So just a newbie question, since it seems Druid will be my main in classic. The feeling just doesn’t go away. I think I might roll a paladin and Hunter after the druid which I wasn’t planning on doing at first.
I was thinking of putting 5 points into feral aggression for ferocious bite 15% extra damage, since I like going for bite for a quick kill. Now my doubt is that many recommend just bleeding the enemy dry, so they go for Rip instead then repeat. I’m doing this with 5 points placed into Ferocity already.
Answer based on actual experience please, do not confuse me with just opinions. Which way is more effective for PVP (For PVE I know bleeds is the way) and why?
Bleeds are rarely used in raids due to the debuff limit (dungeons is a different story). Taking the extra ferocious bite damage is pretty good for both PvE and PvP if cat form is the way you want to play.
However more druids will typically play a feral/resto (Heart/NS) or balance/resto (NG/NS) spec for pvp, since cat form is typically very weak once players start getting raid gear. In both specs the majority of your damage will come from moon fire and insect swarm more than anything else.
Personally i have only ever gotten the gear to play Heart/NS since the balance variant requires alot of specific gear that is hard to come by as a druid. The Heart/NS build will be one of the strongest PvP builds in the game during the early phases when players are still largely gearing.
And what makes cat weak? It does very similar damage to a rogue and can keep chugging with furor and snare breaks. What it does not have are the poisons and cooldowns. What it does have is speed, ranged root, a superior form of intercept that all warriors covet, healing, and a combat rez.
Dotting up multiple people will spread more pressure but witht he “old” combo point system it’s alot harder to do. It’s also alot harder to quick switch targets aswell so it makes switchign for a quick burst kill harder.
basically it’s preference but I’d go the way of bleeding someone out, Dotting them up then getting the hell otu of dodge to let them run dry is the way I’d go.
Speaking of Druid, I don’t remember if any weapon procs (like crusader) would work for a druid while in bear or cat form in 1.12?
Trying to recall what does effect druid damage in melee combat. I know the MCP is one of the best weapons to use (granted you have to farm them due to limited uses), but beyond that, I can’t recall if anything else really mattered.
Bleed is nice for ignoring armor.
But ferocious bite is nice for ending it fast.
Bleed is very useful for pvp because of many factors one enemies heal 2 some enemies have high armor 3 kiting enemies 4 preventing enemies from stealthing if you don’t have feari fire.
If you want ferocious bite aggression go for it.
Using bleed on high hp enemies may be better so its full duration can go and as a druid in most cases you won’t be able to cc enemies any way for bleed to break cc.
There are two from AQ. One is a drop, one is a quest that requires rep and a token everyone gets eventually. So if you do AQ at all you will get one. You may have to heal to get there, but you will get the weapon regardless so it doesn’t really matter.
There is also one from Naxx, and one from a world Dragon. Just go to classic.wowhead .com and do a database search for weapons with + feral AP.
Oh, there’s also a Legendary, but good luck with that one.
You can get one from both. AQ 20 its the weapon from the 3 pc set and for AQ 40 you get it from the Imperial regalia quest. You can get a mace from the 4 world dragons and Atiesh has FAP too.
I guess i was infering to someone playing a feral druid like a rogue. Yes there damage can be somewhat comparable (ferals might even be better until both classes reach pre-raid BiS). However, to reach comparable levels of dps often involves gearing heavily into agi/stam. This can be a huge problem, since without a slow they rely entirely on powershifting to break roots/slows. Shifting costs a considerable amount of mana (even when talented), as such druids will often forgo alot of there offensive itemization to pick up enough int gear to sustain there utility/shifting. This slightly more int heavy set up favours maximizing your damage through spells like moonfire and insect swarm while using your feral talents to improve your bear form (which you will be using to minimize the damage of enemy melee).
Also the rapid scaling of the other classes who get access to raid tier weapons will spike up in terms of relative power level while druids are much more linear in terms of power progression, meaning you will typically need several raid tier upgrades to get the same effect as say a warrior or rogue jumping from a dungeon blue weapon to a raid weapon.
If you watch many of the vanilla druid content creators you will see they rarely use cat form for anything other than the opener.
Lack of gear progression. There is simply less leather available to feral and balance druids. So, Rogues will tend to gear up faster and out scale you because of it. And, you will be very much frowned on if you go as feral and try to get your tier set, because that takes away from healers, which is a big part of what keeps progression moving forward.
You CAN do it, but you must be very patient because you have a very narrow upgrade path compared to other classes and specs.
We really don’t start to see decent feral gear until AhnQiraj
The ones I’ve seen rarely rely on a group, but I haven’t seen a feral with insect swarm either.
You want str/agi/stam to take advantage of the extra AP you get from strength. You are also going to want int regardless as it is your greatest strength. Pre-raid you have options for rainbow gear and you can have a mix of physical and caster gear.
You don’t have to break control that often, and your target should be dead before it becomes a problem. And if you are at a distance you can use travel form to cut back on mana usage, not to mention you can give them a nasty whack with your weapon before shifting back to cat form.
Are you going to elaborate so your post isn’t pointless? As for the feral charge, in a bg there are a lot stuns and that comes with DRs. Intercept is a short stun that can ruin an ally’s day. There aren’t a lot of roots to go around so having the root which lasts one second longer is more valuable for someone whose whole MO is uptime on the target. As a bonus it even interrupts casting with a 20 second shorter cooldown.