So, I have broken from my tradition of playing way too many DPS characters, and a single tank, and have now been spotted running through Hillsbrad Foothills cowering in fear of the thousands of mounted night elves... which is pretty normal, really, except that I'm a druid now.

Druids are fun. And, unless this changes significantly towards the late-game, they seem to be kind of extremely powerful. Not really all that high on the damage scale, but still enough to get by. But the strength that I have noticed in my random blundering into elite quests without noticing the elite tag, is that a druid actually has some control over what an enemy can do to him.

For example, if you are playing a non-healer, and an enemy starts getting the better of you, you are probably either going to run or die. But with my druid, fighting a similar level elite enemy, he got the better of me, so I entangled him, hit regrowth and rejuvenation, slapped a moonfire on him, went into bear form to take advantage of the double (or thereabouts) damage reduction, and proceeded to kicking butt. (With some shifting around to refresh moonfire and rejuvenation.)

If an enemy's hitting you really hard? Bear form reduces that. If you aren't taking many physical hits, but need to rip the enemy fast and hard? Cat form works out pretty well. If an enemy's damage beats rejuvenation, regrowth, and potions, then you have your caster form to let the moonfire DoT do its job while you spam heals on yourself.

It's just... soo... versatile. An ability, form, or spell for every situation! And I have found the combination of HoTs and bear form to bring out some serious lasting power. (Even in pvp--outlasted AND outdamaged a paldin a level higher than me just about an hour ago.)

The only weakness I can come up with is the lack of anything at all to interrupt spells, unless you are for some reason fighting a caster in bear form, and the caster only casts once per minute.

As it is now, though I am only mid-level, I know I can heal a party through an instance. Or tank through an instance. Or dps with the not-particularly-best of 'em. (I've mainly been tanking, though--it's so very hard to find a decent tank midlevel on a pvp server)

I am currently working on a build to kinda-sorta maximize the ability to fight in beast form, while keeping myself alive through my own powers of healing and potion-crafting. Kind of being my own tank, healer and DPS-monkey. This being about equal distribution through Restoration and Feral Combat, with a bit of balance for Swift-shifting.

And, well, I guess my only real purpse with this thread is pretty basic: Druids are cool. Come heap praise upon our druidic overlords. Or share whatever build-ideas and random semi-druid-based gameplay stories you might have--it's all cool.

In fact, you have several options for spell interrupts as a Tauren Druid.

First, you have Bash (stun) in Bear form.

Second, you can use War Stomp (Tauren Racial ability, another stun) to interrupt casting.

Third, if you have invested 11 Talent Points in the Feral Tree, chances are high you have picked Improved Bash for longer stuns, and even better, Feral Charge. The latter is very useful to close the distance especially when slowed and it will interrupt spell casting.

Fourth, you might use Engineering items to anger casters. I still have to test whether the disorientation effect of bombs, which has been fixed in the last patch 1.4, will also interrupt spells.

With the horrendous lag I've been experiencing today, it's a little hard to tell; however, bomb disorientation does seem to interrupt spell casting.

You're saying exactly what I have just thought yesterday, when my (female) Tauren Druid has hit level 20 (cat form). Druids are not high on the DPS scale, but their versality and the constant change in playing style (caster, bear, cat), a basically "free" mount (travel form), and the Revive ability, make them the most fun class to play so far (and I have tested them all by now). I also like the stories and quests around the Druid class with the Cenarion Circle and such, and their close connection to the Nightelf Druids (-> Moonglade/Nighthaven). Actually, I like this "neutral" class so much that my first main on the Alliance side (until now I was Horde only) will be a (female) Nightelf Druid. My second Alliance char will be a Dwarven Hunter, and together with my Undead Warlock, I have now three classes ((hybrid) Druids, Hunter, Warlock) that will allow me to enjoy all playing/fightimg styles on both sides (Alliance/Horde) without investing too much time in the long run

What is your planned talent point distribution for level 60?


PS: Herbalism/Alchemy with its potions for extra buffs, mana and healing are *the* number one choice for Duids!

I agree with you on the alchemy point, although I have had some experience with leatherworking, and I do kind of miss all of the interesting equipmet you can get out of that. But, hey, I've got like 17 healing potions, so that kinda balances out.

