Druids, Druids, Druids

Although I do not want to be discussing Cataclysm abilities directly in this thread, a few of us saw some of the posted-then-pulled information about new Druid abilities/talents and have started thinking about a 5xDruid teams for the expansion. Multi-druids are not by any means new, but they have never seemed to reach flavor-of-the-month status.

I'd like to have a more open dialog about the potential for this team in rated BGs, PvE, and possibly Arena. Priority for me personally is:

1.) Strong performer in Rated BGs
2.) Capable at gearing/farming 5man PvE heroic content
3.) Arena performance a bonus, but not required

Using these goals as a guideline, Druids have some advantages/disadvantages for Rated BGs:

Pros:
* Flexibility in terms of composition-- can have Melee DPS or Ranged DPS plus healing as an option, spec-wise.
* Hybrid/Healing capability (ranging from post-fight top-offs as Feral to active healing as Balance if you switch out of or ignore moonkin form)
* Stealth-- this cannot be underestimated for BG encounters
* Rez/B-Rez capability
* Certain key abilities border on Overpowered at the current time (5xStarfall, anyone?)
* Whole team instant travel form is very handy

Cons:
* VERY susceptible to fearbombs, unless using a cooldown-based immunity available only to Feral specs.
* DPS harder to manage compared to other classes (current Eclipse mechanics, kitty DoT management, etc)
* Forms can be somewhat harder to manage
* Lack of buff synergy compared to other classes (Multi-paladins/shamans can cross-buff to a much greater degree, relatively speaking)

(I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing, I'll edit to make this a working list if you provide a suggestion)

For PvE, there's a similar set of Pros/Cons:

Pros:
* Druids have all roles available to them, allowing multiple PvE options. Can go Tank+Healer+3 Ranged DPS, or Tank+Healer+3xMelee DPS, or Tank+4xBalance and allow 4xHoTs to provide heals. Can potentially do Tank+Healer+Mixed DPS as well, although the merits of that arrangement are iffy...

Cons:
* 4xDPS setups are probably harder to pull off than say DK+4xRets of Tank+4xShaman. The DPS roles that Druids can fill don't have the same degree of passive healing available to Rets or Shaman. Balance might come close with 4xHoTs rolling on the tank, but it's not as efficient as the Shaman setup.
* Potential mana-management issues that make stopping to drink more of a concern than other comps.
* Again, not as much buff synergy as other compositions.


Although arena is not as much of a focus, there are some noteworthy tricks to playing a multi-druid team.
* Berserk - Fear immunity on a cooldown. This mitigates one major pitfall of the group
* Cyclone - Strong CC that can be used effectively for arenas
* Starfall - 5xStarfalls does pump out a lot of damage and can be launched from...
* Stealth - Generally speaking, you'll have more control about the start of the fight and early targetting. This is not as big of an advantage for Arena as I think it is for BGs, where people aren't going to know there's 5 stealthed players in close proximity.




Anyhow, without going into NDA Cataclysm land, what are YOUR thoughts on 5xDruids now and in the future. I have my own Druid team in the works right now, and I know mosg2 and some others are also working on them. If you have one right now at L80, what have been your experiences with it and what are your thoughts going forward?

Knockdown/silence from far away on a 15 second cooldown

Mushrooms of doom

I don't see 5x feral being an option really. I honestly see boomkin as the only way to go about it.

I just have a "hunch" that 5x druid teams will be quite fun in Cataclysm, and they really aren't too bad now. I wouldn't arena with them, but everything else is very good.

My druid team is level 74 at the moment and I have been rocketing them up in level for a few weeks now. Not too much longer and they will be 80. I have been able to do instances pretty much at level, and with just quest gear, but did in the end require the typical tank, 3xdps, healer setup. I tried with four cats doing double duty dps/heal and it worked, but was very fraught with risk and lots of deaths. Same for 4xBoomklins, but with crap gear, they went oom fast doing double duty dps/heal.

At 80 in heroics it will still require the tank, 3xdps, healer split , until they outgear them, then like my pally+4xshaman team they can double duty dps/heal (in 4x moonkin form, shapeshifting to caster for HoTs and the rare full heal).

For BGs I have taken them in as five cats and with dps spam plus IWT spam, it's instadeath for whoever I am on, just like taking the 4x and 5x Rets to BGs. The difference is you have to really be on your toes with shapeshifting for heals.

I also have taken them as five boomkins, and they fared well, though I really liked the five cats performance better. I will say that 5x hurricanes can wipe out an entire flag-clustered WSG enemy team in about 4 seconds or less, and 15 trees is greate fun to sic on the enemy. Starfall is the same, outright carnage.

