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This guide is simply intended to provide a general overview
of the Druid class. For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource
on this class, check out the
Killer Guides' Druid guide.
1.0 - The Druid
The Druid class is intended to be protector of the wilds, defender of the
great balance, and preserver of life, but unless you’re playing on
an RP server, I somewhat doubt that you truly plan on doing anything
aside from laying some major smack down on everything from mobs, when
leveling, to other players in the arena, to bosses in raids..
Let not the (relatively) low population of Druid’s sway you
from your interest. Druid’s are one of the most fun, inventive,
and overall powerful (overpowered?) classes in the game, and for good
reason considering how the class is designed.
Creating a Druid is akin to saying you want to have your cake and eat
it too, only with icing on top, and perhaps a couple bowls of ice-cream
on the side. But
all joking aside, Druids have the ability to tank, DPS either
from a range or in melee, and play the role of main or backup healer,
all packaged into one little (or not so much if you happen to be Tauren)
druid.
Another downside would be relative boredom and slaving away mashing
the Wrath key (a fairly weak ranged nuke at low levels) from 1-10 before
proceeding to then mash the maul key (your main bear form attack) for
another 10 or 20 more.
Druids possess many advantages and almost nonexistent disadvantages
once you’ve reached high levels, but before that... things
can get really hairy at times, excuse the pun. Starting from
level one your heals are already up to par, but damage and more importantly
damage efficiency is rather lacking, expect to rest every 2-3 fights
until you get at least bear, if not cat, form.
However not all things are difficult, if you can manage to get a leveling
buddy things will come much easier, given that you could play the role
of healer at least for a short period of time while they bring the damage. Additionally,
almost immediately upon gaining cat form (level 20) you’ll notice
a marked increase in both damage and overall mana efficiency. Kill
a few mobs, drop out of cat form to put up some heals on yourself, return
to killing, etc.
Race
As far as which side to choose, as in Tauren of Night Elf, this difference
is largely visual as opposed to bringing any actual advantage to either, although I will
say that Tauren do push ahead of night elves with 5% more health as opposed to night elves
useless stealth (we get this with cat form already.) Unfortunately, the Tauren have
amazingly ugly cat form looks to make up for the increased health.
Night Elves
- Shadowmeld - Ummm.... why? Might be nice for parking on a PvP server, but
you have Prowl for that.
Tradeskills
As far as Druids go one of the most popular tradeskills happens to be Herbalism,
generally to be combined with Alchemy for viable cash making on the auction house or simply
to provide guildies with the potion/elixers/flasks required to run dungeons/raids.
Perhaps this is due to a lot of Druids being Tauren, therefore gaining the innate racial
Herbalist bonus, either way potions can augment your many abilities with constant health
regeneration, greater tanking capabilities, and become quite the life saver at times.
However if you’re looking to purely make some money, as opposed
to crafting items in the long-run, Herbalism works very well, especially
wit the release of Wrath of the Lich King. Combine this
with another gathering skill such as Mining or, more often, Skinning. It
makes for a mean money maker combo and you’ll
likely never be left wanting for more gold except for perhaps at level
70 for your Epic flying form/mount.
And as with all other classes, first
aid can come in handy if you find yourself needing healing faster than your mana pool regenerates, although this is obviously less important than on say… a warrior. Never underestimate the benefits of a free heal.
Generally speaking, the crafting skills are very expensive to level. If you have lots
of gold already then go for it, otherwise wait until you do.
- Leatherworking has
some useful items for Druids, though it's pretty expense to level up.
- Cooking will
let you create foods with some very nice buffs.
3.1 Patch Notes
- The 3.1 patch introduced seven new major glyphs to pick from. That gives Druids (and
the other classes) more to play with and experiment with. If you have Inscription, or
enough cash, just swap glyphs until you hit on a set you like. Our leveling (for Feral)
recommendation is below, but it's your choice.
- 3.1 also introduced the Dual Talent build system. If you have 1,000 gold (and
why wouldn't you?) you get twice the talents and twice the glyphs.
- Lots of Talent tweaks.
