07-14-2005, 06:20 PM
So Taranna is 59. I have one point left to place and I think that is going in improved Regrowth. I thought I would share my build for a druid who mostly duo's in the world and mostly heals in instances. I've bear tanked Maraudon, and I've only had a priest or another primary healer along on 3 of the other 5 mans I've done, I was in cat form for most of those runs.
I figured from the start I would more likely be a healer or DPS addition in an instance or other group. The balance tree didn't look like it would add much with a shallow investment, it looked basically like I could get swiftshifting to help when solo or duo and omen of clarity to help when solo but that would only be marginal in an instance because if I get to swing that much I don't really need the free heal. I could have helped my moonfire (which is used all the time) and my starfire out with only 17 points that aren't restoratoin as well.
Besides being a druid I wanted to embrace my shapeshifting more. I figured bear form, unless I was the tank, was less likely to be my option in an instance as well and didn't need a lot of improvment in my duo. Most people would take a warrior or a paladin for tank alliance side and we had several in my level range as I grew up in the guild. So more damage from cat form, if I was just along as the 2nd healer, was more helpful. The feral talents I have give me about 30% increase in my cat DPS from the theory craft I have done. I've also gone cat on trash pulls for more damage adding since it doesn't burn my mana if I need to pop back to healbot if something goes wrong. :) There are deeper feral talents I would like to have and I may have to build a heave feral druid just to use them, but Taranna was intended to be mainly a healer and then optimize the duo she was in with her rogue.
I have tried out some of the other feral talents too and I did like them but dropped them for more restoration talents. I had feral charge and had points in primal fury both were nice but I decided to specialize the cat and the healing.
So, here is the build.
Balance: (0)
Feral Combat: (17)
* Ferocity - 5 / 5
Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, and Rake abilities by 5 Rage or Energy.
- I use Maul a lot as a bear, claw a lot as a cat, and swipe is nice when tanking more than one thing. 5 rage/energy is a decent drop in the cost of these skills. Base costs are Maul - 15, Swipe - 20, Rake - 40, Claw 45. You get 5 off all of those. Ask how many rogues would like to drop the energy cost of sinster strike by 5 (that is what claw is) or a warrior if they would like heroic strike better if it was 5 rage cheaper. This talent is a no brainer if you put points in feral.
* Sharpened Claws - 5 / 5
Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form by 5%.
- I like crits, I'm not a rogue, but I'm up around 18% in my feral gear now. This talent also unlocks a couple of talents that help cat or bear a fair bit, one of which I took.
* Blood Frenzy - 5 / 5
Your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point.
- Combo points are your friend with Ferocius Bite. I have had 1100+ crits on bite with Taranna. So the faster I get combo points the better. This also helps with a huge weakness of cat form. If your finishing move misses in any way (a miss, a block, a parry, a dodge) you lose all your combo points on that target unlike a rogue. If you want more of a bear focus get the bear talent that gives you 5 rage back after a crit. You won't auto attack anymore you will hit the maul key all the time with it. :)
* Improved Shred - 2 / 2
Reduces the Energy cost of your Shred ability by 10.
- My backstab. Base cost is 60 energy, this drops it to 50. If you have anyone else around you that has aggro this is big damage deal for you. It is hitting for about 200-250 and crits over 400 for me. Claw (my sinister strike) hits for 100-150 with crits in the 200 range. If I can get more shreds off I will. With all the healing talents I wanted I figure this was more valueable than the attack power bonus talent I could have gotten. This doesn't help a solo druid that much but I don't solo that much.
Restoration: (34)
* Improved Mark of the Wild - 5 / 5
Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 35%.
- Best buff in the game, making it better is a good thing. I'm also a healer not a heavy feral so this is a much better choice than Furor. Though there are times when I wish I had the rage right after going bear form to throw my stun out.
* Nature's Focus - 5 / 5
Gives you a 60% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting the Healing Touch or Regrowth spells.
- Very big deal for me both solo and group play. I don't have fade so when I get aggro I have to take the punishment until the mob is pulled from me or it's dead. I will still need to heal either myself or someone else so stopping spell stagger is nice. I also want to unlock one of the most powerful heal talents a druid has.
* Improved Healing Touch - 4 / 5
Reduces the Mana cost of your Healing Touch spell by 12%.
- I didn't max it. I used it to unlock deeper talents. It is a nice talent and there was debate on maxing it. However I didn't because I don't cast a lot of Healing touches if I can help it. It's a slow cast and a druid's HoTs are more powerful than the priests (partly to help with lack of a bubble I think) so I try to rely on those more. Mana efficiency while important isn't as important for me since if I am the only healer (and that has been the case a lot for me) I have innervate. Right now my base mana pool with only Mark of the Wild on me is just over 5000. Innervate makes this effectively 8000 with my current gear. Finally if I'm with a priest on a raid, meaning I probably don't get my innervate, I seem to still be the fill in the gaps healer, so it is once again my HoT's that I am casting more so being a bit less mana efficient here on a spell that is cast less isn't as big of a deal.
