Advice from experienced Droods plz

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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I was a hunter when I played Vanilla but I have settled on a HotW Drood main for Classic. I am a casual, no interest in raiding. I like pvp, BG’s specifically. Considering a push to R10 for the gear (did this in Vanilla on my hunter) but we’ll see if wife aggro is too strong. Also like dinking around in dugeons and of course solo and farming.

I like that Droods can DPS, tank, and heal (again, I am not a raider). Looking forward to tanking and healing in AV, running the flag in WSG, and guarding nodes in AB, plus other BG adventures. And being able to do any role in dungeons is really appealing.

Am currently conflicted between a couple builds; 14/32/5 and 1/29/21. Would love feedback on playstyle differences from experienced Vanilla Droods.

BALANCE

  • OoC sounds great, is it?
  • Natural Shapeshifter, yes please!
  • Increased damage
  • Buffed Nature’s Grasp

RESTO

  • NS is a 3 min CD but it seems like a potent “oh sh1t” button, is it?
  • Insect Swarm, moar dots! (seriously love dots, is this spell impactful?)
  • Slightly buffed healing

Both specs seem pretty rad, just wondering what the differences are in playstyle and how they feel.

Thanks in advance!

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Throw hots on me when I life tap, that’s my only advice.

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Well for leveling most people will suggest a Heart of the wild spec which is 0/30/21. You get the DPS and speed from cat form, while also having NS in resto this is a basic catform leveling while being able to tank/heal

Though for Flag carrying I’d recommend going 9/11/31 where you get reduced Mana cost for shifting in balance tree, feral charge in feral tree and NS/Swiftmend in resto. This is basically a healer spec

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9/11/31 was the flag spec I used back in Vanilla and it was fantastic for running flags. It was also useful when not running flags so you could heal your team efficiently.

To the OP 14/32/5 is a good spec as it supports power shifting. I might be remembering things incorrectly, but I remember power shifting being great in PvP if done correctly.

Edit: Forgot to add that I usually ran 3 specs. 9/11/31 for flag carries, 14/32/5 for power shifting in PvP and raiding as OT/DPS, and a raid healing spec that I forgot what it was.

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Druids in Vanilla are a support class. They will not top the charts in any one category but they will thrive overall. In Vanilla you will be expected to Heal/DPS/Tank all throughout the same fight. The talent choices are flexible for Druids, I could talk all day about this talent and that talent but my best advise is to just try out different specs and go with what you like.

Druids are amazing dungeon tanks and excel at keeping aggro over warriors. Druids running flags in WSG is a great addition to any game. Druids are strong in soloing content.

Druids will likely be the least played class in Classic. They are the “weakest” Class in many people’s eyes because they can’t match other Classes straight up. But if your willing to shapeshift, heal, DPS and tank all at the same time then you may enjoy being a Druid.

Another consideration is that Druids are fairly easy to level at least in comparison to other Classes. It takes months for casual players to level in Classic. Since you have limited play time that might be something you want to consider.

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Part of this is that that spec was the only non silly spec before the talent revamp. 1/29/21 is arguably better for flag holding and running the flag with support due to the HP bonus in bear.

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This is exactly what sold me on the class.

I’ve always been interested in the lore and aesthetic of druids but it wasn’t until I started reading around that I realized the optimal playstyle is very different than I imagined and much more like what you’ve described.

And that’s what brings me here.

I could definitely see myself powershifting a lot to pressure enemies while still being able to offheal a bit (great for solo stuff as well) but 0/30/21 is appealing for the healz as well.

So many cool options! :smiley:

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Not an extremely experienced Druid, leveled one to 40 on Northdale using this build:

Level 40: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/druid/AxzDPAACzAQ
Level 60: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/druid/BBzHPHwAA800xA

Could swap Improved Thorns for Improved Entangling Roots for PVP since you don’t want to be getting hit.

Fought a 43 orc warrior who was ganking in Redridge Mountain. Caught him with a Pounce out of Prowl. Instantly shifted out of cat form and started spamming him with Moonfire which crits for 300+. If he ever managed to get close, all I had to do was Nature’s Grasp before continuing to Moonfire him to death.

He ended up mounting up and running away into Elwynn Forest after a few deaths, and I lost him in a buggy phase between zones.

This was my gear: https://i.imgur.com/ythWAUA.jpg

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Druid is a super-fun class. This guy was my main all through Vanilla. As to the two specs you are thinking about, they both have their advantages and disadvantages.

The 9/11/31 spec mentioned above is an excellent spec for many things: dungeon healing, raid healing, PvP healing, Flag carrying. It’s disadvantage is that it doesn’t have much burst damage, so it’s tough to kill enemies in PvP. You’ll probably need to rely on your team for that. It is very survivable, just not burst-y.

14/32/5 gives you a little PvE edge for DPS and tanking. IMHO, this spec really isn’t needed outside of raids. Yes, you get a little more damage out of it, But it’s not needed for dungeons. You can Tank or DPS any dungeon in Rank 10 gear and a few specialized trinkets and consumables from questing/ lvl 60 dungeons / engineering with a 1/29/21 spec. For tanking dungeons Get yourself an unyielding maul, Mark of Tyranny, and smoking heart of the mountain, and you’ll be good. For DPS get fist of omokk, rank 10 gear, and your choice of DPS trinkets, and you’ll manage. Won’t top meters, but who cares about meters in dungeons.

