Balance or Feral for leveling?

[mutantboy]

I leveled like a rogue. Get suitable greens and lots of bandages and G2G.

So if I was taking a bit of damage I wouldn't use mana every time - bandages are nearly as fast and you can go a few fights just regenning mana.

And there are quite a few greens with Str, more with agi and almost no leather with +sp until Outland.

Sometimes I just spent a few hours coninuously grinding - the levels melted away...

[Flanky]

ATM I enjoy feral.

Feral Pros to balance

You can tank or DPS
You can level almost limitlessly no downtime
You can survive anything
You can solo lots more than other classes could hope to.

Balance

You can do good burst
You can heal or DPS

All you need to know.

[Xorack]

I have always leveled my druid as feral and will always be "once feral always feral". after you are done with your mobs go out from catform and heal up yourself to 100% hp. go cat, use energy and same again. Moonkin will go oom after some mobs. As feral you spare mana and food and water

[Flanky]

I have always leveled my druid as feral and will always be "once feral always feral". after you are done with your mobs go out from catform and heal up yourself to 100% hp. go cat, use energy and same again. Moonkin will go oom after some mobs. As feral you spare mana and food and water

At the moment you can buy Mana Potions for like 200 for 500g, if you got alch. trinket and use pots + innervate wisely (spirit gear ftw) your downtime is very low too. remeber ýou get mana when you crit + you can still do crazy dmg in your healer gear with decent mp5. Im planning to lvl with resto gear in moonkin spec, I can spam wrath for 3k crit and I wont go oom ever

[Kazzguhl]

I'll do a dual spec Moonkin/cat for lvling and later too...

TP Moonkin : http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...33213035311131
TP cat : ?? don't know :P

[Kazzguhl]

The most non-versatile Druid possible? :P

y... Juste wanna have fun :P tired to tank and to heal too

[agior]

Well if you wanna level as Balance and feel like mana is a problem just do a hybrid spec ^^

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...33013005300000

You loose alot of dmg, but for solo grinding mana isn't an issue. I've been normal and this balance spec, with my gear (kara/za/badges), Newly dinged 70, i've got about 300 mp5 unbuffed - I've got resto gear only mind, since i didn't think balance was fun at first so i didn't bother with the gear, still i can get on top DPS everywhere with this spec - You just have to play the rigth way for your spec - Normaly i offheal/dps and still manage to get high dmg.

The best thing is if you don't need to heal at all (in raids where healers do their jobb) like when i did Supremus (BT boss 2) with a pug, i didn't need to heal at all, i didn't go below 90% mana and i spamed dps the whole figth.

Tho i prolly should ad that i'm gonna go for a normal Balance spec in wotlk, gonna instance grind to lvl 80 (I don't wanna re-live the nigthmare scene that occured when BC came)

Well that's just my option.

[Enthalpy]

If you gear for it, with INT and Spirit (and some spell power, but no focus on it), you will have better levelling efficiency as balance. I didnt believe it at first but i can single target chain pull indefinately w/no need for healing, and aoe pull whenever i want to with a small amount of drinking afterwards. i also do not have OOC, dreamstate, or intensity (53 atm on this toon).

Key talent is nature's splendor with the moonfire and insect swarm glyphs.
starfire -> roots -> MF -> IS -> wait 6-7 seconds and wrath or starfire again if the mob looks like its not going to die.
If the mob looks like it will die i just run off and chain pull the next one and let the previous mob beat on me because if anything, it triggers owlkin frenzy.

with very few exceptions (AoEing or LOTS of mobs in a small area) i never run out of mana and rarely have to innervate.
your dot damage becomes amazingly efficient, and as long as you dont focus on spamming direct damage spells you are very mana efficient. at 53 i have ~4k mana, and i use about 500 ish a fight. not to mention i can summon trees to solo a mob for me for 130ish mana. i'm usually pulling 2-3 mobs at a time as well.
dots are just freakishly efficient.

part of what makes this work so well though is that i'm herbalism, and the lifeblood ability they have allows me to self hot w/out shape shifting, saving a ton of mana.

so, TLDR
balance can be VERY efficient (from lv 35 ish in my experience, if you gear for it), but requires gear, specific glyph/talent setups and a sense of efficiency in order to utilize it.

[Kazzguhl]

And what about cat pex ? Whitch TP should I use ?

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...00000000000000

This one ? last point in OOC or Berz ? (pur pexx)

[Deanimal]

Well if you wanna level as Balance and feel like mana is a problem just do a hybrid spec ^^

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...33013005300000

You loose alot of dmg, but for solo grinding mana isn't an issue. I've been normal and this balance spec, with my gear (kara/za/badges), Newly dinged 70, i've got about 300 mp5 unbuffed - I've got resto gear only mind, since i didn't think balance was fun at first so i didn't bother with the gear, still i can get on top DPS everywhere with this spec - You just have to play the rigth way for your spec - Normaly i offheal/dps and still manage to get high dmg.

The best thing is if you don't need to heal at all (in raids where healers do their jobb) like when i did Supremus (BT boss 2) with a pug, i didn't need to heal at all, i didn't go below 90% mana and i spamed dps the whole figth.

