Without reading any blue post this feels like a PvP change for all of us who feels a Tree is to obvious as a target in BG’s and also want to be able to deal some damage or CC in there, but we still have the option of staying in caster form.

If you feel it’s an issue that you can’t dps in heroics, just go in caster form! If it’s so easy you can bother about doing damage when you’re the healer you sure don’t need Tree form to do the job. Also, I once helped out in a normal nexus run where I was healing and at the same time doing about 1k dps, in Naxx-gear. So stop whining about that please.

Sincerely
Sahele

Ps. I also jump when I shift to flight form :)

At its root, the problem with Tree of Life is that it adds nothing to the way the class plays. This is what makes comparisons with bear and cat form break down. You couldn’t change bear or cat form to a cooldown, because both of those forms have completely different spellsets, and different resource mechanics. You don’t cast spells any differently. You don’t even cast different spells. The form doesn’t actually do much. Blizzard has repeatedly stated it wants passive buffs out of the talent trees. Unfortunately, at its core, that’s all Tree of Life has to offer.

Tree of Life form does has a lot of personality. It’s got a great /dance, and it fits in well with the nature-oriented motif of the resto tree. As many have pointed out, it is iconic. Unfortunately, it’s a golden jewel-encrusted anchor dragging down the design of the class. There is no way to fix Tree of Life without radically redesigning it. I see two strategies to fix this.

1) Introduce a gameplay-changing mechanic associated with the form. Change the way healing works. Introduce treeform-only spells, treeform-only mechanics, and otherwise differentiate the way casting works with the form on. Justify the form not mathematically but mechanically. You’re loosing the ability to cast half of your spells, but you are gaining a new and interesting way to play. (This is the route they took with Moonkin form).

2) Limit the time you spend in the form, but make the buff it provides something special. Change it so that, in tree form, you really are a better healer than all the other classes. To balance that fact, limit access to the form. The makes interesting gameplay revolve around the decision to enter the tree form. Making Tree of Life a cooldown accomplishes this, but there are other ways, as well, (like only activating when you die, for instance). This is the path Blizzard has chosen for Resto.

There is nothing saying one solution is better than the other. I have theories on why Blizzard chose the latter, but I can certainly see a cogent argument that Blizzard should take the former option. Yet, I haven’t heard anybody make that argument. The cries I hear mourn the loss of the emotes and the visual-style and the flavor of the form. I’m not saying these aren’t important parts of WoW. But gameplay is important too. From a gameplay design perspective, Tree of Life form is a horrible burden.

As it stands, all Tree of Life provides a mathematical advantage in the form of a healing power. The problem is, once you start balancing the class with that form in mind, you make the class dependent upon it. Tree of Life can’t make a druid more powerful than the other healing classes. So by necessity, Tree of Life only brings a druid up to the level of other healing classes. Without Tree of Life, a druid is less powerful. Consequently, druids are paying an opportunity cost (access to the rest of their spells) that other healers aren’t paying, all just to keep up. As a designer, if you take the penalty away, then you’ve removed any thought attached to the form. It’s just a mandatory self buff. And you can’t remove the mathematical bonus, because that’s all there is to the talent. There’s no rage, no energy, no additional spells. The only thing Tree of Life gives you is math. You can’t just tweak the numbers and make the problem go away. This is bad design. You have a 41-point talent that adds nothing mechanically, changes how you look, and locks you out of half of your spellbook. Hell, you can get more out of a bottle of Noggenfogger Elixir.

It’s not wrong to mourn the passing of Tree of Life form (although I personally would wait to see what the cooldown looks like before I declare a net loss in personality). It’s not even wrong to suggest other ways to fix the problem. This isn’t what I see from the community. What I see are druids refusing to see there is a problem with Tree of Life in the first place. Blizzard has always put gameplay first. This is what made World of Warcraft different when it was first released. It shed countless genre convention for the sake of fun gameplay. With Cataclysm, Blizzard is turning the same critical eye to its own classes. In the long run, this will secure the longevity of WoW.

I believe in game design as an art form, and I believe the artistic value lies beyond both the math and the style of a game. In the end, the aesthetic appeal of a game is defined by the choices the players make, and the Tree of Life change was clearly made with this in mind. At the end of his article, Mr Patricelli recommended Blizzard ask themselves: “is what we expect to gain by making this change worth all that we WILL lose in terms of player goodwill?” Let me end by suggesting druids opposed to the change ask themselves a similar question. Is what we expect to lose more important than what we will lose if we continue to be tied to the current Tree of Life mechanic?

Maybe I don’t understand something but why is healing power/whatever necessarily tied to tree form? If you want to change the math, change the math. A new button/spell that increases healing power by x amount/2 min cooldown is ok. BUT I don’t understand why it HAS to be tied to tree form.

If tree form is an issue for pvp, etc., then glyph for caster form ( or even some other illusionary form – druid heals as an undead ‘lock – lol) Makes spotting you in a crowd different.

