Druids can now boost as well as paladins !!!! (feral)

[Kiljaedon]

Man ive had my old feral druid on the backburner in t4 and a few t5 pieces so since the patch i brought him back out to play around with feral. I noticed swipe now affects more then 4 targets at once so i rush him down to cathedral and pull the entire starting area of the cathedral wing itself and manage to pull from the courtyard to the entrance and swipe everything down as if i was concecrating em. About 400 per swipe and downed the entire pull in less then 45 seconds. I think druids might be decent boosters now as I experiment.

[Svpernova09]

Man ive had my old feral druid on the backburner in t4 and a few t5 pieces so since the patch i brought him back out to play around with feral. I noticed swipe now affects more then 4 targets at once so i rush him down to cathedral and pull the entire starting area of the cathedral wing itself and manage to pull from the courtyard to the entrance and swipe everything down as if i was concecrating em. About 400 per swipe and downed the entire pull in less then 45 seconds. I think druids might be decent boosters now as I experiment.Yeah, you just have to keep the mobs in ~ 180 degrees in front of you and you're golden.

[Apophysis]

The nice thing about using a feral Druid is that ZF is quite easy...you cannot be hexed in feral form. I used a Druid to boost in ZF before 3.0 hit and it was not unpleasant. I suspect that, now with the Swipe change, it is even easier.

[Schwarz]

I just logged on my warrior and freakin they are amazing also. I am excited to get this new team to 20 and goto SM to see what kind of damage they can do. I actually have to unequip my shield while gathering them all up otherwise i passively kill too many mobs.

[Farleito]

Have you used the new prot warrior spec for boosting yet? It's amazing!

They have a retribution aura-like talent so mobs take 20% of your block value in damage when they hit you.
Thunderclap hits for a crap load.
You can AoE stun the mobs in front of you, which does about 1000 damage.

Basically, spamming thunderclap along the aoe stun and you can clear the entire place in 1 pull. Run up to the boss, pull him and run back down the waterfall to the starting hallway and kill everything there. It's awesome!

[Kiljaedon]

I am just glad that paladins no longer have the monopoly on boosting now that druids and warriors can contribute to boosting almost equally now.

[shaeman]

I must admit I'm wondering how my fresh 70 Balance druid might manage in there.

(It's my only 70 alliance side currently :( )

Gather up loads and whack a barkskin thunderstorm on them, perhaps add a starfall. Not sure it will damage them enough.

Only one way to find out I guess :)

[Schwarz]

If the swipe changes are as nice as the thunderclap changes you will be really happy. I can't believe I am excited to go to SM again after powering 2 teams through there from 20-40 already.

[Svpernova09]

Thunderclap scales with AP now, that's why its doing so much damage, especially with better gear. I don't know off the top of my head if Swipe scales the same but they did boost the dps on it. I think the biggest disadvantage right now for ferals is that we still have to have the mob in FRONT of us, I'm not complaining. I'm very happy with the changes they gave bears.

[olipcs]

Well, with Owlkin Frenzy and a hurricane without cooldown (and starfall every 3min), you maybe could also boost very good as balance druid!

[Schwarz]

Thunderclap scales with AP now, that's why its doing so much damage, especially with better gear. I don't know off the top of my head if Swipe scales the same but they did boost the dps on it. I think the biggest disadvantage right now for ferals is that we still have to have the mob in FRONT of us, I'm not complaining. I'm very happy with the changes they gave bears.When I am boosting with my warrior I almost always pull a bunch of people and go back into a corner. This way there is no chance that the mobs can get behind you.

[Svpernova09]

Thunderclap scales with AP now, that's why its doing so much damage, especially with better gear. I don't know off the top of my head if Swipe scales the same but they did boost the dps on it. I think the biggest disadvantage right now for ferals is that we still have to have the mob in FRONT of us, I'm not complaining. I'm very happy with the changes they gave bears.When I am boosting with my warrior I almost always pull a bunch of people and go back into a corner. This way there is no chance that the mobs can get behind you.But it wouldn't matter because thunderclap will hit mobs in a circle right? I mean, a corner is a fine idea because you don't want mobs doing extra free damage to you.

[Schwarz]

Pre 3.02 the majority of my damage came from mobs beating themselves into my shield. If a mob is behind you can't block it's attack. Same goes for the point of them getting extra damage in on you.

Regardless these new changes to warriors/druids make it almost fun to boost again. Having any offensive spell hit more than 3 or 4 targets is truely the key to AOE boosting. It used to be Mages/Paladins were the kings/queens of damaging an almost unlimited amount of NPCs. It is nice to see a whole pack of 50-60 guys go down in no time. Where I used to have to whirlwind/cleave and only hit 2-3 targets at a time.

One thing I am fearful of once I start running SM is hitting the instance cap per hour. My old tatic was run Cath over and over. I would kill the first 6 guys in the hallway (they run back to start if you try to kite them too far away). Park the toons 1/2 way down the hall. Carefully run up to open the door. Chuck something at the boss. Run back to a corner and slowly (~5mins) kill everything. Now I am thinking everything should die really really fast.

[shaeman]

If you are worried about hitting the hourly instance caps then you can do Cathedral then run Armoury then reset.

[raz]

The instance cap per hour applies to any instance on any character on that account unfortunately.

[Schwarz]

SM is kind of special the way they set it up I think. You could do each of the four wings * 5 times an hour so you could be getting in 20 instances per hour verse the regular 5 per hour.

It must have something to do with how they calculate it. The message says "You have entered too many instances recently" when it should say "You have reset too many instances recently". I would bet that you are allowed to walk into more than 5 instances an hour.

[Caspian]

Cath and armory reset together and count as one instance. All 4 SM instance count as one actually.

I solve this problem by looting. On my pally I can clear Cath in 2 safe pulls and loot everything in 13-15 minutes. I can do it in 1 pull but will miss some mobs and not get the boss XP or loot. The 2 bosses are worth 6 regular guys all together. If I did not loot I would be done with each run in less then 10 minutes and hit the instance cap. I don't like armory because Herod and a number of mobs bug out way to often. Looting also pays the repair bill, mounts and training and provides tons of stuff to DE, which is very valuable on my server. I have enough silk to cover the whole of azeroth now but I can use it for first aid and tailoring. I have also made well over 2k gold from BOE blues. It gimps my XP/hour a little but it worth it in the end.

[Schwarz]

Did Cath/Armory last night. Cleared both of them ~10 mins no looting it was alot of fun. Armory is kind of scary as I usually get down to ~3k health before I back into a corner and pop Figurine of the Colossus. Took the team from ~16 to 25 in about an hour and half.

I really wish I was 71 so I could get both shockwave and piercing howl. Having ~80ish mobs running behind you and beating on you while you pick up more can hurt.

On suggestions I can give is try to line of sight the casters into running close into you so they get hit by swipe/thunderstrike. Both Armory/Cath have a begining hallway I try to pull everything on the inside of there then kill em.

[HbKx]

Thought you couldnt go into SM until lvl 20?

[Schwarz]

Yes you can't goto sm until 20. I did 10-20 in ShadowFang Keep. This was super fast also I think I was getting almost full clears in ~6mins.

[Gurk]

Thanks for the heads up. I am going to try this with my druid tonight.

[elsegundo]

how many pulls did it take you to clear sfk? it used to take me three or four pulls due to the limited 3-per-swipe, as mobs would not die fast enough and damage was constantly draining my health faster than i'd get back from my crits.