Mists of Pandaria

[Ingmar]

Even with full heirlooms (and unless they changed it remember a bunch of them shut off once you hit 80) it's too much for me. I've done it all too many times. Even I have my limits on repeating leveling content (and I'm happily leveling my 4th and 5th SWTOR characters.) 

[Miasma]

I can't even get an alt I have at 83 up to 85, I just can't do the cata content over again (it would be the fourth time).  No way I could bring a level one all the way up to 90.

[luckton]

More than likely they'll curve the XP/time needed to get from 80-85 the same way they did with Wrath and BC when those became obsolete. 

But I see where you all are coming from.  Believe me, I kinda didn't 'want' to level the Priest up, but I'm glad I did now.  Between him and my DK, I've got all four roles covered for my guild group.  That's enough for me, for now.

[Fordel]

I have no idea what they did to my Balance Druid, that's easily the biggest barrier for me.

[Merusk]

My Druid has all the heirlooms and is in a guild that doesn't have the XP bonus.  I cleared-out of BC in approx 8 dungeon runs.  With the XP bonus I imagine it would have been 6 or 7.

WOTLK has been slower, but not terrible.  She's 74 after about 7 runs, most of those not having the quests because it's always sticking me in with Invar the Plunderer as healer. Bleh.

You have to be willing to be a tank or healer to level this way, though.  It takes too much time dinking around doing nothing as DPS.

[Sjofn]

I can't even get an alt I have at 83 up to 85, I just can't do the cata content over again (it would be the fourth time).  No way I could bring a level one all the way up to 90.

I was in the same boat when I petered out. I have a warrior (and I like playing her!) who is level 83 and a druid around the same and I just couldn't. I couldn't do it again. I leveled two paladins, a rogue, and a mage to 85, and I just could not do it again. Something about the high level Cataclysm leveling content kills my will to live. I don't super like doing Outlands either, but it goes pretty fast, and I still like WotLK. But Cataclysm eats my soul now.

And yet, if I do play again, I am almost certainly going to make a new character and level that. Because everything is changing so much, I'll need to start as a newbie to relearn it all.  

[Fordel]

You just want to be a panda girl with cute hair, don't lie!

[Sjofn]

I do like the panda girls. 

But they can't be paladins. 

[luckton]

I do like the panda girls. 

But they can't be paladins. 

Monk = the new Paladin.  Heals, Tank, Melee DPS...they got it all, and of course, since it's a new class, they got all the cool stuff :P

[Nevermore]

I have no idea what they did to my Balance Druid, that's easily the biggest barrier for me.

I know exactly what they did to my Feral Druid and it's why I'll never go back.

[luckton]

I have no idea what they did to my Balance Druid, that's easily the biggest barrier for me.

I know exactly what they did to my Feral Druid and it's why I'll never go back.

Oh c'mon...you know that shit was only a matter of time.  The class will be better for it in the long run...now they don't have to balance for two specs in one anymore.

[Rokal]

Something about the high level Cataclysm leveling content kills my will to live. I don't super like doing Outlands either, but it goes pretty fast, and I still like WotLK. But Cataclysm eats my soul now.

Single leveling path, infrequent changes in scenery, long linear quest chains with bad stories.

Hopefully with adjusted xp you'll be 85 and ready to leave the Cata zones by the time you finish Deepholm. Not that Deepholm is immune to the problems above, but at least you won't have to do 1-2 zones after it. Also hopeful that the MoP zones won't suffer the same problems since they've talked up non-linear questing and leveling paths so much.

[Nevermore]

I have no idea what they did to my Balance Druid, that's easily the biggest barrier for me.

I know exactly what they did to my Feral Druid and it's why I'll never go back.

Oh c'mon...you know that shit was only a matter of time.  The class will be better for it in the long run...now they don't have to balance for two specs in one anymore.

Eight years later it's suddenly time to make a change that fundamental?  Nope, sorry.  Given how terrible Cataclysm was and now with the mangling of Feral, as far as I'm concerned the game ended at Wrath with the death of the Lich King.

[Fordel]

How is that an argument?


It was that way for a long time therefore it should be that way forever now? 

[Nevermore]

How is that an argument?


It was that way for a long time therefore it should be that way forever now? 

