My druid alt just hit 70 and I'd like to get some input on 2's and 3's arenas from the veterans.

Spec
It seems like most top arena druids are 8/11/42, with the only variations occurring in Nature's Focus and Subtlety. Currently I'm maxing focus and putting 2 in Subtlety but that can change if I find myself having dispel problems. It's interesting that no one takes Healing Touch talents - is arena healing really possible using only HoTs?

Partners
I'll be teaming up with a warlock, rogue, and warrior. Of those I think the druid/lock team is the strongest, followed by rogue then warrior. With the warlock who is affliction/soullink we'll play an outlast/drain strategy. With the rogue and warrior I think we'll go for more of a burst down/cyclone the healer at the right time strategy. Anyone have experience with either of those?

Gear
This is the big weak point right now, having just hit 70. I'm sporting a whopping 8000 health and +800 healing. I was pretty disappointed in the quest rewards while leveling. It seems that feral and moonkin gear was in abundance, but I never found one piece of healing leather. Quite ironic for me who was a Moonkin pre TBC where this type of gear was rare. Anyone know of any decent healing leather quest rewards that I might have missed?

Here's my armory: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kil'jaeden&n=Moonblaze

Speaking from experience, having tried out a number of specs for arena already, 8/11/42 really is the best you can get. Feral charge, increased stun length, and cyclones/roots immune to push back are all extremely valuable talents. As for HT, using it is just begging to be interrupted, the biggest strength of a druid healer in the arena is that you can heal someone using only instants - lifebloom, rejuv and swiftmend. The only time I ever used HT in the arena, even when it was talented, was with NS, so those talents were mostly wasted. As for PvE, I usually heal in tree form anyways, so losing the use of HT is even less of a problem there.

I currently pair up with a rogue in 2v2, and while the stealth team will give you a good element of surprise, the warlock and warrior combination are both much better teams. Currently one of the top teams in my battlegroup is a Night elf warrior + restoration druid combination, and we have fought them a few times - they are very tough to beat. Ultimately though, if you want to stick to a single team, you should go with who ever is the best player out of the three.

You are correct, there really aren't a lot of leather healing quest rewards. My best suggestion would be to do a LOT of battlegrounds, and get your PvP epics first (bracer, belt, boots, ring, necklace, trinket), you will need these to be competitive in the arena anyways. If you have access to raiding, you can fill in some of your other slots that way. You can also find some decent (though not great) leather healing gear in regular instances and heroics. You might also want to join a 5v5 arena farm team to try to get some gladiator gear rolling in quicker, as your 2v2 points will be pretty pathetic until you can get rated 1800+. The stats that you should try to get as soon as possible are something along the lines of 200 resilience, 10k HP, and 1500 healing.

Unfortunately, as a new 70 you have a long road ahead of you for gearing up for PvP. It will require a lot of time and effort if you want to be competitive, my advice is to just stick with it and give yourself an obtainable goal each day.

My 3v3 runs with a resto druid as our main healer. He has a lot of disadvantages, but the absolutely *huge* advantage he has is mobility. This gives him the ability to heal surprisingly well under pressure. He can LoS most casters and throw out quick heals or stack Lifebloom when no one is around, backed up by Swiftmend, and against melee he just kites and kites and kites. He very rarely casts Healing Touch. It leaves him open to counterspell and interrupts for way too long, and he could be casting Cyclone instead or at least stacking Lifebloom on the warlock (who serves as our 'tank'). His inability to be sheeped is another strong point.

It's really essential to be able to play the LoS game *with* him though. Counterspell can ruin him and he is weak to fears, but he's a lot better against melee then I ever thought he would be. When we're not under pressure he tosses out Cyclones and roots. I've seen him win battles for us against warriors by alternating CC. Root backed up by Unstable Affliction is pretty strong against warriors once they blow their trinket, and it presents the paladin with a messy, messy choice. If the other members of your team can keep the battle in a location where the druid can pop into LoS for a quick 1.5s cast and then out again to avoid Counterspell or Fear, and if they can give him just a *bit* of support against a trinketing warrior (we either Deathcoil or Stun, giving him enough time to cast again), druids can be pretty damn strong against the cookie-cutter war/pld/x teams you are likely to face.

Thanks for all the input. I will be supplementing some gear through PVE but not much of it. I'm thinking of going for the Gladiator's helm first in order to get a meta gem. Is Mystical Skyfire worth it (half cast time proc)? It seems like if all I'm going to be using that has a cast time is cyclone and regrowth something like the stun resist gem might be better.

Right, I'm not worried about proccing it, I'm worried that there aren't very many hard casts I'll need to do when it procs. I agree that at my current gear level the 18 stam gem is the way to go.

I 2v2 with a combat/daggers rogue (not because that is the ideal spec; because he is too cheap to respec). Started a bit before S2 and are at 1770ish at the moment.

Personally I have Nature's Focus, I feel that subtlety is a bit of a double-edged sword with lifebloom as often you'll want it to be dispelled; especially against warlocks, a very common 2v2 class. Lifebloom is my main defense against dispulsion. That you can max out Nature's Focus but not subtlety is also a factor.

