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#1 Dec 14 2010 at 6:56 PM Rating: Excellent
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63 posts
Hi there and welcome to the 406 Druid Sticky. Now with 100% more Cataclysm.

The sticky will discuss all most all aspects of druid life. The focus will be on end game but there will be basic information and leveling tips for all the new druids out there.


              Table of Contents

    The basics
  • Everything you need to know about druids.
  • Toys we can all use or could all use.
  • Basic leveling information.
  • The standard level 85 specs

    Moonkin is for moon stuff.
  • What is a Moonkin and do they really shoot lasers?
  • Eclipse and You
  • DoTs vs Nukes
  • The Balance of talents and glyphs
  • How to look good in leather.
  • Rotation Rotation!

    Why is animals on my face?
  • Mangle for beginners.
  • Is it a cat, a bear or a catbear?
  • Attack table? No, attack monsters...
  • To specialize or to not specialize, that is the question.

    Cat form is for fite.
  • Bleeds and you, the basics of feral DPS
  • Attacks for cats
  • JOHN MADDEN
  • What do all these numbers on my gear mean?
  • Talents an glyphs for exceptional felines.

    Bear druid is for tank.
  • The basics of getting hit in the face for loot
  • Survival buttons
  • How to Mangle, Maul, Pulverize and Lacerate your foes into submission.
  • Strength vs Agility jewelry and other gear concerns.
  • Talent for bears.

    Tree druid is for heal.
  • Running around in circles while casting heals for beginners
  • I'm not really sure how to structure Resto as a semi-comprehensive guide
  • Will confer with someproteinguy in the BDT after I set up the main page of the new sticky
  • We have all the info, I'm just not sure how to organize it in a consistent
  • manner with the rest of the guide

    Summary
  • A brief recap.
  • Life as druid.
  • Stuff on the horizon, things from the past.

    Appendix
  • Alla Posters who contributed.
  • Web Sources.
  • Shout outs.



Edited, Jan 29th 2011 7:39pm by DruidSock

Edited, Jan 29th 2011 7:41pm by DruidSock
#2 Dec 14 2010 at 6:56 PM Rating: Excellent
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63 posts
    The Basics


  • Everything you need to know about druids.

  • Druids are a shape shifting class. We can effectively fill role in the game, if properly spec'd and geared. The class is very versatile and using all of your forms is key to surviving out in the world. Being able to adapt to the situation is somewhat limited by spec but utilizing the whole toolkit provide by all the forms you have access to is an invaluable skill. The most common examples are Balance druids healing and cats tanking in an emergency.

    We are a leather armor class and gain a 5% bonus, after level 50, to your main stat as determined by spec when using all leather. Feral druids will use staffs, 2H maces and polearms for weapons where as caster druids will either use a staff or a mace, dagger, fist weapon paired with an off hand. Two handed caster maces are rare but if they made one a druid could use it.

    Druids come from only a few of Azeroths many races. Horde has the option of Tauren or Troll and Alliance can pick from Night Elf or Worgen. The differences between the four races are in the end minimal. If you want me to tell you the best, I wont. As if you really want to min/max then you really shouldn't be reading something under the header of Basics.


  • Toys we can all use or could all use.

  • Thorns (level 5): A 20 second buff that causes melee attacks to take damage when hitting you. Damage is based on the casters Spell Power. Can not be cast in feral forms.

    Entangling Roots (level 7): A useful CC spell that roots a target in place while dealing some damage and breaks after 30 seconds or enough damage is dealt. Great skill for pulling mobs at low levels or as CC in higher level dungeons.

    Cat Form (level 8): The melee DPS form for druids. Provides Polymorph immunity and cat form abilities. Most importantly it allows the use of Prowl.

    Prowl (level 10): Puts you in a state of stealth at the cost of reduced speed, -30%. Very useful for getting past enemies unseen.

    Revive (level 12): Standard resurrection spell. Can not be used in combat.

    Bear Form (level 15): The feral tanking form. Can be used by others for the damage reduction abilities and other bear skills that can be helpful in a pinch. As with cat form you are immune to Polymorph spells in bear form.

    Teleport: Moonglade (level 15): Teleports the caster to Moonglade. Useful for going to Kalimdor from Eastern Kingdoms and getting access to the druid trainers.

    Travel Form (level 16): Only usable outdoors, immunity to polymorph and increases speed by 40%. You get this 4 levels before you get your land mount. Getting around faster is always a good thing. Makes you look like a cheetah even though the spell icon is a hoof.

    Omen of Clarity (level 20): Gives all of your offensive spells a chance to make the next spell with a cast time free. For feral druids it can also proc off auto-attacks and reduce the rage/energy cost of next ability to 0. Can be talented to proc with Lifebloom for Resto druids.

    Rebirth (level 20): A 10 minute CD battle resurrection spell, restores 20% HP and 20% mana of their mana but can be glyphed to 100% for both.

    Skull Bash (level 22): An interrupt usable in cat or bear form. On a 1 minute CD but can be talented, feral only, into a proper 10 second CD interrupt.

    Remove Corruption (level 24): All our poison and curse removal in one handy spell. Resto can talent to dispel magic off friendlies.

    Faerie Fire (level 24): A stacking armor debuff that reduces mob armor by 4% per stack. Has separate feral and caster versions. The debuff should be kept up, preferably by a tank or melee DPSer but if none of them can then Resto and Balance druids should applt the debuff.

    Dash (level 26): Three minute cooldown that boosts speed by 70% and doesn't break Prowl.

    Innervate (level 28): Three minute cooldown that restores 20% of the casting Druid's maximum mana pool over 10 sec. Most of the time Balance and Resto druids will keep for themselves, the Feral version is fairly weak do to the low Feral mana pool.

    Soothe (level 28): An enrage dispel. Very useful for some bosses or other angry mobs.

    Mark the Wild (level 30): An hour long buff that boosts Int, Stam, Agi, Str by 5% and resistances by 65. Is party/raid wide by default with no reagent cost. It also shares a buff spot with Kings and the resistance don't stack with paladin auras or totems.

    Hibernate (level 48): Puts a Beast or Dragonkin to sleep for 40 seconds. Is one of those spells that is not appreciated until you realize how useful it can be.

    Nature's Grasp (level 52): Only usable in bear or cat form but still useful to all druids. As it roots enemies that hit you making it a great escape mechanism especially when combined with Dash. One minute cooldown lasts for 3 charges.

    Barkskin (level 58): A 1 minute CD that provides 20% damage reduction. While mainly thought of as a tanking CD it is useful for all specs.

    Flight Form (level 60): We get trainable flight at level 60 with out having to buy the Riding skill or a mount. Instant cast for added awesomeness. If practice and have low lag you can jump out of water and into flight form.

    Tranquility (level 68): A powerful emergency smart heal on a 10 minute CD. One of the few heals that a feral is likely to use during combat.

    Swift Flight Form (level 70): Like Flight Form but faster. You do have to pay, 5000 gold before faction discounts, for the riding skill but at least the mount is still free.

    Cyclone (level 74): A 6 second CC that puts the target in a Cyclone and makes them unable to do anything.

    We also have assorted healing spells, damage spells and other utility skills. The above are some of the spells druids of all specs are likely to use. Familiarize yourself with your spell book as knowing is half the battle. You never know when some not oft used spell may come in handy. Sometimes resto druids go bear and sometimes tanking bears will Root and mob or cast a nuke. Don't be scared to experiment, especially as you are leveling up.


  • Basic leveling information.

  • Before level 8 you are a caster druid. You start as far away as possible and open with the biggest nuke you have, throw up Moonfire then either cast Wrath or Starfire until mobs are dead. Some Entangling Roots can be tossed in to get an extra nuke off if you want to get fancy. Once you hit level 8 and get Cat Form you should start running up to things opening with Rake and then hitting Claw until ou have 3-4 Combo Points and then try and kill it off with Ferocious Bite. This will all change when you specialize but the above should get you to level 10 fairly fast.

    The Feral tree will be the fastest to level as you don't use your mana to kill mobs so it can be saved for healing after the enemy is dead. This reduces downtime so you can level faster. Also you get increased movement speed in cat form which is always nice and can tank in the LFG tool; which is awesome because tanks don't have to wait long in the queue.

    The other specs will work but feral is more efficient. Nothing against them, they are are good specs and leveling as any spec will work. Feral is just more efficient. If you want to use resto or balance to level it can help you learn how to play those roles more effectively at the level cap so keep that in mind.

    Using the skills listed in the section above, in addition to your more role specific spells, can greatly aid druids of all specs. Never feel constrained to stay in the form that your talent tree focuses on as you are a shapeshifter so shapeshifting is encouraged and often recommended.

    For all specs, when there are multiple mobs using some form of CC can help as can going into bear form, for the increased armor and health, when you are almost dead and letting DoTs and bear attacks finish a mob off. Just like using a nuke or DoT to pull a single mob in densely packed areas can be advantageous for ferals. Using all of your skills when needed is a big part of being a druid. Learning when to do what will come with time and practice.


