Where will your talents lie?Follow

I was trying to work out my talent tree and where I would concentrate my points. The last talent on the restoration tree looks the best to me so I think I'll spend until I get that. Probably the minimum needed so i can spend somewhere else. Anyone have any thoughts on where they will spend their points?

You will be able to shift your talents after release, but for a great price. The first time it will cost 1 gold piece and moves up almost exponentially from what i'm told. So you will pretty much have to keep your points where they are unless you want to spend a whole lot of money. This is one way they are differiating between the classes themselves.

You really almost want to specialize in 1 tree. I started out diversifying my hunter and it worked ok until level 20th. Then I found myself meleeing a lot to help my pet. So, I payed the 1gp, and switched all the points into the "survival" tree. This helped me survive more in melee and I got a good ability right away instead of needing to wait until 40th or so had I gone with 2 trees.

Choosing which branch to specialize in is mostly dependant on one's style of play. I myself am concentrating on the Balanced side, because I want that Hurricane spell that can only be gotten if you spend 30 points in Balance. Hurricane is a Druids strongest magic spell causing up to 1010 Nature Damage over 10 sec. at level 60. This is how I spent my talent points so far:

Lvl 10-14: Improved Mark of The Wild (gives 35% increase to effects of Mark of the Wild) - This will be even more awesome at lvl 60 when you get a +35% bonus to +12 to all attributes

Lvl 15-19: Nature's Grasp/Improved Nature's Grasp (gives 35% + 65% = 100% chance to root any melee attackers) - This will save your life if you ever get jumped by a Beast or some other toon from an opposing faction

Lvl 20-21: Nature's Reach (Increases the range of Wrath, Entangling Roots, Farie Fire, Moonfire, and Starfire by 20%) - Keeping your distance is vitally important if you're fightin in caster form

Lvl 22-24: Improved Entangling Roots (Gives you a 100% chance to avoid disruption when casting Entangling Roots) - Again, Entangling roots is the single most important spell a Druid has, for it keeps the enemy in place, and gives you the ability to keep your distance.

Lvl 25-29: Improved Moonfire (Increases damage and chance to critical w/ Moonfire by 15%) Moonfire is a nice spell, it's IC and it causes as much damage as Starfire, but over a greater amount of time. A 15% increase isn't bad.

Lvl 30-34: Improved Starfire (Adds a 15% chance for a 3 second stun to Starfire) - Again, anything that helps keep separation between the enemy and the druid is nice to have.

So far that's what I've invested in. What I plan to invest for the rest of my talent points are the following:

Lvl 35-39: Moonfury (Increases the damage done by Starfire and Moonfire by 10%) - This will make Moonfire and Starfire even more powerful. This is important because these are your two most used nukes.

Lvl 40: Nature's Grace (Critical strikes w/ Wrath, Starfire, and Moonfire add buff that reduces regrowth/healing touch casting by one second) Not really that good, but needed to for Vengeance talent

Lvl 41-45: Vengeance (Increases critical dmage of Starfire, Moonfire, and Wrath by 100%) Again, this makes Starfire, Moonfire and Wrath even more powerful

Lvl 46: Hurricane (IC ability that summons a storm that deals 530 damage over 10 seconds and slows enemy attack by 20%) Most powerful Druid spell there is.

Lvl 47-60: I'll probably invest in Restoration, most likely Nature's Focus (5pts), Combat Endurance(5pts) and Reflection (4pts)

Again, it all depends on the individual's playing style. I chose not to invest in any Feral Combat's because there really isn't any good talents, except for Feline Swiftness, and Thick Hide, which require at least 20 points in Feral Combat, which I can not possibly do.

I hope this helps you guys out. See you on the battlefield

i like feral. sure, it might be underpowered, but i dont care. if it is underpowered im sure blizz will fix it in some way. regardless, my focus is on cat.

0 in balance, 5 in restoraion (improved motw).

3 and 2 in the first two skills in feral, ferocity (reduces rage/energy cost of swipe, maul, rake and claw) and improved demoralizing roar (increases attack loss caused by D. Roar).

maxed out sharpened claws, for a +5% crit chance.

1 point in prowl and 1 point in blood frenzy (as of level 26).

plans for the future (all of the numbers in parentheses are on a per point basis);

maxed prowl and blood frenzy, for maximum stealth and a 100% chance to get a combo point whenever my cat form crits an opponent.

1 point in feline swiftness (+30% cat form speed when outdoors, great for running down prey or a hasty getaway when comboed with dash). maxed out predatory strikes (5 points, +4% attack power in cat form) and improved shred (2 points, -5 energy cost on shred). faerie fire for cat form somewhere in there, probably the point before i can access feline swiftness.

maxed out strength of the wild (4 points, +3% strength in cat or bear form), maxed out improved ravage (2 points, +5% chance of critting ravage) and maxed out improved pounce (+2 points, +50% chance that pounce will add an extra combo point to the opponent. ill probably get primal instinct too, since itll allow me to cast more before entering cat form (1 points, -25% mana cost when shifting to animal form). finally, after all this, ill max out ferocity for a total of 43 points spent in feral talents. i may or may not take FF bear (probably will, just for versatility sake) but my plan is to be heavily cat focused, so my opinion may change.

ill have 8 points to ***** around with elsewhere, so i might drop some more into restoration, or pick up natures grasp and get a few misc. balance talents.

as of level 26, things seem to be going well. i hit hard and fast in cat form, and if i get someone from behind in pvp, i can take them down rather fast, even if they have a few levels on me. i also like this build because i just have so much fun stalking things while prowling; ive given up-to-the-minute reports on numerous alliance groups moving thru contested areas, only to be told "great job keeping us posted" after a group of horde ambushes them somewhere down the road. plus feline swiftness+dash will give me enough of a speed boost to briefly overcome the speed bonus you get from normal level 40 mounts (+80% on cat form vs +60% on a mount), so it suits my needs well.

ill post as the levels go buy to give an update on how things have been going for me, but i dont think things will get too hard until at least level 40, when mail/plate starts coming into play. but thats then and this is now, and for now, im happy with what ive got.

Edited, Wed Dec 15 07:56:22 2004 by Quor