Yup, pretty much.  This isn't some minor change to a spec, it's a fundamental change to the way a Druid is played.  Of course, you don't care since all you play is Moonkin.  I started playing WoW on Day 1 as Feral back when it was considered terrible and I stayed Feral throughout my entire time playing the game.  I loved the flexibility.  Now it's gone so I have no interest in playing the character anymore, and thus have no more interest in the game.

Feel free to argue the opinion more, Fordel, since you seem to love to make a point to argue against everything I post just for the sake of being argumentative.  But you won't change my mind.

[Sjofn]

Something about the high level Cataclysm leveling content kills my will to live. I don't super like doing Outlands either, but it goes pretty fast, and I still like WotLK. But Cataclysm eats my soul now.

Single leveling path, infrequent changes in scenery, long linear quest chains with bad stories.

Hopefully with adjusted xp you'll be 85 and ready to leave the Cata zones by the time you finish Deepholm. Not that Deepholm is immune to the problems above, but at least you won't have to do 1-2 zones after it. Also hopeful that the MoP zones won't suffer the same problems since they've talked up non-linear questing and leveling paths so much.

Unfortunately Deepholm is one of the zones I hate most.

But yeah, the one leveling path and spending what feels like forever in any given zone are big factors in the "ugh, Cataclysm" feeling.


And monks aren't paladins! They're monks. It's the paladin part that's important. Because I have issues.

[Lantyssa]

How is that an argument?

It's not what she wants.  No reason she should play something she doesn't like.

If anyone should be clamoring for this expansion it should be me.  It doesn't interest me in the slightest.

[Fordel]

There's a difference between, "I don't like something so I won't play it" and "They shouldn't change something because I don't like it".


Whatever floats your goat though. /shrug 

[Rokal]

This isn't some minor change to a spec, it's a fundamental change to the way a Druid is played.  Of course, you don't care since all you play is Moonkin.  I started playing WoW on Day 1 as Feral back when it was considered terrible and I stayed Feral throughout my entire time playing the game.  I loved the flexibility.

I guess you must have loved the flexibility it offered in vanilla when feral druids could either be terrible dps or terrible tanks. The changes to feral druids (and frankly every hybrid class) in TBC were much larger than the changes we're seeing now. Apparently massive changes to the class back then were perfectly okay, but changing it a little more for the most recent expansion is too drastic.

There's still a good deal of overlap, you'll still be able to switch to better dps or emergency tanking when needed especially when you consider the added hybrid utility available from symbiosis or talents like heart of the wild. It's still the same class just balanced to be more in line with every other hybrid class in the game. You'll be less effective at non-primary roles if you try to fill them for a longer amount of time, but why shouldn't you be? It was silly that druids could completely fill the role of a tank on bosses like Madness and then turn into a great dps class for the rest of the fight when every other tank was stuck doing low tank dps.

[Nevermore]

There's a difference between, "I don't like something so I won't play it" and "They shouldn't change something because I don't like it".


Whatever floats your goat though. /shrug 

In other words, you're splitting hairs to be argumentative.

This isn't some minor change to a spec, it's a fundamental change to the way a Druid is played.  Of course, you don't care since all you play is Moonkin.  I started playing WoW on Day 1 as Feral back when it was considered terrible and I stayed Feral throughout my entire time playing the game.  I loved the flexibility.

I guess you must have loved the flexibility it offered in vanilla when feral druids could either be terrible dps or terrible tanks. The changes to feral druids (and frankly every hybrid class) in TBC were much larger than the changes we're seeing now. Apparently massive changes to the class back then were perfectly okay, but changing it a little more for the most recent expansion is too drastic.

I was there for vanilla when Feral sucked.  All hybrids deliberately sucked as a design choice, one they wisely walked away from in TBC.  The changes made to Feral in TBC weren't fundamental changes to how the spec was played.  Feral has had good days and bad days but it's always played the same on a fundamental level.  That's gone now.

There's still a good deal of overlap, you'll still be able to switch to better dps or emergency tanking when needed especially when you consider the added hybrid utility available from symbiosis or talents like heart of the wild. It's still the same class just balanced to be more in line with every other hybrid class in the game. You'll be less effective at non-primary roles if you try to fill them for a longer amount of time, but why shouldn't you be? It was silly that druids could completely fill the role of a tank on bosses like Madness and then turn into a great dps class for the rest of the fight when every other tank was stuck doing low tank dps.

