PSA for new Druids, from a veteran of the class: The beauty of this class is you can play how you want. I myself have gone balance from 40-60 TWICE, and Feral once. Feral is clearly the quickest, but if you're a player who enjoys the journey, and not rushing to lvl cap, then know that Feral is certainly not your only option. Most naysayers you meet have never even made it passed lvl 10 on a Druid, so don't let them discourage you! Also, listen to Ebn, the man speaks the truth and is extremely experienced. May the winds guide you!
I will definitely adhere to it. To be honest though, outside of Moonglade (and Silithus) it's really more about convenience than honour. I have always liked sleeping other druids and shamans in animal forms though ;) it's a lighthearted and and quick alternative to attacking them. And you could argue that it is also more in line with the druid code as it does not only not harm them but also sends them to the emerald dream
Depends on alliance or horde !! I had Night elf Hunter and Druid - Alliance (first character) i had Tauren Druid, Blood Elf Mage, Blood elf Priest, Ork DK, Troll Hunter, Ork Warlock - Horde I usually find Alliance players very aggressive and Toxic. Needless to say that most BGs are won by Alliance, but finding a NON TOXIC team and players to rank with is very difficult in alliance. I switched to Horde and it was a HUGE RELIEF. I loved being in horde ever since. Winning or loosing was not important, Peace of mind, friendly players and amazing to see 'Old Code' as you say still exists there. Very rarely i saw horde player Preying without reason, but with alliance its like a Wolf they not just kill they will CAMP and make you mentally sick.
In cat form: 1. you move faster if you have Feline switfness talent. 2. you can use track humanoids, this gan help avoid pvp ssituations if you dont want to waste time with that. 3. You can stealth though enemies, if are NE druid and have feral instincts talent you are realy hard to detect. (even harder then rogues) You fogret to mention these points, while comparing bear to cat.
I think your list is backwards. You have track humanoids so you can find prey, not run away from it. There's a reason all forms are predators not some fking deer lad xD. Go play on a normal server
In short: Bear= good with groups/tank.(bigger group is better) Cat= "always" best solo. (Defense stance only profits when it allows others to do more damage)
cat form has advantage for solo-ing because for its ability to sneak around and the agility of cat form and the prowl ability is good for ambushing.....so always solo level with the cat form.
Yah but then you are going to end up dead a whole lot. Maybe if you specifically only fight green enemies but anything at a similar level? Each fight is going to come down to if you can get a heal off before you die.
@@devilmikey00 Once you get dire bear form at level 40 you can definitely take on multiple normal enemies without issues, as long as they are melee ones.
My man, love the vids but this one seems a bit bias towards cat form. Comparing the two forms the way you did is equivalent to comparing cat form using only bleeds to Moonkin form using their whole kit. Bear form can tank multiple mobs at the same time and make more effective use of thorns than in cat form. Personally I prefer to chain pull 2 mobs at a time, as one dies I pop out of bear and cast rejuvenation, then pull the next mob to constantly have 2 on me.
No bias here. I timed everything. Cat is just faster, even with multiple mobs. Now, that being said if you prefer bear form leveling definitely go for it!! Its just slower on kill speed.
i was never there for vanilla so i should really want to do that but i am retail all the way and i level as bear in retail and will probably in classic. Its not the speed thats fun for me its the ease of it all
Take same amount of damages but feel less like you are made of butter. The mitigation is real and sometimes necessary. It really depends on what you are fighting and in which zone. I mean, seeing your regrowth being beaten by the dmg you recieve can be scary, don't force yourself into cat if it puts you in danger.
Bear is only really better when you are facing an elite mob and you can sustain with heals while it takes thorns damage. Takes a while but the enemy will go down as long as you don't overheal.
Ebbn, did you see Tips Out video wrapping up Beta where he talks about how Dungeon leveling appears to be much better than initially believed. I'm not talking about Cleaving the dungeons either, he seemed to say that just running the dungeons was way faster than leveling via questing. Would you level more tank or healer if that was the case assuming you wanted to find groups easier.
Andrew, I was the tank in Tips group when we tested dungeon leveling :) We will be leveling together come Classic launch. Think I will do a video on it soon!! stay tuned! I do think dungeon leveling is amazing - however if you don't have the right composition or enough dps its not quite as fast.
@@Ebbnflow I was very lucky in Vanilla to have about 6 other people who were about my level and for whatever reason there was always 5 of us on, so we ran dungeons all the time with very little setup time...looking back on it, we probably ran too many because they weren't as efficient back in 1.0 - 1.4 as they will be in Classic. I doubt I'll get lucky again as the same group and I are all parents now and won't be playing nearly as much as we did then, or on the same schedule, but it's worth a thought anyway. ;)
@@Ebbnflow it should still be faster even in a sub optimal grp unless you are able to break out of the pack and have little competition for mobs...the early crush of bodies will be hard to break out of... so should be much faster to have your own little instance one would think....no?
@@Ebbnflow side note cant wait to see your upcommin vids...helping me narrow down my choice for what to play...i am goin between drood n lock....still havent figured out what way to go...
The Best Druid in Classic WoW - Ebbnflow! Honestly, I love your Druid-specific videos even tho I have absolutely no plans of leveling a druid myself :P
If I'm not ahead of the zerg on a pvp server, I prefer to level mostly in bear form in contested zones. If you level in cat form you'll be low life after every single fight. Rogues LOVE to gank players that only take a few hits to kill. Heck, pretty much anyone wouldn't pass up on the opportunity to kill you. They're passing through and moving on afterwards, but you have to do your spirit run again. So yes I level in bear form. I open up in cat form, but finish the fight in bear form. If they try to gank me while i'm already in combat, I got my bash, I got my regen. Most players know that and won't even bother because they know a druid has the option to simply run away.
Druids are the most awesome class, I was a Druid from day 1 in Vanilla, all through tbc wotlk to Cata, where i wuit because i did not like the game from then onwards, came back for every expansion leveled to max to see if it got better, it didn't so always quit shortly after reaching max lvl, sooooooo looking forward to being a druid Again in Vanilla. Bolting past people in travelform is always satisfying :)
Not getting bear abilities is over doing it IMO - bear form is a survival tool for when you can't kill mobs fast enough and/or run out of mana and/or don't have WS and/or WS is on cooldown.
