Let's talk druids

[Drekor]

Just wanted to gather some opinions on what people think of druids come BC especially considering feral talents and a PvP environment. The new arena sets look promising especially with socketing to have a decent gear set that doesn't completely gimp healing and/or survivability and/or DPS. So just wanted some peoples thoughts on what they think of the new feral druid stuff in BC.

[Jekal]

PEOPLE PLAY DRUIDS????????

[EURoEX]

Nothing ever changes about the Druid class really. You're always in a silly form--moonkin/treeformlol. Balance still sucks. Feral isn't really viable in endgame, and you're still going to have a tough sell that treeform isn't needed in raids.

Good luck :)

[Jekal]

/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark

[syndt]

/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark

that's mean :(

[Scorch]

The sooner people learn to give up on Druids the better.

Seriously play another fucking class :(

[Valkyr]

you guys convinced me, Im rerolling druid.

[Theldon]

The sooner people learn to give up on Druids the better.

Seriously play another fucking class :(

Whats wrong with druids? I rather enjoy my mid level druid so far. Why should i make the switch?

[Everwaken]

But I <3 druids! They're cute, cuddly, great flag runners, and they make good house pets!

[Theldon]

But I <3 druids! They're cute, cuddly, great flag runners, and they make good house pets!

I'm currently playing a druid for expansion, but if they are flawed then I'd make a quick change to a more appropriate class. I used to play warlock and wanted to get more into healing, and since druids seem to be good healers I went with them. Or should I have rolled a priest?

[Scorch]

I'm currently playing a druid for expansion, but if they are flawed then I'd make a quick change to a more appropriate class. I used to play warlock and wanted to get more into healing, and since druids seem to be good healers I went with them. Or should I have rolled a priest?

To boil it down there's really nothing a Druid brings to the table that can't be done better with a Shaman/Paladin/Priest. The fact that 40 man raids do fine with 1 Druid is telling enough. And if it wasn't for MOTW there wouldn't be any reason to bring a Druid to be honest. That's just the tip of the iceberg, not going to go into the whole feral/balance/healing thing and the messed up itemization.

[Inalende]

Scorch is right, roll a class that has a real use other than 1 buff.

[Skalathrax]

short question:
since druids have the spell "remove curse" and mages "remove lesser curse" only, wheres the big difference?
im a mage and i never found a curse i couldn't decurse, but a druid instead..

[Concho]

My guild uses lots of druids. for all raids/instances available.
I'm Balance speced.
Most of the times I'm in a group with 4 mages. cause that will outdmg a group with 5 mages.
and even though I'm balance specced i can still heal just as well or even better then a paladin.
A good Resotration druid can heal just as well as a Priest.
and although a feral can't tank as well as a Warrior he can resist some spells that only apply to humainoids.
and last but not least druids have combat res. most of the time it's used to res another druid who can res another druid who can.....

[Skalathrax]

whats up, does nobody know the answer to my question or is it simply 2 names for the same thing?

[RubiksCube]

and even though I'm balance specced i can still heal just as well or even better then a paladin.


To be honest, I'm calling bullshit on that one. I have both a paladin and a druid and a druid that is not resto specced won't heal better or more as a paladin. Unless you're talking about Damage Paladins.

[Elan]

2 names for the same thing
That about covers it!

[Skalathrax]

so no difference at all?
was it an intention of blizzard to give druids and mages different types of decurses (one better than the other) but in the end, they changed their mind?

[Theldon]

Scorch is right, roll a class that has a real use other than 1 buff.

Rerolled Priest. tyvm

[Soruss]

/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark
/w fistina mark

/t > /w

[Scorch]

so no difference at all?
was it an intention of blizzard to give druids and mages different types of decurses (one better than the other) but in the end, they changed their mind?

...because they don't know what they're doing?

Seriously the decurse thing, it never became a problem in 2+ years of Druiding so I assume it's just the same.

[Peglegington]

The sooner people learn to give up on Druids the better.

Seriously play another fucking class :(

You're passionate protests have single handedly haulted my Druid's levelling progression. I don't want to be stuck in a character I hate like you seem to be!

Pretend I'm you two years ago, what should I play instead? I'm trying to get a healing class levelled for the Burning Crusade since I've grown tired of my epic hunter (it's a thankless life). I was raising a Druid to 60 to be my first raiding 60 healer, but you bring up some frightening points.

So, for somebody looking to be a benevolent healer in BG's and PvE (yet hopefully has some killing power) and thought druid was the answer, what would you have us play? I'm willing to go Alliance or Horde for this issue, though pretty soon that won't matter much anyway.

