Boxing Feral Druids

[boxblizzard]

Hi All,

im running a new Druid team of ferals, no doubt difficult when compared to casters.

I would like to know if anyone has boxed multiple feral spec Druids and could share their experience?

I have boxed raids with mixed teams and caster sets for PvP etc however classic feral setup looks to be challenging.

I would love to hear your experience with any Teams of 2, 3, 4,
and 5 feral setups with shape shifting.

Thanks 😎

[Bodom]

Yikes, that sounds very difficult indeed! What is your experience with them then so far?

[boxblizzard]

Not alot as they are onlu level 10 and have reached Bear form, so currently playing with round robin style keymaps with in-game macros. It's early days, as i will need to learn to try and master utlity with melee while shape shifting, looks like a nightmware but it is feasable once i got it down to a tee!

[boxblizzard]

Sadly come to conclusion feral is not viable enough for reliability as I have discovered, it’s very challenging to a point where you die from panic scenarios and multi shifting while running around is insane.

so not exactly a waste of time but a good eye opener, I’ve made some really good macros but it’s the feral shape shifting mechanics and being melee is awfully challenging to the point of fun stops.

so I have rebooted my old school team of 5 shaman for classic and will consider maybe another caster set another time.

i love the Druids, they just fall behind compared to others.

[Moorea]

4 bears + healing until 5 cats (and 1 healing) should be fine to grind/quest no?

[boxblizzard]

4 bears + healing until 5 cats (and 1 healing) should be fine to grind/quest no?

I have no levelling issues all is well, just the feel for the mechanics seems too difficult for PvP for melee hybrid.

I have done other melee teams but Druids are just extra challenging to a point where it’s not ideal for what I am looking for. I will keep the tree am Incase I use for pve.

[valkry]

And in raids the prep and difficulty of the rotation is insane, especially for multiboxing it I'm afraid.

[strokes]

And in raids the prep and difficulty of the rotation is insane, especially for multiboxing it I'm afraid.
I don't really see anyone taking 5 ferals to anything. The Meta rules everything in classic.

[boxblizzard]

i have redone another druid group of 5x balance, with possible feral for tanking/pvp assist. I find this much easier than feral all-round.

would i be able to 5 man higher dungeons such as lbrs etc, with a 5x balance and use one to tank? but i also want to be pvp without changing specs?

[fleaplus]

I have a team of 5 feral druids at level 47. They are generally pretty fun to play but are obviously much slower at leveling than Mages. Any of them can switch between tanking and melee DPS which is convenient. Obviously shapeshifting is the biggest mana drain and the hardest to setup. I have a bunch of macros to allow switching between the various forms as long as the character is not in bear form.

For healing, I have all DPS cast downranked heals which works pretty well so long as they have time between healing to regenerate some mana.

As far as long term goals I kind of would like to farm out the Feralheart set. Although getting through the quest chain and farming a few of the pieces (Wildheart kilt) may be a big challenge.

I am not sure about PVP but welcome to suggestions. I generally just stealth and avoid 60's for now. Maybe a round-robin Feral Charge macro would make a decent gap closer?

[nodoze]

i have redone another druid group of 5x balance, with possible feral for tanking/pvp assist. I find this much easier than feral all-round.

would i be able to 5 man higher dungeons such as lbrs etc, with a 5x balance and use one to tank? but i also want to be pvp without changing specs?Trying to have 5 Moonkin for PVP with most if not all being able to shift out to heal the others could be somewhat fun but fitting in 5 Moonkin forms hobbles your other roles somewhat.

For PVE 5mans, rather than 5 Boomkin, you may have better luck with 1 Druid going Bear instead of Moonkin to Tank which you may be able to do with 31/20/0 though your bear tank loses HoTW (+20% Stamina) and some improvements and the QoL of Feral Fairy Fire...

For PVE 5mans, rather than 5 Boomkin, you may have better luck with another Druid staying out of Moonkin and focusing on healing with 31/0/20 though again there you lose out on quite a bit of healing (Swiftmend, Natures Swiftness, Improved Regrowth, healing bonuses, etc)... Shifting to Moonkin is expensive (+35% of base mana) but I guess you could shift to moonkin on your "healer" before drinking and have the healer start fights as temporary Moonkin applying DoTs with the other 3 dedicated Moonkin and then drop form to heal.

With the above in mind I would be trying to complete most 5mans with the standard Tank+3DPS(ranged)+Healer approach (or maybe 4offTanks+Healer on easier content) and the biggest fear would be mana issues though I would think with ample consumables you should be OK with most dungeons (drinking a lot between pulls and popping mana potions if/when needed). Any fights where incoming damage is too high for your psuedo-bear you could have one or more of your 3 boomkin offtank a mob (like a voidwalker could do) and just HoT them to spread out incoming damage between upto 4 decently armored targets (the psuedo-bear and 3 boomkins all get +360% armor).

I don't remember hearing anyone really report about this composition at cap so the above is just my off the cuff thoughts...

[boxblizzard]

Thanks for the comments.

The idea is to keep a all-round pve/pvp setup, and possibly with the ideal of leaving out moonkin if required. i would be focusing on a balance/healing to amintain consistent heal/damage, with the main being the feral dps.

So effectively 4x balance/heal, and 1 feral dps/tank.

So far i am grinding/leveling very fast with a balance/feral, where i use spells to grind and when i hit a oh moment, i use the feral to tank etc.

In pvp, or mass attack, i do a round robin stuns and hots, and bear to add some control.

I may consider the 1 feral, 3 range dps and 1 healer combo. But the end goal is pvp but with the ability to dungeon run without spec swaps.

I will revisit this once i reach level 40 as of now i am low level, i have done moonkins historically but it was so long ago..

I usually pvp with 5 man range, and pve with mixed group for obvious reasons.

[nodoze]

Thanks for the comments.

The idea is to keep a all-round pve/pvp setup, and possibly with the ideal of leaving out moonkin if required. i would be focusing on a balance/healing to amintain consistent heal/damage, with the main being the feral dps.

So effectively 4x balance/heal, and 1 feral dps/tank.

So far i am grinding/leveling very fast with a balance/feral, where i use spells to grind and when i hit a oh moment, i use the feral to tank etc.

In pvp, or mass attack, i do a round robin stuns and hots, and bear to add some control.

I may consider the 1 feral, 3 range dps and 1 healer combo. But the end goal is pvp but with the ability to dungeon run without spec swaps.

I will revisit this once i reach level 40 as of now i am low level, i have done moonkins historically but it was so long ago..

I usually pvp with 5 man range, and pve with mixed group for obvious reasons.Sounds good. Seems like 5 druids has been discussed by multiple people which is great since it is less played.