I have not tried taking them in with one of them a dedicated healer. If you are good on your reflexes, taking four cats and one healer might be the optimal BG configuration. If things get hairy, shapeshift them from cat to bear and heal them up, then drop back to cat for dps unload. This is probably also true of four boomkins and a healer. It depends on your playstyle. I like the in-your-face style of the DK+Rets which is also why I like cats over moonkins in BGs.

The thing is, you can change your playstyle at a whim with the all druid team. In your face with feral, distance with balance. You can mix and match at will. You need two tanks for a hard encounter, you have it. You need two healers for an encounter, you have it. You need all DPS, you have that too. This is all without having to change toons.

Bottom line is I am loving the versatility. For pure outright carnage and no-reflex easymode survivability my DK+Ret team rules the roost, but once the druids are geared up, we'll see.

Fear bombs are meh. In arenas they count. Again, I do not recommend the 5x druid team for arenas, but I'm not an experienced arena player so take that as you will.

In BGs, IWT-based recovery is your friend. Don't forget you can barkskin while feared also. Fears are annoying, but I rarely get messed up by them anymore. Trinket the first, barkskin/IWT the next.

DPS management is certainly an issue, you simply cannot elite optimize your dps with spam macros like you can with shaman and rets, and with everyone having different timing from haste, misses, etc, you cannot keep them in synch, especially like as you said, with the eclipse procs, combo points, etc. That said, my faily simple spam macros for cats (focus on bleeds/DOTs and mangles, no FBs or real worries about combo points) and for boomkins (tries its best to grab eclipse procs, and does very well at keeping the DOTs refreshed exactly when they expire) keep up VERY significant dps even in crap gear, so optimizing dps at least so far has not been a real issue.

Forms management was an issue while I was lazy about it. Then I realized I still could be lazy and write simple forms management macros with things like /cast [nostance:5] Tree and /cancelform, so that forms do not toggle unless I specifically tell them to. Now if I want everyone in cat form and some are in cat and some not, everyone goes to cat, and those already in cat don't switch, saving precious mana.

Buff synergy is a good point, but you sort of get this with 5x shaman too,and it isn't a detriment to them at all. I'm not 80 yet with this team and playing in the big leauges, so it may be that buffs will make a difference then, but I'm skeptical.

Your first PVE con is spot on. Even with popping the HoTs on everyone, with shapeshifting, you cannot keep up with dps and healing double duty. This is especially true with feral, since your +SP will suck and you heal like crap. With boomkins it is much better, since your heals work very well because you are already in +SP gear. You will however find out that you are OOM and still have 50% of the fight left to do. You'll need one of them a Tree if you want to do anything challenging.

Your second con also has merit. I have to drink a lot right now, about every two to three sets of trash. I cannot remember with the shaman it has been so long ago that I leveled them to 80, but I am guessing back the they probably also had to drink every 2-3 trash sets, so maybe it just seems a lot to me because I haven't had to drink after any encounter in a very very long time. My Tree has to drink the most. My boomkins can go three trash sets, but the Tree can never get past more that two without having to drink.

I'll let you know how they fare at 80 once they get there. I have high hopes for this team.

PVE:

The simplest for PvE will likely be: Feral Bear, Boomkin x3, and Resto.
- Wild Growth on the ranged, and roll HOTs on the tank.
- Possibly Regrowth/Healing Touch vs spike damage.

If you run with: Feral Bear, Feral Cats x3, and a Resto...
- In this case, its a few HOTs on the healer, and then Wild Growth + HOTs on the tank.
- Ditto on the bigger heals on the tank, at times.

The Boomkin route, is less toons in melee.
It has your caster toons already in caster type gear, should your healer fall.
It's pretty easy to hit a mapped key (IS Boxer), to add a toon to your Healer Action Target Group, so when you click the Grid Healing Frame, that click is now also passed to the new toon.

The Cat DPS route gets a lot of innervates for the healer, who is the only mana user.
Everyone but the healer also has Berserk, to deal with fear type mechanics.
But Cat armor isn't much different from caster armor, and its more toons to deal with cleave effects.
I'd imagine, 3x Shred/Ravage from the rear arc, would be decent damage.
Cats can talent less damage from AoE.

I like the feral DPS route more, but the Boomkins is what interested me in 5x Druids to begin with.
Instant Flight Form, makes collections much less of a pain; you can fly 5 feet above the ground, looting crates or whatever without having to drop flight form or kill the guarding mobs.
Druids have a lot of toys, which are fun.

I'd probably try the Cat x3 dps first, and switch to the Owls if the Cat option wasn't working well.
But either way, I don't see much 5-man (PvE) content that 5x Druids cannot do, but other comps can.




