Druid Predictions for 2009

First let me say that the batteries in my crystal ball went out just yesterday. The timing is uncanny. So I am going to have make all this stuff up.

So without further excuses that I can point back to a year from now when everything I say here turns out to be wrong, in order of the impact they will have, least to most, here are my 5 Druid Predictions for 2009!

Resto will be way overpowered, for a minute.

Ghostcrawler has talked about a healing revamp for all classes, a major overhaul, several times. Although the most dramatic early ideas will get tossed out, some major fundamental changes are going to come down toward the end of the year.

Somehow, someway, Druid healers are going to end up in an overpowered state briefly, like Bears were very early in BC. The nerf, er fix, will come quickly, bringing us back in line with other healing classes. But for a brief moment, Resto Druids everywhere will bask in the glory of God Mode healing.

Bears will become stamina driven tanks.

As we move through Ulduar, post armor nerf, Bears will more and more seek out straight up hitpoints in the absence of the high levels of mitigation they used to enjoy. By the time we get to Arthas (which may not be in 2009), there will be a screenshot floating around the web of a Bear with over 100,000 hitpoints. Said Bears will take atrocious amounts of damage, but will be highly sought after in raids nonetheless. Healers will be using their biggest heal bombs, and sweating bullets.

Cat DPS will flatten out. Badly.

Post Naxx/Sartharion/Malygos, cat DPS will once again scale poorly. Sound familiar? In BC, cats did great DPS through about mid tier 5 content. By mid tier 6, their DPS was so low compared to other comparably geared DPS classes, they became a waste of a raid spot.

I remember topping 6k AP in Hyjal, and struggling to put out 1200 DPS. This was while lesser geared rogues were hitting 2k DPS. Six. Thousand. Attack Power. That was when I hung up the catsuit and went Boomkin.

This will be repeated in Wrath of the Lich King. Scaling, scaling, scaling. Not.

Eclipse will be changed.

Talk to five different high DPS Boomkins, and you will get five diffferent opinions on how good Eclipse is or is not, everywhere from "gotta have it" to "what a waste".

What I would love to see happen, and almost certainly will NOT happen, is this: If you are casting Starfire when Eclipse procs, it gives you the... make sure you are sitting down... the Starfire buff! Same for Wrath! OH SNAP! That makes too much sense. Far better to try to artifically force Boomkins to alternate between Starfire and Wrath in some wacky chase-down-the-proc-ah-crap-I-missed-one-cast-and-GCD-gonna-emo-and-kill-myself-now kind of thing right?

Although they will not use this all too sensible solution, Eclipse will see a significant change of some sort. In the end, after much heated debate and incredibly deep theorycrafting, it will still be no better or worse than it is now.

Power.

While this will be announced but not impelemented in 2009, everything is going to really hit the fan as a result.

Remember how we had +heal and +spell damage gear? As you know, that was changed to spell power.

This will taken one more step. Blizzard will announce that Attack Power and Spell Power will consolidated in to one single stat: Power.

That Pally Plate that gets sharded every week will be great for a DPS Warrior. Hunters will be rolling against Resto Druids for gear! WTB Main Hand Warglaive for my heal or nuke set?