People still acknowledge Xi?

I guess so. :angry:

It seems DnT is spilling their corrosive spec-forcing bile all over the druid forums again.

I'll let you continue, then, since horning in on your argument wouldn't really be fair. I can't help but be disappointed in Xi - I thought he'd gotten somewhat better after leaving Archimonde. The fact that we're willing to experiment and explore is something I view as a valuable trait. Feral druids may not bring as much to a raid as a full restoration druid, but if we a) kill the monster and B) the player behind the feral druid is happy, who cares? It's not like we're learning any new encounters right now, so it's a good time to try new things. Maybe feral druids don't pay off now, but 8 months down the road the 41-point feral talent puts them through the roof. Having experimented, we'll have the ability to judge better what the druid is capable of with a given spec.

At the same time, I can understand his position. A druid with tons of points in Restoration is arguably the best healer in the game, and that's damn hard to lay down. That doesn't excuse the asshattery and general impoliteness, though.

It's amazing how closed-minded people can be. I'm sure druids are one of the things in WoW that give old school EQ people headaches.

Just a side note: you'd be amazed by how many people in MF are open minded towards the idea of taking feral druids on raids. I've gone cat form on a few boss encounters where extra healing wasn't needed, and nobody said a thing. :D

That's really the essence of it, and the whole point of exploring this option.

In a given raid dungeon, some fights will require more healing. In others, that extra healing is dead weight. Firemaw is a very healing-intensive fight. You want a bunch of healers to keep it stable and keep your MT up through burst and sustained damage. Ebonroc is a much less healing-intensive fight, and is easier the more DPS you have.

If you have a given raid slot, you can bring a rogue and have an advantage vs. Ebonroc and a disadvantage vs. Firemaw.
You can bring a holy priest and have an advantage vs. Firemaw and a disadvantage vs. Ebonroc.

Or you can bring a hybrid class (shadow priest, feral druid, etc.) and have a slight advantage against both.

The biggest disagreement I have with death and taxes is that they state that feral loot from raid bosses simply shouldn't exist. That's just a silly assertion. No class spec should be forced to get their loot from only pvp rewards.

Wow, that guy types/talks a lot.

I hate you :angry:

IMO, a good bit of the problem is that priests haven had thier talent redesign yet. I expect the priest fix to reestablish them as absolutely dominant healers. 1 Priest should be able to handle any 5 players worth of healing, and they should provide healing equilivient to 1 healing spec+1 non-healing spec druid/paladin/shaman. Right now healing spec druids are so much "more in demand" because the priests aren't as good as they should be. When they fix priests we'll suddenly find ourselves with a whole wealth of other options.

hahah, I could care less about the general Wow population. If they want to be completely ignorant and conformist...listening to this Xi fellow, all the better for us I say.

NOOOO The thread is gone! Beef what did you say!

I remember linking that thread a few weeks back and it was absolutely horrid.

Edit: I just went to the Druid forums main page (forums are being wonky) and see a different thread made by Xl about some kind of challenge to Feral druids. Oh god. Reading now.

Edit 2: Oh wow, this is good. I like how he completely skipped your post and started picking on the people rallying with you. HAHAHA!

hahaha that was the same thread? oh man. It deserved to die.

yeah just a person asserting a foolish notion that is built off the fear of the non norm. I find it to be a weak raid when you cant vier from what is considered the norm. If you have a good enough raid all specs will work just fine. I remember back in march my first magmadar kill was with a arms/fury specced warrior tanking since none of the others could figure out the fear. This was still a time when people still believed you needed 40 points in protection to be a good MT. A good raid can work with players of any spec and figure out a way to utilize them effectively in the raid.

I play a druid, but I don't really have a great drive to do DPS since I primarily made my char to be a healer and the utility of the druid comes a handy second.

I don't see any reason for people not to test out other druid specs though. You never know when for instance a DPS char that can remove curses and poisons might be in demand... perhaps some place with ancient sekrits and bugs...

ahaha, i respect people like you who started a druid knowing its strengths and weaknesses. When i started mine i thought i was going to mess stuff up with my claws ;) boy was i thrown for a loop.

Your day has almost come! In a month maybe we'll fear you! :o

Xi is a large personality.

Cheers from me though.

I played a druid to 20 in the stress test, thinking I may have a shot at CB since not many people would play them. Little did I know, I sucked pretty bad at leveling quickly. But I realized that it was a lot of fun playing one, so I stuck with it for retail. I'm pretty happy about it these days :)

The only times it's bad to be a druid is, well, pre-1.8 really. Leveling was super slow. Soloing was super slow. With the revamp though, we're pretty sweet.

Yeah I kinda wish I could go back and level again with the new talents and stuff, but having a druid alt would be pretty dumb :P

Edit: Wow, I just read Xi's thread and holy crap he is a retard. I can't believe he's trying to use this thread to prove his point.

Chupid now is your time to roll a NE druid!

you can stealth in humanoid form!