Which is the reason a lot of us go 0/30/21 instead. HotW gives you an absurd amount of gear flexibility. I can be at +600ish healing with 5K HP and 8K MP raid buffed in full healing gear. Or, I can be at +300ish healing with 8.2K HP in bear, 12000AC, and 6K MP raid buffed in a mix of healing and feral gear.

You can't really be gear flexible without HotW without making much more extreme gear tradeoffs.

But where's my innervate, necro? (OOPS I MEANT DRUID)

Considering all classes that would want to do fire damage has the option to do damage of a different element, while physical dps classes can only do physical dps, this isn't all that strange. As far as I can remember, there's currently more encounters where melee dps can't do shit than there are encounters where mages/warlocks can't do shit.

It seems like all this debate isn't so much about feral druids, but rather hybrid druids. I don't think here anyone is arguing that a druid's primary role in a raid should be cat form DPS or bear form tanking/add control (although some people on the official forums might..), and I doubt if anyone would call a 20/31 or 12/39 build "feral".

You have a class whose healing capacity rivals that of a 1.9 priest that also has the option to convert extra healing into nontrivial DPS or into a durable off-tank. Ignoring these options is foolish and actively impedes raid progression. A good raid leader is aware of all the tools at his disposal and uses whatever is necessary to overcome an encounter. The existance of feral form gives the raid more flexibility and allows it to respond and adapt not only to different encounters in the same run, but to changing situations in the same encounter. I also think that having to think and adapt and perform perform tasks on opposite sides of the raiding spectrum of activity hones a player's skill to a much higher degree than merely spamming healing touch rank 4 over and over.

A druid's primary role is that of a healer and that will never change. However there are enough raid situations, especially in AQ40, that warrant the use of feral forms so that they cannot be dismissed outright as useless. In addition, the abundance of mid-level, non-class-specific DPS leather from the early AQ40 bosses and the fantastic hybrid Genesis set makes these options all the more viable. Most of our druids already have 8/8 stormrage so it's not like they need more ilvl 73-77 healing leather, whereas they seriously lack quality epics suitable for feral forms. I'm thrilled that the drops in AQ40 are, for the most part, alternatives and provide other paths for classes. Shadow priest set. True hybrid warrior and druid sets. Stuff we really haven't seen before that would be getting D/E'd if replaced by specialized gear that we already have in spades. I'm glad to know that our raid will be full prepared for anything when we enter Naxxramas.

I also think people mean different things when they say "feral" druid. Do they mean a feral-heavy spec? Or feral gear? Or spending all your time in bear/cat form? When I hear the word I think of a druid who is probably 31 points in feral with the rest in resto, plenty of quality feral gear, who is mostly healing and spends at most 30% of his time in a feral form. I imagine a lot of people probably think of the idiot Gurgthock mentioned, who stays in cat form all day, has 2500 mana raid-buffed, and never bothers to heal anyone. In effect he's completely ignoring his healing ability. To me that's just as silly as a druid sitting in caster form all the time completely ignoring his feral ability. Blizzard gave the class all these great abilities, and a druid can use them all effectively with a minimal sacrifice of gear or talent points, so why not take advantage of them when the situation calls for it?

The druids in my guild pretty are mostly feral/resto innervate builds with one full LotP druid (he has the rank 14 PVP gear so is came in well-equipped for feral forms). They all know their class very well and are skilled at adapting to the situation. None of them are pure healbots. I'd say a druid is best played as 85% healer, 15% feral (sorry moonkins). Most of our players spec and play that way and they are all effective because they are using 100% of the class, not just 85%.

Very well put, Genjuro. That sums up my feelings exactly.

Mine too. Great post.

This is probably one of the best WoW-related threads I've read in a while.

How about Balance hybrids? Moonkin isn't particularly well-suited for raiding, but is there value in 20/0/31 and 24/0/27 builds (or even 30/0/21)? Or are those non-Resto points better allocated in the Feral tree when it comes to pure PvE considerations?