Please report back what specs you try and how they go and which ones you think are best. Considering all the memeing of "OOMkins" and Balance Druids have extreme mana issues (Moonkin form or not) it would be great to hear if you can finish all the dungeons without heavy use of mana pots/runes (not counting mage water as lots of teams have to drink often). Bear+3cat+healer has unlimited rage/energy for DPS with only one mana sync for healing (and the cats can shift periodically boost DPS and to throw a HoT as well) but that may really only be viable for PVE and not sure how it does in dungeons against bosses.

Best of luck and I hope things go well.

[boxblizzard]

Sounds good. Seems like 5 druids has been discussed by multiple people which is great since it is less played.

Please report back what specs you try and how they go and which ones you think are best. Considering all the memeing of "OOMkins" and Balance Druids have extreme mana issues (Moonkin form or not) it would be great to hear if you can finish all the dungeons without heavy use of mana pots/runes (not counting mage water as lots of teams have to drink often). Bear+3cat+healer has unlimited rage/energy for DPS with only one mana sync for healing (and the cats can shift periodically boost DPS and to throw a HoT as well) but that may really only be viable for PVE and not sure how it does in dungeons against bosses.

Best of luck and I hope things go well.

I will keep you all posted, I have done many compositions over the years but classic has really challenged the composition, this is not a bad thing it just means more learning and experimenting is needed. There is many pros and cons rolling all Druids, I do like the easy mode dots leveling, taking down 7-8 mins your level in one go while hot and run round them is insane with my specs.

i have just completed two dungeons that has put performed my shaman setup.

I have found going down resto/dots/hots, the dots from IS, MF alone kill everything and the group healing each other is strong but the problem with Druids at my level and maybe higher up is damage output is sustainable but average. Shamans has massive damage and not much tanking needed, where I did need one one would die but I would clear. Druids simply tank and spark.

but Druids have something I very dislike and that’s the lack of crowd control/aoe damage in classic, lots of mechanics going on with average damage and leather armour is high risk. Let’s say a second group of mobs get pulled and managing it is very hard.

I am still experimenting but I believe classic is gear dependent and being smart.

I’ll update how things are going, I think resto spec and dots is a better passive attack than boomkin. so currently I am 4x resto hybrid with feral tank. so far so good but I have aoe damage and healing concerns , both received and delivered.

FYI , no mana issues with resto hybrid focusing on dots for damage and feral for keeping the mobs busy while they die down, this maintains regeneration of mana, and if mana is good, Starfire finishes them off, my grinding or boss fights is MF, IS, spam starfire. this kills most things.

this is the a concern for most, is the damage output may not be good enough for the fun element.

BUT , they are insane all-moving , hots and dots is epic imo.l due to being healers makes it crazy fail-safe.

[nodoze]

I will keep you all posted...i have just completed two dungeons that has put performed my shaman setup.
...
but Druids have something I very dislike and that’s the lack of crowd control/aoe damage in classic, lots of mechanics going on with average damage and leather armour is high risk. Let’s say a second group of mobs get pulled and managing it is very hard.
...
I’ll update how things are going, I think resto spec and dots is a better passive attack than boomkin. so currently I am 4x resto hybrid with feral tank. so far so good but I have aoe damage and healing concerns , both received and delivered.
FYI , no mana issues with resto hybrid focusing on dots for damage and feral for keeping the mobs busy while they die down, this maintains regeneration of mana, and if mana is good, Starfire finishes them off, my grinding or boss fights is MF, IS, spam starfire. this kills most things.

this is the a concern for most, is the damage output may not be good enough for the fun element.

BUT , they are insane all-moving , hots and dots is epic imo.l due to being healers makes it crazy fail-safe.Thanks for the updates and glad you are having fun. What spec are you running on your 4 that are mainly Resto with some Balance?

I would try to work in at least one Boomkin (still getting at least Insect Swarm from Resto) and see how that adds to the party as it should boost 4 members ranged DPS some. Your Moonkin should push the highest DPS in the party and if it pulls a little aggro from the Bear that should be fine as it has similar mitigation (+360% armor) so can be an effective off tank for your party.

My memory is that in Classic WoW HoT's didn't stack so if that is the case you may want to go deep Resto on only 1 character to specialize in HoTs and the other characters just go enough Resto to get the the bonuses to Healing Touch and Nature's Swiftness (except the Boomkin). In the end you are likely more doing DPS than healing so maybe tilt your party more toward the DPS talents. With that in mind I would try something like:


-Feral Tank;
-MoonKin offTank with at least Insect Swarm from Resto;
-Balance/Resto (30/0/21) to give max/most MoonFury yet still get Nature's Swiftness);
-Balance/Resto (30/0/21) to give max/most MoonFury yet still get Nature's Swiftness);
-Deep_Resto/some_Balance (Max HoTs including SwiftMend);

Note that I put max/most on MoonFury above as one thing I denoted when taking a quick look at the talents is that with only 30 (or 31 with Moonkin) points in Balance is that you will unfortunately have to miss EITHER the 5th point in MoonFury (+2% damage on MoonFire, Wrath, & StarFire) or the 5th Point in Improved StarFire (-.1 sec cast time reduction & +3% stun). To allow your 2 nonMoonkin Balance/Restos to still have 21 in Resto for Nature's Swiftness you have to sacrifice one or the other... I would pay attention to your rotations and scenarios and decide what is better. If you can get to where StarFire is your main spell after DoTs then likely 5/5 Improved StarFire would be best as that would increase your overall Crowd Control by upto~12% per cast (across the 4 non bear characters you can get 4 15% chances to stun per cast) and the cast time reduction may help rotations/speed of your primary damage and CC (CC being one of the things you lamented)...

Your Deep Resto will still be doing 2 DoTs but otherwise it's priority is on applying the HoTs and/or direct heals with the other 2 (or 3) non-bear characters being more of your emergency heals buttons (you can round robin their Nature's Swiftness instant heals if you want). When healing needed is not more than your HoTs, in addition to keeping up DoTs, your Deep Resto could also throw some Direct Damage spells though to do that effectively I would maybe want to normally drive from the main Resto until I understood how to mix/match those all in effectively.

The above should maximize your HoTs and significantly increase party DPS and CC.

Just some thoughts.

[boxblizzard]

Thanks for the updates and glad you are having fun. What spec are you running on your 4 that are mainly Resto with some Balance?

I would try to work in at least one Boomkin (still getting at least Insect Swarm from Resto) and see how that adds to the party as it should boost 4 members ranged DPS some. Your Moonkin should push the highest DPS in the party and if it pulls a little aggro from the Bear that should be fine as it has similar mitigation (+360% armor) so can be an effective off tank for your party.

