Balance Druid leveling guide

Level as Feral: a bear from 10 to 20 and a cat from 20 to 70, with Prowl, Claw, Rake and Rip killing quest mobs faster than any Druid caster and a bear in the bag for every dungeon on the way. Druids level quickly once Cat Form arrives because they never stop: Travel Form at 30 between quests, a heal when a fight goes wrong, and a tank spec and a damage spec in the same tree. Feral Charge at 26, Heart of the Wild at 41, Leader of the Pack at 45 and Mangle at 50 are the levels where it gets better again. The leveling tree ends on the Feral raid build exactly, so there is nothing to respec at 70 if you stay Feral, and one respec if you do not.

Your endgame is Balance, the Moonkin: Starfire and Wrath with Moonkin Form's +5% spell crit for your party and Improved Faerie Fire's +3% hit for everyone attacking the boss. The damage is a little under a Mage's in the same gear and the buffs make up for it; raids take one Moonkin in the caster group. One respec at 70, and the caster gear you pick up in dungeons on the way is the point of the gear section.

Feral, 1 to 70. Wrath and Moonfire to 10, a bear to 20, a cat after that: Prowl, Claw to five points, Rip, Claw, and the mob dies while bleeding. The real priorities in the tree are Feral Swiftness at 22, Feral Charge at 26, Heart of the Wild at 41, Leader of the Pack at 45 and Mangle at 50, with Ferocity from the first point because it makes every form's main button cheaper. Balance levels slower and sits more; Restoration does not level, it heals dungeons. Feral is also the raid spec for tank and cat alike, so there is nothing to undo.

1 to 10. Wrath, Moonfire, Wrath, and Rejuvenation on yourself between fights. You are a bad Mage for ten levels. At 10 the trainer gives you the Bear Form quest chain; finish it before you quest another level.

10 to 20. Bear Form. Maul on every swing you have rage for, Demoralizing Roar on anything hitting hard, Enrage before a pull for the rage, Bash on casters. Bears kill slowly and never die, and every dungeon from Ragefire Chasm on will take you as the tank; say yes, it is how Druids get groups. Shift out to heal yourself when you are under a third, shift back; Furor later makes that free.

20 to 40. Cat Form at 20 is the leveling spec. Prowl up to the mob, Claw (Pounce from 36), Claw to five combo points with Rake in there once you have it at 24, Rip, Claw, and most mobs die to the Rip. Tiger's Fury before the opener, Dash to catch a runner, Ferocious Bite from 32 only on a mob that will die to it. Shift to bear for anything that hits too hard to kill as a cat; shift to caster to heal when you must; Travel Form at 30 between every quest. Feral Charge at 26 and Bash are your interrupts in bear.

40 to 60. Dire Bear Form at 40 is a real tank; Innervate at 40 is a full mana bar every six minutes, which for a Feral is a heal-yourself-to-full between pulls. Heart of the Wild at 41 is +10% attack power as a cat and +20% Stamina as a bear. Leader of the Pack at 45 is +5% crit for you and your group. Mangle at 50 changes the loop: Mangle, then Rake and Rip bleed 30% harder; Mangle, Rake, Claw, Claw, Rip. From here the cat kills as fast as a Rogue and the bear tanks as well as a Warrior.

60 to 70. The Restoration points arrive from 54: Furor first, so every shift into cat starts with 40 energy and every shift into bear with 10 rage; Naturalist for +10% damage in forms; Omen of Clarity at 70 for free Mangles. Maim at 62 is the cat's stun, Lifebloom at 64 the heal you put on yourself before a hard pull, Lacerate at 66 the bear's bleed, Flight Form at 68 free flying. By 70 your tree is the Feral raid build and your gear decides whether you are the tank or the cat.

Weapons: a stat stick. Your forms do not use the weapon's damage at all; a staff or mace with Agility, Stamina and attack power (and from 60, the "feral attack power" line on a weapon's tooltip, which is the weapon's damage converted for you) is the whole decision. A healer's staff with Intellect is fine when nothing better drops; the stats on it still work in forms.