  • The standard level 85 specs.

  • Tank
    Cat DP
    Resto
    Balance

    For more detailed information go to the respective section.

    Edited, Jan 29th 2011 7:09pm by DruidSock
    #3 Dec 14 2010 at 6:56 PM Rating: Excellent
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    63 posts
      Moonkin is for moon stuff.

  • What is a Moonkin and do they really shoot lasers?

  • To answer the important question, yes they do shoot lasers. The Balance tree is the caster DPS branch of the druid family. They gain the ability to transform into a giant chicken monster with talents at level 29. This form will make all of your spells bring more pain and grant you and your party members some buffs. The Moonkin form does lock you out from casting healing and resurrection spells but your job is to shoot lasers not heal so it is a good trade off. You can still cast Remove Corruption and should as the situation dictates.

    In addition to lasers you have a few other offensive spells and typically you will be using all of them depending on your Eclipse state but we'll get into that a bit after we talk about Eclipse.


  • Eclipse and You

  • Eclipse is the Balance Mastery, you get Mastery benefits at level 80, and one of the central aspects of the spec. It is a bar that swings between full of two types of energy, Lunar and Solar. You get the bar as soon as you select the Balance tree as your specialization. Your spells also start hitting a lot harder as soon as you go Balance so if the damage before you picked Balance seemed low don't worry, it gets a lot better.

    The bar sits below your unit frame and has a little moon on the left and sun on the right. By default you have to open pushing towards Solar, no big deal, this means you will open with Starsurge and spam Starfire while keeping up your DoTs until Solar Eclipse procs. When this happens things start to change. No longer will Starfire and Starsurge generate Solar Power, now Wrath will start to generate Lunar Power and at the same time all of your Nature damage spells will do 25% more damage. So now you are spamming Wrath, keeping your DoTs up and using Startsurge when ever you can until Lunar Eclipse procs, at which time you switch to Starfire until the cycle starts over again.

    You basically start off pushing towards Solar eclipse, hit it, then go to the other one in a cycle until everything is dead while keeping your DoTs up, Starsurge on CD and any other damage spells you have depending on level. It does get a bit more sophisticated but I'll save that for when we actually get into the Rotation.

    As a side note the default User Interface while doing a decent job of tracking Eclipse can be improved upon easily. I'd recommend trying a few out and finding the one that works best for your needs.


  • DoTs vs Nukes

  • Wrath (level 1): Nature damage spell that generates 13 Lunar Power.

    Moonfire (level 4): Arcane damage over time spell with an initial damage component.

    Starfire (level 8): Arcane damage nuke that generates 20 Solar Power.

    Starsurge (level 10-talented): Hardest hitting nuke you have. Generates 15 of which ever type of power that pushes you closer to entering an Eclipse state. Should be kept on CD for the most part.

    Insect Swarm (level 20): Nature damage over time spell.

    Typhoon (talented): 20 second CD Nature damage AoE with a knockback. The knockback can be glyphed away and often should be as it can be highly annoying and dangerous.

    Solar Beam (talented): AoE silence one a 1 minute CD, either extremely useful or worthless depending on the fight.

    Hurricane (level 44): Channeled Nature damage Area of Effect(AoE) spell.

    Force of Nature (talented): Summons 3 Treants that attack enemies for the caster doing Nature damage. 3 minute CD.

    Starfall (talented): Arcane damage AoE on a 1.5 minute CD.

    Wild Mushroom (level 85): Allows you to place up to 3 Mushrooms that can be detonated for Nature damage.

    Wild Mushroom: Detonate (level 85): Causes your Mushrooms to explode for Nature damage. 10 second CD.

    If you are sharp you will have noticed that the damage type is listed for all your spells. This is because of Eclipse. Trying to cast things when Eclipse will buff them is part of what makes an exceptional Boomkin. We will talk about this a bit more when we discuss the Moonkin rotation.


  • The Balance of talents and glyphs

  • The Balance tree has a good amount of leeway with talent selection. When you start the first 18 talents are spoken for and then you get to make some choices. When starting out it is always best to take mana regen talents until you are comfortable with your mana pool relative as going OoM(Out of Mana) means you do no damage at all. Dreamstate is the best of the mana talents if you are using Innervate on yourself and if you aren't keeping Innervate for personal use then Furor followed by Moonglow are your best 2 mana talents.

    So you end up with this as your base talent spec. As you drop mana talents, Euphoria is NOT a mana talent - never drop it, you can start to pick up things that boost AoE damage, Perseverance or Blessing of the Grove(is a weak choice unless using Lunar Shower often). Owlkin Frenzy can also be useful in some situations.

    The glyphs included are the only must have choices. The Prime options are either Wrath or Starsurge, with Starsurge winning if you get to use Starfall during Lunar Eclipse often or have a lot of AoE opportunities. Otherwise take Wrath if that is not the case or until you can determine is will be.

    Innervate, Focus and Thorns are the 3rd options for your Major slot and can be changed as needed. With Thorns being strong when the tank will be taking at least 10 hits per cast and Focus when the extra DPS to range trade off isn't an issue. Innervate is a good choice if your mana is going strong enough that you have dropped Dreamstate and are regularly casting it on other people. Otherwise the rest of the Majors and Minors are situational or have no DPS increasing potential.


  • How to look good in leather.

  • Druids are a leather class as previously mentioned as such at level 50 we gain leather specialization which grants 5% Int for wearing all leather. Before then cloth is fine, even right after the switch cloth is ok. You should stop taking cloth at level 50 and focus on switching to all caster leather though as the bonus is awesome and scales with Mark of the Wild.

    Hit needs to be capped and you will need a lot of hit as there are no hit buffs. So get to 1742 Hit rating with some combination of hit and spirit. Spirit is the preferred way as it makes sharing gear with a resto set easier increasing potential versatility. If you have to reforge to get capped, you should reforge into Spirit instead of hit for the aforementioned reason.

    After getting Hit capped you want to focus on gather as much Haste as possible. Haste beats Crit hands down as DoTs scale with haste, well Crit as well but more DoT ticks gives more chances to proc Shooting Stars. Which is huge as Starsurge is your best nuke. Haste also reduces your Global Cooldown (GCD) and reduces the cast time of your nukes. Which will decrease the amount of time not in an Eclipse state. So haste does more for you than Crit. Crit is still strong so don't avoid it, just favor Haste.

    Crit is better than Mastery however. So if you have to reforge something away to add Spirit/Hit or Haste get rid of Mastery. The reason Mastery is weak is because you will only be in an Eclipse state for somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3s of the time depending on your Haste level. Mastery will make you more effective during Eclipse but Haste and Crit make you better always. So they easily win and come in second place in the secondary stat of the year contest.

    Socket for bonuses when the bonus is strong. Otherwise you will mainly use Brilliant Inferno Rubies to active your meta gem, the Burning Shadowspirit Diamond. If a blue bonus is good use Puried Demonseye and use Reckless Ember Topaz for yellow sockets you wish to activate. Enchants should focus on Intellect if it is available and haste if not. Get Power Torrent for your weapon and Lavawalker for your feet. Runspeed is worth it, as time spent moving is time not nuking and nukes are where the damage comes from. Moonkin use the Guardians of Hyjal head enchant and the caster Therazane shoulder option.


  • Rotation Rotation!

  • We all ready know that you start of pushing towards Solar Eclipse. So you would think opening with Starsurge or Starfire is the right thing to do, well you are wrong. You open with Moonfire and Insect Swarm and THEN cast Starsurge. The you just cast Starfire unless your DoTs are about to expire or Starsurge is available. Once you hit Eclipse switch over to Wrath while keeping DoTs up and Starsurge on CD.

    Seems really boring I know. It however is not as there are some subtleties that come into play.

    First, we need to make sure the Faerie Fire debuff is up. It should be up if there is a feral druid(DPS or tank) or a warrior tanking; possibly a DPS warrior but they don't like doing it typically and is cheaper for you anyway. Some hunter pets can also put the debuff up as can rogues but at a large cost to their DPS. This is of course more for raiding as opposed to leveling or even 5 man content. Still if you have no hunters, rogues, warriors and are the only druid in the raid it is your job to keep the debuff up. When in doubt ask. Thankfully once the 3 stacks are up it lasts 5 minutes.

    Second, we need to talk about DoT clipping. DoTs do there damage over time in intervals determined by your Haste level. The last tick of the DoTs is right as they expire. In the dark ages of WoW you would never want to recast DoTs until the last tick happened as otherwise you would lose it, that is not the case. BUT you only get that last tick, if you recast when there were 2 left you still lose 1 tick and its DPS. So try not to clip DoTs while clipping DoTs, in other words only reapply when 1 tick is left. This will give higher uptime and better DPS.