PvP:

In WotLK, 5x Boomkin (or 4x and a Healer), didn't have enough controlled burst.
I really liked the idea of Boomkins...

Having played Feral, I like Cats just as much.
Berserk + Trinket, is pretty good fear protection.

I'm happy with their DPS, going mostly with Mangles, but keeping Rip and Savage Roar up... Almost everything is dead before I have 5 combo points.
Five combo points, gets you a 100% chance of an instant cast Nature Spell... Depending on hit point pools, 5 combo points might be more common, which will help with instant-Healing Touch, instant-BattleRez or possibly instant-Cyclones.
With 5 extra talent points, we can take Nature's Swiftness and still have Berserk + the desired Feral Talents; this gets us 5x instants every few minutes, independent of our 5x CP instants.

I'm leaning towards Berserk (20 seconds instead of 15), Battle Rez (100% health on a rez), and Mangle (ignore Shred/Ravage - rear positional attacks) for my major glyphs. Then go with three of B.Rez (no component), Aquatic Form (fast swim), Dash (shorter cooldown) and Thorns (one hour duration, instead of 10 mins).

Still upper 70's, not 80th yet on my Ferals. Messing around with leveling 5 teams, a little here and a little there. Ideally, have them all high enough for 525 trade skills, prior to Cataclysm.
I'm never on much over the summer - seasonal work (June-Sept) and all... so would like to have all seven teams to at least 75th by mid June... and the Druids to 80th, so they're set for Cataclysm on day 1.

I think that The-Ability-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named is going to turn this team into a *powerhouse*. Every team except Shaman is weak to fear. It's part of MB'ing.

I have mixed experiences with my 5 druids that are lvl 74 at the moment. So far I see them as a fun team but not as an optimal team.

PvE

1 ) You need a feral tank and a resto healer
2 ) Feral tank cannot hold aggro that good as a paladin. I had no problems holding aggro with my paladin when my shamans were 10 levels higher than him. My feral druid is unable to hold aggro if I push my DPS too much. Consecration and the last talent in the prot pala tree is way superior than swipe and maul. Feral druid tank feels pretty much like a gimped and seriously disabled warrior tank. I am even thinking to dust out my prot warrior to tank for my druids.
3 ) Extremely weak against poisoning mobs. With my shamans it was just dropping a cleansing totem and forget about poisons at all. With my warlocks I just drain life and it outheals completely the poison effect. With the druids its completely different story. I have to stop dps and cast the druid poison cleansing spell or they all die.
4 ) Out of instances you can oneshot everything with starfire or whatever is the name of the 3 sec casting spell.
5 ) DPS rotation cannot be optimal and this gives you lower DPS. The eclipse procs are impossible to manage when you have 3 boomkins spamming stuff, so you have to alternate starfire and warth and still lose a considerable chunk of DPS.


PvP

1 ) 5 boomkins die too fast when you get a couple of people on your group. They die considerably faster that warlocks and shamans.
2 ) 4 boomkins and a dedicated resto spamming heals is very viable even at low bracket levels. The survivability is similar to 5 elemental shamans, yet the DPS is lower.
3 ) 5 resto druids spamming heals all the time is the perfect team to have the enemy busy at you while the rest of your team runs the flag in WSG... its really fun. I guess I will make a 5 resto druids arena team when they reach lvl 80 just to annoy people in the arenas.
4 ) Fearbombs are an annoyance, but not that much really.
5 ) Starfall is not that great compared to magma totems + fire nova or my warlocks demon form + immolation aura and seed of corruption spam. In fact starfall is completely underpowered and gimped compared to seed of corruption spam from my warlocks.
6 ) Your team is relatively easy to control and once controlled you are dead. There are no totems nor felguards to save you. In these cases I see my druid group as a complete gimp compared to shamans and warlocks.
7 ) Stealth is always nice, but it's a bit overrated in BGs.
8 ) Forget about rotations or using any other spells in PvP, just spam wrath or moonfire + insect swarm. This tends to make pvp a bit boring. There is no spell like "I may go down, but you all will come with me even if I die".
9 ) Moonfire requires the target to be in front of you. That leaves you only with insect swarm if you are running the flag and a bunch of enemies are chasing you.
10 ) Battle rezz is very nice. Yet it's not that good as shaman self rezz.

I can tell you guys how it is to run 5 druids in pve at lvl 80.

Fun :)

Innervate and starfall are your friends. Use em and use em frequently. I sometimes sit down and drink, but it depends on the pulls I make. I have glyphed starfall even though some people say other glyphs are better for boomkin dps... I use this spell on almost all occasions.

