Tap and Trap
Tasting the Forbidden Fruit
There’s a Druid (Landencow - the only 70 Druid) in my guild that wanted to try out Druid+Warrior. So what makes this Forbidden Fruit? Well, there’s the stigma of Druid+Warrior being such an easy-mode combo. There’s very little strategy. Keep the warrior healed on occasion, Chain CC, and close out the foe when the time is right with even more CCs. It’s been said in a certain holy scripture that,” A Druid can indefinitely chain CC someone until they’re out of mana . And it’s just way too overpowered (Amelio 9:4).”
There’s truth in what he says. Good druids know how to daisy chain every CC together - Cyclone x2, Entangling Roots or Bash, Recast Roots, Cyclone more (I make no claim to understand the CC rotation in its entirety, but I know it goes something like that).
Comparison to Shaman and Paladin
Well, there’s no comparison really. A Paladin partner lets me live for a long time, but really has no way to CC the opposition. A Shaman partner gives me some strong opening healing, but can’t break any CCs. The druid is incredibly mobile, can CC, can escape snares, and can get rid of some debuffs. The hybrid power of druid shines the most in this limited use bracket, and that’s probably why it works so well in 2v2 and 3v3.
A quick look at top 5s teams shows that Druids aren’t quite as popular. This happens because in bigger fights (5s and BGs), players can focus more on one specific role instead of covering multiple roles as in 2s and 3s. Alternatively, this is why Paladins and Resto. Shaman come up short in 2s and 3s. They are great straight healers, but when it comes to switching jobs (CC, DPS, Cleansing), they lack the flexibility.
Current Results and A Prophecy from Amelio
Well, 11-2 in the opening night to get to 1632. One loss when I d/c’d after intercepting, and another to a mirror team that sported a mace instead of sword (Apparently Druids fall to Maces). Every win was casual and very easy going. Very few heals ever landed on the DPS target, and even when they did, it was far too late to save the match. Paladins, Shamans, and even Priests couldn’t handle it. AR/Mace Rogues were laughable at best and for some reason, they were out in full force that night. Every AR/Mace Rogue looked the same. S2 Helmet, 2 Gladiator Maces, and always blowing every CD right at the start of the match (even Cloak of Shadows!).
The only consolation is that the first 200 rating points to 1700 is typically a bunch of lower end players (despite their full S2 gladiator sets) so I’m expecting it to get more difficult once skill starts to come into play.
“Congrats on 2500 Rating (Amelio 17:11).”
Far from it, but I have faith in the scriptures. 2500? Not this week; with some consistency, I think 1850 is just a hop and skip away.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:20 am
You didnt even mention that druids are immune to sap…
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:40 am
I think the main thing that makes druid warrior so hard is the druid’s mobility and the warrior’s ability to take away yours.
pressure the druid so he can’t cc well will just make him turn and run until you decide to give up chasing him and start the warrior…at which point he tosses a few hots and lolccs again. ..
When the druid can dance around in the background and enter and exit the battle practically at will it makes things really tough.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 am
f druids
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 am
Pretty much the only mainstream combos I see druid/warrior losing to are spriest/rogue and ice mage/rogue. This is mostly due to each nonstealth component being greatly superior to the warrior in 1v1 situations, forcing the druid to leave stealth before the rogue does. Add in the possibility of human/goggle wearing/heightened senses on the rogue and the druid can get into trouble. Still and all, you’ll beat those combos just as often as they’ll beat you if you intercept and hamstring to victory.
Reading this article made me think again how good spriest/feral druid could be…
Also, as I believe I’ve mentioned, maces just seem to be better than swords for 2v2 the same way swords are better than maces for 5’s (unless you’re running 3 or more healers).
Good luck getting to 1850 with your overpowered combo, perhaps you’ll face Waiting For Darkfall on the way.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:43 am
Ack, I meant to say intervene rather than intercept as the key to winning.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:40 am
J - Darkfall looks terrible. Here’s to hoping the gameplay actually meets the hype. Yep, Mace stuns are very disabling in 2v2 where the only action going on is me.
Amelio - You oughta put in a full article about why you hate Druids.
E - I had no idea.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:09 am
Obviously there are exceptional Paladins and Shaman who can deal with their shortcomings in an extraordinary way, but you’re right in saying that the Druid is far better equipped for that bracket.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 am
The combo is pretty much dependent on the druid. Ran it for a bit and destroyed most every healer/dps team. Only upsettable loss of that kind was druid playing like crap and losing to priest/war.
Hardest fights are double dps teams, especially frost mage/sp with a rogue since mage and sp can solo you until druid is forced out and if druid gets caught in that time, it’s gg unless he’s exceptional. And ya as said mace > sword by leaps and bounds for this combo since it is an outlast combo, and keeping one of the a double dps team stunned/los’d from your druid and stopping his dps is gg with how hots work.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
Shamans can excel very well I think with a warrior. Maybe better off with a warrior with the sword (like you do, ETS), because of WF and all that good stuff vs Paladin/Warrior. And being able to also cycle Grounding/Earthshock/Pummel for Cyclones and all that good stuff.
