A Spoon’s Eye View – Druids!

Jason sent this in a while ago and I feel bad that things have been so hectic I hadn’t used it. So please don’t hate me man! Here it is in full glory, Jason’s Druid POV.

Let me first start out by saying that I am by no means an expert at WoW or playing a druid. I have however played a druid for almost 3 years, including every spec and being fairly good at each.

I will assume that most people reading this already know what a druid is and has a general idea about our abilities and such.

Feral: Currently in live WoW, feral is predominantly a tanking spec but with exceptional gear and a lot of talent can be a very good melee dps spec. For tanking we are currently the best tank IMO for bosses who are going to just beat the crap out of the tank with melee. With a fair amount of feral tanking loot you can easily have 2k-6k more life that any warrior in the game when fully buffed, which makes the healers job a little easier with the added cushion incase of a big hit/crushing blow. We have tons or armor due to multipliers in our talents and dire bear form. We also tend to stack a lot of agility and dodge to make it harder to be hit. Also druids tend to generate a little more threat faster than warriors and paladins for dps races. For magic casting bosses or bosses that swing fast, we aren’t so great but we can’t be great at everything. (BTW I don’t want or mean to insult or call out any other tanks, just stating from my experience)

Feral Beta: From the looks of beta, feral will have the ability to spec into several different avenues. With the careful placement of talent points you can choose to tank, as well as a warrior/paladin/death knight. Or you can choose to spec to melee DPS as well as a rogue/fury warrior. There are also a few really nice looking PVP talents (but pvp is still being worked on by the developers). In previous versions of WoW feral wasn’t always great because gear wasn’t always optimal for tanking/cat DPS, but with the way gear and mechanics are being reworked rogue gear seems to be what we are looking for. It looks like this will help make ferals better melee DPS and could make feral tanks less like a novelty tank and more like a solid tank (still to be seen). All in all the spec looks like it has a lot of fun and flexibility built into a cute-cuddly-fuzzy-rip-your-face-off spec.

Resto: what can I say about my tree brothers other than “im pretty sure healers are supposed to run out of mana at some point?” But seriously healing as a druid is both really fun and really easy at times. Ever play whack a mole? For resto, raiding and pvp are like playing whack a mole in that you just look for someone who needs a heal, click a lifebloom or rejuvenation and move on to the next. Your heals mostly consist of some really powerful HoTs (Healing over Time), which take some time to heal the person you cast it on but are strong and don’t require you to stand still and cast for a long time. This makes pvp a little bit less stressful and makes some boss fights easy mode when it comes to having to move a lot and heal. Only down side is that tree form has a slower movement speed. Plus you get to do the “twist” in tree form, how cool is that?

Resto Beta: From what I have seen resto is getting a few spells it lacked in previous versions of WoW like wild growth (our new AoE healing spell) and Nourish (our new direct healing spell). Resto druids also have the option now to spec for using hots and making them stronger and more mana efficient. But now tree druids have the ability to spec to cast direct heals like Healing Touch and Nourish in TREE FORM. Also the movement speed of tree form is removed and Imp. Tree form has bonus armor for survivability. Overall it just looks stronger and more versatile than we are now. Looks fun and makes me want to start a WoW hospital. Go shake some leaves.

Balance (moonkin): In Live, Balance is a very gear dependant casting DPS spec but has a lot of fun options and your cup runnith over with versatility and utility. Moonkin/Boomchicken is that crazy looking owl beast that looks like an 300 yr old owl ate a mage and had an allergic reaction. Moonkin have the ability to do great dps but is very situational and limited. In pvp moonkin is very fun with your treants (you get to summon pets to come out and fight for you). And who can beat the sweet chicken dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo0O97h5J9s&feature=related (really cool video of the moonkin dance rated PG I’de guess)

Balance Beta: Finally getting the love it deserves. According to most balance druids in Beta is finally doing good dps. And judging by what I have seen the new talents look amazing. Typhoon is a wave that throws people back (imagine bowling for alliance/horde in pvp, seeing the opposition fly through the air). Stalfall could very well be the talent that keeps all those annoying classes off your back in pvp. And eclipse has the potential to make you stop casting starfire and cast moonfire more often and im sure we are all tired of pushing the same button all raid long. Hurrican no longer has a cool down so we get real AoE damage and talents to make it do really nice damage. Enjoy the chicken dance.