Forming: An Opinion on Tree Form in Cataclysm

Sylly prepares to play a tree at the masquerade ball

 Hey, hey, everyone!  It’s been ages and ages since I’ve posted here.  I enjoyed the break for the most part, and was considering letting my account with the hosting company lapse and letting Rolling Hots roll right off into the sunset.  But there were many, many topics over these months that I considered posting about while I was away, and several that I sort of framed out in my head, as in, “this is how I *would* post about this if… you know… I were blogging.”  Then I got an email that told me my bank account was charged via the convenience of automatic renewal with the web hosting service I use and, without necessarily meaning or deciding to, I had purchased my blog for another year.  So I’ve had that rolling around in my head for a couple weeks.  And then the Cataclysm class previews started rolling out and I, like so many others, sat on the edge of my seat waiting for the druid preview to come out.  I was also asking myself in the back of my mind if I would be motivated to write about the changes.

I read all of the unfolding class previews with a great deal of interest and enjoyment.  Not only are some of the new abilities for other classes going to be fun for them, they are going to make playing alongside of them more fun and interesting.  Healing rain?  Camouflage?  Dark Intent?  Bring it, Baby, bring it!  So when the time came around for the druid preview, I was practically salivating with excitement.   Our preview was finally posted, I tore through the content of it, and, admittedly, my first reaction was a sinking heart.  No new toys to play with, a new talent that wasn’t explicated enough for us to do anything but guess how it worked, a mastery bonus that seemed questionable, and no healing in tree form.  I felt like someone stole my Easter Basket. 

As I am wont to do, I started reading voraciously around the internet on the topic.  I read expansively on the official forums, looking at the reactions of other players.  I read each of Ghostcrawlers responses on the topic.  I read all the Resto druid blogs I could get my hands on to see what bloggers were saying.  Although much of what I read out there completely backed up my own initial response, I have to admit, timidly, that my opinion began to change.  And while I saw some posters on forums feeling the way that I was starting to feel, I do not believe that I ran across a single blog post from a Resto Druid who wasn’t either lamenting or lambasting the decision to move tree form to a cooldown. 

 It was this silence in the blogosphere that finally led me back here to my own blog, which, by the way, was a mess.  I had dozens of comments that had never been approved, tons of spam comments that needed deleting.  My Word Press had not been updated to the newest version, nor had 14 of my plugins.  I had to reset passwords and update my Hostmonster account.  I then had to download and install WOW Model Viewer in order to monkey around in photoshop and create an image for the post.  In short, I decided to write a post and it took me just under 24 hours of work before I could write the first word.  Please remind me not to stay away so long. 

Want to know how I feel about the changes?  Pretty good, overall. 

Now wait.  Before you start lobbing rotten tomatoes at me, hear me out.  Am I bummed that I won’t get to heal in tree form all the time?  Well, sure I am.  I love being a tree.  I identify with being a tree.  I love that “mmmBLUARF! sound I make when I shapeshift into tree form, dancing as a tree, running as a tree, the casting animations of tree… all of it.  I like that being a tree makes me a special and unique snowflake in the world of WOW healers.  But, here’s the thing.  More than I like that, I like playing a healing class that has a very well defined role and the tools that it needs to do it well.  If tree form were essential to that, I’d jump on my sword for it.  But, as Ghostcrawler has pointed out, it is not. 

Although I started playing Warcraft during the Burning Crusade expansion and distinctly remember dinging 50 and dancing around happily in my newly acquired tree form on the floor where all the Dragonkin pulls are in Sunken Temple, I know now that tree form was not original to the game, but was  added in BC.  So there is that. 

But I also remember that tree form in BC was pretty damn gimped.  It had a snare effect that slowed down your movement speed, and, although it was a healing form that buffed some healing spells, it completely prohibited you from casting others.  In fact, you couldn’t automatically shift out of tree form to cast, say, Moonfire, or even Healing Touch!  You had to click on caster form, then cast, then click back on tree form.  There was a tradeoff for tree form.  There were compromises.  And Resto druids did not always use it.  It was a choice.

When WOLK came out, many of these restrictions were lifted.  We were able to cast our full healing arsenal in this form, making all of our spells benefit from the buff.  The snare was removed.  Somewhere along the line we also got the ability to autoshift out just to cast a damage spell.  And, because we could fully heal in this form, our healing and boss encounters were balanced around the assumption that we were in this form always.  The Tree of Life buff stopped functioning as a buff and started functioning as part of our healing composition.  It became a given.

Now, I don’t really agree too strongly with Blizzard’s rationale for moving Tree of Life to a cooldown from its current iteration.  They want to have one spec showing off the armor they design?  Ok, fine… pick one of four.   Or… wait… who cares?  Do YOU look at your own or your raidmates’ armor while healing?  I sure as hell don’t.  The argument that each of the druid forms unlocks some unique resource ability (i.e. rage for bears, energy for cats) but Tree Form doesn’t?  Bullshit.  Neither does Moonkin. 

