[Druid] The Resto PVP Thread - Page 5

tau · 08/31/07, 8:05 AM

<- Sytadel's (Maynard's) pvp partner.

We had an interesting set of 3 matches vs a mirror match druid/rogue team and won all three times. They were combat swords, I'm mutilate. They were pretty interesting though.

First game took so damn long Sytadel was able to use innervate twice (and it takes him a while to even need it in the first place). It was finally won through use of expose/rupture followed by a ks>kb>mutilate combo.

The second and third games were won by catching their druid in PvE gear which they switched to so that they could keep up the heals and poison removals.

One thing of interest that I noticed though with AR was how simple it was for me to waste their cooldown by simply saving a few cooldowns for when they pop it to kite the other rogue around, effectively nullifying the effect of their AR as opposed to cold blood, which I find is quite useful as it seems getting that burst in windows of opportunity can be the difference between a win and a loss, and generally can't be wasted as it's an instant dose of burst. I only got below about 20% once when I got lazy and took an entire AR worth of sinister strikes, but even then a CLoS to get rid of wounding and an ns/heal from syt, which was probably the only time he even needed it all 3 games, put me far out of death's reaches.

From these and other examples, I've found it seems I just have so much control and ability to burst during said control that i otherwise don't get with combat. The ability to target switch also helps when such a switch is needed too.

Edit: While it's true that their druid had died in the second and third games due to wearing PvE gear, if they had been in PvP gear they simply wouldn't have been able to keep the other rogue alive for such a duration

Grymm · 08/31/07, 3:02 PM

I paired my druid (8/13/40 feline swiftness) with a guildie's main Demo-warlock. The warlock is our raid caster tank on fights like Leotheras/Capernian so his damage mitigation and hp totals for a clothy are formidable. He used to start with a felguard out being that it's the top talent pet, but we've had much more success once he switched to felguard. As my druid adds gear (I'm wearing 3 "of stamina" greens to keep my hp up), we're moving up in rank (166x, 27-13 overall or some such).

Playing in a mid bracket, we've played a couple types of teams. Mage/Warlock gib team, Warrior/Paladin, or DPS/Druid. We've seen maybe a couple shaman, no holy priests, and, thankfully, only a couple outlast matches of which we only lost one (any match where my innervate CD comes up again).

I know a lot of guys are putting a point in ToL for raiding, but how would you evaluate Feline Swiftness vs. cyclone range? I get focused a lot so I took the swiftness to be able to hide my mana, run away, and break combat stealth. Right now, one of our key strats is rooting warriors behind columns/los and moving the fight away from them. The feline swiftness helps this a lot. I don't think I'm a good enough player to make sufficient use of the bonus range other than in the BE arena where we're often fighting caster dps from one side and my warlock in the middle with me keeping at max range.

Also, as a resto druid wearing only healing gear, do you guys attempt to DPS at all? I cast offensive spells (other than rank 1 spam) rarely and almost never before 1 player on the other team is dead and we're about to win.

Kaber · 08/31/07, 3:52 PM

Originally Posted by Grymm

I paired my druid (8/13/40 feline swiftness) with a guildie's main Demo-warlock. The warlock is our raid caster tank on fights like Leotheras/Capernian so his damage mitigation and hp totals for a clothy are formidable. He used to start with a felguard out being that it's the top talent pet, but we've had much more success once he switched to felguard. As my druid adds gear (I'm wearing 3 "of stamina" greens to keep my hp up), we're moving up in rank (166x, 27-13 overall or some such).

Playing in a mid bracket, we've played a couple types of teams. Mage/Warlock gib team, Warrior/Paladin, or DPS/Druid. We've seen maybe a couple shaman, no holy priests, and, thankfully, only a couple outlast matches of which we only lost one (any match where my innervate CD comes up again).

I know a lot of guys are putting a point in ToL for raiding, but how would you evaluate Feline Swiftness vs. cyclone range? I get focused a lot so I took the swiftness to be able to hide my mana, run away, and break combat stealth. Right now, one of our key strats is rooting warriors behind columns/los and moving the fight away from them. The feline swiftness helps this a lot. I don't think I'm a good enough player to make sufficient use of the bonus range other than in the BE arena where we're often fighting caster dps from one side and my warlock in the middle with me keeping at max range.

Also, as a resto druid wearing only healing gear, do you guys attempt to DPS at all? I cast offensive spells (other than rank 1 spam) rarely and almost never before 1 player on the other team is dead and we're about to win.

