5 x Druid?

[OzPhoenix]

Talking with another multiboxer on my Realm (Cael) (Hey there Slats!) and we've been talking about making 5xDruid teams.

The pros I can see:

All 1 class.
Stealth.
Versaility.
PvE and PvP usefulness.
Could be either an all-melee or caster group.

The cons:

Single buff (admittedly a good one).
Lack of "res-on-demand".

So, anyone running 5xDruid, or have run them? What are they like for PvE (Heroics, Raids etc) and for PvP?

I was reading into their Cata changes today, and there seemed to be not too much information/reaction to go by, anyone got any better goss on their Cata changes?

[jinkobi]

You ever watch the Moo's Oz? He/they were the inspiration for my team. The Moo's made multiboxing look so easy with druids I was sold. Here's some of their vids:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+moos+multiboxing&aq=f

Didn't want to lose my paladin tank because I'd invested in him heavily while solo'ing. Leveled 2 sets of druids to go with my paladin. My balance druids can tear ass like a mage and my resto druid can heal anything thrown at him.

One reason I picked druids was for their versatility. With respeccing you can mix and match all kinds of different styles and fill every roll tank/dps/heal.

PVE is easy sauce with druids... Wouldn't trade my pally tank- but if you're planning on PVP probably better to go with a bear tank so he can dual spec. There's nothing a druid can't tanks in PVE.

PVP you're going to be a force to be reckoned with... When you drop 15 treants people tend to run. 5 times starfall, and 5X starfire will instakill anyone. Heck even 5X moonfire/insect swarm they're dead meat. Shadowmeld at your disposal as well.

Druids rock! How they pan out in Cataclysm I have no idea... I'm leveling a priest on the side just in case. Resto druids are the ones who look like they're getting the worst of the incoming nerf. I'm sure it'll all work out in the end.

[Lyonheart]

I have 5 druids. My tank is geared, but the 4 i just got to 80 are not geared yet. I'm not sure i want to spend the time to gear them up right now, with Cata on the horizon. But with fresh 80 gear.. i find it painful to do instances with them. And my healers gear sucks as well so healing seems weak. The 5x starfall and treants seems wasted for me in WG, Horde always have 4+ tenacity.

I think in Cata boomkins will be better due to being able to macro the dps better. Right now, its next to impossible to time eclipse and get max dps out of them. After all the teams i have leveled up, i still enjoy the paly and 4 shams the best, in PvE and PvP.

One thing for sure though, I enjoyed leveling my druids more than any other team i leveled. When I hit 60 and got flightform, questing was so simple. And with starfall, even doing collection quests was easy, i could kill as many mobs as I could get caught in starfalls range. I had piles of 20+ mobs a lot of the time. It was a blast! Doing the collection quests where you "gather" the quest item, like mushrooms or some such, was very easy as well. With flightform you can hover over the item and loot it and fly on.. most the time never having to deal with mobs.

[daviddoran]

I just hit 80 recently on my 5 boomkins and they are a blast. Biggest problem in pvp is lack of fear control. One fear really screws me up.

But, ive been able to utilize some of their other strengths, like in an AV that looks like its gonna be a long turtle, I can easily stealth past the battle and go cap a tower or 2. Starfall x5 is just awesomesauce. I plan on dual speccing one to be a feral tank, another to be resto, and im undecided on if i want 3 boomkins, 3 ferals, or a mix, probably 2 ferals 1 boomkin, so i can have a shot at managing eclipse procs.

Rezzing is actually easier than with shamans, cause often the toon in front gets killed first, and with shamans and ankh, you can only do it once, but with 5 druids, I have 5 in combat rezzes, that I can use all on the same toon if need be.

I'm wondering if 4 boomkins and a resto shaman would work, add in the tremor totem and it helps a lot with fears...

[Stealthy]

This one seems to come up pretty regularly, mostly because Druids look very good on paper, however in actual play they have a few weaknesses when compare to other classes (namely Shaman).

PVE:
Pros:
- Can cover all 3 roles (Tank / DPS / Heals)
- Some complimentary buffs
Cons:
- Eclipse procs difficult to manage on multiple toons
- Buff stacking not a good as some other classes (Shaman, Pallies)

Managing Eclipse procs are the biggest problem for a PVE team, since they equate to a ton of damage in PvE. You can get by in Heroics ok, but you won't be competitive in raids if you can't take advantage of them.

