The Horde Leveling Guide» Druids

Druid Changes in Patch 3.2

Jon — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:59:40 +0000

Druid players rejoice, new cat and bear form artwork is coming! (as if you haven’t heard yet)

But there’s also a bunch of other interesting changes to the class you need to know about.

First up, here’s few screens of the new artwork taken from the official Blizzard dev page.

Each different color you see on these screens is determined by your skin color for Taurens, and your hair color for Night elves. You can visit a barber shop for a small fee to change this, and change it often I’m sure all you druids out there will be!

Here’s the hard & fast from Blizzard on changes coming in 3.2.

From a leveling perspective Druids will be happy to learn their travel skills a little earlier (especially the rather cool flight form at 60 which now gives 150% travel speed).

Flight Form: Can now be learned at level 60. Flight speed increased to 150%.

Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. This means each use of Innervate will give half as much mana as before, but it will be available twice as often.

Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient.

Mangle: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.

Rake: Ranks 6 and 7 base points on initial and periodic damage reduced by about 7%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.

Rip: Ranks 8 and 9 base points and points per combo point reduced by about 6%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.

Savage Defense: The animation for gaining this buff will no longer make the bear stand upright

Shred: Ranks 8 and 9 base points reduced by about 10%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.

Swipe (Cat): Percent of weapon damage done reduced from 260% to 250%.

Travel Form: Can now be learned at level 16.

Talents:

Balance

Balance of Power: Now reduces all spell damage taken by 3/6%, rather than reducing the chance to be hit by spells by 2/4%.

Eclipse: The Starfire and Wrath buffs from this talent are now on separate 30-second cooldowns. In addition, it is not possible to have both buffs active simultaneously.

Owlkin Frenzy: Now also restores 2% base mana every 2 seconds for the duration (10 seconds) in addition to its current effects.

Restoration

Empowered Touch: Now also increases the amount of bonus healing effects for Nourish by 10/20%.

Improved Barkskin: No longer provides dispel resistance to all effects on the druid, but now reduces the chance your Barkskin is dispelled by an additional 35/70%.

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WoW Druid Guide: An In-Depth Exploration Into Nature

Jon — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:19:35 +0000

Tauren Druids

Welcome to the Where to, When to, and How to Guide on Being A Druid in WoW!

Welcome to the life of a druid, where nature, quite literally, is your ally.

Druids are only offered in two races in WoW, Tauren of the Horde, and Night Elves of the Alliance, but since this IS the “Horde Leveling Guide”, I’m going to leave you Night Elves at this point and talk to my fellow Horde, so go away now, shoo!

This is strictly Horde business!

This post is an introductory overview, I’ll shortly be doing an in depth talent build for each tree, so you’ll have all the druid info you need at your finger tips.

So if you need a druid feral spec, it’ll be covered. If you need a balance build for raiding, we’ll cover it. Stop in again soon to find out more!

An Introduction To The Druid Class

Horde friends!! Welcome. Nature truly is your ally… I say this due to the characteristics of druids – our damage spells are either Arcane of Nature, our Healing spells are ALL nature, and any physical damage is (or should be) done while in a form taken from nature, be it Bear, Dire-Bear, or Cat form.

What’s the difference between Bear and Dire-Bear?

I hear that a lot, and I’ve even asked it myself once. Dire-Bear form is different from Bear form in the way that Plate is different from Mail, that is, the armor value is higher.

The important thing to remember is that bear form gives a 180% armor contribution from items while Dire-Bear gives a 370% contribution, so consider it the equivalent of a different class learning to wear a new armor type.

Keep in mind that druids do not learn a higher armor than leather. We start with it, and we end with it. Our “armor upgrade” is Bear Form, which is learned at lvl 10 and is replaced by Dire-Bear form at lvl 40 (which is the same as when a different class learns to upgrade their armor type).

In Short, Bear form is a Tanking form, but we’ll get back to that later.

Cat form is acquired at lvl 20, and its not too difficult to tell that it is the Melee DPS (Damage Per Second) form for druids.

Upon taking cat form, a druids melee attack power (AP) is increased by 40+ your agility rating, that is, if you had zero agility it would give you +40 AP, and if you had 60 agility, it would give you +100 AP.

