Feral Druids: The Fight Against Ignorance

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » November 7, 2005, 12:32 pm

Random Person: "Scholo raid seeks tank PST"

Me: "I'll come"

Random Person: "Sorry, we already have a druid"

Me: "I'm Feral"

Random Person never replies....

I'm really getting sick and tired of people's lack of understanding about the new feral tree. Yes, I can tank. Yes, I can dps. Yes, I can still heal. Actually, I 7 manned Baron the other night as main healer (I had my doubts at the time). I lack my insta heal and the mana efficency to last through huge battles with lots of adds. Luckily, in 95% of the instances that is never a problem becuase people know what they're doing. I'm also an alchemist, so Major Mana Potions help greatly with my mana pool. Healing isn't my issue though, it's that people cannot comprehend a druid tanking anything, which is just annoying. I had a pallie in a PUG LOLZing me about filling a dps role in a Baron raid. Motherfucker didn't say shit when I doubled his dps and outhealed him to boot. In that run, I was 4th in dmg behind 2 mages and a rogue. At 4th place, I was almost double dmg of what the 5th place did. Did that educate him at all? Hell no. He still thinks druids cannot dps. He had the lame insults to back up that opinion.

I'm packing almost 10k AC with 6500 HPs. I can also self heal with frenzied regen, have a taunt, a stun, and AE debuff, and an AE taunt. My attacks add hate. I can tank better than a pallie but not as good as a warrior. For the love of god, I can tank Scholo, UBRS, LBRS, BRD, Strath, ect with my eyes closed. Why can't people understand this? There is a reason Feral druids make both rogues and warriors a bit nervous. We're a very close emulation of those classes.

I also hate people's lack of understanding about Leader of the Pack... Put the rogues in with me. No, not the warlock and mage. Put the fucking rogues in my group you asshat. Every PUG is a struggle to get the leader to fix the groups.

Now, what's amazing is when people know what a feral Druid can contribute. The attitude is a complete 180. These people seek a out a feral druid. When a group trusts me enough to just do my thing, I think I actually impress them in terms of dmg and overall contribution.

If anyone here has any questions about a Feral Druid's abilities, feel free to ask. I'm trying to educate as many people as I can. ALso, are other Feral Druids having the same issues?

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » November 7, 2005, 1:17 pm

How are the new abilities at keeping aggro. I haven't tried the new feral tree yet however my pet peeve was keeping aggro off priests/mages that overdid their thing.

Kudos to you for fighting the myth.

Drinsic Darkwood · Post by **Drinsic Darkwood** » November 7, 2005, 1:32 pm

INNERVATE ME

Jice Virago · Post by **Jice Virago** » November 7, 2005, 1:57 pm

Here is the problem I have with Feral Druids:

Past a certain point, AC ceased to be as important as Defense and no feral druid out there is going to match a descently geared warrior with both AC and Defense. This is not the fault of the druid as much as it is itemization pretending that feral druids do not exist. There are also a certain subset of feral druids who are into the whole feline thing. They will come close to the damage output of hunters and rogues, but only with craploads of additional gear.

Why should I, as a raid leader, work up gear on someone who is inferior to the specialist classes in the same roles, especially when I could probably deck out one healing druid, a hunter, and a rogue for the same relative amount of effort as it takes to gear up one feral druid properly? Believe me, I feel your pain having played a Shadow Knight in EQ and watching shit get handed out to other classes who were better in their specialist roles that make better use of it and getting passed over for warriors for groups all the way until PoP in EQ1. Perception trumps reality when people are making groups and they always want the most efficient setup possible, especially in PUGs. Feral Druids are a luxury for guilds who have so much rot gear that they can afford to have them around.

miir · Post by **miir** » November 7, 2005, 2:16 pm

There are also a certain subset of feral druids who are into the whole feline thing. They will come close to the damage output of hunters and rogues, but only with craploads of additional gear

A feral druid might come close in DPS but in utility, there is no match for a druid.

Can a rogue or hunter drop heals, can they buff HP/resists, damage shield and add 3% crit to the melee in the group? Or what about a brief 20% AE slow (attack speed slow) that can turn the tide of a rough fight?

Or maybe you'd rather have a druid decursing to free up a mage? Someone who can also spot heal as needed.

Perception trumps reality when people are making groups and they always want the most efficient setup possible, especially in PUGs

Which is exactly Fair's point.
In most pick up groups, you don't need the absolute most efficient setup. People need to get a clue. Unfortunately with the player base of WoW, expecting someone to have a fucking clue is just too much to ask of the majority of players.

