Fahk
7:51 AM
Posted by Reygahnci on Friday, January 25, 2008
Well, I'm sitting here at work at 7:50 thinking to myself, "self, it's raining, it's cold, it's Friday, it's early in the morning; I would be shocked if the big boss comes in today, let alone at an early hour like this," and as I think it, he walks through the door, and turns the light on. This is another thing that peeves me, why turn the light on? We have windows, it's plenty bright, and he has a lamp at his desk just like I do, he could probably use that if he needed to see (not to mention the fact that we sit at computers, so you don't really need any more light than the monitors).
I was reading the druid forums just before he walked in, and I read a post concerning a druid being surprised that a mage dodged his shred. Then a good number of 70s started flaming this rogue who told him he needed more +hit because "+hit only affects misses and you aren't supposed to be able to dodge attacks from behind".
While the former is true, the latter is wrong. Sigh, I'm resto and I know more about feral than most of the Nuids (new + druids). Hot damn my coffee is dark tasting today. Anyway, I miss feral. There, I said it. I like resto, believe me, a LOT more than I figured I would since I'm PvP'ing with my brother on his warrior. I just miss getting kills with skilled play.
Really, that's what it took to be a good feral druid. First, you needed a good amount of gear, (I had a decent amount of gear given that it was season one) and second, you needed to know your class and their class better than they did. It was amazing how many rogues I would fight who would thinking CloS would remove bleed effects, or how many hunters thought that concussion shot + aimed shot would ever get off before feral charge would deadzone them. Warriors who didn't know that 1v1 against me they had to go sword-n-board while I was bear form or they'd lose. Priests who didn't know WHAT the hell maim was / did.
I can't remember how many matches in 3s were won because of maim. I would have my shadow priest and my rogue (really weird setup, I know, we never broke 1700) beat down on the first target (the squishiest) and I would beat down on the healer. Basically, all I brought to the table was stuns, cyclone, feral charge school lock, and maim. So, I would cc-train the healer while my other two team-mates would down a dps. Then I would fall out, use the rest of my mana, and heal my team-mates, then go catform and dps the healer 3v2.
It was always fun, but we didn't have a chance, ferals just aren't viable in arena. While ferals can keep up with people (not because of snares, but because cat form moves at 150% move speed. Even with hamstring up, I could keep up with a priest.), they cannot make the entire group keep up with people like a snare provides. I would be beating on the priest, but I'd be the only one. Really, that's what it boils down to. If you bring a feral druid, you're almost always better off bringing a rogue in his place.
Rogues bring sap, kick, snares, negative spell haste (mnpois), gouge blind, stuns, mobility, survivability, and just gobs and gobs of damage. Druids bring decent damage (perhaps comparable to some rogues), mobility, feral charge (will act like kick, but you have to anticipate the cast and be far enough away to use it), maim (only really used as a damage-dealing spell interrupt because in arenas, your other partner[s] will almost always break it immediately), cyclone (though this is laughable as feral since it takes 1/7 your mana and you have to stop dps'ing to cast it), and survivability, but not in the same way as rogues.
Rogues will simply survive as you pelt them with damage, whereas druids will have to stop what they're doing to heal themselves. In this respect, rogues are just MUCH better as a dps component in arena. This is why, pains me as it does, I'm still grinding up my rogue. Even an undergeared rogue will bring more as a dps class in the arena than a feral druid; it's sad but true.
Sigh, guess I'll keep healing on the druid, dpsing on the rogue/warlock. I wish there was simply a healing class... not like paladins. A class that has only 3 trees: utility, healing, survivability. I suppose that if this were implemented, nothing but healing would be NEEDED in the 41 tier, and the other two were just your playstyle. Oh well, I'll keep grinding and whining about my boss turning the lights on, I suppose.