Druid leveling is as easy or as challenging as you want to make it. You can stick with one spec, say Feral, and level as that, or you can dance between the four specs and challenge yourself. Tank, melee, ranged damage, or healer, the Druid can do it all and do it well.
Druids present the greatest variety among all the various classes in WoW. Variety counts for a lot; it keeps you interested and having fun. Tired of melee? Go Balance, or Restoration perhaps. And, to a great extent, you can switch forms on the fly. The makes the Druid one of the more difficult classes to play well, just because it’s so versatile.
Still, even more important is that, no matter the role, Druids provide effectiveness. When properly talented they can tank with the best of them, for the purposes of this guide, dish out massive amounts of melee damage in cat form.
While you can go nuts at high level, what with having to juggle several forms and individual gear sets for each form, this is something you won’t have to worry about while leveling your Druid. Stick with Feral/Cat gear, or caster gear if you opt for Balance, and you’ll be fine. You can get the multiple gear sets, if you want, at top level.
The Contents
Druid Leveling Guide
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Other Druid Guides |
On this page we’ll focus on Feral and Balance for leveling. Guardians are fine tanks and Resto Druids a great healers, but they’ll lag behind the other two specs for general questing, though in Dungeon groups both will be just fine and Resto is loved in PvP. Notes that while Guardians do less damage, the also excel at rounding up large groups and crushing them, which definitely has its fun points. You’ll be a little down on damage, but ripping a large group of mobs to pieces is a satisfying experience.
Note that we don’t care which class is the Flavor of the Month, for ultimate PvE/PvP mayhem, as we’re assuming you’ve decided to go ahead and level as a Druid regardless. Just know that Druids are usually near the top when played well. We’ll give you the info you need and let you make yourself into that mayhem generating flavor.
For the Shadowlands detailed changes, for Druids, visit the official site, here, and click the Druid tab. And I am sure you immediately noticed the level smash: 120 becomes 50, and the level cap is now 60. Item levels have been similarly smashed.
The Short Druid Leveling Guide
(See below this section for the longer version of all of these bits.)
Builds:
Like no other class in WoW Druids really can play any role in the game. You can do it all: Tank, ranged damage, melee damage, or healer. For leveling we suggest the feral (cat) form, and Balance (ranged damage) for a bit more challenge. If you like tanking dungeons then a bear is a great way to go. Restoration will be awesome with healing your dungeon/PvP crew.
See below for info on Feral and Balance, see these pages (intended for top level) for the others: Guardian, Resoration.
Gear and Stats
- Feral likes Agility and Crit.
- Balance likes Int and Haste
- Stack Stamina at low levels, for survivability.
- Use a two-handed weapon (staff) with the highest possible DPS. If it’s an heirloom put the highest level weapon enchant on it (if you can afford it. If you can’t, go here. )
- If you PvP get more Stamina.
- more about stats
If you need to blast to the level cap as fast as possible
then check out this in-game leveling guide, now.
Race pick
Worgen (Alliance) and Trolls (Horde) are the best picks for leveling, with the Troll being “best” overall due to their Berserking (Haste) cooldown. The others have their points, too.
Even in Shadowlands only a few races can be Druids and Pandarens aren’t one of them.
PVP Races? Night Elf, Tauren, Troll.
Worgen’s crit bonus is a small damage add and their running has its uses while leveling.
Night Elves have a slightly higher dodge, so will be slightly better tanks. Shadowmeld can be very useful at times, since it works in combat and drops aggro. An extra Prowl, if you like. They also get a bit of Crit by day and Haste by night.
Trolls have a Haste buff (cooldown) and get more XP from killing beasts.
Tauren have a bit more health and can stun nearby opponents (which is pretty useful,) plus they get bonus Crit damage.
High Mountain Tauren have a short Charge and take a bit less damage.
Zandalari Trolls can pick from any of a number of buffs, and have a nice regeneration ability. Not that you really care about the latter with your heals.
Kul Tiran have a Haymaker smash, which knocks the target back and stuns it.
More about races
Leveling Notes
Questing is much faster than it once was (a looong time ago) and is easily competitive (if you’re a cat or Balance) with grinding the dungeons and fighting players in PvP leveling.
Dungeons give you the chance of getting better gear than you will earn through questing, but you will need to get a bit lucky. Your Heirlooms will be as good as any most of the dungeon gear you’ll find. Tanking dungeons, for you guardian types, is the best way to go for ultimate XP gain.
PvP leveling can be fast if your side wins. Help them win. PvP gives you access to better gear via honor marks. If you’re serious about PvP (for leveling or otherwise) then check out Skill-capped.
Go to => Top – Short guide – Race – Professions – Talents – Gear – Tips – Level faster
Druid Races
Time to figure out what you will be…
The question of “which race” for your new Druid used to be a “difficult” one, Horde (Tauren) or Alliance (Night Elf.) With Cataclysm the choices became more varied, but is still the second most restricted class in the game, after Demon Hunters. With Battle for Azeroth, some others have joined the druid club.
