By now, you’ve almost certainly heard about the change to itemization whereby the +Healing and +Spell Damage stats are being retired for the less specialized Spell Power stat. What, exactly does this mean, though, and what can you expect at the release of Patch 3.0?
Forum Watch: Garrthos’ and Chariet’s Resto Arena Guides
Published on July 12, 2007 by Phaelia 
Community, PvP 
3 Comments
Garrthos of Gul’dan recently posted a guide to Arena competition as a Restoration-specced Druid. Unlike more comprehensive guides which touch on a little of everything, Garrthos’ giude details strategies for dealing with individual classes and specs, including the dreaded Warrior/Paladin 2v2 combo, resulting in a guide full of recommendations that should be easy to apply.
Here’s a snippet of his summary on fighting Rogues:
Rogue is all about timing against a druid. The only thing a rogue is thinking when he fights a resto druid is “shift out of bear, shift out of bear”. So remember that. the only time you should be out of bear form is if you’re ready to get a massive amount of dps laid into you, or you have the rogue effectively CC’d. When I’m in the arena with my warrior partner, I start out stealthed, so, I’ll usually see the rogue before he does me (because he has to stunlock my warrior off his healer).
Chariet of Sisters of Elune has created a guide to Restoration Arena play with more general suggestions (i.e., not tailored for specific classes) to help best leverage forms, even when specced for healing. Here’s a sample of what she’s written:
They will not know what to expect from you until you shift into your Tauren/Night Elf form, and they can glance at your armor. (Sometimes armor gives away the spec. Feral gear looks scary, resto gear looks pretty, etc). If you have a scary-looking feral mask, wear it! Make them think you’re feral so they will underestimate your lovely heals. (Example: I have a mask from a recent raid that is a dark hood and it makes my eyes glow red. Looks very feral!)
An additional reference for PvPing as a Druid against specific classesis available through WoWWiki.com: How to kill a… (Druid).
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The advice to wear a mask with hopes of misleading your opponent is some of the worst advice I have ever read. Take your pick of the following reasons not to do this. Feel free to pick as many as you like or even add your own.
1. In the Arena, the vast majority of of Druid players are wearing PVP gear and it will not matter what their talent spec is, the armor skins are all the same.
2. If you feel that your headpiece will reveal your spec there’s a better solution. Instead of wearing a helmet that might not be your best piece for that slot, select not to display that slot at all. Head armor pieces are optionally displayed.
3. If it’s a Feral Druid, Mangle will be used in the first part of the match. If it’s Balance, then there’s gonna be a Moonkin. If you’re up against a Druid and you don’t see him or her doing either of these two things, you can safely assume that the Druid is there to heal.
If it is a feral, you will se the LotP-buff on both the druid and her teammates.
@Vulgaris: Great point – I hadn’t thought of that!