Feral Druid Leveling Guide (Level 1-60)

Druid is a very efficient leveler with very low levels of downtime due to its ability to deal damage with energy and rage in Cat Form and Bear Form respectively while simultaneously regenerating mana that keeps you healthy via powerful HoTs like Regrowth and Rejuvenation.

In Forever Balance received large buffs and is now a theoretically viable option for leveling (and will be better at healing dungeons while leveling) however given that we cant test 30-60 exhaustively before launch I would recommend opting for the known quantity in Feral.

Druid being a hybrid melee/healer with a mana bar gains solid value from almost every stat in the game and as such you cant go too wrong simply equipping the highest ilvl piece you can equip without paying too much attention to your stat budget however there is a decent amount of value to be gained from avoiding certain stats.

Weapon DPS > Agility = Stamina = Spirit > Strength = Spellpower = Armor

1. Agility
   1. This is our best all around stat. It gives 1 attack power in Cat Form and while it doesn't provide attack power in Bear Form it does still provide a dual defensive benefit in armor (which scales very well with Bear Form) and dodge which interacts well with our talents as well as a powerful offensive benefit in melee crit chance, which also interacts very well with our talents.
2. Stamina
   1. Stamina is very powerful for Druid for both Cat Form and Bear Form for a number of reasons. Firstly it can at breakpoints allow us to kill more mobs before we have to shift out of form to heal/drink/etc. which effectively reduces our downtime and our regen by allowing us to be in 5SR regen more of the time. It also allows us to more safely pull more mobs to leverage Thorns damage, rage generation, Swipe aoe etc. Lastly its great if youre on a PvP server to prevent deaths to ganking and to dissuade potential gankers by keeping your hp bar more relatively full all other things equal.
3. Spirit
   1. This stat is very strong but not infinitely stackable. You want enough spirit to regenerate the mana you spend each kill cycle on Healing Touch Rejuvenation Regrowth and shifting back into form. The harder mobs are to kill and the more damage they do the more spirit you need. As mobs scale hp and damage faster than the player as you level spirit will become much more important level 30-40+ where 1-30 you shouldnt need to wear much spirit gear to maintain your mana.
4. Spellpower
   1. This used to be much more powerful however Thorns had its spellpower coefficient nerfed which dramatically diminished the value of this stat. That said its still a decent offensive benefit and also increases our healing.
5. Mp5
   1. You wont see much of this on gear but its strong if you can get it on something well itemized
6. Strength
   1. While you might think this stat should be strong all it gives us is 2 attack power and attack power just doesn't scale as well early offensively as Agility in my opinion and lacks the defensive benefits and talent synergy of Agility. That said its still a decent pure offensive stat especially later game when your gear starts to get better.
7. Armor
   1. Armor shouldnt be underestimated and you should try your best to wear Leather with high amror when possible however it can be correct to wear cloth if it has much better stats. This is ESPECIALLY true if you level primarily in Bear Form and even more so once you get Dire Bear Form which has an almost 400% multiplier to armor from gear.

There is not a lot of choice here to be honest and the choices aren;t super impactful endgame but I would recommend the following races for each type of content.

Alliance

• Leveling
  • Night Elf
  • I think the movement speed bonus and wisp form are probably more impactful while leveling than Read Leyline post nerfs for leveling however it should be quite close. Elune's Light is also a nice cd and interacts well with our talents.
• DPS Endgame
  • Night Elf
  • I think Elune's Light will outperform the haste bonus from Skyborn for Cat and Boomkin however Balance may get more value from Read Leyline if fights are long and mana is limited and the difference here should be quite small on fights of any length.
• Healing Endgame
  • Skyborn = Night Elf
  • With the Read Leyline nerfs Night Elf and Skyborn are almost identical wrt overall hps. Skyborn passive haste isnt very valuable for Resto Druid and Elune's Light is a nice on use but Druid already has great burst healing so it doesn't need it as much as other healers might.
• Tanking Endgame
  • Night Elf
  • Where the haste buff from Skyborn will increase rage generation I think that Elune's Light during Berserk is too juicy to pass up and the dodge is also nice.

Horde

• Leveling
  • Skyborn = Tauren
  • While Plainsrunning is very powerful we have Feral Swiftness and Travel Form but it may still be enough of a travel time reduction to outcompete skyborn wrt leveling speed.
  • Skysight is a nice movespeed increase while leveling and the 2% haste is quite strong for damage.
  • 5% health and War Stomp are great for preventing deaths and it doesnt take many to dramatically increase leveling speed.
• DPS Endgame
  • Skyborn
• Healing Endgame
  • Skyborn
• Tanking Endgame
  • Skyborn = Tauren
  • Skyborn is damage and uptime with movespeed and haste, Tauren is tankiness and utility with 5% hp and War Stomp

We don't benefit as much as some of the other specs from the low level consumables like the leveling Alchemy elixirs and potions, Minor Wizard Oil (although this is nice to pick up if you can buy it cheaply for 1-10 and later for healing and thorns).

