Druids: What You Need to Know

Leveling up a Druid in World of Warcraft is a great experience, the process is filled with constant changes as you advance through the levels.

The Core capability of the Druid is to change Form and thus enter each situation with the best set of abilities available. When you want to power level your character the never ending focus on questing, questing and questing can become boring. The Druid however will give you a better experience, because you are leveling a multiple characters in one. Something that gives a monotonous grinding an extra dimension.

You start your WoW Druid career with a character that has access to a:

• ranged damage spell called Wrath, and
  
• a healing spell called Nature's Touch.
  

At the start of the game you will notice little difference between the early Druid and the Priest. Within the first 10 levels you acquire the damage spell Moonfire that has the nice addition of dealing damage over time. This is a integral part of the Druid Leveling Process

Leveling Your Druid - The Various Forms

Leveling the Druid is quite amazing though. The ability to change form increases rapidly, here is a quick overview.

The first Form you can acquire is the Bear Form at level 10.

• In Bear Form your character gets Warrior like abilities, you gain 30% health, and 30% attack power. Thus your Melee attacks become much stronger. You get this ability as a quest reward at level 10.
• At level 40 you can upgrade to the Dire Bear Form, making which gives an extra boost to your DPS and Tanking abilities. You will gain 60% extra Health, 380% extra Armor and 60% extra attack power.

Sea Lion Form can be acquired at Level 12

• Some question the usability of the Sea Lion form since it can not fight or run away. But the Sea Lion form can swim very fast and can breathe underwater. So you’ll lose the risk of drowning, an advantage as far as I can see. This ability is also received as a quest reward.

Cat Form ask your Trainer at Level 20

• In the Cat Form your character gets Rogue like abilities. The Mana bar will change to an energy bar and you will prefer the same playing and PvP strategies as the Rogue does.
• In Cat Form you have the Stealth, Prowl and Backstab abilities of the Rogue (not as strong as the real thing). Swift attacks like Claw will rake up Combo points. And finishing moves like Rip and Ferocious bite complete that picture.
• The Cat Form is acquired by asking your trainer at level 20

Travel Form Spread your Wings at Level 30

• In the Travel From you will look like a Cheetah, or in Flight Form as a Storm Crow. This form is available from your trainer at level 30.
• Your travel becomes much faster and efficient. You’ll use this ability extensively between the levels 30 -40.
• The Flight Form also becomes a very handy trick to escape difficult battle situations.

Moonkin and Tree Form.

• These are parts of the Druids specialization and are only available in the Balance and Restoration talent trees.

Playing and Leveling the Druids Talent Trees

The Druid is a flexible class, and 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.

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.

The 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.

The most significant talent for th Balance Druid is Moonkin Form, this form 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.

Building your talent tree is not very critical 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.

The Feral Druid Tree and Leveling

The Feral Druid is capable of both tanking, and dealing melee damage when placing talents for a Feral specialization, remember to always place points in key talents from the Restoration tree:

o Furor

o Furor will give you instant rage or energy when you shapeshift

o Naturalist

o Naturalist makes your attacks in Bear and Cat Form stronger

o Omen of Clarity

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.

The 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 of the Druid’s nearby allies to receive more healing from all spells. It is also 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.

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.