Introduction
Hello there, my name is Jerome but people know me online as NOHITJEROME. For the past two years, I've been a full-time streamer focusing mainly on Classic WoW where I achieved rank 14.
You can find me on Twitter or Twitch.
While I enjoy playing as a Warlock and a Warrior, I really like Druids' ability to carry matches in 2s and 3s with great CC usage. Druids have multiple clutch interrupts, and strong heals over time. Moreover, good druids can outmaneuver and outplay melee characters and frustrate them like no other class. This class also works in a wide variety of comps from 2s to 3s to 5s and can be an asset to any team.
Resto Druid Pros:
- Their high amount of CC and extremely high heals over time.
- A high skill cap with the ability to get out of many situations with good movement.
- They have easy to reset fights with travel form and CCs and can Innervate to gain a large amount of mana back.
- Stealth attacks which give a positioning and opener advantage in many matchups.
- If you have the right gear, Druids can be extremely tanky. Even in season one you can negate approximately 50-55% of physical damage before resilience.
- The perfect Druid play can make DPS classes shine as a good CC rotation can set up easy kills for Warriors, Rogues, Hunters and Warlocks.
Resto Druid Cons:
- No offensive purges mean matches against some comps can be slow and difficult.
- They are cooldown dependent for spike healing as Nature's Swiftness has a three-minute cooldown.
- Innervate is vulnerable to being dispelled.
- Aggressive double DPS comps can be a big struggle for newer Druid players.
- Vulnerable to well-timed silences.
Gear
The best gear for you will depend on how you like to play, this is what I recommend when playing PvP.
Phase 1
Body Armor
Item Slot | Item | Drop Location |
Head | Gladiator's Kodohide Helm | Vixton Pinchwhistle |
Shoulders | Gladiator's Kodohide Spaulders | Vixton Pinchwhistle |
Back | Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted | Karazhan |
Chest | Gladiator's Kodohide Tunic | Vixton Pinchwhistle |
Wrist | Bindings of the Timewalker | Alurmi |
Hands | Gladiator's Kodohide Gloves | Alurmi |
Waist | General's Kodohide Belt | Vixton Pinchwhistle |
Legs | Gladiator's Kodohide Legguards | Vixton Pinchwhistle |
Feet | General's Kodohide Boots | Vixton Pinchwhistle |
Jewelry
Item Slot | Item | Drop Location |
Neck | Archaic Charm of Presence | Shadowmoon Valley |
Rings | Naaru Lightwarden's Band | Magtheridon's Lair |
Trinkets
Item Slot | Item | Drop Location |
Trinket | Essence of the Martyr | G'eras |
Weapons
Item Slot | Item | Drop Location |
1-Handed Weapon | Gladiator's Salvation | Vixton Pinchwhistle |
2-Handed Weapon | Exodar Life-Staff | Hellfire Peninsula |
Offhands | Tears of Heaven | G'eras |
Idols | Idol of the Emerald Queen | Shadow Labyrinth |
Stats
When playing Druid, you'll have to prioritize some stats over others. For example:
- Resilience: this one is key to avoid instantly dying against burst.
- Spell Hit: you'll need this to make sure roots/cyclones are not resisted at a key time.
- Health: this should be your next priority, followed by + Healing.
Races
When it comes to races, you only get two options in TBC:
Alliance:
Night Elves:
Night Elves get an additional 1% Dodge chance and Shadowmeld, a very powerful ability that passively reduces the chance for enemies to detect you while prowling as well as granting stealth upon activation. It is easier for Night Elf druids to get drinks off as they can stealth while drinking.
Horde:
Tauren:
Tauren Druids get an amazing stun ability called War Stomp, which is an 8 yard 2 second AoE stun that can easily be chained into Cyclone or Roots. Taurens also naturally get 5% additional health.
Consumables
Arenas
In arenas, keeping stocked up on water and bandages is key. Druids can reset more easily than other healing classes with their travel form, CC and stealth. Getting a clutch drink in a mirror match is usually enough to put your team over the top.
Raid
For raiding I like to use Super Mana potions and Dark Runes as well as Elixir of Healing Power and Elixir of Draenic Wisdom. Golden Fish Sticks are useful for increasing healing and spirit for 30 minutes at a time. Superior Mana Oil is useful for mana regen in raids and dungeons.
Professions
- Enchanting: is a must have because you can get massive benefits from Enchanting like +20 healing on each of your rings.
