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World of Warcraft Classic‘s Season of Discovery has a lot to find and many new ways to play the MMO’s longstanding classes. Certain new abilities come in the form of runes, which allow classes fresh spells or to take on roles they normally don’t have. One of the more underrepresented classes in WoW Classic is the druid. However, Season of Discovery has thrust this shapeshifting role into the spotlight. In this WoW Season of Discovery Druid leveling guide, we will break down the best ways to reach the max level fast.
Best WoW Classic Druid Race in SoD
Let’s start out this WoW SoD Druid leveling guide by discussing the best race for the class and role. In World of Warcraft Classic, Druids were limited to a single race on each faction. Night Elves are the only race available to Druids on the Alliance, and Tauren fill the same niche on the Horde.
This narrow choice remains in Season of Discovery. Your choice of race ultimately comes down to which faction you prefer playing. Night Elf and Tauren racials are not the most impactful regarding increasing damage or healing. Tauren might have a slight edge in PvP with an AoE stun and slightly increased health, but the benefits are not worth playing a faction you don’t vibe with. Pick whichever one you prefer, and you will be fine.
WoW SoD Druid Leveling Guide – Runes
The current level cap in Season of Discovery is set at 25. This will change as new phases are released, but players don’t have many talent points at the current stage. For this reason, much of the Druid leveling experience in the early levels will pigeonhole you into just being a caster and spamming the Wrath spell.
This is viable now because of the Rune system in Season of Discovery. Players can solve puzzles to obtain new abilities, and the first one Druids can obtain is called Fury of Stormrage. This effectively allows the Druid to spam Wrath without running out of mana and also gaining a chance to proc a free Healing Touch. It is obtained through an introductory quest early in the leveling process.
- Fury of Stormrage: Reduces the mana cost of Wrath by 100% and each time you deal damage with Wrath you have a 12% chance for your next cast of Healing Touch within 15 sec to be instant.
WoW SoD Druid Leveling Guide – Alternative Runes
Other useful runes while utilizing Fury of Stormrage are as follows:
- Sunfire – Burns the enemy for Nature damage and then additional Nature damage over 12 sec.
- Starsurge (DPS) – Launch surging stellar energies that cause Arcane damage. Starsurge benefits from and triggers most talents and effects that trigger or benefit from Wrath or Starfire.
- Wild Growth (Healing) – Heals all of target player’s party members within 40 yards of target player over 7 sec. The amount healed is applied quickly at first, and slows down as Wild Growth reaches its full duration.
Once you get Cat Form, you can choose to finish out your leveling experience with the following runes:
- Savage Roar – Finishing move that increases physical damage done by 30% while in Cat Form. Lasts longer per combo point.
- Mangle – Mangle the target for 300% normal damage and cause the target to take 30% additional damage from Bleed effects and Shred for 1 min. Awards 1 combo point. This ability benefits from and triggers all effects associated with Claw and Maul.
- Wild Strikes – While you are in Cat Form, Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form, party members within 20 yards gain increased combat ferocity. Each melee hit has a 20% chance of granting the attacker an extra attack with 20% additional Attack Power. No effect if the party member is already benefitting from Windfury Totem.
WoW SoD Druid Leveling Guide – Talents
You don’t get Cat Form in WoW Classic until level 20. With this in mind, early leveling will benefit most from putting points into Improved Wrath. This will lower the cast time of Wrath, allowing more to be pumped out before the enemy can reach you.
Casting Wrath with this Rune activated on your chest slot also doesn’t count for the five-second rule in terms of mana regeneration. This means you can weave healing spells (such as the free Healing Touch procs) or Moonfire/Sunfire to add damage or keep yourself alive. This also allows Druids to help do meaningful damage while healing early dungeons.
After you max out Improved Wrath, you have several options. You can put the next five points into Improved Moonfire for more damage, Improved Mark of the Wild if you plan to heal, or Natural Weapons if you want to switch to Feral for leveling or tank dungeons. Talents after this continue not to be very beneficial and will largely depend on what role you want to fulfill at the maximum level.
Best Druid Leveling Zones
Now, we will discuss the zones to choose while leveling. There are many options, but there is an easiest path with limited traveling required based on which faction you choose.
Alliance Druids will want to level through the initial Night Elf starting zone. Teldrassil is very thematic and has many of your early and best Rune unlocks. From there, you will spend the rest of your leveling experience in Darkshore.
Horde Druids will level through the Tauren starting zone, Mulgore, before heading into the Barrens to finish out their leveling for Phase One.
Max Level Choices
What role you decide to play at level 25 is entirely up to you. All three Druid specializations are performing very well. Druid healers are considered one of the best largely due to Wild Growth and free damage via Wrath during downtime. While not quite as good as some other tanks, Druid tanks benefit from Wild Strikes and early access to AoE. Cat druids are largely the same. Balance Druids fall off a bit but are also competitive and make lives miserable in PvP due to their increased range and low mana costs.
When gearing for Balance or Restoration, focus most of your stats on Intellect and Stamina. Gearing for Agility and Stamina will get you pretty far for Tanks and Feral Druids.
This is all you really need to know to reach max level quickly in WoW Classic SoD as a Druid. As new phases are released, the best ways to level will likely change. However, for now, you can’t go wrong with spamming Wrath and keeping yourself healed to level 25. There are also many addons that you can download to make the process smoother.
World of Warcraft is available on PC.