Druids, especially feral druids are the best class to have in any group because they can adapt to make the group stronger.

Not to mention that druids tend to attract a higher quality player compare to cookie cutter warriors and hunters, the legions of uberleet rogues and the idiot palagimps who think they are a dps class..

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » November 7, 2005, 2:20 pm

yeah Jice is right. The only position that a druid can specialize into which measures up to the norm is healer (restoration). They can patch in to sub for a missing tank (which is really blizzard's intention), but there will never be a reason to use a druid full-time in place of a warrior or a rogue.

Just like virtually any game with a class that is designed to fill multiple roles, you should excel at none of them. At least druids are excellent healers

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » November 7, 2005, 2:21 pm

How are the new abilities at keeping aggro. I haven't tried the new feral tree yet however my pet peeve was keeping aggro off priests/mages that overdid their thing.

Maxxed Feral Instinct nets me +15% threat per strike. The downside is bear form hits much slower than, say, cat form. Luckily I have Growl which refreshes every minute. I save that to instantly pull anything off anyone I want. For those group pulls where a mob will run right past me and straight to the priest, I immediately feral charge, then growl. For those big group pulls, Challenging Roar has a 10 minute cooldown. That is really not a problem at all since it's an "Oh shit" type of skill anyway and if you're having to use it more than 10 minutes, you're group is doing something very wrong.

When it comes to adds in general, it's usually a matter of using the right skills at the right time, same as always. Bash the caster, growl the melee, Demoralizing Roar everything you can. Anything that isn't on me is easily scooped up by an offtank. Unusual circumstances aside, I keep everything on me at all times.

The big question to you is probaly boss fights. In those cases, I ask for the usual 5-6 secs for aggro. I start in caster, Starfire, Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Farie Fire. Then it's Bearform +Growl, then Demoralizing Roar. I can keep anything on me at that point, barring massive inital crits by mages or someone intentionally taking aggro from me.

Overall, the improvements for keeping aggro are much better than before, but people still need to exercise caution with thier aggro at startup.

Kudos to you for fighting the myth.

It's an uphill battle, but like I said above, the times people trust me, I'm certian they've walked away with a new appreciation. An example was the other day I was in a Baron run and they were looking for a tank. Half the people were like "Let the druid tank, get a DPS." The other half were either silent or apprehensive at best. I ended up tanking the entire run.

Also of note was a Scarlet/Strath run where we had 4 druids in a 10 man raid. 2 Restoration specced, me as Feral/MT, and 1 Balance in Moonkin. The other 6 people in that raid couldn't say enough good things about druids that day

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » November 7, 2005, 3:08 pm

I understand all those points, Jice. I just don't agree with them. An equally geared Feral Druid can virtually match a rogue for DPS on raids. (IE: AGI+Crit gear) The only reason my DPS is not consistantly up with our rogues is due to having to drop my form for healing and such. If I never had to drop my cat form, I would be neck and neck at the end of a 2hour raid, seperated mainly by a couple thousand points of dmg. That's just a couple crits difference one way or the other.

Also, as a Feral Druid, I can tell you that we're pretty darn easy to gear up, so that isn't really a problem. That's one of the things that attracted me to the Feral tree in the first place. Afterall, only so many classes want a particular item and it inevitably drops over and over. For that reason, we tend to scoop up a lot of gear that might otherwise get DE'ed. Due to the enhancements our tree gives us, it makes our good gear even better, and our great gear becomes fantastic. Give a staff of Warding to a Warrior and he recieves 260 AC, 11 STA, and +10 DEF. However, give that same, below average lv 43 weapon to a druid and he gets over 1000 AC and more HPs.

Heart of the Wild gives a Feral Druid:

20% more INT when in caster (helps for healing/nuking)

20% more STA in bear

20% more STR in cat

As a raid leader, you cannot downplay the significant versitility a Feral Druid can bring to the table. In my guild we place 4 rogues in my group when we raid. That's 3% additional crit to each rogue. I also buff with maxx Mark of the Wild, have AE heals in emergency situations, can cure poison/curse, straight up heals, and never downplay the significance of battle rez. Targettable Hurricane is also a very, very, nice spell that can turn the tide.

