Druid Leveling Talent Builds

The first thing to understand is that feral is the most efficient tree for grinding. Mana-less damage means less downtime for drinking or healing, which means more time for exp.

Gear selection: Priority on stats is Agility>Strength>Expertise rating>=Crit Rating=Hit Rating>Attack Power>>Stamina>Spirit. Strength and Attack Power (1 strength gives you 2 AP, but you also get twice as much AP on any item than you would get strength if it had strength instead of AP) start out having equal value, but after you get Survival of the Fittest, Strength will be very slightly better than Attack Power. Strength also benefits from buffs like Blessing of Kings, unlike Attack Power. Also at the start, Strength is a bit better than Agility, but after you get Primal Fury, Heart of the Wild and Predatory Instincts, Agility will quickly overtake Strength. Also keep in mind that once you get to the hitcap (5% for mobs of your own level), getting more hit rating becomes worthless.

For weapons, until you get to Outlands, you should look for green Two Handed Maces or Staves with a name that ends on "of the Tiger", "of Strength", "of the Bear". Remember that the DPS of the weapon does nothing for forms, it is only about the stat bonuses on it. So often the green weapons are better than blue ones. Once you get to Outlands you should only be using weapons which add Feral Attack Power, you can get one from one of the first quests in Honor Hold / Thrallmar.

I also strongly recommend collecting a separate set for healing, it will help you get groups for instances/group quests. Before you get to Outland, just try to get a set with as much intellect as possible, and dont be afraid to use some cloth, since you shouldn’t be taking hits anyway if you’re healing. You dont really need talents or +heal yet. Once in Outland, start balancing your gear between int, +heal, mana/5sec and spirit. There is lots of quest rewards that fit this description, and since only half of the quests has feral rewards (the rest has moonkin ><) you can take the healing rewards off the other quests.

Leveling

Strategy for 1-9: Nothing Feral about the first 9 levels, you’ll have to do this part with Balance spells. Start with Wrath, Moonfire right when Wrath finishes casting, then spam Wrath till the mob is low and melee it to death, or Wrath it to death. On lvl 8-9 you can use Entangling Roots to keep the mobs at bay a bit more if needed, allowing you to cast without getting interrupted as much.

Strategy for 10-19: Run up to a mob in Bear Form and spam Maul. You can Bash (from level 14 on) and shift out to heal when needed.

Talents:

• 10-14 Ferocity 5/5. This talent improves all your main feral attacks, this is one of the best talents in the feral tree. A must have.
• 15-16 Brutal Impact 2/2. Longer stuns equals more time to heal yourself midfight, or to Shred/hit a mob from behind (no parry/block then).
• 17-19 Feral Instinct 3/3. This won’t benefit you right away, since you don’t even have Cat Form yet. However the other options available aren’t really useful either, and this one will be once you get to level 20. Less chance to get detected while prowling is the main reason to get this. It will allow you to get the first hit off or get past mobs easy.

Strategy for 20-31: Prowl up to a mob, open with Shred (from lvl22), then put Rake (from lvl24) on the mob and spam Claw (don’t Rake if there’s already a Rake debuff up) until 4 or more combopoints, then Rip if the mob still has a fair amount of hitpoints left, else continue the Raking/Clawing.

Talents:

• 20-21 Feral Swiftness 2/2. 30% runspeed increase outdoors, this will speed up your leveling quite a bit, also great in PvP. And the 4% dodge will decrease your damage taken noticably.
• 22 Feral Charge 1/1. This ability is mainly useful for PvP, if you are gonna any PvP at all, you want this. Besides this, it also has limited use during soloing and tanking, giving you a second interrupt ability, a way to get to mobs quickly, and to immobilize them a short time.
• 23-27 Furor 5/5. This combined with Feral Charge gives you the ability to instantly charge something after shifting to Bear Form. It also allows you to start using Cat Form abilities right after shifting, instead of having to wait 4-6 seconds. You will have to respec for Mangle at level 50, but the utility this talent provides can’t be missed imo. If you really don’t care about being able to instantly Bash / Feral Charge / start using stuff in Cat Form after shifting, then you can skip Furor for now and save a respec at lvl 50 for Mangle.
• 28-30 Sharpened Claws 3/3. More crit is good.
• 31-32 Primal Fury 2/2. Rogues gladly spend 5 talent points for half this talent, and with good reason: You can get off a lot more finishing moves. At level 32 you will get your second finishing move (Ferocious Bite) which is almost equal to the rogue ability Eviscerate.

