An Intro to Druiding

Druid is a fun class but very powerful in the hands a decent player. Druid is a hybrid class with 4 main specs feral combat which is for tanking and DPS and corresponds to the Bear and Cat Forms respectively, balance which is synonomous in higher levels with the moonkin form, and restoration which is for healing and in higher level is embodied by the tree form. Even within the hybrid class there are hybrid specs many revolving around the Nature's Swiftness talent such as FC/NS, Balance/NS, DS/NS (A healing touch spec). Most druids end up specing a bit into resto because it has some nice benefits for moonkin there is intensity and subelty (basically a must have for end game moonkin) and for feral there is furor, shapeshifting and naturalist.

How you spec with druid is very importantand determines how you should play but it is important to remember that you are a hybrid class and this means there are time when you should shiftout of your natural form and use you unspeced abilities whether it be healing, battle resing, going to bear for damage mitigation, going to cat and sprinting, or inervating a healer in need (dont wait until they are completly oom and begging you for one though). Remember that shifting also removes movement impairing effects and polymorph (in most cases) and is necessary in some fights such as Shade of Aran and Little Red Riding Hood (if you are tree in the later case).

Stats that you should be looking to build and emphasise the different play styles
Bear - Stamina, Agility, Strength

Bear is a tank with no shield and no parry to make up for this they can have high stamina and armour and agility for dodge. Strength increases your DPS and thus also your threat.

Cat - Strength, Agility, Stamina

May have got the priorities wrong here but strength will increase your DPS and that is your main priority, agility is good also for crit, and stamina for obvious reason because cat is fairly squishy.

Moonkin - Inteligence (x2), Spirit, Stamina

The constant battle with moonkin is ooming have a big mana pool and some spirit help alleviate the problem but you really have to spec well too. Intel also gives crit which is very impotant for moonkin as any moonkin spell rotation will have at least 2 critable spells per cycle.

Tree - Intelligence and Spirit equally, Stamina

While it is important for tree to have a large mana pool it need a lot of spirit too, not only does it give you mp5 but for tree it also gives you +25% of spirit +healing to members in your party, for any healer. For a typical pre kara tree this is about +100 healing so pretty significant. Tree is very squishy and will draw aggro from time to time so having some stamina is good and remember if you shift to bear you get a bonus 25% and the the armour, if you can't heal through

Not really my forte but what I do know I'll write down.

As feral druid whether dpsing or tanking mangle is your key ability. As bear your main threat generation will probably come from mangle followed up by lacerates and then maul for a single mob or swipe for multiples. You have two taunts growl for a single mob and challenging roar for multiple mobs. Your other special abilities are you have a stun for when that pesky mob is healing or casting an undisreable spell and frenzied regen for when you have rage to burn and you healer has gone to sleep or fallen of a bridge (it could happen). There is also enrage which is probably best use at the start of fights as it lower your armour to give you the rage. Remember to use farie fireand keep it up just handy to have and allow more melee physical ranged damage. Bear is a a strong tank but as with many class you need good gear to be competitive. Typically you want high stamina gear with the green armour value meaning its higher than usual items for that item level.

For cat it is even more important to keep that mangle up. More so than bear though you also have to get your opening move right. There are two options pounce (stun and bleed effect) and ravage direct damage from behind. A typical opening I have found works ok would be Fury (somewhat hated ability among ferals I believe) > Pounce / Ravage > FF > Mangle > Rake > Claw / Shred. When your in the middle or combat wait for the bar to fill and then go in for a combo like Mangle (if not up) > Fury > Rake > Claw / Shred x2. There are probably better combos out there so read the forums for more solid info.