@@Ebbnflow ye its something, but so is travel form :-D but ye u explained your get-ahead-of-the-curve play style before and u prefer to heal dungeons anyways, it seems, so ye different people different prios
It's the laffer curve applied to video games. 99.999% damage mitigation is obviously useless if you do 0% damage. 0% damage mitigation is awful unless you 1-shot the enemies. So, somewhere between 0% and 99.999% mitigation will be a peak of optimization. Cats excel in short duration fights with a few seconds between to store energy, which most leveling mobs tend to be.
Just some tips. Im levelning with a rogue friend. I pull 4-5 mobs with moonfire, rejuv up, bear form and we helps me kill them one by one. Really easy for ups.
Hi, 2;40min as bear and 2;02min as cat but after 5 kill in cat add those 30 sec that u use for drink.. as bear u never stop to drink, that also saves some coins ;). Thumbs up! Keep up the good job, this video i disaprove, if u really wanna test the level speed just grind 1hour only in bear then 1 hour only in cat, amd check how much exp u got; you will see is not that much faster in cat, and is way more confortable in bear.. can watch a movie while grinding for example ;
Only time i found going bear was when i was leveling with a warrior and we could do 4-5 mobs at the same time, and 6-8 every time frenzied was available. (This was on private server on the pirates in tanaris)
I am leveling a HC druid with a predominantly resto spec (rushed Nature's Swiftness for survivability after my first druid died). I still solo level in cat form and feral gear.
Have you tried kiting 3+ mobs at a time while swiping? I used to do that and would have 5+ mobs on me at a time, all of them taking damage from thorns and swipe
i think he can do that only if warstomp is available. As far as i have seen 2 mobs without heal took him to quite low HP. But for min-max, i think i agree with you, every 2 mins pull 3 mobs
@@CliseruGabriel He's not doing it like how I did. You walk backwards with the mobs on your front and grab new mobs with fairy fire or "butt pulling" them. You're in bear form the entire time with thorns on. You use Frenzied Regen and Barkskin when you need them, pop out for regrowths and rejuvs.
i think its more optimal to actually use both forms cat actually does needs more healing, bear can often do 2-3 pulls before needed to heal while with cat its just one or you might die on the next pull. Its that or try and heal mid combat. So if your only going cat your going to OOM your self instead you can do some pulls in cat heal after each and then go bear to regen your mana. There is not a huge diff in kill speed between bear and cat anyways until you get real gear and powershift. Cat dps is quite bad with out MCP and power shifting.
I want to main as a bear tank and i am in no rush to level, I play retail as a bear in pve and pvp, i have to utilize consumables, trinkets and cc windows on some classes to beat them but in a fair fight i rarely lose. Is there a way i can do that in classic? I am really only interested in world pvp.
for world pvp you pretty much use all your toolkit. It isn't like retail how you sit in a form for most of the fight, you need to be switching out to heal and cc, run in travel form, etc.
Thanks for your videos! I just want to add something with your calculation on the time different between bear and cat. I noticed that you have to heal more in cat form and that also means you have to switch forms more often, which result in more drinking. A more fair comparison would be if you added some time for cat form because of that. Cat form would still be faster tho. Also, I might train my bear form ability's because of some dungeons runs for tanking.
and cause of the fighting time itself passive mana reg normally is enough , but cause he is full into moonfiring and fairypulling , he drops a bit , its his false playstyle otherwise it would be totally fine
Not sure if you added this in the times but I looks like the bear could keep going but the cat would have to replenish some mana to keep up that speed. Wish you would of left the timer on when you started drinking so I could see how long you took to get mana back. Looks like the video is in higher than normal speed.
Since i will tank/heal at 60 it´s hard for me to decide if i wanna buy every single core cat, bear and healing spell or if i should skip cat all together. I don´t know! :( Cat spells are essentially wasted at 60 for me outside of single target grinding. Then again doesn´t really matter at 60 since you buy everything anyway.
If there is something to skip, it's the wrath/starfire line. But don't skip Cat form. Even with "only" bear talents, cat form will be noticeably better for grinding mobs 1 by 1, which is most of the leveling process. Plus the stealth. You can skip things like shred since it's mostly useless leveling solo. And the bleeds are also very situationnal, hence skippable. But don't skip cat altogether. Don't underestimate the importance of single target grinding. It's a good chunk of the game.
You will still go cat at times. I played a druid intentionally to heal, though tanked a lot in 5 man's (never enough tanks) and even off-tanked some packs in BWL. Even though my focus was completely on healing with some minor tanking, I used cat form a ton.
@@Ebbnflow most classic dispell are linked with a timer and a range of 40 yards , if you manage to keep your raid running arround you can always right before the dispell run out of range , hard strat , but in classic was the only way to defeat some bosses after a heavy bug after a server patch , which the couldnt fix for about 4 weeks
Killing boss and Mobs will Look great !! But Unfortunately its not Productive!! 80% of the Druids will have no gears on every raid because Imagine how many will ROLL on the same Gears. It will take 2 - 5 months for the Guild to actually Gear up this way!! Not to mention most Plate and mail gear will be just enchanted away or wasted.
Feral druid is a dope levelel. It is as fast as a hunter if you know how to play it properly. Sad that some vanilla specs dint got the right attention to be on par with others. Still can put up good dmg when played right but yea..not top.
At least until you are 36+. Once you have sweeping strikes, whirlwind, cleave you can actually nuke down 2-3 mobs fairly quickly. Especially if you can get a healer to tag along.
as a feral druid (feral hybrid) while leveling in your opinion, would you say herb/alchemy is more rewarding then skin/LW? having extra buffs versus having gear? imo i like LW better.
You can get decent gear from quests/dungeons. An elixir that give you 8 strength can be made at a low level. The gear you can make gives less stats than the potions you have access to at lower levels. Most of the time potions will bring a bigger stat bonus because you already get stats from gear regardless of lw or no lw but potions add on top of your gear. Lw is also a huge time sink and money sink to make the items that are worth making.
I'd suggest taking herb/alchemy cause of the gold they bring in. It'll help you get that mount at 40 and then the epic mount at 60 much quicker. LW is a gold sink and will slow you down significantly on getting that epic mount at 60. Plus druid has always been the best class for herbalism :D
Going to Duo level with a friend at release: Druid + Mage. What you guys would you advise ? We thought : HotW-NS and bear form to keep aggro and let the Mage do its AoE stuff.
