The Art of the Druid, Intro; Basic Timing

Hey everyone,



I'm a longtime druid, formerly one of the most vocal Feral Druids on the WoW forums, and prominent poster on the Elitist Jerks forum.



My druid is Zyla and I currently have a 2k 2's rating alternating between myself and Shadowshade the rogue and Inquis the Warlock. I just started getting back into my Druid, and have attained a 2k rating in two weeks, with completely horrible gear. I mean, look at all the blue gear I have.



http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorefiend&n=Zyla



My Gnome warrior is in a 2k+ Ranking 5's team, just outside of the top 20 in my Battlegroup.



http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorefiend&n=Shorticus



I've been playing the two toons concurrently and it definately gives me a lot of insight into the state of Druid PvP, and about Warrior PvP as well.



Introduction over, here's some actual content!



The central issue with playing a druid well is timing. It determines the difference between the scrub that gets *****d almost instantly by a competant player, and one that makes people tear their hair out, as they watch you speed away with impunity all the while your HoT's fully heal your partner as they decided to hit you instead.



You have to anticipate what your enemies are going to do before they do it to properly succeed. While NS and Swiftmend are reactive abilties, a majority of the Resto Druid's bread and butter comes from the proactive hots and travel form kiting. Being able to run at 154% speed on demand is exceptionally useful , this much is obvious. However, all too often I see it misused in PvP.



Switching forms breaks all snares and immobilize effects on you, but it will not prevent future snares from coming. I often see druids easily locked up by failing to anticipate incoming snares. Hamstring and Frost Nova are two of the most significant snares that can come, as both usually mean the caster/warrior is going to put a serious hurt on you.



Many druids tend to get caught in hamstring locks while trying to run away from a warrior. It really is a fight of the GCD's. Both you and he can spend one to break it or reapply it. Forcing the warrior to spam it lowers his damage, but it also slightly hurts your mana pool. Therefore you want to orchestrate ways of getting out of range of the warrior iwith as few shifts as possible. Usually, you'll face an Intercept -> Hammy -> MS combo. Against such an attack I would recommend setting up Barkskin as a spammable macro (few druids make use of this incredible spell because it has been changed a good deal.). Preemptively hitting it will save you a good amount of damage from the initial burst on you, and you can use it at any time, even stunned, feared, what have you. As soon as you see the hamstring go off, you want to travel form and run through them. This forces the warrior to make a decision while he is turning away from you, either to resnare you, or to get that big hit on you. If he chooses the MS, you'll get away for sure if you have the 4pc bonus. If he chooses the hamstring, he's giving up a much stronger strike. The key is to surprise him and make him choose betwen a strong hit and letting you get away or keeping you stuck to him. If he chooses to spamstring you, you can usually sneak off with a Natures Grasp roots proc before things get out of hand. Don't forget to make use of LoS to prevent the intercept from happening in the first place, as controlling the warrior is your number one concern.



Gotta go smash things with my gnome, I'll be back later to add more to this concept.