The Druid talent changes coming up in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm are absolutely massive, but that’s to be expected of any major WoW expansion. Feral is getting buffed, Restoration is having its entire focus changed, and Balance is snagging a really controversial talent to its earlier tiers. Talents are really important to any class, but Druid talents are what define exactly what a Druid can do.

You can see a complete list of changes here.

So let’s begin with the most controversial, the Balance tree first before moving on to “nom nom nom” Feral and rooted Restoration trees.

Balance

I’m no expert on Boomkins (or Oomkins, depending on your mood) but I can tell when a talent is completely overpowered. “Solar Beam” seems like a pretty simple talent. It’s an interrupt (something Druids have subjectively needed for awhile now) that summons a beam of light that silences for up to 10 seconds. Now, that seems like a cool talent. Don’t move out of the beam and your mouth will stay shut for a bit.

That’s until we realize that Druids have the ability to root their enemies as well. This means that you can keep a dispeller/healer rooted under the beam for 10 seconds while it’s DPS’d down. Ten seconds is almost an eternity in the arenas, so this talent can become a big game changer if it makes it into the live game.

Euphoria looks to be an interesting talent to play into the Lunar and Solar energy changes coming up soon while Lunar Justice seems to be a great way to give 5-man instances a way to keep that Paladin tank from drinking after every pull.

Feral

Improved Feral Charge is on my list of amazing talents because it gives you Haste in Bear Form (which can be used to generator more rage and threat) but will allow Druids in Cat Form to use ‘Ravage’ without being stealthed. This may not seem like a lot, but Ravage isn’t that was for DPS. When combined with Rip it may be a huge DPS increase for all the kitty cats running around out there.

Primal Gore will become baseline (that’s my understanding anyway) so instead we’ll see Pulverize which will Bear tanks a bit more DPS and Nom Nom Nom which will increase Druid DPS substantially when a target is under 25% health. As a Druid nom noms on its enemy it’ll refresh Rip which will save combo points which can go toward Ferocious Bite which is also beefed up by this talent. I say OM NOM NOM to that.

Primal Madness will replace King of the Jungle and the biggest benefit I see to this is how it increases your maximum energy instead of applying a energy heal in addition to triggering off of Berserk. This makes it a pretty beefy talent in my opinion because there are many times I’ve needed a bit more energy to fire off Berserk but didn’t have it and where I’ve accidentally wasted the Tiger’s Fury energy heal.

Fury Swipes looks amazing as well since it gives you a chance to pull off a second auto-attack. That’s a passive damage increase that I can’t refuse.

Restoration

Tree Druids will want to learn how to press Nourish a lot because the upcoming changes to the Druid Restoration tree are taking a step away from HoTs and three step towards casted heals like Nourish. A good example is Empowered Touch which will make Nourish very powerful and mana efficient giving it wonderful synergy with Lifebloom (it will refresh Lifebloom on a target). Tank healing as a Druid may benefit greatly by these changes, but I’m not sure how group healing will go.

A huge change is Tree of Life is going to become a 5 minute cooldown (improved by talents) that will come with a 50% snare attached to it. This talent will end up rooted in the ground unless the snare is somehow removed or changed since a self inflicted speed decrease in PvP might just be pure suicide. We will have to see if these changes will stick or they’re firmly planted into the ground. The tooltip provided shows that this form only increases damage which I find to probably be a typo.

Efflorescence (which is actually a real word) is a cool ability that’s already been discussed. A bed of flowers will pop up wherever your Regrowth critically hits an ally. This bed of flowers heals for 10% of your Regrowth every second for 7 seconds (or about 70% of the total heal). I don’t know if this will be a gimmick or really viable, but I can’t imagine it hurting toward tank healing or fights with a lot of movement and AoE.

Well that’s a recap of the Druid talents for Cataclysm. Come on over to our Ten Ton Hammer community forums and share your thoughts about these changes.