Druid's Flagrunning guide for Warsong Gulch

Contents:

1.0
Introduction
1.1
Why a druid?
1.2
Basic Strategy
1.3
Helpful Tips

2.0
Gear
2.1
Easy to obtain Stamina set
2.2
Easy to obtain Armor set
2.3
Epic Stamina set
2.4
Epic Armor set
2.5
Resistances
2.6
Pros and Cons

3.0
Specs
3.1
Necessary Talents
3.2
Trispec + NS
3.3
HotW

4.0
Extra notes

-------(This is a work in progress)-------

1.0 Introduction
A druid’s niche in the battlegrounds of WoW is unquestionably carrying the flag in Warsong Gulch. While feral forms are nice, and with the right gear/talents a druid can do decent dps, our forms serve a better purpose in Gulch. The opposing team will do everything in its power to slow/stop a flagrunner until enough people show up to kill it. That’s where druids come in.

1.1 Why druids?
“The act of shapeshifting frees the druid of Polymorph and all movement impairing effects.”

This statement says it all. A flagrunner’s duty in Warsong Gulch is to avoid being stopped while capturing the flag. Whether that means speeding across the midfield (Cheetah), absorbing damage and tanking it through the middle of the opposing team’s blockade (Bear), or stealthing to the flag while knowing your surroundings (Cat + Tracking), a druid can do everything with reasonable effectiveness. The biggest advantage a druid has, however, is being able to shift out of any and all snares and roots instantly for very little mana.

1.2 Basic Strategy
A good starting strategy, at least until you find a good strategy of your own;

Stealth to the flag while your teammates distract the opposing team elsewhere. If there’s defense on the flag, wait for backup. Usually one or two people can disrupt the defense long enough for you to pop out of stealth, grab the flag, and take off. While you’re stealthed, have Track Humanoids up, so you have a general direction of the safest route to run when you pick the flag up.

Get out of the base and to the rest of your team as fast as possible – cat form and sprint if the cooldown isn’t burned. This way you can get into travel form and to some heals quickly. If you make it to your team, or close to your team, and run into heavy resistance, switch to bear form. This way you can plow through taking far less damage while everyone else kills the opposing team off (which will be focused on you) and the healers can keep you up easier. Once you get into your base, if you’re not in bear form already switch to it. You never know when you could be jumped, though it’s less likely than if you were in the enemy base. If your flag is gone and you cannot make the cap, stay in bear form and find a hiding place to go to with a healer that is somewhat close to where you return the flag.

Rinse, repeat.

1.3 Helpful Tips
For druids just getting started as a gulch flagrunner, here are a few tips.

First of all, utilize your forms. Every one has a place in flagrunning, be sure you’re keeping an open mind as to what needs to be used.

Secondly, communicate with your team. If you’re not in vent/teamspeak, make macros that tell your team what direction you’ll be coming out of the enemy base. Having an escort is very important to a successful flag-cap, be sure to let your potential escorts know where you’ll be going. If you’re in a pickup group, say something in general chat so people are informed.

Mix things up. If you consistently run out of the middle tunnel, the opposing team will catch on and start meeting you there. Just try to avoid the graveyard unless absolutely necessary.

Don’t be afraid to use potions! Free Action are my personal favorite, but sometimes we need that extra push to get out of the thick of things.

2.0 Gear
Your gear will play a huge factor in how much of a beating you will take. A decent amount of mana is nice to have for shifting a lot, or the occasional heal you’ll throw yourself, but it will not be a primary stat. What we’ll be focusing on is Stamina and/or Armor.

2.1 Easy to Obtain Stamina Gear
This is non-raid gear, obtainable by anyone.

Bone Ring Helm (30)
PvP Necklace (17)
Golden Mantle of the Dawn (22)
Bloodmoon Cloak (17)
Warbear Harness (27)
PvP Bracers (17)
Gargoyle Slashers (12)
AV Belt (15)
Ghoul Skin Leggings (20)
Dawn Treaders (18)
Band of Flesh (16)
Blood of the Martyr (15)
Crackling Staff (25)

This is 251 Stamina, unbuffed, and with no enchants.

