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Fun with Forms
Published on February 5, 2008 by Phaelia 
Lunar Guidance, Macros, Spells and Talents 
21 Comments
I used to be so die-hard Resto4Life (haha) that I refused to even map my shapeshifting abilities. If I turned into a Bear, it was only to /dance. Fortunately however, PvP has opened my eyes to a whole host of advantages to our various forms, and I’m happy to say that I’m now never more than a thumb movement away from turning into a happy woodland — or underwater — creature. Here are a few of the tricks I’ve learned for each form:
Cat Form
- Prowl + Dash past groups of enemies the rest of your group or raid has to carefully avoid.
- Bravely leap from ledge to ledge on the ramps in Karazhan.
- Dash back to your raid after being the victim of an ability that signficantly displaces you (ex. waterfalls on Morogrim).
- Dash back to your raid (wait for a straightaway like that of Curator’s hall in Karazhan) after a wipe so you can blog — I mean, buff — after a wipe.
Bear Form
- Mob out of control and running to bash your skull in? Turn into a bear and Bash his skull in instead, giving your tank 3 seconds to mosey over and give you a hand. PvP-specced Druids often have the Brutal Impact skill, making this a 4-second stun instead of 3.
- Impending doom from a Gruul Shatter? Pop Barskin and turn into a Bear. You’ll get more hit points and take 20% less damage than you would otherwise.
Aquatic Form
Turning into a seal lets you travel through water faster than everyone else. This is great for getting back to the circular platform that surrounds The Lurker Below in SSC after a Whirl, Geyser, or ill-timed Spout. And does anyone else get really annoyed by the fact that a few random AIR bubbles knock us out of Aquatic Form on our way through the drainpipe to Coilfang Reservoir?
Tree of Life
Use Tree of Life form on Blackheart the Inciter (possibly any mob that charms; I’m not sure) and during the phases where he charms your whole group, you’ll wander around ineffectually slapping your groupmates with your branches.
Flight Form
- Die in an unsafe spot? Click the “Resurrect” button and hit your Flight Form button for a quick getaway!
- One of my favorite things to do in game is to leap off Aldor Terrace, drop halfway down, turn into a bird, glide into the bank, and shift out so that I’m thrown across the room and land beside the mailbox. Sometimes, I even /bow. Not exactly combat-focused, but tremendously entertaining.
All-Terrain Travel Form Macro
Rather than creating and using multiple buttons for your various forms, consider creating a macro that will use Travel Form, Flight Form, Aquatic Form, or your mount based upon your current conditions:
/cast [swimming] Aquatic Form; [flyable,nocombat,noswimming] Swift Flight Form; [noswimming,outdoors,combat] Travel Form;
/use [noswimming,outdoors,nocombat,noflyable] Reins of the Swift Frostsaber
So what special form-based tricks do you use?
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I am excited that BRK is back, though!
/cry I love you, ty for everything.
I just wanted to say … I hope every single one of those air bubbles pop. And die. Twice.
You pretty much summed up what I do, though, hehe. I suppose sometimes I dash over to herbs in instances to annoy other guildies, but I haven’t run a normal or heroic instance in about four months except for BT attunement. Whoops
Gliding wins
Heh, i often unshift flight form, drop down and re-shift shortly before impact to reduce flight time when dealing with a huge z-delta.
Also you can shift out of flight form and into cat form if you are in a hurry and the drop is not too large.
I never did this, but i suppose shifting into bear form midair and charging a mob/hordie below is great fun.
“One of my favorite things to do in game is to leap off Aldor Terrace, drop halfway down, turn into a bird, glide into the bank, and shift out so that I’m thrown across the room and land beside the mailbox. Sometimes, I even /bow. Not exactly combat-focused, but tremendously entertaining.”\
*glares* Druids and their showoffedness. ^^
The entrance to bot has a floating rock in front of it
If you time dash + jump right, you can make it from the rock to the ship >.>
It’s awesome.
Bear form is a forgotten godsend for us healers. I regularly use tree to heal in instances but lately have discovered the joys of BG and Arena: cat prowl, heal partner, do some zapping, bear form while taking abuse go to heal myself and finish them off. Fun stuff.
“Also you can shift out of flight form and into cat form if you are in a hurry and the drop is not too large.”
And, prowl before you hit the ground
Going the other way is fun too.. prowling kitty to flight form as soon as you are outside. Doesn’t really matter if there are mobs around. Just fly away.
I use both of those for grabbing mining veins in caves.
I’ve enjoyed ninja’ing stables in AB (I’m horde). At the start of the match I mount to BS, jump in the water and seal form until I’m on ground, immediately stealth, sick the treants on the typical one defender, and ninja away.
Also, jumping down to mine and switching to cat form to avoid damage with an immediate steath is really fun.
I am loooving being a druid in PvP!
I’ve done the flight form from Aldor thing (or to it, when the elevator isn’t handy) – but not the flying bailout, gotta try that.
Another silly trick is to jump while in water, and shift to flight form. It takes a bit of timing to do, though.
Favourite Druid-Engineer trick is to hit the Parachute Cloak then go kitty and stealth while gliding down towards your target… Stealth Fighter!