Don't care.  They lost me when they split the spec.  My threshold for class changes was near broken when they removed Frost DK tanking, and I have zero interest in the shambles of what used to be a fun spec in Feral.  You can call Feral 'unfair' until you're blue in the face and I'll just point out if it was so 'unfair' then why was the population of the class never out of line with classes or specs?  So I'm voting with my dollars and not giving Blizzard anymore of my money.  You don't have to agree with my reasons but you certainly can't talk me out of them.

[Rokal]

You can call Feral 'unfair' until you're blue in the face and I'll just point out if it was so 'unfair' then why was the population of the class never out of line with classes or specs?

Well... it was. According to achievement data MMO champion pulled druids were the second most popular class at 85 (beaten by mages), the second most popular class overall for raiding (beaten by paladins), and were the most common class for most of the harder heroic kills in the expansion. That said, those numbers say more about resto and balance druids than feral druids. Overall numbers wouldn't reflect whether druid tanks were OP because tanks only make up 1-2 slots out of any 10 or 25 man raid team. Still, this is a big population shift from what had been tied with warlocks as the least popular class in the game (vanilla).

I don't think overall population numbers are going to reflect a moderate imbalance on specific raid fights anyway because I suspect most people don't care enough. They'd rather play the class that is most fun for them instead of the class that is better for specific raid fights. Even if the imbalance is really only exploited by high-end guilds that care enough to stack their raid comp, it's was still a noticeable imbalance to everyone else and I'm not surprised or angry that they're taking steps to fix it.

I think you're over-estimating how much this effects you too. The class hasn't fundamentally changed, really. You can be proficient in your non-primary role (bear tanking or cat dps) for 45 seconds. You can be semi-proficient in it after that permanently because you still have plenty of bear/cat spells even when that isn't your spec and you're still using largely the same gear. If you want to be completely proficient in the other role long-term, you can take that as a second spec and switch out of combat just like every other class (minus the ability to perform other roles competently short-term, which is still druid-exclusive).

You're saying the class is broken for you if you cannot permanently change roles in-combat for as long as you want and without any meaningful penalties to your performance when compared to other tanks or dps classes that can't. Your post isn't different from any other complaint where someone decided to quit a game when their character received a completely warranted nerf.

[Ingmar]

Speaking as a raid leader and someone who was allegedy "competing" with ferals for raid spots (warrior tank) I loved having a feral/resto dual spec druid as an option. Having someone with the ability to do all 3 roles post dual-spec made it so much better for a guild with a limited roster to pick from, especially for 10 man content. A class that flexible made it easier for everyone else in the guild to get to play the role they wanted to play. So contrary to it being "unfair", it was actually a help to everyone IMO.

I understand why they made the change from a balance headache standpoint, and I probably would have made the same choice in their place ultimately, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth complaining about, because it is.

[Sjofn]

I don't remember us really ever having any druids who COULD do the three roles well, though? I was feral/resto but fucking blew at cat deepz (because I suck at deepz), and our resto/feral druids usually either didn't understand tanking or didn't do very well at DPS. Honestly I think Nevermore was the only feral DPS druid we had that didn't blow it out the ass in WotLK. 

[Ingmar]

Dood was who I was thinking of specifically - yeah nobody was super awesome at all 3 I suppose, but good enough for the sort of stuff we would do certainly.

[Sjofn]

Oh riiiight, Dood did do all three. I seem to recall his DPS being a little crappy at first but yeah, I think by the end of WotLK I finally at least trusted him to do anything we asked him to. :P



Of course, I have trust issues when it comes to raiding anyway. Not healing during that cycle turned me into a huge bitch.


Huger bitch. Same thing.

[Nevermore]

Well... it was. According to achievement data MMO champion pulled druids were the second most popular class at 85 (beaten by mages), the second most popular class overall for raiding (beaten by paladins), and were the most common class for most of the harder heroic kills in the expansion. That said, those numbers say more about resto and balance druids than feral druids. Overall numbers wouldn't reflect whether druid tanks were OP because tanks only make up 1-2 slots out of any 10 or 25 man raid team. Still, this is a big population shift from what had been tied with warlocks as the least popular class in the game (vanilla).

Did you actually read what you wrote?  You're saying splitting Feral was justified because they could play too many roles, yet you yourself admit that despite this 'unfair' advantage Druids were still not the most popular class nor the most popular raid class.  Indeed, they used to be one of the least popular classes, thus let's wreck the whole spec.  Nothing you said supports your assertion that the spec needed to be split because it made Druids too flexible and thus had some kind of 'unfair' advantage.

