Druid x 5 lowbie instance issues

[wakasm]

Warning: these may be some serious SILLY early game questions....

Hey all. I'm still in my first 3 months of 5-boxing The problem is, when you google anything now, a lot of information is out of date - so I figured I'd ask the experts here first.

Here goes:

I'm on my 3rd team to 60 using up my remaining RaF time - I decided to try a 5 druid team. I've NEVER played a druid before.

They are currently level 19-20. Due to how low level this is - my questions may just be trivial since a lot of abilities are not unlocked yet.

I went to do my first random instance, as I've done with my other 2 teams, and unlike the other teams I've played as, (Pally Tank + 3 caster dps + healer, 5 Shamans) I couldn't even down the first boss in both RFC and Wailing Caverns = Huge fail. At first I thought it was b/c I was not paying attention or that I was doing something stupid with my macros/isboxer setup, but I tried a few times and got stuck in both instances. I've never had this issue in ANY other instances up to 60 so far in either of my other teams. So, I ask....

1) Something is wrong with an all druid team?
2) I am doing something wrong and I am grossly misunderstanding druid mechanics - especially healing? I feel like I can only get 5 heals tops before running out, and my bear just dies so quickly.
3) Or is this an indication that... I'm a poor boxer. (hoping not, since I had no issues so far with the other 2 teams)

My current set-up is:

1 x Feral Tank (Bear Form)
3 x Feral DPS (Cat Form)
1 Healing (No Form?)

My equipment (which may also be the problem) - is mostly just quest items from northern barrens. Greens with +2 +3 etc

Some questions (and some may be really noobish since I've never rolled a druid alt before and honestly, I'm not the versed of all WoW 101 mechanics)

1) Shouldn't there be a tree form that helps heal or did this change at some point? Looks like it's a 30 sec cast now?
2) Druid Tank - am I correct that I should be going for Agility & stamina first?
3) Feral DPS - is it agility first here too?

As for healing - I thought I was using the wrong spells, but I only have 4 options at this level and I'm aware of using the least mana spells (I started as a healing priest once upon a time). . I'm really hoping that 5 druids is doable once I have other skills... I probably could go 5 feral dps and blow through some instances once I get leader of the pack and just level to 60, but I generally do 4-5 instances while leveling to be sure I understand my team and practice.

I have raided vanilla and BC, but I took a break from Lich King, came back with that insane sale to 5-box.

I was pretty shocked that I got stuck so early with this team - especially since the early content is usually very easy. Any advice for druids = helpful. Thanks ahead of time.

[Ualaa]

We used to have Tree Form, for healing (Resto spec).
While in tree form, we had buffs to our base healing which brought us in line with the healing capability of the other healing classes.
While in tree form, we were snared and were prohibited from casting just about all offensive spells.

They did away with the Tree Form.
So now, healer druids are balanced against other healing classes in their base form.
And Tree Form is a super powered short buff, which drastically improves some spells.

Chances are, you don't have a lot of your toys yet.
Not saying the other classes you played would have had theirs either, at lower levels.
But a Bear tank in particular is missing some of the essentials for holding threat.
It will get better for all compositions with some levels.



You should be crit immune, with any tank that takes their tanking spec.
Not initially, but fairly early in the tanking tree, you should have reduction in chance to be crit by melee hits.
Not sure that you have that yet, and that is a very big deal when tanking.

A mob can land a Crushing Blow, if it exceeds your level by four.
A raid boss is considered to be three levels above whatever the current maximum level is.
So, if you're maximum level you cannot have a Crushing Blow land on you.
If you run an instance, and the boss is four or more levels higher than you, it is about the same as not having the crit immunity talents.

Gearing as a bear is primarily Agility and Stamina.
Dodge is mitigation as well, but not sure that you want to gear for dodge rating.
Hit and Expertise are good, in that they will increase your damage which helps threat (ie, holding the mobs onto the bear).
Mastery, once you're high enough for it, is a fairly good stat to have too.



For the cats, Agility and Stamina are the stats.
Agility is pretty much the only thing to stack.

You'll want a fair amount of Hit, as being hit capped is a larger DPS gain than anything else.
Once you're capped, Hit doesn't do jack for you.
Until you're capped, it's worth more than anything else.

As a Feral, Mastery is a very strong stat, probably the best to go for.
We will get a massive amount of Crit, just from our high Agility.
So it is a good idea to reforge almost everything into Mastery.

And stack a balance of Agi (DPS) and Sta (Survivability).



