Druid guide for WoW Forever

The druid is the most complete hybrid in the game: it can tank, deal melee damage, cast from range and heal, and it switches roles by switching forms. In its normal form it uses mana to cast; in Bear Form it fights with rage, like a warrior; in Cat Form it uses energy and combo points, like a rogue. It wears cloth or leather, never mail. Shifting costs mana and it is rarely the best at any single job, but it levels solo very comfortably and fits any gap in a group.

Balance (damage)

Damage caster with Wrath (nature) and Starfire (arcane). In Classic it is the tree with the worst mana problems, and Forever goes straight at that: Wrath is redesigned to cost much less mana, in exchange for dealing significantly less damage than in Classic, and Omen of Clarity becomes baseline for every druid.

Feral (damage and tank)

One tree with two roles. In Cat Form it is melee damage with stealth and attacks that build combo points; in Bear Form it is a tank with multiplied armour. That is why this site shows it with two stat and gear variants: Feral (cat) and Feral (bear).

Restoration (healing)

A heal-over-time healer: Rejuvenation, Regrowth and Tranquility for the whole group. Forever adds Wild Growth, which does not exist in Classic, and lets its periodic heals crit.

On September 30 Blizzard opened its Forever class deep dives with the hunter and the druid. These are the changes you will notice most as a druid, in our own words. Blizzard warned that abilities and talents could keep changing during the beta. Some of the ones it presented were not in it yet: the missing cat pieces arrived with build 1.60.1.70170 on October 1.

• Friendlier forms: potions and almost all similar consumables work without leaving form (rage potions and Thistle Tea too); Engineering bombs still cannot be used, except for some new recipes. Most doors and objects open in form, and racials such as Shadowmeld, War Stomp or Walk on Air work as well.
• The weapon counts in form: your auto-attack in Bear, Dire Bear and Cat Form deals the same DPS as your equipped weapon, at a fixed speed of 1.0 or 2.5 seconds depending on the form, and abilities that deal weapon damage use those values. Weapon enchants and procs, such as weightstones, Crusader or Windfury Totem, work too.
• New baseline abilities: Nature's Grasp (it roots the next enemy that hits you in melee) is learned by every druid at level 10 and can be cast in form and indoors; Omen of Clarity is baseline at level 20 and Wrath never spends its Clearcasting; Revive (level 12) is an out-of-combat resurrection and Poised (level 32) is a passive: out of combat with full energy, your next energy ability costs 10 less. Lacerate, a 15-second bleed that stacks up to 5 times and generates high threat, is no longer learned by every druid: since November 2 it is a Feral talent.
• Balance: Wrath costs much less mana and deals significantly less damage, and Improved Wrath also lowers its cost. Hurricane loses its cooldown, Entangling Roots can be cast indoors, Barkskin works in form and Faerie Fire can be cast in Bear or Cat Form for free, on a 6-second cooldown. New talents include Insect Swarm (16-point milestone), Eclipse (each Wrath shortens your next 2 Starfires) and Overgrowth (Entangling Roots on up to 3 targets), and Moonkin Form lets you cast any non-healing spell.
• Feral abilities: Claw and Shred deal significantly more damage, Rake and Swipe scale more with attack power, Growl has the same cooldown as the warrior's Taunt and Frenzied Regeneration can heal you for 100% of your maximum health with enough rage. Bear and Dire Bear Form now give a 115% threat bonus (was 50%), to make up for Blessing of Salvation being removed. Tiger's Fury is gone: build 1.60.1.70170 (October 1) removes it for every druid and brings Shifting Power in its place.
• Feral talents: since the November 2 notes, row 4 has two 1-point talents, Lacerate for the bear and Predatory Discipline for the cat (Ferocious Bite no longer turns extra energy into damage, but still deals extra damage based on your excess energy), and row 7 has Primal Bite for the bear (20 rage, 100% weapon damage plus a bonus and very high threat; now 3 ranks, with Leader of the Pack as a prerequisite) and Shifting Power for the cat (40 energy instantly for a large mana cost; it requires Predatory Discipline). Improved Shifting Power has been in the beta since build 1.60.1.70170 and Shredding Attacks sits on row 3. Berserk has been removed, and Thick Hide now grants armour based on the defense on your gear: druid tanks finally benefit from defense items.
• Restoration: Regrowth costs significantly less mana, Swiftmend (16-point milestone) no longer consumes your Rejuvenation or Regrowth (it now needs one of your own on the target), and Wild Growth (31-point milestone) heals the target's whole party, pets included, every second for 7 seconds, on a 6-second cooldown and at a high mana cost. Gift of the Earthmother has been removed since November 2; Bloom takes its place on row 3: when your Rejuvenation or Regrowth expires on its own, the target is healed instantly for 100% of your Spirit (50% if it is dispelled).
• Furor changes: with 5 points you regenerate energy outside Cat Form as if you were in it, but you lose it when you shift to bear. Blizzard does this to prevent bear-weaving and brings power shifting back in a simpler way through Shifting Power. Since November 2, Furor sits in the Feral tree and Heart of the Wild in Restoration: they swapped places.