PVP:
Pros:
- 5 x Starfall is OP
- 5 x Treants is great against melee targets
- Hurricane best targeted AoE in game (esp deadly when combined with Starfall)
Cons:
- Outside of Starfall, lack of burst in PvP
- have to drop form to heal
- vulnerable to fear
- no way to mitigate incoming spell damage / lack of interrupts

There are several drawbacks for druids in PvP - while Starfall and Treants are great, outside of this Druids really suffer from a lack of burst. This is especially noticeable against high resil targets, and Disc priests fully HoT'd resto druids can be annoyingly difficult to kill (compared to Shamans who can purge & FS/LvB).
Having to drop form to heal can be painful too, and this problem gets compounded when you're being attacked by melee classes at the same time.
But the biggest drawback IMHO, apart from vulnerability AoE fears, is the lack of mitigation from incoming spell damage. Typhoon can be used as an interrupt if your opponent is in front of you (and in range), but your out of luck if the damage is coming from the sides or back. Compare this to shamans who have both an interrupt with Wind Shear and an immunity in grounding totems

Don't get me wrong - I love playing my druid team, and for BG's and WG they are a blast! But when playing them I have to be very mindful of their weaknesses too. They are very much a 'run and gun' play style - there's a lot of runing to a spot, pew pew, run to another spot, pew pew, et, while waiting for Starfall and Treants to come off cooldown. Compared to the 'turret defense' style of shamans where there's more of picking a spot and nuking anything in range.

Hope this helps...

Cheers,
S.

[ghonosyph]

im currently leveling a set up for professions. Just four tho as i already have one at 80 geared to the hilt for boomer/feral

I'm excited to use them as my pallys and dks are getting stale quick(i hardly even log my 3 dks and feral druid on anymore to do daily heroic as the pallys are just better lol)

i'll probably stick them all boomkin for pvp, just for fun, and run an all feral dps zerg team for instances(MAYBE holy trinity but i dont like healing so i'll find a way around it ! lol)

[daviddoran]

I agree completely with what Stealthy said. Fun group, different tactics than shamans, but a few drawbacks that makes shamans my top choice, but druids a close second.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I ran some heroics on my 5-druid team. Wasn't terrible but where shaman or paladin teams don't have to shift out of their DPS gear to heal, druids do. If moonkin could cast ONE damn healing spell without shifting to human form, they'd be very awesome. As is, you end up having to go 3 dps, 1 heal.

From my perspective, going from a 5 druid team to a 4 sham/1 pally team is like flipping the PVE switch to ezmode. Ditto for the 5-paladin team.

One thing the 5-druid team has that the others don't though: being able to shift into flight form after getting punted off the alliance zeppelin in Icecrown. :D

[OzPhoenix]

Thanks for the replies all. Currently the All-Paladin team I've got is still gearing up in Heroics, so I don't expect I'll have time to make an All-Druid team pre-Cata, but it's high on my to-do list post-Cata.

Having not leveled a Druid before (got one to 20 I think), I was unfamiliar with some of the advantages/drawbacks addressed here so that was good to learn to.

It seems like for PvE you fairly have to spec one as a dedicated healer from the sounds of it, so I'll keep that in mind when I make and level the team (and dual-spec the tank/healer druids to go pew pew for PvP).

[ghonosyph]

On reading some cata info it seems that we'll be able to adopt a more focused dps spec with healing ability in caster form, perhaps the extra boost will allow us to heroic in caster form which will much Better allow us to heal/dps! I'm not sure tho. Hmm onto the next question

What skin type do you plan to use for your ferals given the ability for them to be different colors?!

[Nolife]

You ever watch the Moo's Oz? He/they were the inspiration for my team. The Moo's made multiboxing look so easy with druids I was sold. Here's some of their vids:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+moos+multiboxing&aq=f

Yay! Always nice to get credit for your work. Thank you, jinkobi! :)



I ran some heroics on my 5-druid team. Wasn't terrible but where shaman or paladin teams don't have to shift out of their DPS gear to heal, druids do. If moonkin could cast ONE damn healing spell without shifting to human form, they'd be very awesome. As is, you end up having to go 3 dps, 1 heal.

