The Warlock AoE fear is only instant if you've put talent points into it, and it's at the bottom of the Affliction tree.

This is definitely a good change, because before it was a tough spell to land since a druid could get out of range easily within the 1.5 sec cast time before.

I don't see it so much as a Druid nerf, but a Hunter buff instead. Like you said, Druids are vulnerable to the 5 or so other fears in the game, half of which are instant AoEs.

Psychic Scream for preists is instant and AOE.

Feral is a PvE spec. Blizzard has explicitly stated that as long as one tree is viable in competitive arenas and other specs can participate on all levels of game play, things are good.

Restoration druids are viable in arena, so there you go. Feral may not be high end competitive, but it can participate and contribute in PvP. Good luck with that request.

There are 9 classes and 3 specs. That's 27 different combinations. I'd be impressed if they can balance arenas for 9 in the near future, and it's certainly not going to happen for 27.

Also, you're not going to get a lot of love from people playing classes that perceive their most competitive spec as significantly worse than restoration druids.

Fire/Arcane mages got buffed because they literally could not participate in almost any PvP without getting 3-4 shot. Feral druids are just not suffering in this way, and will likely not get buffed.

I just don't know what to say about Balance. People that pick that spec baffle me, and it's less viable than restoration, so I'm just going to lump it in with my thoughts on feral.

Psychic scream also only has a range of 10 yards.

Beastcoil has a range of 30 yards, and when comboed with Scattershot -> Freezing trap, has a capability of locking down a druid for 20+ seconds, EVERY 30 SECONDS.

It does, Murphraven, but the point is that it will be a lot easier to use on them now thanks to the longer ranger and instant cast time.

The point is, it's now going to be instant cast.

Yes, but 10 yard range and 1.5 sec cast. Huge buff to the ability here.

Thanks to everyone for clearing that up :)

Definitely a buff to Hunters.

And so do my flash bombs. They say they have a chance to fizzle, but I haven't seen it happen yet.

I misread that as "flash boobs" and wondered what arena YOU'VE been in....

Yeah, I heard hunters are getting plate too.

The point is that hunters continue to get PVP buff after PVP buff while Blizzard remains seemingly confused as to how to help other classes like shaman. Did hunters really need another set of buffs after that last patch?

Having played a 70 druid, 70 shaman and a 70 hunter, I've been confused by these hunter buffs. When I pvp with my hunter, I get diced up by warriors and rogues. Casters are the least of my worries. I understand that Blizzard is trying to give them a team-based viability, but it would help hunters far more IMHO to give them some anti-melee skills rather than continuing to make them the anti-caster ranged debuff gods.

For the record, yes, resto druids are a little OP, but if you're going to counter that, how about throwing a bone to shaman or mages? Don't give more to those who have already, as seems to be the trend.

You will never see a tree in arena, unless you're in a very low bracket. The lack of mobility kills druids.

Although, as a lock, I propose that there should be more tree druids in arenas! Nothing like banishing their healer! ^_^

It doesn't work on Tree Druids, but the point is that Restoration Druids often resort to Dire Bear Form or Travel Form to defend themselves when focus fired, and a Hunter who is able to fear them in those forms from a long range away will make those defense mechanisms much less dependable.

Tree forms _are_ classified as elementals. What the OP was saying is that now a quick travel form getaway won't work out very well for said druid when a hunter's nearby.

Resto Druids in arena don't use or even talent for Treeform.

Okay thanks for the clarification. I haven't hit arenas yet, and haven't really followed them.