Strategy for 32-54: Change your starting move to Ravage. If your first two attacks crit, follow up with a Rip, otherwise continue building to 5 points and Ferocious Bite (depending on mob health, use rip when 4 or 5 points and health is above 50%, otherwise do a 5 point fero bite).

Talents:

• 33-34 Predatory Strikes 2/3. You don’t get much AP from this talent, it’s mostly a filler to get to Heart of the Wild later.
• 35 Faerie Fire (Feral) 1/1. Armor reduction = more damage on all your attacks, + a 30 yard range instant ability usable in forms, very handy for pulling stuff.
• 36-37 Savage Fury 2/2. 20% damage increase on your primary damage abilities.
• 38 Predatory Strikes 3/3. Filler, prereq for Heart of the Wild.
• 39 Shredding Attacks 1/2. Filler, preparation for Mangle / Shred sequence.
• 40-42 Survival of the Fittest 3/3. More AP, more crit, more dodge, more stamina, less chance to be crit. Great for soloing, great for tanking also.
• 43-44 Heart of the Wild 2/5. Increases your primary stat in each form, very useful.
• 45 Leader of the Pack 1/1. 5% crit for the entire party, another powerhouse feral talent.
• 46-47 Improved Leader of the Pack 2/2. A free heal for yourself every 6-8 seconds, and also for any physical damage class grouped with you.
• 48 Heart of the Wild 3/5.
• 49 Shredding Attacks 2/2.

Strategy for 50-61:
Respec to full feral (0/41/0). Start with Pounce, follow up with a Mangle and then as many Shred as you can fit in. This will be one at the start, but once you get Omen of Clarity it will happen quite often that you can do a second Shred. After this Rip or Ferocious Bite depending on mob health and then continue Mangling until mob dead. After every second or third mob you probably need to shift out, put a Regrowth + Rejuv on yourself, and shift back in.

Talents:

• 51-55 Furor 5/5.
• 56-58 Natural Shapeshifter 3/3. Around this level you will probably start running out of mana healing yourself up every 2 or 3 mobs and shifting back in, if you do take this talent, if you dont have any mana problems consider maxing out the next talent instead.
• 59-60 Naturalist 2/5. A flat increase to all physical damage you deal.
• 61 Omen of Clarity 1/1. Congratulations, you now have all the major talents needed to make a Feral talent build succesful: Free Shreds, free heals, free damage spells (even expensive ones like Hurricane / Tranquility). This will allow you to perform the Pounce Mangle Shred Shred combo much easier, some of the time at least. Another good way of using the Clearcasting is by Regrowthing yourself, tho this is not always practical when a mob is beating on you.

Strategy 62-70: At lvl 62 you get Maim, the druid version of Kidney Shot. This should replace Rip and Ferocious Bite in 95% of all situations. Your combatsequence changes now to: Pounce, Mangle, Shred, (Shred), [Maim, Faerie Fire, Shred, (Shred), Mangle, (Mangle)]. Repeat the part between [ and ] until mob dead :) If Maim misses, use Rip or Bite depending on mob hp, then continue with Mangle until Maim is up again.
Often you will want to wait a bit before using Maim, preferably until you have 60 or more energy. That way you can sometimes use two Shreds before the mob turns around (tho don’t wait too long or Mangle will wear off).

Talents:

• 62-64 Naturalist 5/5.
• 65-66 Heart of the Wild 5/5.
• 67-69 Thick Hide 3/3. More armor equals less incoming damage, so you will be able to continue longer before needing to shift out and heal.
• 70 Doesn’t really matter where you put this, options are Nature’s Grasp for PvP utility, Primal Tenacity for fear/stun resistance, Nurturing Instincts for more self-healing power, Intensity for a bit more rage and mana regen.

Grats on 70, with this build you can do a lot of things, it has all major feral PvP / tanking / DPS talents.

The full talent build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0zZxGGsfroezioVxhz

Balance (1 point)
1/1 Nature’s Grasp

Feral Combat (46 points)
5/5 Ferocity
3/3 Feral Instinct
2/2 Brutal Impact
3/3 Thick Hide
2/2 Feral Swiftness
1/1 Feral Charge
3/3 Sharpened Claws
2/2 Shredding Attacks
3/3 Predatory Strikes
2/2 Primal Fury
2/2 Savage Fury
1/1 Faerie Fire (Feral)
5/5 Heart of the Wild
3/3 Survival of the Fittest
1/1 Leader of the Pack
2/2 Improved Leader of the Pack
5/5 Predatory Instincts
1/1 Mangle

Restoration (14 points)
5/5 Furor
5/5 Naturalist
3/3 Natural Shapeshifter
1/1 Omen of Clarity