World of Warcraft™

Druid Leveling Guide, version 4.3 (updated 12/31/2011)
Originally, v.1.12 was posted by Jaegor, 60 Feral Druid, Dark Iron, Panda Attack
Updated and maintained post-2.1 by: Lissanna, 80 druid, Elune

Also found at my blog: http://www.restokin.com/druid-leveling-guide/

Druid leveling guide – Feral and Balance are recommended as solo specs for questing.

Introduction:

This guide is for new druids starting out (for both people new to the game and for people starting their first druid alt!). It is specifically geared towards PvE leveling, with advice focused towards solo questing or 5-man dungeon leveling. My name is Lissanna and I've been writing druid leveling guides since 2006. I'm currently a druid blogger at Restokin.com. I'll be your guide through learning how to play the crazy druid class!

The first thing to understand is that feral cat is the most efficient talent tree for solo questing, especially now that you get cat form at level 8. Feral druids level in cat form, and attack their opponents up close in melee range using attacks with Energy as a resource and combo points for big finishing moves.

Balance druids can level solo perfectly fine. However, you will have to drink more often. This is still a good option if you enjoy being a caster, where you can root things away from you and hit them with damage spells using mana as your resource. At higher levels, balance druids get moonkin form to turn into a big owl-beast.

If you are leveling up in instances, you may want to be a tank (a feral druid focusing on bear form tanking), or a healer (a restoration druid focusing on using healing spells). Feral for tanking and resto for healing in instances as you level is a perfectly viable option. A feral bear spec will be fine for solo questing at lower levels, as well. However, a primary healer leveling as restoration will definitely need to pick up a second talent spec (balance makes the most obvious choice) at level 30 when you can get your dual-spec feature.

Table of contents (v 4.2)

Feral Leveling Sections (3 posts) :
2. Feral Leveling talent Spec
3. Feral Spells & abilities
4. Feral Glyphs & gear

Balance Leveling sections (3 posts):
5. Balance Leveling talent Spec
6. Balance Spells & abilities
7. Balance Glyphs & Gear


Healing & Tank (bear) leveling:
8. Dualspec Healing Leveling
9. Dualspec Tanking Leveling

All Specs:
10. Q&A and additional resources

Feral Cat Leveling Talents

Congrats on reaching level 10! If you would like to be a druid that focuses on melee damage (cat) then a feral spec is the right one for you! Choose “feral” in the talent summary page.

You get one talent point at level 10 and then another point every odd level as you are leveling up to 80. From 81 to 85, you get one talent point every level. Keep in mind while you are leveling that Blizzard doesn’t really keep leveling in mind when they decide where to place talents in their tree. So, you will want to do your best to pick up talents that will enhance abilities you currently use the most, and then choose whatever else you need to get to move up the talent tree when you run out of helpful options along the way.

Basically, picking up very general talents like Primal Fury (gives you a chance to gain more combo points in cat form) could be a good thing even at low levels, since mangle will generate combo points faster, allowing you to Ferocious Bite sooner (and also give you Predatory Strikes self-heals more often).

Other talents like Blood in the water (your ferocious bite can refresh the duration of Rip) are oriented more towards end-game raiding situations where it may take 10 or 15 minutes for the fight to end (rather than the 10 or 15 seconds it takes you to kill something at low levels). The next section of the guide will cover what level you have access to various abilities.

Talents in the first two tiers of the feral tree are pretty general, and so I usually pick them up first.
My level 41 talent build would look like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrGbo

After you put 31 talent points in the feral tree, you can pick up talent points from outside that tree. You would want to invest points in the restoration tree to get: Heart of the Wild, Natural Shapeshifter, & Master Shapeshifter.

At level 81, your leveling talent build might look like this (where a cat build avoids things that only help bear form):
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrGfozrzoczMcz

Feral Druid leveling (spells & abilities):

Feral druids – level 1 thru 7 -
You have to level up as a caster for the first 8 levels, with:

Level 1 – Wrath (direct spell damage with a short cast time),
4 – moonfire (instant cast spell that does damage over time)
5- thorns (a short duration buff on yourself that does damage to things that hit you)
7 – roots (used to keep things from hitting you)

Rotation 1 to 7: Mostly spamming wrath as you level up. Use moonfire early, so that the damage can tick over time. When you want to keep something off you, you can use roots to hold them in place. (So, a rotation at level 7 could be: roots, moonfire, and then use wrath until your target dies).

