feral spec druid: advice needed

Ok, I seem to be a good candidate for advice as my main is a mage and I
have a druid alt that is 4 bars from dinging 60 .

Luckly you've already hinted at a desire to go feral, which is good.
Balance spec is out. Don't get me wrong, but you've got a mage, so why
bother with another spellcaster ? Restoration. This is THE spec for
raiding druids, but it sucks of you want to lvl or paly solo.

So with feral, you will be able to get several forms:

Bear form (lvl 10 I think), Aquatic (lvl 15 I think), Cat (lvl 20), and
Travel (lvl 30).

Bear is like a warrior. You get 180% armor (upgrades your leather to
mail basically) and some other bonuses to health and attack power. You
generate rage like a warrior and basically use it like a tank (though
in bear form you can do some good damage, just with slow attacks). At
level 40, this can be upped to Dire Bear form at the trainer. This
boosts the armor bonus to 450% (better than plate), and again ups
health and attack power.

Cat form is like a rogue. You use energy, stealth, try to attack from
behind, etc. You even build up combo points and use them in the same
way. Lots of fun .

Aquatic allows underwater breathing, and increased swim speed by 50%.

Travel form is like a free mini-mount at level 30 . Increases run
speed by 40%. Very nice thing here is that it can be used in combat
(but has to be outdoors).

Couple major things to be aware of: you melee in Cat or Bear forms
(perferably cat). In cat and bear, you're not considered to be using
your weapon (they're attacking with claws). As such your equipped
weapon should be all about increased stats. The DPS doesn't matters
since you're not attacking with it, and proc-based effects are useless
because since the weapon isn't technically being used, it can't proc.

So what I recommend is going in cat form if you're solo and on regular
mobs. Get lots of +AGI and +STR gear. Setup your talent points to
boost your cat DPS as much as possible in feral. There is also an
ability that autogenerates a lot of energy or rage on a shift (forget
the name, but it's in resto). You want that. It helps to be able to
shift into cat form and immediately get an attack off. There's also a
talent under balance called "Nature's Grasp". You want this one too.

Now, my general strategy for non-elites is simply: cat form, stealth up
behind, it, and Ravage. This will get me 1 combo point (2 if it
crits), and then if it's susecptible to bleed effects I'll rip. I then
Claw up until I max the combo points. At that time I Shred if it's
suscetible to bleed. If not Ferocious Bite.

Rinse, repeat until it dies, or until you get down to about 35-40%
health. If you're low on health, shift out, then cast a Nature's
Grasp. Afterwards start to cast an entangling roots. If Nature's
Grasp procs first just back up a few steps. If not when the roots hits
backup then. Cast a Rejuvination on yourself. This should take you
back up in health reaonably far, and the HoT that it leaves ticking
should keep you in good shape for it's duration.

For Elites, I've found bear form to have more of the duration and the
"slow n' steady" required to take them out. For elites I'll go bear,
and then do a Faerie Fire pull. As soon as they're close and I get
rage I'll Demoralizing Roar them. After that I bash, and then
repeatedly maul . Again once I'm down to 35-40% health I shift out,
heal myself back to at least 90%, and then go back to bear. If I get
significant excess rage I'll do a Frenzied Regeneration which will help
keep me alive for a lot longer before having to heal. I can stealth my
druid into BRD and solo Lord Roccor over and over using this method .

Overall though, try druid, you'll like it. And if you're like me and
know that you'll never probably level another char to 60 (or now 70),
then the druid gives a "workable" mini-version of a lot of little
classes that you can play with without having to level all of them .

Mike

John Salerno wrote:
> Ok, I've decided to create my first alt today. Last night I sort of felt
> a "dragging" sensation in my gameplay experience and thought perhaps I'm
> beginning to get bored (despite the fact that I got a fair bit done...I
> guess it was bound to happen eventually), so now seems like a good time
> to do something very different.
>
> So Tauren druid it is, and of course the appeal of the druid to me is
> animal forms, so I'm doing a feral spec. Now, I feel completely out of
> water with a non-mage class, so I need some help. Are there any
> essentials that should always be taken? Anything I can safely ignore?
> Should I also do Improved Mark of the Wild? Anything else in other trees?
>
> Thanks!
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

I'm not going to talk about talents, as I'm sure others will cover
that. What I will talk about is life as a druid at the higher levels.