Gonna do PvP? Night Elves, Taurens, and Trolls are the best, according to this site. And if you’re doing PvP then give Skill-Capped a look.
With Shadowland the Allied Races have become easier to acquire. You simply have to earn an achievement appropriate to that race, then head to either the Orgrimmar or Stormwind embassy and do a few quests. They also start at level 10. The achievements you need are:
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- Highmountain Tauren: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
- Zandalari Troll: Zandalar Forever! and Tides of Vengeance
- Kul Tiran: A Nation United and Tides of Vengeance
Alliance Druid Races
Night Elf
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- Shadowmeld requires you to stay still. It drops aggro, so you can s’meld > stealth. You already have a (cat form) stealth ability, but ‘meld can be used in combat, and your Prowl cannot. If you time ‘meld just so you can break incoming spells.
- Quickness makes you slightly harder to hit and slightly increases your run speed.
- Touch of Elune: Increases your Haste by 1% during the night. Increases your Critical Strike by 1% during the day. Quickness also makes you 2% faster.
- Transform into a Wisp Spirit upon death, increasing speed by 75%. Hopefully you will only rarely have any use for this trait.
Worgen
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- Darkflight allows periodic quick movement, which is always useful,
- reduced duration of curses and diseases (affecting them.)
- Increased crit chance (viciousness) is a good stat for you.
- Flayer boosts your skinning skill.
- Run Wild
- Aberration provides resistance to Shadow and Natures damage.
Kul Tiran
KTs can be druids and Humans cannot? Hmm….
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Blast to the Cap in Shadowlands!
Click HereWind up, then unleash your mighty Haymaker upon your foe. Doesn’t hurt much, but does stun then for 3 sec and knocks them back substantially. 2.5 minute cooldown. Knock him back then eat/burn him.
- Brush It Off – Increases Versatility by 1%. When you take damage, heal for 2% of that amount over 4 sec. Every tiny bit helps, right?
- Your Child of the Sea ability lets you swim a bit faster and hold your breath longer than anyone who is not Undead.
- You are a Jack of All Trades which increases all of your Tradeskills by 5. Unfortunately it does not give you free tradeskills, just a boost to the ones you actually learn
- Many generations of seafaring experience have earned you the Rime of the Ancient Mariner ability, and so you take 1% less from Frost and Nature damage.
Horde Druid Races
Tauren
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- Endurance provides a little more health than other races
- War Stomp is a nice stun for cats and bears. Casters will generally find it to be useful in isolated situations, such as in PvP or any other time where you need to stun the opposition and run out of there. Naturally the Ferals in the crowd will like it, a lot. Suffers Diminishing Returns with your other stuns, but still can interrupt casts.
- Good with Herbalism for +15 to that skill.
- Brawn: Critical strike bonus damage and healing increased by 2%
- You also have a bit of Nature Resistance , taking 1% less Nature Damage.
Troll – Taste me Voodoo, Mon!
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- Berserking increases your Haste by 10% for 12 seconds, on a 3 minute cooldown. Generally useful, since it reduces cooldowns and gives you faster resource regeneration.
- Your regeneration is increased, but it’s trivial.
- You get a 20% XP increase when Beast Slaying . This only applies to beasts, not humanoids or other non-beasts. You’ll be chopping up lots of beasts while leveling, so this is a nice bonus. Not useful once at max level.
- Shuffle reduces snare (slow) duration.
Zandalari Troll
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- Your Embrace of the Loa ability allows you to choose which Loa you are associated with. Has a 5 day cooldown.
- Embrace of Akunda – Your healing abilities have a chance to heal their target. A Druid, with healing abilities? (wink)
- Embrace of Bwonsamdi – Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal Shadow damage and heal you for 100% of the damage done. Pretty good general ability, especially for melee.
- Embrace of Gonk – Increase movement speed by 5%.
- Embrace of Kimbul – Your damaging abilities have a chance to cause the target to bleed over 6 seconds. This effect stacks up to 3 times. More damage is always good. Pretty nice for Feral.
- Embrace of Krag’wa – Taking damage has a chance to grant you additional Health and 66 Armor. Good tanking ability.
- Embrace of Pa’ku – Your abilities have a chance to grant you +4% critical strike for 12 seconds. Live by the crit, Ferals? This is for you.
- Regeneratin’ – Regenerate 100% of your maximum health over 6 sec, interrupted by damage. 2.5 min cooldown. A nice add to your spells.
- Pterrordax Swoop – Slows your fall for two minutes. Time for some serious cliff jumpin’.
- Your Embrace of the Loa ability allows you to choose which Loa you are associated with. Has a 5 day cooldown.
HighMountain Tauren
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- Bull Rush is a short (6 yard) charge forward that knocks those enemies down.
- Being versatile they get +1% Versatility (Mountaineer) and they also take a bit less damage (Rugged Tenacity.) Small, but still nice.
- Your Pride of Ironhorn allows you to mine faster and adds 15% to your mining skill.
