The Adventures of Five Kittens

[Ualaa]

I renewed my accounts, to participate in AV Weekend.

And decided to use the Druids, since they've always been a fun class and one of my favorites.
The last the Druids were used, was as Ferals, shortly after the release of Cataclysm.
They are 85th, with a minimal of the PvE stuff done, and had whatever Feral gear could be crafted or earnt with honor at that time.
They also had questing/leveling up type caster gear, that wasn't specifically Boomkin or Resto type stuff but rather a mix of the two.

For a change of pace, I've decided to go Resto on their secondary spec, with the plan of full Honor-Resto gear first, and then Honor-Feral gear (earnt as Resto).
Talent Spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft




They started with zero resiliency, and for the relative gearing of this point in the expansion fairly pathetic armors and equipment (avg. iLV 290, approx).

In my first day of AV's... a solo Feral, a solo Rogue and a solo Warlock were able to solo my team.
In time, that will change.




My setup is fairly basic at this point.

One toon, full screen on Monitor A (1920x1080).
Four toons, each a quarter of the screen on Monitor B.

The Jamba item bar includes three items.
The alchemist flask, conjured mana cake (food/water), and the PvP Trinket.
A repeater region, sends any click on the bar to all clients.

My Grid is setup to display my five toons in column one.
And the rest of the raid in columns two through eight.
Pets are not displayed within the Grid.
A repeater region, sends any click within the Grid to all five kittens.

I've configured Clique to only respond to clicks within the Grid frame.
The setup is as follows:
- L. Click = Rejuvenation
- Alt Left = Remove Corruption
- R. Click = Nourish
- Alt Right = Healing Touch
- Ctrl L = Lifebloom
- Ctrl R = Regrowth

1 Wrath
2 Starfire
3 Moonfire
4 Insect Swarm
5 Hurricane (auto enables Mouse Broadcasting > Send Next Click)
6 Nature's Swiftness + Rebirth (on Round-Robin)
7 Nourish
8 Lifebloom
9 Rejuvenation
0 Healing Touch
- Swiftmend
= Tree of Life

I also have Mark of the Wild + 4x Remove Corruption on a keybind, Innervate with each Druid hitting another Druid, Barkskin (@Self), Thorns (@Self), Tranquility (on round-robin), and Nature's Grasp as hotkeys.



Chances are, my setup will evolve over time, as I have zero experience boxing 5x Healers in mass PvP.

Day 1: Friday, December 16th.
Played five AV's today, with a queue of around 3 minutes (the PvP icon shows an 11 minute avg queue time).

I won the first game, and lost the next four.
So a 20% win rate.

I added added the Honor Gloves (iLV 390), socketing them 20 INT/20 SPT, and enchanting them with Haste.

So far the plan is to stick with the swarm.
To left click on the Grid frame, for 5x Rejuvenation on anyone who is hurt.
Scroll wheel down is Wild Growth, for when several need heals at once.
Right click is the default heal (Nourish), but I don't yet have the healing power to "save" one of my toons, when a solo DPS focuses her.
My 5x Moonfire, 5x Insect Swarm and Wrath spam downs the non-special NPC's fairly quickly, but that doesn't count for much.

Wondering if I should take "Balance of Power 1/2", for 50% of my Spirit as Spell Hit, which would likely PvP hit-cap my toons with full honor gear.

Contemplating taking Nourish off of the easy to click on binding, for another instant cast.
Possibly swap Nourish and Remove Corruption.

[Ualaa]

Day 2: Saturday, December 17th
Played eight AV's in the morning today, alternating win then loss for each pair of games.
50% win rate, but probably not really a result of my impact on the game yet.

Added the Chest piece to each Druid, giving the two-piece bonus (+400 RES, +70 INT).
Socketed Red: +40 INT and Yellow: +20 INT & +20 RES; Enchanted: +40 RES.
Resilience has skyrocketed to 1,340 and is quite noticeable.

Still following the larger groups of alliance, for the most part.

Had a few incidents with small groups of horde, took out a pair of Hunters at range... was able to outheal their DPS, as the Moonfire/Insect Swarm and occasional Wrath hit them.

A group of four horde, who were backcapping near the Iceblood Tower / Iceblood Graveyard choke point took me out.
But it took them a good minute or so to do so, which is a long time in battleground pvp.
I know the Battle Rez on round-robin works fine.

Next acquisition will be the Staff; it costs 3,400 honor and requires 7,250 honor earnt in the current season... which I'll have exactly, when I have the 3,400 honor.

I changed the Clique binding, swapping Cleanse with Nourish.
Left/Right clicks are the default actions for the Kitties (Rejuvenation & Cleanse).
Scroll Wheel are the AoE moves (Swiftmend [Effloresence] & Wild Growth).
Alt clicks are efficient cast time heals (Nourish & Healing Touch).
Ctrl clicks are tank heals and emergency heals (Lifebloom & Regrowth).
Still learning the system...

[EaTCarbS]

Why not do x1 Resto, x4 feral?

[Tim]

Heeeeelll yea I've really wondered how 5x druids would do these days.

