Call of the wild ...

[Cryptic]

Can anyone give an overview of play as a druid?
B)

[Cryptic]

And when the lamb opened the seventh seal,
silence covered the sky ...

For other Beta-deprived individuals looking for info, the best Druid thread I can find so far is here:
http://www.malador.com/forum/ikonboard.cgi...t=ST;f=5;t=6316

[Bolty]

Yes, any Druid Lurkers? Please chime in with your thoughts! People are tired of hearing just me talking about the mage :)

-Bolty

[Roane]

I don't have a lot of time at the moment, but I'll give a brief preview/summary for now (and I have plans to write up a longer summary later for both the lot of you and my VR friends (my other online gaming community)):

For the first ten levels, the druid plays as a traditional spellcasting class. Your main damage (at least the way I play) is via a direct damage spell called Wrath, and a DoT called Moonfire (I think -- the name is something like that.) You've also got a solid heal and Heal-Over-Time spell, a damage shield, and an armor buff. It's a very typical hybrid healer class, for any that have played MMORPGs before.

And then at ten, you get bear form. And the big change this makes is that now you have choices. I spent half of level ten running around and playing as a warrior. There are abilities that are only usable in Bear Form (and your spells are not available in Bear Form). You build up rage when attacking in Bear Form just as a warrior does, and your Bear abilities (at least the two I've acquired so far) use that rage.

So, suddenly, you have this marvelous choice to play as a hybrid caster/healer or to play as a warrior.

At level 20, you gain the Cat form (Can't recall the precise name -- perhaps Panther?). From what I can tell from reading the descriptions of the abilities I don't have yet, this is a Rogue form. So, a third choice.

For an indecisive player like me, the whole Jack of all Trades thing is a marvelous option.

Let me know what particular questions you have, if any, and I'll try to address them.

[Griselda]

The reason I didn't answer this post is that I've only played my druid to level 7, so I don't have anything particularly useful to say about druids just yet.

The one thing I've noticed about my Tauren druid compared to my Elven priest is that the druid seems to be somewhat more effective in melee combat with the staff. This is great because I actually seem a bit more mana hungry, at least at low levels, with my druid. So, if I can do the middle part (from about 75% to about 25%) of damage to a monster with my staff, I can save my mana to heal, if needed, or to be able to move on to the next comabt more quickly. That way I'm also more certain of having mana left over when the monsters run away in fear, or if I wake up more than I meant to.

Since I can't get to my priest at the moment, I have no way to do a head-to-head comparison. I don't think the weapon I'm using is significantly different than the sort of thing I found with my priest, though. I suspect that being a Tauren instead of a Night Elf is making the most significant difference here, but can't say for certain.

-Griselda

[Cryptic]

Cool! That's actually very informative, first summation I've seen of the basics in play. Thanks much, Grizzelda!

I mean ...

um ...

:rolleyes:

Mea culpa.

[Thecla]

Please chime in with your thoughts! People are tired of hearing just me talking about the mage

Yes, please for heavens sake -- someone else tell us about the mage. :P

[Charis]

Just a snippet here - I have a Tauren Druid who just turned level 10.

Stage One - Earliest Druid

Fire two "wraths" from afar, creature reaches me and starts beating on me. If it's not much
damage I fire 1-2 more wraths and kill it. For a tough creature I use my mana for heals instead,
and beat it down with my staff. I almost never have to eat or drink. Moonfire I'm seeing as totally
useless. Although I sometimes wonder if Mark of the Wild is helping me, I sure do notice the extra
whooping I get when I forget to cast it. However, if I get 3 creatures on me, I'm dead, period. With two, odds are not very good.

Stage Two - Middle Druid

Just when I was starting to thing my mana would never be sufficient, I realize how important it is to put a few points in Intellect and Spirit, and no longer have major problems with mana.
Just when I was starting to see single creatures that had a moderate chance to kill me, I get entangling roots. This spell *rocks*. It's a great saver of casting heal, let's you run across the plains better, and is a great party saver as well. The duration is too short to let it save me from a 3-on-1, but I can now survive 2-on-1's a little better.

State Three - Da Bear. Lvl 10

Just when I'm getting VERY bored with the formulaic wrath-wrath-strike-rejuv-wrath-heal-rinse-repeat nature of a lvl 9 druid, I get bear form. It CAN, if you allow it to, totally change how you play your druid. Bear for is not *better* than regular form, it's just different. For example, vs a Flatland Cougar, one on one was a tough battle. I would go wrath-entangle-wrath-wrath-wrath-strike-rejuv-strike-strike-heal-repeat and hope he ran out of life before I did mana. If I went for extra entangles I could do it safer but would likely need to drink after each battle. Enter bear form. Twap! 1/3 of hp gone (wow). Rend!!! WHACK! It's got a sliver of life left (omg!!!??? Did *I* do that?!) Third attack, it's dead! I think my die rolls were lucky as it wasn't always that easy, but this guy chewed up the cougar and good! Now, in the folly of my thinking, I though the bear was invulnerable, and charged two goblins from the Venture company. Well, a third joined, and I was going down FAST. My fingers automatically hit the entangle button, then heal. Er... *no* spell casting in bear form. I'm toast - there's simply no way out of this situation, and 3-on-1 that situation didn't last long - I was soon in ghost form.

