A Study Of N00bs

[Artega]

If they can find a run path they will take it, so I don't trust jumping with the pet.
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I believe I heard that you can order the pet to stay (not sure how to do this), then use Eyes of the Beast (or whatever the spell that allows you to personally control your pet) to force them to take the path you want them to take. Avoids the loss of Happiness involving dismissal.

[Mirajj]

I believe I heard that you can order the pet to stay (not sure how to do this), then use Eyes of the Beast (or whatever the spell that allows you to personally control your pet) to force them to take the path you want them to take.  Avoids the loss of Happiness involving dismissal.
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That's what most people do, after the first runaway. You use Eyes of the Beast to take control of the pet, and jump the pet down first. Then order it to "stay" (A command on the pet bar), turn Eyes off, and jump down yourself. Put the pet back on "follow" and everyone's at the bottom, happy and aggro/mob free.

[kandrathe]

I believe I heard that you can order the pet to stay (not sure how to do this), then use Eyes of the Beast (or whatever the spell that allows you to personally control your pet) to force them to take the path you want them to take.  Avoids the loss of Happiness involving dismissal.
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I still sometimes do that if I'm not too far behind the group. Lately, in the higher level instances, I've just been using dismiss.

[Hillary]

Absolutely 100 percent disagree you with you, Quark. The delayed res thing makes absolute sense. If a shield is all I've got over a druid? Big deal. I don't use my shield that much. Especially not during a boss fight. What's the point? One hit, the shield is bashed through and the MT takes damage anyway.

Big. Freaking. Deal.

The shield is much more of a utility for a rogue or a hunter that accidently steals aggro during a multi-pull. Again, major boss fight? I don't bother shielding you. I'll heal you to try and keep you vertical, but if I can't, move on. Vanish or FD for the win there.

Consider these things:

*Druids innervate. Wow. Here comes the mana back. Woot! No potion needed.
*They wear leather and thus take hits better.
*Can't they battle res? So if the boss is at 20 percent when your MT goes down, can't they pop him back up to finish the job?

If druids get the ability to res with no cooldown, why would you EVER want me? You wouldn't, to be blunt. So be smart about party composition. Work within the confines of what you have. Take a lock for a SS. Take a pally with you. Your argument "It's not fair to people who have a druidic healer" is full of flaws. You're on one of the highest pop servers in the game. You play alliance. You have your pick of the litter for what you take with your druid.

I take nothing away from druid healers. Nothing. Someone who can play the multi-functionality of that class to its highest potential is phenomenal. But with ALL the tricks up their sleeve - bear/cat form/healing/etc - I think their utility is fine the way it is.

And on that note, nerf priests.

[Skandranon]

The shield is much more of a utility for a rogue or a hunter that accidently steals aggro during a multi-pull.
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*cough* mages *cough*

[Hillary]

*cough* mages *cough*
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Well Duh.

;)

Yes, Skan is my number one shield getter. AoE goes a lot smoother uninterupted.

[Tal]

*Can't they battle res?  So if the boss is at 20 percent when your MT goes down, can't they pop him back up to finish the job?[right][snapback]82073[/snapback][/right]

Except if they've been healing the MT they become hate target number one. ;) I know from painful experience that if the MT goes down the druid healer is soon to follow.

If druids get the ability to res with no cooldown, why would you EVER want me?  You wouldn't, to be blunt.  So be smart about party composition.  Work within the confines of what you have.  Take a lock for a SS.  Take a pally with you. Your argument "It's not fair to people who have a druidic healer" is full of flaws.  You're on one of the highest pop servers in the game.  You play alliance.  You have your pick of the litter for what you take with your druid.
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I take what healers are available and are known to do the job. Priests are great for taking a mob outta combat if limited CC is in the party. They have fade to easily reduce their threat versus a druid who has no means of reducing threat. Priests can be reactionary healers, druids must anticipate. This can have the effect of placing the druid at the top of the hate list pretty quickly. ;) Blessing of the wild is arguably the best buff in the game, but fortitude is hard on its heals. ;) Its a tough choice but I agree with you that a party with a druid Main Tank already has two spots full if they want to be effective. Druid and Paladin. :)

[Hillary]

Except if they've been healing the MT they become hate target number one. ;) I know from painful experience that if the MT goes down the druid healer is soon to follow.

