Have You Seen My Stapler?
We Interrupt This Hiatus For Some /Jessrage
Q: Can you describe for us what the intended identity and versatilities of the Tree of Life druids are supposed to be?
Ghostcrawler: This is a pretty philosophical answer here. If you only read one answer in this Q&A, you might want to check out this one.
The strength of the Resto druid is in heal-over-time spells. They can also do some decent single-target healing through Nourish or group healing through Wild Growth. The tree pretty much used to be a PvE mechanic since “rooting yourself” in PvP to benefit from ToL greatly limited the druid’s crowd control and escape abilities. We made enough changes to the talent to get trees into PvP in Lich King… arguably too well.
Druids overall have a strong niche. We are at a little bit of a crossroads with the Tree of Life however. We are currently wondering if druids sacrifice too much just to be as good as a healer as everyone else. What I mean is that if druids were good healers in caster form but great healers in Tree form, then there might be a decision there. However, we pretty much assume that healing druids are in Tree form nearly all of the time and balance around that. We don’t think it would be fair for them to be the best healers just for taking that talent.
In addition to having to give up utility in order to heal as a Tree of Life, we have become less enamored with druids locking themselves into one form. In fact, you really never see the basic tauren or night elf druid form (you know, the one that actually shows off the awesome armor art) because all druids are in cat, bear, tree, or moonkin form nearly 100% of the time. I’m not saying we would just cut Tree of Life from the game. It’s been around awhile and for better or worse, it’s part of World of Warcraft now. However, we could see taking the druid in a direction where shifting was much more common and easy to do. Maybe you only go into tree form for certain spells but leave for other spells — this didn’t work previously because of the high cost of shifting, but in the absence of power shifting, we’d love to get rid of the costs completely. Another way to go would be to make Tree of Life form a cooldown, more like Metamorphosis. You shift into tree when you need a healing boost, but you don’t stay in it all the time. Now, I am totally waving my arms here. This is not the kind of change you are going to see in the next patch. But it is something we’re thinking about long term, and the kind of thinking we’d love to have more feedback on from the community.
Note to other healers: this is why you are unlikely to see any kind of “Holy form” ever. Giving up healing to do damage works okay. Giving up everything to heal is lame.
No! Up yours GC, just NO! If I had wanted to be a night elf caster healer, I’d have kept my fucking priest! I’m a druid, I have forms. I LIKE my forms. That’s WHY I rolled a druid. What do I care if I can’t friggin MOONFIRE in tree form?? What kind of stupid logic is that? Ok, priests can cast offensive spells in heal spec. Good for them! But assuming they’re in full healing gear how much damage are they REALLY doing? Huh? That’s IF they hit at all for Elune’s sake. I don’t see hit on healing gear! If I’m throwing moonfire and wrath as a healer, I’m wasting my mana. What exactly am I sacrificing in tree form? Ability to defend myself in PvP? Pshh, no. Even if I could DPS I’m still gonna die when I get jumped by any damage dealing class.
If I want to DPS…guess what?? I have another spec and form for that shit.
I am NOT a RESTO PRIEST!! And I don’t want to be!
Leave my Leaves Alone!!
About the author
Army Wife, Mom of teenage girls, blogger, photographer and gamer. Slightly dramatic, prone to /Jessrage, and maybe a little nuts.
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about 1 year ago
Need less rage?
Actually I had a very similar reaction to the idea that Blizzard might be trying to take my tree from me.
The thing is, rationally, I see the argument – one of the pleasures of MMOs is character customisation and, obviously, druid forms strip that away from the player. Although arguably Tiers do the same because everyone in Tier 7263 looks exactly the same anyway.
And, actually, if Blizzard wanted to take damanable Brian Blessed form away from me, I’d be thrilled to bits.
But I feel wildly and desperately protective of my tree.
For some reason, it doesn’t matter with tree form that I look exactly the same as every other druid in the forest or that you can’t see my cowface or my funky gear … the pleasures of being a tree far outweigh any other benefits…
Strange isn’t it?
So, yes, I shall join the Save Our Trees march, should it be necsesary
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Lady Jess Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 10:42 am
March of the Angry Ents!…sounds like a good plan, too bad we can’t carry picket signs.
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about 1 year ago
Sorry, I really wouldn’t mind this change at all. I like seeing my armor. Hopefully more rational people speak up instead of listening to people screaming to be a tree 100% of the time.
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Lady Jess Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 10:48 am
You DID see the title right? /Jessrage, it even has it’s own category. Rage doesn’t require rationality, it’s an emotional outburst, which, being the proprietor of this blog I’m allowed to have. And I don’t want to be a tree 100% of the time, that’s just over exaggerating. I walk around outside of instances and raids as an elf:P
And seeing your armor? Ok fine, make tree form skin change when you reach certain iLevels. If I’d cared about seeing my armor as a healer, I’d have kept my priest.
