I am new to vanilla WoW, and was looking at maybe playing a Night Elf druid for the HC server when it is live. But the main websites like WoWhead and Icy Veins rank every druid spec as worse than most other options in their roles.
It says things like you can’t go balance druid due to mana restrictions, feral tanking is second worse only to prot pally, and restoration druid is hardly brought along for heals when there are holy pally’s/priests to go in their place.
So if no spec is really all that needed for raiding, why even play a druid at all? Thanks for the advice in advance.
So as someone who would be interested in DPS for raids, what is your recommendation? Feral druid? Would I find a raid team that would actually want me there?
Would I want to play a character with no hope of surviving at 60? I mean… Dumb as it sounds, I am interested in the hardcore servers to get to 60 and then participate in real high stakes stuff where death is final, but not with the thought of being the worst participant at end content dangling over my head, ya know?
While on regular(non HC) servers, druids were mostly only brought for MotW, and maybe thorns & brez, there were still probably most raids that had multiple druids, because “people who are playing” > “nobody.” In HC, I imagine this will be even more true.
And that’s assuming you make it to 60, and gear up for raiding… I’d say play what you want to play.
Honestly I have no idea other than I think it’s just what some folks want to play, as well as for the crit buff. Most of the high end hard core content I have seen in videos the raids rotate their Druid crit buff to different groups as needed each week so that dps can compete with each other to see who can put out the highest numbers. It seems like a pretty niche role but I think most raids want a feral Druid for this purpose so that’s at least one justification. As for the others, I am not sure. I remember when BC launch was coming back in 2006-ish and I remember how many forum posts I saw talking about how druids needed as much love as they could get. They were not in a good place in pve in vanilla with respect to competing with other classes who filled the same roles. They were unique in being able to fill all three roles, but they weren’t the best or even second best at them from what I understand. Aside from maybe tanking. Maybe.
You don’t have to be number 1 to have fun. Druids are excellent at being diverse, they are fun in pvp, fun to solo content on, and they can gear up fast as often there is just a handful in a raid.
Raiding in classic is easy, also if you care about parsing it’s against other druids, so it doesn’t matter if the class isn’t the best.
Bear is really good tank. Druids are too busy getting gear to parse.
Motw / thorns are awesome, esp when people lack gear.
Travel form + kitty speed.
Can heal, tank, or dps any dungeon while leveling.
Elf area is less congested on launch.
Really good leveler with a kit that changes (1-20 wrath, 20+ kitty, etc)
Can be cute elf or fun cow.
HoT + form is nice for leveling, very little downtime.
Full ‘plate’ kit right as you turn 40
Druids can fill in any gap on raid night. They play a definitive role in PvP. A Warrior/Resto duo is an unstoppable force in both PvE and PvP scenarios.
A Night Elf pixie girl that can transform into a cheetah, panther, bear…you can’t go wrong when choosing to play a druid.
Feral is the best Effective Health tank in the game in Classic. In appropriate gear, a Bear tank has more armor than a Warrior with a BiS shield, 5/5 Toughness and a stoneshield pot.
Bear also has easier gearing, but there are some items in the Bear BiS list that come from PVP rewards. I’m certain there will be good alternatives although I don’t know off the top of my head what they are.
Bear single target threat is very good. Multi-target is more tab target heavy and relies on the DPS not playing like crap. AOE tanking in Classic is more complicated than later versions of the game, you won’t have a button to spam that just does all the threat for you on any tank class.
The main drawbacks to Bears are that they cannot use items and potions in Bear form, and they cannot do a Hybrid DPS/Tank spec that works. Using items and potions as a Bear form can be done (shifting), but on Hardcore it is extra risky as you aren’t going to get many chances to screw it up.
The Hybrid DPS/Tank spec thing is an issue in Classic because unlike later versions of the game the “meta” is for Tanks to do lots of damage which means more threat. Threat itself is a major mechanic in PVE in Classic compared to WotlK and later. If the threat is high enough the DPS are effectively able to do as much damage as they possibly can. Otherwise the DPS must hold back to not surpass the tanks because pulling threat is death in many if not most cases in a raid encounter in classic.
Anyway, I wouldn’t take that article too seriously. If you want to play Druid find the Classic Druid discord and learn from the experts on the class.
Confirm. 30% passive speed buff at level 20. No downtime since you can heal up then let your mana regen while in cat form. HoTs into bear form and you can kill pretty much anything.
Unless if they also allow multiple regrowths/rejuvs on one target any additional resto druid after the first / with the highest +healing would still be gimped and would likely be stuck on healing touch or regrowth sniping.
I mean they are as squishy as any other dps, but you have bear form which is insanely tanky even for a dps gear one