5x Druids fun

Let me tell you, I love my 5x Druids. I am doing mostly PvE with them. There are advantages (and disadvantages of course):

[+] easy multiboxing of a homogenous group setup
[+] Tank and Heal included via 2x dual-spec --> Heroics viable
[+] stealth group: e.g.: makes instance farming a breeze. I figured out farming Nexus for www.wowhead.com/?item=Belt of Draconic Runes and www.wowhead.com/?item=Tome of the Lore Keepers from Bosses Anomalus and Telestra takes just some 10minutes, reset and repeat. BTW, I do the reseting not by stealthing my way back out, but by disbanding the group, fly up to meeting stone, summon left back group leader, regroup, reset, enter instance.
[+] instant epic flight form shapeshift (what flying mount?)
[+] 15xTreants and/or 5xStarfall-mayhem for your PvP/PvE/Show-off pleasure
[+] 5xMoonfire-fire&forget kill-a-gazillion-mobs-questing
[+] Crowd Control: 5xroots and/or 5xsleep on dragonkin
[+] lolferal-fun? Check!
[+] lolfeline-fun? Check!
[+] lolbalance-fun? Check! (obviously, that's the primary fun :))

[-] all the obvious homogenous group setup disadvantages like: slower itemization progress, no buffs-synergy, etc...

I recently hit Level 80 (as a side effect) on my 5x deep balance Druids from my grinding for epic flight form and dual specing 2 of them additionally with 1xTank and 1xResto.
I was amazed with how well the Bear/3xMoonkin/Resto setup works endurance-wise as opposed to the short termed brute-force "standard" 5xMoonkins_15Treants-root&spank dungeoning. I can see this already to work in heroics (as soon as I am geared enough). As a result of my above mentioned priorities, I only cleared in the progress WotLK instances of UK, Nexus, AZN, ANK with mostly greens (and the blues I grabed from the instance progress).

PS:
Easy way of downing final Hellfire Ramparts Boss (@ ~lvl60 of course) with 5x Druids (or any other stealth group that is):
Stealth past the 2 guards who trigger the final fight. Run around and DoT/Damage Nazan (the drake mount). When he is down to 1hp apply yet another DoT, kill the 2 guards, watch Nazan land and die, finally give Vazruden your 15xTreants-love and DPS him away.

Druids are a lot of fun. I enjoy doing Wintergrasp with them, though they don't last as long as my Shamans do in most cases.

I keep meaning to pick mine up again, but moonkins have such fat arses! I presume even the new druid races in Cataclysm will still have the same moonkin form :/

He he, maybe I will again soon; I really enjoyed them to 60.

one question, when u get procs of eclipse or w/e its called, how to u x-fer to starfire when it only procs on 1?

i've been playing my 5x druids steady for the past few weeks, and am at 71. I've got them all dual-specced balance/resto. Totally agree, they are super fun. They're the only class i've played that can 1shot a mob 2lvl higher - all others seem to take 2 casts.

I've been running balance for questing, and 5 trees in AV whenever it's up. The problem in the 70-79 bracket though, is that AV is hardly ever up. When I lvl'd my 5 priests in AV, the queue was 71-80 and games were up every 5-10 minutes. It's painful questing a 4th team to 80, and now that I'm realinzing queues are taking too long, I'd like to try instancing.

Am I OK to do UK with a bear, resto, 3xboomkin if all I have is quest green gear at lvl 71? or should I run my tank & healer through UK & nexus (or BC heroics/raids) to get blues first?

My 5x Boomkins is my most fun group so far.
And they're not even 80th yet.

I have battle rez, innervate and tranquility on round-robin.
I'm looking forward to Cat-Stealth-Starfall-Treants-Hurricane in Galv/Belinda's room, on defense.

Using IS Boxer, broadcasting the mouse is easy.
I've made a /Focus macro on each, with a 5-step Keymap... and have another macro to Cyclone my Focus.

Check out the movie section, the Moo's are a 5x Druid group which have done every (or just about) heroic there is.

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Originally Posted by Ogloo

one question, when u get procs of eclipse or w/e its called, how to u x-fer to starfire when it only procs on 1?

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The last Keymap example, in my ISBoxer guide deals specifically with Eclipse procs.

3 boomkins would need 8 keymaps to cover the different possibilities.
000 no proc, normal dpsing
001 one proc
010 one proc
100 one proc
011 two
101 two
110 two
111 three

so suffice it to say, mind boggling =D

edit: I'll have to read Ulaa's thread. He usually has some good ideas!