- Mana regeneration from stats (Int and Spirit) has been nerfed.
- Improved Barkskin and Improved Tree of Life were changed.
- Rank 2 Maim can be escaped from with the Mage's Blink power.
- Druids now receive 30% more Haste from Haste Rating
- A bunch of misc. other small changes and a few bug fixes. Complete patch notes are here.
3.2 Patch Notes
3.2 isn't live at the time of this writing. We will update this section, of we need to,
at the time the patch does go live.
- Dodge has received a nerf. You now need 15% more Agility or Dodge Rating for 1% Dodge.
This is before any Dminishing returns issues kick in.
- Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per
five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately
25%.
- Flight Form can be learned at level 60.
- Various ability and talent changes that amount to a small damage nerf
- Macros and scripts will no longer be able to target totems by name. This will kill
any macros you have that attack totems.
- Glyph of Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds
2.0 - Druid Abilities
Druidic abilities covers a lot of ground, this is exactly where the
druid class differentiates itself from all others: multiple tree’s
of abilities designed to be utilized by the various forms, and sometimes
outside of all shape shifting possibilities.
Much like a Warrior,
Druid’s will find their capabilities both
enhanced and hindered based upon which form they’re currently
using, making proper preparation the key to effectively combating various opponent
types, player or monster.
Overall the experienced Druid gains the instinctive insight of when,
where, and how to use his vast arsenal of abilities, making them nigh
invulnerable to any combination of attackers and deadly
despite any apparent disadvantages.
Caster Form – Humanoid
The standard caster, or humanoid, form for druids is the form you’ll be
using for everything from ranged caster style damage and nuking to playing
the healer and supporting everyone else in your party.
Caster form is obviously the only one available to you from 1-10, often coming into
a general lack of use until first instancing/doing either battlegrounds or raiding
at 80, either way I’d consider it underpowered unless heavily augmented by
gear for healing or damage.
Still useful at all times, due to not being classified
as a beast like all other forms. The beast forms make them vulnerable to Scare Beast and
various other attacks against beasts. Humanoid form also allows you to
look pretty as opposed to looking like a wild animal. Unless you're Tauren.
Bear Form – Level 10
Bear form represents a large increase in our survivability, massively
boosting armor and health to levels matching that of Warriors and
Paladins early on, although eventually you’ll pass even them when geared
properly.
Gaining this form becomes possible at level 10 and requires the
completion of a specific Druid class quest line gained from your
respective trainer at either Thunder bluff or Darnassus. This
also opens up travel to the moonglade, via teleportation, making it
a viable stop for training whenever you level.
All in all bear form is the first showing of druid viability at
a low level, however this is obviously superseded in usefulness by
Dire Bear Form at 40, the upgrade overriding the older version.
Here's a complete walkthrough of the Druid bear form quests, for the
Alliance
Druid and for the Horde
Druid.
Aquatic Form – Level 16
Aquatic form is the gained ability from a somewhat easily completed
Druid quest line, made available starting at level 16. However, many
Druids choose to put this off and complete it at a later time, due
to the form's relative uselessness at most times.
Aquatic Form improves swim speed by 50% and allows for underwater
breathing. Pick this up before hitting up areas such as Stranglethorn
vale, where underwater quest chains begin to appear.
Cat Form – Level 20
Cat form is the Druid’s first and final step on the road to melee DPS
capabilities, giving us a massive increase in burst damage, damage over time, and kill
speed efficiency as we finally gain the ability to grind for lengthy periods of time without
stopping.
Additionally, this form grants you the ability to stealth, much like a rogue, as
well as possessing a sprint like ability and various stealth-opener attacks that
allow you to nigh one-shot weaker mobs at early levels.
Cat form is immensely useful in making the druid a good leveler compared to previous
slow speeds granted by bear form’s protection warrior DPS abilities.
Travel Form – Level 30
With the 3.2 patch this form will be learned at level 16, not 30.
Travel form is an ever useful speed increase that, despite what you
might think, is never fully replaced by either the level 30 mount or the 60 epic speed
mount, this form being key to any
PvP strategy due to its massive increase in maneuverability over normal players.
