View Full Forums : Instances and Feral Frustration


Saediien
01-23-2006, 10:25 AM
I am a 23 Druid. I have gone the standard straight feral route, because I found it was fun and quick to solo that way. Over the past few weekends, however, I have been running a lot of instances and have gotten very frustrated. Often times, I've been asked to serve as main healer, and generally do a very ****ty job of it. My mana pool sucks and so do my spells. I can do a servicable job but when things get hairy I suck. I can keep my party alive, I can do some crowd control with sleep, and I can keep myself alive. I really do not seem to be able to all three things at the same time, and even doing two of those things at the same time can be challenging. Of course, I can tank servicably when asked to do so.

I guess my concern is this: I like to do instances, enjoy the party dynamic, and like the loot. But I want to be useful. If I am a feral druid, though, what am I supposed to do? I was in my first group ever with both a priest and a warrior recently--that was nice because it allowed me to do whatever I wanted. Battle rez was clutch to get the priest back up, and backup healing was appreciated. I added some dps with melee and moonfire, etc. But I am left wondering, how do I deal with being the group's main healer as a feral druid? Or should I stop trying to do be too many things to too many people and focus on soloing unless I happen to get an instance group where I don't have to be the main healer?

Ghost Bear
01-23-2006, 11:04 AM
Low level instances I believe druids are more beneficial in a more melee or hybrid role. I feel same from my experiences with pallies and shaman too. Reason is the things that make druids great healers haven't really kicked in yet. There are 2 things druids can do to become great healers (aside from practice). Put points into restoration or get great gear. Of course you can do both at same time. But basically, at low levels even if you spec full resto from the beginning we can't keep up with priests. Later levels we can become great healers near comparible to priests with some other nice benefits with talent points. Or we can spec into feral (HOTW makes good mana) or balance (Nature's Grace and Moonglow can help healing as well as nuking) and get some thought out gear, making us darn good healers regardless of spec.

Anyways what I'm trying to say is I think druids take some time to come into their own as healers regardless of spec/gear. At your level gear isn't so available to boost up your mana so you're not going to heal very long. And you don't have the points to boost your healing through talents either. And I wouldn't level as a resto anyways.

And in all honesty even at 60, I feel that in any 5 man situation a druid is much more beneficial in the 5th man hybrid role than main healer. In any 5man situation we can bring our flexibility into full swing.

My advice to you is to try to make friends with a priest. They will make a great leveling partner, and you will always have that base covered should you go into an instance.