* Gift of Nature - 1 / 1
Increases the effect of your Healing Touch, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, and Tranquility spells by 5%.
- 1 point for better healing on every heal spell I have is an easy choice. It also unlocks my threat reducer talent as an added bonus.
* Reflection - 5 / 5
Allows 15% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.
- This helps some. I've still rarely had mana worries (though I've only just started raiding) and even with my focus being more on int/stam than int/spirit there is benefit from this that I see. It also unlocks innervate so I have it regardless.
* Improved Rejuvenation - 5 / 5
Increases the effect of your Rejuvenation spell by 15%.
- A spell that I cast all the time. Easy choice to make it heal more.
* Nature's Swiftness - 1 / 1
When activated, your next Nature spell becomes an instant cast spell.
- I don't have a bubble I can cast or a blessing I can cast to give me time to land another heal spell. I don't have fade to drop aggro when I get it. I often feel that I could not heal an instance without this. It get's used on me as much as other people and it has been the differnce between a dead toon and a live toon several times. When you have a cooldown on your rez that is a big deal. The cooldown isn't all that bad either. I've used it multiple times in some fights where things have gone wrong or just where the group was low on DPS so the boss fights took longer.
* Subtlety - 5 / 5
Reduces the threat generated by your Healing spells by 20%.
- Can't really shed aggro so anything that prevents me from getting it is good.
* Improved Regrowth - 2 / 5
Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth spell by 20%.
- Extra points went here. I cast regrowth a lot. It's a relatively fast cast and has a decent HoT component to it. My heal pattern is often Rejuv early. Regrowth when they are at 50% health and if they need a healing touch (often the HoT's take care of not needing one), whichever of the 3 ranks I have out that is most appropriate. So I figure a better chance to crit on the frontloaded part of the HoT is good for my healing style. It can only help me to cast less and regen more mana. If this spell is being cast as a buffer for a healing touch a crit helps a lot there too and that is something I have to decide as I watch heal bars fall, do I start the 3.5 sec healing touch now and bring them way back up, or do I use my 2 second regrowth for a good front heal and a HoT to give me time to start the healing touch spam that it appears they need.
* Innervate - 1 / 1
Increases the target's Mana regeneration by 400% and allows 100% of the target's Mana regeneration to continue while casting. Lasts 20 seconds.
- Yummy and it only gets better on high spirit builds. As I mentioned this gets my build about 3000 mana back in 20 seconds. That is a guess I need to drain my mana pool and test it where I'm not instantly casting heals after starting it up. It helps out priests a bunch and I've even used it on a mage twice and a lock once when their fire power was more important than anything else going on.
I figured from the start I would more likely be a healer or DPS addition in an instance or other group. The balance tree didn't look like it would add much with a shallow investment, it looked basically like I could get swiftshifting to help when solo or duo and omen of clarity to help when solo but that would only be marginal in an instance because if I get to swing that much I don't really need the free heal. I could have helped my moonfire (which is used all the time) and my starfire out with only 17 points that aren't restoratoin as well.
Besides being a druid I wanted to embrace my shapeshifting more. I figured bear form, unless I was the tank, was less likely to be my option in an instance as well and didn't need a lot of improvment in my duo. Most people would take a warrior or a paladin for tank alliance side and we had several in my level range as I grew up in the guild. So more damage from cat form, if I was just along as the 2nd healer, was more helpful. The feral talents I have give me about 30% increase in my cat DPS from the theory craft I have done. I've also gone cat on trash pulls for more damage adding since it doesn't burn my mana if I need to pop back to healbot if something goes wrong. :) There are deeper feral talents I would like to have and I may have to build a heave feral druid just to use them, but Taranna was intended to be mainly a healer and then optimize the duo she was in with her rogue.
I have tried out some of the other feral talents too and I did like them but dropped them for more restoration talents. I had feral charge and had points in primal fury both were nice but I decided to specialize the cat and the healing.
So, here is the build.
Balance: (0)
Feral Combat: (17)
* Ferocity - 5 / 5
Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, and Rake abilities by 5 Rage or Energy.
- I use Maul a lot as a bear, claw a lot as a cat, and swipe is nice when tanking more than one thing. 5 rage/energy is a decent drop in the cost of these skills. Base costs are Maul - 15, Swipe - 20, Rake - 40, Claw 45. You get 5 off all of those. Ask how many rogues would like to drop the energy cost of sinster strike by 5 (that is what claw is) or a warrior if they would like heroic strike better if it was 5 rage cheaper. This talent is a no brainer if you put points in feral.
* Sharpened Claws - 5 / 5
Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form by 5%.
- I like crits, I'm not a rogue, but I'm up around 18% in my feral gear now. This talent also unlocks a couple of talents that help cat or bear a fair bit, one of which I took.
* Blood Frenzy - 5 / 5
Your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point.
