Druid Leveling Need To Knows

The Druid is a flexible class, capable of changing its form to make itself better suited to any task necessary. They are capable of serving every major role in both PvE and PvP, whether tanking, healing, or dealing damage as melee or ranged. Druids stand out as a high priority class especially for dungeon and raid groups because of their unique spells and buffs.

Druid Basics

Playing a Druid is an experience that changes drastically as you gain levels. In the beginning a druid is not unlike a priest, having access to a ranged damage spell called Wrath, and a healing spell called Nature’s Touch.

You gain the instant-cast damage spell Moonfire early as well, which is useful because it applies a damage over time effect. Most of your early levels will be spent nuking enemies from a distance, and only using your relatively weak melee abilities when you run short on mana.

Though Nature’s Touch is clunky and inconvenient, do not fret. You gain a heal over time called Rejuvenation very early, and most of your self healing all the way up to level 80 can be taken care of with this alone.

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At level 10, you will be eligible to obtain Druidic Bear Form, which is the first of a number of alternate forms you’ll be able to shift into. Once you complete a short quest chain, you can assume Bear Form in much the same way a Warrior changes stances. You’ll notice that your mana bar changes into a rage bar when in bear form, as this form mimics the Warrior class.

Your melee attacks in Bear Form will be much stronger, and you’ll gain a great deal of health and armor. Your primary attacks are Maul, which deals high damage to your primary target on your next attack, and Swipe, which instantly deals damage to all close enemies in front of you.

Though it is mostly a novelty, at level 12 you’ll gain access to a Sea Lion form. This form cannot fight in any way, but it does swim fast and allows you to breathe underwater, so a Druid will never be at risk of drowning. If there is one drawback, it is that the quest for Sea Lion Form takes a while to complete.

While Bear Form is useful for survival and dealing with strong melee monsters, Cat Form at level 20 is the first real significant leap in melee damage ability for a druid. In Cat Form, your mana bar will change to an energy bar like that of a rogue. Your instant attack Claw will rack up combo points on your targets, powering up finishing moves like Rip and Ferocious Bite.

The other functional forms you will gain based on level alone are Travel Form (A cheetah) and Flight Form (A storm crow). Bear Form will eventually change into Dire Bear Form, which is essentially the same thing as its lesser counterpart but provides more powerful buffs to armor and stamina. Dire Bear Form exists to simulate the Warrior transition from mail armor to plate armor, since the Druid will always wear leather.

Moonkin Form and Tree Form are parts of the Balance and Restoration talent trees, and are only available depending upon how your Druid is specialized.

Using a Balance Druid

A Balance Druid mimics a Mage/Warlock in many ways, with talents that accent his ability to deal damage from a distance and to help keep enemies under control. Most of the talents in this tree increase your spell damage, critical strike chance, and mana regeneration, as well as place debuffs on your targets. Possibly the most significant talent in this tree is Moonkin Form, an alternate form that grants the Druid and all of his nearby allies an additional 5% chance to critically hit with spells (Healing included!) which is a buff that many modern raids will not go without. Placing talent points in this tree is pretty straightforward, but the primary talent you need to be sure to have is Eclipse. Eclipse fuels the Balance Druids damage dealing rotation by causing Wrath to power up Starfire, and Starfire to power up Wrath. The rotation itself is very simple, and can be summed up in three main priorities: (1) Keep damage over time effects like Moonfire and Insect Swarm active on your targets constantly, (2) Cast Wrath until your Eclipse talent powers up Starfire, and (3) Cast Starfire until your Eclipse talent powers up Wrath.

Using a Feral Druid

The Feral Druid is capable of both tanking, and dealing melee damage. First and foremost, when placing talents for a Feral specialization, you must always remember to place points in key talents in the Restoration tree: Furor, Naturalist, and Omen of Clarity. Furor will give you instant rage or energy when you shapeshift, Naturalist makes your attacks in Bear and Cat Form stronger, and Omen of Clarity is perhaps the most useful, giving all of your attacks a chance to reduce the rage or energy cost of your next ability to nothing. Those 11 points aside, you can begin climbing the Feral tiers, making sure to grab Primal Fury and Heart of the Wild, as these talents are key boosters to both tanking and DPS. As a bonus, Leader of the Pack boosts the physical DPS of a group significantly by granting 5% extra melee and ranged critical strike chance to all the Druid’s nearby allies while in Bear Form or Cat Form. (The counterpart to a Moonkin’s 5% spell crit chance)

When tanking with a Druid, Feral Charge comes in handy for catching up to enemies that get split up. The key to tanking well is building your damage mitigation with agility and armor, knowing when to use panic buttons like Barkskin to help healers catch up, and understanding how to produce high threat on single targets, or on groups of enemies. For single target tanking, dungeon or raid bosses in particular, you’ll be stacking up and refreshing Lacerate all the time, keeping the debuff granted by Mangle up to make sure Lacerate causes the most threat possible, and keeping Maul active all the time. Ideally, your Druid should never make a regular attack, every one of your hits should be mauls to maximize threat and damage, and most importantly to dump rage. Feral tanks are insanely good at producing rage, so using enough abilities to burn through it all as it comes can be maddening. A proper Feral tank will be spamming buttons all the time to keep his abilities on cooldown and his debuffs refreshed.

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Damage dealing with Feral is much less chaotic, and more a precise groove. If Feral DPS has a flaw, it is that a huge chunk of their damage comes from bleed effects, so their burst potential falls short of that of a Rogue. Still, given a stationary target, a proper damage rotation consists of simple steps: (1) Keep the Mangle debuff active, (2) Keep bleed effects like Rake and Rip active all the time (Using Rake to build combo points preferably), (3) Use your combo points for finishing moves the moment you obtain five. If Rip is already applied, use Ferocious Bite instead, and (4) Keep Tiger’s Fury on cooldown as much as possible, since this speeds up your autoattacks considerably.

Using a Restoration Druid

The Restoration specialized druid will look complex at first, since it has many more heal over time effects than other healing classes, and thus more primarily used spells. Lately it is the preferred specialization for Druid PvP, given the constant healing ticks meshed with the burst potential of Nature’s Switness and Swiftmend. The primary talent of the Restoration tree is Tree Form, an alternate form that causes all the Druid’s nearby allies to receive more healing from all spells, as well as reducing the mana cost of most of the Druid’s healing abilities. The top tier talent of this tree, WIld Growth, is a powerful multi-target healing spell that becomes especially useful in encounters with a lot of unavoidable raid or party damage.

Playing a Restoration Druid well is derived from practice, and learning which heal is appropriate for a given situation. For tank healing in modern raids, stacking up HoTs (Heal over Time) like Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom, and Wild Growth powers up Nourish, a direct heal that becomes stronger when its target has these HoTs active. Unlike the other healing classes though, a Druids healing tendencies will change sporadically with their gear level, and more specifically the set bonuses they gain from that gear. In the current tier of raiding, Rejuvenation and Nourish are the bread and butter of druid healing, usually accounting for well over half of a Druids healing done. For spiky damage, Rejuvenation followed by Swiftmend and Wild Growth is a choice responce, with Nourishes thrown on if the damage is constant. If the damage is very severe, Nature’s Switness allows you to instantly cast a massive heal such as Regrowth or Nature’s Touch, useful if a tank gets dangerously low on health or if a DPS pulls threat off a tank.