From my perspective, going from a 5 druid team to a 4 sham/1 pally team is like flipping the PVE switch to ezmode. Ditto for the 5-paladin team.

I must concur with this... I have also run instances with feral+4xshamans and i must admit that with 4x ele shamans you will storm through EASY instances, but with harder heroic instances you will NEED to have resto/holy healer in your group. From my experience, in fights that require healing, it is more useful to use 1x healer + 3x dps, rather than healing with your 4x dps. Your lost dps time does not compensate your mediocre healing from dps specs.

Cataclysm will change a lot of things for druids. Hope it will all go towards better direction...

[Multibocks]

Has anyone done 4x feral (kittys and one tank) plus a healer? I would think this would work really well since ferals already have self healing ability.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Has anyone done 4x feral (kittys and one tank) plus a healer? I would think this would work really well since ferals already have self healing ability.

If you're referring to the self-healing of ILotP in the same vein as a pally group using seal of light, I would have to laugh. One 900-1100 point heal every 6 seconds is nothing like 600+ every time a white hit or melee ability lands, plus divine storm self and group healing, plus instant FoL. If you're really interested in how much the difference is or total healing over X seconds is, I'm sure I could go test it for you and report back.

[Iceorbz]

I must concur with this... I have also run instances with feral+4xshamans and i must admit that with 4x ele shamans you will storm through EASY instances, but with harder heroic instances you will NEED to have resto/holy healer in your group.


You don't need a healer, 4 elemental shaman is fine for all five man instances. Ive done Heroic HoR the 3rd day it came out with 4 ele, 1 paladin. As well as all the other instances, it might be useful, but not required in the least.

[alcattle]

You don't need a healer, 4 elemental shaman is fine for all five man instances. Ive done Heroic HoR the 3rd day it came out with 4 ele, 1 paladin. As well as all the other instances, it might be useful, but not required in the least.
Prot pally? throwing out heals like 4 LHW should be fine for well-geared groups I would get bored as a tree in some HCs so I would go caster and throw down a hurricane when fights start.

[Multibocks]

If you're referring to the self-healing of ILotP in the same vein as a pally group using seal of light, I would have to laugh. One 900-1100 point heal every 6 seconds is nothing like 600+ every time a white hit or melee ability lands, plus divine storm self and group healing, plus instant FoL. If you're really interested in how much the difference is or total healing over X seconds is, I'm sure I could go test it for you and report back.

Actually I was more interested in the synergy of the group. Do they own better than boomkins or is the feral rotation too complex to box correctly?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Actually I was more interested in the synergy of the group. Do they own better than boomkins or is the feral rotation too complex to box correctly?

I'd say as far as buff and utility synergy goes, it's paladin > boomkin > feral. As for rotations, yes, feral are sucking hind tit because it is so difficult to eke out that last 15% performance because of the way crits affect combo points which drastically changes rotation depending on how many crits in a row you get. For rotations, it's like paladin > boomkin >>>>>>>> feral. For PVP, it's a bit tougher because you don't really have rotations per se, plus your priority of abilities changes from what you'd care about for PVE. For outright burst, I'd say it goes feral >= ret >>> boomkin, mainly because you can hit 3 mangles and a ferocious bite x4/x5 and put out some stupid amounts of dps in 4 globals. Rets might surpass ferals with really high-end weapons due to the way feral melee works but I can't say I've done any testing on that.

Just my 2 coppers.

[jinkobi]

Yay! Always nice to get credit for your work. Thank you, jinkobi! :)




Dude, I love ya man, lol.

You really are my inspiration! When I saw how great your team was there wasn't any question what my team was going to be.
Already having a main protection pally I dual boxed 2 sets of druids to 80 and now have a very solid team.

I dabbled in dual boxing in the past with the most basic of setups. This was years ago and most of the time just been a solo player. Then I got curious about multiboxing again and looked up some videos on Youtube. THEN I found your videos.

Watched every single one of your videos multiple times. Even still go back and watch them, rofl. You helped me more than you can probably imagine. Just want to thank you personally- THANKS! Would not be doing what I do now if it weren't for you.

:D

[Iceorbz]

Prot pally? throwing out heals like 4 LHW should be fine for well-geared groups I would get bored as a tree in some HCs so I would go caster and throw down a hurricane when fights start.

Yeah from the time I dinged 80 to till I had stopped a bit ( about 4 days after heroic halls of reflection) I used 4 elemental shm, just healing the tank with LHW.