- Having gone to survival school your philosophy is Waste Not, Want Not, so you have a chance to gather more meat and fish from appropriate situations.
Go to => Top – Short guide – Race – Professions – Talents – Gear – Tips – Level faster
Your Druidic Abilities
Shadowlands did the usual thing with new expansions and pushed the various abilities and talents around, and tweaked a couple of things. Other than that, things are much the same.
Resource usage: Each of your specializations (specs) will generate a resource with certain abilities and then spend it on more major abilities.
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- Feral uses Energy and Combo Points. Abilities will generate the Combo Points and then you will spend them on Finishing Strikes, such as Ferocious Bite. They also use Mana for some abilities.
- Guardian will generate and spend Rage and also use some Mana on spells.
- Balance generates and uses Astral Power and some Mana.
- and Restoration uses Mana for most everything.
These are the abilities shared by all Druids. CD = Cooldown, P = Passive ability.
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- Track humanoids (Level 1) – An option appears on your mini-map to track nearby humanoids.
- Wrath (1) hurls a solar ball at the enemy. After level 10 it will generate a bit of Astral Power.
- Moonfire (2) – blast the enemy with Lunar energy that does damage over 12 seconds, plus some immediate damage.
- at rank 2, at level 14, duration is increased by 4 seconds.
- Regrowth (3) – Heals the target and a 2nd target for a lesser amount.
- rank 2, at 52, has a +40% chance for a critical effect if the same target already has Regrowth affecting it.
- Entangling Roots (4) – Just stay there awhile, Mr. Baddie. Target is rooted for 30 seconds, players for less time.
- rank 2, at 56, your roots at 20% more durable.
Cat Form (5) – “Meow.” Becomes “ROAR” at max level. +40% to your auto-attack, +30% movement speed, cannot be polymorphed, and take less falling damage. Shifting forms breaks you free of slows an such.- Shred (5) – your basic strike, requires cat form.
- Dash (6) – A burst of speed, 10 seconds of +60% speed. Pops you into cat form, which will break roots and snares.
- Feline Grace (P, 6) – less falling damage while in Cat form.
- Ferocious Bite (7) is a mighty chomp finishing strike, uses energy and doing more damage per combo point spent, up to 5. This will be your usual finisher for most leveling.
- Bear Form (8) – become a bear, your defenses are greatly increased, Stamina by 25% nd Armor by 220%, especially if you’re Guardian. You cannot be polymorphed and shifting forms breaks you free of slows an such.
- Mangle (8) – Attack from bear form and generate 10 Rage.
- Growl (9) – cause the target to attack you. 8 second CD
- Charm Woodland Creature (10) lets you acquire a buddy – one of those cute critters wandering about the place.
- Clearcasting (10) Your Lifebloom has a 4% chance to cause your next Regrowth to cost no mana.
- Dreamwalk (10) teleports you to the Emerald Dreamway. Casting a second time takes you back to your original location, or reasonably close.
- Mount form (10) – Shapechange into a Mountain Stag, +40% movement speed, frees you from movement impairing effects, and your buddy can hop on for a ride.
- track beasts (10) – Just like your track humanoids ability, but all nearby beasts.
- Travel Form (10) – Shift form and move more quickly. If you are able to fly in a particular zone, then it will be a flight form.
- Thrash (11) – As a Bear you attack all nearby enemies and cause them to bleed over 15 seconds. Can stack up to three times.
- Prowl (13) – Pops you into cat form and you can sneak about at normal speed.
- Revive (13) – Revives a dead ally who then has 35% health and mana. Not usable in combat.
- Sunfire (13) burns the enemy and does more damage over the next 12 seconds. Requires Moonkin form.
- Aquatic form (14) – Swim quickly (100% faster) and breathe underwater.
- Iron Fur (18) requires Bear Form and increases your Armor by 100% for 7 seconds.
- Flap (21) requires moonkin form. Your flapping wings slow your fall speed.
- Teleport: Moonglade (22) – Poof! You’re there! Recast to get back to your starting point.
- Barkskin (24) reduces damage taken for 8 seconds. 20% reduction is usable while stunned, frozen, etc., and in any form. You casts are not slowed when taking damage.
- Rank 2, at 44, extends the duration to 12 seconds.
- Flight Form (24) – Grow wings and fly away.
- At level 30, after training at the mount trainer, increases your speed by 150%.
- Rebirth (29) – Revive a dead buddy, usable in combat. Ally comes back with 60% health and 20% mana.
- Rank 2, at 46, revives the target with 100% health.
- Hibernate (38) – cause a beast or dragonkin to sleep for up to 40 seconds. Damage will wake it up. One affects one target at a time.
- Soothe (41) – Soothes the target, removing all Enrage effects. 10 second cooldown. Does not require a particular form. 40 yard range.
- Stampeding Roar (43) pops you into your bear form and you then Roar, speeding up all allies within 15 yards for 60% over 8 seconds. 2 min CD.
