Druidic Tome of Erudition – A Guide on How to Level a Feral Druid

This guide is currently undergoing a complete overhaul!

Greetings, young one. Do you seek to become a keeper of the world, a protector of nature, a … druid? Then you have come across the right path. Take note that it will be a long journey, and only by heeding wiser druids than yourself, you will succeed. If your desire is still to journey this path, I hereby declare you an apprentice of the druidic arts, and as long as your apprenticeship lasts, I will be your master. Please, read on.

Everything herein is based on empirical knowledge and how I look at things. Other druids may not necessarily agree with me, but there is no true answer on how to level a druid, only preferences. These are mine. This entire guide will however be tested and possibly modified accordingly.

Table of contents
1. Abbreviations
2. Rotations and abilities
3. Talents
4. Glyphs
5. Stats
6. Change log

Abbreviations

Abbreviation Meaning
General
AP Attack Power
DPS Damage Per Second
Pug Pickup group; a group of random players, intended to do a raid, dungeon or quest
Respec To reset your talent points and spend them differently
Spec (n) Talent specialization
Spec (v) To spend talent points; specialize
Abilities
FB Ferocious Bite
FFF Faerie Fire (Feral)
MotW Mark of the Wild
SR Savage Roar
TF Tiger’s Fury

Rotations and abilities
TO DO, COMES WITH TESTING

Talents
Blizzard blessed us druids in patch 4.0 with Cat Form at level 8, down from level 20, so you will be kicking some troggs all sooner now! No more painful leveling up to Cat Form.

In terms of choosing talents you can not do much wrong at all, but I will give you a suggested spec nevertheless.

At level 10 an entire new world opens up to you. You will instantly gain Mangle (Bear version not linked as this guide is focused on kitties), a passive increase in your attack power by 25%, and while prowling around enemies will have a reduced chance to detect you. The remaining bonus is nothing you will benefit from, as you are not going to spend any time in Bear Form.

Level 10-11: Feral Swiftness (2/2)
Level 13-17: Furor (3/3)
Level 19-21: Primal Fury (2/2)
Level 23-25: Predatory Strikes (2/2)
Level 27: Feral Aggression (1/2)
Level 29: Feral Charge (1/1)
Level 31-33: Stampede (2/2)
Level 35: Feral Aggression (2/2)
Level 37: Thick Hide (1/3)
Level 39: Leader of the Pack (1/1)
Level 41-43: Brutal Impact (2/2)
Level 45-47: Thick Hide (3/3)
Level 49: Survival Instincts (1/1)
Level 51-53: Nurturing Instincts (2/2)
Level 55-57: Fury Swipes (2/3)
Level 59-63: Rend and Tear (3/3)
Level 65: Fury Swipes (3/3)
Level 67: Endless Carnage (1/2)
Level 69: Berserk
Level 71-75: Heart of the Wild
Level 77-79: Natural Shapeshifter (2/2)
Level 81: Master Shapeshifter (1/1)

Suggestions further: Infected Wounds, Endless Carnage, King of the Jungle

Glyphs
Each 25th level (25, 50, 75) you will unlock a set of glyph slots you can use … and you should use them. One Prime, Major, and Minor slot will be unlocked at these levels.

Level 25
[Minor] No minor glyph affects combat in any direct way, and because of that it is not needed to acquire minor glyphs. If you want to get minor glyphs, however, choose whichever you like.

[Major] Major glyphs do neither have any direct affect on you in combat. The only useful glyph while leveling is Glyph of Feral Charge, as it allows for more frequent use of the ability.

[Prime] Glyph of Mangle – a passive increase of 10% in damage from Mangle, which is your main ability while leveling, will make leveling a lot easier and faster.

There are honestly no other useful glyphs while leveling. Glyph of Tiger’s Fury might affect it to a certain extent, so you can acquire that if you would like to, but otherwise nothing will affect your leveling speed.

Level 50
–

Level 75
–

Stats
You should always be on the outlook of certain stats, stats which will benefit you greatly. Knowing which stats benefit you, in what way, and their weightings, you will find it a lot easier to determine whether a given gear piece is an upgrade or not.
In order of importance, descendingly:

Weapon DPS: With patch 4.0 lots of stats were removed from the game and/or gear, and attack power is one of those stats. It still exists, but you do not directly get it from gear anymore. Feral attack power on weapons is thus gone, and weapon DPS gets directly added to our paw DPS now. Attacks like Mangle, Shred, Swipe, and Ravage now scales directly with our paw DPS, and no longer with attack power. Remember, it is the weapon DPS, not the speed (and thus min/max damage), which has no influence on our paw DPS at all.

Agility: Agility grants two attack power and armour per point of agility, and increases crit and dodge chance by an amount determined by your level. The attack power and crit chance increase are the reason this stat is so good as it is for kitties, while the armour and dodge are useful bonuses, but nowhere near the value of attack power and crit.

Mastery rating: For kitties it increases the damage inflicted by bleed effects per point of mastery (not per rating), which is the largest source of damage in end-game content (and most likely at post-80 while leveling, as mobs will have a significantly larger health pool at that level). Since you will not learn Mastery until level 80, you will not have to worry about this stat until then. You will not see mastery rating on gear before post-80, either.

Crit rating: Raises your chance to inflict a critical hit on your target. The amount needed per 1% crit increases by each level.

Haste rating: Improves the speed of which your auto-attacks hit the target, and the rate at which your energy regenerates. This allows for more specials to be used within a given time interval, but you will kill the target before this has any noticeable effect. You will not see much of this stat on melee DPS gear at all until Northrend.

Strength: Increases attack power by two per point of strength. For a druid, that is everything it does, and since agility already does this and more, you should completely ignore this stat.

Stamina: Increases your hit points by ten per point of stamina. This should never be taken into consideration when determining gear upgrades, as it has no affection to your damage.

Dungeons

The way you play in dungeons is, or should be, different from how you play while solo leveling by doing quests. This is solely due to positioning. In dungeons, while not being a tank, you can put yourself in any position you like in relation to your target. You cannot do this while questing on your own, or to put in a more general view; when you are alone against one (or several) mobs in an encounter.

This gives room for Shred. Shred is your main offensive ability, your main attack. Only you cannot use it while leveling (except in the beginning of a fight). Not in the same way as in dungeons.

Once you get 2/2 Shredding Attacks Shred should be the only attack you use, aside from Rake. Before Shredding Attacks you should use Claw. And remember, never use Rake on a normal target with medium or little health left, as it is energy wasted. While leveling, these dungeon mobs will die ridiculously fast; there you have the reason.

On bosses you do the same as you would with a normal mob, only that you should apply FFF in the start of the encounter, and Ravage could be the opening attack, as the stun Pounce applies is not needed. Most bosses are immune to stuns anyway.

As far as dungeon bosses are concerned, you should slide slowly into what becomes, or should become, your end game ‘rotation’, as concerned abilities are acquired.

Change log
[06-12-2010 17:47] Removed all content in ‘Rotations and abilities’ for rewrite, revamped ‘Talents’, build still missing, revamped sections ‘Glyphs’ and ‘Stats’.
[06-12-2010 02:56] Revamped introduction, table of contents, and abbreviations list, removed sections ‘Several aspects of the druid’, ‘Key levels’, ‘Professions’, and ‘Before you start’.