Possible Respec

[Arcdelad]

ive been toying with the idea of doing a balance major with a minor in feral....here is what I think i can accomplish - please let me know if you guys think this will work out well - I have never been a moonkin, so I don't know how effective / innefective they are.

I think I can go full board balance, getting points all the way down to moonkin form...this would let me do (hopedully) some comparable DPS to what I do in cat form, while at the same time taking advatnage of the ZG and AQ armor sets with their higher armor values and slant towards druid casters...I think the moonkin has the same defense adds as the bear, so this would make me essentialy a mage (although not as powerful) in plate mail...first question...do moonkins do as much damage as a cat formed druid? I am doing about 2500 average crit on my ferocious bite and am consistently in the upper 25% of damage on the damage meter...

second..I want to dump enough points in feral to be able to keep my +10% to all armor pieces and my aggro talent add, so that I could still be just as effective a bear in maintaining aggro and performing tank funcitons in raids / instances....I wouldnt be doing a lot of damage as a bear, but tanks are not really meant to damage, but instead just soak it up right?

I dunno...you guys who have been a moonkin...is this feasible? do moonkin do decent DPS? Im confident the bear form will work out, so realy im just talking about swapping my cat form proficiency for a moonkin form proficiency

[Shadowwolf]

Been a OOMkin and am again since last night after AQ ended...

Sorry, I tried Resto yet again but I just cant get into being so fragile. Even my priest isnt that wimpy, maybe in BC after the talent trees shift some I will reconsider it again since I kinda liked the Tree of Life form.

Moonkin are like mages. You need to spec yourself in +hit, +crit and +dmg with spells gear and int out the ears to up your crit rates (this means leather or cloth armor, whatever you can benefit from). As a druid, every 60 intellect will up your crit % by 1. A Mage has to go every 59.5 int per 1%.

I did spillover at one time into Feral as well down to the talent point that increases armor in form and my Moonkin form at one point had 7k armor. Ive since put my overflow into resto last night for the improved MotW and uninterrupted heals as Balance has a talent way down the list which lowers mana cost of Regrowth and the HoT heals which was basically all I really healed with anyhow as resto. My armor now is only 5k as I have no bonus to the armor from the Feral talent but thats way more then a cloth caster which allows me to take a bit more damage.

As far as damage goes, my Starfire was critting for 1600 before I even outfitted +dmg gear which is close to what Ayrn does on crits with Frostbolt (pissed a lot of Horde off in AV). If you spec right and use Wrath and Starfire (moonfire is highly mana inefficient) you can do 500-800 dmg per cast on Wrath and 800-1200 on Starfire. Comparing it to the damage you can do in Feral is kind of like comparing a Mage to a Rogue. Both excel in different ways as far as damage goes and depending on how they are played depends on how much damage you end up doing.

I know when Dharq was Balance he was always right up by Ayrn on the damage charts.

[Arcdelad]

thank you for the great info shadow...im a little torn on this issue...playing a feral druid is realyl really FUN...i enjoy it a lot, plus it lets me solo quests that a lot of other classes cant (since I can DPS, tank, and heal myself all in one fight, plus stealth to certain locations)...BUT....looking at the great set items im getting from ZG (for example) it looks like blizzard had no intention of making feral druids an end game possibility...basically tier 1,2, and 3 have zero STR adds and zero AGI adds....with set bonuses that inceases damage from spells and / or healing bonuses...i am wearing almost all feralheart gear (just missing last quest to upgrade te cowl and chest)...feralheart is a good feral set, and the genesis set is decent (especially if coupled with the "...of unending life" stuff from AQ)...but beyond that there is no incentive to get sets, only really rogue stuff that I turn into feral gear...the FH set is meant to be a well rounded set, so it would be decent for a moonkin i think...

so...the way im looking at is I have two choices: respec now, take advantage of ZG, AQ, MC, BWL stuff...OR...stay feral, do what I can, and hope the expansion is more feral friendly (ive heard it might be)...im probably going to have to go back to feral though to level up to 70, so maybe its not even worth the respec...i do some very good damage right now (guys like ayrn, geno, and TB will smoke me every time, but im generally within the top 6 in a 20 man)...i think im leaning towards staying feral...but haveing the ZG set in my inventory is driving me crazy

[usonian]

Are you exalted with Zandalaar Arc?  I didn't think you could have a complete set of ZG gear without that reputation.  I'm guessing you won't have an entire ZG or AQ set (that you can use) by the time the expansion rolls out anyway (nothing personal).  We haven't even touched MC or BWL either so the tier one set is still out of reach for most of Twilight before BC is released. Perhaps you should stick with what you have if you are waiting to see what the expansion will bring if you are having fun with the feral spec and it is working for you.

