Leveling a druid Introduction . Leveling a druid is initially very slow , and is one of the least rewarding classes before level 20 , but like most classes , really picks up once you have your full range of talents and abilities to call upon . The main difference with a druid is that while most classes have most of their abilities by their late teens , druids have to wait for many signature abilities until level 20 , 30 or even 40 . However , somewhere after 3 . 1 druids got buffed in the lower levels with a significant mana performance improvement . This enables druids to cast spells without stopping to drink after every fight . This can help significantly with both damage and healing spells . Leveling can be a lot faster than it was in the past . Level 1 - 9 . At this time you have very few options and your method of killing things will be Wrath and Moonfire , finishing enemies off with your staff if you run out of mana . Make sure you carry some water to drink because your staff is painfully slow . Level 10 - 19 . At level 10 you ' ll receive your Bear Form . This is very valuable . Your spells are still slightly higher damage than your bear form melee , but your bear form reduces the damage you take significantly and does a " lot " more damage than your staff . Remember to keep back enough mana to shift to bear form if you run low while killing something . At level 16 you ' ll get a nice Travel Form . Taking balance talents will give a more immediate bonus because you ' re doing most of your damage with spells right now , but I ' d recommend investing them in the feral tree by choosing Ferocity , Savage Fury and Feral Instinct . The reason for choosing the feral tree will become apparent at level 20 . Level 20 - 29 . At level 20 you ' ll be able to train Cat Form . Cat form is " the " way to level until level 40 , as its damage is at least as good as your spells ' , while not requiring you to drink between fights . As an added bonus , you can take the Feral Swiftness talent to increase your movement speed by 30 % , which will speed up getting between mobs without needing to spend mana shifting to travel form and back to cat . Open with Shred , then Rake and Claw the enemy to death . Rip is useful on tough enemies , but most will die before it can run its course . Use your healing spells to heal yourself between fights as needed , and by the time you need to heal up again you ' ll probably have regenerated to a full mana bar . Try to find a Glyph of Claw for your glyph slot . Talents of choice are Feral Swiftness , Sharpened Claws and Primal Fury . Also take Predatory Strikes because you ' ll need it for later . As a feral druid you ' ll want to collect gear with agility , strength , attack power and stamina on it . While spirit and intellect will improve your mana regeneration , they should not be necessary if all you use it for is healing between fights . At level 20 you can train riding and buy a mount . This is certainly worth doing , but isn ' t actually that much faster than travel form , so if you ' re short on cash it won ' t hurt to put off the purchase for a while . Level 30 - 39 . More cat form leveling . You ' ll gain more abilities in the form of Pounce , Ravage and Ferocious Bite . Ravage is just a better Shred that can only be used from stealth . Pounce is the opener of choice after you get it , because it does a little damage , stuns the target so it can ' t hit you for a few seconds and allows you to get behind it and Shred for more damage than Claw . Combined with Brutal Impact and Shredding Attacks you can Shred twice before the target recovers and turns to face you . Ferocious Bite is a better finishing move than Rip for enemies that don ' t live very long ( which hopefully is most of them ) . Talents of choice are Feral Charge , Brutal Impact , Shredding Attacks and then the excellent Heart of the Wild . Level 40 - 49 . At this point you have a choice . You can continue to level as feral and keep tearing things apart as a cat , or you can respec in to the balance tree and take the Moonkin Form talent . Moonkin form grants high armour , bonus critical strike chance and most importantly mana regeneration when you critically hit with spells , making it very competitive as a leveling form . You also gain the wonderful Innervate , which makes mana much less of a problem . If you continue to level as feral , take Leader of the Pack and Improved Leader of the Pack to supplement your health and mana regeneration , then take Survival of the Fittest . The next talents up to level 50 are a bit lackluster , but Infected Wounds is a decent choice to slow down enemies that run away at low health . If you switch to Balance then take a build like this , and then take Dreamstate , Improved Moonkin Form and Wrath of Cenarius . Your leveling style will be similar to that you used pre - 20 , using Entangling Roots and nuking with Starfire . With Celestial Focus and your high armour from Moonkin form you ' ll be able to stand and nuke enemies even in melee range if rooting is too much effort . As a balance druid you ' ll want to completely change your