11.23.06
Pots and Procs to return
As posted by CM Vaneras on the WoW-Europe forums, Pots and Procs will be making a return to druids!
The fact that Druids in the beta test could use consumables and items while being shapeshifted was a bug. It was an unforeseen side effect of the original intent, which was to allow for Druids to interact with NPCs while being shapeshifted.
However, the developers do like the idea of consumables being used while in Druid forms, but the above mentioned bug prevented a proper implementation of this ability, which would otherwise allow shapeshifted Druids to use certain consumables such as Rage and Healing Potions, Thistle Tea and Healthstones. The developers are currently evaluating which items they want Druids to be able to use while in forms, and as soon as all issues are resolved, it will be reintroduced into the game.
Similarly with the use of consumables while being shapeshifted, the developers like the idea of allowing weapons with procs to be used by Druids being in forms. As with consumables, they developers are currently evaluating which weapons with procs should be usable by shapeshifted druids. When the evaluation is complete and all possible issues have been resolved, this will be introduced to the game.
That is it for now, but we will hopefully soon have more feedback for you regarding your other questions.
He later followed up with:
The developers were playing with the idea of allowing the use of certain consumables in forms at the same time as they were working on allowing druids to interact with NPCs while being in forms. But the consumables in forms ability was not supposed to be available before it was ready and all issues had been resolved and thus was mistakenly implemented to soon. It may sound strange, but it was indeed a bug.
I think you are looking at things a bit too pessimistically. The Druids are not a second rate class, but it is very different from other classes in many ways. Compared to what you have access to now of consumables, which is nothing, the Druid class will get greatly improved by getting access to certain consumables while being shapeshifted. Remember that the developers are currently evaluating which consumables you should have access to in certain forms, and it might very well be more than the ones I mentioned earlier.
Good news all around!
However, some questions still remain. Why was this information not made known to us earlier? Kalgan is generally the dev representatives communicating with us on the US forums, yet he talked to the mages and did not mention druids at all. Why did this information take so long to get to us? While most of the druids are thankful towards Vaneras and the EU-forum druids in general, the contrast between the communication on the EU druid forums and the silence on the US druid forums is defeaning.
I’m inclined to believe that not all of the information given to us is correct, and is just a form of damage control. The fact that the changes were made to Thistle Tea and Rage Potion shows that it was intended that consumables become usable during that period of time it was available. It looks to me like like they decided that druids should not be able to use procs and pots. The return of pots and procs might not have been possible without the actions of the druid community, however overdone.