Druid
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| Background: Through their deep connection to Nature, druids are justly famed for their ability to restore life, cure poisonous wounds, and remove curses. Indeed, restoring and protecting the land is one of the top priorities for all druids. Still, to regard a druid as merely a healer is a dangerously simplistic assumption that has led to the defeat of many an unwary foe.
A druid's empathy with the creatures of the wild also allows him to shapeshift into the forms of other animals. For example, a wounded druid whose magical energies are running low might abruptly take on the form of a bear in order to better withstand further injury or a sleek, fast form to spirit away from danger. Alternatively, the druid might shift into the form of a large cat, sneak up behind an enemy, then pounce and deliver a fierce flurry of melee attacks. Even the deepest oceans can be explored by a druid, who can simply shift into an aquatic creature, allowing him to stay underwater as long as needed. And now they can take to wing at will.
Locked in slumber in their barrow dens for generations, the druids awoke to meet the threat of the Burning Legion during its recent invasion. After Archimonde's defeat, druids chose to remain in the waking world and help to rebuild their shattered lands. The druids seek to heal the terrible scar on the natural order left by the Legion's attack. The Night Elf Druids were recently joined in the Cenarion Circle by the Tauren. During the war, Malfurion had befriended Hamuul Runetotem and taught him of druidism. Hamuul later became the first tauren to join the Cenarion Circle and the archdruid of the Tauren race.
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Class Roles
Druids combine the essence of four classes: Priests, Warriors, Rogues, and (to a lesser extent) Mages into one. Unlike other hybrid classes, most of a druid's abilities are linked to their various forms and accessed through shape-shifting. A druid can perform any of four roles in a group but depending on how a druid has spent their Talent Points, and what gear they are equipped with when entering combat, they will be more confined to one or two roles at any given time unlike true Hybrids, who can access all their abilities at any time. According to some sources, druids are currently among the least played classes, especially on the Horde. The reason can only be speculated upon. The fact that the druid class is only available to two races does theoretically limit their numbers.
Class roles for the druid since 2.0 have, in most opinions, solidified even further. The restoration druid is truly a solid end-game healer (or arena healer), the feral cat is stronger in DPS, the feral bear is a solid, viable tank, and even the balance druid is gaining more respect. However, hybrid versatility is not a very strong criteria since there is little need, after patch 2.0 for a swift-shifting druid to fill multiple roles. Most druids will pick a spec and take a narrow path now-a-days since there is still not the itemization for high-end items with multiple stats.
A druid can play the part of any of the four primary party roles: tank, healer, melee-DPS and ranged-DPS. In any of these roles, a properly-specced druid can fulfill the task almost as well - and in some cases better (depending upon the player) - than a member of the primary class themselves, and can moreover switch these roles as needed, offering tremendous adaptability and flexibility, which is the true hallmark of this class. The druid is a difficult class, indeed perhaps the most challenging, to master, but no other class is as versatile as the Druid. Because of their ability to play multiple roles, druids tend to require several complete sets of gear. This can be a very difficult time-, space-, skill-, and resource-consuming activity. Unlike most, if not all of the other classes, a druid does not begin with some skill, spell, or ability in most every area they will one day be proficient in, they acquire utterly new branches of ability when they advance to certain specific levels, and is therefore a class which truly blooms at an advanced age.
Keeper of the Grove: Focusing on offensive spellcasting, primarily in the Moonkin form, the Balance Druid has gained a lot of traction since the expansion due increased itemization. It is much easier to gear a balance druid now then before and the balance druid does quite well in all areas of play however they may experience mana issues when soloing. Still able to maintain a decent healer role for instancing, the solo power of balance is quite strong and PvP is very effective. Unfortunately there is still a lot of missing itemization end-game and quite often you will be looking at Cloth offensive caster gear.
Animagus: A Feral Druid concentrates on enhancing melee combat abilities and allowing them to specialize as tanks if so desired. One of the very few mutli-role capabale builds, the feral druid can with the switch of their gear morph from a potent tank to a solid damage dealer. The merging of some feral talents in 2.0.3 make a general feral build both effective for both cat DPS and bear tanking. Feral tanks excel in multi-mob aggro holding and with a huge health pool and massively high armor, they are able to hold their own in the vast majority of encounters in the Burning Crusade. There have been complaints, however, of threat reduction on certain bear attacks but so far bear tanks have been able to hold their own (or even surpass) all but protection spec warriors against tough single targets. Feral DPS is especially powerful now due to expansion itemization, however, once you reach 70 you will find it harder and harder to upgrade your sole source of feral attack; item stats. End-game itemization holds the feral druid back from claiming equal tanking rights with Protection Warriors however; this along with the fact they cannot use potions in feral forms and the lack of any real "oh noes" abilities during damage spikes, may confine some to fill the role of off-tank instead of main-tank in deep raiding.