[Elan]

I've grown tired of my epic hunter (it's a thankless life).
You think you'll get boquets of roses thrown at your feet for being a healer? :p

[Peglegington]

You think you'll get boquets of roses thrown at your feet for being a healer? :p

Nope, but at least I'll feel necessary :P

[Scorch]

The NDA on beta's lifted so here's a few more reasons not to roll Druids. Blizzard seems like they're in the middle of overhauling the class yet again, instead of the watered down versions of the base classes we got in Druid 1.0, we're getting alternate reality versions of the base classes in Druid 2.0. What I mean is they're focused on making the Druid 'different'; this sounds good on paper, but well... you decide whether it'll work:

1) Healing (base class ~Priest) - So in order to make Druid healing different from a Priest they gave us lots of HOTs. Except that, surprise surprise, HOTs were usually not enough for burst heals which is what kills most people, they wasted a ton of mana up top, and Druids ended up using Healing Touch like 80% of the time in raids anyway. So their solution is the WTF Tree Form, which takes away Healing Touch (not to mention dispelling, barkskin, drinking...)

Blizzard to Druids: Why won't you use HOTs? Please use HOTs? Okay fuck you we're going to force you to use HOTs. This post (http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=291074&sid=1) is fairly accurate so far.

2) Balance (base class ~mage) - This is the bizarrest one to me, to differentiate Moonkin they're turning them into Melee/Caster hybrids. Yeah. Moonkin got increased armor, now they're getting a permanent seal of wisdom, and increased AP (but no melee attack skill, so you're just suppose to hit for white damage).

So it's confusing, but I think the point of the form now is that you're suppose to stand in melee range and start swinging, and every now and then you're suppose to cast a spell. Except... swinging your weapon resets your spell cooldown... and have fun casting a spell in melee when you're getting interrupted constantly. This Meleekin thing makes no sense right now.

3) Feral (base class warrior/rogue) - People are raving about Feral in beta, but 80% of it is because those 1400 Mangle crits are so goddamn awesome. Take Mangle away and you can see the weird direction Feral form is going: instead of being stunned-based like a Rogue, they're going for Bleed-based Feral forms. Maim, Mangle, Lacerate, the new Rip/Pounce/Rake are all geared towards stacking lots of Bleed on people. Stacking little DoTs vs. Stunlock... hmm...


Anyway there's still a ton of positives in beta right now and things can still change, but it just seems like Druids just constantly lack any sort of coherent design vision. No one ever quite knows what to do with them, or what items to design for them, or whatever. They're fun, but in the long haul people are just better off with some other class.

[Peglegington]

So what do you wish you created in the very beginning?

[Calantus]

Everything is oppinion but I'd personally have to say you can't go past priest if you want to roll a healer. I've played every healer at 60 (but not paladins to 60, highest self-leveled was 40). Everybody overlooks the simple power of priest healing, but quite simply they are without peer. PW:S is 5 shades of awesome and there will frequently be times in PVP where you need to slap it down on someone, or they die. Flash heal is the best PVP heal in the game, on the level with shaman LHW but they lack other options. HoTs are also very useful which hurts paladins IMO, plus their heals are a little too slow. I'm sure if you never played a priest/shaman their heals would seem fast enough but to me it feels very slow.

Priest is the only class I feel confident solo healing a group in PVP. Druid heals are too slow, paladin heals are too slow/weak, shaman lack options. FUCK fielding a group that can't dispell friendlies. Seriously, shaman was my first healer and damn if it wasn't frustrating to see people sheeped and lock feared and pali stunned and being able to do jack and shit about it. Ironically I actually feel better protected as a priest than anything but a paladin. Killing a good armour priest is hard, definately harder than a shaman, and while druids are harder to kill they can't heal while protecting themselves.

If you don't care about being the best you can be on your own and just happy to support I'd say go with paladin. If you want to be offencive as well I'd say go shaman currently (elemental spec), but that might also shift to paladins come expansion depending how their damage buffs go (and they look pretty good right now). Shadow priests might also become a good option with the new toys they get in BC but right now they are a very dry class to play. Otherwise I definately recommend priest for healing.

[RubiksCube]

Having played a druid first, than a paladin I gotta say I agree to a certain point with Calantus. Basically my first idea why I rolled a druid was PvP Healing, but honestly I gotta say I didn't get it back then.

I was excited about having 10k Armor in Bear as a healer, turned out to be not so hot with the reasons being what Calantus already mentioned: You gotta decide, be able to take damage OR heal. This coupled with the effect the only thing I could dispell of my PvP Allies was Poisons and Curses frustrated me to the point where I rolled a paladin, solely with PvP Healing in mind.

Turned out later, when I met a fellow druid player in a German webradio special about druids, that I missed the point. Being a druid in a PvP healing environement meant running away, not tank the damage. Your ally get's sheeped, run away until sheep wears off or they do damage to him. Same if you're getting attacked. Running aways is what druids are best at, and playing them efficiently has a lot to do with it.

Let's say, this wasn't quiete the playstyle I like, so I went on with the paladin. Now, playing a paladin is quiete the kicks for pvp healing. With good equip you still sit at about 10k Armor but you can HEAL while taking damage, especially with the goodness that is called concentration aura.