Playing with a rogue, don't underestimate the capacity to play an outlast game. Wounding poison gives you a mana advantage against healer teams, and the high control afforded by stunlock and cyclone/roots makes drinking cheese very easy. Not to mention that as a non-mana class, rogues can keep going and going and going. Instant casts makes it difficult for double-dps teams to control you long enough to burst down your rogue. Typically my rogue and I play conservatively against kite heavy-teams until they make a mistake, at which point we can usually seal it with well timed cooldown/DR use or even a sudden target switch.

Of course, when you start off, the capacity to burst a target down while CCing another makes it easy to shoot up the ratings early on. Shaman, Warlocks, Priests, Fire Mages, and such all make great targets for this strategy.

This is a tough one and something my friend and I faced (and are still facing). My hunter who I have played with very casually in teams with 'ding 70'/PvE-focused friends has never been above 1600 but outgears my druid by a fair margin.

If you have the time, 2/5 HWL set will give you 70 resilience or so off the bat. However most people (myself included) don't enjoy the honor grind enough to justify this. All you can do is hit up the normal Lv.70 instances as much as possible. There are good leather quest rewards out there but I'll leave you to wowhead it =P

I made a thread about that here and seems the answer is "yes".

I play with different resto druids in 2v2 and 3v3. Gear isn't that large of an issue on the druid, mainly player skill and the ability to kite. For reference, The Armory is the druid on my 3's team, and he started with only 1050+healing until he farmed the Veteran healing gear this past two weeks.

We play outlast in 2v2, but I am specced UA, for I occasionally raid on my warlock, and still wish to remain viable. You can easily get to 2k with your gear, provided the warlock you are partnering with has gear, and you don't get too many warrior/healer teams.

We were also toying around with the idea of Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft, spec wise. ToL is only really used against double frost mage teams, and trading a bit of hot effectiveness for 6 yards on cyclone and moonfire (to keep people in combat). Especially with your 800+healing it comes out to only 64+healing to your hots.

I don't mean to troll, but unless I'm not as good as I think I am (nowhere near as good), I don't see how this is possible. 2k+ is actually pretty high and every team is going to pick on that druid and even if he survives, he's going to be burning through mana. Is there some reason I should be wearing my PvE gear or something big I'm missing?

I team with a mace warrior in 2v2, currently hovering around 2010 rating. Our biggest problem is whenever we face any team with a warlock.

Warlock + frost mage - I try to LOS most of the fears, but my hots/instants are simply not enough to keep up my warrior, even if he goes defense stance and spellreflects. Spelllocks, improved counterspells and deathcoils doesn't make things easier. I'm too afraid of getting counterspelled/spelllocked while casting to use cyclone regularly against this type of team - is this a mistake? It's just that if they do hit that counter/lock it's just a guaranteed loss. Frost mages also do a good job keeping my warrior immobilized so we don't do alot of damage on them either.

Warlock + shadowpriest - Like above, only even harder. Their damage output is just insane on my warrior, and with spelllocks/silences and multiple fears, he dies.

Warlock + paladin - usually we focus the warlock against this matchup but lately I've been thinking if it wouldn't be better to just go for the paladin instead. There's no way my warrior will be able to burst down a SL lock with 350+ resilience, even with some well-timed cyclones on the paladin. These games always end up with me going out of mana, and the paladin still having at least a third of his mana left.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to counter these teams?


As for the Subtelty vs. Nature's Focus, I've played with both specs. Started out with focus and recently specced to subtetly instead and I can't say I've been missing NFocus alot. Subtelty is really nice - you gotta love when you root + faerie fire a warrior and his paladin desperatly tries to cleanse it with no luck. and of course, shamans/priests failing to dispell your innervate is happy times.

As a mage I would say that your warrior going defensive is just what NOT to do against mage/lock. Remember that they have no healing past healthstones so essentially it's a dps race if you can't keep up with healing. He should start on the lock, kill the elemental when the mages summons it, and go back on the lock. If he's getting kited you can root/cyclone/feral charge his target to allow him to catch up. If you're worried about getting CSed just cast a starfire or fake a nature spell to try and draw it out. It's a tough fight for sure, but their lack of healing should be enough to give you the upper hand.

Some druid basics:
Vs a melee team, natures grasp should always be active as much as possible. A rogue will have plenty of ways to get out of it, but you're making him blow a cooldown one way or another.

Never trinket out of gouge. Kidney shot is going to last longer and hurt you more. Save your trinket for that.

Don't forget barkskin when you head into bear, the damage reduction is nice. Once you can get away from them, start kiting and re-apply NG once it's available again.

Warriors are less annoying from a cc perspective, especially if they don't have a cleanser. Keep them rooted and cycloned whenever possible. If they do have a pally or priest to cleanse, try to get them out of LOS, or at least make them waste some time getting free before attacking you.

Casters:
Vs. a dual mage team, make sure cyclone is one of your first spells. Staggering their initial DPS is vital.

LOS as much as possible. Spells that ignore LOS are a pain, but welcome to game mechanics. If you spec feral charge, remember to use it to help interrupt spells. Shadow priests and locks suck for me, so still working this part out.