I've stuck most of my non-Resto points in Balance through MC and BWL. (I was specced 20/0/31 for MC and then 12/0/39 for BWL.) Most of the reason for this was that I decided I could improve my character faster by getting in line for caster leather drops as opposed to competing with rogues for melee leather, since they would put the vast majority of melee gear to better PvE use than any druid. And there's the ancillary benefit that nobody gets their britches in a twist if a druid loots something like Taut Dragonhide Gloves.

The principal benefit of a Balance/Resto hybrid build, as I see it, is that you can DPS and heal without the lag associated with shifting. You miss out on some of the utility afforded by the Feral tree, but I do think the Balance tree is a better complement for someone who's got a chubby for healing and prefers to spend more time in caster form.

30/0/21 isn't really viable in my opinion. That said, 24/0/27 is amazingly good single-target healing. You end up with an astounding amount of effeciency (-19% most healing spells cost), very quick small heal casts (rank4 HT spam at 1.5 seconds per cast around 25% of the time), and you have the ability to do real, viable burst DPS when needed (nef stage 1 for instance).

It's quite good, and if the drops and my luck were to improve enough I could see myself going back to it someday.

24/27 is a build I have yet to try but would like to at some point. It gives you the most mana efficient heals possible out of any class. While you don't get as much total staying power as if you would if you innervated yourself, you do get some offensive power which can definitely come in handy

http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=52830 :laugh:

Not to mention the supposed additional -9% off HTs mana cost come 1.10 will make yours SUPER cheap.

As much as I hate to say it, they're actually going to be moreso. Gheal is efficient as heck, but it's a mana hog regardless.

Eh, if you play a Priest, you know which rank to use and at what time, mana is fine. I haven't used dreamless or major manas in a long time now because I get hit with Innervate as soon as I'm low on mana.

I think the jury's out on that until we see how often priests feel comfortable using Rank2 Heal and Rank1/2 GHeal in situations where they've stuck with Flash Heal in the past. Additionally, I haven't seen any specifics on the ambiguous "increase in mana efficiency" that was advertised when the priest changes first became public. The magnitude of that change will have implications for Innervate dependency as well.

To pick an example, for most BWL-geared Disc/Holy priests, Rank1 GHeal is going to be a 2.5-sec (talents) cast spell that delivers upwards of 2000 HP (talents and assumed +heal gear of 500-600) for 463 mana (talents). Subtract a yet to be determined amount of mana off that 463, and the spell is even better. I can't help but think that's going to replace Flash Heal in many, many situations. If so, that means we'll see priests who are more mana-efficient and spend more time outside the 5-second rule regenning more mana (due to easier availability of Divine Spirit).

Granted, it's all still on paper, but a boy can dream...

If priests are becoming more efficient, the only time they'll need innervates more is if there's more healing that needs to be done.

Unless you're referring to overhealing, in which case you can be at something like 30% overheal and still be more efficient than someone using flash heal with 0% overheal. The benefit is that your heals will be much more likely to top off your target.

Should I apologize now or wait until the emps?

I created a new avatar to pay homage to this thread (and my Druid alt). :ph34r:

:)

I'm trying 14/32/5 now. Melee loves me for my hot aura, and OOC is fun when I remember to keep it up. Healing is very gimpy and will take some getting used to (pre 1.8 speed oh god).

But isn't that particular feral spec uber gimpy for raiding? I can kinda understand 30/21 feral/resto since its only moderately gimpy but I don't see how that spec can possibly be of much use to the raid. :unsure:


Edit: I guess I just dont like what im seeing. Priests are getting a nice little bump up in healing and all of sudden all our druids have decided that we need 5 feral druids on each raid. So what if priests dont need innervate as much? Shaman still need it, you could use it on yourself... God forbid druids can't heal on an equal level to a priest. Let's all go feral because thatll really help close the gap!

Thbbbbbbttttt

It isn't.