Why not Balance to level? Wrath and Starfire kill a mob in the time a cat kills two, and you drink after every third one until Dreamstate and Moonkin Form at 50. Balance is a good raid spec at 70 and a slow leveling one; level Feral, carry caster gear if you want to heal dungeons as you go, and the respec plan below prices the switch. Why not Restoration? Because nothing in the tree kills anything. Restoration is a respec at 70 or in your 60s for a Druid who has stopped questing to heal dungeons; a Feral Druid heals the leveling dungeons fine out of form.

The rule that governs the order below: a talent row is locked until you have spent 5 × (row - 1) points in that tree, and you have level - 9 points to spend. Row 2 opens at 5 points, row 3 at 10, row 9 at 40. The consequence is that you will buy talents you don't especially want purely to open the next row. That isn't a mistake; it's how the tree works. The order below has been checked against the real tree: every point is buyable at the level it is listed.

Where it ends: 0/44/17, the Feral build WoWSims ships as its preset for both the cat sim and the bear sim, point for point. The Feral tree is complete at 53 and the seventeen Restoration points after it are the same seventeen the raid build has.

One tree for the tank and the cat is the whole point. TBC Feral has no separate bear build worth the respec: Thick Hide, Feral Instinct, Feral Charge, Survival of the Fittest and Mangle (Bear) are in the cat's tree already, and Shredding Attacks, Savage Fury and Predatory Instincts are in the bear's. What changes between the two jobs is gear, and the gear section covers both sets. The "DemoRoar" variant (0/47/14) takes Feral Aggression for a stronger Demoralizing Roar and pays for it with Improved Leader of the Pack and Intensity; take it only if you tank raids and nobody else carries the attack power debuff.

Thick Hide before Feral Swiftness is on purpose. Row 3 needs ten points and you are a bear in dungeons from 14, so the armor comes first and the cat speed arrives at 22, two levels after Cat Form. If you never dungeon, swap them; the engine validates either order.

Feral Aggression is not in the order. It is the leveling talent most guides take first (+15% Ferocious Bite, stronger Demoralizing Roar), and it is not in the raid build, so taking it costs a respec at 70. Ferocity is the better first five points anyway; cheaper Claws are more Claws.

Forms

Four forms by 30 and the rule for each. Cat Form for killing: energy and combo points, Prowl, Claw, Rake, Shred from behind, Rip or Ferocious Bite to finish, Tiger's Fury for the burst, Dash to chase. Bear Form (Dire Bear from 40) for tanking and for anything that hits too hard to kill as a cat: rage, Maul, Swipe, Demoralizing Roar, Growl to taunt, Bash to stun, Enrage for rage, Frenzied Regeneration to heal with it. Travel Form for every walk outdoors. Caster form for heals, Roots, Innervate and Rebirth, and for nothing else once you have Cat Form. Shifting costs mana; Natural Shapeshifter and Furor in the talent order are why you can afford to shift, heal, and shift back, and why a shift into Cat Form at 54 starts with 40 energy.

The solo loop

Prowl. Pounce from 36 (Claw before it), Rake, Claw to five combo points, Rip, Claw. The Rip finishes most quest mobs; Ferocious Bite at five points only on a mob under a third. Mangle from 50 goes first after the opener and makes Rake and Rip 30% stronger. Tiger's Fury before the opener on anything with more health than usual. Never sit at full energy; Claw as it comes.

Two mobs: Entangling Roots one from caster form before you Prowl in, or just take both as a cat and shift to bear if it goes wrong. Three: bear. Swipe, Demoralizing Roar, Maul, and accept that it takes a while; or Hibernate the beast, Roots the second, and cat the third. A caster: Pounce from Prowl, and Bash in bear or Maim from 62 when it starts casting. A runner: Dash.

When it goes wrong: shift to bear and Frenzied Regeneration from 36; or shift to caster, Barkskin from 44, Regrowth, Rejuvenation, and shift back to cat with Furor's 40 energy. A Druid with mana does not die to anything that is not an elite. Travel Form is the escape; nothing on foot catches it.

