Hi,
I’ve never played Druid, and didn’t play classic.
What I’m seeing is that sunfire is the play for Druids, over mangle? I’ve mostly been running mangle savage roar and wild strikes in WSG.
Are you guys having more success with sunfire build? I definitely want to get rid of savage roar, doesn’t seem to be worth trying to keep up.
This post is more about a discussion on what you have found successful in WPVP and WSG.
Thanks
most go sunfire/starsurge/storm rage from 1-20, then swap over to mangle/feral. Those 3 prior runes will hard carry you through content w/o downtime. You can get starsurge at 1, but youre gonna die alot getting there.
Generally the runes are better than other class spells. Pick what fits your play style. Druid in particular is very flexible.
Both are fine. Play which ever one you like.
I’ve tried to use mangle and usually get absolutely crushed into the dust trying to fight anyone that isn’t a mage or maybe rogue that I catch out of stealth. A mage for sure will pretty much always be a free kill no matter what you run. Sunfire will definitely let you see the graveyard less that’s for sure. It feels like a massive uphill battle trying to fight a pally, warr, or hunter even when I get the opener they just have so much damage.
Yeah melee range is death for druid.
Cat form is not for melee in PVP. It never has been. But it does do damage.
It’s just you can’t survive long doing it.
Anyone who has leveled a druid in classic knows cat is insanely weak from a survivability standpoint.
This is why hardly anyone goes deep feral in PVP. You end up just going into bear most of the time.
The only reason feral is somewhat viable in SoD is the much higher damage that it does.
Mangle is mostly for PvE because you can just semi-AFK behind the boss and mangle/roar for DPS. It can kill but it also dies super fast and will be energy starved since all of the damage will be put into buffed mangles.
For PvP, your main goal as a kitty cat will be spamming sunfire, taking the tanking rune(if you are sane enough to farm it), and running at super-speed and spamming sunfire and avoiding every fight you can while flag running.
For WPvP you can just do whatever.
I haven’t played a druid in classic, but 30% additional damage doesn’t seem worth trying to keep up?
In classic it’s a lot harder to maintain buff finishers because your combo points are on the target, not yourself. So if you swap targets or your target dies you lose all your combo points.
In retail you keep your combo points and can use savage roar whenever you want even with no target as long as you have combo points. Well, at least when druids had savage roar still.
That’s the same in Wrath Classic. 30% extra damage is quite worthwhile. You even glyph for 3% more.
Right now with no extra combo points from crits, and no omen of clarity if you take the speed talent it takes so long to build combo points in PvP that it might not be worthwhile to take.
Plus in wrath players have a lot more health compared to damage, so they live longer, and have a lot more talent points at level 80 compared to SoD’s current level 25.
Yeah, and resilience. There’s also probably other reasons for whatever tradeoffs there are between keeping Savage Roar up (30% extra dmg) and alternatives, like being able to kite. 30% extra damage doesn’t mean a lot if you’re dead! 
Anything melee is trash in SoD. All classes have armor or hp buffs and pvp its all about range anyway. Sunfire spam cat and starsurge is how to win
You need Int/Stam/Spellpower gear. Then you run Sunfire cat.
Otherwise you can sit back and peel for healers with damage as Mangle cat.
I solo q’d over 200 WSG and got exalted as a druid without a premade.
Mangle is absolutely the build.
Sunfire doesn’t do enough damage, mangle is actually good for 1v1s. Don’t let the crybabies who got killed once in wpvp fool you, sunfire isn’t very good.
You don’t need that type of gear since sunfire for ferals scales with AP. It only scales with spell power in normal form. Not sure if many people notice this but I was just messing around with it and my cat sunfire hits for high 70s-low 80s in literally no gear except gloves and is getting boosted by the 55AP or w.e feral gets as a cat. Then I went normal form and used the mana version and it was hitting for the tool tip damage
What other runes are you running?
This. You need to run Survival of the Fittest as well to be tankier. Savage Roar vs Lifebloom vs Skull Bash is a tossup depending on the opponent (but with SR, keep in mind you can use it even with 1 point).
Sunfire hits for ~80. Even less in WSG. It’s not killing anyone competent. Mangle hits very hard, especially in BFD gear. Sure, you don’t always want to team fight with Mangle, but you’re a stealth assassination class.
Assuming one is engineering, it’s incredibly easy (and not particularly costly anymore either).
Cost me 2g for a stack of ordinances, 2.5g for the fish oil, and 3g for the rune. Made the turbochargers myself.
wild strikes and skull bash, the obvious ones
What are you running for WSG?