Chase Hasbrouk at WoW Insider (aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid) posted a new Feral Cat Druid 101 guide earlier this year. Current for Patch 4.0, it covers cat stats, best talent spec, glyphs and dps rotation.
Druid notes in WoW PTR Patch 4.0.1
September 25, 2010 By
The pre-Cataclysm class balancing patch 4.0.1 hit the Public Test Server and with it many changes to the Druid class. Here are the notes via MMO-Champion:
Balance
- Wild Mushroom now affects targets within 3 yards, down from 10 yards.
- Entangling Roots now lasts 30 sec, up from 27 sec.
Feral
- According to the tooltips, Swift Flight Form, Flight Form, Aquatic Form, Travel Form, Bear Form, Cat Form no longer make you immune to Polymorph.
- Swift Flight Form now costs 8% of base mana, down from 13% of base mana.
- Skull Bash now has a 13 yards range, up from 8 yards.
- Pulverize now increases your melee critical strike chance by 3%, up from 2%.
- Endless Carnage now increases the duration of Savage Roar and Pulverize by 4/8 sec, up from 3/6 sec.
- Stampede now makes Ravage not require stealth for 10 sec (up from 3 sec), it will also cost 50/100% less energy.
- Predatory Strikes now affects targets at or above 80% health, down from 90%.
Restoration
- Rebirth no longer costs mana.
- Rejuvenation now costs 20% of base mana, down from 25%.
- Mastery: Symbiosis (Revamped) – Increases the potency of your healing spells by 10% on targets already affected by one of your heal over time spells. Each point of Mastery increases heal potency by an additional 1.25%.
Cataclysm Druid Tier 11 Stormrider’s armor set images
September 23, 2010 By
A poster on the MMO-Champion forums from the Raven's Nest EU guild has found images of the druid T11 Cataclysm Stormrider armor set.
Set bonuses were discovered earlier by MMO-Champion:
- Balance: Stormrider's Regalia
- Druid T11 Balance 2P Bonus – Increases the critical strike chance of your Insect Swarm and Moonfire spells by 5%. / Instant
- Druid T11 Balance 4P Bonus – Whenever Eclipse triggers, your critical strike chance with spells is increased by 99% for 8 sec. Each critical strike you achieve reduces that bonus by 33%. / Instant
- Feral: Stormrider's Battlegarb
- Druid T11 Feral 2P Bonus – Increases the periodic damage done by your Rake and Lacerate abilities by 10%. / Instant
- Druid T11 Feral 4P Bonus – Each time you use Mangle (Cat) you gain a 1% increase to attack power for 30 sec stacking up to 3 times, and the duration of your Survival Instinct ability is increased by 50%. / Instant
- Restoration: Stormrider's Vestments
- Druid T11 Restoration 2P Bonus – Increases the critical strike chance of the periodic portion of your Lifebloom spell by 5%. / Instant
- Druid T11 Restoration 4P Bonus – Whenever you have Lifebloom stacked to its maximum of 3 applications on its target, you gain 540 Spirit. / Instant
WoW Druid T11 armor set bonuses revealed in Cataclysm beta build 12942
September 11, 2010 By
via MMO-Champion:
- Item – Druid T11 Restoration 2P Bonus – Increases the critical strike chance of the periodic portion of your Lifebloom spell by 5%. / Instant
- Item – Druid T11 Restoration 4P Bonus – Whenever you have Lifebloom stacked to its maximum of 3 applications on its target, you gain 540 Spirit. / Instant
- Item – Druid T11 Balance 2P Bonus – Increases the critical strike chance of your Insect Swarm and Moonfire spells by 5%. / Instant
- Item – Druid T11 Balance 4P Bonus – Whenever Eclipse triggers, your critical strike chance with spells is increased by 99% for 8 sec. Each critical strike you achieve reduces that bonus by 33%. / Instant
- Item – Druid T11 Feral 2P Bonus – Increases the periodic damage done by your Rake and Lacerate abilities by 10%. / Instant
- Item – Druid T11 Feral 4P Bonus – Each time you use Mangle (Cat) you gain a 1% increase to attack power for 30 sec stacking up to 3 times, and the duration of your Survival Instinct ability is increased by 50%. / Instant
Cataclysm beta early leveling impressions for druids
September 8, 2010 By
Lissanna of the Restokin blog gives her impressions of leveling a druid from 1-20 in the Cataclysm 12857 beta build. A lot of abilities are granted earlier than before and both feral and balance leveling are much smoother than they were originally. Which is good since neither spec was considered an early leveling build when the game launched. Bear and Resto aren't generally considered leveling specs and aren't addressed in her article.