Tree of Life: The Restoration Druid is a powerful raid or group healer. A restoration druid remains an excellent healer in nearly all aspects of play and is well itemized throught the Burning Crusade. If raiding is what you'll be focusing on, then you can easily turn to the restoration tree happily to the tune of your guild leaders. Due to the mana savings and increased healing, tree druids offer high healing output and mana efficency. Restoration druids had previously been limited by having a lack of spells to deal with damage spikes, and also having a combat res on a cooldown, but these improved in 3.0.2, in which druids receieved a regular out-of-combat resurrection spell, along with a glyph to shorten the cast time of Healing Touch by 50%. In modern usage, Healing Touch functions very much like the priests' Flash Heal. Wild Growth was added as the final point in the restoration tree, providing a true AoE heal for druids. Druids may still struggle in fights with heavy spike-damage.
Class Highlights
Class Quests: One should note however that not all the Druids shapeshift forms are obtained via quests. Druids do a quest at level 10 for their bearform and one again at level 16 for their aquatic form. After that all subsequent forms and upgrades are obtained (when the appropriate level has been reached) by simply purchasing the skill from a Druid trainer. The exception to this is the epic flight form quest (at level 70) however this is optional and players who want to attempt the quest will still need to purchase the 300 riding skill.
Druid Talents: Unlike the Talent trees of other classes which serve to bolster existing types of abilities or schools of magic, the Druid talent trees are radically different offering almost wholly unrelated options in terms of play style. The trees do overlap to encourage cross speccing to a certain extent but most Druids will choose to specialize in one discipline or another.
End Game Expectations: Greatly improved non-healing itemization and talents in The Burning Crusade has increased end-game viability for druids of any talent specialization. Many guilds have accepted feral and balance druids as core raiders. The ability that balance druids have to bring both DPS and off-healing to a raid, and the ability of feral druids of being able to switch between tanking and melee DPS makes them very prized on raids since these are switches that parent classes cannot do with ease.
Class Form & Function
Feral Druids make very powerful tanks for a variety of reasons not least of which is the simple fact that they will typically have more armor and more hit points than a comparably geared Warrior. Since they rely more on mitigation than avoidance, the smoother damage taken can be easier to heal. Bear threat generating abilities scale slightly better than warriors. Despite the fact that druid agro is now additive by speccing into the Feral Tree, a talent can increase the innate threat of a bear by up to 15% more, making druids more efficient at holding aggro.
Druids can tank multiple mobs easier than Warriors, due to Swipe. Bear tanking abilities, such as Maul, scale very well with gear. Druids are immune to Polymorph and Humanoid Mind Control effects. Bears can't be Disarmed. Druids can spec into the Feral Charge talent, which allows them to almost instantly re-engage a mob after getting knocked back. The Predatory Instincts talent gives bears as much as a 15% chance to avoid area effect attacks.Regrettably Druid tanks do not have the ability to Parry attacks, however, a druid's overall dodge is as high as the combined totals of dodge and parry for most Warriors and Paladins. Being unable to use shields, they cannot mitigate damage through blocking.
Cat Form is similar to a Rogue in that it relies on an Energy bar and combo points to use most of its skills. One crucial difference between rogues and cat druids is that Druids cannot return to stealth once combat has been initiated unlike rogues who can vanish without necessarily resolving combat.
Moonkin Druids are the offensive spellcasters of the class having single target, AOE and crowd control spells. While a druid is in Moonkin form, they can only case Balance spells and will be flagged as Humanoid. Moonkin Druids will be unable to ride mounts while in this form. Druids in Moonkin form regenerate mana my doing melee damage. The amount of mana regeneration is 30% of the Moonkin's Attack Power each time it procs. The proc rate seems to be normalized so that fast and slow weapons have the same number of procs per minute.
Healing Druids can make exceptionally powerful and diverse healers who are adaptable to a variety of different scenarios and who excel at raid healing. Druid healing is subtly different that the healing provided by other classes such as Priests, Paladins and Shaman. While Druids have the ability to case very large and potentially lifesaving instant heals using the Natures Swiftness talent, their true healing power comes from the broad range of Heal over Time spells at their disposal. Any of the Druid HoTs can be converted into a large heal by using the Swiftmend talented ability for even greater healing potential. Stacking HoTs in order to maintain a targets health is usually far more efficient than resorting to using large heals with a much longer casting time. Druids are the only class in the game to have a Resurrection spell that can be used while still in combat which is incredibly useful in all situations but nothing less than vital for raid encounters. The swiftmend spell combined with the combat resurrection can bring a tank back in to the fight within seconds.
Shapeshifting: Unlike other classes who have full access to all their abilities at all times the Druids abilities are tied directly to various "shape-shift" forms. That makes it very much a case of the right form for the right job. Of course, not all Druids will have access to all forms as some are only gained from investing deeply in certain talent trees. Having said that, all Druids should choose to use the most beneficial and relevant form for the present situation.
Since 2.3 patch, if druid is in shapeshift form and try to use an ability that may only be used in caster form, he will leave the form and use ability. This means druid can shift from one form to another in one action. If he doesn't have mana to shift form, he will get an error message and remain in his current form. (This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0).