As to the talents, my first idea was this:

Feral Combat:

Ferocity 5/5

Sharpened Claws 5/5

Improved Prowl 5/5

Feral Charge 1/1

Predatory Strikes 5/5

Feline Swiftness 1/1

Restoration:

Improved Mark of the Wild 5/5

Furor 5/5

Nature's Focus 5/5

Improved Rejuvenation 5/5

Nature's Swiftness 1/1

Balances:

Nature's Grasps/Improved Nature's Grasp: 5/5

Swiftshifting 3/3

I think it's a superbly thought out and implemented class

It's a very original way to do druids and very fun

I like most the tactical challenges. There is very often a way to beat things but it may not be immediately obvious. I did the Vile Reef quest at 38 which involved killing level 36 elite murlocs, but the ones I found were mainly quite far out to sea. So I had to swim to caster range in sealform, turn caster and nuke to pull, turn bear and melee, then turn caster, heal, then turn seal just in time not to drown. Took me a couple of deaths to figure out but it was very satisfying.

Healing in pickup groups is probably the most enjoyable way to experience pickup groups, imo. I find tanking in pickup groups frustrating on the whole- if everyone's determined to overnuke and three people pull at once you end up as off-tank for a group with no main and you may not be the healer's primary target. With the healer role the worse the group plays the more opportunity you have to shine. And of course as a druid you get the chance to take both roles when grouping

Stealth is fun. Discovering you have an unfinished quest deep in an instance and slipping in to solo it in under half an hour is rather nice

There are all sorts of subtleties that you find out the more you play. I'm only just coming to terms with the fact that I can track humanoids which is very handy for questing.

I like the druid in pvp. Being able to handle runners either by chasing them in cheetah form, by chain nuking them on the run with moonfire or by rooting them with entangle means that it's a lot easier to finish off fights where the opponent decides to run. Being a healer in group pvp means you can support the level 60s which a level 30 something warrior couldn't really do at all except as cannon fodder

We're fairly high on random people's group with list but I don't think we get quite so many spam invites as priests do. Also it's a kind of filter - it seems the really awful pickup group recruiters don't seek druids as much as they do priests, you have to know at least a little bit about the game to realise that druids can main heal so the truly clueless will always seek priests only for a healer where more clued up players might look for either, or even ask how we're specced

I love my druid. L60 on Kel'Thuzad. Damage output is low (very low), though somewhat decent if you get some nice cat gear. But you can last a long time, and roots/travel form (or cat + dash indoors) can give you that escape from an unwanted fight. Stealth + track humanoids is great for when you just don't want to be seen.

That said, I don't think a druid is for the impatient. A lot of battles are a matter of outlasting the opponent (be it PvP or not). We just don't have the damage output typically. But we have big heals, and a big damage sink in bear form (heard stories of 10000+ armour; only managed about 7000 myself). While there is the disadvantage of having to shift forms for different abilities; overall the class is quite powerful once you figure out the best form for each situation, and when to shift/shift back.

You'll end up being called for as healer a lot later in game. I resisted the full restoration build for a while (being balanced between restoration and feral), but around the time the guild started doing Uldaman/Maraudon, I really needed the points in Subtlety and Nature's swiftness. I still miss feline swiftness ... may respec one of these days for the PvP utility, but innervate has come in handy too many times as well. Being one of the few healers in the guild (Canadian guild, and we're full of hunters ... go figure) has meant that I'm called upon all the time, but as a few others have worked their way up, I've had the chance to play with the other forms more (always keep a separate set or two of feral gear around).

Have been primary healer in 5-man groups through BRD, Scholomance, both sides of Stratholme (despite being called upon constantly to 10-man raid the places for loot). Also have had the chance to tank in BRD and Scarlet side Stratholme when I've had the good fortune of having 2 healers who are able to come along that day. Priests have do have the advantage of being able to shield someone in an emergency, but we can get the job done as well, but it is a bit trickier (NS once every 3 mins... use it wisely!). Sneaking around the Lyceum in BRD with a rogue to snag the torch, duo the elemental guard, and light the braziers is particulary fun when you don't have aoe damage to quickly take out the mobs before they respawn (though I guess it got a lot easier with the 1.3 patch; my memories are back when the place was harder). Admittedly, you could solo the elemental guard yourself, but it'll take you about 2 minutes to defeat it, and the torch only lasts 5 minutes after you loot it...

