Druid Leveling Guide from 1 to 90

Welcome to our Druid leveling guide! Here you will find all you need to about leveling a Druid efficiently. In addition, you may wish to check out our General Leveling Guide, complete with detailed information on XP, mounts, addons, consumables, tips, and more.

Druids have the ability to play as any role depending on their specialization. Until you are Level 5 and unlock this choice though, use Wrath and Moonfire to kill enemies while leveling. After reaching this point and unlocking Cat Form, use use Shred while shapeshifted. After hitting level 10, you will then unlock your choice of specialization to continue your journey.

Druids have four talent trees: Balance, Feral, Guardian, and Restoration. Our general recommendation for leveling with Druid will be with the tank specialization, Guardian.

Guardian is the Tank specialization for Druid, and also our suggested leveling spec. It still deals very respectable damage, but has a significantly higher degree of survivability. This lets you pull extremely large groups of enemies without much worry of being overwhelmed, allowing you to AoE them down comfortably. It's also excellent for group content, often with quick queues for dungeons owing to being a Tank.

Leveling Information

Guardian Druid Leveling

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Balance is the Ranged DPS specialization for Druid, coming with instant DoT spells that allow it to pull enemies from a distance. This can then be followed up with AoE spells like Starfall to deal with them quickly, leading to their reputation as an extremely efficient leveling and farming spec. With the mobility of Druid added in, it's a great choice for solo or group content.

Leveling Information

Balance Druid Leveling

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Feral is the Melee DPS specialization for Druid, focusing on damage over time effects and powerful burst. While normally DoT effects aren't that useful for leveling due to how fast enemies die, the amount of burst it can deal easily makes up for that. Its suite of AoE tools allow you to set up your damage on foes and move on to the next while they bleed out, making it a strong choice provided you keep on your toes. In dungeons however, with both the slower DPS queue and the faster kill times on enemies, it's a bit weaker.

Leveling Information

Feral Druid Leveling

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Restoration is the Healing specialization for Druid, and as such isn't really built around solo content. While it has some options available to it using both a mix of Balance and Feral shapeshift spells and has higher throughput than many healers, if you're sticking to questing this is less than ideal. In group content however, both due to the very fast dungeon queues and the instant healing it can provide, it's exceptionally good.

Leveling Information

Restoration Druid Leveling

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The best Heirloom to level with are Leather pieces with a mix of Haste, Critical Strike and / or Versatility. These will smooth out the rotation, and help with unique mechanics depending on your chosen specialization.

Itemization

Leveling Heirlooms

Learn how to use Heirloom gear to level your characters as fast as possible!

Heirlooms Guide

• You start off with Wrath, a short cast that deals Nature damage.
• Level 2 - Moonfire: Deals instant Arcane damage and applies a DoT. Great or pulling mobs.
• Level 3 - Regrowth: Heals your target and leaves a HoT effect.
• Level 4 - Entangling Roots: Roots your current target for 30 seconds.
• Level 5 - Cat Form: Shapeshifts into a cat, allowing you to use melee abilities that use Energy.
  • Shred: Deals direct damage and builds a Combo Point.
• Level 6 - Dash: Increases your movement speed for 10 seconds, and shapeshifts you into Cat Form. Great for moving around, but a long 2-minute cooldown.
• Level 7 - Ferocious Bite: Allows you to spend the Combo Points generated by Shred to deal massive damage to your target while in Cat Form.
• Level 8 - Bear Form: Shapeshifts into a bear, becoming significantly tougher, and allows you to use abilities that consume Rage.
  • Mangle: deals Physical damage to your target on a short cooldown.
• Level 9 - Growl: Taunts your target for 8 seconds. Can only be used in Bear Form.
• Level 9 - Mark of the Wild: Buffs you and your group with 3% Versatility for 1 hour.
• Level 10 - Barkskin: Reduces damage taken by 20% for 8 seconds. Is off the global cooldown and only has a 1 minute cooldown, so is great if you feel in danger.
• Level 10 - Travel Form: Shapeshift that increases your movement speed significantly while outdoors, but you can't attack while transformed.
• Level 11 - Thrash: Deals Bleed damage and applies a DoT to nearby enemies on a short cooldown. Can only be cast in Bear Form.
• Level 13 - Prowl: Shapeshifts you into Cat Form and grants stealth. Allows you to skip past dangerous enemies, so is great for open world content.
• Level 13 - Revive: Resurrects your ally while out of combat. Has a long cast time, but useful for group content.
• Level 17 - Aquatic Form: Confers the movement speed benefits of your Travel Form to movement underwater as well, and allows you to breathe underwater while shapeshifted.
• Level 19 - Rebirth: Resurrects your ally while in combat. Very handy in group content if an ally dies at a bad time.
• Level 20 - Flight Form: When using Travel Form while out of combat and outdoors it now becomes equivalent to a flying mount. Allows you to instantly take off and gather items while shapeshifted, so is extremely useful for questing.

Class Guides

Druid Class Guides

Finished leveling your character? Check out our max level guides!

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Bora, Wordup, Pumps, and Torty

Guide Authors

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This was written by Borabank, a Balance Druid theorycrafter and raider in Country Club. You can watch him on his Twitch channel or find him in the Dreamgrove Discord server.

This guide has been written by Wordup, a frequent theorycrafter involved in a number of class communities. He is also an experienced player who has been in the world top 100 since the days of Sunwell, currently raiding in Echoes. You can follow him on Twitter.

This guide has been written by Pumps who has played since Vanilla and has tanked in Honestly, the #1 Oceanic raiding guild, since Mists of Pandaria. He also played in the first MDI Mythic+ dungeon tournament, where his team placed second. His mindset on tanking has always been about taking the utility and damage one can bring to the raid to the next level. He was the #1 Rank DPS Guardian Druid for 5 tiers in a row and top the 1-6 for the last 12 tiers, playing Guardian Druid, Brewmaster Monk and Protection Warrior based on which is the strongest for progression at the time. You can find him on discord — pumps. — and on Twitch.

This guide has been written and reviewed by Torty, one of the main Restoration Druid theorycrafters. He currently raids in the Top 100 guild Pure, and also holds the 'Expert' rank on the Dreamgrove Discord.