Druid Class Overview & Changes

The Druid receives one of the more substantial class updates in World of Warcraft: Forever. Blizzard is keeping the fundamental Vanilla hybrid design intact, but giving each of the respective roles more support.

The overall goal is to give each individual specialization more direction and improvements and encourage all Druid options to be viable in all forms of content.

Based on what we know so far, the Druid has 18 new talents with new 31 point capstone talents for Feral and Restoration with Balance keeping its iconic Moonkin form.

As with all classes, Blizzard’s design philosophy is to keep the seven row structure whilst adding a new 1 point milestone talent at 16 points.

Balance Summary

Balance has received solid adjustments in WoW: Forever, tools such as Omen of Clarity being baseline and now being able to proc off spellcasting 

as well as talents that increase their mana regeneration will go a long way in keeping Balance Druids pumping out damage without going Oom within the first minute of a fight. Balance Druid’s rotation is not as one-note now, with Eclipse incentivising players to switch between their Arcane and Nature damaging spells instead of just pressing Wrath/Starfire on repeat.

Feral Summary

Feral is looking sharp heading into WoW: Forever, with both Cat DPS and Bear Tanking lining up to be fantastic options, and keeping a way to spec flexibly into a hybrid version of the two depending on the content you are doing. Powershifting is essentially gone from this version of the game, with the focus now being on Tiger's Fury as a regular energy restoration button. With the addition of Berserk, this gives Feral druids a huge cooldown to use in both forms to maximize AoE damage and threat in Bear Form, and huge DPS in Cat Form.

Restoration Summary

For Restoration, the spec is by no means being reinvented, but Blizzard seems to be trying to fill the substantial gaps this tree had back in Vanilla WoW. It’s still fundamentally about Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Healing Touch and Powerful HoTs, but now brings new tools to the table aswell as improving the feel of the spec across the board. It’s faster, more reactive, more functional and should just feel much more rewarding to play, especially with the addition of Wild Growth for AoE healing.

There are a number of new additions to the Druids baseline toolkit.

Nature's Grasp has been removed from the Balance tree and is now trained as a baseline ability from your trainer. This is particularly useful for Feral and Restoration because they no longer need to invest points into Balance simply to access one of their signature PvP and defensive tools.

Omen of Clarity is also now baseline, providing some help with resource management without having to use up a talent point.

Revive is a new out of combat resurrection ability, which fixes one of the Druids main limitations from Vanilla. Previously they only had Rebirth as a combat res, but now can revive allies outside of combat too!

There are significant changes to all three specializations. Balance receives six major new talents, Feral has a huge collection of new or substantially redesigned options, and restoration has some huge additions too.

Balance 

Genesis - Increases the periodic damage and healing done by your spells and abilities by 1% (5 Ranks)

Nature's Majesty - Increases your critical strike chance with spells and melee attacks by 2% (2 Ranks)

Nature's Splendor - Increase the duration of your Moonfire and Rejuvenation spells by 3 sec, your Regrowth spell by 6 sec and your Insect Swarm spell by 2 sec.

Eclipse - Your Wrath spell reduces the cast time of your next 2 Starfire spells by 0.17 seconds, stores up to to 4 charges, lasts 15 seconds (3 Ranks)

Balance of Nature - Each time you cast a Nature spell, your next Arcane damage spell within 10 seconds deals 1% increased damage. Each time you cast an Arcane spell, your next Nature damage spell within 10 seconds deals 1% increased damage (5 Ranks)

Overgrowth - Increases the maximum number of targets you may have affected by Entangling Roots by 1 (2 Ranks)

Feral

Mangle - Melee Range, Instant, 6 second Cooldown. Mangle the target for 100% normal damage plus a flat amount.

King of the Jungle- Tiger's Fury now instantly grants you 20 Energy (3 Ranks)

Predatory Instincts -Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your melee abilities by 10% (2 Ranks)

Natural Reaction - Increases your dodge chance by 1%, and gives you a 20% chance to gain 5 Rage each time you dodge (5 Ranks)

Rend and Tear- Increases damage done by your melee abilities on Bleeding targets by 2% (5 Ranks)

Berserk - Instant, 3 minute cooldown. Causes your Mangle ability to strike up to 3 targets, removes its cooldown, and increases the critical strike chance of your Combo Point-generating abilities by 100%. Clears and grants immunity to Fear effects for the duration. Lasts 15 seconds.

Restoration

Gift of the Earthmother- Reduces the global cooldown by 0.5 seconds on your Rejuvenation, Swiftmend and Wild Growth spells (1 Rank)

Living Spirit - Increases your Spirit by 5% (3 Ranks)

Wild Growth - 40 yd range, Instant, 6 second cooldown. Heals the target and their party over 7 seconds. Party members must be within 43 yds of the target. The amount is applied quickly at first, and slows down as Wild Growth reaches its full duration.

Druid has received a substantial shift in its talent trees with both Balance and Feral seeing complete overhauls in addition to the new talents. Restoration also has had many notable changes, with at least 8 talents being altered from Vanilla.

