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Advantages of a druid?Follow
Scholar
27 posts
I posted a general topic earlier wanting to start the game and I was just wondering, what are the advantages of a druid over the other hybrid classes? It seems druids are much more stuck in one role as opposed to a shaman which doesn't shapeshift and can still dps, heal, and do ranged damage without restriction. Anything will be helpful and thank you.
There is very little to differentiate between the two. An enhance shaman is a terrible healer just the same way as a feral druid is a terrible healer. Elemental can heal a little as Boomkin can heal a little - but realistically, unless you heavily outgear an encounter, you need to be specced resto as either class to be able to heal effectively. Your talents make a massive difference - you can't just switch between rolls without changing your spec - which is far more restrictive than having to change forms.
Both classes have ranged DPS, melee DPS & heals. Druids have the added benefit of having the option to tank as well. That is the only major difference - a little bit more variety if you like it.
The choice comes down more to playstyle and which you prefer to play (which is difficult to determine without leveling them to 30-40 plus at least).
At this stage of Wrath, it probably doesn't matter much, (and others may disagree or I may be mistaken) but I think druid DPS both ranged and melee is a little higher than shaman, but also more difficult. With the big changes coming in the expansion it is anyones guess at this stage how they will compare. I have a feral/resto druid main and obviously love it. I also have an 80 resto/enhance shammy I am in the process of farming heroics for T9 badges at the moment and overall I much prefer the druid, but then the gear level difference makes a big damage with that as well :)
Leveling, Druid is boring till you get cat form and I found shaman quite underpowered until about 40 where you get dual wield & windfury. Having said that, leveling these days is much faster than when I went through so that may not be an issue.
Good luck whichever you choose.
Both classes have ranged DPS, melee DPS & heals. Druids have the added benefit of having the option to tank as well. That is the only major difference - a little bit more variety if you like it.
The choice comes down more to playstyle and which you prefer to play (which is difficult to determine without leveling them to 30-40 plus at least).
At this stage of Wrath, it probably doesn't matter much, (and others may disagree or I may be mistaken) but I think druid DPS both ranged and melee is a little higher than shaman, but also more difficult. With the big changes coming in the expansion it is anyones guess at this stage how they will compare. I have a feral/resto druid main and obviously love it. I also have an 80 resto/enhance shammy I am in the process of farming heroics for T9 badges at the moment and overall I much prefer the druid, but then the gear level difference makes a big damage with that as well :)
Leveling, Druid is boring till you get cat form and I found shaman quite underpowered until about 40 where you get dual wield & windfury. Having said that, leveling these days is much faster than when I went through so that may not be an issue.
Good luck whichever you choose.
PhantasmaSoul wrote:
I posted a general topic earlier wanting to start the game and I was just wondering, what are the advantages of a druid over the other hybrid classes? It seems druids are much more stuck in one role as opposed to a shaman which doesn't shape shift and can still DPS, heal, and do ranged damage without restriction. Anything will be helpful and thank you.
You will get to post in the druid forums a lot as it will be your main class. That, to me at least; would be the main attraction.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
The attraction to the Druid class largely depends on what you enjoy doing. While it's true that a Shaman can heal, DPS and whatnot without changing forms, as RareBeast pointed out, it's not really effective. I have a Restoration/Elemental Shaman and I still need to switch talent builds whenever I want to heal/DPS. The main attraction for me was that the Druid class gave me a combination of the classes in the game - in one class. In Cat form I can pretend I'm a Rogue (with an energy bar and stealth), in Bear form I feel like a Warrior (having a rage bar and tanking capabilities), Moonkin form allows me to toss spells at stuff like any other caster class out there, and Tree of Life makes healing people a walk in the park.
The animal forms gives you so many tricks, it's almost sad.
Cat form - stealth, reduced damage from falling, jumping distances to reach people fast.
Bear form - loads of armor and health, massive damage mitigation and the ability to charge something.
Aquatic form - increased movement speed in water (even better with the glyph) and unlimited breath under water.
Travel form - increased movement speed on land (sort of useless now that mounting takes less time, but Travel form is faster than running and can be cast instantly in combat).
Flight form - increased movement speed in the air (can't be cast in combat, though).
You can't fly in Azeroth(*) yet, only Northrend and Outland, but where you can fly, the world literally becomes your playground. The day the class peaked for me, I was running away from a silly Horde person trying to kill me while I was questing in Outland. I switched to Travel form to outrun him, noticed he had jumped on his mount (it's faster than Travel form), jumped into a river and swam faster than he could to the end of the river where a large waterfall was. As I jumped off the waterfall, I quickly switched to Flight form and soared away, leaving behind an angry Horde person.
