Feral Druids and Arena Play. - Page 3

Smilyfun · 05/30/07, 9:56 PM

Id just like to state that i was bored, and did a search for my name, and this thread came up and i took an interest in it. First off, watching the PoV of someone else other than the druid in any video isnt giving you what to do when 100% of the time, just a rogu outline of what can be done, nothing more.

The knowledge ive gained about every aspect of the class and specs are from playing Smily, my only main, since release, and stressing the point that the druid as a whole can be something more deadlier than anyone ever has let on, even know, with all the ZZOMGFERALDR00DZ out there, 90% of them are terrible. Deep at best is normal, nothing special. Gear can make that happen, but that alone cannot take you to that next level.

What you do outside of your forms is generally 100% more usefull than what you do in them. In cat, you hit them yes, but they get healed, timed cyclones with CS' (WHICH IS INCREDIBLY HARD WHEN YOUR MAGE DOESNT HAVE A MIC) can make or break a game in some cases. Realizing that maim can be used as more than just a solo skill, and often times proves more usefull when used correctly on a certain healer of sorts.

The team i have played with i have been playing with since the day arenas were introduced into the game, and well before that. Doing 10v10s in WSG aranged games against the top guilds and top pvp groups in the battlegroup, having 5v5 nights on the server itself which truly brings out your respect for the other people of the server. And finally, when they came out, we were ready, experiance beyond that of any normal group, and holding a secret weapon which almost no groups have ever faced before. A well played feral with gear to match made a devastating combination, giving us that edge in the majority of our matches early in the season.

The INSTANT they started getting on me, and im forced bear, the feral druid becomes that which he despises most, a non-DPSer, and puts you in that position of worthless quite readily. Before the bear nurf, it didnt matter, but after, bear hits like a sissy girl, and im one druid who pays special attention to bear AP and such because the majority of the time solo, your in bear, unless your a dumb retard who just likes to pewpew big numbers. In that respect, it is very hard to find a feral druid who knows what to do when and with what to build his character around. If the words "cat druid" or "bear druid" are ever uttered or typed by someone you assume is a good druid, he is marked as terrible, and i regret to inform you, a failure at the class which he loves so much.

I love feral, but the flaws it has in arenas are ones that cannot be unnoticed, and can in fact kill your group if used correctly against you. In 5v5, the good ferals are few and far between, but we are out there, and in the lesser ones, its about class balance, rock paper scissors if you will, and generally, we get shafted. Thats not to say that good ferals dont make good 2v2 or 3v3 partners, if you play well together, anything can happen. But 5v5 are where we can really shine.

Now, for 5v5s, as Malazaar has stated, "preserveing" a BoPed target is only helpful if you have no priest or shaman to pruge/dispell it, if so, you should kick yourself in the face for doing so in the first place. Cyclone is handy yes, but usually against a priest or pally, warriors on occasion when you need to take the heat away from your healers. And to what Leleth says about healers and bearform, if they cant keep you up, its generally because they get CCed someway, or your taking an incredible amount of magic damage. To what Kink is saying, if you EVER have to switch out and heal, your group is destined for failure. A feral should NEVER have to heal, EVER, unless in the most dire of situations, and yes, cycloneing a DPS on them is generally the best idea, like, if they have 2 magic DPS, one being a mage, and your priest gets BoPed, cyclone the mage or ele shaman, or lock for that matter, because thats what will be killing him.

To Xantcha, feral is prime because resto druids cannot dispell or BoP, which makes them damn near useless, and they cant PW:S. Resto is better off in the 2v2/3v3 areas, where cyclone is most effective, and your HoTs alone can keep people alive.

As for video help, ill be starting one shortly, probably in the next week or 2, if not, then sometime when i finish getting the new arena gears. I take pride in myself as being one of the few ferals who has made it where many many have tried, and failed. But there is always improvment, and figuring out little things here and there that make you that much more usefull.

This may seem like alot of info, but if you have any more questions on this, id be happy to answer.

-The Smily One

panos · 05/31/07, 5:45 AM

I've played 2vs2 quiet sometime with a resto druid.So for a week he respecced feral, the rating dropped by about 300 but thats understandable since he wasnt so experienced or so geared for feral. What we witnessed, is how a druid had to play like a rogue/warr and how we played too much like a dual dps team. Basically most times he swifted out to heal/cyclone or do things a non-melee does , it felt like we were losing ground. He ended up respeccing back to resto 1 week after.

I dont think feral druids will ever really be a too viable spec. A moonkin can focus on its dps stats (+dmg) and still get decent healing throught it plus it can cast cyclone/roots? on its dps form, a feral cant do that.I do realise the amount of moonkins on top teams are much less than ferals but i'd attribute it to feral being the traditional druid dps spec for all these years and moonkin having yet to catch up. (it doesnt even show up as a spec in the top 6 druid specs of all teams) In 2vs2 anyway which is the bracket i have experience in.