Very prevalent in Warsong Gulch and Eye of the Storm due to the capability to carry the flag
while in travel form, much like shamans. However, this remains undispellable unlike
the Shaman's Ghost Wolf.
Dire Bear Form – Level 40
Dire Bear form is much like gaining plate armor, only imagine if plate armor
also suddenly gained a massive boost in the amount of stamina it granted, along with
increased group threat capabilities. This represents our ability to tank just as
well, if not better, than warriors in various situations.
Additionally Dire Bear form enhances all the survivability gained by the initial
bear form, making it a great tool for when you’re getting beat on by groups
of mobs and have to run, or in PvP versus stealth classes who try and take you out
when in caster form.
Moonkin Form – 31 Points in Balance
Moonkin form is gained by placing your 31st point into the balance tree, gaining
the ability to shift into Moonkin much like you would any other form, such as
bear or cat form. However Moonkin also has greatly differing abilities: rather than
add whole new spells, it instead greatly augments armor and damage casting capabilities.
Essentially Moonkin could be considered the mage or warlock form, granting us
enough improved spell crit (5% to both us and the entire party) and damage to become
a reasonable threat from a distance, whether it be grinding, raiding, or PvP.
Although the uses of Moonkin form for leveling are debatable, it’s become
a staple raiding class, commonly there being at least one or two per raid.
Tree of Life Form – 41 Points in Restoration
Tree of life form is gained by putting 41 points into the Restoration
tree,
granting you an admittedly silly looking, yet extremely effective healing form. This
decreases your movement speed by 20%, not a problem for raiders, but a massive decrease
in survivability for PvP. It offsets
this decrease by increasing the effectiveness of all healing spells by 20%.
Obviously useful to anyone looking to heal in dungeons, raids, etc., but a
sometimes dangerous choice when trying to heal through arena battles, and more so
the chaotic battlegrounds.
Flight Form, Swift(Epic) Flight Form – Level 68, 70
Druids are quite lucky to gain a flight form equal to the flying mount two
levels before any other player. This form also comes at a fairly cheap trainer price
and does not require you to train the flying skill itself to use this.
However, to obtain the upgrade form, Swift Flight Form, you’ll need to train
your riding skill up to 300 and complete a quest chain, requiring you to spend practically
the same as any other player for your epic mount.
The upside is that flight forms can be activated while falling, and any other time,
instantly, as long as you’re not in combat, making it somewhat more viable
than mounting up.
With the 3.2 patch Flight Form can be learned at level 60.
Macros
A few, generally useful, macros
- This one puts you into your cat fomr and prowls
# show Prowl
/cast [nostance:3] Cat Form; [stance:3, nostealth] Prowl
- This one will use Rake on your opponent, but it you're stealthed
it will use Pounce instead.
/cast [nostealth] Rake; [stealth] Pounce
3.0 - Leveling
Note: For a more in-depth
look at leveling a Druid, including builds, specs, and tips, check out our Druid
Leveling Guide. For an actual path to get from 1 to 80 see our guide recommendation,
below.
Leveling a druid varies for every player, unlike many classes. How
enjoyable you find the experience is almost entirely based upon personal
capabilities at controlling the numerous, and sometimes tricky, abilities
and combos that make up a druid.
However, when looking for leveling speed, Feral will most definitely come out
on top, Balance in second, although gaining slightly post-40, and finally Restoration
- a distant third, given that it only benefits healing aside from the first talent (furor.)
Feral Druids
Feral druids are focused on becoming Rogue and Fury Warrior like in that they burst
through mobs in a whirlwind of flashing claws or death anbd destruction, stopping only
to throw on a few HoT’s
(Heal over time) before shifting back into cat form and moving onto the next group.
Downtime is almost nonexistent the more you progress past 20, firmly becoming a relic
of the past 40+ grind as you gain some of the massively damaging attacks that define feral
druid and cat form DPS. Bear form will remain largely unused for leveling aside
from making getaways or possibly tanking an instance or two.
