5 Druids

[dancook]

I started a group of druids many months ago, now I reactivated my accounts - finished getting the heirloom gear I decided to level them.

Got to level 12 and was feeling brave, so I started deadmines - and just finished it now at level 14.

I tried WSG at level 11 - easy to kill but easy to die too.. so it wasn't that great.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Druids are one of those groups that IMO has some radical changes in survivability and playstyle at certain level points. Like, before/after Tranquility/Starfall(68/69), Insect Swarm(20), Ninnervate(28), Frenzied Regen(52). I swapped mine around depending on what was good. I think I had both feral and balance sets up through about 83ish when I said the hell with it and just stuck with balance.

[Ualaa]

If you're questing to level, I'd suggest Feral.

You basically have zero down time.
Between the damage of five melee characters.
And eventually healing yourself passively, every time a character gets a critical hit (which is very frequent).

My Ferals leveled a lot faster (via Questing) than any other composition (also via the same Questing route).

I used:
IWT + a Castsequence.

#show
/castsequence reset=5 Mangle(Cat Form), Rake(Cat Form), Mangle(Cat Form), Mangle(Cat Form), Rip(Cat Form)

You could stealth and pounce/ravage if you want.
Or use Faerie Fire in there somewhere.
I just ran at mobs and killed them.

That and flight form for any ground spawn collections (once you get flight form).

[dancook]

I've been playing Feral, and that's the full heirloom set I just finished off getting.

but I do have 5 x full cloth set too, so I could swap for running balance - maybe I should run balance in BGs at this low level? Oh yea .. can't dual build until level 20 - doh!

Thanks Ualaa, I did use that macro - replaced Rip for Ferocious Bite at this early level. But I reset it on combat/target? I assumed combo points don't transfer between targets.

[Ualaa]

I don't think combo points can transfer, although there might be something in MoP for that.

The 5x Mangle (step 1, of the castsequence) kills outright basically everything, questing.

The full rotation with the finisher, which gets you the insta-cast (under 10 seconds base cast time) nature spell, almost never reaches the finisher.
But it is in there, for the few elites who are higher level than the party... which you're supposed to use an item to summon aid or weaken them... I was able to kill everything questing, except the fire guy in Hyjal (who you're supposed to run away from)... via brute force with the druids (my Paladin & 4x DK's failed on three battles that the Ferals won).

[dancook]

Did you do the dungeons whilst you levelled? I've cleared dm, sfk, rfc and wc.

Not often but there are occasions where I stealth past packs :) it's quite a nice perk for a team to have.

Level 24 now, did a few duskwood quests

[Truelle]

I am leveling a team of 5 Boomkins atm almost to 85. Wow does flight form make the hideous collection quests in Twilight Highlands much easier. Been having alot of fun in some AV's with them 5X Starfall, stealth, and massive packs of trees lol.

[Ualaa]

I pretty much quest to level.

My focus this expansion has been on PvP (as it was since Ulduar was the top raid, in WotLK).
I've not set foot in any Cataclysm instance, actually.

I found with Aquatic Form and the minor glyph for faster swimming...
The water zone (Vashj'ir) was actually quite fun, with a neat story line.
All my other teams, lacking instant cast swim speeds... despised the zone, and actually ended up skipping it.




Instances are definitely an option.
And with all of the relevant quests, right at zone in, your first successful run should be close to a full level.

You can also do PvP, especially if you're x4 in the x0-x4 bracket or x9 in the x5-x9 bracket for your BG.
Solo boxing at maximum level is quite strong; multi-boxing at maximum level is more so.

Both are options, if questing gets too monotonous.
As is bouncing between teams, and only playing with rested experience for double experience.

[daviddoran]

Last time I played my 5 druids was at level 80, right before they added in the eclipse bar. I think initially it was proc based which would have made boxing them difficult to optimize, but now it appears to be more fixed, moving the scale one way or another at a set amount per spell.

I remember fun times in PvP on AV weekends destroying the horde at choke points, or stealthing past the turtle to cap towers, typhooning anyone who came close. I felt squishier than my shaman, due to my own inexperience of the class, and having to change forms to heal. I think i might resub my accts and level the druids to 85 to see how they are doing now.

[fpsware]

I'm leveling a 4 man Druid set myself. Currently ~78. My original intention was to level as 3 + DPS and 1 TANK but that never seemed to work out well no mater what I did. After specing Booomkin I've not looked back. 4 Boomkin and I PUG a tank, it makes for a nice smooth run. At level 85 I assume they will be just as viable, and in PVP they are thoroughly entertaining.

[Emenems]

With Glyph of the Moonbeast (http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=116209) this can be awesome team in mop (almost like pala + 4x ele in bc/wotlk)

[Multibocks]

Druids are one of those classes that on paper they should kick ass, but in execution they leave much to be desired. PvP was terrible, but in PvE nothing can kill my 4x tanks + 1 resto. In fact it would be even better if I spec' them all tank, the healer just dies mid-battle with dungeon bosses anyways. However, its the end of an expansion and I am too lazy to dust them off and try that.

[Ualaa]

The big drawback for Boomkins, compared to Elemental Shamans, was that a Shammy can heal in their DPS form but a Moonkin had to drop out of their form to heal.
Moonkin gave them their perks, including the survivability.
Losing that to heal, made the team a lot less viable.

