My thinking is that if you can’t design a watertight accounts server and web-interface, you probably shouldn’t be in the MMO business. Too many companies seem to look at that side of things as an afterthought.

Rogues are losing their stunlock, meaning I will never win another pvp fight.

Shamans are losing Bloodlust, meaning I will never get to raid again, being replaced by a far more useful class (On that note, Shamans really do need a redisign at the moment. They’re carrying a lot of baggage that’s been distributed in new, niftier forms to other classes. But they won’t. Because no one plays them)

And saddest of all, Trees are going away. Which means never again will we see the pure joy that is the tree dance.

No one looks happer than dancing trees.

I need a hand on Cataclysm Class changes. All in all, I can’t get rid of the feeling that most people judge or complain about the changes of “their” class, without considering the rest.

Obviously you did read all previews published so far, so what is your feeling about the bigger picture?
How do you think will the changes affect each other?

To give you a start:

We already know, that Healer’s won’t be able to fully heal a tank within 1-2 heals. Mana will be an issue for Healer, so mitigation and avoidance will be a topic again. Warrior Changes, did not mention any changes in short cool down related defense abilities, like Shield block or disarm. So we probably are getting to see, Bosses performing heavier attacks more frequently.
With the changes to spirit, my first thought that Mana would just be a topic for healers. But when you mentioned rage changes and hunter’s focus, I went through the class previews again.
Now depending on the way you read it, it seems for me, like Mana for DDs will be a topic again, limiting their potential in comparison to Classes which have a steady flow of action points, like Rogues, Hunters, DKs and Warriors. In the first moment it did not made any sense, because it would be a clear disadvantage of Caster DDs.
But DK’s rune regeneration will be limited, rage is going to be normalised, the percentage of white damage to the rogues overall-damage is going to be reduced, making “yellow” styles more important.a.s.o. This would indicate, that casters would have the potential to unload a higher damage level for a short time, while non-mana classes would have a steadier level of damage through the whole fight.
Single Target Aggro and Crowd control could be a topic again as well.

Regarding your tankadin hopes, I am afraid your prayers will not be heard.
Looking at the class previews so far, they seem to get problems with every role. Holy needs to become independent from crit. Cleanse does not seem to fit into the new “decurse” philosophy. Holy Shield and Ardent Defender are far to strong in the new “tanking world”. Retribution still needs a decision about it’s way of support and mana dependency.

One problem with original Tree of Life was that while it worked well in raids, it never seemed to pan out as a primary healer in 5-mans. Maybe our guild Trees just couldn’t adapt, but we usually wanted a Priest or Paladin in 5-mans (usually in that order of preference).

As far as Druid changes go, I was talking with a friend and I think the designers are not understanding how perception affects things. People play Druids instead of some other “pure” class for one of two primary reasons: the flexibility or the lore/mystique. There’s something cool about a character that shapeshifts into different forms based on what’s needed. I think this is one of the reasons why some Druid players are so against tree of life form being a cooldown: it takes away part of the identity of the character that goes beyond the gameplay aspects.

Personally, I was always into the flexibility aspect. I liked TBC era Feral Druids because I could DPS and offtank with a simple swap of equipment. Maybe I wasn’t top of the DPS meters (horrors!) nor could I really main tank a raid, but I had flexibility. I even took Nuturing Instinct in order to be able to spot heal if absolutely necessary. One thing I didn’t like about Wrath was that it took away a lot of that flexibility.

It seems like Druids were always a class with a confused design goal. Originally they were officially supposed to be backup healers, then they became very versatile and brought unique aspects to tanking or DPS, now they have to specialize into one role without having many of the tools available to the “pure” classes. As I said, it just doesn’t excite me anymore. But, I accept the game has moved on from my tastes and enjoy LotRO more these days.

When Wrath came in, Blizzard decided to ease up on this as a quality of life thing so they removed the movement debuff from the tree and also let them cast regular heals and decurse without shifting back to caster form.

At this point, the tree form gives a large enough healing buff that you feel very penalised if you try healing in caster form, and cuts you off from using any damage spells, but doesn’t provide any extra abilities at all apart from that (ie. unlike the feral forms).

So I think it always has been too restrictive, and they’ve decided that they weren’t really happy with the last way they dealt with it. I also think there’s a good argument for moonkin to be a cooldown and a lot of people would be happy if that was the case because it’s fugly and serves no purpose

While not quite on the scale of SWG’s NGE, it seems like there are a lot of really radical changes in store. Reading about the Tree of Life changes for Druids, where they claim “giving up so much offensive power seems unfair” is funny; it’s been that way for, what, 5 years now? Why is it unfair NOW?

On the other hand, I’m sure they’re looking at the number of people who left the game because it’s become old hat. Shaking things up and getting people interested in the game again will do wonders for their sub numbers.

Personally, I figure I’ll resub a month to check out the new mainland if you can see it without the expansion. Most of the proposed changes elicit a big “meh” from me. I’m just not burning to go re-visit my Druid anytime soon.