Is that true? I have seen a picture of a bear druid past the DR mark, and the guy said that he had more than 75% reduction (the tooltip still said 75% though).

I didn't look in depth at this data though.

One of the reasons I'm asking this is because we have a few off-spec people in our raid: a Bear Tank, a Cat, and a Moonkin. While I don't doubt the abilities of the players in question (the Bear has tanked the Twin Emps successfully, amongst many other raid bosses), I do doubt the classes, specced that way, and the gear.

It's easier for a Cat to get aggro; the Moonkin doesn't seem to do anywhere near as much damage as the Mages (but it does bring about +3% damage for 4 others), and the Bear often dies first on Huhuran. And I bet we're the only raid out there that lets Moonkins roll on Bracers of Arcane Accuracy together with Mages and Locks, because there is no viable alternative in Leather.

Hence, the question how much we are hampering ourselves through this. We are not a cutting edge guild; we usually have server second/third/fourth kills of new stuff. Therefore I think we view the world a bit differently than the guilds who are competing for world first kills. So, I was curious about what the other guilds out there thought about this.

A BWL geared tank is allready vastly superior to any bear, due to to superior avoidance, defense and shield block. A tank in everything bwl has to offer will partically never be crit, and if he knows what he's doing - almost never be crushed. That alone brings him above a bear tanks mitigation. Now add in parry and the warrior is so far above the bear its not even worth comparing anymore.

Just curious as to what peoples opinions were on using moonkin druids for ignite rolling. It seems like the spell crit aura would be specifically suited for this play style, and seeing how (at least on horde) our groups with mages in them are normally either all mages or mixed mages and warlocks, I'd think that adding a moonkin in there would give them a nice boost to their crit and keeping the ignite stack rolling.

Of course, looking at the tradeoff of losing another dps class or another healer, I'm not so sure the aura would be worth the time... Still would like to hear some peoples opinions.

1. Do you have any Shadow Priests in your raid? Does it help to have one, for added Warlock DPS?

We currently have one. A Shadow Priest who is willing to be flexible and play in a hybrid fashion is of great use IMO. Apart from contributing decent DPS, Shadow Weaving is great for the warlocks, and VE saves a lot of spot healing.

Having said that, I would consider it highly unwise to ever take more than 1 on a raid.

2. Do you have any Bear Tanks? Do they tank raid bosses?

No, and no.

3. Do you have any Cats? Would you take a Cat over a Rogue? Why (not)?

No. No, I wouldn't. They have neither the DPS nor the threat control to justify taking a rogue spot.

4. Do you have any Moonkin? Does the +3% spellcrit aura compensate for the lower DPS?

We do sometimes. A well played moonkin in a group with 4 mages is a decent investment. You may not get as much DPS total, but you get 4 happy mages :-)

5. Do you have any Protection Paladins? Do they actually tank Big Stuff?

Horde.

6. Do you have any non-healing Shamans? What do they do? (I'm alliance, no experience with Shamans, but felt I had to include them here)

Yeah, we have a number of non-resto shammies. One enhancement and a couple elemental I think. Again, it comes back to playstyle. If they're willing to heal where necessary, they're good to have on board.

7. Or do you think any or even all of the above are ridiculous, and you should never have one of these in your raid?

The only non-standard build I really despise are feral druids. As far as I'm concerned they just don't offer anything that other classes can't do much better. I'm not hugely keen on Moonkin either, but they get points for being hilarious and making funny sounds.

And you have no problem with Elemental Shamans? I also don't buy the Shadow Weaving argument anymore. I hardly (If ever) see it on a boss. I'm assuming they're too busy trying to heal. Trying to max out Weaving is 5 seconds where you can't do anything else (Global cooldown FTL)

Admittedly, I'd rather they were resto. But it's far from a guild-breaking issue as long as they know when to heal.

5 seconds is not a long time in the context of most boss fights. Surely your 'pure' healers can cover the requisite healing for the duration. If you don't see SW up at all times your Shadow Priest needs to be asked some pointed questions about justifying his raid spot.

Given the number of posts that give good evidence to the contrary, it would be nice if you could post some sort of evidence for your view on this.

Competent warriors are using imp shield block to block 60-80% of incoming strikes, which translates directly into a 60-80% reduction in crushing blows. That alone I'd expect to catch up with bear forms extra mitigation in any 10-second period.

A tier 2 warrior will have what... 15% parry?

We have a great feral druid in the guild, epicly geared and he is basically the 7th tank who can also heal. Druids do have a role, good ones offer the flexibility to effectly sub out a healer for a tank, or sub a healer for DPS (not by kitty form, but by filling in the tanking role so a DPS warrior can kill stuff)

That said, armor is only one part of avoidance, and its the only part druids have an advantage on. AQ level tanks can be running over 45% combined parry and dodge, lots of blocking and other tools.


