Boxing Feral Druids

[nodoze]

I will keep you all posted...i have just completed two dungeons that has put performed my shaman setup.
...
but Druids have something I very dislike and that’s the lack of crowd control/aoe damage in classic, lots of mechanics going on with average damage and leather armour is high risk. Let’s say a second group of mobs get pulled and managing it is very hard.
...
I’ll update how things are going, I think resto spec and dots is a better passive attack than boomkin. so currently I am 4x resto hybrid with feral tank. so far so good but I have aoe damage and healing concerns , both received and delivered.

FYI , no mana issues with resto hybrid focusing on dots for damage and feral for keeping the mobs busy while they die down, this maintains regeneration of mana, and if mana is good, Starfire finishes them off, my grinding or boss fights is MF, IS, spam starfire. this kills most things.

this is the a concern for most, is the damage output may not be good enough for the fun element.

BUT , they are insane all-moving , hots and dots is epic imo.l due to being healers makes it crazy fail-safe.

Thanks for the updates and glad you are having fun. What spec are you running on your 4 that are mainly Resto with some Balance?

I would try to work in at least one Boomkin (still getting at least Insect Swarm from Resto) and see how that adds to the party as it should boost 4 members ranged DPS some. Your Moonkin should push the highest DPS in the party and if it pulls a little aggro from the Bear that should be fine as it has similar mitigation (+360% armor) so can be an effective off tank for your party.

My memory is that in Classic WoW HoT's didn't stack so if that is the case you may want to go deep Resto on only 1 character to specialize in HoTs and the other characters just go enough Resto to get the the bonuses to Healing Touch and Nature's Swiftness (except the Boomkin). In the end you are likely more doing DPS than healing so maybe tilt your party more toward the DPS talents. With that in mind I would try something like:

• -Feral Tank;
• -MoonKin offTank with at least Insect Swarm from Resto;
• -Balance/Resto (30/0/21) to give max/most MoonFury yet still get Nature's Swiftness);
• -Balance/Resto (30/0/21) to give max/most MoonFury yet still get Nature's Swiftness);
• -Deep_Resto/some_Balance (Max HoTs including SwiftMend);

Note that I put max/most on MoonFury above as one thing I denoted when taking a quick look at the talents is that with only 30 (or 31 with Moonkin) points in Balance is that you will unfortunately have to miss EITHER the 5th point in MoonFury (+2% damage on MoonFire, Wrath, & StarFire) or the 5th Point in Improved StarFire (-.1 sec cast time reduction & +3% stun). To allow your 2 nonMoonkin Balance/Restos to still have 21 in Resto for Nature's Swiftness you have to sacrifice one or the other... I would pay attention to your rotations and scenarios and decide what is better. If you can get to where StarFire is your main spell after DoTs then likely 5/5 Improved StarFire would be best as that would increase your overall Crowd Control by upto~12% per cast (across the 4 non bear characters you can get 4 15% chances to stun per cast) and the cast time reduction may help rotations/speed of your primary damage and CC (CC being one of the things you lamented)...

Your Deep Resto will still be doing 2 DoTs but otherwise it's priority is on applying the HoTs and/or direct heals with the other 2 (or 3) non-bear characters being more of your emergency heals buttons (you can round robin their Nature's Swiftness instant heals if you want). When healing needed is not more than your HoTs, in addition to keeping up DoTs, your Deep Resto could also throw some Direct Damage spells though to do that effectively I would maybe want to normally drive from the main Resto until I understood how to mix/match those all in effectively.

The above should maximize your HoTs and significantly increase party DPS and CC.

Just some thoughts.

[boxblizzard]

Thanks for the updates and glad you are having fun. What spec are you running on your 4 that are mainly Resto with some Balance?

I would try to work in at least one Boomkin (still getting at least Insect Swarm from Resto) and see how that adds to the party as it should boost 4 members ranged DPS some. Your Moonkin should push the highest DPS in the party and if it pulls a little aggro from the Bear that should be fine as it has similar mitigation (+360% armor) so can be an effective off tank for your party.

