So yesterday, I talked about the Cataclysm Balance talents that have been revealed before the Beta test begins.
Today I'm going to discuss the changes to Restoration. I know there are a million other Resto druid blogs who have already done this in the last couple of days, but this is actually really helping me understand what the changes are, so bare with me, please.
I'll hide the ***SPOILERS*** after the cut. Promise no more spoilers tomorrow :)
Restoration
Of course the first thing any Tree druid checked for in the new talents was to see if Tree of Life was still a cooldown - to see whether we would actually still be trees. Sadly, it is. But there is some cool stuff coming and I hope it will make up for our temporary-treeness.
Please don't forget that these are only the talents as they are at the Alpha testing stage - they are likely to change significantly during the Beta phase and before release.
The full text of the talents (give or take a few errors) can be found at MMO-Champion (they seem to be down at the moment though).
The Talent tree itself in calculator form can be seen at Wowhead. Playing around with it, I ended up with a level 85 tree of something like 13/0/63. What do you think?
EDIT: As per Keeva's comment below, I have somehow (and uselessly) put 5 points in Furor. No idea what I was doing there... but this spec may be a little better at this stage: 16/0/60. I'm sure it will change before long anyway!
Here are the new and changed talents:
Tier 1
New - Blessing of the Grove (2 points) - Increases the healing done by your Rejuvenation by 2/4%, the direct damage of your Moonfire by 3/6% and the damage done by your Claw and Shred by 2/4%.
Tier 2
New - Perseverance (5 points) - Reduces all spell damage taken by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Everything is the same as the current Resto tree until Tier 5, where Gift of Nature disappears.
Tier 6
Nature's Bounty (5 points; Requires 3 points in Improved Rejuvenation) - Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth spell by 10% on targets at or below 25% health, and you have a 20% chance when you critically heal with Healing Touch and Nourish to reduce the remaining cooldown of your Swiftmend spell by 0.5 seconds.
(Current Nature's Bounty)
New - Fury of Stormrage (3 points) - You have a 5/10/15% chance when you cast Nourish or Healing Touch to cause your next Wrath spell to be instant cast and cost no mana. Fury of Stormrage lasts for 8 seconds.
Tier 7
Empowered Touch (2 points) - Your Healing Touch heals for 5% more on targets at or below 25% health, and your Nourish spell has a 50% chance to refresh the duration of your Lifebloom on targets.
(Current Empowered Touch)
Tier 8
New - Efflorescence (3 points; Requires 1 point in Living Seed) - When you critically heal with your Regrowth spell you also sprout a bed of healing flora underneath the target, healing all nearby friendly targets within 15 yards who stand on them for 10/20/30% of the amount healed by your Regrowth every 1 seconds for 7 seconds.
Empowered Rejuvenation (5 points) - The bonus healing effects of your heal-over-time spells and Swiftmend is increased by 4/8/12/16/20%.
(Current Empowered Rejuvenation)
Natural Perfection (3 points) - Critical strikes against you give you the Natural Perfection effect, reducing all damage taken by 2/3/4%. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 8 seconds.
(Current Natural Perfection)
Tier 9
Revitalize (3 points) - When your Regrowth or Lifebloom heal-over-time periodic damage critically hits, you instantly regenerate 1/2/3% of your total mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds.
(Current Revitalize)
Tree of Life (1 point; Requires 5 points in Empowered Rejuvenation) - Shapeshift into the tree of Life, increasing healing done by 15% and increasing your armor by 240%, but reducing your movement speed by 50%. In addition, some of your spells are temporarly enhanced while shapeshifted. Lasts 45 seconds. 5-minute cooldown. Enhanced spells: Lifebloom, Wild Growth, Regrowth, Entangling Roots, Thorns, Wrath
(Current Tree of Life)
Improved Tree of Life (3 points; Requires 1 point in Tree of Life) - Reduces the cooldown of your Tree of Life by 30/60/90 seconds, and increases your damage done while in Tree of Life by 5/10/15%.
(Current Improved Tree of Life)
Tier 10
Improved Barkskin (2 points) - Grants 80/160% additional armor contribution from cloth and leather items while in Travel Form or while not shapeshifted. In addition, the damage reduction granted by your Barkskin spell is increased by 5/10%.
(Current Improved Barkskin)
Gift of the Earthmother [NYI] (5 points) - Increases the healing done by your Tranquility on targets at or below 25% health by 4%, increases the healing done by the bloom effect of your Lifebloom by 2%, and your Rejuvenation spell also instantly heals for 3% of the total periodic effect.
(Current GotEM)
Tier 11
Wild Growth is still our top tier talent.
Overall, it seems we're getting quite a few buffs to our nuke healing, especially under 25% health. Will this help druids to be more effective tank healers?
As others have commented, Healing Touch doesn't seem to have got much love in talents, but they may make changes to the spell itself yet.
With GotEM and Celestial Focus losing their haste bonuses, we are likely to see more haste from gear.
I'm still not happy about the Tree of Life form being a cooldown, especially the snare part, but I'm sure we'll adapt and learn to live with it. I'm slightly confused with the increased damage talents - are they trying to get healers to do some dps? I'll look forward to seeing it all in action.
