Theorycrafting: Druids' Talents

[Doofoos]

Maybe we're looking at something like this?

Almost. Main problem is, 0\30\21 build doesn't have enough talents to cover all aspects of the build - you will have to sacrifice.
Here is an explanation. Look at your build - you picking up 2\2 Improved Shred, and that means you are planning to deal damage sometimes, but you cant do it properly without a 2\2 Blood Frenzy in that case! Or well you can, but you will lose significant part of Feral dps tree. There is a still a question, what's better - Shred or Claw? In my opinion, Shred is better, but some druids disagree with me, because Claw costs less energy, and you will get combo points faster. And i can agree with that. Anyway i didn't have time to test Shred vs Claw dps, so i can't provide any reliable info on that case.
So 2\2 Blood Frenzy is must have for cat dps, and there is 2 options left:
1) If you wanna do dmg through Claw - 2\2 Savage fury + 2\2 Blood frenzy is your choice, harmless.
2) but if you wanna do it through 2\2 Imp.Shred + 2\2 Blood Frenzy, you will miss 2 talents, and you will have to sacrifice, by removing points from some other talents. In my opinion, best choice will be 1\2 Savage Fury - since it does not "buff" your Shred damage, and losing 10% Maul+Swipe dmg buff is not significant (im able to tank with 0\2 anyways), and 4\5 Heart of the Wild (losing 4% stat from HotW is not that huge).
5\5 Thick Hide is not that important as well, at least for me, 5\5 Feral Instinct gives +15% threat and opportunity to stealth-run some instances.
And about healing - some instances are hard, like Strat Live\DM:West, even for resto druid. As example - there is a lot of aoe mobs in DM:West, and druid doesnt have a Chain Heal or Prayer of Healing to heal his party like shamans or priests do (except Tranquility, which is 5 min cd), so you will have to waste a lot of mana on hotting your group up with unefficient for 0\30\21 Rejuvenation, and spam heal with Healing Touch rank 3.
Anyway my observations might be outdated, i have left 0\30\21 build a long ago, even before DM release. Perhaps now, with DM healing gear situation have changed and such hybrid is not struggling in hard instances.
I hope you understand my point of view on that hybrid term.

[Daedalos]

Ofcourse I understand your concern! I plan on primarily tanking, and off-healing. So obviosly dpsing isn't my primary goal. I'll try to play around with the talents.

[Greaben]

Due to a lack of useful talents in the Restoration tree after 26 or so points, here's an alternate PVE Restoration build: 24/0/27



Pros: *Having both Moonglow and Tranquil Spirit makes our Healing Touch as mana efficient as it can get and you can often just suffice with that 1 spell. Regrowth and Rejuvenation are also cheaper.
*Much more effective for solo mob grinding than pure Restoration.
*Vengeance and Nature's Grace scale well with gear.
*Nature's Grasp and Thorns utility is nice.
Cons: *Miss out on Improved Rejuvenation and Regrowth to get that mana efficiency.
*Lots of pushback, no Nature's Focus. Protip: Try not to get hit while healing.
*Lack of Subtlety can cause threat issues, mostly throughout the levelling process in pugs. Negligible in a raiding environment.

I think Tranquility is honestly so horrendously mana-inefficient that it shouldn't be cast at all, so Improved Tranquility ain't worth shit to me.

[Fainaru_Furasshu]

This is a good balance PvP build for ppl who want be able to do nice healing in raids aswell(which you have to if you want balance gear). Might look a bit weird for a balance PvP build, but it works.

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#0zpxhMxsZZVtcofq

couldn't upload pic :/
file too big, rip!

[Actionfigure]

I'd love to bring up a discussion about the variety Druids bring to the field. No other class is able to place down talent-points, which will allow them to be either a- tank, dps, supporter or healer. My goal is to achieve high-tier as a bear tank, and when Ahn'Qiraj is released my talents will obviously appear different.

But for the time being, I'd love to primarily tank dungeons and occasionally heal and dps. For this I will require a hybrid tree of talents -- And I was hoping you guys would build it with me.


( http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#0ZeGxoc0dxqxcoxo )

This is what I've come up with. I'm struggling with 'Faerie Fire (Feral)' as I would normally initiate from caster-form. Most of my pulls goes: Regrowth -> Faerie Fire -> Bear but could in theory be replaced with Regrowth -> Insect Swarm -> Bear for further damage reduction due to -hit.

Also, you could replace 'Nature's Swiftness' with 'Leader of the pack'

I am currently in the process of leveling up my druid. But I to am going to go the Hybrid path as well. I found this pretty nice guide over on the Valkyrie forums and goes quite in-depth on the subject.

Here is the link: (https://valkyrie-wow.org/boards/index.p ... topic=1014)

Unfortunately, it looks like the build links are dead. But it clear shows that their are two choices of building your Hybrid; Bear (Primal Fury/ 3 Feral Instinct) or Kitty (Blood Frenzy/Imp Shred) focus.

So I think its a good start.

Hope this helps and hope to find more info on this subject.

Thanks

*Edit: Going off the information provided in that thread; these are the two builds I came up with:
Bear Focus & Kitty Focus

[Daedalos]

Long ass post

I just hit 38, going into my 3rd week, and I've closed my wished down to this. I hope you can get some inspiration for your future hybrid



Desired gear list:
http://i.imgur.com/Snirihr.jpg

With the exception of changing the cloak to 'Cloak of Warding' for the extra armor, and swapping 'Naglering' with 'Thrall's Resolve' again, for the armor bonus.

[Zaft]

Due to a lack of useful talents in the Restoration tree after 26 or so points, here's an alternate PVE Restoration build: 24/0/27



Pros: *Having both Moonglow and Tranquil Spirit makes our Healing Touch as mana efficient as it can get and you can often just suffice with that 1 spell. Regrowth and Rejuvenation are also cheaper.
*Much more effective for solo mob grinding than pure Restoration.
*Vengeance and Nature's Grace scale well with gear.
*Nature's Grasp and Thorns utility is nice.
Cons: *Miss out on Improved Rejuvenation and Regrowth to get that mana efficiency.
*Lots of pushback, no Nature's Focus. Protip: Try not to get hit while healing.
*Lack of Subtlety can cause threat issues, mostly throughout the levelling process in pugs. Negligible in a raiding environment.

I think Tranquility is honestly so horrendously mana-inefficient that it shouldn't be cast at all, so Improved Tranquility ain't worth shit to me.

24/0/27 pretty much the "go to" build for well geared druids, especially ones with a little bit of crit on their gear. The biggest drawback is of course the loss of burst heal and possible pushback on heal, which might make this spec garbage for certain fights. The fact that it's much better for farming also makes quite a huge difference, especially if you spend the week farming reagents for Naxx. For a druid with poor gear the normal deep resto build would probably be better, and easier to play, though deep resto might be even better with the 8 set T3 bonus as it makes Regrowth more viable to use, but I'm not sure about that.

Changes I would make to the build: I would change 1 in sub to 1 in heal pushback to deal with some interruptions, and I would also remove 2 from Tranquil Spirit and max out Imp Rejuvenation.

[Tony Hawkings]

In-Game you can only put 2 Points into Feline'Swiftness?Is this bugged ?

[Draenin]

I would really like to know how many stealth levels does Feral Instinct give you. If it is possible to find out. I've been using it and well It seems to work really well, can get past most people without them reacting fast enough.

[Daedalos]

I still think this spec needs attention. It's an awesome soloing build, has the talents to tank as a bear, and the possibility to heal.