I am feral spec'd but I almost always heal, and root in av. I thought I would try to go for kills only last night. I just couldn't do it, people around me dieing all the time, runners going by. I just seem sooo much more effective when I'm healing the main tank, or any other tank. Don't get me wrong if some mage or hunter is tagging everyone I will normally team up with a rogue or two and we'll take them out in a few quick shots. Does anyone here find it effective to stay in ferral?
On a side note... why is it so dang hard to get a mage to summon you some water in av? I spend a small fortune buying water, and I'm much more generous with buffs and heals when I have free summoned water.

In my experience AV is usually one big cluster @#$% full of people doing there own thing, so thats what i usually ended up doing.

Feral can be very effective depending on what your goal is. Circling the battle shredding the squishys or finishing of the ones that are trying to run away can be alot of fun and help sway the fight. Also just adding dps to the push can be effective, not to mention being a stealth healer is extremely valuable.

That being said, I also believe that nothing is more effective than a group of people keeping a tank alive as they rip through people. Seems like I see Horde doing that alot on our sever (azgalor) while alliance is all over the place. I think you can gain ground and hold it this way much easier than everyone solo shredding. The problem is that even though you are feral you may decide that you are going to heal and CC for the greater good but the other 39 people are still running all over the place so your effort is lost.

Most of the time I would go feral while in AV but I would always pop out and toss some heals around when I could. When guildies would get into the same one we would ofcourse run as a group and I would heal most of the time.

Mages and water, ya they can be a bit prissy at times but I think thats only because they get alot of people wanting water and food that are not very polite when they ask. My mage is only lvl 32 but i get people that come up to me and say, "food and water", and thats it. No please, no when you have mana, no nothing. Those people get ignored. I am always extra extra polite whenever I ask for water and most of the time I have no trouble getting it.

I like going behind enemy lines and pull lieutenant to our guards (with moonfire and travelform).. everyone is so busy zerging anyway, so I usually can gerilla in peace. :)

AV is one BG that you really shouldn't take seriuosly (if you havent a premade team of 40 guys).. healing randoms is a good idea.. but never pays off anyway (as they all suck donkey-dick). Better to be a harasser imo. :)

And, bring an own vendor-machine (mage guildie).. randoms wont ever make you water unless you pay them.

i am kinda hating feral in AV everytime i go in to attack i get killed straight away, Tempted to respect balance so i can stand back and nuke and not get cought up in the crowds of horde.

Ever since I respecced 0/18/33, i've had much better luck staying alive in AV. I'll go feral when the sh*t hits the fan, but usually i'm in caster form nuking/healing/buffing. I can see by Anubrim's post that my server isn't the only one where AV's a cluster f*ck...no organization except on the opposing side where I regularly see 3 or 4 hunters/mages single out each one of us and serve up a glass of death lol

It sucks and during rez times I can see a regular chat about how so and so sucks because all we do is whine and fight randomly w/o a strategy. If it wasn't for the rep/honor/HKs I'd never set foot in there...we never win anyway.

Anyway, I love healing my teammates...even if they are childish, pre-pubescent morons. I last a lot longer when my group is healed and ready for action than when we're scrambling for cover at less than half health. I rarely ever get a thanks from my buffs/heals, but it's ok... at least we're still alive and whipping someone's ass lol

I've been to AV nearly a dozen times now ( love that BG ) and it's always a toss up between H & A. Both sides are pretty organized for the most part ( though I was in one group last weekend that was just horrible and it showed by us getting our ass kicked ).

This last weekend we had to pull out all the stops ( air attacks 2x, Ram Riders and Ivus ) to pull out the win.

In the beginning I am totally feral, helping push the offense forward. If I'm defending an all out zerg, I go feral too.

Other times I go caster to root, nuke & heal.

When it comes time for the general I just heal the tank, Faerie Fire & Moonfire the General ( to keep up Dots ) and more healing FTW! :)

Last game it was me healing a druid tanking ( in bear duh ) the general. He had over 11k armor in bear and did a kick ass job tanking. I healed him the most ( even though I'm feral and there was a holy priest there and he did help ). It was intense and I loved it!