Whether or not Druid tanks were 'overpowered' or not is irrelevant.  If they were, then those tank specific problems could be addressed.  This something that's been done many times before in the past.  The only reason Blizzard is wrecking Feral now is the reason Ingmar gave:  they consider it a headache to balance.  I for one don't think "because it's hard" is a good enough reason, though.  Not when for eight years they were somehow able to manage.

You're saying the class is broken for you if you cannot permanently change roles in-combat for as long as you want and without any meaningful penalties to your performance when compared to other tanks or dps classes that can't. Your post isn't different from any other complaint where someone decided to quit a game when their character received a completely warranted nerf.

Yes, I'm saying the spec is now broken because I can't change roles as needed for as long as I needed like I could before.  You're justification of the split isn't any different from any other complaint from a 'pure' class that is only able to spec into a DPS role.  You've done nothing to prove your case other than to cry "they needed to be nerfed because it's not fair" without providing any support that the game was being harmed in any way prior to this change.

[Zetor]

Me and my guildies are really looking forward to MOP -and- GW2... now there's TSW too (though most of us will stop playing that after a month or two), and I bet some peeps will want to take a look at the Rift expansion coming this fall as well. Gah, too many games, not enough time!

For me, MOP has a lot of things to like, at least on paper - raid finder for everything, scenarios (ala LOTRO skirmishes / RIFT instant adventures) for quick pickup play, moving towards a RIFT-style pvp gearing system (which is the best I've seen in any diku so far... not that it's saying much, lol diku pvp), challenge modes (I like tough small-group content... had a ball doing 45min Strat and Valthalak back in the day, even if not all of my guildies agree with me  ) and heck, even pet battles may be fun. I've not read anything horrifying about my two 'main' classes (dk, shaman) yet... well, tank DKs being balanced around a 1sec GCD may break things for me and my 800 ping ways. We'll see.

One thing that's been giving me pause - cross-server zones. We rolled on a small pvp server back in '04 (mostly out of habit, we used to be an UO anti guild after all  ), but the appeal of a pvp server has declined steadily for me over the years, and none of us has enough playtime to keep up with the catasses / organize counter-gank groups anymore. Not sure I'm looking forward to the idea of getting ganked and corpsecamped by groups of epiced out 90s from l33t_pvp_server_02 while I'm trying to level my alt. And transferring all of our characters to some pve or rp server? Yeahhhh... with this many alts, forget about it.

[Setanta]

Well... it was. According to achievement data MMO champion pulled druids were the second most popular class at 85 (beaten by mages), the second most popular class overall for raiding (beaten by paladins), and were the most common class for most of the harder heroic kills in the expansion. That said, those numbers say more about resto and balance druids than feral druids. Overall numbers wouldn't reflect whether druid tanks were OP because tanks only make up 1-2 slots out of any 10 or 25 man raid team. Still, this is a big population shift from what had been tied with warlocks as the least popular class in the game (vanilla).

Did you actually read what you wrote?  You're saying splitting Feral was justified because they could play too many roles, yet you yourself admit that despite this 'unfair' advantage Druids were still not the most popular class nor the most popular raid class.  Indeed, they used to be one of the least popular classes, thus let's wreck the whole spec.  Nothing you said supports your assertion that the spec needed to be split because it made Druids too flexible and thus had some kind of 'unfair' advantage.

Whether or not Druid tanks were 'overpowered' or not is irrelevant.  If they were, then those tank specific problems could be addressed.  This something that's been done many times before in the past.  The only reason Blizzard is wrecking Feral now is the reason Ingmar gave:  they consider it a headache to balance.  I for one don't think "because it's hard" is a good enough reason, though.  Not when for eight years they were somehow able to manage.

You're saying the class is broken for you if you cannot permanently change roles in-combat for as long as you want and without any meaningful penalties to your performance when compared to other tanks or dps classes that can't. Your post isn't different from any other complaint where someone decided to quit a game when their character received a completely warranted nerf.

Yes, I'm saying the spec is now broken because I can't change roles as needed for as long as I needed like I could before.  You're justification of the split isn't any different from any other complaint from a 'pure' class that is only able to spec into a DPS role.  You've done nothing to prove your case other than to cry "they needed to be nerfed because it's not fair" without providing any support that the game was being harmed in any way prior to this change.

