Now, I’ve gone over my ancient posts a bit, and one of the things I’ve never quite done is write about starting a brand spanking new Druid with the intention of playing Feral right from the get go.
Why talk about it now, when the game is ancient and people have multiple 80s bored out of their gourds?
I’ll tell you why. Because anytime is a good time for alts.
I personally go in spurts of alt activity. I’ll play my main, or at least my max level toons, pretty exclusively for a while, depending on my health or activity level. You know… when I’ve actually got a block of time I can sit down and commit to a raid, or some heroics, or any other group activities.
But when the health of myself or my family gets rocky, when things get busy, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for me to be able to pop up out of my computer chair any second and I can’t be a reliable member of a group run… it’s time to break out the alts.
Cassie and I are in fact playing a couple alts together, I’ve mentioned my secret Rogue all twinked out in BoA Heirloom items before, and we’re having fun doing the uber alts thing when we can’t be on for long, or need to be able to pop away from the desk any moment.
Playing alts together and looking up leveling specs for Rogues and such has reminded me about the whole New Druid thingie I always intended to write.
Whoops! Better late than never.
Back in the day when I wrote for WoW Insider, I started a series on how to level a feral Druid.
I started with a basic primer on preparing to start a new Druid, and then kicked into gear with playing a Druid through levels 1-5, and another on Druiding through levels 6-10.
I always meant to follow those up… and now, rereading them, I am struck by how much has stayed the same, and how much has changed.
The basics of the 5 second rule, using caster abilities, Entangling Roots… but these days we have the potential of Heirloom items from our level 80 toons, Glyphs, Forms that are trained instead of gained from quests, and changed armor values from our Bear form and moved around talents all over the place.
Well, I’m going to pick up where I left off, and get a level 11 to 20 guide done here this week. It won’t be in quite as much detail… by now, you know full well the basic mechanics of many aspects of playing. Instead, I’ll discuss gearing up, Glyphs for leveling, Talent points and combat tactics for solo and early group play.
I hope you enjoy it, I think it will be mighty fun.
Why do I feel that early Druids can use this kind of thing?
Same reason I gave in my intro post. The playstyle.
Your new feral Druid has a playstyle all it’s own. It may seem quite complicated at first, what with having three forms each with their own special moves at level 20, but what you’ll find as you get used to it, is that what you have is a wide range of tactical choices at your disposal.
Let’s take for the purposes of comparison, the level 10-19 Retribution Paladin. With a mighty two handed weapon, the Paladin can buff himself with Might and a Seal.. and then when approaching the enemy, can auto attack, cast Judgment every 8 seconds… and cast a heal on himself periodically. That’s about it. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it is a playstyle that isn’t open to much variation. There aren’t many tactical choices, except when to bubble or throw your Hammer of Mighty Stunning +3.
In contrast, a level 10-19 Druid has a veritable cornucopia of weapons in our arsenal of dirty tricks.
We can choose to start out a fight in caster form, call the ball with a long cast time Wrath attack, follow up with an Entangling Roots to pin the opponent down, hit Moonfire to get a damage over time started, throw in another Wrath just for kicks, and then when the opponent breaks free of Entangling Roots, cast a Rejuvenation on yourself for some trickle down healing and switch to Bear for the mop-up in melee range.
But wait! You don’t have to start out in caster, or use any of those abilities. You can choose to start out the fight by popping into Bear form, hitting Enrage a few seconds before the pull to get your Rage building, auto-attack a few to build more Rage, then unload with Maul (and Swipe when facing multiple opponents). You can start your pulls with Growl until you get Feral Faerie Fire, and you can always do swift shifting to throw down a few HoTs on yourself before shifting back.
The added complexity of our class, even at such early levels, is what drew many of us to the Druid in the first place.
For those folks used to a kinder, simpler class when starting out, it can be a bit… confusing.
Daunting might be a better term.
I know many of you are intimidated by my Bear butt.
It’s okay, you can admit it. We’re all friends here.
But just think, if you eat like me, pretty soon you’ll have a real big bear butt too!
Okay, this post took a turn to the silly side somewhere. Make it stop!
Anyway, join me later in the week and we’ll have ourselves dome good old fashioned fun.
So i recently moved server and went from being a feral bear to a feral bear. In over a week i went from 1 to level 35. I’m not sure what it is but those starting levels seam a lot harder than i remember them, or maybe it’s just like all bad things, you choose to forget them.
For me going from level 1 to 10 went so fast that I can hardly remember it. all i know is that the levels went to fast and before i knew it I was in Auberdine and it honestly felt like i was there way to soon, pre-mature in a way. I should have held back and stayed in the starting zone a little longer but there wasn’t much for me to do. So i went over to the human starting zone and did all the quests there. Elynn Forest was a lot of fun and because I was leveling herbalism the extra time in the starting zone allowed me to level up herbalism quite fast and obtain lifeblood. In those tight situations it’s such a lifesaver, especially when you are used to a level 80 bear that has Frenzied regeneration. In those early levels from 10 to 20 glyphs didn’t really help me out, it wasn’t until i was able to get Glyph of Aquatic Form that i noticed how handy they can be.