For healing, I have 4 types of healing.

1 tree - macroed to the dps spam button to cast lifebloom, rejuv, and on the second dps spam button, I have rejuv and regrowth. This eases the pain of hotting up the tank while doing all other stuff as well.
Then on the mouse I have a castsequence similar to the main spam dps button to hot up a toon, and on the right I have nourish for fast healing of a single toon.
Then theres Wildgrowth. I have actually this to a third mousebutton to be casted on the toon I want (usually just the healer), and I also have this button bound on one of my ability keys for the tank.. I generally spam this on every cooldown, since my tree never runs out of mana - atleast not on 90% of all fights.
Then I have tranquility bound for each char (dps + healer). I rarely use this, but in case my healer dies I can cast tranquility forcing a dps out of moonkinform and start healing instead, or if I have time, revive the healer.

One of the biggest issues for me is managing all the forms and scenarios the druids presents. But its fun.

And 3 x starfall or Forces of Nature in pvp is epic :D

Regarding the druids being the new super race, I doubt it.

They lack the stamina of the plate and mail classes unless in bear form. But I might be wrong. I also depends on the changes to the eclipse system etc.
Many classes gets boosts in one way or the other, and I actually think Blizzard is doing a good job at balancing the classes. But until the changes are in-game and people get geared up it probably difficult to see whats going to happen.

I don't think druids are going to be the new super race. I think they might be a fantastic comp for people who are looking for a great BG comp, though. It's also a very "future-proof" type composition that is worthy of long-term time investment. Since the druid is the most flexible solo class, able to fill ALL game roles, it gives multi-druid setups even more flexibility.

can boomkins heal in that form?

If not, what about wierd hybrid builds where you get a good amount of dps (not in boomkin form), but still able to heal?

I recall a solid spec in S3 arena for glads was some off the wall hybrid druid spec. They stayed in caster form and were hard as @#(@_#) to kill.

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Originally Posted by Seldum

new super race,

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New?! pssh. have you ever ran into a druid alone in world pvp... they fight you... run... heal full.. come back.. fight run heal fight run heal fight run heal. they are pretty supurb as is.. (just need to find good ones of course or healers) this is probably just due to major mana pools / hots.

but as a boxer.. don't think we could b as skilled for all that movement / run / heal / root / fight

only thing I am truly jealous about tho.. is ..fly form it is OP. =p (gathering/ falling to death / mid air pvp)

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Originally Posted by Acidburning

can boomkins heal in that form?

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Moonkins can't heal and stay in form. It will drop you to caster form. But... if you're willing to give up the form bonuses for a bit, you can drop out to heal and then keep pew-pewing if you want to save the GCD of going back to moonkin.

another druid thread eh

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Originally Posted by heyaz

another druid thread eh

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There haven't been any new "druid threads" in a while, actually. A lot has changed since people rolled multi-druids in the last wave of excitement. Even pre-Cataclysm, there's been enough overhaul (5xStarfall, anyone?!) that there's interest again. Plus, ferals are viable in a big way with IWT... rated BGs... Cataclysm abilities... plus the most awesome change ever:

Now Trolls can be Druids!

If you're talking world pvp and bgs, they are great fun. Nothing better than watching ally getting close to the last wall in SOTA and popping out of stealth with 15 treants and 5 starfalls. Simply dot up the vehicles, and everything close to you dies.

As far as arenas, it's fun when you win, but don't expect to climb very high. There are too many classes with immunity (DK antimagic shell, paladin bubble, priest pain suppression/dispersion, rogues cloak, hunters deflection, etc.) that can survive your main burst and the instant you switch out to heal, you'll get pummeled hard. I recently added a root macro to put roots on all the targets right as I come out of stealth and that's helped a little, but it's not going to be a game changer.

Here's my noob team:

http://www.wowarmory.com/team-info.x...=Nerf+Starfall

Zappy-- I actually hope that the team works out precisely as you suggest. Great at BGs, and just "OK" in arenas.

I think stealth is a very nice addition for a BG team. You add big damage potential to surprise capability... fun fun

Oh yah. I forgot about one big strong point about this team. Fears do not interrupt starfall. I can't tell you how many times I've hard warriors charge me in fear, and still get melted by starfall. :)

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Originally Posted by heyaz

another druid thread eh

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Theres no such thing as too many druids threads :D

@Zappy - How do you feel you hold out concerning the survivability of your team in BG and Arena?

I just looked at one of your toons, and his/hers resilience was around 1000. Is that enough to start melting faces without getting killed?

I also notes you have only 1/2 points in Balance of Power but 3/3 in Dreamstate. This suggest to me you have a slight focus on mana generation instead of survivability.