Feral level 8 thru 19 (Kitty attack!):

8 – This is where you get cat form (a lot earlier than we used to before). When you shift into cat form, you now do melee damage and you get a new set of abilities that you can only use in cat form:
8 – Rake (does bleed damage over time, awards combo points)
8 -Claw (does direct melee damage, awards combo points, only used until level 10)
8-Ferocious Bite (Uses the combo points you generated from other abilities to do a big burst of damage to your target).

Cat rotation at 8: Use rake, then claw until you have 4 or 5 combo points, and then use ferocious bite.

10 – Prowl (enemies can’t see you, but you move slow). At level 22, this becomes more useful (when you start to get abilities that require you to prowl). Until then, just use it when you want to sneak past things.
10 – Mangle (when you choose feral as your talent specialization, you get this ability. It does direct damage, and replaces your claw. Also makes bleeds, like rake, do more damage.

Cat rotation at 10: Getting mangle changes your rotation to: mangle until 5 combo points, then Ferocious bite (mangle-spam is basically going to be the fastest at low levels). Note that you should now take claw off your bar and replace it with Mangle. For targets with higher health(rares, bosses, etc), use up Rake after the first Mangle, Mangle until 5 combo points and then Ferocious Bite.

Feral 20 & beyond:
Key abilities:

20 – Feral charge (available as a talent – lets you charge up to your targets)
22 – Skull bash (you charge up to your target, and interrupt the spell they are casting. Works in bear & cat form)
24 – tiger’s fury (increases damage done by your cat form, and gives 60 energy back with the King of the Jungle talent)
24 – Faerie Fire Feral – (Decreases your target’s armor. Can be used to hit things that are far away and make them come to you instead of charging up to them. Works in cat or bear [and does damage in bear])
45 – Shred (requires you to be behind your target, but does a lot of damage when you use it. Shred does even more damage when both Mangle and a bleed(rake, pounce, rip) are on the target).

Cat rotation 20-45: The long version = Prowl, feral charge cat to get to your target faster, then open from stealth with ravage, mangle until 5 combo points, Ferocious bite. If you want to make things come to you instead of going up to them, then use faerie fire and then use your mangle-spam rotation.

Rotation 46 and beyond: Pounce->Mangle->Tiger’s Fury->Shred until they wake up. Then depending on the situation either FB for the kill or Mangle for more CP then FB. (alternatively, you can keep doing the same mangle-spam rotation, especially if things are dieing quickly).

Alternative rotation advice: Since the talent stampede gives a ravage that doesn’t require you to be behind your target or stealthed, you can open with charge, spam shred until they wake up and face you, then use the free ravage, instead of using the strategy that opens with pounce.

5-man advice:
1) When running instances with groups, Shred will hit harder than mangle-spam. So, position yourself behind the target to spam shred to get combo points after your first mangle. You should also apply your bleeds to bosses that take longer to die (ie. rake & rip).

4) Feral Stats & gearing
• Primary stat weighting for cat druids: Agility > Strength > Stamina >>>>>>>> int > spirit

Agility is the primary stat for feral leveling druids. Agility makes your melee attacks hit harder (because it gives you attack power), and agility also increases your critical strike chance. Focus the most on agility in your gearing

Other useful Feral stats:
• - Stamina will be on most of your gear. Tanking druids will want more stamina when you can get it. Stamina makes you live longer.
• -Critical strike rating is good for you and should show up on more items when you get higher level
• - Hit rating shows up on some low level items. This reduces the chance for you to miss with your attacks.
• -Strength will show up mostly on accessories (ie. rings, cloaks, necks). Strength does still give attack power for cat & bear druids, but it is not as good as agility anymore – so take agility options when you can. Strength will be better than intellect for feral. Strength is also good for bears when you also pick up dodge or high levels of stamina on the item.
• -Haste rating shows up on higher level pieces of gear that will be good for you.
• -Mastery will show up on items after you hit level 80, and it should be okay for you.
• -Dodge and armor rating on accessories – good for bear tanking druids, but not as useful for cat druids.
• -Expertise shows up on high level feral gear, and a little bit of expertise is okay (see high level druid guides for more info about this stat).