I am a Warrior though, so what do I know?  My respec was a simple and typical decision: become uber tank.  With a class like a Druid, the fact that you have so much versatility means you have to focus that much harder on one aspect to really excel at it.  I'm learning this now with my shaman.  I'm guessing switching to moonkin would require a lot of work and gear hunting but that may be what you enjoy.

[Darkling]

Okay Arc, here is my advice concerning feral gear. You ready for this? Get rogue gear. It's leather and combat oriented. No bonuses to spells, but being feral, is it all that important when you get rings, trinkets, etc. that will add minor bonuses to your spells? The blooddrenched leather gear from ZG will def be great for you. Sets are great, but sometimes piece-meal is better.

So I say, get some rogue gear to benefit your combat.

[Arcdelad]

thats what I have come to the realization TB...I actually have 6/8 of the shadowcraft set in the bank...ive done some comparisions and the feralheart set gives me higher DPS than the shadowcraft set, and I have no means of upgrading the shadowcraft set to the dungeon 2 rogue set becuase im not a rogue...BUT....I agree with you totally TB...the rogue items do REALLY well for cat form damage...im finding that its a good thing to have my main cat set, then a high armor bear set, then some int, sta healing gear (not that i heal that often)...the downside is it takes up some bag space...but its working out so far...

uso...i am honored with zandalaar and have the friendly, honored, and revered set pieces....obviouslyi just have the turn in piece for the revered, but it wont be that much longer until i hit revered with all the ZG runs we are doing...im honored with CC, and i really have my eyes on the "...of unending life" items...i have the cape that requires revered...so im grinding like a madman to be able to equip that thing...

Im having a blast being feral becuase ive been able to fill some gaps in our raid / dungeon groups...i think feral is getting a lot more attention in BC (shadow - is this your experience so far?) so its going to be rogue gear wearing feral for me for now...

[Shadowwolf]

To start, just want to say that set items with some small exceptions are highly overrated. You can piece together a really nice set of gear for any character if you focus on what you are looking for. As an example, Ayrn has 1 piece of the Magisters, Sorcery and Illusionist sets, the rest is bits and pieces ive come across in other instances. I did the set item route on Shadow way back when I started as it was my first character and I didnt know any better (I thought, Blizzard would know what stats I needed to survive and kick butt wouldnt they?) and apparently I was incorrect. The Wildheart is very caster oriented but even there its severely lacking, Feralheart is more for Feral spec but again, lacking. Ive come to realize from trying to improve upon my characters that youre on your own when it comes to gearing properly as everyone has opinions of what you "should" do but no one person can really say whats best for your character based on how you play it.

In the expansion, theres flexibility now for the different talent trees as far as armor thats available. I think people got fed up with the biased influence the gear in Tiers and even outside sets forced someone into and they finally made more options for the different trees. Didnt make much sense to have 3 talent trees to work with on each class when you make the gear in the game tailored to benefit only 1 maybe 2. They've also evened out the talent point benefits on Druids come the expansion where you dont sacrifice as much going one tree more heavy than another like now.

In the end you should do what you enjoy the most. I would suggest giving the other methods a try however as you never know, Balance may appeal to you more than Feral once you try it. I can say Balance really kicks butt in PvP from my experience. Blizzard's intent on Druids as the game is now, not taking into account whats coming soon, is Druids are healers. Sucks, but sadly thats how they kinds forced it for the textbook endgame role. Now personally, I say to hell with textbook and hello unorthodox which always seems to work for us. We dont do things as typically expected and it seems to play to our advantage every time. Dont know many people who are die hard endgame raiders who would ever even attempt a UBRS run with no plate wearers and 2 Druids as tanks let alone pull it off, but we did. Same for ZG, somehow I doubt you'd see any other guild having a Druid as an Offtank on bosses, but we do and it works. So changing your spec simply because you think Blizzard wants you to isnt the way to go. Yea the gear is tailored to it if you stick with the sets, but theres plenty of other stuff out there that you can get non-set that will work for your play. Thats what I'd suggest you do. Its still a good idea to get the ZG set stuff if you can as you never know if you decide later you want to change up, but dont let that be the main reason you're considering change.