Jice Virago · Post by **Jice Virago** » November 7, 2005, 4:42 pm

Well my guild is long on all of the specialist classes at the moment, but extremely lacking in nukers and curse removers, so my view is admittedly skewed. We bennefit a lot more from a druid by having them spot heal, nuke, and crowd control than we would ever gain from having a rogue or tank substitute. No amount of gearing is ever going to make a druid match a warrior in AC, agro generation, and raw defense combined. They can match a hunter of similar gear and come close to a rogue while giving a nice buff, but an enhancement shaman can do the same thing and provide healing to the group without having to occasionally alter forms. If we were light on rogues, warriors, or hunters, I would be all for using Druids for DPS, but the reality is (at least on our server) horde mages and Warlocks are rare as hell and those are the roles (along with healing) that we need filled. In principle, you are correct that the druid utility is amazing, but the reality is that any guild of reasonable size has enough specialists that they don't really need any of it. Healing and buffs are always in shorter supply.

As for PUGs, there no way you will convert the unwashed masses with logic and well backed arguments. Your best bet is to stick with guild groups or make your own groups and call the shots.

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » November 7, 2005, 5:35 pm

I love my Druid. While I have level 60 Rogue that I like a lot, my Druid is by far my favorite mainly for it's versitality. I tried going full balance when the changes hit because I like to nuke from a distance and while the furby form is kind of cool in a weird sort of way I had to respec. I didn't like the amount of mana spent on healing and as much as I try to get out of that mode I find myself playing the healer more often than not. My own fault.

I'd love to go feral but mainly because I like to solo. So I don't have to heal anyone but me for the most part. In groups however, if I am there as my Druid I am healing.

I went 0/10/41 for spec. I took the feral damage enhancer and thick skin.

Akanae · Post by **Akanae** » November 8, 2005, 1:54 am

I really like grouping with druids and I group with them whenever I can. Before the 1.8 patch I actualy did a 4 man scarlet strat with a non-feral druid tanking, and we did really well.

I think the problem druids have is three fold and I don't know if it will really ever get much better. For one, there aren't many druids around (at least on my server) so people don't get a lot of exposure to them. Two is a lot of druids don't know how to tank/pull properly, and don't have the gear to do it and that really turns people off druid tanks. Third problem would be the general attitude that druids are not only second rate at all of their specialties, but they aren't very good at anything. I don't know if this attitude came over from EQ or what

I think the best solution would be what has already been posted here - group with guildmates/friends or start a group up and show others how much ass druids can kick.

Sinzar · Post by **Sinzar** » November 8, 2005, 7:00 am

Raids are where the anti-feral ideas come from I think. I will agree, Druids can do decently as a offtank, or as a DPS class. As you said though, they aren't as good as the primary classes for those roles.

For a tank slot on a raid, what can a druid do that a warrior can not do better?

For a melee DPS slot on a raid, what can a druid do that a rogue can not do better?

A common answer to these questions is druids can also heal, or res, or nuke etc. Yes, but so can a healing druid. So all this utility is not the actual spec, that's just part of the class, no matter what role they are filling. In my opinion, 3% crit for 1-4 people is not a big deal on a 40 man raid.

On the other hand, what can a restoration druid do that a priest can not?

Answer: Innervate
A restoration druid can heal just as well as a priest, but brings something unique to the raid. Innervate is no big deal in 5 mans, but on raids (especially Blackwing Lair) it's huge.

As a result of this, heavy raiders like myself get in the mind set that to be useful, a druid needs to be restoration. So when it's time to do a 5 man run, feral spec is automatically frowned upon. We expect druids to do as they do on a serious raid, be primary healers.

The problem is not that druids can't be useful in feral forms, it's simply that they can be more useful as a healer, so that's what most raid/group leaders expect from them

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » November 8, 2005, 12:00 pm

Very well said.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » November 8, 2005, 12:43 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote: As a raid leader, you cannot downplay the significant versitility a Feral Druid can bring to the table. In my guild we place 4 rogues in my group when we raid. That's 3% additional crit to each rogue.

This prevents those rogues from getting Trueshot Aura, Battleshout, and Windfury + Strength (if horde). All of which are more beneficial than 3% crit.

miir · Post by **miir** » November 8, 2005, 12:53 pm

Very well said.

Not really. it just illustrates the problem of ignorantly defining a class by one single skill.

If your priests mana management is so poor that you need to rely on innervate, get more priests. Have your priests load up on +spirit gear and get enough that you can get the most out of the 5 second rule. That way you will never need innervate... and since priests are better healers than druids (laugh), why would you ever bother ever inviting a druid to a raid...

Idiot logic like yours is way too prevalent in WoW.

Do you have DPS requirements for your rogues and hunters?
Do you have manapool and spirit req's for your priests?
What about your warriors, do you require them to all be protection spec because tanking is the only thing a warrior can do better than any other class?
No really, why invite a warrior for DPS when a rogue or hunter can do more?