What NOT to wear as a feral druid:
• –Intellect is a stat you should avoid on your gear because it is better for caster (ie. healer or balance druids), and isn’t as good for feral leveling. You shouldn’t need intellect on your gear, so please don’t run around as a kitty wearing intellect gear. Some may end up on your gear, but avoid it when possible.
• -Spirit is another caster stat that is bad for bears & cats. Feral druids wearing spirit items make me cry.
• - Parry rating shows up on some tanking gear. Bears can’t parry attacks, so this stat is bad for you.

Feral Leveling Glyphs
Prime: Mangle (level 25), Rip (Available at Level 54), Berserk (Use at level 75)
Major glyphs: Choose Rake or Maul (level 25), Feral Charge (level 50), Choose Faerie Fire or Rebirth (level 75)
Minor – Use any that look useful (Aquatic form, challenging roar, dash, Wild, or Unburdened rebirth)

5) Balance Leveling v 4.2 (so you wanna be a Moonkin):

Moonkin Talents

Congrats on reaching level 10! If you would like to be a druid that focuses on doing damage by casting from far away, choose “balance” on the talent summary page. This gives you Starsurge (a short cooldown spell that hits pretty hard).

You get one talent point at level 10 and then another point every odd level as you are leveling up to 80. From 81 to 85, you get one talent point every level. You will want to do your best to pick up talents that will enhance abilities you currently use the most, and then choose whatever else you need to get to move up the talent tree when you run out of helpful options along the way.

The first talent you want to invest in is Starlight Wrath, since it will make your main spells cast faster. While you are leveling, you want to choose talents that will increase your damage with Wrath, Starfire, & starsurge over other abilities. Also pick up talents that give you new abilities (like typhoon, moonkin form, etc).

Since you aren’t using DOTs much, you can wait a while before you get Genesis (though you’ll want it at higher levels). The only talents you should really avoid while leveling are Fungal growth (you don’t get mushrooms until way late), dreamstate (don’t need the extra regen), and Lunar Shower (it’s not very good right now, even at level 85).

Level 53 talent build: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0IbMdRhoko

When you get 31 points in the balance tree, you can then pick up some points from the restoration tree such as: Heart of the Wild, Natural Shapeshifter & Master shapeshifter.

Level 81 talent build: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0IfrdRGokozZMcz

5) Mookin spells & Abilities

Moonkin Level 1 thru 9-

Level 1 – Wrath (direct spell damage with a short cast time),
4 – moonfire (instant cast spell that does damage over time)
5 - thorns (a short duration buff on yourself that does damage to things that hit you)
7 – roots (used to keep things from hitting you)
8 – Starfire (longer cast direct damage spell).

Rotation 1 to 9: Mostly spamming wrath as you level up. Use moonfire early, so that the damage can tick over time. When you want to keep something off you, you can use roots to hold them in place. (So, a rotation at level 7 could be: roots, moonfire, and then use wrath until your target dies). At level 8, you get starfire, which is pretty similar to wrath, only it has a longer cast time. You can put the thorns buff on you when people are hitting you.

Level 10 to 19:

Your talent panel unlocks, and you get to choose the “balance” specialization for your talents. Choosing “balance” gives you several things:

Starsurge – a 2 second cast time spell that does a high amount of damage. You should try to cast this whenever it’s off cooldown. This counts as both arcane & nature damage, so both types of Eclipse buffs will increase the damage of starsurge.

Moonfury is a passive damage increase.

Eclipse: This puts a bar under your name-plate. When you cast Wrath, it pushes the bar towards 100. When it hits 100, you get a Lunar Eclipse, which gives you a buff that increases your arcane damage by 25% (ie. makes spells like moonfire & starfire do more damage). Then, you want to cast starfire while the Lunar Eclipse buff is active. Casting starfire will push your Eclipse bar further to the other side, where you will proc a Solar Eclipse. Solar Eclipse increases your nature damage by 25% (wrath & insect swarm) while that buff is active, so at that point, you would switch back to wrath.