I've had the privilege of running with a pretty good group, which always keeps things fun.

The druid's skillset allows you to solo elites/bosses that others wouldn't be able to. Princess Theradras could once be kited with DoT's prior to 1.3; now that she has a knockdown and is smarter, that won't be possible anymore, but I do plan to go back there once I've acquired better armour and +sta gear. First tried to take her down solo when I was about L54 or so. Volchan in Burning Steppes can be easily root/starfired to death. Incendius in BRD; haven't had luck with Ambassador Flamelash, but will give it another go when I have more fire resistance. Mother Smolderweb in LBRS (got my Wildheart boots solo; though expecting her to be buffed in some patch one of these days to prevent that). Hearthsinger in Stratholme for my Songbird Blouse and Piccolo of the Flaming Fire.

PvP ... most 1v1's I come out of alive if nobody else comes to help. The thing is a lot of the time you hardly ever get even 1v1's, and with the slow killing speed of the druid, often times the battle won't be over before someone else comes to help (from either side). Group PvP ... heal your members, stop the people who are trying to flee (root, feral charge, hibernate druids in forms/shaman ghost wolves).

So thus comes the dilemma ... if I were to start another character after playing and loving the versatility of the druid (basically my only character so far; L14 mage in open beta doesn't count), would I ever be satisfied with anything else?

Maybe a shaman. They're a delightfully enjoyable and effective hybrid class.

Too true. I have a late-mid-level druid and a fairly high level shammy, and I've got to say that I enjoy both. It's a funny thing though. Even though druids are, IMO, better at tanking, better healers, and better at soloing elites, I enjoy the fluidity of my shammy more than the fractured playstyle of the druid. There's something about having to shift between forms that really bugs me sometimes, and makes me feel like I'm playing three mini-characters rather than one full one.

All in all though, I love my druid. Too many fond memories. (And some not so fond ones, like being accused of healing the Princess in Maraudon by a personallity challenged warrior......gods that my my blood boil for about two days. )

Interesting summary, because the Brady Games WOW Guide comes to exactly the same conclusion. Quote from the introduction of the Shaman guide section on page 147:

Sorry to jijack the thread a bit, but are the written guides much use? I've been sticking to the online one's, but I wouldn't mind having something WoW related to read in the mornings.

I can confirm that the Brady Games WOW Guide (with the size of a warehouse catalogue) is the best game guide I have ever hold in my hands so far, and that the information and tips in it are well organized and actually useful. The game tables, skill info etc. are, of course, partly outdated because they're are based on the U.S. Open Beta (when the guide was printed), but if you buy the guide, you'll get a link to the Brady Games website where you can regularly download updated guide sections as PDF files for free. There's also a kind of "special edition" of the guide which gets you even more exclusive info from the Brady Games website.

I think it must've been finalized even before then. The paladin skills section, for example, is rife with incorrect information based on the old pre-seal/blessing-change paladin. But I remember the big paladin change had hit before Open Beta.

Yes, but the Paladin is the only class with quite outdated info in the guide, I think. What makes the guide so valuable is that it organizes the mass of WOW information in an easily understandable fashion, incl. tables of the countless items, recipes, NPC's etc. Also nice are the "First 10 Level" guides with all quests in the starting area for all classes and the playing tips for later levels. Instance walkthrough guides are (still) missing, though.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the guide on the whole is bad. On the contrary, I must say it's one of the most useful guides I've ever seen for an online game. I'm just saying I think that the guide is from pre-Open-Beta.

I haven't seen any of those downloadable PDF updates, so I'm curious how useful those are.

--> http://www.bradygames.com/promotions/world...craft/guide.asp

I didn't buy the guide, so I don't have an account.

The PDF updates so far update the outdated table data (class abilities, talents and quests).

Not really worth it, since you can find quests, class abilities, and talents on sites such as thottbot or alla, and the very limited commentary in the guide doesn't seem particularly helpful or insightful. A lot of it isn't even accurate. You can, however, create an account without having bought the original book.