When you are in your 40s and 50s, learn how to tank. You're feral, so
get some tanking talents, and get into Mara, Ulda, ST as a tank. Every
druid wants to dps as a cat, but your strength is that bears make good
tanks, so use it and learn it. People are always short on two classes
when it comes to grouping - healers and tanks. When you're leveling,
you're a tank.

When you are 60, you have to learn how to heal, and you have to learn
how to heal well. Practice in dungeons below your level, like Mara or
Ulda or ZF, work up to ST, then BRD, then LBRS, and make sure you pick
up healing gear along the way. You want to start with lower instances,
because you have a lot to learn, so you should learn them in an
environment you are familar with, where the mobs won't hit too hard if
you screw up. If it's your first time as a main healer, you might even
try WC, VC (Deadmines), or Gnomer.

The reason for all this is because at 60, people expect druids to know
how to heal. Even if you join a group as a tank or dps, your party
members will expect you to pop out and start tossing heals when the
going gets tough. Don't fight this mentality - it's a losing battle. Go
with the flow and learn how to heal. It's the toughest task in all of
WoW.

Raiding with my guild, I do all the jobs. I tank, dps, heal, etc.
Sometimes all in the same fight, but usually a different role for a
different boss. But I made my reputation in my guild by being a good
raid healer. Then I made a reputation by being a good tank, by
volunteering to tank 5 man runs for guild alts. Now my guild lets me do
anything I want and trusts me to do choose the right role at the right
time. But it took some time, and it was a huge learning curve for me,
but that's the life of an end game druid.
--
// T.Hsu
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

Christian Stauffer wrote:

> Furor gives you a bit of rage (nice) or energy (not necessary, but
> doesn't hurt) when you shift forms.

Yikes, so when in bear form I get rage and in cat form I get energy?
This is almost like having to learn how to play warriors and rogues at
the same time!
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

John Salerno wrote:
> Ok, I've decided to create my first alt today. Last night I sort of felt
> a "dragging" sensation in my gameplay experience and thought perhaps I'm
> beginning to get bored (despite the fact that I got a fair bit done...I
> guess it was bound to happen eventually), so now seems like a good time
> to do something very different.
>
> So Tauren druid it is, and of course the appeal of the druid to me is
> animal forms, so I'm doing a feral spec. Now, I feel completely out of
> water with a non-mage class, so I need some help. Are there any
> essentials that should always be taken? Anything I can safely ignore?
> Should I also do Improved Mark of the Wild? Anything else in other trees?
>
> Thanks!

Oh yeah, and question about professions: I'm doing skinning, and I think
I might compliment it with leatherworking, but also I might do mining
for a while instead, to earn money. But I read that leatheworking is
useful at the lower levels since I can wear leather armor. So is it
worth taking it early and skip mining? Will leatherworking be useful or
profitable at later levels?
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

Christian Stauffer wrote:

> take a lot of beating as bear

oooh!

> And you'll not run out of mana

double oooh!!


 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

Christian Stauffer wrote:

> For feral gear, opinions vary. I always went for strength, crit, sta,
> agi (in that order).
> <snip other advice>

Thanks so much. This is the kind of stuff I need to read about before I
start!

> Weapons are nothing but a stat carrier for druids.

Hmmm, I can see this after level 10 because I imagine I'll only fight in
animal form from then on, but what do I use to fight during 1-10? Just
whatever is equipable for me?
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

Thomas J. Boschloo wrote:

> I have come to learn that if you take skinning and mining and sell the
> stuff you gather, you will have more than enough money to buy something
> off the AH for your druid.
>
> Basically while leveling leatherworking you throw (or disenchant) a lot
> of the stuff you make away because they are unsellable.
>
> Plus some of the green drops people put on the AH are better than you
> can make with leatherworking.
>
> Plus you don't have to buy and grind for recipes.
>
> Plus people will enchant and tailor stuff for you below the market value
> of the ingredients just so they can level.

Ok, I'm sold! It will be fun to try two gathering professions, since I
didn't do that with my mage. Maybe the gold will come faster this time.

