[Balance] boomkin and levling... wait what?

[Grubjuice]

do any of your remember how it was basically impossible to level a druid as balance from level 1-to-40 back in the old days?

[Neolithic]

Am I the only one leveling as Guardian, as I leveled my monk as Brewmaster, and will be leveling my DK as Blood?

I absolutely wreck shit as Guardian, and I am for all essential purposes of PvE leveling, unkillable. AoE out the ying yang, and active mitigation that lets me heal through just about anything with little to no worry. It's almost like when I leveled my pally as a Holy Shockadin in Wrath, though without the massive DPS they gave tanks in MoP.

I realize it's a touch off subject, but I couldn't help but notice the lack of Guardian spec in the discussion

Roar!

[Grubjuice]

it think it is well known that tank specs make very good AoE farming specs.

but sometimes we want to try to level in the various dps specs, in theory dps specs should still put out more damage when leveling and soloing (at least at higher levels when spells are balanced in favor of dps specs)

[Deleted]

I found stuff died quicker if I just dotted up every mob in the area and jumped around with Rejuv. Boomkin single target dps will always irritate me because the ramp up/burst is so crappy... Which is exactly why I rerolled my Spriest+Warrior combo

[ganush]

At 85-88, rejuv is extremely powerful so just keep one rolling on yourself and chain pull letting your dots to most of the work, using starsurge procs. Use barkskin or your 'healthstone' talent if things are looking grim and if you really get into trouble you can pop kitty dash and gtfo of most situations. 89-90 rejuv isn't as strong anymore, but the same strategy still works, just have to be a little more careful.

Also, CA and Incarnation are powerful CD's so use them when they are up and be more aggressive with how much you pull in these situations. Also pull a little more aggressively when starfall is available, just be careful when using it as there are a ton of mobs already in combat in Pandaria and you can end up pulling a lot of stuff you didn't want to.

[Sunfyre]

NS will prove to be more valuable than renewal, since it has a 1 min cd vs 2

[Deleted]

Boomkin plain out SUCKS levelling in Pandaria imo.

I levelled my boomkin in close to full BiS DS HC gear, and around 87 the damage just went down a HUGE bit.
I never changed to feral, so I have no clue wether or not that would be better, but the survival and damage of boomkins is really low while levelling :/

[Dachoson1]

I love boomkin leveling, they maybe dont have the DPS of my frost mage but great dot and run capabilities.

[Deleted]

Ive been leveling boomie, my main, the night Pandaria was released. Full DS HC gear, int flasks, potions, food buff.

I never held something that weak in my hands.

[timbaLt]

I nearly got realm first leveling as Boomkin, the only Druid that beat me was part of a guild farming monkeys, and they only beat me by an hour. I, however, had full BiS Dragon Soul gear, so mileage may vary without lots of Haste/Crit. :P

[Foto]

A lot of what needs to be said here has already been done so but anyway I went and got realm 3rd (by 1.5bars), 1st druid and although on the beta I nerfed myself to no guild and minimal gear when it came to actually doing the leveling it wasn't overly difficult.

Personally I went for NS talent and macro'd a NS then HT together. also had rejuv on my cast bars for a quick and easy heal. Personally I went for the 15% speed over the wild charge talent but both work fine, typhoon and stun talents were also taken + soul of the forest (purely so that I had more time in eclipse but either way it doesn't matter too much).

First few levels was super easy, theres a few of the 250k+ mobs in valley which undergeared people may have some issues with but just came down to me smashing through it all - and you can buy gear if needed. I died for my first time in Kun Lai because a quest bugged out on me but apart from that I died maybe once in townlong and twice in DW. Comes down to keeping a NG rejuv up as much as possible, utilising NS/HT procs and a bit of kiting, our dots are really powerful so using them to their best ability as well as astral communioning to 1 cast away from eclipse in the later zones.

Overall for leveling I recommend doing all of JF, Valley, krasarang and kunlai before moving on. As you level you get weaker so stay at the earlier zones for longer will help make the leveling faster - also utilising double xp and random heroic but boomy is honestly fine its more of an L2P issue (I have been playing boomy since wotlk naxx so I have plenty of experience but learn from your mistakes)