Druid: Leveling as a druid

[Deserous]

Hi guys,
I am making plans to start over as a druid. I have no experience with druids so I thought I might aswell hop over here and ask some simple questions:
Whats the 'best' spec to level with?
My brother also decided to start over, he has no idea what class he wants to be, any good druid+RandomClass combinations?
Overall, is it hard to level a druid (prot-war style) or is it like affliction warlock grinding?
Thank you for your time.

[Absalom]

After seeing what other Druids in my guild could do, I also rolled a druid. I would probably say to go Feral. There is tons of fun to be had as a feral druid. You wont really see any real change until you get 10-20. 20 is where the fun starts to really come in to play.

[HurricaneCat]

Feral is generally considered the best leveling spec for druids, although Balance is work-able if you prefer to play a different style. Resto druids level like Prot warriors; I wouldn't recommend leveling resto.

In terms of partner, I think warriors and rogues make good teammates for feral druids because they benefit a lot of the 5% crit from Leader of the Pack, and they make good arena 3v3 team members when you get to 70. (obviously warlock is another fine choice). Pretty much anything that can't heal honestly.

[Maltyrius]

Originally Posted by Deserous

Hi guys,
I am making plans to start over as a druid. I have no experience with druids so I thought I might aswell hop over here and ask some simple questions:
Whats the 'best' spec to level with?
My brother also decided to start over, he has no idea what class he wants to be, any good druid+RandomClass combinations?
Overall, is it hard to level a druid (prot-war style) or is it like affliction warlock grinding?
Thank you for your time.

I justed dinged 54 on my druid last night. I have enjoyed it quite a bit for the amazing versatility. Here are some assorted tidbits based on my recent experiences.

Levels 5-10 were actually hard compared to most classes. You only have caster form with limited mana. I found I was OOM every single mob pull using a Moonfire pull then Wrath. I had to drink after every single mob. Nasty. Bear form at 10 makes like better - you can take a hit and shift form to heal as needed.

Cat form at 20 changes the flow completely. Now it's fun time and you have your 3 primary forms to begin getting into a rythym. Be sure to put 2 points into Feral Swiftness to get the move speed increase from 20-30 before you get Travel Form. It really makes map travel so much better.

I have been leveling feral with some key points in Restoration. Some folks like Balance for leveling but if I want caster pew pew I might as well play my lock. The key, I find, to playing a druid is to not think 'I'm a caster/cat dps/bear tank'.

In tough encounters I often have to shift into different forms to be most effective. For example: I did this quest last night at level 53:
http://thottbot.com/q5242

Level 52 succi
Level 54 succi
Level 57 Warlock

Went as so: Open in bear to absorb damage; kill the 52 first as they are the softest. Shift to caster, throw HoTs and Innervate. Shift back to bear and take on 54. She dies, shift to caster and HoT again. Shift to cat and dps the lock down. My point: It was tough and dicey but there is no way the encounter was doable in one form. You're not the best healer, best tank or best dps but if you manage your forms well you are hard as hell to kill.

As far as who to level with, a druid can be great with any class because of your flexibility. My GF has a druid too and we really love the combo of duo stealthing while having a double whammy tank/healer team.

All in all, great fun and worth it if you can make it past the first 20 levels. Best of luck!

P.S. the swim form (AKA manatee from hell) is butt ugly and makes me cringe every time I look at it. http://digitalretrograde.com/Photos/...26js_small.jpg

[tclkage]

Druids are pretty fun. The feral tree is the generally accepted leveling tree. Actually, on my server Feral seems to be the generally accepted tree ...period, but that's a different story altogether. Unlike Prot for a Warrior, the Feral tree allows you to both tank and melee DPS, so you'll have quite a bit of instance utility as well as soloing options. As far as builds are concerned, here's what I did:

level 21
level 30

At that point you can heal, tank, and do melee dps. From there you can drop points in either Feral or Resto depending on what you enjoy more. I elected to do a pretty even split because I was instancing a lot and it was helpfull to be able to tank or heal depending on the group makeup.

If anything, I've found Druids to be even easier to level than Warlocks. Pull with a spell and pop a HoT on yourself and then switch to Bear or Cat depending on how many mobs you just pulled. Wash, rinse, repeat.

As far as a good partner class is concerned, I liked leveling my Druid with my wife's Shaman. That's mainly because we were both able to DPS and heal if need be. It made for a very flexible pairing.

[Morganfaey]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...11601186&sid=1

Actually a rather helpful guide on the druid forums for leveling. I have been using it with my baby druid and found it interesting.

The guide goes over both feral and balance leveling. However, imo feral should be a bit easier and maybe more fun. If/when I get high enough I will have to play Oomkin for a little while....their dance is too good to pass up

Hope this helps a bit.

[forketta]

First levels as a druid are slow. Wrath, wrath, wrath....
As soon as you start to have some nice feral talents, you become a mean dps machine, with some seconds of stellar dps when crit happens ;P

Leveling 50 to 60 is a piece of cake.
Leveling Outlands is easy too (but more time consuming): spec tank, and you get whispered for istances. Speccing boomkin mean doing nice dps, but very mana consuming. Speccing healer means you are slow at soloing.
Stop yourself at level 68 and dominate BGs, and get a S1 pvp healer set. Then ding 70, respec hybryd healer (11 (insect swarm) /11 (feral charge) / 39 (focus on heal over time talents)), train a little as a healer still in BG, then go Arena as a semi-god!

[Lockia]

When my lock was stuck in action (almost entirely epic, and a slow moving guild ) i rerolled a druid and my husband picked a mage. We are both level 65 now and as i may say, we rock at top dps, hubby is a fire mage and i choose feral spec, and mostly dps in kitty form.
We have done all group quests together (max: sugg players 4..) and i only died once (caster boss who froze me, and i was not quick enough to shapeshift back into bear form). I must say after the previous patch the kitty dps went up alot, and levelling two dps classes side by side is real power leveling .
I just wanne say : have a blast leveling your drood, and you will top off damagemeters, and if you play well, MT all the way till Gruul and maybe beyond. Good luck.

[abar22]

http://druid.wikispaces.com/

Enjoy the large amount of information provided here...

[Morganfaey]

Originally Posted by abar22

http://druid.wikispaces.com/

Enjoy the large amount of information provided here...

Oh god, now I'm REALLY not going to get anything done at work today!!