I know that this post have already been linked here at the european forum, but I want to have it accessable in an easy-mode so all of you "comfortable" people out there shouldn't have to endure the torment of clicking a link.

This post is long and well written and adresses all of our problems in a mature and constructive way. It deserves to be signed, bumped and cheered at and I will add the link to my signature. I hope more of you will.

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Q u o t e:
The Druid Manifesto

Welcome, my friends. My real name is Sophisto, from the Lightninghoof server. I am posting on this alt because I’ve been wrongfully banned on my account for the letter I wrote to the Mages on the night of November 16. You should know what that date means for us. I feel that this message cannot wait another day. As the Devs and CM’s pay more and more attention to this board, it is absolutely necessary that we have a clear constructive message for them to hear. So with your permission, allow me to speak on behalf of the druids.

For every great revolution, there is always a central document that outlines the common motives of those rising up. It is in these conflicted times that I ask you to lend me just the smallest sliver of credibility for a moment. Allow me to represent the druid community in a clear, constructive, and thorough communication of our criticisms and desires. Some of you may disagree with me in that I am not asking for enough buffs. Others would rather I DIAF, GTFO, STFU, QQ, L2P, or just TLDR.

That’s fine. All I ask is that you read before you criticize. I do not expect you to read all of it, by any means. Pick and choose what interests you, and respond accordingly. Please do not post profanity or raise your middle fingers at Blizzard, or anything like that. I absolutely detest what Blizzard has been doing, but in these times of overbearing censorship, I am more concerned with keeping this topic informative and mature.

To that end, I ask you to give your support to this cause.
When someone asks you what’s wrong with druids, link this thread.
When someone asks you what you expect from the druid class, link this thread.
When someone accuses you of QQ’ing cuz you can’t tank, heal, and DPS better than every class at the same time, link this thread.
When a rogue or warrior accuses you of wanting to steal their job, link this thread.
When someone tells you “if you wanted to DPS, you should have rolled rogue”, link this thread.
When someone says “you rolled a healing class noob, shut up and innervate me”, link this thread.
When someone tells you to “L2P, Druids are fine”, link this thread.
When you see a full-resto druid who thinks they know the only “right” way to play our class, link this thread.

And when you have a bit of free time,
Just come and bump the thread for fun!

Post 1: On behalf of the druids…
Post 2: On the Druid’s Purpose and The Ice Cream Analogy:
Post 3: The “Healing Hybrid” as a highjacked class
Post 3: Rogues, Warriors, and Mages, oh my!
Post 4: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Resto, Feral, and Balance)
Post 5: On Itemization
Post 5: On the Cat Form Range Bug
Post 6: Conclusion
Post 7: A reserve for good measure (Currently the Hall of Shame)


~Sophisto~
60 Hybrid Druid on the Lightninghoof Server

NOTE: I'd like to give a shout-out to Lenwe and Nérmia, who I noticed put up links on the EU druid forums! Keep rockin' it over on your side, guys! ^_^

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Q u o t e:
Post 2

On the Druid’s Purpose

First and foremost, the druid needs to be one fluid class that defined by more than just their spec. No other class has to deal with a complete class redefinition every time they spend their talent points. It doesn’t matter how you spec for a Hunter, Warlock, Rogue, or Mage, you’re still the same class, with very minimal changes to your playing style and gear. When a mage specs fire, his frost spells are not suddenly made worthless. When a rogue specs combat, he does not take stealth off his hotbar just because it is associated with a different tree. I still see Destruction and Affliction warlocks with their pets out. A Fury warrior only has to slap on sword-and-board to tank (Yes, I know warriors carry around different sets of gear, but they do that regardless of their spec, unlike druids). A shadow priest still heals, and heals well. Shamen and Paladins experience perhaps a fraction of what we have to go through in terms of being defined by their spec, but really it’s trivial in that aspect in comparison.

The druid needs to be known as a hybrid regardless of spec. All druids need to be known as a “Jack of all Trades, Master of None”, whether they spec resto, feral, or balance. We should be recognized as fluent shapeshifters. We will, of course, accept weaknesses, but we should not be so dependent on our talents that speccing down one tree completely cripples the other two. As it stands, the druid is too spec-dependent, too dependent on talents to make them good because the core of the class is simply bare.