Depends on how you plan to aoe, if the mage is just going to run in and arcane explosion you won't hold threat and if they stand back and blizzard then you dont need to be in bear form anyways. I think its best to heal the mage on big aoe pulls and then when solo killing mobs just stay in cat. HoTW-NS is a good build for that!
@@Ebbnflow Thanks for the detailed explanation. Good news, I won't have to stay in bear form from 10 to 60 :) Switching between Caster and Cat will be fun for sure.
@Ebbnflow what advice can you give to someone with lots of healing experience on a druid in vanilla but no PvP experience?? I've played a TON of frost mage PvP and find the control and burst super fun and not too difficult. I want to reconnect to my druid roots (bahaha), but when I've tried to PvP on them I just feel like a scuffed noob. Does it get better? How do I improve? Any must read/watch druid PvP resources? Just discovered your channel the other day and I've probably watched 2/3 of the non stream ones :) Great work man!
play on a pve server...otherwise play as a heal but try to play it with a set of bear items (high amor ) with a good misc you have enough spelland heal power to keep yourself up , and you can take enough dmg to overcome nearly anyone , even with a long kill time ...if you run arround as a robe wearing caster with glowing green hands ,well your kind of freeloot same goes for balance
You want to be in cat a majority of the time, but not just for fighting mobs. Two words: Feline Swiftness. A good chunk of the time in classic is spent running. Just look at Duskwood for example. How many times do you have to run from Darkshire to Raven Hill?
People only use bear form if they have to pull multiple mobs so they can survive. Makes no sense to grind more than one mob at a time. If you need healing mid fight with a mob you should have just been in bear form.
A lot of the feral talents overlap. You can use both. You can actually heal OR tank every 5 man with a hybrid spec. Obviously you will need to switch out gear for the desired role (get a mod which will do it for you with a click of a button).
what if you are killing green level mobs? couldn't you just pull a couple and dot them up and go into bear form and basically just grind them down? as i see it, cat form is speed killing but it's better against killing a single target fast that's on your level or slightly higher or maybe for bleed kiting, however you get not much use out of thorns that way. and you really don't utilize the entirety of your mana pool as you could have because if you kill things quickly if you have dots up that damage and mana becomes inefficient as things die too fast for it to matter. basically bear form to me is the equivalence of a mages blizzard, it's pointless to use against a single enemy, it's a waste of time and resources, but if you can use it properly to kill many enemies at the same time just taking a bit longer time to do but overall it averages out a quicker time to kill many enemies over killing them one by one, if you can you probably should. but then again i'm not sure about the viability of doing that, and if that is the case why not just mass pull as boomkin bark skin up and use hurricane? my basic understanding of leveling is that if you can kill many enemies even if they are lower level it's gonna be quicker if you can kill many quickly over killing one enemy quickly that's on your level or above.
All I knoe about druids is: 1) OK, Sum durids is bare 2) Tehm whos bare durids, can B 4 tank: ONLY DURID DONT HAF SUM PEEPS IN THE HEAD AND A GUNZ LOL! 3) Man, sum bare druids can maek sum peeps poop in feer bc/ tehms so storng. 4) Bare druids is not so good at uh moonfare spam but its OK b/c a bare durid haf many armors & when a thing hits durid, maybe thing gets borken hand LOL! 5) Bare durids is 4 funs when u can charje & stun & haf sum armors lol.
It is not. But makes life much easier. No matter what spec in PvP you will play, you always use heal, plenty of it. Personally I was playing... balance in PvP :P So in the end, just play what you want and gives you fun. I had fun nuking people with starfires, it didn't matter to me that I had to drink often or had problems with some classes. But played a bit with NS and I think its simply better even if you want to go caster.
@@grabeck666 Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback. My twitch skills are not the best, so druid and warrior (where you change forms and stances) and hunter and lock (due to pet control) are tough classes for me to effectively play in PvP. But I really like the druid class and am thinking of playing one in classic.
I find it slow either way :/ If you can get a mage buddy to get you a bunch of water, caster spam is probably quicker. Otherwise, probably bear. They don't have spirit tap, mage water, life tap. You kind of need to go feral forms as you will never have enough mana to cast and heal while also maintaining low downtime. They are called OOMkins for a reason.
What was the point of including the clerk of the green player that you killed while they waved and didn't even attempt to attack back? Kinda weak sauce imo.
I have a question: If being bear increases your armor but also the time needed to kill a mob and so it evens everything out, why does the same principle not apply to PvP? As a cat you should take more damage than bear, but the fight should also be finished sooner, right?
It does apply but pvp is much more dynamic. It's not as simple as deciding to go cat and ending people insta, as they too have survivability and mitigative abilities/strategies at their disposal. Also, pure dps classes will likely kill you faster than you can kill them if you stay in cat. You're basically forced to outlast people in most evenly matched duel situations so swapping to bear is ofttimes a necessity
My plan is to not rush the leveling experience and level only in bear form. My goal is to only tank in endgame and find a nice guild that supports feral tanks.
@@solmyr42 It's not silly. It's class immersion, if he loves to play bear then he should play bear all the way! It's like Ebbn said in the video, if playing bear is what you find to be more fun then by all means do it. Why on earth would you play a video game at all if you're not having fun playing it?
solmyrgarde Are you for real? First: let people play what and however the fkin want. Second: do you really think that I wouldn't pop out of bear once in a while to heal or do other stuff? Jesus... I was just trying to state, that I (personally) want to focus on bear 90% of the leveling time. Because I don't have interest in the cat/rogue/energy mechanic. That doesn't mean I will not use catform if necessary...
@@chei86 it just sounds autistic to me to level in bear form 90% of the time. Sure u aren't trying to make a statement doing that - cat dps sucks, I'm a responsible bear tank, anyone? Don't get discouraged by a yt comment tho!
When kiting you can jump and swing around to weave a hit/instant cast at the enemy while in the air and then turn back around before landing. If you're not doing that or hardcore parkour over objects/obstacles/gaps, then it's just for fun (e.g. NE front flips).
Are we ever going to talk about the fact that blizzard obviously had a fetish about the horde in vanilla? Their the only ones with chain heal, they all much more intimidating and cooler looking than alliance and every one of their racials is UNBELIEVABLY good, as apposed to some bullshit like shadowmeld or 10% reputation gain.. stupid shit
Real numbers would make the case better. This video msde a statement, but failed to give the info on how much of a difference the cat form makes. DPS for a certain level, based on which form, for example.