It's the same with any priest, and fade isn't fool proof. Not even close. At that point in the fight, the healer - regardless of class - is 2nd on the hate list. Fade doesn't eliminate hate, it alleviates it; I've faded many a time with the General in UBRS and you've seen what that does. NOTHING. :D

I'm not complaining that priests are under-powered. I'm just saying there's a point where the druid tree HAS to have some disparity from the priestly one. To me, the cooldown is a good balance.

[mjdoom]

The shield is much more of a utility for a rogue or a hunter that accidently steals aggro during a multi-pull.  Again, major boss fight?  I don't bother shielding you.  I'll heal you to try and keep you vertical, but if I can't, move on.  Vanish or FD for the win there.

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First I'll respond to this. Shield has more utility than you give it credit for here. As Skan pointed out it is very useful for shielding mages for aoe (and it's not the interruption thing that matters; Improved Arcane Explosion takes care of that). The best a druid can do is chain heal where a priest can instantly pop a shield to buy a few extra seconds to get that next heal off. In that vein the fact that PW:S is an instant gives it much more flexibility for reactionary healing as Tal said. Druids have to anticipate more with their heals as they don't really have an instant "heal", Nature's Swiftness notwithstanding.

Quite simply there are many cases in the end game where I would refuse to enter an instance with only druid healers. The rez thing would likely only be a small part of that (especially in raids where there is a greater chance of pallies being around). Using only druids as your healers will force other parts of your group composition. An example is the Lyceum in BRD. Either bring a priest as healer or you are basically forced to have two aoers so that the mobs will die before your aoe does (and if someone does die you can run into the rez timer thing again). Simply bringing a druid as your healer almost forces the group to have a pally and two aoers, thereby highly limiting what group composition you go with (yes, I'm ignoring the potential of a rogue soloing the Lyceum; but not every rogue is good enough to do that).

Also, by going with only druids you lose potential CC utility in shackle and MC. The usefulness of shackle in Scholomance is not to be underestimated and heaven help any team that tries to 5-man that place with a druid in place of a priest. Sure, a druid can put a beast to sleep, tell me how often that is useful...

I really haven't considered whether druids should have a non-timered rez. The utility they gain by having their rez be a combat rez is not negligible. I'd be inclined to disagree with Quark and say that if you want a druid to be your main healer you should look to have a pally for additional rezzing ability (and additional healing if need be) or bring a priest and a druid and let the druid use more of his skills along the way. You may even make a friend of a druid this way if they can have some more fun instead of having to be main healer. But I'm not sure that giving druids a non-timered rez would send priests the way of the dodo either.

- mjdoom

[Trien]

As a druid who's healed 5-man groups through all the (5-man) instances, not always with a paladin around to help, and with various mixed groups... not sure if I would agree that it forces your choice of party members. In a guild that never had a really good mix of classes, we made do with what we could. We never had a mage at high enough level until the past month or so (or warlock), and made do for aoe with hunter explosive traps, pally consecration, or just plain old "You stab them." Easier with the 'ideal' class selection? Sure. Impossible otherwise? Nope. More of a challenge, but that's where the fun comes in.