A more detailed guide on How Eclipse Works (with pictures!) can be found here: http://www.restokin.com/2010/11/how-eclipse-works/

More information on Eclipse (see section 10 & 11): http://qieths-quips.com/moonkin-guide/

Level 20 to 50:

Insect swarm – Another Damage over Time effect (DOT), similar to moonfire. At lower levels, things should die fast enough that you won’t need to use your DOTs a whole lot. At higher levels (or in instances), when things are dieing slowly), then you want to put up DOTs so that they take more damage.

Faerie fire – You won’t use this as a balance druid.
Innervate – Restores mana to you or to someone in your group.
Hurricane – An area of Effect spell. Use this on 3 or more targets. However, you probably will need to crowd control packs of mobs, and I had a hard time with trying to AOE kill things while I was solo.

Basic single-target rotation on quick fights would be to spam wrath until Eclipse, then spam starfire until Eclipse, rinse & repeat. Use starsurge when it comes off cooldown.

More advanced single-target rotation (on longer fights) would be to: Use Roots to keep things from hitting you, Cast insect swarm and moonfire/sunfire on your targets early in the fight. Use your starfire to get solar eclipse, use wrath to get lunar eclipse. Starsurge on cooldown.

Stats & Gearing – Balance druid leveling
The Primary stat weight for balance druids is pretty much the opposite of the cat weighting:
• Int > Spirit > Stamina >>>>>>> agility > strength

Intellect is the primary stat for balance druids. It gives you more mana and makes your spells hit harder by giving you more spell power. More intellect makes you a smarter moonkin.

Other useful Balance stats:
• Spirit: Gives you more regen out of combat, and there is a talent in the balance tree that converts spirit into hit rating. You will end up with some spirit on your gear, which is okay – but you still value intellect a LOT more than you value spirit.
• Stamina: This is a stat that makes your health pool bigger. They put it on pretty much everything, and so it’s okay, but it’s not a stat to focus on at all.
• Critical strike rating: This stat will show up on your gear at some point, and this is a good stat for you.
• Hit rating: You probably don’t need much of this on your gear since spirit now converts into hit rating for you, but you may have to pick up a little spirit and a little hit to make sure your spells don’t miss.
• Haste rating: makes your spells cast faster. This is a great stat for moonkin.
• Mastery shows up on gear after level 80. This stat is okay because it increases your Eclipse damage.
• Spell power is a stat that should mostly just show up on weapons, and this is good for you. There may also still be enchants with spell power on them.

What NOT to wear as a balance druid:
• Agility & strength are melee stats that are bad for caster druids. Please do not try to be a spell caster wearing agility or strength gear. You would be better off wearing cloth int gear than wearing agility gear (especially before you learn the armor specialization at level 50). The newer quests should offer you caster leather gear, so you have no excuse to gear badly.
• Dodge, parry, and expertise are also not caster stats. Please do not wear these either.

Balance leveling glyphs:
Prime: Moonfire (level 25), Insect swarm (level 50), choose Wrath or starsurge (level 75)
Major: Entangling roots (level 25), Monsoon (level 50), choose Focus or solar beam (level 75)
Minor: Dash, unburdened rebirth, wild. (The typhoon glyph isn’t good for solo leveling, since it takes away your knockback).

7 ) Resto leveling in 4.2
You should do most of your leveling in groups if you plan to level as a restoration healer (through the dungeon leveling system, PvP, or questing with friends). At level 30, you can buy a second talent spec (10 gold at a druid trainer for the dual spec feature), so I would recommend picking up a Balance spec as your second spec if you start out as restoration. A secondary DPS spec would be good for soloing. You can also start out as balance and then pick up a resto spec at level 40 as your secondary spec. Your stats for leveling are similar to balance (where you favor Int & Spirit on gear).

Talents:

Level 10: Choose the restoration talent tree from the talent summary page. This gives you swiftmend, which is a healing spell where you get an instant burst of healing when you use it on someone with a rejuv or regrowth HOT on them.

You get one talent point at level 10 and then another point every odd level as you are leveling up to 80. From 81 to 85, you get one talent point every level. You will want to do your best to pick up talents that will enhance abilities you currently use the most, and then choose whatever else you need to get to move up the talent tree when you run out of helpful options along the way.

