Top 1 gaming blog

WoW: Druid Guide 1-10

Mar 28, 2009 Articles Recommend, world of warcraft|977views

Druids do it like animals! And you l be doing it like animal at level 10 or 20. But there even more to them than just shifting into a bunch of forms with different abilities and limitations. A Druid can be a tool of war, a healer or a protector, filling every role (and bank slots with gear for every purpose, those gear hogs).

Freshen Up Before You Fight

If you e new to World of Warcraft, then you will need some basic resources to help you get by. The most important of these resources are addons. For starters, get Cartographer and QuestHelper. I used these two and still do for most of my questing needs. Cartographer also has compatibility with several other addons that you may likely use later in the game.

The same site that those two hyperlinks refer to also contains several other addons that might be of interest to you, so click even if those two aren’t your cup of Thistle Tea.

I Prefer the Horns, Honestly

Right now, you’re probably sitting in the character creation screen, flipping between Night Elves and Tauren, wondering where the other Druid-capable races are. There aren’t any more than those two and there probably won’t ever be any more unless Blizzard removes the race restrictions (Fat chance!). So forget thinking about the racials and ask yourself: Alliance or Horde?

Shadowglen

Level 1
The Birds, Bees, Trees and Plains

If you’re a Night Elf, you’ll start in Shadowglen, Teldrassil (a gigantic tree). Tauren start on the Red Cloud Mesa, Mulgore. Open your map by pressing “M”, take in your surroundings, then close it. QuestHelper will mark your map with locations for quests later.

First, take a look at your hotkey bar. It starts at the bottom left of your window. Notice your first three keys: Attack, Wrath and Healing Touch. Attack is self-explanatory and doesn’t need to be among your hotkeys, so throw it out. Wrath is your bread-and-butter Balance attack and you’ll see a whole lot of it until you’re level 20 and decide to switch to Feral Combat. Healing Touch is your healing spell, mostly to target you and save your behind, but don’t cast it when you only have less than 10% of your health left or you’ll probably be dead before the 1.5-second cast is done.

Now click on the nearest person that has a giant yellow “!” over their heads. This is a quest NPC and there are many like it, but this one should be your first. I’ll let QuestHelper point you to the objective, but reading the quest text is usually enough at this stage in the game.

It won’t be long before these NPCs ask you to kill something as part of their quest. And there are a lot of different types of quests which sometimes require more people than you alone.

Now, get to killing… or gathering… or whatever. For now, just Wrath and Wrath and Wrath until the enemy falls down and doesn’t get back up again.

Red Cloud Mesa, home of fresh meat.

Druids Keep It Clean

Notice the baglike icon whenever you put your mouse over the dead enemy? That means that it can be looted for items that will give you money (most of the time). Items can either have gray, white, green, blue, purple, or even orange names, with their worth ascending in the color order given. You’re not going to see anything above green for a little while, so just sell whatever you find unless you can use it or want to disenchant it.

If you do have a green item that you can’t or don’t want to use, collect a few more and have them disenchanted to put a small boost in your gear. But whatever you do, DO NOT wear the items you want disenchanted unless you’re an Enchanter. Soulbound items cannot be traded and thus, cannot be disenchanted by other players.

Dress like a Druid

After completing your quest and paying a visit to the respective quest NPC, they’re going to give you a reward which will be equipment. ALWAYS take Leather-class armor. Leather is the highest type of armor that Druids can wear and there will be every type of Leather gear for every type of Druid. Only take Cloth-class gear if you’re desperate for the enchantment on it.

Before you reach Cat Form, any green-named equipment that you find should be equipped. Prioritize equipment that upgrades your intellect, stamina or both.

If it’s enchantments that you’re looking for, ask an Enchanter to put Minor Health – Chest and Minor Health – Bracers on your equipment. They only cost 2 Strange Dust total. Those materials are the most common find from low-level greens, so 1 or 2 green items should be enough to cover that.

