03-08-2005, 06:59 AM
My main is a 53 Druid with 31 in Restoration and the rest Feral, focusing on the bear forms. I do use cat from time to time, particularly for stealth, but it's not my main focus.
I'm not sure how large the promised dps boost is going to be or how good the new direct damage finishing ability will be. My comments here are based on the current patch with a few guesses at the effects of the upcoming changes on this build. At the moment I consider a cat-focused build to be good variant materiel - it's not horribly weak as many claim, just not up to the same standard as the Druid's other options.
I recommend that you move five talent points from the Feral tree into Restoration in order to get Nature's Swiftness. This is regrettably a cookie cutter talent, but it is justified as this is the single most important talent in a Druid's talent trees. With it, you can shift to caster and be sure of getting a Healing Touch off without interruption before dropping back into cat form. It is possible that the new Barkskin skill will reduce the importance of this talent.
If you decide to spend a little more in Restoration, the first place I would look at cutting points is Strength of the Wild and Predatory Strikes. Assuming that you can reach two hundred Strength by the end game (I have less than half of that, but my equipment focuses on Caster stats) each point in the former is worth six strength - a little less than one damage per second, even less after armour is taken into account. One DPS per talent point isn't terrible, but it's not exactly great either. The latter (which is also the prerequisite) is about one third as powerful.
The changed Swiftshifting also sounds very useful to a Feral Druid, but would require diluting your Feral talents even further.
Man Tracking is probably an earlier name for the Humanoid tracking skill - only the latter is in the game. I've never tested to see whether it can see stealthed players or even NPCs.
Cats cannot use bombs or any other items, even potions.
I'm not sure how large the promised dps boost is going to be or how good the new direct damage finishing ability will be. My comments here are based on the current patch with a few guesses at the effects of the upcoming changes on this build. At the moment I consider a cat-focused build to be good variant materiel - it's not horribly weak as many claim, just not up to the same standard as the Druid's other options.
I recommend that you move five talent points from the Feral tree into Restoration in order to get Nature's Swiftness. This is regrettably a cookie cutter talent, but it is justified as this is the single most important talent in a Druid's talent trees. With it, you can shift to caster and be sure of getting a Healing Touch off without interruption before dropping back into cat form. It is possible that the new Barkskin skill will reduce the importance of this talent.
If you decide to spend a little more in Restoration, the first place I would look at cutting points is Strength of the Wild and Predatory Strikes. Assuming that you can reach two hundred Strength by the end game (I have less than half of that, but my equipment focuses on Caster stats) each point in the former is worth six strength - a little less than one damage per second, even less after armour is taken into account. One DPS per talent point isn't terrible, but it's not exactly great either. The latter (which is also the prerequisite) is about one third as powerful.
The changed Swiftshifting also sounds very useful to a Feral Druid, but would require diluting your Feral talents even further.
Man Tracking is probably an earlier name for the Humanoid tracking skill - only the latter is in the game. I've never tested to see whether it can see stealthed players or even NPCs.
Cats cannot use bombs or any other items, even potions.