Druid Tactics and tricks.

Petruz

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Druid Tactics and tricks.
. When fighting a mage, to prevent him from counterspelling my resto school, i often cast starfire so that he counterspells my balance tree insteed.

2. Fighting Rogues, use lacerate. Fariefire will be removed when he use Cloak of shadow and so do vanish, Lacerate will not.

3. Use abolish poison versus rogues, it helps a whole lot against Blind.

4. What also works is fake casting if they are a good mage start to cast cyclone then move and hope they cant burst you within those 4 seconds or get lucky stuns.

5. If you are dueling warrior, start with cat, get 2-3 CP and go bare. Then when you need heal and NG and bash is on CD wait for him to use MS, then go cat and maim him.
(If he is in zerker stance he can use zerker rage to nullify it. )

6. Fighting a warlock, killing his pet asap can often be a good idea. Same goes for frost mages. cyclone the mage and kill the pet.

7. It's often/sometimes possible to pull a Feral Charge -> Travel Form > Cyclone combo off versus melee (and everyone else)

8. You can cast Nature's Grasp while in Cat/Bear.

9. Dwarfs tend to remove your 5 CP rip, so.. well just keep that in mind, give it to 'em anyway!

10. Warstomp = free Regrowth

11. Bash -> Cat Form > Mangle/Shred can be devastating and suprise your opponent.

12. Pve tanking: Load yourself up with hots before each pull for some free healer aggro.

13. Pve tanking: Load yourself up with hots and have your teammates do the same before each pull. Any spell cast before the pull does not generate aggro, but letting the HoTs tick after the pull gives you time to get a good aggro lead over the main healer.

14. Always put Feary Fire on rogues ASAP (probably every dr00d knows this, but still).

15. Furor is better than iMotW if you PvP (and even has it's uses in PvE), regardless of spec. Instant bash is too good to pass.

16. Demoralizing Roar can be used to find nearby rogues in stealth.

17. The bloom effect of the lifebloom spell generates threat toward the person it's casted on. To give the tank some extra threat on the tank, put 1 lifebloom on it once tank got some snap aggro and let it run out. (May not work since patch)

18. We aren't rogues. Catform is a good opener and short-time nuker, but switch to bear a lot too.

19. Lacerate/Rake/Rip can do wonders, even on low armor targets, you just need to know when to use them.

20. Wait for others to attack first if you're in a group in pvp. If you attack first, you'll be targeted by everyone and die in a few seconds. If you wait, chances are they will focus on others first.

21. (obvious one, but still.) Using cloth as a moonkin isn't bad. Especially in PvE it can even be better then leather.

22. Don't try to convince others that druids are good PvE'ers by talking. They'll usually not believe you. You almost always have to show them first hand. >_<

23. Feral Charge + Mangle + Bash + Cat Form + Shred is a great way to get in some serious damage and CP's against hunters.

24. Use Rank 1 moonfires on grounding totem.

25. Barkskin is your friend, if in doubt, use barkskin.

26. In arena, cyclone a healer wait for him to trinket then cyclone his target (even if its the current target for burst damage).

27. The best way to deal with felguards/warlock pets/hunter pets in general if you need to heal is natures grasp.

28. As a moonkin, when fighting casters, use caster form, that way you can keep hots up and be a general pain in the ass.

29. Moonkins + Moonfire spam make GREAT battleground tanks. Its like instant pvp aggro.

30. When sitting in your base in WSG you can use track humanoids to watch people coming after you and keep out their way. Make sure you have the map fully zoomed out, so you can see stealthers.. stealth.

31. The ultimate pvp meleekin is a heavy balance spec with feral tanking gear (so 11K hp and 26-27K armour). Trees + dots + melee regen and you can own any melee class give or take (try it against your local epixxed arms warrior if you don't believe me).

32. Bind Cat + Bear form to mouse buttons and get a multi button mouse. That way you can shift forms really fast, without needing to focus on clicking buttons on the screen.

33. Timing cyclone correctly in the arena against an AP-Pyro mage can be immensely fun. Its kinda luck based though.

34. In group pvp/battlegrounds your better off cycloning healers than trying to kill them, unless they're obviously wearing primal mooncloth gear or something.

35. Tank Bestial wrath in bear form.

36. Fury warriors are a free HK, arms warriors are a royal pain.

37. Feral charge, roots, cyclone and maim ALL trigger second wind.

38. Use HS, it looks exactly like our healing and mages ALWAYS fall for it, as do rogues and warriors....

39. Soothe Animal does not put you in combat.

40. If a rogue vanish close to you use DEMO Roar and u can see him again.. he just wasted his vanish.
 
42. Hunter: Root him and get in his deadzone, then sleep his pet and kill him.... make sure to have a good mana pool cuz u have to shift alot agains Hunters... Use innervate early in the fight.

