Maligne

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

Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamned drink!

 

Herrera

You won't be needing quest rewards to improve your gear. Start farming honor for the Veteran Kodohide items and arena. Healing touch, other than the one macroed with NS won't see much use. Maybe at lower rating you can pull out a HT or two, but that's about it. Resto druid arena gameplay is shifting out of snares, hotting a lot, rooting and most important cycloning. You'll probably see easiest to play with rogue. He would go for healer/squishy target while you pounce/chain cyclone/charge/bash the other target. You'll be amazed to see how much dps a rejuvanation and 3 stacks of Lifebloom can outheal. If things get close, you have always Swiftmend. Don't miss out on important talents like Natural Shapeshifter and maxed Nature's Grasp. Use Barkskin whenever focused. Try to los Mana Burns, go cheetah and run around like crazy. When rogue is approaching you, Abolish Poison yourself. You may save a trinket to remove blind. If you can't avoid a mana burn, go cat/bear - you will waste 500 mana, but it's better than 1000 burned. Watch for priests dispelling your Innervate.
That's it... I think

 

DecimusGarona

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.

 

Safid

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.

 

Maligne

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.

Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamned drink!

 

DecimusGarona

Instant casts (such as lifebloom) can proc the mystical skyfire as far as I know, though you are probably better off using the 18 stamina/stun resist gem at least until the rest of your gear is up to par.

 

Maligne

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.

Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamned drink!

 

Maynard

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".

 

Quixotic

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.

 

◊ Noressa

One point that hasn't been addressed yet, if you're getting a lot of dispels, keep a single lifebloom on your target. A purge happy shaman will often heal my target for more then I can, as well as taking their cooldown. (Maybe because I'm still in the lower brackets, we just started our 3v3 last week and my 2v2 is for fun with a friends alt.) Higher brackets may be different, but if you are faced with someone who loves purge, I'd suggest getting the LB idol from arena points, since the bloom portion can crit, 105 healing is greater then the bonus you'd get from the idol of the emerald queen.

On that note, if you pick up subtlety, the rejuv idol is your best bet for the higher swiftmend value.

 

Maynard

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?

 

Miaw

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.

 

Maligne

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.

Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamned drink!

 

diotox

Good, I've been wanting to ask this for a while now but didn't really have a relevant thread to post it in. A good RL friend of mine just hit 70 on his druid a couple of weeks ago and he really likes to pvp. The problem though is that he's very casual, doesn't ever read about the game outside the game, and is overall very ignorant of most game mechanics. He's been hounding me to play 2v2 arena with him, and I don't mind too much(I massively outgear 1500-1600 rating players for the most part so it's mildly amusing), but what I do mind is that I cannot seem to explain certain things so that he understands them. Things like how counterspell works, what a felhunter can do, and most importantly, kiting. To give you some more perspective on this guy, I got a huge earful about how "It's bullshit that priests get AE fear, that's not fair." I had to bite my tongue on that one.

Is there a druid kiting for dummies FAQ anywhere I can point him to? Or perhaps a good pvp video I could refer him to that preferably isn't really huge? I referred him to the Fat Cow videos, but he just rebuked me because those "are 700 MB and take way too long to download." Sigh. The stickied thread on the official druid forums seemed like it was aimed mostly at sub level 70 players. Heck, even any minor tips and tricks you guys learned that might seem like common knowledge would be appreciated.

 

◊ Noressa

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.

 

Myonax

From a 5v5 perspective on my druid alt, I am having a lot of love for Tranquility lately. I find it very easy to duck around a Pillar and tranquil the entire group to full. Even against a good team you will most likely get two ticks off which is roughly 4k health for everyone in the group. If I am under the bridge and blades edge and they are all up top LOS doesn't stop them from getting the full benefit. The only warning is as soon as your group is full you better be ready to run, because its a huge kill me now sign.

 

Persian

I'm pretty sure that mana burn still removes mana on a shifted target - you just don't see it go.

 

dantae

I play 2v2 with a warrior generally and we've run into issues against frost mage/rogue teams. I don't really see any reliable way to beat them, I can stay in stealth long enough for them to open on my warrior at which point I have to NS because I can't risk a CS if the mage is quick enough, then they just go on me, I'm down NS and between stuns and freezes/slows from both of them I just can't get away fast enough. I can't really cyclone either because a CS = game over. I have a little over 10k hp and 375ish resil, but I still drop so fast it's not funny. Am I doing something glaringly wrong or is it just one of those combos I have to stop queuing against?

 

• Cynic

Feral Charge the mage > Cyclone > HoTs maybe? I'm no expert, but I do 2v2 with a (feral) druid and I find it works well for us.

HoTs should be more then enuf to keep the warrior up against a rogue I would imagine. Also you might try killing the WE, pressuring the mage + rooting the rogue. Really cuts their DPS to nill.

If your War is really taking such a beating in the beginning, a quick Def stance + reflect can do wonders.

 

DecimusGarona

No it does not, you can't be mana burned in feral forms.

 

Xantcha

Sadly you can be mana burned/viper stinged in travel form(s).

 

Quixotic

You'd be suprised on how many teams don't go for the druid. I recently jumped on my friend's feral druid 2v2 team, he respecced resto with random rotting PvE resto gear (had about 90 res, 900 healing) and took it to 2005. The only time anyone goes for a druid is if they are a rogue, or if it is warlock/healer and I leave him to his own buisness while I go after their healer.

If any other class goes after the druid, you are free to fear them off the druid which gives him more distance to kite, or time to cyclone/root them. Any game a non warrior goes on my druid, 99% of the time it's a win for us.