Do I think my little outburst here is going to change anything? Why of course not, just like I know this weekend when I drop my husband off to get on a plane for a year long tour overseas, my crying won’t bring him right back home. Am I going to do it anyhow? You bet your ass.
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about 1 year ago
@Gemskii
The argument against this is that it’s simply unnecessary. The argument GC and the dev team is putting forth is that right now Druids are at a disadvantage in that if they want to do some DPSing they have to change to caster form, DPS, then change back to healing form to get the most out of their heals. We don’t do that right now because of two things. 1: Shifting costs precious mana; 2: Shifting costs precious GCDs.
I understand the devs want us to shift more, that’s fine… I guess. I’d be ok with a change going in that it was sometimes advantageous to have me heal in caster form and sometimes advantageous to stay a tree to get some benefits there. The idea for a metamorphosis buff is less than ideal and feels way too much like another trinket or HT macro.
As for your “I like seeing my armor” argument… as nice as it’d be that my armor was reflected in form somehow, I can see my armor as it is by shifting while we run to another pull. Don’t take away my class defining mechanic because you can’t see your armor when you should be focusing on health bars and positioning.
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Lady Jess Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 10:49 am
exactly!!
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about 1 year ago
The fact that they’re even considering making Tree a temporary buff spell makes me extremely sad. Ghost Crawler says at the beginning of the Q&A that forms are part of what makes a druid unique. So why would you take away the form for the resto tree? The fact that tree form exists is why many people play druid healers in the first place. Have you ever seen a Tree do the cower emote? It is hilarious! As a rogue, I find myself constantly jealous of druids and their forms. Forms are quirky, unique, and fun. Why do you think so many people keep costumes from quests?- so they can have fun turning into something else.
I’ve always thought it would be neat if a few pieces of armor would show up on the tree model, such as the shoulders, or necklace. Sure, this wouldn’t be easy to implement, but it would make a lot more people happy. And yes, maybe making it less costly to change forms would be nice – but to me Resto druid = tree. If you don’t want to be a tree, then you should have leveled a priest, shaman, or paladin healer. Don’t take away the resto druid’s identity! It would be like taking away a shadow priests shadow graphic effect.
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Lady Jess Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 10:50 am
No kidding, they ADD new art for bear and cat, moonkin get to keep moonkin, resto becomes the formless talent spec. That’s just taking away from the class.
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about 1 year ago
I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree here Jess. I can completely see the point of what GC is saying here – why do we have these armor designs for Druids when they aren’t seen anyhow? We may as well be wearing potato sacks with stats on them!
I find the ToL form to be the most poorly designed, hideous Druid form there is (with the exception of seacow). Why did I choose to be a Druid healer over a Priest then? I enjoy the playstyle of using HoTs rather than direct heals for the bulk of my healing, and I enjoy being a proactive rather than a reactive healer. In my mind, that is the beauty of the Druid healer. The tree is just an extra… and not a good one at that.
I don’t PvP, but I can understand the frustration of having to un-Tree yourself to Cyclone… especially in Arena. If healing was viable out of Tree, that would make life easier for our Arena-ing kin, would it not? Of course, I don’t know if they WANT to make Arena easier for Druids… but it would!
Now, shifting in and out of tree seems bulky to me, and brings back memories of when you could only cast HoTs as a Tree… that was unwieldy and annoying. However, it would be nice to not be forced to be in tree all the time. Why should we as healers be defined by looking like a dead twig, rather than our healing style?
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Lady Jess Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Hi Sar!! They could do what twice suggests, change the skin to reflect the armor, or as I saw suggested on the forums, leave us with SOME tree-ish qulities such s our skin turning to bark and our hair turning into leafy vines, color dependant on hair color.
My druid wasn’t an alt, so I knew nothing about their HoT style etc. I knew they were casters with shapeshifting, and that’s why I chose the class. I would love to see a skin change, but not have my healing form stripped from me, leaving only a temporary buff in it’s place.
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about 1 year ago
And, as a related question, what the hell does “Giving up healing to do damage works okay. Giving up everything to heal is lame” even mean?” NO ONE heals in Shadowform in the same way that no one heals as a Moonkin. The shift logic (Laserchicken = BOOM, Tree = Healybits) is identical, so why is GC attempting to argue that going one way makes perfect sense, but going the other is “lame?”
I can understand why the armor art guys want their shiny art to be seen…although I’m not quite clear on why the armor art guys are more important than the forms art guys…but I’m not seeing how shiny art trumps playability. And the new armor art for T9 is same same for all classes anyway, so why care?
I have an idea to make everyone happy: Have the guys who did the nice new forms do a scalable set of art for all forms. Have the forms scale with level of the player (much like hunter pets, so that a level 25 bear can be distinguished from a level 80 bear at a glance) and add embellishments (feathers and fetishes and plates and spikes and birdnests and suchlike) that scale with iLevel. The tools to scale models and aggregate iLevel are already in game, and adding 5 or 6 versions of each non-utility form wouldn’t be all that hard.