"druids who like cat form should get agility and more agility" <- someone shoot this writer.

This seemed like a good place for posting my request (drops graphic and runs before getting torn up by the cat form build maulers).



Your comments on this build greatly appreciated.

Seeing as your build is likely to be applied to the night elf in your signature, I will have to say that it is weak and pathetic, and that you should be ashamed to produce it here.

ASHAAAAMED. *point finger+evil eye*

</horde,yo>

With that done, it seems a basically strong build. Maximises the healing, adds in some stune/minor damage increase and some clearcasting. Good stuff.

Personally, I don't know how other druid players (two specifically I have talked to) do without relying on beast form, so you'll have to take my opinion on the balance talents with a grain of salt.

I don't know about cat form, but I know that bear form performs just fine with no talents invested in it.

Also don't know about cat form, but I know you can do just fine with nothing but caster form. As for bear form, what I do know is that a few points in it makes me purr. (If you've never seen an enormous, tatooed bear purr, you haven't lived yet.) With the restoration, have a think about subtlety because you will draw agro like a madman healing as a druid.

This is really close to what Hykim has. Both beta-Hykim and retail-Hykim used caster form exclusively until level 50+, mainly because the feral forms felt underpowered, and the flexibility (range engagement, healing, etc.) of caster form was more comfortable for me. Now that the forms have been pumped, I find myself using them a whole lot more, and may respec some points out of Balance and into Feral.

The differences:

I picked Improved Wrath over Nature's Grasp. IW gives you a reasonably fast chain-casting damage option. I'm still on the fence over that choice, but it's worked out OK.

I used the point from Improved Starfire to get Ferocity in the Feral tree. It's a big boost for the times I go feral. If you're not doing that, the stun on your Starfire opener should pay off nicely.

Rather than go for Improved Regrowth, I picked Subtlety. I have not been entirely happy with the choice, but it's very difficult to know when Subtlety is making a difference. I am very tempted to move those points over to IR and see if the better mana efficiency is worth the healing hate.

I also picked up Swiftshifting, which is great for feral days, but pointless for caster times.

In sum, your build looks fine to me, and should have no trouble making it all the way to 60.

One of the nice things about druids is that you can use the all the forms with few or no talent points invested. There are a number of ways to make a perfectly good druid, and no way to make a perfect druid. I like that.

I like that aspect too. It does make it harder to find good guides to building but that, in turn, makes it less cookie cutter than some classes.

Thanks for the responses. I'm feeling comfortable enough to print this build out as my plan.

A couple of thoughts

If you plan to do Restoration first (probably a good idea, getting you Nature's Swiftness and Innervate as soon as possible) then you only get Improved Starburst when Starburst is really rather out-moded as a damage form. You will probably Starburst, Moonfire, Faerie Fire to pull, then go bear, changing when you need a heal. A small bit of extra damage on something you only use once per pull isn't that great. I'd suggest the balance talent for uninterruptible entangling roots instead, especially if you pvp.

I very rarely use Rejuvenation. The other heals are more efficient and are so good that standing there and using a big heal will help you more than running and using Rejuvenate most of the time. If you would die before the big heal finished casting Rejuvenate wouldn't have saved you either. You could put those points into Subtlety instead although going cat and spamming Cower is a talent-free alternative, and very often going Bear will work - you can just tank the aggro. Still you will want subtlety for end game raids if you go that far - if the raid wipes because the main tank lost aggro to you saving 5 points on Subtlety it would be unfortunate.

Glad to see you turned down Swiftshifting, I think the recent fix has turned it from a talent that looks and is useless to a talent that looks good but is useless. I find if I change shape I almost never want to change very quickly and if I do (say a cat pull, followed by stomp, regrowth, bear) I'll have tons of mana left when I go to the final shape which defeats the point of mana economy from the talent. Bear needs rage anyway which means you shouldn't keep changing shape because you lose your rage when you do so. I suppose there may be a combo in the talent that gives you rage when you go bear combined with Swiftshifting and the top end feral talent that saves mana when you shift but spamming bear to get free rage seems a rather silly build. Maybe I'll try it out at 60 for a laugh

Good build, let us know how it plays

misposted, sorry

The Improved Starfire talent adds a stun chance. This would give you time for a couple more Wraths on the front end. It's still not my favorite talent, but it does have some value, especially for a more caster-oriented style.