Now the paladin heals are slow, but honestly you can get to such incredible amounts of + Heal w/o sacrificing plate that you can toss out 1k flash of lights, which is normally enough in PvP and you can throw them out at an alarming rate, because they cost so few mana.

Roll Paladin imo

[Drekor]

Hrmmm, already playing a paladin one with about +700 damage/healing and 10k armor and have been playing it since beta so I'm quite familiar with them, shame that druids aren't as good as I was hoping. At least they completely overpowered paladins in BC beta though o_O

[RubiksCube]

The only thing Druids are pretty good in is 1vs1 PvP if you've got strong hybrid feral equip. To bad 1on1 PvP almost never happens.

[VIB]

Just wanted to add that from my experience, having PvPed extensivelly as a druid, shaman and priest as healers. I must say that druids are by far the crappiest PvP healers compared to the other ones.

- Lack of a quick, cheap, spammable heal
- Regrowth is too expensive to be spammed and swiftmend has an extremelly long cooldown.
- Don't even TRY to be a pvp healer without at least 30 points in resto. If you have 25 or less points, a priest with 2 points in holy or a shaman with 15 resto and/or EotS in elemental will heal much more than you.
- Lack of DEFENSE, yes I said DEFENSE. A priest's shield will let you heal others with a warrior beating on you. A shaman can heal with over 5k armor and can still heal others when being beaten on. A druid will spend most of your pvp life kiting in travel form and/or bear tanking. Then the rogue dodges your bash and your group dies because of it. A priest or shaman spamming heal/shield on himself will last much longer than a bear when focused.
- Lack of usefull support tools. Aoe fear, dispell, silence, earth shock, grounding, tremor etc etc just makes the druid supportive tools a joke in comparision.
- DPS! There are often times in pvp where your group needs no healing, what do you do? A priest can shift to shadow and melt faces or mana burn healers. An elemental shaman can blow people up in seconds with one of the best burst dmg combos in the game, without losing much of his healing capacity. A druid... will sit there, casting entangles that last for 2sec and just wait for your team to take dmg doing nothing usefull.

IMHO as general pvp healing/support: elemental shaman > shadow priest > PI priest > any druid

[Theldon]

Yeah I dont know what to do. My druid is 39, I've ignored all the warning signs. Yeah its hard to kill stuff, isn't getting any easier. Healing seems okay though, if you do a 21 balance, 30 resto, you can do a regrowth + 2.5 sec healing touch which isn't a bad combo, tough on the mana though. We've mostly just heard commentary from Scorch about it, and a few others, what does Syndt/Fistina have to say about it?

I dont know whether to reroll while its early, or just struggle it out. I do have fun sometimes, but I also get mad at wondering what better I could be as a different class.

[syndt]

in all honesty, it's not worth it. if i were making a new character, knowing what i know about this class now, i definitely wouldn't roll a druid.

i like healing people. the idea of a hybridish healer with some cc abilities intrigues me, but the implementation of the class is poor at best, and the current direction isn't looking any better.

it's difficult trying to support and heal, cc and peel when you have the absolute worst toolset to do so compared to other healers. we have less armor than priests (to the tune of 1400 unbuffed in caster form), no ae cc or 'oh shit' buttons (tauren get warstomp, and thank god for that. i really don't think i could play an alliance druid), and the slowest-casting heals in the game.

healing wins fights. for druids this can be a nightmare. your choices are slim: a 2 second, 1000 mana heal with a purgable hot, or a 3 second heal thats entirely too slow to be viable. to make healing touch effective, you must nearly constantly be casting it, trying to predict who will be focused and which rank to use depending on how much damage you think your teammate will take 3 seconds from now. oh, and i hope you positioned yourself at least 30 yards away from basically any enemy, because while you're sitting there channeling heals, expect to be HOJd, spell locked, counterspelled, earth shocked, grenaded, tidal charmed, charge/intercept stunned or hit with a myraid of other interrupt and lock-out abilities.

a lot of druids take advantage of downranking heals, mostly in pve, but in pvp as well. it would be complete overkill to use the highest rank of healing touch, so druids use mostly ranks 4-8, depending on how good their gear is. however, with the spell level healing changes in burning crusade, using any healing spell that is more than 6 levels lower than your character level gives a penalty to your +healing from items, making downranking pointless. so, our big 'efficient' heal isnt efficient at all, leaving us with a heavier reliance on regrowth. apparently this is supposed to all be offset by the addition of lifebloom, a wholly inadequete spell, which is simply a backloaded hot. druids dont need more hots (lol dispel). druids need a flash heal. swiftmend is nice, but not nearly enough.

so, we have a healer in paper armor, trying to channel 3 second heals on people while trying to avoid getting locked out and/or insta-gibbed. the second they get focused by a melee class they pop in bear to have a chance of surviving, and...become even more useless than ever before! while paladins and shaman can still perform abilities and cast spells when being focused, druids have no choice but to turtle up.

there's my pvp healer rant. the class as a whole is in pretty piss-poor shape, and at 70 will probably be the weakest it's been since pre-1.8. every other class is scaling at a much better rate, druids are being left in the dust. keep in mind that resto is our strongest tree, the feral and balance aspects of the class are even worse off.

