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Why Deforestation isn't a nerf
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Post by
109094
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Post by
skribs
There are 4 healing tanking capable classes. So the thinking, if Im following point 5 correctly, is that 3 of those healing tanking classes dont need an alternative form to be a competative healer tank so why should 1 class (25%) have that requirement?
I lost your formatting in the quote, but you're looking at it wrong. It's not saying "The other classes don't have a form, so druids shouldn't have a form." It's saying "What do the other classes have vs. what the form has." Let's look at tanking:
Single target and AoE threat generating capabilities
High survivability, both passive and with cooldowns
Some form of getting to melee range (charge, death grip, HOF)
Form of self-heals (in the paladin's case it is AoE heals, but all other tanks are self-only without popping out of form)
Raid Buffs
Interrupt
Ranged Pull (Heroic Throw, IT/DG, Avenger's Shield, FFF)
Taunt
There are other minor differences, but those are the general points that a tank has to have, basically to allow them to cope with the job of absorbing hits. Bear form has all of those. Now let's look at healing (from a Cata perspective):
Single target and AoE heals (even paladins have GoHL and Beacon for AoE)
Raid Buffs
Mana Cooldowns
Dispels
Throughput Cooldowns
Ability to DPS or CC
"Ability to DPS or CC" and "Throughput Cooldowns" is not skipping out on just a couple of fringe abilities that I overlooked in tanks (e.g. paladins being able to dispel, warriors/DKs being better at interrupting, etc). A shaman has most of their elemental abilities (albeit at a weaker rate), hex, wind shear, and the full range of damage totems available. A priest has multiple shadow abilities, as well as holy fire, smite, mind control, psychic scream, and shackle available. A paladin can use holy shock offensively, judge, cast exorcism, consecration, hammer of wrath, hammer of righteousness, and holy wrath. A druid can (in WotLK) cast all balance abilities as well, but misses out on a lot now.
This also gives them that throughput cooldown.
Post by
404185
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Post by
109094
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Post by
hashmel
This again?
It comes down to the fact that no matter how well you can heal, your heals can't kill or directly hinder a mob which puts resto druids at a disadvantage.
Dps aren't healers; mages, hunters, warlocks, warriors, rogues, and death knights can't heal (in the the traditional sense) so shadowform and moonkin form are there to balance priests and druids accordingly, shaman and paladins* are immune to balance i guess. (/jest)
Resto druids also lack a cooldown to buff/modify your healing which i believe is the reasoning behind
buffing caster form and putting ToL on a cd that further modifies your healing
rather than just taking away the form's limitations. (underlined that part to emphasize to wandering readers that we're not losing something but trading something which in the end will be a net buff)
Post by
109094
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Post by
404185
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Post by
skribs
In fact they've said this during their blueposts about this topic. They don't mind locking DPS/Tanks out of some of their capabilities. They don't want to do it to healers. The roles are different and can therefore play by different rules without some inherent logical inconsistency.
In essence they are using one arguement to justify the dropping of Tree form, but then ignoring the same justification when it comes to other forms.
The first quote answers the problem in the second quote. Your problem is the logical fallacy known as the "straw man." You assume that because certain rules apply to other roles, they must also apply to healers. The problem is that each role is different in what they do. While yes, tanks are designed to tank, they also have the ability to deal a moderate amount of damage, and a lot of survivability tools (like self heals) that make it nearly impossible to die in low-damage situations. Healers, on the other hand, when soloing or in PvP, have the ability to heal themself, CC mobs, and cast damaging spells, with the exception of the restoration druid. In PvP this is especially important - you have to pick between a viable healing form with no other abilities, or a rounded form with much less healing (a druid with 800 spirit would lose 120 SP and 6% healing taken, plus armor). Giving the balanced healing form the same abilities as the other healers - the ability to damage and CC - is necessary for them to handle themselves.
Let me put it another way. Pitchers are a position in baseball. In the American League, pitchers only need to pitch. In the National League, pitchers need to pitch and bat/run. So you can't just make a blanket statement "Pitchers never need to practice batting," because they may be in a league that has them bat. The same thing in WoW - yes tanks and healers both have 4 classes that can handle the role. However, comparing rules for balancing tanks and rules for balancing healers is like comparing rules between leagues - they're different.
Also notice how bear form you get new abilities when you lose the old ones. In cat form, the same thing happens. Moonkin form is the only one left where you don't really gain anything - but like has been said, it mirrors all but one other caster DPS class. Ret paladins and prot paladins can heal, but my ret pally heals for 1700 with FoL while my holy pally heals for 5k. Ret is nowhere near the healing power of Holy. If I were to throw on healing gear (which I can't do in combat), then my DPS would drop significantly.
I fail to see a single, justified reason for dropping Tree form while maintaining things like Warrior Stances, Priests Shadow Form, Death Knight Presences and the other Druid Forms.
There is plenty of precidence for an ability giving a bonus at the detrement of others. I could understand (if not condone) it if all the other instances were getting the same treatment, but there not. Why does ToL get the cold shoulder?
By this logic, let's remove wrath, starfire, moonfire, roots, cyclone and hurricane and make them all balance talents. Since we don't even need to use them anyway.
Post by
109094
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Post by
hashmel
I understand the aesthetic argument here as druids are by far the number 1 class that some choose simply for aesthetics but there's been talk of Blizz considering a minor glyph to give your caster form the appearance of the current tree form which will resolve the aesthetics issue entirely.