3% crit for 1-4 people is not a big deal on a 40 man raid

That's just fucking asinine.
Put a druid with 4 rogues or 4 hunters and the DPS increase from +3 crit is definately a big deal. The group would also have better survivability.
The loss of 20-30 DPS by replacing a rogue/hunter with a druid isn't a big deal when you take into account the extra DPS from 3% crit. Even if it's a 5-10 DPS increase per person, you'd be looking at a increase of 20-40 DPS for the group. You don't have to be a mathamagician to figure that one out.

Playing a bard in EQ I encountered a lot of retards like you.
The ones who thought the main use for a bard was mana song and resists.
The ones who were too stupid to not put a bard in the main tank group.
The ones who had no fucking clue about how useful a bard was beyond mana song.

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » November 8, 2005, 1:02 pm

Very well said.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » November 8, 2005, 2:10 pm

Most priests just waste innervate anyways. To get the ful effect, you have to stop casting entirely for the full duration of the buff.

It's 400% mana regen but drops to 100% regen while casting.

There is definatly a place for the Moonkin and the Feral form druid in end-game raids just as long as that person is willing to drop the form to heal when needed.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » November 8, 2005, 2:53 pm

The wow druid forums are brimming with MC/BWL Feral druids posting pics of being top 5 DPS on 40 man raids. People need to change thier mindset. I'm not really sure what proof people are looking for to admit that feral druids are viable in the endgame, but I'm happy my guild takes us seriously and uses us accordingly.

Yes, Innervate is wasted on priests for the exact reason Animalor posted. I'm surprised more people aren't aware of that little quirk. After losing Innervate, I actually perfer mana pots for long fights because I can time my usage better. In long fights, it's all a manner of timing your pots.

miir · Post by **miir** » November 8, 2005, 5:19 pm

The wow druid forums are brimming with MC/BWL Feral druids posting pics of being top 5 DPS on 40 man raids.

Oh yeah, but that's only because the rogues, hunters, warriors, mages and every other class that supposedly has top noth DPS were not really trying.

Fucking tards, all of them.

They just don't realise how fucking clueless they are....and they can't realise that a well equipped and well played feral druid can deal above average DPS...
Instead they cling to the retard reasoning that the only thing druids can do well is heal and innervate.

WoW forums make people stupid.

Crav · Post by **Crav** » November 8, 2005, 6:23 pm

I've always judge the value of the player not the character. I can work with an unbalanced group; I can't work with bad players because a good player will always find a way to help win, while a bad player will some how find a way to mess it up.

That being said, a well played and equipped feral druid is not going to match the dps output of a well played dps speced rogue, hunter or warrior. The key thing in that is the part that says well played. Of course no matter how well played the rogue, hunter or warriors are they are not going to be able to buff or heal like a druid.

miir · Post by **miir** » November 8, 2005, 7:45 pm

a well played and equipped feral druid is not going to match the dps output of a well played dps speced rogue, hunter or warrior.

Wrong.
A badly played feral spec in cat will out DPS a warrior on every day of the week unless the warrior has the absolute best gear.

They will also come pretty damn close to a rogue or hunter.
The indirect DPS from Leader of the pack, Thorns and MOTW more than makes up the difference.

From a strictly DPS standpoint, there is no logical reason to select a hunter or rogue over a feral druid. They all fill the DPS role equally well, it's just their utility is different.

Rogues have crowd control.
Hunters have awesome flexibility with their pets, traps, variety of ranged attacks that can snare, drain mana, stun, etc.
Druids have buffs and heals.

Crav · Post by **Crav** » November 8, 2005, 9:47 pm

miir wrote:
a well played and equipped feral druid is not going to match the dps output of a well played dps speced rogue, hunter or warrior.
Wrong.
A badly played feral spec in cat will out DPS a warrior on every day of the week unless the warrior has the absolute best gear.

Have you ever played a fury/arms warrior? Honestly with decent gear that works on agi/crit and a decent weapon a warrior can output unbelievable dps.

miir wrote: They will also come pretty damn close to a rogue or hunter.
The indirect DPS from Leader of the pack, Thorns and MOTW more than makes up the difference.

From a strictly DPS standpoint, there is no logical reason to select a hunter or rogue over a feral druid. They all fill the DPS role equally well, it's just their utility is different.

It honestly depends on the spec. A druid can probably do the damage a dagger speced rogue can do because of the way the delay + crit is setup on cat form. We are talking about equally equiped character correct? I can't say what combat speced rogues use, but as a hunter I'm using a weapon with a delay of 2.9 or higher with an attack of about 1200-1400 unbuffed. For reference here's one of the top Nefarian alliance guild druids Link. Crit builds is what gives you the most dps and in a crit build the key thing is the delay of your weapon.