I am resto speccd (0/15/36) and play primarily a healer in AV. Though situationally I go feral. This is what a druid is best at, afterall - filling the roll that needs to be filled at any given time. I have found that we have been able to progress really quick when I'm throwing heals on all the ranged attackers so that they can sniper away and dont have to back out of range to heal themselves. At the same time, if there are a few healers sitting in back healing people and I see a random mage on top of a hill killing people, I'll get in cat form, stealth up and take him out.

Random side note - I recently won a couple AB matches where I did nothing but heal, root, nuke. In one of them, I had the most HK's and lowest deaths. That was awesome. In the other one, I had the third highest HK's and close to twice as many deaths cause they started to notice me. But having the Highest HK's and Lowest Deaths in a winning AB was fun...

I am resto speccd (0/15/36) and play primarily a healer in AV. Though situationally I go feral. This is what a druid is best at, afterall - filling the roll that needs to be filled at any given time. I have found that we have been able to progress really quick when I'm throwing heals on all the ranged attackers so that they can sniper away and dont have to back out of range to heal themselves. At the same time, if there are a few healers sitting in back healing people and I see a random mage on top of a hill killing people, I'll get in cat form, stealth up and take him out.

Random side note - I recently won a couple AB matches where I did nothing but heal, root, nuke. In one of them, I had the most HK's and lowest deaths. That was awesome. In the other one, I had the third highest HK's and close to twice as many deaths cause they started to notice me. But having the Highest HK's and Lowest Deaths in a winning AB was fun...


I have a similar template (0/18/33) and I support your statement to the T... I always try to heal the healer & the hunters. They're usually the ones helping me out as well hehe

Congrats on the great performance in AB :texla:

Thanks! I thought it was fun to put to rest the whole "you get more hk's as feral when you are out shredding people, and thus more honor" line of thought.

I did nothing but heal, root, ff rogues, sleep pets and dot up casters, and got Tons of HK's, and everyone watched my back very well. They were all jazzed to have someone who actually heals in AB =/. Helps that someone started a raid and that my group and another group pretty much stayed together the whole time too.

Druid shadowmelded in a bush with NS activated waiting for horde to jump the pally thats standing next to the flag as bait with a rogue in stealth next to him = well defended node.

Argh! You're alliance ... i take the congrats back haha! j/k

Seems like no one cares i heal in AB...we're starting to get wtfpwned in there too. I might just delete altogether lol

I've been trying to get into AV since I leveled to 51, but it has never formed up when I'm in the queue, longest wait so far is 6.5 hours.

A 6.5 hour wait? Goodness! Longest wait for me has been about 1.5 hrs. I am LOVING AV. I like the rep and HKs and all that, but that is just icing on the cake for me. I like the strategy, the way the battle can turn simple b/c the horde releases the wolf riders before we can get our Ram Riders, or the Horde releases their air team and wtfpwns our air team *sigh*.

Still, loving the battle group though. Best by far IMO.

We just had an all out AV war ...must've been in there for 4 or 5 hours. Awesome time...got like 477 HKs and just shy of 3k honor. Only died 65 times lol.

Closest i've seen us (horde) in a loooong time. *sigh* But we sure stuck it to em... one of these days we'll win hehe

It's better now that it's become a "race".. you go full feral on the bosses just like you would in an instance although resto might still be a better choice.

(Sacrasm)
WAIT wait wait waitwaitwaitwaitwait.
There's a strategy to AV?
(/Sarcasm)
I gave up on PvP rank after I got exalted. AV is just a zergfest now. At least for Frostwolf Alliance. It's pathetic. There's no strategy, there's no organization. It's everyone just rushing the next tower or graveyard or Drek. And since Cross-realm BGs, I think I've won a single AV.
Same goes for AB and WSG as well, although not to such a harsh degree.

Hrm. Well same with my BG Groups Hadyn but horde win VERY VERY often (while I was going for exalted which I hit 2 weeks after xrealm bgs) so I don't mind. Back in teh old days though I would just nuke and heal people in trouble unless it's obvious theyre going to go down...

