The Ultimate Druid Leveling Guide: the Talents, Techniques and Glyphs to Get to Level 80 Fast

LF1M need healer! Instead of looking for a healer be sought after for heroic content and raids every day. The Ultimate Druid Leveling Guide, will show you how to get there super fast so you too can be a level 80 healing or tanking druid. Druids are more versatile than almost every other class and have wide options for tanking, healing and damage dealing. Druids are also one of the most mana efficient healers and are sought after by players hungry for a healer.

Instance Healing for Beginners:

Unless you are a veteran player who wants to revisit low level instances for fun, do not look for pick up groups before you are level 70-80. Most low level pick up groups are an exercise in misery for a healer because: everyone is off spec (specialization) for their class, no one is well geared and many are still learning how to play their class.

Wiping repeatedly in the Dead Mines, Wailing Caverns or Scarlet Monastery is not going to advance you as a healer. Skip the low level instances unless you have a higher level character to run you through for the sake of getting some exp, gear and quests. The only exception to the rule is if you have found some experienced players who want to work on their low level characters. Finally, it slows down your leveling while you wait for a pick up group and even more time consuming when they go AFK (away from keys), leave early and fight over loot.

Leveling a Druid:

Leveling a druid is easy because it is a hybrid class. As a druid you will find that it is very easy to complete quests because you have so many options available to you. From level 10 up to level 80 you should specialize in feral combat. As a feral druid you will be able to hide and stealth, heal and snare targets, tank mobs and deal out significant levels of damage. Do not count on getting instance runs and leveling as a healer 1-60 for the reasons previously mentioned. There are two methods of leveling a Druid that are effective and will get you to level 80 quickly.

Leveling Method 1: Recruit-A-Friend

First off, old school leveling sucks because it is slow and tedious. Leveling moves fastest if you use the (Recruit-A-Friend) program and Dual box your two characters. Recruit A Friend gives a straight up triple experience point gain for both mob kills and quest turn ins and the ability to summon the other character once an hour. Also, if you use the Recruit A Friend program you will get a Zhevra Epic Mount and earn levels that you can grant to your druid. Having leveled up multiple level 80 characters the old way, including a Druid, Recruit-A-Friend is a godsend. Level up with a DPS class or even faster if you level two DPS classes and grant levels to the new druid. If you can get instance runs and dual box, it is possible to get to level 60 in a couple days of game time, if not hours.

Leveling Method 2: Solo Feral Druid

Druids enjoy the highest DPS of all of the Druid talent trees and are not dependent on mana. Because feral druids are able to burn down mobs faster and regain their mana as they fight as a cat or bear, they level faster than balance druids who have to constantly drink to restore mana. If you already have level 80 characters consider obtaining heirloom items for your druid to make the leveling faster and more mana efficient. Consistently choose talents, gear and glyphs which enhance your ability to kill quickly and regain your mana.

The Fastest Leveling Feral Druid Build:

Feral Talents 0/55/16

Ferocity 5/5, Savage Fury 2/2, Thick Hide 3/3, Feral Swiftness 2/2, Sharpened Claws 3/3, Shredding Attacks 2/2, Predatory Strikes 3/3, Primal Fury 2/2, Primal Precision 2/2, Brutal Impact 2/2, Feral Charge 1/1, Heart of the Wild 5/5, Survival of the Fittest 3/3, Leader of the Pack 1/1, Improved Leader of the Pack 2/2, Predatory Instincts 3/3, Infected Wounds 3/3, Mangle 1/1, Improved Mangle 3/3, Rend and Tear 5/5, Primal Gore 1/1, Berserk 1/1

Restoration (16 points)

Furor 5/5, Naturalist 5/5, Natural Shapeshifter 3/3, Omen of Clarity 1/1, Master Shapeshifter 2/2

Glyphs

Glyph of Rip (Major Glyph)
Increases the duration of your Rip ability by 4 sec.

Glyph of Shred (Major Glyph)
Each time you Shred, the duration of your Rip on the target is extended 2 sec, up to a maximum of 6 sec.

Glyph of Rejuvenation (Major Glyph)
While your Rejuvenation targets are below 50% health, you will heal them for an additional 50% health.

Glyph of Thorns (Minor Glyph)
Increases the duration of your Thorns ability by 50 min when cast on yourself.

Glyph of Aquatic Form (Minor Glyph)
Increases your swim speed by 50% while in Aquatic Form.

Glyph of Dash (Minor Glyph)
Reduces the cooldown of your Dash ability by 20%.

Heirloom Gear:

Heirloom gear will scale with your new druid from level 1 all the way to level 80 and grant unique bonuses which will speed up your leveling. You will save money also, because your new character will not need to upgrade their gear constantly. The downside is that you have to invest time and emblems of heroism to obtain these items.

