Druid Leveling Guide

[Degrador]

Druid Leveling Guide

After seeing so many threads every week from a new druid looking for either information about which spec to level with or general tips for druid leveling, I decided to make a guide for it (and if people think it's good enough hopefully we'll get it stickied and direct new druids here).

I'm not going to go into where to level as a druid because to be honest it's no different than any other class - there are plenty of other detailed guides for generic speed leveling that will serve you a lot better than any half assed attempt I'd make at it. If people want to suggest some good ones I'll include links to them here...

Also, I don't really want to get into heated debates about exactly which spec or talents are best for leveling. This is intended to be a guide only, so I'm going with the general consensus on things as they are. Having said that, it might be worth noting that although I am actually leveling my second druid at the moment, it's possible things have changed about some talents / spells / etc. that I don't realise, so let me know if you disagree with something I've recommended.

I cover the major glyphs for each spec under their headings, but just a note on minor glyphs: regardless of the spec you take, I'd highly recommend taking Thorns and Aquatic Form minor glyphs. Both of these will help a lot for your leveling. After that I'd probably take Glyph of the Wild, or maybe Glyph of Dash, but it's really not too important. Another one worth considering is Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth; this isn't very useful for soloing, however if you plan to do any instances at all this really is a godsend - there's nothing more frustrating than learning you don't have the reagents for Rebirth in the middle of a fight. With this glyph you'll never need to buy seeds again.


Talent specs

For the first 9 levels as a druid you don't have any forms available. Just Wrath spam mobs until they die, and heal yourself with healing touch. After that, you get bear form, and you get talent points available to spend. Here I'll split up the guide depending on the spec you choose to level with.

First up, resto - the resto tree focuses on healing (duh). As such, it really doesn't make a good leveling spec. If you're leveling with a few friends and are constantly doing instances then maybe it's worth going resto, but for 99% of people this will be slower than choosing a DPS spec and hence it's really not worth considering resto. As such, I'm not going to comment much further on it.

The remaining specs are feral or balance (double duh). Between the two, it is generally accepted that feral is better for most of the leveling process as balance suffers quite badly from going oom leading to large down times up until ~level 60. Levels 60-70 boomkin starts to get gear better designed for it, and also starts to have a few more talent points to spend in the regen talents to avoid downtimes. 70+ it's generally accepted that either spec levels about the same rate and neither has significant downtimes. There are other differences with them that may sway your choice, but I'd recommend sticking with your personal preference from 70 onwards - IMO it's more important to enjoy leveling as much as you can than to pick a spec that gets you to 80 1-2 hours faster.


Feral

There are two main ways to level as feral. Cat form, or bear AoE grinding. Cat form is the primary way to level - it's the most flexible, generally considered to be faster, and there's less shifting and down times to deal with. Bear AoE grinding used to be a lot more popular, but I think it's pretty well accepted that it's unnecessary now - while you can kill a lot of mobs very easily as a bear, you lose a lot of time by healing, looting, and moving on to the next area with decent enough numbers of mobs to round up to AoE. As such, I recommend choosing the standard cat form approach for feral leveling.

One of the general advantages for leveling as feral is that assuming you take the key talents (and with the guide below you'll get them) you can quite easily solo tank most 2-3 man quest elites, which makes things a lot easier. Between the armor bonuses, stam increases, dodge, and abilities like Barkskin and Frenzied Regeneration it's pretty hard to get this wrong.

Levels 10-19
Talents: 5/5 Ferocity, 2/2 Savage Fury, 3/3 Thick Hide
As before, level 10 is the first time you get a new form - bear form. Because of the extra armor and health it provides bear form is what you'll want to use up until level 20. You don't really have much choice for abilities, so just maul things as much as you can, and use Enrage between pulls / after healing to keep your rage up.

Levels 20-29:
Talents: 2/2 Feral Swiftness, 3/3 Sharpened Claws, 2/2 Primal Fury, 2/2 Primal Precision, 1/1 Survival Instincts
Level 20 provides cat form. Again, you don't have a lot of abilities for it early on, but even without them cat form will be a lot faster to level with than bear form. This is partly because of the faster attack speed, but also your energy replenishes between pulls allowing you to burst a bit at the start of every mob. You also pick up Feral Swiftness to give you 30% faster movement speed in cat form which is a big help to the leveling process.
For your abilities, you start with Claw and Rip, then pick up Shred then Rake. Shred won't be used much while leveling, but use Rake at the start to get the DoT going and continue with Claw to build the points up. You'll have to judge whether it's worth using Rip (and when to use it) based on the mob's health. I doubt they'd generally last long enough for a full 5 point Rip to take its course, so if you're going to use it, use it at 3-4 points. Use Tiger's Fury (from 24) as much as you can as it's a free DPS boost every 30 seconds. Try to stay in cat form as much as possible and just heal every 2-3 mobs if you can. The less you shift out to heal the less likely you'll go OOM and have to drink.
I recommend picking up Survival Instincts here as it's a nice button to hit if you pull too many mobs, avoiding that long run back to your corpse. For one talent point I reckon it's worth it.