Seems to me like separate issues.

@Zenku: Why don’t bears complain about their forms? We gave up years ago. Blizzard finally gave us an updated form, but realistically, bears are here to stay, and there is no way feral druids will be able to fight in their chosen racial forms. We’ve argued for armor to show on feral forms, we’ve argued for special forms to be rewards from end bosses, we’ve argued for tier armor specific forms… We aren’t getting them. The druid community is a little more intelligent than the paladin community, so this may be a shocker, but we stopped asking because we won’t get it.

As long as it took them to come out with only 4 new models for feral forms, how long would it take to remodel all existing armor to add a bear AND cat model for even just the shoulderpads? No way they are putting that much work in for a single spec of a single class that is played far less often than other classes.

I know, it’s horrible that we can’t see the difference of a blue tree and an epic tree by just looking at him. Totally ruins the game, doesn’t it? But the same applies for all other forms, too. L2inspect. I haven’t seen even one decent argument from Blizz for this change. They don’t need to drop ToL for all the changes they’re going to implement.

If I’m in tree form, I’m the healer. When I’m in combat, I don’t have time to marvel over my own armor and satisfy me epeen. I have people to heal. If I want to show it off in town, I just shift out of tree form.

Do I care about the DPS? Nope, I’m a healer. DPS is not my job. My job is to keep the DPS folks alive so that they can do their DPS. And the tank, of course.

On my server I see plenty of druids running around as trees all the time. Same with moonkins, or even with bears and cats. They don’t shift out. They stay in their form because they want to. Because they have fun. Oh wait, we can’t have fun in a game. Fun is outlawed. It’s all about progression these days and who has the latest armor fastest. Epeen Country.

Note: I’m a paladin (prot/holy), but I thought of starting a druid in Cata (Troll druid, rawr!), maybe going feral/resto, but… not so sure anymore. The thought of no more trees in our raids just makes me a little sad. Just bouncing Nelves. Bleh. Yeah, I hate the idle bounce of the female Nelves. Now most of our healers will stand and bounce when idle. Bah!

Yes, sure, I can do some DPS as holy pally as well. But why would I? It’s not my job. My job is to stand in the corner and waggle my fingers and pop healing spells on my group. If we’re lacking that much in DPS that even the healer has to pitch in… Jeez. Next time I solo the content! Can’t get any worse.

Next they’ll come for the moonkins. If that happens I’ll quit. I regularly group with the same moonkins. These guys are hilarious. Lots of staring. Then… lots of dancing! Yeah baby. Moonkin dance party with trees mixed in between. Nothing beats that.

I think dropping ToL is a needless, pointless change, most likely caused by too much QQ from a handful of kids. As usual. Mingling healing with parts of DPS… I don’t know who had that idea, but he must have smoked something. If I spec on healer, I do it because I want to heal. If want to do DPS, I go ret, or balance if I’m a furball.

Aesthetics, well, give the druids different tree looks. It worked for cats and bears. Maybe change the model and use a mini version of the Ancients. But I don’t find bouncing Nelves to be any better. I think they’re worse.

@Astemus: a bear stays the same from level 10 to 80. Always looks the same. Always. I have yet to see a bear complaining about that.

http://iblogagain.blogspot.com/2010/04/perspective-of-shifting.html
.-= Shelly´s last blog ..The Perspective of Shifting =-.

Without reading any blue post this feels like a PvP change for all of us who feels a Tree is to obvious as a target in BG’s and also want to be able to deal some damage or CC in there, but we still have the option of staying in caster form.

If you feel it’s an issue that you can’t dps in heroics, just go in caster form! If it’s so easy you can bother about doing damage when you’re the healer you sure don’t need Tree form to do the job. Also, I once helped out in a normal nexus run where I was healing and at the same time doing about 1k dps, in Naxx-gear. So stop whining about that please.

Sincerely
Sahele

Ps. I also jump when I shift to flight form :)

@anothertank@tank.com – By changing druidic healing such that ToL form is required, it seems like they are talking about changing the “ToL” spell or whatever it is into something akin to a holy crap button – something you use when you know massive damage is incoming, or what-have-you. I suspect that we will see something like Icy Veins but for HoTs. I realise that we aren’t necessarily disagreeing with each other – I was simply responding to your post because when I originally read it I was left wondering if you were questioning the viability of healing in caster form after the change.

It is not like DPS. For most encounters, there is no such thing as too much DPS. Being able to bump up your DPS occasionally is a good thing. Conversely you can have too much healing(aka overhealing). If you can heal through an encounter without a healing buff then adding in a buff doesn’t help you at all.

In any event, I still see the “healers can go OOM while healing” colliding in an ugly way with the “healers can DPS some in PvE” concept. And allowing restro druids the ability to DPS is the main reason given for the tree form change.