11.27.06
All Quiet on the Western Front
While the blues are still silent on the US forums. There has been a few very informative posts made by the blues over at the European forums. Also in this update, a few Tree of Life videos!
Regarding the costs of shapeshifting:
The developers want to encourage playing in multiple forms, but still require a cost. They do not want druids to be in all forms all the time by giving them unlimited shapeshifting, and additionally they wish to prevent other problems such as abusing the Furor talent or removing impaired movement speeds without any real cost.
When that has been said, the developers will keep an eye on the mana costs of shapeshifting to make sure that they are not too prohibitive.
The reason why the developers do not give the parry ability to Druids, is that they want bear tanks to be different, but still efficient. The developers feel that increased armour and health over traditional tanks is more appropriate for a bear.
Bear form health has been significantly increased (and now scales) and the agility to dodge ratio has been improved considerable. Internal tests show that Bears can tank effectively but differently, from a Warrior or Paladin.
Regarding Weapon Speed Scaling/Normalisation:
Weapons speed normalization is an issue being addressed by the developers. Mangle definitely answers the weapon speed scaling issues, as it has been created with damage multipliers to bring it in line with the normalization speed of rogue and warrior weapons:
- Mangle in bear form takes the 2.5 speed of bear form and multiplies it to get 3.25, which is very close to the 3.3 normalization speed for two-handed weapons.
- Mangle in cat form takes the 1.0 speed of cat form and multiplies it to get 1.6, very close to the normalized attack speed for daggers
Additionally the Mangle de-buff increases the damage of Shred by 30%, which makes it act like backstab with an un-normalized 1.95 speed dagger.
The developers do not intend for Druids in moonkin form to be able to meelee in a traditional sense. The ?meelee moonkin? is meant as a way for the Druid to get back into the fight while being low on mana. It is intended for aiding the druid with mana regeneration, and not for dealing damage. Basically it mirrors the ability of other casters to use wands with Judgement of Wisdom. In fact, it generates about 50% more mana per time for a dungeon-geared Druid than a Priest would get from JoW.
The ?meelee moonkin? is an experimental element that the developers are still evaluating.
Of course, the European blues also show that they can enjoy themselves and have some fun on the druid forums.
- Vaneras loves the Tree Form Emotes
- …and the bee form
- Ommaru enjoys some serious kitten vs warlock discussion
Crezax has commented about their views of a druid’s role in raids.
- Crezax on role replacement
One of the things I like about the game is that most classes aren’t really NEEDED (a few exceptions here and there of course), there’s usually another class that can take their place. The result may not be optimal, but still perfectly acceptable. Playing the role as a healer is something that the majority of players do not enjoy, leading to guilds always searching for more healers. If the guild has enough healers and room for a feral druid, they can do an awesome job and boost the raid a lot
- Crezax on Warrior vs Druid tanking
I’m fairly sure most guilds will be using a protection warrior as a tank, but I don’t think the ones going for a druid will be disappointed. Both will do a good job, with the warrior having a small edge. That’s my personal opinion.
- Crezax ‘responds’ to a challenge to his views
Now for the Tree Form videos:
Don’t they make you just want to spec for Tree of Life?
Mescaline said,
November 30, 2006 at 11:01 am
Excellent site my friend.
For someone like me who has little time to trawl through all the latest happenings in the Druid community - your site gathers up all the most relevant info and puts it in one place!
Lovely.
Keep up the good work.
Mesc.