Rawr is not for grinding mobs. Your friend is basically right; pull with FFF, open with rake, mangle to taste, finish with Ferocious Bite (or optionally Savage Roar I guess).

Hi, I'm relatively new to being a Druid and this particular section of the forums so if this is in the wrong place or something please be gentle with me.
My guild has found ourselves short on healers due to people choosing other specs and/or quitting WoW, so I decided to level up my druid to help out with the healer deficit. I've religiously played my rogue for years and never leveled another class above 20 until my druid, and now, as I come within a week of 80, I'm having a bit of trouble finding "beginner" resources for this class.

I was hoping for something equivalent to Vulajin's Rogue PVE DPS guide.

I spent a long time "doing it wrong" as a rogue and being referred to his guide and subsequently these forums changed the way i played my class and the game.
So I'm just trying to get off on the right foot with my Druid but most everything I'm finding is a little above my knowledge level on this class. I'm just looking for the bare-bones yes's and no's of the class so i can feel a bit more like i know what everyone is talking about when i read the other resources here.

Is there any preexisting article like this that anyone knows of?

All the time you spend finding out the best rotation for cat leveling you would have spent leveling Just whing it. I usually either pull, charge in or walk, mangle spam (an early rake is nice too) and finish with FB.
One thing I do (nearly fully naxx geared at this point) to solo at 80 is mangle, rake (mangle till 3rd CP if not already there) and finish with Rip. Move on to the next mob while the current one still hits you. Let him. He's dead anyway. He just doesn't know it yet. It saves time you have to run back to loot it and you don't loose all energy as you would using FB. Meaning you can kill faster. You get some more damage, but hey... just use the mana you got from crits to throw yourself a heal once in a while.

None that I know of, though you could glean most of what you need from separate sources. I'll link some useful threads and try to fill in the gaps.
Resto pre-raid gear Equipment from quests, heroics etc that will get you a great start.
Restoration Glyphs Glyph choices (I'd recommend Lifebloom, Swiftmend and Regrowth)
Raid Rx: Unkicking butt (a Grid story) - WoW Insider This should help you set up Grid, an absolutely essential addon.
Resto UI Discussion For any additional UI issues, especially if you can't get something working with Grid.
Druid Gem Compilation Gems to choose from. Go with Runed Scarlet, Luminous Monarch, Royal Twilight (or Purified Twilight if available on your server). Meta should -always- be Insightful Earthsiege Diamond, the mana proc is amazing.

First of all, being a Resto Druid isn't as cut-and-dry as dps, as there isn't really a practical way to measure success other than "nobody died" (don't pay much attention to healing meters). There is rarely a "best" way of doing anything. You'll find lots of conflicting opinions, and lots of different options to choose from. I'll steer you in a direction that will at least make sure you're being effective; there's will be room for improvement. I'm sure somebody will come in and say I'm wrong about X or Y. They will probably be right, since this post looks like I'm recommending a best method, when in reality it's more of a beginner's guide.

-=- Spells -=-
Descriptions assume you have the related talents/glyphs.
Rejuvenation An 18-second HoT. Extremely efficient not only for healing missing damage, but pre-healing damage you know will come in the future. Always keep one on the tanks, and I'd recommend using it to heal any periodic raid damage.
Lifebloom A stacking HoT which lasts 10 seconds and ticks every second. When the HoT expires, it "blooms" for a decent heal. You'll see druids use the verb "roll" which means to make sure a 3-stack lifebloom doesn't expire from the target. You only want to use this spell in that fashion: keep a 3-stack on a target who will be taking frequent damage (a tank). Sometimes you might need to use it as an extra HoT on somebody when Rejuvenation isn't healing enough, but those situations are infrequent.
Regrowth Direct heal with a very high crit chance. Leaves behind a 27 second HoT. This is your #1 go-to heal when somebody needs health now.
Nourish A quick, direct heal. Generally overshadowed by Regrowth, but it may find occasional use.
Wild Growth A 6-second HoT which gets applied to 5 people. It picks the targets with the least health that are in range of your target. 6-second cooldown. This is a great use of mana and time when a group of people are missing health.
Healing Touch This doesn't have much use outside of a big emergency heal in combination with Nature's Swiftness.
Swiftmend Another emergency heal that requires Rejuvenation or Regrowth HoT on the target, with a cooldown of only 15 seconds. Don't be afraid to use the cooldown on this, it's better to be cautious. If it looks like a person has even a small chance of dying before you can get a Regrowth off, use this. Grid will tell you if the target has the required HoT on them, but chances are very high they do.