Druid buffs and nerfs in Cataclysm beta build 12857
September 4, 2010 By
via MMO-Champion:
Balance
- Hurricane base damage increased by 33%.
- Innervate now regenerate mana equal to 20% of the casting Druid's maximum mana pool, down from 33%.
- Starsurge now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
- Entangling Roots now has a 2 sec cast time, up from 1.5 sec.
- Starfall now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards. Base damage increased by 33%.
- Lunar Shower now increases damage done by your Moonfire by 15/30/45% (Up from 2/4/8%)
- Force of Nature now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
- Solar Beam now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
- Lunar Guidance no longer increases the radius of your Solar Beam.
- Moonglow now reduces the mana cost of all your damage and healing spells.
- Nature's Majesty now increases the critical strike chance with all spells.
Feral
- Thrash now has a 6 sec cooldown, up from 5 sec.
- Swipe (Bear) base damage increased by 33%.
- Swipe (Cat) now deals 215% weapon damage, up from 125%.
- Furor now increases your maximum mana by 5/10/15% instead of increasing your intellect by 2/4/6%.
Restoration
- Lifebloom now heals over 10 sec, up from 7 sec. Costs 7% of base mana, up from 5%.
- Omen of Clarity is now properly flagged as Passive.
- Regrowth HoT effect reduced by 60%, now heals over 6 sec instead of 21 sec. Cast time reduced from 2 sec to 1.5 sec.
- Natural Perfection is now a Tier 5 talent, down from Tier 6.
- Swift Rejuvenation is now a Tier 6 talent, up from Tier 5.
- Revitalize revamped – When you periodically heal with your Rejuvenation or Lifebloom spells, you have a 8/16/24% chance to instantly regenerate 3% of your total mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.
- Heart of the Wild no longer increases maximum mana by 5/10/15%, now increases Intellect by 2/4/6%.
Druid Cataclysm Q&A with the developers
August 29, 2010 By
Ghostcrawler dropped in on the Damage Dealing forums to answer a number of questions about the future of the feral spec in Cataclysm.
Ghostcrawler on Feral Druids in Cataclysm
Q u o t e:
2) Can you make savage roar undispellable?
This is something we're discussing, but haven't made a decision yet.
Q u o t e:
3) Will Shred ever have no positional? : \
We like Shred and Backstab with positional requirements. We haven't changed our stance on this. If you find Shred too difficult to use in PvE, then Mangle. If you're not happy in PvE with the damage you can do while Mangling, and can't manage to stay in a position where you can Shred, then I hate to say it but this probably isn't the spec for you. In PvP we think it's more of an issue, but we've also buffed Mangle to where you can do credible damage with it.
Q u o t e:
6) will dash be given the same treatment as sprint? (lower CD lower dura)
We think Dash is fine.
Q u o t e:
7) is the new version of innervate intended to be worth less to specs with small mana pools like Feral?
Yes, exactly. In Cataclysm, healer mana matters a great deal. In that environment, having some dps who can prop up healer mana so well is quite overpowered. It's okay to have utility in providing the healers extra mana, but it can't get out of control. Balance and Resto druids will have bigger Innervates, but then they are also balanced around needing to use those on themselves most of the time.
Q u o t e:
Can you change the new version of survival instincts to have less of an effect but a shorter CD?, 60% is great, but at a 5 min cd, id rather have 40% on a 3 minute cd or something to that effect ya know?
This is the kind of thing we're still messing with. There are situations where the short cooldown weaker version is more useful and others where it isn't.
Q u o t e:
9) is Bear form damage going to be a little bit higher then it currently is for Cata? can pulverize and mangle at least hit harder then maul? its kinda lame that our talented abilities hit much weaker then maul in bear atm
I wouldn't worry too much about numbers yet. We haven't made much of an effort to adjust them and won't until we're happy with the basic mechanics.
Q u o t e:
10) what is the purpose of thorns? you've been consolidating weird buffs so, i figure this is on the list of weird buffs with no real purpose
We think it has more of a purpose with more damage packed into a smaller window than weak damage available 100% of the time. In the latter case you'd never think twice about attacking someone with Thorns because it's never not there. It also asks a little more of the druid to use Thorns at the right time rather than just whenever the buff drops off. Thorns isn't a raid buff on the scale of something like Fortitude or Bloodlust so we see no reason to consolidate it.
Q u o t e:
How can I become a better player and use shred on Kologarn?
When we make an entire instance full of Kologarns then it will be a problem. I think you'll be fine if you can't manage maximum dps on every raid boss. I think the game loses far more when we can't make original bosses with unusual mechanics that we gain by having every dps spec do about the same relative damage on every fight.