I'm playing 5x Ferals, but haven't done instances for leveling.
Pretty much straight questing, with a little bit of BG's mixed in.

The composition has very good mobility.
And pushes out a massive amount of DPS.
And then there is the Stealth, to pick our battles.
Plus toys like Flight Form, to loot ground spawn collection items without killing mobs.
Or quick casting (instant fairly often) Rebirth.

With talents, you end up having a 20% chance per combo point of any finishing move giving you a buff where your next Nature spell of 10 seconds or lower casting time, becomes an instant cast.
With 30% critical chance, that amounts to just over 97% chance of an instant cast on any finishing move with four or more combo points.

The premiere spells to you with an instant cast are: Rebirth, Healing Touch and Regrowth.
I use Rejuvenation for medium amounts of healing and Lifebloom for small amounts of healing.
Although Leader of the Pack, is sufficient healing for 95% of my play.
When I take on an elite mob 2-3 levels above me (group quests), I spam my DPS key a bit until I have a finisher on the mob, and then have 5x Regrowth on whichever druid had threat.
For more serious content (PvE Heroics, most likely), I'd run one Bear, one Resto and three DPS; will try 3x Cat but might need to go 3x Boomkin, depending how rampant melee range crap is in Cataclysm.

Druid DPS is about the bleeds.
Keep up Rake and Rip on the mob.
If you want to concentrate on facing and such, Shred will deal more DPS than Mangle.
I'm using a very simple castsequence: Mangle, Rake, Mangle, Mangle, Rip.
It doesn't matter which way the mob faces, I can hit the mob in the front as easily as the back.

Not sure if you know about the settings Click To Move and Interact With Target.
CTM is in Interface Options - Mouse Options.
IWT is a keybind in Keybindings - Targeting Functions.
If CTM is on, you can use IWT to move your toons to the mob.
This is a rather essential piece of the puzzle for melee boxing.

[wakasm]

Thank you Ualaa, as always - your posts are extremely helpful.

I have been able to figure out CTM and IWT, I believe I read it in of your other posts.

I have no issues with regular questing, aside from the random Melee running in crazy directions when I spam IWT, I haven't had much issues DPSing. I was more concerned with how bad I was doing in the easiest Instances in the game, and really thought I was doing something extremely wrong or incorrect.

Feral Melee boxing is fun and I can't wait until FaF is off so I can try the DK setup I keep reading about.

I may just do like you are doing and change them all to Feral Cats and just quest for speed purposes. I can probably squeeze out a 4th team to 60, and I still haven't used my level grants yet. I just get so caught up in preparation which slows me down.

Right now, I end up using my 3 cats almost like "Pets", I usually just IWT and send them to kill something, and by the time my healer or tank catch up, it's dead.

However, in the instance, my tank just died so quickly. I don't think I got the first boss to 50% before the tank died and it really made me feel like I was missing something. I guess at lower levels, I'm just missing tools, as I've read that 5 druid set-up should be fine for instancing, which is my focus for this first year of 5-boxing.

I am still probably doing a lot of things wrong with ISBoxer. I still haven't been able to wrap my head around a lot of yours (and others) posts about some set-ups. But I am finding that I'm learning more through trial and error as well.

Thanks. Your post made me feel like I at least was not wasting my time or that I'm not a complete noob. Just a semi-noob.

[Ualaa]

If I spam the IWT (or sometimes, even with a single press), my toons will overrun the target.
Another press of IWT, will have them come back, sometimes to the target and sometimes through the target.

In general when questing, I push once to get them there.
And sometimes have to "spam", since they run through (maybe only one druid, sometimes several or all).

The IWT is pretty random, unfortunately.

Having added a hot key for FTL Follow Me (one of my mouse thumb buttons) has helped in this regard quite a bit.
It is an extra tool (aside from another IWT command) to regain control of the team; I press it immediately after every combat now.



I have it (IWT) built into my main DPS key.
As in it has an imbeded, Do Mapped Key > Melee IWT.
And then I have a toggle, which can be enabled or disabled for the Melee IWT key.

I don't use the toggle often, but can disable the IWT which only affects the melee toons.
So pushing the DPS key, doesn't result in IWT.



We only have a single bear form now.
In the older versions of the game, the Bear got significantly better at 40th level.
Not sure if your armor and health goes up drastically at 40th still (Dire Bear Form, vs Bear Form), or if it scales gradually from level one.

