Post by Maelwys
I'm kinda split on the issue. If you consider the BC builds (feral, boomkin, resto), then things are quite a bit different. You really sacrifice the top of the tree talents to get the "bonuses" of resto that feral druids have come to enjoy.
Now, my biggest issue is that I can't get everything that I want in a build and then dip into another tree too much without sacrificing something important or really nice. Perhaps this will eliminate the cookie cutter mindset that BC has put a lot of people into. When you think about it, how many classes have more than three "core" builds, minus a few minor variations. The more I think about it, the more I become split on the issue.
Now, you could go 16 resto and the rest feral and have a great feral build, while going full feral and having a build with a different twist to it but still be effective (though they'll likely scale better or worse than the other, making one inherently better).
The same applies to restoration builds and balance builds. A lot of the low-level resto and balance talents complement each other nicely. However, as I found out while building a restoration druid at Lv80 with the current talents, I could only fit 5 points into balance while keeping everything I wanted into restoration. I could give up some things to get some more of the low-level talents, but going 15-20 points (I believe it was) into Balance could still leave you will a great build, but you'll lack Flourish and other things.
Perhaps we could see a truly effective hybrid druid, split into all three trees? I think that would be awesome, though the gear probably wouldn't support it terribly well.
EDIT:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid=50320203032021205012000000000205503312001000000000000000532201300000000000000000000Something like this, where the low level talents support each other nicely.