2.2 Easy to Obtain Armor Gear
This is non-raid gear, obtainable by anyone.
I used Telkella’s “Feral Druid equipment list” sticky to look up this information. Great guide, I recommend looking at it for alternatives to any gear I list. Thanks Telkella =)

Eye of Rend (143AC)
Atal’ai Spaulders (193AC)
Shadowcraft Tunic (176AC)
PvP Bracers (77AC)
Slaghide Gauntlets (207AC)
Cloudrunner Girdle (185AC)
Blademaster Leggings (154AC)
Sedge Boots (121AC)
Cloak of Warding (214AC)
Ring of Protection (150AC)
Band of the Great Tortoise (120AC)
Mark of Tyranny (180AC)
Smoking Heart of the Mountain (150AC)
Warden Staff (260AC)

Total 2330 AC
Note this does not take into account AC gained by agility, armor kits, or enchants.

A couple of these can be upgraded by a lot by getting WSG/AB Exalted.

2.3 Epic Stamina Set
This is the best stamina gear currently in the game.

2.4 Epic Armor Set
This is the best AC gear currently in the game.
I used Telkella’s “Feral Druid equipment list” sticky for this information as well. Thanks again Telkella =)

Guise of the Devourer (250AC)
AB Exalted Shoulders (258AC)
Malfurion’s Blessed Bulwark (392AC)
Zandalar Haruspex’s Bracers (122AC)
Gloves of the Hidden Temple (248AC)
Lava Belt (223AC)
Dark Heart Pants (296AC)
Boots of the Shadow Flame (286AC)
Cloak of Warding (214AC)
Ring of Protection (150AC)
Band of the Great Tortoise (120AC)
Mark of Tyranny (180AC)
Smoking Heart of the Mountain (150AC)
Warden Staff (260AC)

Total 3149 AC
Note this does not take into account AC gained by agility, armor kits, or enchants.

With tenacity/agility enchants, taking into consideration agility into the armor equation, Telkella reports it is possible to get 17048 armor unbuffed in bearform. With imp MotW that’s 17462 armor. Pretty hot =) The link to some more in-depth information can be found here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-druid&t=296661&p=1&tmp=1#post296661

2.5 Resistances Set
I’m not going to list gear on this set, a full resistance set is so extremely situational it’s almost pointless to collect. Keep your eye out for a balanced mix of resistances so you’re not at 0 on everything, but to be honest you have to stack up on a lot of +specific resistance and sacrifice so much else, it’s not worth doing.

2.6 Pros and Cons

Personally, I prefer +stamina over anything else. This way I can absorb magical and melee damage with some degree of leeway with my life total. The downside to this is I take more mana to heal while taking melee damage, and it’s harder to heal myself efficiently with rejuv or bear regen.

The +armor can soak up a ridiculous amount of melee damage, with 75% damage reduction. The downside here is giving up some stamina for the +armor, which means magic damage will take even bigger chunks of your life away.

Resistance sets, as I said, are good for single schools of magic, but by sacrificing armor and stamina, which means everyone else and every other school of magic will tear you up. I don’t recommend this route.

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DISCLAIMER:
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The most important thing you can get is the 4 piece PvP Set Bonus (+15% Speed to Forms) This puts cat sprint at 183% speed, and travel form at 161% speed (http://www.forgoodnotevil.com/druid/speed.html)

However the reason I did not list any of the pvp set in the gear lists is I leave it up to you to choose between the blue PvP set, epic PvP set, and which 4 pieces you want to interchange for the speed bonus (hands, feet, legs, chest, shoulder, helm)

3.0 Specs
Your talent spec will be very important, of course. While there are SEVERAL talent specs that will work perfectly fine, some will work better than others. I currently run with 44pts in Restoration (I prefer a healing role in PvE Raids) Once I get a little higher in rank and a bit more money farmed up, I will probably respec for a couple gulch weekends.

3.1 Necessary Talents
These are just my personal opinions, but there are a few talents that are needed to make a good flagrunning druid.

#1 is Nature’s grasp + 4/4 imp NG. Easy to get talent, ridiculously useful. There is no reason you should not have this.

Right under that is Natural Shapeshifter. Not quite as necessary, but I recommend getting it.

In feral, there are of course a few that I see as very important. Feline swiftness and Feral charge top the list. Imp. Stealth and Imp Bash are important as well, whereas depending on your build/gear Thick Hide may be extremely useful as well.

