To my treeform, I heal therefore I shapeshift! Dammit Blizz, give me back my treeform, I’ve not logged into warcrack since 4.0.1 dropped (I’m not sure the realms are up yet) but I’m missing my proper healing form already.
The only plus is that MMO Champ have datamined some new TOL forms from the current beta build, so finally Blizz give us a new model and then tell us that we can only have it for 30 seconds at a time.
Gee, thanks.
Now that’s done let’s have a look, on the plus side we’re seeing the new shiny, more polygons, more detail, generally better in that regard. It’s not a friendly free, hell it looks even grumpier than the previous form. It’s falling in with the Ancient model so there’s some consistency across the land of druids but I’m not entirely convinced. For starters it looks like it’s a hunchback, while I can see some logic to a top heavy design (have a look at an oak or any similar tree, all of the ‘size’ is at the top) this seems a little ‘odd’ in the balance of the form. It’s too solidly top heavy for my tastes.
However we know that the first model mined out of a build isn’t always the final version, so we can only hope this is a first (if somewhat complete) stab at a new form and that they’re planning on a minor glyph for those who wish to retain tree form while healing.
[Edit: Larísa over at the Pink Pigtail Inn has a good point I hadn’t thought of, this is a change in the mechanics for PvP, though I have to admit that I rarely used ToL in battlegrounds anyway as it’s enough of a “Oi! Kill Me!” flag to be standing at the back waving your hands without being a tree, but for some people this will be a good mechanic change]