Alternatively, should you have a few leveling partners, tanking can be quite an enjoyable
experience as well. Bear and Dire Bear easily giving you the capabilities to hold threat
while whoever you’re teaming with beats the offending mobs down.
The great thing about Feral is that in a single build you gain tanking and solo DPS viability,
allowing you to easily make the transition from solo-killer to a group player.
See our Druid Leveling
Guide for builds and specs on leveling a Feral Druid.
Balance Druids
Leveling as Balance is the second option when setting yourself along
the path to 80 (or whatever your goal happens to be.) I personally
selected balance as my build of choice when leveling my first druid
to 70. I found it more fun to play a unique hybrid caster as opposed
to another rogue clone with heals.
Balance has some immediate problems when compared to Feral, notably
damage to mana efficiency and, by connection, the ability to kill effectively
for any great period of time. However, Balance makes up for this
by being quite capable of root and spell kiting bosses that are otherwise un-defeatable.
Stacking up as much damage gear, and good gear in general, is key to
being viable as Balance. Without this you’ll be immeasurably weakened when compared to all
other build types, even restoration, so I wouldn’t
suggest this as your first character.
Balance is also good support for a group of players leveling together, giving you the
ability to deal out the damage and remain in reserve for heals when needed.
Restoration Druids
Restoration leveling is an exercise in patience and exasperation, you gain virtually
no improved solo capabilities while improving your already powerful healing capabilities
to pointless levels, as far as soloing is concerned. Only consider this build if you plan
on dedicated teaming.
The upside would be that you provide massive aid to any team you happen to join
and, if instancing regularly is your thing, it actually comes in quite handy and set’s
you apart from any other Druids you might encounter.
Just remember, this is the hard road and if you have the cash you could always stay Feral or Balance
and respec for instance runs as needed.
If you have 1,000 gold and are level 40+ you can pick up the dual build ability
from your trainer and have one build for Feral and another for Resto.
4.0 Gear, Stats, and Numbers
Gearing woes will plague you throughout your career as a Druid. A constant
requirement will be that of possessing nigh three complete suits of armor if you wish to
truly utilize all your possible roles, sometimes even four.
As far as Feral is concerned... Strength, Agility, and lastly Intellect will
be your defacto order of priority, generally balancing your mana to be a certain percentage of
your life at any time as more mana = more heals = more life on demand.
Cat form notes:
- At low gear levels (below t7) Agility > Strength > Crit > Haste > Hit/Expertise > Arp > AP
- Hit and Expertise rating at not very important at these levels unless you find your
misses to be disrupting youir atttack rotations. So: If you feel you're missing too
much get Hit, otherwise skip it for now.
- Armor Penetration is great, and once you can pass about 200 ArPen rating then
it might be your best stat. Below 200 ArPen rating you should look for Agility.
Balance will be seeking massive amounts of Int as multiple talents
in the Balance tree run entirely off this stat. Additionally this somewhat solves the mana
woes you’ll definitely encounter from 1-40, and somewhat less after that.
Restoration will want as much mana regeneration per second (and intellect gear) as possible,
also stacking up +Spell Power (for healing) as it becomes more prevalent level 40+
All in all almost every single stat has a use as far as a druid is concerned, it’s
all about making a delicate balance between them to maximize your abilities at any
given level.
5.0 - PvP
Are Druids viable in PvP? I think enough of us have had our butts kicked by Druids, and done enough
kicking, to know that that is a silly question. Druids are very viable in PvP, any PvP.
Pretty much all of the Druids in Arena 2s and 3s are some variation of the resto build, below. In
5s, while most Druids also run with that Resto build, there are some who use something similar to the
Balance build shown.
As always, move points around to reflect your team and your abilities/preferences.
For all the dirty tricks, including how to kill (or help your partner(s) kill) anything treat yourself
to a full blown pvp guide. It will show you everything you need to know for any Arena match, any Battleground,
and any other form of PvP. Click here and get yours
now.