Although I must say, now that my mage can make some higher level
potions, they sell quite well on the AH. Superior Healing and Mana
potions, for example, more than make up for the cost to buy the herbs to
make them.
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

> So Tauren druid it is, and of course the appeal of the druid to me is
> animal forms, so I'm doing a feral spec.

My druid just turned 53. I put the 1st 14 points into Resto because I
wanted the Furor talent (energy when switching), natural shapeshifter,
70% no interrupt to healing and Omen of Clarity. The rest of the
points I put in Feral so I still don't have Leader of the Pack or
Mangle yet. But I wanted to be able to shift out of cat/bear, heal
myself and shift back again if needed.

I play the druid mostly as a rogue who can heal so I'm in cat form most
of the time. The big downside to Druid, is you must maintain separate
sets of gear if you want to be good at Healing, Tanking and Leveling.
I have a full set of healer gear (lots of cloth +heal stuff plus now
Wildheart gear). For feral, I look for Shadowcraft stuff (rogue tier
0) as I like having a high agility and having a 18%+ crit rate. For
tanking, I have some +defense and +armor stuff. So Druid is very gear
intensive.

One ability that is really cool for druids is Hibernate. Allows you to
sleep beasts - similiar to the mage sheep except the mob does not
regain health while sleeping. This allows you to take on Elite mobs
many levels above you. I just wish Hibernate worked on Insects too -
Druids can summon insects to aid them, it seems like we should be able
to sleep them too.
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

John Salerno wrote:

> Oh yeah, and question about professions

Ok, and cooking I'll probably do just because it is actually kind of fun
to level. Fishing....hmmmm, probably, but not for the same reason.

Is first aid necessary since I can heal myself? I only just did FA with
my mage around level 40, and now that it's maxed (which was pretty easy
to do) I see how great it is. But I figure with my druid I can sell the
cloth early on for money, then level FA later if necessary. But I'm not
sure if I really even need it since I will have healing spells. I'm sure
FA can heal more, though.
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

Christian Stauffer wrote:

> Agi: 1 AP in cat form, 0 AP in bear form, some dodge/crit and armor
> (but armor from agi isn't affected by bear form)
> Str: 2 AP in cat form, 1 AP in bear form. Str is amplified by 20%
> in cat form once you have the heart of the wild talent maxed.

Just to be sure, what is "AP"? When I read the description of these
stats, they often use "with melee weapons" or "with ranged weapons".
Does this still apply to attacking in animal form, i.e. without weapons?
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

"Christian Stauffer" <wildcard666 RemoveThis @bluewin.ch> wrote in message
news:eo5lf5$re3$1@atlas.ip-plus.net...
> "John Salerno" <johnjsal RemoveThis @NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It must take forever just to kill one mob, but on the bright side I guess
>> I can now safely handle two or three at once without having to run away.
>> Perhaps...
>
> Having levelled a druid alt to 26 recently (hey, my sig is wrong!) it
> was like that for me:
> Level 01-10: Yawn (either go oom after each mob or wait 1 minute until
> it dies out of boredom).
> Level 10-20: Ah, bear form! I don't die anymore, and it only takes
> half as long to kill stuff.
> Level 20-26: Woooo!
>
> Chris
>
> btw: Cat form crits for up to 2k as well with good blue gear

But only after you've hit the mobs many times :p

I miss my ickle mage, who could spontaneously hit for 2k, freeze a mob, hit
again for 2k, when I'm playing my druid

I specced her feral, with 1350 attack power, and I don't enjoy it. Sigh.

Balance tonight. I need to enjoy levelling

--
Sue
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

"John Salerno" <johnjsal.TakeThisOut@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:

> So Tauren druid it is, and of course the appeal of the druid to me is
> animal forms, so I'm doing a feral spec.

Grats, have fun.

> Now, I feel completely out of
> water with a non-mage class, so I need some help. Are there any
> essentials that should always be taken? Anything I can safely ignore?

I'm not too familiar with druid talents anymore, but I think I can at
least answer those questions:

> Should I also do Improved Mark of the Wild?

Nope. This makes sense once you're grouping a lot (since apparantly
the benefit is bigger when 5 persons are buffed, than when 1 person
is buffed). But I wouldn't even take it then, unless you're going
for a full supporter (healer) build.

