Arena: All about The Druid. Follow

So me and my Priest buddy seems stuck in the 1700s for the time being.

It's frustraring that roughly 1 out of 4 team we fight has Gladiator Title and/or access to S3 weapons (either gotten thru pre-hot fix cheese or from teams in other brackets).

But what's even more frustrating is the endless number of Druid team. 11 games today (6-5, bleh), and out of those 11 we faced 7 druid teams - of which we lost all but 5 games. Our 2 victories were due to the druid @#%^ing up in both case, rather then us outplaying them. Yeah, it's a small sample size, but I've got a feeling it's the same story for pretty much everybody - it's raining druids out there. It sure doesn't feel like they're one of the less played class.

Druid sucks in 5v5... so they're actually more likely to get buffed because of that rather then get nerfed due to thier dominance in 2v2 (and I predict, in 3v3 as well). So while I could write pages after pages about the kind of balance change I'd like to see them go through, the truth is they're more then likely here to stay.

In other words, a good arena spec is a spec that counter druids. Doesn't matter what class you are, it's all about countering the druid now. It's all about the metagame.

For rogues, the problems with druids are 3 folds:

1 - They pretty much neutralise our poison. This prevent us from snaring properly and gets rid of our anti-healing debuff.

2 - They're extremely mobile. Which compounded with the first issue means it's damn near impossible for us to try and kill them first. This also make it quite easy for them to get out of combat and drink (removing drinking from Arena would hurt druid more then any other class in the game).

3 - They're a powerful support class. Possibly the most mana efficient healer in the game (which compounds problem 2), backed up with Cyclone/roots which allow them to shut down a rogue's ability to pursue a target (compounds problem 1).

So how do you remedy that? It's easy to go into a 'woe be me!' mode and cry about how the top class in (small) Arena is apparently designed to counter us, until you realise that the druid's high mobility, quick cast and ability to shapeshift into mana-less form to avoid drainage pretty much make him the bane of everybody.

But the other classes can do their own brainstorming. :P

Bursting down the druid's partner is rarely a viable option. They usually team with rogues (too slippery), warrior (plate) or Warlock (soul link). Having only Blind as a real CC, the Druid's teamate will usually survive the onslaught and get healed and then the Cyclone/Root dance begins. On the rare occassion where I've manage to land a Blind - keep on the partner for 6 second - Vanish - Sap Druid they've usually managed to pull throught anyway. Extremely frustrating, since it's a rather hard thing to pull off (At my skill level anyway) consistently and it's sad not to see it pay off.

I suppose this might work differently for double dps team, but as a rogue/priest combo, bursting down the druid's partner doesn't work often enough for it to be a viable strategy. I don't see mage/rogue having an easier time (since druid can't be poly'd), but Warlock/Rogue with spammable fear might actually have a chance at controlling the druid.

It would seems what is needed is to kill the Druid, since his ability to heal himself goes down somewhat when he's being focused. We have a had a high success rate on a few occassion where I found the druid while he was in stealth, starting a stunlock with him in Catform is the optimal way to start a fight... but it's also pretty unlikely.

While HARP gave us somewhat of a counter, that was mostly due to the double Sprint and Double Vanish, giving us more of a chance to stop the Druid then ever before. Using AR against a druid is tricky, since they can usually outlive it in Bear form (why such a mobile and powerful healer is so damn tough is beyond me) with Frenzied Regeneration and if their ally has any brain at all, he will be using whatever CC ability he has to get you off him (especially with
warlock/druid - you aren't catchin a druid when you're getting fear spammed).

What's going to hurt HARP against druid isn't so much the lost of 1 more AR (Since you rarely got the full use of it anyway), but the Hemo nerf.

Shockingly enough, I think 20/0/41 might be the way to go. Taking 5/5 in poison talents (at the cost of 1 point in lethality). Shadowstep should allow us to stay on the Druid somewhat, or at very least re-establish contact with his partner after Cyclone (and fear) spam... and the poison talents, might actually help fight the druid's damn near constant dispel via Abolish Poison.

Even if shadowstep ends up not working, I think I'll be going 20/41/0... The poison talents I think, are simply to big to skip in the current arena setting.


TLDR Version:
The worth of a 2v2 team is directly related to their ability to handle Druids. HARP, Mutilate and even Combat fail in that regard. Shadowstep has on paper, what it takes to counter druids. Even if it doesn't, revisiting the poison talents as a combat rogue might be a necessity.

