I’m pretty conflicted on what to roll for Classic as a main healer, but it seems that priest is probably the best option so far.
I have played a lot of Druid high key M+ in BFA and am hoping some of that practice might translate over to Classic in regards of mixing dps and heals via catweaving, etc.
Is this a viable tactic, whatsoever, in Classic? Or is it just flat out unnecessary and no feral traits do no damage in cat form and ultimately becomes useless? I don’t remember this being a normal thing in Vanilla, but perhaps I was just more of a “noob” during my Vanilla days, or it just wasn’t an abundant concept yet?
Curious on thoughts out there - would love to roll a Druid instead of Priest for this reason.
Cat Damage as a feral takes advantage of the boost of energy you get from entering cat form. You powershift after you use a finisher like ferocious bite. With the leatherworking helm & a talent you gain 60 energy. It really supplements your DPS and lowers the downtime. You need mana potions to be effective and you’ll never be a rogue but its still pretty good.
Also keep in mind you’re there to be a support in the first place. You still have battlerez, intervate, motw, thorns, and Leader of the pact for your melee group.
The main intent would obviously be for main heals, but with HoTs, etc - there’s always downtime. In current state M+/BFA, there is quite a bit of downtime due to HoTs, which allows Druid to sit in cat form for some time, and supplement DPS.
I’m just unsure if this exists in Classic, and the opportunity to catweave will be negligible, making druid overall less effective in this regard?
From what I understand, most gear you get will either be tailored to cat dps or healing but not both. So trying to do both in a raid with the shapshift cost will likely be costly in pots and your dps/hps (but Im not some druid pro so _o.o_/ )
I’m sure you could make it work but idk how efficient mana wise it’d be. You could spec into cheaper forms mana wise, but would still recommend mana pots.
It’s totally doable. In fact, it helps justify putting all those points into Natural Weapons to get Omen of Clarity, the procs of which can be used for healing spells. As others have already said though, cats have enough trouble competing with other DPS in Vanilla. Just don’t expect to contribute anything more than modest and occasional DPS, and be mindful of the mana you’re using to enter cat form.
So in reality, it’s probably more likely that a priest putting SW:P, wanding, or throwing out DPS in general, will likely exceed cat DPS and/or generally be more efficient mana-wise, is what it seems to me.
Yeah I checked some beta streamers and it appears changing forms (both in and out) eats up a decent chunk of mana. Wowhead says 55% of base mana, so not great.
Priest probably does more dps with SW:P and a wand
Here’s an example of a spec with which I think you could reasonably return to cat when no healing casts are needed at the time as long as you’re fairly sure you won’t need the mana soon.
