Patch 4.1 Druid Changes and Resto Specs

Happy Patch Day everyone! 4.1 finally arrives this week! Be sure to open your launcher up early to download the patch and don't forget to update all of your addons.

The Resto Guide and Feral Guide are updated for 4.1, but I wanted to get this post up first for a nice summary of the changes as well as a look at the Resto talent tree changes.

Let's start by taking a look at the official patch notes for druids, before diving into some Resto spec options with the altered talent tree! Full patch notes can be seen on MMO-Champ here: Patch 4.1 Rise of the Zandalari Features.

• Lacerate bonus threat has been removed and replaced with increased initial damage done.

• Efflorescence has a new spell effect.

• Enrage no longer increases physical damage taken.

• Lifebloom's bloom effect has been reduced by 20%.

• Prowl has a new icon.

• Savage Defense has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a single charge absorption, it now places an absorption effect on the druid absorbing up to 35% of the druid's attack power (modified by mastery, if applicable) in damage and lasting 10 seconds. There are no longer any charges on the effect.

• Stampeding Roar's duration has been increased to 8 seconds, up from 6. The movement speed effect has been increased to 60%, up from 40% and is no longer cancelled by cancelling shapeshift form.

• Swipe (Bear) cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6, and is now on trainable at level 18 (training cost has been reduced). In addition, the bonus threat from this ability has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.

• Swipe (Cat) damage has been doubled.

• Thrash bonus threat has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.

• Druids now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Tranquility.

Balance

• Starsurge damage has been reduced by 20%.

• Solar Beam is now more responsive when enemies move into or out of it.

Feral

• Berserk is no longer on the global cooldown.

• Feral Swiftness now also causes Dash and Stampeding Roar to have a 50/100% chance to instantly remove all movement impairing effects from the affected targets when used.

Restoration

• Gift of Nature (passive) also reduces Tranquility's cooldown by 2.5/5 minutes.

• Efflorescence has been redesigned. It creates a healing zone at the feet of a Swiftmend target, but this healing zone now restores health equal to 4/8/12% of the amount healed by Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within 8 yards, every 1 second for 7 seconds. This periodic effect now also benefits from spell haste, but the individual ticks cannot be critical effects. In addition, Living Seed is no longer a prerequisite talent for Efflorescence.

• Malfurion's Gift now reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 2.5/5 minutes.

• Nature's Swiftness now also increases the healing done by the affected nature spell by 50%.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Rake is now Glyph of Pounce, which increases the range of Pounce by 3 yards.

Druid Bug Fixes

• The troll druid models for Flight Form and Swift Flight Form has slimmed down to be more in scale with other druid flight forms.

• Druids should no longer have UI issues after leaving a vehicle.

A lot of changes! I won't be going into detail on the Bear and Balance changes, though they've seen a few. Stampeding Roar has gotten a nice buff, with a longer duration and greater movement speed applied, however the range still hasn't been adjusted so that remains fairly small.

Feral cats see some nice new changes - Swipe damage has been doubled, making it much better for AoE attacks again (as opposed to tab-Raking, which had been a much more effective means of AoE for smaller add packs). Berserk is no longer on the global cooldown which is a very nice change. The talent Feral Swiftness has also been altered to allow Dash and Stampeding Roar to remove movement impairing effects, restoring some of the mobility to Ferals which was lost when shapeshifting was altered to no longer free you.

An important change for all druids too is that Tranquility now has 100% pushback protection - therefore it is no longer needed to pair Barkskin with the channel if you don't want to or can't without risking losing Tranquility ticks.

Image from Keeva's post on TreeBarkJacket: Efflorescence Graphic Changed

Resto sees several big changes in this patch. Efflorescence has a new spell effect (visible above) and has been redesigned - the healing is now 4/8/12% of the amount healed by Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within every second for 7 seconds, benefits from spell haste, but cannot crit.

Nature's Swiftness is also getting a slight buff, it now increases the healing done by the affected Nature spell used by 50%. When combined with Healing Touch, then, you'll see it heal for an additional 50%. This will hopefully make the spell more attractive for those who haven't taken it as well as a nice buff for those of us already using it.

One of the big changes coming to Resto is the reduced cooldown for Tranquility. Speccing into Malfurion's Gift will reduce Tranquility's cooldown to 3 minutes, bringing it in line with other raid cooldowns such as Power Word: Barrier and Divine Guardian. This looks set to make Tranquility the Resto druid's 'raid cooldown'. While I personally think a damage mitigation cooldown (or component) would have been a bit better (and also bring us in line with the other healers), this will undoubtedly still be a strong cooldown for Resto druids. Tranquility can be excellent and lifesaving in a fight and being able to use it multiple times per fight will be extremely helpful for Resto druids. This also gives us a bit more freedom with when we decide to use our Tranquility - often in a fight there are times you want to save the Tranq for a specific time, which may discourage one from popping it earlier when the raid may need it. The reduced cooldown will give us some more flexibility now in when and how often we use it. Combining Tranq with other raid cooldowns (especially, say, a Power Word: Barrier glyphed for increased healing received while under it) will also be extremely powerful measures for raids.

Resto Specs
The biggest change for Resto in this patch is to our talent tree, as Living Seed is finally unlinked from Efflorescence. This will theoretically free up a few points for many druids and also allow druids to take a full 3 points in Efflorescence (especially with its new effect) without being required to spend another 3 points just to get it. I had hoped that Living Seed itself would see a redesign, especially as many druids look set to drop it, but we'll have to wait on that point for now.

The big question now remains: Where do I put those spare points?

Regardless of where you decide to spend the points, two of those points will have to be within the first three tiers of the tree just to get you to the higher tiers - so you will be spending points in either Blessing of the Grove, Living Seed, or Perseverance. How you decide to spend them though will depend largely on what you're healing and your role. With this in mind, below are some sample specs you could try (for convenience sake, I have kept the Balance and Feral trees as 8/2, picking up mana saving talents):

All-around healing - 2 points in Blessing of the Grove, 1 point in Living Seed.

This is a pretty solid all around spec, picking up a point in Living Seed for its contribution to tank healing, 2 points in Blessing of the Grove for its contribution to raid healing. This spec also picks up Nature's Swiftness and, for those in need of a dispel, Nature's Cure.

Tank Healing - Picking up 3 points in Living Seed.

This spec continues to pick up 3 points in Living Seed for its contribution on dedicated tank healing, as well as picking up Nature's Swiftness.

Spell Damage - Taking points in Perseverance.

In this spec I've gone with the all-around spec, but moved the point in Nature's Cure over into Perseverance for the bit of reduced spell damage. A spec like this can be particularly nice for hard modes (particularly in 25 mans when dispels may be handled by other classes) to get that extra bit of damage reduction.

This last spec also starts to venture back into the other flexible points in the tree. Despite the buff to Nature's Swiftness, I imagine many may still shift that point elsewhere in the tree (particularly dedicated raid healers). Nature's Cure is also a potential candidate to move in situations (mostly 25 mans) where magic dispels are covered by other classes.

