Spec wise what is the best way for someone who is obviously going to heal in dungeons/end game.
do i just follow a leveling guide or just straight dump into a resto build from 10+? leveling guides i assume will make you go into feral spec?
i don’t care for leveling very fast all i want is to not be carrying around say 2+ sets of gear while im leveling. or having issues healing/keeping people alive when doing dungeons. it’s a fresh toon so i have no gold, nothing im not funded or have any high level toons either.
I suggest you at least look at the leveling guides. It doesn’t cost a lot of gold to respec once when you’re almost at max. I think feral/cat form is the easiest spec to level in.
If you plan on questing and doing dungeons every now and then, feral is the way to go. As feral you can heal pretty much every dungeon with some int gear. But if you don’t want to carry it around…
If you plan on spamming dungeons from level 15 or so on, leveling as resto wouldn’t be terrible.
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not really worried about end game but as im leveling i aint got no bags and all that. pretty much am just planning to run dungeons a few times maybe once for quests and a 2nd time for gear if anything but outside of not not really spamming um to level.
im sure all guides gonna say go feral thats why.
in the end though it is what it is gotta play the class not the spec so if this is what i must do to make it easier on me then i will. never played druid in classic but other healers i have dabbled in and they seem okay in full healing spec. slow for sure but not terrible.
i’ll take your guys suggestions though and try going feral and just do what i can for gear.
Feral cat solo quest grinding till 50ish. Then you can go resto to heal dungeons. If you want to do dungeons before that you can DPS or tank. If you want to DPS or tank at 60 instead of heal I’d advise you to reroll.
Feral is great leveling on its own. Right up there with hunters and behind mages. You just don’t have much downtime, and the speed boosts from forms really cuts the time down. Quests, dungeons, mob grinding, they all work.
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thanks for all the advice i appreciate it. and yea i am looking at some various guides all saying to go feral for leveling so i will do that for now.
With this, specifically, you’re talking about spending most of your time killing mobs. Resto and Int gear is not a good way to do that. Feral is. Feral kitty is basically a rogue variant, relying on energy regen.
Now, separately
The more int gear you have, the slower the killing will be, but kitty with talents is entirely doable even in mostly int gear. That same gear will help you in groups/dungeons when it comes time to heal.
One thing I will say is that gear doesn’t always fall into your lap with the stats you need. Early on you may find more with stam than int or agi. Weird pieces like cloth with strength crop up as quest rewards and drops. So you might end up with agi pieces mixed with int pieces just because that’s the best you’ve picked up for some slots.
Finally, depending on where you roll, you can look for leveling guilds. I’m in one that often gives a care package to new recruits with a few bags, sometimes pots, sometimes wands. Members who’ve been around longer, and craft a bunch for their profession, donate them just for that purpose.
If you’re trying to go entirely without a guild, you can choose professions such as skinning + herbalism that let you harvest along the way as you level, and either vendor or AH to build up some coin early.
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When I start a new server, my first leveling character is a Miner at level 5. Mining is great at that level: every node gives you 1-4 copper, which is 4-20 silver in the AH. You can get your first gold by level 8, then use it for bags etc. I also create a level 1 AH character (which stays near the AH), so I can mail everything I gather. Above level 20, there are lots of other options for goldmaking. Mining is for newbies.
Classic Feral gives you both Cat (dps) and Bear (tanking). My Classic druid is 36, and has no problem healing groups so far. I use Outfitter (addon) for instant changes, but I only have 3 or 4 heal items.
Also, if you are feral, you can get 130% movement speed cat form at level 21 (2-point talent). Only 3 classes have a speedup at level 20/21. That’s huge for questing. At level 30 all druids get 140% travel form, and at 40 you can get a 160 mount. So this Feral speedup only matters levels 21-30.
For me personally that speedup is huge. You can re-spec at 30 or 40 if you like – by then you’ll know a lot more about druid.
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Looking at your goals (level to 60, not concerned about time, want to be able to run dungeons, don’t want two or more sets of gear), I’d suggest a balance levelling. Feral is great for soloing, questing etc, and you can tank dungeons as cat spec until about BRD (low 50’s). After that point, I started to run into issues with threat generation without the threat talent (can’t remember the name).
If you run balance, you can do the solo stuff and then run dungeons as caster dps or as a healer. Your gear will be the same for both, so you don’t need two sets. This would let you heal all the way up, which would also allow you to learn to heal on a druid in more forgiving dungeons rather than getting thrown into it at level 60…
All that said…I’ve never played a balance druid. It could be painful…
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Die hard balance/resto druid here. I leveled feral because it’s simply the most time effective way to go. Your damage is solid and you have far less downtime. Just don’t shy away from +spirit! It really helps regen mana in your cat / bear form!
If you want to be Sir Heals-A-Lot, you’re still better off leveling as Feral. Then you respec post-60, when people will actually care about your healing efficiency.
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Ferals are amazing from levels 20-45ish. They drop off hard end game. Damage doesn’t increase, and mobs hit harder. Around the time you get to ungoro you’ll be healing mid fight because you can’t kill the mobs fast enough.
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That’s an exageration. I levelled with my wife on her rogue. My kill times were lower than hers (ie. i killed faster, especially with a string of crits) but she took WAY less damage.
Druid stinks up to 20 no matter what spec, but feral is amazing after you get cat form. Then at 32 you get ravage and you are a soloing machine.
And you can heal almost any dungeon as feral. You just have to stack int and downrank regrowth and HT. Likewise, you can tank anything.
I will probably heal as balance at end game tbh. Simply because it’s an alt and I know how to heal proactively and even though it ooms all the time it will be better for soloing than resto.
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You want to go feral at least to heart of the wild. You can heal pre-ST/Mara as feral without a healing set, but the higher level you get the harder it will be.
Having said that… I think it’s better to tank as a druid while leveling and then switch to healing in your 50s. Learning how to tank will make you a much better healer.
If you’re bad and plan to play purely by yourself, go full feral and just stay in kitty and pop out periodically to heal yourself(maybe with a mix of agi/spirit gear if you have to heal yourself a lot).
If you’re good, get improved thorns and pre-hot yourself, pull like 3-6 mobs with moonfire, swipe them down, keep moving between autoattacks.
Kitty is so god-awful boring, and you’re constantly stationary spamming claw.
This.
Having tanking and healing as options basically means you cover all three roles as feral and can get in pretty much every group.
The standard 14/33/5 is best for leveling. You can grind mobs with zero downtime and tank dungeons when you want.
Honestly…with Moonglow and Nature’s Grace, you can off-heal pretty decently. Not great, but you can do it.
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