feral druids competing against DKs in instance levellingFollow

My main character is a level 48 druid (yeah I know, gotta get my skates on) and lately I've really started to enjoy doing instances.

After going feral for most of my druid life, as of patch 3.0 I tried boomkin and absolutely loved it, however downtime for solo levelling seems to be a bit of a pain. So I'm weighing up staying boomkin or going back to feral, but i want to make sure it will still be easy enough for me to find a group for instances.

I'm just wondering if come 14th Nov, there will be a flood of level 55 Death Knights looking to level up and tank instances, leaving less available spots for us feral druids.

Considering this, should I stay as boomkin to guarantee myself an instance spot as dps/heals and avoid the DK stampede? Or will be rush be not as bad as I am expecting?

I haven't seen any substantiated predictions about likely DK adoption, I'm just playing amateur psychologist here. Based on what I know of you WoW addicts, I think the desire to try out a DK will hit hard right off the bat as everybody sets one up and plays around with it, but then most people will hop on their mains (and other 70s) and focus on leveling them all up to 80. Only those that find themselves really drawn to the DK playstyle will abandon their mains for any period of time. Net-net, I bet they don't seem any more numerous than any other class.

There are sites that show percentages of classes and genders and specs and stuff by realm and overall, I think. Might be interesting to watch. (ok, maybe not "interesting" per se...)


Edited, Nov 3rd 2008 8:20pm by JeeBar

thanks to the above guys for their input, as you say as a druid I should be able to squeeze myself into a group in some capacity!

kind of off-topic here, but i really enjoyed balance not so much because it was a caster style, but because it seemed to be more powerful. i was getting disappointed with my kitty DPS and being below level 50 i hadn't picked up mangle yet.

Is mangle good enough to boost kitty DPS into the same kind of range as what I'm seeing from my moonkin? Or does moonkin always hit harder?

At 70 Boomkin has more DPS. Sorry but everything I have seen and heard agrees with this. At roughly equal gear of course.

At 75 druids can learn Savage Roar .

Its like SnD for cats. Gives a +40% AP boost. After you get it you base your rotation around it. It is why the rip glyph rocks so much. As it will let you maintain both Rip and SR at all times.

I expect cat DPS to get a large, roughly 40%, increase at level 75. The numbers support this as well. Over on elitistjerks they have been working on DPS rotations at 80 and they are rather complex. They mainly involve keeping both Rip and SR up at all times with the occasional FB at low energy high combo points when Rip and SR, especially SR, wont fall off.

So if you are worrying about feral cat DPS don't. You haven't hit the level cap and gotten all your skills and talents points yet. Remember we are playing in a balanced for 80 world with gear that often wont be replaced till high 70s. Things are out of whack right now. It will take 10 levels and a patch or 2 to come back into line.

I don't know about Rip vs Bite though - figure you can easily get in two bites before roar ends and considering how high our crit chances are going with new tallents and what-not (I'm doing 47-48% right now) I just cant see rip being able to match bite (I'm falling just shy of 7k bites now)?

OP: The question of instance leveling and druids competing with DKs is true. DKs will also compete against every other tank and DPS spec out there. The bulk of non-DK toons will have had several months at 70 to gain better gear. Plus we are more established and more of a known quantity. I really don't see it being a problem especially since we don't compete on as many drops.

The main competition for the new DKs will be warriors. They share almost all the same gear. We will be more competitive against rogues as they will try and steal mah armah.

To date it has been advised to gear for agility then agility then more agility as it amps both your AP and crit, and we depend pretty heavily on crits for our DPS. Smarter folks than I have done math and charts that showed the tipping point, but all you really needed to know was the ratio of AP/Crit that it took to tilt things in favor of strength was ridiculously high. But the balance will change with WotLK as agility will contribute 1% of crit per 40 instead of 1% of crit per 25. (I think those are the numbers...) Basically this nerf to agility will mean you won't want to gear for it quite so exclusively, making a balance of strength and agility better. I don't pretend to know the ratio, though, sorry.



Blizz was kind enough to queue up loads of quests that quickly get you geared up for Outland. The low 60's quests in Hellfire Peninsula will take care of your chest and weapon with Jerkin of the Untamed Spirit and Agamaggan's Quill.

The last boss in Ramparts (Nazan/Vazruden) does drop Ursol's Claw which is the best feral weapon until you can get Staff of Beasts from another quest at level 65. You'll get the trinket Bladefist's Breadth from an HP quest--that'll last you a good long time. Oh yeah, and your first idol, probably, the Idol of the Wild, that's fun to finally fill that damn slot.

Edited, Nov 6th 2008 9:14am by JeeBar

I thought something looked funny on my gear, why'd they nuke all the extra armor?

if you play it right boomkin can level pre outlands with 0 downtime (i havent played outlands on it yet so i dont know). its the 2nd most efficient levelling spec i've played (hunter is first now because of the new AotV, but i used to have to drink every 4-5 pulls), (its also my 5th class among bm hunter combat rogue fury warrior and ret paladin).
Stats are important. around your level i was close to 200 int and spirit, all from leather gear, and i was only around 70-80 SP. my mana regen was about 175-200 from 48-50.
I used glyph of insect swarm and moonfire for the dot boost.

each pull should go like this, starfire -> roots -> Moon fire -> IIS, usually this will kill a mob, although some mobs with higher hps or more spell resistance might need an extra wrath. after killing a couple mobs you'll know if you need to throw another spell in.

the moment i moonfire the target i start running as you can cast insect swarm on mobs behind you, and if i know they dont need another nuke, i pull the next mob, and i do not stop pulling, ever. i let the mobs hit me, i use lifeblood (herbalism skill) or pots to heal whenever possible. most of the time i'll have 1 or 2 mobs hitting me, but the damage is so low because of boomkin armor it doesnt matter, plus it triggers owlkin frenzy for some bonus damage. starfire crits make fights cost a little less mana as i'll just use IIS.
If the mob does need another nuke, i wait about 4-5 seconds after i apply IIS to cast wrath or starfire again, this is to not break roots early as the extra damage helps and it prevents me from taking extra damage.

i never run out or mana because i'm not spamming spells. at lv 53 i use about 500-540 mana per pull, i dont have dreamstate either. i just never need to drink. possibly if im chaining multiple mobs, need to shift forms to heal, or have to hurricane, then i'll need to, but thats even rare as innervate is usually up.

i dont pound w/nukes, i let the dots to their work. they are destructive when glyphed and are extremely mana efficient.
i spent an hour killing people my level at un'goro crater today and got like 40 or so HKs, and most of them i just dotted them, and ran.

using your nukes too often will burn your mana pool and make levelling very inefficient. i use them once a pull, and only twice if the mob is high level or high hp.

when im fighting casters i just run around and moonfire + IS everything. i dont even need to nuke them because they dont have enough hp lol

Edited, Nov 7th 2008 12:10am by EnthalpyTheBurninator

Edited, Nov 7th 2008 12:14am by EnthalpyTheBurninator