[Jekal]

so toeman, are you going to be joining the rest of nurfeds' healers in rerolling paladin?

[RubiksCube]

Yeah I dont know what to do. My druid is 39, I've ignored all the warning signs. Yeah its hard to kill stuff, isn't getting any easier. Healing seems okay though, if you do a 21 balance, 30 resto, you can do a regrowth + 2.5 sec healing touch which isn't a bad combo, tough on the mana though. We've mostly just heard commentary from Scorch about it, and a few others, what does Syndt/Fistina have to say about it?

I dont know whether to reroll while its early, or just struggle it out. I do have fun sometimes, but I also get mad at wondering what better I could be as a different class.

I don't know, 21/30 sounds good on paper, but in all honesty, swiftmend is so much better for PvP Healing.

[Devilnaut]

Be nice to see druids given more CC abilities. Snare DoTs and Root + Silence and such..

[Theldon]

Thanks for your replies. Now I have to think which class I'd like to play more of, Hunter, Priest or Rogue. The problem with Hunter and Rogue is everyone plays them lol. But they look like fun. Priest is probably a good choice since they do well in PVP and are in high demand for groups.

Or I should just roll a warlock again since I'm so good with em >_<

[gzyzwc]

For PVP in current production I find 2/14/35 works really well. I don't think I could give up Swiftmend, for WSG flag carrying it is solid Gold!, and NS added to the top if it is insane as well. With my current setup each tick of rank11 rejuv is 403 healing, so a swiftmend is an aditional 1612 instant heal, and I am hoping to get my dream - december gear, Adding The end of Dreams, Rejuv Gem and a 2 piece Dreamweave, this will get me close to 450-500 Rejuv ticks, meaning a swiftmend is 15 second timer 2000 instant heal!

For pve, I find swiftmend to be hideously broken. Grant it, I am in a guild that is currently looking to down Maex, we can clear BWL, all but Cthun in AQ40, and all of the rest of the instances. I feel that our guild having 3 druids on each raid helps, we all have swiftmend so it works out to about a 1.5k instant heal every 5 seconds between us. This can keep a main tank up, and in pvp a 15 sec timer makes this spell actually useable.

I currently have gotten back to enjoying my druid, I no longer am as reliant on mana/5 as I was, I used to be pure mana/5, but with the rejuv and regrowth ticks, I am finding a nice balance. My dream setup would have my rejuvs ticking for well over 500 a tick and still regening about 70+mana/5. Letting me use rank 3 or rank 4 currently HT, now when the expansion comes out it looks like they really want us in Treeform, using hot's. And the +healing will become a bit more important. (which is odd, because we can't rank down). I am dreaming about getting my dreamweave setup LOL, I so want the 2 piece, of all the tier3 armor sets, I think we get the absolute best 2 piece bonus, adding 60 mana, or 8 energy is INSANE, and 2 rage is not bad either, but usually the maintank does not have a rage issue.

I find the druid to be usefull currently and think a form for resto is in the flavor of it, getting a bonus healing being in this form for hots should be usefull if you build for it, the problem being you loose total mobility, which is a shame, since in PVP mobility is what we used to excell at, I enjoyed playing my druid as it was after swiftmend for pvp, pre-swiftmend Innervate was a totally USELESS pvp talent, I am glad it got changed!

My only thing is, I currently in a duel can not beat anybody, I seem to get stuck in stun mode, against any rogues, and dont' think I coudl kill a warlock if my life depended on it, heck a warlock can be at half mana and half health and still beat me. A hunter is an intresting fight, I can root him moonfire, and usualy end up Bear charging him, to get close. . . A preist in my gear setup I can possibly beat, a mage of course is a gimme game as a resto druid, and a warrior in a duel or 1/1 roots is nice. . but still with the lack of gear itemization that is our issue, I think if they allow us to customize our gear more, we can in effect get better setup in pvp. I just dont' find a way that we can get close to a holy specced priest's dps even in feral forms with nice gear and 14 talent points I don't do nearly the damage of a holy priest using shadow spells. . . . This to me seems to be the real issue. We need the scale of our damage to be similar to the rest of the 60's in similar gear.

thanks
Belgar.
http://ctprofiles.net/talents.ct?cid=897339

[amanda]

I've had considerable experience with both priest and druid in PvP and PvE. My most recent experience was with my priest, whom I have been playing for the past year, and the difference between the two is immense, especially in PvP. In a PvP group on my priest, I actually feel like I have control of the group's well-being , compared to my squishy-slow-casting-future-predicting-loldispel-druid.