My memory is that in Classic WoW HoT's didn't stack so if that is the case you may want to go deep Resto on only 1 character to specialize in HoTs and the other characters just go enough Resto to get the the bonuses to Healing Touch and Nature's Swiftness (except the Boomkin). In the end you are likely more doing DPS than healing so maybe tilt your party more toward the DPS talents. With that in mind I would try something like:

• -Feral Tank;
• -MoonKin offTank with at least Insect Swarm from Resto;
• -Balance/Resto (30/0/21) to give max/most MoonFury yet still get Nature's Swiftness);
• -Balance/Resto (30/0/21) to give max/most MoonFury yet still get Nature's Swiftness);
• -Deep_Resto/some_Balance (Max HoTs including SwiftMend);

Note that I put max/most on MoonFury above as one thing I denoted when taking a quick look at the talents is that with only 30 (or 31 with Moonkin) points in Balance is that you will unfortunately have to miss EITHER the 5th point in MoonFury (+2% damage on MoonFire, Wrath, & StarFire) or the 5th Point in Improved StarFire (-.1 sec cast time reduction & +3% stun). To allow your 2 nonMoonkin Balance/Restos to still have 21 in Resto for Nature's Swiftness you have to sacrifice one or the other... I would pay attention to your rotations and scenarios and decide what is better. If you can get to where StarFire is your main spell after DoTs then likely 5/5 Improved StarFire would be best as that would increase your overall Crowd Control by upto~12% per cast (across the 4 non bear characters you can get 4 15% chances to stun per cast) and the cast time reduction may help rotations/speed of your primary damage and CC (CC being one of the things you lamented)...

Your Deep Resto will still be doing 2 DoTs but otherwise it's priority is on applying the HoTs and/or direct heals with the other 2 (or 3) non-bear characters being more of your emergency heals buttons (you can round robin their Nature's Swiftness instant heals if you want). When healing needed is not more than your HoTs, in addition to keeping up DoTs, your Deep Resto could also throw some Direct Damage spells though to do that effectively I would maybe want to normally drive from the main Resto until I understood how to mix/match those all in effectively.

The above should maximize your HoTs and significantly increase party DPS and CC.

Just some thoughts.

thanks for the feedback, I will he reviewing the whole setup as I feel they have amazing potential but their pve and burst is low and is making longer fights.

i think breaking the team into tank, ranged + healer is good idea but not quite fitting my plan to have a all-round PvP/ pve team without respec. The Druids are powerful indeed and personally I think dedicated damaged + dedicated healer is a better way forward without the tank and go healzor!

I will keep updates as I progress but for now I have paused the team, along with shaman to roll a epic burst team with extra ordinary tanking theory and so far they blow every team composition I played so far making them the strongest, but have some game mechanic problems.

[fleaplus]

thanks for the feedback, I will he reviewing the whole setup as I feel they have amazing potential but their pve and burst is low and is making longer fights.

i think breaking the team into tank, ranged + healer is good idea but not quite fitting my plan to have a all-round PvP/ pve team without respec. The Druids are powerful indeed and personally I think dedicated damaged + dedicated healer is a better way forward without the tank and go healzor!

I will keep updates as I progress but for now I have paused the team, along with shaman to roll a epic burst team with extra ordinary tanking theory and so far they blow every team composition I played so far making them the strongest, but have some game mechanic problems.

FYI my feral druids get about 250dps burst and 130dps sustained at level 50 attacking green mobs. I hope your new team comp is fun! Do post details about it.

[boxblizzard]

FYI my feral druids get about 250dps burst and 130dps sustained at level 50 attacking green mobs. I hope your new team comp is fun! Do post details about it.

thats nice damage, I would have IWT issues that can be a pain with moving targets, or ones that vanish!

ive made a orc hunter group with healer , wolves for group pack early bonuses. There’s lots of pros and cons, lots of things about Druids I like but the new group for now is relentless, reckless. semi good tanking and out of this world dps, pets are plate basicly with taunting like a factory, I will get aoe apes at 50 to further support the tanking and aoe barrage!

the Druids I’m keeping as I feel I will come back to them later due to the powerful survival and flexibility for all-round in-game Mechanic’s, in game performance etc they are too good, the new team is more a reckless PvP team with pve support that works.

[nodoze]

... ive made a orc hunter group with healer , wolves for group pack early bonuses. There’s lots of pros and cons, lots of things about Druids I like but the new group for now is relentless, reckless. semi good tanking and out of this world dps, pets are plate basicly with taunting like a factory, I will get aoe apes at 50 to further support the tanking and aoe barrage!

the Druids I’m keeping as I feel I will come back to them later due to the powerful survival and flexibility for all-round in-game Mechanic’s, in game performance etc they are too good, the new team is more a reckless PvP team with pve support that works.

I think Hunters can be fun and it seems to me that a healer brings more to 4 hunters than a 5th hunter so I hope that proves out for you.

