Druids

Hi all,

Are druids viable tanks for end game? I know warriors are the master class but can bears tank mc and so forth, or are they just an upgrade on paladin tanks?

Hi all,

Are druids viable tanks for end game? I know warriors are the master class but can bears tank mc and so forth, or are they just an upgrade on paladin tanks?

Like a lot of things in WoW, the answer is "It depends." Any of the tanking classes can tank 5-man content without issue, so if that's your goal, you will do just fine as Warrior, Paladin or Druid. However, raiding beyond MC and Ony is another story.

Druid tanks have significant limitations in endgame raiding:

Cannot drink potions in forms

Cannot hit the defense cap, resulting in crushing blows and crits and more damage spikes

Poor "Oh shit" defensive cooldowns

Poor itemization until AQ

BiS weapon consumable needs to be farmed from Gnomeregan in large quantities

They also have a few advantages:

Generally higher armor and HP pools than warriors, given equal itemization

Easier to gear (in AQ) as there's less competition for your stuff - although expect very stiff competition for ring, neck and trinket slots.

Highest potential Threat-Per-Second, meaning DPS can burn harder, resulting in shorter fights and less strain on healers

Effectively no issues with rage, no need to take your shield off or trade damage for threat

Warrior is the undisputed tanking class. If you want to tank 40-mans regularly, roll a warrior. Paladins cannot reliably tank in raids, but druids certainly could tank MC and BWL/Onyxia with the right gear. It remains to be seen if an AQ-geared bear can tank in Naxx on a Classic server, but on Pservers it was possible (optimal?) on certain bosses in Naxx.

In general you'll need better gear than a warrior to provide a similar level of tanking ability. Druid tanks make excellent offtanks for packs of monsters due to swipe, but they take more damage than warriors, full stop. The lack of tanking cooldowns also makes them less helpful on certain fights, but this can be partially overcome with consumables.

Guilds who prioritize speedrunning in Private Servers have occasionally used feral tanks due to the higher TPS when the tank uses charges of their Manual Crowd Pummeler, but the math behind boss hit & parry rate was incorrect on private servers, so that meta may change in classic. Druid form damage was also potentially overtuned (buffed) on Private Servers, which will make them less appealing in classic in comparison.

Check out Skarm on youtube for comparisons between druids and warriors, and also for examples of druid tanking at endgame.

Hi all,

Are druids viable tanks for end game? I know warriors are the master class but can bears tank mc and so forth, or are they just an upgrade on paladin tanks?

Like a lot of things in WoW, the answer is "It depends." Any of the tanking classes can tank 5-man content without issue, so if that's your goal, you will do just fine as Warrior, Paladin or Druid. However, raiding beyond MC and Ony is another story.

Druid tanks have significant limitations in endgame raiding:

Cannot drink potions in forms

Cannot hit the defense cap, resulting in crushing blows and crits and more damage spikes

Poor "Oh shit" defensive cooldowns

Poor itemization until AQ

BiS weapon consumable needs to be farmed from Gnomeregan in large quantities

They also have a few advantages:

Generally higher armor and HP pools than warriors, given equal itemization

Easier to gear (in AQ) as there's less competition for your stuff - although expect very stiff competition for ring, neck and trinket slots.

Highest potential Threat-Per-Second, meaning DPS can burn harder, resulting in shorter fights and less strain on healers

Effectively no issues with rage, no need to take your shield off or trade damage for threat

Warrior is the undisputed tanking class. If you want to tank 40-mans regularly, roll a warrior. Paladins cannot reliably tank in raids, but druids certainly could tank MC and BWL/Onyxia with the right gear. It remains to be seen if an AQ-geared bear can tank in Naxx on a Classic server, but on Pservers it was possible (optimal?) on certain bosses in Naxx.

In general you'll need better gear than a warrior to provide a similar level of tanking ability. Druid tanks make excellent offtanks for packs of monsters due to swipe, but they take more damage than warriors, full stop. The lack of tanking cooldowns also makes them less helpful on certain fights, but this can be partially overcome with consumables.

Guilds who prioritize speedrunning in Private Servers have occasionally used feral tanks due to the higher TPS when the tank uses charges of their Manual Crowd Pummeler, but the math behind boss hit & parry rate was incorrect on private servers, so that meta may change in classic. Druid form damage was also potentially overtuned (buffed) on Private Servers, which will make them less appealing in classic in comparison.

