Druids, Druids, Druids

[Mystic]

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.