases to slow the pace of play just a little, make pooling gameplay more interesting, and to provide some space for Hero Talents and other bonuses to provide Astral Power without going overboard. While this and changes like removing Pulsar are nerfs, Balance’s base ability damage is going up to compensate. Overall, Celestial Alignment and other cooldowns will hit a lot harder when they are active.

Feral Tree

Feral DruidOur top goals for Feral Druid in The War Within are to slow down its rotation a little to make Energy usage more tactical and to bring more clarity to playing the spec. We’re also trying to restore more of Tiger Fury’s identity and excitement, and simplifying some talent functionality to free up more choice in where you spend points. Many of these changes will read as nerfs – the goal is to build a healthy rotation and talent balance and buff damage to make that rotation competitive.
Energy Generation ReducedFeral gained a lot of strong Energy generation talents in Dragonflight. As a result, it lost some of its feel as a spec where sometimes the best thing to do was pause to let a DoT tick down or for your Energy to recover. In some environments, Feral had more energy than it could spend and became GCD limited instead of Energy limited. We’re going to pull back on the power of Energy generation talents in The War Within. We want players to tactically take a breath now and then to ensure they have energy to refresh Rake, or to get ready to activate Bloodtalons, or to maximize Ferocious Bite damage.As a part of this, we are removing Predator’s ability to reset Tiger’s Fury when an enemy dies and changing Raging Fury. As a result, Tiger’s Fury will never have 100% uptime. Maximizing the value of the Energy it generates and applying bleeds while it is active will become more of a way to express your skill (though there will also be talents to help with this if desired).
ClarityFeral Druid has a lot of factors that influence what button you want to press at any given moment. Some of those are healthy, such as whether to refresh a bleed on a dying target, or whether to try to sneak in another Ferocious Bite before you need to refresh Rip. But some are difficult for many players to intuit without reading a guide. Should you Shred or Swipe on two targets in Berserk? Is Primal Wrath or Ferocious Bite with Rampany Ferocity more damage in AOE?We want to give every button in Feral’s toolset a mostly consistent job. We’re removing the bonuses to Shred and Rake in Berserk, and removing bonuses that gave AOE value to Ferocious Bite. Feral’s AOE strategy will be based on dealing group damage with Primal Wrath and Tear Open Wounds while funneling Ferocious Bites into priority targets with Apex Predator.

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Restoration Tree

Restoration DruidIn The War Within, we’d like to reduce active keybinds, increase the base power of Rejuvenation, and offer some new Heart of the Wild gameplay.We experimented with a passive design for Adaptive Swarm, but ultimately feel reducing both the keybind requirements and party frame clutter is worth replacing it with a new effect. Restoration Druid reached a point in Dragonflight where we felt there were one too many heal over time effects within the talent tree that affect both the tuning of Mastery and the space on friendly unit frames.Luxuriant Soil also had our eye throughout Dragonflight and in part has led to Rejuvenation at a baseline level feeling rather unimpactful and leaving Restoration Druids not having as much control over their healing output as we would like. We are replacing its effect with the goal of bringing up Rejuvenation’s power and making its effect feel directly impactful on the target it is cast on.With the removal of Adaptive Swarm, we’re opting to replace it with some new Heart of the Wild synergy that both increases the uptime of the effect and enables the Druid to focus on the hybrid gameplay further for its duration.