I must disagree most strongly. I regard Rejuvenation as one of the staples of the Druid's arsenal. It's less mana efficient, but it's an instant HoT that can go a long way to managing the time-to-die rate on your group or yourself. It's quite useful for early fight heals when you don't want to draw aggro, but you do want to keep a decent life buffer. And sometimes it _does_ buy you the time for a bigger heal.

When healing for groups, I see Rejuvenation as the drogue chute you pop as your tank's hit points skydive. It reduces the damage rate so you can get a more efficient HT off safely.

Rejuvenation is also excellent if you're doing the caster melee style.



My personal style happens to use cat form a lot more than bear form, and I get a fair amount of utility out of Swiftshifting. I'd not go so far as calling it mandatory, but not useless. This may have something to do with me being paranoid about my mana levels, always wanting as big a buffer as possible.

I find myself shifting out and back into forms quickly quite a lot. It may be due to cat-form taking more damage than bear and needing a heal more often. Even in bear form, it's been handy in extended fights when soloing elites; my feral form gear just doesn't have the spirit for a massive mana regen rate.

I love Rejuvenation. I especially enjoy it stacking with Regrowth. I can take quite a beating with both of them feeding HP back to me. However, I do think I am going to trade the five points in Improved Rejuvenation for five in Subtlety. That was kind of a d'oh moment. I looked at it and thought "4%? big deal!" not thinking that it was for one point and that it would be 20%(?) for all five.

Rejuvenation is quite useful, but, I have found, after progressing in level somewhat, that it becomes less powerful later on. As it is now, even with Gift of Nature (which I took before I came up with the build I posted earlier) and Improved Rejuvenation, it's only healing maybe a fifth of my max hp, and only across 12 seconds. Now, 12 seconds may seem like a good length of time for you rogues and mages and hunters out there, but seeing as my fights, even still lodged firmly in the mid-levels, tend to last a good chunk of time, it wears off long before I stop taking damage.

It's a useful buffer for when I predict an especially hard fight, or an especially hard hitting foe, but not the constant-use uber-heal it once was. (And it is still quite powerful when teamed up with regrowth.)

Once I work up to Swiftshifting, this may change.

As it is now, I am no caster. I fight in beast form, shift out to heal, then go right back to beast form. (The obvious exception is healing in groups.) And the only limit on how long I live is how long my mana lasts, and against high damage targets--enemy players or elites--I have to heal often enough that the shifting alone takes up a heavy chunk of my mana. I'll likely be going for swiftshifting simply to free up more mana for straight healing.

In other news, I am now nearing 200 honorable kills. Go go druid power. (And these are REAL honorable kills, not green-player gankfests.)

And, if any of you who play a druid have some reason to skip going 21 deep into restoration for Nature's Swiftness, then you are officially insane. Now my favorite skill. And something of an aggravator in pvp. I've gone up against paladins and hunters six, seven, eight levels above me and taken them, if not out, down pretty far, simply because of my awesome insta-heal.

Natures Swiftness is wonderful. I'm an innervate fan too now that I've finally had a chance to play with it. Treesh and I were in Stranglethorn fighting skullspliters today and we ended up chain fighting for what turns out to be just over 10 minutes (I had put thorns on just before it started and it went down just before it all ended). Those two talents (I used swiftness twice) saved our bacon. I was pleased with Frenzied Regeneration as well. But that was a fight where I used every form. If Treesh had aggro with her rogue I would drop into cat for more DPS. I was in caster healing, hibernating and rooting with a moonfire here or there as well. I was in bear form for the times we had too many mobs to control. Being able to run almost out of health in bear, pop a natures swiftness and then pop your biggests healing touch is just nice. Back to full health right now. Being able to innervate the mana back up was great too. I was pretty much able to keep Treesh going with rejuv and regrowth. It was fun with the timing of the patrols and spawns and the runner or two that got away because of a resist or a dodge or parry on a snare/stun. It was a great time to be a druid.