Greetings druids! First time poster, but I've read many threads and done alot of searches and I can't seem to get the answer I want. First off I'd like to say although I've been playing WoW online for a month now I've been around blizzards talent type tree's for years in the diablo series. I've build a fairly solid talent tree that I think fits my play style in both instances and PvP which I have dabbled in and enjoyed in my first month. 3 years of D2 and 7 years of EQ made the transition to WoW very easy. Now that my intro is done on to the question!

Here is my build
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=MzLVZxGpkcZVEzoco

My guess is it is close to many common builds for the Hybrid type. My question is what can I expect out of 5 ranks of Natural weapons and Should I place points in it? I could really use those 5 points elsewhere if the gain is not noticeable. I realize simple math tells me if i hit for 100, i get a 110 hit with 5 points, but what I do not know is how hard druids tend to hit at 60. I've seen video's of warriors hitting for around 1,000 white damage, I don't expect that really, should I?

If you could give me a common physical damage output your seeing as druids that would help me a ton. Thank you for your time.

I've seen video's of warriors hitting for around 1,000 white damage, I don't expect that really, should I?

Depends tbh. Druids can hit for 1k+ white damage in bear form for example (as the bear hits hard and slow).. but the major damage if you want to melee is from catform, but instead of hitting for 1k+ white damage in big numbers, you hit for 2-300+ white damage but very fast (1.0 attack speed).

But tbh, white damage isnt really a big deal for druids in both pve and pvp.. your major damage source in PvE will be from special attacks (shred).. and even if you dont like that angle your claw and finishers will prolly hit for more.

And yes, natural weapons is noticable. Not extremely, but still. And don't forget it gives you OOC, wich can be a significant boost in both pve and pvp. :)

I'm not sure if you are really looking for any criticism, but you have too many lingering points in some talents for example 1 point sharpened claws, reflection, I suppose Feline Swiftness is forgiveable. 1 point Sharp claws (2%crit) can easily be made with 1 piece of equipment. There are many ways to make that up through gear, if you aren't going to go 3/3 then not much reason for the talent. Same with reflection, 1 point (5%) is very little and taken in the fact it only helps you while you are casting, which for you still leveling you will probably be in feral a lot thus, not casting. Predatory strikes is only 90 AP at level 60. That can be made easy with gear. My weapon alone gives me 50% more AP than 3/3 of that talent. The only reason to take Pred. Strikes is to get HOTW, and if you are already that deep in feral there is no reason not to shelf out 5 more points for HOTW.

As goa said, natural weapons does make a nice boost for dps. Like any percentage talent, the more you put into it the more you get out. If you gear up for heavy DPS, the boost your receive will be even more noticable.

Anyways here is my adjustments to your build without changing too much:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=zzLVboZxGToZVEooco

Though without pred. strikes >>> HOTW your damage output will be noticably lower than a druid with those talents. You will probably have to heal more since you will kill slower, OOC and Natural shifter will help with mana. Without the lower level feral talents cat form will be weak compared to bear, so with that I took the point out of reflection and put it in Imp Enrage since at least in my experience I enrage all the time in bear, practically everytime it refreshes.

I did see another similar build online:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=zzLV0oZxGMscZVEzoco
not much difference though.

Most common hybrid builds are of the 30/21 Feral/Rest or XX/0/XX Balance/Rest builds. Very few people spec for all 3. In fact the tri-spec route may be the least common specs around. I personally don't like them either. They are ok for leveling; though by the time you hit 55-60 they end up being mediocre at everything and good at nothing.

If you really want to do the feral/healer hybrid then I think the 30/21 is the way to go. If you are firm set on your build though at the very least take that 1 point out Sharp claw and put it in OOC.

Thank you both for the replies. Goa gave me what I wanted and made up my mind to give natural weapons a 5 point boost.

Ghost Bear you have given me some thoughts also. I believe the one point in Sharp claws was so I could put 3 in preditory Strike, something with the tier of points spent to open new skills I believe. Reflection was also the same scenario but I will consider switching to Imp enrage instead of reflection.

My thought on gear to make up for talents is yes that works. But what do I lose? If i spend 2-3 pieces of gear to get 90 AP could I not spend that on gear with crit % or even +Healing to make myself a all around hybrid more? Trade offs like that seem to be what makes this class appeal to me. I am also a bit green though so I may be living in a pipe dream about what this class can do at 60.

Currently with my instant regens and constant shifts I am killing lv 28's at 24 with pretty much no down time and while I don't expect that to last it's certainly fun! I downed a 34 hunter in PvP last night at 24, then a 19 paladin that snared me somehow. All because i swapped out between forms, casting, and healing, which is why I love the druid :)

Pred. Strikes only requires 15 points to unlock so you can remove the 1 point in Sharp Claws and still get it. Not that sharp claws is a bad talent. Its great but you only have 1 point in it and you passed over the talents it unlocks which is what really lets you capitalize on those crits.

