Kentru's Ways of Nature - A Little On Druid PvP

I apologies for the short issue this week but I hope everyone has a great holiday season as I know I am. I managed to get in a little PvP time this week so I''m going to focus mainly on the Druid''s PvP abilities. I know I''m not the best at PvP, or even close, but I''ll at least try to explain what weapons Druids have at their disposal for a fighting chance, especially in regards to Blizzard''s new Outdoor PvP. It is worth noting that Stormcrow and flying mounts are not usable in the battlegrounds. Therefore Druids have a minor edge by getting Stormcrow at level 68, where all other classes have to wait to 70. While in the air, you can still take damage, but you are immune to a whole lot of crowd control, and unless your feet is touching the ground, mobs generally ignore you too.
There are many ways you can PvP as a Druid. Some choose to go with full feral, others take the moonkin/caster route and of course since many are spec''ed as a healer for raiding, some use the restoration tree in a group setting. On the beta servers, the majority of the Druids I have fought with are Feral. The Feral tree has a good amount of damage oriented talents, but it too has its weaknesses. Shadow priests and warlocks have shown me these weaknesses on many occasions. The many armor ignoring DoTs manage to damage even a Druid quickly. I have found that if you like to PvP in a group setting, with the many stuns and fear effects involved, Primal Tenacity is a great talent to invest in. The new skill Maim, which is same thing as a Rogue''s Gouge, is great to stop an opponent in mid-cast. Unlike Gouge though, this version of the ability does not break from the feral Druid''s bleed effects.
However there is a heavy emphasis on group PvP due to the way Blizzard awards Marks for outdoor PvP. Basically everyone in the group in the area gets the Mark, so finally players have an incentive to team up. With dishonor kills removed completely from the game, world PvP might once again become a reality at least on some servers. Restoration Druids do well in these outdoor group settings and they have many things at their disposal to assist quite well. Although these druids have less one-on-one abilities, they make great combat healers. I haven''t meet anyone that doesn''t appreciate a good heal or two while PvPing. Although most of the time the healers are the first to die, so it can quickly become a thankless job. Restoration druids can still take a lot of damage very quickly. If you choose this route, there are a few key talents that are great to get. Of course, Nature''s Swiftness is a good talent to acquire. With the many new silence abilities from all different classes, along with stuns and counterspells, it makes it hard to cast a quick heal. This talent can save a druid from death, by making any nature cast an instant. Therefore your healing touch can be instant, and makes a great saving heal that keeps you alive… two seconds longer. This talent though is found 21-points deep in the Restoration tree, so it is considered out of reach from other types of Druids if you wish to go 41-points deep in another tree. The Naturalist is an all-around good talent to acquire that increases physical damage by 10%. The lowered casting time helps a lot also. The other good talent to grab is Omen of Clarity, which has a chance to reduce the casting cost of the next damage or healing ability by 100%.
A balance druid is all about spell damage through Moonkin form and he is equipped with many talents that lower casting time and mana cost. Some of the key talents to get for balance druids are Nature''s Grasp, along with Improved Nature''s Grasp. Nature''s Reach, Celestial Focus, and Improved Faerie Fire (Feral), are all good talents to acquire form the balance tree. Though I have to admit, I haven''t experimented with this talent tree a lot as it just isn''t that appealing to me as a playstyle. I have however seen a few druids playing it effectively so it is worth a shot if it interests you.
With all the new gear in the expansion with attack power and stamina modifiers, a feral druid has much more gear then there used to be at his disposal. Each tree has they''re own strengths and weaknesses but the feral tree is the best for raw dps, along with bleed effects. I find myself playing like a rogue and trying to catch my targets off guard so I can unleash as much burst dps as possible. As I mentioned earlier, our worst enemies appear to be affliction warlocks and shadow priests, at least they are the hardest for me. The best thing for a balance druid to do is root and cast but sometimes it hard to keep the opponent away from you making it hard to play a caster. Restoration druids usually can outlast others because of the many "heal over times" with a lowered mana cost. Although classes that can throw quick damage can kill a restoration Druid before he can get off a single heal. I find that a good rogue can take you down without you casting at all.
The most recent build I have adopted doesn''t allow me to acquire Mangle but I have gained Nature''s Swiftness and Omen of Clarity as a result. This gives me a balance of good dps and decent healing. This is the build I personally like the best. I''m keeping most of my points, 40, in the feral tree, but dumping 21 points into restoration for the instant cast and clearcasting. I personally think Nature''s Swiftness is one of the most needed talents to get for PvP and I wasn''t able to find many druids to contradict me otherwise on the matter. I''ll be covering more about the druid talents and skills in the weeks to come. Respecs only cost 1 copper on the beta test servers so you can bet I''m going to try as many builds as I can before release!