In the end what im trying to say can be summarized in one statement:

Dont help the gear play the game, have the gear help you play the game.

[Arcdelad]

good post...and a lot of good things to think about

i love playing feral, so thats probably where i am going to stay. blooddrenched and co here I come I still want to top off my feralheart set becuase it IS a decent feral set...and ive spent a crapload of time / gold already...

thanks for everyones input...we have a lot of top notch players in twilight and I really value you guys' input...

[dharq]

Sorry, I've been away lately... NWN2 came out, and I'm kinda addicted to it at the moment.

As Shadow's said earlier, balance is a really viable spec for damage output... I honestly had a hard time switching back to feral afterwards, but did in order to help out with a baron 45-min run attempt when we had no other tank.. Now I'm just biding my time until TBC comes out to decide whether to go back to balance or stay feral.

The only real issues I had with balance is when you run into mobs that are resistant to both arcane and nature damage since that's all I could deal--this especially became a pain in the butt during some of the boss fights in ZG. Also, the chromatic dragonkin in UBRS become a pain in the butt cause you can melee them with a staff for almost as much dmg as your starfire will deal. Crazy. I also hated running out of mana constantly--fortunately, TBC seems to be addressing this, but how much remains to be seen. Fortunately, we have several mages with high-end mage water now, so that problem isn't as bad as it once would have been.

As for advantages, let's go down the list. High damage. I mean really high. It wasn't uncommon for me to crit for 1400+ with a starfire and then 800+ with a moonfire. Timed right so that they hit at the same time, that's a huge amount burst damage. It was really fun in PvP. Also, you can root-spam lv60+ elites with almost no chance of getting hurt. Especially if you are able to break line of sight with a building or something--essential against casters since you don't have any spell interrupts. Also, you can kite... really well. 36 yd casts with moonfire, starfire, wrath, and roots. Means only a long-range hunter is going to outrange you on things. You can be a very effective rogue destroyer in PvP (thank goodness Horde doesn't have gnomes with their darned escape artist junk...  ) Probably the biggest--you no longer have to carry 3 sets of gear around. One set of good caster gear will work both for when you are fighting and having to do backup healer duty against raid bosses. YAY!!  More bag space!  Finally!

As for minor spec, I'm still torn on this one. Shadow makes a good case for resto, but feral (especially the +stealth talents) are so nice to have when you're scouting around that I have a hard time giving them up.

Don't know if this helps any, but it's about all I can come up with right now.

[Arcdelad]

thats also some good info.thanks darq!

I am contemplating NVWN2 as well....and also FFXII...BUT...I only have enough game time...and WOW is pretty fun, so, might have to shelve those two

[Kothnok]

Not much for me to add here, really.

I guess I'll just point out that I have 2.5 16-slot bags of trinkets and gear for several roles that I play (healer/tank/dps/caster-dps/undead-focused/etc.) and am constantly running out of bag space.  I also have only 3 set pieces on me and all 3 are the Shadowcraft rogue set.  Yes, that's right, my wildheart/feralheart are now in the bank.  The piecemeal items I've won doing the various instances and raids have yielded better results than the set bonuses could make up for.  Kinda makes me less inclined to finish the 45-min run and sink serveral hundred gold into a set that will end up sitting in the bank... but I probably will anyway, lol.

Oh, and do whatever talents you like.  I've only respec'd once because I found what I picked wasn't helping my playstyle as much as I'd liked.  I'm quite happy with what I have now (40% feral / 60% resto) as it fits me.

[Shadowwolf]

Yea i miss my spillover into Feral for those stealth points =(

The upside is I dont really sneak around too much anymore so its not been much of a hindrance, except when I helped Arc kill Lady Smolderweb down in LBRS. Got a little nail biting at times since I was more easily seen.