Levels 30-39:
Talents: 1/1 Feral Charge, 3/3 Predatory Strikes, 1/2 Brutal Impact, 3/3 Survival of the Fittest, 2/5 Heart of the Wild
At level 32 you pick up Ferocious Bite - this is a much more useful finishing move as you can build up a full 5 combo points and get the full benefit of the ability (unlike Rip where most of the DoT will be wasted). From 36 you pick up Pounce which you can make use of to stealth up to a mob and get a bit of free damage in - until you get to level 40 it might be worth making use of this as it would help avoid the amount of healing you need to do.

Levels 40-49:
Talents: 1/1 Leader of the Pack, 2/2 Improved Leader of the Pack, 4/5 Heart of the Wild, 3/3 Predatory Instincts, 5/5 Heart of the Wild, 1/3 Infected Wounds
This is where cat form leveling really starts to shine. Improved Leader of the Pack gives you a lot of free healing, to the point where in later levels you'll almost never have to heal. It also increases your mana when you crit, such that you should never go OOM ever again. You also get Dire Bear Form at level 40 - this doubles the armor bonus from bear form which is a big help for soloing elites. Along with it you get Savage Defense which is the bear equivalent of a shield block. Make sure you pick it up for that extra damage reduction against elites.
Abilities used during this phase don't really change much - Pounce probably isn't necessary, so I'd stick with Claw, Rake and FB to bring them down as fast as possible.

Levels 50-79:
Talents: 1/1 Mangle, 2/2 Improved Mark of the Wild, 3/5 Furor, 5/5 Naturalist, 1/1 Omen of Clarity, 3/3 Improved Mangle, 5/5 Feral Agression, Natural Shapeshifter, 2/2 Master Shapeshifter, 3/3 Infected Wounds, 3/3 King of the Jungle
At level 50 you get Mangle, and from here on leveling really doesn't change much. Use Mangle now instead of Claw and build up combo points to 3-4 then hit Ferocious Bite. You should be able to kill the mobs in about 10 secs using this method and there's really no need to change it all the way to 80. Once again, you are able to use Pounce and get in a couple of shreds (for which you'd probably want to take Shredding Attacks) before FB, but again, by the time you stealth, walk up behind them, etc. you may as well have just charged in and taken the hits allowing Imp LotP to heal you. One thing to consider is Savage Roar at level 75 - it provides a 30% damage boost (33% with glyph) for 34 seconds with 5 cp. Generally you won't get much use of that with the current mob you're attacking, but it should last for the next 2 mobs or so which may make it more beneficial than using FB. You may need to play this by ear to work out whether you're close enough to other mobs to get the benefit or whether it's better to kill your current mob faster.

End spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZEMGscrk0eR0IuhzbAczb

Glyphs:
Claw: Probably the best glyph to pick up until level 50 when Mangle takes over.
Mangle: Not really much point - this is more of a raiding glyph.
Maul: If you want to AoE grind this would be a handy one to use, but otherwise I wouldn't bother.
Rake: This can be quite handy to have if you don't like mobs running off on you. Personally though I'd just save up the FB until you're sure it'll make the kill.
Rip: Wouldn't really bother as DoTs tend to expire before mobs die anyway, and once you get Ferocious Bite you'll likely not be using Rip anyway.
Savage Roar: Worth considering but you only pick up savage roar at level 75 at which point your levelling is almost done.

Gear:
Feral druids will basically be leveling with rogue gear. This isn't too bad of a thing though as the stats you want are pretty similar between them. In that regard, for stats you should be looking to get Agility, Attack Power, Strength, and Crit (note that Strength and Agility are very similar in DPS value, so for greens picked up along the way consider them equal). Armor Penetration and Haste aren't too bad either, but you won't see them much before high end gear. A bit of hit rating wouldn't hurt either - there's nothing more annoying than building up your combo points and missing the finishing move and watching them disappear as the mob dies from normal hits...

