Feral noticeably Faster Than Balance In Leveling?

[Rulli]

I'm a fan of range dps, plain and simple...The balance druid isn't something I have yet and I plan on rolling one come cataclsym. I'm starting to research it and I've read a lot that feral is the way to go leveling wise.

If you guys can tell me why this is true, please do so. I'd hate to learn how to play kitty only to end-game balance PVP and be terrible at it!

I'll be using the heirloom shoulders, chest, trinks, and staff...and plan on questing/dungeon leveling till outlands, so will there be a big difference in leveling a kitty from balance druid?

[Jirah]

I think feral is the way to go till lvl 60, since around lvl 60 you get some nice bonuses in your balance tree, or so my friend did, it made him able to take down mobs faster.

[wilder12]

Well low level bears in instances arent normally liked for bad aggro but a balance druid will generally collect gear that is decent for resto while leveling. well thats what i did balance/resto to 80 and i found it really easy. but i was feral until i got moonkin form at level 40.

[ithanium2]

Feral 10-80 is the fastest, especially with herilooms.
No matter how others claim that 60+ is faster... I have tried it and it's not....you still have to drink and heal yourself. As a kitty you dont.
Not to mention that you can go bear for some harder elite quests.

[Cowt]

Some of the reasons for people preferring Feral for levelling in general includes:

- Bear Form is extremely powerful at the first levels.
- No down-time between fights, as you don't need to drink.
- You didn't use to get Travel Form till level 30, so the run speed talent for Cat was great!
- Who even needs to run when you can CHARGE!?
- While you heal just fine as Balance while levelling, there used to be a great shortage of tanks (still is, I suppose).
- The first talents of the Balance tree arn't that powerful.

In today's WoW the difference really isn't that great. Come Cataclysm, I'd expect it to be even more so.

- If you're not interested in playing a melee, by all means go Balance.

[Rulli]

Thanks for the replies

In dungeons will I see a big dps loss from going balance instead of kitty? (Not endgame)

[Geekzilla]

My answer to this doesn't apply once the 4.0 patch lands, butight now, it's much easier to find good feral gear than boomkin gear, as there's not much spell power on leather, and even on cloth it's a bit skimpy until you hit Outlands.

[Deleted]

If your looking for maximung leveling speed while questing feral is the way to go. Im a Balance Druid but from 80 to 85 i will definitely level feral.

But Balance will do pretty good too. Feral has just a little edge over it imo. Mainly because of increased runspeed and charge.

[Deleted]

For questing, especially all those kill-quest with multiple mobs of multiple types (think pirates in tanaris or defias in westfall), bear is the way to go. While both kitty and boomkin is good at singletarget dps at lower levels, once you get bear-swipe, you'll be rocking. Combine it with self-healing in combat and the option to shapeshift out to cast hots, then back in bear and you will blast through most of the quests fast. No downtime due to low mana.

For instancing, if you know what you're doing, why not tank the place? Insta-queue = more xp and blue gear faster. Even if you spec mostly kitty, at lower levels it won't make much difference.

My advice is to go bear. Kitty is vulnerable and not a whole lot faster. Boom got more downtime because of the mana drain...

[Nirual]

With heirlooms in the picture, I wouldnt say the difference is that big (and the random dungeon rewards helped the itemisation problems quite a bit too).

However, feral has huge advantages in mobility. 30% speed bonus in cat form everywhere is hard to top, and of course you won't need to worry about mana at all. Balance on the other hand is a spec that doesn't really kick in until level 50, when you can pick up moonkin form.

These factor in less when you level by running dungeons though.

[Shamslam]

Eh, DPS doesn't matter as long as stuff is dying. I didn't find leveling as balance too terrible after moonkin form. Until that point, gear is hard to find, mana is a huge drawback, and it really is just easier to go bearform and tank dungeons. Plus kitty's can go rogue on stuff, making questing so much easier by just sneaking past stuff.