- Cyclone (48) disorients your opponent by tossing them into the air for 6 seconds. They cannot be attacked for the duration.
Your Abilities as Feral and Balance
These are the abilities that define you as Feral or Balance.
P = Passive, CP = Combo Point, CD = Cooldown time, DOT = Damage Over Time
 Feral (Cat) Abilities
Best looking of all Druid Forms In your face, blood and more blood via rips and shreds, lots of bleeds Swipes and Thrashes for area attacks Can keep Rogues (and other ferals) from sneaking. |
 Balance (Boomkin) Abilities
Gnarliest loooking of all Druid forms, well, Ok, in a Super Chicken sort of way. Ranged destruction Solar Beam (Silence,) Starfall Procs from Shooting stars |
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Druid Leveling Builds
Talents are pretty simple these days. Want to experiment? Changing your talents is easy. You don’t need a trainer, special reagents, prayers to the moon, or any such.
All you have to be is “out of combat” and you can change your specialization (feral, balance, etc.) as often as you like.
If you’re in an inn, the big city, or your Garrison (level 90+) you can change any or all of your talent picks. You can also do the same in any “out of combat” situation by using a Tome of the Quiet Mind, up to level 59. (A Codex of the Quiet Mind will allow your entire party to change specs.) Note that you can also change Azerite Essences. A tome of the sill mind (usable at 51+) will be required for level 60 and does the same thing.
The below leveling builds are just a suggestion and they assume that you are mostly questing for your leveling, though they’ll serve you well in PvE and PvP. They are chosen to add greater flexibility to the “all damage, all the time” of your abilities. Feel free to shuffle things around depending on your game. (If you really want to crank through the levels mixing up questing, dungeons, and PvP then get a smart leveling guide.)
Our picks are checked: 
CP = Combo Point
Feral Leveling Talents
Tier 1, level 15
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Balance Leveling Talents
Tier 1, level 15
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Tier 2, level 25
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Tier 2, level 25Do you need a fast Dash, a heal, or a “leap back?”
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Tier 3, level 30All of these give you added flexibility by being able to take on some of the abilities of one or the other of your specs.
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Tier 3, level 30Do you need more defense, more healing, or to occasional rip and tear?
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Tier 4, level 35
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Tier 4, level 35
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Tier 5, level 40
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Tier 5, level 40
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Tier 6, level 45:
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Tier 6, level 45
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Tier 7, level 50
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Tier 7, level 50
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PvP (War Mode) Talents:War mode lets you be ganked by… er, uh… earn +10% XP as you level, and it might be as high as +30% if your side is greatly outnumbered by the other faction. The PvP talents below are picked to help with questing and killing those mobs, not other players. You can get 3 PvP talents, one each at levels 20, 30, and 40, though a few will have other level requirements. These are our suggestions. Change ’em up for others depending on YOUR needs. |
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Feral PvP Talents
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Balance PvP Talents
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Glyphs for the Well Equipped DruidAll useful glyphs were slain some time back. They used to have combat effects. No more. All of the remaining glyphs are purely cosmetic, such as changing hair color for your bear or leaving a trail of leaves as Balance. Maybe someday that will change, but as of Shadowlands they are still cosmetic. 
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Munching on the Opposition (aka Druid Leveling Rotations)
Quest mobs go down fast, especially if you’re in heirlooms or otherwise nice gear. Dungeon mobs a bit less fast, but a decent team will burn them down quickly, as well. PvP, on the other hand… Your health will disappear with amazing speed, but theirs might not.
The point? With questing and dungeoning you won’t have much use for a rotation. In PvP you will. If you’re even half serious about it. As well as being aware of escapes and crowd controls (stuns, cyclones, etc.)
Feral Ripping and Shredding…
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- Keep any buffs up, such as +Stam food or potions/scrolls.
- Build combo points with Rake, Shred, and Swipe (or Brutal Slash.) Always try to get 5 CPs.
- Spend them with Ferocious Bite, Rip, or Savage Roar (if you have that talent.) Try to keep the latter’s buff up.
- For opponents that will last a bit, such as Rares, Elites, dungeon mods, etc., try to keep your bleeds up. Those are created by your Rake and Rip abilities.
- Use Tiger’s Fury as necessary.
- Use Berserk and Berserking as necessary.
- At 91+ you can use a Mecha-Blast Rocket as a ranged attack. Buy them from an Engineer or off the Auction House. Useful when you’d rather shoot than sneak and pounce.
Feral PvE Rotation video
Both of these videos (boomie is just below) are only about 5 minutes.
While this is for level 100 Ferals you find that most of it is just fine for even low level characters. You won’t have the Blood Talons ability, but you will have much of the rest.
For Shadowlands they will still give you a good idea of what’s going on. The abilities have moved around a bit, but the basic system in the same.
Also note that this is for fighting opponents that will last awhile, which your quest mobs won’t. So it’s great for dungeon bosses, PvP to some extent (need your crowd control and such,) and elites. Quest mobs will be similar, just with a briefer rotation, especially if you’re well geared.