I am not saying a druid can't do dps or tank, all I am saying is that they are not going to out dps the melee classes if those classes are built to do dps, given equal equipment and player skill.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » November 9, 2005, 11:32 am

I am not saying a druid can't do dps or tank, all I am saying is that they are not going to out dps the melee classes if those classes are built to do dps, given equal equipment and player skill

I see people saying this all over, but the only proof I've been seeing is posting the exact opposite. Anyone can simply say it. Anyone can give excuses as to why a druid is dong better in a particular example where they are top 5 DPS. However, the new Feral tree has just been released and we are only now starting to see the effects on high end raiding druids. The reports from the pioneer players are showing, believe it or not, druids are outdamaging rogues, arms warriors, hunters, and mages. These are players raiding amoungst thier peers on guild raids so you must assume they are all geared similiarly.

It's like having a person talking to me on his cell phone outdoors telling me it's raining, while you're sitting next to me saying "no it's not".

"No it's not" is not a viable answer. If you have never seen first hand what a Feral druid can do, why are you trying so hard to debunk or justify an opinion based on nothing but guesswork? I actually play a Feral druid and I can easily see that with better equipment, the numbers other druids are posting are within my reach.

I had a druid ravage me in PvP with a 2400+ crit. My jaw hit the floor. Although kinda stunned with surprise, I still wonder what equipment that fucker had. I have never seen a crit that high by any melee class. I'm sure they're out there, but I've personally never seen it, much less had it happen to me. It gives me something to strive for since that is over 600 more dmg than my best crit.

miir · Post by **miir** » November 9, 2005, 12:11 pm

Yeah, it's funny my gimp 48 feral driud with greens and a few blues puts my cookie-cutter 57 warrior (with mostly blues) to shame in the DPS department... vs similar +/- lvl mobs of the same type.

My best ravage is a little over 800 and my ferocious bite can crit for ~700. Also helps that my crit rate is up close to 24% and I have a lifetime supply of Mongoose potions (which pushes it over 26%).

archeiron · Post by **archeiron** » November 9, 2005, 12:47 pm

On those rare occassions were we have been light on warriors (someone off sick, etc), we have a feral druid that fills in off-tanking in MC. I am fairly sure that he has successfully offtanked every encounter in MC by now.

Feral druids.

Crav · Post by **Crav** » November 9, 2005, 5:17 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote: I see people saying this all over, but the only proof I've been seeing is posting the exact opposite. Anyone can simply say it. Anyone can give excuses as to why a druid is dong better in a particular example where they are top 5 DPS. However, the new Feral tree has just been released and we are only now starting to see the effects on high end raiding druids. The reports from the pioneer players are showing, believe it or not, druids are outdamaging rogues, arms warriors, hunters, and mages. These are players raiding amoungst thier peers on guild raids so you must assume they are all geared similiarly.

It's like having a person talking to me on his cell phone outdoors telling me it's raining, while you're sitting next to me saying "no it's not".

Yes so in a dicussion on dps a player who has played two different hunters to 60 (horde and alliance) and an arm/fury warrior to 50 has no clue about how the dps system works.

I can post dozens of meters showing druids out healing priest, does that make them superior healers?

Fairweather Pure wrote: "No it's not" is not a viable answer. If you have never seen first hand what a Feral druid can do, why are you trying so hard to debunk or justify an opinion based on nothing but guesswork? I actually play a Feral druid and I can easily see that with better equipment, the numbers other druids are posting are within my reach.

What guess work? I've been trying to maximize dps for the last year, our hunters were outdamage everyone but our top equiped rogues since we started keeping track of dps. Why, because we understood early on that crit builds were better for dps than pure agi builds, then figuring out that +hit is better on anything 63+ was better than using +skill (bow/gun).

Fairweather Pure wrote: I had a druid ravage me in PvP with a 2400+ crit. My jaw hit the floor. Although kinda stunned with surprise, I still wonder what equipment that fucker had. I have never seen a crit that high by any melee class. I'm sure they're out there, but I've personally never seen it, much less had it happen to me. It gives me something to strive for since that is over 600 more dmg than my best crit.

I've hit for 2.8k on a single aimed shot, I've been hit for 5k execute by a none top notch alliance warrior and 2k on an ms crit.

miir wrote:Yeah, it's funny my gimp 48 feral driud with greens and a few blues puts my cookie-cutter 57 warrior (with mostly blues) to shame in the DPS department... vs similar +/- lvl mobs of the same type.

