GC, A Minute of your time to cheer up a tree!

#0 - March 22, 2009, 7:29 a.m.

GC,

I will make this very short and sweet, what do you guys think about current state of HT ? Most resto druids pass all the talents that enhance HT since Nourish is edging it out, and the only time I basically use it is with my NS+HT macro, pretty sure most resto druids too, are you guys happy with the current state of Resto Druids that you think HT isnt something you want to revisit right now ?

Would you think changing NS so that it says (An instant top rank HT cast, costs little more mana, but is on a 60 seconds cooldown, meaning cant use HT for the next 60 seconds)

Would this change be legitimate to restrict NS use to HT but add some great utility for HT at the same time so we get it back on our bars ? or do you guys have a better ideas on mind for HT ?

My suggestion will basically make it another Ohh Snap button for druids along with swiftmend and to replace NS, which requires a Macro to make it most useful, but we wont need to macro it with this change since NS it self will be an Instant HT on a 60 Seconds CD, its like a swiftmend with a longer cool down, just so that we can utilize HT.

Also another suggestion, Change the Empowered Touch to incorporate the current 4T8 set bonus, this is the best i could come up with, small change but, amazingly good.

On A Side note, can the spirit > SP be buffed to %30, to help the Druid HoTs abit !?

Would love to hear from you anything on this Regard.

Ghostcrawler

#10 - March 22, 2009, 8:06 p.m.

We think Healing Touch has a sufficient role in leveling, healing 5-player dungeons (probably glyphed), or with Nature's Swiftness.

Having said that, I think it is legit that too many talents affect HT, and sometimes only HT. Long-term, that is probably something we will try and improve. If we don't do it for 3.1, it would be because we would likely have to nerf some spells in order to have the talents prop them back up and anything else that felt like Resto nerfs right now (even if they are ultimately for the good of the class as this one would be) would be pretty unpopular right now.

I don't mean to imply that we won't make unpopular changes, because clearly we do. But we try and pick our battles carefully.

Ghostcrawler

#53 - March 23, 2009, 8 p.m.

Right. I think several of the above posters figured out exactly what I meant.

Say we add Regrowth to Natualist and Nourish to Empowered Touch. Now those talents are much more attractive. That's a good thing.

However, with these changes Regrowth and Nourish are probably too powerful. That's a good thing if you're a druid and want free buffs, but a bad thing for the game. To fix that, we would have to nerf the base points of Nourish and Regrowth or something similar. (These are just examples.)

We have made a few unpopular changes to Resto druids this patch. I'm not sure it is the best time to make additional changes that end up being only a minor buff to the spec (in the sense that some unsexy talents might be more sexy). You have to pick your battles, and this doesn't seem so critical that we need to do it for 3.1. The changes to mana regen and Lifebloom were important, so we made them even though the community might wish we had not.

Now, if your argument is that druids are gimp and need the extra healing benefit from those talents on Regrowth and Nourish (or whatever), you should just make that argument. We don't think that is the case at the moment, however.

Making Healing Touch itself something you use as often as Lifebloom, Rejuv, WG and the rest of your normal end-game healing arsenal is not a priority for us. Druids have plenty of heals already, and a NS+HT is good even today.

Ghostcrawler

#68 - March 23, 2009, 10:45 p.m.

Q u o t e:
GC - This is off-topic from HT, but Druid related and important nonetheless (and I don't think there's been a recent update from you in one of the PvE LB threads). I take it from your statement above that the many Druids who have been hoping that you might reconsider the LB nerf should consider the PTR LB nerf a "done deal" when 3.1 goes live. 100% increase in mana cost, bloom increased by stack number. Correct? Or are further changes to the LB nerf likely before ptr = live?

Also, doomsayers claim that LB will simply be removed from the rotation of any good restos. Many of the parses I've seen from the PTR have LB at 10-40% still. But I have seen <10% and some nourish-spammers. If LB stays a major component with the nerf, then apparantly everything is fine. If trees drop LB and it's a "thing of the past" does that affect dev's consideration as to whether the nerf was a good change or not?

Nothing is a done deal until 3.1 goes live. And really not even then. :)

Despite what the doomsayers may say, we still see druids casting LB in Ulduar. If for some reason those are all bad druids and the spell stops getting used, then we will buff it. We don't want LB to be a thing of the past, as you say.