Look. I agree. Cat is better 95% of the time. But why is there no showcase of bear swiping 3 mobs at a time ? Why not mention Hurricane + bear once you get lvl 44 and Barkskin ? Your argument is incomplete. Thus close to dishonest. Compare best scenario for cat to best scenario for bear. Not best scenario vs worst scenario. THEN outline that cat's best scenario is 95% of the leveling process AND is safer in a PvP setting.
The whole point of farming in bear form is to engage several mobs with Moonfire and using swipe plus having Thorns on. Works best on green mobs with low hp. Before you enter bear form you need to healing growth + rejuvenate yourself.. Man you can't possibly compare bear vs cat like you did. Only an idiot would 1v1 mob in bear and 1v2 in cat lol.
what is up with those fights where you near to die ? Keep audience attention ? fake some look how pro iam skills ? u should do a full video where you fail with those kind of show-off behavior ....anyway good video , beside this point...but your showcase skills are awefull , its like showing how to not be fast (maybe influence to be faster than the rest ) ...Ok guys beside Ebbn , dont drop to low , in this vid we saw a perfect example of an average player with a whole bunch of luck , mobs didnt parrying while he is low life , 2 times a dodge saves his live , glancing blows didnt hit him , this is all rng , if you normal guys play like this ,well i hope you play alliance cause wispform will get very handy if you have to get you corpse back so many times ... If you play cat ,you get something called stealth , while leveling up higher there are to stealth openers ,which you damn should use , all the fking time , you are fast traveling enough and the second you may spare while pulling from distance , is something you could outdmg if you use ur high dmg opening , which could cut a mobs hp between 40-50% if you get a crit ...your stun opener also reduce time you need to heal yourself , or reduce the amount of hp needed so that one single hot is farly enough....with this playstyle , you will lose alot time , you will get anger cause of dying to much , oh and btw if you are on an pvp server , well have fun dropping nonstop till 3 % ...Ebbn has luck the low guy wasnt into stress , cause iam pretty sure he saw him first , stealth cat, dmg ,ebbn had to do some new footage because walking as a ghost doesnt seem pro enough xD ...Instead the guy is sparing his life , while ebbn is so fking happy to kill him ...you could feel yourself really happy , if i was this elf , i totally would ruin your day just by sneaking aroud and wait till you drop to get that one shot kill
In pve backpeddling is very nice! Helps when tanking to arrange mob packs and if you strafe while kiting some lower level mobs they dont run fast enough to follow you. That being said its not that useful in pvp obviously :)
PSA for new Druids, from a veteran of the class: The beauty of this class is you can play how you want. I myself have gone balance from 40-60 TWICE, and Feral once. Feral is clearly the quickest, but if you're a player who enjoys the journey, and not rushing to lvl cap, then know that Feral is certainly not your only option. Most naysayers you meet have never even made it passed lvl 10 on a Druid, so don't let them discourage you! Also, listen to Ebn, the man speaks the truth and is extremely experienced. May the winds guide you!
Choose Druid if you like heal yourself constanly and die a lot -Druids are so weak in Darkshore and fights last a eternaty
@@jari2018 The fact that you referenced Darkshore proves this comment 100% right. Pipe down.
@@jari2018 funny b3cause druid is the class i die with the least
I guess you are just bad with druids, or generally suck
Git gud scrub
In Darkshore means he didn't make it to cat form.
lol you clearly have never had the skill or patience to level a druid if that's your opinion of them. Druids are beasts in every sense of the word.
As a Night Elf Druid watching your warstomp into regrowth seriously has me considering switching sides.
TFW war stomp quintuple resists
I was going to roll ally with some friends but I’m just not willing to play without war stomp
There should be plenty more reasons to go horde.
Bear bash becomes better with higher ranks tho, I'm on 5 secs currently (lvl 47 talented)
I wonder if here is a way to macro it. He does it so quickly.. I can never do it that fast where its not pushed back at least once
I was a fan of the old "Druid Code". Even outside of Moonglade I had respect for other droods. I wonder if it will still be a thing?
I see a red name, if they are within 5 levels of me, they are dead.
Ebbnflow Well, over 40 and equivalent skill and gear, “dead” might be 2 hrs later.
Plus druids were often rare, and it was nice to see another one.
@@davidritchie1678 on private servers there are a lot of druids in the past 8 months. A LOT
I will definitely adhere to it. To be honest though, outside of Moonglade (and Silithus) it's really more about convenience than honour. I have always liked sleeping other druids and shamans in animal forms though ;) it's a lighthearted and and quick alternative to attacking them. And you could argue that it is also more in line with the druid code as it does not only not harm them but also sends them to the emerald dream
Depends on alliance or horde !!
I had Night elf Hunter and Druid - Alliance (first character)
i had Tauren Druid, Blood Elf Mage, Blood elf Priest, Ork DK, Troll Hunter, Ork Warlock - Horde
I usually find Alliance players very aggressive and Toxic. Needless to say that most BGs are won by Alliance, but finding a NON TOXIC team and players to rank with is very difficult in alliance.
I switched to Horde and it was a HUGE RELIEF. I loved being in horde ever since. Winning or loosing was not important, Peace of mind, friendly players and amazing to see 'Old Code' as you say still exists there.
Very rarely i saw horde player Preying without reason, but with alliance its like a Wolf they not just kill they will CAMP and make you mentally sick.
In cat form:
1. you move faster if you have Feline switfness talent.
2. you can use track humanoids, this gan help avoid pvp ssituations if you dont want to waste time with that.
3. You can stealth though enemies, if are NE druid and have feral instincts talent you are realy hard to detect. (even harder then rogues)
You fogret to mention these points, while comparing bear to cat.
He did mention 1.
I think your list is backwards. You have track humanoids so you can find prey, not run away from it. There's a reason all forms are predators not some fking deer lad xD. Go play on a normal server
In short:
Bear= good with groups/tank.(bigger group is better)
Cat= "always" best solo.
(Defense stance only profits when it allows others to do more damage)
cat form has advantage for solo-ing because for its ability to sneak around and the agility of cat form and the prowl ability is good for ambushing.....so always solo level with the cat form.
If your leveling with bear form you just need to pull like 3 mobs at a time to get most value out of swipe and thorns.
Yah but then you are going to end up dead a whole lot. Maybe if you specifically only fight green enemies but anything at a similar level? Each fight is going to come down to if you can get a heal off before you die.
