Omen of Clarity applies to shapeshift. Doesn’t make up for shifting cost and no mana regen for the duration of cat form though.
bingo, natural shapeshifter will help a lot too, unless the OP is constantly going in and out of forms.
@Durrus hmm… that seems a little more tempting, then.
@Bashan - oof, no mana regen in cat? Are you sure? I’m watching Soda on an old beta stream and he was regen’ing in cat.
I believe you should still have normal mana regen while in cat form.
Your mana bar is hidden and you can’t see it without an addon, but it’s still doing its thing in the background, I think.
Remember, the 5 second rule is “5 seconds without spending mana” not “5 seconds without using an ability”. (This rarely comes up for most classes, but is pretty important in this case.)
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Well, regardless of how often they are shifting, Natural Shapeshifter will help. I meant that Omen of Clarity procs can’t be used for “free shapeshifts”. Of course it can proc in one form and be used from another.
ohhh yeah I’m with ya now!
As for how often you’d need to swap in/out of forms - I’m not entirely sure.
It entirely depends on the fight in BFA/Retail, but in a lot of cases, you can throw out HoTs, swap to cat, and DPS for quite a while. Sometimes, if your group is derp, you can’t.
Watching streams of Classic, it seems like there is potential for solid downtime, as long as you have a competent group - but the idea would be reliant on you potentially needing to swap in/out of cat quite frequently, to maximize value.
I guess I’m still leaning towards priest being more effective at this point.
I believe that you’re wrong. I could be misremembering but I mained a Druid in actual vanilla and IIRC it doesn’t regen in forms (except moonkin… and even then ain’t no moonkin not spamming spells whenever they have a drop of mana)
You absolutely do, even if you apply Innervate to yourself before shifting to cat.
Yup, and it’s very important to have that addon if you’re gonna do this. It Vanilla it was called “Druid Bar”. Classic’s version might have a different name.
Also correct. Wow, Aryxymaraki didn’t skip his balanced breakfast this morning! The cow is on point…
It absolutely does.
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I’d be interested to see some evidence of that if you have some.
Ironically, for health reasons, I can’t eat breakfast 
@Bashan - just watch it for yourself. You can see his mana regen’ing and he even comments on waiting for it in many cases.
There’s no Classic up at the moment from which to collect the evidence. But ask any powershifting feral about it and they’ll laugh that you even asked.
Thanks Interlinked. Good to know.
Ahh, well-played. Read tone from Bashan that wasn’t there. Sorry, bro.
Hard to judge tone online. Thanks for correcting me anyway.
Either way, if you’re wanting to do damage while healing I don’t think cat form is the way to do it.
I think you’re right - I didn’t realize that shapeshift required mana in Classic (d’oh) - that coupled with a lack of specialization probably makes it pretty ineffective overall. Can pump out more off-DPS on priest (especially when you can wand for free).
Was hoping to inject some “new” strategy into the mechanics of classic, but probably not going to work in most cases! Ha
Well…sort of, but not really. I also M+ in BfA with a resto druid.
Druids are valuable in endgame raids, but you won’t dominate or be on par with the meta healers (priests and pallies). Ever. Your job will largely be to assist the priest so they don’t run out of mana by granting them your innervate.
Catweaving is an excellent grinding tool for leveling, and druids can be very effective in PvP. That said, the class doesn’t operate anything like we’re used to in BfA. It would be largely unrecognizable. Boomies/Crit Chickens don’t really exist in Vanilla because the spec just really didn’t work the way it was sitting in 1.12.
Druids are fun, and if you love the class identity, go ahead and roll one. You will level well, and you will have a place in raids. You will not top the healing meter, however, and you will not be anyone’s first choice for heals in dungeons (no rez…only a 1-hour cooldown brez). Catweaving would be a great way to dungeon as you level, but you’d want to spec much heavier into feral than restoration. Bring bleeds and dps…and innervate with some emergency hots. That would work, especially if you had friends who were chill enough not to spreadsheet the joy out of the game.
Watch some videos on Vanilla druid specs and how to make it work. See what you think. Best wishes.