Leleth · 05/31/07, 6:16 AM

I have to agree on most of SmilyFuns points.

Our Damage is only a bonus. If you do not use our various (short time) crowd controls another warrior would be simply the better choice.

"Being forced to bear". Despite I always wait as long as possible to go bear. I do not think it is that bad as long as I get BoF. While focused you have enough rage to maul, mangle and spam swipe, which is indeed nice DPS. Just look at the DamageMeter while tanking.
Bears can soak a lot of damage and you still supply your group with ILotP. Of all Druids, the feral is the most effective while in bear form.
Focus fire lowers the efficiency for most classes.

Healing: I heal much less than in the beginning of the season. I had to force me to trust our healers, waiting for the "I got CSed" outcry on teamspeak. My heals are only there to cover the moments while both of our healers are crowd controlled. Cyclone+Tranquility usualy does the trick.
I am realy thinking about dropping that "50% addhealing from strength" talent and I am no longer sure if I like the addhealing on our gladiator set. I would love more int and at least some chance to hit.

Creating a vido: Currently I am collectiong the tools to create a video. I am not sure about what codec to use. Can somebody provide a link to a nice guide.

Caal · 05/31/07, 8:42 AM

I can't imagine where a Feral could ever fit in 5v5. Not so great Damage with difficulty keeping consistant CC up. I would love to see you make a video 5v5ing as Feral. If you're truely using Cyclone in an efficient manner, I'll be impressed. On the other hand, if you show a video of you playing against people who don't use things like CoT and Focus fire on you, it'll be a waste of time.

So what's the group you're running then? I'm just going to assume you have 2 healers in there. Priest, Paladin, Warrior, Druid... I suppose almost anything in the world fits in that spot. I would assume you would prefer the Mage though, to keep Decurse pressure off of you.

Next season I hope to get a 5's team together that doesn't make FFing the resto druid so damned obvious :/. I'm definitely thinking about Moonkin for next season, though.

/rambleoff

CasT · 05/31/07, 9:34 AM

Originally Posted by Caal

I can't imagine where a Feral could ever fit in 5v5. Not so great Damage with difficulty keeping consistant CC up. I would love to see you make a video 5v5ing as Feral. If you're truely using Cyclone in an efficient manner, I'll be impressed. On the other hand, if you show a video of you playing against people who don't use things like CoT and Focus fire on you, it'll be a waste of time.

So what's the group you're running then? I'm just going to assume you have 2 healers in there. Priest, Paladin, Warrior, Druid... I suppose almost anything in the world fits in that spot. I would assume you would prefer the Mage though, to keep Decurse pressure off of you.

Next season I hope to get a 5's team together that doesn't make FFing the resto druid so damned obvious :/. I'm definitely thinking about Moonkin for next season, though.

/rambleoff

Me too. I am thinking of playing some sort of Moonkin in caster form to be in a 3.5 dps team. Since I think a caster is better at dpsing and keeping an eye on the HP bars while CCing and decursing. I think this form is much better than the shapeshifting a feral druid is forced to do.

Solstice · 06/01/07, 12:50 AM

Few questions for the legendary Smilyfun.

First, sorry but I'm a bit mystified that you rate Deep as "at best normal, nothing special". Apart from the fact that there's really no other feral arena vids out there at the moment worth watching, the level of precision and timing Deep shows in some of those clips (particularly the 2v2 and 3v3) I found very impressive indeed.

Secondly, how much if at all have you changed your playstyle since the 2.1? The 15% extra mangle damage seems a small but welcome boost and makes us somewhat less of a dead weight in bear form, and the reduced shapeshifting costs should allow us to make more use of what we can do outside of our forms... which really isn't much actually apart from cyclone, if I read you right, although of course this is "100% more useful than what we can do in" our forms. Then there's the changes to barkskin which improve our survivability vs casters... more of a buff for resto than feral though i suppose. All in all, do you feel that these changes along with the slight down-toning of warriors, paladins and frost mages has made us more balanced in arenas, and if so, to the point where we can realistically justify a spot over one of these classes?

About preserving a bopped target. I'm not sure if this was fixed in 2.1 but prior to the patch there was a very evil bug concerning stoicism and blessings. I don't recall the specifics but I remember our shaman linked me a screen of his combat log showing some warrior resisting his attempts to purge BoF some 8 times in a row. As such, don't you think it might be a better idea to just preserve the BoPed target with cyclone (seeing as the resist rate is relatively low) then perhaps call for a CS on the 2nd healer and switch cyclone to the paladin? Seems to me this is a much more reliable way to prevent them getting a heal off.

