Thinking of respecing Boomkins

[sync00]

I have 3 RAFd Boomkins that I leveled to 70. I'm holding off on getting WOTLK until Black Friday.

Meanwhile, I'm going to use one of the toons for boosting instances. I'm thinking of respecing to feral for that.

That got me thinking of respecing the other 2 as healers for when I'm ready to quest again to level to 80. Would that be practical to have a PVE questing team with one feral and two healers?

I'm using ISBoxer. Would I have any issues with getting the healers to target the feral?

[tundra622]

Dual-spec is your friend.
I personally leveled with 4 boomkins, i had no trouble with the rout i took, 1 feral 2 healers is quite a waste of possible dps.
On the Dual-spec note go to your trainer and get it, it only costs 10g so you can have your feral booster and your 2 healers to try them out. if you enjoy it, play it

[sync00]

2 Feral and one healer is probably better.

I thought dual-spec was 1,000g. I guess that was the old price.

[sync00]

I just realized that a feral spec will require a complete change of gear. What is a quick way to get a decent set of level 70 gear?

[Ualaa]

I believe dual-spec is now 10gold, which is a substantial discount from the original price.

I'd personally level all three as Feral.
Although Boomkin or a combination would work.

Feral will heal themselves, almost every time they crit.
Because of Leader of the Pack.
And you'll crit a lot of the time.
Against trash type mobs (I'm speaking questing, not instances here), you'll almost never need any form of heals.

When you do need it, there's a talent which gives you a 20% chance (per combo point) with any finishing move of making your next nature spell an instant cast.
I was using a basic macro: Mangle, Rake, Mangle, Mangle, Rip... Had to put (Cat Form) after each spell "Mangle(Cat Form)" etc...
With four spells and then a finisher, and a 30% crit rate (was higher with quest gear all the way up), you have over a 95% chance of an instant nature spell.

Set up Grid or Healbot or Vuhdo.
With a repeater region.
And have a keybind for Healing Touch or Regrowth.
So when you need it, all three of them will attempt to cast it on whichever one had threat and might need it.
You could also bind Rejuvenation and Lifebloom, if you wanted to top them up.

Mana won't be an issue, as you regain mana from doing a melee crit, which is very frequent.



I'd just run them Feral, in whatever gear they have now.
If you're 70th, then start the WotLK quests and take Feral rewards.
Or alternatively, run in the previous spec for a few quests and then switch over.

Quests are balanced against a one-boxer, and you have three.
So the kills will be easy either way.

[sync00]

I'd just run them Feral, in whatever gear they have now.
If you're 70th, then start the WotLK quests and take Feral rewards.
Or alternatively, run in the previous spec for a few quests and then switch over.

I'm going to wait a month before getting WOTLK. Right now I want to use one of the toons as a booster in instances. I won't get good level-appropriate gear doing that.

[Multibocks]

Don't even bother with boomkin in PvE or PvP. Stupid mechanic they have makes it really difficult to box.

[Ualaa]

If you have level 70 quests available still...
That will get you rather decent gear.
Shadowmoon Valley and/or Netherstorm quests.

If you don't, you could buy WotLK greens, probably 68th to 70th level.
And that would be fairly decent Sta, Agi and armor.
Definitely very strong gear for boosting toons up to at least the mid 60's.

[sync00]

Can anyone recommend a feral build? Since the clock is ticking on my RAF I don't want to spend a lot of time on researching and figuring out a build.

[Ualaa]

If you're running as a Kitty, start with something like this: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrGcRuodb0z:0MZiVZ0z

Predatory Strikes, is your 20% chance (per combo point) for an instant cast Nature spell (heal).
I like Feral Swiftness for the outdoor movement speed.
Primal Fury is faster combo points, with a half decent crit rate (stack Agi/Sta) and this talent four moves is almost always an instant cast Nature spell via Predatory Strikes.
Feral Charge & Ravage is a good Kitty opener; it will kill lower stuff outright.

If you eventually run more than one Druid, only one needs Infected Wounds, you could move those two points to Feral Aggression (and Glyph that Druid for Faerie Fire).
You could also take Bear talents on one of the toons, assuming you don't just Dual Spec one to Bear/Cat and another to Cat/Resto.

[sync00]

If you're running as a Kitty
Is a kitty good for soloing instances? I'm not clear on the distinction between cat and bear capabilities.

Also, how much stamina and agility do I need for soloing instances at level 70?

[Ualaa]

RAF used to be 1st to 60th.

And with a semi-geared level 70 toon (ie., Burning Crusade era in say full quest gear or maybe normal instance gearing or auction house purchased gear), you would have no problem at all in boosting lower level toons up to 60th.
From 10th to 45th or so, the instances were so trivial that anyone at 70th should do them with ease.
The 45th to 60th level boosting is a bit harder, but should be doable.

An actual tanking toon is a strong asset and will speed things up.
You can pull half of the instance (or all of it) in one massive pull.
And survive running the mobs most of the way back to zone in, or close to where the lowbies (toon's being boosted) are...
And then kill the mobs with your version of Consecration/Retribution Aura or Swipe/Thorns or Death & Decay, etc.