Level 1-80: Stained Shadow Craft Spaulders: Has perfect stats for a feral druid granting 10% additional experience point gains from killing monsters, stamina, hit rating and attack power. Cost 40 Emblems of Heroism.

Level 1-80: Swift Hand of Justice: Increases your haste and restores 2% of your maximum health whenever you kill a target that yields experience or honor. This item is a trinket and you can have two of them and there is no cool down on the mana gain benefit. Because this item both increases your haste and restores your hit points, it is perfect for leveling. Cost 50 Emblems of Heroism, each.

Level 1-80: Balanced Heart Seeker: Increases your feral attack power and important stats such agility and hit rating. This item costs 65 Emblems of Heroism. You can also use the no level restriction enchant: Crusader on this item to add additional strength and healing when the enchantment is triggered.

Normal Gear:

Use green "of the tiger" gear as filler for leveling because this will increase your most vital leveling stats, agility and strength which pump up your feral attack power. You may wish to obtain some crafted or bind on equip rare or epic items to speed the leveling processs.

See Kaliban's Loot List for an indepth guide to all the instances and quests that offer druid gear. When you are level 57 or higher you can begin to replace your gear with Beast, Bandit, or Soldier leather to gain a combination of stats, attack power and critical hit that is unavailable on classic gear.

Add Ons for Leveling:

The Best addons for this method of leveling is Carbonite. Carbonite keeps track of all of your quests and shows you where to go in order to complete them in game. This addons is now free, perfectly legal to use in World of Warcraft and not to be confused with 3rd party autobot programs. When an addon is just modifying your interface or providing information and not automating the game, generally it is safe to use it with World of Warcraft. If you have any doubts about this there is an official Blizzard forum just for addons and macros that you can go to and ask questions and you can also ask a gamemaster ingame if you have any lingering doubts.

Cartographer and and MobMap are available on Curse.com MobMap is available through the developer's website at MobMap.de Both of these programs are good alternatives for Carbonite. Questhelper was once the add on of choice but was discontinued after Blizzard announced changes to it's policies about how developers can request donations.

Leveling Process:

If you don't have a friend, relative or guild member you can wrangle into running you through all instances go questing. Quest, quest and quest some more and keep your experience point bar on rested or blue bar the entire way.

Questing will take you a bit longer than being run through instances but will also yield nice gear and achievements for your new characters. I love Jame's guides because he tells you in a logical way how to plan what your doing in each zone to minimize the time you have to spend leveling and what items to pick up before you leave town. Jame keeps his guides updated and I have used his website for years.

Jame even has a new addon that you can use in game. Jame's guide is free, has a community that tests and supports it and has detailed information on how to complete the harder quests. I am so crazy about Jame's guides that I will not attempt to reinvent the wheel, just use his site if you need help with questing.

After level 70, you can change your specialization to restoration and you will find that there is no shortage of people who need you to heal regular dungeons. You can even pick up restoration as a dual specialization at level 40. While I was working on my new druid, I regularly got invited to heal as a fresh faced level 71 healer for BC raids, heroics and Northend instances including Drak'Tharon Keep. However the early change to a healing specialization will somewhat slow your leveling when you have to level.

Suggested Zones

1-10: Complete Quests in the starting area for your race

Horde

11-21 Ghostlands or Barrens

21-30 Thousand Needles

30-33 Shimmering Flats

33-35 Hillsbrad/Swamp of Sorrows

35-40 Dustmallow Marsh/Stranglethorn Vale

40-45 Tanaris

45-50 Feralas

50-55 Un'Goro Crater

55-60 Eastern and Western Plague Lands

60-62 Hellfire Pennisula

62-64 Zangermarsh

64-66 Terrokar

66-68 Nagrand

68-71 Blade's Edge or Shadowmoon Valley or Netherstorm

71-72 Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord

72-74 Dragonblight

75-77 Grizzly Hills

77-78 Sholazar Bazin/Zul'Drak

78-80 Ice Crown

Alliance:

11-21 Westfall or Darkshore

21-30 Duskwood/Lakeshire or Ashenvale or Wetlands

30-33 Stonetalon Mountains/Desolace

33-35 Hillsbrad/Swamp of Sorrows

35-40 Dustmallow Marsh/Stranglethorn

40-45 Tanaris

45-50 Feralas

50-55 Un'Goro Crater

55-60 Plague Lands

60-62 Hellfire Pennisula

62-64 Zangermarsh

64-66 Terrokar

66-68 Nagrand

68-71 Blade's Edge or Shadowmoon Valley or Netherstorm

71-72 Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord

72-74 Dragonblight

75-77 Grizzly Hills

77-78 Sholazar Bazin/Zul'Drak

78-80 Ice Crown

Now you should be level 80! Change your talent tree to Restoration and gear up for end game; you're now one of the most desired commodities on the server, a level 80 healing druid. See my Best of the Best Healing Guide for tips on how to get started as a healing druid.