My memory is that in Classic WoW HoT's didn't stack so if that is the case you may want to go deep Resto on only 1 character to specialize in HoTs and the other characters just go enough Resto to get the the bonuses to Healing Touch and Nature's Swiftness (except the Boomkin). In the end you are likely more doing DPS than healing so maybe tilt your party more toward the DPS talents. With that in mind I would try something like:


-Feral Tank;
-MoonKin offTank with at least Insect Swarm from Resto;
-Balance/Resto (30/0/21) to give max/most MoonFury yet still get Nature's Swiftness);
-Balance/Resto (30/0/21) to give max/most MoonFury yet still get Nature's Swiftness);
-Deep_Resto/some_Balance (Max HoTs including SwiftMend);

Note that I put max/most on MoonFury above as one thing I denoted when taking a quick look at the talents is that with only 30 (or 31 with Moonkin) points in Balance is that you will unfortunately have to miss EITHER the 5th point in MoonFury (+2% damage on MoonFire, Wrath, & StarFire) or the 5th Point in Improved StarFire (-.1 sec cast time reduction & +3% stun). To allow your 2 nonMoonkin Balance/Restos to still have 21 in Resto for Nature's Swiftness you have to sacrifice one or the other... I would pay attention to your rotations and scenarios and decide what is better. If you can get to where StarFire is your main spell after DoTs then likely 5/5 Improved StarFire would be best as that would increase your overall Crowd Control by upto~12% per cast (across the 4 non bear characters you can get 4 15% chances to stun per cast) and the cast time reduction may help rotations/speed of your primary damage and CC (CC being one of the things you lamented)...

Your Deep Resto will still be doing 2 DoTs but otherwise it's priority is on applying the HoTs and/or direct heals with the other 2 (or 3) non-bear characters being more of your emergency heals buttons (you can round robin their Nature's Swiftness instant heals if you want). When healing needed is not more than your HoTs, in addition to keeping up DoTs, your Deep Resto could also throw some Direct Damage spells though to do that effectively I would maybe want to normally drive from the main Resto until I understood how to mix/match those all in effectively.

The above should maximize your HoTs and significantly increase party DPS and CC.

Just some thoughts.

thanks for the feedback, I will he reviewing the whole setup as I feel they have amazing potential but their pve and burst is low and is making longer fights.

i think breaking the team into tank, ranged + healer is good idea but not quite fitting my plan to have a all-round PvP/ pve team without respec. The Druids are powerful indeed and personally I think dedicated damaged + dedicated healer is a better way forward without the tank and go healzor!

I will keep updates as I progress but for now I have paused the team, along with shaman to roll a epic burst team with extra ordinary tanking theory and so far they blow every team composition I played so far making them the strongest, but have some game mechanic problems.

[fleaplus]

thanks for the feedback, I will he reviewing the whole setup as I feel they have amazing potential but their pve and burst is low and is making longer fights.

i think breaking the team into tank, ranged + healer is good idea but not quite fitting my plan to have a all-round PvP/ pve team without respec. The Druids are powerful indeed and personally I think dedicated damaged + dedicated healer is a better way forward without the tank and go healzor!

I will keep updates as I progress but for now I have paused the team, along with shaman to roll a epic burst team with extra ordinary tanking theory and so far they blow every team composition I played so far making them the strongest, but have some game mechanic problems.
FYI my feral druids get about 250dps burst and 130dps sustained at level 50 attacking green mobs. I hope your new team comp is fun! Do post details about it.

[boxblizzard]

FYI my feral druids get about 250dps burst and 130dps sustained at level 50 attacking green mobs. I hope your new team comp is fun! Do post details about it.

thats nice damage, I would have IWT issues that can be a pain with moving targets, or ones that vanish!

ive made a orc hunter group with healer , wolves for group pack early bonuses. There’s lots of pros and cons, lots of things about Druids I like but the new group for now is relentless, reckless. semi good tanking and out of this world dps, pets are plate basicly with taunting like a factory, I will get aoe apes at 50 to further support the tanking and aoe barrage!

the Druids I’m keeping as I feel I will come back to them later due to the powerful survival and flexibility for all-round in-game Mechanic’s, in game performance etc they are too good, the new team is more a reckless PvP team with pve support that works.

[nodoze]

... ive made a orc hunter group with healer , wolves for group pack early bonuses. There’s lots of pros and cons, lots of things about Druids I like but the new group for now is relentless, reckless. semi good tanking and out of this world dps, pets are plate basicly with taunting like a factory, I will get aoe apes at 50 to further support the tanking and aoe barrage!

the Druids I’m keeping as I feel I will come back to them later due to the powerful survival and flexibility for all-round in-game Mechanic’s, in game performance etc they are too good, the new team is more a reckless PvP team with pve support that works.I think Hunters can be fun and it seems to me that a healer brings more to 4 hunters than a 5th hunter so I hope that proves out for you.

If I recall correctly most folk who ran Hunters recommend pets with screech (https://classic.wowhead.com/search?q=Screech) (also an AoE effect) both early and at 50+ over Apes with ThunderStomp. I think you can find pets with Screech as low as 8th level (https://www.wow-petopia.com/classic/abilities.php#screech) and I think they were considered superior in large part due to their screech being spammable (only limited by focus) while thunderstomp has a 1 minute cooldown.

Best of luck to you with either team (both teams)... If you are having fun and/or trying/learning new things you are doing it right!

[Apatheist]

I use moonglow/NS spec. I started with HoTW but I've found I much prefer moonglow in PvP and once I got my preraid BiS I can do all of the PvE content I want without paying to respec. I don't usually farm on my druids.

In PvE I switch to feral gear and cycle between druids to regen mana. 1 Bear, 3 cats, 1 resto. Heal until the resto is around 50% mana then swap to cat form and switch to one of the other cat windows and start healing with that. If you get good at juggling your 5 mana bars you pretty much have unlimited mana even without innervate. To facilitate this style I've focused on my own "BiS" list rather than the lists you might see on wowhead. I've gathered a bunch of gear with mixed stats (int/spi/agi/stam) so my regen is decent while still having a decent amount of AP. Then you can just macro your weapon swap to match the form you're using. There are a bunch of ways to play druids but that's how I do it.

I switch to caster gear for PvP and just try to burst people down with wrath or moonfire spam. You will never be able to take on large groups like mages can but I've killed other 5man parties outside dungeons and it's fun for picking off PvP flagged people in enemy cities or dueling outside Org. You can burst pretty hard out of stealth.

If you expect druids to be as strong as mages you'll be disappointed but I still find them fun. I play mine as alliance on a server that is heavily horde favored so it's pretty fun being able to stealth around and pick people off when 80% of the server is horde.

[boxblizzard]

I think Hunters can be fun and it seems to me that a healer brings more to 4 hunters than a 5th hunter so I hope that proves out for you.

If I recall correctly most folk who ran Hunters recommend pets with screech (https://classic.wowhead.com/search?q=Screech) (also an AoE effect) both early and at 50+ over Apes with ThunderStomp. I think you can find pets with Screech as low as 8th level (https://www.wow-petopia.com/classic/abilities.php#screech) and I think they were considered superior in large part due to their screech being spammable (only limited by focus) while thunderstomp has a 1 minute cooldown.

