View Full Forums : Staying Alive


Ellyen
10-06-2005, 10:18 AM
I was having a chat in my guild about the evils of pick-up-groups (PUGs). One of our officers (a rogue) said that bad PUGs helped him learned to play better and find ways of surviving bad tanks. When I told him that Druids don't have the tools to stun/shield/reduce agro that other classes do he said 'find a way'.

Whilst I was a little taken back at first with his comment, after a while I got thinking - what have I missed? (Props to him for making me think).

All I can think of is bear form - stun and hope someone comes to my rescue, so, the main question I have is:

What haven't I considered to help me stay alive on a bad pull?

Starfire
10-06-2005, 10:53 AM
NS heals, feral charge out, try to get a priest to help you or use speed potions.

Eldarrin
10-06-2005, 11:28 AM
On bad pulls I often find that I get heal aggro, normally I just bear and wait tilll they pull them off me. I've not tried it, but don't we have cower in cat form that is supposed to reduce aggro?

maxyboy
10-06-2005, 11:36 AM
You also got a skill in cat form called Cower... its like the fade ability that priests have.... it worked form me a couple of times.. at least not in MC... but you can also go bear form, but if you dont got your tanking gear on it wont help that much...

Starfire
10-06-2005, 11:39 AM
That is for use like when hunters use feint dead.

Just run. Have speed potions and try to NS regrowth and dont forget rejuv!

Nytewalker
10-06-2005, 11:44 AM
Also if you are outside and have the Nature's Grasp with all the improve talents, give you a 100% chance to root and enemy once it hits you without the spell timer of entangling root. Giving you time to back away, heal up, or whatever until it can be dealt with. Root/parking was a mainstay of druids in EQ. It doesn't last as long in WoW, but it can help in a pinch. It doesn't actually reduce aggro, but it can temporarily stop people from getting beat on.

Also it doesn't always break on damage either the way sheeping/sapping does. It does break often, but its a good oh$h1t button.

Nyte

Astrel
10-06-2005, 11:58 AM
If it's a Beast Hibernate. Outdoors I usually travel form and hope to god I make it out alive. Indoors with groups I usually try to tank it out in bear. Use enrage and then Frenzied Regeneration. Could also drop into Cat Form and use Dash.

Starfire
10-06-2005, 01:02 PM
Lol, I like that Nyte.

Are you perchance talking about MC pulls? Yeah, um you shouldnt be so close if you aren't a tank or offtank. The Molten Giants at least never go for casters in my experience.

Cenaurius
10-06-2005, 01:58 PM
as far as i can remember, you can't root in mc, but i could have gone temporarily retarded.

Rockwell
10-06-2005, 03:58 PM
The problem with alot of this is most groups happen indoors. So no root/NG except ZF/ZG, hibernate on occasion... but that's usually somthing that's planed on with the pull.

Barkskin + Bear are your best friends... your gonna have to judge if you need a heal before bear or not. The nice part of WoW gear is melee and caster items have equal amounts of AC. In your int/spir/sta gear you'll have good AC once bear'ed up. Save rage for Regen and if it's in a multiple mob pull... assist, don't attack what's attacking you; unless your plan is to hold agro and off tank.

Rogues have more options then Healers as far as controling agro... they can wait to attack, sometimes you just can't wait to heal. I do agree tho' bad pugs make for good learning.

Taithos
10-07-2005, 03:27 AM
Use enrage and then Frenzied Regeneration

Doesn't Enrage drop your AC by 75%? SUrely that would be worse than using Frenzied Regen at all!

Tygre
10-07-2005, 04:14 AM
Indoor/instance PUG if you get heal agro, chances are it will be from a multiple mob pull, so you will have multiple mobs on you. Best practice I have found is to throw some last min heals if necessary, then Barkskin + Bear. Save Frenzy only if your hp gets too low since it adds additional heal agro to yourself. It may be only a little bit, but it's an unnecessary addition for a main tank to overcome imho. But whatever you do, DON'T RUN AROUND. Doing so only makes the main tanks job that much harder to pull mobs from you. Of course, there are plenty of PUGs where it really doesn't matter what you do, you will end up dying anyway.

Just my perspective.

Ellyen
10-07-2005, 09:02 AM
Tygre and Rockwell, thanks for your comments, they pretty much summed up what I believed to be the case, just wanted to see if I had not considered something.

Cower is one thing suggested else where that I had not seriously considered. I've used it when in DPS mode and it worked nicely, but then there was a tank trying to get agro back. With heal agro I don't think Cower would take you far enough down the agro list to be any use, and going into Cat form instead of bear will suck mana and not help you take the hits.

Roots I used to use in ZF, but it's been many months since I've been in an instance where I can root. Not been to the new one yet.

Hibernate doesn't tend to work because on multiple pulls with beasts involved I've already hiberated a beast and you can only sleep one at a time.

I have to admit I didn't take any of the comments about running seriously. Running makes it much harder for others to get agro back and you can't outrun mobs in instances - they just keep coming.

Cenaurius
10-07-2005, 09:58 AM
Doesn't Enrage drop your AC by 75%? SUrely that would be worse than using Frenzied Regen at all!

i used to think that too, but i'm pretty sure it reduces your armor to 75% of your total ac to generate the rage. the mouse-over information is very unclear.

Starfire
10-07-2005, 10:54 AM
I do agree tho' bad pugs make for good learning.



Amen.

Astrel
10-07-2005, 11:51 AM
Doesn't Enrage drop your AC by 75%? SUrely that would be worse than using Frenzied Regen at all!


Yeah like said above. The mouse over is very lisleading. It doesn't drop your total AC in Dire Bear by 75%, but rather your Base AC by 75%. Then it is given a 360% to Armor as usual which in total is like a loss of maybe 1200 AC while in Dire Bear (for me atleast) when I use it. I will never turn my back on Enrage again =).

Rockwell
10-07-2005, 12:33 PM
i used to think that too, but i'm pretty sure it reduces your armor to 75% of your total ac to generate the rage. the mouse-over information is very unclear.

I do have improved enrage which cuts the AC hit, I can't check atm... off the top of my head I think at most it's a 20% deduction.

The reason I don't like cower is simple enough... if it doesn't work your in serious doo doo. You just wasted a couple of hundred mana and precious few seconds on cat, you don't have any surviability... so you'd have to heal and go bear anyway.

An additional word of advise to the OP... get some +def and hp gear and don't be shy about wearing it in caster form if your groups are letting you get beat on alot. A dead druid casts no heals...

Fendicano
10-07-2005, 03:46 PM
Yeah, bad PUGs help you learn your stuff pretty well. And Ell, the cower thing does work, but it is only useful if you only pulled 1 mob. . .otherwise bear is the way to go. I tested this just this morning while running BRD with a PUG (that sucked). . .but lets not get me started on that one.