Healing Touch is the equivalent of the big heal, from most other classes.
But our style of healing is to have HOTs roll on the target.
And to then decide when to Swiftmend, when to Treeform, etc.
Chances are Lifeblooms finishing their HOT effect, and "blooming".
Anyway, the Druid style of healing is a little different, more proactive and less reactive.



With five Cats, the DPS is very sickening, in a good way.
Quite frequently, my more traditional teams would require a tank.
But the team doesn't have a dedicated tank or healer.

Most of my teams have three DPS spec toons.
A tank that does a third of their DPS.
And a healer that does almost no DPS.

The 5x Ferals, have not quite double the DPS, but still a lot more.
So things are dead way faster than with a more traditional team.

[Heavyd]

That first boss in RFC is hard for any team that uses quest reward gear (12k hit points & hits like a truck). I've wiped with several teams on him, and some teams just can't get past him.

The only advice i can give is
1) keep the tank alive. don't waste mana keeping him at 100%, and be sure you're using thorns on the tank.
2) kill the adds first

if your tank & dps are averaging at least 20dps each, you should be able to to clear that instance. Maybe get some +intellect gear for the healer.

[ghonosyph]

my recommendation is to switch them all to boomkin and quest to 60, you'll have much more fun and survivability. i found leveling my 5 druids that it was much easier just to skip instances until i had enough crafted gear to handle them, which required around lvl 35 or higher. one thing i'd like to give you some small advice about (offtopic) is if you intend to use your raf grant levels, grant yourself a paladin as HIGH AS YOU CAN !! that way you can start 4 dks to go along with it :) lol i messed up when i did my granted levels, and ended up with 3 shamans and a priest around lvl 38 ish... :) do it right bro!!


Dont give up on the droods, they are SUPER DUPER FUN to play once you get starfall (ie for boomkin specs) and then of course you can always do multiple feral. I found that the lack of "quality" gear for feral at lower levels made me focus more on the caster gear choices/boomkin spec. Plus, you dont HAVE to stay in moonkin form all the time, which meant that i could run around hotting myself and wrath/moonfire spam stuff dead. :) hit and run style pvp is a lot of fun in that regard lol

[wakasm]

I have it (IWT) built into my main DPS key.
As in it has an imbeded, Do Mapped Key > Melee IWT.
And then I have a toggle, which can be enabled or disabled for the Melee IWT key.

I don't use the toggle often, but can disable the IWT which only affects the melee toons.
So pushing the DPS key, doesn't result in IWT.



The way I set it up is I created 4-5 versions of IWT and just drop them into the teams I've setup

So one version of IWT goes out to all toons (good for accepting / turning in quests + and looting).
Another version I have going out to the slots I know that will be melee - in this case, 2+3+4.

Then I only assign that to "Team Druid" and any other teams that I know have melee in 2+3+4. I assign that to an extra mouse key (I have the naga mouse with the 1-12 keypad on it).

I feel like my method is more manual now after reading your post, but hoping it should hold up until I figure out yours. I guess that your method makes for 1less key press and probably flexibility when I get to an insane amount of toons?

I'm confused with the Melee IWT part - is that just what you named it and know that it's relative to your setup? Or is there some logic / macro / etc that can tell if you are melee or not and pass it through?

[Zappy]

+1 on leveling them as boomkins. When I leveled them, I kept them boomkin all the way to 80 and had very little problem clearing instances along the way. For boss fights, it was all about getting your dots on them and going to town, then whoever starts getting beat on, throw 5 regrowths. Once you get treants and startfall, things become a lot easier. I just started leveling mine again (currently 81) and still boomkin, however I'm in the process of collecting all feral gear, so I'll be making the switch soon.

For the more challenging pulls in instances, you also need to remember that you have 5x entangling roots at your disposal. At early levels, it's going to be tougher regardless of the comp due to not having the deeper tiered talents or the HP to survive easily. All of the instance content up to and including bc can easily be done with 5x boomkins at the appropriate level.

I haven't done a whole lot on them since the expansion hit, but I did manage to give blackrock caverns a try with 5x boomkin @ 81, and was able to down the the first boss without losing anyone. I opened with treants and lots of dots, then once the chains appeared, i popped starfall which broke the chains almost instantly, giving me a lot of time to move away and dps freely on the boss. I don't expect a boomkin team to go much further, but for leveling, they are still very efficient.

If you must level them as feral, then I say just go 5xFeral as you'll have close to double dps which means stuff drops faster in addition the instant nature casts are great for topping off whoever is taking damage.

[Ualaa]

I have two IWT mapped keys.