Tanking while leveling

Every dungeon from Ragefire Chasm to Shattered Halls will take you as the bear, and from 14 you should take the job; it is how Druids get groups and it is the raid job for half the Ferals at 70. Bear Form, Enrage before the pull, Feral Charge from 26 or Faerie Fire (Feral) to pull, Maul on every swing, Swipe on packs, Demoralizing Roar on the first pull of the dungeon and whenever it drops, Growl the mob that leaves you, Bash the caster. Mangle (Bear) from 50 and Lacerate from 66 are the raid threat; before them, Maul and Swipe are enough. Frenzied Regeneration and Barkskin are the saves; shifting out to heal yourself is the one a bear does not have time for, so a Rejuvenation on yourself before the pull is the habit.

Healing while leveling

Out of form you are a Restoration Druid with fewer talents, and every leveling dungeon will take you as the healer if the bear slot is filled. Rejuvenation on the tank between pulls, Regrowth for the big damage, Healing Touch when there is time, Lifebloom from 64 stacked three times on the tank. Innervate on the healer who is not you if you are the bear, and on yourself if you are the healer. Rebirth once a fight, on the tank or the healer, never the Hunter.

#showtooltip Rebirth
/cast [target=mouseover,help,dead][help,dead][target=player] Rebirth

Rebirth on whoever your mouse is over, so you never target-swap mid fight.

Buffs and utility

Mark of the Wild on everyone (Gift of the Wild from 50, with Wild Berries); Thorns on the tank. Remove Curse and Abolish Poison make you a dispeller in every dungeon with either. Faerie Fire on anything the melee are hitting. Hibernate puts a beast or dragonkin to sleep for up to 40 seconds and is your only crowd control, Cyclone at 70 aside. Innervate is the raid's spare mana bar; the healer who gets it will remember you.

Macros

#showtooltip Cat Form
/cancelform
/cast Cat Form

A powershift: out of and back into Cat Form in one press, which with Furor is 40 energy for the cost of one shift's mana. The raid cat's rotation lives on this.

#showtooltip Dire Bear Form
/cast [nostance:1] Dire Bear Form
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge

Into bear and Charge: one key, pressed twice.

Train every new spell rank the moment you can afford it; an old rank of your main nuke is the most common reason a level feels slow. Keep your bags clear of vendor trash before leaving town, and pick up every flight path you pass; the map is the biggest time-saver in the game.

Leveling set (Feral): Agility first (attack power, crit and dodge in both forms), then Stamina, then Strength and attack power, then Intellect for the shifting. Leather, and the weapon is a stat stick: your forms ignore its damage entirely, so a staff with Agility and Stamina beats a sword with more damage, and from 60 the "feral attack power" line on some weapons is the one that matters. "Of the Monkey" (Agility and Stamina) greens are made for you. Keep a few Intellect and +healing pieces in the bag for the dungeons you heal.

Balance at 70, in order: spell hit to 16% first (Balance of Power covers 4% and Improved Faerie Fire another 3% against the boss it is on, so 9% from gear), then spell damage, then spell crit (Vengeance doubles crits and Nature's Grace speeds the next cast), then Intellect (Lunar Guidance turns a quarter of it into spell damage and Dreamstate into mana), then haste once it appears. Leather, cloth, anything; Moonkin Form makes armor irrelevant. Spirit is nearly worthless to you.

Quest levels by zone, Horde side. A zone is comfortable when your level sits inside its range; move on when the quests turn green.

Dungeon ranges are the levels the quests and drops are tuned for; you can enter earlier with a group that knows the place. In Outland, every dungeon has a heroic mode at 70 that needs a key from the matching reputation at Honored.

You have not picked professions yet, so this section is the advice on which to take; pick them in the character card and it becomes the route.

