Leveling as a druid in Legion

[Liandryl]

Hey everyone,

During WOD, I leveled my druid as feral since I wanted to play it at 100 and liked it, but for Legion I am planning to go as a chicken.

With that in mind, would feral still be a better option to level 100-110 or would a chicken do as well or even better ?

I have seen some video on the both spec, but it is hard to know which would be better to level having never leveled a chicken myself.

[Gemini Soul]

Level the spec you want to play at 110, otherwise your gimping your self with a 750 artifact that has no points spent on from 100-1110

[Nevcairiel]

Level the spec you want to play at 110, otherwise your gimping your self with a 750 artifact that has no points spent on from 100-110

"Gimping" is hardly true. It takes virtually no time at max level to catch-up an artifact to level 13 (ie. the leveling phase), as level 14 takes more AP then 1-13 in total.
All you should do is change your lootspec at some point to get relics for the second artifact.

However, as you're playing a DPSer anyway, just level as the DPS spec you want to play. Its really only a topic to think about when you want to play a healer (or maybe tank, but leveling as tank is fine, imho).

[roflwaffle]

why would boomie be any slower?

[Gemini Soul]

"Gimping" is hardly true. It takes virtually no time at max level to catch-up an artifact to level 13 (ie. the leveling phase), as level 14 takes more AP then 1-13 in total.
All you should do is change your lootspec at some point to get relics for the second artifact.

However, as you're playing a DPSer anyway, just level as the DPS spec you want to play. Its really only a topic to think about when you want to play a healer (or maybe tank, but leveling as tank is fine, imho).

Gimping is very true, if you spend 1-13 in total on your lvl'ing artifact that is 1-13 ranks/ArtPow you are now behind on your MS artifact, granted they do go fast at that low ranks but that is still X amount of ArtPow wasted that you will never get back putting you behind.

Healers and Tanks have it easier this time with lvl'ing because each rank they up on their artifact gives them 1% damage increase up to a max of 34%

[Nevcairiel]

Gimping is very true, if you spend 1-13 in total on your lvl'ing artifact that is 1-13 ranks/ArtPow you are now behind on your MS artifact, granted they do go fast at that low ranks but that is still X amount of ArtPow wasted that you will never get back putting you behind.

6500 AP for 1-13 in a grand total of several million is literally nothing, if that means you can level faster.
Gimping would imply there is a tangible difference, which there really isn't. Once you have passed the first few levels this "lost AP" puts you a small fraction of a level behind, which is hardly noticeable.

Anyway like I said above, if you play DPS anyway there is no reason to level as anything else then the spec you want to play at max.
If you're a healer, don't do that to yourself and level as resto just because you're afraid to "miss out", it'll be annoying. Yes, its better then any other xpac and its certainly possible to level as resto druid, but its still not fun - imho anyway.

[Will]

I fail to see why moonkin would be noticeably slower

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[theburned]

Gimping is very true, if you spend 1-13 in total on your lvl'ing artifact that is 1-13 ranks/ArtPow you are now behind on your MS artifact, granted they do go fast at that low ranks but that is still X amount of ArtPow wasted that you will never get back putting you behind.

Healers and Tanks have it easier this time with lvl'ing because each rank they up on their artifact gives them 1% damage increase up to a max of 34%

Stop being ridiculous, any amount gained while levelling is negligable. 1% increased damage is lower than what dps classes get on most traits, tanks have it easy because of high sustain and good aoe damage, healers is generally slower.

On topic, tanks have gotten quite some good feedback, but in the end it all comes down to which ring is most upgraded, if you as a boomkin can just pop some cds and kill 10 mobs with 1 gcd each that is easily going to be a lot better than a guardian who first has to pull everything and then aoe them down thrash etc.

Feral could be good with the class trinket aswell, very high uptime on cds can prove to be very good, and lunar inspiration and boomkin affinity can prove to be very valuable.

Healer is not particularly good because 25% of your stat budget most likely goes to a stat that does not increase your damage, the ring does not improve your damage either, while its definitely okay to level as a healer without this stuff, its not even remotely good with all these things.

[Gemini Soul]

6500 AP for 1-13 in a grand total of several million is literally nothing, if that means you can level faster.
Gimping would imply there is a tangible difference, which there really isn't. Once you have passed the first few levels this "lost AP" puts you a small fraction of a level behind, which is hardly noticeable.