The first is easy to understand.
It has a hotkey.
And sends my Warcraft IWT Keybind to all slots.



The second is for melee toons only.

First I create an action target group, which I've called Melee IWT.
I then drag every toon, who will want to IWT as part of their DPS into this group.

I create a new mapped key, which I've called: Melee IWT.
It has no hotkey; it will be activated by being called from the DPS mapped keys.
It sends my Warcraft IWT keybind to the Current Window.

I then modify my FTL DPS mapped keys, in my case (DPS 1, DPS 2 and DPS 3).
Click on the name of the mapped key, and change the box from "Execute a Step on Release" to "Execute a Step on Press or Release".
Give the selected mapped keys an extra step.
On the second step, you want two actions:
-- Do Mapped Key: FTL Assist Me (Target: Current Window)
-- Do Mapped Key: Melee IWT (Target: Group (all of) Melee IWT).
Then right click on Step 2, and select Move Up, so it is now the first step.

(This has every toon who is in the Melee IWT ATG, execute the Melee IWT mapped key.... so Window: Current, only affects the toons who are running that mapped key).



Finally create a toggle for the Melee IWT, I've called mine Melee IWT Toggle.
Give it a hotkey.
Give it two steps.
Step one does:
- Keymap Actions > Mapped Key State Action: Melee IWT, in Keymap General, Keymap: Off (Target: All With Current)
- Pop Up Text Action > "Melee IWT Disabled".
Step two does:
- Keymap Actions > Mapped Key State Action: Melee IWT, in Keymap General, Keymap: On (Target: All With Current)
- Pop Up Text Action > "Melee IWT Enabled".

[katsurahama]

I tried leveling five druids as a traditional group comp but the druids tanking ability sucks under 60 at least compared to paladin or warriors. I ended up switching them all to boomkin except one who was resto and specced for the mana free wrath spell. It was much quicker after that.

[wakasm]

I just wanted to return to this thread and state the following:

Thanks Ualaa!

I ended up switching to 5 feral dps, and well, it's been lightspeed since. I even did two instances and had very little trouble. The whole 5xrejuv thing is mighty powerful.

That being said - I probably could have succeeded with bear + 3dps + heals had I done the 5xrejuv thing on the bear... but the 5 feral dps just rips everything apart. I should be 60 shortly and ready to start on my 3rd team - which I think I may do 5 goblin shammies and go into it with the same mindset of - Just level the most power and easy to set-up combination.

I can worry about specs, composition, etc later when I decide to level to 85.

I just hope I can squeeze out 2-3 more teams before 2-23-11 since that's when my RaF is up.

[Bigfish]

Geez, I feel bad coming in to this topic so late, but I came across the same issue leveling some new groups of my own.

Bottom line, bear tanks and resto druids are terrible at low levels. Don't think it reflects poorly on your skills. Bears just don't have much in the way of aggro generation those first few levels, particularly no AoE threat abilities (not til demoralizing roar anyway). They are also balanced around having ALL their gear slots filled to add to their armor, which just doesn't happen early.


Resto druids also come up short in that while most other healing classes have a 'cheap' heal, druids don't. You have Rejuv, Regrowth, and Healing Touch, all which heal nicely, but are mana intensive which really messes you up those first few levels when you aren't really able to stack Int.

Bottom line, any low level group with a druid tank is going to have issues. And a low level druid healer is going to have issues. On the plus side, both pick up in performance as you move through the 20s.

[katsurahama]

I havent leveled a horde team in years but with alliance, if you play about 3 hours a day and don't waste time, you can level a team per week if you play every day. It adds up to about 21 hours /played if all you do is quest.

Good luck.

[Sbrowne55]

The druids tanking gets much better later on. Still not as easy as a Pally, but I found it much better then a warrior. Some fights also, with barkskin, frenzied regen, talented enrage, survival instincts, and a few cooldowns can really turn bursty boss dmg into nothingness lol, This would be a winner over pally tanking imo.

AE pulls, do require some patience, when you get Thrash, and time it with swipe you can do some crazy dps. When you're tanking multiple mobs, vengeance almsot always makes my bear tank do more dps then my kitties, Mangle scales so damn well with attk power in bear form, its crazy, I can mangle for 30k crits almost every time

With feral kittie, its almost more beneficial with swap to tank on ae pulls and drop a trash /swipe then revert to kittie form and swipe spam; then rinse repeat if no agro is on you. Just a little something I learned on the way.

I love the druid feral combos, and I'd love to see more action on these forums then the isual shammy teams. So I hope you stick to it. :)