Easiest Follower Class (Keyclone)

[nodoze]

...running a druid with a priest ... I imagine once bear form comes online, it will benefit from tanking multiple mobs for rage generation while getting heals, and I should be able to chain hots, dots, and wanding for near infinite sustain. I think this might be the move. Everyone talks about how warrior + healer duos are powerhouses, shouldn't bear be the same?

First be aware that priest shields or anything that prevents damage to a bear/warrior reduces the bear/warrior's rage and DPS/abilities...

There are similarities between Warriors and Bears but I don't think they are the same.

I am a huge Druid fan but I understand druids were often mocked in Classic and often pigeonholed in progression raids and often only allowed in relatively limited numbers in progression raids... What I don't know is whether those attitudes and actions were still warranted around patch set 1.12 or not as I understand there were several patches along the way which buffed Druids but a lot of their reputation may have been "solidified in stone" before 1.12. Progression Raids by then were already dominated by Warriors from before Druids got buffed and generally "if something ain't broke then don't fix it" so there was little compelling reason to give Druids a second (or fourth, fifth) chance at that point when there are 40+ people's time on the line and people may be racing for world or server firsts...

I wish I could give you more direct numbers for comparison but I never raided with my Druid as my Druid was for Flag Running in WSG, stealth capturing of GraveYards/objectives in AV, stealth capturing of objectives in AB, and stealth scouting/ganking in World PVP parties, etc... Come to think of it I leveled my druid by questing and never really ran my druid in dungeon instances except to get BiS gear as generally I used my already geared 5 box team to do that...

In 1.12 think Druid Bear DPS is still less than Warrior DPS in a Defensive stance though I don't know how much less in terms of DPS (or some kind of relative %) so hopefully someone who has more specificity can chime in.

If I recall correctly the general comparison is that Paladins and Druids are among the lowest DPS with the Paladin being approximately 1/3 the DPS of a Warrior on single targets and the disparity grows as you face standard packs of 3-6 mobs as Warrior damage more of them more effectively. I don't know the relative % the Druid Bear is at but at least the bear's damage does scale up some to at least 3 mobs...

Keep in mind that when a Warrior switches to an offensive stance and weapons to increase DPS he is still wearing Plate but when a Bear switches to Cat to increase DPS he is wearing Leather.

Solid Warrior DPS involves a more standard rotation while semi-decent Druid DPS involves shifting in/out of cat form (leveraging a headpiece and talent) and only approaches optimal if you really "try hard" by prepping before hand by farming the Gnomeregan boss over-and-over ad nausea because the manual crowd pummelers only have 90 seconds of DPS boost per boss drop (3 un-rechargeable 30 second charges per drop). You have to be really committed to pull it off in any sustained manner while the warrior is just a fricken energizer bunny...

Druids are less gear dependent and Bear's start out likely somewhat ahead but the more gear the Warrior has the more the Warrior can pull ahead.

There is a lot more that can be said on the differences like Druid tanks are arguably better for this and Warrior Tanks for that... There are heated arguments that Druids just can't tank at least 10% of the content and lack defensive cool-downs but are optimal in others but for a duo much of that is irrelevant anyway.

Note that most of the above discussion is more from a PVE standpoint... The general saying of "Warrior+Healer being a powerhouse" I think is more for PVP than PVE (though it applies somewhat to both). In PVP Warrior's have things like Death Wish, Ham String, etc. in their toolbox that Druid's just have no equivalent for. I haven't really played Warriors much so maybe someone who has played both on PVE & PVP can chime in.

Again sorry for not having more specific numbers or relative %'s...

For the record I plan to main both a Druid and a Paladin (Druid main for WSG Flag running, AV stealth GYs, AB stealth objectives, and Open World PVP Stealth solo-scouting/group-ganking and Paladin main for everything else) so I don't want to push you away from Druid but feel compelled to make sure you are as informed as possible...

[gstroud5891]

Thanks for the insight! I’m pretty well read regarding druids (I spend a ton of time in the Druid classic discord), but appreciate the word of caution. I think that if I roll with this duo I would end up using the Druid to run 5 mans and PvP, and the priest to raid. Most of my vanilla experience revolved around playing WSG ad nauseum and I will love being a god tier flag carrier.

You make a great point about DPS warriors in plate vs the relative squishiness of cat form. I’ll have to test that out, it’s probably more efficient to stay in bear form and take multiple mobs. I’m wondering if it might be worth it to play as balance, dumping as much mana from both toons as I can on one mob, then shifting into cat form for the next mob and letting the priest wand while we both regen mana. I know that for solo leveling feral is the go to, but with two characters it may change the optimal talents. If you’ve ever done testing on this I’d love to hear about it.

When I mention the warrior healer being a powerhouse, I was more referring to a lot of the duo leveling theory crafting that Kargoz has been doing. It seems the main downside to leveling a warrior is the lack of healing (which means multiple mobs is certain death) and downtime between pulls. The addition of an efficient healer is supposed to turn him into a leveling machine, since rage comes from taking damage and otherwise the warrior is “resourceless”. I’m assuming if I throw on thorns, dot up a huge pack, and swipe them down I should be able to mow through packs of mobs with relative efficiency. As far as PvP goes, I’ll never be able to pull off the duo shenanigans that a warrior can, especially since the Druid playstyle seems to be more of a mobility and attrition style - probably not the best match for a priest partner, but again I’m enticed by the duo caster possibilities of balance. SWP, moonfire, insect swarm, faerie fire, and some coordinated smite/wrath spam might be enough to take down enemies fast in world PvP, I’ll just be mana starved in extended fights.