[Ualaa]

I'm using a basic click for Feral (Cat) DPS.

#show Mangle (Cat)(Rank 4)
/Click MultiBarRightButton1
/Click MultiBarRightButton2
/Click MultiBarRightButton3
/Click MultiBarRightButton4
/Click MultiBarRightButton5

MBRB1
#show Mangle (Cat)(Rank 4)
/cast [nocombat,nostealth] Feral Faerie Fire (Feral)
/cast [stealth] Pounce
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/use Endless Healing Potion

MBRB2
#show Mangle (Cat)(Rank 4)
/castsequence reset=target Mangle (Cat)(Rank 4),Null

MBRB3 (9 seconds)
#show Rake
/castsequence reset=target Rake,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

MBRB4 (19 seconds)
#show Savage Roar
/castsequence reset=combat Savage Roar,,,,,,,,,,,,Rip,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Rip,,,, ,,,,

MBRB5
Mangle (Fall-Through, from Spell Book)

It could probably use a bit of tweaking, but seems to get the job done. (I spam at 2 clicks per second, adjust the commas accordingly). The initial Mangle and Rake work, and reset properly; the finishing Savage Roar and Rip need a bit of tweaking, but are up most of the time.




I'm undecided between Bear + 3x Cat + Resto.... or Bear + 3x Owl + Resto, for my PvE.

I definitely want 5x Cat, as the PvP spec for the team. Will use Bear form and such at times, I'm sure.

Also have dual-spec on each. Some talents are better for PvE and others for PvP, and of course the Bear/Resto toons have totally different specs for PvE and PvP. Was originally going to go Cat/Resto on all five.

[ghonosyph]

The more I play my druid on beta solo, the more I want to level my other four on live to 80 lol. They're getting some much needed love in the way eclipse works, which will make macro ing their casts that much easier to maximize.

[Owltoid]

That's encouraging! Still need protection against fear in PvP, though :(

[Shodokan]

That's encouraging! Still need protection against fear in PvP, though :(

What classes other than shaman have that now? Fear ward for priests... about it.

[ghonosyph]

Fear is getting changed in cataclysm :) it wont last the way it is now :)

[Owltoid]

What classes other than shaman have that now? Fear ward for priests... about it.

Pallys did when they could cleanse and bubble, warlocks to a certain extent with felpuppys.

[Owltoid]

Fear is getting changed in cataclysm :) it wont last the way it is now :)

I haven't read anything about that. Have any details?

[ghonosyph]

not that i can readily access :) i'll try to find the information again

[Seldum]

I run 5x druids, and have mostly played pve.

I run with 1 tank, 1 tree, and 3 boomkins.

I don't manage the procs but have build in an approximation in my castsequence. My team is not very well geared, but they can manage the heroics even in crap gear. Again, my tank is "okey" geared, so this helps alot, but the rest of the team are in greens and blues.

for pvp I have run the same setup (lol) and my boomkins are glass cannons. But I guess this is the story for all newly dinged 80 chars decked out in quest greens and blues.

For pvp I will go 4xboomkins and 1xtree. Especially with the new changes in cata where the tree form goes away and the healer is also able to do damage.

I'm not fond of the melee cat form at all. Their dps depends on bleed damage and in general they have one of the most complicated dps rotations in the game. To me they feel weak compared to other melee chars which is why I rather go with boomkins for dps.

I love the mobility of the boomkin dps. Moonfire, insect swarm, typhoon, and a fast cast of wrath + starfall got potential in pvp.

I have glyphed my starfall on my boomkins and use it in pve as much as possible.

[gbremset]

I have a druid team and I love them.. I do the odd 25man raid with my raiding guild (the druids aren't in this guild, as I want all 5 in same guild), and I levelled and do heroics as Tank-Healer-3xBoom.

In wintergrasp they are known as the Doomkins, and I absolutely love playing them. At the moment I have 5x boom + 5x tree spec on them, to easier get random groups for frosties (some days I can actually be bothered doing randoms on all of them).

For now I've taken a break from soloing heroics, as I am working on my argent tournament dailies.

Here's a nice little video I made from Wintergrasp on Nagrand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stlme-vL1o4

[OzPhoenix]

Well, sounds like 5xDruid is definitely going to be the team I level in Cata to see all the new-old content.