On top of that the new Tree of Life will be quite impressive, closely resembling an
Ancient
, giving those interested in aesthetics one more treat than they currently have. (not an ancient protector but he's badass so i went with his screenshot)
The aesthetic argument has a small degree of justification due to those who rolled it strictly for the looks but there's a way for those people to get their "fix" while enjoying all the extra bonuses that are to come.
Resto druids also lack a cooldown to buff/modify your healing which i believe is the reasoning behind buffing caster form and putting ToL on a cd that further modifies your healing rather than just taking away the form's limitations.
If they just took away the limitations we'd still be short a cd, this way however, we gain a cd and lose the limitations when not in ToL which generally means you need to heal like nobody's business and not dps/cc anyway.
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404185
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Post by
109094
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Post by
579986
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Post by
skribs
Parrazel, you're just rehashing points I've already argued with in my first post.
On point, the quientessential flavour of the druid class is its shapeshifter ability. Its what makes it different from every other class. Removing that and your just further homogenizing the class even further. The unique look of the class is gone. And no a procable buff / periodic CD abilty to briefly turn into a tree for a few seconds is not the same.
See #6. Also, if it's an aesthetic look, you have 3 schools of thought: Those who like tree form, those who want to see their armor, and those who don't care. For the second thought this is a welcome aesthetic change, and for the third thought it doesn't matter.
Your general complaints about healers being specifically for heals was addressed in point #4, and the point you keep bringing up about moonkin is point #5. Okay, my baseball example was bad, but the fact is that different rules apply to each role (tank, melee, caster, healer). Like I outlined above, ALL of the other tanking classes have certain traits they need to have to be effective. Without AoE threat, you wouldn't hold mobs off the healer. Without a taunt, you couldn't pull things back if they fall off of you. Without self-heals, they would take forever to recover after soloing. Similarly, with healers, not having the ability to do damage is going to significantly hinder your ability in PvP. This quote from #4 is the real big kicker:
The big thing here is that you would have to balance trees around being unable to cast other abilities. If tree healing was on par with other healers, it's a pain in PvP because your healing is on par, but you can't provide another role. If they then buffed tree healing for the sake of PvP (if you can't cast, we'll give you more) druids would do too much healing in raids, where you're min/maxed on healing output. It becomes much easier to balance on both ends if Blizzard removes the mechanic entirely. Some notes on PvP:
The game is both PvP and PvE. They can't balance just one - they have to balance both. Considering that in a Resto spec, you're already looking at losing several balance talents and the balance mastery, your damage will already be lower. Look at it right now - my druid hits with 1700 wraths in resto and 3k wraths in balance, just soloing in my off-spec. Those 3k wraths are even faster and can crit harder (as a percentage), too. So it's not like we'll be doing equal damage to the DPSers, but when it comes to fights where you want a little extra damage, the druids will be able to do it without sacrificing their heals. The same as a priest, shaman, or paladin could.
Post by
razzem
And resto druids will still be shapeshifting.
In fact, they'll be doing it more often any anyone else (outside of PvP).
Haha, what? I see WAY less shifting for restos come cataclysm.
Now, instead of choosing:
1. running and healing with more armor and healing (tree form)
vs
2. running and healing with less armor and less healing, but CC capabilities (caster)
vs
3. Travelform to kite
... we only get 2 and 3. Overall, I like the CC and standardized +heal, but it still makes me sad to lose our healing form.
And I still think it's a nerf to shifting/snare-removal. Plus, to break a root/snare we will be forced to give up healing, effectively reducing our HPS anytime we need to break a snare... something we don't have to choose between now due to 2 forms to heal from.
Post by
109094
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Post by
skribs
So there was a problem, and blizz's solution was straight up "remove it". Not rebalance it, not rework the talent, not change the benefits, not change how the form works. Straight up remove an integral feature (not benefit, feature) of a class. I disagree with that mentality strongly
Actually, they are rebalancing it and changing the benefits, and completely changing how it works. Tree of Life will be a cooldown, so you just won't be a tree 100%. In that respect, shapeshifting will mean more than it does for the other three, because the other three in PvE are basically "if you're X roll, go Y form," but tree form will have to be used at the right time.
Also, you seem to have missed point 6.
Here's my big question to you: How would you have designed a Tree of Life form, then? In PvP and in PvE it would have to not be overpowered or underpowered, and it would have to be a significant choice over caster form. That's where the problem lies. They could have:
Made tree form heal more than any other healer to balance not being able to CC/DPS in tree form. This would make druids OP in raids. Or other balances which basically result in druids being OP or UP in one aspect, while balanced in another.
Made tree form offer the ability to cast the same things you could in caster form, but increased your healing potential. At this point, what are you giving up to go to tree form? Tree form then becomes an aura with a special graphic, and isn't really a shapeshift. A new form/stance means your abilities change, in this implementation tree form would just be a really fancy version of a seal.
So, keeping all that in mind, how would you balance it? It would have to be balanced in PvE and PvP, with the assumption that in PvP/solo you will be casting and CCing and in raids you will be mostly healing. It would also have to give you an incentive to be in caster form, otherwise the form loses it's factor as a choice. Here's the quote:
The big thing here is that you would have to balance trees around being unable to cast other abilities. If tree healing was on par with other healers, it's a pain in PvP because your healing is on par, but you can't provide another role. If they then buffed tree healing for the sake of PvP (if you can't cast, we'll give you more) druids would do too much healing in raids, where you're min/maxed on healing output. It becomes much easier to balance on both ends if Blizzard removes the mechanic entirely. Some notes on PvP:
Post by
109094
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Post by
132589
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