Q u o t e:
any further insight to why there is a discussion on this? i am trying to see the arguments to keep it, but i can't come up with any.
Many buffs can be dispelled because they are magical effects and because it's strategic to do so. Some buffs can't be dispelled either because it doesn't make sense, because the class couldn't function without the buff, or both. Slice and Dice can't be dispelled, but Savage Roar and Inquisition can be. We might decide to make or all or none of them dispellable. We really need to see more end-game PvP to make that determination.
Q u o t e:
The thing is, Shred produces the highest potential damage compared to Mangle. Unless Mangle is made to put out the same damage long term, mangling instead of shredding means we will be in a less than 100% potential.
PvP is rarely ever decided by someone's long term sustained dps though. It has a lot more to do with making the right decision at the right time.
In PvE there is no question that Shred is superior, but in most fights you can Shred. Those few fights where you can't Shred aren't ubiquitous enough to feel like a big deal. If you just find it too difficult to always get behind a creature to be able to Shred, then I'm not sure what to tell you. We don't think this problem is so widespread that Ferals are at a huge disadvantage overall. We agree that Feral has a really high skill cap in Lich King, but that's more do to the John Madden nature of the rotation than to Shred's positional requirement, and it's also something we've taken steps to improve in Cataclysm.
Many specs can't perform their highest 100% potential when mobs are moving or when they have to step out of the fire, but we aren't about to change those in order to make things easier on the player. I think raiding is plenty easy to be honest, unless you're talking about the more challenging heroic-mode encounters in which, yeah, we're asking you to step it up a little.
WoW Cataclysm closed beta druid spell, ability, mastery and talent list
June 30, 2010 By
The WoW Cataclysm closed beta has officially begun and the NDA has lifted. MMO-Champion is one of the first out of the gate to post a complete list of the current druid spells, abilities and talents, including masteries, new spells and recent dev comments about class changes.
Blizzard developer Twitter chat notes for Druids
April 19, 2010 By
On Friday, Blizzard held a Twitter dev chat about the upcoming Cataclysm expansion and the recently announced class changes. Here's the Druid parts followed by links to reaction by prominent Druid bloggers.
Q. Why are Restoration druids the only spec in the game not receiving a new spell?
A. Restoration druids are actually getting a fair bit. For one, Tree of Life is getting a whole new model (think Ancients of War) and will also "morph" some of your spells to do crazy things while in the form, such as cause Regrowth to be instant, or Lifebloom to apply two applications at once. Tranquility will be raid-wide. We're also touching nearly every Restoration druid spell to make sure each has a niche and feels good. In general, playing a Restoration druid should feel a lot different (better!) in Cataclysm than it does today.
Q: How will haste affect channeled spells. Will it be similar to DoTs and HoTs?
A: They will channel faster but their duration will remain unchanged. You will get more ticks on the same cast.
Q. Is every healer supposed to be able to tank-heal efficiently, or will we still see specs excel in it more than others?
A. Each healer is intended to have a different niche, and different strengths. Such as Restoration druids with HoTs, or paladins at direct healing, Discipline priests at absorption/preventio
Q: Will relics and wands be getting any new attention in Cataclysm?
A: With relics, the plan is to make them class agnostic. In other words, there might be a +strength relic that a death knight or paladin might want to equip. We think that will let us add more of them to the game without them being so specialized. They will feel more like wands.
How to make wands and relics a bigger part of gameplay is something we've had many, many discussions on. Ultimately though we'd rather see warlocks, mages and priests casting their spells, not zapping someone with a wand. In Cataclysm we don't expect to see much wanding, even at lower level.
Q: With armor class bringing mastery bonuses, will players never want to "downrank" from, say, leather to cloth?
A: That's the idea, really. They still can wear the older armor, but they'll lose some stats from doing so.
Q: How will "active spell is more powerful" be handled with no more dot clipping?
A: How about we get rid of "a more powerful spell is active" altogether? If you have some bonehead overwriting your more powerful buff or debuff, we'd rather you handle that issue socially.
Q. What change are you most excited about?
A. Some of the new Balance talents for druids, like Solar Beam, which works like Freya's spell where it instantly silences a target and they have to move out of the beam to get rid of the debuff.
Full transcript can be found on WoW.com.
Blogger reaction:
Reaction to WoW Druid Cataclysm class change announcement
April 12, 2010 By
I usually don't link to opinion posts. I like to keep the links restricted to helpful guides and strats. But everyone wants to know what the recently announced Cataclysm class changes mean for Druids. So here's a round up of thoughts from prominent Druid bloggers:
Balance
Feral
Resto
Also the Dreambound blog covers all four specs in one post.