Feral attack power: Since 3.0.8 all weapons with DPS greater than 54.8 now have feral attack power on them (at a rate of ( DPS - 54.8 ) * 14). This is basically to compensate for druids not getting the benefit of a higher DPS weapon like other classes. Weapon DPS is based on item level, so this basically just means that the higher the item level weapon you have, the larger the FAP. It also means that, similar to other classes, weapons will generally provide the largest DPS improvement to you. What this means for levelling is that past ~level 58 (the point at which weap DPS starts getting above 54.8 ) you should pay close attention to your weapon to make sure it doesn't get outdated. Generally this isn't too much of an issue though as there are quite a few weapon rewards in Outlands & Northrend to keep it up to date, but if you do realise your weap is more than a couple of levels old then I'd suggest looking at the AH for a new one. Obviously if you're using an heirloom weapon you don't have to worry about it

Balance

Similar to feral, balance has two viable methods for leveling - the standard approach and AoE grinding. For balance AoE grinding the strategy is generally to get to 60 then take all the AoE talents you can (namely, Starfall, Gale Winds, and Owlkin Frenzy), as well as AoE glyphs like Focus and Starfall. Then you run around a large group of mobs (even using Travel Form to do so), HoT up, get into Moonkin Form, pop Barkskin, Starfall, then Hurricane over yourself. Assuming you've done it right, you'll end up with very little mana, but a whole lot of dead mobs surrounding you. Personally I don't really like this as a leveling style - you spend too much time drinking / waiting on CDs, and you risk screwing it up and killing yourself. In the end, I'm not convinced it's significantly faster, and you have to be 60+ for the decent talents for it anyway.

For the typical balance leveling, it's not as fast / fluid as feral in the early to mid levels. The gear from classic WoW has very little SP on it and as such generally gives you a large mana pool to make sure it lasts per fight, however this in turn means that you burn through a lot of mana and have to drink after every second to third pull, not to mention that without much SP to boost your DPS the kills take a while too. Still, some people may prefer to level as a caster and there's nothing in the rule book that says you have to do it as fast as possible. Once you get into the mid 60s the balance tree starts to come up, and by the time you're 70 there's very little difference in kill times compared to feral, and balance also has very little down time.

While balance druids can't solo quite as many elites as feral, there are quite a few out there that aren't immune to roots. This means that all you have to do is DoT them up, root them, run away, cast starfire, root, run away, etc. For the mobs that aren't immune it trivialises them to a rediculous point.

Levels 10-19
Talents: 5/5 Starlight Wrath, 3/3 Moonglow, 2/2 Nature's Majesty
At this stage casting to level is probably a bad idea - you won't kill things any faster than bear form but you'll still go OOM where bear won't. Still, if you're determined to make it work then by all means go for it. There's very little point in casting anything other than Wrath at this stage - Moonfire is too expensive for the dmg it does and there's not much need to root things in place, not to mention the next Wrath cast will break the roots anyway.

Levels 20-29
Talents: 3/3 Nature's Grace, 2/2 Nature's Reach, 5/5 Vengeance
At level 20 you pick up Starfire and you should switch to using this straight away. The DPS between Starfire and Wrath is pretty similar (Starfire is actually still slightly ahead), but the DPM (damage per mana) of Starfire is a lot better. The key thing here is to avoid going OOM to reduce your downtimes as much as possible. Just make sure you're stocked up on water before going out questing... Nature's Splendor is available to you should you want it, but even if you do decide to cast DoTs (which I don't recommend) the mobs would die before their normal timers would expire, so there's really no point in extending the duration. One option to consider is to take up Brambles instead of Nature's Grace. The basic reasoning behind this is that for most early levels you will still have to deal with the mob hitting you, for which the extra thorns damage and the daze could come in handy. Meanwhile your crit chance will be relatively low and the extra haste after a crit may be mostly wasted (if you're using starfire then a SF crit can leave them almost dead).

Levels 30-39
Talents: 3/3 Lunar Guidance, 2/3 Celestial Focus, 3/3 Dreamstate, 2/2 Balance of Power
In this section you're starting to pick up some of the core talents to make balance work (Lunar Guidance & Dreamstate), as well as picking up some interrupt protection through Celestial Focus. You'll still want to use Starfire as your primary attack (get used to it, you'll be using it all through to 80), only using Wrath if you need just a little bit more to finish the mob off. You are able to pick up Insect Swarm if you want it but IMO there's not much point - most mobs will be dying quicker than the DoT will last and as such it's not very efficient for DPM.