I used to love doing AV on my hunter, it was just so fun to get involved in those big fights, and recently I decided to try using my full feral bear druid, see what I could do. First couple of times I was kinda stumped, didn't really know if I was better off trying to tank, trying to do the sneaky kitty thing, or trying to root/heal, but then I just decided to stick with the offensive group, and help them out wherever they needed. Ever since then I've had an easier time. I take a look at the group around me, and go from there, much like I would in a guild run. The other night during one AV match I got to tank all of the end NPCs and the general, cause we had some epicced priests with us, and a bunch of fury warriors that just kinda... failed at tanking. That was awesome fun I tell ya, and we easily won... I don't think anyone died during the general fight, he was like glued to me. Then the following AV match I found the offensive group to be made of 3 warlocks, like 6 hunters, 2 warriors, 1 pally who didn't heal anyone else but himself, and myself... so yeah, I put on my healing gear and healed who I could, rooted a lot as well... that was pretty fun also, surprisingly, and we easily won there too.

I got maybe... 1 HK or whatever both times, clear at the bottom of the listings, but you know, I could care less, because the bonus honor and rep is really so much better. :) On my hunter I cared more about HKs, but I've decided to just ignore 'em on my druid when PvPing, and just have fun helping my team win if possible.

So yeah... even if you're full feral, I suggest filling whatever roll you think your group needs the most.

Whenever I heal in AV's, or AB's for that matter, I get a TON of hk's. Very few KB's, but if my party is killing everything around me and not dying, I get credit for all those HK's. Quite a few times I have been on the top for HK's and bottom for deaths in AB. AV is a different story, usually in the top 10 for HKs.

I also tried feral'ing in AV, and it just wasn't as fun for me. Probably cause I didn't have anyone healing me, and people would see me in cat form and think "oooh! squishy!", or in bear form and think "eh, hes not gonna do too much dmg anyway". Now dps'ing as a shadow priest in AV? THATS fun... sooo many kb's.

Oh whoops, yeah I meant KBs instead of HKs there >.> HKs are fine xD;;

Ok noob question,,,what is AV? Battleground ok but where is it?

AV = Alterac Valley. I've never been in it myself, but I have seen the portal-entrance-thingy to it (alliance side, at least). Naturally, the portal is in the Alterac Mountains.

Ok cool. There is a battlemaster in Orgimmar(hall of brave I believe) who says I'm not high enough to enter. Im level 50....what is it a level 60 only party?

52+

I personally switch between roles constantly in AV. (I'm alliance btw, not that it matters.)

When I'm with the main offensive group that's pushing forward I generally heal a couple of the first people to get hurt instantly making 3/4 of the enemy team to charge me, that's when I go bear because I have 12k armor in it amongst other things and talents built entirely around bear.
Generally none of the people that originally attacked me stop attacking me, and they seem surprised at how long I last for a druid. Then I just pray that someone on my team actually heals me, which usually only happens when a priest or druid that's healing realizes that I'm the only tank (And if there are any warriors around me, chances are I'll be dead shortly.)

I sometimes go cat form.. but usually only to stealth past guys and attack that healer that stands 10ft behind his entire team and that noone notices until they realize they're dead and not being healed.

However I rarely go cat because, well, I go cat, someone sees me, and it's "OMG KILL HIM HE IS SQUISHY!" Still, I have fun in cat form since I have 3350 armor with motw on in cat/caster form. (More then the average mail wearer)

I'm full feral spec (11/35/5), and in AV, if I'm in the main zerg, I tend to put on some healing gear with high armour (love the haruspex set) and healbot. However, what I prefer most, is stay behind and guard graveyards (either alone or with one or two others), or go ahead and ninja stuff in a stealth group. That way I actually get to use my hybridity instad of just healing. :-P

One thing I've noticed though -- I can heal someone for ages, but they usually don't give me a hand even if they see me getting ganked by someone (it's a quick way to get me to stop healing them -- just as quick as yelling "heal me!" et al). The excetion is other healers -- the second a priests, druid or pala (even if he/she is in shadowform or kitty form) see me in trouble, they shift out and heal me. I, ofc, do the same for them. ...so look after your fellow healing classes, and they'll look afer you. :) (I guess nobody knows how "popular" healing classes are with the opposition until they've tried one.)

I'm also quite often the tank as we take down the main boss, since most warriors doing AV seem to want to go dps ("OMG I SEE BIG NUMBERS! I PWN!").

Since alliance tends to like to sit back and fight from a distance at flags which is completely useless I usually end up going bear and charging in and just lasting as long as I can. Usually once alliance sees a couple people charge into flag the rest will come up and fight near it and we have a chance to actually take the thing.