Hey all,
I was wondering what people thought about rolling a Druid alt for leveling / farming / and level 60 instances. I doubt very much that it would be used to raid.
How do druids fare in open world PvP, ability to gather materials unhindered, etc?
I have a level 60 warrior, and was hoping to play a more well rounded character that doesn’t suck quite so badly in solo content.
Druids can skin/herb in feral forms (as can Shaman in Ghost Wolf). For that reason, plus stealth and shapeshifting out of roots/snares, Druids are the best skinning/herbalism alts.
Druid level is painfully slow until Level 20. You can buy “of the Bear” gear and melee down mobs (in casterform) until catform, rather than doing the awful awful awful Wrath>Wrath>Moonfire method.
If you intend to be feral, leveling post-20 is EZPZ. If you like hurting yourself, you can level as Balance/Resto or Resto/Balance. It can do everything feral can (solo), just very, very slowly. Feral can tank instances no problem, so if you prefer to run instances, you’ve got an excellent tank at your disposal.
For world PVP, well, I myself think Feral is LOLOLOLOLOL OK for PVP, unless you’re running flag (in which case, it’s great). Balance/Resto can be a very effective solo PVPer, but is very vulnerable when ‘inside’ since you cant use travelform or Entangling Roots. Balance/Resto is much less useful in WSG or AB than AV, however, because standing still is usually not a wise idea – but that means no Starfire crits. Restoration/Balance or Restoration/Feral is never not-good in PVP, but you won’t be killing many enemy players who aren’t Arcane Mages, Fire Mages, or Beastmastery Hunters.
Leveling druid to 20 is awful, but post 20 is fantastic as feral. Feral post 20 is where the “jack of all trades, master of none” thing really comes into its own. You can tank, dps, or heal and you do all three out in the world. Overall, very smooth and enjoyable.
Farming, it depends. Like Jedditelol said, herb / skinning is great. Gold farming is so so. Very rng and dependent on your spec / profs.
Level 60 dungeons are not disimilar to leveling dungeons, in that you can always perform two roles with adequate gear and group skill. You can tank or heal with HoTW, tank or DPS with true feral, or Heal or DPS with balance. Or just heal. Up to you.
Two things I’ll add to PVP. Tauren is the better pvp choice, as warstomp covers some deficiencies and you don’t have to deal with orc stun resistance, UD WOTF, or shamans in general. Engi covers even more deficiencies but lowers farm potential.
Mining as well I’d argue due to stealth, entangling roots, hibernate, travel form, and soothe animal.
Relatively speaking, but 1-20 is fast for every class. It’s a small percentage of 1-60.
Feral/resto hybrid and balance (not boomkin) druids are WPvP gods, especially 1v1.
I main a bear tank. Druids really don’t have have alot of farming spots. For example warlocks, mages, and hunters can solo clear alot of dungeons for gold where druids can’t. I still love playing a druid, it’s fun to be the underdog class.
Druid leveling is probably the most fun I had in Vanilla leveling a character. They’re not super sought after for raids, but they’re also pretty rare so when druid studd drops theres usually no competition for it. I’ve seen druids go from blues to mostly tier in a single run.
Feral druids are probably tied with hunters with ease and comfort of leveling. The only problem with spending that much time as feral, is that you get attached to it and don’t want to respec resto when you’re 60 =(.
Or you can hate yourself enough like me and level resto so there’s no attachment or transition 
having a druid alt is really fun to level and if they ever go to TBC you will want to have flightform farming
If you are just planning on running a druid for an alt I wouldnt roll it for open world PvP. Its true, they are good in open world PvP (if played correctly) but the playstyle is difficult to adjust to for most and a lot of people who play druids do a sub par job. This is partly whey they had such a bad wrap. Probably the class with the highest skill ceiling in terms of PVP. So if PVP is important to you, I would probably roll another class.
PVE they are great, you can easily tank/dps/heal any dungeon in HOTW spec with a gear swap.
I leveled a druid first. It was a lot of fun. I had to be careful not to get cocky with the orange quests, however.
Tanking dungeons is fun, and I even served as an OT in MC. I’m looking forward to hiring Exalted with Stormpike, as it seems like fun could be had in PvP.
Druids best wpvp class in the game. Not scared at all to fight any class we are the hands down the best 1v1 class (yes even better then priest and locks).
I can easly mine in the hives and collect ez arcane crystals.
I engage in any wpvp situation without any worry, cuz if its not going my way im a druid and its impossible to catch me.
Druids get all their raid gear in 2 weeks cuz no one raids with druids and the gear always drops
They are not as gear dependent. Iv killed mutliple rank 14 rogues and warriors in T1 without a sweat.
I wouldnt be any other class we win at everything.
Well, thanks everyone. Started a Druid and got her to level 17 last night. Going to try and get to 25 tonight!
Any tips? I’ve been doing wrath > wrath > starfire > Renew as a pull and swapping to bear and just mauling stuff to death.
Not having Cat has been…interesting.
Just get to 20 by hook or crook, and then Druid really comes on line.
Cat form makes you into a leveling machine.
I started a Druid Alt for fun and for some additional material farming a few days ago. I’m taking my time with it and almost 20 (I’m leveling mining and herbalism at the same time).
Leveling has been fun except when I push boundaries on the higher level quests. Lol. Mostly I pull with Wrath and Moonfire and switch to bear and punch them in the face.
I’m enjoying myself.
Druids are the second most time efficient class to level next to Hunters. They are great for farming and you can easily tank everything you want as Feral. If you plan to heal in 5 mans at 60, you need to run with a Shadow Priest or Pally/Shammy in your group for the rez. Druids are untouchable in World PVP; you can gank low health enemies and also run away from literally everything but a one-gcd nuke. Love my Druid.