Idea for a New Restoration Druid Spell/Mechanic

Sometimes when I’m with other WoW players that I know (friends or family), we’ll spend time coming up with ridiculous new mechanics, spells, or boss fights. Usually they’re so far fetched and “OP” that there’s no way they’d really work in game or ever be implemented.

However, I recently came up with something that I was rather happy with, and even a little proud of. Mostly since I think it goes with Blizzard’s philosophy of unique and fun mechanics that require some thought on the best time to use them. So after a little bit of refining, I decided to share it with everyone. I’ll admit that I’m a little bit nervous, because I know how critical the community is of things like this… so try to be nice!

When I was initially thinking of the new healing spell, I kept coming back to the Freya encounter and Eonar’s Gift (the trees that she would plant during the encounter that you would need to kill before they bloomed and healed). While it may be a challenging (dare I say fun?) spell to use unchanged from the boss encounter mechanic, I know most players don’t like completely recycled spells.

The next incarnation was as a Light Well type spell, though really all it boiled down to was a Light Well with a different name and graphic. Which may be fun for a little while, but overall it was kind of lame sounding. So I wanted something that functioned like a Light Well, but with a more unique and druid themed mechanic to it.

That lead me to the final idea, which I’m actually very excited about. How it would work is the druid would plant the tree, and it would function like a Light Well. I’m guessing a similar cooldown, click range, charges, etc., but balancing would have to be up to Blizzard really. The difference would be when a player clicks on the tree, they would be rooted in place. The roots would act like Entangling Roots, so you could still do everything besides move (attack, cast spells, etc.). While you’re rooted in place, you would heal for some amount of health every second over 6 seconds (or something similar to that). There are a couple problems I initially thought of: How would a player break the spell quickly if they needed to early (without needing to cancel any auras, or click any “exit” buttons), and how would I keep all of the remaining healing from being completely wasted if someone did need to move early?

My solution to the first problem was simple: make it so if the player moved, the spell broke. Easy as that. To combat someone running while they click on the tree, you could have the first second (maybe even less) of the spell be a permanent root, so it couldn’t be broken unintentionally as it was clicked. To combat all of the remaining healing being wasted if someone moved before the time was up, I thought you could have half of the remaining healing “bloom” on the person when they move. Just to use some fictional numbers: Say the spell heals for 1000 every second over 6 seconds. If someone moved after 3 seconds, they would be instantly healed for 1500. That way you’re not punished for moving early, but it’s still more efficient to stay in the roots for the full duration if you’re able to.

Obviously this spell wouldn’t be great for every single encounter, but ones that come to mind would be fights like Maloriak (red vial phase) and Chimaeron (during Feuds) where the raid is stacked up and doesn’t need to necessarily be mobile except in extreme circumstances,. Even then, the spell accounts for the need to be mobile in a dire situation without a huge punishment.

Recap/TL;DR Version

• Functions like a Light Well, more druid themed (Eonar’s Gift graphic)
• Roots players in place for X amount of time while healing
• Players can break roots early simply by moving (no auras to cancel)
• If player moves early, spell instantly heals for half of the remaining amount

Feedback would be greatly appreciated on the spell. Maybe we’ll see it as our top tier talent at level 90 if everyone likes it enough (I can dream!). If this gets positive enough feedback here, I may have the courage to post it on the official Blizzard forums to really see what people think.

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