Rewind to a year ago...Follow

It's nice that you get to pick abilities regardless of your specialization, but it's not so nice that they're taking game-changing core abilities away from some classes and forcing them to choose between them.

I'm not looking forward to a game where my Druid has to choose between Feral Swiftness (renamed Feline Swiftness) and Feral Charge (renamed Wild Charge). Both are absolutely crucial in PvP. Feline Swiftness gives a passive movement speed buff, which is a must have because Blizzard, seven years in, still haven't fixed the hitbox issue with Druids in Cat Form and Shred's positional requirement (you end up behind someone and can't hit them despite being within physical range). The other, Wild Charge, is a must have because Druids don't have a true gap closer in MoP with Feral Charge being removed. Dash and Roar won't prevent you from being lolsnared ad nauseam while you try to catch the backpedaling Huntard and his immortal (wtf?) pet.

So I can choose between a gap closer that I've had for the last many, many years, or a passive moment buff that fixes a bug that will be eight years old by the time MoP comes out.

Why, thank you.

Alternatively, I can get a Blink'n'Vanish talent that'll come in handy as I can't catch anything...

Edited, Mar 23rd 2012 4:34pm by Mazra

I have no doubt they'll balance PvP around the changes, but that doesn't mean I should like the changes. They're removing abilities that Druids have had for the last many years and are forcing us to choose between them. I don't care if Ferals get nerfed to the ground in terms of damage output and mitigation. I don't do professional eSports. What I care about is that they've given us a bunch of stuff over the last seven years and now they're taking it away again.

A Protection Warrior will have a lot more mobility and utility than a Guardian Druid. A Rogue will have a lot more mobility and utility than a Feral Druid. What's the point of playing a Feral/Guardian if the other classes do it better? Up until MoP, the point was that Druids sacrificed raw output for versatility. Some ****** with a calculator messed up when they designed the Mastery bonuses and Druids went from being versatile, but weak, to versatile and the only class capable of killing Frost Mages.

Clearly not okay, so here we are.

Less utility gives you more flexibility? I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this, because in my books it's the other way around. Regardless, more flexibility is fine, but Druids aren't getting more flexibility to counter the loss of utility. Quite the opposite, actually. Feral is being split into two and you have to choose between survivability or damage. You can get a talent at level 90 that makes you sort of a hybrid, although a **** poor one, but you sacrifice being able to shift out of roots if you choose it, which is clearly a no-go in PvP.

Call me pessimistic and a whiner, but I've yet to read or hear anything about my main class that makes me want to resubscribe. All I'm hearing is that they're removing utility, limiting our versatility (and thus flexibility) and giving us some gimmicky glyphs for compensation. Not exactly easy to maintain a positive look on it.

Also, pandas.