Boxing Feral Druids

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nodoze

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 (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 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!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

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 :)

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fleaplus

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.

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fleaplus

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-c...0132320015-055

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nodoze

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=214...-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.

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. ;-)