Reasons why you should roll a Druid in Classic:

[Deleted]

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:


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

You are not gear dependant and you have little to zero downtime and selfheal. You also get travelform and catform movespeed at level 20 to get around easily ontop of aquatic form for all the annoying water related things.


- Until level 55 you are able to join every dungeon group no matter what role they need.

DPS? You can join. Heal? You can join Tank? You can join. You can perform on all of these roles in feral specc and with bad gear until the endgame dungeons.

- Druids are no longer limited to healbots in modern vanilla.

People have found ways to massively power up feral DPS through wolfshead helm and nonstop powershifting, putting Feral DPS on around middle of the pack with other DPS classes that aren't fury warriors and rogues. In the same specc, you will also be working as an offtank even in MC. And as such you are a midtier DPS who is also offtanking and provides raid utility in innervate, battlerezz and critbuff.

Moonkins, just like elemental shamans are an accepted DPS in the latestage of Vanilla. AQ40 is what provides both Shamans and Druids with optimized gear to perform as caster DPS when racking up on demonic runes for mana sustain and likewise keep on par with most vanilla DPS classes.


- Druids are the least played class

Druids are tradionally the least played class on every vanilla server. This means a few things for you.

- You have little to zero loot competition during raids.
- You are highly wanted in raiding guilds even if druids are not a toptier class.
- You are highly wanted for PvP ranking premades as a flagcarry.
- You stand out more across the playerbase and will find recognition faster if you are a good player, in the community based game that is Vanilla WoW. Since there is very little druids, being a good player will make you stick out highly from the mass.


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

Wtf what are you talking about you need gear for 3 different speccs???


Druids as a class are all over the place. Even if you have access to Naxx and AQ40 gear, your best items. Items that you will FOREVER continue using as they are BiS are often lowlvl items, PvP items and quest rewards.

If you play a druid, you can obtain anywhere of 20 and 40% of your BiS gear in the first few months of classic coming out. Items you will NEVER replace, ever again because they are better than anything you can get even from Naxx or AQ40.


Among them is a level 43 epic staff world drop, you can just buy from the AH. Being the best tanking weapon in the game.

The best tanking ring for you is a blue item quest reward and a ring from MC.

The best trinket you will keep using forever is something you get in the first days of hitting 60 from Onyxia attunement.

The best gloves and boots are from getting PvP rank 12 which is very achievable compared to rank 14.

The best helmet is a level 40 blue item any tribal leatherworker can make for you, so good its better than T6 helm into TBC.

The best DPS weapon, you basically get by hitting exalted in AV since weapon DPS is irrelevant for druids in vanilla. This means unstoppable force is equal to toptier/highend weapons for druids and the list goes on.



- Druids are a good class to make money with

Mages, Rogues and Hunters are the unquestioned topdogs for goldmaking in Vanilla. But druid follows right after, being able to farm things such as Maraudon Princess which is a common farmmethod also for rogues, hunters and warlocks, putting out about 30-40 gold per hour. Ontop of being able to gather herbs easily with travel form and the tauren racial.




- You have the best mount in the game the first weeks into Vanilla

Having played during 3 different vanilla realm launches, it usually takes a good while before epic mounts are something you see commonly or even at all.

If you are optimizing your leveling and playtime, you are going to achieve PvP rank 8 in the first few weeks of the server launch.

This means you get access to the druid pvp set, boosting your movement speed in forms by 15%. Now adding the movespeed enchant on your boots, puts your travelform at 63% movement speed. In other words, you are as fast as people are mounted with Carrot on a Stick.

Except that other players can not mount in combat. Have a 3(!) second casttime to mount up in vanilla and get dismounted when touching water or getting dazed.

If you play a flagcarry during this brief period of vanilla, it also means that players can never catch up to you as you are holding the flag since you run faster/equal than they do.




If all of these reasons have not convinced you to roll druid, heres two amazing PvP videos that will show you that druids are anything but bad in modern vanilla PvP.

Balance Druid World PvP



BG Flagcarrying + Walljumps + Feral Druid WPvP




(Skip to 1 minute)

[Storfan]

You forgot the best reason:

- Druids dont have to res people when the raid wipes.[

[Eleccybubb]

Reasons why I shouldn't...

Because I want to play what I want. Not what is the best

[Cerilis]

I'm sold. Was toying with the idea already, but this list...

[BuckSparkles]

Druids make good flag carries, have a battle rez, and good healing. Can do a bit of everything.

[Eveningforest]

I actually do applaud the OP for their effort. Druid is an awesome class albeit not too popular in Vanilla.

Just to add a personal anecdote. As a druid who liked healing, I was getting recruited for raiding by the mid 50s, getting ran through dungeons and generally getting help gearing up. Dragged to MC at 59.
Always one of the best geared toons in the guild, from Cenarion through Genesis.

If you like resto in raids, you will be loved. Off raids, spec anything you want, plenty of choices to go by.

[Fathme]

Druids could litteraly do everything in vanilla, it was awesome! I remember dpsing as a kitty on the last few bosses in BWL. We healed too!