The two questions. Do you want the profession to make you stronger at 70, or to make gold on the way? The crafting professions with a bind-on-pickup payoff (Tailoring's cloth sets for casters, Leatherworking's sets for mail and leather wearers, Blacksmithing's Armorsmith and Weaponsmith lines for plate, Jewelcrafting's trinkets, Engineering's goggles, Alchemy's flask that lasts through death) make you stronger and cost gold to level. The gathering professions (Mining, Herbalism, Skinning) make gold and cost nothing but detours. The usual answer is one of each: the crafter your damage gear wants, and the gatherer that feeds it.

For damage: the crafting profession that makes your armor class's set (Tailoring for cloth, Leatherworking for leather and mail, Blacksmithing for plate), paired with the gatherer that feeds it (Tailoring with Enchanting or a gatherer for gold, Leatherworking with Skinning, Blacksmithing with Mining). Engineering with Mining is the universal second choice for the goggles and the gadgets.

Leveling a profession costs the least when you do it while you level the character; every zone's nodes and drops are the ones the route wants at that skill. Pick early.

48/0/13. The Balance build WoWSims ships as its Balance raid preset. Nothing from the Feral leveling tree survives except Natural Shapeshifter and Intensity in Restoration; the Feral points all go.

The core is Starlight Wrath, Vengeance, Lunar Guidance, Nature's Grace, Moonfury, Balance of Power, Dreamstate, Moonkin Form, Improved Faerie Fire, Wrath of Cenarius and Force of Nature, with Improved Mark of the Wild and Intensity from Restoration. The flexible points are Brambles (three, mostly for the Treants; Control of Nature is the alternative and does nothing in a raid), Insect Swarm (one; keep it), Moonglow (three; drop for Celestial Focus if mana is not your problem), and Furor (two, for the row).

Raid job description: Moonkin Form on before the pull and never off except for Innervate and Rebirth, which you shift out for and back in after. Faerie Fire on the boss first (Improved Faerie Fire is +3% hit for every melee and Hunter attacking it, and it is your job, not the Feral's), Insect Swarm on the boss and kept up, Moonfire once if the fight is long enough to tick it out. Then Starfire, and Starfire again, and when Nature's Grace procs the next Starfire casts faster. Wrath when you are moving or when the boss's cast must be finished before, and never otherwise; Starfire scales harder with your gear and Wrath of Cenarius makes the gap wider. Force of Nature on the pull and every three minutes; the Treants hold threat badly, so send them after the tank has it. Innervate on yourself if the fight is long and on the healer who asks if it is not.

Why a raid takes a Moonkin: +5% spell crit for the caster group from Moonkin Form, +3% hit for the melee from Improved Faerie Fire, Innervate and a battle resurrection, and damage that is a little under a Mage's in the same gear. One per raid; a second adds only the damage.

When to respec: at 70, when your raid wants the Moonkin buffs and you have a caster set from the dungeons on the way. Do not level in it; the respec plan below prices the switch.

Pre-raid gearing: spell hit first from the Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm quest rewards and dungeon blues; then spell damage and crit from the heroics and the Sha'tar and Lower City reputations. Any armor class; Moonkin Form does not care. The Karazhan attunement chain runs through every dungeon on the list.

The heroic keys are reputations from the dungeons themselves: Honor Hold or Thrallmar, Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, the Sha'tar and Keepers of Time, each to Honored. A Druid who can tank or heal gets groups as fast as anyone; a Druid who can do both gets them first.

Karazhan attunement starts in Deadwind Pass and runs through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Arcatraz to Black Morass. Do it as you gear; every one of those dungeons drops something you want.

Start reputations before 70. Every Outland dungeon reputation reaches Honored from normal runs on the way up, and Honored is what buys the heroic key. Cenarion Expedition (Coilfang), Honor Hold or Thrallmar (Hellfire Citadel), Lower City (Auchindoun), the Sha'tar (Tempest Keep) and Keepers of Time (Caverns of Time) each gate a heroic; run the normal versions while they are your level and the keys are waiting when you arrive.

Pre-raid gear is dungeon blues, reputation rewards and crafted pieces. Heroics drop the best of it and pay Badges of Justice for the rest. Quest blues from Nagrand, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley fill the gaps; do not skip the last three zones' quest lines on the way to 70, they are the fastest gearing there is.