If your toon is a level 70 Hunter, instead of a 70th tank or mage...
You severely lack both the armor/survival mechanics of a tank and the AoE of a mage.
So your pulls cannot be immensely huge.
But a level 70 can boost pretty much as quickly as any other toon in lower instances.
And in the higher ones, you'd basically just kill small groups rather than pull massive groups... and regularly move the lowbies up to keep them in range.

If your boosting toon is 70th...
You're not likely going to be running instances much higher than level 60 (say Hellfire as the instance hub), at least not in a boosting (solo the instance with your toon) capacity.
You could likely clear a level 58-62 instance fairly easily with a group of 4x 58 + 1x 70, but you would be relying on the lower toons playing effectively in a support role.

So your 70th toon (Cat or Bear) will be rather effective at lower stuff.
You'll boost/get the lower combinations to 60th with ease.
But from 60th to 70th, you'd likely quest or pvp faster than boost in instances.

RAF goes to 80th now, instead of 60th.
But you can still get a lot of combinations to whatever level you can quickly boost to.

There aren't really a whole lot of Bear specific talents that your Kitty spec wouldn't have.
A Kitty spec essentially uses the same stats Agi/Sta, so gearing is very similar.
For the instances that you'd boost through, ie be high enough to basically solo, a kitty specific spec who happens to be in Bear Form would likely be easily sufficient.

You can of course go Bear Form and pick up some of the Bear specific talents.
That lets you do larger AoE pulls...
But these talents are more of a requirement for a Bear Tank, that is doing current level content... rather than a Bear or Cat that is boosting lower stuff.

If you like to do massive pulls...
You'd probably run wide of mobs, being able to almost touch many mobs without aggroing them.
With the option to Stealth past a bunch.
Then possibly cast a HOT spell on yourself.
Aggro a mini-boss or whatever...
In Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) which you'd run from say 20th to 45th (might leave at 40th... and the levels of instances did change a bit with Cataclysm, but it was 20th to 44th for me during RAF)... basically attack the last guy, then run the swarm of mobs to almost the zone in area...
Well massive pulls would be Bear Form to survive...

Alternatively you could small pull groups of 8-10 or smaller mobs.
And just very quickly (likely one or two shot) each mob.
And down the group fast.
And move to the next group.
It isn't necessarily as quick as the massive pulls, but it is very effective.
For questing, where the group of toons takes the quest...
And the level 70 kills stuff with ease, while grouped with the lowbies...
Who get very little experience per kill, but the quest is completed extremely quickly...
And they get full experience for the quest turn ins...
I'd think Kitty would be drastically faster than Bear form.

If the content is trivial to you.
Bear and Cat will both work well.

[sync00]

Thanks for the great tips.

I tried a feral spec. Even though I have crappy feral gear and barely know how play feral yet, it was a lot easier to pull mobs than with the Boomkin. I'm amazed by how much easier it is. I'm looking forward to getting better gear and developing the skills so I can pull larger mobs.

I went with a bear because I have crappy gear and don't know how to play this spec yet. Once I get those things sorted out I'll try the cat.

[sync00]

Alternatively you could small pull groups of 8-10 or smaller mobs.
And just very quickly (likely one or two shot) each mob.

Which spell can one or two shot a group? I'm only using a few spells right now and it will take a while to learn them all.

[Ualaa]

With a Kitty...
You're not necessarily one/two shotting the entire group, but rather each mob one at a time... and they fall rather rapidly.
You do have Swipe as a Cat, but that's not often the best move.

Start in stealth.
Ravage a mob, which should outright kill it or put it very close to dead.

Stampede also allows you to Feral Charge Cat Form.
And then Ravage (Ravage is to Shred, as Ambush is to Backstab) without needing Stealth or having a positional requirement.
Predatory Strikes increases the crit chance of Ravage by 50% against fresh (over 80% health) targets.
Anytime you can Feral Charge Cat, you're basically going to kill that target (I believe there was a range requirement such that you couldn't use it on adjacent things, but could still attack casters who were a very short distance away from you).

The basic Kitty rotation I used was:
Mangle, Rake, Mangle, Mangle, Rip.

When questing against current level targets...
One Mangle (from Five Druids) dropped almost everything that was within +/- 2 levels of my toons.
That was in level appropriate questing gear.

When boosting, Mangle (and the Auto Attacks that follow) will drop most targets almost immediately.

Cat Form has a massive increase in DPS over Bear Form.
And like a rogue, you'll have a high amount of dodge (especially against lower mobs).
Bear Form has very high mitigation as well, but much lower damage.
Essentially, any time you can survive the mobs as a Kitty, go Kitty because they'll die in a quarter of the time.
But if you pull 100 mobs at once in Cathedral (SM), Bears will handle massive mobs much better.

Kitties have Stealth, Pounce/Ravage (both requiring Stealth), Sprint (Dash), Tiger's Fury (Energy Boost), Berserk (DPS Boost)...
Their Shred does more damage than Mangle, but requires being behind the target... while Mangle (boxed) is easier in that you can do it from any direction.
You can Rake (which is a combo point generating move) and Rip (a finishing move, which does more damage based on more combo points); these are both DOT effects, so the mobs armor essentially isn't there.

