It hasn't been my experience that our feral druid keeps up with me or the rogues totally. I'm usually around the rogues, or just ahead or behind, and he lags a bit back from there generally. However, we're both using Macesmith epic hammers (his the t2, mine still t1), and the druid has yet to get the Stranglestaff off of Illhoof (it dropped the week he had to work, never since), so he is a bit behind gearwise with a blue staff. But again, giving the melee 5% crit and imp lotp certainly makes it worth having him there in cat, even with slightly less dps. Of course, the emergency battle rez and innervate have saved us numerous times as well.

I don't think I can stress enough how much I love feral skill rating. Dodge is the last bastion of avoidance bosses have against shreds, the fact that both feral weapons I have (Earthwarden, Fleshling Simulation Staff) have good amounts of +skill, I doubt I'll be upgrading until I get the Gladiators.

You CAN go in with Commanding shout (And I go with an Ironshield too since I suffer from Battered Class Syndrome). 2 minutes is plenty to kill the priest and the warrior to trot down and renew the shout.

I've gone to some heroics as dps, mostly when people couldn't find anyone else. The utility comes in the form of emergency healing, innervate, combat rez rather than crowd control per-se, though cyclone is a good clutch ability.

The downside, naturally, is that all those skills listed above are only useful in 'oh shit' situations rather than being neatly pre-planned like crowd control is.

Would another class have brought better heroic utility? Yes. Did I do competitive damage? Yes, too. It boils down to the requirements of the specific heroic and the composition of the party. (What doesn't, anyway?)

Damn it you beat me too it.

Edit, I'll check out the Swiftmend bug with a one of our Resto Druids later and see if we can repeat it.

Boev: Did you mean Lifebloom? Combat log states "Your Lifebloom" instead of "<Caster>'s Lifebloom" so that may well be Gift of Nature that's causing the difference, due to the way the heal's source is attributed.

It begs me to wonder if the arena idol (+healing to final lifebloom heal) will be affected by it

Ok.

Well, I did some tankering last night. I really did not notice a massice difference. Yes I was maybe generating a tiny amount of threat less on single targets, just a teeny tiny amount, but overall it was fine.

The main issue is how badly they neutered swipe =/. I was losing aggro to my healer if I just swiped. Tabbing and throwing a lacerate/melee hit was better but then the rogue pulled aggro on our DPS target.

It is workable with growl, but the issue is if I taunt it off the rogue then one breaks for the healer, I am a bit stuffed. I get a feral charge root and thats it. On some 3 mob pulls the healer ended up with 2 mobs and I couldnt get either off him =/.

It would be great if swipe got its threat modifier back, but even so does anyone have any advice? I am sure I could just ask them to wait 10 seconds and let me swipe/lacerate it all to get solid aggro, but it would be great to avoid that =/.

since swiftmend now also uses +healing from rejuvenation talents end empowered rejuvenation more information from your side would be nice.

- Is it rej or regrowth?
- Is it your spell or an other druids spell?
- TP spent in imp rej and emp rej and GoN

I have a feral, too, and I noticed this last night. I just went more to the target-switching i do on my prot warrior. DPS had to actually think about aggro a little. Looks like easy-mode swipespam isn't going to be all you have to do anymore. Welcome to the tanking world of a warrior.

I am a Restoration Druid at heart, always have been and always will be.

I've spent the majority of the last couple of years in raiding situations (MC/BWL/AQ40/Naxx) where as a Resto Druid you would cast HoT, Decurse and spam HT on the MT. However, have thoroughly enjoyed the 5-man experience that TBC has brought back to the game.

Currently my spec is 27/0/34 this allows me to keep a solid healing spec (NS, Swiftmend, Improved Rejuv etc) but at the same time (quipped in the dmg gear) I can actually make a dent in mobs for solo farming, assisting with dps etc.

I have solo healed basically every 5-man I've been in and often run into the same problem.

1. Threat reduction - popping into Bear because you have three mobs on you for survivability not only costs a ton of mana while in bear it renders us useless to give heals. Some reasonable means to escape aggro and heal would be nice, similar to fade would be nice. For those of you who say “Barkskin” I am not buying it.

2. Group heals - Priests have a single cast heal that heals the party, Shamans have chain healing, Druids have Tranquility on a 10min timer. When the party takes damage simultaneously I find it really hard to keep everyone up. Especially when you need to HoT the party, then cast a HT13 on the tank or god forbid regrowth (and we are back to point #1). Perhaps decrease the timer on Tranquility (but make Tranq less powerful). Or remove it from a channeled spell. There is not worse than casting Tranquility in an "oh shit" situation and being interrupted. Too often I find myself seeing a party member go down and saying “If you (warlock, mage, whatever) die the we can still kill the boss, if the tank dies it’s a wipe” I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO CHOOSE!!!!!!!!

3. Giving back to the group. Shaman's have totems that give a party just about anything they want (mana/health etc) Priests have the ability to return mana to the party in various forms, and Paladins can also provide regen buffs. It would would be really sweet to see a Druid provide some kind of significant healing buff to the group (why not a health regen buff, restores 50HP/sec) Quite frankly Tree of Life is a joke.

4. It’s a long shot but I would love OOC Rez. Although, especially has a solo healer. However, on a side note. I’ve noticed that when I am the solo healer in a group the other classes take less risks and step up their game more. This means absolutely no wiping on trash and very few wipes on boss fights.

Yes I meant lifebloom, sorry.

Effective testing requires a healer these days Cluey, I can't think of a single mob that is weak at 70.