    Third, be conscious of your Eclipse level. If you are at 80 and casting Starfire, queue a Wrath next as you know you are transitioning into Solar Same idea for Lunar. Just remember that Wrath gives less energy and has a travel time. Also if one of your DoTs is about to expire and you are about to transition into the Eclipse state that will buff it, hold off on refreshing said DoT. Same idea for Starsurge, it will hit harder during any Eclipse state so holding it off for 1 cast to push into Eclipse via Wrath/Starfire is better as Starsurge does more damage.

    Fourth, remember the spell list and how most of your AoE spells do Nature damage? Try and make sure to be in Solar Eclipse for trash and just focus on Insect Swarm, Sunfire and your Nature AoE damage and ignore Starfire and Starsurge, Starfall is still good to cast as the damage is strong. Just focus on Mushrooms, DoTs, Starfall and fill in with Hurricane and Typhoon.

    Same basic idea for bosses except you want to open at max Lunar Eclipse so you can open with a big Starfall after your DoTs and start bombing away Starfire right away.

    Fifth, try and save DPS cooldowns for Heroism/Bloodlust. If holding off means using the spell, mainly Force of Nature, less during the fight then don't worry about it as more is better. If you can keep the same amount of casts ry and time one with Heroism/Bloodlust. Also as soon as you gain the Heroism buff recast your DoTs, the added Haste is not dynamically added on to them unlike Spell Power and Crit.

    Fifth, when you have to move spam Moonfire as it is better than doing nothing as long as you have the mana for it to not kill your damage output later on. If you can time it try and be in Solar Eclipse for this as it will increase the damage output.

    That is Moonkin DPS in a nutshell.

    Edited, Feb 2nd 2011 4:35pm by DruidSock
    #4 Dec 14 2010 at 6:56 PM Rating: Excellent
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    63 posts
      Why is animals on my face?

  • Mangle for beginners.

  • Once you decide to be a feral druid you get Mangle in both bear and cat version, bear version and cat version. Mangle is the defining feral ability. The cat version replaces Claw completely and the bear version is a powerful threat machine. More importantly buffs all of your bleed abilities by 30%. This is far more important for cats as they are a bleed based DPS class but even tanks have a few bleed attacks that can benefit from the debuff.

    Bears will typically use it every time they can as the threat and damage is excellent. Cats will use Mangle less often as Shred is better damage but Shred has a positional requirement so is typically only used in group play. Even then the Mangle debuff boosts Shred damage so the debuff must be kept up at all times.

    In summation, Mangle is good.


  • Is it a cat, a bear or a catbear?

  • Feral is basically a melee spec that has the option to specialize in tanking or DPS. With the way the talent tree is setup cat, bear and catbear are all be valid specs. This is great for the ability to be versatile with only slightly reduced effectiveness at the role you are currently filling if you decide to go catbear. Of course going full cat or bear will be more effective but at the cost of being able to switch role of the fly. Regardless, both cat and bear have different gearing needs. So you will need to have 2 sets of gear if you go catbear or even have separate cat and bear specs, well most of it as some will be more easily shared than others.

    No matter what spec you take, you should still read the explanation of the attack table and both the cat and bear sections as they are the abilities that define your talent tree. As such you should be familiar with them.


  • Attack table? No, attack monsters...

  • The attack table dictates how we do damage, well that and Shred only working from behind. It basically is set up so that melee DPS want to attack from behind as it will increase your chance of hitting as the mob will not be able to Parry. Yes, even deer and other random mobs can parry. This only leaves Dodge and Miss. Dodge is a 6.5% chance for all mobs that can be lowered via Expertise. Miss is an 8% chance that can be lowered via Hit.

    However, we get refunded 80% of the cost of missed attacks. This plus the nature of how Energy works means that capping Hit/Expertise are not important for DPS. Having none of them is bad as then misses will eventually impact your DPS but for the most part what amount you have on you gear is fine as long as they don't dip too low.

    Bears also don't really need to worry about hit/expertise as with Vengeance threat becomes trivial. This does mean that the first few seconds of a pull can be scandalous but gearing for threat over survival is a big no no. When looking to boost threat expertise is a bit stronger than hit but the money stats for bears are crit/mastery gear with the crit reforged into dodge.

    This is of course more for felines and ursine at or close to the level cap than those that are still leveling.


  • To specialize or to not specialize, that is the question.

  • Since the feral tree is able to be either melee DPS or a tank, many will ask can I just do both? The answer is yes. While you wont be as effective as someone who does specialize until you get into more serious end game content it really doesn't matter all that much. There are only a handful of talents that are purely cat or bear, so it is simply a matter of grabbing the hybrid talents and make sure you have Thick Hide.

    You will have to stock up on Vanishing Powder as glyphs switching will be needed to help get into the right role. But that is still far cheaper than respecing every time you wish to switch from tank to DPS and back. This will enable you to effectively have the ability to have three specs as you can go Feral and then either Balance or Resto for the second one.

    The versatility and easy usage of this spec will make it strong option for people who are in guilds that need more flexibility. People who PuG a lot will also get a larger benefit as being able to bring more to the table means you get to go to the table more.

    Here is what the spec would look like at level 85 with 3 extra points to spend. Note that the Natural/Master Shapeshifter combo is an all or nothing deal. As Natural Shapeshifter on its own is fairly useless outside of PvP.

    Edited, Jan 29th 2011 7:21pm by DruidSock
    #5 Dec 14 2010 at 6:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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    63 posts
      Cat form is for fite.

  • Bleeds and you, the basics of feral DPS

  • Cat form DPS is a priority based rotation. Well, at the level cap at least. While leveling all you really need to do is Mangle spam. Putting up Rake will help as will using your various finishers but when you get right down to it you can get away with Mangle spam for a long time.

    Mangle is not only a strong attack it also buffs most of your other abilities as Mangle increases bleed and Shred damage. Shred replaces Mangle as your main CP generator when you can attack from behind. So you end up making sure the Mangle debuff is up then go about applying Rake, Shredding for CPs and keeping up Rip and Savage Roar. You can use Tiger's Fury to help smooth things out and Ferocious Bite when you have extra CPs.

    These magical CPs (Combo Points) are by default around your target's unit frame and have a maximum of 5. Also you can only have CPs on 1 target at a time, so make sure to use them if changing targets. Typically if the target will die soon you use them refreshing Savage Roar, if not either reapply Rip or drop one last Ferocious Bite.

    That is the basic system of feral DPS, we'll go a bit more into it after we break down what all of your abilities actually do.

    If you are fighting trash, either follow the rotation on a kill target if the mobs will last long enough for it to be worth it or spam Swipe if not. Swipe spam + Berserk often equals aggro leading to death but the big numbers it can produce are impressive.


  • Attacks for cats

  • Ferocious Bite (level 8): Finisher that causes damage based on CPs and can do additional damage at the cost of increased energy.

    Rake (level 8): Causes initial damage and causes the target to bleed, awards 1 CP.

    Mangle (level 10-talented): Does good damage and applies a debuff causing bleeds to do 30% more damage.

    Ravage (level 22): Opener that requires both stealth and for you to behind the target. Awards 1 CP.

    Skull Bash (level 22): Spell interrupt. The CD can be reduced with talents.

    Feral Faerie Fire (level 24): An armor debuff that boosts physical damage. When talented applies all three stacks at once. You are the best source of this debuff.

    Tiger's Fury (level 24): Increases damage by 15% for 6 seconds. Is not dynamically applied to bleeds all ready on targets.

    Cower (level 26): Reduces threat by 10%, has a 10 seconds CD.

    Feral Charge (talented): Causes you to leap behind the target and daze them for 3 seconds, 30 second cooldown.

    Pounce (level 32): Stealth opener that stuns the target for 3 seconds, applies a bleed and awards 1 CP.

    Swipe (level 36): AoE damage attack.

    Rip (level 54): Finisher that places a bleed on the target, doing more damage with more CPs.

    Maim (level 62): Finisher that stuns the target and causes damage, both increased with more CPs.

    Primal Madness (taqlented): Tiger's Fury and Berserk temporarily increase your maximum energy by 20. Temporary is the key word as that 20 will disappear at the end of the effect.

    Berserk (talented): Reduces the energy cost of all skills by 50% for 15 seconds.

    Savage Roar (level 76): Finisher that boosts auto-attack damage by 50%. Lasts longer with more CPs.


  • JOHN MADDEN

  • Ok, the basic concept is to get FFF going, then the Mangle debuff up, get Rake up(you want close to 100% up time), get Savage Roar(SR) running, then use Shred to generate CPs to use finishers. The finishers you use are Rip, SR, which both should have as close to 100% up time as possible, and Ferocious Bite(FB). With FB being used when neither SR or Rip is in danger of falling off before five CPs can be generated again. FB is also used sub 25% as an execute as it will start to refresh Rip at that point, so make sure to use on use trinkets and what not to try and boost that Rip as it will be rolling for a while.

