A friend and I have been playing WoW for almost a year now and have a couple of 70's (we both have a rogue, I've got a mage, and he's got a shaman). For our next run we thought of duoing the whole way and running a lot of instances, but also questing for some xp on the side.
He's rolling Pally and I'm rolling Druid. We're thinking he'll be Protection and I'll be restoration. What I'm wondering is if it would be viable to do a resto/feral combo. I know this isn't usually too popular as balance tends to go well with resto, but I'm thinking the extra DPS from feral will help for some of the group quests where we might be hurting for damage. I really don't want to go balance because I just finished taking a mage to 70.
Any thoughts on what a build and progression that would work for this scenario might be? Suggestions in general are welcome :) Thanks in advance.
Edited, Nov 21st 2007 10:47am by Lordtempest
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If you want to go feral/resto u will be alot weaker in for both but i would use this sort of talant spec
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?00000000000000000000050303202230002000000050552051530500201000
this way you still do a fair bit of damage aswell as healing, hope this helped
edit: dam link
Edited, Nov 21st 2007 11:51am by Plainwalker
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?00000000000000000000050303202230002000000050552051530500201000
this way you still do a fair bit of damage aswell as healing, hope this helped
edit: dam link
Edited, Nov 21st 2007 11:51am by Plainwalker
25 posts
Balance druids are not exactly like a mage so it won't be the same. (do mages get a 400% armor boost?)
The good gear for balance will have +spell damage and healing so it allows you to be a better healer. I'm currently lvl62 balance with 6 points in resto yet I can heal through instances pretty well because of my caster gear.
About the dps, if you need some extra umph with a certain fight, the balance spells really help. Just spam Wrath while not healing. Wrath is the most mana-efficient spell and can do a lot of damage. You could also put up that bee DoT (forgot the name lol).
The good gear for balance will have +spell damage and healing so it allows you to be a better healer. I'm currently lvl62 balance with 6 points in resto yet I can heal through instances pretty well because of my caster gear.
About the dps, if you need some extra umph with a certain fight, the balance spells really help. Just spam Wrath while not healing. Wrath is the most mana-efficient spell and can do a lot of damage. You could also put up that bee DoT (forgot the name lol).
Seems to me that a prot/resto pair would be severely lacking in dps, even with some balance mixed in. You would be really hard to kill, though.
Have you thought about prot/feral or ret/resto? And no jokes about ret pally dps; my GM is ret, and you do NOT want to mess with him. Of course he's 70 and geared to the teeth...
Have you thought about prot/feral or ret/resto? And no jokes about ret pally dps; my GM is ret, and you do NOT want to mess with him. Of course he's 70 and geared to the teeth...
Scholar
39 posts
Yeah I'm prtty sure we'll have to do prot/feral at low levels at least. The prot/resto idea came from doing a lot of end game instances and starting parties already having tank and healer. I suppose I'll end up going feral until 50ish and then switching to resto/balance. If needed can feral druids get by as healer in lower level instances? I know some feral druids might even take offense if asked to heal, but i'm just talking about grinding through.
Edit: part of the idea was that i've done caster and melee dps, and he's done melee dps and healer, so we should both do something new.
Edited, Nov 21st 2007 1:11pm by Lordtempest
Edit: part of the idea was that i've done caster and melee dps, and he's done melee dps and healer, so we should both do something new.
Edited, Nov 21st 2007 1:11pm by Lordtempest
My $.02:
With a perpetually paired Prot Pally + Resto Druid you guys could pull together instance parties in the blink of an eye with with "LFG ______ Have Tank and Healer".
For duoing, it seems like that'd be among the most "indestructible" duos possible. Pisspoor DPS, though, and thus slooooooow. You don't say if leveling speed is a priority, but if you want to get to 70 sooner than later I'd follow the leveling advice I've always seen/believed which is to take the highest DPS tree on the way up and respec if you want to when you get close to end game.
So especially with a pairing like yours where A) Both toons can heal, and B) Both toons have tank-class armor (you in bear form anyway), I'd go Ret and Feral. When you two are duoing, the pally'd pull/tank the mobs, do his own damage, and you'd decimate 'em in cat form. I don't know pally stuff but I'd think he could mostly keep himself alive just fine not burning much mana on DPS moves, and if things got dicey you'd pop out to heal him and then get back to DPS duty.
Most of the feral talents benefit cat and bear equally, so in addition to solid DPS in that scenario you'd also always have one true/talented tank. But if you really like the "LFG have healer and dps or tank" advantage then have the pally spec holy.
Edited, Nov 21st 2007 10:31am by JeeBar
With a perpetually paired Prot Pally + Resto Druid you guys could pull together instance parties in the blink of an eye with with "LFG ______ Have Tank and Healer".