Moonkin for the Ranged Destruction
A basic Boomkin rotation for PvE. As above, it’ll get you going and it’s more for long fights than short ones, but then… isn’t it easier to cut down a long rotation than build a short one?
Pretty good video for the Boomie basics. Just modify it if you don’t have an ability yet. Shadowlands shifts some abilities around, but the video will still be good. It will give you a solid idea of what is happening.
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Druid Stats and Gear
Stat Priority
Note that this is for leveling/questing, not raiding, PvP, or high end stuff.
- Balance: Int > Mastery > Haste > other stuff
- Feral: Agility > Crit > Mastery > anything else.
While leveling, the real priority is: Do no worry about it. A new item with more Agility or Int than the previous one will be better for you, even if the stats on it are a little “wrong.”
Diminishing Returns: Something else that will be more important for the end game, is that Shadowlands has brought a Diminishing Returns system to stats gained from gear. What this means is that once you get 30% Haste, Crit, whatever, any additional points will be worth less than otherwise.
For example, stats that take you over 30% are worth 10% less. Over 39% and they’re worth 20% less. And so on. +126% is that max you can gain. Stats gained from any particular ability are not affected from this, it’s for gear only.
If you’re twinking (sticking to one level for PvP or something) or you really have to max out your stuff, then go for it.
Stat Description
- Your weapon item level is #1. Always try to have the best weapon, with the best stats, that you can find.
- Agility for Feral and Int for Balance. These are easily your best stats.
- Crit is valuable for cats, decent for Balance.
- Haste is good for Balance and not so hot for cats.
- Stamina is great for low levels, stack it until you are happy with your survival.
- Mastery is gained at level 78. It’s great for Cats and good for Balance.
- Strength is useless for any Druid, even Bears (who did like Str, once upon a time.)
Heirlooms and Other Gear
Heirlooms: Some pieces of “heirloom” gear can be purchased from your guild vendor as soon as you guild rep is high enough. You can get the head, back, and legs. These will add a total of 25% XP as you move along with your leveling. You will need to be honored with that guild in order to get all three items. (Need more gold?)
Heirlooms can be purchased for 500 – 700 gold. The price gets you that basic ‘loom, then you spend more to upgrade it to maximum level. That is level 50 in Shadowlands. (Figure 9k gold to give the armor, ring, or trinket a level 50 cap and 13.5k for a weapon. Need more gold?)
Start at level 29 max, then upgrade to 35 > 40 > 45 > 50. At 50+ you will grind new gear from 51 to 60.
- Horde: Estelle Gendry in the south-western side of the Rogue’s Quarter of Undercity. After Undercity is destroyed in Battle for Azeroth she moves to the top of the Gates of Orgrimmar.
- Alliance: Krom Stoutarm is in the Library of Ironforge, which is found on the north-eastern edge of the outer ring.
The heirlooms are permanently placed in your heirloom box (the “Collections” window. Same window as mounts and pets, check the tab at the bottom.)
If you enchant the ‘looms then you should mail them to your next alt. If you “destroy” the item then the enchant will be destroyed, but the item itself will return to your collection, for future reference.
Remember that you can put the top level enchants on your heirlooms, or any gear, and they will scale with your character’s level. Shoulder and leg enchants will require you to have a high level (at least 32) character to apply the enchant, but then it can be sent to your lower levels.
Urgent note:Yes, your heirloom gear can be transmogged. Whew!
If you do not have Heirlooms then don’t worry about it. Just scroll down a bit. Generally you’ll want to keep an eye on your gear and buy better stuff from the Auction House every few levels. Prioritize weapons, then chest, head
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Gems and Enchants for the Well Equipped Druid
You shouldn’t bother with gems for the most part, while leveling. Gear with gem sockets is pretty uncommon, and you will quickly level past any piece with them anyway. Heirlooms do not have gem slots.
If you do decide to gem, then go for Agility or Int, depending on your spec, and then your best secondary stat: Crit for Feral and Mastery for Balance.
Enchants
You can add enchants, prior to the Shadowlands enchants, to any lower level of item. So if you have gear that you’ll keep for a bit and/or heirlooms, and enough gold, you can add these enchants to your level 1 items.
For enchants from other crafts (such as the Inscription Shoulders) you will need to have a higher level (32+) character apply the enchant, then give or mail the piece of gear back to you.
In either case the enchant will scale with your level. Given the prices of the enchants you should do this only with gear that you’ll keep for awhile, such as the heirlooms or some sweet gear from the dungeon.
Shadowlands enchants require that you be level 50+, so if you are enchanting your gear then you will be using earlier enchants. Most of these will top at well before you hit level 50.
Feral or Guardian:
This first group is for items that are available as heirlooms.
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- Head, Trinkets: : None.
- Neck: Mark of the Claw: Sometimes increase Crit and Haste by 16 for 6 seconds. Max item level 60.
- Back: Binding of Agility, +3 Ag, Cannot be used past item level 60.