The world (of Warcraft) is your playground.
(*) With the next expansion they're redoing Azeroth, presumably enabling flying there as well.
Edited, Mar 15th 2010 10:09am by Mazra
The animal forms gives you so many tricks, it's almost sad.
Cat form - stealth, reduced damage from falling, jumping distances to reach people fast.
Bear form - loads of armor and health, massive damage mitigation and the ability to charge something.
Aquatic form - increased movement speed in water (even better with the glyph) and unlimited breath under water.
Travel form - increased movement speed on land (sort of useless now that mounting takes less time, but Travel form is faster than running and can be cast instantly in combat).
Flight form - increased movement speed in the air (can't be cast in combat, though).
You can't fly in Azeroth(*) yet, only Northrend and Outland, but where you can fly, the world literally becomes your playground. The day the class peaked for me, I was running away from a silly Horde person trying to kill me while I was questing in Outland. I switched to Travel form to outrun him, noticed he had jumped on his mount (it's faster than Travel form), jumped into a river and swam faster than he could to the end of the river where a large waterfall was. As I jumped off the waterfall, I quickly switched to Flight form and soared away, leaving behind an angry Horde person.
The world (of Warcraft) is your playground.
(*) With the next expansion they're redoing Azeroth, presumably enabling flying there as well.
Edited, Mar 15th 2010 10:09am by Mazra
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
Two of the coolest things about Druid forms.
1) regardless of form, you can gather mats, skin mobs, or interact with any object in the environment. i.e. flying around in flight form, fly down to a quest gather item, click it, fly away avoiding any battles.
2) Switching forms is instant...EVERYWHERE...so you could be falling off of a cliff and hit flight form and save yourself from dying or my personal favorite, catching up with or jumping off of the zeppelins to Northrend and hitching a ride or saving some travel time. Doing the level 70 epic flight form questline taught me this (gather a mat from the top of the mushrooms in Zangarmarsh, but sometimes they blow up throwing you off, to prevent death from falling you have to switch to flight form)
Other stuff that makes druids cooler to me than shamans....I hate totems and the amount of cooldowns shamans have to manage. Druids can do the same or better DPS without having to manage as many cooldowns or hit as many buttons, healing is easier (imo) for druids leaving more room to do other stuff, I DPS sometimes when I outgear the content, makes the dungeon go that much faster, sometimes it's almost mandatory to DPS since with the LFD system you can get stuck with some really retarded people who can't DPS to save their life.
Don't get me wrong I think shamans are badass, I just hate playing as one and prefer my druid abilities and playstyle over a shaman. Also, in my mind, Druids are more of a Hybrid than Shamans. Shamans do terrible at anything other than what they are specced for, whereas a Druid can still Heal decently as a feral if they are specced right (the talent in the 3rd or 4th tier that increases healing in the feral tree) and a Boomkin can heal almost as good as a tree, similar healing numbers from the +spellpower, but higher mana costs and not as many cool healing tools.
Play what you want, I like druids more because I like the lore of them more than shamans, if you want to play a shaman, go for it, both of them are fun, both of them are effective in the role you choose for them. Don't expect to do much outside of the role you choose though, I may have said that druids multi task better than shamans (which could honestly be false, I don't have much experience with shammans over lvl 30) but that doesn't mean a feral druid can heal well, I just think they heal better than an enhancement shaman...which isn't saying much. Kind of like you saying you have a dollar and I have more than you, but I still only have 1.50 and we need 10 to get what we want....yes I have more but does it make a difference? No.
1) regardless of form, you can gather mats, skin mobs, or interact with any object in the environment. i.e. flying around in flight form, fly down to a quest gather item, click it, fly away avoiding any battles.
2) Switching forms is instant...EVERYWHERE...so you could be falling off of a cliff and hit flight form and save yourself from dying or my personal favorite, catching up with or jumping off of the zeppelins to Northrend and hitching a ride or saving some travel time. Doing the level 70 epic flight form questline taught me this (gather a mat from the top of the mushrooms in Zangarmarsh, but sometimes they blow up throwing you off, to prevent death from falling you have to switch to flight form)
Other stuff that makes druids cooler to me than shamans....I hate totems and the amount of cooldowns shamans have to manage. Druids can do the same or better DPS without having to manage as many cooldowns or hit as many buttons, healing is easier (imo) for druids leaving more room to do other stuff, I DPS sometimes when I outgear the content, makes the dungeon go that much faster, sometimes it's almost mandatory to DPS since with the LFD system you can get stuck with some really retarded people who can't DPS to save their life.
