Durids nerfed, Warriors become relevant again?

[Grendeel]

Changes being tested right now are in these patch notes

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html


i dont play either character so im not totally sure.   It does seem though that druids tanking ability is being reduced and warriors is being increased.  Just curious what everyone thinks about it.

[Kaidelina]

It's been nice having our druids tank.  Easier to get a group together when many classes can fill different roles.

I guess we shall see.  Hopefully, druids can still tank and warriors will be that much stronger.

[Gailzee]

# "Improved Leader of the Pack" can no longer get critical heals

This would majorly suck. If druids constantly need to shapeshift to heal again it will be a major blow to them.

[dharq]

Honestly, I've expected it. The 450% armor increase and extra health went way too far into the realm of goodness to last. The hard part I think is going to be the loss of hps. The reduction from 25% of health to 25% of stam as a bonus in bear/dire bearform is going to sting. Means druids will have many, many fewer hps than equally equipped warriors now. Going to wait until I get to test it before I start getting upset, but that kinda has me scared... If I've only got 1000 hps more in bearform than I do in cat, that's a major blow to my tanking ability--and that's the extent of the change that we're talking about here.

The rest of it isn't that big a deal imo. Unable to get crit heals on an ilotp? No biggie. They aren't going to save me anyway. Savage fury no longer applying to bear abilities stinks, but it's just to bring the dmg down in line with what other tanks see. Again, no biggie.

The changes for the most part sound reasonable, and hopefully they will help tone down some of the whining about druids that we're hearing. Again, the hp change has me concerned, but maybe it won't be as bad as it looks on paper.

[Lord Entropy]

Yeah, definite Druid nerf, even in the damage department.  Warrior buff, which seemed appropriate.  And strangely, more priest nerfs.  VE went from 20% to 15% - a 25% reduction, and Prayer of Mending went from instant cast to a 20second cooldown!  PoM I thought was a great spell for priests, especially in PvP.  I was looking forward to it.

Oh, and two big nerfs here - another one for Druids:

# The threat generated from the spell effect on "Thunderfury" has been substantially reduced.
# The bonus to "Swipe" from the "Idol of Brutality" has been reduced from 50 to 10.

Guilds with Thunderfury are sure to be pissed and I would expect the swipe bonus reduction would make Druids less effective at tanking multiple mobs.

[Vengeance]

Well blizzard has answered the complaints of the pwned.
What does improved leader of the pack do now? as far as i know, thats all it did...although it is a small amount, it has saved me in a few tight spots. Now, Im going to throughly miss it
And yeah, about the health nerf. Bye-bye druid tanks.

[Tolwen]

this is really bad I wanted to duel Gren when I would get 70
I really liked the healing of leader of the pack and they r taking it away...
and right about the time i was thinking I should get a full tanking set.....

now have to go resto in order to get pugs again, I guess

[Genoism]

the only reason ony was 3-manned was because the MT had thunderfury and its procs held agro vs all the whelps - no more

[dharq]

They aren't taking improved leader of the pack out guys--they're just making it so it no longer gets critical heals sometimes... In other words, it will always heal for 2/4% of your overall health instead of healing up to 4/8% occassionally when it would crit.

Again, it was nice, but this change isn't really that detrimental since you couldn't count on the crits to save you anyway.

And how is druid tanking going to suffer? It's still significantly better even after these changes than it was pre-tbc. For those of us who feral tanked back then, these changes will bring things back more into line with that than the god-mode we've been on lately. Honestly, did you seriously expect to do more dmg than a fury warrior -and- tank as well as prot at the same time? Blizz has made some corrections to bring all of the tanking classes into line--this is good. It means they have responded reasonably, and hopefully they won't lose their minds and blow us away with some uber nerfs like some other classes have gotten. I mean, they left cat form alone, they toned bear form back so it's comparable to other tanks now...

Let's stay calm, wait, and see. My bet is that these changes fix the class so we aren't a focus of the whines, but other than the hps being lowered, I don't think we'll suffer that much.

[Gailzee]

They aren't taking improved leader of the pack out guys--they're just making it so it no longer gets critical heals sometimes... In other words, it will always heal for 2/4% of your overall health instead of healing up to 4/8% occassionally when it would crit.