My best ravage is a little over 800 and my ferocious bite can crit for ~700. Also helps that my crit rate is up close to 24% and I have a lifetime supply of Mongoose potions (which pushes it over 26%).

What is your warrior speced and what type of items are you using. Most plate gear doesn't have +agi and crit. Honestly if your going to compare a feral druid that is equiped with feral equipment then please compare it to a corresponding warrior spec and build.

archeiron · Post by **archeiron** » November 10, 2005, 1:40 am

Crav wrote:
Fairweather Pure wrote: I see people saying this all over, but the only proof I've been seeing is posting the exact opposite. Anyone can simply say it. Anyone can give excuses as to why a druid is dong better in a particular example where they are top 5 DPS. However, the new Feral tree has just been released and we are only now starting to see the effects on high end raiding druids. The reports from the pioneer players are showing, believe it or not, druids are outdamaging rogues, arms warriors, hunters, and mages. These are players raiding amoungst thier peers on guild raids so you must assume they are all geared similiarly.

It's like having a person talking to me on his cell phone outdoors telling me it's raining, while you're sitting next to me saying "no it's not".
Yes so in a dicussion on dps a player who has played two different hunters to 60 (horde and alliance) and an arm/fury warrior to 50 has no clue about how the dps system works.

I can post dozens of meters showing druids out healing priest, does that make them superior healers?

Fairweather Pure wrote: "No it's not" is not a viable answer. If you have never seen first hand what a Feral druid can do, why are you trying so hard to debunk or justify an opinion based on nothing but guesswork? I actually play a Feral druid and I can easily see that with better equipment, the numbers other druids are posting are within my reach.
What guess work? I've been trying to maximize dps for the last year, our hunters were outdamage everyone but our top equiped rogues since we started keeping track of dps. Why, because we understood early on that crit builds were better for dps than pure agi builds, then figuring out that +hit is better on anything 63+ was better than using +skill (bow/gun).

Fairweather Pure wrote: I had a druid ravage me in PvP with a 2400+ crit. My jaw hit the floor. Although kinda stunned with surprise, I still wonder what equipment that fucker had. I have never seen a crit that high by any melee class. I'm sure they're out there, but I've personally never seen it, much less had it happen to me. It gives me something to strive for since that is over 600 more dmg than my best crit.
I've hit for 2.8k on a single aimed shot, I've been hit for 5k execute by a none top notch alliance warrior and 2k on an ms crit.

miir wrote:Yeah, it's funny my gimp 48 feral driud with greens and a few blues puts my cookie-cutter 57 warrior (with mostly blues) to shame in the DPS department... vs similar +/- lvl mobs of the same type.

My best ravage is a little over 800 and my ferocious bite can crit for ~700. Also helps that my crit rate is up close to 24% and I have a lifetime supply of Mongoose potions (which pushes it over 26%).
What is your warrior speced and what type of items are you using. Most plate gear doesn't have +agi and crit. Honestly if your going to compare a feral druid that is equiped with feral equipment then please compare it to a corresponding warrior spec and build.

Do you have a point or are you just stirring the pot?

Crav · Post by **Crav** » November 10, 2005, 3:43 am

archeiron wrote: Do you have a point or are you just stirring the pot?

Well while I enjoy a good argument as much as the next person. My point is that while a druid is very verstile, given equal equipment and player skill they will not out dps a dps speced rogue, warrior or hunter. The reason I believe this is very simple, a feral druid is about the same as a dagger speced rogue given that their attack speed in cat form is 1.0. Since the change to dps in the previous patch dagger speced rogues have fallen off the dps curve behind hunters, combat rogues and fury/arms warriors.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » November 10, 2005, 2:54 pm

What guess work?

Have you actually seen Feral Druids in a DPS role first hand? If so, were they geared just as well as everyone else in the raid? If not, you are guessing. If people haven't delved into and researched Feral Druids, then they are basing thier opinions on assumptions. The druid community as a whole is still trying to figure things out. Besides, we're not talking about Hunters. We're discussing the complete and drastic redesign of the druid feral tree and how that affects players and the game itself in terms of RL attitude and gameplay.

I can post dozens of meters showing druids out healing priest, does that make them superior healers?

This is an excellent example supporting my stance. Yes, druids do heal better than Priests on many occasions. Yes, Warriors do out dmg Rogues and many occasions.