    SR should be done with 4-5 point finishers to maximize efficiency. This will help minimize both energy and CP usage spent on the buff. If you have to choose between losing Rip or SR, pick SR. Then after the fight is done, go work on your rotation at a target dummy as you screwed up somewhere. Plan these things in advance. This means you need some sort of helper add on. A few will be listed at the end of the section as there are 2-3 solid ones and you should pick the one that best suits your play style and UI needs.

    Unfortunately, you are likely to miss attacks here and there via low hit/expertise thus complicating things. This doesn't necessarily mean your bleeds will drop off the target though. This is mainly do to the existing DoT clipping mechanics. If you reapply a bleed it will overwrite the old one except for 1 tick. So if you time it you can give yourself some wiggle room by trying to put Rake/Rip back up just after the second to last tick happens. This mechanic is also part of the reasoning why hit/expertise are devalued. Rake is on a three second interval and Rip has a two second periodic tick. Keep that in mind when refreshing your DoTs.

    So we now we think we have it all down. Wrong, ferals have three other factors that influence DPS. These are Tiger's Fury (TF), Primal Madness (PM) and Berserk. TF is a short CD that when talented, as it should be, boosts your energy by 60. This effect is modified by PM which loans you 20 energy.

    This loan also happens when you pop Berserk, which has the added benefit of making all your attacks 50% cheaper. The loan is repaid when the buff fades. By repaid I mean you lose 20 energy. So this makes you want to be as close to 0 energy as possible when the damage buff from TF or Berserk effect fades off.

    To make it more confusing when you have the damage boost from TF it will not apply to bleeds all ready on a target, only ones applied under the buff. This means that a slight delay in reapplying bleeds can be a DPS increase. By slight I mean 1-2 seconds of downtime, any more than that and you lose DPS by not having them ticking. Another complication is that you can't overwrite boosted bleeds early. Also never use TF when you wont take advantage of all the energy, this does mean sometimes you will Shred even at 5 CPs. Typically, you use it when under 35 energy but this varies based on your personal haste level.

    These factors make properly utilizing TF a science. You don't want to waste any of the energy, you want to be under 20 energy when coming out of the buff, you want to refresh bleeds while buffed and you want to keep it on CD as much as possible. All I can say is that it takes practice and having a good UI set up to help you recognize what is going on with all of your timers. Proper use of TF, especially when glyphed, is a huge factor in maximizing your DPS.

    Berserk usage is also tricky. You want to be able to use it as many times as possible in a fight. You also want high energy and the bulk of your timers running when you enter the Berserk state. This is coupled with a desire to be at low energy when leaving so as not to have to repay the PM loan. Another twist is that tank threat is typically low early in a fight when Vengeance has yet to stack up, yet popping it early gives a greater chance to hit it again. This results in you having to actually use Cower to reduce threat. Yes, Cower is a DPS loss but being dead is a larger damage decrease. Use Cower when you are just about to pull threat as it more effective the when removing larger chunks of threat. Plus delaying use will hopefully mean Vengeance will have stacked up a bit thus increasing tank threat to the point where you don't have to worry about aggro.

    When opening you will want to take advantage of Stampede and open with a free Ravage; this affect can and should be used when ever you target switch or have to move off the boss for a short time. After that or before, apply FFF and then Mangle if you don't have an Arms warrior. If you have four CPs get SR going, if not Rake then get SR up. After that it gets into the Shred for CPs, use CDs to increase damage and keep Rip, SR, Rake and the Mangle debuff up. I'd say keep FFF up but it lasts five minutes and you can refresh it when pooling energy anyway. Typically you want to try and use TF to boost your first Rip and pop Berserk early.

    So in the end it becomes a game of keeping up the Mangle debuff, an Arms warrior can do this for you, FFF, SR, Rake and Rip. All while maximizing usage of TF and Berserk.

    Addon Recommendations.

    -Badkitty: A simple add on that simply makes all of your buffs/debuffs easily visible.
    -Ovale: A script based add on that will suggest the next move you should do to maximize DPS. Use RAWR or Mew to help generate your ideal script.

    If you want to DPS to your potential you will need to use something to help track all of your timers. Get which ever one of these you feel most comfortable with using.


  • What do all these numbers on my gear mean?

  • Cats love agility. It is far and away the strongest stat they have. Agility is entirely based upon the item level of your gear and can only be changed via gems and enchants. So there is not a lot you can do to boost Agility beyond getting better gear.

    Luckily there are other stats that ferals can use to help them kill everything. The sexiest of these other stats is mastery. As it boosts bleed damage and bleeds are the main source of cat damage. So you basically want every single piece of gear to have mastery on it to maximize damage. After that haste is a bit better than crit but they are fairly close in strength for boosting damage out put. Haste will be a good deal stronger than crit at lower gear levels as it has a stronger impact on smoothing out the 'rotation' due to increased energy regeneration as you get better gear they become closer in the impact on your DPS with haste barely edging out crit.

    This leaves hit and expertise as the undesired stats. White damage and Mangle/Shred just don't account for enough damage to make them worth gearing for in your standard DPS gear set. Having a hit capped set is still a good thing and may be required for druids that do mainly 10 man raid content. This is mainly do to the possibility of being put on interrupt duty. So check with your raid leader or use personal judgement when planning for upgrades as even though hit gear isn't fantastic you may end up needed to be hit capped. If that is the case just grin and bear it, the DPS loss is worth not missing an interrupt when you are the kick *****.

    For gems you want to use as many Delicate Inferno Rubies as possible, with Glinting Demonseyes for blue sockets and Adept Ember Topaz in yellow. You need 3 red gems to activate your meta gem. After that you can typically gem for socket bonuses as long as the bonus decent. Generally meaning not hit or expertise.

    Enchant for Agility as much as possible. Shoulders are Therazane and head is Ramkahen. If no Agility enchant is available try for mastery, haste or crit; in that order of preference.


  • Talents and glyphs for exceptional felines.

  • This is your basic feral DPS spec at level 85. There is some wiggle room in some of the talents but you pretty much take everything that impacts damage in cat form and ignore the rest. The points in Brutal Impact and Nurturing Instincts can be put anywhere and are the flex points. The rest have the potential to add damage so you take them.

    For glyphs you want Rip for sure, no question there. After that it gets a little fuzzy. The choices can change based on what your gear is doing, your playstyle, reaction time, and to be perfectly honest your skill level. Let's take a look and see what the other two choices are.

    Shred is usually a good DPS boost and a strong choice. The Berserk glyph can also be fun but is dependent on how many times you can Berserk. Mangle is fairly weak unless it is one of those fights where you can't attack from behind, if that is the case its value skyrockets. Savage Roar is also a solid choice as more damage is always good.

    Then we have the Tiger's Fury glyph. It has the potential to either be a huge DPS boost or a complete waste of a glyph slot. This is mainly do to it only being a DPS increase if you manage to use Tiger's Fury on the reduced cooldown and not waste the energy. If that is not the case than the TF glyph is not for you. Being able to use the glyph effectively has a lot to do with being able to keep track of all of your timers, energy intake and CP generation.

    When in doubt just take Rip, Shred and Savage Roar. They will always be a boost. Heck even if you give the TF glyph a try you will still typically couple it with Rip and Shred. In the end you will most likely have Rip and Shred for majors with a flexible 3rd choice. When in doubt check a simulator like Mew or RAWR.

    For majors just pick three that don't include the Ferocious Bite glyph as it is a DPS loss in most cases. This does mean you can glyph entirely for utility. Same idea for minors, with Unburdened Rebirth being the only standout choice.

    Edited, Feb 2nd 2011 6:21pm by DruidSock
    #6 Dec 14 2010 at 6:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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    63 posts
      Bear druid is for tank.

  • The basics of getting hit in the face for loot

  • So you want to be a tank? Tanking is the fine art of holding aggro on everything your group is fighting to reduce the healing burden down to a single target excluding AoE damage and the like. Bear form is design to help with this by increasing armor, stamina (which is where health comes from) and threat. The bear uses his attacks and defensive abilities to control the enemy while the DPS kills them.

    As a bear you have a few attacks to choose from, unfortunately most come at later levels. This means you will have to get used to switching targets to make sure your auto-attacks hit everything while Maul and Mangle are on CD. This is good practice as when you finally get a spammable attack, Lacerate, you will be used to spreading your attacks around. When you get Swipe things will get easier but Swipe is more of a sustaining aggro tool as opposed to a make mobs stop attacking that DPS that pulled and hit me tool. Thrash is a better version of Swipe that packs more punch but still you will end up using Maul, Mangle and Lacerate as your main aggro tools.

