1. #1

    Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    I'd like to hear the opinions of people who lvled as feral and other who have lvled as balance.

    ok so i've been lvling up my 2nd 80, my t6 balance druid. ive been able to solo many group quests using my treants and pure pew pew.

    but my question is, how does an evenly geared t6 feral druid do against elite group quests solo? I remember being feral and lvling in outlands long ago, and improved leader of the pack was godly and even better at lvl 70 in 4/8 t6.

    if i were to dust off my feral set and spec for tanking but also put my points into a couple dps talents for that extra damage, would it be quicker and more efficient than balance? would it also be even more of a joke to do elite quests?

  2. #2
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    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    it would really depend on how much time you spent casting roots on the target (if any). If you didnt have to cast roots and just moonkin tanked it your would do more damage and therefore kill it quicker than a feral would.

    I leveled feral (cause thats all this druid has ever been) and with the 'oh shit' buttons we have these days it made elite quests easy, i solo'd every group quests i came across with the exception of the ring of blood type even in Zul drak. While leveling i fully completed every quest in the zones i did which were Howling Fjord -> Borean Tundra -> Dragonblight -> Zul'drak -> Sholazar Basin and Storm Peaks.

  3. #3

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    I levelled up as Balance with basically Kara gear. I found that for the elite quests, if it was melee and I could root the mob then it's simple as - regardless of elite type (2/3/5 man, although I think all 5 man elites are immune). If not, then it's just about impossible unless they're really slow and can be kited with travel form so that DoTs can kill them.

    As for feral Idunno. I'd imagine that a decently geared (T6 as you say) tank wouldn't have much trouble with 2 man elites, but 3 man ones might be a bit of a problem (often they have 100k HP and can hit quite hard, so could take quite a while to get through on your own and I'd be surprised if your survivability was enough to last long enough to DPS them down).

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  4. #4

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.


    I'm feral, started with T4 hat & gloves and good kara/badge gear. I've done a lot of group quests solo without trouble, but for most I've joined up because other people were around. (better to group up than fight to tap the mob)

    There are a few I think I would have not been able to solo like the rune giants with the stacking debuff that starts to tick for ~3k, but for most things requiring [2] or [3] people feral does fine... and for quests where you can't solo things you can offer to tank for other people, and there are normally a few DPSers around that need to do the quest. (Healing is only needed if you can't DPS the mob down before the tank dies...)

    When solo remember you can root/cyclone/shift/heal/etc, you don't just have to use bear! And if it goes bad... shadowmeld and start over :-)



  5. #5
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    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    Quote Originally Posted by Medium9
    In the end, I guess the overall count of soloable group quests is roughly the same for feral and balance, but some encounters might strongly favor one or the other.
    think im going to have to disagree with you there.

    Any fight where a feral druid can control a mob weather it be by roots, snares or stuns its basically a guaranteed win, epsecialy with the way imp LoTP works atm 4% health and 8% mana every 6 sec is hot.
    Sure the same can be said about balance but when you meet a mob thats immune to roots/snares and stuns a feral druid will stand upto it much better and with the right talents they can hold out and kill the mob

  6. #6

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    Anything that can be rooted is easy for a balance druid.

    Anything that cannot be rooted will kick your arse unless you have obscene gear and are able to out heal its damage to you and DPS it down without going oom. 2/3 'wanted' quests in dragonblight were easy. But the humanoid immune to snares I ran away from with no chance.


  7. #7
    Deleted

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    Piss easy to solo most grp quests (3man at least) as feral in bear form. Got S4 gear.

  8. #8

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    I've been a feral druid since forever. It's quite easy grinding and leveling, I've farmed elemental plateau without even having to heal at 70 and same goes with leveling to 80, I only had to heal when doing 3-5 man group quests.

  9. #9

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nepenthes
    There are a few I think I would have not been able to solo like the rune giants with the stacking debuff that starts to tick for ~3k, but for most things requiring [2] or [3] people feral does fine... and for quests where you can't solo things you can offer to tank for other people, and there are normally a few DPSers around that need to do the quest. (Healing is only needed if you can't DPS the mob down before the tank dies...)
    the rune giants, the first time through to 80 on my warrior i was able to solo them, but just barely. had to do retaliation, bladestorm, my trinkets, and hope for some nice crits, usually got it done with about 30% health left.

    on my druid vs the rune giants it was much easier, i would use my treants to take it down half health before they finally died, then i would hot myself up and start hardcore pewpew. lifeblood from herbalism is also a handy little hot that i can pop between casts. also, a lot of elite mobs can still be stunned, meaning war stomp creats enough of a window for me to cast a regrowth, pop barkskin, pop hots, back to moonkin, then more pewpew.

    i can see how the spec would be situational for different elite mobs. lvling to 80 the first time as melee probably makes lvling as a ranged class seem like cake.

    but how about the last few zones till 80? sholazar, icecrown, storm peaks. what was the difficulty of the elites in those zones as balance or feral?