Earth shield, Nature’s Guardian can be very clutch as well. Ive played a couple of games on my shaman with pug warriors, beating duelists/gladiator teams pulling out clutch survivability, having both me and the opposing healer run out of mana, but water shield giving you back a significant amount of mana to LHW is complete brokenness. This also leaving out the fact that they have Mana-Tide + Bloodlust :P
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I don’t think its particularly unfair for Druids to be as good as they are in 2s and 3s. As Eric mentioned, Druids are not particular favorites in the larger brackets. While this might simply be because Druids get high ratings on their 2s and 3s teams with less effort, it seems to be more likely that its because Druids are less functional in 5s.
I suppose the strength of the Druid is the simplicity and independence of the class. By itself, it is a CC battery. Compare that to Shaman or Paladin, both classes are not typically used to CCing nor do they have any abilities geared specifically toward CCing. Sure, you have Earth Shock or Hammer of Justice, but Earth Shock lasts shortly and Hammer of Justice is on a large cooldown.
As mentioned earlier, with exceptional players, though, come exceptional exceptions. Shamans with good totem placement, purge efficiency, shock timing along with a warrior who coordinates his own stuns, fears, and pummels could definitely make up for loss ground, and would only fall short of an equally competent Druid + Warrior combo.
Paladin, on the other hand, is limited to what it can actively contribute to the team. It would probably come down to keeping the warrior freedomed/cleansed and justiceing the druid 100% of the time or as close as possible. If the warrior is cycloned, the Paladin would have to be competent at hiding or kiting the warrior to limit damage intake etc. Furthermore, allowing the druid to stealth and drink would be detrimental.
Of all things though, I think one big kicker is that heals don’t land through cyclone. Take the warrior to 50%, cyclone him. Take the Paladin to 75%, then cyclone him. Take the warrior to 25%, cyclone him. Stun the Paladin, kill the warrior. Win points. While fights definitely don’t go that simply, it essentially can because healing won’t land through cyclone nor is cyclone breakable by ordinary methods (Can’t dispel, can’t divine shield, only trinket every x minutes)
Personally, I’m curious to see what direction Blizzard will take in future patches with the current state of Arenas.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Synii - Yeah, that’s partly why it’s now 100% Druid/Warrior. There’s players that can overcome the obstacles and actually make the 2000+.
Hazard - I agree. Teams where one of the two players can already solo the warrior make it initially hard to play out of the gate. These teams require a more defensive strategy.
degausser - I’ve tried a Shaman, and it’s a little difficult because the Shaman typically gets CC’d into the ground while I’m just getting pecked away at. Teams have a habit these days of totem pouncing instantly.
Erwin - Balance will be for 2v2 and 3v3 according to recent news reports. This is all for the E-Sports! I suppose this could turn into another commentary about balance.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Druids are certainly not less functional in 5s. Everyone is getting used to Druid’s 2v2 and 3v3 ability as the norm, and then using that to decide they’re bad in 5s. It’s simply not true. Druids may be rare in 5s currently, but that’s pretty obviously going to be the case when they’re handed everything on a silver platter by simply queuing into 2s or 3s. About whether it’s fair or not, I could care less. However, arena is supposed to be designed to be fun and zoning in against a class that has been completely rigged and becomes more powerful the more Blizzard’s servers lag, is definitely not fun. What’s even worse is that they were made this way, at least partially on purpose, because Blizzard wanted more people to play the class as it was one of the lowest in number previously.
On the line of “E-sports”, WoW arena is terrible. Games like CS or Quake that actually succeeded did so for a reason. Every player had access to the same abilities and the same weapons and the games rarely changed… even ground. Blizzard will, of course, milk this one for any money/popularity they can gain since that’s how business works.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I think the “E-Sports” aspect of WoW is always an interesting topic because it deals with a series of players who aren’t necessarily the #1 of their bracket, but players who have sponsors.
It would be more interesting, and possibly a great marketing gig to have server Champions and a sort of “Bowl.” In your division, you take the top 20~40 teams and they can compete in a short series of rounds until you come out with the winner of that server. And each server champion can move on to fight in their bracket.
That winner across all brackets on a battlegroup and fight other battlegroup champions.
To some extent, I think it’s true that CS and Quake rally from the unchanging nature of the game, but homogeny isn’t needed to make competition interesting.
One aspect that makes watching WoW Arena a little unsatisfying is that it doesn’t typically look like a smooth clean fight. There’s alot of variables that make fights seem really choppy or hokey.
January 4th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Like 2-3 minutes into every fight turning into a drinking contest?
Anyways, my point is not that you couldn’t make arena an E-sports competition. Rather my point was that it would be a poor one in terms of fair competition.
January 4th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
If everyone was given the same class/race combination and gear it would be fair. It would also be terribly boring to watch.
Quake and to a certain extent CS are extremely fun to watch. The only reason I can see for WoW turning into an E-sport is its massive playerbase. I see luck playing too large a role in competitive WoW, where a resist or a crit can turn the tide of a fight. Sure its all percentages but in Quake a hit is a hit and that’s all there is to it.
Wow, we’ve gone to the overpoweredness of druid/warrior to WoW’s viability as an E-sport.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Maybe you’ll face Happy Sadness, I think that would be extremely fun. :D
January 6th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Good luck to your druid when he meets a competent shadow step rogue in this matchup :P
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