The most impactful consumables we can spend our hard earned gold on BY FAR are health and mana potions. Preventing death is the largest leveling speed increase and these are the most effective consumables at accomplishing that. It is definitely worth checking limited supply potion vendors whenever possible and checking the AH for cheap potions whenever you return to a major city. Its even worth carrying much lower level potions if they're all you can afford as often +100-200 hp or mana can mean the difference between life and death even at high level.

I would also buy 6 slot bags ASAP from the vendor and try to trade your linen for 8 slots if possible. You will get enough 8 and 10+ slots from quest rewards that you won't have to worry about buying higher bags if you have good bag management and sell your greys every time you can.

The highest ROI consumable in my opinion is Light Armor Kit (and potentially higher versions if the price is right.) These are used to level Leatherworking and should be basically free on the Auction House by day 2. It is very much worth buying these when you're checking for health/mana pots on the AH for the free +4 stamina and 32 armor even at high levels. Much quicker than getting enchants and extremely cheap.

Professions got a major facelift in Forever especially during leveling and give us access to strong perks early with Campfire Buffs, various consumables and item enhancements, as well as powerful green and blue gear that is much more accessible than it was in Classic. Taking a break from quests/dungeons to gather and level your crafting profession is much more viable than it was in Classic and because every profession has access to tons of new powerful items you cant go too far wrong picking whatever gathering/crafting professions speak to you.

That said, if you want to level both your character and your professions as quickly and efficiently as possible I would still recommend prioritizing getting to level 60 over spending time keeping your crafting professions current along the way. Time spent farming at 60 will be much more efficient than farming at lower levels and you can easily translate the value of that max level farming into the materials necessary to level your professions.

For Druid you cant go wrong with Leatherworking and its campfire buff (5% rested experience per hour) is probably the best overall for leveling spec and Skinning is a fast gathering profession to level and great for gold making although its campfire buff will be useless for us post Leader of the Pack.

Cooking also got a major buff in Forever. All buff food including the recipes you learn at cooking level 1 will give you +5% experience from kills in addition to their other benefits. I would recommend training Cooking on all new characters and using the level 1 recipe you learn from the trainer to cook any usable meat you drop as you level. This way you don't need to level cooking skill or learn any new recipes to keep pretty high uptime on the 5% experience buff which is the main benefit.

When To Train

1-10 you want to train any time you get a new rank of Wrath or Moonfire. Post bear form and cat form you dont have to train super frequently to remain optimal but Teleport: Moonglade makes it pretty trivial to train whenever you need to especially if you're alliance and are leveling near Darnassus.

Post 10 the most important things to train are Rejuvenation Regrowth and your damaging Cat Form and Bear Form abilities namely Claw Rake Maul Swipe Primal Bite Rip etc.

An addon like Whats Training (there are a million of them) can be useful to quickly check when you ding what is available and if its worth porting to Moonglade. Using your Hearthstone to quickly get back into the action after training if you're not leveling near Moonglade can be quite usefl and let us train more regularly than others at a lower time cost.

If you're leveling Feral you can safely skip training things like Wrath StarfireCower higher rank Hibernate, Hurricane (although this may be decent to spend OOC procs on in large aoe in dungeons). You can also skip Moonfire if you're really hurting for gold and use rank 1 to pull mobs at range but i like to have a max rank for when i have mana to dump pre pull.

Don't skip Remove Curse, there are some nasty ones in Forever.

Which Class Quests Should You Do

You absolutely must do Bear Form at 10 and Cat Form quest when available but you dont necessarily need to do any of the other. The Poison dispel quest isnt fine but DO NOT get baited into doing the Aquatic Form quest unless it fits perfectly into your route or you really want to be a manatee for some reason.

Movement

Its very important to try your best to optimize your movement while leveling as time spent running between POIs and mobs is a HUGE percentage of our time spent.

Try to drag mobs as you're killing them towards the next POI or kill target. Strafing or jumping backwards can let you keep meleeing and not get dazed while moving full speed.

If youre full hp/mana while youre running a long distance pull a nearby mob with Moonfire and kill it while moving for free experience.

Any time your melee swing timer isn't on cd and your hp/mana are full you're wasting value.

Utilize Feral Charge to gap close with your next kill target on CD unless you need Bear Charge to interrupt a spellcast.

Always shift into Cat Form or Travel Form if your mana is full and you have to run a short distance with no kill targets nearby or if you have to run a long distance. If you can kill mobs along the way and are good at strafing/backwards jumping it may be faster to kill while moving in Cat Form than to run past mobs in Travel Form however with Forever focusing more on questing than grinding this might not be true.

Dash is faster than Travel Form use it on cd while legging it.

Remember to press Cat Form or sky elf racial if you accidentally fall from a great height or miss an elevator for reduced fall damage.

Track Humanoids can be useful sometimes dont forget you have it.