Malhoof’s: Druids in Wrath of the Lich King

This is a brief look at what you can look forward to in the expansion for your druid.  I will be breaking down the individual specs in later articles, I just want to give the readers of Spooncraft and general idea and a long time druid lover’s POV.

I have loved my druid since the day I got my first shape shift (Bear form).    I have always been the type of person who is never completely satisfied with the routine of things. For the expansion, Druids are receiving a lot of love from the design team.  All of our talent trees have had a huge make-over, some of our mechanics and abilities have been rehashed, and the class feels a lot more fun to play.  All of the druids I know, including myself are falling in love with their druids all over again.

Feral:  Do you like tanking? DPS? Or do you enjoy being the Off-tank of your raid?  Do you like shredding people in PVP?  You can actually do all of those things now as well as their “pure counterparts”.  If you like tanking for your guild, then you can actually spec into being a MAIN TANK.  If you like “doing it from behind” on the boss fight ?  Do you enjoy being the jack of all trades with your character?  Do you yearn to see feral druids represented in the top tier arena teams?  Now you CAN.  By carefully selecting your talents in the feral trees, you can choose how you want to specialize your bear or kitty.  Wanna dps? Just put the points in the right place and you can actually compete with rogue on the damage meters.  Wanna do pvp as a feral?  Feral cats are putting the hurt on players now.

Balance (Moonkin):  Moonkin spec has gotten a lot of love this expansion as well.  We are no longer the joke of the caster group.  A properly specced and decently skilled moonkin can put up some really good numbers in a raid.  Some of the mages and locks in my guild are furious that they have some competition now.  The gear outlook is a lot better now as well.  You can now look forward to some real upgrades in raids now instead of feeling like you just stole loot from the mages.  We have a great AoE now and can actually manage a fight when it comes to mana.  PvP is much improved now for moonkins because of a few new abilities like typhoon and star fall.

Resto:  Enough said!  The spec is getting a few annoying quirks fixed and are being a little more balanced so that we can keep all of our strengths in a pvp environment, while getting the group utility we were missing in the BC.  Wild growth will mean no more druids will be looked at as a last choice healer for those AoE bosses and the heavy raid/group damage fights where Circle of Healing was the best answer.  Nourish is our new quick cast direct heal to deal with quick spike damage. Trees are free to move as well as other healers do and still keep your optimum healing potential.

All the trees look and feel very fun and more is still to come with Blizzards promises of new form art and are constantly working on our abilities to keep druids in raids and arena teams.  Have fun with your druid and be sure to thank anyone you meet from Blizzard for the great job they have done with our class.

-Malhoof