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Originally Posted by Ogloo

one question, when u get procs of eclipse or w/e its called, how to u x-fer to starfire when it only procs on 1?

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I didn't bother to much with that yet. In the full balance setup I alternate as I please between starfire/wrath (with all of them), usually no DoTs and debuffs, because it's faster like that (usually opening with starfire and 2 wraths and that's it for CCed instance mobs).

In the Feral/3xBalance/Resto I just use one castsequence macro for all using (first DoTs) 1xstarfire and 3xwraths.
There are some good posts with good ideas. I think I will tweak on that when it's heroic time....

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Originally Posted by gitcho

i've been playing my 5x druids steady for the past few weeks, and am at 71. I've got them all dual-specced balance/resto. Totally agree, they are super fun. They're the only class i've played that can 1shot a mob 2lvl higher - all others seem to take 2 casts.

I've been running balance for questing, and 5 trees in AV whenever it's up. The problem in the 70-79 bracket though, is that AV is hardly ever up. When I lvl'd my 5 priests in AV, the queue was 71-80 and games were up every 5-10 minutes. It's painful questing a 4th team to 80, and now that I'm realinzing queues are taking too long, I'd like to try instancing.

Am I OK to do UK with a bear, resto, 3xboomkin if all I have is quest green gear at lvl 71? or should I run my tank & healer through UK & nexus (or BC heroics/raids) to get blues first?

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My guess is, UK should be doable with lvl71 greens. I had by that time (was lvl 72 I think) a few more better feral gearing items and I had the impression that my Resto was on the edge of oom (I used my innervates between fight on Resto usually to be on the safe side). Other than that it was just getting to know the instance and the bosses for me...

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

My 5x Boomkins is my most fun group so far.
And they're not even 80th yet.

I have battle rez, innervate and tranquility on round-robin.
I'm looking forward to Cat-Stealth-Starfall-Treants-Hurricane in Galv/Belinda's room, on defense.

Using IS Boxer, broadcasting the mouse is easy.
I've made a /Focus macro on each, with a 5-step Keymap... and have another macro to Cyclone my Focus.

Check out the movie section, the Moo's are a 5x Druid group which have done every (or just about) heroic there is.

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I have an expensive panic wipe-battlerez-recovery-button, where everybody tries to battlerez everybody else. A little bit exaggerated and expensive (I end up with 2-4 used reagents for one battlerez), but worthwhile from time to time if I am at the final boss and am not in the mood to run back those 5-10 minutes. Round-robin for the non-balance setup makes more sense, I should set this cheaper variant up.

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Originally Posted by Multibocks

3 boomkins would need 8 keymaps to cover the different possibilities.
000 no proc, normal dpsing
001 one proc
010 one proc
100 one proc
011 two
101 two
110 two
111 three

so suffice it to say, mind boggling =D

edit: I'll have to read Ulaa's thread. He usually has some good ideas!

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No just 3 - you would toggle the abilities independently

I'd like to see someone do it effectively....I mean dpsing/healing and tanking and then managing procs on three characters... ugh.

Its not that hard - I would suggest reading the post though ;)

When you get a raid message to hit a certain key you hit it and thats it

With keymaps the general idea is:

A keymap that sends Wrath on a spam key.
A keymap that sends Starfire on a spam key.
A keymap to control which one is pressed, despite both using the same spam key.

You'll constantly spam... say 1...
And each druid will have three keymaps.
But you'll only need to press 1 toggle key per druid.
And an addon can be configured to tell you which key to push.

Anyone have cool/neat idea's they've done or would like to do with 5x Druids?

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Originally Posted by lowlbalance

I have an expensive panic wipe-battlerez-recovery-button, where everybody tries to battlerez everybody else. A little bit exaggerated and expensive (I end up with 2-4 used reagents for one battlerez), but worthwhile from time to time if I am at the final boss and am not in the mood to run back those 5-10 minutes. Round-robin for the non-balance setup makes more sense, I should set this cheaper variant up.

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I'm pretty sure there is a glyph for druids that stops the reagent usage on battleresses.

My roflkins are lvl 38 at the moment... but they pwn in PvP and PvE.

In PvE it's just starfire spam. I have a mass heal button that puts 5 regrowth + 5 renew on the druid that has aggro, so no need for tank at all. 5 DPs so far, not that you need a tank for pre WOLK instances.

In PvP I do mainly AB runs. My favorite spots are stealthed in a bush at max range from the flag oneshoting everyone... or just run to enemy flag and insect swarm + moonfire everyone and watch them die while I cap their flag.