[Sbrowne55]

I have been doing this for a few months now in pvp. I started off with 1 resto and 4 ferals. I'm using 2 restos and 3 ferals.

It's alot of fun, barely die unless some twinked out hordes are around. I'm reaching 70 so I expect gear and difficulty to play a bigger role.

I like feral- lots of good utility in there. The dmg is kinda lacking tho. But I manage.

Lots of fun

[tripleboxed]

PVE is easy sauce with druids... Wouldn't trade my pally tank- but if you're planning on PVP probably better to go with a bear tank so he can dual spec. There's nothing a druid can't tanks in PVE. This is true PVE with 5 druids is pretty much easy sauce as i have a team of five druids myself and we have no trouble in the pve world :) :cool:

[tripleboxed]

PVP you're going to be a force to be reckoned with... When you drop 15 treants people tend to run. 5 times starfall, and 5X starfire will instakill anyone. Heck even 5X moonfire/insect swarm they're dead meat. Shadowmeld at your disposal as well. Of crouse if you have this combo why not try 5 Boomz and pvp i did it and i was amazed by the amount of dps i cloud pull of for aoe and single target i destroyed & won every battleground.

As far as 5 restos im not sure how this can be effective in battlegrounds till cata i guess you cloud spam wild growth if your team sticks together im not sure lol.

[Sbrowne55]

Ya boomkin is something I'm going to try also. I was worried about fears tho. Beserk is just amazing for pvp. I love when priest/locks storm in for a ae fear to get insta killed lol. With my setup, I have turned fearing to my advantage. For my resto's I got glyph of healing touch. Its lightning fast healing(.96 sec/per cast. With my ferals taking 20% more healing, they heal to full each cast.

I honestly haven't done much insta pve dungeons, I just run alts with a druid in the group to gear up.

[Boylston]

Here are my BG experiences with my all-Boomkin team. Keep in mind I'm a fresh 80 who just finished leveling 4xDruids to go with a 5th druid that had been sitting at 80 for a long time. I have found the BG experiences with 4xL70-79s to be roughly equivalent to 5x80s in the top bracket.

I have played 4xShamans and DX+4xRets extensively in BG/Arenas, so I have a good frame of reference for what multiboxing teams can do.

Boomkins in BGs (as of end-of-WotLK):

Overall playstyle:
This is a fun, flexible team that has significant ability to impact a BG outcome. The team utilizes stealth and cooldowns to provide gameplay advantages that other multiboxing teams cannot offer. The team play remarkably like a solo druid, and the multiboxer must rely on the druid class's shapeshifting, healing, and escape tools in order to operate at peak effectiveness. In order to get the most out of this team, a multiboxing setup that allows precise mouse broadcasting is highly recommended.

Ways to play:
Much like a solo druid, this team is strong at survival IF YOU PLAY IT CONSERVATIVELY. This means popping barkskin, shifting into travel form and running away (with Rejuv ticking) if you face strong opposition.

Alternatively, this team can utilize stealth to achieve BG objectives that are very hard to duplicate on other teams. Alterac Valley is a great example-- it's possible to stealth deep into the enemy base and take out towers or graveyards with relative ease. Stealth also allows defensive opportunities that are unparalleled. In BGs with nodes to defend, the team can linger in stealth mode and encourage 1-5 enemy to come up for an "easy cap". You do not have to reveal your position until much later in a BG session. Although you may get overwhelmed later on at a node, you will have several minutes longer to keep the enemy guessing. A real viable strategy is to stealth-defend a node a couple times, then abandon it if you see a large zerg force and go capture 1-2 other nodes while the enemy mobilizes to take out the "evil multiboxer".

Alternatively, this team has the "Blaze of Glory" tactic available to it where you will pretty much guarantee your team's death in exchange for the death of 7-15 enemies. Starting from stealth, you can infiltrate a pack of enemies and barkskin, treant, starfall, (maybe hurricane), and typhoon the group around to great effect. Cooldowns on all these abilities are relatively short, so they can be utilized very frequently throughout a match. Sometimes, this tactic works without killing off your team, which can be a huge bonus.