Best of luck to you with either team (both teams)... If you are having fun and/or trying/learning new things you are doing it right!

Adding a healer to the team has made a world of difference for the hunters, i now can do mobs 9 levels above myself without any mana or aggro issues, this blows casters out the water for pve so for leveling this works, dungeons i can sweeping through them without any stressing with pets on round-robin taunts etc, the hunter group is fun but i have problems with close encounters etc, so they are powerful but not perfect where the druids can do everything just more balanced.

The thunder stomps and screech owls are a good consideration for later, for now wolfs share melee damage bonuses that compliments them getting extra damage off, not much but enough when theres 4 of them biting.

I will get them to 60 and then go back to druids and have them ready for 60 awell, i think druids need more gear and time to make them a topper, they wony do damage like other dps but they have very good healing on the go, and out of all the casters its decent because they can also use forms unlike priest etcs

I will see how things develope!


I use moonglow/NS spec. I started with HoTW but I've found I much prefer moonglow in PvP and once I got my preraid BiS I can do all of the PvE content I want without paying to respec. I don't usually farm on my druids.

In PvE I switch to feral gear and cycle between druids to regen mana. 1 Bear, 3 cats, 1 resto. Heal until the resto is around 50% mana then swap to cat form and switch to one of the other cat windows and start healing with that. If you get good at juggling your 5 mana bars you pretty much have unlimited mana even without innervate. To facilitate this style I've focused on my own "BiS" list rather than the lists you might see on wowhead. I've gathered a bunch of gear with mixed stats (int/spi/agi/stam) so my regen is decent while still having a decent amount of AP. Then you can just macro your weapon swap to match the form you're using. There are a bunch of ways to play druids but that's how I do it.

I switch to caster gear for PvP and just try to burst people down with wrath or moonfire spam. You will never be able to take on large groups like mages can but I've killed other 5man parties outside dungeons and it's fun for picking off PvP flagged people in enemy cities or dueling outside Org. You can burst pretty hard out of stealth.

If you expect druids to be as strong as mages you'll be disappointed but I still find them fun. I play mine as alliance on a server that is heavily horde favored so it's pretty fun being able to stealth around and pick people off when 80% of the server is horde.

This is where i have leaned towards for druids for the pve part, its works and its solid, damage as you say is lack luster but the rest of the class and abilities at hand shine really well, this is what i think ultimately will make me lean always more towards druids and they can also be respec for different roles which is a win for everyone!

thanks for the info :)

[boxblizzard]

Back to druids it would appear, IWT facing target issues forces me to regroup with the druids and avoid shaman due just being less fun!

So i will revise my team and resume druids and focus on them more as i found them more fun than shaman.

4x feral/balance, with 1 resto druid/shaman.

[fleaplus]

Back to druids it would appear, IWT facing target issues forces me to regroup with the druids and avoid shaman due just being less fun!

So i will revise my team and resume druids and focus on them more as i found them more fun than shaman.

4x feral/balance, with 1 resto druid/shaman.
Do you have IWT then W in an action target group just for your hunters? I use the opposite (W then IWT) for my druids to prevent them from overshooting mobs when chasing them down and running in random directions.

The moonglow/NS spec, along with 1 bear + 3 cat + healer swap sounds like a great strategy. Right now I have all 4 switch from cat form to heal the tank, but it halts DPS for ~4 seconds and you can still run into mana issues even with natural shapeshifter talented.

[boxblizzard]

Do you have IWT then W in an action target group just for your hunters? I use the opposite (W then IWT) for my druids to prevent them from overshooting mobs when chasing them down and running in random directions.

The moonglow/NS spec, along with 1 bear + 3 cat + healer swap sounds like a great strategy. Right now I have all 4 switch from cat form to heal the tank, but it halts DPS for ~4 seconds and you can still run into mana issues even with natural shapeshifter talented.

The issues i had were close encounters in places like keeps where i needed to face mobs etc, less of a issue as a druid ofc!

TAG wont work for hunters, its just a lost cause but i have replaced them with warlocks for now and will run the druids along side.

I will experiement with different talent builds but defensive with druids best offensive i feel.

[fleaplus]

I have made it to level 59 with my feral druids. I went through the first part of their Tier 0.5 quest chain and got 3 pieces of the Feralheart set. It helped to have a good amount of gold and leveled professions on my 4MP team to craft the items for the chain. The rest of the chain I will wait on until I can farm out the Wildheart set. Big pulls (>4 elites) are pretty challenging and I have to be careful to time healing so mobs do not run away. I start those pulls with the tank casting regrowth and rejuv on itself to help.

[Apatheist]

I use Action Target Groups in ISBoxer to manage IWT with a clickbar to select forms. Then I also have hotkeys for quick switching the whole group into the same form. This way I can quickly swap any window to the form I want with a visual indicator for which form each character is in that shows in every window.

What I try to do is allow my current bear to finish a fight at around 60% health. Then I regrowth/rejuv that target with the next window and swap that one to bear and the original bear to cat (swap to cat ATG > all other.) This gives you a good amount of initial agro on the new bear. Then, if necessary, I switch the third window out of cat to heal. You kind of cycle through your mana bars one at a time. Some bosses I can kill just by pre-HoTing and 1 bear/4 cats. Don't even need to heal. It sounds complicated but once you get used to it I manage it without thinking now.

Like I said, can't kill 20 mobs at once like mages can but I can pull non stop without ever having to rest so my total clear time is actually faster than you'd expect. Can also just skip a lot of annoying trash (or tribute runs) by stealthing past it if I want to.

Cleared all dungeons and Rend using this method. I literally don't even carry food or water in my bags anymore.

[fleaplus]

I use Action Target Groups in ISBoxer to manage IWT with a clickbar to select forms. Then I also have hotkeys for quick switching the whole group into the same form. This way I can quickly swap any window to the form I want with a visual indicator for which form each character is in that shows in every window.

What I try to do is allow my current bear to finish a fight at around 60% health. Then I regrowth/rejuv that target with the next window and swap that one to bear and the original bear to cat (swap to cat ATG > all other.) This gives you a good amount of initial agro on the new bear. Then, if necessary, I switch the third window out of cat to heal. You kind of cycle through your mana bars one at a time. Some bosses I can kill just by pre-HoTing and 1 bear/4 cats. Don't even need to heal. It sounds complicated but once you get used to it I manage it without thinking now.

Like I said, can't kill 20 mobs at once like mages can but I can pull non stop without ever having to rest so my total clear time is actually faster than you'd expect. Can also just skip a lot of annoying trash (or tribute runs) by stealthing past it if I want to.

Cleared all dungeons and Rend using this method. I literally don't even carry food or water in my bags anymore.
Wow. Did you have any difficulties initially getting gear at level 60? Do you drive from the healer or tank? Do you try to position for shred?

