Rerolling a Resto Druid

[Kasarin]

I've always wanted to roll a druid...but never had the time. I play ~10 hours a week, and until now have loved my pally. Healing in arena has been so frustrating, so I've been working on my rogue, but after getting all S2 and 5/5 merc with both s2 weapons, I xferred on a west coast server with friends, but the 300 ms wont let me be a rogue! So I'm picking up with my 34 druid on this crappy PvE server. As I level up and get ready to gear at 70, I have a few questions.

Gear Stats:
+heal vs spirit vs int
does spirit regen work when im shifted in another form?
do i have to gear up with pvp gear when i start? (i dont have much time to grind honor getting 1 piece a week sucks.) what can i substitute for resil? (i.e. stam and more +heal so i can hot and run away?)


PvP
I'm definately playing 2v2 with a lock or rogue, will a reroll character be greatly restricted by gear?(2k rating cap)
JoJ is the killer, but it seems when its lock druid, the felpuppy can devour magic it (or I suck at JoJin' as a pally) , so I should play with a lock for 2's at teh start since my survivability is low?

And obviously the most important question: What do you druids feel when playing against paladin healers? Especially 2v2 and 3v3 when you are the only healer and the other team only has a pally healer? (To me its like hot up, root melee, lol cyclone, feral charge and bash, gg pally)
I just love theorycrafting all the possibilites of druid healing, it seems so versatile and having CC as a healer is awesome, I have played a priest and pally, being a clothie sucks, having to stand in range and los all the time to dump heals sucks, a druid can be played offensively and defensively, is this the way to roll?

[Molp]

No druid that I am aware of stacks spirit or int for arena. However, most of us have a bangle and a spirit staff, which for example brings my spirit from 155 to 320ish when I innervate. Makes a huge difference. Druids at first stack stamina and resilience. Higher end druids (eg Spoh) tend to use more healing stats as they are so hard to kill that most teams will focus their ally more, especially if they play with a warrior.

If you are poorly geared, find a warlock partner. Warlock/druid is incredibly easy. Warrior/druid is incredibly versatile - there is not a single matchup that I feel is unwinnable - but if you have poor gear and little experience it is going to be hard. I am a reroll druid and when I started out I sucked hard. I still suck, but not as much, and hopefully some day I will be decent. And warrior/druid is not the lineup you want to play if you or your gear sucks. I only played a handful of games as rogue/druid but I would figure it is the same.

Pally/warrior is your best friend when you play with a warlock and your worst enemy when you play with a warrior. I cannot reliably avoid being JoJed, and seeing how we have beaten 2200 warrior/druid teams I doubt they can either. Maybe 2500 teams can. You can still win while being JoJed but then the gear thing comes into play again. You will have to bear up and charge the pally to get away from the warrior if you are JoJed. If you are undergeared you won't live long enough to pull it off.

And yes druids are a lot of fun to play. In 2v2 you can pull off a win against virtually any team since you can stall so well. But it is not easy (unless you roll with a lock - lock/druid is so easy its flat out boring). Having PvPed with other classes before I found druids to be the hardest to master.

[Ridzik]

unless you roll with a lock - lock/druid is so easy its flat out boring

only because we are the war/druid counter doesnt mean its easy at all. say hallo to the good rogue+x teams giving you one nightmare after another :)

[Molp]

only because we are the war/druid counter doesnt mean its easy at all. say hallo to the good rogue+x teams giving you one nightmare after another :)

I have played both warrior/druid and lock/druid. I am not saying that lock/druid is stronger. It is not. It has way more hopeless fights, while warrior/druid really has none. But the fights that are not hopeless are easy and boring to the max. On the other hand I feel almost every win as warrior/druid is hard earned. We have a lot of 60/40 and 50/50 lineups. On a bad night, warrior/druid can lose to a lot of teams.

Concrete example. 2100 rating, bad night as warrior/druid, going down to 1930. Next day I play a few games with a lock I have never played with before and without breaking a sweat get to 2030. Yes we lost a game or two, but it was still way easier than almost any game I played with a warrior lately - and I have a lot more experience as warrior/druid.

Strong and easy are not the same. Warrior/druid is arguably the strongest 2v2 lineup out there right now. But it is far from the easiest to master. The difference in skill is enormous. One night, 5 straight games vs a 2600 mirror match followed by 3 straight games vs a 1900 mirror match. The difference was night and day even though gear and specs were virtually identical. A long time ago I played a mirror matchup against the #1 lock/druid team back then. Even though me and my lock were not very good at the time (and had only played maybe 20 games together) we managed to drag that fight out for an eternity. Even though we ultimately lost it actually felt pretty close.