Hi there! lots of questions here I hope to learn from the experience you all have. Gonna number em so folks can hopefully reply to whichever.

Short intro first. My druid is currently lvl 34 on a PvP server. I am pretty much a solo player, or teamed with another player to exp together, I rarely do full group stuff. I am interested in a solid build for those situations where i get suprised by horde when I am fighting for experience, or just roaming around. Lookin for ideas on what to pick in the midrange, till about lvl 50 or so, when i will respec for innervate.

At the moment I have taken 8 points in balance (5 for natures grasp, 3 in swiftshifting) 10 in restoration (the talent that gives 5 rage, and the no interrupt on heals) and the rest in feral, currently workin on the extra crit chance thing while shapeshifted.

1. What to do when i get jumped by a rogue? So far all I can come up with is travel form, to get him to burn sprint, quick shift out for natures grasp, then back to travel form and blaze on outa town. What do the rest of you do with rogues? I just seem to get owned otherwise. Any strategies you folks can recommend? or talents that work for that situation?

2. Casters - when I fight a pure caster what's best? Tried moonfire spamming a warlock and got owned. Go bear? Does feral charge work when you are in combat? or do you have to be out of combat? The extra hit points look mighty attractive, as does the stun, but the damage output is sad. Should i take the extra rage on crit talent? Use my rage to heal when in bear? or to do damage? What works best?

3. Cat form in PvP - does this actually work? I can never seem to get anywhere, usually get owned because I got no hit points or armor, and the damage output is pretty mediocre, you can't really get in a backstab, except maybe the first one from stealth. What's your experience with it?

4. Improved prowl talent - does this really work? I suspect its just a useless waste of talent points, but wanna hear what others have experienced with it. Does it make you invisible to one more lvl player, or something? I mean, if a lvl 35 player can see thru normal sneak with a lvl 34 druid in cat form, does this talent require an opposing player to be lvl 36 to see thru it? If i got to hide from players 5 lvls higher than me with 5 points in improved prowl i would consider it valuable. OTOH if five points gave you improved stealth only for a player one lvl higher than me, it would be a waste. Does anyone know how it works? Any info would be appreciated.

5. Warriors - how do you fight them? Go bear form and duke it out, using your rage to heal yourself? Or try to somehow root and nuke them? Any talents that help against those folks?

6. Generally, I assume that standing back in caster form and somehow nuking folks to death is a losing strategy? So dont bother with any goodies in the balance tree, except those i have? Are there situations where I might wanna do that somehow?

7. Rooting attackers - is it just me, or does druid root (not natures grasp) suxxor? The casting time is long enough for me to die before it ever goes off, it seems. When, if ever, should I root an opponent?

Lookin forward to hearing what you all have to say! )

First off I'm going to tell you that on a pvp server, it is going to become more and more troubling to travel alone. As you gain in levels more often you will find yourself behind enemy lines. Or at least in contested zones.

1. Against rogues bear is best. Though if they get the jump there's not a lot you can do but run. Try to be alert of the signs a rogue is present. Namely the sound effect from going into stealth. Don't let them have the opportunity to jump you. Hit travel and clear some room. Then you can go stealth yourself and try to hunt them out. Chances are though that they will be higher level and you won't see them. However stealth vs stealth fights are fun. But if every thing goes your way, you've healed back up and found them. They are within your level range. Hit em with Faerie Fire, Moonfire. Go to bear for the fight. Don't let FF run off, keep them visible. Use your various heals to your advantage. In 2 levels it will get easier with Frezied Regeneration.

2. Casters if you have the jump start off in cat and hold out in that as long as you can. The quick hits will make it harder for them to cast on you. Though there are enough instant cast spells out there that you won't stay here long. In any fight strafing is important. Against casters its key. Always keep moving and try to stay behind them if you can. Warlocks are different in that their pet is still going to be hitting you. So bear will be more important against them.

3. Cat form is used for getting the jump. Don't try to go the brunt of the fight in that or you will get killed.

4. Improved Prowl is great for pvp. Though at mid levels there are better talents. Its best used at 60 when you know that you won't face an opponent of higher level than you. Unfortunately at your level, that same reason is why it's not so effective.

5. Warriors are easy. Outlast them. They have no way of healing other than stun>bandage (since bandaids have a reuse timer, they will only get one shot. And at that only a few seconds to channel it), potions (which again,they will only have time for one), Last stand (not that many protection warriors at your level) or Bloodthirst (at your level no warrior wil have yet anyways and even then its only 100 hp). In bear you will have almost as much HP's and comparible armor, until 40 when you get dire bear and for a while can actually exceed them. Warriors are really one of the easier fights in my opinion. Even when fighting Mortal Strike builds (which impairs our healing) its still been a pretty easily won fight. They don't really get hard til 60 and if they are decked out in crit gear.