There are so many variables involved from equipment, talent specs, and player skill, that it is quite silly to state matter-of-factly that this "X class is better than Y class" and choose raid attendees based upon those generalizations. My entire point about Feral Druids is don't immediatly discount us based on our skill set. Especially since information is still bleeding in from the fringes about what we can really do.

Jice Virago · Post by **Jice Virago** » November 10, 2005, 4:54 pm

Nothing will change these facts:

1) Feral Defense stat will never match an equivalently geared warrior defense. Comming close will mean huge sacrifices in AC, HP, and DPS. Even if a Feral Druid could AE taunt as well as a warrior, they would still never have the kind of damage absorbtion ability as a warrior farming gear from the same zones. You might be able to tank all the way up to general in UBRS, but after that a raid leader would be retarded to use a Feral Druid for anything other than offtanking light trash.

2) Feral Druids, even if they could match the damage output of combat specced rogues (which, no amount of testimonials on the cess pit known as the blizard druid boards will ever conclusively prove) they still have to do it in close while getting pummelled by AEs, just like a rogue. Either you duck the AEs or you swap forms to heal yourself; either way you are losing DPS in the process. You will never out damage a hunter in that situation with equivalent gear. Never. In fact, I bet a nuking druid tapping from outside AE range would probably contribute more overall damage to the same sort of fight, but that is conjecture on my part.

3) The only unique thing (less buffs) that druids bring to a raid is the mana pump. While is mainly going to be used on Priests (who can regain mana faster on swap outs and heal more efficiently), it also has the potential of keeping your AEers primed for swarm adds or a bazillion other things where mana is a limiting factor. Its 100 times more useful than having the equivalent DPS of a rogue too cheap to respec or a hunter who is too lazy to do anythign other than autoshoot. Its great that you have all that utility, but raids always come down to niches and the mana pump is yours. Embrace it, because its more than Warlocks and Mages have right now.

I applaud you for going against the grain, but if you think you are a match for an identically geared specialist once you get past UBRS, you are not accepting reality. Your versitility also takes more gear, for situational uses, that could be going to a specialist (say, a rogue, hunter, or healing druid) who would make more effective use of it. How you play the game is your business, but no amount of Bnet logs where one guy out DPSed people on trash mobs while the real DPS classes were sleepwalking through things is going to change the reality of the situation. Feral Druids are a raid curiousity, much like BM hunters and Fire Mages, who may rock solo, 5 man, and PvP, but have no real place in raid zones.

miir · Post by **miir** » November 10, 2005, 4:59 pm

The only unique thing (less buffs) that druids bring to a raid is the mana pump. While is mainly going to be used on Priests (who can regain mana faster on swap outs and heal more efficiently), it also has the potential of keeping your AEers primed for swarm adds or a bazillion other things where mana is a limiting factor. Its 100 times more useful than having the equivalent DPS of a rogue too cheap to respec or a hunter who is too lazy to do anythign other than autoshoot. Its great that you have all that utility, but raids always come down to niches and the mana pump is yours. Embrace it, because its more than Warlocks and Mages have right now.

Attitudes like this make me vomit.
Innervate is just a crutch that shitty players have come to rely on.

archeiron · Post by **archeiron** » November 10, 2005, 5:07 pm

Jice Virago wrote:Nothing will change these facts:

1) Feral Defense stat will never match an equivalently geared warrior defense. Comming close will mean huge sacrifices in AC, HP, and DPS. Even if a Feral Druid could AE taunt as well as a warrior, they would still never have the kind of damage absorbtion ability as a warrior farming gear from the same zones. You might be able to tank all the way up to general in UBRS, but after that a raid leader would be retarded to use a Feral Druid for anything other than offtanking light trash.

archeiron wrote:On those rare occassions were we have been light on warriors (someone off sick, etc), we have a feral druid that fills in off-tanking in MC. I am fairly sure that he has successfully offtanked every encounter in MC by now.

A feral druid will never match an equivalently geared warrior. This fact does not preclude a druid from being "good enough" to tank in MC. What would be retarded is not making the best use of the tools that you have and finding creative uses for your team members to keep your guild happy when the "right" composition doesn't turn up a few nights running for your raids.

Before the comment is made, I play a priest in WoW, so this isn't an argument that I have a personal investment in. I grew weary of the word "druid" by the time I left EQ and couldn't face the title, even for the fantastic class that WoW has.

miir · Post by **miir** » November 10, 2005, 5:18 pm

The anti-feral arguments are just asinine.

Just because a warrior can tank better it doesn't mean a druid can't tank. In how many situations do you need the absolute best geared and best played warrior?