You can also pick up points in Nature's Bounty, such as in this spec:

Here I've combined the Rejuv boost in Blessing of the Grove, Swift Rejuvenation for the reduced Rejuv GCD, Gift of the Earthmother to help frontload those Rejuvs, and Nature's Bounty to reduce the Nourish cast times for spot healing on all those targets which have been Rejuved.

These samples give you an idea of the bit of extra flexibility we now have in the tree! As ever, much of your choices will come down to how you heal and your role in raids and 5 mans. You can also adjust the Balance and Feral trees as desired, though again, I've gone with the 8/2/31 basis with mana saving talents for simplicity and for broad use.

Tangedyn over at The Inconspicuous Bear made a very useful tool to help you decide where your talent points may be best spent based on each talents worth: Living Seed Replacement Talent. Simply by going through your Recount/Skada/World of Logs/etc healing percentage breakdown and looking at your points spent and raid buffed spell crit, his tool can help you evaluate where your free points would be best placed.


As ever, don't be afraid to play around with the different specs and see which ends up working best for you! While a treant is forever, a talent tree is as flexible as you need it!


Happy speccings!

Patch 4.1 on the PTR and some Kitty updates!

First off, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Patch 4.1 now being available on the PTR! You can see lots of updates on it at MMO-Champion, as well as the official Blue Post here. Lots of exciting stuff to come, including new heroic 5-man dungeons (a revamped Zul Gurub and Zul Aman) and possibly either some new raids (Firelands?) or at least a set-up for the new raids. So far the only big druid mention has been a short mention that the 'spell effect for Efflorescence has been changed'. It still seems to be a little unclear just what the change is - so far, reports are showing that it is primarily a graphics change, and we are now creating a green flowery rune rather than a bright green circle (which obscured many dangerous ground effects). Here's a little screenshot of it, courtesy of Keeva's TreeBarkJacket (Efflorescence Graphic Changed), who in turn found it on the Druid Forums I believe:

Actually looks pretty nice! Hopefully this will be visible enough that people will still be able to see it to run into, but shouldn't obscure any dangerous AE graphics in the process. Be sure to update your fellow raid and party members to its new look!


There has also been some discussion on Elitist Jerks over whether the heal itself has been revamped slightly to make it a smarter heal, but there's not much information yet, and it's all subject to a lot of change between now and when this patch goes live. There's some interesting discussion though, so to check it out go here: New Efflo Discussion.


In some other news, I've made some minor updates to the Feral guide to reflect some of the 4.0.6 changes. I'd in particular like to note Tangedyn taking over the guide on the WoW Druid Forums (Yawning apparently has stopped playing) - you can find his guide here. I've also updated the link within my guide.


Tangedyn also had an excellent post on The Inconspicuous Bear with good explanation of some of the feral cat changes with 4.0.6: Adapting your Cat for 4.0.6. 


There are four primary changes which he discusses:


1. Ferocious Bite is no longer high on our rotation priority list when the boss is above 25% HP. With the buffs to Shred in the patch, it's overall a higher DPS gain to continue shredding (even at 5 CP) rather than trying to work in Ferocious Bites, as this poses no risk of Savage Roar or Rip falling off. When the boss is below 25% HP, though, you should absolutely be using Ferocious Bite, as it will refresh your Rip with the talent Blood in the Water. This talent was also adjusted slightly in the patch so that FB will now instantly refresh Rip instead of refreshing after a slight delay (which it used to do), which sometimes resulted in Rip falling off.


2. With the above changes in mind, Glyph of Berserk is now our best glyph for the third glyph spot (over Savage Roar / Tiger's Fury), as the greater time in Berserk gives us more time to Shred. Glyphs of Rip and Shred should absolutely still be your other two glyphs.


3. Again taking into account the changes to Shred (and to Mangle) which increased our weapon damage contribution, and also the changes to the trinket Unheeded Warning which now increases your weapon damage, this trinket is now our BiS trinket by far.


4. A final point is the value of Haste for cats has increased some following the patch, putting it about equal with Crit, and both being a bit behind Mastery.




And finally, in some exciting news on the raiding front, we successfully took down Nefarian on Heroic mode this week!

Derwent, Blackwing's Bane!

This now takes us to 9/13 Heroic, with only Ascendant Council, Chogall, Sinestra, and Al'akir left! We've started work on Chogall now, with the hope that we will be able to take on Sinestra right after (bit unsure whether we need to kill AC before we can face Sinestra or not). Al'akir should fall not long after!


Also, Potion of Illusion + Sandstone Drake is just awesome:

4.0.6 Thoughts and Healer Cooldown Issues Addressed

The patch has been out for almost two weeks now, which seemed to be a decent amount of time to get a feel of all the new changes and get some raids in with them. We've also made it past the first major wave of hotfixes and the second minor patch (4.0.6a), though for the most part we weren't too affected (well, trees and cats, apart from some fixes; moonkins had several adjustments for damage and for some bugs I think).

There was also some very interesting news for druids in a recent blue post on Incoming Healer Changes:

We agree with the sentiment among some players that Restoration druids and Restoration shaman are lacking in the healing cooldown department. The shaman buff and Power Word: Shield adjustment above should bring all healers reasonably close in terms of throughput. The decision on who to bring then might end up being dictated by the strong cooldowns offered by paladins or priests. This isn’t the kind of thing we can address via a hotfix, but it is something we are looking at for the next major content patch.

They are listening to us! Much of the forums are now abuzz with ideas for what a cooldown we could have would be. I think most people (including myself in the past) tend to jump to the idea of 'casting barkskin on someone else' largely because it feels like the easiest solution, which I think gets suggested in the hopes that because it's arguably simple and not requiring a brand new idea, it might be implemented. As many have also said, though, it would be extremely disappointing if we couldn't use Barkskin ourselves (definitely a crucial survivability cooldown for ourselves), so I would NOT want to sacrifice that ability.

Really, the only cooldown that will really measure up to the ones offered by Paladins and Priests would be some sort of Raid Wall - i.e. something like Aura Mastery or Power Word: Barrier, as those two cooldowns are the primary reasons for stacking paladins and priests at the moment.

I excitedly posted the blue post up on my guild's forums and one of our healers had an interesting thought, though: He felt that it would actually be better to simply nerf the Paladin and Priest cooldowns (AM/PW:B) rather than give druids and shamans new ones. His thoughts were that encounters would eventually have to be designed around having these cooldowns, and could lead to more issues of stacking classes / sitting classes on progression encounters due to issues like, 'this big AE is nature damage, Aura Mastery won't help, sit the pallies,' or 'you can't stack people up for PW:B, forget the priests', etc like that, and that there would likely be similar mechanics issues with any new druid or shaman cooldowns. An interesting perspective, certainly, and one that's certainly not off the table - the blue post did NOT say they were giving us a cooldown, it said they would be looking to address the issue. So keep any hopes within reason!