Also I never run stuck with no mana. Just shapeshift to cat form and mew mew pew pew. Found that a bear tank + 4 cats can down usually ?? level mobs without much problems as long as I shapeshift and heal-hot the bear druid every 30 seconds.
In pvp it's even better.

Yesterday in AB I just had my big LOL moment with round robin tranquility becoming virtually immortal for almost a minute.

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Originally Posted by Multibocks

I'd like to see someone do it effectively....I mean dpsing/healing and tanking and then managing procs on three characters... ugh.

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While it will be possible to hit the keys, I don't really see it as viable in a group type (tank, heals, dps) situation.

With my 5x boomkin group, I can stand the druids in a line and spam away.
And hit the toggles as the addon calls them out.
But even then, it's a lot of clicking and just spamming one or the other is probably preferable.

Or maybe macro it, so its 3x Wrath, 4x Starfire or something similar.
That should be close enough to proc Eclipse on most of them, and then benefit from Starfire.

In a 3x dps, 1x tank and 1x healer, with anything remotely challenging...
I don't really see managing Eclipse as remotely possible.

Well for a stationary target, it might be, but how often is your target stationary?
We can mouse click to heal with repeater regions very easily.
And we can spam our dps key which is also our tank key.
But would need to manage 3+ hotkeys for Eclipse at once.

I look at the Eclipse management as something to do from range with 5x Boomkin.
And just do an approximation, while other things happen that are more important.

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And just do an approximation, while other things happen that are more important.

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Im no expert at all and I think I would have difficult with managing this under normal circumstances.

But I also tend to "panic" sometimes and spam spam spam buttons all over the place haha.

The simple method would be.... enough Wrath casts, for most of them to Proc Eclipse.
And then Starfire a bunch.

So maybe go with the click castsequence for Insect Swarm and Moonfire, with the click calling a nuke button.
But having the nuke button on the default bar as well, so you can just cast that if you desire.

And go something like:
/castsequence reset=X Wrath (x3 or x4), Starfire (x4)

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/castsequence reset=X Wrath (x3 or x4), Starfire (x4)

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Not a good idea. Due to the server/client nature of wow /castsequences like this are a dps loss

It would depend on your latency...
In my case, its usually 50-150 milliseconds.

Losing 0.10 of a second per step in the sequence, would likely be a lot more damage gained then to just ignore Eclipse procs.
If you were to run with .400 seconds latency, I'm not sure on that.

I'm using my IS Boxer keymap for Eclipse anyway, so in my case the castsequence is a theoretical option for someone who just wants to spam away without thought.

0.1s lost every GCD is massive and that is best case scenario I estimate this to be 5-10% dps lost depending on gear and RNG. Obviously this gets worse as your latency increases. On top of that there is no guarentee that your eclipse procs will line up. If it was me I would probably try something like this:

/castsequence wrath,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence wrath,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence wrath,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence wrath,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/cast starfire

obviously the commas need adjusting but you get the idea. This should cast 4xwrath then switch to Starfire. Number of Starfires cast will be dependant on the number of commas.

5 druids are fun! Yes, for PvE...

BUT for PvP it's a totally different matter. If your opponent knows what he/she is doing than you're screwed! Boomkins do not have good defensive skills. You get feared (no tremor totem), all offensive spells hit you (no grounding totem), no good way to get rid of melee (typhoon is only a cone, can't use while stunned), starfall does hurt but not while you are feared, stunned or incapacitated... All in all, unless YOU get the jump on your opponent than you will most likely have a hard time downing anybody.

Your perfect scenario is to 1 shoot unsuspecting opponent with starfire, summon treants, cast starfall and hope for lucky crits and well timed typhoons before they demolish your team.

I'm leveling a set of druids, well will be leveling soon.. working on a mixed set that is approaching 80th.

Pretty much, will do the heroic grind in 3.3 with them (probably won't be 80th before the patch), and then use badges to buy Furious. I seriously doubt they will get far enough in arena to buy pvp gear.

The team is for having fun in battlegrounds with. In that medium, they will be a blast. But I don't think they'd do that well in arena, which they'll do purely for the points. And then possibly join a 3's, purchasing boosting with 2 people who are high rated, to get me to xxxx to buy whatever, with saved up points.

I think they'll do ok in battlegrounds as a team.

Typhoon, with five casters, kind of makes one of them being stunned irrelevant. Most of your battles are 5v1 or whatever. I'm sure they'll get destroyed quite often too, for the reasons you mentioned. But they'll be fun to play (very fun so far), and that's the whole point.