Decisions......Druid type

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Xandar

Member
Well with the new patch, including talents, coming next week, its time for respec. I have a pretty clear path for my hunter to take, as I know (or think I know) what I am shooting for (pun intended *grin*). My druid is another story.

As some of you may know, my druid 'Tierc' is actually a hybrid - 30 pts feral and 21 resto. This gives him most of the advantages of each, while admitedly not min maxing the role. This has allowed him to fufill two distinct roles (Tank and Helaer) depending on the need, and has also given me the opportunity to get in many groups I would not have otherwise. Of course, I have two complete sets of armor to facilitate each of these roles. I truly enjoy both roles.

For reference, when in healing mode I have about +400 healing, btn 5500 and 6500 mana (later raid buffed). I have main healed many scholo / strat / UBRS etc runs, along with running a few ZG and been druid healing lead in some AQ20 runs (near top healer in both most times). In Tank gear, I sit about 5500 health and 8k armor non raid buffed (need to get wardens cloak and unyeilding maul to pass 9k), and have main tanked all the same 5 and 10 mans, plus been #2 tank on a couple aq20 runs. Some of these runs I have been able to switch roles in the middle to fill holes. In most of these cases, it saved the run, as otherwise we probably would have had to call the run. I love this versatility. Now the problem.

With the new talent set, I see the need to specialize more in order to truly be effective in either role. The upper tier talents in Feral look like they make a huge difference in the capability of that talent path. Speccing that deeply into the tree would remove some of what I consider to be the best parts of the resto tree, however, strongly gimping my capability there. Of course, the opposite is also true. 41pts in resto means only 10 pts in feral, and if you go that far into resto, might just want to go all the way for maximum efficiency and effectiveness.

Now the question, I realize many druids are strongly polarized toward their path, but is there still a middle road which does not reduce the effectiveness of either way too much? If possible I would still like to be able to do both, even at 60. Is it still possible? or do I worry myself too much.

Comments?
 
The way I see it, if you don't care that much about the new high end talents, basically do what you already have done (they are even making it easier with combining more talents). Other than that, it's all or nothing and that seems the way they are pushing it, no more "hybrid". They are doing it to Mages too, gimping being "elementalist".
 
Tree of Life isn't what you want. I'd get stuff like cheap shifting, +healing when you leave bear/cat form, clearcasting, and reduced threat from healing.

Where you put your more "ferally" talents are kind of up to you.
 
I have not reviewed the new druid talents, but if they were affected the same way as mage/warrior/rogue, then there are few changes to the trees except for adding another couple tiers to each.

If you enjoy being a hybrid, and are good at it, with your current build, why change? My mage is will stay deep in frost because the first Outlands zone is, once again, biased against fire mages. My tank will become a hybrid fury/prot build; I won't top the dps charts and I won't be tanking Rag, but I'll be pretty good at both.
 
I think for my druid, I'm finally going to have to pick one feral sub-specialization. *sigh* I'm leaning towards the cat, as Neirai is already the uber bear druid, and most of my gear is more set towards catting around, anyway. I'll still hold on to my tanking set, obviously, but I won't be quite as good as I was before the patch (which isn't saying much, anyway)
 
Thanks, nice comments. I already lean toward bear, as my 'cat / rogue' skills jsut arent that great.
 
OKAY! So...to be or not to be tis the question yah? My first 30 some levels were full resto and you know what, it killed me! I do not mind occassionally taking on the role of a healer but I thought "O NOES" what am I going to do now..I have a druid thats almost 40 and I hate healing..Well......Ive been feral ever since. I was actually disappointed when i respeced almost enitirely to feral because even though my gear is wonderful there actually wasnt that much dps making it hard for me to get into groups. This patch has made a HUGE difference. I used to get crits like 600-800 on avg. With this patch I am critting those 600-800 crits 2 & 3 times per opponent and having an all time crit of 1400(it was one thousand fifty something) but yeah..big difference. Druids..being druidish the way they are can always heal and they can always be feral or balance..no matter what spec they are. As a feral druid I think I still do a pretty good job healing when I have to, no its not as quick as a heal bot druid! but..it gets the job done. I actually have three sets of gear, one bear, one cat, and one for healing, with matching accessories (of course :) lol )

I think that this patch is going to make the feral druid a lot more popular for the reason that is does so much more dps..even in bear form I was critting between 800 and 900 which had NEVER happened before..so yeah...show those druids some druish love!

:)
 
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