Feral is nice in beta, but for the most part the only reason they are raving about it is because it's great for levelling, and that's all people are doing in beta, duh. Point me to the feral druid who has a place in the new 25-man raids.

Better yet, point me to the itemization for the feral druids. Where is the strength gear? Why are you giving me +ap, when my talent specs gain nothing from that stat? Sometimes I think that the departments of Blizzard communicate with each other by making paper airplanes and throwing them through the air, hoping they make it. Or maybe they were all just drunk and let a rogue do it. The problem is that druids aren't rogues, and shouldn't be scrambling for roguish gear. Didn't we already spend the first seven months sniping Shadowcraft once before? It sucked then, too.

Itemization in general gives druids the royal shaft. We're never, ever, going to get an increase in our white damage, if 2+ years of damage-scaling complaints being ignored is any indication of Blizzard's disregard for the class's most basic and fundamental problems. The weapon procs in feral forms was a good start, but when I think about how pitiful a 1.0 attack speed stacks up against the other melee classes, I can only raise my white flag of GGsurrender. (lol, flag = druid, u see what I did thar?)

I'm not even going to touch Balance. I probably couldn't even recite the names of the talents in that tree, that's how low my opinion of it is. Restoration is seemingly the only viable spec for druids to find their niche in, and the talent tree is so incredibly fucking bloated I'm forced to kiss goodbye any hopes of trying out a tri-spec or dual-spec.

The Druid class was a nice concept but reeks with a greater stink of failure than any I've ever seen. Why should I be forced to carry around two, three, four sets of gear just to fulfill the basic 'various roles' my class is supposed to fill? I will never, ever, be a jack-of-all-trades, because I can only don one set of gear at a time, and that, to me, is where the root of the problem is. There will never, ever, be an instance where I begin in resto gear healing, and as an off-tank dies to burst damage, shift to bear form, successfully tank the offending NPC, and save the day. What will really happen is that I -might- survive two hits and get a taunt off, but will actually die really fucking fast because no healer ever heals a druid tank. ;p Fistina can attest to that.

There will never, ever, be a case where my guild brings along a Druid "just in case we need to have an extra rogue/warrior/mage in a pinch." Never. Fucking. Ever.

Let's play a game -- point out the problems in these two Blizzard descriptions: "Druids are a diverse class with a variety of playstyles, capable of filling any role" and "Animal forms are not as powerful as their counterpart classes."

What they should read is, "Druids are a pigeonholed class which we decided six or so months after release to give all of their hybrid appeal away to Shamans and Paladins" and "Animal forms are nowhere near as powerful as their counterpart classes unless you spec specifically for it, and even then you're pushing 80% at best. Oh, by the way, you're fucked with every other role, keke."

To successfully mimic one of the parent classes, a druid should have to spec for it. They shouldn't be forced to STILL carry around four sets of gear just to be minimally effective. I don't want options, I want to be able to USE ALL OF THE FORMS THAT I HAVE BEEN GIVEN INSTEAD OF JUST ONE AT A TIME. Convert my fucking Int to Str and Spi to Agi in feral forms if you have to, I don't care, give me something so that I, along with every other druid in this game, aren't floundering around uselessly whenever the tide shifts in battle and they have to change roles. Oh wait, that sounds like a class-defining attribute, doesn't it?

So yes, let's talk druids. I've probably talked your ear off by now, but I have very strong opinions about the class. I'm not going to sugar-coat it and gloss over the fine details and glaring imbalances with "but it's soooo fun I luv my druid ^_^" like every other r-tard with a fursuit claims. Call me bitter, angry, whatever. I just want my class back.

[Bovinity]

Well, I played a druid to 60 once thinking I'd be a great PvP healer with some damage abilities but just realized quickly I was...well, not great at anything really. Druids really do seem like the least effective and most easily neutralized healers in PvP, sadly.

Right now I'm just trying to decide between priest and paladin for the expansion...of course, priest has the benefit of being able to make one right now and not having to wait on BE pallies, heh.

[Jerom]

Reason i leveled a druid was to get moonkin form and do "/dance"...
-.-

Only real PvP Healer class is imho Pala as even a Priest toon, whos not in shadow form, draws aggro just by making a heal animation. Its like everyone goes "Look at this ..the low hp Bastard in the Robe is healing em" and you group has hell of a trouble to draw all the rogues and warriors of your butt...

Pala makes ppl say "Dam this Pala... but better pick on one of the Leather or cloth wearers instead..."

I say flaten respec costs to 1 G or for free like in Guild Wars so you can really adapt to the needs you and your guild needs. With that the Druid would move closer to the Jack of all Trades role as promised.

And give Druids a "transformer" Sets which adapt to there role.

