Druid PVP - is it true

[Sourr 1]

I've been playing the game since vanilla, but druid (and shaman) are two classes I've never played. While I'm trying to decide between the 3 horde healing classes, I am put off a bit by all the hate druids get generally. Is it really that bad being a druid (especially resto) in late game pvp?. Putting all this time to get high level is a pretty big investment, so I'd rather ask now if many of you wish they had gone another path. Do you struggle to get into groups as anything but a flag carrier?

The alternatives are sham and priest of course, but I feel those are pretty strongly represented as is. Another thought is that one day druids will be sick once tbc rolls around, but who knows when / if this will happen.

Thanks for any experiences you can share.

[Akerman 0]

There is nothing wrong with being a druid in pvp, doesent matter if you are cat/healer or a flag carrier. The problem becomes when you want to start raiding, then you pretty much are a healer.

[Xef 5]

IMO druids just have the same "they're completely useless" reputation as alliance warlocks, but then there's people who have absolutely no issues with any of the downsides at all. Heck, I'd even say that the main "downside" is the bad reputation.

I'd just go with whatever class you'd prefer regardless of its reputation or how good or bad you've heard that they're at end game PvP. You're worrying about investing a lot of time on a class that has a bad reputation, but I'd rather worry about investing a lot of time on a class you don't enjoy playing. 

[Porta 10]

Healing as a druid in PVP is the most fun healing playstyle i've personally played.

- you can remove any snare by shapeshifting

- Short cast strong cc(entangling)

Druid healing in PVP mostly revolves around using your mobility to its full extent, without burning all your mana asap. 

Even as a healer you should get feral charge, use it as an interrupt! Together with bash you now have two interrupts, very useful and the feral charge cd is very short. 

I personally always get imp entanglish in balance, getting those pushbacks removed makes this cc super reliable, just span rank 1 on priests and watch them burn mana to dispelling it.

A healer that can pick and choose where he pops out of stealth is a huge advantage. As you can completely offset the balance of a fight  by poppin up where they dont expect it.

[Undertanker 88]

On 1/21/2017 at 10:14 PM, Sourr said:

I've been playing the game since vanilla, but druid (and shaman) are two classes I've never played. While I'm trying to decide between the 3 horde healing classes, I am put off a bit by all the hate druids get generally. Is it really that bad being a druid (especially resto) in late game pvp?. Putting all this time to get high level is a pretty big investment, so I'd rather ask now if many of you wish they had gone another path. Do you struggle to get into groups as anything but a flag carrier?

The alternatives are sham and priest of course, but I feel those are pretty strongly represented as is. Another thought is that one day druids will be sick once tbc rolls around, but who knows when / if this will happen.

Thanks for any experiences you can share.

 

[Sourr 1]

Thanks for all the good replies. That video is really sick, i can't help but think what an equally skilled player on a different class could do (but i'm not looking for an OP class anyways).

Druid looks good fun, i'll give it a go.

[Jyash 5]

This one is my personal favorite if you're into flagrunning 

 

[nametakenwtf 3]

sdd?

[Sbd 3]

On 1/24/2017 at 5:58 AM, Sourr said:

(but i'm not looking for an OP class anyways).

Druid looks good fun, i'll give it a go.

That's the spirit. 

[Martyllean 0]

Druids are always very fun in pvp ... healers are very good FC at WSG , Feral is have good dmg , but balance spec sucks in vanilla 

Edited January 30, 2017 by Martyllean

[safarl 0]

druids can never lose in pvp, if needed they escape

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#0zL0hZVzxoZVtckeq0o (resto pvp spec, which is fine for  mc aswell)

Edited February 17, 2017 by safarl

[Fladrif 14]

I like Vanilla because of classes interdependence.