Now if i hadn’t been changing server and had heirloom items to help me out i don’t think those initial levels would have been such an issue.
I’m looking forward to this guide as its still very fresh in my mind so I’ll be able to make some nice comparisons.
good luck
Faydre
I’m definitely looking forward to reading what you have to write…
My last two Druids have been Feral but I’m seriously thinking about leveling Moondancer as Resto. She’s an alt and level 12 atm. :-)
Excellent BBB,
My Druude is sitting at level 40 at present so I can’t wait for you to catch up. :-)
Cheers
Kol
Yay for you! It couldn’t have come better. I’ve got a level 10 druid who wants my help to grow up to a Big and Strong Bear (or possibly tree, but that will come later then). But I’m pretty clueless about what to do, all I know is magery and a bit of rogery. So a few hints about what stats to look for, which spells to use and how to put the talent points would be a really great help!
yay, i even decided to take another walk on the wild side, and the dark side at that. rolled a new druid on another server, made him a tauren.. badmoorising will be feral all the way. And a LW/Skinner for cheap gear and more crit.
I’m leveling boomkin atm, i’m 38. It’s pretty tough going, and if weren’t for my paly friend i would have gone feral. Taking down more than two mobs is tough, and anything a few levels above me cleans my clock. My thinking is go feral for the first 40 levels, you can handle those mobs and run away if needed. When 40 hits, pay the 1000g and get a dual spec to go resto when needed to play with friends. Having played a druid to 80, and now this druid, feral just seems so much better in solo questing. Thoughts welcome.
Wow, I had completely failed to notice the byline when I read those leveling guides, but rereading them the style becomes obvious. Thank you for them! I relied on them while starting my own alt-Druid and it was extremely helpful. The whole wrath-vs.-moonfire breakdown was extremely helpful and the sort of thing that, as a new player, I would have probably missed had you not spelled it out. I managed to stumble through levels 11-25 on my lonesome (and, like you, really enjoy being able to change up playstyles between caster and feral forms) but I’m very much looking forward to your next chapter just so I can see what else I’ve missed.
Hm. Since I obviously didn’t proofread my comment, I’ll just say “extremely helpful” again to give the other two uses some company.
When you say “feral” do you mean “bear”? Or are you going to touch on cat form druids, too? Which, I know . . . there’s a lot of similarity between the two, simply by virtue of picking talents off the same tree . . . but referring to both interchangeably as “feral” kinda’ glosses over those differences.
Well, there’s not much to talk about, cat wise, in an 11 – 20 guide, what with not getting the form until the last level. And for me, at least, cat form feels like it doesn’t add much damage and does add a lot of vulnerability when you first get it. Heck, my 70-BC era druid leveled (solo) to the mid-40s as a bear because cat made such a bad impression early on. My current (mid 20s) druid is getting a lot more mileage out of the cat; not sure if it’s changed mechanics or just me that’s different.
My first character was a Druid. Started out as a Balance to improve spells, then added in some Feral once I got cat form . . . then went pure Feral once I figured out how awesome bleeds are.
You’re right, there’s nothing to say about cat until level 20. There must be something that changed since you levelled that druid of yours, though. Cat deals a ton more damage and is not at all fragile. I mean, you do have to build for it, gear for it. But if you do, it’s an awesome dps class. Great for soloing. Valuable to groups. Fun PvP.
Totally different playstyle than bear. Some stats are valued differently. A few talents selected differently. “Feral” Druid can mean two very distinct things. I always have to specify that when people ask my spec. I’m not “feral”, I’m “cat”.
Jack, as mentioned, in levels 10 through 19, I’m going to talk about optimizing Bear, but at 20 through 30 I’m going to break it down on respeccing depending on what different playstyles you might want to play with as you climb.
I am focusing on Feral, the Cat and the Bear, but I’m going to talk about what the Druid is really all about… mixing up our playstyles tactically as you go, how you really play, and that means how to incorporate the other techniques into your repertoir. The focus in my blog is always about feral… but you can’t be a DRUID without embracing versatility.
Well, you can, but why bother? If all you want is a leather wearing DPS, might as well roll a Rogue and go nuts. If you’re gonna be a feral Druid, there’s more to life than being good at clawing face.
I have played nearly every class in the game up to level 30+ just to get a beginner’s feel for what each class is about. I don’t know why I saved Druid for last. Perhaps it sounded more confusing than most. However, I now have my big bear butt up to 24 and am truly enjoying the versatility that this class offers, at least for now. I think that in my playing around with the other classes showed me how boring they can be at times.
I’m looking forward to more of your writing and learning more about playing WoW as a Druid
“Back in the day when I wrote for WoW Insider, I started a series on how to level a feral Druid.”
Whoa, wait. What? You don’t write for Insider anymore?
heh…ive played every class, and love two..the pally and a druid…my horde pally is 80 and my ally druid is 80…funny though, my druid is better geared then my pally! but well since duel specs came out i went back to my old stanby of Feral. I mean i kept the Resto build, one never knows when ppl yell for a healer…but on days i just want to go feral and dps the crap out of things..thar ya go!