(Edit: Spelling)

[Treesh]

Easier with the 'ideal' class selection? Sure. Impossible otherwise? Nope. More of a challenge, but that's where the fun comes in.
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I really agree with this. I think a lot of people get caught up in the whole "ideal group" concept. On Terenas for the longest time, the main tanks were either hunters or druids with a shaman as main healer (woot for when the new priests started coming up!). It made things interesting, but they were still doable. On Stormrage last night we did the deadmines with 2 mages, 1 rogue, 1 priest and 1 warlock. If the either of the two sets of jumper cables we had worked (or our third engineer had a set on him and that one worked), all of us could have gotten Van Cleef's head. As it was, the group overall was successful (he died, dropped his loot and the three left standing got credit), but it took a bit of work to have a voidwalker be main tank on VanCleef. Yes, I'm talking about lower level instances in these specific cases, but we also did a BRD run with a druid, a rogue, a pally, and two hunters. That wasn't an ideal group either, but we did it without much hassle at all. Ideal groups are nice when you can get them, but really, you can do the vast majority of the game without them.

[Kevin]

*They wear leather and thus take hits better.
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Having a L55 druid who is pretty much a main healer, this is just something I have to comment on because it is something that I see a lot.

The leather isn't that much of an advantage. Inner Fire, while only lasting for 3 minutes overwhelms the armor difference. Full Devout (just for example) 491 armor. Full Wildheart 978. Rank 6 Inner Fire 930 armor. Priest is actually less squishy with Inner Fire and the armor difference without it is not that big of a deal. Priests can also put something in the wand spot to help with stamina if they want. Druids can't. Other leather vs cloth items are going to be the same basic level of protection.

Now I realize Inner Fire isn't up all the time, and it takes mana to put up as well, but it is an instant cast and it makes you have better armor than a druid, plus you can bubble to help you get a heal off on yourself or the tank, druids will get stuttered on their casting and they only have a HoT instant cast heal. Pretty much if I get aggro it means I pretty much have to burn my Nature Swiftness to keep myself alive, but that also makes it that much harder for aggro to be shed.

Now onto some other general druid points, not specifically in response to Hillary.

I also see the argument of "drop into bear form". Generally with how careful I am with my heals and how much I rely on the two HoT's that I have, if I have aggro it means someone, generally the tank, is getting pummeled. Without anything but a 3.5 second cast healing touch or 2.0 second front loaded HoT (the least mana efficient heal a druid has as well) I don't have the time to stop healing them. I pretty much am healing with a greater heal all the time. And dropping 55% of my mana pool to go into bear form means not a lot of mana when I pop back out. Most of the instances I have healed I have been it for the healer too. No paladin, no priest, maybe someone with jumper cables for a rez. There are some situations where I can drop into bear form for a bit, but it isn't usually a real option. Being the only takes away my option of letting someone else die in some cases becuase I can't rez them after the fight either, but that isn't really part of the argument on squishy. :)

Similar argument about drop into cat and cower (cower only works on the mob you have targeted as well, just FYI). Though I have done that to a single mob peel on rare occasion as well, but the mana hit generally isn't worth it.

Now I'm not arguing for a non battle rez for the druid, I haven't given it a lot of thought as to class balance really. But it isn't the only reason a priest is a better primary healer, though druids are damn good healers and regrowth, my front loaded HoT is awesome, if mana innefficient. :) Innervate is awesome and Natures Swiftness is awesome. MotW is a better buff as well. Battle rez can save wipes but you better not have anyone die again for 30 more minutes. Thorns helps a tank keep aggro on multiple mobs. I can regrowth and rejuvinate and run two HoT's on a person. We do have advantages.

However I miss flash heal (1.5 second cast heal, yummy! mana efficient too! Wow). I miss not being able to bubble someone to stop interruptions or give a little more time for another heal to go off. I miss being able to do ranged damage without chewing the heck out of my mana pool (no wands, no other ranged weapons). My DoT, while nice, is front loaded and more of an aggro problem. I don't have a good AoE heal (heck I forget I even have tranquility sometimes because if you use that 10 minute cooldown skill you are only healing with that for 10 seconds). I don't have fade (which while not perfect is very helpful). I have a Stealthblade that I found in Sunken Temple. It casts a weak version of fade and I start poking mobs with it as soon as I get aggro or even if I don't have aggro. It isn't reliable but it has shed aggro for me a couple of times. I don't have any really useful crowd control (it can help on Maraudon princess runs and if you are high enough level on some of the dragonkin in Sunken Temple and BRS), I can't scout ahead with mind vision, I can't mind control, and I have seen the tactic used very well. Mind control the medics on the way to Bael Gar. You can heal your party and take a few mobs out of combat.