Largely I think it comes down to keeping some sort of balance, whether that be giving shamans and druids some useful raidwide cooldown or perhaps simply eliminating or nerfing existing cooldowns. As ever, balance is extremely difficult to achieve, especially while trying to keep unique flavours to each class. Time for some brainstorming of druid cooldown ideas! A raidwide cooldown is definitely the way to go in my opinion if they give us something - again, that's largely the reason for stacking pallies and priests at the moment.

I quite like my idea of a druid raidwall from my Healing post of 'Nature's Guardian...the druid calls upon the forces of nature to surround his allies with roots and leaves, reducing their damage taken by x% for y seconds'. Pretty simple, but would be a great cooldown I think. The language is really just for druid flavour hehe.

Thoughts for our actual 4.0.6 changes are primarily Resto-focussed as I've had the most experience gauging the changes for Resto in raids these past two weeks.

Healing output has definitely improved with the buffs, particularly our raid heals. The Wild Growth changes (30% healing buff plus a shorter cooldown) were very helpful. I'm a little wary of any reactions to data leading to a new nerf on WG - the buffs will of course lead to an increase in use of WG, and it and Rejuv will still be a substantial portion of healing done in the very least due to the nature of the heal (multiple ticks on multiple targets), but other spells are most definitely still being used. Combined with the new Rejuv mana cost (20%), both Rejuv and WG feel like they're in a good place - if you try to spam it you'll run yourself OoM, but if you use them well they are very effective, which is a pretty decent balance.

If you aren't saving your ToL cooldown for a specific time in the fight (i.e. specials on Conclave), it can be good to time the cooldown for times of AE damage in conjunction with a mana management strategy. Spreading Lifebloom over the raid in ToL can be incredibly mana efficient for getting additional HoTs around the raid as it's one of our cheapest spells. I've begun doing this in fights like Valiona and Theralion heroic, where damage around the entire raid can be pretty constant, so alternating between spreading LB around the raid in ToL and spreading Rejuvs outside of ToL (both instances using WG as well) helps work into my mana management over the course of the fight.

The patch also saw a buff to our healing mastery, which should be helped additionally by mastery coming into play more due to the shorter WG cooldown and reduced Rejuv cost. There's a nice addon on WoWInterface.com called Druid Mastery which tracks how much of your heals are affected by your mastery. I haven't tried it yet as I hadn't gotten around to installing it, but I've heard good things and it should be a good help to see just how much of your healing is benefiting from your mastery.

Regrowth had some decent buffs in benefitting from Empowered Touch this patch. I've found myself using Regrowth a bit more than I used to, the 10% boost to its healing from ET and it refreshing LB stacks was definitely a nice improvement. I haven't really bothered with the new Nature's Bounty though, I've only placed one point in it. In 25 mans at least, particularly when focussing on the raid, I'm simply not spot-healing with Nourish enough to really need the reduced cast time. I do think it may find more success in 5 and 10 mans where it may be more feasible to actually use Nourish frequently on raid/party members.

Overall, though, the patch was pretty positive for Resto, we're definitely on the right track. There are still some issues, particularly with talent bloat and the lack of a cooldown, but the cooldown issues are at least on the table to be addressed, and hopefully some talent adjustments may be on the horizon too.

Resto Druid Guide updated for Patch 4.0.6!

I'm back! If you didn't notice I was away, well, that's a bit awkward for me, but I have been moving this past week so have been very busy packing and travelling. On the plus side, downtime loitering about in airports gave me time to go through a much needed update to my Resto guide!

Along with some of the minor updates for Patch 4.0.6, I completely overhauled the Specs section and updated information in the healing and stat priority section. I've got a new Base Spec suggestion up which should be useful for all healing, from 5 man dungeons on up into 25 man raids and progression content, along with additional information on options for flexible talent points to change that base spec around and information on DPS and Utility talents as well. I'll also be fine tuning some of the updates and fixing some additional things once the Patch goes live and I can test out some more of the talents / abilities and also confirm any final changes or hotfixes that didn't show up on the list.

You can see the updated guide at its usual home here: Cataclysm Restoration Druid Guide.

Hopefully everyone is excited for the patch, which looks like it will be landing this week! Resto druids are seeing some nice buffs, most notably a 30% increase to our Wild Growth healing as well as a reduction in its cooldown (8 seconds, down from 10). A small nerf to our Tree of Life duration, but it's not too big so I don't think it will be an issue. We're also seeing some buffs to Regrowth in that it will now benefit from Empowered Touch, so it should gain a +10% bonus and it will refresh Lifebloom stacks on a target.

Ferals are seeing a mix of changes, we've got a 10% damage reduction to our Rake and Rip, but an increase in the weapon damage contribution to our Shred and Mangle (cat) up to 450%. There are also a fair few PvP related changes with Shapeshifting and breaking roots (you can now only break roots with Shapeshifting if you select Restoration as your talent specialisation and also I think Moonkin form will break it), though normal shapeshifting will still clear you of movement impairing effects (slows etc).

For a full list of all the Patch 4.0.6 changes see the MMO-Champ post here: Patch 4.0.6 on Live Realms This Week.

I'll leave this update at that to give you time to peruse the Patch notes and the Resto guide updates!

Patch 4.0.6 - Updated Patch Notes for Druids

There was an update to the 4.0.6 patch notes along with a new build released on the PTR with some additional updates for Druids!

Most of the changes for all three specs were PvP-oriented, with most of our CCs getting a reduction to 8 seconds in a PvP environment. Entangling Roots (and Nature's Grasp) and Hibernate have a PvP duration of 8 seconds, Skull Bash's lockout has been brought down to 4 seconds (from 5). The only Feral-specific change mentioned in this update is another PvP change, Infected Wounds now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds. Moonfire has also had its mana cost reduced to 9% (from 18%) and, in a nice change, Soothe is once again an instant cast (down from 1.5 seconds).

Our Troll and Worgen brethren will also finally get their new flight forms which will be implemented in the next patch! This includes Troll's new bat form.

There are quite a few additional Restoration changes, though, so let's take a look!

Updated Resto Changes

Wild Growth
We've already seen a reduction in the mana cost for Rejuvenation (from 26% down to 16%) which is a very welcome change. Alongside this now is a big boost for our raid heals, Wild Growth healing has been increased by 30% and the cooldown has been reduced to 8 seconds (down from 10 seconds). Definitely a good change here, as our raid heals were really suffering (you can read the full rundown on some of the current healing imbalances in my last post here). I definitely can feel Blizz on wanting to avoid a return to the Rejuv/WG spam of Wrath, it's something I'd like to avoid as well. Whatever way you cut it, though, our HoTs are important and Rejuvs and WG are really crucial to raid healing. Hopefully this will put us back on the right track and get us back in line with Priests on raid heals (as opposed to behind, where we generally are now, even with equal gear/skill). 


