I stayed quiet back in the day about tree form because I knew that my QQ would not solve anything. But here it is now, 4.0.1, and I’m gonna level with you:
The change to tree form fucking sucks.
HULK TREE SMASH!
That’s right, folks. I didn’t become a druid healer so I could stand around as a sissy elf1 and squirt green flowers out my elfy fingers. I can do that as a priest, or a pally, or a shaman. Well, sissy night elves can’t be pallies or shaman, but you get the idea.
WTF. I'm supposed to inspire healing juju with fucking antlers?
No, ladies and gentlemurlocs, I play a druid to shapeshift. It’s what the class is all about. It’s about doing different stuff in your forms than what you do when you’re not in your forms. Ok, I realize that shapeshifting into a cat or a bear is a whole lot more different in abilities than shifting into a tree or a fat owl,2 but still… it’s shifting.
When I go against Eressea sissypants in TOC-5, I can’t be polymorphed.
When I get rooted by a boss, I shift out of tree form and continue on my merry way. I don’t have to miss a beat by shifting in-and-out of cat to do that.
I don’t miss that I’m disadvantaged relative to other healers because I have to shift to do damage. Damage isn’t my job. Besides, treepunches are awesome. I don’t care that I can’t see my stupid armor because it looks exactly like everyone else’s tier gear.
Now I'm a unique snowflake.
What’s my point in all this? What’s my plan? TL;DR: Since I can’t be a tree anymore, I won’t be healing on my druid anymore. I’m going back to priest healing and the druid will be a cat. You know, cat form. It’s a shapeshift. Like what druids are supposed to do.
I’m not quitting the game, but this is a form of voting with my feet.3 I don’t like the not-tree, so I shall boycott it.
Courtesy of Keeva at Tree Bark Jacket
I login last night with no addons and no talents and set about to get my cat spec settled, trying not to think about the travesty that has happened to our trees.
In contrast to the beautiful sparkly tree-gatherings that apparently happened last night (see Priest with a Cause and Bear-y Leafy Kitty’s accounts), I see multiple elves in boring elf form testing their puddles of radioactive green healing pee. It looked foul. It looked like an infernal threw up.
I want my form back, you can have your damn puddles.
Edit: Now ghostcrawler says…
Art is very subjective. We’re very used to the phenomenon of half of a class loving say their tier set art and the other half thinking they are the worst thing ever.
Messing with player models is always risky and we know the current Tree of Life model is one of those things that is either loved or hated. That is why, as promised, we are offering a minor glyph if you just prefer the older, treant-based, version of ToL.
Rly. A minor glyph. To change the appearance of a cooldown-based tree. I’m underwhelmed.
“As promised” my heiney. The idea that was floated was a minor glyph to allow us to look like trees full-time, not this pathetic change to the cooldown-form. Epic. Fail.
I won’t be able to login to see the changes until next week, but I loved being a tree. It was my favourite thing about playing a druid. (I only took up SQUAWK as a sideline). I’m sorry, Zel.
You’re not missing much this week. Addons are borked, and I crashed to desktop twice after attempting to go to moonglade. Plus all the warlock pet names got re-randomized. You’re probably best off on vacation right now.
Thank you! I agree 100%. I am so not happy with the cooldown. They took it away so we could be like every other healer. I keep telling other players that I am upset because I am a DRUID and I play one to SHAPESHIFT! Not to run around as a Night Elf…Plus they want us to be able to do damage and heal. Here is what I say, if I wanted to DPS I would play a DPS.
If they want to get rid of one form, why not get rid of them all? They all limit you to what you are speccd to do. But…Blizzard will not see it that way because there are too many complainers about the form. You may have anyother with you for the boycott!
Tree punch is AWESOME!
Honestly, Blizzard should know better than to take stuff away from people after adding it. But healing as an elf doesn’t feel “druidy” to me either.
And what’s this crap about healing AND dpsing. Like we healers don’t have enough to worry about, now we’re supposed to do 2 jobs? No thanks. But if you ask a DPS to decurse, their little brains explode.
I play a druid for the hots, not the tree form, so I fully intend to stick with Jen in Cataclysm too. I’m sad for tree form, I hate the new one, but it’s the hotty goodness that makes druids my favorites <3 From what I tried on the beta, things haven’t changes *that* much, so I can’t wait to enjoy my floaty leaves in the next expansion!
)
(…and at least I have my Sproutling
Yes, I feel like the hots are staying largely the same, though the “lifebloom on only one target” restriction would really cramp my style.
I *never* used LB, so the idea of having to use it even on one target is foreign to me
I never even bothered trying to cast it on multiple targets. When/if I ever used LB, it was on the tank I was assigned to and that’s it, though it most cases I just never bothered to begin with.
Lifebloom was fabulously useful as a 2nd hot on a person taking damage who was about to go out of range. Like when they get fire-feet on Jaraxxus.
It makes me sad that this change is upsetting people so much, but I love healing in caster form. I do hope they put in a glyph or something to allow people to be trees if they choose, but I hate tree form so much. When I rolled a druid it was not to be a tree. There was no tree. I was happy. Then came the patch that added it. Like the people who are crying about no tree form now, I cried (silently to myself in a corner – I didn’t blog back then) that I would have to look at the ugly tree all the time.
I know you don’t want to hear this, it hasn’t convinced anyone else who is upset about the change, but here goes anyway. Yes, druids are supposed to shapeshift. We still do. I think cooldown-based shapeshifts are a huge improvement. Actively shapeshifting in order to get a benefit (like superpowered heals) is much more interesting than just being in a form all the time. As it was, we weren’t really shifters. We stayed in tree form 99% of the time in a raid, there was very little shifting done.