About itemisation. I see your point about spending more time in bear than cat, this is obviously true vs melee where I'm rarely in cat after the opening aside from the occasional maim, and partially the case vs casters to absorb burst, bash and feral charge. But for me, emphasising strength (or AP) over agility on a pvp set doesn't make much sense. At least in 2v2 and 3v3 burst damage is key and without some "lucky" crits and ooc procs it's something ferals definitely lack. Also, no sane druid goes bear to deal damage but rather to soak up damage, for which strength is of zero benefit whereas agility at least adds some dodge (and a negligible amount of AC). Anycase, I can't really see the point in building my PvP gearset around stats that buff bear form dps or indeed paying any attention to this at all, would be good to hear you justify why you think it's a good idea.

Finally, I took the liberty of invading your privacy and checking out your armory, and I'm a bit confused about your talent spec. Perhaps this isn't the spec you use for arenas, because I'm a bit bemused by the way you say "A feral should NEVER have to heal, EVER, unless in the most dire of situations" yet you spec 2/2 Nurturing instinct? Surely thick hide or even natures grasp would be a better place to put those 2 points. Also, no SotF? -3% crit is of similar (although admittedly not quite as much) value as 120 resilience. I'd have thought this was a must for any PvP feral druid.

My take on things is that ferals can be very useful in 5v5 arenas. Naturally it depends alot on your team setup and that of the opposing team - like Smilyfun said it's very much rock/paper/scissors and there are setups that will favor ferals and other setups where we'd be a waste of a spot. Same goes for pretty much every class though apart from warriors and paladins. In my opinion, the difference for ferals isn't so much that we need to play amazingly well compared to other classes in order to perform equally well. It's that there needs to be alot more synergy between the feral and the rest of the team in order to make it work. We play sort of a holding roll, not main dps and obviously not main heal or cc, but we do a little of each and providing our team-mates know what we're doing and when we're doing it then we can be very effective.

I agree that Resto PvP is broken for druids at the moment. This has been discussed in other threads so I'll refrain from reiterating but it comes down to a bloated resto tree with a definite lack of any talents that improve survivability, coupled with probably the lowest mana efficiency, longest cast time heals and no offensive or defensive dispel. Oh, and ToLol. I'm actually considering going balance next season too but not to do damage but to heal. I haven't tested it much and I'm not really geared for it at the moment but it occurred to me that "all" I'd really be losing by popping say 37 points in balance and the rest in resto would be SM. Well ok, less powerful HoT's too and no natural perfection, but instead I'd get hugely efficient HT's (which would be great for wars of attrition) and of course moonkin form. If I get assist trained by melee, I just HoT up, go moonkin and cyclone/root. That has to be better than being forced into bear. If I get CS I just go moonkin and nuke for 8 seconds. Sounds nice in theory anyway, if anyone's tested out pvp healing with a balance spec I'd be interested to hear about it.

Agrippina · 06/01/07, 8:43 PM

The idea I'm gathering from the posts here and my own experience in arena as a resto druid sums up that a good arena druid is there for his or her "broader utility", not the stereotype of their spec.

For instance, restoration is NOT there as a primary healer (I'm only referring to 5v5). You do not want a resto druid doing the bulk of your healing, you want a paladin or *maybe* a shaman. The resto druid is there to supplement healing, to make things easier for the pally and such. But, the resto druid brings extremely useful broader utility. Cyclone and roots used effectively can shut down melee DPS in a way no other class can wihtout having to constantly shift to interrupt DPS and drain mana. Bear form and stealth makes them undesirable to be focus fired (our priest always seems to get aggro and I'm more than happy to keep triple lifebloom stacked on him while chain rooting/cycloning the warriors tearing him up). The classic hybrid, druids, are at their most hybrid in arena, no matter their spec.

Anyways, druids are not there to take care of primary jobs (bulk healing or bulk DPS), they are there for constant supplementing of classes that play purer roles, but are easily as valuable to the team if played correctly.

drole · 06/02/07, 11:33 AM

More questions for smily:

Itemisationwise you mention Bear AP as a big factor, how is your take on AP vs crit? I started stacking crit not so long ago thinking that i had more than enough AP, but your post has made me doubt that. My current stats are 1819 AP and 29.90 Crit in bearform, completely unbuffed (apart from LoTP).

Next up is a real issue of mine, i keep beating myself up for not using Tranquility enough, but yet again your post seem to suggest that i am indeed wrong about doing so. On to the question; do you ever use it? if yes then when?

Vazu · 06/02/07, 11:59 AM

The biggest reason why feral Druids aren't as effective as they could be is simple.