 The argument that we have to give up too much to have access to damage dealing abilities, while other healing classes do not… well… that is true to an extent.  A Holy Priest doesn’t have to rotate between gimped damage spells and gimped healing spells if they feel like DPSing a mob at some point.  If they are bored and DPSing and someone takes a collosal hit, they can pop off a full strength heal without having to use an extra click to get into their healing form.  But that doesn’t hold as much water for me as the fact that our Crowd Control requires a shift out then back into tree form, because Crowd Control is something I actually use, believe it or not, and not just because I’m bored.  I Cyclone mind controlled raid mates on Deathwhisper; I occassionally root a blood beast on Saurfang.  And I don’t PVP.  I am certain that I would use this sort of ability, and damage spells, far more often if I did.  Although I’m usually up at the front of the line grumbling when some PVP issue accounts for changes in my own abilities, I do recognize that the game and specs have to function for both PVP and PVE players.  It’s not my favorite part of the game that this is so, but it is what it is.  So, in the end, this argument from Blizzard is, for me, stronger than the others.

But that argument is not compelling enough for me to feel good about the preview.  Certainly not.  So… what has changed my feeling?  These five six things:

1)  Because our healing is now balanced around us being in tree form, and all of our spells are also balanced around us being in tree form, but in Cataclysm they will not be and tree form will be moved to a cooldown ability, we ARE getting a new toy.  We’re getting a new cooldown.  As I have said, I love being a tree, but when it comes down to it, what I really love is healing a raid and doing it well.  If I have to give up some pixels for part of the time I’m healing in order to get a new mechanic that has the potential for awesomeness?  I’m sorry to say it, but /target pixels, /wave.  Of course, I’m very eager to see where they go with this change and what the cooldown looks like.  If it’s lackluster and not a good trade, I’ll be pissed.  But what if… just what if… it’s something really cool?  really fun?  really engaging?  really interesting in terms of theory crafting and game play?  If that’s the case, then it might just liven up our healing experience in unexpected and energizing ways.

2) GC did say that they would consider a minor glyph allowing people to keep in tree form for those who really just want the damn art, dammit!

3) HOTs benefiting from Crit and Haste? OMG yes PLEASE!  That change is just awesome!  I don’t know about you all but I tried Glyph of Rapid Rejuv and dropped it like a hot potato.  The shortened time between Rejuv ticks was not nearly enough of a benefit  for me when the Rejuvs fell off so fast that I was jumping around like an idiot to reapply them constantly.  But if those Rejuvs had ticked more often for the same duration of time?  Pure… freakin… win.  And Crit benefitting HOTs is just as tasty.  No longer will I feel like Crit is a waste if I’m not using a very specific sub set of my spells.  It will always be good.  Oh, so good.  Om nom nom.

4)  The Mastery Bonus, when I first read it, left me depressed.  Who cares if HOTs increase in effectiveness on low level targets?  Isn’t the point of HOTs to keep people topped off?  But then I remembered that I had read that one of the changes that they are moving toward in Cataclysm is larger health pools and that healers would no longer need to keep people topped off just to keep them alive.  I have a feeling that we are going to have to get used to seeing health meters somewhere between the two extremes of topped off and Holy Shit! that we are now accustomed to.  I believe that HOTs will function less as a means to keep people topped off, and more of a means of keeping incoming damage mitigated.  Now… I am almost exclusively assigned to raid healing in my guild’s 25 mans.  And I do a very good job of it.  All the druid healers in my guild do.  We’re insanely good as raid healers.  But… it makes me a little giddy to imagine how much of a benefit we would be with these larger health pools and more steady damage.  I don’t know about you, but a ridiculously large amount of my healing is wasted, either in overheals, or when other healers stomp my HOTs.  I think we may just have a very solid, and very fun healing niche in Cataclysm to look forward to, and the Mastery Bonus will help us to be strong not just as topper offers, but in a real healing crisis.

5) This may be too optimistic, as they have had trouble balancing our full arsenal of spells in the past, but it is exciting to think that, because it seems to be a goal not just for us but for all healing classes to make healing about interesting, engaging choices, they might actually fix our toolbox of spells to the point that they are all fun and interesting to use.  Ghostcrawler talked about using Lifebloom as a tank healing spell again, possibly allowing Healing Touch to renew a Lifebloom stack (!), and changing Tranquility to act more like Divine Hymn instead of just pouring healing only on the druid’s own group.  Those are interesting and exciting changes and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they play out in the Cataclysm world.

6) Because of the current balance around us always being in tree form, Tree of Life is currently wasted space in our talent tree.  My hope is that it will be removed, freeing up space for options that add utility and help us to improve our game.

If these things don’t motivate you past your sadness of losing tree form, I am sorry.  I am Sylly Sad Tree for you.  Even for myself I am sad about this change.  But I guess for me, while I love being a tree and being in tree form itself, the majority of the fun I find in the game is not in the art of my toon.  Don’t get me wrong, I do find tons of fun there.  But most of my fun comes from raiding, from pulling together with a group of friends and solving the steps of the puzzle and executing them perfectly in order to beat a boss, bring him down.  I LOVE the mechanics of healing on my druid.  The way our class meets the challenges of the game are nothing short of elegant.  It is a joy.  That is why, although I wouldn’t be happy about it, if I had to assume the guise of a naked male leper gnome in order to heal raids as a Restoraion Druid, I would.  And, though it makes me shudder now, I strongly suspect that, given time, I’d develop some affection for my pathetically ugly avatar.   So, in the end, I am sadly willing to trade out my constant tree form for flashes of tree laced with super awesome.

/ducks from incoming rotten tomatoes

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