Lifebloom on multiple targets
The last set of patch notes informed us that Regrowth will join Nourish and Healing Touch in the talent Empowered Touch, they will all refresh Lifebloom stacks on a target. The new change with this update is that now it will no longer be possible to maintain Lifebloom on multiple targets outside of Tree of Life form. This was a decent little trick with the Empowered Touch talent - simply, if you used Nourish or HT to refresh the Lifebloom on a target, you could do so indefinitely on multiple targets outside of ToL. Clearly this wasn't an intended ability, though, and it will no longer be possible to due so with this patch.

Honestly, I'm not too bothered by this change. Although it could theoretically be useful, especially if focussing on two tanks, it was a tremendous pain to maintain in most fights. It would eat up a lot of GCDs, time, and attention, so I'm really not too disappointed to see the back of it!

Tree of Life
Some small nerfs to the Tree of Life cooldown, though nothing too huge. For our PvPers, ToL no longer grants immunity to polymorph. ETA: Looks like the ToL polymorph change has been reverted, as a new change (shapeshifting no longer clears the druid of roots, but will clear movement impairing effects) has been implemented.

For everyone, the duration has been reduced to 25 seconds (down from 30). The Natural Shapeshifter bonus has been reduced to a 3/6 second increase to ToL (down from 5/10). So with two points in Natural Shapeshifter we'll see a 31 second ToL. Not too bad, they likely just thought it was a bit too long of a healing cooldown. We saw a similar nerf from the original cooldown, which used to last 45 seconds.

Mastery (Symbiosis) Buff
This is a decent change, the Symbiosis benefit has been increased by approximately 16%.

All in all, we're continuing to see some decent buffs to Resto, so hopefully that trend will continue! Similarly, hopefully they won't overdo it and actually achieve a roughly equal balance among the healing classes rather than having some just completely overpowered than the others. Pallies and Priests have some small reductions incoming so far and Shamans are getting a bit of a boost, so hopefully things will begin to even out.

Mana Tide Totem has also been revamped so that it now 'no longer multiplies the Spirit of those affected by it. It instead gives a flat amount of Spirit equal to 400% of the casting shaman's Spirit, exclusive of short-term Spirit buffs affecting the shaman when dropped.' This is a good change overall, really, and most likely from PvE imbalances (rather than PvP, which a number of the upcoming changes are adjusting). MTT combined with Spirit /use trinkets and additional factors was becoming extremely overpowered in raid settings (and poor shamans were basically being used only as mana batteries for priests/pallies), so hopefully this will again contribute to more equalising of the healing classes and encourage mixed comps rather than the need to stack specific classes.

I would still like to see some additional tools for our tank healing, mainly at least in some sort of cooldown (likely a damage reduction one if not another healing boost one) or perhaps a damage reduction incorporated into a talent. Druids can definitely be viable as tank healers and do a good job, but if Blizz really wants us competitive with Pallies (and, indeed, priests with PainSupp/GS) we could really do with something to help us measure up.

I am very pleased with the boost to our raid heals, though, with the upcoming Wild Growth and Rejuvenation changes. We should be a lot stronger on raid heals with the changes and help bring back some of our previous strengths in raid healing. The changes should also help us a lot in benefiting from our Mastery (which is also getting buffed) - with more Wild Growths going out (from the reduced cooldown) and more Rejuvenations going out (from the reduced mana cost), there should be a lot more potential overlap of our HoTs and heals, which should then trigger our Mastery a lot more. Hopefully this is what we'll see! As ever, though, we'll see how it plays out in practice.

Positive signs ahead, though!

ETA: There was also a very interesting post by Ghostcrawler on the difficulty of heroic dungeons, which is definitely worth a read. Check it out here: Wow, Dungeons are Hard!

Patch 4.0.6 PTR: Upcoming Changes for Druids

First off, a Happy New Year to everyone! I hope everyone's had a good start to the new year.

What better way to start than with the announcement of a new patch finally on the horizon! Patch 4.0.6 has been deployed on the PTR, along with a lot of updates and changes pretty much across the board. I think they were waiting on a patch until after the holidays, but this should update and fix a lot of things, as well as apply many client-side things that were hotfixed but not fully updated (mainly things like tooltips, quest texts, etc). There may also be several new things broken in the new patch, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

There are a lot of druid changes coming up which seem to comprise a mix of buffs and nerfs. Full patch notes can be seen here.

Let's start with Resto changes.

Restoration


Nourish / Healing Touch: Healing Touch is now trained at level 78 (up from level 3), Nourish is now trained at level 8 (down from level 78).
This is a nice little buff for levelling druids. Healing Touch seemed to be too expensive of a heal at low levels, so this swap should ease mana concerns some for levelling Resto druids.

Omen of Clarity: OoC can no longer trigger from helpful spells (aka heals) unless the Restoration talent Malfurion's Gift is chosen.
This is an interesting change which seems to be their solution to prevent OoC from accounting for too much mana savings. This basically means Malfurion's Gift will be a must-have for Resto druids. I'm not positive whether OoC will only have a chance to proc from Lifebloom (as MG right now causes Lifebloom to increase the proc chance) or whether it will change so that all healing spells have a chance to proc it when talented. I'll have to check that on the PTR or closer to/on live release date. If anyone has seen it on PTR already and knows with more certainty, do let me know.

Rejuvenation: Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3 (down from level 8) and its mana cost has been reduced from 26% to 16%.
This is a pretty big change and one I'm very glad to see. The high mana cost on Rejuvs at the moment is really mana intensive and can really limit druid heals, particularly on the raid. I realise they have been hoping to get away from the Wrath era of Rejuv spam, but such a high mana cost really took it a bit too far and was more limiting than anything. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction towards fixing that, and should also help druid raid heals more but also hopefully help make it easier for us to benefit from our mastery.

Regrowth: Empowered Touch now also affects Regrowth, and the Glyph of Regrowth now causes the HoT effect to refresh itself on targets below 50% health (up from 25% health).
This is a somewhat interesting change, clearly trying to push druids to resume using Regrowth, as many (including myself) have found it to be much less valuable, especially considering the high mana cost and low healing punch. Honestly, I'll likely continue using Regrowth primarily as I do now, which is largely on OoC procs during Tree of Life for the instant free Regrowths. This change will actually be quite nice for that - casting the Regrowth on a target with a LB during ToL will refresh it now, so you don't risk losing some of your LB stacks out on the raid during ToL.
While the buff to the glyph is nice, I still don't see that glyph as being particularly useful. The only fight I really see any potential value for it is Chimaeron, when the entire raid spends so much of the fight below 50% or less health. Even then, it's such an expensive heal in an already mana-intensive fight, that apart frm ToL OoC procs I again don't see it as more valuable than other glyph choices.
The Regrowth changes do make it at least a bit more interesting though and perhaps it will come into play a little more. This also leads us into our next change,

Nature's Bounty: Nature's Bounty no longer affects Swiftmend, but now has a new effect in addition to the increased Regrowth chance. When the druid has Rejuvenation out on 3 or more targets, the cast time of Nourish is reduced by 10/20/30%.
This is an interesting change to the talent Nature's Bounty and actually has me in a bit of a spec dilemma when this goes live. Currently I don't have any points in Nature's Bounty as I just don't feel it's useful enough, as Regrowth doesn't pack enough punch to make the increased crit chance worth it, especially with the high mana cost. The reduced cast time on Nourish is a very nice change, though, and should hopefully boost our raid healing a bit more. Assuming we have 3+ Rejuvs out on raid or party members, the reduced Nourish cast time allows for some quicker heals, which will likely be benefiting from those Rejuvs boosting both the Nourish and our Mastery. Combined with the reduced Rejuv mana cost, this should theoretically help our raid healing some. How this ends up in practice, though, is less certain. Certainly still our raid heals are in serious need of a boost, and though this might help, it's not a full fix. But more on that later.