In resto, Furor is about the only thing I’d list as a necessary talent, though I’d never give up Nature’s Swiftness for anything. It’s saved me so many times, giving me the extra few seconds I needed to make my getaway or get to my healers.

3.2 Trispec + NS

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druids2/talents.html?01400030000000000552521000000100055520100310000

8 Balance/21 Feral/22 Resto

This is my flagrunning spec of choice. All the needed talents, a few extra goodies (Feral fairie fire) and Nature’s Swiftness.

3.3 HotW

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druids2/talents.html?01400030000000000552521000000100055520100310000

11 Balance/33 Feral/7 Resto

This spec takes advantage of HotW, which is a great talent – especially if you’re stacking on stamina. However, while adding a lot of survivability and a little more damage, you’re giving up a lot of your self-healing capabilities.

4.0 Additional Notes & Reader Feedback

Many readers have noted how useful some of the engineering items are for a druid flagrunner, especially with the up and coming change that allows items to be used while in feral forms. Some items listed were the Rocket Helm, Death Ray, and MC Helm.

Here are a couple tips from some pros =)

Posted by Wolfhoof of Argent Dawn (Thanks!)
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Q u o t e:
I use dash to get out of their flag room all the time. I would say in all my flag running experience (WSG exalted/rank 13) the dash was wasted about 1% of the time.

The trick is to know when to use it. If the room is filled with 5 on 5 fighting it is a perfect time. You end up moving too fast for them to get a hit on you.

In such a case I unstealth..grab flag, cat, dash out to GY but if I think I risk being hamstrung I cut left and go up the ramp as soon as I leave the flag room which cuts LOS.

If I don''t dash out I strafe left & right by tapping Q and E as soon as I exit to force the server to know Im outside, pop NG and shift to travel form, Drop gy go down the west side (taking time to run up the root and jump over the two big stumps....hey I get bored) and head up our ramp.

And of course I don''t always go this way.

I rarely go down the tunnel because it more often than not means my death. You are forced into an area where the exit is known and narrow.

any good team will be communicating that you went down the tunnel and be waiting to melt you the second they see you.

Druids are also gimped indoors.

Nifty stopwatch/rocket boots do not stack with Travel form but Swiftness pots DO. They will give you a slight burst of speed for a very short period of time. (74% above normal instead of 61%)

I rarely use that in mid field unless things are dire.

Swiftness pots take over for dashing up your tunnel in cat form and this allows you to do the tunnel run in bear form which is preferable if you have a bunch of the enemy on your heels anyway.

It also allows you to FC anyone running ahead of you trying to grab the flag before you can cap.

Trinket mages...Welcome to the nerf bat boy. Soon to only be able to pop 1 trinket at a time.

Druids soon to be able to reflect that fireball you think will crit them to death right back at you.

I love the smell of roasted gnome mage in the gulch.

The basic strategy my team uses in the gulch is very simple.

Druid flag runner with a priest to dispell annoyances like ice traps and fears (stupid 5 min cooldown on insignia) and other effects that we cannot shift out of.

The others control the mid field and melt down anyone with our flag by having a shaman purge them, announce it in a macro and our usual 2 warlocks and 2 AP mages (no trinkets) melt them down in under 1 second. (this works on everything when done right. Even the tank warrior strat)

The most important thing I believe about WSG though is to not maintain a static strategy. Change it up to work with what your enemy is doing.

One other thing I do use to my advantage. FEARS. If you are feared in the flag room you are moving around very fast and it makes you very hard to target. When you reach the end direction of one of those fears you pop your trinket and keep going.

Many times I have gone for the gy door only to be feared into the tunnel, take advantage of the distance I gained over my opponent, popped my trinket and ran down it snagging the boots on the way (popping a swiftness pot if there were no boots).
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Sharah of Emerald Dream:

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Q u o t e:
Save Dash for getting back in your own base. If you know the Boots are up in your opponent''s base, it''s sometimes actually better to go tunnel than to go ramp/GY.

For the other resto druids, if you''re shifting alot to escape snares and you notice you only have enough mana for one more shift, pop innervate before your next shift so you never reach the point where you''re below 700 mana and still need to shift.

Also, if you have the breathing room and you''re going out GY side, the little house below each GY has a Restoration buff inside, very nice if you spent alot of your mana getting out of the enemy base.
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