On why we are where we are: The Ice Cream Analogy:

Let’s think of every class as an ice-cream sundae. When you pick your class on the character selection screen, you are choosing the base flavor of ice cream. When a class spends talents, they are simply adding enhancements, details, augmentations. They are adding toppings, whipped cream, chocolate syrup, a cherry on top, those little things that still make a difference, but are not as important as that solid scoop of ice cream that you started with.

A druid without talents is nothing but a bowl. When we spend talents, we are merely choosing the flavor of ice cream with which to fill the bowl. When we’re done spending our talents, all we have is a plain ole’ scoop of ice cream with only one topping, if we’re lucky. Yes, our talents take us a long way, but only because we had no solid base to start with in the first place. And no matter how we spec, we never get more than a plain bowl of ice cream.

Now other classes would like to point the finger at us and accuse us of wanting to be overpowered. “Look! You can’t have it all! You can’t heal for 3K, with 15K armor, and more DPS than a rogue!!!”
What they must realize is that we are not asking for Blizzard to stuff and cram our bowl with a whole scoop of vanilla, a whole scoop of chocolate, and a whole scoop of strawberry. We are asking for a true hybrid core. We are, again, perfectly okay with being “Jack of All Trades, Master of None! We are, however, tired of being “Jack of One trade, Master of running away”

We are asking for an equal share of the core pre-talent viability that other classes are endowed with. As quaint as it sounds, we are asking for just one solid scoop of this:
http://www.rightangleblog.com/files/Neapolitan.jpg

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Q u o t e:
Post 3

On the “Healing Hybrid” as a highjacked class

If you’re a non-druid, and you’ve followed this far, chances are, you’re either in agreement with me, or you’d like to say something like…

“BUT LRN2REEDURCLASSDESCRIPTION NUB! ‘HEALING HYBRID!’ LOL!”

But what many people refuse to realize is that the druid class was hijacked. People just pull out the Class Description page and automatically assume they’re experts on that class all of a sudden, but they don’t know what issues we’ve faced in the past. The fact of the matter is the rug was pulled out from underneath our feet.

When most people who are druids today rolled their class, they were not morons. Whether they came to the website or looked at the in-game class description, they were told Druids are a ‘Jack-of-All Trades, Master of None Class. "They may be considered as powerful as their parent class, but not necessarily as versatile”. We were completely fine with that. In fact, most of us – despite the more vocal noobs you see now – were fine with being less powerful than our parent classes. We loved the Jack of All Trades concept and were okay with abiding by the limitations that that imposed. But over the past months, that title has been inherited by the Shaman. We went from “Jack of All Trades” to “Powerful healers” to “Healing Hybrid”. In fact, we are now considered “Primary Healers” by our class profile (you’ll find it if you click the general “Classes” page).

Most druids today had NO IDEA that our class would head in this direction, and that is why we are so upset.

Now I understand that Druids are often forced to heal because of closed-minded raid leaders and a shortage of healers in the game. That’s completely fine, because it is a social issue!

IF Blizzard gives us the options to be anything other than healers, and other players pigeonhole their guildies into full resto for raids, it'll still give non-raiders a viable hybrid character, and best of all, we can at least we can say they tried.

It's not about social pressure, it's about the pressure blizzard-side via mechanics and itemization. Even if there were twice as many priests, the other druid specs would still not be viable. And even when you are dealing with a stubborn Pally/Shammy who refuses to be a care bear raid healer, there are still enough resources for their "unpopular" “off-specs” to be competent with that playstyle (albeit outside typical raiding). Not so with druids.