Do you mind linking your gear? Here is mine, same on all characters: https://classic.wowhead.com/gear-set/fleaclaw-98391

I tried taking my druids into the beginning of Strat UD to farm Hearthsinger Forrester for a chest upgrade but the incoming damage was just too great for my current setup. I could try switching to moonglow/NS spec and see if it helps. I could also take my druids with my 4MP team, one at a time as a tank, and gear them up with the help. It is not looking like 5x deep feral is not viable on its own without being overgeared or having a level advantage. It would help if Regrowth HoT's could stack, but I do not think that comes until BC or WotLK.

[nodoze]

I would also like to the see the spec(s) being used in 5box druid groups clearing end game dungeons. It would be great to see a mostly HoTW spec that is viable/useful in all (or at least multiple) forms/roles (Tanks, meleeDPS, rangedDPS, Healer) with Druids ideally just changing gear for roles.

[Apatheist]

Wow. Did you have any difficulties initially getting gear at level 60?

I prefer not to link to my characters on forums. My gear isn't anything special though. Everything I'm wearing can be acquired from 5man content plus some BoE's. I haven't done any raiding on my druids.

I went to all of the dungeons with good leather gear or quest rewards as I leveled so I pretty much had on level blues all the way to 60. I picked up the armor trinket from enchanting, two armor rings (ring of protection and naglering.) PUG'd a quest UBRS run for the armor trinket. The two trinkets and wardens staff alone give you a massive amount of armor. Once you have those you can swap in a lot more mana regen gear and still be quite tanky. I leveled enchanting on all of my druids until I was high enough to craft heart of the mountain then dropped enchanting. You don't need it to equip the trinket.

Typically whichever window I'm currently focused on is the bear. It's easier to turn the tank so that the mobs are facing away from my DPS than to try to move the 4 other characters behind.

Level makes all the difference in classic. The difference between being 2 levels higher or 2 levels lower than a mob is huge. If you're not 60 yet just go farm BRD. I farmed a lot of BRD for my HoJ's and some healing items.

https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/druid/500005001-055030132320015-055

That's the spec I used for dungeon farming. It's not a typical HoTW spec but my cat DPS is a lot higher and I don't find I need the extra threat from savage fury to hold agro.

I use a simple castsequence with 4 shreds, ferocious bite. Typically I get a clearcasting proc somewhere in there for a free shred and occasionally the shreds will crit so I waste fewer combo points by biting at 4. Even if I bite at 4, it still does more damage per energy than shred. It's important to spam the key so you bite immediately after a shred otherwise you'll waste all of your pooled energy. Ferocious bite is a relatively small % of your DPS anyway. It doesn't matter if you get it perfect. 90% Of your damage comes from autoattacks and shred.

Also, if you find yourself hitting a wall you could always go and farm yourself a few crowd pummelers to use as DPS cooldowns. It's time consuming but it's a huge DPS increase for fights you're struggling with.


ideally just changing gear for roles.

I started off by having specific tank, heal and DPS pieces and feeding my healer innervate. At the moment I'm trying to farm gear with high armor and mixed stats with the goal that my druids will have reasonable DPS and EH but also enough regen to be full mana again quicker. I've started collecting the feralheart sets also, as someone mentioned earlier. It has great balanced stats and you can mix in a couple of pieces of hit or crit gear where necessary.

The dream would be to pick up an item like https://classic.wowhead.com/item=21407/mace-of-unending-life

There's not a ton of competition for druid pieces if you can get into a raid as resto. I'm holding on to any BiS resto gear that drops so hopefully I can get into a few GDPK runs.

[nodoze]

Thanks for all the great discussion though I think should unsubscribe from this thread... I am now wanting to try a Druid team and I have too many teams already. ;-)

[Apatheist]

Thanks for all the great discussion though I think should unsubscribe from this thread... I am now wanting to try a Druid team and I have too many teams already.


I do the same thing. I have alts a couple of servers now. Just goofing around in Classic until (if) TBC releases. I thought about leveling 4 shamans also but I think I'll leave that until after and start from level 1 with a Belf paladin. Their racials are pretty unbeatable.

[fleaplus]

I prefer not to link to my characters on forums. My gear isn't anything special though. Everything I'm wearing can be acquired from 5man content plus some BoE's. I haven't done any raiding on my druids.

I went to all of the dungeons with good leather gear or quest rewards as I leveled so I pretty much had on level blues all the way to 60. I picked up the armor trinket from enchanting, two armor rings (ring of protection and naglering.) PUG'd a quest UBRS run for the armor trinket. The two trinkets and wardens staff alone give you a massive amount of armor. Once you have those you can swap in a lot more mana regen gear and still be quite tanky. I leveled enchanting on all of my druids until I was high enough to craft heart of the mountain then dropped enchanting. You don't need it to equip the trinket.

Typically whichever window I'm currently focused on is the bear. It's easier to turn the tank so that the mobs are facing away from my DPS than to try to move the 4 other characters behind.

Level makes all the difference in classic. The difference between being 2 levels higher or 2 levels lower than a mob is huge. If you're not 60 yet just go farm BRD. I farmed a lot of BRD for my HoJ's and some healing items.

https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/druid/500005001-505030132320015-055

That's the spec I used for dungeon farming. It's not a typical HoTW spec but my cat DPS is a lot higher and I don't find I need the extra threat from savage fury to hold agro.

I use a simple castsequence with 4 shreds, ferocious bite. Typically I get a clearcasting proc somewhere in there for a free shred and occasionally the shreds will crit so I waste fewer combo points by biting at 4. Even if I bite at 4, it still does more damage per energy than shred. It's important to spam the key so you bite immediately after a shred otherwise you'll waste all of your pooled energy. Ferocious bite is a relatively small % of your DPS anyway. It doesn't matter if you get it perfect. 90% Of your damage comes from autoattacks and shred.

Also, if you find yourself hitting a wall you could always go and farm yourself a few crowd pummelers to use as DPS cooldowns. It's time consuming but it's a huge DPS increase for fights you're struggling with.



I started off by having specific tank, heal and DPS pieces and feeding my healer innervate. At the moment I'm trying to farm gear with high armor and mixed stats with the goal that my druids will have reasonable DPS and EH but also enough regen to be full mana again quicker. I've started collecting the feralheart sets also, as someone mentioned earlier. It has great balanced stats and you can mix in a couple of pieces of hit or crit gear where necessary.

The dream would be to pick up an item like https://classic.wowhead.com/item=21407/mace-of-unending-life

There's not a ton of competition for druid pieces if you can get into a raid as resto. I'm holding on to any BiS resto gear that drops so hopefully I can get into a few GDPK runs.
I went back to BRD today and switched my setup over to using a single healer, with dynamic tank/healer swapping. After some practice and configuration tweaks it does seem to work pretty well.

I do need to get more armor for my tank. I could easily do the quest chains for Ring of Protection and Band of the Great Tortoise. I can also respec into Thick Hide, and those combined should give me ~53% damage reduction (about 9% increase).