-=- Equipment -=-
You can read about the effects of each stat here: Restoration Itemization
-feel free to wear cloth or leather.
-Spellpower, Int and Stamina will come on everything. You generally don't need to worry about it or count how much is on the item. Higher level items will have more of it.
-The "extra" stats that come on gear are Spirit, Haste, Crit and Mp5. No gear will come with all 4 of those extra stats. Stuff from quests and Heroics may have just 1, while stuff from raids will have more. Spirit is the best of the four, no question. Mp5 is next, followed by Haste and then Crit.
-Unlike a rogue, our global cooldown (GCD) is 1.5 seconds. Haste will decrease this to a minimum of 1 second. Having enough Haste to reduce the GCD to 1 second is important, and will eventually come with gear.

So basically just shoot for high level gear that has Spirit. After that it gets a little more nuanced, but no item will be a waste. The numbers game isn't as important as a healer. Once you're having to decide between different pieces of ilvl 213 or 226 raid gear, go for Spirit+Mp5 first, Spirit+Haste second, Spirit+Crit third. At that point you will have enough haste to reach 1s GCD.

-=- Talent Spec -=-
Here are the core talents everybody (should) take: 11-0-51 Restoration
(I added 1 point in Living Seed to be able to get to the bottom of the tree. You should have 10 points left, not 9.)
Here are your effective options for the extra 10 points:
Nature's Grace .5 cast speed increase after crit.
Celestial Focus Increased haste.
Living Seed A small on-hit heal buff after a crit.
Natural Perfection 3% crit.
Replenish A chance for extra mana/energy/rage/runic on Rejuvenation heals.

Which talents you go with depend on your healing style. Heavy Regrowth users will probably benefit most from Living Seed and Nature's Grace. Heavy Lifebloom/Rejuvenation users will benefit more from Celestial Focus and Replenish. Using any direct heal often (Regrowth, Nourish) will benefit from Natural Perfection.

Replenish is seen as not very effective unless you're a -very- heavy Rejuvenation user. Almost everybody takes Nature's Grace. You can check other Druids' specs by clicking on their character's name on this forum to get an idea of what other people use.

-=- Which spells to cast -=-
Everybody seems to have a different style of healing. Most work fine. Which spells you use depends on your healing assignment and the fight mechanics. The only one to stay away from is Healing Touch spec. That one would spec into Naturalist, Empowered Touch (and maybe some points in Tranquil Spirit) and use the Healing Touch glyph. That glyph makes HT like a flash heal. I'd recommend maybe toying with that just to feel it out, but don't seriously consider it for raiding. It's less effective than other styles.

Direct heal: Regrowth vs Nourish
You can probably find some good posts comparing these abilities. Essentially Regrowth is more efficient on average, but Nourish is a quicker heal and more consistent. It's up to you which to use, though most people go with Regrowth. Either way, you don't have to make this choice until you have access to 4pc tier7. Without that set bonus, Regrowth wins hands down.

Tank healing: always have Rejuvenation and Lifebloom x3 on the tank. Those spells are extremely effective and efficient. If you're assigned specifically to heal a tank, you'll want to supplement those with either Regrowth or Nourish.

Raid healing: Rejuvenation and occasional Wild Growth. Rejuvenation makes the perfect raid heal; it's extremely efficient and only takes 1 second to apply. It shines for periodic damage, but if somebody takes a sudden 10k hit from a whirlwind or something, go for Regrowth instead (or swiftmend).

It's difficult to know what heals to use and when by reading a post. You really have to get a feel for it, so you can look ahead and know what will be most effective in any given situation. With Grid set up and the right spec/equipment, you will do OK as long as you pay attention.