Common attack methods:
Honestly, 90% of the time, my team will select the nearest enemies and unload instants while staying mobile. This normally looks like insect swarm, moonfire, typhoon. These three spells are the major source of my damage. A 5x stacks of MF+IS is a good chunk of damage and is hard for most non-healer spec characters to deal with. It does not kill as fast as a good Lava Burst salvo, however you do not have to stick to one spot to cast. Insect swarm, like some other DoTs, can be case without facing your target. Moonfire spam can also be suprisingly effective while pursuing weakened targets.

Salvos of Wrath are effective if you're dealing with other casters who aren't moving, but melees will generally close on you very fast if you try to stand at range and just use cast-time spells. I've found it much more useful to rely on instant cast damage/DoTs and then change my position to avoid taking too much damage.

Starfire is pretty much only good for situations where you have a LOT of time to cast uninterrupted or you are using it as an opener from Stealth. Using it against a melee is fraught with problems, as they will most likely close on you and either interrupt or cause you to lose facing against them with multiple druids. I have not used this spell much in most BG situations, unfortunately.

Hurricane is similar to above, although I am using it more frequently in the last several weeks. It is a decent spell to use while flanking a group of people. You might get several ticks off before being discovered, then you can switch to Starfall+Typhoons for more AoE punishment.

Treants are great, although I tend to use them more defensively than offensively. What I mean by this is I like to have them out marauding around so that it is harder for people to target me. The amount of DPS I receive on my main is dramatically reduced when they're in play.

Vulnerabilities:
Fear is a big vulnerability, especially when compared to shamans. The main strategy I use is to make sure that fearbomb-capable classes remain at range and die ASAP. Typhoon is very useful for keeping priests and warlocks at bay. If I do get feared, I immediately barkskin+trinket if available to try to increase the odds that I'm able to regroup and survive.

Healing is tied to shifting. Obviously this is not anything shocking, but breaking out of boomkin form to heal costs you GCDs and makes you squishier. This is a weakness compared to shaman or pallies. However... round robin Tranquilities is very, very nice. You have it available pretty often with a 5x team, and it has been shocking to me just how useful this skill has been in BGs, even during fights.

Starfall:
Starfall is strong currently, without a doubt. Without having played beta of Cataclysm, I think it will still be a strong spell because it frees you up to do other things while it's ticking away and is auto-targeting people near you. It may not be an I-Win button long-term, but it is still a nice signature ability that stacks well in multibox situations.

New Stuff in Cata:
Too soon to tell, since I've not played beta. However, there's some good stuff to be theorycraft-excited about. Thorns looks very potent at dealing with melee-AoE. New silence ability also looks fantastic and can be weaved in with current IS+MF spam. Moonfire power increases while mobile will also mesh well with the playstyle. The knockdown ability lends itself to round-robin-ing with Wrath/Starfall for situations where you might want to stand in there and dominate someone. Stealth + mass mushrooms looks like it could be very promising for BG node defense.

Play in Cataclysm??
The main dilemma I have at the moment is that all classes are getting big changes. The question is: will a team like the Shamans pick up more advantages than the druids. With the expansion, all classes appear to be getting buffed and changed, so it's hard to predict where the multi-boomkins will end up in terms of effectiveness.

Comparisons:
In short, I think that the Shamans are the ultimate defensive team that is able to function as a big ranged cannon, albeit relatively fixed in place. DK+Rets is a very offensive team that is able to steamroll opponents and keep moving. Boomkins are a sneaky team that is able to bring to bear good firepower when needed, is highly mobile, and has the advantage of being able to pick their fights.

Footnote: 4-5 druids can be split up in a variety of configurations, obviously. While I didn't cover the "All Feral" approach or the blending of Resto druids into the team, they are options. Druids may not be the best team at any given time, but they have a significant amount of "future-proofness" to them. They also make a highly configurable PvE team, should a player desire the challenge of heroics or other PvE content.

[blast3r]

I do like playing my druid team and have done some heroics with them. I wish my tree had better aoe healing capabilities. With my shaman i have one spec'd restro but in a bind I just hit chain heal and everyone gets topped off. But just LOVE being able to stealth around trash and go straight to the boss with my druids. In PVP for some reason they don't feel comfortable to me. I feel awkward and not sure why.

[ghonosyph]

I'm LOVING my 4 druids(been leveling them thru the 70's bracket in av all weekend and eots last weekend.) its very rare that i'm not top kills pushing near 200 + hks in a match for av and almost every game top dmg unless i decide to protect towers or what not... all depends on pug strats and where the ally defend.