43. You can shift out of a lot of things, like polymorph, slow effects (wing clip for example), frost effects, etc.

44. You can have a probably more effective dps/threat in bear if you time mangles/swipes/lacerates between auto-attacks/mauls.

45. You can drop from flight form in mid air to cat and stealth,you can't do it very high or stealth breaks,or just wait until you hit ground to stealth, even if that ally/horde sees you it might be too late for him to save his life,c ause you will have him pounced b4 he blinks his eyes twice.

46. You can charge without attacking, if you time it right, it can be a great way to stop that mob that broke out of cc.

47. Get a energy ticker mod, then you can see when you get the new tick of energy and then use your attack just before it ticks, this way it will give you a tick right after and you used your attack and you dont have to wait for that extra energy.

48. Resto in the Arena: Trapped by a rogue or warrior? Use feral charge on the other opponent to free yourself and then change form - you're now free....

49. Mage tactic: Try to go pounce + maim - and directly after he blinks, which they mostly do, cast cyclone and try to land it AFTER you got hit with pyroblast - heal.. that way he waste his pyro.

50. Frost mage tactic: Kill the elemental! (not many do that, but i urge you - it hurts like hell)

51. Hunter tactic: dont be afraid to use Catform in melee range - and the old "Sleep-pet-style" doesnt work anymore, to much burst so simply ignore it.
Taunt the pet just before you end up in a trap - that makes the pet break the ice and your free.

52. Before when we faced another stealthed unit, we had to spam next target and pounce button to get it off before the other players used their opener. Now a days we only need to spam pounce, cause it automaticly targets the enemy if we press it.

53. How to outsmart mages? (For ferals) Go bear, cast feral charge, instantly shift out, he blinks, and by this time you're finishing casting cyclone... works on 85% of mages.

54. When an enemy tries to flee from you with low hp...shift out and...just moonfire him. 300Dmg guaranteed and you can even spam it if he survives :).

55. When stealing the flag at WSG, cast nature's grasp so the first attacker will be rooted.

56. Always put simple tricks near your finger, I have my trinket ability at the "X" button and Faerie Fire at "Z". Helps in the heat of battle. After all x & z buttons work for sitting and hiding your weapons. Not that useful.

57. When fighting alongside a healer and you are the only dps (as feral) and trying to kill a paladin healer, use your bleed attacks to your advantage. There is no way you can outdps the paladins healing by shreding, but If you build up 5 combopoints and wait for 100 energy, then use rip, rake and then mangle you have now put two dots on the pala as well as mangle that boost the dots' damage. Use that damage to help you kill the pala with shreds.

58. Remember that rip/rake does damage while the target is maimed

59. The warlock on my team tells me that his curse of agony does damage on the target in cyclone - just a little reminder :P

60. A general rule with a dps + healer team (that would be mine) is to kill the warrior last if they have a healer with them, since you can't kill the warrior quick enough anyway and by dps'ing the warrior you are just improving his rage generation.

61. When fighting a warrior and they don't have priest/paladin with them, entangling roots is an excellent tool to keep them CC'ed when cyclone is on full diminishing returns, since only priest and pallies can dispell roots.

62. You can tell whether you are fighting a Pom Pyro mage or a Frost Mage by looking at their shield. Pom Pyro mages only uses mana shield, while Frost Mages use Ice Barrier which looks like mana shield but with small shards of ice on the surface of the shield.

63. Often it is a good idea to kill a Frost Mage last, since they have so much survivability (2 ice blocks + 2 elementals to keep you at a distance + Ice Barr
 
64. Keeping your mana pool in mind, it is a good idea to shift out of a frost nova instantly. If you are quick enough you won't get hit by that 2k Ice Lance, since Ice Lance's damage is calculated on impact, not on cast.

65. Did you know that you can auto attack one target, while keeping your combo points on another target. Yes, that means you can auto attack totems while keeping up your combo points on the target being dps'ed.

66. When fighting warrior + Shammy destroy the bloody windfury totem - that's where all of that teams dps is coming from.

67. When fighting a warlock and the fel hunter is on your healer, please kill it - your healer will love you.

68. When fighting hunters use enemy casting bars to your advantage - when you see him/her starting to cast "Scare Beast" - shift out and cast Entangling Roots (if you don't have his/her pet on you) - that way you will prevent yourself from getting feared for 10 sec and the hunter will be trapped in the roots for some second - saving you from having to shift out pursue the hunter who just wing clipped you.

69. When facing a team with a rogue + XXX, always put faerie fire on the rogue in stealth if you can't attack him quickly enough. This is also important to do even when YOU are in stealth, since your damage output from coming out of stealth is nothing compared to a rogue coming out of stealth. By breaking the rogue's stealth early you are effectively removing his most effective weapon --> The stunlock they can do from coming out of stealth.