Pick Up Some 1337 Skills

After completing your first quest, you will now have money. And unless you’ve been living in a cave and using moss and leaves for food and toilet paper, you’ll know that you will need that money. Visit your Druid trainer who will either be in one of the huts in Red Cloud Mesa’s village (for Horde) or in one of the outer rooms on the higher-levels of the tree in Shadowglen (for Alliance).

Even if you’re still Level 1, pick up Mark of the Wild (Rank 1) from your trainer, then take a look at the rest of the skills available to you at the later levels. The money that you need will be available to you later after a few quests.

Cast your new spell on yourself before you start fighting, then recast it whenever it runs out. Most damage done to you by enemies in the starting area will be reduced by 4-8 points with Mark of the Wild.

Into the Wild Blue Yonder… Or Another Part of the Giant Tree

When you’re done with the starting area, head to the newbie village outside the starting area. There will be a quest NPC that will point out the starter village for you.

Before you go there, make sure you at least have the following spells from the Druid trainer in the starting area.

Honestly, all Night Elf locations look the same within the Great Tree. This is Dolanaar.>

Mark of the Wild (Rank 1)
Moonfire (Rank 1)
Rejuvenation (Rank 1)

Once you’ve turned in the quest, take a look around the new village which will be Bloodhoof Village for Tauren and Dolanaar for Night Elves (NOT Starbreeze Village unless the taste of furbolg fist down your mouth appeals to you). First, talk to the innkeeper and set the new village as your home. There will also be a Druid trainer around there, along with several profession trainers. Not all of the game’s professions will be available at that point, but the cities will have them.

All you have to do is follow the road out of Red Cloud Mesa. Don stop to pet anything on the way.

Druids and Their Day Jobs

If leveling unhindered is your fancy, don’t take professions at all, but you will suffer later on if this is your first character in WoW. The gold gained from certain professions will keep you from floundering later on.

Professions

Alchemy

Support with: Herbalism

Prices for healing potions don’t tend to be very impressive, but marketing potions with great worth in PvP (Free Action and Living Action Potions, for example), can net considerable amounts of gold. The only hitch will sometimes be the amount of reputation that you must gather for the factions that sell alchemy recipes.

Blacksmithing

Support with: Mining

Equipment can fetch high prices in the auction house, but only when a dungeon run by one 80 isn feasible. You can also place extra sockets in your rings, but that ‘s about all the usability you can get for a Druid Blacksmith.

Enchanting

Enchanting is difficult to level, but you can often get recipes and ask people to bring their own materials for enchanting their gear. Most of them will be generous enough to give you a tip in gold. And later on, you can place enchantments on your rings that will support your choice of Druid build.

Engineering

Support with: Mining

Engineering can net you good headgear and enhancements for your armor, along with grenades for an added stun and damage. Though there not a lot that you can sell at the auction house, what you can sell will appeal to achievement hunters. Sell the pets that you can create for tidy sums of starting gold, like Mechanical Squirrels, then progress to the more lucrative Tranquil Mechanical Yetis. When it finally available to you, make or sell Mechano-Hogs or Mekgineer Choppers for tips or full-on profit.

Herbalism

Goes well with: Alchemy and Inscription

Druids require less effort than all other classes because of one thing: Gathering herbs does not throw you out of animal form, cutting your gathering time. And because herbs will always be in high demand among Inscribers, especially the weeks before and during Darkmoon Faire, expect to make a lot of money after an hour worth of herb gathering.

And Herbalism gives you a new rank of healing that doesn’t require mana for every 75 levels. Quite useful when you’re out of mana and desperate for healing.

Inscription

Support with: Herbalism

Darkmoon Faire cards are where the most money can be made, but even the glyphs you create fetch good prices depending on their use. The downside is that some of the glyphs need to be discovered before you can begin creating them. But Major glyphs are available from trainers, so the lack of discovered glyphs shouldn keep you down.

Jewelcrafting

Support with: Mining

Gems sell and players will always want gems to place in their sockets. And there are rare gems available to Jewelcrafters only that will be better than any gems other players can use. And there are rings for level 10 players to sell, long before players can acquire rings through dungeons, quests and rare monster loot, so your earnings can start early.

