Hi MMOchamp-
I am coming back to WoW after a 4 month break (since end of cata)-
I have 4 85s - DK, Druid, Warr, Lock
I want to level my druid up very fast so I can get back into hardcore raiding
Any suggestions/guides/optimal leveling specs?
What general/druid specific leveling tips do you have for me?
I understand kitty/chicken/bear leveling is just a preference, but is there any fastest or most powerful/hardest hitting spec?
Thanks in advance
I leveled as kitty and didn't have any problems. I saw quite a few bears out there leveling too so you could take that route. You'll be able to tank dungeons also which should help speed up leveling depending on the group. As for guides you can always try Jame's guide, I've heard that it's decent for being free. If you are willing to pay there is Zygor's guide which is pretty good also. Or you could just use one of those leveling addons that are out there that will help you complete quests by pointing you in the right direction.
I've never played boomkin so I'm not sure how they are leveling wise.
Its kind of a personal opinion. I leveled to 86.5 as cat, and felt board of the play. That could be cause I played a lot of kitty as cata. Changed to a boomkin and there was no drop in speed of kill. I liked being able to queue as healer too. Either way will work well though. So just ask yourself this question. Do you wanna cast or melee?
I've levelled both my main (boomy) and a 2nd druid as feral and didn't see any notable difference in levelling speed - it comes down to personal preference really. I was resto OS on the boomy and OS tank on the feral which also gave me short queue times.
In terms of levelling I would do the following zones:
85-86: Jade Forest
86-87: Valley of the Four Winds
87-88: Kun-Lai Summit
88-89: Townlong Steppes
89-90: Dread Wastes
As soon as you level up, move on to the next zone as the quest Xp will be greater there allowing you to quickly move through the zones. In the first 3 zones you can go pretty wild on mobs / adds as both specs but you should remain cautious when entering Townlong Steppes and Dread Wastes as the mobs hit far harder (especially dread wastes where a number of the mobs are designed to be tackled by lvl 90s for dailies etc).
You can also try dungeon farming up to 87 (not recommended as you'll get rather bored after a number of reason due to there being only 2 dungeons up to 87) but after you hit 87 there's little reason to farm run dungeons unless you want a change from quests as they offer minimal Xp compared to questing.
If balance, make sure you pick up glyph of the moonbeast. Makes grinding quite easy. Be smart with your barkskin and NS HT, typhoon, etc, and you should be set.
A guildmate got server first 90 druid, Guardian the entire time. It helped that he had full heroic T13 gear, but even without it, you'll still be able to pull 10+ mobs at once without any troubles whatsoever. You kill packs faster than you kill single targets sometimes, due to Vengeance. Very fun way to play, as well as being quite effective. Personally I find cat very, very dull solo.