> Anything else in other trees?

There's 2 nice talents in the resto tree:
- Furor
- Improved enrage

Furor gives you a bit of rage (nice) or energy (not necessary, but
doesn't hurt) when you shift forms. This is a must have in a full
feral build, but before you have all the feral talents you want I
would skip it.
Improved enrage is pretty much only necessary if you plan to tank
a lot, or if you plan to do PvP (and belong to the druids who
take bear over cat form in PvP).

In the balance tree, there's nature's grasp (chance that an enemy
is affected by roots when they hit you) - pretty much a pvp only
talent, but if you need to climb down balance for the tastier
talents you can as well take it.
Then there's natural weapons (10% more damage in all forms) and
clearcasting - the latter one gives you a chance to gain a free
spell/ability per hit. This works in feral forms as well and is
very nice.

As for the feral tree, you will want the talent that reduces
ability cost first. After that take what looks good to you.
Don't ignore the talents that add talent points or rage when
you crit, they are VERY nice.
I'd take feral charge even if you don't plan to tank, it's a
real handy talent. Same for fairie fire (feral).

Chris

--
[WoW] Wildcard - Treehugging Tauren (60) on EN Sunstrider [PvP]
Gwaith - Short beastmaster (60) on EN Scarshield L. [RPPvP]
Sian - Best friend (60) on EN Scarshield L. [RPPvP]
Yagon - Pointy eared beast (25) on EN Scarshield L. [RPPvP]

Get the alt.games.warcraft FAQ at http://www.wildcard7.com/agw_faq.txt
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed 

"Christian Stauffer" <wildcard666 RemoveThis @bluewin.ch> wrote:

> "John Salerno" <johnjsal RemoveThis @NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So Tauren druid it is, and of course the appeal of the druid to me is
>> animal forms, so I'm doing a feral spec.

As an addition: You can definitely still heal in instances (although
from what I read from you that's nothing you care about) when you're
feral specced. If you want to be able to heal, make sure you get a
second set of gear with healer stats (int, spi, +heal). You may want
an addon to switch gear sets for that (wardrobe, itemrack, etc).

For feral gear, opinions vary. I always went for strength, crit, sta,
agi (in that order).

As for item properties in general:

Armor: Multiplicates by 2.8 (until level 40) and 5.5 (from level 40
in bear form. At higher levels, there are non-armor items like
rings, trinkets and weapons, that give armor bonus. Such items
are very handy when tanking (and pretty useless when not).
Agi: 1 AP in cat form, 0 AP in bear form, some dodge/crit and armor
(but armor from agi isn't affected by bear form)
Str: 2 AP in cat form, 1 AP in bear form. Str is amplified by 20%
in cat form once you have the heart of the wild talent maxed.
Crit%: Same as for every other class.
Hit%: Same as for every other class. Not too important for druids.
Sta: Same as for every other class. Is amplified by 20% in bear
form once you have the heart of the wild talent maxed.
Procs: Stuff like "chance on hit: blabla" does not work in feral
forms.
Use: Stuff like "use: blabla" isn't usable in feral forms.
Weapon:Neither your weapons DPS, nor its attack speed affect your
feral forms at all (except your travel forms, but you don't
fight in travel forms anyway). Weapon skill doesn't apply
in feral forms (nor do you skill up weapons like that), cat
and bear always have character_level * 5 as weapon skill
and fixed attack speeds (1s for cat, 2.5s for bear).
Weapons are nothing but a stat carrier for druids.

That's it. If you're only soloing, you can ignore int/spi as a
feral druid completely. You will never run out of mana, since
you don't use your mana for offense (only to heal yourself after
a few mobs). The odd int/spi piece in your inventory won't hurt
though, for the occasion you group up.

Chris

--
[WoW] Wildcard - Treehugging Tauren (60) on EN Sunstrider [PvP]
Gwaith - Short beastmaster (60) on EN Scarshield L. [RPPvP]
Sian - Best friend (60) on EN Scarshield L. [RPPvP]
Yagon - Pointy eared beast (25) on EN Scarshield L. [RPPvP]

Get the alt.games.warcraft FAQ at http://www.wildcard7.com/agw_faq.txt
 >> Stay informed about: feral spec druid: advice needed