The announcement that druids will be getting Innervate as a core ability in World of Warcraft (WoW) patch 1.11 surprised me. It’s not that I didn’t want it to happen, it’s that I didn’t think Blizzard would actually do it.
The change rather completes the druid review, and is something that should have happened when Blizzard reworked the druid talent trees the first time around. Now that druids can cast Innervate regardless of talent spec (gaining Innervate at level 40), feral druid versatility increased significantly, and balance-specced druids (aka Moonkin) suddenly became much, much better. In fact, making a Moonkin druid just went from being a novelty idea to being a capable build, since the so called “OOMkin” build now has a native method of regenerating mana. Even if the ability requires one to leave Moonkin form, the fact that one can shift to caster form, pound a mana pot, cast Innervate, and re-enter Moonkin form for some offensive spell-casting doom is plain awesome.
Strangely, a lot of restoration druids are whining, likely because they won’t be the favored children for raid groups anymore. Then again, I would argue that if a druid is being invited to a raid group to fill a healing slot, then restoration druids will remain highly sought after, whereas feral and balance druids will still gain favor, since they now offer a group more than before. If a restoration druid complain that making Innervate a core ability means they need to respec, since they don’t have anything unique to offer a group, then they should have rolled priests in the first place; druids are, first and foremost, a hybrid class, not a healing class. Druids should not be relegated to pure healing roles, and the only reason they have been in the past is because there aren’t enough priests in the game.
Suffice to say, if healing is what one wants to do as a druid, there are plenty of talents that remain not only useful, but practically mandatory in the restoration tree. What’s more is that the ability to replace Innervate as a the 31-point restoration talent is an instant heal, giving druids not one, but two instant heal abilties. How that doesn’t make restoration druids more useful is beyond me.
I see the change as a win-win for the druid class, regardless of spec. And, it’s finally made Moonkins viable. Heck, with this ability, Moonkins are the PvP spec for druids.
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