That was before the whole Eclipse mechanic, which is another negative for the spec.
But that glyph... adds a massive amount of appeal to Boomkins.
In Cataclysm, if you omit the Sunfire talent (a DPS gain, one-boxing), Mercurio's macro works great for boxing Boomkins.



Both Feral and Resto are quite strong boxed.
This is from a PvP perspective.
There isn't a gap between they're strong on paper, but suck in actual use.
On paper, they're not the strongest composition by any means, but they're fun and still quite effective.

[Owltoid]

I'm considering switching back to my moonkin team instead of my shadow priests. While both are fun, I really miss the stealth aspect of the druids. With the new healing glyphs, moonkins may be easier in PvP than before.

[kate]

This team comp is just flat out fun to play! I'm leveling 5 allies as all Boomkin and so far I've done every dungeon up to and including both of the new Scarlet Monastery instances without any problems and without needing a tank. Being able to heal in Moonkin form when properly glyphed has made this comp really shine. We might not have much buff diversity, but for trash skipping it's amazing. I know that at some point I will actually need a tank, but for right now it's fun having my laser chickens destroy everything.

[Ualaa]

Dual Spec gets you both the healer and tank, should the need arise.
In the meantime, see what you can kill as 5x DPS, whether Boomkin or Feral.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

This team comp is just flat out fun to play! I'm leveling 5 allies as all Boomkin and so far I've done every dungeon up to and including both of the new Scarlet Monastery instances without any problems and without needing a tank. Being able to heal in Moonkin form when properly glyphed has made this comp really shine. We might not have much buff diversity, but for trash skipping it's amazing. I know that at some point I will actually need a tank, but for right now it's fun having my laser chickens destroy everything.

If you accept that they have a few glaring weaknesses and play around them, they're hella fun. :D

[roddo]

boosting a team up atm, with an 80 on main account ready to step in and make it a 5 man team for leveling past 80. Currently at 52ish. Really looking forward to the bear, the tree and 3 owls, especially with the new glyph meaning i got more healing than I can comprehend. So far when I've dragged around 4 owls behind my booster just to test out the dps I've been pretty happy with it, even in crap gear at low levels.

[Lyonheart]

boosting a team up atm, with an 80 on main account ready to step in and make it a 5 man team for leveling past 80. Currently at 52ish. Really looking forward to the bear, the tree and 3 owls, especially with the new glyph meaning i got more healing than I can comprehend. So far when I've dragged around 4 owls behind my booster just to test out the dps I've been pretty happy with it, even in crap gear at low levels.

How you dealing with Eclipse?

[kate]

If you accept that they have a few glaring weaknesses and play around them, they're hella fun. :D

What are the big weaknesses, past the question of buff diversity and, it is looking like, weak CC (no humanoids), no interrupt in boomkin form, and no strong AoE until later levels (I'm using swipe right now, whee)? I'm sure I'm missing some, but they really are fun :) I actually can't wait for Typhoon - put that sucker on round robin and you can basically have things non-stop being pushed back and stunned too :D


How you dealing with Eclipse?


At low level, honestly, I'm not worrying about it, but I have basically set up a different set of keybinds for solar vs. lunar eclipse that swaps out the appropriate spells. I've tried it out and it's not perfect but it seems to do the job fairly well. Jamba proc watcher lets me know when people kick into eclipse, so I easily know when to switch.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

What are the big weaknesses, past the question of buff diversity and, it is looking like, weak CC (no humanoids), no interrupt in boomkin form, and no strong AoE until later level
Aside from those, Anti-CC and proc management are probably the two biggest ones.

[Lyonheart]

Aside from those, Anti-CC and proc management are probably the two biggest ones.

For Boomkins ..what about kitty cats? They better this expansion?

[roddo]

i don't worry about eclipse atm, i leveled my 80 as feral, so i'm not really all that knowledgable about boomkins as of yet. When they hit 80 I'll figure everything out then.

[Ualaa]

For Boomkins ..what about kitty cats? They better this expansion?

Ravage/Shred is more damage than Mangle, but Mangle has no positional requirements.
If you glyph Shred, then during Tiger's Fury (6 seconds every 30 seconds) and Berserk (15 seconds every 3 minutes) you can Shred instead of Mangle without positional requirements.
But then you'd have to manually control those abilities, so you would activate the Shred mapped key instead of the Mangle mapped key (on the same keybind) for whatever duration.

Incarnation allows for Prowl in combat (think Vanish) and for the use of Ravage, without stealth or positional requirements, for 30 seconds every 3 minutes.
That will be a lot of burst power...



Nature's Swiftness, which allows for a 150% effective Healing Touch (per Druid, likely on Round-Robin) once every minute... without dropping out of Cat Form...
That adds a massive amount of survival to the composition.
Rebirth is another option, instead of Healing Touch, and glyphed Rebirth is a 100% heal.

Leader of the Pack should keep a kitty topped up, unless they're the focus of attacks.
We retain Predatory Swiftness, for a 20% chance per combo point of making our next nature spell instant-cast (but drops us out of kitty form) when we use a finisher move.

I like the looks of Nature's Vigil... +20% increased damage, and 25% of single target damage dealt also heals the lowest health nearby friendly target...
This is 30 seconds, every 3 minutes.
Have this on Round-Robin, and press it 1x-5x depending on the amount of pressure on the team...

Disentanglement has been returned, meaning for the cost of GCD we can shift into our current Kitty form and break any snare/root effect.
Might need to combine this with the glyph for 90% reduction in mana cost of shifts.