gear set to pieces with intellect , spellpower , spirit and stamina . Remember to change your glyphs too . At level 40 you can train the next level of riding and buy a faster mount . This is highly recommended because the improvement over travel form is just too good to pass up now . AoE leveling with balance . Around level 45 , I decided to try out leveling as balance so I could AoE things down . I highly recommend it both for fun and the speed at which you can grind . Go fully into the balance tree and move toward Gale Winds asap . Max out your spellpower and intellect as much as possible , and cheap elixirs / chants are probably recommended as well . Moonkins can be fragile so here ' s how this should work : 1 ) Cast regrowth on yourself 2 ) Mount up on your rider 3 ) Quickly ride to gather 4 - 5 mobs 4 ) Use rejuvenation to dismount ( that ' ll put 2 HoTs on you for a good ten seconds ) 5 ) Shapeshift to Moonkin 6 ) Cast hurricane onto yourself 7 ) Repeat hurricane until dead Optional : barkskin is nice to mitigate a little damage . Be sure to use your herbalism heal if you have that profession ( recommended for leveling anyway ) . Use innervate when up to replenish mana . Notes : You ' re going to burn through mana like crazy , so get in the habit of carrying around an 80 stack of water . I did this at 45 and owned with it , so I suspect it is viable much earlier . Once you hit 50 and get the second rank of hurricane you ' ll be an amazing AoE killer . Have fun ! Level 50 - 59 . At level 50 feral druids get a major damage boost in the form of Mangle . Mangle completely replaces Claw , and in addition it increases bleed damage and damage done by Shred ( and Maul ) to the target . Take Mangle , Improved Mangle and King of the Jungle . King of the Jungle makes Tiger ' s Fury grant energy when used , which is particularly useful to maximise pounce stuns . By level 56 Pounce , Mangle , Shred , Tiger ' s Fury , Shred , Shred is possible in the 4 - second pounce stun , which will leave most enemies nearly dead before they can even hit you . Balance druids will gain equally exciting Typhoon and Force of Nature talents , giving them a knock back for enemies that get close , and a potent cooldown for when they get in trouble ( which is actually quite easy with Typhoon because it has a deceptively long range ) . Take Typhoon and Force of Nature , then finish Wrath of Cenarius and take Earth and Moon . Eclipse is very powerful when standing and nuking instance bosses but is difficult to use properly while leveling , so avoid it for now . At level 58 move to Outland immediately because the gear there is significantly better than anything in the old world . Level 60 + . Feral druids will get Berserk , which is a potent cooldown . Balance druids get the less interesting ( for soloing ) Starfall . At level 60 you get possibly the best benefit to being a druid - free flying ! Train Flight Form at your trainer and you ' ll get the next level of riding for free , saving a tidy 650 gold . After getting their level 60 talent , feral druids will want to invest in the restoration tree for Naturalist , and Balance druids will want to fill out the balance tree some more , then work towards Intensity . In either case , you ' re now an experienced enough druid to make your own choices from here . What if I want to heal ? The most important thing is to collect a spell - casting gear set ( which balance druids will already have ) . Until level 40 you should find that while wearing a decent set of caster gear your innate healing abilities are sufficient to heal instances without talents . After level 40 you may find it difficult , and may want to use a hybrid feral / resto or slightly modified balance build . Taking restoration talents up to Intensity and Omen of Clarity , including Naturalist , will give you some healing benefits while helping your feral damage as well . The balance tree has some talents that help both damage and healing , such as Lunar Guidance and Dreamstate , and investing in these talents instead of pure damage talents can help you to heal . If you plan on leveling resto , make sure to get all the + Spell Power gear you can . Most SP will buff both healing and damage , and you will do most of your damage in caster form , from range . If needed , swap to Cat Form once you obtain it for melee fights . Elites are relatively easy to take down in this spec , since you can swap out of Cat form to put some heavy heals on yourself , then swap back to cat for the melee DPS . Once you reach level 50 and obtain Tree of Life Form , Try to stay in instance leveling as much as possible , since that is what Resto is all about . If you plan on being Resto , obtaining Dual Talent Specialization can be helpful , especially if points are put into the Feral Tree to make leveling easier at that point . What if I want to tank ? A feral damage build is just fine for tanking right up until level 80 . Just follow the feral path and you ' ll be able to tank just fine . Collecting high stamina pieces will help . If you have trouble then drop some damage talents for Protector of the Pack .