So yes, the druid does have some advantages as a healer, but there are a lot of things a priest can do that just makes them better to have as a healer, regardless of being able to rez.

A druid as offtank or 2nd healer is fantasic though. Even as the primary healer I will start the battle as a cat sometimes and do a some good damage that way and pop mid fight to heal. But that all depends on the mobs. I've gone bear and off tanked when I was the only healer as well. But most of the druid action that I have seen where they weren't primary healer, I wasn't the druid. :)

[Ruvanal]

If the either of the two sets of jumper cables we had worked (or our third engineer had a set on him and that one worked), all of us could have gotten Van Cleef's head. 
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It is unfortunate that none of you realised the lower engineering jumper cables are not soul bound and one set could have been lent to the third engineer. Also the timers on those types of items are based on the character using the class of item and not the item itself; so even though one of the players had used their cables, the third engineer should have still had an unsed timer to try also.

[Treesh]

It is unfortunate that none of you realised the lower engineering jumper cables are not soul bound and one set could have been lent to the third engineer.  Also the timers on those types of items are based on the character using the class of item and not the item itself; so even though one of the players had used their cables, the third engineer should have still had an unsed timer to try also.
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The third engineer wasn't at 165 engineering. Sorry for my poor wording there. Couldn't even use a set of jumper cables if he had one. And I do realize they aren't soulbound. Flitz was using the set that Bristiana had made and used herself weeks before the instance run. :)

Edit again: And I wasn't sure if the timers were per character or item, but since Minimagi wasn't at 165 engineering at the time anyway, it didn't matter in this case, but it's good to know for future cases. :)

[Quark]

General responses all around here, but this is the key:

Quite simply there are many cases in the end game where I would refuse to enter an instance with only druid healers.

How often do you hear that for priests? Never. In fact, the most druid friendly instance in the game - UBRS - is still done many times with 3 priests or 2 priests + pally with no druid whatsoever.

I am not arguing that druids aren't viable. They are. But they're not ideal, and sorry if you disagree with me but I feel their hinderences make them far from ideal. Will that stop me from playing with Druids? No, in fact I want to play as one, if I ever get back into this game (stupid computers). But it's things like the res that make druid less appealing than priest, which is why 90% of the time you're being healed by a priest and not by a druid.

The battle ressurection is overrated. There are too many other things that could be happening that either make it useless or unnecessary. I can't argue for its use in 40-person raids, but from what I've seen so far ressurecting one person everywhere else is generally not gonna save you from a wipe, unless that other person happens to be a priest/pally that's going to stay out of combat.

The Leather argument is laughable. Priests have plenty more armor than my Rogue when they cast Inner Fire. They also have the quick Fade.

I'd be inclined to disagree with Quark and say that if you want a druid to be your main healer you should look to have a pally for additional rezzing ability (and additional healing if need be) or bring a priest and a druid and let the druid use more of his skills along the way.  You may even make a friend of a druid this way if they can have some more fun instead of having to be main healer.

I'm not disagreeing with this at all. Having a druid as your only res is a liability and you should look for ways around it. I'm saying it shouldn't have to be this way, because it just pushes people back towards the "holy trinity" and pigeon-holes them so that they have more options elsewhere.

But I'm not sure that giving druids a non-timered rez would send priests the way of the dodo either.

I still think it'd be a priest advantage. Fade, Shackle, Inner Fire, and PW:S are all good advantages that a Priest has. Not that the Druid can't counter some of this, but they still don't seem equal in my eyes.

[oldmandennis]

The leather isn't that much of an advantage.  Inner Fire, while only lasting for 3 minutes  overwhelms the armor difference.  Full Devout (just for example) 491 armor.  Full Wildheart 978.  Rank 6 Inner Fire 930 armor.  Priest is actually less squishy with Inner Fire and the armor difference without it is not that big of a deal.
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Isn't there a "hidden" stat that covers armor type? I thought something like that was discussed here.