- Chest: Glorious Stats: +4 to all stats, max item level is 50.
- Cloak: Binding of Agility: +3 Ag., max item level is 60.
- Shoulders: Tiger Claw, +5 Ag, +2 Crit, max item level is 50.
- Legs: Shadowleather Leg Armor, +6 Ag, +3 Crit, Requires a level 85 to apply, item level 50 max.
- Rings: Get Accord of Haste or Crit or mastery or Versatility, each adds +9.
- Weapons: Force Multiplier: Sometimes gain +28 Ag and +18 Mastery, Haste, Or Crit (it picks your highest stat.) 15 seconds.
Non-heirloom pieces
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- Wrist: Greater Agility, +5 Ag, Max is 50.
- Gloves: Superior Haste, +8 Haste, 50 item level max.
- Belt: Engineers can add some “enchants” to their own belts and Blacksmiths can add a gem socket.
- Boots: Greater Precision, +4 Crit; Greater Haste, +4 Haste; Panda Step, +3 Mastery and slightly faster run; all max out at item level 50.
Balance or Restoration:
Heirloom items….
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- Head: None.
- Neck: Mark of the Claw: Sometimes increase Crit and Haste by 16 for 6 seconds. Max item level 60.
- Back: Binding of Intellect, +3 Int. Cannot be used past item level 60.
- Chest: Glorious Stats: +4 to all stats, max item level is 50.
- Shoulders: Crane Wing: +5 to Int and +2 Crit., max item level is 50.
- Legs: Powerful Ghostly Spellthread: +3 Int, +2 Vers, max item level is 50.
- Rings: Get Accord of mastery, adds +9, max item level is 140.
- Trinkets: None, but… some Mechagon trinkets will have “punch card slots” and the cards, red, yellow, and blue, can have interesting effects.
- Weapons: Machinist’s Brilliance: Sometimes gain +28 Int and +18 Mastery, Haste, Or Crit (it picks your highest stat.) 15 seconds. Alternately: Torrent of Elements, for the occasional +10% elemental spell damage. Item level 140 max.
And non-heirloom items…
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- Wrist: Intellect, +5 Int, max item level is 50.
- Gloves: Superior Haste, +8 Haste, 50 item level max.
- Belt: Engineers can add some “enchants” to their own belts and Blacksmiths can add a gem socket.
- Boots: Panda Step, +3 Mastery and slightly faster run; all max out at item level 50.
In Shadowlands there is a character level requirement of 50 for the available enchants (listed below,) so you cannot drop them on your level 1. At 50 your heirlooms have topped out, but if you want to add one of more to some 50+ item, such as that legendary cloak from BFA, here they are:
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- Cloak: Enchants only add Stamina plus either speed, avoidance, or leech.
- Fortified Leech gives 20 Stam and 30 Leech
- Fortified Avoidance gives 20 Stam and 30 Avoidance
- Fortified Speed gives 20 Stam and 30 Speed
- Soul Vitality gives +30 Stam
- Chest: Eternal Stats for +30 to your Int or Ag. (not Stam)
- Boots: Eternal Agility for +16 Ag. Nothing for Int.
- Rings:
- Feral: Tenet of Crit for +16 Crit
- Balance: Tenet of Mastery for +16 Mastery
- Wrists: Eternal Intellect, +15 Int., nothing for Agility.
- Weapons: Celestial Guidance will occasionally add +5% to your Int or Ag when attacking or using spells and abilities. This is the most useful of the weapon enchants for leveling.
- Items not listed? Nope. No enchants available.
- Cloak: Enchants only add Stamina plus either speed, avoidance, or leech.
Go to => Top – Short guide – Race – Professions – Talents – Cat – Bear – Gear – Tips – Level faster
Leveling Tips
Feral (Cat) is the best of the leveling specs for the typical Druid player. We’re not focusing on raiding or high-end content here, just leveling: grind out the quests and kill lots of mobs. Feral is excellent at doing just that. It’s pretty darn good at laying down the damage in PvP and instances, too.
Balance (Boomkin) is also fine at general questing, but not quite as fast as the Cat. As it’s a bit more challenging you might find it to be more fun. Note that Skill Capped says Balance is one of the easiest ranged PvP classes, due to a relatively easy rotation and good defensive capabilities.
Restoration will be very slow.
Guardian is great for tanking and the wait for tanks to get into dungeons is very short. You can do fine while questing, esp. when large groups of mobs can be rounded up and burned down.
Questing
This guide assumes that most of your leveling will be by doing quests. This has the additional benefit of gaining fly points, rep gains, incidental farming for gaining cash, and so on. Also, you don’t have to be on someone else’s schedule or deal with the sometimes quirky group dynamics.
The in-game WoW quest tracker thing will show you where to go so that you can knock off your quests in an efficient order. It’s a big improvement over the old way (of looking things up on some website,) but it’s much slower than a real leveling guide.
Note: Save the quests that take you out of an area (such as to the big city) for when you have several of them and/or your are done with the local quests and are moving anyway.