Blizzard still sees the druid as the class that can fill any role, at the cost of having no snares, silences or interrupts, weaker crowd control and heals over time that need planning. Talents, Legacy talents included, are changed at your class trainer in a capital city, and dual specialization arrives at level 40. Read our summary of the deep dive or Blizzard's official article.

Build 1.60.1.70170, from October 1, hits Feral hard. Tiger's Fury is removed for every druid and the King of the Jungle talent leaves the tree. In their place comes Shifting Power, on row 4 of Feral and linked to Shredding Attacks (since November 2 it is a 1-point talent on row 7 that requires Predatory Discipline): Cat Form only, it instantly converts 55% of your base mana into 40 energy, on a 16-second cooldown. It costs the same as shifting into Cat Form, and anything that makes shapeshifting cheaper makes it cheaper too. On row 5, Improved Shifting Power takes 4 or 8 seconds off its cooldown.

The bear comes out ahead too: Bear Form and Dire Bear Form generate 75% more rage on every critical strike, Primal Bite generates roughly twice as much threat and Swipe finally scales with attack power (3%), although Blizzard warns its tooltip will not update until later. Every form is immune to disarm effects, with a catch: if you are disarmed before you shift, the form does not remove it and you deal reduced damage while it lasts. And Faerie Fire no longer resets your auto-attack. Two more notes from that build: the character sheet now explains that spells of ranks far below your level get less from your spell power and trigger your talents less often (Blizzard uses Omen of Clarity as an example), and the known issues include Faerie Fire not generating threat.

Before that, in build 1.60.1.70009, the druid already had eight documented changes, more than most classes, and three of them touch the same thing: healing crits. In Classic, periodic heals cannot crit. In Forever, Rejuvenation, Tranquility and Wild Growth (a spell that does not exist in Classic) can now land critical hits. For Restoration, crit goes from nearly useless to worth something.

On the damage side, the big change is Wrath, the spell every druid kills with at level 1 and the one Balance uses all the way up. The September 24 notes raised its base damage by roughly 50%, but relative to the previous beta build, not to Classic. Blizzard's September 30 class deep dive makes it clear: Wrath is redesigned to cost much less mana and deals significantly less damage than in Classic. The current game client confirms it: its last rank, at level 54, deals 86-96 damage for 120 mana, against 236-264 for 180 in Classic. Thorns improves in a different way: in Classic its damage was fixed when cast; in Forever it updates on the fly with your spell power.

Feral gets three tweaks. Primal Bite is a new Forever ability that was called Mangle in the beta and applied a signature debuff; it is now renamed and loses that debuff. The talent the beta had renamed Primal Fury gets its Classic name and icon back, Blood Frenzy. And Feral Charge in Cat Form can no longer be cast on allies. The notes gave neither Primal Bite's damage nor its cost; the September 30 class deep dive now describes it: it costs 20 rage, deals 100% weapon damage plus a bonus and generates very high threat.

On top of that, the druid can already test the Cooldown Manager (off by default) and on gamepad it gets its own Shapeshift flyout.

Recommendation: Feral from 10 to 60, in Bear Form until you get Cat Form and in Cat Form from then on. It is the tree that depends least on mana: in form you fight with rage or energy and save your mana for healing. Balance spends far less mana on Wrath than in Classic, but each Wrath hits for less and the tree still depends on mana; keep it for group play.