Thanks for linking your team. This is exactly what I needed to get some inspiration how to gear up my dps.
Are your boomkins vial for PvE content also?

Atm. im running some pve content and a bit of BG/WG to try and get some gear for my guys, but I suck so it's taking quite a long time I think, or else i'm just to impatience. I had to give up in Old Kingdom last night, because - wait for it - the trash up to Jadoga killed my team. If I wanted to continue I would get through it, but I got annoyed and quit.

My druid team is currently being powerleveled along. I do have an 80 Druid with a mix of 232/245 tank gear as a 5th, but the others just set foot into Scholomance last night at 45. I am hoping to get the gang to 58 in Scholo, switch to Hellfire questing to get enough gear so they're not naked, then switch to dungeon/quest grinding through BC content. I am going to try to run as 80-overgeared-bear and 4xCaster druids just to speed up dungeon grinding and work out my ISBoxer click-passthrough/camera issues for synchronized Hurricanes.

I would be very much interested in folks experiences with PvE content, it seems like Bear+Cats+Tree would be optimal from a mana perspective. If mana isn't a problem, then going Bear+Tree+Boomkins or Bear+4xBalance (for trash, anyhow) might work as gear improves.

Thanks for the Starfall info. Does it break with stuns? One of the biggest PITA CCs I've always faced is the warlock AoE stun.

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Originally Posted by Seldum

@Zappy - How do you feel you hold out concerning the survivability of your team in BG and Arena?

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The stealth is the only thing that gives you a little survivability. Once a team knows what they are up against, it's very difficult to stay alive. To give you a better idea on this, when doing arenas on my shammys, the instant we know the enemy has a boomkin, they are always the priority target as they have no defensive cooldowns to stop from getting blasted. In arenas, you'll be up against a team of 5 coordinated opponents, so depending on their group makeup, it's going to be very hard to get high even with a dedicated healer. BGs are a different story. Use stealth to your advantage. Almost every time you pop out of stealth, your starfall is ready to go which makes it very fun. WSG is a blast as the flag carriers and typically anybody nearby gets destroyed so quickly.

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I just looked at one of your toons, and his/hers resilience was around 1000. Is that enough to start melting faces without getting killed?

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Having higher spellpower and enough spell pen seemed to make a bigger difference than resilence. It really boils down to what you are up against. DKs with anti-magic shell will give you the most grief as you'll be doing next to no damage to them while they will get all their diseases on all your guys rather quickly.

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I also notes you have only 1/2 points in Balance of Power but 3/3 in Dreamstate. This suggest to me you have a slight focus on mana generation instead of survivability.

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That's a little funny. This team sat on the shelf for so long (mostly hateful) when I transferred them over to Ner'zhul and started playing them again, and I haven't respec'd them. The point in balance of power was to help me reach the pvp hit cap. I can drop that now. Dreamstate + Intensity is just simply awesome for nearly unlimited mana, and when you do start to get low, you have innervate. The extra mana regen is very nice for battlegrounds as sometimes it's difficult to get out of combat.

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Thanks for linking your team. This is exactly what I needed to get some inspiration how to gear up my dps.
Are your boomkins vial for PvE content also?

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As far as PVE, they good, but a lot slower than my shammys and dk/ret team. 2 of my guys are dual-spec'd so I can run a bear, 3 boomkins and a tree. The issues you run into is lack of great aoe. If you hit starfall, unless you are glyphed, you can almost always expect more than one pack of mobs, in addition, you'll pull aggro of your bear rather quickly. It's pretty much single target dps, so when I pull a pack of mobs, i'll typically dot up everything with moonfire and insect swarm then finish them off on either starfire or wrath depending on how many eclipse procs I see. My bear and tree are macro'd so that any keypress of 1-4 (wrath, starfire, moonfire, insect swarm) are mapped to big castsequences. It's as efficient as it could be, but I seem to hold aggro pretty decent, and rarely ever have to drink. The tree runs out of mana a little quicker, but with the bear I have one extra innervate to throw on him.

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Atm. im running some pve content and a bit of BG/WG to try and get some gear for my guys, but I suck so it's taking quite a long time I think, or else i'm just to impatience. I had to give up in Old Kingdom last night, because - wait for it - the trash up to Jadoga killed my team. If I wanted to continue I would get through it, but I got annoyed and quit.

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Overall, this is a fun team, especially for battlegrounds and world pvp. Now if I could get their spellpower close to my shamans, I would love to see what kind of damage they could put out.