My basic tactics are pretty much to run travel form, cast nature's grasp so that melee get punished/rooted, cast a rejuv and lifebloom, then barkskin while i run at the opposing team, continue to hot myself mid combat but my usual opener is to find a priest or lock in teh group dot them, then cast typhoon and starfall. run around hotting and dotting, if i get low on mana, or i get low on hps i blow more hots and run away while things tick. lol alliance just roll over and die >.< its so fun haha

The new spells we get in cata, combined with the still OP ness of starfall will make us even more potent, however i'm not to certain on our hots being effective anymore... lots of resto droods are bitching cause hots are nerfed all to hell... they suck atm. I cant lie there either, its pretty bad lol :) but we get silence and knockdowns too... fears still hurt but solar beaming on melee can help prevent that "run in and aoe fear" for us enough where we can blow a cooldown or 2 and really destroy. Its all about waiting for your starfall to come back sooner... in cata one of the new glyphs we get is "whenever starsurge deals dmg, the cooldown on your starfall is reduced by 5 seconds"

I think theres enough time in between starfalls(recalling from memory atm dont quote me) that you can cast starsurge 3 or 4 times, reducing starfall to around 40 seconds while deepzing. Stacking large amounts of haste and crit on my boomkin has made it pretty fun on beta, tho there will doubtless be lots of theorycrafting once they get the numbers right on beta.

All in all, i think this team is going to be a rated bg contender... especially with a backup shaman healer and a feral druid on your team(for the aoe sprint thingy). i can see a couple boxers possibly doing well in rated bgs with 5 shammy 5 druid. lol :) time will tell(as always, its beta*)

[Boylston]

After spending a little bit of time (mostly solo) on the 4.0 PTR, I worry that multi-boomkins for BGs will be inferior to Shamans. The stealth advantage will still be there, but I worry that the setup just doesn't have any punch needed for large health pools.

I think it will be possible to set up some cool rotations that keep people at range, but more than 1-2 enemies coming at you will be hard to deal with. There's no amazing ranged attack damage like the shamans have, and there certainly isn't the turtling defensive capability that the shamans have.

I have not tested out everything in a MB configuration, obviously. But I will say that the shaman changes appear to give that team comp a significant upper hand.

[ghonosyph]

shamans cant heal as effectively anymore, and pvp in boomkin is all about blowing typhoons on a 2 cast then 3 cast round robin(ie 2 druids cast it, then 3 druids cast it) so that you can keep multiple enemies at range and wait out starfall. there's some NEW changes coming for boomkins that are up on mmo champ right now, including making starsurge(our hardest hitting single target spell so far) instant cast and cooldown resetting. its like a green lava burst!. I have NO doubt that the new druid stuff is going to be super awesome. Entangling roots change looks promising, chance to root everything within 8 yards of the target, which will help since roots will be instant cast. you can round robin it and cast it on several diff targets to MASS root a ton of people if they zerg you... wait out the 30 sec typhoon to boost them back again till starfall comes back too :D

[Boylston]

Ok. So Starsurge instant cast would be interesting, along with the Entangling Roots change.

I can see a situation where one casts instants almost exclusively and continually weaves in...

Moonfire,
Entangling Roots,
Starsurge,
Typhoon,
Solar Beam,

That would allow a boomkin team to just stay completely mobile and still wear people down. Looking at the Starsurge change, it looks very much proc-based, which is doable but not as nice if that big damage ability was actually always instant cast.

On the whole, I am still very concerned. I just don't see huge bursty DPS numbers out of boomkin on the PTR like I do from the shaman. I also think the eclipse mechanic, while not impossible to manage, is a big part of druid DPS and will take some managing. The fact that it's crucial to mana recovery is also concerning.

I'm just cautious. Shaman changes look like they're all good, where as the druid changes are really going to require an analysis of how things might play out at L85 to understand.

[Boylston]

I also just saw these notes:


Wild Mushroom now becomes visible after 6 sec, up from 4 sec. Base damage increased by 400% (from 269-304 to 1300-1573 damage)

I think they meant [in]visible after 6 seconds. Still, with 5 boomkins dropping these, that's 5x3x1400ish = ~21,000 damage to trigger remotely. Not bad.

Argh!