Reasons why you should roll a Druid in Classic:

[MardestyGSOG]

I leveled a Druid to 38 on nost when it shut down, leveled a Druid to 56 on Kronos when it died due to elysium, and plan on rolling Druid in classic, the leveling is a blast, I love feeling so versatile. Need a range pull? Faerie fire. Pulled multiple mobs? Np, 5 combo point rip>shift>HoT>bearform. LF tank/healer for lvling dungeon "/w I can do either". Then I hear you can quite easily tank endgame dungeons, and if you roll with a guild who lets you OT then you also have a quality farming spec that can pull multiple mobs at a time. Plus Druid tier 2 is one of the games best looking sets ever!

[Hitei]

Druids are the best off tanks - because of their cat DPS, utility/buffs, better threat generation, and tanking advantages on certain fights. You can even spec 0/31/20 or 0/30/21 which will give the ability to both tank at full competency, and still heal at 95%~ competency, as long as you bring 2 gear sets. That is a huge advantage to bring a raid.

So while would you want to play a druid?

- Fastest to get gear on because of unique itemization and the least competition in raids. Some mages/rogues/warriors spend 4 months raiding before they get their first epic
- Easy to find raid spots. Everyone wants a resto druid, and if you are a good player you can also off tank or play a mix
- Unique role in PvP
- If you play 0/30/21 or 0/31/20 you will always be able to find a dungeon group, instead of having to spam in the trade channel like everyone else
- Fast movement speed when leveling. Huge difference when leveling, that you should not take for granted, as most people spend half a year getting to max level

Sure, now factor in the rest of the reasons not to:

-Nearly impossible to find a raid spot if you are not resto. Limited raid spots even for resto, because there are better healers. (hey, at least you are better off than warlocks or hunters)
-There are better classes that can always find dungeon groups, like warlocks.
-Extremely bland leveling surpassed only by paladins, you are a rogue with worse abilities and energy. The movement speed does not make up for how much faster the good levelers are at leveling.
-You will almost certainly be resto. Enjoy.
-You will never be as good a DPS as mages, warriors, rogues, warlocks etc.
-You cannot tank-tank except in farmed, less-serious content
-If you plan on doing something other than resto, you will have to acquire, carry and maintain multiple sets of gear

I'm not saying don't play a druid. I myself am still debating between druid and paladin. I am saying that the reasons provided by the OP are incredibly misleading or just generally bad--and that for the majority of players, druids are not a good choice.

[Drefan]

Druids are a ton of fun because you can fulfill so many roles.
I personally raided as a resto druid in vanilla and loved to pvp as resto aswell, you played more of a shapeshifting outlasting machine than a dps one. I found that playstyle super fun and it's very close to how a TBC resto druid kills people in pvp. Here's a legendary druid pvp film from vanilla:


I've had feral druids in serious guilds since they can off tank on trash, have battleress and if skilled do decent dmg.
I think the keyfactor for playing a feral in raids would be your skill as a player since you'll be playing the hardest dps rotation.

Sure you wouldn't bring 3 ferals but I've seen more ferals in raid than retri/prot paladins. Only time I've seen a "prot paladin" was when a holy paladin put on full spell dmg gear to tank spiders in ZG, thats it. Ferals on the otherhand, I've seen tank pretty much everything besides raidbosses.

Basically play what you think will be the most fun, I can recommend playing a druid because it can be played in so many diffrent ways compared to other classes. Thinking you will not get a guild because you want to play boomkin or feral? Maybe, but I've seen plenty of guilds that used all classes and speccs so hopefully you'll find a guild.

[Mushkins]

- Druids are the easiest class to level after Hunters and Mages.

Did you mean Hunters and Warlocks?

- Druids is -THE- easiest class in Vanilla to gear up

It's not true in case of ferals because you have to compete with warriors and rogues.

[alabaster jones]

Good advice, a druid in vanilla was fantastic value and I enjoyed mine a lot, you'll mourn your bank and bag space, but being able to fill any role any time is a great feeling.