    As such you should get into the habit of marking a kill order. Generally the order will be healers, mobs that CC, ones with AoE damage, casters and lastly melee mobs. This can change if a certain mob has a nasty debuff or can put out insane levels of damage. Things to consider with marking mobs are the use of CC as it can be very helpful when trying to make a pull go easier.

    Also neither you or the things you are tanking should stand in stuff on the ground. Well except for stuff your allies cast, but seriously everything else is very bad 99% of the time. It either hurts you or buffs them. So just get everything out of stuff on the ground. Be nice to your DPS and make it so they can DPS from behind and not be in it either, they will love you for it and so will your healers.

    Otherwise just position mobs away from the group. Keep Demo Roar up, try and keep FFF up on the kill target. Always be mindful of patrols and other groups. Don't stand in things as they usually hurt.


  • Survival buttons

  • Frenzied Regeneration (level 52): Increases maximum health by 30% and puts you at 30% health if below 30% while converting rage to health. Three minute cooldown.

    Barkskin (level 58): A 20% damage reduction that last 20 seconds on a short one minute cool down.

    Survival Instincts (talented): A 50% damage reduction for 12 seconds on a three minute CD.

    Barkskin is your default tanking CD. The short CD means it will be up often, so using it typically shouldn't be decision, just do it when you want to give your heals some breathing room. SI is a way more powerful CD but has a far longer CD now. So be a bit more mindful of using it randomly. FR is in the same basic category as SI, just remember that if you glyph for it that its effectiveness when do don't have a healer is minimized but at the same time the glyph is very potent when someone is healing you.


  • How to Mangle, Maul, Pulverize and Lacerate your foes into submission.

  • Mangle (level 10): Six second CD attack that is a threat and damage monster, can become a proc attack with talents.

    Maul (level 15): Three second CD attack. Off the GCD but very rage expensive, can be glyphed into a cleave.

    Growl (level 15): The bear version of Taunt. Will force a mob to attack you for 3 seconds and set your aggro to be the highest for said mob.

    Demoralizing Roar (level 15): Reduces enemy AP by 10% for 30 seconds. Keep it up as it will reduce incoming damage.

    Enrage (level 22): One minute CD that gives you 20 rage instantly and 10 more over 10 seconds, but you take 10% more physical damage during those 10s. The extra 10 rage and debuff can be cancelled via /cancelaura Enrage.

    Challenging Roar (level 28): Three minute CD, will force all mobs to attack you for 6 seconds, has no impact on the mobs actual aggro so is only a temporary effect.

    Swipe (level 36): Has a six second CD now. Will hold off healing aggro but is meant for helping sustain threat as opposed to create threat.

    Lacerate (level 66): A bleed that does initial damage and provides a bleed that stacks up to three times. Is your bread and butter attack, can proc Mangle when talented and should be spread around on large packs of mobs. The initial hit generates most of the threat, the bleed is useful for maintaining sustained threat.

    Pulverize (talented): An attack that is based on weapon damage and boosted by Lacerate stacks. Also boosts crit by 3% times number of Lacerate stacks for 10 seconds. Try and keep the buff active as it is very strong compared to Lacerate bleed damage. Removes the aforementioned Lacerate stacks when used.

    Berserk (talented): Causes Lacerate ticks have a 30% to reset the CD on Mangle and make it cost no rage. Also functions as a CD that removes the Mangle CD and causes it to hit three targets lasting 15 seconds. Try and use it as often as possible as doing a lot of damage is fun.

    Thrash (level 81): Thrash is an AoE bleed and both a great snap aggro and sustained aggro tool. The CD matches the length of the bleed making it able to have 100% up time when you so desire.

    Rage is not always infinite in most situations and being rage starved is not fun and can easily cause threat issues. Enrage can give you some decent rage but is on CD too often when you need it and can kill you when used in combat via the armor debuff. Because of this Maul should be used with OoC procs as much as possible. Berserk procs are awesome and should used when they come up as there is no ICD on the proc so not using it is wasting potential procs and using these procs can let you Maul more often when you run into an OoC drought. FFF is a mediocre threat move but a great way to help pool some rage when used on CD. Plus the armor reduction will boost your most of your damage. Lacerate is your spamable move and you should Pulverize if you are at three stacks as Lacerate threat is not in the DoT portion as it is fairly front loaded. Spread it around on trash as much as possible both for threat on off targets and to increase the chance of Berserk procs as there is no CD on the proc. I know I've said it a few times and I'll say it again, Berserk procs have no ICD and are awesome, Lacerate everything so you can spam Mangle and make the DPS feel shame at your awesome Bear power. Try to keep the Pulverize buff up as much as possible as 9% crit is a strong buff. Still keep up Demo shout and use BS, SI and FR as defensive CDs.


  • Strength vs Agility jewelry and other gear concerns.

  • All hail Agility. While you leveling up you don't usually have a lot of gear options. So in general if it has more Stamina and armor take it. Otherwise look for Agility increases then mastery, crit, hit, expertise and dodge with haste a distant last place. Hit and expertise only function as threat stats as taunts can no longer miss.

    Gearing is now about trying to grab gear with high amounts of Agility and everything but haste. We are no longer pigeon holed into taking Strength non-leather gear. Agility pieces are always better than Strength ones. Strength pieces with high dodge, no parry and no haste can fill in so don't hesitate to take them if they have more Stamina or armor and no one else wants them. If you find a piece with bonus armor, you should of course grab it as bonus armor is very sexy.

    Otherwise it is all about Agility, Stamina, dodge, crit and mastery as they are a bear's money stat. Hit and expertise are somewhat important but avoidance and EH stats win, especially avoidance. Haste is hands down a bears worse stat so when reforging remove haste over any other stat. Gemming and enchanting should be for avoidance unless the Stamina/EH option is vastly superior. This means Shifting Demonseye becomes the choice for blue sockets, Delicate Inferno Ruby for red and with Polished Ember Topaz being the choice gem for yellow sockets. Of course only socket for the bonus if said bonus is useful, this typically means not haste. We also will use the Agility DPS shoulder enchant as both Agility and Mastery are strong. Still use the Earthen Ring tank helm enchant.

    All of this basically happens as bears don't have crazy Stamina modifiers as we have had in the past. Also with the large health pools once you get to a comfortable HP spot stacking further Stamina becomes less effective than pushing avoidance. So gear for Agility and avoidance as the Stamina is a factor of the gear's item level. Hit and expertise can also be pushed aside as threat is not typically an issue except for at the very beginning of an encounter. So in the end you want to find gear with crit and mastery, then reforge the crit into dodge. If you only have one of the two stats then reforge the stat that isn't crit or mastery into dodge.

    And for the love of Elune get a run speed enchant on your feet. It is hands down the most under appreciated foot enchant. If your rich get the Agility/run speed, for the rest of us the Stamina/run speed one also works as the main benefit is run speed not the minor stat boost.

    As a side note, for bears that mainly do 10 man raiding working on a second set of gear or sub-set, that is hit capped is highly recommended. This is mainly so you can be a reliable interrupter. This does mean you will lose some of the taster stats but the utility is worth it to have the option available to your raid group.


  • Talent for bears.

  • The bear spec at 85 has a single point to do what ever with. If you want to max out Brutal Impact I'd recommend stealing from either Fury Swipes or Stampede as Leader of the Pack does provide some minor self healing and is too useful for solo play to drop. I'd recommend stealing the point from Stampede as you tend to get less use out of it than Fury Swipe. Prime glyphs are fairly set in stone, major glyphs have a lot of wiggle room. The FR one being the most interesting as it can either be very strong or cripple your CD depending on what is happening. For minors you should take Challenging Roar and Unburdened Rebirth with the third one not really mattering that much at all.

    Edited, Feb 2nd 2011 4:38pm by DruidSock
    #7 Dec 14 2010 at 6:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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    63 posts
    Tree Druid is for Heal.

    Running around in circles while casting heals for beginners

    So you think you have what it takes to heal as a druid huh? Well welcome to the forest my friend. There aren’t as many trees around here as there used to be, and when they do show up they don’t stay long; but still, it’s a good place to call home.

    Chances are you’ll see your first action when you can access the dungeon finder at level 15. By that point you’ll have all the basic tools you’ll need to keep your group alive. If you’ve healed as other classes in the past the biggest change will be your increased reliance on Heal-over-time spells (HoTs) as a druid.

    In general Druids have a lot of HoT spells and a lot of instant cast spells. The plus side of this is that you’ll have a lot of mobility as a druid healer. You can heal while on the run and not lose nearly as much output as the other classes. Use this to your advantage; stay mobile and stay out of danger.

    The down side of all those instant-cast HoTs is the lack of burst healing. This isn’t as bad as it used to be, but still most of your healing spells will take time to be fully effective. You’ll need to be extra aware of the fight and what’s going to happen next so that you can have your HoTs ticking when the health bars start shrinking.