Just because a certain rogue build will out-dps a druid, it doesn't mean the druid can't dps. How many times has a few DPS difference been a make-or-break point in a fight?
If a feral druid does 20 DPS less... if 30 people doing 150 DPS... your DPS drop is less than 1%.

Just because a priest can heal better, it doesn't mean a druid can't heal... oh wait, that doesn't fit with your argument because you want the driud to heal and it doesn't matter how good or bad they are.

-------------------------

Face it, not many people like playing healers in WoW. It's just not very much fun.

Stop trying to justify you wanting druids to heal by saying feral forms aren't as good as the class they emulate and by saying that innervate is too valuable not to have... just admit that you never have enough healers and can't afford to have your druids not be resto.

Crav · Post by **Crav** » November 10, 2005, 5:26 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote:
What guess work?
Have you actually seen Feral Druids in a DPS role first hand? If so, were they geared just as well as everyone else in the raid? If not, you are guessing. If people haven't delved into and researched Feral Druids, then they are basing thier opinions on assumptions. The druid community as a whole is still trying to figure things out. Besides, we're not talking about Hunters. We're discussing the complete and drastic redesign of the druid feral tree and how that affects players and the game itself in terms of RL attitude and gameplay.

Oh I'm sorry I didn't know that they gave feral druid their own dps system. Apparently while everyone else works on the paradigm of atk/wpn speed, atk power, hit %, crit %, and special attacks, feral druids dps system works with the power of belief.

I have seen what a feral druid can do and while it's pretty good in pvp since as I've said repeatedly said they do about the same damage as a dagger rogue, which rely on high early damage that tapers off because of lower weapon speed.

Fairweather Pure wrote:
I can post dozens of meters showing druids out healing priest, does that make them superior healers?
This is an excellent example supporting my stance. Yes, druids do heal better than Priests on many occasions. Yes, Warriors do out dmg Rogues and many occasions.

There are so many variables involved from equipment, talent specs, and player skill, that it is quite silly to state matter-of-factly that this "X class is better than Y class" and choose raid attendees based upon those generalizations. My entire point about Feral Druids is don't immediatly discount us based on our skill set. Especially since information is still bleeding in from the fringes about what we can really do.

Actually it's an excellent example of being able to make pretty much any claim if you base it solely on meters. Oh and btw I stated that given equal equipment, which would give about the same atk power, hit% and crit%, and skill a feral druid is not going to out damage a dps speced rogue, hunter or warrior. The first thing I posted on this thread was that I always go by the player and not the character, of course a well played and equipped feral druid is going to be better for a raid than a bad player. That is because of the player not the class.

Wulfran · Post by **Wulfran** » November 10, 2005, 5:30 pm

Yes, other classes can perform differing roles when given the opportunity, but on a raid, why would you turn down a specialist to use an alternate class? A lot of it comes down to your stage of progression, but most people/raid forces don't want to take the hit in efficiency if they can avoid it.

And, as Jice was alluding to, that doesn't get into the pissing matches that can develop when your druid wants more than one set of gear to fill their roles, and starts vying for it against the specialists.

miir · Post by **miir** » November 10, 2005, 6:36 pm

Yes, other classes can perform differing roles when given the opportunity, but on a raid, why would you turn down a specialist to use an alternate class?

A feral druid is a specialist, just as a restoration druid is a specialist... ones specialty is melee dps, the others is healing.

It's all in the perception of what each class can do in addition to their specialty.

Can the same argument be posted as an excuse to deny a raid spot to a paladin, shaman or warlock because other classes can do their specialty better than they can?

And, as Jice was alluding to, that doesn't get into the pissing matches that can develop when your druid wants more than one set of gear to fill their roles, and starts vying for it against the specialists.

Another asinine argument.
A feral druid wouldn't need an alternate set of gear if people would stop expecting them to be healers and innervate-bots.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » November 10, 2005, 6:56 pm

Blizzard isn't helping matters by making all druid sets healing based and nothing that is a big boost to Agi/Str/Sta/+crit.

It would be great if druid sets like Cenarion could be right-clicked/transformed to get an alternate set of stats like Benediction.

miir · Post by **miir** » November 10, 2005, 7:41 pm

It would be great if druid sets like Cenarion could be right-clicked/transformed to get an alternate set of stats like Benediction.

Great idea.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » November 11, 2005, 1:03 am

Yes, Blizzard most definately needs Feral gear sets. I think I touched on this in another thread here but it bares repeating.

Rekaar. · Post by **Rekaar.** » November 11, 2005, 6:31 pm

bears

Sargeras · Post by **Sargeras** » November 11, 2005, 8:56 pm

da bearz?