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Q u o t e:
Resources:

Compare todays Druid class profile with this original one
http://web.archive.org/web/20040701165633/www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid.shtml
Look under Weaknesses, the second sentence. This sentence, now under the little "strengths and weaknesses" graph in our description reads simply "Animal forms are not as powerful as their counterpart classes"

Compare todays Shaman class description - "Jack of All Trades.." to this one, which made no pretense to that effect. For all intents and purposes, Druids were the keepers of that role.
http://web.archive.org/web/20041105080711/http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/shaman.html
The above link is as current as The Internet Wayback Machine, would go, Mar 30, 2005

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Rogues, Warriors, and Mages, oh my!

I believe It’s time to ditch the whole “parent class” concept altogether. We also need to stop talking in terms of percentages; such is the new trend in the arguments between druids and rogues nowadays. Enough of this "We should be ___% of Rogue DPS and ___% of warrior blah blah blah!" We cannot expect Blizzard to just wave their magic Percentanator want and make us that. What they can do is complete our class.

Imagine if we did not have to compare our DPS to that of a rogues? Imagine if we were not simply clones of their class. Instead of having the same moves with different names, we could fulfill a slightly different role in such a way that we would never be considered as strong as them in that role, but we would not be infringing upon their territory!

They've shown the ability to do that with our Resto tree. Do you not absolutely love the idea that we are no longer raw big-healers anymore, and that we've developed our own separate playstyle for healing? This is an instance where Blizzard pulled their head out of the "Parent Class" gutter and made us into a true class!

They gave the healing druids parity with other healers IF they specced and geared for it. Nobody will say that a treelol Druid is better than a priest! But it's nice to be close and have a little pizzaz! Actually, you know what they gave Resto Druids? They gave them a little bit of THIS: "May be considered as powerful, but not necessarily as versatile".

Are people crying overpowered? No, because nobody's territory is being infringed upon here! Nobody's role is being stolen! Nobody is getting gimped!

Now what I'm saying is take that same creativity and apply it to our two other trees. Take some of that same creativity, and give Bear/Cat/Moonkin forms some of that same mojo, spice it up a little different so that we're not clones of our "parent class", and you have a solid, non-overpowered hybrid class!

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Q u o t e:
Post 4

On Restoration: The good

The good news is that Restoration is a very complete aspect of our class, and things are only looking better. To make us into strong HOT healers was one of the best decisions that could have been made. There are also enough talents that are useful in Feral forms that allow Resto druids to actually perform other roles besides healing without gimping themselves.

A Modest Resto Wish List:
~ Tree of Life still needs to be able to do more than just cast three spells. Healing Touch should be available, but with no bonuses. This would still encourage druids to focus on an HOT method of healing without gimping the form. Barkskin, roots, and thorns should also be available to make this design not so completely helpless in PVP. If we want to talk about just the most basic common sense, it doesn’t add up that these should not be in there; it’s a tree for Elune’s sake! These additions would not buff the druid in any raiding environment, and would merely make the spec less frustrating to PVP with.

Otherwise, as I’ve said before, good job with the Restoration tree, but it could still use a few tweaks.

On Feral: The bad

Feral has seen a great many improvements in the past few months as we come closer to The Burning Crusade. It is strange to believe, but it is almost at an equal level as the other classes. The best part is that Blizzard actually found a way to truly increase our hybrid ability throughout the Feral tree and the early Restoration tree. In Patch 2.0, I believe a feral druid will be just under equal to the other classes. There are, however, still too many things holding us back, and they will truly begin to show once BC hits.

A Modest Feral Wish List:

~ Scale-ability. We need to be able to scale with other classes as they get more powerful. To this end, we need to be able to benefit from high level enchants and weapon procs (these can easily be normalized to account for Cat Form’s attack speed).

~ A 20-30% reduction of current shifting mana costs. Shifting is THE trademark of the druid class, and we should not be held back from using it because it devours our mana bar like this. A true feral druid should be adept at changing in and out of his forms, and there is no justification for such high cost.

~ Consumables in our Animal Forms. This does not constitute a threat to any other class except in that it gives us more viability in PVP, which as we know, is the Druids greatest weak point. There is no reason why lore should prevent us from having this. There are so many things that animals do in WoW that real animals cannot, and so many ways animals in real life can consume things. We can argue about this until it becomes silly, but the point is that it is a necessary step towards balance.