[boxblizzard]

Thanks for all the great discussion though I think should unsubscribe from this thread... I am now wanting to try a Druid team and I have too many teams already. ;-)

after everything , I’m levelling paladin team and near 40 already. Loads of strengths, cc is the only issue.

i have learned to adjust to melee teams and I like it as much as ranged now.

wish I had death knights, problem solved!

The second melee team I will reconsider Druids for feral x4 + resto for stealth cats PvP. Only boxing combo that’s viable with stealth + Shadowmeld.

im having heaps of fun with paladins atm, I have kiting issues/peels from time to time from 60’s but I think JoJ and speed to boots will crack down on closing the line on Druids/shaman/rogues etc

[nodoze]

after everything , I’m levelling paladin team and near 40 already. Loads of strengths, cc is the only issue.

i have learned to adjust to melee teams and I like it as much as ranged now.

wish I had death knights, problem solved!

The second melee team I will reconsider Druids for feral x4 + resto for stealth cats PvP. Only boxing combo that’s viable with stealth + Shadowmeld.

im having heaps of fun with paladins atm, I have kiting issues/peels from time to time from 60’s but I think JoJ and speed to boots will crack down on closing the line on Druids/shaman/rogues etcGlad to hear it. If you get a chance I would watch Dwon's videos on his 5 Paladin multibox. IIRC he handled the DM Ogre pull by thowing down one or more Engineering Dummy Targets and maybe an AoE stun or two (plus some stuns on his focused target to burn it down) just to slow the spikes until he got one or more down. I really enjoyed his videos though I think his healing was mostly all or nothing which could maybe be improved. IIRC I think he ran 1 Prot (or at least Sword+Shield) and 4 Ret and used the typically used the Rets to heal.

[boxblizzard]

Glad to hear it. If you get a chance I would watch Dwon's videos on his 5 Paladin multibox. IIRC he handled the DM Ogre pull by thowing down one or more Engineering Dummy Targets and maybe an AoE stun or two (plus some stuns on his focused target to burn it down) just to slow the spikes until he got one or more down. I really enjoyed his videos though I think his healing was mostly all or nothing which could maybe be improved. IIRC I think he ran 1 Prot (or at least Sword+Shield) and 4 Ret and used the typically used the Rets to heal.

this is the exact same composition I’m using, Prot + 4 Ret.

weirdly the healing is good and dps is very impressive. I would consider this team strong in pve, like the shaman, loads of aura and other buffs.

just have PvP issues with peeling from shaman*, priests and mages. I will need some engineering and trinkets to combat this.

[boxblizzard]

Glad to hear it. If you get a chance I would watch Dwon's videos on his 5 Paladin multibox. IIRC he handled the DM Ogre pull by thowing down one or more Engineering Dummy Targets and maybe an AoE stun or two (plus some stuns on his focused target to burn it down) just to slow the spikes until he got one or more down. I really enjoyed his videos though I think his healing was mostly all or nothing which could maybe be improved. IIRC I think he ran 1 Prot (or at least Sword+Shield) and 4 Ret and used the typically used the Rets to heal.

im also reconsidering following the same setup for Druids, Prot .+ 4 feral. dps and aoe should be strong and consistent from energy /rage in pve, however I would need some fancy macros and RR for heals. One feral jumps out form, heals and back on rotation or 2 at a time etc. This may or may not work.

ideally resto would be good but a resto is a sore on the battlefield. The paladins are excellent in pve and my favourite so far as I can tank off and burn down bosses in record times due to burst and aoe.

I like the idea of stealth ferals, possibly with some alternative talents to improve healing out of form etc

having a Prot is good as in PvP majority of the time it puts other faction off due to being tanky, when I roll a softie I generally get burst down and it’s a race for kill or be killed, paladins is passive survivability at its finest with many tricks to stay afloat and 5 stuns on rotation.

i will play with Druids again shortly, I really like paladins but ranged is peeling me to death and it’s very frustrating sometimes in open areas otherwise I would LoS.

[boxblizzard]

Glad to hear it. If you get a chance I would watch Dwon's videos on his 5 Paladin multibox. IIRC he handled the DM Ogre pull by thowing down one or more Engineering Dummy Targets and maybe an AoE stun or two (plus some stuns on his focused target to burn it down) just to slow the spikes until he got one or more down. I really enjoyed his videos though I think his healing was mostly all or nothing which could maybe be improved. IIRC I think he ran 1 Prot (or at least Sword+Shield) and 4 Ret and used the typically used the Rets to heal.


I have put paladins on hold as a back burner for the moment as it has got me thinking about changing my druid team to a paladin setup. I am hoping to have the same style play as my paladins but with druids, however the issue i want to solve is peeling/cc. Druids should fix this but with more button mashing and macros.

So i have relogged my druid team and now configuring the macros in game to replicate the paladins, so 1 feral tank spec, and 4x feral dps. however with talents to compliment off heals to the tank with smart macros to round rob out of forms etc

In thoery, this should provide all benifits i need, faster movement in cat forms, ability to tank on the whole team, and improved aoe etc. The issue with feral druids is mana, shifting is expensive and so i must round rob healing and get enough talents to improve regenation etc.

The idea of 4 dps and a tank is actually excellent but we must solve the mana issues, the paladins dont have a issue and heal strong. I hope this is the same :)

[fleaplus]

I have put paladins on hold as a back burner for the moment as it has got me thinking about changing my druid team to a paladin setup. I am hoping to have the same style play as my paladins but with druids, however the issue i want to solve is peeling/cc. Druids should fix this but with more button mashing and macros.

So i have relogged my druid team and now configuring the macros in game to replicate the paladins, so 1 feral tank spec, and 4x feral dps. however with talents to compliment off heals to the tank with smart macros to round rob out of forms etc

In thoery, this should provide all benifits i need, faster movement in cat forms, ability to tank on the whole team, and improved aoe etc. The issue with feral druids is mana, shifting is expensive and so i must round rob healing and get enough talents to improve regenation etc.

The idea of 4 dps and a tank is actually excellent but we must solve the mana issues, the paladins dont have a issue and heal strong. I hope this is the same :)
I think the passive regen is fine if you cycle through a single healer at a time. Regrowth, Rejuv, Healing Touch x2 is a easy rotation and should leave you with enough mana to swap back into cat form passing healing on to the next in the rotation. Maybe have the cat cower before exiting cat form so they do not accidentally pull aggro with Regrowth. Maybe weapon swap for +Int while healing would help with making it through a pull only needing one healer.

[Apatheist]

I made the weird hybrid build to maximize the cat DPS and it's actually a lot better than you might expect. The problem is it has no AoE damage so you have to single target stuff down. Then again, cats attack so fast so on fights where there are multiple low health adds it's not difficult at all to quickly autoattack them down. There are a couple of instances where barkskin/hurricane or barkskin/tranq can be useful too. In some situations you can even use barkskin/tranq as a kind of AoE taunt. It causes huge threat.