If I recall correctly most folk who ran Hunters recommend pets with screech (also an AoE effect) both early and at 50+ over Apes with ThunderStomp. I think you can find pets with Screech as low as 8th level and I think they were considered superior in large part due to their screech being spammable (only limited by focus) while thunderstomp has a 1 minute cooldown.

Best of luck to you with either team (both teams)... If you are having fun and/or trying/learning new things you are doing it right!

[Apatheist]

I use moonglow/NS spec. I started with HoTW but I've found I much prefer moonglow in PvP and once I got my preraid BiS I can do all of the PvE content I want without paying to respec. I don't usually farm on my druids.

In PvE I switch to feral gear and cycle between druids to regen mana. 1 Bear, 3 cats, 1 resto. Heal until the resto is around 50% mana then swap to cat form and switch to one of the other cat windows and start healing with that. If you get good at juggling your 5 mana bars you pretty much have unlimited mana even without innervate. To facilitate this style I've focused on my own "BiS" list rather than the lists you might see on wowhead. I've gathered a bunch of gear with mixed stats (int/spi/agi/stam) so my regen is decent while still having a decent amount of AP. Then you can just macro your weapon swap to match the form you're using. There are a bunch of ways to play druids but that's how I do it.

I switch to caster gear for PvP and just try to burst people down with wrath or moonfire spam. You will never be able to take on large groups like mages can but I've killed other 5man parties outside dungeons and it's fun for picking off PvP flagged people in enemy cities or dueling outside Org. You can burst pretty hard out of stealth.

If you expect druids to be as strong as mages you'll be disappointed but I still find them fun. I play mine as alliance on a server that is heavily horde favored so it's pretty fun being able to stealth around and pick people off when 80% of the server is horde.

[boxblizzard]

I think Hunters can be fun and it seems to me that a healer brings more to 4 hunters than a 5th hunter so I hope that proves out for you.

If I recall correctly most folk who ran Hunters recommend pets with screech (also an AoE effect) both early and at 50+ over Apes with ThunderStomp. I think you can find pets with Screech as low as 8th level and I think they were considered superior in large part due to their screech being spammable (only limited by focus) while thunderstomp has a 1 minute cooldown.

Best of luck to you with either team (both teams)... If you are having fun and/or trying/learning new things you are doing it right!

Adding a healer to the team has made a world of difference for the hunters, i now can do mobs 9 levels above myself without any mana or aggro issues, this blows casters out the water for pve so for leveling this works, dungeons i can sweeping through them without any stressing with pets on round-robin taunts etc, the hunter group is fun but i have problems with close encounters etc, so they are powerful but not perfect where the druids can do everything just more balanced.

The thunder stomps and screech owls are a good consideration for later, for now wolfs share melee damage bonuses that compliments them getting extra damage off, not much but enough when theres 4 of them biting.

I will get them to 60 and then go back to druids and have them ready for 60 awell, i think druids need more gear and time to make them a topper, they wony do damage like other dps but they have very good healing on the go, and out of all the casters its decent because they can also use forms unlike priest etcs

I will see how things develope!

I use moonglow/NS spec. I started with HoTW but I've found I much prefer moonglow in PvP and once I got my preraid BiS I can do all of the PvE content I want without paying to respec. I don't usually farm on my druids.

In PvE I switch to feral gear and cycle between druids to regen mana. 1 Bear, 3 cats, 1 resto. Heal until the resto is around 50% mana then swap to cat form and switch to one of the other cat windows and start healing with that. If you get good at juggling your 5 mana bars you pretty much have unlimited mana even without innervate. To facilitate this style I've focused on my own "BiS" list rather than the lists you might see on wowhead. I've gathered a bunch of gear with mixed stats (int/spi/agi/stam) so my regen is decent while still having a decent amount of AP. Then you can just macro your weapon swap to match the form you're using. There are a bunch of ways to play druids but that's how I do it.

I switch to caster gear for PvP and just try to burst people down with wrath or moonfire spam. You will never be able to take on large groups like mages can but I've killed other 5man parties outside dungeons and it's fun for picking off PvP flagged people in enemy cities or dueling outside Org. You can burst pretty hard out of stealth.

If you expect druids to be as strong as mages you'll be disappointed but I still find them fun. I play mine as alliance on a server that is heavily horde favored so it's pretty fun being able to stealth around and pick people off when 80% of the server is horde.

This is where i have leaned towards for druids for the pve part, its works and its solid, damage as you say is lack luster but the rest of the class and abilities at hand shine really well, this is what i think ultimately will make me lean always more towards druids and they can also be respec for different roles which is a win for everyone!

thanks for the info