Hi all;

I have been reading these boards for quite some time. I have finally come back to world of warcraft and have created a druid. Up until the last few days, I was reasonbly happy with the druid, however, after playing pvp, in warsong gulch, Im a little disheartened.
I had some good moment in pvp, dont get me wrong, but overall, I was a good feed for most of the people I ran into.

I do consider myself a reasonably intelligent player. I have read the boards, viewed the recommended videos etc. I'm wondering, does it get any better? I found my overall survivability very low and am inclined to join the "druids suck in pvp" crowd.

I dont want to be in that crowd, but man, I did alot of rooting, healing going feral and tanking, but overall really never had no more then 2 killing blows...despite having as many as 69 of the shared kills.

Anyone care to comment...does it get better or am I better just to roll a paladin or shaman?

Thanks for any thoughts on the matter

Well, as you're level 19 you're missing one feral form that will give you an edge in PvP: Cat form. True, it has little armor, and no where near the health bear form has... But it has damage and a wicked fast attack speed (speed of 1.0). When you're attacking at a speed of 3.0 (or is it 3.5 for bear?) I wouldn't, honestly, expect you to land that final strike too often.

Though, killing blows don't matter, in all honesty. What does matter is the honor you receive, and how well the team performs as a whole.

I can assure you it does get better. I just dinged level 50 yesterday, but before that I did some PvPing at 49 and 47. I can tell you that the few actual 1v1 battles I was in, I, from what I recall, normally either won or came close to it (darn warlocks and hunters were a pain though, and shamans, to an extent). At level 19 you're missing many of your key skills that will give a druid an edge in combat--in my opinion, at least:

Cat form,
Travel form,
Frenzied Regeneration,
Innervate,
Barkskin, etc.

There are others, and I can only really recall the skills I have bought recently, but trust me, 19 won't give you everything a druid needs to survive. If anything, PvP at 29 to get a better feel before giving up on your druid.

All I can say is hang in there; it does get better, it just requires some leveling, and practice, practice, practice. Hm... It also depends on your gear and talents, but, again, at level 19 there's not much out there for you.

in the 30s and 40s druids rock in WSG, as possibly the fastest runners available with easy snare breaking.

druids are THEE best flagrunners in WSG. No, prot warriors can't compare.. only thing that comes remotely close is a well geared Pally with that Naxx shield.

But you got one thing straight. If you compare PvP with the abilility to get killing blows, then no, the druid isnt best at it.

I good geared feral druid can get decent burst damage in cat form at times (in the rogue range), but not nearly as often as the rogue or the warrior. The bear can't do serious damage at all (if you compare to other classes) but it can TAKE massive amounts of it (more than any class really - at least in PvP due to it's insane armor and the druids ability to heal and shift back).

So no, druids doesn't suck in PvP at all. In duels we rock also (but I don't really consider dueling "real" PvP) due to being able to adapt to almost any opponent. Still, some classes will always be hard to kill. The rock-paper-scissors-nemesis effect is in WoW affects all classes.

I pvp'd to rank 12 and while it sure wasn't easy, you don't top the killing blows chart ( too often - but those really don't matter ), and you'll have a lot of deaths, but a well played druid is something to be feared.

With our healing and our shifting to get out of snares we can root and scoot out of so many situations that are just death for other classes.

Our skill is our ability to run away, heal and stealth back. Learn it. Use it. Love it.

Good to hear it gets better.

I cant begin to pretend that I know what comes next with the druid, but your replies are encouraging.

I have watched some of the Rubix videos and I have to say, watching those make it look easy. In one of the videos, he duals a rogue for about a minute. Although the rogue does decent damage against him, Rubix never gets below 50% health.My armor and Hps arent too bad for my level, but what a rude awakening it was to have a rogue come up and kill me in 3 hits.
I'm not twinked. Does twinkage have that much of an impact in the game?

Twinking is a big portion of the pre 60 game, and admitedly can be very disheartening for those that are just trying to pvp a bit here and there while they level up.

Seeing a rogue or warrior with a crusader or life stealing enchant on their weapons in any pre 50 bracket is really disheartening.

If you get caught in caster form by a well geared rogue, yeah you can be 3 shot, especially with some lucky crits. Rogues and do some crazy burst damage.

Druids take a LOT of practice, and I will say for certain I was the easy target on the battlegrounds for a long long time. Once you learn the nuiances of playing a druid, and can do it well, we have such a high level of survivability that it's hard to take us down

Druids really dont come into their prime until you have hit 60 and gotten all the highest skills you can get.

If you really worried about KBs, its extremely easy to get them in BGs. Basically, stack rake on the enemy and wait for a full energy bar...when he gets to 20% pop Ferocious Bite, and rack in the KBs. Now, if your actually PvPing and want to kill stuff and not just look good on the scoreboard, druids can do that with good gear.

I just hit Rank 12 General and will hit Rank 13 Warlord in 2 weeks and from experience, I can top the KBs chart if I want to, I can hit high K/D ratios, and 1v1 almost any class with whatever gear. (the hardest being trinket popping mages, warlocks, and tier2.5+ rogue/warriors) It just takes lots of practice at learning how to deal with each class and how they are geared. I fight a Tier 2 person alot different than I fight a Tier 0 person.

Again, my thanks for all the replies. I just knew it would not be a mistake coming to this community to discuss this issue.

Survivability is an issue for me. It seems apparent from your posts that
a) I need to develop the character a bit.
b) Better learn the tactics involved in playing the character.

I did a comparison of my level 19 druid in bear form, vs, my level 18 dwarf warrior. Guess what, the druid was higher in both armor and hitpoints. And yet, I seemed to have better success in the WSG with the warrior. Go figure?! I think in this case, it comes down to damage.

Perhaps cat form will change it for me.

Damage and weapon speed is a big difference, but gear up right and you can be very similar to a warrior or a rogue in terms of damage.

Lorath,

Funny seeing you go so heavy pvp from total raiding ;). Mind posting your feral gear?

Yea its ironic. I was PvPing to get the exalted rep rewards for the pants and bracers for my feral gear. When I got done with hitting exalted in AB and WSG, I found myself at Rank 9 and decided I would just get to 10 to complete the blue PvP set. Once I hit there, I figured...why stop now, only 2 ranks til I get epics. Now Im a General and know I can hit warlord in 2 weeks of 600k honor a week so Im just gonna do it lol. I still raid 3 nights a week and have a job/school.

Ill post my gear later today when Im home.

I found the 40 and 50 bracket to be the most fun PvP experience.

For my druid, the whole game changed at lvl 40. In fact, at lvl 39 I really wasn't having fun in WSG. I jumped in at 42 and had tons more fun. In fact, most of my XP in the 40 and 50 bracket was PvP.

60 is a whole other ballgame. Looking back, I would've:
1. Not leveled to 60 until I was exalted in WSG. (you can get some nice armor here too)
2. Not leveled to 60 until I had the first 4 pieces of the PVP armor set.

I'm still struggling to have fun in 60 PvP in AB and WSG. I feel like I get pwned too easily and can't pwn others as often as I'd like. I've been toward the top of the boards sometimes and it does feel good. Just because I'm a druid doesn't mean I like smashing things :)

I look forward to seeing your gear. I've almost got the rep to turn-in and get my Mace of unending life ( my guild isn't quite ready to do world dragons or even far into BWL yet >.< ).

With our rogues and warriors more or less geared now I do get first priority on tanking and "feral" gear. I can't wait for the expansion and have a bit more feral viability even being resto spec'd