Having hybrid stat set with some spirit/int helps a lot with regen at 55-60 but even in full agi/stam gear with no int/spi I never ran OOM while leveling. You just have to pull one pack at a time. If you pull too many mobs you'll have to start spamming heals, then you'll run into problems. This group makes huge use out of ClickBars, weakauras, etc. More than any other group I've played. Being able to quickly select a form or pop a cooldown, see all of your mana bars clearly from any window or clearcasting procs is hugely important.

This is a slow and steady type group but for some reason I'm having more fun with it than my mages. I always get caught up on min/maxing for efficiency and forget that actually enjoying the game is just as important. Especially in an old game like Classic. I've already done all of the content multiple times. Might as well just have fun.

[boxblizzard]

I think the passive regen is fine if you cycle through a single healer at a time. Regrowth, Rejuv, Healing Touch x2 is a easy rotation and should leave you with enough mana to swap back into cat form passing healing on to the next in the rotation. Maybe have the cat cower before exiting cat form so they do not accidentally pull aggro with Regrowth. Maybe weapon swap for +Int while healing would help with making it through a pull only needing one healer.

Yes ideally, however i have become fond of a tank + 4x dps hybrid heal, combined they act as a healer. Just like the paladins, it means i have alot more burst and less healing required. Some talents to support abit more healing to work together. :)

I have been running a single healer setup, but i find in pvp, they get targeted alot. When they are all equal, they leave the tank alone and pick a random dps.

If i can survive a onsalught with some alive, this is a win in my books. but anything that gets close to me usually dead on impact.

PVE side of things, this combo works better, faster boss down times, less healing required.


I made the weird hybrid build to maximize the cat DPS and it's actually a lot better than you might expect. The problem is it has no AoE damage so you have to single target stuff down. Then again, cats attack so fast so on fights where there are multiple low health adds it's not difficult at all to quickly autoattack them down. There are a couple of instances where barkskin/hurricane or barkskin/tranq can be useful too. In some situations you can even use barkskin/tranq as a kind of AoE taunt. It causes huge threat.

Having hybrid stat set with some spirit/int helps a lot with regen at 55-60 but even in full agi/stam gear with no int/spi I never ran OOM while leveling. You just have to pull one pack at a time. If you pull too many mobs you'll have to start spamming heals, then you'll run into problems. This group makes huge use out of ClickBars, weakauras, etc. More than any other group I've played. Being able to quickly select a form or pop a cooldown, see all of your mana bars clearly from any window or clearcasting procs is hugely important.

This is a slow and steady type group but for some reason I'm having more fun with it than my mages. I always get caught up on min/maxing for efficiency and forget that actually enjoying the game is just as important. Especially in an old game like Classic. I've already done all of the content multiple times. Might as well just have fun.


I have done this as i like the idea from Paladins because it actually works! No dungoen so far as ever been a problem, except the paladin tank due to oom issue sadly.

I have been playing around with the druids, tank + feral dps and i found the switching is too much work for me. It is doable but in crazy situations i have may macros to mash for power shifting and RR healing techniques in forms, where passively paladins dont need to do this.

So what i have decided to do is............ combine the two!

So i am now leveling a druid as the MT, and the 4x ret dps as the dps healers with improved flash of light with the aoe. Combined with the druid tank, i get all the auras, benifits and buffs, no BOK, but i get MOTW and 5% crit bonus + thorns etc

So my tank can aoe with unlimited rage without going oom, while benifiting from all the auras for magic protection and huge dps increase, together this is going to work well.

The cc issues should also be fixed, because the druid will power shift and instant cc for rets to catch up with speed boost, as the feral can run at 30% and avoid most cc. This in turn should make the ultimate pve/pvp team with no limits and very nice melee buffs.

Also the druid tank can drop heals and BoW benifit :) (improv blessings ofc on each ret )

[fleaplus]

Yes ideally, however i have become fond of a tank + 4x dps hybrid heal, combined they act as a healer. Just like the paladins, it means i have alot more burst and less healing required. Some talents to support abit more healing to work together. :)

I have been running a single healer setup, but i find in pvp, they get targeted alot. When they are all equal, they leave the tank alone and pick a random dps.

If i can survive a onsalught with some alive, this is a win in my books. but anything that gets close to me usually dead on impact.

PVE side of things, this combo works better, faster boss down times, less healing required.
I used tank + 4 dps hybrid heal until max level. It did work pretty well and I was not shifting more than once per pull so passive mana regen worked great. It was not working as well at max level, so I am trying the single healer + 3 dps approach instead. It is nice because the tank health is not as much of a roller coaster, and dps is actually close as I do not miss any energy ticks on the cats and they get more chances to proc omen of clarity for a free shred. Maybe once my gear is better I can try 4x hybrid again.

[boxblizzard]

I used tank + 4 dps hybrid heal until max level. It did work pretty well and I was not shifting more than once per pull so passive mana regen worked great. It was not working as well at max level, so I am trying the single healer + 3 dps approach instead. It is nice because the tank health is not as much of a roller coaster, and dps is actually close as I do not miss any energy ticks on the cats and they get more chances to proc omen of clarity for a free shred. Maybe once my gear is better I can try 4x hybrid again.


This is a good setup.

After playing around with the feral tank, i have decided to review my paladin team and put back the paladin tank.

1. due to more available gear in dungeons

2. review why i am going oom and look into improving my "pace" or strategy, i have taken different rotations and now left with mostly full mana except on double or trouple pack pulls then its burst down moments.

The thoery crafting of adding the feral is great, but i love my paladins too much and end of the day, we must play what we think is fun. I have before grinded my soul away with compositions that end of the day did not fullfil the "fun" aspect.

So i have put the druid to one side, and will stick to solid teams of the same class. Once my paladins are rock solid, i will bring out the full 5 druid team again and try again at a later date.

[fleaplus]

This is a good setup.

After playing around with the feral tank, i have decided to review my paladin team and put back the paladin tank.

1. due to more available gear in dungeons

2. review why i am going oom and look into improving my "pace" or strategy, i have taken different rotations and now left with mostly full mana except on double or trouple pack pulls then its burst down moments.

The thoery crafting of adding the feral is great, but i love my paladins too much and end of the day, we must play what we think is fun. I have before grinded my soul away with compositions that end of the day did not fullfil the "fun" aspect.

So i have put the druid to one side, and will stick to solid teams of the same class. Once my paladins are rock solid, i will bring out the full 5 druid team again and try again at a later date.
I could see 5x pallies being fun, but I would imagine you would want to start with a dedicated healer at level 60 just to make grinding out gear easier. It also gives you improved blessing of wisdom which combined with the AQ20 spell rank upgrade should help with mana regen on the whole team starting out.

[boxblizzard]

I could see 5x pallies being fun, but I would imagine you would want to start with a dedicated healer at level 60 just to make grinding out gear easier. It also gives you improved blessing of wisdom which combined with the AQ20 spell rank upgrade should help with mana regen on the whole team starting out.

