Bored Druid ThreadFollow

You know that Skyrim mod that replaces all spiders with other enemies?

I want to see a mod that replaces all enemies with spiders. Can you imagine hearing a roar, looking up, and seeing a dragon-sized hellspider swooping down and breathing fire on the unsuspecting populace? That would be awesome.

Yet you are in the Loves Spiders Thread.

Wow... I just now saw the new talent system in MoP for the first time. I'm fairly certain that I can say, accurately and positively, that I will never be returning to WoW.

There hasn't been a single aspect of this expansion I've seen that I thought looked even remotely interesting. But most just made me indifferent--this one actually makes we want to not play.

I just don't get the logic. They make everything that talent trees represented standard and universal, then give you a few choices to make regarding abilities? What happened to that feeling of tailoring a toon to what YOU wanted? Even worse, glancing through a few class' trees shows that the talents are largely about PvP. Mages, really? EVERY final talent is just a change to POLYMORPH?

Yeah, I'm out. Thanks for removing all ambivalence about moving to TOR, Blizz. Especially when that game is seeming to be largely about malleable group configurations with classes that function very differently in the same roles. As of right now, it's totally realistic for a healer or tank to really concentrate on working out a balance of healing/offense/survival that they want. And it's totally legit to do so.

Seriously, BioWare is making it so that every class/spec can actually be tailored to personal wants/needs and for them to work well. WoW is doing that... by taking away all value from those choices (outside of PvP, I suppose).

In my experience, it was neither. I tried it both ways--healing an instance by exclusively healing, and healing an instance by jumping between both damage and healing. The key thing to note was that, while I was definitely worse at doing damage than someone else, I still dealt good damage. When I saw that me fighting reduced combat time, it really did reduce combat time. So it was really left up to me to choose how I wanted to play--I didn't feel encouraged to do either at large. There are definitely points where one or the other are preferred for a short while, but nothing absurd. After a heavy AoE attack from a boss, you aren't going to be doing damage, obviously. And there are times when there's just no reason not to do damage, because there just isn't enough incoming damage (like when you only have 1 or 2 enemies left from the pack).

But MOST fights definitely supported either play style, in what I played. It's true that all players are going to have times when they are just doing damage (since all healing classes can attack from a range, and without using resources). The difference is in how much a player wants to help by being a medic, and how much they want to help by gunning enemies down is actually a decision they get to make--it isn't one or the other.

Also remember that CC is built into every class as a standard tactic. Many of your damaging abilities will include some CC, which helps get players to use them. The number of dedicated CC abilities are few--most have other desirous affects attached.

Still less horrifying than spiders.

Ah, but it's not a spider.

Spiders will rip your soul to shreds.

Digg, keep in mind that Blizz is still in the early alpha stages and from what I've seen, it doesn't even look like they've touched mages much. I'm going to wait until we're at least in beta (and I have the chance to actually try things out) before I reserve judgment as to whether or not I'll be playing in MoP.

There's a big difference in things working in a leveling instance, when most people won't have a dedicated tanking/healing spec, and at end-game, when people can actually start to specialize.

You are approaching endgame like you would WoW, and you probably shouldn't. Yes, on the hardest fights you are going to be primarily healing. But if you forget everything else in your bag of tools, then you aren't playing properly.

Troopers have a very limited resource called ammo. Your two major heals take 2/3 of those points, and you only have something like 12 of them (and I don't remember the rate they regenerate at). You get a passive mode that lets your basic, non-ammo shot regenerate ammo. And it also becomes a heal when used. But it's a very weak heal. Most players I've talked to who have tried the later content have reported that spamming it on the tank while using a heal on him every few CDs, spot healing the rest of the group (or using a grenade) and then using their CC damage abilities the rest of the time (I know of two--a grenade that knocks everyone around the target it sticks to down, unless they are too powerful, and a mortar-like ability that will also knock enemies down when it hits. Wait, 3, there's also a freezing grenade).

Only in burst periods do they spam healing abilities (which means using ammo-recovering cooldowns, since you CAN'T spam your real heals). But they also said that they tended to overheal the tank a decent amount, and that they could afford to spend more time doing damage if they were willing to sacrifice some security.



I don't play WoW anymore, that's how. And I make my followers kill them in SKyrim.

You... don't like Star Wars?

I was in a group yesterday for the new heroics and our pug druid managed 10k dps on the hourglass boss, with heroism, 10k.

His gear was decent, lowest item(s) 353ilvl, all gemmed and enchanted and caster gear. He was casting all the time, but I can only imagine that he wasn't casting the correct spells in eclipse.

My Fire Elemental managed 2-3k (can't remember which), if there hadn't been so much damage on the tank and melee I'd probably have managed more damage done than him.

Trooper's ammo recharge rate is faster the more ammo they have. Above 9, it's really fast; below 3, it's really slow. I played all the classes at least enough to get a feel for their mechanics, but I didn't want to go too far so I can play through the story when the game actually comes out. Looking at the skill trees, they seem to be pretty standard: lots of reasons to go 31 points in for the last talent, and very few reasons to go past the second tier in any other tree.

Don't get me wrong, when I played FFXI, I kept my Enfeebling as close to capped as I could on my WHM (unless there was a NIN or RDM in the party) on the theory that, if Slow/Para/Blind prevent even 1 hit, they were worth the mana cost. I would also sub BLM and ES+Sleep and adds that we got, MB with Holy/Banish when I could, and nuke when I could do it without wasting my mana or putting the tank at risk. Same thing in WoW, minus the enfeebling; I smite with my priest, throw lightning bolts with my (resto) shaman, and use MW procs for Chain Heal/Healing Rains when needed. My feral druid uses Tranquility fairly often, and my tankadin used HR on CD before they made it a cast-time spell.

What you're describing seems more like the developers saying "we don't expect healers to spend every GCD healing." That's fine, as long as the healing is still meaningful. If it becomes something where an enhance shaman can heal the whole group just by using his MW procs for heals, they might as well scrap the healing trees.

TL;DR, healers should use every tool in their tool box to prevent damage and keep people alive, whether that's by making fights shorter, using CC to limit the number of mobs dealing damage, or by being a heal-bot. If dedicated healers aren't needed, there's 0 reason to have them as a hybrid will do more damage and still keep people alive. If they are needed, hybrids probably won't work.

Also, I do plan on playing ToR at some point, although I'll probably skip launch month. The stories for each class have been interesting enough to make for a good semi-single-player game, even if I might not like the group dynamics at later levels or the end game. I also like what they did with crafting.