Druid changes for Shadowlands

Whitepaw

Raider
Aug 13, 2012
262
Disclaimer: I do not have Alpha access, so I’m basically trying to compile information from trusted sources.

The devs have stated that they wish to have classes, not specs, in WoW. So we’re getting a lot of our spells back! This will buff both Balance and Restoration specs with loads of Feral and Guardian baseline abilities as well as making the Affinities stronger - but it also looks like some of the signature abilities will be baseline for all specs (https://www.wowhead.com/shadowlands-druid-class-changes):
- Ashamane’s Frenzy (the old activated ability from Legion Feral artefact weapon) makes a return, now as a baseline ability for all specs.
- Barkskin will be baseline for all specs.
- Cyclone will be baseline for all specs.
- Tranquility looks to be baseline for all specs. I am unsure of this, but that’s what it looks like right now.

Shadowlands will also re-introduce Heart of the Wild as a talent on a 5 min CD, which buffs your chosen Affinity for a short period of time.

All in all some really nice changes which aim at making us more hybrid. I like it.

Besides all these gameplay changes, there is also one really important change: We will be able to chose our animal appearances more freely. So fx if you have dark colour hair in your humanoid form, you can now chose a white colour bear form! And a red-ish cat form! The forms and colours will still be race-specific, you won’t be able to chose the Zandalari animal forms for your boring Tauren Druid.

The most important aspect of this is a obviously how the Feral and Guardian Legion skins will be handled. Now, you have to chose the Legion artefact skin which aligns with the bear or cat skin you want. In Shadowlands, you’ll be able to chose the bear or cat skins independently of your weapon transmog! Here’s the link: https://www.wowhead.com/news=316323...ifact-bear-cat-form-tints-on-the-character-cr

Will this system allow you to change into that awesome Feral sparkly Legion Mage Tower skin? No, you’ll only have that skin if you were awesome enough to complete the Mage Tower challenge back in Legion.

But will you be able to change into any of the Feral or Guardian skins from Legion if you are not specced as Feral or Guardian? We don’t know yet, but my guess is no at this time, because it seems as if Blizzard would like to keep our silhouette linked to our spec (although that wasn’t possible before Legion anyway, and you can still hide your Feral or Guardian spec by simply not using the Legion artefact skins).

The Covenant abilities are still a bit up in the air. The most anticipated for me is the Night Fae ability called Convoke the Spirits, but it seems buggy on Alpha right now. However, the Night Fae signature ability called Soulshape looks really powerful and not as OP as the Venthyr one called Door of Shadows, so Soulshape will probably not be nerfed and Night Fae to me looks like the best Covenant.
 
OP
Whitepaw

Whitepaw

Raider
Aug 13, 2012
262
A quick update from the PTR (i.e. the pre-patch, not the Beta):
- We won’t get Ashamane’s Frenzy baseline version.
- We won’t get Tranquility.
- We WILL get Cyclone as a baseline spell!
- When choosing the Balance Affinity, our Moonkin form will NOT have a cool down! Yes, you can shift directly from Cat to Moonkin, dps, then back to Cat! Will that be useful in any encounter? I have no idea, but it’s doable now and it is the first time we’ve been able to change freely between melee in ranged while in combat.

Concerning cosmetics:
- We will be able to choose any Cat, Bear, Travel and Flight form independently. Including the fiery Cat Form from Firelands! It’s a crazy world, and it just became a little crazier!
- We’ll be able to choose any weapon skin for transmog. So, on top of all the crazy animal forms, we can now rock the equally amazing Restoration or Balance weapon skins from Legion! Oh, and yes: No more fuckin’ daggers! That shit only took 4 years(!) to get rid of.