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All Druid Class Changes

Blizzard

DRUID

Developer’s note: A core aspect of the druid fantasy is that they have 4 specializations with a variety of magical and physical powers. We want the class tree to embody druids’ ability to invest in the powers of other specializations for useful utility and defensive power. We kept the central design of there being four main sections, one for each spec. You can invest in the Guardian section to access their powerful damage resistance, or the Restoration section to unlock self-healing. Further, the talents in the bottom half of the tree are divided into “physical” and “magical” halves that you can access by investing in either Feral / Guardian or Restoration / Balance sections. More details can be found in the Feedback: Druid Updates thread.
New Talent: Oakskin – Survival Instincts and Barkskin reduce damage taken by an additional 10%.
New Talent: Fluid Form – Shred and Rake can be used in any form and shifts you into Cat Form. Mangle can be used in any form and shifts you into Bear Form. Wrath and Starfire shifts you into Moonkin Form, if known.
New Talent: Ursoc’s Spirit – Stamina in Bear Form is increased by 10%.
New Talent: Instincts of the Claw – Shred, Swipe, Rake, Mangle, and Thrash damage increased by 5/10%.
New Talent: Lore of the Grove – Moonfire and Sunfire damage increased by 5/10%. Rejuvenation and Wild Growth healing increased by 3/5%.
New Talent: Starlight Conduit – Wrath, Starsurge, and Starfire damage increased by 5%. For non-Balance, Starsurge’s cooldown is reduced by 4 seconds and its mana cost is reduced by 50%.
Heart of the Wild now reduces the global cooldown of affected Balance cast-time spells.
Cat Form now increases the range of auto-attacks and melee abilities by 3 yards.
Swiftmend has been removed from the talent tree and is now baseline for Restoration Druids.
Improved Swipe has been removed from the talent tree and its benefit added to Swipe by default.
Moonkin Form has been removed from the talent tree and is now baseline for Balance Druids.
Feline Swiftness is now a 1 point talent that increases movement speed by 15%. It’s position is moved to gate 1 under Rake.
Thick Hide is now a 1 point talent that reduces damage taken by 4%.
Natural Recovery is now a 1 point talent that increases healing received by 4%. It no longer increases healing done.
Astral Influence is now a 1 point talent that increases the range of all your spells by 5 yards. It no longer increases auto attack or melee ability range.
Primal Fury now also increases Critical Strike damage of Mangle by 20%.
Ursine Vigor is now a 1 point talent that increases Stamina and armor in Bear Form by 15% for 4 seconds.
Guardian Druid improved Bear Form Stamina bonus decreased to 10% (was 20%).
Lycara’s Teachings is now a 2 point talent that grants 3/6% of various secondary stats.
Forestwalk is now a 1 point talent. It’s bonus increases your movement speed and healing received by 8% for 6 seconds.
Well-Honed Instincts is now a 1 point talent, its effect can occur once every 120 seconds.
Gale Winds / Incessant Winds choice node removed.
Tireless Pursuit removed.
Balance

Developer’s note: Our top goals for Balance Druid in The War Within are to ease some of the constraints on their rotation, open up a greater variety of builds and play styles, and tune their balance and resource generation. Learn more here.
New Talent: Greater Alignment – Celestial Alignment lasts 40% longer. During Celestial Alignment, Solar Eclipse increases Nature damage done by an additional 5% and Lunar Eclipse increases Arcane damage done by an additional 5%.
New Talent: Stellar Amplification – Starsurge increases the damage the target takes from your periodic effects and Shooting Stars for 5 seconds. Reapplying this effect extends its duration, up to 20 seconds.
New Talent: Harmony of the Heavens – Starsurge or Starfall increase your current Eclipse’s Arcane or Nature damage bonus by an additional 1%, up to 5%.
New Talent: Touch the Cosmos – Casting Wrath in an Eclipse has an 8% chance to make your next Starsurge free. Casting Starfire in an Eclipse has a 10% chance to make your next Starfall free.
Umbral Embrace has been redesigned – Wrath and Starfire have a 20% chance to cause the next Wrath or Starfire you cast in Eclipse to become Astral and deal 100% additional damage. Now a 1 point talent.
New Talent: Umbral Inspiration – Consuming Umbral Embrace increases the damage of your Moonfire, Sunfire, Shooting Stars, and Starfall by 20% for 5 seconds.
Astral Smolder has been redesigned – Wrath and Starfire have a 45% chance to cause their targets to languish for an additional 80% of their damage dealt over 6 seconds.
Astral Communion has been redesigned – Maximum Astral Power increased by 20. Entering Eclipse grants 12 Astral Power.
Nature’s Grace has been redesigned – When Eclipse ends or when you enter combat, enter a Dreamstate, reducing the cast time of your next 2 Starfires or Wraths by 20% and increasing their damage by 50%.
All ability damage increased by 6%.
Wrath, Starfire, and Shooting Stars damage increased by an additional 15%.
Wild Mushrooms damage increased by an additional 25%.
Astral Power generation reduced:

Wrath: 6 (was 8)
Starfire: 8 (was 10)
New Moon: 10 (was 12)
Half Moon: 20 (was 24)
Full Moon: 40 (was 50)
Fury of Elune: 40 / 2.5 per tick (was 48 / 3 per tick)

Celestial Alignment duration reduced to 15 seconds (was 20 seconds).
Incarnation: Chosen of Elune duration reduced to 20 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Mastery: Astral Invocation value reduced by 17%.
Aetherial Kindling now extends during of active Sunfires and Moonfires by 3 seconds (was 4 seconds).
Orbital Strike damage reduced by 25%.
Umbral Intensity now increases Starfire’s damage as well as its area-of-effect damage scaling – Solar Eclipse increases the damage of Wrath by an additional 20/40%. Lunar Eclipse increases the damage of Starfire by 20/40% and the damage it deals to nearby enemies by an additional 15/30%.
Waning Twilight is now a 1 point talent increasing damage you deal to targets with 3 or more of your periodic effects by 6%.
Balance of all Things now increases Critical Strike chance by 10/20%, decreasing by 1/2% every second.
Denizen of the Dream damage increased by 50%.
Friend of the Fae has been removed. Denizen of the Dream moved to Friend of the Fae’s location.
Positions of Aetherial Kindling and Lunar Shrapnel swapped.
Orbit Breaker and Sundered Firmament are now a choice node where Orbit Breaker was.
Primodial Arcanic Pulsar has been removed.

Feral

Developer’s note: Our top goals for Feral Druid in The War Within are to slow down its rotation a little to make Energy usage more tactical and to bring more clarity to playing the spec. We’re also trying to restore more of Tiger Fury’s identity and excitement, and simplifying some talent functionality to free up more choice in where you spend points. Many of these changes will read as nerfs – the goal is to build a healthy rotation and talent balance and buff damage to make that rotation competitive. Learn more here.
New Talent: Resourceful Hunter – Leech increased by 2%. Versatility increased by 2%.
New Talent: Coiled to Spring – If you generate a combo point in excess of what you can store, your next Ferocious Bite or Primal Wrath deals 10% increased direct damage.

Developer’s note: This will only trigger during Berserk if you generate a combo point in excess of five while you already have 3 stacks of Overflowing Power.

New Talent: Savage Fury – Tiger’s Fury increases your Haste by 8% and Energy recovery rate by 20% for 6 seconds.
Mastery: Razor Claws has been redesigned – Now increases damage of Cat Form bleed and other periodic abilities.
Predator has been redesigned – No longer causes Tiger’s Fury’s cooldown to be reset when a target dies with one of your bleeds active. Tiger’s Fury lasts 5 additional seconds. Your combo point-generating abilities’ direct damage is increased by 40% of your Haste.
Taste for Blood has been redesigned – No longer scales with number of bleeds on a target. Ferocious Bite damage increased by 15% and an additional 15% during Tiger’s Fury.
Raging Fury has been redesigned – No longer increases Tiger’s Fury duration from spending combo points. Tiger’s Fury lasts 5 additional seconds.
All ability damage increased by 8%.
The direct damage of Shred, Rake, Swipe / Brutal Slash, and Thrash increased by an additional 10%.
Berserk duration reduced to 15 seconds (was 20 seconds).
Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane duration reduced to 20 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Berserk no longer increases the damage of Shred and Rake. It now increases all ability and auto-attack damage by 10%.
Sabertooth now increases damage Ferocious Bite’s primary target takes from all of your Cat Form periodic damage by 3% per combo point spent for 4 seconds (instead of 5% damage dealt by all Rips on all targets).
Tireless Energy now increases passive Energy generation by 8%/15% (was 10%/20%) and total Energy by 20/40 (was 30/60).
Primal Wrath Energy cost increased to 30 and its direct damage increased by 50%.
Tear Open Wounds now consumes 6 seconds of Rip damage during Berserk.
Moonfire in Cat Form with Lunar Inspiration duration increased to 18 seconds and overall damage reduced by 10%.
Moment of Clarity now increases the rate that Omen of Clarity triggers by 30% (was 50%).
Berserk: Heart of the Lion now reduces Berserk’s cooldown by 60 seconds (was reduces cooldown by 0.5 seconds per combo point spent).
Berserk: Frenzy now causes enemies to bleed for 135% of all direct damage dealt by combo point generating abilities (was 100%).
Soul of the Forest restores 2 Energy per combo point spent (was 3 Energy).
Apex Predator’s chance to trigger on a single target is reduced, but its chance to trigger in area-of-effect increases at a faster rate.
The following talents have been removed:

Dire Fixation
Protective Growth
Rampant Ferocity
Relentless Predator

Taste for Blood moved to Relentless Predator’s old location.
Infected Wounds moved to Taste for Blood’s old location.

Restoration

Developer’s note: In The War Within, we’d like to reduce active keybinds, increase the base power of Rejuvenation, and offer some new Heart of the Wild gameplay. With the removal of Adaptive Swarm, we’re opting to replace it with some new Heart of the Wild synergy that both increases the uptime of the effect and enables the Druid to focus on the hybrid gameplay further for its duration. Learn more here.
New Talent: Dream of Cenarius – While Heart of the Wild is active, Wrath and Shred transfer 150% of their damage and Starfire and Swipe transfer 100% of their damage into healing onto a nearby ally.
New Talent: Call of the Elder Druid – When you shift into a combat shapeshift form or cast Starsurge, you gain Heart of the Wild for 10 seconds, once every 60 seconds.
New Talent: Thriving Vegetation – Rejuvenation instantly heals for 15/30% of its periodic healing and Regrowth’s duration is increased by 3/6 seconds.
New Talent: Prosperity – Swiftmend now has 2 charges.
Rejuvenation healing increased by 30%.
Grove Guardian’s healing reduced by 15%.
Wild Synthesis Wild Growth healing reduced by 15%.
Verdant Infusion now extends the duration of heal over time effects by 8 seconds (was 12 seconds).
Nurturing Dormancy is now capped at 4 second extension (was 6 seconds).
Abundance now increases the Critical Strike chance of Regrowth by 8% and decreases its mana cost by 8% per stack (was 5%).
Flourish has moved to a choice node with Photosynthesis
Invigorate has moved to a choice node with Embrace of the Dream.
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild added to Personal Resource Display.
The following talents have been removed:

Adaptive Swarm
Unbridled Swarm
Luxuriant Soil

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Comment by GwildorrRip Resto Druid @Pstar is a DEAD GAMERComment by NameRedactedFeral changes look like dog ass. you can put them back in the dark corner you found them and try again in a couple months.Comment by ancinenirip feral and guardian as well
its interesting how they are suddenly not happy with the way astral influence worked on melee ranges, after SO many years

You know what? rip balance as well. wtf are these changes seriously? Not only, they still could not let go of their terrible dotkin ideas, but now they are nuking cdrs as well? why on the earth would you do such obscenely nonsense moves?

Pulsar simply should have been put to compete with Impeccable Fel Essence, not entirely removed.
Seriously eat your fix 3 min CDs and your absolutely disgusting dotkin design, blizzard.Comment by LenrisiaOh look blizzard killing ferals yet again, blizz love killing feral in every version of the gameComment by KoleBigEarsYiiiikes, guess I'll shelve my kitty for a bit till Blizz figures out slow = boring af.Comment by Blacknight46Feral going tactic my ass, thank you blizz for &*!@ing up the class and rotationComment by PeacemoonAstral Influence not affecting melee is fine - but Blizzard need to remember that Guardian AoE radius on Thrash and Swipe probably need to be brought back up to compensate.