[Siffredi]

Levelling as druid in Vanilla was nice. Of course against some other classes, you just got ganked - but it's the issue other classes had, too. We were underdogs and even in Moonglade I only had 1 time an other druid fighting me. Underdogs didn't fight eachother there (at least in the realm I played). Versatility also meant, for mobs which required more than 1 player, you just changed gear to healer one and it was easier to kill the mob then. Stealth, Travel- and Waterform were a great help in levelling, too.

Annoying things were all the rogues in Dungeons, when you rolled for Agi Leather gear. Many dramas happened (Stop! That's Roguegear!). Getting purples for feral pvp wasn't that easy, too (ofc there were possibilities like getting excalted in AV). You had to be healer in Raids. And Innervate Bots for Priests. But hey, that was part of the Vanilla game.

Levelling Lock as alt was another experience. After getting Death Coil, fighting down gankers in the same level range was sometimes so much easier (for examples against mages). But I'd roll a druid (feral after druid patch) again. I had a lot of fun. But it's nothing if you want to be godlike in PVP or if you want to be DPS in Raids ofc.

[Powell]

Wish for Classic challenges -> plays easiest class to avoid the classic challenges.

[Alvito]

All of this hinges on the assumption that the pirate servers and classic will be tuned the same.

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It's not true in case of ferals because you have to compete with warriors and rogues.

And there will be a small army of both.

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Druids are a ton of fun because you can fulfill so many roles.
I personally raided as a resto druid in vanilla and loved to pvp as resto aswell, you played more of a shapeshifting outlasting machine than a dps one. I found that playstyle super fun and it's very close to how a TBC resto druid kills people in pvp. Here's a legendary druid pvp film from vanilla:


I've had feral druids in serious guilds since they can off tank on trash, have battleress and if skilled do decent dmg.
I think the keyfactor for playing a feral in raids would be your skill as a player since you'll be playing the hardest dps rotation.

Sure you wouldn't bring 3 ferals but I've seen more ferals in raid than retri/prot paladins. Only time I've seen a "prot paladin" was when a holy paladin put on full spell dmg gear to tank spiders in ZG, thats it. Ferals on the otherhand, I've seen tank pretty much everything besides raidbosses.

Basically play what you think will be the most fun, I can recommend playing a druid because it can be played in so many diffrent ways compared to other classes. Thinking you will not get a guild because you want to play boomkin or feral? Maybe, but I've seen plenty of guilds that used all classes and speccs so hopefully you'll find a guild.

Look at all that sweet keyboard turning and clicking. It is depressing what passes as a decent pvp video for vanilla.

[Deleted]

Did you mean Hunters and Warlocks?



It's not true in case of ferals because you have to compete with warriors and rogues.

Hunter is by far the fastest. Mages are definitely faster than Warlocks due to the insane AoE grind spots that you can abuse from level 20 all the way to 60. Surpassing multidotting+voidwalker strats in leveling pace by far.


As for the warriors and rogues.


This might be true for dungeons but not for raiding.



Your best weapon is a PvP weapon.
Your best helm is a lvl 40 item.
Your best tanking weapon is a lvl 43 item.
Your best trinket is a quest reward.
Your best tanking ring from MC is not good for warriors.
Your 2nd best tanking ring is a quest reward.
Your best gloves are from pvp ranking, not raiding.
Your best boots are from pvp ranking, not raiding.
Your best legs are from WSG exalted, not raiding.
There is no tier set conflicts.



(This is for feral druid)


So ultimately, you are competing against rogues/warriors for your necklace. For your rings. For a belt and bracers.

There will be no relevant bracers for you until AQ40, which also means PvP bracers from WSG are your BiS (once again)

This leaves neck, belt and rings from raiding.

You will indeed not get any of these before other DPS classes, this problem is easily solved by joining a DKP guild and focussing your DKP into these itemslots, which are very minor for warrs/rogues who are thirsty for tier gear, weapons and trinkets but these 'minor items' are the biggest raiding upgrades for you.

[Soxoffender]

Druids are literally worse at pretty much everything possible than another class, and this is Vanilla where respecing is a pain in the ass. Being the 3rd, 5th, etc. most effective class at a a thing is a good reason not to pick the class for that thing.

If you bring 4 fire mages, then a Boomkin in the group is going to be their best friend and will be totally worth it despite their lower personal dps. The same is true of an SPriest with 4 locks.