How the climb breaks down, broadly:

• From 1 to 10, Wrath is your weapon. In Forever it costs much less mana, so you can keep casting it for longer; in exchange, from rank 2 (level 6) each Wrath hits for less than in Classic.
• From 10 to 20, Bear Form: it takes a beating, builds rage from hitting and being hit, and you can drop out of it to heal. Use this stretch to tank a dungeon or two.
• From 20, Cat Form for questing: stealth lets you choose your fights. Keep Thorns up at all times.
• From 30, Travel Form speeds up everything else.

Talents, broadly: Feral up to the 16-point milestone (new in Forever; if you would rather not think, there are two class presets), prioritising Cat Form damage and crit, plus Blood Frenzy. At that milestone, row 4 offers Lacerate for the bear and Predatory Discipline for the cat; Shifting Power, the cat's instant energy for mana now that Tiger's Fury is gone, comes later, on row 7. At level 30, the beta's last cap, putting every point into Feral takes you to row 5. A reset cost 1 silver in the beta, so leveling as Feral and healing on a given night was cheap; at launch, check what it costs at your trainer.

Pacing in Forever:

• No level scaling: zones keep their fixed level. Orange mobs eat too much mana in self-healing; move zones.
• Dungeon quests: since October 1 they give half the extra experience they used to give on top of a normal quest. Go in for the loot and the mobs, not just the quests.
• Spend your Legacy Points if this is your main: Well Rested, the example perk Blizzard has shown, gives more rested experience.
• Stop at the campsite before every dungeon: repairs, vendors and up to three one-hour buffs crafted by other players.

The table above has four profiles. Balance wants spell power, then hit and crit, and mana per 5 seconds weighs in because mana is its big problem. Feral (cat) is a regular melee: agility and strength almost level (1 strength gives 2 attack power), with hit and crit above everything. Watch the weapon: our weights score it only by its stats, because in Classic forms ignored its damage, but in Forever your auto-attack in form deals the same DPS as your equipped weapon and its enchants and procs work (Blizzard's September 30 class deep dive). Weapon DPS counts again, even though the table does not reflect it yet. Feral (bear) flips the order: stamina, armour and agility, because Bear Form multiplies leather armour and the bear cannot parry or block. In Forever, the Thick Hide talent also grants armour based on the defense on your gear, so defense pieces work for you too, and since October 1 every crit in Bear Form generates 75% more rage, so crit also feeds your resources.

Restoration wants healing and spell power, then mana per 5 seconds and spirit. A Forever-specific nuance: our weights, built for level 60, give crit little value because periodic heals cannot crit in Classic. With Rejuvenation, Tranquility and Wild Growth now able to crit, our reading is that crit is worth somewhat more than the table shows; we have not measured it yet, so the number stays until we have data.

At level 30, the beta's last cap, Leatherworking weighs even more: Feral (bear) equips six recipes, Feral (cat) four and Balance three plus two from Tailoring; Restoration wears three Tailoring pieces, two Leatherworking pieces and an Enchanting orb. From dungeons, both Feral variants share the Ghostshard Talisman from the Scarlet Monastery; the cat adds Ironspine's Eye from the same dungeon and the Wolfclaw Gloves from Razorfen Kraul, and the bear, the Ebon Vise. Balance and Restoration wear Scorn's Icy Choker from the Scarlet Monastery and the Spidertank Oilrag from Gnomeregan; Balance adds the Bloodmage Mantle, and Restoration, the Death Speaker Scepter from Razorfen Kraul. The weapon for both Feral variants is the Viscous Hammer, a world drop. The trinkets, and depending on the tree a ring, the cloak or the boots, come from the battleground supply officers; our list mixes both factions' versions, so get the one for yours.

On the way, at level 20, Leatherworking already provided three or four pieces per variant, and the standout dungeon pieces were the Blackened Defias Armor and Smite's Mighty Hammer from The Deadmines, the Gloves of the Fang from Wailing Caverns and the Tree Bark Jacket from Blackfathom Deeps.