- Combo points are your friend with Ferocius Bite. I have had 1100+ crits on bite with Taranna. So the faster I get combo points the better. This also helps with a huge weakness of cat form. If your finishing move misses in any way (a miss, a block, a parry, a dodge) you lose all your combo points on that target unlike a rogue. If you want more of a bear focus get the bear talent that gives you 5 rage back after a crit. You won't auto attack anymore you will hit the maul key all the time with it. :)
* Improved Shred - 2 / 2
Reduces the Energy cost of your Shred ability by 10.
- My backstab. Base cost is 60 energy, this drops it to 50. If you have anyone else around you that has aggro this is big damage deal for you. It is hitting for about 200-250 and crits over 400 for me. Claw (my sinister strike) hits for 100-150 with crits in the 200 range. If I can get more shreds off I will. With all the healing talents I wanted I figure this was more valueable than the attack power bonus talent I could have gotten. This doesn't help a solo druid that much but I don't solo that much.
Restoration: (34)
* Improved Mark of the Wild - 5 / 5
Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 35%.
- Best buff in the game, making it better is a good thing. I'm also a healer not a heavy feral so this is a much better choice than Furor. Though there are times when I wish I had the rage right after going bear form to throw my stun out.
* Nature's Focus - 5 / 5
Gives you a 60% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting the Healing Touch or Regrowth spells.
- Very big deal for me both solo and group play. I don't have fade so when I get aggro I have to take the punishment until the mob is pulled from me or it's dead. I will still need to heal either myself or someone else so stopping spell stagger is nice. I also want to unlock one of the most powerful heal talents a druid has.
* Improved Healing Touch - 4 / 5
Reduces the Mana cost of your Healing Touch spell by 12%.
- I didn't max it. I used it to unlock deeper talents. It is a nice talent and there was debate on maxing it. However I didn't because I don't cast a lot of Healing touches if I can help it. It's a slow cast and a druid's HoTs are more powerful than the priests (partly to help with lack of a bubble I think) so I try to rely on those more. Mana efficiency while important isn't as important for me since if I am the only healer (and that has been the case a lot for me) I have innervate. Right now my base mana pool with only Mark of the Wild on me is just over 5000. Innervate makes this effectively 8000 with my current gear. Finally if I'm with a priest on a raid, meaning I probably don't get my innervate, I seem to still be the fill in the gaps healer, so it is once again my HoT's that I am casting more so being a bit less mana efficient here on a spell that is cast less isn't as big of a deal.
* Gift of Nature - 1 / 1
Increases the effect of your Healing Touch, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, and Tranquility spells by 5%.
- 1 point for better healing on every heal spell I have is an easy choice. It also unlocks my threat reducer talent as an added bonus.
* Reflection - 5 / 5
Allows 15% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.
- This helps some. I've still rarely had mana worries (though I've only just started raiding) and even with my focus being more on int/stam than int/spirit there is benefit from this that I see. It also unlocks innervate so I have it regardless.
* Improved Rejuvenation - 5 / 5
Increases the effect of your Rejuvenation spell by 15%.
- A spell that I cast all the time. Easy choice to make it heal more.
* Nature's Swiftness - 1 / 1
When activated, your next Nature spell becomes an instant cast spell.
- I don't have a bubble I can cast or a blessing I can cast to give me time to land another heal spell. I don't have fade to drop aggro when I get it. I often feel that I could not heal an instance without this. It get's used on me as much as other people and it has been the differnce between a dead toon and a live toon several times. When you have a cooldown on your rez that is a big deal. The cooldown isn't all that bad either. I've used it multiple times in some fights where things have gone wrong or just where the group was low on DPS so the boss fights took longer.
* Subtlety - 5 / 5
Reduces the threat generated by your Healing spells by 20%.
- Can't really shed aggro so anything that prevents me from getting it is good.
* Improved Regrowth - 2 / 5
Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth spell by 20%.
- Extra points went here. I cast regrowth a lot. It's a relatively fast cast and has a decent HoT component to it. My heal pattern is often Rejuv early. Regrowth when they are at 50% health and if they need a healing touch (often the HoT's take care of not needing one), whichever of the 3 ranks I have out that is most appropriate. So I figure a better chance to crit on the frontloaded part of the HoT is good for my healing style. It can only help me to cast less and regen more mana. If this spell is being cast as a buffer for a healing touch a crit helps a lot there too and that is something I have to decide as I watch heal bars fall, do I start the 3.5 sec healing touch now and bring them way back up, or do I use my 2 second regrowth for a good front heal and a HoT to give me time to start the healing touch spam that it appears they need.
* Innervate - 1 / 1
Increases the target's Mana regeneration by 400% and allows 100% of the target's Mana regeneration to continue while casting. Lasts 20 seconds.
- Yummy and it only gets better on high spirit builds. As I mentioned this gets my build about 3000 mana back in 20 seconds. That is a guess I need to drain my mana pool and test it where I'm not instantly casting heals after starting it up. It helps out priests a bunch and I've even used it on a mage twice and a lock once when their fire power was more important than anything else going on.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.