6.0 - Raiding
0/54/16
Feral DPS Build - This build provides the maximum possible single target DPS
for raiding in your Cat form. It does leave a point floating about for you to put whereever.
Cat form DPS prority list: If you're new to raiding don't worry about doing it all
right the first time. Practice makes perfect and Druids need lots of practice. Fortunately, they're
powerful enough to be desirable, which means you should have the chance to get all the practice you
need. Start with points 1 thru 5 and work up from there.
- Keep up Savage Roar - SR buffs everything. It doesn't matter how many Combo Points (CP) you use
for SR, just keep it up.
- Keep up Mangle - M buffs youir bleeds and Shred
- Keep up Rake
- Use Shred for CP regeneration (remember, that points 2 and 3 are more important) - note: never
Shred without applying Mangle and at least one bleed.
- When at 5 CP and Rip is not up, use Rip
- When below 30 Energy, use Tiger's Fury (TF)
- Use Clearcast Proccs (from Omen of Clarity) for Shred
- When at 5 CP and Rip and SR are running with 8 seconds (might be longer, depending on your gear)
or longer each, use Ferocious Bite (FB)
- When Rip and SR will drop at nearly the same time (with less than 3 seconds difference),
try to recognize it early. Then use SR with a small amount of CP to desynchronize both
timers.
- Use Berserk only at high energy, (but not higher than 85) not directly
after TF, and as often as possible. If you will get Hysteria, or some boss mechanics will enhance
your damage, save it for these situations.
Now, if you can afford to level your tradeskills... Several tradeskills have useful self-only buffs.
- Inscription - the Shoulder Enchant adds 64 AP over anything else in game. Also has a few
Bind on Pickup (BoP) off hand items that can be useful.
- Blacksmithing - Two more sockets for gems - that's a lot of gold for two sockets.
- Enchanting- Ring Enchants - Two rings = 64 AP
- Jewelcrafting - Some nice BoP gems
- Leatherworking - A nice wrist enchant adds 64 AP
- Mining - 50 Stamina
- Skinning- 32 crit rating
- Cooking - lets you cook up a number of foods with significant buffs to various stats.
Feral Enchants:
The Enchants should be easy to find on the Auction House.
Gems:
Moonkin Raiding
57/0/14 Balance Raiding Build
- Major Glyphs - Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Starfall.
- Minor Glyphs - Included, but none are raid significant.
Moonkin Stat Prioroty:
- Hit rating to the 263 cap (237 with Draenei in group) - Talents will provide most or all of this,
so short of level 83 bosses you don't need to gear for it.
- Haste Rating to the soft cap (401 with the Wrath of Air Totem running, 585 without.)
- Spell Power
- Haste rating (to the hard cap)
- Crit rating
- Intellect
- Spirit
Gems:
Moonkin Enchants:
Gear Lists
A level 80 gear list will appear here eventually.
The level 70 gear
list below represents what is likely going to be the maximum amount
of Spell Power and mana regeneration gear possible to prepare you for
raiding as a Restoration Druid. Not all of it is required,
just recommended to make it as easy as possible on both you and the
raid. The list is for people who wish to try the level 70 raids and/or for those who
don't yet have Wrath of the Lich King.
Helm:
Neck:
Back:
Shoulders:
Chest:
Wrist:
Hands:
Belt:
Legs:
Boots:
Rings:
Trinkets:
Weapons:
Off-hand:
Two-Handed:
Idol:
7. 0 -- Druid 1-80 Leveling Guide
Now that you're on the way to becoming a lean, mean, killing machine you should consider
a full blown leveling guide for your 1-80 blast. Why? It will save you many days of in-game
time and will also save a good deal of frustration, even if you already know many or most
of the quests.
Our recommended leveling guide is Zygor's
Guide. Zygor's automates the whole 1-80 path (automatically updating as you complete
tasks and quests) and is like having an expert helping you every step of the way. Pick
your starting point and the guide automatically updates and advances as you complete
quests, sets a waypoint arrow automatically, and includes all the important quest info.
You will probably never need to look at your quest log again!
Grab your copy of Zygor's
Leveling Guide, here
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