70. The talent natural shapeshifter in the restoration tree is a must to any PVP Feral Druid

71. Cat beats bear!

72. Taunt other players pets off healers/ clothies if you are in bear in arenas/ bgs.

73. Tanking for PVE - Cast Starfire/Moonfire before going into Bear form to gain loads of aggro.

74. All Alliance Druids, don’t forget you are a Night Elf and have the Shadowmeld ability! You don't have to be in kitty form to go invisible. This is ideal for certain situations like guarding the flag room on the roof in Moonkin form in WSG for example!

75. Insect Swarm/ Moonfire and several Wraths have a much better chance of doing a lot of damage than a Starfire/Moonfire combo.

76. Barkskin+tranquilty can be a game breaker in arena. Watch silence/interupts.. hide if possible.
77. Activate +healing trinkets and keep up lifebloom on the target.

78. Barkskin can be used while stunned, great when In Moonkin and get jumped by a rogue, for a Tauren its even easier - Barkin - Warstomp - Roots / Cyclone.- Trees. = Happy Days

79. While in Moonkin Form, you are counted as a Humanoid rather than a Beast. This means you can still be sapped for example. Also remember and War Stomp / Shadowmeld can be cast in Moonkin Form.

80. Before entering the arena, put Nature's Grasp on and stealth. Should you be caught by surprise, it will root your attacker, and it'll save you the 1.5 seconds of casting it when fighting.

81. Nature's Swiftness can be used to cast more than just healing spells. Cyclone, Hibernate and Entangle are also Nature spells.

82. Often enough, NS Cycloning a target will make you heal more than with NS heal, while you're being pounded by that warrior or rogue.

83. Don't Cyclone a target more than two times, as you will only prolong the DR timer.

84. Entangling Roots last 10 seconds, then 5 seconds when cast again. If you use this duration to the max, Cyclone will be off Diminishing Returns, allowing you to use it again.

85. You can Lacerate multiple targets, when tanking two mobs. Combine Lacerates with Swipes for more aggro than just Swipe spamming.
 
There are a few interesting hunter tactics there...

How do you survive if the hunter goes TBW and starts kiting? Heal like hell or Run away?


42. Hunter: Root him and get in his deadzone, then sleep his pet and kill him.... make sure to have a good mana pool cuz u have to shift alot agains Hunters... Use innervate early in the fight.
51. Hunter tactic: dont be afraid to use Catform in melee range - and the old "Sleep-pet-style" doesnt work anymore, to much burst so simply ignore it.
Taunt the pet just before you end up in a trap - that makes the pet break the ice and your free.

@ 42. What deadzone?
@ 51. If the taunting wasn't fixed in 2.3 and below, its most likely fixed in 2.4 with the crowd breakers (multishot, cleave etc) fix.
 
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How do you survive if the hunter goes TBW and starts kiting? Heal like hell or Run away?Yeah the one they took away.
Dont realy need to do that hunters are easy as moonkin .
One class that armour helps alot.
Now shadow priest mes me up but do not that list need some updating after 2.3. and 2.4.
But most are still useable.

Thx for pointing it out :)
 
On my Rogue, I kill some... I get killed by Some

But Rogue for me is the most viable PvP char out there, any lvl BG's. I was stun locked on my Warrior yesterday to such a state I thought WTF mate, just kill me already :D. It was a lvl 70 Rogue and he had his work cut out for him. I have close to 9k armour and he really was hitting away like a mad man. He had me bad. Cheapshot, kidneyshot, Vanish Cheapshot again. By the time he was finished about 30 seconds passed easy. But I still had HP left. I just couldn't do him any damage as his lvl 70 and I'm lvl 60 Protection spec :D

Rogue stunlock > Anything
 
85. You can Lacerate multiple targets, when tanking two mobs. Combine Lacerates with Swipes for more aggro than just Swipe spamming.

86. Feral Charge can be used an escape ability in both PvP and PvE.

87. Three stacks of Lifebloom that you keep refreshing is the most mana-efficient way of healing in-game.

88. When you see a shaman being Purge-happy or a mage Spellsteal-happy, start spamming Lifebloom. Either you'll heal, or the mage will be out of mana in a manner of seconds.

89. When a Skillhound is autoattacking you and you need to innervate, throw on four buffs first (OoC, rejuvenation, lifebloom, nature's grasp), wait for the autocast dispel, then innervate. It'll have a longer duration and the hound has a higher chance of dispelling one of the other buffs.

90. Cyclone a mage only when he is not targeting you. Counterspell is instant and locks you down for 10 seconds.

91. Against warrior. Pounce -> Mangle -> Rake -> Moonfire (You will propbably take few hits here, dont get scared) -> Bearform -> Bash -> Catform -> (If you are willing to take hits in cat, do Rake first, if not) Rip -> Bearform (now you will propably have to take a quite bit of a beating) -> Enrage -> Mangle -> Lacerate x5.
Warrior should be dead, if you are good, you pull off some more moonfire/rejuvation between the shifts.

