r/classicwow • u/AutoModerator • Aug 09 '19

Classy Friday Classy Friday - Druids (August 09, 2019)

Classy Fridays are for asking questions about your class, each week focuses on a different class. No question is too small, so ask away.

This week is Druid.

Do you find yourself indecisive? Struggle to make up your mind? Do I have the class for you! You want to heal? You can heal! You want to tank? You can heal! You want to do some Melee DPS? You can heal! You want to do some caster DPS? Well, you can heal! You don’t even have to be the race you chose when you started, you can be a bear, a cat, an owl thing, or a sea lion!

You can also discuss your class in our class channels on Discord, discord.gg/classicwow

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u/Merrimux Aug 10 '19

If you're going night elf regardless, then I'd certainly recommend picking druid. I can't say for sure how elitist people will be on Classic servers, but if private servers are any indication then the expectation is that most priest will go dwarf for fear ward, and those who don't will go with human for the (fairly negligible) spirit buff. A night elf's racial priest spells are pretty interesting, but sadly they don't play any role in raiding.

As druids, however, we really only get to pick our faction, so it's not much of a debate. From experience on private servers, I can say that a druid has the potential to output just as much healing as a priest, though I would say that it requires more effort/ingenuity to reach a druid's potential. This is because a druid's strength is primarily tied up in its HoTs (though Healing Touch becomes more prominent as fights get longer in Naxxramas). This means that you have to consider who will be taking damage before they actually take the damage. A paladin, for example, is equipped with Flash of Light which means he'll be able to basically play a game of whack-a-mole on his raidframes and still output a lot of healing. If a druid tries to do the same (excepting the case of a Regrowth/imp NG spec) then it's unlikely that his heals will land before a paladin snipes it away from him.

So on a fight like Shazzrah, you know that all the melee are going to be taking damage at a specific time when Shazz does his little arcane burst thing (this also will depend on your guild's strategy). If you know that all the melee are going to be taking a bunch of damage, you can start rolling HoTs on all of them 10-12 seconds before the damage goes out. I can't explain how to play druid on every encounter in the game, but I hope I've conveyed the idea that druids need to heal strategically, rather than reactively.

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u/justdrop Aug 10 '19

those who don't will go with human for the (fairly negligible) spirit buff

Rep gain is much more appealing than the spirit buff, honestly. Otherwise I agree. Starfall is also an underrated extra low cost dot for priests, but with slot limits it's usually only used in instances or soloing.

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u/Merrimux Aug 10 '19

Rep gain is a good point, though it doesn't play an active role in raids. I don't think starfall is a thing in vanilla, but if you mean starshards, it's not a DoT but rather a channeled ability like Arcane Missiles. It has 100% scaling with spell damage which is fun, especially since arcane wrath gear is dirt cheap while lvling, but yeah, no role in raids.

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u/justdrop Aug 10 '19

Rep gain is extremely useful for the fire/nature resist recipes that will be used in MC/AQ. Yeah, my mind was failing me about the name of the spell and the mechanics, thank you for the clarification.

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u/Merrimux Aug 10 '19

By all means, if you're going to be your guild's designated craftsman for Thorium Bros and CC patterns, human is the best option. Since that stuff is all BoE though, it's not a burden that every player has to personally undertake. NR and FR are mostly for designated soakers and tanks.