~ The biggest buff Feral druids could receive right now is actually a FIX. See "Cat Form Range Bug" for details.

~ The 21-point tier in the Feral tree is completely lackluster and unrepresentative of the traditional 21-point talent decision of other talent templates. The easiest way to fix this is to make Feral Faerie Fire a trainable skill and make Nurturing Instinct a passive 1-point talent. This gives Nurturing Instinct the same enticement that nearly every other 21-point talent, just like Nature’s Swiftness, has. It would make even resto-heavy druids contemplate taking a true hybrid route.

~ Re-instate Improved Leader of the Pack as a 3-point talent. The aura provides much needed raid viability for feral druids. It would be justifiable if the 6% was reduced only for Bear Form, but as it stands the nerfed version does very little for cat form and the rest of the raid. Remember, when we are in our animals forms, we cannot do anything except be a weaker version of another class. Even a buff that may seem overpowered is not.

These simple changes, supported by conscious itemization would bring the Feral tree to lasting parity with the other classes to and through the expansion. Again, we are not looking to steal anybody’s jobs.

On Balance: The ugly

There is perhaps no other more convoluted, confused, and outright useless class/spec combination in the game. The most tragic part about it is that it is so close to having a true identity of its own. As it stands the Moonkin may truly be a force to be reckoned with in PVP, especially since Blizzard recently addressed the problems that balance druids had with being interrupted. Additionally, there is also a nice bit of magic resistance with Balance of Power. I was even glad to see that the Meleekin aspect of the balance tree was a possibility with Omen of Clarity still accessible and the pseudo-Judgement of Wisdom buff in Moonkin Form.

Regardless, there are still way too many things holding the balance druid back. There is still not enough raid viability, and it is a build that is overall gimped both in PVP and in PVE. Fortunately, just a few small changes would bring the Balance druid up to equal parity with the rest of the classes.

A Modest Balance Wish List:

~ The swing timer reset function needs to be completely removed when in Moonkin form. It is okay if it remains for other forms, but with to have so many great incentives to be a Meleekin completely blocked because of this ridiculously annoying feature is simply tragic.

~ For the sake of Raid Viability, and for making the Meleekin into a true spec, the utility of Improved Faerie Fire needs to be doubled.

~ The Treants need to go. They’re silly and useless. That is all. Try again.

If I may be so bold as to suggest a 41 Point Balance talent of my own?
Nature’s Balance: Allows the druid access to all spells in Moonkin Form.
Simple as that. An enticing 41 point talent that does not overpower the moonkin. Keep in mind that we had to give up a LOT of utility to go that far into the tree, including Reflection and Omen of Clarity (remember, we’re assuming Meleekins would have otherwise been a viable build in this scenario too) and the spells we’d be casting would not be as powerful as a true Resto’s.
In any case, that's just my own indulgence in talent-crafting; that's probably the least serious bit of my post, heh.

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Q u o t e:
Post 5

On Itemization:

It is too late to really criticize the way that itemization for druids was handled in the original game, though this topic alone could go on for pages. However, in terms of itemization that is coming in the Burning Crusade, Blizzard needs to make sure that there is enough variety and parity to accommodate all playing styles.

Druids are of such a unique nature that they cannot be held back by the traiditional numerical stat limitations that normally determine the max amount of attributes an item ought to have. When at no point are we able to fully take advantage of our stats, we cannot limit them to such a quota as may be applied to other classes. Druid armor needs to be handcrafted; end of story.

Just about every other piece of druid armor that I have seen from TBC is absolutely dismal. I mean, between Gift of the Wild, Survival of the Fittest, and Nurturing Instinct, there are 10 talents in the tree that play off our Strength stat. What do you see in the rest of Feral TBC itemization? “Attack Power in Feral Forms”, and zero strength!
Feral ATK power is completely useless to us!

I will say, however…
The armor sets available from the Arena are absolute gold. The thought that went into the Tier 4 armor sets was brilliant (although I could argue that I and probably many others suggested this very same system a year and a half ago). Whoever designed these sets truly understands the roles of the druid class. It is also impressive that even the feral sets had Intelligence in them, because no druid should ever ignore the other forms that his class has access to. We are not just rogues in fur. Put whoever designed these sets in charge of revamping Druid armor for the entire game.