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Originally Posted by Zappy

The stealth is the only thing that gives you a little survivability.... Use stealth to your advantage. Almost every time you pop out of stealth, your starfall is ready to go which makes it very fun. WSG is a blast as the flag carriers and typically anybody nearby gets destroyed so quickly.

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I hope I'm not putting too much emphasis on stealth, but I think the ability to sneak past the enemy (AV for example) or pick your battles (i.e. let a 10 person zerg take a node then recap when 2-3 are left to defend) is a big advantage. Being able to strategically utilize Starfall ownage is nice.

One of my complaints about the Shaman team is that it is VERY potent, but somewhat forces you to play defensively and good BG teams respond by finding ways to pick you apart. That doesn't happen as much with my DKs, but the all melee team does have some of its own issues.

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Originally Posted by Zappy

As far as PVE, they good, but a lot slower than my shammys and dk/ret team. 2 of my guys are dual-spec'd so I can run a bear, 3 boomkins and a tree. The issues you run into is lack of great aoe.

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Running DK+4xRet in 5 man heroics IS addicting due to the speed. It's a pretty high standard to live up to. As long as I can do heroics without too much difficulty, I'd be pleased. My biggest worry is that there's a lot of extra macro/setup work to run essentially two different comps with the same team. I know there are ways, but running a clickbroadcast for a Tree healer setup in PvE and then having a 5x click setup for healing as boomkins is a bit of a pain.

How is Hurricane for AoE in PvE? Seems like it might be dominating...

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Originally Posted by Zappy

Overall, this is a fun team, especially for battlegrounds and world pvp. Now if I could get their spellpower close to my shamans, I would love to see what kind of damage they could put out.

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Hurricane is nice and I use it a fair amount, but with only 3, it seems just as efficient to dot up everything. The problem is that once I use any AOE spell, I'll find my boomkins pulling aggro occassionally, and they can't tank worth a damn, so most of the time I'll bypass any aoe to make the runs smoother.

I have numeric pad setup for all my special heals where 4, 5, 6 are my three boomkins. Typically, I'll use a /castsequence reset=3 Nourish, LifeBloom for spot healing. Then i have 0 for my tank, and 1 for my tree.

When I get some time, I'll post up my pve macros. There's really not a whole lot to it. I've ran all the heroics with the exception of the new ICC 5 mans and ToC, but I'm fairly certain I can clear at least FoS and PoS.

If you're using IS Boxer (or presumably HKN) to mouse broadcast... you can choose a group as the target.
And then use a mapped key to add other toons to that group (or remove them).

So its the same click on whatever frame, for either type of heal (dedicated resto vs full team). And then who is a member of the group determines who receives the click.

Yup. Another boxer in my guild (Blaze) was telling me about all the goodies that IS Boxer has. When I last looked at it, it was missing a few key features that I just can't live without - ability to mute a specific toon (for doing arenas mainly), a round robin keypress rather than having to use a /castsequence, and a few other small things. After talking to Blaze, he said that ISBoxer has all those goodies now, so it's more of a matter of me taking the time to prepare for the switch.

I've been using a ghetto heal system with keyclone since I've started. F1-F5 are my main heals for each toon regardless of which team I'm running. The druids are the only wierd setup for me as I have to switch specs to run PVE content. The Dk/Rets, and shammys can breeze through all the heroics with no changes.

But back to the original question -- yes 5 druids can effectively do just about all the 5 man content in the game.

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Originally Posted by Zappy

Yup. Another boxer in my guild (Blaze) was telling me about all the goodies that IS Boxer has. When I last looked at it, it was missing a few key features that I just can't live without - ability to mute a specific toon (for doing arenas mainly), a round robin keypress rather than having to use a /castsequence, and a few other small things. After talking to Blaze, he said that ISBoxer has all those goodies now, so it's more of a matter of me taking the time to prepare for the switch.

I've been using a ghetto heal system with keyclone since I've started. F1-F5 are my main heals for each toon regardless of which team I'm running. The druids are the only wierd setup for me as I have to switch specs to run PVE content. The Dk/Rets, and shammys can breeze through all the heroics with no changes.

But back to the original question -- yes 5 druids can effectively do just about all the 5 man content in the game.

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Don't really want to derail the thread, but...

A Keymap can have Steps, which are distinct things occurring on sequential presses of the same key.
So you can send whatever to account 1 on press 1, account 2 on press 2, etc.
You can also have IS Boxer not advance to the next step for "x.x" seconds, no matter how you spam the key.
Or for it to reset to Step 1, "x.x" seconds after the first press or after the most recent press.

For targeting (who receives the action) most mapped keys use:
- Window: Current
- Window: All without Current
- Window: All with Current
But you're free to define an Action Target Group, and use that as the target of a mapped key.
With another mapped key, you can add or remove a toon from an ATG.
So, change the target to an ATG, and create a mapped key that will remove the toon to mute from the target ATG.