@@devilmikey00 Once you get dire bear form at level 40 you can definitely take on multiple normal enemies without issues, as long as they are melee ones.
don't suppose you'd do a vid on your ui set up, binds and stuff. would help me immensly seeing how you do it! thanks
Just wanted you to know that I really enjoy your content. I’m definitely rolling Druid for classic, so these videos are very interesting.
My man, love the vids but this one seems a bit bias towards cat form. Comparing the two forms the way you did is equivalent to comparing cat form using only bleeds to Moonkin form using their whole kit. Bear form can tank multiple mobs at the same time and make more effective use of thorns than in cat form. Personally I prefer to chain pull 2 mobs at a time, as one dies I pop out of bear and cast rejuvenation, then pull the next mob to constantly have 2 on me.
No bias here. I timed everything. Cat is just faster, even with multiple mobs. Now, that being said if you prefer bear form leveling definitely go for it!! Its just slower on kill speed.
He literally fought two at a time in both bear and cat in the video and cat still killed faster.
i was never there for vanilla so i should really want to do that but i am retail all the way and i level as bear in retail and will probably in classic. Its not the speed thats fun for me its the ease of it all
Take same amount of damages but feel less like you are made of butter. The mitigation is real and sometimes necessary. It really depends on what you are fighting and in which zone. I mean, seeing your regrowth being beaten by the dmg you recieve can be scary, don't force yourself into cat if it puts you in danger.
Bear is only really better when you are facing an elite mob and you can sustain with heals while it takes thorns damage. Takes a while but the enemy will go down as long as you don't overheal.
Ebbn, did you see Tips Out video wrapping up Beta where he talks about how Dungeon leveling appears to be much better than initially believed. I'm not talking about Cleaving the dungeons either, he seemed to say that just running the dungeons was way faster than leveling via questing. Would you level more tank or healer if that was the case assuming you wanted to find groups easier.
Andrew, I was the tank in Tips group when we tested dungeon leveling :) We will be leveling together come Classic launch. Think I will do a video on it soon!! stay tuned! I do think dungeon leveling is amazing - however if you don't have the right composition or enough dps its not quite as fast.
@@Ebbnflow I was very lucky in Vanilla to have about 6 other people who were about my level and for whatever reason there was always 5 of us on, so we ran dungeons all the time with very little setup time...looking back on it, we probably ran too many because they weren't as efficient back in 1.0 - 1.4 as they will be in Classic.
I doubt I'll get lucky again as the same group and I are all parents now and won't be playing nearly as much as we did then, or on the same schedule, but it's worth a thought anyway. ;)
@@Ebbnflow it should still be faster even in a sub optimal grp unless you are able to break out of the pack and have little competition for mobs...the early crush of bodies will be hard to break out of... so should be much faster to have your own little instance one would think....no?
@@Ebbnflow side note cant wait to see your upcommin vids...helping me narrow down my choice for what to play...i am goin between drood n lock....still havent figured out what way to go...
@@bodhisfattva7462 thats my 2 choices as well
The Best Druid in Classic WoW - Ebbnflow!
Honestly, I love your Druid-specific videos even tho I have absolutely no plans of leveling a druid myself :P
Thanks man!
I like the kill speed comparison. I hoped you would've done the same with balance to compare.
The problem is Balance need a totally different itemization... so the comparison with Agi gear would be awful
If I'm not ahead of the zerg on a pvp server, I prefer to level mostly in bear form in contested zones. If you level in cat form you'll be low life after every single fight. Rogues LOVE to gank players that only take a few hits to kill. Heck, pretty much anyone wouldn't pass up on the opportunity to kill you. They're passing through and moving on afterwards, but you have to do your spirit run again. So yes I level in bear form. I open up in cat form, but finish the fight in bear form. If they try to gank me while i'm already in combat, I got my bash, I got my regen. Most players know that and won't even bother because they know a druid has the option to simply run away.
It's not true, you won't be low on health after 1 mob
Druids are the most awesome class, I was a Druid from day 1 in Vanilla, all through tbc wotlk to Cata, where i wuit because i did not like the game from then onwards, came back for every expansion leveled to max to see if it got better, it didn't so always quit shortly after reaching max lvl, sooooooo looking forward to being a druid Again in Vanilla. Bolting past people in travelform is always satisfying :)
there are not awesome.....
Not getting bear abilities is over doing it IMO - bear form is a survival tool for when you can't kill mobs fast enough and/or run out of mana and/or don't have WS and/or WS is on cooldown.
Gotta save my gold for my mount :) so far I havent regretted it in my multiple 1-40 runs.
@@Ebbnflow ye its something, but so is travel form :-D but ye u explained your get-ahead-of-the-curve play style before and u prefer to heal dungeons anyways, it seems, so ye different people different prios
It's the laffer curve applied to video games. 99.999% damage mitigation is obviously useless if you do 0% damage. 0% damage mitigation is awful unless you 1-shot the enemies. So, somewhere between 0% and 99.999% mitigation will be a peak of optimization. Cats excel in short duration fights with a few seconds between to store energy, which most leveling mobs tend to be.
Just some tips. Im levelning with a rogue friend. I pull 4-5 mobs with moonfire, rejuv up, bear form and we helps me kill them one by one. Really easy for ups.
Hi, 2;40min as bear and 2;02min as cat but after 5 kill in cat add those 30 sec that u use for drink.. as bear u never stop to drink, that also saves some coins ;). Thumbs up! Keep up the good job, this video i disaprove, if u really wanna test the level speed just grind 1hour only in bear then 1 hour only in cat, amd check how much exp u got; you will see is not that much faster in cat, and is way more confortable in bear.. can watch a movie while grinding for example ;
he just drink to show up some more examples by the same start , not while needed xD
Only time i found going bear was when i was leveling with a warrior and we could do 4-5 mobs at the same time, and 6-8 every time frenzied was available. (This was on private server on the pirates in tanaris)
I am leveling a HC druid with a predominantly resto spec (rushed Nature's Swiftness for survivability after my first druid died). I still solo level in cat form and feral gear.
4:38 POGGERS IN THE CHATTUH!!
