My wife and I are looking to play WoW together soon... and we both decided it would be more interesting if we played NE Druids together. We've never played WoW (well I played open beta for like a week), but we have played several MMO's together. Anyone have any advice on how we should go about doing this? Reading over things at various sites, it looks like it might be useful for one of us to go Feral, one Resto? Input would be greatly appreciated.

Since you can both heal/tank no matter which route you go, it depends what you want. The best surival package would be two Resto builds; the fastest levelers would be 2 ferals. All other combo's fall in the middle...

Gear is another issue... to fully be a druid you need more then one set of gear... it's not really as simple as "I attack more so I need all the str gear". It's easy tho' to gear up in this game, so it shouldn't be the biggest obsticale.

What about later in the game? Would it still be feasible for us to play together at 50? 60?

Also, how likely is it that we can group together? Coming from FFXI, I'm used to having a "certain party set"... I always hated it but some people just couldn't see outside the box.

Your last question is the best because you are looking into how effective you will get groups in the future. :clap:

1) Two druids in a group will work, but people will frown upon it. In 5man groups, people will want someone who can rez multiple people in case of a wipe or multiple deaths. IF, and I say IF, you can find reasonable people to play with there is no reason why one of you could not remain feral and get tanking gear to play main tank while the other plays healer.

2) If you get into a larger guild that raids a lot, then you are back in business as 2 druids are almost always welcome in the larger MC type raids. Smaller raids will not support more than 2druids usually (ie, ZG, AQ -20man).

3) PVP is a BLAST with 2 druids. Talk about hard to kill! And WSG you both would own. :texla:

Just my input.

Bulldoser
60 Druid from Spinebreaker
Denizens of Defilement

EDIT: Some may say one of you could play kitty cat (and DPS like a rogue), but rogues in 5man are usually used for crowd control and you can't sap.

Thanks, Bulldoser, that was definitely helpful. This has definitely been the biggest downfall from moving on from playing Ultima Online to playing other games like FFXI. In UO, you could go out and hunt, just the two of you. Granted there were some areas that you could get your arse handed to you, but the point was that you weren't looked down upon when you tried to group with your significant other. My wife didn't care for FFXI for many reasons, but I think one of the biggest was the fact that it is so hard to get a pickup group together... especially if you are both the same class.

I just want to be able to group with my wife easily. I like the look/feel of Druid from an outside perspective (since I haven't played yet), and I know what it is to be a healer since I played white mage in FFXI. I'm the type of person that I do everything in my power to excel at playing. It was amusing to play as a Taru Taru Paladin in FFXI, because people did not believe that I could tank effectively. I played it to 30ish before I realized that people at higher levels are less willing to accept non-cookie cutter characters, even though I could outdo 70% of other tanks. Anyways, I'll quit ranting now. My main goal is to be able to play with my wife. She's decided she wants to play NE Druid... so I have to decide if I want to go the same route, or something else. Guess we'll see.

What would be a good NE class to be able to allow us to group often if I didn't go Druid? Rogue?

Do a feral + balance or feral. In your mid 30's you'll want resto + feral for instances. If you've got a healer and tank already, finding dps for the other three spots is easy.

If you're skipping the instances one person should focus on bear form. The other should go into the balance tree for natural shapeshifter. The person with NShape is your healer, but also cat for dps. After NShape, go for feral cat form dps. We're good healers all the way through. The healing talents are not necessary unless you want to main heal 50+ 5-man. Even then, a well-coordinated, decently-geared group can get away with a pally healing, let alone a druid or priest.

Resto spec really shows it's worth in the 60+ game, where you can solo-heal 10-man pug raids, or earlier when teaming with subpar players. The problem we have, even with the spec, it healing AoE mages with a fire/arcane spec.

Druids questing in a pair or small team rock!

There were a couple of times where I got to team up with other druids, and that was when the real versatility of the class shined. the ability to stealth through hostle territory, then appear at the objective with a healer and a tank, priceless.

On my server you wouldn't have any trouble finding groups, no one ever frowns on too much healing. this would be even more true if you found a good palading friend to group with who could handle the rez short-coming, but really between the two of you you should be able to prevent your team mates from dying, and bring at least 2 back right away if someone fell into trouble.

Whatever spec you take I would recommend going at least feral enough to get the improved prowl, so you can really shine as a druid team. Later you can join up with other druids and rogues to do stealth runs on some of the instance bosses, with virtually a full stealth 5-man (healer druid, caster druid, tanking druid, cat-dps druid, and dps rogue); those are a lot of fun.

If you don't go druid, I would recommend something that will get you a combat pet to make grouping with just her even more like having a whole party, maybe hunter or warlock (warlocks can't be NE though), then you could have the pet tank or dps, while you dps, and she heals or whatever. It gives you a little more flexibility.

I'd go Feral/Resto + Moonkin/Resto or change to another class altogether for the 2nd person.

From experience, i know for a fact that both Druid + Shaman and Druid + Preist combo's work VERY well. They, also, have the ability to get into almost any group you would care to as well.

(My experience is from the non-druid side as i am still leveling my druid. I loved grouping with a druid when i played my shaman. The Druid would tank and i'd add in the DPS. We'd both share the heals.) :)

Kain -
One thing that I really didn't mention. You can basically duo all the way to 60th lvl super easy. So, getting to 60th you and your wife will have a blast.

It is just once you reach 60th (or doing instances) you might find that it is harder to get groups together.

Bulldoser
60th Druid from Spinebreaker
Denizens of Defilement

I don't buy that for a minute.

I see plenty of raids forming that are full on warriors or full on raids, I've seen one spamming full on healers.

Kain,
I can only speak from my experience. Not exactly sure what gwmort's last post meant.

On my server: Rogues are a dime a dozen (Spinebreaker-pvp). Rogues typically have a hard time getting groups. I have a 60th lvl rogue that is retired due to their over-abundance. My druid gets into groups regularly, even to the point people want me to stop what I am doing to join them.

A plus about a rogue/druid combo: It is a BLAST to stealth around instances together and get into trouble. I do this all the time. That combo is awsome. You can pharm TONS of gear / items to sell or equip. You can also kill stuff super fast.

The best thing about a druid: Dang...any class works well with them. If you decide to play 2 different classes, ask around on your server and see what is needed or just play something you will like.

**Should have went horde though. How I hate ally. :newburn:

Bull

Wow, thanks for all the great replies! I have really been thinking about this quite alot lately. See right now I am actually deployed to Iraq and have been convincing my wife to play WoW on my return. I actually go on R&R leave next month and we're going to try it out at that time. After reading all your replies, I think we'll probably both be druids. I really like the flexibility the class offers, allowing you to serve in any role the party needs. Sure you might not be able to beat out the the other classes at their jobs, but you can do all of their jobs.

Most likely I'll go feral while wifey goes resto. Reading up on rogues here and other places made me realize it might not be the best option if we want to group. Guess we'll see once we try it out! Thanks so much for all the input, I am soooo anxious to play that its killing me! :P

Remember too that skill>all

When people say we're not as good at the main roles as the traditional classes, they are assuming players of equal skill. I've been on many runs with core class players who weren't vewry good, and I definitely out-performed. In general, I think I higher caliber of player is drawn to druids, because they are more challenging, and answering those challenges increases skill more. I highly skilled druid can own all the rabble of any class.