I have no mana issues from heal at all, the blessing of light healing bonus makes 4 flash heals strong as a holy light in half the time. It’s a strong combination!

if raid requires it I will consider the change but 4x dps as off healers in PvP is important, in pve I burst down trash and bosses in record times.

Im still leveling at the moment and will put them through thierbpaces with some videos to boot.

[fleaplus]

I made a video showing the dynamic healer / tank swap. Bosses are not very hard with this setup. The trash pulls are still pretty challenging.

https://youtu.be/USKiI45dNGI

[nodoze]

I made a video showing the dynamic healer / tank swap. Bosses are not very hard with this setup. The trash pulls are still pretty challenging.

https://youtu.be/USKiI45dNGII enjoyed that quite a bit.

One thing you may want to do is upload the videos already at X2 speed (and denote that at the start of the video) so folk can speed it up to X4 for certain parts yet still slow down quite a bit. I think I noticed Fuii doing that first and really like it now that I have seen it.

Would really like to see more (especially from Strat, Scholo, DM, BRS, etc).

I also added that video to the Melee Cleave thread (https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/56493-Melee-Cleave-Boxing-End-Game-Dungeons).

[Apatheist]

I made a video showing the dynamic healer / tank swap. Bosses are not very hard with this setup. The trash pulls are still pretty challenging.

https://youtu.be/USKiI45dNGI

One thing I notice you do differently is leaving your healer out of cat form and not being very aggressive with your mana.

I open by pre-HoTing on the bear and then DPS with 4 cats until my bear is around 50% health. Drop cat form on a druid with full mana and cast max rank healing touch, regrowth and rejuv, then go back to cat form. Cycling through your mana bars this way means you can have 4 cats DPSing most of the time, rather than having one of your characters just waiting to heal and not really doing anything.

[nodoze]

Is there way for a Druid to see your mana (bar?) while in Cat or Bear form to know how your regen is going and if you are maxed?

[fleaplus]

One thing I notice you do differently is leaving your healer out of cat form and not being very aggressive with your mana.

I open by pre-HoTing on the bear and then DPS with 4 cats until my bear is around 50% health. Drop cat form on a druid with full mana and cast max rank healing touch, regrowth and rejuv, then go back to cat form. Cycling through your mana bars this way means you can have 4 cats DPSing most of the time, rather than having one of your characters just waiting to heal and not really doing anything.
My first attempt was to setup a Tank, Healer, and Melee ATG, switching which slot is in each ATG depending on the active slot. Only the Melee ATG gets IWT. It sounds like it may take a different approach to allow a DPS cat to dynamically disable IWT for a healing castsequence to be completed. I see there is a Mapped Key Virtualization Action that may be able to toggle IWT on a per slot basis or is there a better way to do this?

[Wizeowel]

Is there way for a Druid to see your mana (bar?) while in Cat or Bear form to know how your regen is going and if you are maxed?

Simple Druid Mana addon :)


I see there is a Mapped Key Virtualization Action that may be able to toggle IWT on a per slot basis or is there a better way to do this?

What I do with healers is have a Click Bar over the top of my party/raid unit frames. The Click Bar is entirely pass-through so all clicks work as normal. However, the region has a mouse-over mapped key assigned to it which removes all toons in ATG "Healer" from the ATG "Combat", and puts them back after mouse-out. I ensured that only group Combat gets IWTs (in ISB42 Party | Auto-Interact with Target) and only Combat does any attacks. I.e. while my mouse is in the party frames, the healer automatically stops DPS and IWT and is able to heal.

I also recently made a "NoIWT" group and a Menu with 8 buttons so that I can toggle individual slots from doing any IWT at all. This because my holy paladin was often running into battle with my rogue and warrior while I was busy getting aggro during the pull. I do want him sometimes to judge wisdom but not always. In this case I changed the Auto-IWT mapped key to
<Interact with Target> -> Combat&~NoIWT

[Apatheist]

Is there way for a Druid to see your mana (bar?) while in Cat or Bear form to know how your regen is going and if you are maxed?

A weakauras progress bar displaying mana will show whether you're in form or not. I've been meaning to get around to creating an entire party frame showing mana/rage and skills with weakauras and VideoFX but I keep putting it off because I haven't had much time to play recently and when I can log in I'd rather go kill stuff.


My first attempt was to setup a Tank, Healer, and Melee ATG, switching which slot is in each ATG depending on the active slot. Only the Melee ATG gets IWT. It sounds like it may take a different approach to allow a DPS cat to dynamically disable IWT for a healing castsequence to be completed. I see there is a Mapped Key Virtualization Action that may be able to toggle IWT on a per slot basis or is there a better way to do this?

I have a ClickBar set up to switch characters between Cat, Bear and NoForm ATG's as well as hotkeys set up for "bear > all other" and "cat > all other" just for emergencies or for powershifting out of CC. Then all of my DPS rotations, macros and IWT send to their respective ATG groups.

As well as being fast to use, ClickBars are a nice visual reminder of which form each slot is in if you use the proper spell icons.

[fleaplus]

A weakauras progress bar displaying mana will show whether you're in form or not. I've been meaning to get around to creating an entire party frame showing mana/rage and skills with weakauras and VideoFX but I keep putting it off because I haven't had much time to play recently and when I can log in I'd rather go kill stuff.



I have a ClickBar set up to switch characters between Cat, Bear and NoForm ATG's as well as hotkeys set up for "bear > all other" and "cat > all other" just for emergencies or for powershifting out of CC. Then all of my DPS rotations, macros and IWT send to their respective ATG groups.

As well as being fast to use, ClickBars are a nice visual reminder of which form each slot is in if you use the proper spell icons.
All right, I setup a click bar to manage ATG's and it is working pretty well. I am still doing stealth runs in BRD to get Ghostshroud and Dark Warder's Pauldrons, but it is actually a good place to practice configuration changes as the tank seems to not take as much damage as in places like Strat.

Out of curiousity do you use Tiger's Fury? +40 cat form damage is huge (equivalent of 280 Str I think) and maybe the 30 energy is worth it if it can buff 2 shreds (along with possible Omen of Clarity procs). Also, do you use Ravage out of stealth to begin pulls? It may be enough to quickly nuke the first mob. I am guessing if the ravage went off at the same time roughly then they should all succeed even if one of them pulls aggro from the tank.

[Apatheist]

The only time I use tigers fury is if I'm setting up for a gank since you can pre-cast it in stealth right before an energy tick and then one shot someone. Everything I've read says it's a DPS loss in PvE.

I don't usually bother with opening from stealth in PvE outside of specific fights where it can be useful. Bursting down the princess in BRD, for example. It might be more efficient but most of the time I just can't be bothered since I'm only half paying attention whenever I'm grinding dungeons for gear.