Levels 40-49
Talents: 1/1 Moonkin Form, 3/3 Moonfury, 3/3 Improved Moonkin Form, 3/5 Wrath of Cenarius
At level 40 you finally get Moonkin Form. Stay in it as much as you can - avoid healing as much as possible as the cost of shifting can increase your downtimes quite a bit (if anything, try to avoid healing and just eat when you drink). The DPS talents are starting to come through, so you should start to notice decent increases in your kill times. You also pick up Innervate at 40 - use this as much as possible. It's on a 3 minute cooldown now and it's effectively a free drink that you don't have to sit down to use.

Levels 50-59
Talents: 1/1 Force of Nature, 5/5 Wrath of Cenarius, 1/1 Typhoon, 3/3 Celestial Focus, 3/3 Earth and Moon, 2/2 Improved Mark of the Wild
Pick up FoN at 50 as it's a pretty handy one for burning elites down. You are able to pick up Eclipse after this, however I personally wouldn't bother. Eclipse is one of the best DPS talents when your in a group / raiding (and if you intend to do a lot of instances then you almost certainly should pick it up) however for soloing I don't really think it's worth it. Either proc for Eclipse requires you to cast Wrath which is inefficient, and in most cases the mobs will likely die 1-2 casts after Eclipse procs so you'll end up wasting most of it anyway. Typhoon is worth picking up though IMO as it's a good one for interrupting casters or knocking a pack of mobs back.

Levels 60-79
Talents: 5/5 Furor, 3/3 Natural Shapeshifter, 1/1 Omen of Clarity, 3/3 Intesity, 2/2 Master Shapeshifter, 2/3 Eclipse, 1/1 Starfall, 3/3 Eclipse, 1/1 Insect Swarm, 1/3 Improved Insect Swarm
From 60 onwards you'll be in outlands picking up some of that gear which is optimised a lot better for casters. Your SP will start to go up quite rapidly as you replace your old gear, and within a few levels you'll have Omen of Clarity and Intensity to start Northrend with which will almost entirely remove the need to drink for the rest of your leveling. The last DPS talents you pick up are relatively optional - none are going to have a significant impact on your kill times, and you don't really need more regen, so just go with what you'd enjoy having.

End Spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0xG0hiIRIdhVuouZbxcub

Glyphs:
Entangling Roots: This can be a nice one if you're in an area competing for mobs - you can root one mob with DoTs while DPSing down another. Still, that's pretty rare these days, so I wouldn't bother with this glyph.
Focus: A good one for AoE grinding if you choose to go down that path. Having said that, my guide doesn't suggest picking up Starfall 'til right near the end, so if you're following it then don't worry about this glyph.
Innervate: This can be useful for avoiding those down times. It might depend a bit on just how much mana you're getting back from Innervate compared to your mana pool though.
Insect Swarm: A nice glyph for improving the DoT, but DoTs should be rarely used anyway.
Monsoon: This is one worth considering for those casters - reduced CD on Typhoon may make things a little easier. Still, probably too rare a situation to make much use out of this.
Moonfire: Again, a decent glyph, but DoTs don't matter much. If anything you want more direct damage from Moonfire, so don't bother with this one.
Starfall: This is quite a good glyph to have, especially if you want to AoE grind. Again though, my guide doesn't recommend getting Starfall 'til late.
Starfire: Once again, only improves a DoT that you won't use.
Wrath: A good option, although generally you won't be casting Wrath that much. Still, it helps when finishing off a mob that's meleeing you.

Gear:
For most early levels you'll find you need to take cloth to get caster stats. This is simply due to the classic design of clothies being the only 'real' casters. Still, try to take as much leather as you can as the reduced damage taken from armor is quite significant, particularly when you get Moonkin Form.

In terms of stats, balance druids want as much SP as they can get their hands on. After that, hit rating is good (misses hurt your efficiency and they allow the mob to hit you more), and Int is very good for the mana pool, SP (Lunar Guidance), MP5 (Spirit based regen as well as Dreamstate) and spell crit.


TLDR FAQ:
Which is faster for leveling, feral or balance?
This question would have to be in the top 10 asked in the druid forums. The answer is pretty convincingly feral up until 60, with 60-70 being feral but only marginally, and 70+ they're pretty much the same.

Is resto leveling viable?
Viable as in, can you do it? Yes. Viable as in, will you get to 80 in any reasonable sort of time? No.

What's a good feral spec for leveling?
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZEMGscrk0eR0IuhzbAczb

What's a good balance spec for leveling?
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0xG0hiIRIdhVuouZbxcub

Do you ever write short posts?
Rarely.

[Gasillio]

I would disagree with Feral needing strength. Leather/Mail is about Agility, Plate is about strength. Seeing as druids wear leather (a point perhaps you should mention in your guide, not everyone knows this sad as it may be) they prioritize on agility.