Tho i prolly should ad that i'm gonna go for a normal Balance spec in wotlk, gonna instance grind to lvl 80 (I don't wanna re-live the nigthmare scene that occured when BC came)

Well that's just my option.

If you're topping meters in resto gear using that spec then the other DPS must suck... You have no hit from talents, no hit on resto gear either so thats 17% dps loss right there, no celestial focus so 3% haste lost, no IIS so 3% crit lost on your starfires, no E&M so 3% spelldamage lost (and another 10% lost if no locks put up CoE).

I currently am specced 61 points in balance without ever OOMing in Raids (came close on Illidari Council though), while farming or while questing.

[Malicust]

To the original poster. Ask yourself this question: "Which do you enjoy more?" Problem solved.

[DiscoMoonkin]

I'm leveling a druid and right now he is 25. Will feral still be the best for leveling or will balance be any good? If leveling balance is doable what build would you use?

technically you can pull it off around 42

once you get moonkin form

moonkin for life!

[fijo]

for leveling definitely feral almost 0 down time

but for instancing/raiding/pvping balance ftw

[agior]

If you're topping meters in resto gear using that spec then the other DPS must suck... You have no hit from talents, no hit on resto gear either so thats 17% dps loss right there, no celestial focus so 3% haste lost, no IIS so 3% crit lost on your starfires, no E&M so 3% spelldamage lost (and another 10% lost if no locks put up CoE).

I currently am specced 61 points in balance without ever OOMing in Raids (came close on Illidari Council though), while farming or while questing.

Not really, becouse the "Hit" is a chance thing so is crit, i don't alwais win the dmg - Tho sometimes i do - Lack hit and Crit only makes your dmg unstable (Low cirt makes your dmg unstable more then High if you ask me) - True the dmg wasn't that great from any of us. Tho since the ppl i play with mostly can't join serius guilds cus of school/jobbs (same for me) we lack gear - And when you're in ZA and below - Hit doesn't make that much of a difference.
Tho with a normal balance spec i'd do much more dmg, i can't dissagree to that. But this spec gives me 10% int (mana, mp5 and spellpower), 4% spelldmg - not sure if it gives spelldmg or power(Haven't had time to check) So the loss isn't as great as one may think. And the reason why i go OOM without this spec is becouse i've got resto gear - No clean MP5, only loads of spirit (Witch also gives 15% spellpower) and i've got just about no crit.

I've just done my spec acording to my gear. And i'm not sure if i'd do better with a nomal spec. But I'd land on like 60-80 MP5 Tops with normal spec - A bit to low i'd say, but i like MP5 more then DMG cus in a raid you can Offheal when it's needed aswell as Heal HC's without a problem - Also you can give away free Innervates to nice ppl

Just how i see it - Mind that i'll change to a normal Balance spec when in wotlk since i'm gonna instance lvl. - And all i said to begin with was that if you're afraid of mana problems this is a solution ^^

[topfer]

Balance before improved moonkin is painful. When you can get your first glyph to make your roots take more damage before letting go, and reduce pushback on wrathballs, you're golden. Pew pew.

At this point, I"m actually excited to level from 70 to 80 with my boomkins. More than my main elemental shammy

[Degrador]

Not really, becouse the "Hit" is a chance thing so is crit, i don't alwais win the dmg - Tho sometimes i do - Lack hit and Crit only makes your dmg unstable (Low cirt makes your dmg unstable more then High if you ask me) - True the dmg wasn't that great from any of us. Tho since the ppl i play with mostly can't join serius guilds cus of school/jobbs (same for me) we lack gear - And when you're in ZA and below - Hit doesn't make that much of a difference.

Umm, that doesn't make any sense at all. RNG is RNG. Everything is a 'chance' thing. That doesn't make any difference to the fact that Hit Rating gives the best increase to average DPS - regardless of what gear level you're up to. Unless they significantly change the rating to % ratios, hit rating will always be the best stat to go for until you're capped.

Tho with a normal balance spec i'd do much more dmg, i can't dissagree to that. But this spec gives me 10% int (mana, mp5 and spellpower), 4% spelldmg - not sure if it gives spelldmg or power(Haven't had time to check) So the loss isn't as great as one may think. And the reason why i go OOM without this spec is becouse i've got resto gear - No clean MP5, only loads of spirit (Witch also gives 15% spellpower) and i've got just about no crit.

Again, not much sense here either. Resto gear has a LOT more regen than Balance / DPS gear. Always has. Spirit is also a lot better than MP5 due to Innervate.

i like MP5 more then DMG cus in a raid you can Offheal when it's needed aswell as Heal HC's without a problem - Also you can give away free Innervates to nice ppl

Generally there's something wrong with the raid if DPS hybrids are having to heal. As for giving away Innervate, that's your choice - comes down to who will benefit from it the most, but generally other classes should be able to last without Innervate as Blizzard isn't going to design that class to require a druid to be with them.

And all i said to begin with was that if you're afraid of mana problems this is a solution ^^

That's fair enough I guess, many people are going for Dreamstate & Intensity as soon as they can get them in order to avoid downtime. Personally I specced full Balance to have a bit of fun before WOTLK and I'll judge once I'm levelling how bad my mana situation is and respec if I need to.