Balance is all about ranged DPS but it varies from the norm very substantially. Moonkin has no aggro reset and generates a lot of aggro, they have no cc in most instances (exceptions being ZF and CoT instances) and if not specced and played well tend to go oom frequently. To compensate they have a very high amount of armour for ranged DPS and barkskin to call on as well, the ability to regain mana by melee attacks, the ability to off heal very competently (if you aren't prepared to do this you should probably not play moonkin) and a very funky dance. The itemisation for moonkin is typically poor and most moonkins have not much choice to wear cloth in many circumstances, if they don't PVP (not really raiding gear though). Given equivalent gear and skill moonkin typically wont out DPS most classes until late end game (T5). All moonkin druids should carry a FAP staff (feral action points) and switch to it when oom and pots on cooldown to regain mana very quickly if the mob isnt doing something nasty like cleave whirlwind etc..

For moonkin's short comings it has some nice and easy spell rotations.

High DPS / Low DPM - IS > MF > Wrath x3 - Good for boss fight when you need to step it up and get some burst dmg in (last boss on tanks in SV, Curator [immune to SF anyways])
Lower DPS / High DPM - IS > SF x3 - Typical Boss fight rotation
Medium DPS / Medium DPM - IS > MF > SF x2 Typical trash rotation

Thing to note hear is that IS is very important if a moonkin isn't using it they aren't very good. It is a very good dpm spell and reduce the tank being hit by 2% but in a long fight save healers mana. FF is also a decent way to open fight while tank is building aggro and sunders or lacerates or consecrating and increases the dps of phsyical damage.

Moonkin is fun but it takes a decent druid to play it well.

Its not easy being green they say and that is maybe why a lot of people only tend to spec this way come end game. Many resto druid start the game as feral and less typically balance and spec across at higher levels. Tree heals are different and less intuitive then most other healing classes as restroration healing mainly swings arounds HOTs. For this reason the heals are typically slow and some druids complain about this but in many cases they need to be told to be quiet and learn to play.

As resto druid your main spell is Lifebloom your secondary ability is telling people who ask that no you are not feral and no you can not tank. Rejuvination is your back up HoT and Regrowth is for when either of those two arent doing the job to well. Swiftmend (with rejuvination or regrowth less oftenly) is your mini panic button and it only has 15s cooldown so use early and use it often, you specced in it after all, and Nature Swiftness (with HT) is your big panic button.

The secret or trick when it comes to LB is to keep refreshing it when it is 3 stacked, this is whats called a rolling Lifebloom typically you can get 2 or 3 with low lag instant casts in before you have to get back on tank to refresh LB, which is good for healing others or keeping up a second tank which you probably want to set up and rolling lifebloom on as well. Typically every second time you refresh LB you need to refresh Rejuvination. In addition to rolling lifebloom there is a more powerful version of this called the trinketed rolling lifebloom the idea is that you use a trinket that gives massive +healing boost and keep refreshing the LB and it keeps the trinket bonus even once you loose the buff typically it is done at the start of the fight there is no reason why you wouldnt have the trinket back mid fight if you needed it.

When the fight start you have to get hots on early because getting behind in druid healing well its not fun a typical opening would be rejuvination LB x3 and then from there if still going down swiftmend rejuvination and regrowth if needed. The tricky thing with druid healing is that you have to be preemptive if you see someone rip you need to have hots up before the mob gets to them and be ready to swifmend if they get hit things like that. If you know the boss fight has aoe then you have to get hots on 2 ppl maybe 3 before the aoe comes in between refreshing your LB on the tank so that you only have 2 people to heal after the aoe which you can squeeze in between refreshing LB.

Swiftmend is a tricky one two get use too ideally you want to use it at the nearing end of a rejuvination but there will be time when you need a flash heal and you dont want to blow NS so the next best bet is Rejuv>Swifmend>Rejuv/LB mages and locks (anything squishy) typically need this when they get in trouble.

Regrowth is harder to time than swiftmend but if you are on top of healing and someone needs a heal and you can afford the time then that when regrowth is the way to go. Its you only spell with a cast time which mean that in many fights you can afford to be mobile (slow reaction coupled with slow tree = dead tree). In boss fights where random aoe spawns on players (Nightbane, First bosses in Arc, Shattered halls, and SV) you should keep away from everyone and keep mobile using instant casts if it does spawn on you, typically you only take one tick and most of the time not even that which means less healing for you to do and more mana for when some else forgets to move and you need to spam the heals on.