Bears have several survival options.
One reduces their Rage levels, but heals them as it does so.
And rage builds as they're hit.
Both have Survival Instincts, which is a health boost like Last Stand for a warrior.

If you have lowbies nearby, you could open with Hurricane as your pulling option.
That is AoE, so you'll have initial threat on everything.
But without spell power, it won't kill much if anything at all.
You could Bear Form - Charge, and then Swipe to hit things for threat.

[sync00]

When boosting, Mangle (and the Auto Attacks that follow) will drop most targets almost immediately.

I'm surprised you use Mangle when boosting. I use it with Berserk for bosses but stopped using it for large groups of mobs. When surrounded by a large group I can't tell what is targeted and I had facing issues with Mangle. So I just use Swipe.

[sync00]

I tried cat form but could not pull very well with the loss of health compared to bear form.

[Ualaa]

There's a gearing point, where the Cat Form drops things a lot faster than the Bear Form.
The Bear Form always lasts a lot longer.

If your Druid is not very geared as a Feral, go with Cat Form for the really low stuff.
But switch to Bear Form, once Kitty is having some issues.

[sync00]

I was thinking the cat didn't have enough health. I see now the solution is more AP.

I'm already having difficulty with the cat in Scarlet Monastery. I replaced some of my Intellect gear on the AH. But there is still a lot of room for better gear.

[sync00]

I did some testing with the cat. Cat Swipe takes 45 energy and I only have a total of 100. My bear form actually does 50% more dps than the cat form and the bear has 4x armor.

[Ualaa]

Swipe is garbage for DPS.
The only thing that can be said for it, is that it hits several at once.

Mangle is 35 Energy, and will very rapidly destroy anything that Swipe would have a chance to down.
Auto attack is initiated by the Mangle, and that is a significant portion of that damage.

Bear definitely has many times additional survival potential.

And if you're doing mass pulls, that will be faster boosting/leveling than anything you can do with a Cat.
However with fewer targets, Cat Form has as much higher DPS as Bear Form has higher survival.
Until the next expansion, Feral has both tanking and damage potential.

[sync00]

Ualaa,

I'm going to work on improving my gear and then I'll try cat some more.

I realized that meleeing with multiple toons is not going to work like it does with casting. I did some research and found your instructions on how to set up IWT for melee in ISBoxer. It makes my head spin and wonder if I should go back to casting. But I've grown to like melee.

[sync00]

I looked at the instructions again http://www.dual-boxing.com/showpost.php?p=312469&postcount=3 and realized those are for a more complicated situation than a pure melee team.

Do I only need to set up IWT and CTM in WoW plus IWT in ISBoxer to make an all melee team work?

[Ualaa]

Here is a video by MiRai, on how to set up IWT/CTM in IS Boxer.
http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=45676

Basically, you want Click to Move enabled on the melee members of your team.
You can toggle that with /console AutoInteract 1 and /console AutoInteract 0.
1 = on and 0 = off.

You could opt for two IWT keybindings within Warcraft.
One would be only your melee toons and one would be all of your toons.

You'd broadcast (or make a mapped key) with all of them receiving the IWT command, when you want everyone to loot a corpse in turn, or to take a quest from an NPC, etc...

You'd broadcast just the melee's IWT, when you want to move the melee toons into range with whatever you're killing.




The post you have linked is a tad more advanced, but its not that hard.

If you were to make a castsequence for your toons...
Or you were to use Mercurio's two-step macros... http://www.dual-boxing.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14

You would have a button that you would want to spam.
You would have IS Boxer also send your IWT keybind to the melee toons.
So the one button would execute your DPS and ensure your toons are also in melee range (the melee ones anyway).
You would do this as a two-step process in IS Boxer...
Either on Press or Release, meaning key down is the IWT and key up is the Castsequence.
Or as alternating, one press/release is IWT and the next is the Castsequence.

Either way, you get IWT built into your DPS.
You can go with a manual IWT key quite easily, you'd just be pressing it quite often.

[blast3r]

You could try two bears and one healer for instances. Bears can put out some decent damage. Faire Fire deals damage when in bear form.

I respec'd 5 boomkins to feral and love it.

[sync00]

Here is a video by MiRai, on how to set up IWT/CTM in IS Boxer.
http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=45676

I followed the instructions in the video and it turned out to be much easier than I expected.

[sync00]

I respec'd 5 boomkins to feral and love it.
In other games I don't play melee. But I'm loving feral in WoW.

[Moorea]

Ualaa you wrote "Until the next expansion, Feral has both tanking and damage potential."

What do you mean - the next expansion druids don't have tanking and melee dps anymore ? (which one is lost?)

[Khatovar]

Feral becomes 2 trees, so Druids will have 4 trees total. Balance, Resto, Feral {cat} and Guardian {bear}



http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#U!

[Moorea]

ah interesting, thanks Khatovar - so do we get triple-spec then ;-) ?