For duoing, it seems like that'd be among the most "indestructible" duos possible. Pisspoor DPS, though, and thus slooooooow. You don't say if leveling speed is a priority, but if you want to get to 70 sooner than later I'd follow the leveling advice I've always seen/believed which is to take the highest DPS tree on the way up and respec if you want to when you get close to end game.
So especially with a pairing like yours where A) Both toons can heal, and B) Both toons have tank-class armor (you in bear form anyway), I'd go Ret and Feral. When you two are duoing, the pally'd pull/tank the mobs, do his own damage, and you'd decimate 'em in cat form. I don't know pally stuff but I'd think he could mostly keep himself alive just fine not burning much mana on DPS moves, and if things got dicey you'd pop out to heal him and then get back to DPS duty.
Most of the feral talents benefit cat and bear equally, so in addition to solid DPS in that scenario you'd also always have one true/talented tank. But if you really like the "LFG have healer and dps or tank" advantage then have the pally spec holy.
Edited, Nov 21st 2007 10:31am by JeeBar
Thilis,
Wrath is not the most "mana efficient" spell that a balance druid can cast. I am a lvl 70 Moonkin named Mandragal on the Kirin Tor server. Wrath has its uses in that it is a fast spell. The top rank of wrath is 255 mana for 381-429 damage base before +spell damage is added in (about 1.588 damage/mana). Starfire at top rank is 370 mana for 540-636 base damage (1.589 damage/mana). (Please note these are without any talents taken into account). Based on these numbers the damage/mana ratio is about the same without addition of talents or +spell damage items.
Lets add in +500 spell damage to the equation. If I have my numbers right the starfire will get all of that applied and the wrath will gain an additional 250 of that spell damage since it casts in half the time. Now Wrath is at 2.568 dmg/mana and Starfire is up to 2.940 dmg/mana. So the more spell damage gear you have the greater the difference in efficiencies.
Even with the difference each has it's own uses. Wrath is all I can cast at the mana elemetals when farming primal mana as they are immune to arcane (Insect swarm is thrown in there as well since it is nature damage) and on many of the elementals all you can use is Starfire due to the nature immunity.
But this is not answering Lordtempest's question. I would honestly run it as the ret/feral setup mentioned before for the early levels then respec later once more of the talent trees are available. As for healing while feral spec. It is quite possible but as with all druids it will require you for the most part to have a second set of gear with you for healing as feral stats do not mix with the caster stats. Balance spec has it's issues before you get the almight Moonkin form so most stay away from that till at least level 40 or later. However you choose to play it I hope you enjoy the druid.
Wrath is not the most "mana efficient" spell that a balance druid can cast. I am a lvl 70 Moonkin named Mandragal on the Kirin Tor server. Wrath has its uses in that it is a fast spell. The top rank of wrath is 255 mana for 381-429 damage base before +spell damage is added in (about 1.588 damage/mana). Starfire at top rank is 370 mana for 540-636 base damage (1.589 damage/mana). (Please note these are without any talents taken into account). Based on these numbers the damage/mana ratio is about the same without addition of talents or +spell damage items.
Lets add in +500 spell damage to the equation. If I have my numbers right the starfire will get all of that applied and the wrath will gain an additional 250 of that spell damage since it casts in half the time. Now Wrath is at 2.568 dmg/mana and Starfire is up to 2.940 dmg/mana. So the more spell damage gear you have the greater the difference in efficiencies.
Even with the difference each has it's own uses. Wrath is all I can cast at the mana elemetals when farming primal mana as they are immune to arcane (Insect swarm is thrown in there as well since it is nature damage) and on many of the elementals all you can use is Starfire due to the nature immunity.
But this is not answering Lordtempest's question. I would honestly run it as the ret/feral setup mentioned before for the early levels then respec later once more of the talent trees are available. As for healing while feral spec. It is quite possible but as with all druids it will require you for the most part to have a second set of gear with you for healing as feral stats do not mix with the caster stats. Balance spec has it's issues before you get the almight Moonkin form so most stay away from that till at least level 40 or later. However you choose to play it I hope you enjoy the druid.
Quote:
If needed can feral druids get by as healer in lower level instances?
I think most of the more knowledgeable people on this forum would say yes, provided you have a decent set of +heal gear. That will be hard to get at lower levels though.
I've only tried running as main healer once, in the mid-40 range I think (been a while). I had a nearly full set of healing gear, but the instance did not go well. Whether it was due to my lack of healing experience, inadequate gear, or group makeup I can't say.
Zalophus wrote:
Quote:
If needed can feral druids get by as healer in lower level instances?