[Elan]

I'm a pretty campy PvP healer. Swiftmend is a godsend, one of the best 31-pointers in the game, just as long as your HoTs aren't dispelled. I'd take subtlety if it wasn't a piece of shit talent dump. As some have pointed out above, a druid can be a pretty exceptional PvP healer to the point when he's noticed, and believe you me, when you land that 5-6k HT crit, the wolves are going to be snapping at your heels, eager to put your tree-hugging ass to the ground for a dirt nap. We're simply too easy to shut down: stuns, fears, hell, a hunter's cat or a felhunter is enough to keep us busy. I'm not sure how turning into a tree is going to help with the situation, with no armor bonus or defensive capability, we're worse off than we would be if we just stuck to caster form. To make matters worse, with the exception of swiftmend and nature's swiftness, the latter half of the restoration tree is seriously lacking.

It's really hard to ignore the buffs Feral got (deserved, admittedly), and unless Balance and Restoration get some equally motivating benefits, it'll be hard to justify going anything else.

[Athrun]

I wish I had a paladin instead of a priest. Sorry for hijacking but WoW servers are still offline and I'm bored since I sold my life to someone looking for one at ebay.

[syndt]

I'm not sure how turning into a tree is going to help with the situation, with no armor bonus or defensive capability, we're worse off than we would be if we just stuck to caster form. To make matters worse, with the exception of swiftmend and nature's swiftness, the latter half of the restoration tree is seriously lacking.

It's really hard to ignore the buffs Feral got (deserved, admittedly), and unless Balance and Restoration get some equally motivating benefits, it'll be hard to justify going anything else.

very well put, and exactly how i feel at the moment. i love healing, in pve and pvp. however, unless either resto gets some substantial boosts, or feral gets a significant nerf, ill be lolferaling it up come BC

[VIB]

IMHO the worse problem resto have in PvP is are the talent requirements. There are too many dumb requirements, usually forcing you to get PvE talents for PvP skills. Such as reflection -> NS, imp.rejuv -> imp.regrowth.

If you could make this build for arena healing:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-druid/talents.html?0000000000000000000005032021303202025 00000005553051001000501000
(my dream spec ^^)

Then druids would actually be awesome pvp healers. But unfortunally you can't do that because of all the requirements :/ No other class in the game have such gimping requirements like the druid resto tree. They need to fix that.

[Elan]

IMHO the worse problem resto have in PvP is are the talent requirements. There are too many dumb requirements, usually forcing you to get PvE talents for PvP skills. Such as reflection -> NS, imp.rejuv -> imp.regrowth.
Reflection actually isn't that bad in PvP, given how much you shift and cast while doing your thing. Rolling it into improved enrage was a good move too. Our spirit regen coefficient is going up too, so intensity shapes up to being a pretty good talent. Last I remember, mp5 didn't work in forms, is that still the case?

I agree with you on Improved Rejuvination and Regrowth though, especially after the feral talents effect new skills gained in BC (Ferocity and Savage Fury effecting Mangle, Shredding Attacks effecting Lacerate). It'd be nice to see Rejuvinate and Regrowth get a little meaty in terms of the effects they have on healing or other abilities. Not a lot of thought going on in the Restoration tree, that's for sure.

I'll probably do something like this for general PvP and arena (lol): http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=0pcbzbZxMGoZVVIzcq0xs

[syndt]

mana/5 has worked in forms since like 1.8

[Scorch]

Here's a question: has anyone figured how to do a 21 Balance spec that doesn't completely suck ass? I hate tree form right now so I'm thinking 40/21 Balance for release, because 40/21 Feral isn't so hot.

But the whole Balance tree is so fucked up, in PvP I have no grand Feral lolDPS ambitions, I just want Balance to let me do defensive CCs and nuke a bit occasionally, and there's just no good way to do it. The closest I can get is this (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-druid/talents.html?0000000000000000000005032021303202025 00000005553051001000501000#none), and it's terrible.

[RubiksCube]

Your build is a lil' f'ed up Scorch. You can't get Imp. Regrowth w/o Imp. Rejuvenation and you can't get Nature's Swiftness w/o getting Intensity abd you can't get Swiftmend w/o getting Gift of Nature.

I think for PvP 8 Balance are pretty much needed to get 100% uninterruptable while casting Entangling Roots and Cyclone, I really don't know how good Nature's Grace is, never tested it. If it has a duration (like 15 seconds) it may be not as good as it sounds, but if it's a buff that's there until it is dispelled or used it maybe pretty good combined with Natural Perfection and some Crit Items.

The best build I could come up with was http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=MzjwzV0oZZxEcLcq0xs. You'd have to look at Subtlety and how much the dispel immunity really gives you.