    Healing at lower levels is pretty straight forward:

    1) If someone is taking damage, put Rejuvenation on them.
    2) If Rejuvenation isn’t enough, heal with a casted spell (i.e. Nourish, Regrowth)
    3) If those still aren’t enough use an emergency button; like Swiftmend
    4) If all that doesn’t work one of your group members probably screwed something up and deserves to die anyway.

    As you reach later levels you’ll be given more spells, more emergency buttons, and other neat tricks to keep you and your friends alive. So what are all these fancy spells? Glad you asked, let’s take a look.

    I’ve got the HoTs for you

    HoT spells:

    Rejuvenation (level 3): Basic heal over time spell, your workhorse in many cases.
    Lifebloom (level 64): Stackable HoT with a mid-sized heal when it expires. Can normally only be on one target at a time.
    Wild Growth (level 49 with talents): – Group HoT that hits up to 5 targets, 8 second cooldown.


    Casted spells:

    Regrowth (level 12): Quick expensive heal with a short duration HoT. Most useful on low health targets.
    Healing Touch (level 78): Large heal with a long cast time.
    Nourish (level 8): Your cheap heal. It doesn’t cost much mana to cast, and doesn’t heal for much. More effective if there is already a HoT on the target.

    Emergency buttons:

    Swiftmend
    (level 10 with specialization): Consumes an active rejuvenation or regrowth HoT on the target and instantly heals it.
    Effloresence (fully talented at level 53): An AoE heal proc’d by Swiftmend; it heals everyone who stands in its green glow for a small amount. Most useful when group members are forced to stack on each other.
    Tranquility (level 68): Very strong channeled group heal on a long 8 minute cool down. It’s usually strong enough to heal all 5 people it targets to full health over 8 second duration.
    Nature’s Swiftness (level 29 with talents): Makes the next nature spell instant cast. Usually macroed with either Rebirth of a quick b-rez or Healing Touch for an instant-cast big heal.
    Rebirth (level 20): In combat resurrection spell. One of the druid signature spells.
    Tree of Life (level 69 with talents): Transforms you into a tree for a short time. Spells heal for 15% more, and many spells gain additional effects (see below).

    Lifebloom: Can be cast on multiple targets.
    Wild Growth: Applies the HoT to 2 additional targets.
    Regrowth: Becomes an instant cast spell.
    Entangling Roots: Is now instant cast, and damage is increased by 200%.
    Wrath: Cast time is decreased by 50% and Damage done is increased by 30%.

    Other spells of importance:

    Remove Corruption (level 24): Removes 1 poison and 1 curse from a target. When talented it also removes a harmful magic effect.
    Revive (level 12): Your out of combat resurrection spell.
    Barkskin (level 58): Reduces damage taken by you. Useful when there’s unavoidable damage, or if your tank has the reaction time of an inebriated snail.
    Innervate (level 28): Recharges a good amount of mana to the target. Often used to keep yourself from going OOM.

    Racials:

    Shadowmeld is an effective aggro drop if you are a night elf. The Worgen dash spell and Tauren AoE stun can be useful for escaping bad guys and kiting them back to the tank. The Troll racial is nice for putting out a bit of extra healing through damage spikes.

    Making full use of your natural talents, and glyphs


    ---> A reasonable build <---

    There’s a lot of wiggle-room to talent your Druid as you see fit. However the following talents should be a part of almost every restoration build: Natural Shapeshifter, Master Shapeshifter, Naturalist, Heart of the Wild, Improved Rejuvenation, Revitalize, Empowered Touch, Malfurion’s Gift, Wild Growth, Tree of Life.

    These talents are solid choices but are more optional, depending on what you want to do:

    Living Seed: If you heal a tank at all you’ll want this. May be dropped from some pure raid-healing builds.
    Efflorescence: Useful on fights where people need to stack on each other, questionable other times.
    Nature’s Bounty: 3 points here makes Regrowth a strong spell. No points here makes Regrowth almost worthless.
    Nature’s Swiftness: An added emergency button. At 85 the usefulness is reduced as a single instant-cast spell isn’t usually isn’t enough to make or break a fight.
    Nature’s Cure: In some raid groups magic dispelling is covered by others, making this talent point less useful.
    Gift of the Earthmother: This is a reasonable healing buff; but one that must be weighed against the added utility of powering up other useful abilities such as Regrowth and Efflorescence. It’s not uncommon to only see 1 or 2 points here.
    Swift Rejuvenation: We don’t spam Rejuvenation like we did in WotLK; so this has more situational usefulness. However this plus Gift of the Earthmother can give a bit more ‘bursty’ healing when needed.
    Nature’s Grace & Nature’s Majesty: 2 lackluster talents that are mainly used to access better ones in the second tier of the balance tree.
    Moonglow: Worth taking Nature’s Grace and Nature’s Majesty for in most cases. It’s a solid increase to mana efficiency.
    Furor: Feral talent that’s worth putting at least 2 points into much of the time. However once your gear gets better, and you have more mana, you may consider dropping these points for other more appealing talents.
    Genesis: A really nice healing buff, that unfortunately is stuck high up the balance tree. It’s worth putting a couple of points here if you are grabbing moonglow, and aren’t concerned about mana enough to touch furor.

    Other talents are usually passed over in PvE play, however they may have situational benefits. Perseverance and Nature’s Ward are common survivability talents in PvP and for some Herioc-level raid encounters. Fury of Stormrage is more of a PvP talent, though you could conceivably use it to gather some free clearcasting procs if you are short on mana. Blessing of the Grove shouldn’t be taken anytime you have access to Genesis, and is usually only considered in pure raid-healing builds.

    Glyphs:

    Prime: Swiftmend, Lifebloom, Rejuvenation.
    Major: Rebirth, Wild Growth and Innervate for PvE. Entangling Roots, Thorns and Barkskin all have PvP potential.
    Minor: Unburdened Rebirth and Mark of the wild both have minor benefits and are among the more common. However feel free to choose what you like for the most part. Glyph of the Treant is the closest thing to a mandatory glyph here.

    How do I make the green numbers biggerer?

    Stat Priorities: Intellect > Spirit > Spellpower (only on weapons) > Haste until a break point > Mastery > Critical = Haste

    Haste breakpoints (with +5% haste buff):

    Haste # (@85) / Haste % /Spell

    - / 0% / Lifebloom
    256 / 2% / Wildgrowth
    915 / 7.15% / Rejuvenation
    1,220 / 9.53% / Lifebloom
    1,423 / 11.05% / Regrowth
    2,004 / 15.62% / Wild Growth
    2,440 / 19.05% / Lifebloom
    3,659 / 28.58% / Lifebloom
    3,746 / 29.24% / Wild Growth
    3,964 / 30.95% / Rejuvenation

    At level 85 you’ll want to get 915 haste to grab an extra tick of Rejuvenation. After that point excess haste is a marginal stat, though raid healers will want to make a push to get 2004 for the extra Wild Growth tick once they get close. Mastery’s value depends on how much you’re healing someone with a HoT on them. It’s great for tank healing, and slightly less so for other jobs. Still it should be comfortably above your other options at this point. If you want a better answer use a spreadsheet, like this one.

    Reforging:

    1) If you can reach a break point listed on the table above, or if you are under 915 haste, reforge any other stat you can into haste.
    2) If you can reforge to spirit do so, at least until you are comfortable with your mana pool.
    3) Reforge critical, excess haste, and hit into mastery.
    4) Don’t even bother if you can’t do one of the above.

    Gemming:

    For end-game action your Meta should be the Ember Shadowspirit Diamond. All other sockets should be Brilliant Inferno Ruby unless you can pick up a socket bonus of 20 intellect or more with Purified Demonseye or Artful Ember Topaz. In most cases don’t even consider getting a socket bonus if it isn’t intellect; though for PvP you may want gem for some extra survivability. Use 2 Artful Ember Topaz to meet the Meta requirement where you can get the best socket bonuses.

    The fine art of rolling your face on the keyboard; healing at 85


    As a rule of thumb try to do as much healing as possible with your more mana efficient spells, and supplement with others as the situation dictates. In short this means you should keep a 3-stack of LB rolling on someone at all times (usually a tank). Use Swiftmend on cooldown as long as it won’t over-heal, and also consider where it will proc Efflorescence (if you have it). Use Wild Growth on cooldown if it will hit at least 3-4 people.

    Beyond that, keep the Lifebloom stacks rolling with your empowered touch spells; preferably Nourish if you won’t fall behind in your other healing responsibilities. Rejuvenation is good to keep on tanks, and can be used if Wild Growth and Efflorescence isn’t keeping up with the damage on others. Healing touch will mainly be used to tank heal, though there’s nothing wrong with using it on DPS if they need to be topped off, and aren’t in immediate danger of dying.

    When things start to head south Regrowth makes a great quick heal if you have Nature’s Bounty talented; if not it’s rather lackluster. Swiftmend is nice, if you don’t have it on cooldown already. A Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch macro can help buy you a couple of seconds as well.