This was a great video. Really quells the fears of leveling resto which some people just want to do. Thank you ebbn!
ouch
2:57 alinity uses her charms against Ebn
*it had no effect on Ebn*
Have you tried kiting 3+ mobs at a time while swiping? I used to do that and would have 5+ mobs on me at a time, all of them taking damage from thorns and swipe
i think he can do that only if warstomp is available. As far as i have seen 2 mobs without heal took him to quite low HP. But for min-max, i think i agree with you, every 2 mins pull 3 mobs
@@CliseruGabriel He's not doing it like how I did. You walk backwards with the mobs on your front and grab new mobs with fairy fire or "butt pulling" them.
You're in bear form the entire time with thorns on. You use Frenzied Regen and Barkskin when you need them, pop out for regrowths and rejuvs.
i cant wait for the BG phase, classic is shit when it comes to pve for certain classes but in BGs i really feel the game opens up more.
Hey Ebn, is it possible for u to give us a hint how u bind ur keys as druid?
He probably wipes front to back just fyi if you were wondering.
i think its more optimal to actually use both forms cat actually does needs more healing, bear can often do 2-3 pulls before needed to heal while with cat its just one or you might die on the next pull. Its that or try and heal mid combat. So if your only going cat your going to OOM your self instead you can do some pulls in cat heal after each and then go bear to regen your mana. There is not a huge diff in kill speed between bear and cat anyways until you get real gear and powershift. Cat dps is quite bad with out MCP and power shifting.
Bear is actually a bit better against two or more mobs before lvl 32 when you get ferocious bite.
2:48 So you don't follow the druid CoC?
I want to main as a bear tank and i am in no rush to level, I play retail as a bear in pve and pvp, i have to utilize consumables, trinkets and cc windows on some classes to beat them but in a fair fight i rarely lose. Is there a way i can do that in classic? I am really only interested in world pvp.
for world pvp you pretty much use all your toolkit. It isn't like retail how you sit in a form for most of the fight, you need to be switching out to heal and cc, run in travel form, etc.
Thanks for your videos!
I just want to add something with your calculation on the time different between bear and cat.
I noticed that you have to heal more in cat form and that also means you have to switch forms more often, which result in more drinking.
A more fair comparison would be if you added some time for cat form because of that.
Cat form would still be faster tho.
Also, I might train my bear form ability's because of some dungeons runs for tanking.
And for geting out of tight spots - having only enough mana for one shift is a thing so choosing bear can be choosing life
and cause of the fighting time itself passive mana reg normally is enough , but cause he is full into moonfiring and fairypulling , he drops a bit , its his false playstyle otherwise it would be totally fine
Not sure if you added this in the times but I looks like the bear could keep going but the cat would have to replenish some mana to keep up that speed. Wish you would of left the timer on when you started drinking so I could see how long you took to get mana back. Looks like the video is in higher than normal speed.
I have another video coming for balance/feral leveling. Cat you never need to drink if you play right.
Thanks for making the best druid information vids out there! You're making my journey to classic much easier. Keep up the good work
Thanks Connor!!
Do i have to respec when i get travel form to remove 2 point in 30% cat mobility?
Since i will tank/heal at 60 it´s hard for me to decide if i wanna buy every single core cat, bear and healing spell or if i should skip cat all together. I don´t know! :(
Cat spells are essentially wasted at 60 for me outside of single target grinding. Then again doesn´t really matter at 60 since you buy everything anyway.
If there is something to skip, it's the wrath/starfire line. But don't skip Cat form. Even with "only" bear talents, cat form will be noticeably better for grinding mobs 1 by 1, which is most of the leveling process. Plus the stealth. You can skip things like shred since it's mostly useless leveling solo. And the bleeds are also very situationnal, hence skippable. But don't skip cat altogether.
Don't underestimate the importance of single target grinding. It's a good chunk of the game.
@@alphapolimeris thank you good sir!
You will still go cat at times. I played a druid intentionally to heal, though tanked a lot in 5 man's (never enough tanks) and even off-tanked some packs in BWL. Even though my focus was completely on healing with some minor tanking, I used cat form a ton.
Fan question:
How far can a guild only with druids can achive in pve?
🙂
Back in vanilla i recall having cleared ZG with 20 druids. It took a while even though we skipped a bunch of trash. Was quite fun and unusual!
Good question... some bosses have enrage mechanics, kiting mechanics, or dispels. So it would definitely be hard to clear some bosses!
aq 40 stop
@@Ebbnflow most classic dispell are linked with a timer and a range of 40 yards , if you manage to keep your raid running arround you can always right before the dispell run out of range , hard strat , but in classic was the only way to defeat some bosses after a heavy bug after a server patch , which the couldnt fix for about 4 weeks
Killing boss and Mobs will Look great !!
But Unfortunately its not Productive!! 80% of the Druids will have no gears on every raid because
Imagine how many will ROLL on the same Gears. It will take 2 - 5 months for the Guild to actually Gear up this way!!
Not to mention most Plate and mail gear will be just enchanted away or wasted.
love the druid talk!
Feral druid is a dope levelel. It is as fast as a hunter if you know how to play it properly. Sad that some vanilla specs dint got the right attention to be on par with others. Still can put up good dmg when played right but yea..not top.
I'm leaning towards paladin in classic but of your videos entice me to play a druid!
Paladins are live lords!! :)
If you level a warrior in Classic, just play dungeons all day, XP gain will be higher than solo questing in any spec.
At least until you are 36+. Once you have sweeping strikes, whirlwind, cleave you can actually nuke down 2-3 mobs fairly quickly. Especially if you can get a healer to tag along.
so i should stay bear form?
Solo questing and mob grinding is better in cat form, but getting a group is much easier as a tank
as a feral druid (feral hybrid) while leveling in your opinion, would you say herb/alchemy is more rewarding then skin/LW? having extra buffs versus having gear? imo i like LW better.
You can get decent gear from quests/dungeons. An elixir that give you 8 strength can be made at a low level. The gear you can make gives less stats than the potions you have access to at lower levels. Most of the time potions will bring a bigger stat bonus because you already get stats from gear regardless of lw or no lw but potions add on top of your gear. Lw is also a huge time sink and money sink to make the items that are worth making.
I'd suggest taking herb/alchemy cause of the gold they bring in. It'll help you get that mount at 40 and then the epic mount at 60 much quicker. LW is a gold sink and will slow you down significantly on getting that epic mount at 60. Plus druid has always been the best class for herbalism :D
Can you explain the right side action bar that looks to be multiple cat abilities (possible down rank?)
