Both work well. I've seen videos where Warriors and Paladins tank Sartharion and a Death Knight is just sitting beside Sartharion taunting the breaths with cooldowns up.

Feral druids seem really attractive, ofcourse Twilight Dancing can sometimes be random, but you can bypass the RNG god with Guardian Spirit if you are close to removing the 100% fire damage taken Aura. DK's on the otherhand can bypass the RNG with thier own cooldowns, only problem is if they run out of cooldowns I don't think they can actually survive Melee + breath when the second drake is alive, nevermind the third. (Could be wrong here though.)

Assuming you mean a hybrid tanking/dps spec when you say "general purpose"

I tried to answer each point individually but it didn't really work..

Basically, don't get master shapeshifter for a hybrid spec, you need at least 60 points in feral (for a hybrid spec with all the trimmings you would need 65 points in feral but obviously 11 in resto is mandatory).

Your spec is already going to be suboptimal for either tanking or dps (infected wounds and imp lotp are more tanking talents, kotj is really only a big deal for dps).

Rend and tear 5/5 will be bang for your buck for tanking (threat) and for dps (since you have shredding attacks I can assume you arent planning to mangle spam, R&T is mandatory for shredding)

The last point won't make much difference, it's generally considered that imp mangle is all or nothing, so you might put it in predatory instincts.


As a side note, I have never tanked in wotlk without 3/3 imp mangle - how much of a threat nerf is it? I imagine quite a bit, especially in rage starved situations where you can't rely on mauling every attack.

For a while I was using a hybrid tank/dps spec where the only "imporant" talents I was missing for either role was master shapeshifter, imp leader of the pack, and infected wounds. At the time we had 2 other kitty ferals who could spec imp lotp and 2 prot warriors who could thunderclap, although admittedly I didnt tank much since we had 2 prot warriors :P Only really naxx trash and the occasional boss that required 3-4 tanks, where not having infected wounds was no big deal and I had all the dps talents except master shapeshifter

I´ve found this macro in the Hunter class forum thread Macros
Basically it works like the common macro to mount either a flying or ground mount depending on the area with the slight diffrence of checking wether you´re in Dalaran or Wintergrasp and use the ground mount there too and it works like a charm for my hunter. I couldn´t get it to work for my druid using the diffrent forms though because unlike the CallCompanion function CastSpellByName and CastShapeshiftForm are both protected functions. Now using the addon Mounted recommended in the same thread I managed to mimic the behavior but seeing as the addon goes far beyond the scope of what I want to accomplish I wonder if it´s possible to get a simple macro like the one above to work after all.

At this level of content, you shouldn't need to worry about a hybrid build. You can off-heal as a Moonkin and do so effectively. You will not be at the top of your healing game as if you were spec'ed for healing, but your heals should be fine, particularly if you're switching to healing gear for the encounter.

For a fight like the Four Horsemen, you'll be fine as Balance. Resto-specific gear does help for mana regen purposes (spell/spirit instead of spell/hit/haste) but you should be able to handle any of the healing assignments on this fight; healing one of the melee tanks or healing yourself against one of the caster tanks. If you want 3 healers for a fight such as Sapphiron, you will need to consider your other two healers. If you have aoe healing covered, you can continue to heal as Balance with the other healers able to cover your raid's aoe healing needs. You always have Tranquility as a worst-case for your group. If you don't have enough aoe healing, I'd plan on a respec so you have Wild Growth. Having healed this fight as Resto with a Paladin and Shaman, Wild Growth was quite nice as it allowed me to spread a lot of healing around the raid quickly.

A Druid is certainly a reasonable choice. Given that you have all the mana regen talents, you have good mana regen potential. You will lose out on the tree form mana cost reduction, however.

Hello all,

I've been searching these forums for quite some time and i dont know if this question has been answered, but I havent found it yet. With the changes to FAP in the coming patch im curious as to what will be the best kitty dps weapon. Currently Im using the 25-Man Naxx dps weapon (Not Journey's End but the other on) With the srength being converted to AP the staff is not looking so appealing anymore. I know worldofraids.com posted something about the FAP on 2h Maces and polearms. But I was hoping I vould get some feedback from the druid community.

Will the Titans Destoryer 2h Mace out dps my current staff? Tats the big question. I see alot of maces and polearms, like The Blace Ice that hunters use, with varying allocated item points. Some have hit, some have more agility, some have a ton of strenth. Any ideas on what weapon I might want to go for with the new changes would be greatly appreciated.

Even with all the changes to feral weapons, Journey's End will be far and away the best cat DPS weapon. Check out Toskk's Feral DPS list for more possibilities, including maces and polearms. The numbers he is calculating off of there are very close (1-2 FAP off at most) to the final damage that weapons will now provide for druids; Journey's End is still very much the leader of the pack.

Does anyone know the exact mechanics of Living Seed?

I understand that the amount it heals for is equal to 30% of the effective amount healed when Regrowth, Swiftmend, Healing Touch or Nourish crit. What I'm not sure about is when and how that heal takes effect. If anyone knows, which of the following is true of Living Seed?

1. It shields damage taken, such that a 1k Living Seed would mitigating the damage taken on a 10k hit, causing the effected target to only lose 9k hp.

2. It preemptively heals the target when damage is taken before the damage takes effect, such that a 1k Living Seed on a target who is already down 3k health will heal the target so that he is only down 2k health the moment he is hit by a 10k swing, which would then reduce his health by an additional 10k.

3. It heals after the damage takes effect, such that a 1k Living Seed would not take effect until after a 10k hit reduced the target's health by 10k, at which point that target would gain 1k health from the Living Seed.

Two examples to illustrate my point:

1) The tank has only 9.5k health and takes a 10k swing while having a 1k Living Seed. If case 1 is true, the tank will only take 9k damage, and will survive the hit with 500 health. If case 2 is true, the tank will be healed 1k, giving him 10.5k health (assuming he has at least 10.5k max health) at which point he would take 10k damage and be left with 500 health. If case 3 is true, the target will be instantly killed by the 10k swing.

2) The tank is at full health and is hit by a 10k swing while having a 1k Living Seed. If case 1 is true, the tank will only take 9k damage. If case 2 is true, Living Seed will have no effect and the tank will take the full 10k damage. If case 3 is true, the tank will take the full 10k damage and then be healed by 1k, leaving him with only 9k reduced hp.

I *think* it's like prayer of mending - damage first, then healing/bloom. That's what the talent description says.

edit: seems I was right

Thank you, Ashaera. Though I find that to be very disappointing. I had hoped that we druids would have the means to save a tank from an overkill Sarth breath on the 3-drakes encounter. Unlike any other healer that can be brought to that fight, we have no means or cooldown to protect a tank from a 1-shot breath.

Well, I think shamans don't have such a thing neither - and after all, tanks have ways to smooth out dmg-spikes.

Anyway, why should every healer have all the same tools?

There's also 4-piece Tier 6, not sure if you care about that particular modifier.