A level 57 resto spec could look like this: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZZbf0hdfbuo

You will want to avoid picking up talents like Natural shapeshifter, master Shapeshifter, or Malfurion’s gift when you are first leveling, since that set of talents isn’t helpful until after you have tree form & lifebloom. Note that you could move the points out of fury of the stormage and put them into living seed if you never do damage to things.

Level 81 might look like this: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#00bZMZrfzhdfbuouo

Early level healing abilities:

Rejuvenation – Low mana cost, instant-cast Heal over Time (HOT) spell.
Regrowth – High mana cost, Short cast time direct flash heal with a short lasting Heal over time (HOT) Spell.
Nourish – Low mana cost, long cast time, direct heal. Heals for more when there is a HOT on the target.
Swiftmend (from your talent specialization) – Instant direct heal. Requires a HOT to be on your target.

This is your healing toolset for many levels, so I expect that you will find uses for all four of these spells. Keep in mind that Nourish is better than Regrowth when you want to save mana. Rejuv & swiftmend are really great tools that start out great and stay great all the way to 85.

Resto Glyphs:

Prime: Swiftmend (level 25) – prevents your rejuv or regrowth HOT from being consumed by swiftmend. So, you won’t have to re-cast rejuvenation every time you use swiftmend. Other prime glyphs: Rejuvanation (get this 2nd), and Lifebloom (after level 64)

major glyphs: There aren’t really any good ones for low-level resto druids. Glyph of rebirth (level 25) is optional.

Minor glyphs: Unburdened rebirth (level 25), then all the others are largely optional.

Bear Tank Leveling - 10 to 80 (12/31/2011)

Tank leveling: It should be possible to solo as cat with my bear spec, but it will be hard to tank as a bear with the cat leveling spec. So, if you are tanking in dungeons, the tank talent set is going to be better for you. Low level tanks have a hard time holding threat on multiple targets, so make sure you tab-target and smack all the mobs in a pack to hold threat on them.

Reesi's advice for lowbie bears: http://theincbear.com/low-level-bear-tanking/

Talents:
When you create your bear build, the major thing you want to do is to skip over talents that only help cat form and not bear form (ie. predatory strikes, nurturing instincts, etc). You DO want to pick up talents that help your survivability (ie. thick hide, Natural reaction) that you may have overlooked when building a cat talent set. Thus, having two talent specs for feral as you level up is helpful if you plan to both do Cat DPS and Bear Tanking.

A level 55 bear talent build might look like this: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGboubzM

A level 81 bear talent build might look like this: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGbRubzMckMcz

Glyphs: Pick up the glyph of Maul (major) at level 25. You will need it to help you generate threat on multiple targets. Glyph of Mangle (Prime) at 25 and Challenging roar (minor) at 28 would be the other good ones to start with.

Bear Gearing:
Bear gearing at low levels is similar to cat gearing. Stick with gear that has as much Agility as possible (While agility is best, strength will end up being better than intelligence if you don't have agility gear available for that gear slot). When you hit 80 and you can reforge items, reforge to mastery. Agility is good for both cat and bear, so you can quest and tank instances with the same gear as you level.

10. Q&A and links to additional resources: Updated for 4.3

Q. How do I find out more about being new to the game in general?
A. There is a good guide for new players on WoW Insider. http://wow.joystiq.com/rookie

Q: Where do I go to level?
A. Here is a list of Cataclysm zones by level. http://www.wowpedia.org/Zones_by_level

Q. Where can I find more information about being a moonkin?
A. The Moonkin repository has a lot of good information. http://themoonkinrepository.com/

Q: Who is ALAMO and how do I learn 2 play Durids?
A: Alamo’s page on wowpedia http://www.wowpedia.org/Alamo

Q: Why not spec x/x/x instead?
A: The guides posted above are merely guides to give you an idea of what I consider good specs and have had success with on the Beta server, but the best spec will always be the one that fits YOUR playing style the best. Feel free to adapt them as needed. The same goes for information about “rotations” for leveling – the important thing is that you find something that works best for you, and that you have fun exploring the world of Azeroth while you work your way to the level cap. Things like rotations and “cookie-cutter” talent builds matter a lot more once you reach max level.