Hi my name is Denno i play a moonkin on the realm ravenholdt and i got a question for all you moonkins (dont mind the spelling)

The last couple of weeks i keep on getting partial resists in my dmg

this is getting quite annoying so i decided to gave it a little test

out of my test came this

this is out of 20 starfires on the boss lvl target dummy in ogrimar


any 1 know wtf is going on ?

Spells get partially resisted - This is nothing new.
On average you loose like 3.5-4% to it.

Well, I couldnt remember any article for a druid, that is for the WotLK basics, but I will try to help out with what I can tell you about druid healing:

So as you are a beginner here is what I would say is the most important thing to know: Your strength are HoTs (Heal of Time).

Look at your skills: rejuvenation, lifebloom, regrwoth, wild growth. all you depend on is HoTs. Now one might argue wether Glyphed HT could make you a good direct healer, like flash healing priest, but you wanna know basics.

So well, since you make no specific questions I will assume you want to go raiding or instances, so heres the basics:

You have to keep your HoTs rolling. Which one is what you have to decide. Since WotLK the druid got a larger flexibility than ever and perhaps than any healing class.

Keeping HoTs rolling means, if they run out, renew them or refresh them before running out, depending on the HoT.

So heres how I heal: I prefer Regrwoth, it's my main heal, so when a fight starts, I wll most likely start casting so that it arrives when the first hits did land. And heres a general rule for precise healing: Dont wait for the damage: Where you can expect it, time it. Cast a large heal when you know the damage comes. Or time the ticks of a HoT. Back to my strategy: When Regwroth is up, I get a Rejuv(enation) on the tank, and depending on damage and experience, give a Lifebloom (or some stacks) to get more incoming heal.

Other healing tactics rely on Lifebloom stacking, not letting it run out, but this was made less efficient compared to TBC.

Well so for equipment: You may wear cloth but leather items are definitley not hard to find, so I prefer to not wear cloth.

Your main stats are spirit, spell power, some int and a bit haste.

I would say SP > Spi > Int > Haste
But only up to some limit. Spirit round 1k is just fine, i normally dont need innervate myself. Haste is jsut good up to some factor. Dont remember the values, depend on Auras and so on. Just keep in mind its not useless but neither extremly important.

For the Glyph you should do some Forum Research, but it clearly depends on your playstyle, there is no must have healing Setup.

Well thats the basics for druids.

Since I am a healer from preBC, feral BC, heal WotLK again, I may miss some basics to explain, since they seem obvious to me.

Hope I could provide a bit help to you.

Najtrok

No.

The only reason why is worked is because you could (can?) cancel buffs dependent on your energy/rage value. So the macro canceled cat form then recast it when you weren't in cat form.

Check the talent description

A big thank you to red and Najtrok.
A few things were cleared up for me, and I definitely appreciate the consolidated list of links. I will most definitely have to save your post for easy access to those!

Thanks again!
=]

I'm trying to pick up pieces of offspec resto gear in the event I need to respec for a night. I have not been resto on a regular basis since 40man Naxx, so I'm a little out of touch. I started looking through the resto itemization thread and noticed the red and purple loot rank links. Loot rank however doesn't list one of the few items I wanted to compare. [Headpiece of Fungal Bloom]. I had picked up [Noth's Curse] from the shard pile in 10 man previously, so I was trying to compare to that in addition to the other 25 man helms available. So my question is, how does [Headpiece of Fungal Bloom] compare?

Perhaps I am wrong, but I dont like the mp5 Items since Spirit gives SP and Innervate scales only with Spirit. So I dont take mp5 mostly. But since the portion of Spellpower and Int is better on [Headpiece of Fungal Bloom], I would take it if I think I have enough Regen, ignoring the mp5 part.

But maybe I am wrong. I would give to any other guy wanting it, but thats my personal preference

Hey guys...first post here.

I have been off of WoW for about 5 months but decided to play again because it couldn't leave my mind (as usual when I take a break).

After much consideration I rolled a Tauren Druid last night. My question is this, and if it has been covered in detail somewhere - I apologize. I'm still learning how to navigate the site: With the changes to Druids in Wotlk, how viable is Balance for leveling? More specifically, how viable is it pre 40 and Moonkin, and how viable is it after that point?

Thanks

edit: Answered via PM. Thanks.

