So I read a lot of druid blogs, mostly of the resto variety. Also for some reason their seem to be a lot more resto blogs out there then feral and moonkin combined. This'll be broken down by mechanics versus flavor (ie the Tree of Life change) and at the end I'll give a full write up of my thoughts both on the mechanics for Trees and the ToL change, feel free to skip it if you're just into the info.
Mechanics (a few of these, okay most of them, will have discussion about the flavor of the Tree of Life change in addition to going over the mechanics):
Big Bear Butt goes into both feral discussion and the ToL change.
Flash of Moonfire has a post about the general stuff and the mastery bonuses.
Gray Matter goes over the solely moonkin stuff.
Restokin goes over general and deep resto thoughts.
Dreambound goes over it point by point.
Restoration Druid gives a full Resto analysis.
Cannot be Tamed gives another Resto analysis.
Edit: adding the Wow.com links: balance, feral and resto.
Flavor, or mostly flavor:
Nerf this Druid.
Revive & Rejuvenate.
Flash of Moonfire.
Tree Bark Jacket: one, two, and a suggestion.
Cannot be Tamed.
Orcish Army Knife.
Big Bear Butt also has a suggestion.
Falling Leaves and Wings first reaction and a more thought through one.
Tree of Life first thoughts and then thoughts about the QQ.
Funny cartoon from Murloc Parliament.
Rolling Hots: A View from the Trees.
Kurn's Corner.
My thoughts:
On the mechanics side, I'm cautiously optimistic about the whole change of healing to a more triage type. As ever, Beta isn't even out yet so all we know is what the Blues choose to tell us. I've always like the choosing process of healing, and since GC has emphasied triaging as the way healing is going to be, it could be alot of fun. And what's not to like about HoTs (and DoTs) critting and being affected by haste correctly. Both the Resto mastery and Efflorescence have the potential to be very interesting. While I understand fully the Blues reasoning behind not giving Resto's any more spells, it is just a bit disappointing .
And now for the QQ: the Tree of Life going to a cooldown rather than a shapeshifted form. I hate it.
A bit of background: I identify as a Tree, not as a Restoration Druid, a Tree of Life. I raised my character as a healer with a little DPS thrown in to compliment my husbands feral druid. However it wasn't until my first raid on my druid, Karazhan, that I actually specced Tree of Life. It was that run that made me realise that this was something I was very, very good at. I had found my WoW niche, and a big part of that is being a Tree.
In addition to that the whole cooldown part is very vague and makes for more nervousness. Since most healer trinkets are either a random spell power boost or mana return, if the CD is like that it'll be very upsetting. However it could be interesting, for instance a Tank saving CD would be nice, or something new entirely. But since they didn't go into any details about the CD, we're left to wonder and that makes the feeling upset of change worse. Also all the reasons that were given for the change feel hollow to me: not adding anything to Resto like cat and bear do for feral; unfair to Resto druids to be locked out of utility spells unlike other healers; getting to see the "cool" armor in at least one form. One, I've only like one full set of druid tier (tier 8 if you're wondering) and the helm of tier 4; most of the others I either am neutral about or actively loath (tier 10 I'm looking at you). So I definately don't care about seeing my armor, and I especially think that's stupid when raiding no one is looking at their toon and thinking "Damn, I look good while killing this boss." The whole locking out of utility spells is annoying because what they really mean there is DPS spells. That highly annoys me, I don't DPS on purpose, Thank you! And if we are going to be micromanaging our mana in Cataclysm why in hell would I ever cast a DPS spell. The whole tree form not adding anything special to the game play like bear and cat do is also hollow since that applies to both Moonkin and Shadowpriests too.
Yes as alot of people have pointed out at this point the Tree part of being Resto is mostly just comestic but it still matters. The mechanics of healing for Resto druids probably isn't going to change much, mostly it'll just be making sure you pick the right spells for the job. But a bit of the heart and soul of being a Druid Tree will go out of the game for me.