- Jewelcrafting: can give some minor upgrades to stats.
- Herbalism: this one is my personal favorite as you don’t need to re-mount while picking herbs in Flight form. Druids are incredibly efficient at open world herbing because of their Flight form.
- Engineering: can be useful for leveling (grenades, sappers, etc.)
Playstyle
When raiding and doing dungeons in Burning Crusade Classic, I like to switch to raiding spec with Tree of Life, which increases healing received for party members and reduces the mana cost of my HoTs and Swiftmending by 20%.
It is best to stay in Tree form and keep three stacks of Lifebloom on the main tank. The off-tank can also have full Lifebloom stacks. And, if you want even more heals over time, use Rejuvenation + Regrowth stack on top of the main tank. I also like to use Swiftmending to get the ability to burst heal.
Rejuvenation followed by Nature's Swiftness (NS) is a good burst heal for raid members. Depending on which encounter you face, you can pre-rejuvenation several raid members so that you can Swiftmending for a clutch burst heal when spike damage comes out. You can also NS + regrowth a different raid member if they are also low and cast Tranquility for party-wide healing.
However, if you want to top the healing meters, rejuvenating non-party members and then using Tranquility for your party will increase your healing numbers. Innervate can be used on a Mage in dungeon groups for faster clear efficiency or another healer with mana issues in raids (Priests, Shamans, etc.) Finally, if you are hard carrying healing in a dungeon/raid you may need to save Innervate for yourself.
Rotation
Arena Gameplay Tips
While everyone will play different as a Druid, here are some of the best tips I've gathered this far:
Opener:
Getting the opener right is extremely important for druids. For example:
- Stealth -> Pounce -> Cyclone is generally one of the best openers you can do Against mirror Druids, since both Druids are trying to wait as long as possible before popping out to heal due to potential for CC.
- Stealth -> Nature's Swiftness -> Hibernate is an option as well, which will force trinket usage.
- Against teams with superior stealth detection, like human rogues, it can be better to open in bear form using a defensive weapon set and pre-HOTS.
During the fight:
Every arena match or raid will be different, and therefore you must look at the big picture to really understand what your team needs from you. Here are some things I like to do to avoid getting lost in the heat of the moment.
- Casting Lifebloom x3, Rejuvenation and occasionally Regrowth only when safe from any potential interrupts/CC.
- Take Regrowth as a luxury that should only be cast when the chance for an interrupt is low.
- Use Insect Swarm often as it is your most mana efficient damage spell.
- Moonfire is an instant cast damage ability that is good for applying pressure.
- Wrath can be used as a low mana spell to add extra damage to kill opportunities.
- Starfire can be used at the end of CC chains where there is a kill opportunity or to bait a counterspell.
Don't forget the bear
One of the Druids' most characteristic abilities is that this class can fully transform into a bear whenever you need to. Don't take this ability for granted, as this bear form is important for tanking melees like warriors and rogues and can make it impossible for you to be mana burned or drained.
If this didn't get you on the bear team, then consider that you can't be sapped in bear form, you can't be polymorphed in bear form, and you can interrupt spells in bear form with charge + bash.
Interface
For addons, I like to use Weakauras, Omnibar, SArena, Bartender, SexyMap, Lorti UI, and Threatplates.
Macros
For Druids in arenas, the main priority is to have your CC available for easy use on your Focus target. You also want to be able to combine Nature's Swiftness with most of your abilities, including Healing Touch for your big burst heal, as well as Cyclone for instant CC during kill windows.
Nature's Swiftness + Hibernate is a massive CC capped at 10 seconds in arenas and can be game-winning. Also, you can force trinket usage or end a game if trinket is on CD.
These are some of the Macros i like to use:
Feral Charge Macro
#showtooltip Feral Charge
/cancelform [nostance:1]
/cast [nostance] Dire Bear Form
/cast [target=focus] Feral Charge
Druid Bash Macro
#showtooltip Bash
/cancelform [nostance:1]
/cast [nostance] Dire Bear Form
/cast Bash
Entangling Roots Macro
#showtooltip Entangling Roots(Rank 1)
/cast [target=focus] Entangling Roots
Cyclone Macro
#showtooltip Cyclone
/cast [target=focus] Cyclone
Nature's Swiftness Macro
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Healing Touch
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Cyclone
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Hibernate