Leatherworking

Support with: Skinning

There’s not a lot of profit to be made from creating gear that can be replaced by an 80-assisted dungeon raid. And just like Blacksmithing, a lot of the high-payout items are only available once you e reached Grand Master status. And with enough recipes, you can keep yourself supported with your own gear for Balance, Feral, or Restoration until you can find replacements from dungeons.

Mining

Goes well with: Blacksmithing and Engineering

Thorium and Mithril are often the way to go on some realms, with prices reaching 60 gold for one stack because of the high requirements to progress in Blacksmithing. Once in Northrend, Titanium can net a lot of cash too, along with raw gems for Jewelcrafters. And there the +50 Stamina once you e at 450 Mining. Bear Forms without talent buffs can see an extra 10-12 stamina with Toughness.

Skinning

Goes well with: Leatherworking

Just like Herbalism, you don’t shift out of your animal form to skin, but you still need to kill beasts. Unlike Herbalism, most of your gathering attempts will yield few skins unless the beast was elite. You l have to sell most of your loot in bulk, but not at impressive prices for any of those materials.

If you’re after more damage, Skinning also offers a small boost to your critical strike rating every 75 levels.

Tailoring

Tailoring isn’t recommended for Druids, even if the Tailor-only cloak upgrades benefit all three Druid types. Check the bag trends, but bags will sell unless people are crazy enough to buy enough of Haris Pilton bags before they come to you for Frostweave Bags.

Level 8

Entangling Roots and Nature Grasp

Now you get to know about Roots What is a Root? It’s an effect that literally roots your target in place, preventing them from running, but not from using abilities or attacking normally while you’re in range.

Without Cat Form to dish out major damage, you’ll only be left with Moonfire, Wrath and your normal attack for monsters. And if you can hit monsters with normal attacks, they’ll be hitting you too.

Entangling Roots changes that. By casting this spell first, you lock a target in place until the game sees fit to release it either by damage dealt or the duration. But don’t mourn the loss of your white damage. While you might spend more mana on casting spells, you’ll also be taking less damage and spend an equal or less amount of time beating your target into submission. No damage done to you means no spellcast delay, which means that Rank 2 Wrath really will cast for 1.7 seconds.

From this point on and until you get Cat Form, REMEMBER:

• STAY OUT OF MELEE RANGE
• ENTANGLING ROOTS, MOONFIRE, then SPAM WRATH
• RECAST ENTANGLING ROOTS if necessary

It not hurting me, it not hurting me, and it not hurting me!

Nature’s Grasp is just Entangling Roots without the cast time, but it requires the enemy to be within striking distance of you. The buff only lasts 45 seconds, so save it for when you need to beat a hasty retreat, heal uninterrupted, or fire off the finishing Wrath.

Level 10

Bear Form

You should get mail from one of your Druid trainers about Bear Form once you e reached level 10. The bad news is that you e going to have to do a quest for it, so stop playing with the creatures and get it done. Ask the guards at Thunder Bluff (Tauren) or Darnassus (Night Elves) for directions to your Druid trainers.

If you do go Bear Form, it won’t be as glamorous as you like to think. You have more armor and health in Bear Form, but you only have one attack skill and it can only be cast when you attack! Compare that to your normal mana-using form, which can hit with three attacks in the span of a second or two more than a Bear Form attack. You also won take much damage at all if you followed the combo I mentioned above.

For now, save Bear Form for saving your hide while you heal with Regrowth and Rejuvenation. Cast them on yourself, then drop into Bear Form and let your HP regenerate.

It not made of win yet, nor does it look cute and cuddly with teeth like that.

Talent Points

When you hit level 10, you’ll see a new message beneath your stat bonuses that mentions something about gaining a talent point What is a talent point? It’s what will separate your Druid class from all the other Druid classes.

If you need a greater opinion on where to spend your first talent point, check HERE, but I suggest putting a point into Starlight Wrath. You can reset your talent trees later to switch to Feral Combat.