I think you should make a note on why cat form is preferred to bear AOE. With questing being so much better than AOE Grinding, Bear AOE got the boot. Sure cat can kill single targets faster, but the reason you are killing single targets is for questing.

As for Balance itemization, it should be noted that although cloth is acceptable, leather is preferred if possible. I would say for a leveling balance druid, Spell Power/Intellect and then Stamina are your stats. Spirit isn't terrible, neither is mp5, but don't switch an intellect piece for either. Intellect is more mana, and more crit too. Spell Power is not as hard to come by as it used to be, but it still can be rare at times so intellect/stamina and then spirit would be backups.

How can you not take Owlkin Frenzy for Balance Leveling. I found this talent to be excellent. It restores mana and makes you immune to pushback.


Pretty decent guide though. Good job.

[Degrador]

I would disagree with Feral needing strength. Leather/Mail is about Agility, Plate is about strength. Seeing as druids wear leather (a point perhaps you should mention in your guide, not everyone knows this sad as it may be) they prioritize on agility.

I agree that agility is preferred over strength, however strength isn't useless for cats. In fact, if you look up some stat value tables for cats (eg, http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...SampleOutputT8) you find that strength is only just below agility (about 10% below), so particularly for levelling it's worth considering strength items.

I think you should make a note on why cat form is preferred to bear AOE. With questing being so much better than AOE Grinding, Bear AOE got the boot. Sure cat can kill single targets faster, but the reason you are killing single targets is for questing.

Whether to quest or just grind mobs is more of a generic levelling question IMO - I want to keep this guide focused on matters that are specific to druids.

As for Balance itemization, it should be noted that although cloth is acceptable, leather is preferred if possible.

Yeah, good point, I'll add that in.

I would say for a leveling balance druid, Spell Power/Intellect and then Stamina are your stats. Spirit isn't terrible, neither is mp5, but don't switch an intellect piece for either. Intellect is more mana, and more crit too. Spell Power is not as hard to come by as it used to be, but it still can be rare at times so intellect/stamina and then spirit would be backups.

Yeah, I did cover most of that in the gear section for balance druids. I probably should go into a bit more detail for it though.

How can you not take Owlkin Frenzy for Balance Leveling. I found this talent to be excellent. It restores mana and makes you immune to pushback.

When I was levelling balance (although I've only done it at high levels) I found that most mobs died before they got to me to hit me, and even if they did hit me they were going to die even without the bonus damage. Once the mob is dead most of the OF buff would be wasted.

Perhaps it's more useful in the 50-60 levels, but after that I really don't think it makes much difference.

Pretty decent guide though. Good job.

Cheers

[Sunshine]

I would disagree with Feral needing strength. Leather/Mail is about Agility, Plate is about strength. Seeing as druids wear leather (a point perhaps you should mention in your guide, not everyone knows this sad as it may be) they prioritize on agility.

For *leveling*, you should take what you can get. A randomly enchanted green with +str/+agi ("of the tiger") is much better than just straight +agi ("of agility"), because the relative amount of stats you can have is much higher when the itempoints are split among two stats (current gems are an exception to this). For example, on an Arctic Ring of Agility, you get 12-13 agi. If you find an "of the Tiger" one, you're getting +8-9 agi and +8-9 str, which is superior.

The recommendation I've heard is to add the strength and agility together, then use that number as a ranking mechanism (since str and agi are so close in final dps value).

I'd mention in the guide the conversion ratio of str=2 ap and agi=1 ap+crit in cat form / agi = only crit in bear form, since new druids may not be aware.

3/3 Predatory Instincts

Why predatory instincts there? I'd think infected wounds is much better, and I'd probably leave pred instincts totally out of a leveling build... I guess the aoe reduction is nice for cat, but the 10% crit damage seems weak for leveling. Not bad for a filler talent later, I just think there are better things to get first.

Also, glyph of unburdened rebirth is awesome so many less "oh shit, I forgot seeds" moments in the heat of battle... and so much more free bag space!

[Degrador]

The recommendation I've heard is to add the strength and agility together, then use that number as a ranking mechanism (since str and agi are so close in final dps value).

I'd mention in the guide the conversion ratio of str=2 ap and agi=1 ap+crit in cat form / agi = only crit in bear form, since new druids may not be aware.

I'll add these in.

Why predatory instincts there?

+30% crit damage? Sounds like quite a lot to me...

I'd think infected wounds is much better, and I'd probably leave pred instincts totally out of a leveling build... I guess the aoe reduction is nice for cat, but the 10% crit damage seems weak for leveling. Not bad for a filler talent later, I just think there are better things to get first.