Both Bear form and Cat form are learned in the natural progression of a druid’s leveling. The forms themselves do not require a talent specialization, but to be effective in either form will require that talent points be spent appropriately in the Feral Talent Tree. With each form comes various beast abilities, Claw, Maul, Swipe, Growl etc, these skills are not available in non-Feral forms, and casting non-feral spells while in feral form will force you back to humanoid form.

Travel Forms:

At lvl 30, you are able to learn Travel Form, in this form your appearance is that of a cheetah, and your movement speed is increased by 40%. Note that regular riding mounts have a 60% speed increase, so if you’re looking to level and travel fast, a little investment in an actual mount can go along way.

Flight form (60% Speed Increase) is available at lvl 68, and has an upgrade at lvl 71 to Swift Flight form (280% Speed Increase), you are required however to train your riding skill to 300 for Swift Flight form.

Note: Your land based Travel form does not have an upgrade like Flight form, so if you revisit the Classic World, and do not have a land mount, you will be limited to a 40% speed increase.

Talent Based forms:

The only two forms not covered thus far are the Moonkin and Tree of Life forms. To be a Moonkin (commonly referred to as “Boomkin” for it’s DPS spell abilities) you need to learn the 51 point talent in the Balance Talent tree. Likewise to be a Tree of life you are required to learn the 51 point talent in the Resto (Restoration) Talent tree. A player cannot be both without doing a respec or, now with Dual-Speccing, activating a second spec which has the appropriate talents.

– Jimster from Eitrigg

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Druid Leveling Guide: Races, Forms and Balance

Jon — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 08:59:32 +0000

Various Druid Forms

Anyone, and I mean anyone who hasn’t had the chance to play with a Druid should stop reading this and go start a new character.

Druids in my opinion are the most entertaining and complex class of them all. I must admit, it was the Blizzard movie that shows the girl running through the forest and changing into a panther that got me interested.

Even the first few levels of play you will notice the difference in this class and get a feeling for what’s to come. Even though the opportunity to change into several different animals is intriguing, it’s the mass array of having nature at your disposal that makes your Druid one to be reckoned with in the World of Warcraft.

However, you might need a little help along the way so I’m going to throw out some suggestions for you today.

Druid Races and Animal Forms

You will only find 2 races that offer the Druid class. The Night Elf is the only race on the Alliance side and the Tauren for the Horde. Even though you are limited to these two options, the animal transforming definitely makes up for it. You will be able to transform into either a bear or cat, but throughout the game you will gain other transformations as well.

Once you reach level 40, the bear will be replaced by dire bear form. Even though this will be a bummer for some, I think you’ll be happy with the dire bear, not to mention the quest chain that gives you an awesome epic flying form. You can change into your flight form once you reach level 68, and then the epic flight form at level 71 (coming down to 60 and 70 in patch 3.2).

Building Your Druid

Okay, let’s get to the good stuff and help you get a nice build for your Toon.

You will be able to choose between the Balance, Feral Combat, and Restoration trees. While each of them have their own benefits, it’s the Balance talent build that I enjoyed using for leveling. So stick 61 points in this tree and leave out the areas I give you below to maintain the fastest leveling rate.

Genesis (0/5)
Improved Insect Swarm (0/3)
Balance of Power (0/2)
Improved Faerie Fire (0/3)

Hopefully you noticed the 3/3 in Moonglow. This is one of the more “boring” looking talents in the tree, but its essential for mana efficiency and keeping your leveling times up.

Click for WoW Head build

The Moonglow talent also has the benefit of opening up a great set of talents, such as Starfall, Force of Nature, Moonkin Form (owl beast), and one of my other favorites; the Typhoon.

Each of them will be used religiously once you get up to the higher levels (50-80).

This being said, you still have 10 points to play with and I want to help you place them in the appropriate areas.

Improved Mark of the Wild (2/2)
Nature’s Focus (3/3)
Furor (5/5)

These can all be found in the Restoration tree and add some solid usable buffs to your balance druid.

My favorite of these is Furor, and with 5 points here you increase your total intellect in Moonkin form by 10%, great for mana, and great for extra crits.

So start out with this Druid leveling build for now, adding talent points as you go in what ever order you like (though level the resto talents till your 62nd point… and maybe down the line you can respec to learn some new traits that aren’t quite are useful, but not not in a leveling sense.