Even better perhaps, you can *really* adjust your style to who you party with. I hooked up with a pair of Tauren warriors, and I was da party guy. Cleric like, but better. I could heal and rejuv them, and although I had no insta-heal, I did use entangling roots to keep a 2-on-2 from becoming a 4-on-2 warriors.
Add in a thorns and mark of wild buff on them, and our party was performing a few lvls higher than any one member. With a priest, shaman, or another druid I just as easily go into bear mode and be a decent attacker and tank. Even then I can unshift once in a while, recast the buffs or a heal, and return to bear form.

As the other poster above mentioned, things only get better with Cat form, adding a third option -- I think the druid is a great choice if you like flexibility and variety in your playing style. The flip side is that the first 9 levels are sluggish, and that you won't be as good in any one form as a dedicated priest, warrior or rogue. It seems an outstanding "serial party" person - someone who doesn't stick with one party but hooks up and heads out as needed.

That's my view as a little lvl 10 anyway :P
Charis (Charismokey)

[TaiDaishar]

I have a question, can you use both normal spells and bear form spells and be decent at both?

Could you decide going bear form against X mob and then shape change and go with your human form spells against another mob and both options would be valid?

And lastly: Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you.

[Charis]

Well, you're most welcome :P

No, you can't use normal spells and bear 'abilities' at the same time. They don't even
use the same fuel! The first is mana, the second is 'rage'. When you switch to bear form
your rage is reset to zero, afaik.

You actually have six "bars" for your hotkeys. So you'll want one (or more) for normal use,
another for bear, another for cat, etc. It's likely that at high level the choices will be large enough
that you would split the normal bar into a pre-battle buff bar, a "every battle I use these, plus emergency
spells" on your 'main' hotkey bar, and perhaps a boss bar or a party bar.

> Could you decide going bear form against X mob and then shape change and go
> with your human form spells against another mob and both options would be valid?

You can, but there are mana/rage issues. Sorry I can't check directly now, but I'm pretty sure rage
goes to zero on becoming a bear, but I don't know if your mana is zero, or low, when you revert to
human form. You might very well do something like buff, entangle, cast rejuv on party, then go to
bear form and start attacking, then mauling/rending as you get in a few hits and build rage. After
battle you could humanize, drink water and heal up, ready to repeat this cycle.
(I don't know how effective this would be compared to keying on one form, but it seems possible)

Charis

[Nystul]

What are the stat point costs like in the current configuration compared to other classes? It seems like one drawback of a "do-it-all" character could be the desire to pump every stat, at the cost of trade skill profiency. All other classes have two key stats and a third that is worthwhile. But with a druid, would you want strength for bear form, agility for cat form, stamina for all forms, and spirit and intellect for normal form?

[Cryptic]

Something I was thinking of ... I wonder if a party of druids would be more effective than a group of individual character classes all with strict roles? Is versatility in WoW superior to specialization, or the other way around, or does it depend on the group?

In "safe" harvesting and questing, I could see the specialized group (theoretically) pulling ahead - everyone knows their sub-mission and the teamwork is refined. But when things get tough and the specialized members drop (you lose your healer, or your tank, etc.), things get ugly fast.

It seems that a group of druids would have pullers, tanks, scouts, and healers on an as-needed basis. Even if two members died, the other players could probably pull out a victory if they were skilled and quick enough with their shapeshifting and role changes.

It would probably be amusing to start a group of only Tauren Druids (the "Hell Bovines"?) and test out some theories.
:P

Sigh ... hopefully I can get into the Beta at some point. Until then, I play vicariously through all of you.
;)

[Bolty]

Wow Charis, that sounds pretty awesome. I know I'd love to have a bear tank along with me, but I've been partying with a rather expert Priest player who should write up some more thoughts on that class. A mage when coupled with a priest is pretty nuts! *cough* Ariadne...

-Bolty

[Roane]

Switching to bear form takes half my current mana pool. (Not able to check the precise number now, but as I've been pumping up Int and Spirit, so it should be close to average for a L10 Tauren Druid.)

When I switch back to Tauren shape, I usually (but not always) have about half my mana pool.

It'll probably require some more precise experimentation to see if those mana levels are circumstance dependent or pretty standard.