[Treesh]

I still think it'd be a priest advantage.  Fade, Shackle, Inner Fire, and PW:S are all good advantages that a Priest has.  Not that the Druid can't counter some of this, but they still don't seem equal in my eyes.
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Don't forget the AoE heals. All priests get prayer of healing. If you're shadow specced, usually vampiric embrace too. If you're a glutton for punishment mostly holy specced priest you get holy nova. I can't say much about vampiric embrace, but having holy nova, an instant cast low mana cost AoE heal (that you can cast on the run or while being punted since it's instant) that causes absolutely no aggro, is a bonus. Having just prayer of healing is a bonus over druids as healers.

[Brista]

Druids do get an AoE heal: Tranquility. It's pretty decent although with quite a long cooldown

I think though the class is flawed at the design stage. Basically as a hybrid it has damage - healing - tanking. Compared to a specialist it should be worse in one but better in the other two.

However if you compare it with a priest it's a lot worse than them in two areas. Damage is much lower than a shadow spec priest. Healing & ressing is worse. Even tanking, if you look at the ability to take a beating when you've blown all your mana healing the main tank and don't have enough for bearform is arguably worse. So while there are strengths - stealth, tracking, the buffs, the restoration tree - none of them are primary role strengths. Also the fact that bear is actually quite decent for tanking is usually a moot point because warriors and pallies are so common and healers are much rarer so when a druid groups he/she usually heals. Even where you have shaman and druid as the possible tank and healer it's almost always shaman tank and druid healer.

I can see why they've given priests the potential for decent damage-dealing. Few enough players want to play healers already, if priests sucked at pvp and levelled twice as slowly as the current crawl it would be a nightmare trying to form a pickup group. But in holding candy out to the priests they've rather eclipsed two of the hybrids. I don't want to see priests nerfed. But I do think that paladins and druids are entitled to a buff

[Treesh]

Druids do get an AoE heal: Tranquility. It's pretty decent although with quite a long cooldown
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Yes, it heals well. For 10 seconds. If you can channel it for that long. And then you wait 10 minutes until you can use it again.

It's a better multiperson than chain heal is for the shamans (by far), but it still isn't as nice as the prayer of healing for the priest. And, depending on how the priest is specced, they can have two AoE heals (having all three isn't possible. You're one point short.) with one having no cooldown and the other either having a 10 second cooldown or a 30 second cooldown. So priests still have the AoE heal advantage over druids.

[fractaled]

general reply on druids, having gotten one to 60, and counter-rant below...

barkskin + tranquility/hurricane means you can generally get off the 10 seconds of channelling (unless you are really taking a beating)... before barkskin, both of these spells were truly worthless...

i don't think i ever used tranquility in a real world situation...

since i had a weird spec (never respecced), i had hurricane, which i generally wouldn't recommend... it's good enough to take out the annoying-aoe critters... not as good as a mage's aoe, but it doesn't hurt...

battle rez is rarely useful, but it's nice when it is... i once used it to good effect vs drak in UBRS... had to use a mana potion though...

druid versatility is quite nice... up to 50 or so you can fill in for a lot of party roles as necessary... a lot of niche abilities that can come in handy, stealth form (if there's no rogue in the group), stealth + rez can be nice too (recovered from a re-pop in LBRS that way once), beast crowd control... everyone loves MotW...

in my experience as primary/sole healer, i wasn't good enough (balance/rest spec, didn't have nature's swiftness) to compensate for bad groups like a priest could... however, if there was a decent+ tank, things were fine... this just meant that i would focus on the warrior, and not waste mana elsewhere (i.e. let them linger at 50% health so maybe they'll get the picture and let the tank do his/her job)... also, if i get in to melee for my mediocre damage (i.e. not draw aggro), omen of clarity is nice in that you get a free 800 mana heal once per battle...