[Reply]
Lady Jess Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I didn’t understand that either…makes no sense whatsoever. I love your idea…now just gotta convince Blizz:D
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Gribbs Reply:
July 16th, 2009 at 5:14 am
I believe the logic on not scaling Form art based on iLevel was what to do with it over the long term. There are only so many ‘fetishes and plates and spikes and birds nests’ before we’re all running around looking like Amani Warbears. And what happens then? Where do you go with upgrades from there? What happens at the release of a new expansion? Do they just drop a big ‘fuck you’ on all the people who’ve worked their way up to a form that’s fully embellished and just reset it all? It’s a nice sounding gimmick, but over the long term could easily get ridiculous very quickly.
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Lady Jess Reply:
July 16th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Or as I said above “or as I saw suggested on the forums, leave us with SOME tree-ish qualities such s our skin turning to bark and our hair turning into leafy vines, color dependant on hair color.” Come on now, they gave bears and Cats brand new art, want to fix travel and aquatic…but what do trees get? The big Fuck you dropped on em, as you put it.
Gribbs Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Granted. I was just being a self-centered little feral and not even thinking about Featherdusters and Bushes. =(
(nothing to do with the fact I find the existing tree-form cute as hell I assure you)
Twice Reply:
July 16th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Arguably, cap level Tier sets (whatever that is at a particular point in time) are a truncation point in the art design. If Tier gear is all that shiny, and a goal is to put a complete set of T9 together…then every one of a particular race/class combo will eventually look alike.
So why would adding a new “T9″ artset to the Druids’ non-utility forms be any harder than adding new Tier art? It would seem that it would be simpler, as all Bears/Cats/Moonkin/Trees look alike (color and scaling don’t add meaningful complexity from a programming/graphics standpoint)
So…add new form art when they add new Tier art. You might even alter base look to match expansion themes. An 80 bear in nordic rune plates and rime coated leather has progressed farther than the guy in Sunwell themed art. No big “fuck you” and no slippery slope of warbearishness…
Gribbs Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Plan.
about 1 year ago
Druids are not casters with shapeshifting. Druids ARE shapeshifters. When deciding which class to play 4.5 years ago, I chose a druid because I wanted the challenge of learning how and knowing when to best use my forms or spells for whatever situation was presented. Not necessarily because I wanted to be a bear or cat (the only non-travel forms available at the time). The forms could have been furbolg or owl and I would have been fine with it.
The druid class isn’t like that anymore. The game isn’t like that anymore. Now, you are either a tank, dps, or healer.
I’m not entirely sure of Blizz’s intention, but I’m hopeful. To me, it sounds like my biggest pet peeve about the druid class may also be an issue with Blizz: druids staying in a single form (or two) and not utilizing the aspects of the other forms at their disposal.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, but I wouldn’t worry your leaves off! Besides, trees don’t have rage bars.
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Lady Jess Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
You are corret, I tend to think as a moonkin, since that’s how I leveled, and as a tree since thats what I love. We are indeed shapeshifters. And I want to stay that way. I hope they move away from this thought, I really do.
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about 1 year ago
I would def join the “Save Our Trees” march. I LOVE my tree form -it’s one of the reasons I am a healer.
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about 1 year ago
How does this make any sense? I mean GC seems to have the idea that druid forms should be like trinkets. Oh, I need more healing I’ll pop my tree form trinket, oh need to increase my dps time to pop my cat form/moonkin trinket.
Time to up my avoidance, pop bear form.
This is what is comes off as. If you’re going to change druids from using tree form all the time to heal. I see those restoration druids complaining as to why other talented druids get to keep their forms, at all times.
You know where all the stems from anyway, GC wants to make healing more dynamic. So making healers do more to be able to heal makes perfect sense?
Ghostcrawler’s idea that maybe healers want to dps sometimes too. Sorry , but dual specs solved that. I feel we all have our parts to play in a raid/party. If healers aren’t going to focus on healing, than why should the tank focus on threat, or the dps focus on damage. As for what’s lame GC, your flawed logic.
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about 1 year ago
A little late to this, but I wanted to comment:
“… it sounds like my biggest pet peeve … : druids staying in a single form (or two) and not utilizing the aspects of the other forms at their disposal.”
I’m trying to think of ways the increase shifting in PvE (in PvP all decent druids shift all the time to either heal or CC or escape).
First thing to change would be removing the mana cost of shifting AND remove shifting from the GCD.
Now, for feral the way to “force” a Cat Druid to shift in PvE would be to move certain attacks to Bear (Mangle?). Of course, with shifting off the GCD it would simply be macro’d and not actually require any thought. Similarly a Boomkin could have certain attacks require shifting to elf / cow. Though I have a hardtime imagining what existing abilities would need that limitation. And it gets even harder for Trees.
That said – I would really hate to see Tree form become the Metamorphosis for Druids. Meta is already frowned apon by the majority of Warlocks because it is generally better to have steady, consistant damage instead of cooldown dependant burst.
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