5x Ferals in Battlegrounds

[Ualaa]

I took a look at the mmo-champion talent calculator.

With the intent of five druids, primarily focusing on battlegrounds...
All five have dual-specs, so will probably go (Bear-Tank, Resto-Healer, and possibly 3x Boomkin as their PvE specs).

Anyway, for PvP I was looking at this spec as the base: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...G,MYq3O-,11927

And then have three of them, spend points like this: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...h,MYq3O-,11927
Which gets them:
- Feral Aggression 5/5... +15% Ferocious Bite damage.
- Rend and Tear 5/5... +25% Ferocious Bite critical chance.
- Possibly one less point to one of these two (for 4/5) and then Primal Precision from 1/2 to 2/2 for +5 expertise.

With the other two speccing something like this: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...b,MYq3O-,11927
Which gets them:
- Improved Leader of the Pack 2/2... party aura, 4% heal on a melee crit.
- Infected Wounds 3/3... Mangles snare opponents to 50% speed and debuff haste by 20%.
- Primal Precision... 1/2 (5 Expertise) to 2/2 (10 Expertise).
- Brutal Impact... 2/2, for the Pounce (Cheap Shot) opener from Stealth.
- And two more points somewhere.

The basic idea of slightly different specs... Three of them get bonuses to Ferocious Bite. The other two provide the party buffs (Leader of the Pack) and opposition debuffs (longer Pounce duration and Infected Wounds); same idea as only one Shammy speccing into Totem of Wrath, extra points elsewhere. With two providing the LotP/Infected Wound benefits, and all five identical in appearance, the buffs/debuffs should be safe.

The two who do not spec into Ferocious Bite can do the Dot and Stun finishing moves, or possibly the Stun x2 more as an interrupt then for the stun. Each of them will have a Kick like mechanic, probably work it into the attack sequence so one of them kicks the target every second or so.

The team is spec'd away from Shred, as blues have posted Mangle will be much closer to comparable damage, even if its not as good. I'll take 80% (not sure what close means) of the damage from the front or back, and not have to worry about facing and such.

I like that all five of them will have Nature's Swiftness, with Healing Touch, Cyclone and Battle Rez as the primary nature spells. They also have 3/3 Predatory Strikes, for the 20% chance per combo point of their next Nature spell of less then 10 seconds casting time being an instant cast.

What do you think?

[Seldum]

I think it's a solid build you have made across the different druids. I was thinking, don't you think you will miss the added armor by not picking up the Thick Hide?

I'm just thinking reduced damage = time/less need for heals.

I saw a vid on youtube with a guy playing 3 boomkins and he relied mostly on Tranquility for healing.

I'm considering going 4*boomkin and considering sacreficing some point for improved tranquility because this spell i pwnage.

[Ualaa]

I hadn't really thought it was too big of a deal; Cat Form isn't much better against physical damage then caster form. But we'll see what others think.

I haven't seen anything Cat Form specific, for increased armor.
Dire Bear form on the other hand, increases armor by 370%.
Not sure if the 10% is calculated before the 370% or if it is additive, resulting in 380%.

Three points, gets 10% additional armor, which is physical mitigation.
One of my two builds, has two unspent points which could certainly go towards Thick Armor.
The other build focuses on Ferocious Bite, but could easily spend points on armor instead.

So much depends on relative health levels in Cataclysm, the speed in which focused damage depletes health and the power of heals.
Ferals have a lot of toys in their favor, but they need to drop out of Cat/Bear form for Healing, which is the largest knock against them, compared to the DK/Ret team that can heal and DPS from their one form.

[Seldum]

I have fooled around a bit with my druids in cat form (but with caster gear) and they seem fun. The only thing I disliked is the fact that some of the abilities require you to be behind the target to gain combo points (shred) just like a rouge (I assume).

But the ability to stealth is a huge advantage. The only problem would probably be against multiple targets. The feral form, even though it got swipe, is relative single target orientated while the caster form got some nice aoe spells.

My personal play style is towards being caster, but melee is definitely also an option - I guess both forms are subject to fear bombs as any multiboxer composition.

[Littleburst]

There's no class more fun to play then a feral if you ask me. And i decided not to try and box them. They're gonna be so incrediblely complicated to manage the predatory strike instant casts, the stuns, combo points etc.

Besides that, a feral relies on bleeds normally, if played solo. Boxing 4 feral, pretty much neglects the use of bleeds in pvp. I think for boxing, you'll have more fun with rogues + a seperate healer. Since going to humanform to heal up is kinda painfull when you're getting focussed.

Allthough i'd love to see you try it and see how it works out

PS: NS is a huge waste imo, you get the instant procs from combo points. Not having Berserk, rend and tear and to gain an additional instant cast every 3 minutes is in no way usefull really.
King of the jungle, gaining 60 energy in cat when you use tiger's fury is a must have, it's pretty awesome when you just don't have the energy to finish someone off, use that and finish him/her.

Edit: i just noticed that it's the cata talent tree's. So NS might be slighty less a waste. Even if you want NS, i would always get berserk to be able to just mindlessly zerg people down. 4x bearform + manglespam = profit.

[Ualaa]

Between the two, Berserk is definitely much higher priority then Nature's Swiftness.
Berserk gets us 15 seconds (20 glyphed) of fear immunity and can be used while feared to break fear.
Combine that with the trinket, and this comp is pretty much fear immune, at least in the first encounter.

I've found that the 20% per combo point is unreliable with a team.
Most targets are dead by the time I have done my second move, which is 2-4 (average 3) combo points.
At 67th, I took out a solo 80th demo warlock, who I armoried afterwards (700 res) with my opening Pounce/4x Ravage.
The only time I've had 5 CP's across the board, is fighting against an Elite mob.
Granted all of this is against single targets, or once against two targets at the Hellfire Fortification; and they did not have heals.

I'm using a stance dependent macro, with a stopcasting. Trying to emulate an 'Art of War' proc, where if the cast is not instant, the stopcasting ends it. Still tinkering around with this, I want something I can spam to cast, and interrupt the cast if its not instant:
/stopcasting [stance:0]
/castsequence [stance:3] reset=5 Healing Touch,Null
/cast [stance:0] Cat Form

The Nature's Swiftness gets five guaranteed instant casts, which can be used independent of combo points. That's an instant cast Battle Rez, which with the glyph returns my toon at full health. Or its a Healing Touch etc.

Mangle counts as a bleed, and lasts for a minute.
So any effect which requires a bleed is up all the time.
You can easily put Rake into the rotation..
I've not finalized my click priority sequence, but want Mangle, Rake, and Savage Roar early, with the Kick mechanic to occur as evenly as possible.

Also messing around with Focus targets, and want the IWT/Click to target the focus if that exists or to FTL Assist if it does not.
Pretty sure, I can stick with FTL Assist, inside IS Boxer... but go with a Warcraft macro to switch target to Focus if that exists.