Priests compared druids in the arena...

[Deleted]

I've been researching a little about PvP healers (Got a druid, leveling a priest)...

And people seem to agree that druids do a little better then priests in BGs, but in the arena it's the other way around.

I know next to nothing about helaing in the arena, so this info might not be correct.

So is it? And if yes, what is it that makes priests little stronger in arena???

[magicism]

Great offensive abilities. Played right you can have the pressure of a double dps team while still having very strong heals and CC.

[AetherMcLoud]

Priests "a little" stronger in arena? Really?

Granted I haven't played arena for half a year now (I do bgs though) but AFAIK Druids are "a lot" stronger than priests in arena.

Priest Pros:
- Best Offensive Abilities of all healers
- Shields are nice
- Offensive and Defensive Magic Dispells
- Disease Dispells (only helpful against DKs)
- Penance rocks

Druids Pros:
- Awesome Manareg
- Hots are very nice
- Swiftmend rocks
- Simply cannot be kited
- Huge amount of armor in treeform
- Most escape mechanisms of all healers
- Easiest healer to run away and drink with (travelform, etc.)
- Awesome CC with Cyclone and roots
- Curse and Poison Dispells (very helpful against Warlocks and Rogues)
- Can go bear for emergency situations
- Immune to polymorph (can be banished though)

And probably much more I'm not thinking of right now?

[Ultima]

I agree with the above poster, I think Resto Druids trump us in the arena...and in PvE but that's another matter!

In a double DPS set up, a Resto Druid has a very very large mana bar (Innervate without dispels). Cyclone really doesn't get the respect it should, it can really screw over a team through confusion or just braking rotation/mindset. Add that to what McLoud said and..yeah!

[Ershiin]

if yes, what is it that makes priests little stronger in arena???

Manaburn... Although I wouldn't really call Priests "stronger". Just more dangerous.

[Xelaeno]

Priests are offensive healers, druids are defensive healers. I think druids rely more on their partner for survivability, while priests assist their partner in killing. I feel druids are not as good at surviving bursts than priests even with high armor. They rely mostly on movement as their primary defense, which isn't always very reliable.

[lilbandit]

Manaburn... Although I wouldn't really call Priests "stronger". Just more dangerous.

this. mana burn is unbelievably deadly in the right hands. and cyclone is easily avoided by LoS, range, or putting out some decent pressure - easy for example as priest/rogue.

edit: also priests have the advantage of actually being fun to play, resto druids are hella boring to play in arena.

[Arka90]

Actually, I'd say Priests are A LOT stronger than druids in arena, the only place they come close is in 2v2. But Rogue + Priest and Mage + Priest just feels stronger than Warrior + Druid and Warlock + Druid, atm. In 3v3 Warrior + Hpally + Priest and Rogue + Mage + Priest are also still stronger than Warrior + Warlock + Druid. In 5v5, druids are almost non-exsistant compared to priests.

Sure, Druids can keep themselves alive easier, and have more CC. But priests have the strongest dispel in the game (dispel magic + mass dispel), the best damage of all healers, best at burning the enemies' mana of all classes in the game, and they probably have the strongest burst healing (PW:S + Penance). Druids for example have extreme problems keeping someone alive if the enemy team switches target to someone with no HoTs (especially with 2+ dps).

And, yes, I say this even though I play as a priest and dont even know or play together with any resto druid in arena.

[jimothysmith]

mana burn is unbelievably deadly in the right hands. and cyclone is easily avoided by LoS, range, or putting out some decent pressure - easy for example as priest/rogue.

/giggle

mana burn (2s specced cast pre-haste) is deadly in the right hands....but cyclone (1.5s cast pre-haste) is easy to LoS.

Anyway, my thoughts (having never played a resto druid) -
druids pros:
roots
cyclone
abolish poison
decurse
amazing escape mechanics
really short cd on barkskin
bear form
bash
amazing mana regen
if you keep both you and partner(s) pre-hotted it's hard for them to get a kill
don't need to worry about sap/polymorph
cc that works on any class

cons:
no magic removal
short range on cc (and a cast time)
less offensive potential
mana return mechanism is dispellable if you play it wrong

priest pros:
mana burn
offensive/defensive dispel for magic
mass dispel
(short time of usefulness due to upcoming patch changes) abolish disease
2 forms of cc (even if 1 cc's yourself in order to cc the oponent)
great offensive burst (glyph of smite gogo!)
mana return mechanic with burst dps

cons:
shared dr on cc with rogues if you intend to play with 1
few to no escape mechanics
long cd for pain suppression
run oom FAR faster than druids
mana regen mechanic easily cc'd (harder to avoid it as it has to actually be in melee range of the target and can therefore be kited/cc'd/snared)
mass dispel (lol, i just wasted 4000 mana and 3 gcd's and did absolutely nothing!)

that i've seen as a disc, 1v1 situations you should always win v. rogue or hunter, win about 75% of the time v. rets, 50% v. warriors, ferals, oomkin, mages, destro locks, spriests, ele sham, 25% v. enh sham, competent dk's (esp. after patch), and should pretty much always lose v. aff locks. If fighting another healer, both of you lose because you waste way too much time to accomplish nothing.