On the Cat Form Range Bug

I feel this has been a problem for such a long time that I can’t NOT address it here.

Let me first explain just what the Cat Form Range Bug is:

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Q u o t e:
The druid attacks originate from the center of the catform model.

However, the druid moves from the front of the catform model. If you shift to catform, and spin around without moving, your hindparts will rotate around your head. It's easy to verify this.

This creates a few problems.

First of all, it is counterintuitive, as when you place your head next to a target, you are in fact father away than any other melee class, since it's the center of your body that attacks. This is why many serious druid pvpers replace that catform model with a bipedal one. Even a hacked-up model is better for pvp than the default one.

Secondly, when chasing a target that does not move in a straight line, you have a VERY serious problem. You turn about your head, but you attack from the body. That means that when someone circle kites you, the path you take to follow them will never bring your body into alignment to attack, since the center of your body follows a wider circle than your head when you are running in a circular path.

The combination of all these issues (body-attack/head-movement discrepency, short special attack range, latency, great speed) can make landing an attack on a circle kiting opponent almost impossible. Personally, I can reproduce the issue at will. All I have to do is tell an opponent to run in a tight little circle, and try to chase him down.

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Now as you guys recently discovered, Noggenfoggers was nerfed so that it breaks upon shapeshifting. For many druids that was the only way to deal with a bug that Blizzard has refused to address for two years.

Regarding this, among very outraged posters, a concerned druid wrote:

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Q u o t e:
you dont seem to understand that it was the only fix to the cat form range bug....the one where your head has to be 3 feet in front of them to ravage....yeaa....that...

noggenfogger fixed that. we had to use noggenfogger to fix it because the devs wouldnt fix us. way to take away the only fix we had. /bitter

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[A certain CM who will remain unnamed so this post doesn't get locked]:

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Q u o t e:


It seems it would be more appropriate then to place your anger/concern on the correct issue.

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This is the most recent slap in the face in a repeated history of slaps-in-the-faces that Druids have received regarding this issue. Let me give you a rough timeline of how this issue has gone down.

We complained. A lot.
The Cat Form Range Bug was placed on the list of "Acknowledged Bugs" in the bug report forums.
We celebrated.
A few months afterwards, the issue suddenly disappeared off the "Acknowledged Bugs" list.
We celebrated. Again.
Then we logged in, and realized that nothing had changed. The bug was not touched, it simply disappeared.
We asked why this happened; no answer.
We kept a thread running in the bug report forums. It stayed on the front page for NINE MONTHS!!!
We documented video evidence, we petitioned, we gathered verbal reports, we made an INDISPUTABLE case for why this was a bug.
Not lag.
Not the same issue rogues experience.
A bug.
We gave up hope, we rerolled, we respecced, we gave up PVP'ing, or we adapted through Noggenfogger (if we could afford it)

Then I. Yes, I, personally made a post in the Test Realm Forums asking Hortus to please look further into this issue. I explained the issue in depth, provided links to other posts, etc...
Hortus replied!
Hortus actually replied in my thread that he had actually, after extensive testing, SUCCESSFULLY REPRODUCED this issue!!! He said he would keep us updated on any new developments.
The druid community could not have been happier! I linked this post to the other druids and rounds of hurrahs all around!
Two weeks later, all trace of evidence, all semblance of acknowledgement of this issue vanished. Why? Because as fate would have it, the new WoW forums were implemented, deleting all previous record of this.
The Cat Form Range Bug issue went from "Acknowledged" to nonexistant TWICE!
So again, We gave up hope, we rerolled, we respecced, we gave up PVP'ing, or we adapted through Noggenfogger (if we could afford it)

And now we are told we should direct our anger elsewhere? Why should we even bother posting it on the bug report forums now? We had it on the front page of the bug report forums for nine months! When the threads broke from being too popular, we made a new one! We persisted through calm and reasonable argument, and got nowhere! We have yet to receive an answer.

