Opinions on Feral Druids, for Cataclysm BG's (Rated and Normal)
This is what I have so far...
The team has stealth, which allows us to pick the battles we want to fight and avoid those we don't. Feral Instinct improves our Stealth, as does the racial Elusiveness. Our stealth is strong.
Combine this with Feral Charge (Kitty) and Ravage, and we have a very strong opener that should just about rape any target. With the charge, Ravage is energy free and the crit chance is increased by 50%, which should have us near 90% crit (x5). The non-crit (at 80th) is 850% damage plus 2516.
Bleeds (Rake/Rip) make up the lion's share of our damage (75%, at 80th). These dots are physical effects, so not subject to decursing. Our Mastery skill increases the effectiveness of bleeds by 3.1% per point. Mangle has been substantially buffed, and while not as strong as Shred, is not that far behind. A working and effective DPS rotation is fairly simple; not optimal like a single box druid, but quite powerful. Mangle > Rake > Mangle > Mangle > Rip, then repeat but Ferocious Bite instead of Rip (Ferocious Bite, refreshes the Rip duration on targets below 25% health).
Tiger's Fury, and trinkets gets us burst on demand.
The team has mobility. Cat Form is +30% movement. Travel Form is +40% movement. Shifting will break any root/snare effect. We can power shift, via /Cast !Cat Form, which won't take us out of Kitty but will count as a shift to remove any snare/root. Cat Form has the skill Dash, +70% movement for 15 seconds. Then we round-robin our Stampeding Roar, +40% movement for (6x5) 30 seconds. Aquatic Form (minor glyphed) is +100% swim speed. All shape shift forms render us immune to Polymorphs too. Flight Form is instant, and as a Night Elves we can Shadow Meld even in the middle of combat and then Flight Form away to fight another day.
Any finishing move has a 20% chance per combo point, to make our next Nature Spell of under 10 seconds cast time an instant cast. Ferals stack Agility, and to a lesser extent Stamina; in addition talents increase our crit chance by 9%. Even in sub iLV200, mostly fresh to 80th gear, a Kitty has approximately 40% crit; in PvP gear, even against a high resilience target crit chance is over 50%. Primal Fury gets us two combo points on a crit, our other moves give one combo point. Our rotation is four moves and then a finisher. Even with only 40% crit chance (60% chance to not crit), we have 0.60 x 0.60 x 0.60 x 0.60 = 12.96% chance of no crits, or 87.04% chance of at least one crit; but given four moves, this translates even more favorably: 4 CP's (12.96% chance) gets us an 80% chance of the proc (12.96 x 0.80 = 10.368%) and 5 CP's (87.04% chance) gets us a 100% chance of the proc (87.04 x 1.00 = 87.04%) for a total chance of 97.408% an instant cast Nature Spell.
Think Healing Touch x5, or instant Cyclone, or a battle rez (which glyphed is a 100% HP rez). Combined with instant cast Entangling Roots (glyphed), an instant Cyclone is very effective crowd control.
Hybrid mana pool sucks, but every melee crit replenishes 4% of our health and mana... so it can be very quickly recuperated. In addition, the team each has Innervate. I really like that everyone can heal and everyone can rez.
Fear is the bane of most boxing compositions. Any priest, warlock or warrior can send your team scattering in five different directions. Berserk is 15 seconds (20 glyphed) of Fear Immunity, plus it breaks fear effects. And our attacks cost only half as much rage, which means double damage (energy permitting) for the duration. Berserk (usable every 3 minutes) counts as the first fear, and the trinket will cancel the second fear; with diminishing returns, if they're still alive the last fear won't last more then a couple seconds and then we're immune.
Against melee we can use Thorns, which is a punishing damage shield. This is particularly nasty for fast attacking classes. Bear Form is another option, against melee and it drastically reduces physical damage taken. And add in Frenzied Regeneration. The other Bear Form trick is Feral Charge, for the Stun.
Both Cat/Bear have Survival Instincts, 50% damage reduction for 12 seconds. Barkskin reduces all damage by 20%, also for 12 seconds; the two effects stack. Nature's Grasp (usable in Feral Forms) lasts 45 seconds, on a 60 second cooldown; 3 charges each giving a 100% root chance.
Skull Bash is a spell interrupt the same as Kick. Two of my druids will spec into Brutal Impact, which reduces this to a 10 second cooldown. With five druids, a spell caster can be locked out of a schools for upwards of 30 seconds; longer, if more druids spec'd into Brutal Impact.
The Druids have slightly different primary specs. One has taken Feral Aggression and the Faerie Fire glyph, for a full three-stack Faerie Fire on a single application. Another has Infected Wounds for the 50% snare and 20% melee attack speed penalty, this Druid also has the Rake glyph, for PvE purposes. The third Druid has all the Bear related talents, and the Maul glyph which opens up PvE options. The remaining two Druids have Brutal Impact for the extended Pounce duration and reduced Skull Bash cooldown, plus have taken the Battle Rez glyph for 100% B.Rez's.
They all have Resto as an off-spec. This opens up a change of pace, option. And PvE with the same team.
Prime glyphs include: Berserk (+5 second duration), Mangle (+10% damage) and Rip (+15% damage).
Major glyphs are: Entangling Roots (insta-cast), Thorns (-20 seconds, cooldown) and the third varies for each Druid.
Minor glyphs are: Aquatic Form (+50% swim speed), Dash (20% cooldown reduction) and Rebirth (no reagent).
I'll have standard tricks, like:
Code:Druid A: /Targetenemyplayer /Cast Cyclone Druid B: /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Cast Cyclone Druid C: /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Cast Cyclone Druid D /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Cast Cyclone Druid E /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Targetenemyplayer /Cast Cyclone Each Druid will select a different target, within range. To a maximum of five opposing players. It won't target pets/totems etc.
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