The 1/29/21 or 0/30/21 spec HotW spec is a versatile PvP and PvE spec. You can heal, tank or DPS any dungeon in this spec, but you’ll need different gear sets for each (then again Druids need different gears sets for each no matter what they spec). Where this spec shines is in being VERY multi-role in PvP. It’s survivable, has fantastic mobility, better damage than 9/11/31, (not insane like a geared mage, rogue or warrior, but better than resto spec Druid), and excellent control and utility with feral charge & Nature’s swiftness. It’s probably the most well rounded spec because it reduces the advantages some classes have over you. But it’s downside is that there is little margin for error. You’ll have to pay attention to when enemies have their CC or CC counters (evade, blink, etc) on cooldown, because if your bash misses, or your feral charge is on cooldown, or its to dangerous to pop-out to NS+Healing Touch, you can get owned pretty quickly.

Overall I think Druids have a VERY high skill cap. I wasn’t good enough to play one well in classic, but I had SO much fun anyway. There is so much you can do in PvP and PvE that other classes can’t do, that it never gets boring.

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Personally, i always preferred a feral-resto hybrid over putting much, if anything, into balance. Nature’s grasp was a good pickup but past that not much in balance was really all that helpful.

Id probably go for the 1/29/21 spec, or possibly 5/25/21 if you want more reliability out of natures grasp for pvp.

I always found that cat form was rarely used with those builds, though. I used it for stealth, initial ambush, and occassionally added bleed dots, but most of my time especially in pvp was spent between bear and caster forms. You’ll want to be in bear as much as possible when under attack, especially by melee enemies, as youre much more squishy in cat and caster.

Bear form with feral/resto spec absolutely destroys rogues too, btw

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It depends on your style/support. That 1/29/21 basically requires a healer to hold your hand. Where as the 9/11/31 can do well solo since you have Swiftmend and natural shapeshifter.

The power of druid FC comes from it’s mobility and healing. If your being a stationary bear, you’re probably doing it wrong.

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Sometimes you have to be a stationary bear waiting for a flag return, and sometimes you have to tank it out and a swiftmend isn’t going to make up for being stunned out of bear. Swiftmend isn’t going to break a turtle and swiftmend might not keep you up when both teams have gone on the offensive to kill EFCs.

Like I said, 1/29/21 is arguably better for flag holding or running with support. I didn’t say it was a better spec in general or better for solo running.

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Given these options.

A. Sit on flag in bear form and pray that your healer doesn’t get CCd and pray that your team kills their FC before you die.

B. Run around base to 2nd or 3rd floor. Kite melee dmg using charge, Sprint, pots and LOS ranged damage. Avoid 90% of damage while waiting for your team to make the call that they will kill FC

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1/29/21 has all of those things. It just doesn’t have swiftmend.

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It doesn’t have improved nature’s grasp or natural shapeshifter and id hope that you atleast are wearing resto gear because if your wearing bear gear you will be OOM just from shapeshifting.

It really comes down to.

Do you want to be a sponge or do you want to be a livelord that doesn’t get touched.

Can’t kill you if they can’t catch you

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Well I am gonna be playing with a 1/31/19 spec myself but that is pretty much a full PVE “do it all” spec and it sacrifices quite a bit of quite important components for PVP.

I guess that’s the beauty of it especially for druids people tend to have their own talent builds for their own specific needs.
Just go with what feels right is my advice I suppose.

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For PVP boomkins are fun, but feral does WSG and AB better, but boomies are vicious assasins in AV I used to creep around in stealth till I found some out of position hunter or priest and wait for them to target someone, pop out of hiding and charge up that starfall+moonfire combo followed promptly by a insect swarm and if a nelf or rogue fairie fire but whatever the target position is key.

Imp natures grasp is nice in all specs for pvp and should be a goal for flag runners, especially if you thing a rogue is around to intercept you.

Don’t be afraid to mix and match your approach as well, cat-pouncing someone and laying on a rake for the extra dot then followed up with moonfire and insect swarm gives almost warlock levels of ‘going to die some day’ while bearform-bashing someone is a pretty important interrupt.

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Well you didn’t list NG, and you only get to NG the ramp which is pretty far from the flag. If you’re running from their offense, then there’s a decent chance one of them will grab the returned flag before you can get to it. Look, I R14’d as a 5/13/31 variant. I think I have a good grasp of how PvP works and the capabilities of the spec. You really don’t need to tell me.

What I am saying that 1/29/21 has some strengths over 5/13/31 for flag carrying, not that it’s an overall better spec for it.

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As 5/13/31 where did you put your remaining 2 talents?

As a R14 maybe you just didn’t need those 2 points.

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Dewds, thank you for all the saavy replies! You are helping me and other wannabe Droods a ton.

That said I have another couple of questions.

The Natural Shapeshifting has a big appeal to me. I do anticipate powershifting a lot to run away, throw out DOTs, heal, and then shift to run away again. How impactful is the Natural Shapeshifter, and should I be stacking STA/INT gear?

Thanks!