Don't get me wrong I think shamans are badass, I just hate playing as one and prefer my druid abilities and playstyle over a shaman. Also, in my mind, Druids are more of a Hybrid than Shamans. Shamans do terrible at anything other than what they are specced for, whereas a Druid can still Heal decently as a feral if they are specced right (the talent in the 3rd or 4th tier that increases healing in the feral tree) and a Boomkin can heal almost as good as a tree, similar healing numbers from the +spellpower, but higher mana costs and not as many cool healing tools.
Play what you want, I like druids more because I like the lore of them more than shamans, if you want to play a shaman, go for it, both of them are fun, both of them are effective in the role you choose for them. Don't expect to do much outside of the role you choose though, I may have said that druids multi task better than shamans (which could honestly be false, I don't have much experience with shammans over lvl 30) but that doesn't mean a feral druid can heal well, I just think they heal better than an enhancement shaman...which isn't saying much. Kind of like you saying you have a dollar and I have more than you, but I still only have 1.50 and we need 10 to get what we want....yes I have more but does it make a difference? No.
Katchii wrote:
Other stuff that makes druids cooler to me than shamans....I hate totems and the amount of cooldowns shamans have to manage. Druids can do the same or better DPS without having to manage as many cooldowns or hit as many buttons
Are we talking melee or caster DPS here? As an Elemental Shaman I pretty much only have to hit three buttons, two of which are one relatively long cooldowns. As for Enhancement Shaman, yes, their DPS rotation rivals that of a Feral Druid. Pretty much the only way to keep on top without going insane is to keybind everything to everything and then just /facedesk until you win.
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
With a druid your forms completely change the way your character plays. The Cat form has an energy meter like a rogue, the bear form gains rage like a Warrior. In boomkin and Tree form you are locked into offensive or healing spells. The good thing is in any form you are just one click away from humanoid, which gives you a lot of versatility. The druid is slow to level in the beginning, and the class doesn't really come into it's own until later in the game. There are things a druid can do that many others can't.
-Being able to use stealth, like a rogue, to get into an area saves tons of time leveling and helps keep you safe on a PvP server.
-Being able to transform from cat to bear can help you survive encounters that would have killed the kitty (I really like being able to do this in dungeons when the tank dies, it's nice to be able to take over to some degree.)
-If you level as feral, yes you cant access your healing spells without changing forms, but because the cat/bear forms don't use mana it means you have all your mana for healing yourself; though you'll want to save enough to get yourself back into a feral form. ;-)
-Good thing about a Night Elf Druid = Shadowmeld + Flight form, it's awesome.
I do miss the spell interrupts that my shammy has though. Those make some fights a lot easier. Shammies also get totems, which besides giving some awesome buffs, just look cool. You also get to see your armor as a shammy. As a druid, you'll be looking at the same bear butt for 80 levels. Which is cool if that's your thing, don't do much for me though. :S The other hybrid, a paladin, also has a lot of anti-undead spells, which makes them pretty powerful with all the undead running around Northrend these days.
Really try them all if you get a chance, there's a lot of personal preference involved. It's hard to know if you'll like how a class plays until you give it a try! :D
-Being able to use stealth, like a rogue, to get into an area saves tons of time leveling and helps keep you safe on a PvP server.
-Being able to transform from cat to bear can help you survive encounters that would have killed the kitty (I really like being able to do this in dungeons when the tank dies, it's nice to be able to take over to some degree.)
-If you level as feral, yes you cant access your healing spells without changing forms, but because the cat/bear forms don't use mana it means you have all your mana for healing yourself; though you'll want to save enough to get yourself back into a feral form. ;-)
-Good thing about a Night Elf Druid = Shadowmeld + Flight form, it's awesome.
I do miss the spell interrupts that my shammy has though. Those make some fights a lot easier. Shammies also get totems, which besides giving some awesome buffs, just look cool. You also get to see your armor as a shammy. As a druid, you'll be looking at the same bear butt for 80 levels. Which is cool if that's your thing, don't do much for me though. :S The other hybrid, a paladin, also has a lot of anti-undead spells, which makes them pretty powerful with all the undead running around Northrend these days.
Really try them all if you get a chance, there's a lot of personal preference involved. It's hard to know if you'll like how a class plays until you give it a try! :D
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
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