Boxing druids after WoTLK?

[Jezebel]

assuming things stay roughly as they are in terms of talents/spells.. has anyone considered how fantastic druids would be for boxing after the new expansion goes live?

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=48438

if this spell stacks, as other HoT's do, can you imagine the potential of 5 resto druids with a 5 deep stacked hot from a single instant cast.. for under 500 mana, talented? thats not even counting self targeting rejuv/lifebloom. 6/7 stacked heal over time spells for 2-3 seconds of casting.. each ticking for 1000+. insane. this would be next to god mode in PvP.. and you can get enough talents for insect swarm and 100% bonus to crit.. moonfire/IS, both instant cast, is 10 dots. wrath does very respectable damage, even specced for resto (especially if you can get your hands on spell haste gear).

- two instant dots
- 5x stealthers for burst damage from stealth in arena
- 5x NS
- 5x innervate
- the ability to swap gear and respec (if your gear is good enough you may not even need to respec) with druids means you have healers, melee or caster dps and a tank all within a single 5man setup and all interchangeable depending what you need for any given situation.

wow is all i have to say <3

PS. if druids become the new shaman.. remember who thought of it first =P

[Mercurio]

Very interesting. The new WotLK talents are going to bring lots of new opportunities to us boxers.

As for 5xresto shammies, I think the reason they will never overcome the popularity of shammies is that they don't have anti-fear and they are almost as squishy as mages while in healer form.

I have played my Boomkin with my 4 shammies in over 100 BG matches and though he is great for adding crit and not being squishy there, if I ever forget to get him into Moonkin form after dismounting he goes down really quickly. I was also disappointed by the fact that you have to target your treants. Way too much work to ever use them as a boxer now that they nerfed the ping minimap thing.

The HoTs sound nice too, and may work in BGs pretty well. In arenas, HoTs would never keep up with incoming damage.

Fun to think about though

[Jezebel]

they dont the way they currently work, i agree. partly because hots are single target and partly because you generally only see hots from one or possibly two sources, at most, and only if you have a priest/druid combo, which is quite rare from what ive seen.

a stacking group hot from 5 sources completely changes that. 5x1000 per second heals. you could be naked and it would still be nearly impossble to kill you until you ran out of mana.. which.. at under 500 mana per cast, with 5 innervates.. will take a while.

if you use stealth well, target a primary DPS source with your alts, pop with starfire/moonfire, switch to their healer with your main, cyclone, while youre still spamming DPS with the alts.. it should be possible to drop a target fast without even wasting NS. resto specced druids in spell damage gear = 1.5 second, 1000+ damage wrath. once youre down to 4v5 with one dps missing i cant see anything being able to down you. you could even add a priest for aoe fear, just to break up their stack, and circle of healing/prayer of mending/renew. the possibilities are really exciting.

the damage from 10 stacked dots by itself its absolutely amazing, considering youre a healer. if you get good at stacking your dots on a couple of targets, then switching to a third target to focus fire, i imagine healers would have a hell of a time trying to keep their groups bars up.. especially with a well timed cyclone thrown in to break up casting. the burst damage from 5x moonfire with 100% crit increase will be an absolute killer finisher if anything gets low.

HoTs would never keep up with incoming damage.

[kura]

Haha yea when I saw the new talents go up, it made me all giddy. I was starting to rethink my druids, was thinking about priest/mages or priest/locks, and even made 5 shaman.

I think I'll follow through with my adventure see how it goes.

[Moxy]

There is only one thing that keeps me from rolling 5 druids... the fear bomb. Fear is the single greatest threat to a multiboxer. Period. If you do not have an answer for it- you will go down, over and over when fighting mildly intelligent opponents.

Also keep in mind that no one knows how WOTLK will really work out between the classes. Each and every class is drooling over the new abilities... but the point is the balance and the interaction between them will most likely completely change... in a way that is completely unpredictable at present. $.02 given.

[Zakula]

there will be 2 more things to fear as a multiboxer in WoTL. knockbacks and deathknights "get over here" move. if a elemental shaman gets in the middle of your formation its gonna hurt. and random deathknights yanking random guys from your formation is gonna piss you off to no end. it will probly put deathknights to top of the kill list.



zak

[Jezebel]

it is all theory at the moment =)

im just really excited by the idea of something actually being able to contend with circle of healing for healing power. at the moment i play 6mage/4priest and my priests almost exclusively spam CoH in PvP. stacked hots would be infinately better HPS than CoH.. i love the idea of being able to mix in a druid in my group for a better buff spread and some more utility.