[Baabinator]

You can't leave a priest alone in arena..

You CAN leave a druid alone, since all he does is rely on his partner.

[Deleted]

this. cyclone is unbelievably deadly in the right hands. and manaburn is easily avoided by LoS, range, or putting out some decent pressure

:

[Deleted]

In 2v2, druids might end up being a littlebit stronger, but they both have different comps they run etc. both are pretty good. In 3v3, priest hands down. Druids are shit in 3v3 and 5v5. They don't have nearly enough healing power to keep up with fast switches, and with the range of cyclone it can be surprisingly hard to land a good CC-chaing if the oppositing team knows how to play. Druids can and will die in the first switch he doens't have trinket and barskin up if you have a slightest idea what you are doing. And against teams that know how to and have the opportunity to spamdispell, good luck keeping anyone up with (assuming they have MS) 1.5k lifebloom explosions every ~1.3 seconds.

But if you are bad, then play druid. They dominate at lower ratings because most of the WoW-players, including people here in mmo-champion, are horrible in PvP.

[lilbandit]

/giggle

mana burn (2s specced cast pre-haste) is deadly in the right hands....but cyclone (1.5s cast pre-haste) is easy to LoS.

i guess your /giggle was sarcasm...but i was deadly serious. I played a resto druid in S2, S3, S4, S6 and S7 (a bit). any good team can avoid cyclone/root chains by:
1. pressure the druid
2. L2p <---biggest factor. interrupt/LoS/range/reflect/pre-bubble the cyclone
3. pressure the teammate hard, causing druid to spam heal. especially easy if you have a priest/rogue team for example
4. resto druids have almost NO offensive ability apart from offensively using cyclone. if you die to a wrath spam, you pretty much suck. resto druids cannot kill anyone in 1v1, whereas a good priest can drop you in a matter of seconds.

imo go disco priest, much more enjoyable to play, more utility, imo better regen - shadow fiend + hymn of hope - if you can't use these properly..well....
innervate is easily dispelled by any decent team.

and mana burn is just yummy

[AnEpicName]

i guess your /giggle was sarcasm...but i was deadly serious. I played a resto druid in S2, S3, S4, S6 and S7 (a bit). any good team can avoid cyclone/root chains by:
1. pressure the druid
2. L2p <---biggest factor. interrupt/LoS/range/reflect/pre-bubble the cyclone
3. pressure the teammate hard, causing druid to spam heal. especially easy if you have a priest/rogue team for example
4. resto druids have almost NO offensive ability apart from offensively using cyclone. if you die to a wrath spam, you pretty much suck. resto druids cannot kill anyone in 1v1, whereas a good priest can drop you in a matter of seconds.

imo go disco priest, much more enjoyable to play, more utility, imo better regen - shadow fiend + hymn of hope - if you can't use these properly..well....
innervate is easily dispelled by any decent team.

and mana burn is just yummy

Although I think I like playing my priest more in arena also, you just give way to many cons on a druid to have a fair argument.

1. yes, if you pressure a druid he will in fact go oom fast, but like you said that's why you have team mates - they peel for you.
2. L2p issue? I’m sorry but you cant los a bash -> clone combo. And priest penance is WAY to easy to interrupt with a clone.
3. If we're talking about 2s here, pressuring the teammate will result in the dps getting cc'ed and you healer getting dps'ed. If your dps is in a CC, I'm not wasting mana on healing but you're wasting mana on healing yourself.
4. Yes, innervate is very easily dispelled by priests/shammys but refer to #2. CC the dispeller, hell 1 clone with their trinket down is enough to get almost a full vate off.
5. Priests do not have better regen then druids. Whether it be the 5sec rule or your easily clone'able fiend and your easily interruptible Hymn.

Oh yeah, and the fact that you said a resto druid can't 1v1 anyone made me rofl SO hard. Lets see... what classes have I personally 1v1ed... Mage/Rogue/Hunter/DK/Warri, in fact I 1v2ed a hunter/rogue. Basically if they can't heal themselves a resto druid can kill it. I'm really not sure where you came up with that, maybe a L2P issue?