before the level 50 instances, party composition really doesn't matter that much... i did the scarlet monastery in a couple of really weird groups, one with no healers (on an alt)... it was kinda fun really since we had to play differently... obviously with some combinations you won't be racing through instances since you'll need to take extra precautions...

for the latter 5-man instances, you have to have a priest or shaman along to rez... a druid can't be the sole healer for that reason alone... i've gone a number of runs where i was the primary healer and there was a shaman for rezing (and i'd rez him if necessary)...

i don't think too many groups turned me down because they already had a priest (obviously hard to say from my PoV)... if i was in a party without a priest, it just meant there had to be a shaman as well... and that isn't that much of an inconvenience... it basically means what would be a priest's duties are split 80% to the druid, and 15% to the shaman (and 5% lost), but the druid and shaman still have the rest of their abilities that a priest couldn't do, so it's not a big deal...

Two groups I've taken through DM North for Tribute runs:
1) Warrior, Priest, Mage, Rogue, Hunter.  All goes smooth until the 6 dogs right before the king.  During the 6 dogs, the Mage goes down.  It's alright, he's used to it :whistling:.  Priest does a res and we move on to the King.  Warrior goes down with the King at 4% life, we kill King.  Priest does a res and we collect our rewards.

2) Warrior, Druid, Mage, Rogue, Hunter.  All doesn't go smooth until the 6 dogs, but that's of no consequence since we all ran back it was no fault of priest versus druid.  At the 6 dogs, the Mage dies again.  So the Druid uses his res, and we keep going.  The Warrior dies right before the King goes down again.  Oh crap, Res is on cooldown.  Warrior releases and starts running back.  An Eye of Kilrogg respawns and kills him.  Now we're stuck because we have to make sure the King doesn't disappear.  So the warrior opts out of the loot, we grab it, and run back to help him.

"the mage dies again"... and you're blaming the druid for having a timer on his rez? that's idiotic... tell that mage to learn how to manage aggro... also 6 dogs... you should only be fighting 3 at a time... not sure how you can die to that...

A warrior lost his chance of loot simply because of the difference in Res ability.

or because he couldn't use a paladin's bubble... wouldn't that have saved the day too? (just trying to point out that you are misplacing the blame)

The druid vs priest argument may not make that much of a difference true healing wise.  But then you try to take care of the res difference, so you bring in a Paladin.  Who gets kicked out on a Tribute Run?  Take out the Mage, you have it much harder because of lack of AoE.  Sure, the plants aren't too tough, but dogs are.  You also lose the always awesome Polymorph.  Take out the Hunter, and you lose the common strategy of Hunter's pet on Cho'Rush.  Take out the Rogue, and you lose the easiest way to one key, and the ability to pick open another (instead of killing a guard and losing tribute).  This + lost Sap makes it a little more difficult, though an Engineer or Blacksmith can cut in to bust open the one door.  Take out the Warrior might be the best option, so now your two main positions have the 2nd option instead of the first -> Pally/Druid instead of Warr/Priest.

you should be able to do a tribute run with any of the groups you mentioned... lack of AoE isn't a big deal in DM... hurricane/hunter's AoE will do just fine for the scorpids/plants (and you don't need to aoe the dogs)... druids can hibernate a dog... druids can stealth to that second key (i always did the "kill first guard and re-enter the instance" trick -- apparently they are fixing that?)... and as horde, we usually had a shaman solo cho'rush (obviously different for the alliance)... but horde doesn't have the option of dropping the warrior...

Can anyone tell me any of that is really preferable to simply having a Priest?
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if you're dead set on there being only one way to do DM, don't you wonder how warlocks ever get stuff from there?

generally, in my experience it has been first come first served... the only requirements are tank + healing... that could mean "warrior + priest + extra x 3", or "warrior + druid + shaman + priest + extra" (mages are the most preferred extra of course :) that just means the more versatile classes shift into their other roles... priests are rare enough that you won't be able to play every instance with one...

--fractaled