I break out my mace before I start wasting mana on spells unless the game is already in the bag. I'm not that experienced so take that with a gain of salt, but I would much rather have the mana to cast a few lifeblooms (and proc some free heals with OOC) than try to cast some very weak damage spells.

breed · 09/03/07, 7:49 PM

Team leader wants me to main heal a rogue, lock, s.priest or warrior, ele/resto shaman team. I'm really leaning against it, thinking that the hps of druids is not enough to keep up a whole team against a 4man dps, definitely with no cyclones, and roots - I feel the pallie is better as main healer and the druid is good at support... but that rules out the 4 man dps team. The main good of a 4 man, heroism, is pretty much useless for a druid - i never cast ht - u dont want to get spell locked. I guess the leader feels im up to it =(.

Zure · 09/03/07, 9:22 PM

Originally Posted by breed

Team leader wants me to main heal a rogue, lock, s.priest or warrior, ele/resto shaman team. I'm really leaning against it, thinking that the hps of druids is not enough to keep up a whole team against a 4man dps, definitely with no cyclones, and roots - I feel the pallie is better as main healer and the druid is good at support... but that rules out the 4 man dps team. The main good of a 4 man, heroism, is pretty much useless for a druid - i never cast ht - u dont want to get spell locked. I guess the leader feels im up to it =(.

Bloodlust lowers the GCD, so we do benefit, and regrowth should be used liberally when CS isn't a concern. Druids can heal very well at low rating 4dps setups,

Maynard · 09/03/07, 10:00 PM

I play on Bloodlust (many Australians) with a high ping, so take this with a grain of salt, but I find spells under 1.0s are generally a little too fast for most players' reaction times. With Bloodlust + PvP Gloves you should be able to manage to get off a few cyclones, I would think?

Monsanto · 09/04/07, 3:39 AM

Regarding the Nature's Reach variants:

How easy is it to make use of the extra 6 yards? I don't really have a good sense for distance when it comes to a virtual world, but the way I figure it, that's only about an extra 1 second of travel time for an opponent to get in range. When it comes to warriors, they seem to benefit from server lag when it comes time to getting off charges and intercepts (especially when they start mounted). Does the extra 6 yard range make a noticable difference with that?

Regarding Spell Hit and Spell Penetration:

In my 2 years of WoW, I've been either a healer, a tank, or a melee dps. I've never been a magical dps class, so I'm unfamiliar with some of those mechanics. I'm interested in the 20 spell penetration to cloak enchant, and the 15 spell hit rating to gloves enchant. Which one of these enchants (or both) is the correct one to take when trying to minimize CC resists?

crimsonsentinel · 09/04/07, 6:30 AM

IMO extra range is about as game-breaking as minor boot speed. It might seem trivial at first, but its actually a huge deal. You'll miss it a lot if you're used to it and suddenly dont have it.

CasT · 09/04/07, 6:45 AM

Originally Posted by Grymm

I paired my druid (8/13/40 feline swiftness) with a guildie's main Demo-warlock. The warlock is our raid caster tank on fights like Leotheras/Capernian so his damage mitigation and hp totals for a clothy are formidable. He used to start with a felguard out being that it's the top talent pet, but we've had much more success once he switched to felguard. As my druid adds gear (I'm wearing 3 "of stamina" greens to keep my hp up), we're moving up in rank (166x, 27-13 overall or some such).

Playing in a mid bracket, we've played a couple types of teams. Mage/Warlock gib team, Warrior/Paladin, or DPS/Druid. We've seen maybe a couple shaman, no holy priests, and, thankfully, only a couple outlast matches of which we only lost one (any match where my innervate CD comes up again).

I know a lot of guys are putting a point in ToL for raiding, but how would you evaluate Feline Swiftness vs. cyclone range? I get focused a lot so I took the swiftness to be able to hide my mana, run away, and break combat stealth. Right now, one of our key strats is rooting warriors behind columns/los and moving the fight away from them. The feline swiftness helps this a lot. I don't think I'm a good enough player to make sufficient use of the bonus range other than in the BE arena where we're often fighting caster dps from one side and my warlock in the middle with me keeping at max range.

Also, as a resto druid wearing only healing gear, do you guys attempt to DPS at all? I cast offensive spells (other than rank 1 spam) rarely and almost never before 1 player on the other team is dead and we're about to win.

Every Durid with little pvp experience will tell you that the only bonus you never ever in your life want to break is the 4pcs increased outdoor speed.

The offencive part of druid healing is to make the opponents pay :P Casting abilities thatare cheap but costs more in dispelling is very useful.

DarkChylde · 09/04/07, 8:54 AM

What gems do you guys find optimal for the red and yellow sockets that are present in the druid PvP set (including the BT epic gems)?

