Monday, March 15, 2010

What mastery bonuses I want for Druids

I have already written a post about what mastery bonuses I want for druids, but this was back in the days when we didn't know much about mastery bonuses would look like. Now that we have a better idea of what they will look like, I think it's time I revisit this topic. I'll reprint the part of that post that summarizes the general set-up of Mastery bonuses.

Here's how the system works: As you spend points in a given talent tree, you'll receive three different passive bonuses specific to that tree. The first bonus will increase your damage, healing, or survivability, depending on the intended role of the tree. The second bonus will be related to a stat commonly found on gear desirable to you, such as Haste or Crit. The third bonus will be the most interesting, as it will provide an effect completely unique to that tree -- meaning there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found on high-level (level 80 to 85) gear.


Balance:

Bonus 1: Damage - Improves your spell damage by X%.

Bonus 2: Perception - Increases your hit rating by an amount equal to X% of your spirit. Any extra hit rating will be converted into crit rating.
Blizzard has said that in order to allow Trees and Moonkin to share gear, Moonkin will receive their hit rating from spirit. That said, this creates the potential for them to get too much hit rating, which is why I added the second part of this bonus. Still, if Blizzard could balance (no pun intended) that conversion well enough, perhaps converting surplus hit to crit wouldn't be necessary.

Bonus 3:
Crit Damage - Improves your spell critical strike damage bonus by X%.
This would replace Vengeance in the Balance talent tree. Though I don't know much about the Moonkin playstyle, I know that critical strikes are a large part of it, and this is one of the few boring talents in the Balance tree, so it warrants being converted into a mastery bonus.

Feral:

Bonus 1: Tenacity -
Improves your melee damage by X% in Cat Form and reduces all damage you take by X% in Bear Form.
Since Feral Druids perform two rolls, we would need a dynamic first bonus like this one. The issue would be how to give the two effects different numbers, since a 100% bonus to damage is very different in potency from a 100% damage reduction. Perhaps it could be worded like this: "Damage done (Cat) X% / Damage taken (Bear) -X%"

Bonus 2: Ruggedness - Improves your attack power by X% in Cat Form and your stamina by X% in Bear Form.
This would replace Heart of the Wild, one of our boring talents, and would have the dynamic-ness we Ferals need.

Bonus 3: Bloodlust - Improves the damage of your bleed effects by X%.
Bleeds are an integral part of the Feral playstyle. Lacerate is important for Bears to cause threat and Cats need to keep Rip and Rake on their target to maximize their DPS, so it makes sense for our third mastery bonus to boost our bleed damage. After all, no other class depends on bleeds as much as we do, and the third bonus is supposed to boost what makes each class unique.

Restoration:

Bonus 1:
Healing - Improves your healing by X%.

Bonus 2: Intensity - Improves your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat.
Since Blizzard seems to be intent on priests replacing their Meditation talent with a mastery bonus, it makes sense for us druids to do the same for ours.

Bonus 3: Splendor - Adds an instant healing effect to heal-over-time spells, such as Rejuvenation.
This would make many of our spells better: Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, and Wild Growth would all cause some instant healing when cast, which would probably make the Resto playstyle much more interesting. Regrowth is left out in the cold by this bonus, but perhaps the heal could instantly be applied when Regrowth is cast, but if the cast isn't completed, then the health restored by the instant heal is lost.

2 comments:

  1. What I am most excited about the mastery change is the third bonus. And I think the Feral and Balance bonuses seems to be a bit boring.

    "Bonus 3: A completely unique effect to the given talent tree"

    The restoration bonus is interesting, though it might be a bit hard to scale upwards. And it does remove the uniqueness of regrowth.


    I don't know much about druids, other than the basic spell they use. But I would like too see maybe something "naturey", unique and fun. And obviously not something that just sucks.

    Balance, I would love too see some treant (or roots) summons, which could just act as a passive debuff (much like the Dancing Rune Weapon for Blood Death Knights, no hp can't be killed). But would probably be way too hard to implement properly.

    Feral, is a bit more hard as you need to think both bear and cat.
    As far as with bear, with the change to block and parry, it probably will be some kind of replacement for it.
    Cat, my first thought would be some bonuses for being behind the target, but Blizzard seem to go away from this (which I agree is a good choice, when leveling/solo or in pvp, it's stupid to have). But a passive bleed from special attacks, could be fun, unless it's heavy cc going around.

    Restoration, I like your idea with a kind of opposite of the Holy bonus. And can't really think of anything else.


    I am very interested in how Blizzard go with the mastery, 'unique' is an awesome word. And if they managed to give something that feels unique to 30 different specs. I'll applaud them.

    -ik

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  2. Admittedly, my ideas for Balance and Feral weren't that imaginative, but most of the examples Blizzard has given aren't that imaginative either. The only interesting one I can recall is the Holy Priest one. Sure, that doesn't excuse us from not being creative at this stage in the game, but we have very little inspiration to go on at this point.

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