Thanks for the clarification Dharq. Thats not so bad. I have a 63 feral druid alt on Madoran so I was getting worried as I solo most of the time whenever I decide to play him. The heals in form help.

And yes the HP loss is big. Since I mostly quest/solo I only use bear when cornered by an elite or multi-mob management. Those are the times I NEED to be able to take a lot of punishment!

[Arcdelad]

hey guys...ive been enjooying the new druid power surge as much as anyone...but here is how i look at things:

- 450%-400% armor add in bear form - i remember when we only had 350% add, so in my mind im still ahead 50%. I tested my armor without any buffs on (inluding no MOTW) and I had 21K armor...shadow says that warriors can get this, but ive been running tempest keep, shadow labs, and etc, WITH prot warriors and the highest these level 70's has had has been like 13k armor. We still IMO have way more armor than any prot warrior out there, unless a prot warrior somehow like shadow said achieved the same armor, but i have yet to run into that warrior.

- 25% STA ILO 25% health - yes...it stings, but again were supposed to be compared to prot warriors...while they have more HP then we do, we have a much higher dodge rating then they do. One of the previous patches gave bear form the same dodge bonus as cat form, INCLUDING AOE spell dodge %...i now have 22-25% dodge in bear form....I dont think warriors get this luxury, and those attacks we dodge have to be worth some good HP...sounds fair to me

- reduced damage from pred instintcs - If I am in cat form in an instance, i am 95% top of the damage charts, and generally by a lot. Even in bear form i usually am #2 or #3, which is just plain ridiculous. In cat form the other day, I did a ferocious bite for 4700 damage......4700 damage guys.....so...if they took the edge off my crits, id say that is fair..they are too high

- no crits in LOP - thats fine...that 4% health return every 6 seconds or so is nice with or without crits...it has saved me a lot too btw

We can still tank guys..dont worry. We have really excellent healers too, so just means potentially another healr or two on us and less pew pew pew. Our damage is fine too.

Breathe...relax......and please please please dont fill gen chat with "druids got nerfed" talk....for my sake lol

[un4]

Hey, we might need to bring a warrior somewhere now! 

[Vengeance]

sure, druids arent getting that very much nerfed. But still, many are going to prefer a warrior tank to a druid, as this was not the case before this. Atm, i have some 11-2k or so health and just as much armor with my motw in bear and gear...i wouldnt like to see that all go away. The health total would go down by a signifigant amount.
True, we usually have more dodge chance compared to a warrior, that makes something better about druid tanks. Otherwise, you can really say much more about bear form=prot war. With a decent weapon, I bet they could out-DPS us, if it ever mattered.

I did a ferocious bite for 4700 damage......4700 damage guys.....so...if they took the edge off my crits, id say that is fair..they are too high

Yeah? I dueled a mage last night...5.6k pyroblast crit, then a 2k or so fire blast crit, then the fire aoe crit for about 1-1.5k. THATS not fair 
And thanks too about the correction on Imp lotp.

[Gailzee]

Just remember Arc that you do raids and such. You have huge numbers in part to the better gear I can't touch. My 63 is still in PvP rares with a lil over 9K armor, 6900 hp(bear), and barely over 1000 ap in cat. Its going to hurt the casuals more than those with great gear. My highest crit was 2805 at level 63. Nothing like you lol

Unfortunately he's horde and so I can't be with you all ;(

Not picking at you whatsoever, you're awesome Just looking at it from a casual standpoint. Yeah, I will adjust and plug along but I can't lie, lol I like the current druid setup! 

[Lord Entropy]

Frankly, I'm more concerned with the priest changes.  I'm levelling a priest currently and from what I've read, end-game priests have a lot of issues right now, particularly in PvP.  Dots have been nerfed significantly, the shield doesn't scale, and now the priest's best survivability skill - prayer of mending - has been rendered useless for that purpose, though it looks as though the devs are reconsidering the ridiculous 20 second cooldown.  Then there's the VE nerf and raid

I don't know, maybe Lyte or one of the other high-level priests can chime in here, but I see a lot of complaints from priests about the end-game status of priests.  I'll still continue to level my priest, but I hope things are fixed by the time I hit 70.