Exhibit A: http://blue.cardplace.com/cache/wow-realm-test/356009.htm

This is a game-breaking bug and can not be ignored any longer.

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Q u o t e:
Post 6

Conclusion

So now I must ask you, weary reader, are the things that we are asking for unreasonable? Would they make us overpowered? Remember that even if everything we asked for in this wish list were granted, no one druid could benefit from more than ½ of those buffs! Are the problems I outlined not real ones? Are my claims ungrounded? Are my arguments unsound? Am I misinformed? Should I DIAF, GTFO, STFU, QQ more, or L2P?

I think I fairly represent the Druid community when I say that our class needs to be re-examined, thoroughly, completely, and honestly, once and for all.
Thank you.

And a special thanks to my girlfriend, without whom's account I could not have been able to post =P
See ya'll when I'm back from exile!

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Please sign and show your support!

I'll add the same message I did to the other thread:

Constructive, polite, well thought-out feedback on the major issues facing druids. Vaneras, I presume this is what you are after when you 'told us off for being naughty'.

Will it be read and passed on to the relevant people though? The evidence it contains on the cat range bug suggests it might....Will it be acted on? The evidence it contains on the cat range bug suggests it wont.

Substitute italics for one of many other druid bugs/problems/issues covered in this elegant post, or in many others, and you get to the heart of our frustration. You say you would like constructive feedback, and that you will pass it on. Druids have been doing so for a long, long time - nothing happens.

Read the post, and then honestly tell us how you would maintain good humour, enthusiasm and politeness having been ignored and forgotten so often and for so long.

Yes, your wishes are unreasonable. Shut up and heal me :)
EDIT: Also, potions in forms is unreasonable. If a bear tried to open a pot, he'd just break it, and as for cats... broken glass inna face.

Very good reading. Made me change my view on somethings. The only thing I didnt concur with really was the talent to give Moonkin access to all spells. In case the 41 talent should be replaced, it should be some unique damage talent. But then again, I have never been Moonkin specced so other druids maybe can answer this better.

And no, you people cant justify your crying instead of discussing constructive. Learn to deal with life.

Nice posts.

Good read...
Yup, /signed and all that ;)

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Q u o t e:
Yes, your wishes are unreasonable. Shut up and heal me :)
EDIT: Also, potions in forms is unreasonable. If a bear tried to open a pot, he'd just break it, and as for cats... broken glass inna face.

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Oh, so a dual wielding warrior beating at a mob and popping a potion is completely realistic?
Cut the realism crap. It is a fantasy game, not a documentary movie.



http://www.darklegacycomics.com/51.html

edit: typos

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Q u o t e:
http://www.darklegacycomics.com/51.html

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Rofl!

Bing able to cast heals just like in the oomkin sounds overpowered methinks. Add a penalty percentage or something (like 80% of normal) and it would be really nice.

In general, good post, and I agree.

it is a very well written post. The trouble is because it doesn't contain an ascii finger I doubt it will get read by a CM let alone ackowledged to have been read and let alone the information contained within it passed onto the dev team.

So come on Vanares - lets see you post here saying you have read it. You don't have to agree with it but it sums up perfectly what the majority of druids would like to be.

You gain my support.

Excellent post, Can't see how this can be ignored/filed away.

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Q u o t e:


Oh, so a dual wielding warrior beating at a mob and popping a potion is completely realistic?
Cut the realism crap. It is a fantasy game, not a documentary movie.



http://www.darklegacycomics.com/51.html

edit: typos

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Haven't you seen those hat's with drinks cans attached with straws? Oh yeah.
Anyway, I 100% Disagree with the Balance talent mentioned.

Very good read! I thought it was a well thought out, balanced and thorough analysis of the Druids bugs/issues.

Excellent post! :)


P.s. I'm not one to whine, but I hope that any kindhearted devs will read this and take into serious consideration the suggestions made here. ;D

Totally agree with the post.
And as a 41 Balance talent I would suggest an aoe dmg similar to arcane explosion but more powerfull since its a 41 talent!