Grab as many quests in an area as you can and plan your route so as to hit as many at the same time as you can. There is a Loremaster achievement to be had for doing all of the quests in all of the zones.
Grinding? Ugh.
Feel free to grind (endlessly mash down endless piles of mobs) if you want to really slow your leveling speed down. Other than grinding certain mobs for cash and prizes (item drops) there is little value to grinding. Plus, it’s boring.
Dungeons
Starting at level 15 you can start using the random dungeon finder. If you enjoy grouping then it’s a good way to level more quickly than otherwise. If you do not enjoy dungeon teams then you can skip them with nothing lost except maybe a tiny bit of leveling speed.
- As Feral you will be Queuing as “Damage” (DPS) and your wait times will usually be anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. Sometimes longer. So combine your dungeoning with questing.
- As Guardian you will be the tank and you waits will rarely be longer than 2 minutes. Our Feral Bear page will have tanking info.
- If you are new to dungeoning then figure out which member of the group is “the tank” and stay near him. Listen for instructions, ask questions when needed, and keep a thick skin in case some party member left his manners elsewhere.
- Dungeon teams tend to move very quickly, so pay attention and keep up.
- Good guilds often run their own dungeon teams. These are usually more fun and more tolerant of mistakes and new players than the random dungeon groups are.
- You can pick up some decent gear by dungeoning, but you might want to keep an eye on gear from the Auction House, in case your gear isn’t dropping or you’re not winning the rolls. Also, the random dungeons will give you a sack of occasionally useful items (here) when done.
PvP Leveling
Random battlegrounds are much like the random dungeons, except that you get to kill other players. If you win you can level very quickly. (Losing is slower than questing.) You also gain Honor Points which can be traded to certain vendors for nice gear.
- Most of the BattleGrounds (BGs) have control points to fight over and/or flags to grab and return.
- A couple (Altarac Valley (AV) and Isle of Conquest (I of C) ) have generals to kill, in addition to the control points.
- Strand of the Ancients is all about the vehicles and braking down the fortress walls (or defending against such.) As always, fighting in the middle areas (away from any sort of control point) is pretty useless and not helpful to your team.
- All of your efforts should be to defend and control those points, to kill those defending their points, to return (or help to return) the flag, or to kill the other flag carrier.
- If you’re not fighting near a flag or carrier then you are gaining less honor than you could be and you are not helping your team, which means you will gain a lot less XP when you lose.
- By the way, the extra speed that you get from Feral Swiftness makes you a pretty good flag carrier in Warsong Gulch, Eye of the Storm, and any other flag carrying BGs.
General Leveling Tips
- Make an alt to live at the auction house. Send all of your white loot, and better, to the alt to post on the AH. This will save lots of time. Vendor all the gray stuff. You can also use the alt to buy stuff for your main character(s.)
- Carry the biggest bags you can afford.
- Always log out at an inn to get the “rest XP” bonus.
- Buffing foods make you that much tougher and/or allow you to kill things just that much faster.
- Level 1? Herb baked Egg for a mighty +1 Stamina.
- Level 23? Warp Burgers for +2 Ag and +2 Versatility for 30 min. Crunchy Serpent for +2 Spell Power and + 2 Vers. for 30 min.
- 50+? Extra Lemony Herb Fillet, for +20 Versatility.
- And so on.
- Potions of Healing and Troll’s Blood potions mean less form switching, less mana use, and less downtime. Hardly essential, especially for Druids, but a healing potion on the action bar can, every now and then, be a lifesaver. Or, at least, convenient. Cooldown is 5 minutes for healing potions.
- Learn to use keybindings (instead of mouse-clicking your abilities.) This improves your efficiency, which is important at various time, such as in PvP. Not sure how to do it? Check out YouTube for Druid Keybinding videos.
- Practice fighting more than one enemy at a time. If you can handle two or three or more at one time, without stress, then you will complete quests faster.
- Prowl past enemies, when you want to, to reach goals and complete quests and avoid unwanted entanglements.
- More leveling tips here.
Macros for Druids
Macros simply combine a set of commands into one unit that can be accessed with one key press, instead of two or more. They also help to make sure certain things get cast, such as Tiger’s Fury for you Ferals. Need help? Find out all about making macros here.
Making sure your Tiger’s Fury is up, if it’s available.
#showtooltip Shred
/cast Tiger’s Fury
/cast shred
#showtooltip Rake
/cast Tiger’s Fury
/cast rake
Looking for specific mobs, but they are not obvious? Try this macro. Replace “Name_of_Mob” with the name of whatever you are looking for. The macro will then find the nearest one and put a skull over its head.
/cleartarget
/target [nodead] Name_of_Mob
/script SetRaidTarget(“target”,8);
Professions for the Well-Rounded Druid
If you’re a new player then skip all of the crafting professions for now. They’re expensive to level and cash will be tight.
If you really want to then go ahead, just be aware of the approaching poverty. If you need a bigger stack of gold then see our gold guide. If you’re already rich then ignore this advice and do what you please.