92. Feral charge into a shadow spell, from either a warlock or shadow priest to lock down their shadow school. they can't fear/deathcoil/silence you for 4 seconds. save regrowth/cyclone.

93. Rank 1 entangle roots seems to work quite fine for me(Resto druid, saving 100 mana per entangle :)).

94. Natures grasp takes no mana, don't forget if you're being chased and you're oom >_<

95. When rooting somebody, and he has a dispeller on his team, use rank 1 moonfire after rooting, and if theres the time, rank 1 ff as well.

96. If a warrior is on you, pull him around pillars out of line of sight, then root him. buys precious time for you, and your team.

97. When fighting a paladin, or against a team with a paladin, they tend to cleanse rank 1 moonfire alot, along with ff rank 1.

98. When playing with a affliction lock, combining UA with entangle root is a awesome combination.

99. For example in 2 v 2 against a warrior/pally combo: If you nuke the warrior, use cyclone on the pally, he bubbles out of it and whilst hes casting his heal, you can cyclone the warrior so he doesnt recieve the holy light etc.

100. Get gnomish cloaking device ( trinket, use: gives invis for 10 sec ) for 2 openers on solo pvp or getting away out of tricky situations where you don't have dots. Mostly this counts as a vanish, has 1 hour cd ( ouch ). Since I find it hard to immidiately get a 5 cp rip on target, one opener gives you 3 cp standard ( pounce mangle shred ) without the eventual crit, so open again and you can get a fast 5 cp rip on them.

101. Pounce mangle rake rip moonfire a stunning combination for feral dots, 5 cp rip is very painful.

102. 5 cp maim can be used to restealth. ( and get another pounce/flee )

103. The stealth detection engineering goggles help a lot to get openers on rogues, get rip off and dps them down in bear.

104. when attacked by melee, lifebloom rejuvenation barkskin, bear form frenzied regeneration is a good way to stay alive.

105. Dot healers up and rack up cp fast, maim while the dots tick will let you do dmg while disabling the healer.

106. When low on mana you can keep up a 3 stack lifebloom and gain an extra 100+ MP5 by doing a trick I use. Cast lifebloom right after a regen tick then recast it after the FSR tick so it looks like Lifebloom, +50 Mana, +50 Mana, +150 Mana, Lifebloom, +50 Mana, +50 Mana, +150 Mana.

107. Spam Rank 1 Moonfire to piss people off :)

108. When you are lucky and get to go out of combat to drink water or eat food, remember to shadowmeld if you are a night elf! Saves you from being interrupted :D Applies for PvE and PvP.

109. Remember you have Travel and Aquatic form. Use this to your advantage! Travel form for chasing or fleeing on land. Aquatic when underwater. Yes I use this in Arathi Basin often~ Remember to have a few HoTs ticking and Natures grasp when you are fleeing.

110. Jumping over mobs will reduce the chance getting detected when stealthing. Also works as rogues. Confirmed on mobs, don't know about pvp
 
111. When facing locks with a felhunter: Cast a rank one rejuvanate on yourself and wait for the rejuv to be "eaten" by the fel hunter before using innervate.

112. When you feral charge a hunter, cast Natures grasp while youre sprinting to the hunter, odds are the hunter will FD to have you detarget him and wing clip you immediately. If he wing clips you, he's the one getting stuck.

113. 5/5 furor is a must for pvp! if you see a rogue stealth near you, you can be lucky by going bear and use demo roar to uncover, has worked wonders many times vs vanishing rogues also.

114. 5/5 furor = instant bash (given that it hits)

115. 5/5 furor = instant maim, given that you start with a punce rake combo regardless of spec.

116.when tanking dungeons like coilfang, remove thorns after fights where you have loads of rage and cast FF on a toad, it will attack you w/o dying and give you 1 rage every now and then and maintain your current rage for next pull

Im sure there are some things that are no 100% accurate, due patches etc. But bare with me
 
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Another interesting question... Does the OP hunter ability Arcane shot dispel Nature's grasp :o ?
 
Did they remove the diminishing returns on all spells with 2.4 (Cyclone, entangling roots etc.) ?
 
No, diminishing returns are still there.

If you fight a lock, forget about his pet and go for him. Most of the time his pet will be far away from him and he can dot dot dot you then heal his pet for ~400 per second.

One question, where did you copy this from?
 
No, diminishing returns are still there.

If you fight a lock, forget about his pet and go for him. Most of the time his pet will be far away from him and he can dot dot dot you then heal his pet for ~400 per second.

One question, where did you copy this from?

Offiacial US forums but its a bit outdated most of it still works well.
I would delete it if in knew how cause it only get the attensoin of none druid flamers.
 
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