You can't down-rank Cat Abilities because they cost the same energy, they just overwrite your old one.
@@andrewshandle any idea what the spells/abilities are?
@@robo6404 Probably so he can see easily if he is auto-attacking. All of those flashing simultaneously is harder to miss.
Yeah just auto attack so I know if its active.
I need a guide for talents order.
Going to Duo level with a friend at release: Druid + Mage. What you guys would you advise ? We thought : HotW-NS and bear form to keep aggro and let the Mage do its AoE stuff.
Depends on how you plan to aoe, if the mage is just going to run in and arcane explosion you won't hold threat and if they stand back and blizzard then you dont need to be in bear form anyways. I think its best to heal the mage on big aoe pulls and then when solo killing mobs just stay in cat. HoTW-NS is a good build for that!
You cant tank what he can kite. Still fine to run instances.
@@Ebbnflow Thanks for the detailed explanation. Good news, I won't have to stay in bear form from 10 to 60 :) Switching between Caster and Cat will be fun for sure.
@Ebbnflow what advice can you give to someone with lots of healing experience on a druid in vanilla but no PvP experience?? I've played a TON of frost mage PvP and find the control and burst super fun and not too difficult. I want to reconnect to my druid roots (bahaha), but when I've tried to PvP on them I just feel like a scuffed noob. Does it get better? How do I improve? Any must read/watch druid PvP resources?
Just discovered your channel the other day and I've probably watched 2/3 of the non stream ones :) Great work man!
play on a pve server...otherwise play as a heal but try to play it with a set of bear items (high amor ) with a good misc you have enough spelland heal power to keep yourself up , and you can take enough dmg to overcome nearly anyone , even with a long kill time ...if you run arround as a robe wearing caster with glowing green hands ,well your kind of freeloot same goes for balance
I was thinking of going full tank for leveling but I will mostly be leveling with my two or one rogue friends
You will be killing things faster in cat no matter what your spec and gear is
What about if you were leveling balance and were jumping into forms to regen mana?
Oh god why
@@erica2980 lol why what? Go balance? Playstyle? Fun? Obviously feral will be more efficient but honestly it's not THAT much worse
can you show what talent build i need to go for while leveling like this?
What's the font you use? :D
Do you start skipping bear skills at the trainer since you dont use bear so often?
Im tanking dungeons whilr im leveling, so having those skills up to date, helps with keeping aggro
kiling that deepshit alinity at beginning made my day
dungeon grinding is gonna be a thing!! bear form will be legit for spellcleave groups. honestly guys make your 5 mans and level!
Dungeon grinding in vanilla? 🤔
Do you go cat form full time from lvl 20?
You want to be in cat a majority of the time, but not just for fighting mobs. Two words: Feline Swiftness. A good chunk of the time in classic is spent running. Just look at Duskwood for example. How many times do you have to run from Darkshire to Raven Hill?
People only use bear form if they have to pull multiple mobs so they can survive. Makes no sense to grind more than one mob at a time. If you need healing mid fight with a mob you should have just been in bear form.
What if you're specced into full feral tank as you level so you can tank dungeons?
That works if you plan to level in dungeons, still play as cat alone imo!
I plan on leveling this way. I understand my cat dps while solo won't take too much of a hit when I take bear talents.
A lot of the feral talents overlap. You can use both. You can actually heal OR tank every 5 man with a hybrid spec. Obviously you will need to switch out gear for the desired role (get a mod which will do it for you with a click of a button).
Which faction is best for Feral Tank druid and why?
Taurens have stun and +%5 hp night elves have stealth and plus agi choose urself
Alliance always seem to be more Druid friendly for some reason - it's just weird.
what if you are killing green level mobs? couldn't you just pull a couple and dot them up and go into bear form and basically just grind them down?
as i see it, cat form is speed killing but it's better against killing a single target fast that's on your level or slightly higher or maybe for bleed kiting, however you get not much use out of thorns that way.
and you really don't utilize the entirety of your mana pool as you could have because if you kill things quickly if you have dots up that damage and mana becomes inefficient as things die too fast for it to matter.
basically bear form to me is the equivalence of a mages blizzard, it's pointless to use against a single enemy, it's a waste of time and resources, but if you can use it properly to kill many enemies at the same time just taking a bit longer time to do but overall it averages out a quicker time to kill many enemies over killing them one by one, if you can you probably should.
but then again i'm not sure about the viability of doing that, and if that is the case why not just mass pull as boomkin bark skin up and use hurricane?
my basic understanding of leveling is that if you can kill many enemies even if they are lower level it's gonna be quicker if you can kill many quickly over killing one enemy quickly that's on your level or above.
I miss watching your streams EB... come back
Im going to stream all day everyday come classic! Just nothing to stream at the moment. Oh we will stream the stress test too.
All I knoe about druids is:
1) OK, Sum durids is bare
2) Tehm whos bare durids, can B 4 tank:
ONLY DURID DONT HAF SUM PEEPS IN THE HEAD AND A GUNZ LOL!
3) Man, sum bare druids can maek sum peeps poop in feer bc/ tehms so storng.
4) Bare druids is not so good at uh moonfare spam but its OK b/c a bare durid haf many armors &
when a thing hits durid, maybe thing gets borken hand LOL!
5) Bare durids is 4 funs when u can charje & stun & haf sum armors lol.
Don't forget, while you're in cat form your mana is regenerating. So less need to drink. It is a pretty sweet deal.
what spell rotation do you use at level 24 for single target?
i have rake, claw, shred, rip and tiger's fury
You killed a fellow druid >:(
All ally die period.
It was Alinity so its fine
Great stuff as always dude love ya
ouch
Off topic question - is NS necessary for viable Druid PvP?
It is not. But makes life much easier. No matter what spec in PvP you will play, you always use heal, plenty of it. Personally I was playing... balance in PvP :P So in the end, just play what you want and gives you fun. I had fun nuking people with starfires, it didn't matter to me that I had to drink often or had problems with some classes. But played a bit with NS and I think its simply better even if you want to go caster.
@@grabeck666 Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback. My twitch skills are not the best, so druid and warrior (where you change forms and stances) and hunter and lock (due to pet control) are tough classes for me to effectively play in PvP. But I really like the druid class and am thinking of playing one in classic.
do you level caster or bear 10-20?
Bear 10-20, some night elves say balance is good not sure though.
