Druids: Jobs in Party

[oninuva]

Druid

Talent Specialisation

Ok, a Druid is first of all a multifunctional class. While it is primarily a healer, you can deal damage in feral (cat form) or enhance the groups performance with buffs/debuffs. Also if your tank dies you can switch to bear form to emergency tank.
Now if you want to group a lot, mostly people will ask you to be the healer, as priests are a seldomly played class. So you might consider puting at least 31 points in Restoration (for Innervate - Innervate is uber, you can cast it on yourself to have enough mana to heal in difficult situations - makes you be almost as good as a priest or you can cast it on others to save your group from whiping). Where you put the other points is mostly your choice but improved Wrath might be a good idea if you still want to be able to deal decent damage.

If you are Feral/Balance specialised (for solo reasons) you can still get invited into instance groups, but in that case I wouldn't suggest you joining a group as primary healer, but as support healer / damage dealer.


What to do

If you are primary healer:
• For healing Warriors/Paladins, who generaly take slow damage, you should use your last rank of Healing Touch to heal. It's 3.5 seconds casting time but very mana efficient and if everything goes normal, those 3.5 secs should be largly enough to heal your tank.
• If other people in your group take damage it depends, you have to take several factors in account. Do you have a good warrior to taunt off fast off the damaged person? Is the person who gets damaged a weak class (like mage/rogue) or can he take some hits? Is the person still getting hit or is he/she safe now, so I got some time?
If your tank is not capable (for whatever reason) to taunt of fast... use Regrowth. It's very mana inefficient but it's your only fast heal and hence your only way to save someone fast. If the guy who gets damaged is on top a weak class don't hesitate to use Regrowth, especially in difficult situations you won't get the time to cast Healing Touch as several party members will require heal.
If the person didn't take much damage and is save now you can cast a Rejuvenation, this is an instant spell which let's the person regen health while you can concentrate on healing others.
• If the whole group takes damage due to some area effects, you have Tranquility to heal your whole party over time. But keep in mind that you can't use this spell too often as it has a long recast time.
• If you cannot heal everyone and have to make a choice, make it in this order: Warrior/Tanks (or Mage who casts AE nukes to kill a lot of mobs at once) have priority, if those die, your group will die fast too. Then secondary healers should be kept alive as those can help keeping the rest of the group alive. As last thing in the list I would settle damage classes as those mostly have self protective abilities (Feign Death, Dodge Disc, Feint, Ice Block, etc.).
• If you got the time and have nothing else to do you should try to debuff mobs with Faerie Fire to help rogues and melee classes. Also always keep Mark of the Wild buffed on the whole group.
• Don't forget that in bad situations you have battle raise. This should really be kept as an emergency solution as the recast is 30 mins.
• Make warning messages when you cast heals, this can help so other healers in your group don't waste mana/time casting on the same person as you do
• Don't forget that if you fight Dragonkin/Beasts, you can sleep those with Hibernate.
• There is another problem (and a big one) for druids: Aggro. As you have nothing to deaggro, mobs might attack you if you heal too much. This is also a reason why you should avoid Regrowth as much as possible and cast more Rejuvenation (almost no aggro at all).
• If you get oom always remember that you have Innervate (every 6 minutes). Should best make a macro that casts it automatically on yourself. Keep in mind that a lot of spirit is very nice for Innervate.
• Try to always have drinks for inbetween fights, if you have a mage in your group you can ask him to summon you some.

If you are invited as Support Healer/ Damage Class:
• Always keep Faerie Fire on all mobs.
• Your group members should have Mark of the Wild up all the time.
• How you deal damage is basically your choice but there is two good ways: Either stay out of feral and nuke (with Wrath + Moonfire) or use Cat Form to do damage similar to a rogue.
• In difficult situations you have two ways of helping, either you switch into Bear Form to offtank (this you should only do if you have a good healer (priest) in your group and if there are not too many adds). Or you can stay out of Feral and help healing... all of this depends how you are specced and how your equipment looks. If you specced fully feral and don't have much int/spi gear at all, you might want to go bear form rather than heal. If you heal though, try to keep alive the healer himself as priority, if the healer is out of mana keep alive the warrior and if you have Innervate, give it to your priest. For further references to healing look at the points mentioned above, generally always try to watch out for warning messages in group chat reagarding the heals that your priest is currently casting.
• If you deal damage, under all circumstances ASSIST. Never and really never nuke around mobs that might be sheeped/sleeped. This is VERY important, especially not with moonfire, which leaves a dot on the mob so the mob can't be re-sheep/sleeped.
• If you have beast/dragonkin adds, don't forget that you can sleep those with Hibernate. However some dragonkin are extremely resistant, if after three tries you didn't manage to sleep the mob yet, you can stop trying and help in another way.
• For offtanking you should refer to the Warrior section of the guide on how to hold aggro on mobs.


Equipment Choice

Depends a lot on your specialisation. If you are specced in Restoration mainly and want to be primary healer then int/spi/mana regen/+healing/sta are your primary stats.

If you are more about damage than you should go for Agi/+Crit/Atk Power/Str/Sta. This of course only if you plan on dealing damage with Cat Form. If you want to nuke you should go for int/+spell crit/spi/mana regen/+damage.

If you are planning to tank a lot AC/Defense/Sta is your friend.