Feral


Rake / Rip: Rake and Rip damage has been reduced by 10%.
Pretty straightforward reduction here on our bleed DoTs. I've heard some of these reductions have been for some additional PvP balance, which may be the case.

Shred / Mangle: Shred weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 450% (up from 350%) and Mangle weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 460% (up from 360%).
In contrast to the Rake/Rip nerfs, we have a decent buff to Shred and Mangle, so hopefully overall these changes will balance out.

Berserk: Berserk no longer breaks Fear or makes the druid immune to fear.
This was a pretty straight PvP adjustment, which is quite disappointing for PvE I feel. I can understand it for PvP balance, but there are definitely PvE encounters both when DPSing and tanking that the fear immunity/clearance is a great help. It would have been nice if it simply didn't work against player-cast fears, but that may have been more difficult to implement. Either way, we're stuck with it now!

Misc


-Barkskin is no longer dispellable.
-Mount Up guild perk now applies correctly to Flight Form and Swift Flight Form.
-Wild Mushroom is now instant cast and the radius of detonation has been increased by 6 yards and damage done increased by 15%.
-Night Elf racial trait Shadowmeld and the Tauren racial trait War Stomp can be used while shapeshifted.

There have also been some changes for our Bears (mostly decreased Mangle (Bear), Maul, and Lacerate damage) and Moonkins (Shooting Stars buff duration has been increased).

Overall, some decent changes so far. From what I've heard (hearsay from friends and guildies) this patch will likely go live around the 25th of January, but I haven't seen any official dates yet (if any have been posted, I've completely missed them). That also means that there's still time for some of these things to change. With that in mind, I won't be updating the guides until these changes go live. The feral nerfs and buffs will hopefully balance out so there's not an overall net loss to our PvE damage.

Resto Changes and PvE Healing Imbalance


The Resto changes are a step in the right direction, but I think there's still a ways to go in that area. While healers are seeming decently balanced in the 5 man dungeons and heroics, the four healing classes are definitely not balanced when it comes to raids, particularly 25 mans and 25 man heroics.

There was an excellent post by Xaar, a Resto druid from Paragon, on the EU WoW healing forums, which I really hope the Blizz devs have looked over. You can see the full post here: The state of 25-man raid healing.

In short, he discusses the imbalances that many of us are seeing and feeling in raids amongst the healing classes. Both druids and shamans are fairing poorly in raids, particularly when compared with paladin and priest (holy) healers. Shamans are a bit fortunate in that they provide Mana Tide totem, which can grab them a spot in raids, but many are finding they feel like mana-batteries for the priests and pallies. Druids unfortunately do not have such luck (and innervates are easily supplied by feral and balance druids) and, particularly in high progression guilds, are having a hard time being valuable to raids. While our tank healing tools were greatly improved, we lack the external cooldowns in damage reduction on tanks or increased healing that pallies have, so pallies will likely always be the preferential tank healers. The high mana cost to Rejuv and longer cooldown on Wild Growth is hitting our raid heals and holy priests are pulling ahead on raid heals. Although Disc priests are a bit below standard at the moment (they will be getting buffed in 4.0.6), Atonement discs have their place in certain fights and priests still provide external cooldowns in both specs (Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit).

What we'll likely see happening is raids will begin stacking priests and pallies, especially for heroic modes, and both druids and shaman will likely get the bench. Shaman may still get in to provide a Mana Tide, but, as Xaar also mentions, as players attain more gear and mana conservation becomes less difficult, they too may end up by the wayside. Overall it ends up as very low balance in PvE healing, and both druids and shaman are in dire need of buffs. There are several paladin and priest buffs also slated in this upcoming patch (the priest buffs seem to be in reaction to PvP imbalance, where they were lacking), so there will likely be even more catching up to do for shaman and druids.

I'm really also in favour of some additional changes to druid healing. While Tree of Life now gives us that boost to healing cooldown, we're still lacking in what special things we can really bring to the raid to validate that raid spot. In the very least, especially as our tank-healing tools have been boosted, we need some sort of damage reduction ability. This could be in a similar vein to Shaman's Ancestral Healing and Priest's Inspiration, damage on the target is reduced by 10% for 15 seconds after a critical heal lands. In the very least this would be helpful, as we currently have no ability that reduces damage taken, which really knocks our tank-healing strengths. Living Seed is arguably a similar ability, but a damage reduction would be much more valuable in terms of aiding tank survivability. In fact, Living Seed would be the perfect talent to adjust to either include or change to a damage reduction ability.

Another option would be, as many have mentioned, to provide a deep Restoration talent which would allow Barkskin to be cast on another target, ie to be used as an additional external cooldown for a tank in the same vein as Pain Suppression. I certainly see this as being a very valid option and, if there are concerns about balance with such an ability, it seems there's automatic balance in keeping Barkskin on the one cooldown - the resto druid would only be able to cast it on one target, so they couldn't throw it on a tank and also use it on themself, they'd have to choose one or the other.

So, there's definitely a ways to go on druid healing, though hopefully the Rejuv changes and potentially the Regrowth changes will be a step in the right direction for us. We'll have to see how it plays out and, as more data and feedback comes in, especially as more players and guilds are able to get in and experience the new raid content, hopefully there'll be more changes in store. Certainly at the moment it's feeling like Lich King Heroic all over again - stack priests and pallies, maybe a shaman for mana tide if you're lucky, but druids are by the wayside.

I survived the Shattering! Quick update post-4.0.3a

Thought I'd do a quick post with some updates from the 4.0.3a patch.

- I finally found out how to train Glyph of the Treant - it can be learned through a Minor Inscription Research discovery. Rather less convenient than learning it from a trainer, especially now when very few will know it (and with the long cooldown on the Research), so Auction House gouging will likely take place over this week. It only requires 3 Jadefire Ink and a Common Parchment, though, so cheapest would likely be to find someone who's learned it and see if they'll make it for mats+tip.

- Nitro Boosts are now a belt tinker (rather than a boot tinker), so be sure to update your items. As far as I know this is an intended change (I'd seen a post asking if it was or was not). They will overwrite the Frag Belt and other belt tinkers. The Nitro Boosts seem to be bugged, though, and are malfunctioning much more frequently than they used to, including in raids. A large portion of our raiders are engineers and all last night they were exploding in every fight. I had a rather nice one during HMLK, at least I had my parachute at the ready.

