Countdown to Forever: 8 – How Druids are Shaping Up

With Forever launching on November 4, we’re looking at how each class played during beta, how their changes from Classic were received, and how they are shaping up for the Forever launch and level 60.

Check out all our series:

• 8: Druid (You’re here!)
• 7: Mage
• 6: Shaman
• 5: Warlock

The info below was written based on our experiences during beta and feedback from our Druid writers, Voulkand Meyra.

Balance Druid

Heading into Forever, the Balance toolkit is enjoyable to play. With the limited experience available on beta, we weren’t able to experience the full breadth of the class, as we were missing key talents like the iconic Moonkin Form icon Moonkin Form, but enough to reach Eclipse icon Eclipse.

The gameplay revolves around keeping up both your DoTs while alternating between Starfire icon Starfire and Wrath icon Wrath, a very familiar loop to Balance veterans. The experience at level 30 was similar to what we expect at 60, but the missing talent points, and stats, made the loop feel slow and not as engaging.

From testing, the biggest issue Balance faces going into beta is Nature's Grace icon Nature’s Grace, as the increased cast speed doesn’t apply to queued spells, making you often miss a long section of the short 3-second window. The leveling experience as Boomy was pretty lackluster as well, being not strong enough to burst enemies and having subpar sustain, even after the latest round of buffs.

Classic Balance players, the few that were brave enough, will see some welcome changes. The new Eclipse talent provides a nice rotation mix-up, giving incentives to use both Wrath and Starfire, while the new mana tools available for the spec mean our days as oomkins are over in raids. Moonkin Aura icon Moonkin Aura is also a raid-wide buff now.

In raids, you can expect a fairly straightforward rotation, with putting up DoTs then weaving Wrath into double Starfire. Not the most complicated rotation, but interesting enough for the goal of Forever. For raid spots, Boomies shouldn’t find a lot of trouble due to the utility brought by the now raid-wide Moonkin Aura crit chance buff plus the Druid buffs themselves with Mark of the Wild icon Mark of the Wild and Rebirth icon Rebirth.

Balance Druid Guide by Voulk

Feral Druid

During beta, we were able to experience a fairly large part of the Feral toolkit due to the increased talent points from Legacy Points. Even at this low level, Cat felt purr-fectly satisfying to play, able to use Shifting Power icon Shifting Power at level 30 for bursts of energy to speed up the otherwise slow rotation.

For Bear, the gameplay loop feels engaging while tanking, with more useful abilities than in the past. However, due to rage from auto-attacks being normalized, you will find yourself rage-starved when not tanking actively. When leveling alone, you’ll bear-ly have any rage, so you are highly incentivized to pull multiple mobs to have something to do as Bear.

Feral has probably one of, if not the, most well-rounded experiences past level 20. Before 20, you’ll feel weak due to the nerfs to base spell damage. However, once you unlock your forms and hit level 20, you’ll feel fur-midable. Feral damage now scales with weapon DPS, which is an amazing change, making your weapon way more relevant than in Classic.

The only caveat for Feral is that this basically forces both Bears and Cats into two-handed weapons, which have been underrepresented in loot tables at level 30 content, with physical staves and polearms being rare, leaving you to grin and bear it with two-handed maces.

For more changes, Bears received more than Cats, with the additions of Primal Bite icon Primal Bite and Lacerate icon Lacerate, adding much-needed buttons to a Bear’s action bars and adding some actual bite to the rotation. Swipe icon Swipe now slightly scales with attack power, meaning it will likely be relevant even as you gear up.

Cats received fewer ability additions, but have received more core changes to the spec. Bleeds like Rake icon Rake and Rip icon Rip are cat-egorically better now, able to crit for double damage, and both now scale with attack power, meaning you won’t be dropping them in favor of Shred icon Shred at high gear levels. Another addition was Shifting Power, added to compensate for the changes to Furor icon Furor and Wolfshead Helm icon Wolfshead Helm. These last two were historically the reason the “powershifting” rotation existed, where Cats would cancel and re-cast their Cat Form icon Cat Form as a way to convert mana into Energy. Shifting Power now fills that role in a less roundabout way, with a longer cooldown.

At endgame, we expect Bear to be very smooth when bearing the brunt of heavy damage. Periods of high damage intake lead to extra rage, which accelerates your rotation, allowing for strong bursts of damage with Berserk icon Berserk. While the rotation at max level will likely be rigid, there will always be a button to press, as long as you have rage for it.

Cats also have a claw-some rotational flow at endgame, with more meaningful buttons than in original Classic. Shifting Power will end up providing less energy to your rotation than powershifting provided, with skilled players having less agency over their energy intake. However, there’s always room for change in the future, as the game receives more iterations. Plus, Blizzard could tweak the gameplay through idols, tier sets, or tuning changes. That’s the tail end of Feral.

Feral Druid Guide by Meyra

Restoration Druid

Resto Druids are in good shape going into Forever. The spec feels fluid and fulfills the niche of a “healing over time” healer very well. The reduced 1s GCD for Rejuvenation icon Rejuvenation is a welcome change and smooths out the gameplay wonderfully.

During beta, we were able to play with most of our healing kit, only missing Wild Growth icon Wild Growth, our AoE heal. However, it wasn’t sorely missed due to the lack of healing challenges at level 30, meaning the snappier Rejuv covered most healing demands.

The spec looks really solid for launch, with one of the only concerns present right now being Tranquility icon Tranquility. It fills a fine design space, as it is a long-channeled spell, working as a raid healing cooldown, but only targets your group. That is an ok design, but right now it is too costly for the amount it heals. So it could be either cheaper or stronger.

From Classic, the biggest change is the aforementioned 1s global cooldown from Gift of the Earthmother icon Gift of the Earthmother for most of our HoT effects. Besides that, Resto Druids gained Wild Growth and a very cheap button with Regrowth icon Regrowth, which retained its power, plus more mana regen in the shape of Reflection icon Reflection.

For level 60, we expect Restoration to be an incredibly flexible healer, likely able to keep Regrowth and Rejuvenation on the tank at all times, able to Swiftmend icon Swiftmend them for extra healing, while distributing Rejuvs to the raid and Wild Growth for raid damage spikes.

Restoration Druid Guide by Voulk

Tomorrow Preview

And that’s it for Druids! Did you spot all the puns in the Feral paragraph? I’m paw-sitive you missed some.

Tomorrow: Mages! See you then!