As someone who saw my Enhance Shaman nerfed into the ground time and again even back to Vanilla, I can feel your pain.

But we got fucked over for years and got told we couldn't have certain skillsets because they were druid-specific. Our "tanking" talents and skills were never viasble. Every time we got close to competitive and fun we got nerfed back.

Then they gave our raid-worthy skillsets to Mages and DKs et al

DPS shaman never had the tools a druid had and could never switch specs and be as viable. Nor could pallys for that matter. So of the the hybrid classes, druids finally get reigned in with the rest of us.

Welcome to World of Mortals

[Merusk]

Yeah, there can only be one god class and that's Monks this time 'round. 

As a DK player I eagerly await the wailing and gnashing of teeth that will be forthcoming as monks are tuned down.

[luckton]

From what I've been reading in beta, right now Monks seem to be a bit under-tuned in some areas, but I guess time will tell.

[caladein]

Firstly, there is a significant gap between "I don't like something." and "This something should/should not be done."  Namely that the latter actually has a burden of proof.

To the specific issue about Feral Tanks: leaving them the way they are negatively impacts many more players than doing something about them.  Feral tanks' ability to do appreciable levels of damage when not tanking puts constraints on game design at every level.  At the encounter level fights need to have a static number of tanks or Ferals are immediately at an advantage.  At the gear level, offensive and defensive stats and effects need to be split up cleanly so as Ferals aren't able to double-dip.  And Ferals themselves are disadvantaged because everything about their spec has to be seen through the lens of "This class is one slip away from being majorly stacked." so they actually wind up not that great.  The status quo just isn't in a good place for the vast majority of players.

One solution could have been to make all tanks like that, but that would have been a) much more difficult to pull off given the changes to the entire game and b) just as unfair to the tanks that wanted to just be tanks.  Paelos a while ago bristled that my assertion that "Tank damage mattered in and of itself now." was something that no tanks actually signed up for.

My first main was a Feral Druid, and I loved the versatility that it offered, but I felt now and still do to a lesser extent that I gave up entirely too much for it.  I'm sure there's some means of squaring this circle, but Blizzard's been trying to for at least four years at it and hasn't cracked it.  It's time to throw elegance out the window and just fix the problem.

[Lantyssa]

Did a flock of Druids root through everyone's drawers and bunch up all their panties?

[Soulflame]

A druid once stole a resource node from me.

[Zetor]

Damn those druids and their instant flight form tricks!

Also, one turned itself into a newt.

[Nevermore]

Firstly, there is a significant gap between "I don't like something." and "This something should/should not be done."  Namely that the latter actually has a burden of proof.

I'd say there's a significant overlap between "I don't like something." and "This something should/should not be done."  My original post on the matter fell squarely into the former.  We can argue the latter all you want but to be clear: whether or not the split was 'justified' (which I don't think it was) is irrelevant since the split itself is why the game is dead to me now, not the reason for it.

As to the rest, there were an awful lot of vague assertions about how pre-Mists Feral had a negative impact on other players with no actual examples of how.  Wrath is the expansion I raided the most, so give me an example of a fight in Wrath where the flexibility of Feral was shoving other classes to the curb.  Keep in mind that with dual specs, the other tanks could switch to a dps spec before any fight where only 1 tank is needed anyway (sorry tank/heal dual specced Paladin), so Feral flexibility would only be an 'issue' where there would be some advantage in switching in the middle of an encounter.  Honestly, dual specs is where your whole argument falls apart.

In my experience, being able to switch on the fly only made a difference in two situations:  When you went along as dps and one of the tanks died, you could switch to bear and finish tanking the encounter.  That's assuming you couldn't get a battle rez off for whatever reason.  The other time it was really useful was as Ingmar said: you could essentially bring 3 specs to a raid instead of just two.  This would only ever matter in a casual guild like ours, to be honest, since it allowed us more flexibility in assembling our groups.  Even then the only real advantage a Druid would have over a Paladin would be the cost of a respec. 

As for the stat 'double dipping', splitting Feral does nothing to change gearing as dps vs gearing as a tank.  You already had to have a separate tank set and dps set as a pre-Mists Feral to be optimal anyway.  Is agility no longer the stat for Bears?  Because as long as it is, nothing there has changed.

So I'm still struggling to find where the negative impact is on other players.  That's something people here keep saying but just haven't demonstrated.