Druids Gone Wild

[Cheddar]

I gave up and rolled a druid.  Any tricks/tips for a former rogue?  Gimme tips!

[MrHat]

I gave up and rolled a druid.  Any tricks/tips for a former rogue?  Gimme tips!

Crazyman.

[Soukyan]

I gave up and rolled a druid.  Any tricks/tips for a former rogue?  Gimme tips!

Go back to the rogue?

I hear druids are fun, but the pace of leveling on mine felt tedious.

[AcidCat]

Well back in the day my first character was a Druid. I leveled as Resto .. which seems weird now but it got the job done, though slowly. When BC came out I finally respecced to the revamped Feral tree and just chewed through mobs like crazy. I'm not sure how 1-60 is with feral, but I can say that once you get 60+ you just have insane survivability and efficiency. Kitty rips through enemies like butter. You will laugh at adds as you simply switch to bear form. And you basically have a whole mana bar nicely tucked away for when you do need to bust out a heal. It's also nice at endgame in that a respec changes the whole way you play - you can be a main healer for a while, be a tank/damage dealer for a while, or be a nuking Moonkin for a while - it's a great amount of variety to have in one character.

[stu]

I gave up and rolled a druid.  Any tricks/tips for a former rogue?  Gimme tips!

For shame!

[hal]

Here's a concept. You do not get weapon skill ups in feral form. Your weapon is just a stats slot. The road to 20 is not the easiest. Kind of like leveling a pally, you are way to defence oriented but after 20 cat (rogue) form and stealth its a lot of fun to play. I was kind of proud the other night on our pre instance jaunt. I stealth ed up in cat with you. You attacked as I switched to bear and taunted. The mob turned to me and of course you got off some back attacks. The mob turned back to you I dropped to caster and put 2 heal over time on you then drooped to cat and shredded. That's pretty much what a 20 druid can do I just managed to do it at pretty much the right time.

I will say this though. Just turn to thotbot for the lvl 10, 14 and 16 quests. They are pretty much a royal pain in the ass at those levels.

[MrHat]

Ya, druid is a bit slow until kitty form.

Then you get speedy 30% talent and all is good.

[Fordel]

Balance works just fine to level up these days. Just get used to carrying 200 units of water every where you go for the first 40-50 levels. Don't even need proper gear, just 'of the eagle' junk will carry you all the way to TBC. Starfire, wrath wrath wrath wrath next mob. Can root kite most elites, DoT kite the rest and your amusingly lethal in the lowbie BGs.


As the others said, feral will be painfully slow until 20 and cat. Then you turn into a rogue lite that can heal itself in between pulls. Very fast, very efficient, can be very fun. You'll also be very useful to groups. Tanks are always in short supply and your built around doing double duty as need be. Once you get mangle (which you should get ASAP, all points into feral till you get it) you'll wonder how you ever played without it. It really is *that* good for ferals.


I don't recommend leveling up as resto, at least not without a partner to do all your killing for you. Rogues make great partners for this, the amount of cheese a druid+rogue can accomplish is mind boggling. The big downside to resto, outside of being slow to solo, is you won't have a proper rez for dungeons. So either don't let anyone die more then once every 20 mins, or have another proper rezzer in the group. The single greatest thing about resto, is the Tree of Life form at the end of the tree. The actual bonuses are debatable, but the /dance is pure win!

[Righ]

As the others said, feral will be painfully slow until 20 and cat. Then you turn into a rogue lite that can heal itself in between pulls. Very fast, very efficient, can be very fun. You'll also be very useful to groups. Tanks are always in short supply and your built around doing double duty as need be. Once you get mangle (which you should get ASAP, all points into feral till you get it) you'll wonder how you ever played without it. It really is *that* good for ferals.

No, druid is painfully slow until 10. Once you get bear form its usually faster to hit 20 with that than it is to nuke while putting points into balance's first two tiers, not least because for most people in this guild they don't have a bunch of level 5-20 greens sitting in their mailbox from their 'mains'. :)

It's slow from 10-20 compared to a hunter or rogue - after you get cat form its about as fast killing as you'll get with any class in any spec, and much less gear dependent.

[Fraeg]

as others have noted it is meh til you get kitty.

once you get kitty,  spec and play is a  no brainer for a former rogue.  Leveling feral with the support of your 70 former main for $$ etc.  = 

in pvp one thing that really stands out are feral druids who don't have prior experience playing a rogue. If you are coming from a rogue background, while straffing is annoying (there are ways around this but I don't believe they are "legal", the pvp in kitty should be very intuitive.

[Dren]

I started my druid a long long time ago and kept giving up.  Gradually, as I got higher up in levels the fun factor started kicking in.  That factor is exponential with druids.  Yes, it gets better with the kitty, but it still felt like I was a gimped rogue. (Feral.)

As you go up, however, you just get more and more uber to the point where you wonder if anybody else knows about this "Druid" class.  I'm at 65 now and am amazed at how easy it is to just dominate PvE quests.  DPS or Tank in a flash of an eye, plus healing for nearly zero downtime between fights.

I seriously have to actually drink or eat maybe once out of 20 fights?  That's when I'm being really agressive too.  If I'm going a casual pace, I never have to stop.

The only class I do not play is a hunter.  I can say that all the other classes just didn't have this amount of power and flexibility when doing normal PvE questing.  Not even close.  I even tanked for a group in Ramparts at 63 and was told afterward that I hardly had to be healed.

The druid is one of the last classes I tried after already having several maxed chars.  If I had stuck with druid and started earlier, I'm positive it would be my main.

[Xanthippe]

I feel almost the same way about my druid.  It's very fun.  I have a hunter, warlock and a 66 priest.  The hunter and lock are fun.  The druid is fun.  Priest is not so much.

[AcidCat]

Priest is not so much.

I stalled out on my Priest at level 64. I left him, broken and alone, in Zangarmarsh and never looked back.

[Nebu]

I think Zangarmarsh is the breaking point for a lot of people.  There's a lot to do in Hellfire and the jump to Outlands means that you're getting gear upgrades and a solid cashflow.  By the time you get to the marsh, the 60-70 grind really smacks you in the face.  If you're hitting the wall on a class you're not enjoying, it's game over.

[MrHat]

Priest is not so much.

I stalled out on my Priest at level 64. I left him, broken and alone, in Zangarmarsh and never looked back.

Trade accounts? :0D

[Dren]

I did get my priest to lvl 70, but I agree it wasn't the most fun.  I lvl'ed as shadow which is way way easier than holy.  However, without any AE capabilities, you are forced to basically take out single targets.  That was extremely easy, but was the same set of actions everytime.  And if you ever got more than 2 mobs on you, it was lights out.

The amount of time sitting and drinking was pretty bad (not as bad as the mage I'm lvl'ing now though...holy crap.)  Now, being in a group for an instance as shadow is a whole lot of fun, but it is such a small role and portion of the time to 70, it isn't enough to save it.

I'm holy now to support our alt runs in Karazhan.  Yeah, it is a sacrifice for the guild.