I am the usual main tank (The World of Warcraft Armory) for my guild, which mainly does 10-mans currently. We just started doing a naxx25 coop with another guild and I noticed that a few of their members(mainly their Enhancement Shaman) were putting out a lot more threat than I am used to seeing. I see many people talking about 4.5-5k tps being bad for a 25 man tank and was hoping to get any insight on how to push my tps higher than that.

I keep Lacerate up, queue Maul 100% of the time, Mangle when its up, mix swipe in when I don't need to Lacerate or Mangle. The only thing I can think of is to work on my hit rating some more.

I know I need to enchant my Staff/Bracers, they dropped last night and I logged after we finished KT.

Is there anything that I am missing? Any help or suggestions are welcome.

I'm assuming this is your usual spec and usual gear.

1) Get Omen of Clarity
2) Get Improved Mangle
3) Get Full Feral Instinct
4) Primal Tenacity does nothing for you
5) Personally, I don't see the point of Feral Aggression. I think there's more worthwhile stuff to get for a Talent Starved Bear.
6) You might want to consider the blue Idol (bought for Venture Coins)
7) Expertise and Hit rating -should- be okay.
8) Personally (again), I don't really like Valor Medal and Nerubian Shield Ring. I went for more offensive gear. The mitigation loss is marginal, the threat output can be quite nice.
9) If really necessary, consider [Staff of the Plaguehound], but can totally understand being loathe to give up the Origin of Nightmares. At the very least, Mongoose your Origin.
(10) Consider Shredding Attacks. It's not the greatest bang for your bucks when it comes to Rage/Talent Point, but it's still nice and adds quite some DPS for when you're not tanking.

Thanks for the responses guys.

I did try to go for a high survival spec as we did this with four 10 man geared healers and 2 pvp/partial heroics geared healers and I was concerned about survivability. This turned out to be a non-issue though, so I will definitely be swapping some points around.

I usually have OOC and 3/3 Feral Instinct, I swapped those into Primal Tenacity for 8-man achievement runs because we had no totem/abolish for Maexxna. Guess I forgot to swap back out of it :/

I've never really tried out Imp. Mangle since threat in 10 mans is a non-issue, have to give that a shot. I also rarely dps. I much prefer tanking over Cat, personal preference here I guess.

The [Nerubian Shield Ring] is a hold-over from when it's ac received bear multipliers. I plan on picking up a replacement soon. I use [Defender's Code] over the [Valor Medal of the First War]. I have no idea why it isn't showing up and the other loot I picked up is :/

I do appreciate the help guys!

I'm looking for a good Feral DPS Gear guide that focus on gear from 10 and 25man raids. Can anyone point me to a good one?

Thanks for the help

Not exactly what you're asking for, and I can't really judge the quality, but take a look at

Blizz Forums

Of Teeth and Claws blog.

This is a nightelf only question ( or series of questions)
Originally, shadowmeld allowed you to, among other things: drink in fights, to gearswitch in fights, to stealth in some fights, to full aggro dump in a fight, to use it as a sort of poor man's interrupt against a long cast spell, to break combat in world pvp and go bird form, etc. Many of those have been removed, so I'm wondering what tricks can it still do beyond the basic temp aggro dump/finger crossing wipe protection?

I assume that it no longer allows you to gearswitch/permit drinking in pvp encounters, correct?
The aggor dump now is the original temporary version that blizard said that they wanted to have it do, and not the old full aggro dump, correct?
Can it still interrupt spells in pvp ( and in some specialized cases of pve) by making them lose target?
Can you use it to enter full catform stealth in pvp and or in a boss fight (to increase it's ability to act as wipe protection)?
Can you still do the much complaiend about world pvp shadowmeld ==> flightform trick?
Are there any other shadowmeld tricks that still work that I didn't think of/hear about/remember to post?

Quick question to those who have spent more time in Tree form than I; Is there every a reason to blow NS on something that is not HT?

I've used it on combat rez before, rather then let lifebloom stacks fall off. But that was more in TBC when I used to heal and lifebloom stack was the only thing to druid healing.

I guess now you can always just cast your combat rez and NS an HT to catch up, but up to the situation.