 

Quixotic

Warrior + druid is the counter to any warlock team. The biggest thing is, never cyclone against 2 dps teams with a warlock, never regrowth, never HT. You can out heal with a 3 stack lifebloom + rejuv + swiftmend. You should also never be feared by single target fear, ever, outside of the deathcoil + fear, which is what your trinket is for. You can stay out of los when the hots are up.

Warlock + Frost mage - This team is relatively bad, only if they sheep you and burst the druid down so always stay out of los, and kill the water elemental asap upon spawning. No heals mean you will win by attrition if you never allow the druid to be feared, for if he is kiting a mage, the mage will never get a single casted spell off, and the druid can easily outheal dots with hots. Keep hamstring on both targets and have the druid run around a pillar, immeadiately switching out of frost nova to prevent ice lance crits.

Warlock + Shadowpriest - Come out of stealth and pre HoT the warrior and have him stay on the shadow priest. He should be pummeling any casted spell, and your hots can outheal the warlock + shadowpriests dots. If you get deathcoiled trinket, if he gets deathcoiled, he needs to trinket, + defensive stance + intervene to you out of LoS to stop incoming damage while the hots heal him up. Always be watching for good times for intervene + warrior kills felhunter (it's an affliction lock and will die with only 5.5k hp very fast). It frees you up for cyclones and regrowths and allows you to get out of combat to drink. Your goal is to outlast the shadow priest's mana pool, or to kill him outright with a lack of healing on their team.

Warlock + Paladin - be very agressive on making many attempts to kill the felhunter. Lure it back away from the paladin as much as possible and then intercept to warlock + intervene to you and try and kill it. Even if you fail the warlock will bring it back and it will allow you to get drinks off. There is no danger of burst so try and get many cyclones/roots off on the pet and drink whenever you can. The more you get drinks off the fight becomes a joke because the warrior has MS and constant damage with the ability to burst, while the SL lock has no healing debuff and no burst to force you to keep healing outside of hots. Always look for the opportunity to burst the lock down with well timed cyclones.

 

Currylaksa

HT is not bad, if you know when to use it in the presence of trigger-finger dispellers. The real reason is we don't have the spare 7 talent points for healing touch.

I could be wrong, but I believe that 23/38 locks are better off with Paladins. Without treeform, resto druid mana can't sustain an attrition fight. An affliction or demo would suit you better as you aim to burst down one within a couple cyclone-fears.

Well, you have to really decide whether you want to play resto fulltime since the gearing up part will test your resolve. Because arena with anything less is a quick gib.

Head: Spirit shard turn-in Exorcist's Wyrmhide Helm - Items - World of Warcraft
Neck: Veteran Salvation
Shoulder: HWL Kodohide
Back: Honor reward
Chest: The Netherstorm quest reward Lifewarden's Breastplate - Items - World of Warcraft
Bracer: Veteran Kodohide
1H: Dagger from 3rd boss Botanica Runed Dagger of Solace - Items - World of Warcraft
OH: Anything with +sta and +healing from AH
Relic: Nagrand quest reward Harold's Rejuvenating Broach - Items - World of Warcraft
Glove: HWL Kodohide
Belt: Veteran Kodohide
Pants: halaa token turn-in Dreamstalker Leggings - Items - World of Warcraft
Boots: Veteran Kodohide
Ring1: Veteran Salvation
Ring2: Veteran Dominance, Seal of the Exorcist or the Karazhan rep ring
Trinket1: Medallion of the Horde
Trinket2: I recommend the Talisman of the Horde

 

Zure

I just started playing a druid in 2v2s with a lock friend. I'll just be summarizing, but hopefully it will help:

Versus 2x dps, your goal should be to stagger their damage so that you can heal through it. That can be done through line of sight, or CC (cyclone, roots, even hibernate in some cases). Druids have poor reactive healing, so keep at least a rejuv up for swiftmend since this team can burst you or your partner down fast.

Versus dps+healer, your goal is to either:

a) win a war of attrition -- LoS/bear forming mana burns, while running their healer out of mana. Remember to drink whenever you have a chance, even if you aren't out of mana yet if you play this strat, and for god sakes stay out of dispel range when you innervate!

b) win through well-timed CC -- once they burn their trinket, wait for a healer to let his partner fall a bit. A Cyclonex3+feral charge+bash combo gives your partner up to 20 seconds to burn down his target's remaining hp. Roots works well here too when you can lure the dps away from his healer.


General advice is to:

Understand line of sight in every arena. a druid's instant casts make you ideal for this;

Understand your CCs, roots is amazing in some situations, hibernate even has value, warstomp wins games, bash, and even the rare catform --> pounce if you somehow find yourself OOC, all have the potential to change the outcome of a match;

Understand the opposing team's interrupts and dispels:
For example, roots is very weak versus a team with a defensive dispeller, but in a pinch roots --> faerie fire can frustrate paladin cleanses for that extra 1.5 seconds it takes to get your partner into a safe kiting space;
Against offensive dispellers, shift to emphasizing lifebloom

Understand how to kite kite kite -- travel form, nature's grasp, bear --> feral charge an opponent near where you want to be, there are just so many escape options on a druid. Only once you're comfortable running, can you learn to heal while running. Eventually it becomes second nature and you will be almost always in motion while healing.

The best healing druid videos I've seen are by Mookysolo and Gronzy. I don't have links unfortunately but I know the mookysolo one is only 200 mB. On my computer the file is "mookystinks2 - 81340". I assume this means he chose extra range on roots/cyclone over ToL, which is a wise decision if you pvp exclusively.