Maynard · 09/04/07, 12:40 PM

Has any other rogue/druid combos had any experiences with priest/rogue? My team had a bad 1-4 streak against this team tonight, admittedly, all losses were on Ruins of Lordaeron where avoiding mana burn is a 24/7 job. ~1900-1950 level teams.

We can't seem to find a way to win this encounter, if my rogue is on the priest then the priest is usually capable of getting away as I can only really cyclone the rogue (roots risking major ProM proccing), between fears and stuns from the enemy rogue my partner just can't stay on the priest for too long it seems. If this is simply a skills defecit on our part I'm capable of accepting that but, either way, it was troublesome at the time.

So, if that's a given, if it becomes rogue vs. rogue and priest/druid, I am kiting mana burn for a great portion of the time and generally lose mana slightly faster than the priest due to the occasional but inevitable fear bomb + mana burn every so often. Abolish doesn't feel like a huge advantage given I am not casting much on the rogue, so he can just use CloS to get rid of my partner's abolish. My rogue (mutilate), though he swears by mutilate, I cannot help but feel the enemy rogue's (combat mace) mace stuns + sustained dps of combat + ability to AR and burn him down while I am trying to drink is also problematic.

When I do get the opportunity do drink (usually cyclone priest, hot rogue, run around out of LOS and drink in room), the priest just drops combat and drinks himself. Problem is, I have to run a good distance to drink whereas he can just camp the tomb. This is where the stalemate truly begins as I simply cannot outlast the priest. I tried switching to PvE gear and while this helped, it didn't really fix things, and it's obviously not a strategy I want to rely on given the changes coming next patch.

Ironically we've found most rogue/priest teams to be fairly easy, but this team and one a fortnight ago both presented problems for us. Any tips?

Caal · 09/04/07, 4:28 PM

First of all, your rogue is likely getting trashed in the rogue on rogue fight. That's really no contest. Second of all, you need to play more aggressively. If you don't wanna get mana burned, the best way to go about it is to force him to have to heal. Use cyclones and feral charges and maims and whatever else to get the priest behind on healing. If your rogue is any good, you're likely able to kill their rogue without the priest getting off many casts period. It's certainly an uphill battle if your rogue is muti vs combat though. It's workable through a LOT of coordination.

Maynard · 09/04/07, 11:15 PM

I tried that a bit, but my rogue just complained of ProM bounces healing more than he was able to damage.

When the bear/cat control begins perhaps I could try cycloning the rogue (who has ProM), cleansing my partner, and having him switch to the priest for a while?

I can see this is going to be very coordination heavy...

Herrera · 09/05/07, 3:41 AM

You have nothing but advantage over priest/rogue team once rogues start picking on each other. Their priest heals 50% less effectively, while you heal 100% and with hots. All priests will start mana burning the opposing healer whenever chance given, but as previous post said, your cyclone 1.4sec > priest mana burn 2.0sec. Keep priest cycloned until DR is up, by which time he will have to heal his rogue. Keep a distance with priest and when you see him run towards you, it really takes 1 brain cell to know he's going to fear, which you can just bear/cat to prevent mana burns, or charge/bash to surprise.
Have in mind that your team can always prevent "oh shit" situations, while they can't, thanks to cyclone.

• Melador · 09/05/07, 11:10 AM

I know there was a little discussion of this earlier in the thread but one thing wasn't clear to me regarding mana burn. It's my understanding that if you're currently being mana burnt, going into cat/bear won't break the mana burn and you'll still get burnt for the full duration, but if you're in cat/bear when mana burn lands, it'll fizzle. Is that correct?

◊ Lord BEEF · 09/05/07, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by Monsanto

Regarding the Nature's Reach variants:

How easy is it to make use of the extra 6 yards?
Regarding Spell Hit and Spell Penetration:

In my 2 years of WoW, I've been either a healer, a tank, or a melee dps. I've never been a magical dps class, so I'm unfamiliar with some of those mechanics. I'm interested in the 20 spell penetration to cloak enchant, and the 15 spell hit rating to gloves enchant. Which one of these enchants (or both) is the correct one to take when trying to minimize CC resists?

For the first question: Very. The extra range is VERY nice. It makes being able to cyclone mages a lot easier.

As for the second question, I use both. Spell penetration is less useful but still handy. This just gets rid of the resists that people may have from buffs/racials (I don't think anyone really wears nature resist gear in arenas).

