Druid PvE Guide

Druid PvE/Raid Tactics

Several things to keep in mind here:

1. I'm a healing druid, and thus this guide is aimed towards restoration druids. I am not expressing the opinion that feral druids suck or are useless. I chose Restoration because I feel that it is most useful to my guild and suits my play style. Flame accordingly.
2. This is all in my opinion and is by NO means an exhaustive guide. This is merely a set of observations from one druid who has done a fair amount of raiding.
3. This might get a bit long, so if you get bored easily or are an uber pro druid already, you might want to skip ahead and go straight to the flaming.

I: Basic Strategy--things to keep in mind as a healer

Item use: This pertains to the use of bandages (hopefully Heavy Runecloth) and mana pots (again hopefully superior).

* Bandages: In boss fights, you or another player near you will often take a non- lethal amount of damage. One example is Onyxia's ranged fireballs. Bandaging yourself or other players rather than using one of your heals is absolutely essential to conserve mana. Keep in mind that not only are you NOT USING mana, you are also lengthening your non-casting regen time. Always bring at least 20 bandages to any raid.
* Pots: Mana pots are HUGE in long boss fights. The earlier you drink one, the more you can use throughout the fight. In several of the longer boss fights, such as Onyxia, you can easily use 3-5 superior mana pots. That's 6-10k extra mana for healing. This is obviously expensive, but as a druid we are the best herb farmers in the game--you might want to consider taking up Herbalism for this reason.

-Innervate: Innervate can be used up to 3-4 times in a single boss fight. It is best to use Innervate on the PRIEST in your raid with the highest spirit as soon as they dip below 40% or so mana. Priests gain more mana per point of spirit, thus they get more benefit from Innervate.

-Ranged healing and "Safe" spots: Heal range is 40 yards--and you should (if possible) always try to use and abuse this long range. The further you are from the given mob, the less chance you will be hurt by an area effect attack. Also, there are some spots that are safer vs certain bosses. For example, see ledge use on Onyxia.

-Ctraid: There are other programs like ctraid, my guild just all uses it so it's a must for me. However, whatever you use--you need to be able to see the life totals of the warriors in your raid. Additionally, I consider the mana conservation option under misc. options in ctraid a must for any raid healer. With it you can set a spell to cancel .5s before cast if the target has more than x% health when the spell is about to complete. This allows you to chain spam Healing Touch on a tank without wasting mana. I usually keep mine set at 80%.

-Healing touch is much more mana efficient in these types of raids than Regrowth or Rejuv for two reasons. First, other druids might be using the same spells, and they do not stack. Second, tanks tend to take spiked damage, not steady damage. Thus, a tank will probably spend half his time at 100% health and not receive half his hot ticks. Combined with the ctraid mana conservation, there is very little reason to use Rejuv/Regrowth except as patch healing for your group or a quick emergency heal on a tank.

-Rebirth: Best used on irreplaceable main tanks or downed healers.

II: Outdoor Raid bosses:

Azuregos

Azuregos: A big blue dragon found in southern Azshara; Azuregos spawns once or twice a week. If you play in a pvp realm, as I do, he is in a contested zone and therefore you will probably be harassed by the other faction.

General strat: Tanks fight for aggro at all times while ranged dps does as much damage as possible without drawing aggro. Dps casters (mages, warlocks) will need to watch and quit casting when Azuregos' skin sparkles. During this time, he will reflect all spells on the caster. Casters need keep in mind that mana conservation is not very important here, because you can always run away and drink if you get low.

-My role: Due to the debuff Mark of Frost, which makes you useless if you die for 15 minutes, you must do your best NOT to die yourself or let anyone else die. However, most of your mana should go into either healing yourself or the warriors fighting for aggro. All dps classes should be able to fend for themselves (for the most part) by using bandages. It's a good use of mana to keep another healer alive, or to cap off your own life. I do NOT recommend any use of HoT spells against Azuregos, because when he summons everyone to him (about once a minute) he clears his hate list--thus 2-3 active HoT's could easily get you killed before warriors can regain aggro. As a druid, travel form will help you escape AZ's clutches after a teleport and will also help you get away to drink faster.

Lord Kazzak

Lord Kazzak: A big demon lord found in the Blasted Lands. Again, as with Azuregos, this is a timed spawn and found in a contested zone. However, one hostile faction member can wipe your raid here, because whereas with Azuregos you can simply kill the hostile, that one player has the ability to heal Kazzak for 75k or more.

General strat: One tank holds aggro, other melees spam dps as quickly as possible. Ranged dps also dumps damage--this is a very quick fight (3 minutes or less). Priests dispell a very powerful magic timebomb and heal. Druids/mages dispell a mana/life burning curse. Even more so than with Azure, NO ONE must die in this fight. Each time a person dies, Kazzak self heals for 75k life. He munches souls.

-My role: Priority order:,

1. Dispell curses on group members
2. Heal the main tank (or anyone else low on health)
3. Use Root/Moonfire spam to prevent hostile faction members from getting close to Kazzak. If they die with aggro to him, he will heal for 75k just as if one of your members dies.

Onyxia

Onyxia: A big dragoness (I think=O) found in Dustswallow Marsh. Your particular raid can kill her once every 6 days. This is an instanced zone, so no problems with hostile factions.

General: Onyxia has three stages, and within each stage the group must employ a different strategy. Her reactions aren't particularly dynamic, but if you don't take the right precautions they can be devastating.

Stage 1-Onyxia is on the ground and is fairly harmless as long as your main tank stays alive and holds aggro facing away from the rest of the raid. Main tank should be the only one requiring healing.

Stage 2-Onyxia flies up into the air and begins to shoot fireballs at everyone on the ground. Two things of importance here... First, your raid MUST NOT bunch up. Use the entire space below her or she will sense gathered hate in one area and take a "deep breath" which is an immensely powerful area effect attack. Few raids that take one of these breaths survive to kill her. Second, two groups will be on either side of the lair handling Onyxia's whelplings as they spawn in bunches from eggs. These whelps act just like the ones in UBRSs at Lord Flametongue, and are pretty easy.

Stage 3-Onyxia lands, and the fun begins: During this stage, Onyxia will again be on the main tank. However, she frequently casts an area effect fear, and during the fear timer jets of lava will shoot up from the ground. Should you run into one of these jets, you will take massive fire damage. Surviving this tactic is all about getting up and above the spurts.

My role:

* Stage 1- Avoid her mouth and heal the main tank
* Stage 2 - Don't bunch up, heal fireballed members (lightly, bandages might be all that's required), heal ae'ers for whelps, conserve mana
* Stage 3 - Get up on the ledge on the north side of Onyxia's lair. Up there, you won't be hit by the lava spikes during the area effect fear. Heal other healers and the main tank.