Edited, Dec 19th 2007 5:32pm by Tyrandor

I don't know, my brother (feral druid) and I rarely have problems with druids, mainly because we can burst through their partner while they're sapped/cycloned.

It works low, but we'll have to see what happens up higher.

Easier solution sometimes is if we catch a druid in caster just burst him down, me providing stunlock and EA for my brother, who's literally crit people for 40-50% of their life.

MCing and LoSing the druid actually works really well too, in addition to what teddy said. Manburns and fears on top of blinds are gonna be what wins the day, gets their partner down, and makes the druid leave the arena.

im surprised they're such a problem with their HoTs being dispellable, right?

edit: and damn its frustrating being a druid/rogue duo and not kicking serious ***. :-\. **** you 2v2 queues wrecking our ****.

Edited, Dec 19th 2007 2:51pm by KTurner

Maybe my priest need to dispel more, I was under the impression he did. Although mind you, lifebloom is essentially designed to be dispelled...

Double dps does seems to be the way to go at that. I'm loath to drop my priest partner because we've been together for a long time... but I guess it might come down to that.

The comp were mostly Warlock/Druid (4 of them, went 1-3) and Warrior/Druid (3, went 1-2).



You're not going to kill anything that way, unless you got someone else dealing damage for you. So back to square 1.

I also play with a good latency, so I've been getting a lot 'out of range' bug when trying to shiv a target that's running away. This is what is making me thing Shadowstep might solve some of my issue.



PS? Only thing I can think that means is pain suppression, so I really don't get what you're trying to say.

The main problem is that it's an all or nothing deal. We have to chain CC perfectly, and if somehow they survive, then we're pretty much getting owned by fear and cyclone as they slowly rip our hp and mana away.

A lot of what you're saying are also things my priest should be doing... since I'm not my priest, I don't know what is take would be on it. I know that between the Druid's easy ability to get out of combat and drink and the Warlock's mana draining/life tap, we usually lose the mana burning race.

I usually have to be on the Warlock in order to stop the mana draining... but then I get a double cyclone followed by a Fear.

I guess there's not much else to do but to try and try again... but you guys are suggesting a priest/rogue out CC a druid/warlock.

You've never had their buddy just toss a fear or intercept you?

Even if my priest does an early dispel, losing 1 yard on a running druid usually means he gets away... so I got to blow sprint... and the cooldown race starts.

Gues I'll have to talk to my priest about being extremely aggressive on dispel... I need to work on Blind - Vanish - Sap, and then he need to run in with a Fear and chastise at the end for good measure.

Piece of cake.

Edited, Dec 19th 2007 7:01pm by Tyrandor

I'm assuming you mean vanish midcast so that the spell essentially miss but still trigger their GCD?



The thing I can't fathom is that once you run out cooldown, I'd assume you'd be SoL. I just don't kill stuff fast enough it appears.

Psychic Scream is nice, but is also on a long cooldown - the Warlock wins the CC battle with ease here.

MC might be what we're missing... I barely remember my priest ever using it.

The Intercept stun is applied as soon as you hit the button, not when you reach your target, so this would be a nice trick.

I know I've Intercepted Rogues as they stealthed/vanished before and it puts me right next to them as they're stunned and stealthed.

There's a slight delay, in that when you are fighting a Warrior if you can guess close to when he will Intercept, then watch his char, the second his character movement starts to do the dash-like effect if you can hit Vanish, he will go to where you were/are and you will Immune the Intercept.

You even get a sexy message saying, Immune!


This also works on magic spells... and Vanish immuning rogue's Cheap Shots.

That's not a GCD change. It's always been like that.

The combat log will even _tell_ you that you interrupted the spell. It's just lying. Warcraft's combat system has absolutely godawful checks for race conditions.

I enjoy the fact my Druid is at 42 and soon to cackle maniacally at all you.

The one thing I hated about Holy Priest and Spriest when I tried out those combinations was where your problem lies.

Mixing the two classes leaves you with a gaping hole in CC utility. Both are limited CC's on very long timers, and that has trouble working in Arena.

Ever since the patch I really think SLSL/HARP is the team to be.

I was planning that, and then having a Druid on the team, which makes a very good 3s, and a very good option for 2s.


Druids man... Druids.


Or Warlock until HARP is nerf'd.