[Scorch]

EDIT: The fuck? That link was messed up in that post. Here:

Druid Talents
Minimum Required Level: 30
Required Talent Points: 21
Balance Talents - 21 point(s)

Starlight Wrath - rank 5/5
Nature's Grasp - rank 1/1
Improved Nature's Grasp - rank 4/4
Control of Nature - rank 3/3
Focused Starlight - rank 2/2
Nature's Reach - rank 2/2
Vengeance - rank 3/5
Nature's Grace - rank 1/1


I've always just done the standard tri-spec build for PvP, the Nature's Grasp/Feral Charge/Swiftmend build, but with me hating Tree Form so much it's possible to go only 40 in Resto, which frees up Nature's Grace. Nature's Grace is very good combined with Improved Regrowth, but not good enough to drop Swiftmend for. With TBC you won't have to.

I just can't find any passable talents on the way to Nature's Grace. The Balance tree is way fucked, with too much terrible crap spread too thin. Looking at that build up there, Vengeance and Focused Starlight and probably Starlight Wrath are just total wastes. 10 talent points washed out.

[RubiksCube]

True, but what do you wanna spec? Brambles?

You can probably spec:

Balance (21 points)

5/5 Starlight Wrath
1/1 Nature's Grasp
4/4 Improved Nature's Grasp
3/3 Control of Nature
5/5 Improved Moonfire
2/2 Nature's Reach
1/1 Nature's Grace

I don't think improved Moonfire is a waste, because it boosts its crit chance by 10% and will give you the Nature's Grace effect more often.

If you're semi-nuking Starlight Wrath is kinda good so you can get back to healing faster.

[Elan]

Not a fan of Insect Swarm? I can't really offer you anything, the Balance tree is for nuking and the talents you don't want are pretty good for that specific purpose.

[Scorch]

You have a point about Improved Moonfire crits.


Not a fan of Insect Swarm? I can't really offer you anything, the Balance tree is for nuking and the talents you don't want are pretty good for that specific purpose.

But they're not good. That's the thing. The only thing that makes Druid nuking -passable- is the combination of good +dmg gear and every single +dmg talent in the Balance tree. You've got: Focused Starlight, Improved Moonfire, Vengeance, Lunar Guidance, Moonfury and Wrath of Cenarius that all do the exact same thing. If you just take 1 or 2 of the talents it just feels totally worthless.

I think the biggest issue is the 3rd tier skills. Between Nature's Swarm, Nature's Reach, and Brambles, there's a total of... 6 points to spend. And 3 are on fucking Brambles. You have to go back and spend extra points on Tier 1 and 2, and then it starts to not add up.

[RubiksCube]

Basically I'd suggest this one:

Balance (21 points)

1/1 Nature's Grasp
4/4 Improved Nature's Grasp
3/3 Control of Nature
2/2 Focused Starlight
5/5 Improved Moonfire
5/5 Vengeance
1/1 Nature's Grace

Coming from the "Extra Crit Chance" Point of View, Improved Moonfire, Focused Starlight and Vengeance start to make at least SOME sense.

So you up the crit of moonfire (10% from Imp. Moonfire), wrath and starfire (4% from Focused Starlight) a little, for your occasional nuking, why not add vengeance so the crits actually do a little damage (100% extra damage instead of 50%). This way the whole thing builds on crits which supports the final goal of Nature's Grace.

Add in the remaining 8 Points in nature's graps and control of nature who are actually good in pvp you have the 20 Points needed for Nature's Grace.

It's not perfect and maybe a waste, but at least that way it makes sense in some way. With Natural Perfection from Resto, you'd have an extra 7% crit with Wrath and Starfire and 13% with Moonfire.

Now to think of a way to incorporate Tranquil Spirit AND Moonglow to reduce Healing Touch manacosts by 19%.

[Theldon]

Basically I'd suggest this one:

Balance (21 points)

1/1 Nature's Grasp
4/4 Improved Nature's Grasp
3/3 Control of Nature
2/2 Focused Starlight
5/5 Improved Moonfire
5/5 Vengeance
1/1 Nature's Grace

Coming from the "Extra Crit Chance" Point of View, Improved Moonfire, Focused Starlight and Vengeance start to make at least SOME sense.

So you up the crit of moonfire (10% from Imp. Moonfire), wrath and starfire (4% from Focused Starlight) a little, for your occasional nuking, why not add vengeance so the crits actually do a little damage (100% extra damage instead of 50%). This way the whole thing builds on crits which supports the final goal of Nature's Grace.

Add in the remaining 8 Points in nature's graps and control of nature who are actually good in pvp you have the 20 Points needed for Nature's Grace.

It's not perfect and maybe a waste, but at least that way it makes sense in some way. With Natural Perfection from Resto, you'd have an extra 7% crit with Wrath and Starfire and 13% with Moonfire.

Now to think of a way to incorporate Tranquil Spirit AND Moonglow to reduce Healing Touch manacosts by 19%.

Yeah thats not bad at all. Balance still sucks. I wish Nature's Grace wasn't such a talent dump to get to.

Oh and I heard something about a talent for barkskin, anything new on the beta?