6. 1 vs 1, I've never been successful casting. Too many people have the PVP trinket and break your root. And if they don't you will still suffer from deminishing returns. Before this was added it was viable to root and nuke melee classes. Not anymore. We don't have the bubbles of mages and priests. If we get attention our only defensive technique is to shift.

7. Try to save your roots for when they run. Other than that its not an effective technique. Play styles differ but I have not personally found much use in Entangling Roots other than stopping runners (which I usually use bear charge for instead). Also I don't like the though of receiving a deminishing return off a Nature's Grasp when I need it. Which is why I try to save the roots.

Edit: BTW, feral charge does work in combat. And its one of the best skills in our arsenal. Abuse it.

catform is good in PvP. Because of the stealth/ravage. Fighting in catform in PvP is real useless.

Hey i am still learning on PVP, i am 39 and havent got direbear yet but will have soon
atm i am to slow to be effective but this is what i have learned so far.
- natures grasp is really good for running...
- if you have any movment impairing effects on you shift out and then back into whatever you are using (kinda a given but worth mentioning)
- Rouges will be a really hard fight even with bear till you get dire bear
- we are made to kill mages, breaking out of any of thier movement imparing effects quick heals etc...
- we are the kings of getting away take advantage of that :p
- moonfire spam is a really bad strat, high mana output for low damage, just fire them once and get on with it, if you run out of mana you can't heal and we are all about outlasting our opponent. You can use moonfire spam to kill a low health runner...
- i am balance speced the things i use most atm (don't have inervate yet) is natures swiftness, (then heal) and frenzied regen to regain my health, as i said before we are about outlasting, and believe me it is hard for people to run from you :p
- HAVE FUN, if you find you like moonfire spam and then dying and you have fun doing it then do it...
- listen to advice, and come to your own conclusions, if you hear a strat that you like, try it. If you think of something that might possibly, but then probably won't work, try it anyway, its about trying new things (otherwise it would be boring (for me anyway)). Anyway sorry for rambling post have fun Druids ROCK!!!!

Doing WG back when I was level 50, I experiemented with a few builds on the test server.

Overall, I found my Restoration heavy build (including Innervate and NS) to be the best. The rest of my talents were in balance: NG, Imp NG, NR, and Imp Moonfire. For me, survivability is key in PvP. Solo - it prevents a rogue from stunlocking to me death. In group situations where I'm not the one taking damage, I'm healing others.

First off I'm going to tell you that on a pvp server, it is going to become more and more troubling to travel alone. As you gain in levels more often you will find yourself behind enemy lines. Or at least in contested zones.

1. Against rogues bear is best. Though if they get the jump there's not a lot you can do but run. Try to be alert of the signs a rogue is present. Namely the sound effect from going into stealth. Don't let them have the opportunity to jump you. Hit travel and clear some room. Then you can go stealth yourself and try to hunt them out. Chances are though that they will be higher level and you won't see them. However stealth vs stealth fights are fun. But if every thing goes your way, you've healed back up and found them. They are within your level range. Hit em with Faerie Fire, Moonfire. Go to bear for the fight. Don't let FF run off, keep them visible. Use your various heals to your advantage. In 2 levels it will get easier with Frezied Regeneration.

2. Casters if you have the jump start off in cat and hold out in that as long as you can. The quick hits will make it harder for them to cast on you. Though there are enough instant cast spells out there that you won't stay here long. In any fight strafing is important. Against casters its key. Always keep moving and try to stay behind them if you can. Warlocks are different in that their pet is still going to be hitting you. So bear will be more important against them.

3. Cat form is used for getting the jump. Don't try to go the brunt of the fight in that or you will get killed.

4. Improved Prowl is great for pvp. Though at mid levels there are better talents. Its best used at 60 when you know that you won't face an opponent of higher level than you. Unfortunately at your level, that same reason is why it's not so effective.

5. Warriors are easy. Outlast them. They have no way of healing other than stun>bandage (since bandaids have a reuse timer, they will only get one shot. And at that only a few seconds to channel it), potions (which again,they will only have time for one), Last stand (not that many protection warriors at your level) or Bloodthirst (at your level no warrior wil have yet anyways and even then its only 100 hp). In bear you will have almost as much HP's and comparible armor, until 40 when you get dire bear and for a while can actually exceed them. Warriors are really one of the easier fights in my opinion. Even when fighting Mortal Strike builds (which impairs our healing) its still been a pretty easily won fight. They don't really get hard til 60 and if they are decked out in crit gear.