Certain crafting professions (see below) are better than others while leveling. The gathering professions are great for earning cash and can provide raw materials if you just have to learn a crafting profession.
- Skinning – good for making gold. You’ll be killing a bazillion skinnable critters anyway, so you might as well take it.
- Herbalism – also good for the gold and very nice for XP.
- Mining – Very good for cash and also very nice for XP.
Profession combinations:
- Skinning and leatherworking – this cuts the costs to leveling leatherworking by a lot and you can make your own gear. If you’re decked out in heirlooms you won’t care much until the end-game.
- Engineering and Mining – this’ll let you make some fun gear, Nitro Boosts for one, At 91+ you can make rockets and shields and some other useful stuff.
- Herbalism and Alchemy – also a nice pair. You can make a variety of useful potions and even sell some of them.
- Mining and skinning – a very nice cash making comb.
- Herbalism and skinning – A nice cash maker and you can give the herbs to an Alchemist or the skins to a leatherworker to make stuff for you.
- Herbalism and Mining for the extra XP. Then sell your stuff.
Also consider:
- Cooking for the buffing foods (increases to Stamina, Spirit, etc.)
- Fishing for cooking ingredients.
- Healing potions appropriate to your level. that’s better than the bandages, plus its instant. Too bad about the 5 minute CD though.
The Crafting Professions
All of the Draenor crafts are faster and easier to level than before. You’ll want the garrison building(s) appropriate to your crafts (leatherworking and engineering, right?) and followers to work those buildings, because you’ll make certain raw materials faster (needed for the nice stuff,) make more of those materials, and get some special goodies.
In BFA and later all professions are now in “sub-professions.” For example, originally you had to hit all the zones and level your profession from 1 to whatever cap. Now you can skip zones, or come back to them later if you want. You can learn Pandarian or BFA leatherworking/Alchemy/etc. without ever having learned the lower level zone skills.
- Alchemy is great for making all kinds of useful potions and having an instant heal on your action bar is rather nice. Your minion will give you free potions every day.
- Blacksmithing will allows you to create some decent weapons, especially at the high end. You can make keys to pick locks, rods for enchanters, and some other stuff. Spend some time Mining and you will have enough raw materials to keep yourself going.
- Enchanting is very expensive to level, so make sure you have lots of gold or a steady stream of cheapo magic items to disenchant into parts. This skill will allow you to enchant your items as you level, including rings and neck items.
- Engineering will allow you to make all kinds of nifty toys, including those motorcycles. The problem is that Engineering is easily as expensive as any other skill to level. the Warlords engie items are rather nice. For example, those rockets which will often one-shot quest mobs (not players.) The Shields, stealth device, and gliders are also nice.
- Inscription is one of the better money making crafting professions, depending on your server. Gather or buy lots of herbs to level this profession. you can make glyphs, caster items, and a number of other things.
- Jewelcrafting allows you to gather gems from ore (and sell them) and to also cut those gems into something that people can put into their sockets.
- Leatherworking will provide you with some pretty decent gear. Combine it with skinning and you will be able to level that skill without too much pain.
- Tailoring has nothing of direct use to you.
Go to => Top – Short guide – Race – Professions – Talents – Gear – Tips – Level faster
Kick Butt Druid Leveling Guide
Any Druid. Click Here to get Started!
Once you’ve created your new Druid, or dusted off the older one, you’re looking at thousands of quests and a million mobs to grind the trip to max level and that can be a bit daunting. Not to mention wondering where to go and what to do, especially if you picked up a few levels in the dungeons or PvP.
To solve that problem we recommend an in-game leveling guide. Start from any level, hit the dungeons for a few levels, work the battlegrounds for awhile and when you come back to questing the guide will detect where you are and advance appropriately.
New to WoW or experienced, geared or not, heirlooms or not, even if you’re running Recruit a Friend the levels will just come boom, boom, boom and you’ll hit the level cap a lot faster than you ever did before.
Dugi’s Leveling Guide takes care of all the “looking up stuff.” No more switching from game to quest log, no more asking questions in chat or guild, no more browsing some website for tips. No more doubts or questions about what to do next.
Dugi’s guide appears as an in-game window (very small and moveable) which tracks the quests you’re on, and the objectives (kill this, collect that.) It automatically updates as you complete tasks and quests and provides all of the “where to go and what to do” info that you will need to level quickly.
Where it beats WoW’s in-game quest helper all to heck is by laying out the best path all along the way. Plus, if you spend some time in the dungeons or PvP leveling then, when you return to questing, Dugi’s will automatically update to your new level and show you where to go next.
Always updated for the latest patches and expansions, even Shadowlands and beyond, Dugi’s will never be obsolete.
Grab your copy here and get leveled fast.
Awesome guide. Thanks
Thank you. 🙂
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What is the better healer monk or Druid
In PvP? Druid.
In PvE? Probably a Monk for most situations, esp. 25 man raids, though it depends on your group. Here’s an article that covers healers.