You’re absolutely right, it will be the least played class. I’m pretty sure it was in vanilla even taking into account Shaman/Paladin only being playable by one faction.
Not to mention Mark of the Wild is really useful and battle res is only brought by them. Soulstone kind of works but requires them to be pre-deployed.
rejuv doesnt stack in classic, so 40min raids only brought 1-2 restro druids, so you’ll be looking for really tight raid spots
You bring whatever healer you can find. Rejuvenation doesn’t stack, but you won’t be using it that much except for on the tank. You’ll be using Healing Touch mostly.
I cant wait to have warcraftlogs for classic… so people can be proven wrong; druid requires more management but can heal just as well without maxing out on consumables
but most healers other than druids don’t stack spirit but stack MP/5 I don’t give innervate to a healer with less spirit than me…since innervate is spirit based regen buff… but my plan is to be feral anyways this go around in classic since 1.12 has all the feral optimizations on here
Raw HPS isn’t even the point of bringing a Druid. Just like all the other classes and specs, it’s not about being the same in a singular category. Druids bring resistances (through MotW), Innervate, better HoTs if necessary, and especially battle res. They’re not as strong of a healer as the other three but they bring other tools that none of the others can bring.
It’s a modern WoW outlook to look only at a DPS’s damage done, or a healer’s HPS, or even a tank’s life total. That’s not how it works. If it was, people wouldn’t bring Hunters, and then they’d wipe, because they’re a little behind.
Vanilla WoW had a different role for each healer.
Paladins were, far and away, the best main tank / single target healers. They have the greatest healing efficiency. Their downside is a complete lack of any multi-target or AoE heals, no heal over time spells, and no damage shields (DI doesnt count).
Druids are heal-over-time focused; between regrowth and rejuvenation you can keep little ticks of healing going on a lot of people at once. I mained an alliance druid for 4 years back in vanilla/tbc/wotlk, and prior to TBC I was one of my guild’s go-to healers for raids. Obviously I wasnt a main healer for the tank, and I could never match priests or paladins for direct healing, but on top of being a mana battery for the priests I could keep rejuvenation going on 10-20 people at a time which meant the priests didnt have to heal most of the damage dealers except during heavy aoe damage phases.
Shamans were the best multi-target/aoe healers via chain heal spam. While paladins had zero aoe heals, and druids only had tranquility on a long cooldown, shamans could sit there and heal 3-4+ targets at a time constantly. This makes them great for dealing with the 39 people other than the main tank in a raid who are taking aoe damage from the mobs and/or boss. Shamans also had, at least in my opinion, far more group support utilities than any other healer; some of the paladin’s auras/blessings may have outdone specific totems, but the variety of effects they can throw out to their team via the overwhelming number of totems in their arsenal is unmatched.
Priests were basically your all-around well balanced healers. They have ok efficiency, single target and aoe heals, as well as heal over time and burst heals. They also have a damage shield. This huge toolkit is always what made them the go-to for healing any content, even though they’re outclassed by shamans for aoe and outclassed by paladins for single target and outclassed by druids for heal over time.
Each of the healer classes also had a unique wipe prevention (or recovery) tool they brought to the raid. Paladins could use divine intervention on another healer. Priests had their spirit healer form that let them heal for ‘free’ for 10 seconds after dying. Druids can battle rez - something no other class can do. Shamans can self-rez.
It’s all a matter of which of those roles you want to fill in a raid. All are necessary.
yea its not about straight HPS, does any other healer have a 2% damage reduction to all physical attacks on a boss? I don’t think so; does anyone else have the ability to roll 2 hots on up to 4 tanks a time?; I dont think so… ohh yea and HT rank 4 atleast was the most mana effective heal in the game… So I guess none of that matters? ohh yea druids are the only healer that can give a buff that increases tank TPS as horde that doesnt require them to be in the tanks party
Most guilds will “overheal” the content which is why Druids reflect poorly on the meter. As they are the most prone to heal sniping out of all the classes with their long cast Healing Touch. Only one druid is really going to be able play HoT spec unless you coordinate who HoTs what. T3 2 set is when HoT style gets boosted even more as it becomes a dps increase to apply HoTs but this doesn’t come into effect until the very end of the content cycle.
Druids can be efficient, but I don’t think any healer tops 8/8 T2 Priest in terms of raw HPM.
um no its 8 targets max at 12 second HoT with a 1.5 second gcd; if you have haste to lower it down to a 1 second gcd you get 12 people so your numbers are high for ability to cast hots on multiple targets
The fact that these questions keep coming up is a good sign to me. While not flawless by any means, Blizzard’s original design in vanilla for group content was a beautiful interplay of various class/spec abilities and specialized skills, allowing for more than just healer/tank/3dps group configurations and the standard raid formats used in retail nowadays. You can see, by all the discussion about the viability of druids and utility classes in general, that the matter of which method or configuration is “best” is far from settled, suggesting that “best” is perhaps not the only worthy gameplay goal within the structure of Classic.
If you want to play a druid, play a druid. See how it goes. Classic is going to be with us for a while. If it really isn’t your thing, you’ll have time to reroll.
Alright so essentially whilst I might not top the meters for healing because of the slower heal times etc of the druid the utility of one is still very important? The more I read your responses the more eager it makes me to play a Druid and I feel it’s the right decision to make! Thank you everyone ![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
A raid can only benefit by bringing a Druid, so yes. It’s also the most comfortable to play in solo content, arguably, since you can pop into cat or bear.
You’re also insanely strong flag carriers in WSG.
I’ve heard they were phenomenal flag carriers! Is there much room for healing in PvP as a druid? Also I love your Transmog!
Absolutely, HoTs are hard to deal with if you can’t purge them off, and you can’t kick the Druid casting them. A properly spec’d flag carrying Druid will be part Resto as well, so they have very potent HoTs.
Well, that’s just silly. Druid is a perfectly viable class.
Their healing output is less than a Priest or Paladin’s, which is probably what they meant. However, you can’t just stack a raid with Priest healers and expect your guild to get geared.
You need some Druids for decursing, Rebirth, Mark of the Wild, etc.
The exact opposite. It will be vastly underpopulated. It is easily the least played class in vanilla.
There will be so few druids, it’ll be quite easy to get an invite to a raid as “the one druid in the group.”
You just have to be Restoration, not Balance or Feral, and you’ll get an invite.
You’ll be giving innervate to whoever the raid lead tells you to, most likely.
I can’t remember a time I needed it for myself outside of pvp. I was built for mana sustain though.
We were able to track back in vanilla.
Priests were always the kings of throughput.
I felt I was much better at efficiency and proactive healing, but never tracked that specifically.
I just remember fights such as executus that were mana intensive and I performed well due to efficiency.
Maybe if you factored in over healing priest healing was highest but I don’t care about over you defective healing is all that matters and I know effectively I could heal more than a priest over healing is a waste and it counts for nothing in the game