AoE reduction didn't really play much part in choosing that one. But with cats having such a high crit rate I really don't see why you wouldn't want +30% crit damage for 3 talent points. If you've got say 30% crit chance (pretty low, but might be about right when levelling) those talent points are worth about +3% damage each - quite a lot really.

Meanwhile infected wounds only reduces the damage you take which at that stage Imp LotP should be able to handle anyway.

Also, glyph of unburdened rebirth is awesome so many less "oh shit, I forgot seeds" moments in the heat of battle... and so much more free bag space!

This is a guide for levelling, which basically means no instances, and hence Glyph of Unbirdened Rebirth is pretty much useless

[Sunshine]

+30% crit damage? Sounds like quite a lot to me...

AoE reduction didn't really play much part in choosing that one. But with cats having such a high crit rate I really don't see why you wouldn't want +30% crit damage for 3 talent points. If you've got say 30% crit chance (pretty low, but might be about right when levelling) those talent points are worth about +3% damage each - quite a lot really.

Meanwhile infected wounds only reduces the damage you take which at that stage Imp LotP should be able to handle anyway.

10% crit damage, 30% aoe reduction. If it was 30% crit damage, that would be extraordinary, but it's not, sadly. I'm not thinking of infected wounds for the damage reduction; it's just so nice for those mobs that run away -- 50% movement speed debuff. It's not critical, but it's nice to have.

This is a guide for levelling, which basically means no instances, and hence Glyph of Unbirdened Rebirth is pretty much useless

I like doing instances as I level... I guess maybe I'm strange.

[Degrador]

10% crit damage, 30% aoe reduction. If it was 30% crit damage, that would be extraordinary, but it's not, sadly.

Oh, right, whoops. I was looking at it quickly on the talent calculator and already had full 3 points in it, so thought it was 10% per point.

I'm not thinking of infected wounds for the damage reduction; it's just so nice for those mobs that run away -- 50% movement speed debuff. It's not critical, but it's nice to have.

Yeah, either one I think is decent. I do recommend getting a point in Infected Wounds - maybe I should move that up earlier so you get 1/3 Infected Wounds and 2/3 Predatory Instincts. I would think 1 point in IW would be enough not to worry about them running off, especially seeing as you've got Feral Swiftness.

I like doing instances as I level... I guess maybe I'm strange.

Hmm, I guess I should include it for people who like to do instances while levelling. It's not a very efficient way of levelling, but as I said earlier - I'm trying to keep this guide generic to druids rather than specific methods of levelling.

[Cryonic]

Thanx, interesting to compare this to how I leveled my druid back in the days. Makes me want to try it again. hate lvls 10-29 though

[Sunshine]

We should get a sticky on this!

[Bek]

Similar to feral, balance has two viable methods for leveling - the standard approach and AoE grinding. For balance AoE grinding the strategy is generally to get to 60 then take all the AoE talents you can (namely, Starfall, Gale Winds, and Owlkin Frenzy), as well as AoE glyphs like Focus and Starfall. Then you run around a large group of mobs (even using Travel Form to do so), HoT up, get into Moonkin Form, pop Barkskin, Starfall, then Hurricane over yourself. Assuming you've done it right, you'll end up with very little mana, but a whole lot of dead mobs surrounding you. Personally I don't really like this as a leveling style - you spend too much time drinking / waiting on CDs, and you risk screwing it up and killing yourself. In the end, I'm not convinced it's significantly faster, and you have to be 60+ for the decent talents for it anyway.

I leveled 20-80 as Balance on my latest druid and I can't say I really agree with you on much of anything. I sacrificed Stamina for any form of Intellect or Spirit I could get pre-40 and because of that I had low HP but such a large mana pool that I rarely had to drink. Once I got talents like Dreamstate my downtime was non-existent. Also trying to advocate AoE grinding on a Moonkin is just not a good idea. You don't have the mana pool to justify Hurricane grinding until much later levels. Wrath spam will kill 99% of monsters before they can reach you. Elites are no concern either. I simply treated it like I was a hunter. Imp MF & Imp IS up at all times, and depending on location / immunities I would root them or go into Travel Form throwing in Wraths. Relatively simple

For the typical balance leveling, it's not as fast / fluid as feral in the early to mid levels. The gear from classic WoW has very little SP on it and as such generally gives you a large mana pool to make sure it lasts per fight, however this in turn means that you burn through a lot of mana and have to drink after every second to third pull, not to mention that without much SP to boost your DPS the kills take a while too.