Balance

Improved Wrath - Now reduces the mana cost of Wrath by up to 50% as well as lowering its cast time by up to 0.5 seconds. Vanilla only had the cast time reduction. 5 Ranks

Nature's Reach - Now increases the range of offensive Balance spells by up to 20% while also increasing the chance to hit with spells and attacks by up to 4%. Only Wrath, Entangling Roots, Moonfire, Starfire, Faerie Fire and Hurricane were affected by this talent previously and there was no additional hit chance in Vanilla.

Vengeance - Now increases the critical strike damage bonus of all Arcane and Nature spells by up to 100%. In Vanilla, only Starfire, Moonfire and Wrath were affected by Vengeance.

Moonglow - Now reduces the mana cost of all spells by up to 9% and is located in row 2 as opposed to row 5 like it was in Vanilla. Also, only Moonfire, Starfire, Wrath, Healing Touch, Regrowth and Rejuvenation were affected by this talent in Vanilla.

Insect Swarm is now located within the Balance tree, while it was in the Restoration tree in Vanilla.

Feral

Heart of the Wild - Intellect, Dire Bear Form and Cat Form Strength values have been reduced from its Vanilla iteration however it is now available on the 1st row in Forever, down from Row 6. 

Feral Charge - Now also causes Cat Form to leap behind the target, dazing them for 3 seconds. Was only available in Bear Form in vanilla.

Primal Fury - Now causes non-periodic critical strikes from Cat Form's abilities that generate Combo Points to have up to 100% chance of adding an additional Combo Point. Previously in Vanilla, only Bear Form benefitted from this talent.

Brutal Impact - Now also reduces the cooldown of Bash by up to 30 seconds. In Vanilla it only increased the stun duration of Bash and Pounce by up to 1 second. 

Leader of the Pack - Now increases Critical strike chance for all party members with 45 yds. This effect is mutually exclusive with the bonus provided by Moonkin Form's aura (which has also become a generalised critical strike buff). In vanilla it exclusively increased melee and ranged attack crit chance and was not mutually exclusive with Moonkin Form, which exclusively increased spell critical strike chance.

Restoration

Subtlety - Now reduces the threat generated by Arcane and Nature spells by 10%, has 3 ranks instead of 5 and was moved from row 3 to row 2. Previously in Vanilla, only Healing spells were affected and reduced threat generated by up to 20%

Naturalist - Now also increases all damage dealt by 1%. Only reduced the cast time of Healing Touch by up to 0.5 seconds in Vanilla.

Reflection - Now allows up to 50% of mana regeneration to continue while casting, up from vanilla’s total of up to 15%.

Improved Tranquility - Now also reduces Tranquility’s cooldown by up to 60%. Vanilla only had the 100% threat generated reduction effect of this talent.

Druids can be played as Night Elf & the New Skyborne race for Alliance, and Tauren and Skyborne for Horde. The Skyborne race has its own new collection of Druid forms, based around the Owlbear fantasy.

Alliance

Night Elf

Night Elf now has a racial ability called ‘Elune’s Light’ which provides 10% increase Critical Strike chance for 15 seconds whilst Quickness provides Dodge and Movement speed. They also have increased run speed while dead in their Wisp Form, and Shadowmeld to gain stealth while Immobile which isn’t as useful considering Druids have Prowl in Cat form.

Alliance Skyborne

Alliance Skyborne have the ability ‘Walk on Air’ for a 10 second slow fall, along with increased melee, ranged, and spellcasting Haste and 5% increased damage to Elementals. They also gain Read Ley Line which they can activate to gain 100% increased Health and Mana Regeneration.

Horde

Tauren

Tauren keeps their War Stomp for some quick AoE crowd control and 5% stamina from Endurance, but also gain 1% Hit chance too. Additionally, Taurens have a new Plainsrunning Passive that grants increased movement speed whilst on the move which can help out with leveling & open world exploration.

Horde Skyborne

Horde Skyborne have the same racials as Alliance but instead of Read Ley Line they have Skysight to gain 10% more movement speed for 30 seconds.

For Alliance Druids, Night Elf is a fantastic all round option with Elune’ s Light providing extra critical chance to boost up your spells, damage or healing. Quickness also helps out Feral tanks contributing to their Dodge chance. Alliance Skyborne’s haste passive boost also helps out that hybrid fantasy appealing to all 3 specializations. 

For Horde Druids Tauren remains the best option for Feral druids, especially players intending to tank, with the 5% extra Stamina, alongside the new movement speed boost to help Druids level even faster.

The Horde Skyborne’s 10% movement speed is also a nice benefit, alongside the Haste we mentioned earlier. 

Overall the Druid is shaping up to be one of WoW Forever’s most improved, expanded and refined reworks in comparison to Vanilla. Whilst its always been a fast leveler and versatile class, it historically lacked in all areas in the endgame, compared to other non-hybrid class alternatives. The Jack of all Trades, Master of None, is looking to be a much more overall, balanced and sought after class, that should also feel a lot more enjoyable to main.