You can't leave a priest alone in arena..

You CAN leave a druid alone, since all he does is rely on his partner.

This is also very false. If a druid is left alone you'll have a stupid long cc chain put on you that is usually very hard to recover from, since cyclones not only CC the target but also block heals/mana gains.

[lilbandit]

lol if you can 1v1 a mage, you are the best druid in the world
if you can 1v1 a warrior, you are the best druid in the world

other 2, perhaps.

[AnEpicName]

lol if you can 1v1 a mage, you are the best druid in the world
if you can 1v1 a warrior, you are the best druid in the world

other 2, perhaps.

O.o seriously?

I'm far from the best, in fact I concider myself pretty bad in arena but I'm learning and getting better. If you wanna see a druid in action thats actually really good go to arenajunkies.com and in their video section there's a Vid by Innate. This druid is just stupid good. I'll try and find the link.

http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=158038

[jimothysmith]

i guess your /giggle was sarcasm...but i was deadly serious. I played a resto druid in S2, S3, S4, S6 and S7 (a bit). any good team can avoid cyclone/root chains by:

Nah, it wasn't sarcasm. I'm not saying it's hard to avoid. I'm simply saying that, in the same sentence commenting on how a 2 second cast is deadly and saying that a 1.5 second cast is easily avoidable is kinda ironic.

shadow fiend + hymn of hope - if you can't use these properly..well....
innervate is easily dispelled by any decent team.

Innervate is easily dispelled by a decent team v. a bad druid, yes. A good druid will abuse LoS while you are snared or use cyclones before casting and put up some dispel cushion prior to casting it.

And fiend can be controlled to avoid snares and CC sometimes, but if you're fighting, for instance, a rogue druid and you get the rogue LoS of the druid and throw your fiend, the rogue can blind the fiend. Lock druid the lock can toss up a UA and then fear it (assuming you've already burned your fear ward), or CoE it so it can't keep up with whoever it's after (yes it can do it's lolstep but only so often, it still gimps your regen). If it is just straight feared (by a nonwarrior...if you send it on a warr who hasn't intim shouted you should fear ward it and move away) or if it gets nova'd or something, unless you got cc'd at the same time, you should be able to quickly dispel it. You have to keep both yourself AND your fiend LoS of a druid, whereas a druid merely needs to remain LoS of you (and maybe your partner if you have another dispeller).

TLDR: Fiend can be a good source of mana if you're extremely cautious with it, but a good team should be able to cc it. innervate can be a good source of mana if you're a tiny bit cautious with it, but a good team may be able to dispel it.

[muto]

a good druid healer can handle a good priest healer no problem, chain cyclone.

[Minia]

Just wondering.. How can a resto druid NOT beat a warrior? =/ Cyclone, roots, cyclone, roots, los, cyclone, roots.. You get the picture. =/

[DrJones]

Just wondering.. How can a resto druid NOT beat a warrior? =/ Cyclone, roots, cyclone, roots, los, cyclone, roots.. You get the picture. =/

Second Wind.
You can keep the warrior of you for a reaaaaaaly long time, but unless you can dps him, while he is smashing your face in, you won't kill him.

O.o seriously?

Killing bad players of each class is possible with every spec, but beating a realy good frostmage as a resto druid is something you won't do without perfect execution and a lot of luck.


On topic: If you want to do BG's and 2on2 arena a druid might be the right choice, otherwise go priest.

2. L2p issue? I’m sorry but you cant los a bash -> clone combo. And priest penance is WAY to easy to interrupt with a clone.

Oh yeah, and the fact that you said a resto druid can't 1v1 anyone made me rofl SO hard. Lets see... what classes have I personally 1v1ed... Mage/Rogue/Hunter/DK/Warri, in fact I 1v2ed a hunter/rogue. Basically if they can't heal themselves a resto druid can kill it. I'm really not sure where you came up with that, maybe a L2P issue?

You can't los a bash? Well, how about you don't get yourself bashed in the first place? I don't think a druid wants to be near to a priest most of the time, due to fear and manaburn, so if there is a druid running towards you, he wants to cc you, so either do it first or avoid it. And even if he realy gets to bash you, that is at max once a minute.
And like said above: Everyone can 1v1 or even 1v2 bad players. But you can't do that with good players as easily. You can do it to some good players of some classes, but against some specs it's realy hard to win against. And if you won against someone 1v2 it means you either outgeared them by miles or they simply sucked.
You can't 1on2 people with equal skill and gear.