Shifting Perspectives: PvP is hard

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by Dan O'Halloran and David Bowers.

Every class has its pet PvP problems. Some whine a lot about how many times they've been nerfed; others just whine about warlocks. But most of these classes have a pretty clear idea about what they're supposed to be doing. Sometimes they whine that they don't like "what they're supposed to be doing" and would rather remake their class into something completely different -- but that's another issue.

Here's the generally accepted conventional wisdom on what each class is supposed to be doing in PvP:

• Rogues: Kick buttocks (by surprise)

• Hunters: Shoot buttocks (from a distance)

• Mages: Freeze and burn buttocks (and sheep)

• Priest: Melt buttocks (or heal)

• Shaman: Shock buttocks, drop totems (and heal)

• Warrior: Charge in and smash buttocks (with a healer in tow)

• Paladin: Stay alive (and heal)

• Warlock: Laugh maniacally (a lot)

• Druid: Mix and match your healing, damage absorption, and buttocks-destruction by being in the right form at the right time to do the right thing that needs to be done based on whoever is around you and whatever is going on at any given moment (lol wut?)
  

I realize I'm oversimplifying a bit, but from my experience of playing other classes as well as watching them, I really get a sense that most other classes have it a lot simpler -- not necessarily "better" -- just more straightforward and intuitive.

The problem of druid PvP is one in which you sometimes feel less like one class and more like a shifter between three or four mini-classes. Each of these mini-classes (bear, cat, and caster) mimics but does not copy the qualities and abilities of its parent class (warriors, rogues, and priests). The mini-classes are close enough to their parent classes that you could say "cat form is like a rogue, but more limited" but not close enough that you could say "when in cat form, do as rogues do." You don't have the various tools of manipulation, control and escape that rogues have -- instead you have these other mini-classes to fall back to. So if you find yourself with a problem in a fight, you have to completely switch gears from rogue-like thinking (a.k.a. "Buttocks kicking by surprise") to warrior thinking or priest thinking -- only then again, not really, since you're not really a warrior or a priest, and you can't forget you still have this mini-rogue class to fall back on.

It's boggling to try and wrap your instincts around this. Oh it's one thing to talk about it -- sure let's talk about world peace and education reform too -- but it's another thing to actually go out there and do it. There's so much you have to understand at the tips of your fingers as well as in the front of your mind, with that kind of big-picture awareness of everything that's going on around you, that fighting other players as a feral druid is undoubtedly difficult. This is not your most-easily-mastered-class, for sure.

Ay, there's the rub. I said feral druid, didn't I? Indeed, restoration and balance druids tend to have yet again two totally different sets of issues involved. I hear that restoration druids can do very very well in the arenas and other forms of PvP -- in a supporting role of course. And as for moonkins, you'll have to ask Dan when he comes back to Shifting Perspectives next week, since he's the most "balanced" druid of the two of us. Still, if I'm not totally mistaken here -- both balance and restoration druids basically get things simplified quite a bit. They have their tree of life or moonkin forms to go into and out of, and they don't rely on bear form or cat form so much. So, they're not really dealing with the three-classes-in-one problem that the feral druid must face in PvP.

Here we have the very crux of the issue. Feral druids are alone in this game with a particular set of abilities and limitations that is at once their greatest strength and their greatest weakness. That's to say, feral druids are the only ones with three sets of different abilities each geared towards different goals and varying situations. This is indeed something very strong to bring to your team -- yet at the same time, understanding the proper use of these three sets of abilities can be so very complicated as to bar newcomers from ever really understanding it.

As one experienced druid puts it,

Does that sound bleak? Yep. I'd like to tell Blizzard where all the problems are, and how exactly they should fix it... except that the problem is sort of built into the class itself, isn't it? How do you balance a three-classes-in-one class against all the other classes that are so much more straightforward in their aims and methods, without either overshadowing those other classes or ending up useless by comparison with them?

Surely some of you reading this article are really excellent feral druid PvPers, and you are already preparing a response in your mind that will illumine us about the proper feral druid PvP attitude. Please feel free to share.

To get you started, let me share with you what one poster to the druid pvp forum at pvpscene.com said. According to "Doltz," the key to success as a feral druid is actually in resilience gear, which you can start out getting from gaining honor in the battlegrounds. Resilience can help mitigate a lot of that burst damage that leaves you thinking, "What in the world? How did I just die?" and ends your battle before it even started. It can give you the beginning of that protective edge you need to start actually living long enough to get meaningful learning out of your PvP practice, rather than feeling as though feral druid PvP is only slightly better than hitting yourself on the finger with a large hammer.

So, there is hope for the more resilient amongst us. PvPing as a feral druid may just be one of the hardest things you can do in WoW, but if you're dedicated and persevering, perhaps you can climb that mountain and achieve what others could not.