You can't cast Cyclone in cat form. Aside from pure resto Druids in arenas, that is their single biggest contribution to high-end arena play. I'm sorry, but no matter how many videos you I watch of some sick crits, I'll never be convinced that a Rogue or Warrior couldn't do it better and faster. Not to mention that Druids have absolutely no healing debuff. Which makes their DPS that much more underwhelming. However, the bigger problem with feral has to do with tunnel vision. When to shift out and help heal / CC? I've read this entire thread and I still think feral Druids are one of the worst arena specs in this entire game. They can't heal effectively. Their DPS is worse than both of the other marquee melee classes. Which relegates them to CC duty that a Moonkin could do far better. I don't care how many videos I see of 'sick Mangle crits' or dueling skills. High-end arena play still boils down to group play. Feral Druids have one thing they bring to the table. That's a 5% crit bonus for the other (what, 1? maybe 2?) melee classes in your 3v3 or 5v5.

Leleth · 06/02/07, 3:51 PM

Rogues suck in Arena 5v5. I 100% prefer my Druid. After Improved Sprint/Vanish you do not have a tool to get back to any target. Being able to stay at your target is the key to do any damage at all.

A feral can break roots and snares more than 20 times and always runs @ 149% speed, while providing better CC than a Rogue and better survivability after 15 seconds.

A rogue is not even a contest for a feral druid alongside a warrior.
A feral is not even a contest for a rogue as the only/primary meelee class.

The main problem: Stacking warriors is simply too good.

Shadowed · 06/02/07, 4:07 PM

Rogues do fine in 5vs5 as long as they're played properly and not just someone sitting there smashing damage abilities.

Agrippina · 06/02/07, 8:33 PM

Personally I'm surprised you don't see more moonkins in arena. They can supply the constant cycloning/rooting that is the main source of druid utility in 5v5, w/o having to shift constantly, and they are always in a form that is extremely hard to kill. Not only that, but the 100% avoid interruption of cyclone/roots in the balance tree allows them to keep CC'ing even when focus fired - unlike a lot of specs (Mages/Locks) they don't lose their CC'ing by being focus fired.

Also, starfire crits hit really really hurt (and moonkins are so unattractive to kill that they can chain cast it fairly easily). Burst like that is hard to heal through and provides the opportunity when cominbed wtih other DPS'ers to do extreme damage in a short time (say a 3K starfire crit that goes off with an MS hit and some other large damage hit) that is impossible to heal through. The rare teams we encounter in 5v5 with moonkins always present problems for us, and I consider it a better spec than feral in 5v5.

drole · 06/02/07, 9:21 PM

I recently made the effort of making myself some decent macros to work with and it seems to have helped my play A LOT, and by a lot i mean insane amounts. I honestly had no idea fixing those things were such a big issue. Saving ~1 sec on every cyclone cast and even more on feral charges (not even counting mistakes like hitting the wrong skill and such) really does wonders for your overall performance.

For those interrested, here are the macros:

# show Feral Charge
/cancelaura [stance:3] Cat Form; [stance:4] Travel Form
/castsequence [stance:1,target=mouseover] reset=50/combat Feral Charge
/castsequence [nostance,target=mouseover] reset=50/combat Dire Bear Form, Feral Charge
/STARTATTACK

Cancels Cat/Traveform, puts you into Bear Form and charge the target you've moused over or your current target if there is no mouseover target.

# show Cyclone
/cancelaura [stance:1] Dire Bear Form; [stance:3] Cat Form; [stance:4] Travel Form
/castsequence [nostance,target=mouseover] reset=50/combat Cyclone

Again, cancels your forms and cyclones your target if no mouseover target exists.

Have other people had similar luck with certain addons/macros? and if so then witch?

Solstice · 06/03/07, 2:11 AM

Hmm not sure I really was want macro's to do that for me, like most people I use druidbar for 2 button switching and I can safely say that 99% of the time the only delay in getting a feral charge off is due to latency. Incidentally, how do those macro's respond if your mouseover target is out of range or LoS? Does this mean you then charge your current target or do you receive the usual error message? Thanks for those anyway, I'll give them a spin and see what happens.

The only macro I use in pvp at the moment is:

#showtooltip Cyclone
/clearfocus [modifier:shift]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/cast [target=focus,exists,nodead,harm] Cyclone

You set your focus at the start (I usually go for the paladin or warrior) and hitting the macro cyclones them without changing your target. If you have no focus or your focus is dead or friendly, it'll cast on your target instead. Shift clicking/pressing the macro clears your focus.

drole · 06/03/07, 8:36 AM

You'll get the standard error messages, otherwise i aint sure i would use them either.