Check out Skarm on youtube for comparisons between druids and warriors, and also for examples of druid tanking at endgame.

Top answer, thanks for that!

A gif worth a thousand words

Hey Mom, this happened to me over closed beta.

I was an Orc Warlock and I had gotten to around level 11? 12? and I was questing at the oasis' in Barrens when I got ambushed by 3 pathing Centaurs that were all higher level than I. No way I was living through this.

I did as best as I could to redirect as much aggro to my voidwalker as possible to make an escape but they were on me pretty hard. As I was running for my life I saw a tauren running the opposite direction toward me. I ended up dying right at his feet.

He stopped and shouted "NOOOOOOO!!!!!!" and went bear form

I'm thinking "Alright awesome, this druid's gonna defend my honor, take these guys out for me, then ressurect me and-oh shit! He's level 16 he's gonna smoke these gu-... and he's dead..."

He whispered me "I didn't have ressurect anyway. We died together."

Prob my single fav experience from beta for ClassicWoW

Prob my single fav experience from beta for ClassicWoW

Why do experiences like these just not happen in BFA anymore? :sad: this is great! I've also had similar experiences playing years ago. My theory is that all of the kind, social players are all finally returning and bringing life to Azeroth again.

Prob my single fav experience from beta for ClassicWoW

Why do experiences like these just not happen in BFA anymore? :sad: this is great! I've also had similar experiences playing years ago. My theory is that all of the kind, social players are all finally returning and bringing life to Azeroth again.

Sharding and a player base being trained over a decade+ that you simply don't need to give a fuck about other people as much anymore imo.

A gif worth a thousand words

I don't get it. Help me out :)

What’s happening in that gif? I’m blind?

The Druid is the maintank/line leader of a PvP raid on IF.

Tec Rinkusan

Druids are top of the line tanks in WPvP because they have a lot of health and can get in and out of CC as they shift.

That druid right there is dancing back and forth between some blizzard, rain of fire and hellfire. Along with a brave mage ice blocking there, he makes them channel AoE on the left side while the rest of the raid advances with me (yellow star) on the right side.

@Tec @Rinkusan

Druids are top of the line tanks in WPvP because they have a lot of health and can get in and out of CC as they shift.

That druid right there is dancing back and forth between some blizzard, rain of fire and hellfire. Along with a brave mage ice blocking there, he makes them channel AoE on the left side while the rest of the raid advances with me (yellow star) on the right side.

Ah, I see. Nice!

Nymis gotcha :D

Anyone have a leveling guide with a nice setup of what to spend money on, professions, class quests etc. etc.?

There are so many for mage and warriors with BiS this and that and having not been a druid in classic I find it slightly overwhelming scouring through the net. I found some stuff on wowhead but I've heard mixed thing about it, and it's not so much a class specific guide as its just a "general" thing.

I know of Joanas, but seeing as it's well known, I fear it's also going to be a terrible routing choice.

I'm trying on a Pserver and I'm hardly quick :P

Anyone have a leveling guide with a nice setup of what to spend money on, professions, class quests etc. etc.?

Yar Might be able to help you out here. I can't give a thorough walkthrough or guide, as I typically play druids organically and without too much pre planning as I find that kills some of the fun, or leads to disappontment, when things don't work out as planned.

I level as feral with leatherworking to help gear as I go. There are some very nice agi/stam leatherworking pieces while leveling, especially in the 30s and 40s.

Druids are so versatile with stats that you can easily upgrade pieces of gear. Agi, str, stam, int, spirit, all helpful. I played around on RetroWoW on a feral PvP spec with hybrid style gear and it felt really good. Still decent melee damage, but with better healing and caster capabilities to help with survivability and flexibility.

I'm really keen to try for honor rank10 purely after seeing how nice the hybrid gear works for flexible playstyle. I'm not sure whether to go 14/32/5 full feral PvP, or something like 8/32/11 for natural shapeshifter and insect swarm, which I enjoyed. The hardest thing about druid for me is deciding on what to neglect and what to nurture in the talent trees, there are so many options. I'm also considering 1/32/18 to give me the option to heal as well as PvP/tank etc. Choices!!!