I think most of the more knowledgeable people on this forum would say yes, provided you have a decent set of +heal gear. That will be hard to get at lower levels though.
I've only tried running as main healer once, in the mid-40 range I think (been a while). I had a nearly full set of healing gear, but the instance did not go well. Whether it was due to my lack of healing experience, inadequate gear, or group makeup I can't say.
I don't think I started seeing stuff with dedicated +heal for quite some time, so while leveling my healing set was mostly about +int for a larger mana pool. I looked for +heal and wasn't afraid to mix in some cloth pieces, but tried to keep it mostly leather which limited my options.
I've main healed a half dozen instances as feral, probably half before Outlands and half in it. Results were all over the board, ranging from not making it past a few pulls to completing the instance.
Based on that experience, my two cents is that you can main heal instances really well if you have a healing set and:
1) You and your tank and at least one DPSer are in the top half of the instance's level range
2) You have a group that knows good tanking, cc, and targeting,
3) You don't have bad luck with pats and whatnot.
Yeah, I know that's a lot of qualifiers. Maybe somebody with experience as a healer could make mainhealing as feral viable in less ideal conditions, but I always had trouble and even in the parties where we did well I didn't have nearly as much fun as I normally would have. Without the talents and oh-crap buttons I just found it too stressful.
I love, however, occasionally main healing 5-man quests to kill some boss that's out in the world, or summoned. Much faster and more fun, and people still go "Wow you healed that really well...and you're FERAL?"
just to redo the talent setup.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?00000000000000000000050320213002000000000050550301031500531051
is better I think.
y?
bash and thick hide. .. you're looking to get away from the guy not survive tanking him. (that and 10% armor increase =... 2% damage decrease from attacks?)
predatory and maxing out primal + fury. predatory is a flat increase by (when maxed 150% of your level = level x1.5 as attack power ie every 2 levels +3 ap. or 1dps/4 levels. without heart of the wild it's nice to have but....
feral charge vs shred. one of the up to you talents. I'll admit it's entirely up to you. however charge is one of the great buttons to have if your other guy is away and you want to tank or to chase down other people while pvp.
Nurturing instint. if you're healing in your healing gear this might give 1/20 of your +healing effects. if you're in you dps gear you don't have much intel to make up for the short term increased healing. most people pass on it.
natural shapeshifter and intensity.
if you've a dedicated tank. intensity is better (that and natural shapeshifter is more for pvp than normal use.)
if you've a dedicated tank. subtlety is useful however not as useful as gift of nature. (to me at least) subtlety is for the pug tanks which you never know how good they are. paladin tanks pre and post 2.3 are dam sticky once they have aggro
living vs tranquil spirit. you'll understand when you add in the effect of intensity and treeform.
pre 65, I've yet to encounter problems main healing as omens feral.
once I filled in
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?00000000000000000000000000000000000000000050500001000000000000
I put everything else in feral up to 44 points. when you're healing just pick up gear for it. good druids have 2 sets of gear (at least) druidots are the guys who saw NO! I"M DPS/TANK ONLY!!!. or HEALER ONLY. pick up an extra set of appropriate gear and have a blast switching to whatever you need whenever you need it.
this is my build. however I'll shift a few extra points into intensity from the feral tree (prob the tenacity or survival of the fittest) when I go into the proper 70 build.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?00000000000000000000050320213002000000000050550301031500431051#none
most of this is in the sticky so go there when you have the time.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?00000000000000000000050320213002000000000050550301031500531051
is better I think.
y?
bash and thick hide. .. you're looking to get away from the guy not survive tanking him. (that and 10% armor increase =... 2% damage decrease from attacks?)
predatory and maxing out primal + fury. predatory is a flat increase by (when maxed 150% of your level = level x1.5 as attack power ie every 2 levels +3 ap. or 1dps/4 levels. without heart of the wild it's nice to have but....
feral charge vs shred. one of the up to you talents. I'll admit it's entirely up to you. however charge is one of the great buttons to have if your other guy is away and you want to tank or to chase down other people while pvp.