[Armourboy]

My buddy played a Druid on Nost, the amount of crazy stuff we could kill was rather amazing. He loved say " lets kill it " and listening to me say there was no way in hell we were killing a rare 6-7 levels higher than us, but he would convince me to try and we would do it more times than not. Had more fun as low 40's Druid and Rogue than we have on live tbh.

[Hitei]

If you bring 4 fire mages, then a Boomkin in the group is going to be their best friend and will be totally worth it despite their lower personal dps. The same is true of an SPriest with 4 locks.

Unless your tank is having threat problems or your DPS in general is low, you'd probably be better of taking a warlock for elements and then another fire mage for ignite. That's 25% more attacks going out with a chance to crit, rather than 5% more likelihood to crit for four mages.

[Armourboy]

Unless your tank is having threat problems or your DPS in general is low, you'd probably be better of taking a warlock for elements and then another fire mage for ignite. That's 25% more attacks going out with a chance to crit, rather than 5% more likelihood to crit for four mages.

Yeah but that extra lock isn't bringing another innervate or battle rez and off heals with it either. A moonkin will up the DPS and still bring the Druid utility with it.

[Hunterwep]

Probably borderline.

But let's say it's better. Let's go beyond that and pretend that bringing a feral druid for LotP and off-tanking is 100% mandatory on every fight in every raid in Vanilla.

That is 1 person. You aren't going to ever bring in a second one. It's still not a good reason to roll a druid, because you are going to be competing against every other druid who isn't resto for that single spot per raid. No one is going to be recruiting half a dozen of you. You are going to get lucky and have that spot, or you are going to be resto, much like spriests.



Vanilla was also a time where you either maintained way more raiders than the 40 you needed, or you pulled in extras. Why keep a druid around to maybe heal, or maybe tank, or maybe do this or that when you can keep a dedicated resto druid, or priest, or warrior, or bring one of those in.

Take the hybrid paladin instead, now you have better buffs, the healing, more survivability, a real res, tanking, bubbles, and someone who isn't competing with casters for spell gear and your better melee for melee gear beyond their handful of BiS slots.

Don't they also bring an Innervate and a Combat Ress?

Some bosses needed around 5 Tanks,
Also I always found, from a healer point of view, a feral druid Off-Tanking a lot easier to heal than a Fury Warrior with a Shield Equipped

[Hitei]

Yeah but that extra lock isn't bringing another innervate or battle rez and off heals with it either. A moonkin will up the DPS and still bring the Druid utility with it.

No, but he's bringing summons, healthstones, and better more sustainable DPS.

Don't they also bring an Innervate and a Combat Ress?

Some bosses needed around 5 Tanks,
Also I always found, from a healer point of view, a feral druid Off-Tanking a lot easier to heal than a Fury Warrior with a Shield Equipped

That's why you gear multiple tank-tanks.

[Thimagryn]

As someone who used to play rogue and then later with WotlK DK all the way to Legion and has now played druid on Vanilla extensively, here are some good reasons for you to roll Druid when Classic comes out:

All your points assume we start with 1.12.

What are your thoughts if we start with 1.0/1.7?

[In Ogres We Trust]

Reason to roll a druid:

a) They were OP!

That's all!

[Nihilux]

Great thread, would love to see threads like this on other classes as well. Was an enjoyable read.

[Armourboy]

No, but he's bringing summons, healthstones, and better more sustainable DPS.


.

You are bringing one for those things already, you don't need but one to summon and one for cookies, so an extra lock brings you extra DPS and a soulstone ( or was that added later? Been a while). I'll take slightly less DPS, more mana for the raid, off healing and another battle rez over that all day long.

[Daffan]

Raid leaders love a row of hots on the main tank and the more battle rez's the better. Some progression raids we would take 8+ druids. There was no limit other than cooldowns on brez! You will never have trouble finding a raid spot.

I remember taking a level 58 druid to MC because we needed the buff and rez. The dude got 5 pieces of t1 and bis ring before hitting 60.

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Leader of the pack?

Mark of the wild?

Innervate?

Druids had some of the most utility in the game.

Innervate is cool but why not just bring another priest? lulz