Hey, if cats, bears and poultry is your thing, who am I to judge? :) Welcome to the druid talent guide, where I’ll try to explain, in a very newb-friendly fashion, the colorful life of a druid and its black-white different talent builds. Let’s start with the all-time crowd favorite, the king of the wild, the tree that makes all other trees feel the need to pack a sock in their pants: the feral tree.
Feral Spec
Hands-down, feral spec is the easiest form of leveling, at least until you’re 50 or so. The main advantage of ferals is their low downtime, which automatically translates into faster leveling in the long run. Essential talents include: Ferocity (reduces the cost of skills), brutal impact (it’s essential because it saves your life in oh-so-many occasions), feral swiftness (you’ll be surprised how much the extra speed adds up in the long run), Furor (although it’s resto, energy retention during shifting = awesome), Feral Faerie Fire (besides sounding funny, it’s a great talent to have while instancing and soloing).
Leveling ferals usually combine their remaining talents with resto (to get Omen of Clarity) and go for a build somewhere along this one:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxhGsfboezioVx0z
Obviously, you should make slight adjustments in the feral tree, according to your playing style, whether you prefer to solo, instance or grind and so forth.
Balance Spec
Well, to each his own, but I never really enjoyed playing the poultry, when others around me were playing brave warriors, wise mages, fearsome heroes, or stompworthy gnomes. But for those of you with a feather fetish, balance is possibly one of the most maleable trees in the game (which also makes talent choosing a hard step).
If you plan on PVP-ing, the classic
45/0/16 build is probably the most suitable choice, although you could also go in the feral tree a bit, to get Feral Charge, which gives you some extra toughness and manuverability, but from what I noticed, is harder to get used to.
For raiding, I would suggest going
44/0/17, which is a very balanced (sic!) build, giving you good DPS, support and threat reduction. Depending on your playing style, your tank’s skill and where you’re raiding, you could get the extra point in Subtlety, or, if you’re in a melee-heavy group, get Improved Faerie Fire.
Restoration Spec
Remember what I said about Balance giving you a lot of leeway in how you spec? Well resto is the exact opposite. As a tree, your sole purpose of existance is PVE, there’s really no other way to it. Since you’ll be pretty imobile in tree mode, and pretty useless outside it, it’s generally agreed that the decent thing to do is put all your eggs in the resto basket. Here’s my tree spec of choice:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZZxEIteqMest
All in all, druids are a fun class to play in all specs, but I’d have to say they’re definitely not for players that love simplicity. As a druid you have to wear many hats throughout your playing career and it’s almost crucial that you’re a fast adapter, else you’re just a silly tree, fat bear, mushy kitty or geeky owl in the eyes of the rest.
