Sunday, January 27, 2008

Seal Form Go!

Well, it was my challenge, so I should give it a go, right?

What do you mean, what challenge?! Well, here it is:

Challenge:
Hypothetical situation: Blizzard has introduced a new underwater zone to WoW. Due to this, they start giving all classes underwater abilities. The druid seal form is now utilized for more than simple travel.
Your goal: Design abilities for the seal form! Is the seal a healer? Magical dps? Physical dps? Tank? Utility? CC? Something entirely new?

I'm going from the tank point of view, grabbing a bunch of different ideas from tanks all over. But not just any tank; a tank with CC.

I'd revamp the seal's abilities, for instance, and, in keeping with the other forms, give it a nice new aura.

Shapeshift into aquatic form, increasing swim speed by 50% and allowing the druid to breathe underwater, increasing melee attack power by 120, armor contribution from items by 400%, and Stamina by 25%. Also protects the caster from Polymorph effects. Grants members of your party within 40 yards the ability to breathe under water. Allows access to several seal abilities.

What? You just copy pasta'd the bear's abilities into there and added some fancy aura for breathing as if you have gills! Absolutely. Bears are tanks because of this, therefore, a seal tank needs it.

Now, on with the skills.

We're giving seals Mangle, 'cause they need it. In place of lacerate, though, they have:

Harpoon - Hit enemy for a high amount of threat. Causes 200 bleed damage over 20 seconds.
It's a lacerate without the initial damage and a longer duration. Not a big change, but necessary.

For the Pod - Charge an enemy attacking a comrade, stunning the enemy for five seconds.
That's right, it's a charge that only works if an enemy goes loose. Why? The warriors would QQ if we got everything good.

Next we have Bite, your run-of-the-mill damage attack. La-dee-da.

Fin Slap - Interrupt an enemy's spell cast and prevent spells of the same school from being cast for three seconds.
Standard interrupt.

Puncture Lung - The target begins drowning for three seconds and is unable to move or use any abilities. Fifteen minute cooldown.
Drowning does a lot of damage. Even three seconds of this is hurtful. And since they're unable to move or cast, it's gonna hurt. Thus the extensive cooldown.

But you said there was CC!
I'm getting to it.
Ah...here we go.

Bubble Breath - Encase enemy target in a bubble, preventing them from moving or using any abilities. Breaks on damage.
Yep! It's the druid's very own CC, underwater though it may be. I can already hear the shaman crying.

What about a tank's "oshi-" button? Well, here it is.

Natural Selection - Player gains 10% temporary health and 50 haste rating for fifteen seconds. All physical debuffs are inactive for these fifteen seconds. At the end of the fifteen seconds, the debuffs will resume as normal.
Wow! That's crazy! Yep, it'll make druids the must-have-tank for all these water encounters. And it will be sweet, sweet victory.

It's all gonna be nerfed in a couple patches anyway.

Others who answered the challenge:
Swiftpaw
Tabdruid

3 comments:

Exanimo said...

Warriors would sink with all that plate anyway :P

Bell said...

@exanimo - totally. Pallies too!

alibaba said...
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