I'd love to do AV as 5x pure resto, the problem is people rarely fight in AV. They just run and cap. Wins depend on recaps vs big all out brawls.

[Ualaa]

Originally Posted by EaTCarbS

Why not do x1 Resto, x4 feral?

Feral was fun, initially.

That was when they had:
a) Berserk = Fear break, even if feared & fear immunity for the duration; and
b) Power Shifting = Snare & Root break, at the cost of a GCD.
c) Overpowered DOTs (Rake & Rip) that decimated everyone, and being dots completely ignored armor.

With the nerfs to Berserk and Power Shifting...
But still with the extremely powerful DOTs, a single Frost Mage as geared as the druids could essentially shut down the team; I tried running them for thirty or so BG's after the change and did not like it.

I plan on going Feral for MoP; that is my favorite class/spec combination.
The composition will reacquire the shift = break roots and remove snares (even as a non-resto).
And although the Berserk = Fear Removal/Immunity is still gone, they will gain Nature's Swiftness in Cat Form... which is 5x (every 3 minutes) a big heal on round-robin, plus the instant cast Nature spell (via Predator Strikes).

As a severely undergeared team... DPS adds very little to a BG, in general.
Heals seem to add a lot more to the success or failure of mass pvp.
AV isn't really PvP, it's a PvE DPS race, with incidental PvP contact along the way...
But boxing healers is something I've never really done.
I'd consider 5x Resto Shammies as well, but they're only 80th... and the Druids are 85th already.

Resto (or healing in general) is not my favorite thing in the world.
But this is a change of pace from the DPS.
If I wanted to do the DPS, I'd go back to Paladin + 4x Death Knights (who are basically full Conquest 4.1 geared, compared to sub-crafted 4.1 druid gearing).

The goal is Resto for a full set of Resto + Feral gear, which will then be used (the Feral stuff) for MoP when that comes out.
With the reduction in Honor cost for gear (Honor at 2x the older speed), I'll have the full set of Honor gear is half the time, and with the full set likely be able to acquire the Feral stuff faster than before.

Not sure if that is the best approach or not.
But I really like Druids... did not like Feral after the nerfs... and did like the 5x Resto video by Cyberus on D-B.com's "The Commons".

1-2x Resto and 3-4x Feral would play more like the Paladin + 4x Death Knight composition...
If 5x Feral doesn't work out in MoP, it's an option too.
Had not really considered going that route at all, not saying it is bad but that it had not even occurred to me...

[Ualaa]

Day 3: Sunday, December 18th
Unfortunately did not have a whole lot of time today, and I'm starting a new job tomorrow so cannot stay up terribly late tonight.
Won 3 games, Lost 5 games, 37.5% win rate.

A Ret-Pally attacked the group, and I placed 5x Insect Swarm + 5x Moonfire on him, and then outhealed his damage. He eventually chose to run, and a few Wrath spells got him (Starting to win some 5 on 1 fights!).

Two different hunters were able to solo my team... which at the moment is kind of sad on my part. They both dropped my toons in approximately 2-3 shots per toon, much faster than my heal rate.

I hear that Healers are very hard to kill, but evidently not there yet.

Gained 2,500 honor on the night, so either 3 wins or 4.5 losses (or some combination) away from the Staff.

Tree of Life, combined with Wrath spam is fairly nice damage.
Close to 25k per second DPS.
Definitely a nice combination; I'm using ToL as an offensive buff at the moment.

Starting to learn the keybinds a little bit... still thinking at times, instead of instinctively pressing the correct heal.
- Left click is the default heal, Rejuvenation.
- Right click is Cleanse, or the Druid version of that.
- With a Rejuv up, scroll wheel up is an instant bigger heal (Swiftmend), and does an AoE heal (Efflorescence).
- Scroll wheel down is Wild Growth for the other AoE.
- Ctrl clicks are the panic heals... left = Lifebloom, right = Regrowth.
- Regrowth auto refreshes itself, on targets under 50%.
- Any heal with a cast time (Regrowth or Nourish_Alt-L & Healing Touch_Alt-R) refreshes Lifebloom on the target.
The interactions, such as Lifebloom getting refreshed are not automatic yet.

I've used Cat Form > Stealth a fair bit, to bypass groups that I cannot defeat (any group of 3-4 horde really).

The best time is when there are alliance at say 20-30 yards away, and horde beyond the alliance... say 25-40 yards away.
In relative safety, 5x Rejuvenation (even with fairly weak spell power, that is fairly massive) and Swiftmend, Lifebloom, Regrowth can handle quite a bit of spike DPS or focus fire if none of my toons are the target.

[Ualaa]

Day 4: Monday, December 19th.
The last day of AV weekend, for another month or so...
13 Games Played -- Won 4, Lost 9, 30.76% win rate.

As the resilience goes up, I'm noticing a drastic increase in their staying power. Today, they added their Caster Staff and Shoulders (3 pieces towards the 4 piece bonus). They have 1,829 resilience, 101K health, 75K mana and an average item level of 323.

Wild Growth + Efflorescence will out-heal a Blizzard or a Hurricane, as more than one horde toon discovered.