More macros that I use:
Stick Bear Form:
(For spamming to get into Bear ASAP and not getting shifted back out)
#showtooltip Dire Bear Form(Shapeshift)
/cancelform [nostance:1]
/cast [nostance] Dire Bear Form
Mutli-Function Cat:
(Click 1 Cat, Click 2, Stealth, Click 3, Pounce)
#showtooltip Prowl
/cancelform [nostance:3]
/cast [nostance] Cat Form; [stance:3, nocombat, nostealth] Prowl; [stance:3, stealth] Pounce; [stance:3, combat, nostealth] Cower
I am constantly launching myself off of things to see just how long I stay in free fall before casting flight form and flying away. I especially like the huge column of light in Shat fly to the top center yourself over the space between the four columns below then drop and hope for the best. I try to wait until I’m inside the room below to hit the button (lag=death). But my real favorite is to rez after some horde has killed me and is camping fly up and rebuff and heal myself without ever touching the ground then fly down and get my revenge.
I’m not sure how many of you know about the bird form Loop-da-Loop but if you type /formspecial in bird form it’s a pretty good way to mock whatever horde you are leaving dead on the ground as you fly away.
Every time we go to SSC i run into those bubbles. Its some silly mechanic in the game, if you can breath even underwater it thinks you arent in the water.
I have actually used many of the before mentioned tricks with my feral forms. I leveled up feral so maybe its just me. I think alot of druids forget (esspeshaly in arenas) that cat form is faster with dash than travel. Most of the time raiding im too busy spamming lifeblooms to turn into a bear but sometimes i remember in heroics. I used to play a rogue so i always shift cat for long drops and try to dash as much as i can. ^_^
My raiding moonkin friend also has very sililar feelings toward how you thought of feral forms. She dosent even have any of the feral abilitys trained. She has been balance since beta and she will stubbernly never play another spec.
An even better travel form macro:
#showtooltip
/cast [swimming,noform:2]Aquatic Form;[flyable,nocombat,noform:2/6]Flight Form;[noform:6/4/2]Travel Form;
/cancelform
Click it once to shift to the appropriate form… Click it again and it un-shifts you.
(Works for druids with ToL – Remember to change “flight form” to “Epic flight form” if applicable)
So, I see what you did there with the tree, bear and cat picture…
How did you crawl into my head and take the idea I had for an avatar and use it in your blog already?
You even have the tree in the exact pose I wanted to use. now it’ll look like I’m stealing your idea.
::mutters:: darn Phae, making me think.. stupid art…
I routinuely fly up in flight form, shift to tree and start tossing HoTs on me to see how much my spells tick for when I’ve gotten an upgrade.
@Rakel: That’s a really great idea to combine Flight Form + Cat Form! And Rawr Bearing amuses me to no end. I really wish I’d tried it before speccing out of my PvP spec.
@Jad: I didn’t know you could Prowl while falling. Interesting …
@Simoncowell: That sounds like a blast. I’m usually too chicken to do anything alone in PvP. Which is one of the reasons I steer clear of EotS. People love to leave a healer alone at a tower to defend while they go running off after the flag.
@Kaera: Hey, thanks! I particuarly like the last multi-function kitty cat macro.
@Sioban: I would like to be your blacksmith. And I meant to try /formspecial last night but logged off immediately after our raid. DRAT!
@Caymus: Thanks for the revised macro. I had no idea you could combine stances with a colon and slashes like that. Learn something new every day!
@Maerdred: Don’t let me stop you! Two people can come up with the same original independent from one another. I’m sure your avatar will be better executed anyway. =D
@Sorayn: If a Tree falls in Shattrath, does it take enough damage to die?
Quote: “so you can blog — I mean, buff — after a wipe.”
LOLOLOLOOLOLOLOLOLOL
I have always been an avid reader of your blog. To show that im not a blog ninja I have decided to post a comment. Blackheart the Inciter shapeshifts my moonkin to cat or bear. Waste of my mana.
Don’t forget Kitty Charge! So you get knocked back by a mob while DPS’ing… Quick shift into bear, feral charge, quick switch to kitty while in mid charge. You’ll see your kitty form skid across the ground like ice and you can resume DPS.
I also have my forms hotkeyed:
CTRL + ~ = Flight Form
CTRL + 1 = Bear Form
CTRL + 2 = Kitty Form
CTRL + 3 = Travel Form
CTRL + 4 = Swim Form
For me shape shifting is very situational. So I choose not to use the macro’s for shape shifting. Being a feral druid 90% of the time I need to have quick access to all my forms. I would argue ALL druid specs need to be switching in and out of forms as the situation changes.
Great blog BTW. My favorite Druid blog to date!
@HolyWarrior: Funny story. The patch notes came out last Friday while I was in ZA with my guild. After announcing their release over Ventrilo (just before a boss attempt), I was chastized for reading the notes instead of buffing. I said, quite offendedly “I’m not READING them. I’m posting them to my blog!”
@Awrakso: Well hello there! Thank you for commenting. It’s always nice to see new faces! ANd if I were a Moonkin, I’d be quite offended at the implication that the mob thinks my Feral forms to be more effective!
@Abo: Oh wow … that sounds great! I wonder how that would work with a Feral Charging Tree … And thank you for the compliment!
In WSG/AB, when I’m standing by to heal the flag carrier while waiting to get our flag back or fellow defenders by a base, I always stay stealthed in Cat form until I’m needed. It never hurts to have the element of surprise, even if you’re healing.
No one expects the druid intervention!
@Roffle: I do something similar, although I like to hide in a bush on or a roof. All the better surprise!