Monday, January 21, 2008

The Return of the Druid


SO lately, I've been obsessed with the idea of rolling HOTs and resto druids. And by chance, I got asked to go on a quick run through Blood Furnace with some alts. So I brought my druid along and finally respecced her to full Resto (she was level 60 and had never respeced since the patch that reset the talents!)

Anyhow, I just kind of got caught up in it and couldn't stop. Now she's almost 63. I'm actually having a lot of fun on her...more so than the shaman so she'll be the next alt I bring up... I just really like the balance so far between the healing and dps.

I'm collecting mostly attack power gear to help me when I'm leveling....since I know I'll get much better healing gear in the later levels. I don't even know why I specced her full resto except that I was really excited about going tree form for an instance.

I have no desire to use her for any main healing but I just think resto druids are totally awesome off healers. Having a rolling HOT on your tank is icing on the cake.
I just wish I could play my pally and the druid at the same time. lol.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you ever played a full feral spec? Mangle is just insane. I thought we would have seen Alachia the tank.

Moonknight said...

Alachia I went thru this very thing myself. I was hardcore about my rogue for the longest before I decided I wanted a class with a lot more flexibility and rolled my druid. I absolutely love this class and had a lot of fun levelling him to 70.

I would highly recommend continuing to collect feral reward gear till at least 66 maybe 67 as you can find some decent healing gear on the AH. My guy was outfitted in mainly high healing greens and some blues until I got into Kara.

If you do continue playing a druid, I would also recommend a dreamstate build until you can get enough gear to go full resto. Dreamstate should allow you to heal a lot like a paladin while maintaining enough of a balance build to put out decent DPS casting spells. You can always email me for more info if you like.

Staab said...

I never played my druid in the Pre BC days, I personally enjoy raiding with my resto druid more than my mage. In a lot of ways dps is more stressful than healing your always trying to kill those mobs faster often trying to beat the clock and sure one DPS might shouldn't think that they have to kill themselves, often I think mage just isn't that good of raiding class anymore when you have locks with continuous dps with dots and rogues that are only limited in DPS by agro.

However with my Druid I can go toe to toe healing with a priest or a pally with 600 more +healing. the fact you can be healing 3 or 4 at targets once. And there so hard to kill in pvp he is really becoming my favorite character.

Anonymous said...

Keep us fellow druid players updated on how you finally spec your druid when you hit 70. I am working on my druid now (currently 36)at a feral spec, but not sure when I get to 70 if I want to stay that tank spec or go more healer/dps style druid.

Moonknight said...

Tommy,

I found that the Dreamstate build was a lot of fun when I first converted from my Feral leveling build when I hit 70. It allows for a much lesser geared healer to be a viable healer in raids while maintaining some level of decent DPS for grinding.

Now if you want to remain fairly flexible, I would say to stick with a Feral build. Ferals can grab a tank set and a melee dps set of gear without changing any of the full feral talent specs. Some ferals I know have been able to grab a healing set of gear and been at least an average spot healer.

Alachia said...

Moon,
I'm assuming this is the Dreamstate build you're talking about?

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0xcrzfIsMuZZxVcxcq

Moonknight said...

Pretty much, you can either keep the Moonkin or drop it and move that point to Empowered Touch for the added healing. I would say that piece depends on if you will be raid/instance healing more than PvE questing.

Anonymous said...

I think with my druid I want to go more heal and less balance moonknight. But after my grind last night, I am so loving the Feral spec right now, but I know once I get to 60 I will be respecing to something else for a change.
This was the build I wanted to go
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=zZxhGsfroeuioVxcz
A buddy of mine has that and is a killer tank healer... cares around to much gear for me. So looking for a good healer/balance build now.

Moonknight said...

Oh and if you are going to play a druid, you might as well get used to carrying multiple sets of gear. This is more for ferals than any other build since the feral build definitely needs a tanking and melee dps set, but could also have a nice off-spec healing set and still be an ok healer.

The build you posted is very similar to a build I was using when I was at the end of my grind to 70.

Anonymous said...

If you can recommend a good heal heavy/balance build please post. I might have found one and will post it here when I get home from work (stupid web filters) and see what you think.
I was even thinking of doing a heavy heal/ light feral build too. Something that I will look for too.
Either way I know I will be carrying around a heal gear set and a tank set.

Moonknight said...

I guess what I need to know is what is your goal for your druid? Do you plan to raid, if so what role are you willing to take on? Do other guild druids have an influence on what role you decide to take on? etc...

For example, its not as necessary to go Dreamstate for Balance combat if you have really nice gear. With the recent changes, a druid with high +healing gets a percentage of that +healing back as spell damage (I believe) which I have found that I am more powerful in my healing gear casting balance spells than I am in feral gear trying to melee and I am full Resto!

Give me a few ideas to go on so I can try to assist.

Anonymous said...

Well the guild I am in is my own made guild with a few friends. So other then their druids (which they don't really play) I am it.

As for my goal, really just to get into P.u.G's now and then, run 5 man stuff, farm. I am not a hardcore gamer. So 98% of all that I do in the game is solo. But I would like to do groups now and then to do instances.
My game play could change to be more hardcore later on, but as of now real casual gamer.

Moonknight said...

Well that being said I would stick with the Feral/Resto build you posted. Since you are not raiding you are better off putting yourself in the Tank/DPS role for instances and still have the ability to spot heal yourself when soloing.

Anonymous said...

I thought the build I posted was a Tank/Heal not a DPS?
The more I have been thinking about it, the more I think I will Tank/Heal. Carry around some heal stuff encase I need to change out mid-instance.

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