As for the gear, you aren't wrong. You do have to play around with gear to make up for what you would be lacking. I suppose while you are leveling and even a fresh 60 in greens, 90 AP could be a nice boost. It would be tough to make up with less than 2 or 3 pieces of gear. But after a bit of raiding, that 90 AP becomes much less impressive when you can make that up with 1 piece of gear. The other thing is that since its based on levels, once you hit 60, it does not improve. Level cap means the talent is capped. The only real benefit is that it unlocks HOTW which is a freakishly powerful talent (which scales with stats so the better your gear stats, the better your boost)

I'm not knocking your build. It just seems that you are looking for a feral/healer hybrid. You took balance talents that help melee output so I'm going to assume that nuking isn't your biggest concern. If you aren't going for HOTW, I think the 3 points of Pred. Strikes could benefit you elsewhere. With that in mind, while I love Natural Weapons and OOC (my fav feral build has both) I think you will get more out of Pred. Strikes >>> HOTW than you would from Natural Weapons.

And it just so happens that the 30/21 build has that very powerful talent HOTW plus the Pred. Strikes that you like AND it has the healing stuff you wanted too. While your build looks fun, I think in the end you will be more happy with the 30/21.

Not too mention the whole gear discussion is moot at that point as you will have all the AP you could hope for with Pred. Strike + HOTW and you will have nice crit with 3/3 sharp claws + the talents to capitalize (Blood Frenzy/Primal Fury) in addition to 20% more mana from HOTW for more healing when you throw on your caster gear.

I think you have me sold on the 30/21 build there's just one thorn in my side with it. I play on a PVP server and Nature's grasp has saved my butt at least 10 times already in the week i've had it. Once i'm 60 I probably won't even try to run but for now I think I'll at least go 5/25/21 to keep that And respec at 60.

I think you have me sold on the 30/21 build there's just one thorn in my side with it. I play on a PVP server and Nature's grasp has saved my butt at least 10 times already in the week i've had it. Once i'm 60 I probably won't even try to run but for now I think I'll at least go 5/25/21 to keep that And respec at 60.

Yes 30/21 and all those other builds are level 60 deals. Leveling you will use different strats and skills. I'm not sure what level you are (i'm guessing around 25-30?). So yeah I would take Nat. Grasp then work through feral (Ferocity, 3/5 Feral Instict, 2/2 Brutal Impact, then F. Swift and F. charge). Then hit Resto for Furor and Nature Focus. Next I would hit 3/3 Natural shifter if you haven't done so already and then finish up through feral for leveling ease. Then when you hit 55-60 worry about respeccing ot a more specific build.

Thats just me though. I'm sure you have your own quirks that you like to play with and would place some points differently as everyone does while leveling.

Makes sense, thanks for your wisdom. I'm currently 27 but I've paused to do some BG's and work on my PvP while gear doesn't matter. I'm really considering the 1/29/21 build also cause even 35% chance to root when your fleeing with the flag is a potential weapon.
Also this is a bit off topic but I havn't really seen anything on what 70 will do to builds in a few months. I did a search and came up with nothing. I'm assuming that will give us 10 more talents to dabble in and make some interesting builds possible.

I don't think anyone really knows yet what will happen when they raise the level cap. The simple answer would be that we all get 10 more talents points to play with. But at the same time there are a number of classes that such would destroy the game balance. So its really up in the air at this point. For all we know we may not even get new points. Maybe you will be stuck in one tree, or possibly something along the lines of FFXI with the skill points. You get XX points to put into various aspects to upgrade, like say improving armor or weapon skills, healing ability, melee hit rate, etc.

No one really knows at this point.

Blue Posts on the official forums have stated there will be ten more talent points, but they are also adding more tiers to the talent trees (how many remains unclear). I definitely expect at least 36 point talents, and perhaps even 41.

What this means though is that you will no longer be able to get as close to the top of two trees as you did before. You could do a 40/21 build, but now you're only half way up resto, and I would hope that the 41 point talent is much more worth taking than a 21 point talent, so even that seems unlikely.

Another effect is that while you may see some hybrid builds like 30/31, you are much more likely to see people want to use some of the new talents and that cn only be achieved through higher specialization (ie any talents above moonkin can be seen as buffs only for people that are already willing to invest that heavy).

Blue Posts on the official forums have stated there will be ten more talent points, but they are also adding more tiers to the talent trees (how many remains unclear). I definitely expect at least 36 point talents, and perhaps even 41.

What this means though is that you will no longer be able to get as close to the top of two trees as you did before. You could do a 40/21 build, but now you're only half way up resto, and I would hope that the 41 point talent is much more worth taking than a 21 point talent, so even that seems unlikely.

Another effect is that while you may see some hybrid builds like 30/31, you are much more likely to see people want to use some of the new talents and that cn only be achieved through higher specialization (ie any talents above moonkin can be seen as buffs only for people that are already willing to invest that heavy).

Hmmm...the new talents would have to be darn good to get me to change my mind off my warlock ShadowMastery/Soul Link build. +38% Shadow damage if I sac/rez the succy =)

It would suck losing bane. But I guess I could get over it with a possibly consistant 4k Shadowbolt crit =)

Can someone post a link to the blue post? I haven't found it yet and I would like to see it.

I guess all I can truely hope for is that they don't Only show the Restoration tree the love, thus forcing us to be full restore to be any sort of healer in the new world. But I am straying from the original topic which has been resolved thanks to the wise druids of the board.