2.4 Druid Arena Set Changes

So in case you haven't heard yet, blizzard has changed the 4 piece bonuses on the arena gear for druids, and I presume other classes as well. Before I get into discussing it, take a look:

Restoration (Live):
Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.

Restoration (2.4 PTR):
The casting time of your Healing Touch spell is reduced by 0.25 sec.
The casting time of your Regrowth spell is reduced by .2 sec.

Feral (Live):
Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.

Feral (2.4 PTR):
Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear or Cat form. Only active outdoors.
Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.

Balance (Live):
Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.

Balance (2.4 PTR):
Your Wrath casts have a chance to reduce the cast time on your next Starfire by
1.5 sec.

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These are some pretty big changes to druids that don't even come from ability or talent changes. I'm not at all surprised Blizzard went this route for changing druids (and this certainly won't be all of the changes 2.4 brings).

The restoration change is completely warranted and overdue. Restoration should not have enjoyed the benefits of fast moving feral forms; only feral should have access to that. Changing the bonus to HT certainly doesn't fit with the current restoration playstyle, though perhaps blizzard wants to push naturalist on restoration druids (2.25 HT would be very powerful).  Regrowth is a suitable replacement for the speed bonus, and keeps resto druids with a very small window for spell interruption.

However, the decision to remove the travel speed bonus from the feral set was a poor choice on Blizzard's part. Speed is the one thing that keeps a feral druid alive, and though most of a feral's time is spent in either cat or bear form, travel form is of course still very important for getting distance. Feral druids need to be in melee range to be effective and need to have effective ways of escaping melee range to re-stealth, heal, or CC someone. They don't get the luxury of standing at 30-40yds with easy access to CC that restoration and balance get.  It was a good decision to keep the feral bonus the same.

The balance change could potentially be met with a torrent of cries as well (as the restoration one surely is, suck it resto druids), but it's not that big of a deal. Balance just doesn't run around much, and moving around in moonkin form is usually adequate. Wrath is the primary source of damage for most moonkin, and with starfire at a 1.5 (potentially 1 second on a wrath crit + proc), it becomes a very viable option even with no pushback resistance.