The Karazhan attunement (the Master's Key chain through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Old Hillsbrad, ending in the Black Morass) is the first raid gate on the Anniversary realms; start it the week you hit 70 because it takes a group for every step.

Anniversary realms have Dual Talent Specialization, so the cleanest plan is two trees: Feral for everything you do alone and for the raids that want a bear or a cat, and Restoration or Balance in the second slot. A Druid gets more out of dual spec than any class in the game, because every raid job is open to you. Check the trainer for the price in game; sources disagree on what TBC Anniversary charges.

Reading an order from any level. Every talent order on this page is a list of which point to buy at which level, and the trees in the talent section have a level slider that can show any of them. To respec into a build at level 60, pick that build above the trees and drag the slider to 60: the highlighted cells are the 51 points to buy, in the order the table lists them. Every order has been checked so that each row is open by the time you reach it.

Into Balance. At 70, when a raid wants the Moonkin buffs: follow the Balance raid order from the top. Six of the 61 points (Natural Shapeshifter and Intensity) are already where the Balance build wants them. Do not level in it; Feral is faster and tanks the dungeons on the way.

The number to budget: 50g per respec on original rules, the dual-spec price once on Anniversary. A Druid who respecs once at 70 pays well under 60g; nobody should be flipping specs per dungeon.

A Druid watches a different resource in every form, and the default UI changes the bar but not the habit.

• A form-aware action bar: the default bars switch with form; make sure every form has its heal-and-shift macros and Travel Form on the same keys so your hands do not relearn the layout four times.
• Combo points and energy near your character in Cat Form, like a Rogue; rage and Lacerate stacks in Bear Form; Lifebloom stacks and remaining time on every frame as a healer.
• WeakAuras: Rip and Rake remaining on the target, Mangle debuff remaining, Tiger's Fury and Dash ready, Faerie Fire missing from the target, Mark of the Wild missing, Insect Swarm and Moonfire remaining, Nature's Grace proc, Force of Nature ready.
• Healing frames (Grid with Clique, or Healbot) from the first dungeon you heal, and for Rebirth and Innervate on a mouseover in every spec.
• A threat meter (Omen) in every group.
• One boss-mod addon, DBM or BigWigs, not both.

The addons that pay for themselves on any class: a quest helper (Questie) so you stop reading quest text for coordinates; a bag addon (Bagnon or similar) so you can see what you are carrying; a boss mod (Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs, never both) the day you start dungeons; and WeakAuras once you have a cooldown or buff you keep forgetting. Bind every ability you use in a fight to a key before you hit 20; clicking is the single biggest thing that makes a character feel weak.

Ticks are remembered in this browser for this class and spec.

Now

• The Bear Form quest chain at 10 before anything else; the Aquatic Form chain at 16 when you pass it
• Ferocity 5/5 first; Feral Swiftness and Feral Charge the moment row 3 opens
• Mark of the Wild on everyone you meet; Thorns on the tank
• Tank every dungeon you can as a bear from 14; carry Intellect pieces to heal the ones that have a tank
• The Rebirth mouseover macro from the basics section on a key by 20

20 to 70

• 20: Cat Form, Prowl, Claw, Rip; the powershift macro on a key
• 30: Travel Form between every quest; 36: Pounce as the opener, Frenzied Regeneration as the bear's save
• 40: Dire Bear Form, Innervate; 41: Heart of the Wild; 45: Leader of the Pack; 50: Mangle
• 60: epic riding; 64: Lifebloom on yourself before hard pulls; 68: Flight Form, free
• Respec Balance 48/0/13 at 70; budget about 50g and a caster set from the dungeons on the way

At 70

• Spell hit to 16%; Moonkin Form on, Faerie Fire and Insect Swarm on the boss, Starfire until Nature's Grace, Wrath when moving
• Innervate on the healer who asks; Rebirth once a fight; Gift of the Wild on every group with a stack of Wild Berries
• The Swift Flight Form chain from Sethekk Halls; Honor Hold or Thrallmar Honored for the first heroic key