On another note, Paladins either side will remove the inequality between shadow priests on different factions, it'll be interesting to see the consequence of that. On horde-side they just can't sustain the damage long enough to be competitive.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...p=1#post781672

What's a Bear druid's strengths?
High AC?
AC reduction is hard capped at 75%, 16,500 for even level mobs, 17265 for level 63 mobs.
( Here's a warrior with 15.5K AC, no Naxxramas gear - http://www.chevhell.com/wow/acwhat2.jpg ) Only 2k away from max AC. Doesn't seem like a huge selling point anymore.

High Stam?
Heart of the Wild: adds 20% stam for 5 talent points deep in the feral tree.
Shield Slam - Soon to be revised to add 10% HP (still a 10 point prot talent?)

Can't be polymorphed?
- Stack warriors? Problem solved.

Check this out: http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?entryid=66903 (the original Cenarion Belt):
113 Armor
+20 Intellect
+7 Spirit
+8 Stamina
+10 Strength
+6 Nature Resistance
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 60
Equip: Increases damage done by Arcane spells and effects by up to 21.

I don't know what kinda point I'm trying to make. It's a terrible belt for preist in leather. It's disgusting. Nasty piece of hybrid garbage. The rest of the set was just as bad; int, stam, str, agi +spell damage +healing. /sarcasm off.

The original intent of the druid class has changed. I don't know if it's because they fired the original devs or what. Probably. Port to moonglade. Go to the south east corner. Find the Great Cat Spirit. Say "Why the hell is there a Great Cat Spirit, but no level 20 quest for Cat form?" The NPC is already there, it's been there since Beta. The least they could do is make a 'go talk to the cat and learn cat form' quest. It would take 3 minutes to code and it wouldn't make the class so glaringly incomplete. I've waited for that quest since Beta. I've waited for the "place holder" travel form cheetah to be upgraded like they promissed, also in Beta. I just did the level 20 poison quest on my rogue. So I'm kinda sore about that. I appologize.

Blizzard in thier infinate wisdom decided that they should restrain druids through itemization. You've seen it on the forums, a druid can dps, heal, or tank, but not at the same time. About needing different sets of gear for different roles.

But despite the complaints about all the druid crap in the game... by thier own logic it's not enough. You need one set for cat, one for healing, one for nuking, one for bear. That's 4 druid drops for every other classes 1 drop. Hugehoss said something to the extent that with a full set of Hive Tunneler gear a bear tank could be viable in Naxx. But it's all theory craft. The gear's just not in the game.

But really, the dream is dead. It was a bait and switch to trick people into playing healers.
- Mootan quit.
- Hugehoss would have stepped down from MT as <Peekay> got further into Naxx, but the guild fell apart and they're back to Nefarian status instead of pushing into new content. So he lucked out and didn't respec resto.

For those not trolling the druid forums, imagine what the rogue forums would be like if Wodin (aka "The Rogue") posted that Rogue wasn't a viable dps class after all. Mootan and Hugehoss are "the ferals".

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...p=1#post979205
Mootan's "I quit" post. It's depressing as all hell. "They sold me a whole area of a class that has no place anywhere." Since shapeshifting is an offspec and all. Hell, atleast I can amuse people with cool and interesting forms. Go me.

That being said, I love my druid. I'm 14 / 31 / 5. Even though Furor is broken. Again. That's fine. They'll fix it again. The blue's posted that they'll get around to it eventually. I heal when needed (which is alot), tank / off-tank when needed (which isn't as much as I'd like), dps when needed (Nobody. Is. Short. On. Rogues. Ever.) I'll probably respec to help my guild through Naxx, but we haven't hit the point where lack of healing is the issue yet.

Wait for the expansion. Hopefully with harder 5 mans people won't want a druid as a healer. GG 30 minute rez.

...


God, this post sounds depressing as all hell.

To the OP:

1. Do you have any Shadow Priests in your raid? Does it help to have one, for added Warlock DPS?
No, none of our priests will spec shadow for more than a week or two, they feel week and gimped at healing. Ive asked several times so I could see the effect on shadowweaving but none of them are willing to stay shadow.

2. Do you have any Bear Tanks? Do they tank raid bosses?
Yes, and Yes. We always aim for a 8x5 raid balance which necessitates the odd bear tank.

3. Do you have any Cats? Would you take a Cat over a Rogue? Why (not)?
No, and No. If you need more dps use a bear tank and have a warrior DPS. If you dont need any tanks and you dont need healers then cat dps is fine.

4. Do you have any Moonkin? Does the +3% spellcrit aura compensate for the lower DPS?
No its rubbish, we have one balance druid and we mock him mercilessly

5. Do you have any Protection Paladins? Do they actually tank Big Stuff?
Yes and not since the Paladin review. Prior to that I tanked most of MC and Onyxia.

6. Do you have any non-healing Shamans? What do they do? (I'm alliance, no experience with Shamans, but felt I had to include them here)
Allaince.

7. Or do you think any or even all of the above are ridiculous, and you should never have one of these in your raid?
We only have 1 hard rule. Whent he raid leaer tells you to do a job you do it, if you cant do it because of your talents/gear then your place in the raid comes under question. If you a dps warrior is told to tank an add they sure as hell better strap on a shield and do it, same for paladins/priests/druids told to heal and so on.