With one point into Balance of Power, they're PvP hit capped... so 5x Insect Swarm + 5x Moonfire, without any nuking takes out anyone without heals; have had success dotting one, healing myself, dotting the second one, healing myself, dotting the third, healing myself...

With larger groups, I'm better off going Tree Form + Wrath spam.

My success, as expected, is dependent upon the number of other players in the vicinity.
With 3-4 alliance DPS, I do rather well against 10-12 horde; without those 3-4 helpers, an equal number of horde is rather difficult with some victories and some defeats tonight.

Curious how they'll be, once fully geared (have current season honor gear in 4 of the 16 available slots).

[Ualaa]

Merry Christmas, have a safe holiday season!

Day 5: Sunday, December 25th.
17 Games Played: 7 Wins, 10 Losses, 41.17% Win Rate.

Added the PvP helm today, which includes the Meta gem.
Apparently I was reading the average item levels wrong; they have iLV 321 in equipped (Resto) gear, the higher iLV number was a summary of the best pieces including the 4.0.3 Feral (Honor) gear.
They now have 2,192 Resilience, 104K Health, 81K Mana.

Warcraft wanted my authenticator code today, for the first time since logging in on day one (wanted it then, the first two logins).

The healing mouse clicks are natural now, even after not playing for a week or so.

Geared toons can still down my toons fairly quickly, but with a few HOTs rolling they are rather harder to down now than initially.
I've only got current season honor gear in 5 of the 16 slots, so that should improve rather drastically in the future.

I had a few fun encounters today, one in particular stands out.
A horde death knight decides to Death Grip an alliance hunter; a few more hordies (shadow priest, rogue, hunter) decide to join in.
At maximum healing range, they don't have the combined DPS to kill him.
When they move into range to attack me, I'm clicking HOTs on my team for a little while, and then go Treeform and Wrath spam their hunter down.
My hunter has finished their rogue and priest at this point.
Several other horde join in at this point, but Cat Form (with +30% speed) and Disentanglement allow me to run off fine.

A horde four-boxer (Elemental Shammies) was in one of the games.
The alliance could not take the Relief Hut graveyard from him, and my druids could not initially stealth past the turtle attempt at IBT/IBGY.
Staying fairly far back of the action, the turtle could not drop many of the alliance with my healing them, and we broke through.
I met up with the Shaman at the Frostwolf Graveyard; he was able to drop the few alliance who stopped to engage, much faster than I could heal them (he was switching targets fairly randomly).
In a boxer vs boxer war, DPS > Healers head on, but Healers have a greater impact on the win/loss.
We won that BG by reinforcements, by a 100 margin.



I looked up the "click release corpse" when dead macro today, it was rather easy: /script RepopMe(); ... had an annoying incident where one toon survived an encounter, but the other four not only died but had their insignia's removed... which resulted in two toons rezzing in the cave, two at the Relief Hut and one in the middle of the map.
We won that one, within a minute or so.

Also now using: /run CompactRaidFrameManager:UnregisterAllEvents() CompactRaidFrameManager:Hide() CompactRaidFrameContainer:UnregisterAllEvents() CompactRaidFrameContainer:Hide() as this hides the blizzard raid frames that occasionally pop up and cover the left (top to bottom) eighth of the screen.
It also removes the raid control thing, which in numerous videos is dragged just off of the screen.
Unfortunately, the macro needs to be run each time a toon is logged into the game; I've added it to the invite toons into my group macro.

[Ualaa]

Day 5: Sunday, December 25th (Part II).
12 Games Played: 9 Wins, 3 Losses, 75.00% Win Rate.

Played a bunch of games after the evening Christmas stuff was finished. Not sure why, but these were much more successful than earlier.

Added the PvP Legs, which brings the team to: 2,516 Res, 325 iLV, 114K Health and 90K Mana.

No need for the authenticator -- guessing repeated logins from the same computer/IP address are fine, but a new login or a login after time away will require it.

I learnt that my team does not yet have the healing necessary for a Blitz... tried it, with a 150K tank and was fine at keeping him up... up until one of the Warmasters did a spin move and took out my team in a few seconds.

Had an attrition game, with a horde boxer (1x Resto Druid + 4x Frost Death Knight).
The DK team cleaned my team in seconds... twice.
But staying well back from the action, my team easily outhealed his DPS and we won that game by 80 reinforcements and it was a 52 minute game.

A good tactic is Tranquility on round-robin (3 min cooldown, with talents); either spamming it 2-3 times in quick succession or spacing it out some. That can soak some serious AoE damage.
The other trick is Tree of Life, which aside from the devastating Wrath... it allows Lifebloom on more than a single target and makes Regrowth instant.
Tranquility (3 min c/d), Tree of Life (3 min c/d), Innervate (3 min c/d)... combine for two big spike healing scenarios in attrition type games.

[Tim]

I love reading about your kittens Ualaa, esp since I'm leveling up 3 druids myself.

You mentioned "The other trick is Tree of Life, which aside from the devastating Wrath"

Does Wrath do more damage somehow?

Do you find yourself doing pure Resto runs of your Druids and having fun with it? Do you spam Wild Growth like it was going out of style?