[Elan]

But they're not good. That's the thing. The only thing that makes Druid nuking -passable- is the combination of good +dmg gear and every single +dmg talent in the Balance tree. You've got: Focused Starlight, Improved Moonfire, Vengeance, Lunar Guidance, Moonfury and Wrath of Cenarius that all do the exact same thing. If you just take 1 or 2 of the talents it just feels totally worthless.

I think the biggest issue is the 3rd tier skills. Between Nature's Swarm, Nature's Reach, and Brambles, there's a total of... 6 points to spend. And 3 are on fucking Brambles. You have to go back and spend extra points on Tier 1 and 2, and then it starts to not add up.
I meant insofar as the upper tier talents such as Vengeance, Starlight's Wrath, Reach, IS, Control, etc. They offer you the vitals to even begin making Balance viable, cast time reduction, range, and increased crits. What's the point in spell damage if you cast slow as fuck, have a tiny 30 yard range, and only maintain a 50% crit? I can't comment on the latter half of the tree since I don't really like Balance to begin with, but it seems like the redundancy is a bigger problem of the lower talents than the utility is of the upper talents.

[Scorch]

On a completely different note, I'd like to advocate Nature's Grasp as essential to any PvP feral build now. Having it castable from feral form is just amazing.

[SandDemon]

Does Tree Form suck that much, considering you can now stack HoTs from multiple druids?

[Scorch]

Does Tree Form suck that much, considering you can now stack HoTs from multiple druids?

No. I suppose it's good for what it is. Ignoring the inevitable 60-65% overhealing when you're not solo healing, it's very efficient; Lifebloom is only like 176 mana and mine heals for something like 1600+ total now. And being allowed to Warstomp now makes me feel useful every 2 minutes in 5-mans. I probably just can't wrap my head around the total gimpiness of a heal-only form with 1800 armor, no Healing Touch and no dispels, and a 20% snare.

[SandDemon]

I dont think it'd have use in 5mans, but in a raid situation it'd be nice. In raiding, armor doesnt help that much, you didn't move that much where the snare would matter (well, *most* fights) and most dispelling on alliance was always handled by paladins/priests anyways.

But yeah, it's a bonus with a gimp leg at the same time.....something druids always seem to get.

[Theldon]

And being allowed to Warstomp now makes me feel useful every 2 minutes in 5-mans.

Damnit, stupid alliance.

[Scorch]

Damnit, stupid alliance.

You can Shadowmeld in tree too. Admittedly a PvP only thing.

[RubiksCube]

Shadowmeld is useless in PvP now, since it is cancelled at the start of spellcasting :(

Getting the first root out before you are even noticed was cool :(

Can you use it in any form now btw? If you can, it might be useful in Cat. Warstomping in Cat would be very nice, too, at least from a feral point of view both maybe awesome.

[Elan]

I'll say that there's nothing like a good old-fashioned cocktease.

[Scorch]

Although why anyone would be in tree form in PVP is beyond me, except to signal "Hey free kill over here!"


Shadowmeld is useless in PvP now, since it is cancelled at the start of spellcasting :(

Getting the first root out before you are even noticed was cool :(

Can you use it in any form now btw? If you can, it might be useful in Cat. Warstomping in Cat would be very nice, too, at least from a feral point of view both maybe awesome.

No just Tree. It got added in the same patch that let Trees drink and bandage. I remember when you could Warstomp in feral/travel form in the original beta, man that was awesome.

[Jedus]

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k316/caine07/card.jpg

[Elan]

That is the most awkward looking middle finger I've ever seen in my life.

[Theldon]

Although why anyone would be in tree form in PVP is beyond me, except to signal "Hey free kill over here!"

Aren't we free kills as it is?

[Scorch]

Yeah but in Tree form even more so, you can't even turn tail and run away because you're 2 global cooldowns away from travel form or bear instead of 1.

[bierbaum]

Hey you can type /dance and the enemys will let you alive because of the sexy twistdance!

[Jerom]

Hey you can type /dance and the enemys will let you alive because of the sexy twistdance!

This...may...work

But honestly i just saw a thread on the wow boards which gave me new spirit to lvl my druid at least to lvl 68 whatever ppl say

It was about many druids flying above an enemy town in flight form and then dive down and turn into bear form in midair and feral charge while still falling down at targets on the ground. And all this while listening to "Flight of the Valkyries"

As i read that i was sure, i had to do this...

[Theldon]

Found an interesting post in the beta forums. Sad but true.

http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1257195&sid=1&pageNo=1

I'm not in beta or anything, but that seems pretty accurate.

[Theldon]

How viable is moonkin/oomkin in pvp? The 360% bonus to armor in a caster form looks great. A lot of the balance talents can help healing out in some ways when a "role switch" is needed. These talents include:

Dreamstate
Nature's Grace
The -9% mana cost talent
+25% healing/damage of intellect