In my humble opinion,

druids, shamans and paladins were designed to play a "support" role:

1. Druid:

• can be a powerful off-healer and Damage dealer at the same time, because he can cast HoT (healing over time) and provide damage while shape-shifted;
• can be an off-tank to handle a difficult pull, but he sacrifices his healing abilities (because he can't shape-shift into caster form with aggro on);
• Mark of the wild, thorns + other buffs depending on the spec;

The community never really understood (nor appreciated) the specific role of druid as a support class and played it as "pure Dps" (wearing rogue items, generally sacrificing +int and limiting the numbers of SS possibles) or as "pure healers" (wearing cloth designed for priests, mages and WLs).

But in Vanilla, this community approach doesn't really work... because druids were designed to play a sort of "rotation" of roles. From TBC onward, Blizzard modified the class to suit the roles of Tank, Healer or DD and thus pleasing the community (in Wotlk the process was almost complete).

As a consequence, people with some experience will say that the class sucks. Yes, vanilla druid isn't a rogue, nor a warrior and not a priest (he doesn't even have a no-cd resurrection spell! This  fact should tell you something about the mechanics of the class): he was designed to play a support role,  a role that the community can't appreciate because they found another way to make things work and crystallized their view. Why? Because Blizzard listened to them and adjusted the game to suit their play-style in later expansions.

Vanilla PVP was designed to have the same "class interdependencies": it wasn't really designed for 1 vs. 1... and people said that classes were not balanced. Warhammer Online had the same idea behind it, but the difference here is that in WoW you can somehow play outside the schemes and make things work (even in sub-optimal ways).

In 1 vs. 1, druid is good against certain classes... but he always need to gain some tactical advantage, the most obvious one is being outdoor to cast roots (yes, Vanilla cares about Lore). Generally, Vanilla druid is a class that can't survive a 1vs1 if he's unexpectedly attacked, but he can flee pretty well!

Edited February 17, 2017 by Fladrif

[Zak Preston 5]

@Fladrif

Please stop posting nonsense: in vanilla wow druid has always been jack of all trades and master of none. Why take a support that does everything bad when you can take a "pure" DPS or tank? Things have changed in TBC when druids were forced to "heal or GTFO". None has ever considered ferals (except tanking) and balance as serious specs. For sure there were some bright exceptions, but the rest were just geeks (like me) or tryhards.

[Fladrif 14]

8 hours ago, Zak Preston said:

@Fladrif

Please stop posting nonsense: in vanilla wow druid has always been jack of all trades and master of none. Why take a support that does everything bad when you can take a "pure" DPS or tank? [...]

First reason: it's not a job, it's a game and we play for fun.

Second reason: although it may seem strange to you, it works pretty well. The druid saves some of the priest's mana that can even cast some offensive spells! Warrior doesn't need specific tank spec because... it's just easier to heal an X amount of damage divided in 2 Health bars than the usual tank-takes-all approach. Requirements: druid has to continually shapeshift to fulfill his hybrid roles. And no, he can't do that with rogue's equipment. 

Plus: buff matters.

8 hours ago, Zak Preston said:

Things have changed in TBC when druids were forced to "heal or GTFO". None has ever considered ferals (except tanking) and balance as serious specs. For sure there were some bright exceptions, but the rest were just geeks (like me) or tryhards.

Yes, Blizzard created feral and balance specs  just to troll you.

 

[Zak Preston 5]

no, they created feral and balance specs as multitools, that actually didn't work very well. Since WotLK druid's specs have been separated and specialized more.

[Fladrif 14]

In my opinion, you're wrong. I think that vanilla classes were supposed to be precisely the way they are. Talent trees were carefully designed and not a "let's see how it works" thing.

All the theory-craft that emerged around talent builds was born out of a very simple misunderstanding.

The druid class was designed to keep his hybrid nature even while improving certain aspects with TPs and leveling: you have "Natural Shapeshifter" in the balance tree and "Improved enrage" + "furor" in the restoration tree. And why they improve your intellect with "heart of the wild" in the feral tree?

Because druid was supposed to play a rotation of roles, independently from the spec. He shouldn't be considered as healer or DD.

Vanilla classes were Tank, DamageDealer, Healer and Support. Druids and paladins being Support.

Players were supposed to save a slot in their groups for the "support" role, a player who fills different roles simultaneously.