It's a pretty flexible software.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

Don't really want to derail the thread, but...

A Keymap can have Steps, which are distinct things occurring on sequential presses of the same key.
So you can send whatever to account 1 on press 1, account 2 on press 2, etc.
You can also have IS Boxer not advance to the next step for "x.x" seconds, no matter how you spam the key.
Or for it to reset to Step 1, "x.x" seconds after the first press or after the most recent press.

For targeting (who receives the action) most mapped keys use:
- Window: Current
- Window: All without Current
- Window: All with Current
But you're free to define an Action Target Group, and use that as the target of a mapped key.
With another mapped key, you can add or remove a toon from an ATG.
So, change the target to an ATG, and create a mapped key that will remove the toon to mute from the target ATG.

It's a pretty flexible software.

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If by pretty flexible you mean has an answer for nearly everything you could want to do then yes...it surpasses flexibility.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

Or for it to reset to Step 1, "x.x" seconds after the first press or after the most recent press

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...that seems against the rules and too close to automation for my taste.

Well.. depends what you want to do with it.
A reset so many seconds after the most recent press is no different then reset=x with a default warcraft macro.

Reset to the first Step, after "x" seconds have passed is a bit more flexible.
But it does exactly what it's configured to do, without making any decisions ever.
And every action is a result of a user action, so again cannot see anything close to automation.

Whatever... I guess.
If you want to debate, can we do another thread, and not derail this one?

Please get thread back on track... This is about Druids not ISBoxer.

Druids got their proc and cons as listed prior in this thread.

For me one of the biggest concerns is the lack of Fear immunity and burst damage reduction. On the other hand, you have a team which is very versatile. All melee, all casters, a mix.

If you run the druids as Feral, both bears and cats have Berserk which is 15 seconds (20 glyphed) of fear immunity.
Berserk can even be used while feared, to break it.
Combine that with the 2 minute trinket, and diminishing returns on the 3rd fear directed your way...

The Resto/Boomkin just have the trinkets.

But then, look at the premiere pvp team currently... DK + 4x Ret.
They're losing defensive (friendly) dispels on Ret/Prot specs.
So they'll be in exactly the same boat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seldum

For me one of the biggest concerns is the lack of Fear immunity and burst damage reduction. On the other hand, you have a team which is very versatile. All melee, all casters, a mix.

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Fear is a problem for all teams except stacked shamans. Barkskin is a pretty darn nice ability as well, and not as cumbersome as a DS+DS pally combo to have to pull off. (Also available every minute!)

I think the way to deal with fear in BGs is similar to my DK+Rets team... You prioritize killing fearbombing classes. It'll be even nicer since you can start a lot of fights from stealth and pick and choose targets better.

There are more options with ferals due to Berserk and there may also be a nice feature to silence casters better in Cataclysm. You never know. :)

They did mention, cat druids would get a mechanic similar to rogue kick.
Wouldn't mind setting it up, so every 2-3 seconds one of the cats is doing the kick equivalent, as part of their standard dps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

If you run the druids as Feral, both bears and cats have Berserk which is 15 seconds (20 glyphed) of fear immunity.
Berserk can even be used while feared, to break it.
Combine that with the 2 minute trinket, and diminishing returns on the 3rd fear directed your way...

The Resto/Boomkin just have the trinkets.

But then, look at the premiere pvp team currently... DK + 4x Ret.
They're losing defensive (friendly) dispels on Ret/Prot specs.
So they'll be in exactly the same boat.

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There really aren't a lot of situations where i feel i need to cleanse magic anyway. Most the time all toons get feared or just my dk leader (lichborne)

Here are some updates. First, what's been published:

Starfall-- Looks like the damage of Starfall's main stars is going UP, but the AoE splash component is going away. Too soon to tell what kind of impact this will have, but it might very well be a wash. Probably makes Starfall more useful vs. groups of 3-4 people and less dominating for large groups of 8-10.

Solar Beam-- New spell, we can officially talk about it now. Instant cast, 1min cooldown, ranged interrupt+AoE silence that's left at a location (10yd radius). Looks pretty dominating. One could imagine an instant-cast rotation involving moonfire/insect swarm and a Solar Beam going off every 12-15 sec or so. I also see huge potential to use this on any melee target, giving yourself a little "safe zone" so PBAoE fearbombers, mages, warlocks using hellfire, etc can't do much in your face.