I did do a lot more “shifting” while leveling to get the most out of my toon (often to avoid death). The nature of raiding unfortunately makes it so that flexibility of role (such as shifting) isn’t really an option. Hell, they’ve bloated the feral tree so you have to choose between cat and bear per spec.
I miss my tree already. I haven’t decided to switch yet, and my druid is the only healer I have on my new server (but I am well stocked for heirlooms and, well….) and I still love hots.
But UGH, the new tree? So UGLY
Hmm. Perhaps I’ll modify your stance and refuse to ever use new ugly TOL. Might get me kicked from raids though.
Hey the old tree was ugly too. I don’t have any illusions that it was attractive. But that’s what druids DO. Besides, most hordies are ugly anyway and that didn’t stop them.
I always thought my tree was cute, in a “well, it’s an uprooted tree that spends most of its time in dungeons, what do you expect” sort of way. But more importantly, it was gender neutral. This new monstrosity? Totally male, and worse, OLD male. Bleah. Not Happy.
Apparently you can now glyph it to the old model (I edited the post) but it’s STILL cooldown-based.
I’m very sorry for your loss, Zel. I have a good friend who plays a resto druid and who is also mourning the loss of his tree form. It will take a while to get used to seeing him in night elf form.
I hope this change won’t keep you from healing on your druid ever again. It would be a shame for you to completely give up a playstyle you are obviously passionate about.
Good luck with your priestly and kitty endeavors in 4.0.1 and beyond!
I totally agree with you, as do many of my other tree friends. I’ll probably play my druid much less now. I rolled her to shapeshift. The minor glyph fix will satiate me, I guess. I like the idea of looking like my old tree form, then going into the new tree form at times, like some kind of HULK TREE SMASH. Or as Treebarkjacket once said, “Hold still while I HEAL YOUR FACE OFF.”
I play on Wyrmrest Accord, and you should have SEEN the massive goodbye to tree form at the fountain in Dal the night before the patch. Horde and Alliance alike, all the resto druids (at least 100) and resto druid supporters gathered and danced the night away, with food and brewfest brew, and fireworks, and many teary farewells to our favorite form. I have screenshots and all. My desktop background is now of my last glimpse of my Jezre in her best form.
As I read it (and I could be wrong) the minor glyph applies only to the cooldown-based tree form cosmetic. Like changing polymorph to penguin. As far as I know it does not affect how you look when you’re ordinarily casting and the new tree form cooldown is not activated.
I feel the same way as all you fellow tree druids. I’m really partial to the form probably because its a distinction Ive grown to know and love between druid heals and other healers since I started healing during BC. I’m pretty much disappointed that they changed the form mechanics but I don’t think I’ll give up healing entirely. Resto was my main spec but I think Ill focus more on my feral spec now…even though ferals have their own problems of sorts. All in all I would definitely be down for a boycott against the cool down but I also share sentiments with Hyacintha and would like to encourage others not to give up on the spec entirely.
I have to admit, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like what happened in the patch, but I shift in and out of form constantly. On deathwhisper, I’m first to CC mind controlled folks; on Saurfang, I’m happy to root the heck out of the blood beasts. I feel like the instant cast regrowths make the tree form more powerful so I’m content with the changes for now and when they upgrade us to look like an ancient… as Keeva said in one of her earlier articles, “I’m gonna heal your FACE off!”
I would, however prefer that they allow the resto druids out there who still love their tree form to keep it. Even though I support the change, I can’t say they’ve done a particularly good job with the tier 10 druid armor. We look like a big furry turd with antennae. Perhaps if that wasn’t the case, we’d be less reluctant to lose our form.
I don’t think I can give up on my resto spec but I can definitely understand why you’d want to. All of the arguments against ToL I’ve heard have still failed to convince me, especially since they can mostly be applied to moonkin form as well. (Which, btw, I heard referred to in a blue post as “much loved by the playerbase, which is why we are unsure about modifying it”. Oh ok.)
It’s incredibly disheartening to heal heroics now, surrounded by bears and kitties and moonkins, and there’s me in the back. What is she, a shaman? No, must be a druid with that tier helm. I remember when I used to zone in and someone would ask “who’s heals?” and the answer was always “the tree, duh”. I’m missing in sorely!!
“I see multiple elves in boring elf form testing their puddles of radioactive green healing pee.”
This made me laugh so hard I nearly had my own puddle to deal with. Epic.
This brings to mind an old screenie:
Noooo! Don’t go cat! Cat DPS is embarassing ATM. Give me partial tree-dom over close to worst DPS class/spec anyday.
Gobble gobble.
I have total faith that Kitteh will be fixed. In fact, I think they fixed it while I was sleeping.
I don’t quite understand the reasoning behind the change, but admittedly I haven’t kept up to date. I know at one point I read something along the lines of that it was such a shame that druids didn’tn get to show off their gear cause they were trees.
I’m sure there is more to their reasons though because that’s one of the worst reasons I’ve ever heard, considering that they’d then have to add a cd to catform, bearform and all other shapeshifts too. Which would remove the entire idea behind the druid. To me a druid shifts, so why wouldn’t they have a form for restoration when every other tree/specialisation has one.
Showing off your gear is a lame excuse, in my opinion, since everyone looks the same in their tier gear. If we could look prettier, then that reasoning might have some validity. They could have just changed leaf color based on hair color. A change I could make (poorly) in 5 minutes with a spray can in MSPaint.
I’m loving my mage, and look forward to polymorphing some dame Druids now. Muhahaha
/shakefist
DAMN YOU SISSY MAGE.
Though I guess better to be polymorphed by a mage than banished by an evil toad warlock, eh?
I was so sad the glyph will only change the CD, I was truly hoping that it would replace NE casterform and the ToL cd would be the new treeform they were giving us:(
And yes my druids name is Fencepost, wood only in name now it seems