After level 30 you get Lunar Guidance, which converts that Intellect into Spell Power. I used a lot of cloth gear and a few extremely cheap +Intellect enchants and found myself swimming in SP. I only drank if I had to chain pull, and even then not all the time. As for the DPS not being that great? I dropped equal level mobs in no more than 3 Wraths for about 40 levels

Still, some people may prefer to level as a caster and there's nothing in the rule book that says you have to do it as fast as possible. Once you get into the mid 60s the balance tree starts to come up, and by the time you're 70 there's very little difference in kill times compared to feral, and balance also has very little down time.

That's your opinion. I found it to be just as fast as Feral when properly done

While balance druids can't solo quite as many elites as feral,

I've successfully soloed every elite as Balance that I soloed as Feral

At level 20 you pick up Starfire and you should switch to using this straight away. The DPS between Starfire and Wrath is pretty similar (Starfire is actually still slightly ahead), but the DPM (damage per mana) of Starfire is a lot better. The key thing here is to avoid going OOM to reduce your downtimes as much as possible. Just make sure you're stocked up on water before going out questing... Nature's Splendor is available to you should you want it, but even if you do decide to cast DoTs (which I don't recommend) the mobs would die before their normal timers would expire, so there's really no point in extending the duration.

Ever wondered why you run OOM so much while leveling as Balance? I'll give you a hint ... Starfire spam is an awful, awful, awful idea. It's extremely mana inefficient to spam, with the horrendously slow cast time you're causing more downtime by allowing mobs to damage you, and unless you crit everytime you cast the DPS given by Wrath spam while leveling is so superior it's not even funny

[Degrador]

I sacrificed Stamina for any form of Intellect or Spirit I could get pre-40 and because of that I had low HP but such a large mana pool that I rarely had to drink. Once I got talents like Dreamstate my downtime was non-existent.

Fair enough, I can't speak from a lot of experience for low level boomkins, however I do have a few friends who've done it and took a similar approach but still had to drink regularly.

Also trying to advocate AoE grinding on a Moonkin is just not a good idea. You don't have the mana pool to justify Hurricane grinding until much later levels.

Umm, if you read it properly you might find that in fact I wasn't advocating it. I quite clearly said that I wasn't convinced it's a good approach, however as this is supposed to be a generic guide I included it for people who want to try it. There's no 'right' way to how to level.

Also, as for doing it much later, I did actually say that for AoE grinding you'd have to wait until 60+ before picking up the AoE talents to do it with.

Elites are no concern either. I simply treated it like I was a hunter. Imp MF & Imp IS up at all times, and depending on location / immunities I would root them or go into Travel Form throwing in Wraths. Relatively simple

Again, I did mention that soloing elites was very easy if they weren't immune to roots, however many of them are (particularly outlands onwards). Travel form can work if you've got a lot of room to run in and they're not particularly fast, but you'd have to see how it goes on a per elite basis.

After level 30 you get Lunar Guidance, which converts that Intellect into Spell Power. I used a lot of cloth gear and a few extremely cheap +Intellect enchants and found myself swimming in SP.

Perhaps you and I differ in our opinion on what might define 'swimming in SP'. Lunar Guidance provides 12% SP per Int, and at level 30-40, even with enchants, I seriously doubt you'd have much more than say 400 Int, which would give you about 50 SP. Hardly 'swimming in SP' IMO (note, I'm not saying that you shouldn't get Lunar Guidance, only questioning this claimed large amount of SP).

I only drank if I had to chain pull, and even then not all the time.

When I level I'm almost always chain pulling. If you arrange your quests properly there aren't that many times when you have to run a long way to get to the next mob.

That's your opinion. I found it to be just as fast as Feral when properly done

Fairly certain you'll find it's not just my opinion.

I've successfully soloed every elite as Balance that I soloed as Feral

Grats to you. Once again, I'm fairly certain you'll find I'm not the only one who considers elite soloing a lot easier as feral than balance. That's not to say you can't do them as balance, but it is more difficult and IMO a lot less likely to be successful (where they're immune to roots that is).