    Tree of Life is good as a cooldown, or during more intense portions of an encounter. However it can be easy to exhaust your mana while in Tree form as instant-cast Regrowths are every tempting. If possible, try and get into tree form a few seconds before stuff hits the fan. This can give you a chance to get a lot of Lifeblooms rolling on different targets, resulting in plentiful OoC procs.

    If all else fails hit Tranquility and watch everyone’s health bar climb (hopefully).

    Edited, Feb 15th 2011 1:16pm by DruidSock
    #8 Dec 14 2010 at 6:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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    63 posts
      Summary


  • A brief recap.

  • Well that is the sticky, I hoped you learned something or if not at least had fun reading. I've written and siad more than enough so to recap I'll pass the baton off to Alamo, while some of his words are dated they are still wise and should be know by all druids.

    The teachings of Alamo.


  • Life as a druid.

  • Druid is in good shape for the future overall. Balance should be largely freed from the bulk of their scaling and RNG issues. Resto will adjust to not being in form all the time and using more of the toolbox. Bears will have a more dynamic rotation and have to work more for AoE aggro. Cat is in a good place with mastery powering bleeds to deadly levels.

    The direction of the caster druids is headed to a good place with the new systems in place. Feral can once again tank/dps with the same spec a la tBC or specialize for increased effectiveness.

    The versatility of the class is as strong as every. The current changes have made developing a feral set and a caster set possible, even if it involves having to respec occasionally having gear be more easily shared is a good thing. The only thing that needs help is low level tanking as too much of the tool kit comes to late in the leveling arch, still that is a minor issue.


  • Stuff on the horizon, things from the past.

  • The class has come a long way from the initial be resto or sit design. From the days of tBC where resto was strong and feral was the OT supreme and Boomkin was a sub-optimal DPS spec, to Wrath where we had ups and downs as scaling changed.

    Cata is a whole new world and so far things are looking good for the future.


    So thanks for reading our guide. Hopefully, it was helpful enough to smooth out your transition to cataclysm mechanics. As always if you have feedback post it in this thread and if you have a new question make a new one.

    Edited, Dec 14th 2010 9:10pm by DruidSock
    #9 Dec 14 2010 at 6:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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      Appendix


  • Alla Posters who contributed.

  • Horse and someproteinguy did all the work. Everyone else sat around and got drunk.


  • Web Sources.

  • Kalon's blog, Graylo's blog, elitistjerks.com, treebarkjacket.com and other random google searches.

  • Shout outs.

  • Quor, Rarebeast, Arex, AstarintheDruid, and everyone else who is part of the Bored Druid thread.


    Edited, Dec 14th 2010 8:54pm by DruidSock
    #10 Dec 14 2010 at 6:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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  • This page is intentionally left blank

  • Edited, Dec 14th 2010 8:52pm by DruidSock
    #11 Dec 14 2010 at 9:35 PM Rating: Good
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    Have the basic structure in place and some of the sections filled out, well barely any but adding in links is time consuming. Meeting up with a friend soon so done for now, will add more when I get home tonight.

    Should hopefully be finished sometime tomorrow.
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    #12 Dec 15 2010 at 5:05 AM Rating: Good
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    In my humble opinion, the sticky looks awesome, but you should put the talent specs at the top of each post, so people have easy access. Putting them in the first post would also be cool.

    Smiley: thumbsup

    Edit: Lolferal spec available at 80.

    Purpose: Easy leveling through Cataclysm.

    Reasoning for talent choices:

    Skipped most of the talents in the Resto tree, notably the Shapeshifter talents. Your crit chance doesn't drop to critical levels until around level cap, so there's no reason for the 4%. Your mana also shouldn't drop too much since your healing via Predatory Strikes is free and Leader of the Pack returns a hefty chunk of mana.

    Went with Cat enhancing talents and Bear enhancing talents, but skipped Stampede since you really kill stuff too fast as a Cat to worry about Ravage's cost after Charge. Skipped Pulverize for two reasons: 1) your crit is already high until level 83-84 and 2) Pulverize's damage is craaaaap.

    One point in Nom Nom Nom (Blood in the Water) because most stuff dies too fast below 20-25% health for a refreshed Rip to be worth much.

    Skipped Survival Instincts because you shouldn't be in a situation where 50% mitigation is needed. Use Barkskin and Frenzied Regeneration instead (reason why I didn't take the Frenzied Regen glyph). With Predatory Strikes and Nurturing Instinct, I found that my healing was good enough to keep me topped off during fights. Remember, Predatory Strikes heals are instant and free!

    Anyway, that's the build I used (am now 84) and I had zero downtime. Word of warning to Druids out there leveling through Cataclysm - this build enables you to do most group stuff solo, but elites hit harder and groups of mobs will take you down fast.

    The lack of Master Shapeshifter won't affect your damage much until level 84 or so. I found myself doing 10k DPS on bosses with this build, which was more than anyone else in the groups I've been in. Unglyphed Ferocious Bite is epic. 40k crits, go! Also, get items with Mastery stats. My Rake critically ticks for 10-15k depending on trinket procs. Which is enough to two-shot stuff.

    Edited, Dec 15th 2010 12:31pm by Mazra
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    #13 Dec 15 2010 at 6:14 AM Rating: Good
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    Will put the generic 85 specs in the basics section.

    Haven't finished the generic feral section but I was planning on having lolferal be the recommended leveling build. As for listing lolferal at 80, I don't really want to do that as it is a general feral guide meaning from 1-85 not from 80-85. Will have lolferal as a 31 points in feral and resto only having HotW only tree. Then simply say fill out x-y-z feral talents and respec at 85 or when/if you pick a definite role. Was also planning on having the lolferal level 85 spec in the generic feral part.

    My take on your other comments.

    -Pulverize actually does put out nice damage with a three stack of Lacerate. Not as good as Maul or Mangle but better than anything else.

    -Nom nom nom is a level 85 talent or dedicated cat at least, I agree with you there as until heroics and beyond it isn't very strong relatively speaking as things don't have a long enough execute phase for it to be worth the points.

    -SI is a great leveling talent, don't be silly. Over pulling happens and SI is win in those situations.

    -Mastery and agility are the lolspecs friends, as the two stats work best on hybrid gear as if you were to average out stat weights for each role they would win. Well crit is good to but mastery is OP in five mans as a tank and is the go to DPS stat.
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    #14 Dec 15 2010 at 6:35 AM Rating: Good
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    Horsemouth wrote:
    Will put the generic 85 specs in the basics section.

    Haven't finished the generic feral section but I was planning on having lolferal be the recommended leveling build. As for listing lolferal at 80, I don't really want to do that as it is a general feral guide meaning from 1-85 not from 80-85. Will have lolferal as a 31 points in feral and resto only having HotW only tree. Then simply say fill out x-y-z feral talents and respec at 85 or when/if you pick a definite role. Was also planning on having the lolferal level 85 spec in the generic feral part.


    Cool.

    Horsemouth wrote:
    -Pulverize actually does put out nice damage with a three stack of Lacerate. Not as good as Maul or Mangle but better than anything else.


    Pulverize is a level 85 Bear talent. It consumes Lacerate which creates a break in your Berserk chain. And it hits like a wet noodle. Less damage than Maul means wet noodle. You'll have 40-45% crit at level 80-82. No point in consuming your Lacerates for additional crit.

    Horsemouth wrote:
    -SI is a great leveling talent, don't be silly. Over pulling happens and SI is win in those situations.


    If you pull enough mobs to warrant SI, you're being stupid. Even with the crazy respawn rate in Cataclysm, I have not had a single case where SI saved my hide. With crit immunity and Frenzied Regen, you should not die, unless you pull 5+ mobs, in which case you're being stupid.

    Most of the time you'll be killing stuff in Cat Form, one mob at a time, which makes SI completely useless. I can kill stuff with Ravage/Pounce > Rake > Mangle > Maim

    What little single target damage you'll be taking will be easily managed with your instant and free Healing Touch, plus LotP.

    Edit: SI is vital if you intend to tank dungeons, though. But if you're planning on tanking dungeons in Cataclysm, I recommend going dual-spec Feral and getting a dedicated Bear build. You'll need every ounce of survivability in there.


    Edited, Dec 15th 2010 1:37pm by Mazra
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    #15 Dec 15 2010 at 11:00 AM Rating: Good
    What extra survivability is there? The only points you can move to "dedicate" to bear survivability are into the -6% spell dmg talent, and according to reports I've seen so far there's not a lot of spell damage being thrown around. Certainly not enough that it's economically sound in terms of healing saved for the number of talent points you have to invest.

    Edit: To be clearer, here's what a spec with every possible "survivability" talent looks like. There's still two unspent points but they can't be put into anything that increases survivability so I left them off.

    http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGf0u0zrckMch

    Now here's a spec that pretty much peaks out both bear and cat forms for the cost of just a little bit of that survival aspect.

    http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZdrGfku0zrfkMcz

    Are you really any worse off for taking this route?