Later, Blizzard just adapted their game to players' understanding, sacrificing depth for ca$h... and yes, they keep doing it.

Wotlk destroyed this model. Wotlk druid is not the same as Vanilla druid.

 

 

Edited February 18, 2017 by Fladrif

[Zak Preston 5]

@Fladrif I see no subject to argue here, as your statements don't contradict with mine ones. The experiment with support classes has failed and I personally remember blueposts from Kalgan and Ghostcrawler about their insight i the matter:

Hybrid classes were supposed like something you've stated in your post, indeed.

Making hybrid classes significantly worse than "pure" classes will result in mass rerolls from it because most people will prefer to take a better DPS, better healer or better tank, while multirole is a pleasant option, nothing more. 

If you make the opposite and buff hybrids to the level of "pure" classes, then why play mages, rogues and warriors if you can do the same as druid and bring more utility.

Even for "pure" classes mixed specs like 21/8/22 for rogues brought headache to Blizzard and they nerfed them significantly, to say nothing of hybrid specs for hybrid classes. 

[athero 0]

can druids give wf to warriors ? no. can druids dispell warriors ? no.

there u go.

[Zak Preston 5]

Let's clarify my position: Feral Druids are not unplayable in PvP, not they are bad or broken. Feral druids have much higher skillcap, are much more punishing (for mistakes) and  but aren't more rewarding in PvP than most other classes.

[фткyн 1469]

You will fc on wsg, you will that inerruption shitter on ab, who runs around and spam 1r moon fire. 

And motw, thorns, br, inner, decurse, abolish guy in raids. 

 

Btw pala is very good healer with huge manapool while major pot will restore like a half of yours mana. 

[Fladrif 14]

On 18/2/2017 at 8:17 PM, Zak Preston said:

@Fladrif I see no subject to argue here, as your statements don't contradict with mine ones. The experiment with support classes has failed and I personally remember blueposts from Kalgan and Ghostcrawler about their insight i the matter:

Hybrid classes were supposed like something you've stated in your post, indeed.

[...]

 

The experiment failed because it was too complicated for players at the time to understand such a concept, but since we're on Vanilla, the support-classes experiment is a never-ending one: we can't just pretend that druids and paladins are not designed to complement the group with a specific role.

In practice, the support role works pretty well: although people generally tend to concentrate on DDs, there's another important factor that influences the performance of the group. How long it can sustain the fight.

If a fight last 60s and the priest ends with no mana and the warrior >60% hp deficit... this is generally a bad performance. But with a druid that can save some of the priest's mana with his HoT spells, the fight will last 75s but it will be so smooth that everyone will notice it with amazement.

After a few pulls, the intelligent priest will start to cast some offensive spells because he doesn't need all of his mana for healing... and there you lose even the Healing-Bot role (the guy who doesn't even know what's going on because he's fully concentrate on healtbars!)

In my opinion, unless we fully embrace the idea of a support class, it becomes even stupid to roll a druid for a couple of utility spells.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Fladrif

[athero 0]

Quote

If a fight last 60s and the priest ends with no mana and the warrior >60% hp deficit... this is generally a bad performance. But with a druid that can save some of the priest's mana with his HoT spells, the fight will last 75s but it will be so smooth that everyone will notice it with amazement.

i wrote a nice response about support but then i realised you are just dumb

vanilla supports suck so bad its worse for raid to take them than not. Thats it.

 

 

[Warl0ck 2]

On 1/24/2017 at 4:32 AM, Undertanker said:

 

Enjoyed the vid... then saw the vid poster follows Alex Jones--the guy who says Sandy Hook was a hoax.  /tinfoilhat

[Fladrif 14]

2 hours ago, athero said:

[...]

vanilla supports suck so bad its worse for raid to take them than not. Thats it.

 

 

no

[Rafale 6]

 

5 hours ago, athero said:

i wrote a nice response about support but then i realised you are just dumb

vanilla supports suck so bad its worse for raid to take them than not. Thats it.

 

 

http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/Ranking.aspx?Bosses=00010203040506070809&realm=All

There is bullshit. And there is stat.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Rafale