Anyway like I said above, if you play DPS anyway there is no reason to level as anything else then the spec you want to play at max.
If you're a healer, don't do that to yourself and level as resto just because you're afraid to "miss out", it'll be annoying. Yes, its better then any other xpac and its certainly possible to level as resto druid, but its still not fun - imho anyway.

Stop being ridiculous, any amount gained while levelling is negligable. 1% increased damage is lower than what dps classes get on most traits, tanks have it easy because of high sustain and good aoe damage, healers is generally slower.

On topic, tanks have gotten quite some good feedback, but in the end it all comes down to which ring is most upgraded, if you as a boomkin can just pop some cds and kill 10 mobs with 1 gcd each that is easily going to be a lot better than a guardian who first has to pull everything and then aoe them down thrash etc.

Feral could be good with the class trinket aswell, very high uptime on cds can prove to be very good, and lunar inspiration and boomkin affinity can prove to be very valuable.

Healer is not particularly good because 25% of your stat budget most likely goes to a stat that does not increase your damage, the ring does not improve your damage either, while its definitely okay to level as a healer without this stuff, its not even remotely good with all these things.

It still puts you behind the others but if your ok back there and being subpar more power to you. Those first few weeks when raids open up EVERY SINGLE ArtPow matters. If i have to pick between 2-3 people of equal skill of any given role, I'm going to take the one whos artifact is further along.

lvl'ing as a healer/tank is stupid fast, do quest while in que for randoms. Resto+Balance or Feral affinity makes questing ez mode

[Sprucelee]

It still puts you behind the others but if your ok back there and being subpar more power to you. Those first few weeks when raids open up EVERY SINGLE ArtPow matters. If i have to pick between 2-3 people of equal skill of any given role, I'm going to take the one whos artifact is further along.

lvl'ing as a healer/tank is stupid fast, do quest while in que for randoms. Resto+Balance or Feral affinity makes questing ez mode

If this actually concerns anyone, you can get your OS artifact first (for me Feral), and then stockpile your AP items, as 90% of AP is given by items you can save anyway. And if you are really concerned with 100%, you just have to swap before turning in the few quests that apply it automatically.

So just get your resto artifact at 102 and apply AP as needed for bag space, or save it for when you are max level. You can also just switch to resto as needed to make sure you collect any relics/gear you want right before/at 110 for your resto mainspec,

Leveling as resto is just painful for me (in my testing the TTK is far slower than Feral), simply going as feral with a base artifact and leveling relics will be MUCH better. And in that situation, where you stockpile AP, you will be the same rank as anyone who does not. This is the route I will go. I also agree with people who note that up to rank 13 is pretty much irrelevant. If you are in no rush at max level, that is an option and one that helps long term when you are in the 110 zone.

The only reason I would not spend up to rank 13 (during leveling) on Feral is I want to be able to help guldies in dungeons immediately at max level. But I think it will be irrelevant in terms of raiding IMO.

For a good read on the subject:

https://healiocentric.wordpress.com/...-wont-believe/

I like her conclusions, but IME my Feral play outperforms anything I can do with Resto for DPS/Leveling (and is just more comfortable), so the choice is pretty simple for me.

[Mollify]

If this actually concerns anyone, you can get your OS artifact first (for me Feral), and then stockpile your AP items, as 90% of AP is given by items you can save anyway. And if you are really concerned with 100%, you just have to swap before turning in the few quests that apply it automatically.

Exactly this. You end up with a bag full of AP items that you can bank for later, but with the immediate benefit of a better (more DPS, less boring) spec for levelling and late-game content. You only need a very small handful of points in your OS DPS spec to make it good (e.g. Boomkin to get Full Moon).

Many players are looking at something closer to a 90%/10% MS/OS split to start with. The difference to your raiding ability is extremely negligible.

[Liandryl]

why would boomie be any slower?

TBH I expected that it would not really matter, but I always thought it was easier as a melee cause you are tankier and cant easily solo rare monster along the route.

Just wanted to know the opinion of those who leveled both and from those who played beta since there might changes that facilitate one or the other. (even if by couple of hours only) I will just do it as a chicken.

Thanks everyone