    Edit2: Also I don't know what Pulverize you're using, mine hits like a truck. Smiley: dubious

    Edited, Dec 15th 2010 12:08pm by Norellicus
    #16 Dec 15 2010 at 11:57 AM Rating: Good
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    I'm not really sure what you mean, Nor. You're linking to level 85 builds.

    What I meant by dedicated Bear build was to grab SI and Pulverize at level 80 instead of the Cat talents I chose. You can't have it all at level 80. I sacrificed SI and Pulverize to get Nurturing Instinct and the extra point in Furor.

    This isn't a level 85 Lolferal build, it's a level 80 Lolferal build with emphasis on questing. You can tank stuff, have high passive survivability and can actually use your healing spells. I wouldn't recommend it to any level 85, primarily because it only has 36 talent points spent.

    Take the last build you linked to, reduce it to level 80 (or 79 as you don't get a point at level 80) and take Nurturing Instinct. I'm interested in seeing what you'd do.

    Edit: It should also be noted that I'm on a PvP server and my build might show it. Hence the Barkskin glyph and such.

    Edited, Dec 15th 2010 7:04pm by Mazra
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    #17 Dec 15 2010 at 12:11 PM Rating: Good
    My mistake then, missed the part about it being just for leveling. For a leveling build with no particular regard for a given role I'd probably skip Pulverize too, but I wouldn't take Nurturing Instinct, either. Extra oomph from healing is okay but when your first spell is already free and you can still cast 2-3 before your mana is depleted, it's not really needed I don't think.

    http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfdGfRu00bczMc

    I'd probably end up with something like that at 80 if I was just concerned with leveling speed.
    #18 Dec 15 2010 at 12:33 PM Rating: Good
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    I guess it boils down to preference. I skipped Natural Shapeshifter and went with Nurturing Instinct instead. One gives you more mana to spend on healing, the other gives your healing more power. I haven't had issues with my mana regen between fights, so I didn't get the 20% cost reduction.

    You're probably right to toss BitW completely. Haven't really used it much, even at level 84. By the time it kicks in, the target is already so low on health it doesn't matter. Both in and out of dungeons.

    Wouldn't pick Stampede, though. For one, you rarely Charge something before attacking it, second, you're often out of stealth when engaging, and third, charging a mob out of stealth causes it to face you, making Ravage impossible. If anything, put one point in it for the Ravage cost reduction. This enables you to get off a Ravage, Mangle and Rake without waiting for energy.

    The 30% haste in Bear Form is debatable, but I don't see it as worth the points. If you're in Bear Form then you're most likely fighting multiple mobs. The 12% damage reduction and rage gain on dodge seems more useful if so.

    Finally, I'd pull one point from Furor and max out Infected Wounds. Since I went with Nurturing Instinct, I really don't need more than a Healing Touch between fights. Your base mana is more than enough for that, and the few seconds it takes for the 34 energy to tick in shouldn't be a problem, since you're likely to shift and Prowl before engaging stuff. Of course, if you get jumped while out of Cat Form, maxing out Furor becomes useful, but that's what I save Tiger's Fury for. Shift to Cat, Mangle, Tiger's Fury, Rake, Mangle, Maim and watch them die to Rake ticks.

    Again, based on personal experience while leveling in Vashj'ir, Hyjal, Deepholm and parts of Uldum.
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    #19 Dec 15 2010 at 2:10 PM Rating: Good
    Huh, I forgot Ravage was behind only; that does make that pretty useless, then. And I only took charge at all just because a little mobility is nice, but not strictly necessary (you don't always want to be jumping into where a mob's natural path is anyway, other nearby monsters and such). So instead, I'd go with this.

    http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGf0u0zrckMc

    Just because Pulverize is pretty good for bear stuff and maybe it'll be useful for soloing elites or something, I dunno. It certainly gives you tools to tank. You could take Pulverize out and use Feral Charge instead if you really wanted to, I find I don't use it much even when I'm tanking though.

    Edit: And at 85 I'd use this, like before. The heavy Ravage opener even when only cost-cut by 50% has got to be pretty nice, and you're about as well-talented to tank as you can get, just taking 6% more spell damage than one who goes "full bear" (but I don't think any other tank has such a raw reduction to magic damage so in terms of raid work it shouldn't matter).

    http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZdrGfku0zrfkMcz

    Edited, Dec 15th 2010 3:18pm by Norellicus
    #20 Dec 15 2010 at 4:12 PM Rating: Good
    I found nuturing instinct invaluable leveling. Our health pools grew so fast that our tiny little heals were painful. Even with NI, my HTs were only hitting me for 10-15% of my health. Whats the point in being a hybrid class if we cant heal ourselves?

    BTW - I find a 3 stack Lifebloom the best way to heal myself - the mana cost is much less than our other spells and the heal works out to be about 20% of my health - only downside is the time it takes to bloom.



    #21 Dec 15 2010 at 4:28 PM Rating: Good
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    Friar RareBeast wrote:
    Whats the point in being a hybrid class if we cant heal ourselves?


    I find it funny that we have to spend two talent points to get mediocre heals while the Paladin's non-caster talent trees give that ability for free.

    But I guess I shouldn't complain. We can effectively switch between tanking and DPS roles in combat. I wouldn't trade the versatility we have for any amount of spell power in the game.
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    #22 Dec 15 2010 at 4:37 PM Rating: Good
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    Mazra wrote:
    This isn't a level 85 Lolferal build, it's a level 80 Lolferal build with emphasis on questing. You can tank stuff, have high passive survivability and can actually use your healing spells. I wouldn't recommend it to any level 85, primarily because it only has 36 talent points spent.


    This isn't a 80-85 guide it is a 1-85 guide so no special treatment for 80-85. I'm assuming most people who were 80 when Cata dropped are most of the way to 85 by now or all ready know what to do.
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    #23 Dec 15 2010 at 4:38 PM Rating: Good
    Speaking of which - I have hero tanked perhaps half a dozen heroic fights successfully after the tank went down. This makes me so happy! It used to happen through vanilla & BC but in LK, every time I went bear in an emergency I got one or two-shot. The extra stam and things not hitting quite so hard makes a big difference.


    Makes me feel like a real feral again, not just a funny looking rogue!

    #24 Dec 15 2010 at 5:02 PM Rating: Good
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    Horsemouth wrote:
    Mazra wrote:
    This isn't a level 85 Lolferal build, it's a level 80 Lolferal build with emphasis on questing. You can tank stuff, have high passive survivability and can actually use your healing spells. I wouldn't recommend it to any level 85, primarily because it only has 36 talent points spent.


    This isn't a 80-85 guide it is a 1-85 guide so no special treatment for 80-85. I'm assuming most people who were 80 when Cata dropped are most of the way to 85 by now or all ready know what to do.


    It's not special treatment, just a 'Hey, you're now leaving Northrend, here's an efficient build for Cataclysm questing/dungeoning.' And I added it now so that people who're looking for one (I was), could find one before the sticky is completed and everyone is level 85 anyway.
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    #25 Dec 15 2010 at 7:31 PM Rating: Excellent
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    Stampede in practice also removes the positional requirement for Ravage. I'm not sure if that's WAI or not, but it makes for one hell of an opener. Charge > Ravage (+50% crit) > Mangle > Rake > (if less than 5 CP, Mangle) > FB. Through Deepholm, that killed any solo mob, or at least put one massive dent in their HP.
    #26 Dec 15 2010 at 7:36 PM Rating: Good
    Furor really isn't that necessary for Boomkins. If people want to take it, it's not that big of a deal I think, but there are more useful talents. Solar Beam is actually really freaking awesome for PvE, provided you let your tanks know to keep spellcaster mobs in the beam. ;-) 10 (or 15 if you glyph) second AoE silence? Yes please. Mana pools really aren't an issue for us unless we're AoEing a lot, and in those cases I think Innervate talents are more useful.

    I'd suggest subbing 2 points in Blessing of the Grove and Solar Beam for Furor. 6% more direct damage for Moonfire and an AoE silence are much more useful than an extra 15% mana, imho. :-) Overall, I think that Boomkins will want to go for 8 points in Resto: Heart of the Wild, Natural Shapeshifter, Master Shapeshifter, and Blessing of the Grove. Balance points are pretty straightforward for the most part, but we have about four talent points to spend for extra goodies. Solar Beam is really useful, but not necessary, same with Fungal Growth I think (this is probably more situational though). Gale Winds is useful for when you do AoE, and Dreamstate is useful if you're having mana issues. Really the only Balance talent that isn't useful at 85 is Owlkin Frenzy, because duh, you shouldn't be getting hit by mobs. Other than that, and the talents I mentioned above, you're going to want to take everything.
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