Starsurge-- Another new spell. 2sec nuke with Knockdown Component! 15sec cooldown. Typhoon+Starsurge followup looks great. May also just combine this in a Wrath-based rotation so that one character is throwing out a Starsurge every 3-4 sec.

Wrath of Cenarius-- Extra damage on moonfire while moving, which you tend to do a lot in PvP. Win!

New Eclipse Mechanics-- Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think it will be better for PvE groups with boomkin, less micro-managing Eclipse procs. For PvP, I don't think it matters much. Other than the very occasional Starfire opening salvo, I am not using anything but instants+Wrath spam in PvP.

On the whole, looks like the Balance druid BG team will continue to show a lot of promise. Devs has said some pretty good things about Starfall, leaving me optimistic that it won't be nerfed to oblivion (e.g. "it's supposed to be strong, because it can be countered",).

* * *

Play update:

Sure, I'm not 80 yet, but I thought I would give a little bit of an update about my L68 druids. They have basically all the same abilities they'd have at L80, so I think the playstyle will be similar.

In contrast to Shamans who are basically reasonably stationary + defensive + ranged attackers, and the DK+Pally melee blender that is mobile + offensive + non-mana-constrained, I find the Boomkins to a mix of mobile + ranged + defensive/crafty. What I mean by "defensive/crafty" is the combination of being able to stealth, use travel-form to haul tail when needed, cast heals while on the run, pop typhoon on people closing, barkskin, etc. Not surprisingly, multi druids plays a lot like solo druids.

I have been playing a lot of EotS and AB, since they've been the dailies lately. This team shines in that kind of BG. I typically keep my head on a swivel and try to understand where the enemy is on the battlefield. If I'm faced with 1-3 opponents/defenders, I will pick a first target which gets Insect Swarm, Moonfire, then a Typhoon to push it (and everyone near it) away. Then I'll repeat for other targets and let DoTs run rampant. Often times I will haul tail away in travel mode and not even bother with Wrath/Starfire. The idea is to be quick and never stop moving.

If faced with more, I will stealth if I can and let people clump up nicely, then go in with Starfalls blazing and typhoon anyone nearby. At this point, at L68 with non-pvp geared folks, this is just comical. I'm only running 4 druids, too, since my main is 80 and just waiting for them to catchup. With the glyph, the big Starfall combo is available once/minute, which is awesome.

If I'm wandering up to a fight where I know I'll have the cast time, I'll let a Starfire combo rip, but I usually don't use starfire much. Wrath is pretty effective if I have the chance to cast a little bit, and I try to stay mobile as much as possible. I will flee if needed, taking great care to not let PBAoE fear bombs hit the group.

I am struggling a little bit with mana issues, since MF/IS spam can quickly drain the ole blue bars, but it's easy enough to Innervate and take a break. Again, stealth is huge here!

Obviously, I have no idea how things will scale to 80, but I can see how this could work quite nicely. I think if you play it like a shammy team, you'll be disappointed. In many ways, it's more like the DK+Pallies where you have to keep moving in order to be most effective.

I haven't really PvEd at all with the team, other than dragging them on /follow behind a tank that I've been playing to clear instances. Instant flight form + northrend questing should be efficient for leveling. I will probably start doing more instances around L72-74 just so that I have a feel for the team and get all my macros worked out-- at some point I'll need to do heroics with them and I don't want to put that off for too long.

I'd love to hear more from anyone who's running 80s in BGs now or anyone who has better info on the new Starfall performance.

I sadly can't say anything about multiple starfalls, but a single one is already fairly devastating. The main problem is, that it is stopped fairly easy by Stuns or Fears. But as long as it is raining stars, you should take out everything in range with 4 druids.

The starfall range is awesome. Being able to time/place yourself well using Stealth is also amazing.

Again, I have worries about performance at 80/85, but I am very impressed with using it with 4 druids as I am leveling in BGs.

http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0VhboZZbxczb

What about something like this for a feral team?

It has Solar beam to silence enemy healers, even when you are standing on them, with the good resto talents still, and 52 pts to spare for feral abilites :)

I wouldn't worry about Cataclysm until it's out. Even after the release, there will still be tons of tweaks to many abilities/talents.

If you are Nightelf, try this Macro:

/cast Starfall
/cast Shadowmeld

If you were in cat-stealth previously, they won't know where you are, but the stars will still fall and kill.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fomeny

I wouldn't worry about Cataclysm until it's out. Even after the release, there will still be tons of tweaks to many abilities/talents.

If you are Nightelf, try this Macro:

/cast Starfall
/cast Shadowmeld

If you were in cat-stealth previously, they won't know where you are, but the stars will still fall and kill.

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I have too much self-respect to play Night Elves.

I plan to have Trolls, long-term...