Bah, I go out sick for a couple days and the whole world falls to crap... So, lifebloom has been nerfed, along with natural perfection. The actual extent of the lifebloom nerf is unclear atm, but all tolled from the forums is seems slight (e.g. going from 840 live ticks to 790 live ticks), though the exploding coefficient has been increased to compensate... which seems odd if nothing else (e.g. 1400 exploding live to 1600 explode). Natural perfection hurts a little more since the percent of damage reduced has gone from 1/3/5% to 2/3/4%.

The natural perfection nerf does hurt more, since Blizz is destroying our survivability as a healing class. We cannot run away, if anything I would have thought natural perfection to be buffed, not nerfed. However, since Blizz doesn't understand the difference between priests and druids (both healers), they assume that the two talents that are similar should be nerfed similarly. This could not be farther from what is needed. Priests do not die because of a multitude of abilities, not just one talent that reduces the damage they take by 15%, but by that, and pw:s, and ps, and fear, and inner fire.

Druids don't have power word: shield, druids don't have pain suppression, druids don't have an aoe fear, druids don't have inner fire. All tolled, we have running away, and natural perfection. Nerfing natural perfection is a slap in the face, and now we cannot run away (yes, that's right, I got my druid over to the ptr.... hamstrings and shivs... sorry, 'warriors' and 'rogues' can stay on top of us indefinitely now). So our damage mitigation (which was essentially the only thing keeping us up on the ptr now, and it wasn't doing that good a job) has been nerfed by 3%.

"OH, QQ, 3% IS NOTHING, L2P" - Some forum troll

Fine, I'll let go of the 3% damage mitigation from the nerf, but not before I get an ability that ups my armor while in caster form by 1000, and an aoe cc, and a damage reduction ability equal to 60% damage reduction, and a damage absorption ability. Since I don't have any of those things, 3% damage reduction is a big deal, and I need all the reduction I can get.

Rogues got buffed... interestingly. Mutilate now gains 15% crit from the improved backstab ability. I may actually switch my rogue over to a mutilate build for grinding, since it IS insane damage. First, I'll have to find some daggers worth using... then there's a spec to consider... who knows. By the time 2.4 drops, I will probably already be 70...

Oh yeah, feral got an actual buff. Naturing instinct is no longer a take-it-or-leave-it talent. Instead of strength, it is no agility, and it also increases the amount you are healed by 10/20% (per talent point). Man, if ferals had a mortal strike ability and a snare, I would totally roll feral again with my brother's (now permanent) disc. priest... though they only changed that tiny aspect of feral play... there's still a lot more needed for me to reconsider it as viable for arena play.

Ghost wolf is talentable to instant cast... that's interesting... shamangs are the new druids, methinks. Lawl, no not really, since ghost wolf doesn't remove movement impairing effects.

Demonic Knowledge is SLIGHTLY nerfed, but again, it's 3% spell damage nerfed... 4/8/12% from 5/10/15%. That usually equated to something like 125 spell damage, now it's more like 115... my guess is that warlocks won't be qq'ing too much... I know I won't be.

Hunters are still the best class in the game... no nerfs yet... only buffs. Now improved mend pet will remove 1 effect (magic, curse, poison, disease) when used, though I doubt this is a pvp buff... it might be. The only class that beats out hunters for mobility and damage is a rogue, but where a rogue loses is utility. Hunters bring just about the same damage and mobility as a rogue, but with twice the utility in the form of a pet on the healer all the time, a mana drain, snares, and a cc.

My guess is that the best 2s team will be of the hunter+healer variety after 2.4. Why? The answer is simply because mana drains have been nerfed HARD for priests, buffed for warlocks, but warlocks cannot compare to hunter utility, and BoF can only be on one of 'em. Since viper sting (at best) has a 35% chance to get dispelled (yes, that's right... if I cast remove poison, it has a 35% chance to actually remove viper sting), a paladin will spend more mana trying to remove viper sting (on the ptr) than viper sting will purge on its own. Currently, paladin+hunter is the best makeup out there for 2s... and I don't expect it to change much.