WoW Moonkin Druid advice for Trial of the Crusader

Sunfyre of the Sunfyre's Nest Moonkin PvP Druid blog answers reader mail about the Balance Druid role in Patch 3.2's Trial of the Crusader raid. He covers strategies for Northrend Beasts, Jarraxus, the Val'kyr Twins and Anub'arak.

PTR Patch 3.3 changes analyzed for WoW Cat Druids

Vallen at the Feral Aggression Druid blog takes a look at the current WoW Patch 3.3 on the PTR and analyzes it's impact on Cat Druids specifically. He covers ability changes, the new Tier 10 armor and relic as well as rep changes and more.

WoW Druid leveling guide 1-80

WoW.com's Druid columnist Allison Robert has completed her extensive (and up to date) Druid leveling guide:

• Why to play a Druid
  
• Levels 1-9
  
• Levels 10-20 and how to spec
  
• Levels 21-30
  
• Levels 31-40 and notes on playing on PvP servers
  
• Levels 41-50
  
• Levels 51-60
  
• Levels 61-70
  
• Levels 71-80
  

Dev plans for WoW Patch 3.3 Rejuvenation nerf and GotEM change

The WoW devs responded on the official forums today regarding player concerns about the Rejuvenation nerf and Gift of the Earthmother change that cropped up on the Public Test Server earlier this week in Patch 3.3. testing.

For reference:

• Current Gift of the Earthmother: Reduces the base global cooldown of your Rejuvenation, Lifebloom and Wild Growth spells by 20%.
• Proposed change in Patch 3.3: Gift of the Earthmother now increases your total spell haste by 2/4/6/8/1
• Proposed change in Patch 3.3: Rejuvenation: Rank 15 of this spell was providing a 15-second duration. It has been correctly reduced to 12 seconds.

I think our dislike for Rejuv blanketing gets oversold on these forums. We nerfed Rejuv because Rejuv was too good. Druids do have a lot of heals and ideally they would use all of them (and HT proponents even crop up from time to time). On the other hand, it’s challenging given that when a relic or set bonus props up one spell, that is probably going to be a popular spell. We’re fine with that to some extent. It’s interesting when certain pieces or tiers of gear lead you to want to change up which spells you favor.

We changed Gift of the Earth Mother because it was a problematic talent, as I’m sure many of you could agree. It’s one thing when class mechanics make a stat less optimal for you. It’s another when a talent totally stomps over a stat that shows up on a lot of gear.

We want Nourish to be a good spell, yes, but I think it has been for some time. None of these changes will kill Rejuv either.

—

To be honest, we may revert the Rejuv nerf. This isn’t 100% finalized yet, so please don’t say we promised anything.

We definitely wanted to nerf Rejuv. However we also wanted to fix Gift of the Earth Mother. That change wasn’t necessarily aimed at further nerfing druids, even though that was the outcome. It was aimed at not making haste such a wonky stat for Resto.

In short, we think the GotEM change both nerfed druids and fixed the haste scaling problem so the Rejuv duration nerf may not be necessary. Stay tuned.

 

 

Druid T10 relic stats from WoW PTR Patch 3.3

A new build has appeared on the test realms for WoW Patch 3.3. and with it comes new Tier 10 relics for Druids.

• Druid T10 Feral Relic (Rake and Lacerate) – The periodic damage from your Lacerate and Rake abilities grants 44 Agility for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Druid T10 Balance Relic (Moonfire and Insect Swarm) – The periodic damage from your Insect Swarm and Moonfire spells grants 44 critical strike rating for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Druid T10 Restoration Relic (Rejuvenation) – The periodic healing from your Rejuvenation spell grants 32 spell power for 15 sec. Stacks up to 8 times.

Source: MMO-Champion.

 

New Druid Tier 10 armor set bonuses revealed for WoW Patch 3.3

A new PTR build for WoW Patch 3.3 Icecrown Citadel has been released and MMO-Champion has datamined the new set bonuses for the Druid Tier 10 armor

Druid T10 Restoration

• 2P Bonus – The healing granted by your Wild Growth spell reduces 0% less over time.
• 4P Bonus (Rejuvenation) – Each time your Rejuvenation spell heals a target, it has a 2% chance to jump to a new target at full duration.

Druid T10 Balance

• 2P Bonus – When you gain Clearcasting from your Omen of Clarity talent, you deal 10% additional Nature and Arcane damage for 6 sec.
• 4P Bonus – Reduces the cooldown on your Eclipse talent by 6 seconds.

Druid T10 Feral

• 2P Bonus – Your Swipe (Bear) and Lacerate abilities deal 20% additional damage and the cost of your Rip ability is reduced by 10 energy.
• 4P Bonus – Your Enrage ability no longer decreases your armor and instead decreases all damage taken by 12%, and the periodic damage done by your Rake ability can now be a critical strike.

Blizzard has put a sneak peak of what the new armor looks like.

Druid notes for WoW Patch 3.3 on the PTR

The test realm patch notes for WoW Patch 3.3 Icecrown Citadel just went out though the PTR is not up yet. There are a few notes of interest for Druids:

Druids

• Pets
  • Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Bug Fixes

• Druids
  • Rejuvenation: Rank 15 of this spell was providing a 15-second duration. It has been correctly reduced to 12 seconds.

It looks like this patch isn’t about major Druid rebalancing, but more testing the new 5-man content, but expect more changes to come before 3.3 goes live.

WoW Patch 3.2.2 for Druids

Allison Robert at WoW.com delves into the ability, spell and talent changes for Druids in WoW Patch 3.2.2. She covers updates to Moonkin form, Predatory Strikes, Typhoon and Infected Wounds.

Moonkin Druid guide Part 5 – DPS Rotations and Leveling advice

The Druid Main blog wraps up their series on Moonkin basics with a look at what spells make for the best Moonkin DPS as well as which ones are better suited for Balance Druids under level 80 (the ones still leveling.)

Moonkin Druid guide Part 4 – Gear and Stats

The Druid Main blog continues their Balance Druid overview series, this time going over what stats affect your performance the most and what stats you should look for when choosing gear.

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