- Meta gem requirements for some gems were changed to 'require more blue gems than red gems', however, Blizzard has already said they will be reverting the gems to their original requirements. This cannot be hotfixed, though, so will be addressed in an upcoming patch. (source)

- There are some new quests which reward pets, one is the Plants vs Zombies quest which rewards a flower. Another is the Remembrance of Auberdine quest which rewards a withered treant named Withers. I'll be setting to work on that one, appears as though you need to do most of the zone to open up the quest though! There's some info on WoWhead on how to get to the quest - check out the comments for the quests you need to complete to open it. Here. Should be a nice way to see the new Darkshore though. The opening quest regarding the destroyed Auberdine is quite sad as you search for survivors. ETA: Been working on the quests in the zone, and am very glad I did! The new quests are brilliant, loving Darkshore. Think this will swing it for me in which race to level a mage, nelf! Looking forward to checking out all the new zones... may give a go at Loremaster.

- The change in Rejuvenation mana cost does seem noticeable following a night's raiding, my mana bar was actually moving all tonight! Cata has landed officially. Though I do wonder whether a little bit may be due to me opting for Purified Lunar Dust over my Solace of the Defeated, as I believe Solace still returns better mana (I switched for the spellpower gain), however it was too large a difference from last week to be solely a trinket swap. You have been warned!

- I was very happy healing Valithria Dreamwalker last night now that the revamped Empowered Touch was on live. Throw on a Rejuv, Swiftmend her for Efflorescence, 3 stacks of LB and Healing Touch away! No longer wasting GCDs refreshing the stack after each cast, it was great. Some nice throughput doing that throughout the fight, though I'm undecided just when and how to use Tree of Life best on that fight. It would seem saving ToL for the end with max stacks is best for the additional healing boost. The instant-Regrowths seem like they edge out Healing Touch at that point, as you're getting two Regrowths out in about the same time as one Healing Touch cast (assuming 2 GCD's ~ 2 seconds for 2 instant Regrowths, vs ~2-second cast time HT), which tends to end up about being the same amount of healing done in that time frame. Nature's Bounty may be what pushes it, as the increased critical effect, especially then with the bonus to heals from portal stacks + ToL increased healing really adds up. I'd be interested in hearing what some other's strategies are. Though I suppose it doesn't matter too much at this point! Still, interesting.

- I was disappointed to find that my Mimiron's Head mount seems to be bugged, he makes noise when he's sat on the ground idling, but when I try flying forwards or strafing he goes silent. The little chopper-y noises the mount makes is one of my favourite things about it so I'm hoping that gets fixed soon!

- For those who don't know, there is now an Auction House and Bank in the Dwarven District of Stormwind (so you can avoid the more congested area in the Trade District). There's also an Auction House by the Justice Point vendors in Dalaran.

That's all for now! Enjoy the new zones and do some exploring! There are lots of new flypoints and tons of new quests to do. The new class/race combos are up too, along with the new starting zones for gnomes and trolls.

The Shattering! 4.0.3a lands tomorrow

MMO-Champ is reporting that patch 4.0.3a is landing on live servers this week! We're only two weeks away from Cataclysm's launch (where did the time go??), and this patch will bring about all the landscape, zone and quest changes as well as new class/race combinations (though Worgen and Goblin characters are only available with Cataclysm). There will also no longer be portals in Dalaran or Shattrath, so I suggest resetting your hearthstones to places like Stormwind/Orgrimmar or else placing your toons at places with convenient transport to major cities (Valiance Keep and Warsong Hold in Borean Tundra are decent ideas, with transport direct to SW/Org).

For those in Stormwind, there will be a new auction house and bank in the Dwarven District (along with additional innkeepers), so you don't have to be stuck in the busy Trade District if you don't want to. I think there are similar changes in Orgrimmar, but I don't know the specific details.

There are a lot of Druid changes in this patch, which is basically just bringing us in line with Beta and ultimately Cataclysm.

• Bear Form now provides 10% bonus health, down from 20%.
• Nourish no longer consumes Omen of Clarity.
• Rejuvenation has had its mana cost increased by 30%.
• Soothe now has a 1.5-second cast time.
• Swipe (Cat Form) can now be used even if the druid does not have a primary target selected.
• Thorns: beginner tooltip revised to no longer imply the spell could be kept up at all times. In addition, Thorns damage has been reduced by 60%.

Feral

• Brutal Impact now increases the mana cost of spells on the victim by 5/10% for 10 seconds, down from 15/30%.
• Leader of the Pack now heals for 4%, down from 8%.
• Survival Instincts now provides 50% damage reduction, down from 60%, and its cooldown has been lowered from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
• Swipe (Bear Form) damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Vengeance is no longer cleared on exiting Bear Form, and instead is cleared upon entering Cat Form.

Restoration

• Empowered Touch now procs from Healing Touch as well as Nourish.
• Heart of the Wild: the Bear Form Stamina bonus from this talent is now 2/4/6%, down from 3/7/10%.
• Malfurion's Gift no longer has Fury of Stormrage as a prerequisite talent.
• Natural Shapeshifter now also increases Tree of Life duration by 5/10 seconds.
• Revitalize is now a 2-point talent, down from 3. It provides a 20% chance to return 1/2% of the druid's total mana on periodic heals from Lifebloom or Rejuvenation. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12 seconds.
• Swift Rejuvenation is now a 1-point talent, down from 2. The global cooldown reduction this talent provides to Rejuvenation remains 0.5 seconds.
• Symbiosis: heal-over-time spells (Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom) can no longer benefit from this Mastery merely by refreshing themselves. A different heal-over-time spell must be present.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Healing Touch now reduces the cooldown on Nature's Swiftness by 10 seconds after using Healing Touch, up from 5 seconds.
• Glyph of the Treant (new) allows druids to keep the original treant Tree of Life look... if they must. Must they?

Bug Fixes

• Blood in the Water now refreshes Rip to the correct value.
• Flight Form now properly appears in the trainer window before Expert Riding is learned.

A lot of changes in there. Some nerfs in there, but overall it's nothing too massive. You'll likely feel a bit of a hit at level 80, but at 85 things balance back out again. Not mentioned in there is also the change to Efflorescence, where it now has a diminished effect when healing more than 6 players at once. There's been some debate over just how this is working now (if it's healing 6 for full and less for the additional people in, if it's healing only 6, if it's healing everyone stood in for less... etc) and, as far as I'm aware, no official confirmation/clarification yet on it (someone let me know please if you've seen something). I'd like to state, though, this is NOT restricted to Druids - ALL healing classes are having their AE spells reduced in exactly the same way. Shammy Healing Rain, Priest Holy Word: Sanctuary, and Holy Radiance all have the same changes. So don't panic!