  10. #10
    Deleted

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    I was running around in Howling Fjord looking for Rune Giants. I could beat one down by myself, but for some reason i missed the spawn point and i ran towards Grizzly Hills. Finally i found one more and i said "Ah great, here they are", but suddenly they had gotten 5 more levels. It took me 3 wipes before i considered looking at their level :P

    Ive soloed most group quests on equal level as i leveled up. Bear form is quite nice for that, and if a mob is super hard, a great combo is survival instincts + frenzied regen (more max hp, more healing), trinkets, barkskin and whatnot.

    I was quite proud when i soloed the level 74 (i think) elite fury warrior shaman type giant in southern Dragonblight (its some Wyrmcrest quest). I believe it was a 4 or 5 man. He is dual wielding huge twohanders, and does a massive knockback - or rather, a knockup, cause the fall damage from him was probably the hardest i took.

    In Icecrown at 80, i soloed many of the group quests, although i did bite the dust on the 2nd "leader challenge".

    All in all, feral group quests are quite nice. It hardly takes long in most cases, but i do tend to group up with people anyways if there are people nearby. I often farm jormungar scales in the worm cave in Dragonblight, and when i stumble upon the 75 elite work, i tend to just grab that aswell when i pick up mobs for swiping... :P

    Some day, i will solo Thrym.

  11. #11

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    I found it easier to solo mobs as balance druid than feral (I leveled 50% feral and 50% balance). My balance gear is t5-t6 quality and my feral gear is kara, ZA, some badgeloot and wotlk blues.

    Doing group quests as feral was all about outlasting them by using CDs and not doing very much damage in bear form. If possible I would root and heal.

    With moonkin all I did was pop trees, trinkets, barkskin and some hots before the fight. With frenzy proccing I had a very good mitagion so I wasnt taking much damage. Start off with SF, MF, IS and then just spamm wrath for 4K crits and they went down quite fast. Having HoTs ticking for quite some numbers aswell during the fight made it really easy. Keep in mind that balance healing is way stronger than feral.

    I even managed to solo the really hard group quests by using this tactic, using pots, herbalism heal, Dash away in cat form to heal up, you know the deal.

    So in my conclusion balance is more effective at group quests due to:
    1 - Higher damage
    2 - Good mitagion
    3 - Stronger heals
    4 - Better CC and mobilty to give you time to heal/kite

    I want to put in a reservation that this might be the case because my balance gear was way better than my feral gear.

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  12. #12

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    I started leveling as Moonkin with very good equip (4/8 T6, Sunwell, Badge, etc.) but then switched to Feral at lvl 72 because no one invites you for instances, even if your Moonkin gear is the best on the Server.

    Since i was one of our Sunwell-Maintanks before Lich King, my Feral equipment is even better (8/8 T6, Sunwell, etc.).

    My opinion is, that if you have the right Moonkin-Purples (thats BALANCE equip as Moonkin, not f***ing healer sets) and the same for Feral, then you kill the big dudes anyway.

    The difference is, that questing as a Feral feels a little bit easier in general, because you sneak around faster when stealthed, and the big hp-pool in Bear-Form also makes SOME elites easier.

    I decided to stay Feral mostly because i want to see instances from the inside, Moonkin is also incredibly good since 3.0, but it still is incompatible with the ignorance and stupidity you´ll face when you try to find a group as a Moonkin.

  13. #13

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    As balance if you can root it you can kill it, just takes patience (or hibernate for that matter).

  14. #14

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    I was a feral with partial T6 (stoped raiding befor the great nerf and never went back to get the rest of it) I was able to solo most group+3 quests as long as the targets didnt do heavy magic damage. one notiable one that was a pain was the howling fjord quest where you had to kill the rune giants. baring cheesing another quest near there that gives you a combat pet for a while it was nearly impossible to take down those guys. I could do it but I only had a 5050 chance of surviveing. most of the deaths happend after I killed the target due to the stacking dot.

    most of the phisical mobs I could just tank into the ground though.

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  15. #15

    Re: Balance/Feral vs Elite group quests.

    as balance, root, tree, typhoon, nature's grasp, and starfall usually kills the mob fast
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