Ever wondered why you run OOM so much while leveling as Balance? I'll give you a hint ... Starfire spam is an awful, awful, awful idea. It's extremely mana inefficient to spam

Up until the high 60s Starfire costs 18% base mana compared to Wrath's 13%, while Starfire does almost twice the damage. I'm curious as to how you claim SF to be mana inefficient compared to Wrath.

with the horrendously slow cast time you're causing more downtime by allowing mobs to damage you

The first SF cast is done before they've even aggro'd, and the second one is done as they're running towards you and should land before they get to you. You claim you can get mobs down within 3 Wrath casts (personally I doubt this is the case for most of 20-60), which would be 39% base mana cost, yet with SF you'd do double the damage per casts meaning you'd only need 2 which would do even more damage than the 3x Wraths (hence basically guarantee to kill it before it reaches you), and it'd only cost 36% base mana.

and unless you crit everytime you cast the DPS given by Wrath spam while leveling is so superior it's not even funny

It may be more DPS (although doing the math I suspect you'd find it's actually pretty similar), however I believe it's less mana efficient which leads to more down time. If you want to disagree with that, that's fine, but so far I'm not exactly convinced by your arguments.

[The Pro]

Is it worth it to use rake for leveling? Since there aren't really any better glyphs then glyph of rake (I know that doesn't make much of a difference), and it seems to do good damage.

[Sunshine]

Is it worth it to use rake for leveling? Since there aren't really any better glyphs then glyph of rake (I know that doesn't make much of a difference), and it seems to do good damage.

Worth it to use the ability at all? Yes! Even without the glyph, it does fantastic damage (since wrath).

Worth it to use the glyph? It can be nice; it's not required. Glyphs of Maul and Rip are nice to have for various purposes, or Glyph of Claw is great at earlier levels before you get Mangle.

[Badbadger]

Thanks for this post Deg. I found it very useful.

[rathok]

Being someone who has played both balance and feral in the 70-78+ level range, feral is definitely faster.

[Deleted]

It really depends on what gear you have for what spec, as there isn't really a means to have equivalent gear levels for both specs while levelling (except maybe if you farm instances).
In my case, i levelled in wotlk with T5/T6 items for moonkins and T4/T5 items only for feral (plus not gemmed/enchanted), so moonkin was the clear winner.

[dambros]

Hey, great guide first of all.

I'm leveling my druid alt right now, siting at 67 and I'm doing it as feral. Can't complain about it. It is easier than anything I did before (except ret pally with boa gear), but I plan on respecing my druid Balance as soon as I hit 71 (to be able to pick OoC) and have almost a full set of northrend rewards.

Is this a bad idea? I intend to level as balance so I can save some shit gear with SP to start healing when I hit 80. Will I have to drink a lot?

I'd be using the BoA cloth chest and shoulder to help leveling also.

Thanks.

[Degrador]

Is this a bad idea? I intend to level as balance so I can save some shit gear with SP to start healing when I hit 80. Will I have to drink a lot?

No, certainly not. I did 70-80 as balance and as long as you take Moonglow, Dreamstate, Intensity and Omen of Clarity, you really shouldn't run into any mana issues, particularly now that Innervate is on a 3 minute cooldown. Check how much mana Innervate gives you and then make sure you use it every time your mana dips low enough to get the full effect.

[deathbysushi-(-_-)-]

Druid Leveling Guide

Levels 50-79:
Talents: 1/1 Mangle, 2/2 Improved Mark of the Wild, 3/5 Furor, 5/5 Naturalist, 1/1 Omen of Clarity, 3/3 Improved Mangle, 5/5 Feral Agression, Natural Shapeshifter, 2/2 Master Shapeshifter, 3/3 Infected Wounds, 3/3 King of the Jungle
At level 50 you get Mangle, and from here on leveling really doesn't change much.  Use Mangle now instead of Claw and build up combo points to 3-4 then hit Rip. 

fixed it for you... unless there below 1/2 health and you koj and then fb its not worth it its better if you do this as a rotation:

prowl, pounce, rake, mangle, ( you should have 3-5 points depending if you crit ) rip, melee hit to death while they are still bleeding.

If still more that 1/3 health redo rake,mangle then mangle to death ( note this is for taking on higher levels most all feral druid should be able to take on 3-4 levels higher without healing cause of that nice imp leader of pact)

[Degrador]

fixed it for you... unless there below 1/2 health and you koj and then fb its not worth it its better if you do this as a rotation:

prowl, pounce, rake, mangle, ( you should have 3-5 points depending if you crit ) rip, melee hit to death while they are still bleeding.

In my experience you're better off with FB so that it finishes them off. The time you spend standing there meleeing you could be moving on to the next mob. Rip might be better DPS in general but you'll rarely get the full duration of it to actually make it worthwhile.

note this is for taking on higher levels most all feral druid should be able to take on 3-4 levels higher without healing cause of that nice imp leader of pact

The extra time spent killing mobs 3-4 levels higher than you isn't worth it exp wise. You're better off taking on mobs 1-2 levels lower than you and killing them a lot faster.