There are some nice changes for the Resto talent tree with this patch which finally bring us in line with Beta. Empowered Touch now allows both Nourish and Healing Touch to refresh Lifebloom stacks, which is an excellent change. Revitalize is now a 2-point talent, which is nice as it frees up a talent point to put elsewhere and, in a similar vein, Swift Rejuvenation is now only a 1-point talent. Another very nice change is Malfurion's Gift no longer requires Fury of Stormrage, so if you either cannot afford the points or simply don't wish to spec it, you can still pick up Malfurion's Gift.

With those changes in mind, I suggest picking up the following spec at level 80, which should carry you nicely into levelling from 80-85 in Cata 2/0/34.

Largely this is picking up Malfurion's Gift, though if you don't feel you need the extra Omen of Clarity proc chance at 80, you can opt to put one or no points into this talent. I opted for Malfurion's Gift over Blessing of the Grove for both 80 and eventual 85 spec. OoC with Regrowths (especially when in ToL form using instant-regrowths and being able to cast Lifeblooms on multiple targets) will be extremely helpful for mana management both now and especially at 85. Though, you can move points into there if you like, especially at 80 where Rejuv-spamming is still doable with little mana consequence. If you're having mana problems or simply want a larger mana pool you can still move some points over into Furor as well.

ETA: I've updated my Resto guide to include the above 4.0.3a changes: Resto Guide.

The Feral tree is largely unchanged. For kitty I suggest sticking with the 0/33/3 spec, as this picks up the max DPS talents as well as some nice survivability talents.

This can be a nice spec to begin the levelling process at 80 as well, as picking up Thick Hide will make you uncrittable. Brutal Impact is a very useful talent but will likely be less useful while levelling, and you can easily pop two points in there as you hit 81 and 82. The point in Survival Instincts could be moved around as well, I personally like it for emergencies, especially if I ended up pulling too many mobs.

It also looks like the new Tree of Life model will be coming with 4.0.3a (much to my dismay), but the Glyph of the Treant should be available if you want to keep your old Tree-form. I'll be hunting down an Inscriptionist to get that made! I'm hoping it's just trainable at the Inscriptionist trainers.

Otherwise, enjoy the last moments of the old world! Grab any last screenshots, head through any last ZG runs (no raptor for me!), take a stroll through the Park in Stormwind one last time, and so forth!

Druid Healing and Kitty DPS 4.0.1, updates! and new tree form models!

UPDATE: I've completed the Restoration Druid Healing Guide for level 80 in 4.0.1, which you can find here: Full Guide: How to be a Tree! Resto Guide for 4.0.1 and Beyond!

The guide will again be updated when Cata hits to reflect changes for level 85, a full 85 spec, new gems and enchants, etc!

The old 3.3.5 Guide was removed, as was the placeholder in progress guide for 4.0.1, so be sure to update any bookmarks or links you may have.

The dust is starting to settle following the Patch. Lots of little (and big) bugs and issues which will hopefully be either hotfixed or, in the very least, will be addressed in upcoming patches.

The WoW Forums are often helpful both for reporting bugs and finding out more information about anything you may be experiencing. The Bug forum can be seen here (along with this helpful post on How to Write a Good Bug Report). Technical Support and Mac Tech Support are also very helpful (and there are some known crash issues with Macs with this patch). If you have a crash, ALWAYS send your error logs in to Blizz (a form should pop up automatically to do so), and you can also post your crashlogs on the forums as well (that's also much more helpful than just posting 'I crashed!!111').

Kitties should be feeling a lot better today! We had a blue post acknowledging the pretty major class imbalances at level 80, and we got a hotfix (along with other melee classes) boosting our damage!

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler (Source)

We made many changes yesterday. A lot of these were bug fixes, and many bug fixes will affect damage one way or the other. So just because you don't see a specific change referenced below, doesn't mean it didn't change.

With that said, here are the specific changes we made in reference to my previous post:

1) We buffed the base points and coefficients of many  warrior dps abilities. We didn't do as much to tanking abilities.

We buffed the base points and coefficients of many  Ret abilities.

We buffed the base points and coefficients of many  Feral cat abilities.

Kitty DPS should be looking a lot better than it was a couple of days ago. A quick test on the dummy saw mine had jumped pretty substantially and was looking a lot more comparable to what it was before the patch, so good news there.

I wanted to do a couple of quick updates on Healing and Kitty DPS. I've been a bit slow in getting my fully updating my guides namely for things like the above - things are buggy and subject to change, and my own playing with specs and discussions with others will lead to some alterations in my suggestions in the guide. I will be getting the full guides up, ideally over the weekend, but wanted to clue everyone in to the delay!

Healing updates:


Reforging is your best friend! Given how high mana regen is for many at level 80, especially with ICC gear and the now very large mana pools, you will find that Reforging the Spirit on your gear will be incredibly helpful. The two stats you will likely want to Reforge your spirit to is Haste and Crit.

Haste: To get an extra tick on our Rejuvs (see this post on Type H for Heals for some good background on this), we need to hit a haste cap of 1015 haste now. Reforging will help you get there without forcing you to regem.

Crit: On pieces which already have Haste on, you can Reforge Spirit into Crit. As all of our HoTs can now Crit, it's great to pick up some extra Crit to help pack some more punch into our HoTs (especially now that they have reduced durations).

Gear: You may find yourself wanting to pick up some new pieces of gear as well (or swap out with ones in your bank). Thinking along the same lines as the reforging of Spirit above, gear that has Int/Haste/Crit on it (as opposed to Int/Spirit and Haste or Crit) may be a lot more valuable in boosting both your Haste and your Crit. An easy one to pick up (especially if you have a Boomkin offspec) is swapping out the Idol of the Black Willow with the Idol of the Lunar Eclipse. On similar lines, Blood Queen's Crimson Choker over Bone Sentinel's Amulet, etc.

Ultimately, swapping out pieces of gear like that and Reforging Spirit will depend some on just what you're doing in game, i.e. your gear levels, if you're doing 25 man raids or only 5 mans, etc. While the Reforging can be a bit expensive (my pieces seem to have usually run about 10g a pop to Reforge), you can return them to their original stats at no charge. Play around with your gear and stats and see what works for you, and keep an eye on your mana (and on your healing style - if all you're doing is spamming Regrowth nonstop (now a mana-expensive spell), you will likely drive yourself OoM quickly regardless of gear or mana pool).

If you are finding you are still having some mana issues, I recommend keeping the gear changes and changing your spec to maximize your mana pool. Heart of the Wild should definitely be picked up in any spec, as it is a straight boost to your Intellect, which will increase your spellpower as well as your mana pool. Revitalize is another excellent talent providing both more mana regen for us but also grants Replenishment for the party or raid.

The optional talent you can pick up is Furor in the Feral tree to help with your mana pool. Furor will give you 5%/10%/15% increase to your maximum mana. A note on Furor: This talent will increase your mana pool but NOT your Intellect - this means it will NOT increase your spellpower. It can provide a pretty massive increase to your Mana pool, though, which can be very helpful. Even just one point in here can be useful, and there is room to move 1-3 points out of the Resto tree into Furor.

With all that in mind: This is the following spec I'm currently testing out. I'll discuss after which points can be potentially moved around in both the Resto tree and into Furor.