Pretty sure bear tanks were a thing too, as off tanks and the like. TBH i was 15 thought so I don't exactly remember everything crystal clear

[Eveningforest]

Pretty sure bear tanks were a thing too, as off tanks and the like. TBH i was 15 thought so I don't exactly remember everything crystal clear

There were, we played with offspecs in places on farm. Like MC, BWL, ZG. I went Moonkin for the variety many times (just to be able to look at he actual fights instead of staring at 40 boxes the whole time, heh).

I think the difference was, at least in my guild, that you were a healer first for progression, then got to mess around on stuff that was easy. This kind of freedom is something the dps classes could not really enjoy nearly as much as us hybrids.

[Hitei]

I'm not sure being able to do like 15 times the work of a rogue or warrior for less dps is really a reason to play a druid. Ditto "eventually in later raids or overgeared farm content you can be a worse warlock/mage!"

Not to mention the spots for both of these roles will be very limited, and raid groups are going to be hesitant to bring either, particularly for progression.

Also, while it's true that druids are underpopulated on private servers (because they arent good) the majority of players in classic will not be that crowd, and many will not have played vanilla in any form: so you are likely to see a fairly large population of druids, especially day one.

Furthermore they are not the third easiest class to level, mages are, after warlocks and hunters. I wouldn't even put druids above paladins or shamans, though paladins are very dull.

[HavokHeart]

You forgot the best reason:

- Druids dont have to res people when the raid wipes.[

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.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not sure being able to do like 15 times the work of a rogue or warrior for less dps is really a reason to play a druid. Ditto "eventually in later raids or overgeared farm content you can be a worse warlock/mage!"

Not to mention the spots for both of these roles will be very limited, and raid groups are going to be hesitant to bring either, particularly for progression.

Also, while it's true that druids are underpopulated on private servers (because they arent good) the majority of players in classic will not be that crowd, and many will not have played vanilla in any form: so you are likely to see a fairly large population of druids, especially day one.

Furthermore they are not the third easiest class to level, mages are, after warlocks and hunters. I wouldn't even put druids above paladins or shamans, though paladins are very dull.

Leader of the pack?

Mark of the wild?

Innervate?

Druids had some of the most utility in the game.

[Echocho]

I agree with anything the OP said. One thing to remember though is that all of this is based on private server information. Things may change in Classic.

[Lucarocks92]

That was a really great read thanks for this

[Storfan]

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.

- - - Updated - - -



Leader of the pack?

Mark of the wild?

Innervate?

Druids had some of the most utility in the game.

Druid t1 is incredibly bad, but that ring from Majordomo, hhnnnnng.

[Craaazyyy]

druids still suck compared to mages LuL

/s

[Hitei]

Leader of the pack?

Mark of the wild?

Innervate?

Druids had some of the most utility in the game.

Which is the only reason why they get the 3-4 raid spots they are given. Resto brings the bottom two, and you are probably better off bringing a shaman for WF or a warrior/rogue/mage for more DPS than feral for LotP, especially when they take so much more effort, skill and knowledge to do subpar DPS than one of those three.

My point is that most of the reasons to play them given here aren't really reasons to play "You can almost be useful damage by doing a massive amount more work than these other classes" or "You get brought to raids to cast innervate on a healer once per fight, and maybe Brez a tank!" are not reasons people should play a druid. They are reasons why people are better off playing something else.

Ease of leveling is not a reason to play a druid, it is a reason to play a hunter, warlock, mage, paladin or shaman.

Ability to farm is not a reason to play a druid, it is a reason to play a hunter, mage, warlock or paladin.

"You get brought to raids!" diito.

etc, etc.

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.

[Hunterwep]

What have you done, I wanted to level a Druid already, now everybody will

[Lightshadow86]

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.

I'm pretty sure this is why you want a druid. One extra healer at one fight, one extra tank at another. Vanilla was like this. Dont need full spec, off tanking was fine without. Even healing. Problem was you couldnt be one 100% and be best, but something to think about before rolling druid. But that wad prolly what you meant

[Hitei]

Maybe they can be used for offtanks or something? That way you get the crit but you don't have to waste an actual DPS spot for it. Or is it still better to use hybrid specced warriors to do the offtanking?

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.

I'm pretty sure this is why you want a druid. One extra healer at one fight, one extra tank at another. Vanilla was like this. Dont need full spec, off tanking was fine without. Even healing. Problem was you couldnt be one 100% and be best, but something to think about before rolling druid. But that wad prolly what you meant

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.

[Molis]

If all you want to do is heal in end game content then sure go for it

[Deleted]

Which is the only reason why they get the 3-4 raid spots they are given. Resto brings the bottom two, and you are probably better off bringing a shaman for WF or a warrior/rogue/mage for more DPS than feral for LotP, especially when they take so much more effort, skill and knowledge to do subpar DPS than one of those three.

My point is that most of the reasons to play them given here aren't really reasons to play "You can almost be useful damage by doing a massive amount more work than these other classes" or "You get brought to raids to cast innervate on a healer once per fight, and maybe Brez a tank!" are not reasons people should play a druid. They are reasons why people are better off playing something else.

Ease of leveling is not a reason to play a druid, it is a reason to play a hunter, warlock, mage, paladin or shaman.

Ability to farm is not a reason to play a druid, it is a reason to play a hunter, mage, warlock or paladin.

"You get brought to raids!" diito.

etc, etc.

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.

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