Otherwise good changes overall I think. Adapative swarm will be missed, but I won't miss the extra button it required. It did buff DoT dmg as well as HoT dmg, but maybe the increased Heart of the Wild procs will help with dmg instead.
I hope that Call of the Elder Druid works well with Fluid Form. I.E the Shred/Wrath that puts you into Cat/Moonkin is buffed by the Heart of the WIld proc from shifting forms.
Also doing a bit of healing whilst doing damage is always nice, especially in places where not much healing is needed.

The changes to rejuvenation sound really good and overall I'm in agreement with the affects the talents had on Resto.

I do think the class tree is still missing the mark a bit for me, but its much better than it was before. I still think having to talent into Starfire, Starsurge, Sunfire and Improved Sunfire (4 points) is too many. Improved Sunfire should be baked in just like improved Swipe was, and Starfire should be baseline.Comment by eKatherineGuardian here. Looks to me like they think too many people are still playing druid.Comment by tbwtptYeah, very few good things in this. The increased range was one of the best things about the spec, absolutely sucks to lose that as a guardian tank. It was one of the few talent points in the druid tree that felt good to take, now we are left with so many meh spells. Even iterated upon, the class tree is so bad compared to the others. And now it even looks a mess. And then the incarn length being shortened by a third with nothing in return? Really hurts the gameplay.Comment by OwlflightI just want Rampant Ferocity to be buffed or to be given an ability that is an AoE flat damage combo spender. I do not want to spam Primal Wrath for some form of good big AoE damage. I want to click it once, let that rip go and spam something that's just big AoE damage that doesn't apply dot. I just want Ferocious Bite but AoE. Which seems to be given to us with Druid of the Claw? I'm not sure how well it'll work out.

Additionally, I want that energy regen still. Maining Feral for this last season of DF felt really nice with the energy regen despite its struggles in other ways.

All in all, I am just tired of spamming Primal Wrath unless it's to reapply Rip and I want my infinite Energy back. :(Comment by AwooWait the spec tree for bear tanks is worse now than it was…. You actually get less now? Please take a look at thatComment by Setsuna665as always the druid dev sucks at their job while also hating feral. unless there doubling the time our bleeds are up were just gonna be sitting here waiting for energy again so we can throw up our dots while doing auto attack damageComment by PykaBerserk, Celestial Alignment, and Incarnation Durations Reduced
Feral’s and Guardian’s Berserk and Balance’s Celestial Alignment have a 15 second duration in The War Within (down from 20). Incarnation forms, including Tree of Life, have 20 second durations (down from 30). Druid cooldowns’ long durations meant their power was more spread out than other class cooldowns, and the very long Incarnation durations made them hard to balance against other talent options.Comment by Lunae067Yeah, I can't wait to afk 2-3 sec waiting energy on shred, and another 2-3 sec for the next shred, and another 4 sec for the 50 energy ferocious bite. Bfa feral here we go again! Maybe haste (bleed) build will return with removing Ferocious Bite from Mastery, and that may help our energy regen.Comment by akaSkagGuardian here. Looks to me like they think too many people are still playing druid.Comment by AelielWell, now those are some long notes, let me just summarise...

"We have no idea what we're doing and we're just throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks."Comment by takasinnersAll I want is to play feral without being kicked for not being balanceComment by meloathink every druid spec is getting cooked, idk what they are doing. General making all the good thing about the classess worse. Also wish they brought back ravenous frenzy for balance and guardianComment by erro3I miss Legion feral, that was the last xpac that I truly enjoyed the spec. Also the melee range changes are stupid.Comment by Xoronow playing boomy instead of feral for next xpac i guess..

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