The two in the Balance tree are in Nature's Majesty for the straight Crit increase. Again, with Crit affecting all of our HoTs now, these are a valuable two points to pick up.

This spec does not pick up Furor (I wanted to maximize my points in the Resto tree and test out my mana regen with the gear and Reforging changes before picking up that talent). The following points I think can potentially be moved around to go into Furor if you find you need it:

Nature's Cure: This talent is a very nice utility talent, but a potentially optional one. If your primary raiding is in 25 mans (and possibly 10 mans with a good group makeup), you may find you don't need this talent as the cleanse is provided by another class in the group. If it is, you can likely skip this talent (check with your Raid Leader if you're unsure). You may want to pick it up again once Cata launches, though, as I imagine it may be useful in 5 man dungeons while leveling or in Heroics.

Blessing of the Grove: The general consensus on this talent so far seems to be that it feels quite weak. I've kept it for the time being as I'd like to maximize my heals as much as I can, and also as I'm still feeling out just how Druid healing will be (namely, whether our focus will keep up with Raid healing as our primary role, or whether it will indeed shift to tank healing, as our tank healing tools have been improved immensely). Given Rejuv is both strong as an additional HoT on our Tanks (especially with our mastery) as well as on the raid, this may still be good to keep, but again, may be a point or two you can shift out.

Empowered Touch: I would only suggest taking points out of this talent if you are doing absolutely NO tank healing at all. Nourish got a bit of a nerf, really, so you may end up using Healing Touch more on tanks than Nourish (at least if you're healing larger hits), so the Lifebloom refresh may not be as useful. The straight boost to both Nourish and Healing Touch will be very helpful. Again, some of this will depend on healing dynamics at 80 - whether we're healing more on the raid, the tanks, and also the speed of hits and health pool sizes at 80. ETA: Starting to get some proper raids in (that aren't lagged or otherwise completely horrendous due to patch bugs), you WILL be using both Nourish and HT, especially while tank healing. Nourish was indeed nerfed a little (though largely too due to the Glyph of Nourish now removed from the game) but it is still a good heal and, with this talent, it will refresh the Lifebloom stack, which is great. I prefer to keep this talent.

Naturalist: Again, I would only suggest taking points out of this talent if you are doing absolutely NO tank healing at all / if you're not using Healing Touch or Nourish at all. I prefer to keep this talent.

Nature's Majesty: You could also move a point or two out of this talent in the Balance tree, especially if you have a significant amount of Crit from gear already, but it is a pretty easy straight 4% Crit boost to pick up, so I'd spec into it if possible.

For more information you can again see my post Healing at 80 in 4.0.1, and I'll have the guides properly updated soon. I'll go ahead and add some of this new info there as well in the meantime.


Kitty Updates:


I mostly wanted to do a quick update on Kitty DPS and I'll get into more of the nitty-gritty later. Again, Reforging will be your friend - with armour pen on gear changing to either haste or crit, you may find yourself having too much of one stat or another. As mentioned earlier, we've had our damage boosted in a recent hotfix, so you should see your overall output go up a lot too. Don't forget, hit buffs are gone, so if you haven't already, make sure you're hit capped. You may also need some more expertise, as we no longer have Primal Precision (which increased our expertise).

The following spec is the max dps spec, including some utility talents which there is room for which I'll cover.

Thick Hide: I personally like this talent for its utility - it's the bear tanking talent which will make us uncrittable. Useful, I think, for emergency tanking situations and to avoid getting completely demolished by stray adds you may pick up.

Survival Instincts: Similar to Thick Hide, this is a useful survivability talent. For the mere damage reduction, I'd suggest picking it up even if you don't get Thick Hide. It's still particularly useful for fights, especially like Pungent Blight on Festergut and similar moments. Both these talents can be picked up without sacrificing DPS.

Brutal Impact: This is a nice talent which puts our interrupt onto the same cooldown as Rogue/DK/Shaman interrupts. Even with the spec above, you will be able to pick up this talent by level 85. If you want to pick it up at 80, you can drop some points in Thick Hide or Survival Instincts to get it.

Nurturing Instinct: I tend to prefer this talent for PVP (to increase your healing spells on yourself and others and to increase heals done to you, making you a bit more useful and durable), but it can also be a nice utility talent, particularly with concern for preserving healer's mana in Cata. Certainly a talent you can take.

Infected Wounds: This talent will generally be picked up by Bears, or covered by similar talents for other tanks. Can be a useful utility talent to pick up, though, particularly if in groups or raids where another class isn't providing the debuff, or for questing/leveling to reduce some damage taken (though for questing/leveling, taking Thick Hide to become uncrittable may serve you better).

The Prime glyphs (Rip/Savage Roar/Shred) are still your three key glyphs to maximize DPS. There's a bit more flexibility for your Major glyphs. Feral Charge will be useful to work in more Charges and, consequently, more Ravages. Rebirth can be useful for utility, and Faerie Fire will just give you a bit of extra range. In my Minors, Dash is still helpful and Unburdened Rebirth crucial. I picked up Challenging Roar ONLY because I specced into Thick Hide for emergency tanking situations. You can swap that out.

ETA: I forgot to include this earlier, I made up a nice macro for our new Skull Bash ability which will allow you to have both abilities on the same binding/same spot on your action bar, and which one is available will be dependant on which stance (form) you're in.

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1, nomod]Skull Bash;

/cast [stance:3, nomod]Skull Bash(Cat Form)

Again, you can see more information in my post on Kitty DPS at 80 in 4.0.1, and I'll be fully updating the kitty guide as well (it's in progress). The post also includes links to the new stat/gear analyzer Mew and an excellent post about kitty dps on the WoW Druid Forums.


I'll leave it there for now, plenty more updates and changes to come I'm sure!

I'll end with a glimpse at the new Tree form models, originally posted on MMO-Champion. These were data mined out of the latest beta update.

The forms are... interesting, at first glance. I'm undecided so far on my opinion of them, really - I've been way too distracted by both the talent/gear/etc issues following the patch as well as the technical issues, so I haven't really looked too thoroughly at them and formed a full opinion yet. I'll have to get a look at them in beta too. For those who are really concerned about them though (and it's possible the models will shift - I do not know if those are final models or not), there was the following blue post about ToL posted on MMO-Champ:

New Tree of Life
Art is very subjective. We're very used to the phenomenon of half of a class loving say their tier set art and the other half thinking they are the worst thing ever.

Messing with player models is always risky and we know the current Tree of Life model is one of those things that is either loved or hated. That is why, as promised, we are offering a minor glyph if you just prefer the older, treant-based, version of ToL. 

So it seems that the Tree of Life glyph is indeed in the works as a future glyph (not sure if it's also in that beta build or not), though rather than giving us a long lasting appearance (as opposed to the 30 second cooldown), it should just give us our Treant version of tree form back. Regardless, it's great to have that option, which I just may pick up, as I love our treant-version of Tree form.

That's all for now!