I find it slow either way :/
If you can get a mage buddy to get you a bunch of water, caster spam is probably quicker. Otherwise, probably bear. They don't have spirit tap, mage water, life tap. You kind of need to go feral forms as you will never have enough mana to cast and heal while also maintaining low downtime.
They are called OOMkins for a reason.
What was the point of including the clerk of the green player that you killed while they waved and didn't even attempt to attack back? Kinda weak sauce imo.
The war is real. Opposite faction is auto kill
I have a question: If being bear increases your armor but also the time needed to kill a mob and so it evens everything out, why does the same principle not apply to PvP? As a cat you should take more damage than bear, but the fight should also be finished sooner, right?
It does apply but pvp is much more dynamic. It's not as simple as deciding to go cat and ending people insta, as they too have survivability and mitigative abilities/strategies at their disposal. Also, pure dps classes will likely kill you faster than you can kill them if you stay in cat. You're basically forced to outlast people in most evenly matched duel situations so swapping to bear is ofttimes a necessity
Could you still heal 5 mans while leveling up feral? I seem to remeber you could in vanilla.
^^^^ like he said, so long as you’re in decent healing gear you should be fine no matter the spec.
Yeah you need to keep different item sets.
Cat durid is 4 fite!
My plan is to not rush the leveling experience and level only in bear form. My goal is to only tank in endgame and find a nice guild that supports feral tanks.
This is silly why would you go bear all the time? Or go warrior itd about the same
@@solmyr42 It's not silly. It's class immersion, if he loves to play bear then he should play bear all the way! It's like Ebbn said in the video, if playing bear is what you find to be more fun then by all means do it. Why on earth would you play a video game at all if you're not having fun playing it?
solmyrgarde Are you for real? First: let people play what and however the fkin want. Second: do you really think that I wouldn't pop out of bear once in a while to heal or do other stuff? Jesus... I was just trying to state, that I (personally) want to focus on bear 90% of the leveling time. Because I don't have interest in the cat/rogue/energy mechanic. That doesn't mean I will not use catform if necessary...
@@chei86 it just sounds autistic to me to level in bear form 90% of the time. Sure u aren't trying to make a statement doing that - cat dps sucks, I'm a responsible bear tank, anyone? Don't get discouraged by a yt comment tho!
love the druid content
Thanks!!
More videos I am going through withdrawls I need classic now...
mon/wed/friday! :)
@@Ebbnflow Cool Please dont do a streamer server.
Never understood the point of jumping around in a tab target game.
When kiting you can jump and swing around to weave a hit/instant cast at the enemy while in the air and then turn back around before landing. If you're not doing that or hardcore parkour over objects/obstacles/gaps, then it's just for fun (e.g. NE front flips).
EBN MY LOVE!
Are we ever going to talk about the fact that blizzard obviously had a fetish about the horde in vanilla? Their the only ones with chain heal, they all much more intimidating and cooler looking than alliance and every one of their racials is UNBELIEVABLY good, as apposed to some bullshit like shadowmeld or 10% reputation gain.. stupid shit
I’m liking and subbing just because female tauren!
Real numbers would make the case better. This video msde a statement, but failed to give the info on how much of a difference the cat form makes. DPS for a certain level, based on which form, for example.
Thanks!
I level only using Moonfire spam...
1:16 5% max hp FTW :) :)
As a bear specced with some buffs and gadgets you can do aoe leveling :)
Horde cat form is so disappointing...
Why are you eating during pulls 😂
Don't tell me what to do
I remember leveling by running dungeons is the best: You get more experience and good blue gear.
I must go balance
Example with warriors is bullshit. They really lvl same fast as prot compared to fury. Its not like cat at all, no rage!
Look. I agree. Cat is better 95% of the time.
But why is there no showcase of bear swiping 3 mobs at a time ? Why not mention Hurricane + bear once you get lvl 44 and Barkskin ? Your argument is incomplete. Thus close to dishonest.
Compare best scenario for cat to best scenario for bear. Not best scenario vs worst scenario. THEN outline that cat's best scenario is 95% of the leveling process AND is safer in a PvP setting.
Who the hell is lvling in bear Form ?
I know Balance/resto is not popular I believe its the best pvp spec.
The whole point of farming in bear form is to engage several mobs with Moonfire and using swipe plus having Thorns on. Works best on green mobs with low hp. Before you enter bear form you need to healing growth + rejuvenate yourself..
Man you can't possibly compare bear vs cat like you did.
Only an idiot would 1v1 mob in bear and 1v2 in cat lol.
F
this sounds like a very inexperienced druid player take
says someone who is braindead enough to play a tauren hunter. sick deadzone!
what is up with those fights where you near to die ? Keep audience attention ? fake some look how pro iam skills ? u should do a full video where you fail with those kind of show-off behavior ....anyway good video , beside this point...but your showcase skills are awefull , its like showing how to not be fast (maybe influence to be faster than the rest ) ...Ok guys beside Ebbn , dont drop to low , in this vid we saw a perfect example of an average player with a whole bunch of luck , mobs didnt parrying while he is low life , 2 times a dodge saves his live , glancing blows didnt hit him , this is all rng , if you normal guys play like this ,well i hope you play alliance cause wispform will get very handy if you have to get you corpse back so many times ... If you play cat ,you get something called stealth , while leveling up higher there are to stealth openers ,which you damn should use , all the fking time , you are fast traveling enough and the second you may spare while pulling from distance , is something you could outdmg if you use ur high dmg opening , which could cut a mobs hp between 40-50% if you get a crit ...your stun opener also reduce time you need to heal yourself , or reduce the amount of hp needed so that one single hot is farly enough....with this playstyle , you will lose alot time , you will get anger cause of dying to much , oh and btw if you are on an pvp server , well have fun dropping nonstop till 3 % ...Ebbn has luck the low guy wasnt into stress , cause iam pretty sure he saw him first , stealth cat, dmg ,ebbn had to do some new footage because walking as a ghost doesnt seem pro enough xD ...Instead the guy is sparing his life , while ebbn is so fking happy to kill him ...you could feel yourself really happy , if i was this elf , i totally would ruin your day just by sneaking aroud and wait till you drop to get that one shot kill
take ur medication next time u try to give critique
S key player lul
In pve backpeddling is very nice! Helps when tanking to arrange mob packs and if you strafe while kiting some lower level mobs they dont run fast enough to follow you. That being said its not that useful in pvp obviously :)