Night elves and taurens will have 10 nature resist, Blood elves will have 5 to all, mages may have 10 to all if they spec for it (not sure how likely that is), and anyone will have 25 on top of that to all if they have mark of the wild on them. The cloak enchant eliminates the majority of this.

As for spell hit, I went with the glove enchant and a gem in my hat and it sure feels like I'm getting resisted a lot less. This gives just under 2% spell hit so my resist rate from the standard level based resist is down to 2% from 4%.

As a side note I've started partnering with an unstable affliction warlock in 2v2 and it's so unfair it's not funny. Against warrior/pal or warrior/priest the warrior will get maybe 10 swings off the entire fight because he's constantly rooted, cycloned, or occasionally feared.

soulpure · 09/05/07, 2:36 PM

Hey guys I run 2s with a warrior friend of mine (i'm a druid). We are having a lot of trouble with dual mage and mage/rogue. Can anyone share some experiences against these teams? Our problems tend to be the warrior just getting chain sheeped for a maority of the fight...and thers only so much i can do to kite with a mage's slowing effects mixed with deadly throw and crippling.

Thanks in advance!

Touf · 09/05/07, 6:22 PM

Originally Posted by Melador

I know there was a little discussion of this earlier in the thread but one thing wasn't clear to me regarding mana burn. It's my understanding that if you're currently being mana burnt, going into cat/bear won't break the mana burn and you'll still get burnt for the full duration, but if you're in cat/bear when mana burn lands, it'll fizzle. Is that correct?

Mana burn isn't channeled.

demonen · 09/05/07, 8:27 PM

Originally Posted by soulpure

Hey guys I run 2s with a warrior friend of mine (i'm a druid). We are having a lot of trouble with dual mage and mage/rogue. Can anyone share some experiences against these teams? Our problems tend to be the warrior just getting chain sheeped for a maority of the fight...and thers only so much i can do to kite with a mage's slowing effects mixed with deadly throw and crippling.

Thanks in advance!

I also play with a warrior, currently a little below 2200 rating, and mage+rogue is one of the worst setups for us. Luckily it's not very common at high ratings.

Your game plan should be something like this:
Get your warrior on the rogue. You could even run around in circles until the stealth detection buff comes up - the self dot also serves as polymorph protection.
Wait for as long as possible to break stealth and heal.
Do everything you can to keep the mage from polymorphing the warrior - cyclone, feral charge, bash, warstomp, pray to god for a polymorph resist etc etc.

If the rogue is still alive when the warrior gets polymorphed, you try to kite until he is immune to poly.

Sometimes it works, usually it doesn't... But if anyone got a better plan please tell

soulpure · 09/05/07, 9:10 PM

Using the invis dot to break stealth sounds like a great idea. I never even thought about that. I'll see if my warrior can stay mounted and kiting until it pops up.

One thing we have been having luck with is a quick spell reflect on poly, but most good mages would see it coming.

What are your experiences with dual frost mage?

Mistaya · 09/06/07, 1:42 AM

Looking for some 2's advice. A friend of mine asked to make a new team, he's either arcane or fire spec mage. (I'm 8/11/42) So we start playing at 1500 and it just isn't working. The fight generally starts with either him getting gibbed completely, and me unable to do anything past the initial NS, if I even have time for that, or me kiting off the melee while he yells at me for moving them out of his range.

I know that we're having a really large communications issue, but I'm wondering how we should be going about this in the first place. I'm at a loss. How do I keep this 0 resiliance squishy alive long enough for him to do any damage at all? My gear isn't the best either, (running about 9k HP, 1k healing, and 120 resil, working on the other PVP honor point pieces now.)

Maynard · 09/06/07, 9:00 AM

Aside from the obvious "make your mage run BGs and spec frost", all I can suggest is to be proactive. Go in double stealth (invisibility/cat form), open up in cat and switch to bear, maybe rooting/cycloning any mean threats between the shift. Get them confused and out of order, so that when he pops out of invisibility, they're already semi-controlled and attempting to deal with you (in bear, with lots of HP).

• Melador · 09/07/07, 2:20 AM

Originally Posted by Touf

Mana burn isn't channeled.

Oops, I was thinking of Drain Mana, not Mana Burn.

Xanios · 09/07/07, 12:24 PM

Last night was my first night PvPing resto since BC has come out, i started getting my gear on sunday and i am now sitting at 9.6k hp, 8k mana, 1150+healing and 280 resilience, I ran 2's last night with a DL / SL warlock and we got to 1780, when we hit the 1700 bracket we started having some issues with paladins, mostly it was due to lack of experience, but i was wondering in situations with paladin / warrior, do you find it more efficient to kill paladin first, or try to CC him?