There are some notable benefits and restrictions to being in shapeshifted forms. The act of shapeshifting into or out of any form removes most movement slowing or preventing effects. It will also dispel Polymorph. This is commonly overlooked, but very useful in situations where the healer could become immobilised, such as the Keristrasza encounter in The Nexus. Being able to escape the shackles can avoid a lot of damage.
While shapeshifted into Bear, Dire Bear, Aquatic, Cat, Travel, or Flight form:
- The Druid cannot be polymorphed.
- The Druid is considered a beast. Spells and abilities which can only be used on humanoids will not work against a shapeshifted druid and spells and abilities which work on beasts (such as Hibernate and Scare Beast) will work on them
- The Druid may only use equipped items with "Use:" such as trinkets. Bag items cannot be used (potions, and other consumables)
In Bear, Dire Bear and Cat form, the following are also true:
- Mana regeneration still continues at normal rate. This will often leave you with a refilled mana bar after you spend some time in your melee forms. Mana-reducing abilities such as Viper Sting and Mana Burn will not affect you while in forms
- Items with a "Chance on hit" portion and "Chance on hit" enchants such as Enchant Weapon – Crusader and Enchant Weapon – Lifestealing will not activate. However "Chance on hit" effects built into armour will proc such as the Green Whelp Armour
- Weapon DPS and weapon +damage enchants are not used. The weapon damage bonus, however, from the Might of Cenarius ring does work however
- Items with an "Equip:" do work in forms, such as the Darkmoon cards that proc on melee damage, Darkmoon Card: Heroism and Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom
- Your weapon skill with your equipped weapon has no effect on your melee forms. Cat and Bear shapes are considered to have the maximum skill allowed by your level with their natural weapons
In Moonkin and Tree of Life form the following are true:
- Like the others, Moonkin and Tree of Life forms make the druid immune to Polymorph, and shifting in and out of them will remove moving de-buffs
- Moonkin Unlike the others, is not considered a beast therefore it is immune to any beast crowd control, such as Hibernate. It is however considered a Humanoid
- Tree of Life is considered as Elemental, and can be banished by a Warlock
- Moonkin can be affected by any ability or spell that can affect Humanoids, except Polymorph (Sap and others will work). Same case with Tree of Life, except it will be vulnerable to Elemental dependent abilities (such as Banish)
- Weapon procs and enchants will proc under any of these two forms
Cat
When a druid shapeshifts into Cat form the following things happen:
- ~Attack Power is increased by 2 x your level + agility
- ~Immune to Polymorph effects
- ~Shapeshifting breaks snare, root, and polymorph effects
Bear
When a druid shapeshifts into Bear form the following things happen:
- ~Health: The Druid's stamina is increased by 25%
- ~Attack Power: The Druid gains Attack Power equal to their level x 3. Base DPS from weapons are discounted, although bonus stats from them still count
- ~Armor: The druid gains a 200%/400% armor boost from items (depending on Bear/Dire Bear form)
- ~Threat (Aggro): The druid will obtain a 30% increase in all threat generated
Moonkin
When a Druid shifts into Moonkin form the following things happen:
- ~Armour is increased by 400%
- ~Attack Power is increased 150% of level
- ~Melee attacks have a chance to regenerate mana based on attack power
- ~Party members within 30 yards have their spell critical chance increased by 5%
- ~Immunity to Polymorph effects
- ~Shapeshifting breaks snare, root, and polymorph effects
Tree of Life
When a Druid shifts into Tree form the following things happen:
- ~Aura (stackable) increases healing received by 25% of total Spirit for all party members within 45 yards
- ~Armour increased by
- ~Mana cost of healing over time spells is reduced by 20%
- ~Allows the drinking of potions & normal humanoid mana regeneration
- ~Immunity to polymorph effects but is considered an elemental
- ~Shapeshifting breaks snare, root, and polymorph effects
Druid Detail Summary
- In Bear Form, the druid acts as a tank. In this form, a druid benefits from a high amount of stamina, strength, and agility and increases in armor, health, and attack power
- In Cat Form, the druid acts as a melee damage dealer. Druids can prowl in this form, which uses the same mechanics as the Rogue's stealth. In this form, druids again benefit from a high amount of strength and agility
- In Moonkin Form, the druid acts as a damage-dealing spell caster. The druid has more armor, attack power, chance on hit to regenerate mana and an aura that increases the spell critical strike chance of nearby party members. To gain this form, the Druid must have at least thirty-one points in the 'balance' talent tree
- The Tree of Life Form increases the healing received for all party members, and the armour granted to the druid. In this form, the Druid can only cast healing spells, and these spells are granted a significant mana reduction. To gain this form the Druid must have at least 41 points in the Restoration talent tree. Tree of Life form can gain additional armour and a spirit-based healing bonus through the Improved Tree of Life talent.
- The Travel Form and the Aquatic Form allow the druid to travel faster by land and sea. Flight Form is trainable at level 68 to allow the druid to fly in Outland. Since 3.0.2, the druid epic flight form is now a trainable spell allowing druids to travel at 280% speed, but this still requires artisan riding skill. Although no-longer required, druids can chose to complete a quest-chain at level 70 in order to obtain epic flight form.
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