Nurturing instint. if you're healing in your healing gear this might give 1/20 of your +healing effects. if you're in you dps gear you don't have much intel to make up for the short term increased healing. most people pass on it.
natural shapeshifter and intensity.
if you've a dedicated tank. intensity is better (that and natural shapeshifter is more for pvp than normal use.)
if you've a dedicated tank. subtlety is useful however not as useful as gift of nature. (to me at least) subtlety is for the pug tanks which you never know how good they are. paladin tanks pre and post 2.3 are dam sticky once they have aggro
living vs tranquil spirit. you'll understand when you add in the effect of intensity and treeform.
pre 65, I've yet to encounter problems main healing as omens feral.
once I filled in
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?00000000000000000000000000000000000000000050500001000000000000
I put everything else in feral up to 44 points. when you're healing just pick up gear for it. good druids have 2 sets of gear (at least) druidots are the guys who saw NO! I"M DPS/TANK ONLY!!!. or HEALER ONLY. pick up an extra set of appropriate gear and have a blast switching to whatever you need whenever you need it.
this is my build. however I'll shift a few extra points into intensity from the feral tree (prob the tenacity or survival of the fittest) when I go into the proper 70 build.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?00000000000000000000050320213002000000000050550301031500431051#none
most of this is in the sticky so go there when you have the time.
Scholar
36 posts
Quote:
If needed can feral druids get by as healer in lower level instances?
Jasica’s Guide to Tanking: The Druid and the Feral Tree:
Quote:
...I absolutely believe in the capacity of a feral druid to main-heal any five-man instance...
I tend to agree so far but then I've only been in instances up to ZF so far.
SM cath been healing afew with no problems at all, and ZF tried it on alittle.
I dont have alot of +healing gear to speak of, 3kmana with healing gear.
Running early instances as a feral specced healer is completely do-able, i've unfortunately gotten stuck doing it on my druid for every instance i've done so far, up through SM Cath
I agree with the advice to level feral. When you're duoing with hybrid classes I think it pays to use that to have the most flexibility and efficiency possible. It'll speed up your fights immensely to have someone with good DPS. I hear you on wanting to do something different and you certainly can go resto if you're into it, but leveling feral will give you more options and still allow you to fill that healing role to your heart's content.
5 posts
My 2 toons are a balance/resto druid and a prot Pally so ive done them both (though pally is only level 50). My advice is go Ret/Feral for starters. The prot pally is real slow until level 40 and the Resto Druid is the same. on the other side ret pally's level quick and so do Feral Druids, nothing would stand a chance cause you 2 would be doing so much damage it would be sick. Until the mid levels you could both tank or heal or dps, so groups will fill easy. Either class can do anything so see what you like and stick with it, maybe you'll tank and he will heal.
At 40+ respec and go Prot/Resto and AOE grind (and instance). you could pull half of the badlands in 1 fight with the 2 of you together. Really amazing synergy in the 2 classes, Pallies are all about reflective dmg so your thorns (id go with improved) make him stronger, his seals and your hots means he'll be getting sick amounts of healing per second, he can give you MP5 30 levels before you would ever see it without him, awsome.
Look up Pally AOE, your friend will fall in love with it as i have, and he'll have a healer in his pocket.
IMO - Ret/Feral till 40 (strong recommendation), at 40 respec Prot/Resto (only if you dont solo, if you do stay feral or balance and heal anyway). This will be fast and fun and let you guys practice the different aspecs so you learn how to tank, heal, etc.
At 40+ respec and go Prot/Resto and AOE grind (and instance). you could pull half of the badlands in 1 fight with the 2 of you together. Really amazing synergy in the 2 classes, Pallies are all about reflective dmg so your thorns (id go with improved) make him stronger, his seals and your hots means he'll be getting sick amounts of healing per second, he can give you MP5 30 levels before you would ever see it without him, awsome.
Look up Pally AOE, your friend will fall in love with it as i have, and he'll have a healer in his pocket.
IMO - Ret/Feral till 40 (strong recommendation), at 40 respec Prot/Resto (only if you dont solo, if you do stay feral or balance and heal anyway). This will be fast and fun and let you guys practice the different aspecs so you learn how to tank, heal, etc.
Scholar
39 posts
Thanks for all the advice guys, I really appreciate it. I'll try to talk my friend into going ret until 40ish and i'll be going feral for dps and tanking. This toon is an alt so I shouldn't have a problem getting some healing gear in addition to tanking and/or DPS gear.
I'm kind of finding my nitch a little with Druid so far. I've always been one that likes to do a lot of different things, so a character that is capable of healing, tanking, and hurting is my cup of tea.
I'm kind of finding my nitch a little with Druid so far. I've always been one that likes to do a lot of different things, so a character that is capable of healing, tanking, and hurting is my cup of tea.
At lower levels, spec doesn't matter too much when it comes to healing instances. Just keep a set of gear and plenty of Int.
I have healed instances on my feral druid, shadow priest, enhance shammy & ret Pally. You have to make sure that none of the group are idiots (easier said than done) but as a rule it is pretty easy.
I have healed instances on my feral druid, shadow priest, enhance shammy & ret Pally. You have to make sure that none of the group are idiots (easier said than done) but as a rule it is pretty easy.
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