6. 1 vs 1, I've never been successful casting. Too many people have the PVP trinket and break your root. And if they don't you will still suffer from deminishing returns. Before this was added it was viable to root and nuke melee classes. Not anymore. We don't have the bubbles of mages and priests. If we get attention our only defensive technique is to shift.

7. Try to save your roots for when they run. Other than that its not an effective technique. Play styles differ but I have not personally found much use in Entangling Roots other than stopping runners (which I usually use bear charge for instead). Also I don't like the though of receiving a deminishing return off a Nature's Grasp when I need it. Which is why I try to save the roots.

Edit: BTW, feral charge does work in combat. And its one of the best skills in our arsenal. Abuse it.


Diminished returns are not something you really should have to worry about, unless your chain rooting someone, the diminished returns will reset before they start to take effect. Especially with nature's grasp, it's got a 1 minute cooldown so if you do end up using it twice in a fight, diminished returns will be reset by the time you use it again. IMHO for leveling, I would put all of your points into feral until you reach 40, then start to branch out a bit. Feline swiftness is very very effective midlevels, and still nice to have at 60. If you are constantly soloing in cat you can keep track humanoids up, and that makes it hard for anyone to get the jump on you. On top of that, cat dps is mana free dps, so you can easily heal yourself after a fight, reshift, and continue going without any real downtime.

One of the tricks to root, is that whenever someone takes any damage other than nature damage, the root has a chance to break. So if you root and moonfire, more often than not the moonfire will break the root. If they don't have any dots on them, try rooting and spamming wrath. I can usually get 4 or 5 wraths off on someone before the root drops, sometimes a starfire just to followup, but ghost bear is right, it's most effective at stopping runners. A good combination of feral charge, bear stun, and root makes it impossible for someone to get away from you. I've caught people on epic mounts before by quickshifting to bear and charging.

catform is good in PvP. Because of the stealth/ravage. Fighting in catform in PvP is real useless.

I have had some success staying in catform with feline swiftness and running circles around my opponent. constantly running behind them will cause them to miss out on attacks(they get the "Target must be in front of you" message and the attack timer resets) and puts you in position to hit them with some good backstabs. The technique is difficult to pull off and doesn't always work out well, but when it does, they go down fast :D

Doing WG back when I was level 50, I experiemented with a few builds on the test server.

Overall, I found my Restoration heavy build (including Innervate and NS) to be the best. The rest of my talents were in balance: NG, Imp NG, NR, and Imp Moonfire. For me, survivability is key in PvP. Solo - it prevents a rogue from stunlocking to me death. In group situations where I'm not the one taking damage, I'm healing others.

I do wsg on a daily basis at 60, I've also tried many many different builds, my personal favorite is a strong balance/feral build. Spamming moonfire when it constantly crits for 500+ takes a lot of people down fast. If I can snake in some starfires they will crit for over 1.2k easily, followed up by a couple 500 point moonfire, that's more hp than a lot of people have. It would be nice to have NG and innervate, but I don't like the idea of having a 6 minute timer that is despellable by any of the many shaman/priests I am constantly facing(and most of them are smart enough to do it too) if I run low on mana I just start using feral forms :D

Man i've been wanting to do a feral build for BG's SOOO bad but I dont want to be forking out gold every time my guild does raid content.

Man i've been wanting to do a feral build for BG's SOOO bad but I dont want to be forking out gold every time my guild does raid content.
just do it :P I main heal all the time without a resto build, you would be amazed at just exactly how well you can still heal with the right gear. If your spec'd for bear tank with the right bear gear, it takes like 5 people to kill you, it's great :D

I think Im going to. I have only respe'd once so at most i'll only be forking out about 15g total to spec into feral and respec back. In PvP i've found that more stamina is more important than more armor because even though we can have an assload of armor, that doesnt stop the casters from blasting the **** out of us. Thus survivability goes up when I have more HP to use. The other day I was sporting around 7800hp. I know I can jack this up way more with a couple of gear purchases. I have teh Cenarion Helm which gives like 28Int and 26Stam with the +healing bonus. Pretty sick. I purchased the Sergeants Cloak with 17stam and 120ish armor. I have found this to be a better item than the cloak of warding because the +7 defence is only so effective for us and the 17Stam makes up for the armor I lost. I also purchased the Senior Sergeants Insignia which goes in the Neck slot which gives like 12ish stamina. Overall I have had I think over 400 stamina with my guildmates Blood Pact buff. Im gonna shoot for over 8k this weekend. And give it a shot in AV.