[Haibara]

The dps loss at lower lvl will be quite large, tanks don't care about spell casters mana in 5 mans. This get's easier at higher lvl to manage but it's always a dps loss. I wish I could help you on the subject of questing, but me and my bro lvled together moonkin/hunter, it's not that bad if you know what you are doing though, your mana pool is awsome at lower lvls. There is a lot of spirit, int and stam gear, and not so much agi stam. at lvl 10-20 it doesn't matter where you put your talents, bear form all the way even as resto. After 20 it's when it get fun as moonkin. Starfire always have crit quite high. But yea, after lvl 60 you can easily pull a cat's dps as moonkin again. Gale Winds is an awsome talent

[Deleted]

if speed is what you want, you want to go beartank and sign up for dungeons. Doesnt get faster than that, apart from maybe BG honor weekends, you can get some serious exp in there sometimes.

[SobeBauxite]

I leveled my druid as balance past 60. Once you get starfall you can kill the shit out of a lot of stuff all at once, and on such a short cooldown there's no reason not to. At lower levels, feral will be better. Balance druids eat through mana like a fiend, and until you get the mana regen talents/imp moonkin form, along with innervate, you'll be drinking every 30 seconds.

[SkyBlueAri]

Its so much faster and easier, AOE before 60 is better, survivability is better, dps is easier to get. Gear is easier aswell because u are increasing ap with agil and strength on items whilst for boomkin its harder to find gear with int spirit AANDD sp. No down time for ferals aswell, if ur good u can just go and go and go, mob after mob after mob. Boomkin u WILL hav to drink mana eventually. The stat that will cause u to stop with feral is health, and since ur usually at full mana its very easy to heal urself quickly and move on. Also u can solo more things with feral then with boomkin. All in all gear is easier to find and u hav more survivability ie lvling is faster and move enjoyable.

[Gadirm]

Ok, my PoV in this:

You want a balance druid, but you hear that feral is easier to level, this much is true. However since Blizz introduced heirloom items you can get as high as what... 20% or 25% faster gain in xp? The time it takes to level to 80 is like 4-5 days worth of gametime if you also are leveling profs these days (yes it is that easy!), so what is the big issue?

Imo level it the way you want to play endgame, the lower levels (vanilla areas) will be rushed by even with a "gimped" leveling spec but at least you will learn how to play it better.
My shammy had 4d16h total gametime at 77 when i stopped leveling (only had him as an extra bankchar and alc/insc bot), that is how easy it is these days. That's why i say don't bother going for the fastest way if you will be playing the character, play the character the way you are supposed to play it while leveling, that way you get the most out of it in endgame play.

[Rulli]

Another question I have is will race changes be available for tauren druid to troll druid? I know something like a troll mage to goblin mage won't be available but if the tauren to troll druid change is up I am thinking about giving my druid a head start?

[Cortano]

Both balance and feral will level extremely quickly.

Feral will be somewhat faster, but seriously... both are going to be quick and easy. If you want to play boomkin, do it.

[Deleted]

Another question I have is will race changes be available for tauren druid to troll druid? I know something like a troll mage to goblin mage won't be available but if the tauren to troll druid change is up I am thinking about giving my druid a head start?

I seem to recall a blue post saying that race change to the new races would probably not be allowed for quite some time after the expansion, but I don't remember anything about changing to the new class combos with existing races. The way I see it, you have two options: Level now, as a cow, and enjoy the current endgame content, as a cow, and then change to troll whenever it becomes available. Or wait with levelling, get the revamped learning experience and explore the new world of Azeroth as a troll from level 1.

I know that I will be starting a new (worgen) druid myself, once I get bored with levelling and gearing my current 10 80s, for that exact reason: I want to see and FEEL the changes made to the world. If I just stroll by on my main, I know I'll take a look, say to myself "oh, this looks neat" and then move on to the next zone. By levelling through it again, I'll have a better understanding of what exactly changed and I can know when to skip to levelling in instances.

[Borakh]

I was wondering what to do 80-85. I've always leveled as Feral but my Moonkin gear is better and with 2/2 Gale Winds specced and Starfall, you should be able to AE down large pulls. Maybe throw in a few mana reg talents and you can be sure you won't be drinking either. 30% run speed is still 30% run speed, but then, I'll expect to be flying a lot anyway.

I'm not going to level in instances for Cata because (i) I'll be running the new 5-mans to the hilt at max level anyway and (ii) I want to see the leveling zones!