Higher up, the Scarlet Monastery is the key stop, with eight different BiS-marked items for the druid, followed by Razorfen Downs and Blackrock Depths, with three each. Forever's new dungeons that are already playable (Hall of Thanes, Ruins of Lordaeron and Excavation Site) have no BiS-marked loot for the druid in our data yet. The breakdown per level and slot is on the druid BiS page.

What it can wield. In Classic the druid uses daggers, fist weapons, one- and two-handed maces and staves, with an off-hand item next to a one-hander; no shield and no ranged weapon, and that slot holds the idol, which our lists do not score. Blizzard has not announced any change to this for Forever. As in Classic, every weapon type has its own skill, which rises with use up to 5 points per character level.

What our lists score. The types our druid lists score are one-handed maces, fist weapons, daggers, two-handed maces and staves. All four lists compare a one-hander with an off-hand item against a two-hander. The weapon skill points some items carry add nothing to our score.

What changes in Forever. The big change is for Feral, and the class deep dive explains it: in Cat, Bear and Dire Bear Form your auto-attack deals the same DPS as your equipped weapon, at a fixed speed of 1.0 or 2.5 seconds depending on the form, and abilities that deal weapon damage use those values. So in form the weapon's DPS counts, its speed does not change yours, and its enchants and procs work too. Our Feral weights still score the weapon by its stats alone, as we explain under stat priority. For Balance and Restoration, Blizzard's Deep Dive Panel Recap says caster weapons now grant spell damage and healing; the same recap says weapon skill works as it always has, but items that grant it give less per piece.

Racials. None of the druid's races (night elves, tauren and the Skyborne of both factions) has a weapon racial, so the weapon plays no part in your race choice. The full comparison is in the best race for a druid.

The druid is still a matter of night elves for the Alliance and tauren for the Horde, as in Classic, and Forever adds the Skyborne of both factions, the class's two new combinations. The Skyborne pick a faction at character creation, start on Zephras Isle with their own level 1 to 12 adventure and have two active and two passive racials, not yet detailed for the druid. Since October 1, High Order Skyborne can do the quest "Power Over Poison" to learn Cure Poison.

The only racial changed in the beta that affects the druid is the tauren's Cultivation: in Forever it requires a character level equal to the herb's level divided by 5, and herbs needing 300 or more skill are learnable at level 60. Otherwise, choose by faction and looks.

Skinning + Leatherworking is our recommendation for almost any druid in Forever, and the data backs it: all four variants wear three or four Leatherworking pieces in the level-20 BiS, and in the level-30 one, the beta cap, Feral (bear) wears six and Feral (cat) four. Skinning also levels itself while you kill beasts. Forever adds more than 600 new recipes and a passive bonus per profession.

If you plan to heal, Tailoring covers Restoration's three cloth pieces, but pairing it with Leatherworking leaves you with no gathering; in our opinion it pays off more to commission them. For gold, Herbalism + Alchemy (with the Cultivation change if you are a tauren). First Aid saves mana and Cooking gives a small experience bonus through crafted food. Each profession's leveling path is in the profession guides.

• Staying in normal form for everything. Wrath costs less mana, but it also hits for less than in Classic. From 10, fight in form.
• Forgetting Thorns. In Forever it scales on its own with your spell power: no need to recast it after a gear change.
• Picking a Feral weapon only by its stats. In Forever your auto-attack in form deals the same DPS as your equipped weapon and its enchants and procs work: check the weapon's DPS too, not just its agility and strength.
• Tanking in Bear Form with cloth pieces. Bear Form multiplies leather armour; a cloth piece with better stats almost always loses.
• Writing off crit as Restoration. Your periodic heals can now crit: do not chase it, but do not throw it away.
• Looking for Mangle in beta guides. It is now Primal Bite, with no debuff; and the beta's Primal Fury is Blood Frenzy again.
• Counting on Tiger's Fury. Since October 1 it does not exist: your source of extra energy in Cat Form is Shifting Power, which takes it from your mana.
• Standing too close behind the enemy. Among the known issues of the October 1 build, enemies can parry and block from behind if you are very close; Blizzard advises not standing that close until it is fixed.
• Pushing orange quests. Without level scaling, they are lost one mana bar at a time. Rotate zones.
• Never trying Restoration. Check what a reset costs at your trainer and try it on a dungeon night.