Patch 4.1 - Druid and PvP Perspective

Well, 4.1 has finally hit the PTR and combing through the patch notes, there are several intersting things that need to be pointed out related to both druids and PvP.  Here are some of the interesting things I have found so far.

1) Zul'Aman is Back - Ok, I know this has nothing to do with PvP, but Zul'Aman is a druid dream.  Every boss from the 10 man raid during BC had to do with druids.  From the bear boss to the lightning boss, all of them were druid related.  I can't wait to get in there and go crazy.  I mean Zul'Garab is cool, but Zul'Aman was my second raid instance ever cleared.  Of course, I wonder if they are going to kill off Harrison Jones again.

2) DKs get a Battle Rez - I will be honest, I never would have seen this.  First of all, they have had Raise Ally for quite some time, but it made you into a ghoul.  Now, it actually brings you back to life.  It is the first time a melee has a rez (Yes, I know feral druids and enhancement shaman melee, but it is the first time a dedicated melee get it.) and it is only the second class to get a battle rez.  After mages got Time Warp, which was equivalent to Heroism/Bloodlust, I guess we should have seen some class was gonna get a battle rez.  I just thought it might be priest or shaman, I never could have guessed DKs would get it.

3) Resilience Scaling - Now, just reading through what they say about resilience scaling, it could be a little confusing.  What is the reason behind this change?  You know that Blizzard said they wanted to stop people from doing the 2 and 2 on dps/healing caster gear to get the additional resilience.  This is partly an answer to that.  Once you get above 32.5% damage mitigation, the effect decreases.  What does this mean?  Assuming season 10 starts around the time of patch 4.1, we are going to want to get our 4 piece bonuses.  In addition, since our resilience will be higher, we may actually want 1 or 2 PvE pieces to allow for more damage.  For healing classes, they will likely want to stick with full PvP gear however since they tend to get focused a little more than DPS.

4) Cyclone Duration Decreased - In 4.0.6, it increased up to 8 seconds.  Then, they hotfixed it back down to 6 seconds.  Now, they are going to decrease it again down to 5.  I'm not really surprised since cyclone is an incredibly powerful spell, but a lot of other traps last 8 seconds.  There should be some way whether a glyph or something to make it longer for PvP use.

5) Starsurge Nerf - As much as I hate to say it and as much as I love 40k hits on players in full PvP gear, this was needed.  Starsurge was incredibly powerful in PvP, maybe overpowered to be exact.  I mean, it is still 32k hits, but at least it is not half of their health bars.

6) Lifebloom Nerf - Having been playing some resto in PvP as my secondary spec, this was unfortunately  needed as well.  If the bloom critted, it was returning anywhere from 35k to 50k health to a player in PvP.  I have been protecting the flag carrier with 2 of the healers down, had a bloom hit, and the flag carrier stayed alive even while they were focused on him.  Now, if I can just remember not to refresh Lifebloom by stupidly hitting buttons until it blooms.

7) Swipe Cooldown Reduced - I don't tank anymore, but I'm sure I speak for all feral druid tanks when I say, Thank the frickin' Lord.  Having to rotate Swipe and Thrash on almost perfect 3 second intervals is tougher than it looks.

8) Solar Beam More Responsive - My favorite CC tool in BGs just got a little better.  I'm hoping that when the notes say "more responsive", it is if any part of the player is in the Solar Beam, it will silence them.

9) Flag Carrying Debuff Changes - I may have been the only person to do this, but as someone who routinely is on offense trying to get our flag back, I smiled a little when I saw the changes to the flag carrier debuff.  It starts off at increased damage of 10%, then stacks 10% per minute.  Plus, they can't run anymore as they are limited to 100% run speed after 7 minutes.  Yes, even druids and their travel form.

10) Battleground Changes - This BG was typically determined in the first few minutes, but not anymore.  They are setting it up now where you get transported to another graveyard instead of the same graveyard where you die.  This means capturing nodes will be a whole lot easier.  However, this also means that defending nodes will be a lot harder and will take a lot more coordination.  In addition, in Twin Peaks, if you die in the enemy base, you will spawn back at your base.  This will give the defending team some time to breathe and get caught up before another assault comes in against their flag carrier.  This is also likely going to change some strategy since you will want to wipe groups coming in at your flag carrier.  

I know these are preliminary notes and I'm 100% sure there are going to be changes along the way.  However, this should give you some idea of what they are planning for 4.1.