Druid Talent Templates

Levelling Talent Template

This not, strictly speaking, a talent template at all, but rather a tiny guide for the initial order of talents you may want to choose for fast levelling through levels ten to forty or so. Balance spec may be a viable levelling alternative, but I think feral gives you more options and IMO is simply more fun than repeatedly casting Moonfire and Starfire for 30 levels.

When you get to fifties, you will probably know more about druid talents than I do, and will be able to design your own build easily.

Levels 10-14: Furor - 5/5 points

Gives you a 100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form or 40 Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form. After getting Bear form at level ten you will notice that Druid in Bear form is always hard pressed for rage. Without ability to eat or heal in bear form, you have to shift out often, and begin the next fight at zero. Bear's attack speed is fixed at 2 seconds, and it could be 6-7 seconds before you get enough rage to use any special abilities. Furor is what makes you a true hybrid by allowing you to do something interesting immediately after you shift.

Levels 15-19: Ferocity - 5/5 points

Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, and Rake abilities by 1 Rage or Energy. Just a tad too expensive at 5 talent points, but a very solid DPS increase nevertheless.

Levels 20-21: Brutal Impact - 2/2 points

Increases the stun duration of your Bash and Pounce abilities by 1 sec. While PvP is where this talent is really important, it still beats other talents at this tier in PvE usefulness. Bash is your only spell interrupt, and having this extra second may just be the time you need to bring that pesky self-healing mob down.

Levels 22-24: Feral Instinct - 3/5 points

Increases threat caused in Bear and Dire Bear Form by 9% and reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling. This is a filler; feel free to substitute Thick Hide, but note that with the items available at these levels, it won't do much for you neither.

Levels 25-30: all talents at this tier are great, and there's no reason not to get them all. Pick any order you like.

Feline Swiftness - 2/2 points

Increases your movement speed by 30% while outdoors in Cat Form and increases your chance to dodge while in Cat Form by 4%. Helps with annoyingly slow stealthed movement speed, but most of the value is the increased Cat survivability, both directly from dodge and by giving you a better chance of a successful erm... strategic retreat.

Sharpened Claws - 3/3 points

Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form by 6%. That's twice more crit per talent point than rogues and warriors get, and they still call it a bargain at twice the price.

Feral Charge - 1/1 point

Causes you to charge an enemy, immobilizing and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 sec. Useful runner catcher in solo PvE and invaluable in PvP. Works nice with Furor in groups, allowing you to root and off-tank an add very effectively.

Levels 31-32: Blood Frenzy - 2/2 points

Your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point.

Levels 33-34:

Any two filler talent points. Probably you should get extra 2 DPS by putting it into Predatory Strikes.

Level 35: Faerie Fire (Feral) - 1/1 point

Decrease the armor of the target by 175 for 40 sec. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible. Upgrades available for larger armor debuff. PvP utility value aside, this skill is likely to bump your DPS by another 5% or so.

Levels 36-40+: well, how do you like animal forms? If you want to continue developing feral talents, round up Predatory Strikes, drop one or two points into Savage Fury, and move to Heart of the Wild, and then to the ultimate Feral talent: Leader of the Pack. Improved Enrage in Restoration tree would be 2 points well spent after Feral tree is complete. Nature's Grasp and Improved Nature's Grasp will give you another escape skill and provide the necessary 5 Balance points to get Natural Shapeshifter talent.

9/11/31 Talent Template (Obsolete)

This was a very common talent template before Druid talents were overhauled in patch 1.8.0. The primary goals of the build were Nature's Reach in Balance, Feral Charge in Feral and Innervate in Restoration tree. After the patch, it's no longer possible to get all three of these skills, so the users of this template had to choose either 12+/x/31+ or x/11+/31+ template.

I'm preserving the description of this build as is, mostly for historical value, though some talents do remain the same.

Balance Talents (9 points).

Main goal for me here is Nature's Reach, other talents are just gravy. However, some swear by Nature's Grasp and cannot imagine playing a druid without it. Others advocate Imp. Wrath over Nature's Grasp.

Nature's Grasp - 1/1 point

While active, any time an enemy strikes the caster, they have a 35% chance to become afflicted by Entangling Roots.

Improved Nature's Grasp - 4/4 points

Increases the chance for your Nature's Grasp to entangle an enemy by 65%.

Nature's Reach - 2/2 points

Increases the range of your Wrath, Entangling Roots, Faerie Fire (caster form only), Moonfire, and Starfire spells by 20%. This is a great talent. After you spec to it once, you will find it very hard to consider any build that doesn't include this.

Swiftshifting - 2/3 points

After leaving a shapeshift form, reduces the casting cost of the next shapeshift by 40% if used with 6 seconds. Leftover two points go here. Depending on how often you shift, you may want these points elsewhere.

Feral Combat Talents (11 points).

We want to get Imp. Bash and Feral Charge in this tree.

Ferocity - 5/5 points

Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, and Rake abilities by 5 Rage or Energy. This is not a big help for Cat, but very noticable for Bear abilities.

Improved Bash - 2/2 points

Increases the stun duration of your Bash ability by 1 second. Trust me, this second matters a LOT.

Sharpened Claws - 3/5 points

Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat form by 3%. Filler. More crits are nice, but what we really want is to get to the next tier.

Feral Charge - 1/1 point

Causes you to charge an enemy, stopping its movement and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 seconds. This is somewhat useful in PvE but mostly shines in PvP, giving you an anti-kiting tool and another spell interrupt (Druids badly lack abilities that interrupt enemy casting). Four second root is a bonus.

Restoration Talents (31 points).

The gems in this tree are Furor, Nature's Swiftness and Innervate.

Improved Mark of the Wild - 5/5 points

Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild spell by 35%. You don't need this until you get to about level 30, but it does make a nice improvement for the higher ranks of MotW.

Furor - 5/5 points

Gives you a 100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear form. This is huge. In fact, I suggest you put your first 5 talent points here. This allows you to shift-bash and shift-charge to interrupt healer mobs. I'm sure that you will discover other important tactics that will crucially depend on this talent.

Nature's Focus - 5/5 points

Gives you a 60% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting the Healing Touch or Regrowth spells. Not bad in itself, and required for Nature's Swiftness.

Gift of Nature - 1/1 point

Increases the effect of your Healing Touch, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, and Tranquility spells by 5%. Show me another talent with better returns for one point.

Reflection - 5/5 points

Allows 15% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting. Pre-requisite for Innervate. Otherwise you probably won't notice it until you get to Molten Core raids.

Improved Rejuvenation - 5/5 points
Improved Regrowth - 3/5 points
Improved Healing Touch - 0/5 points
Subtlety - 0/5 points

These are mostly fillers. Put eight points where they will augment your play style. The above allocation is what I currently use.

Nature's Swiftness - 1/1 point

When activated, your next Nature spell becomes an instant cast spell. This is your "Oh CRAP!!!" button, normally used in conjunction with Healing Touch or Regrowth to give you "instant" large heal, which you can also cast on the run if needed. You can also use it offensively with Entangling Roots and (very unlikely) Wrath. Note that there's NO global cooldown after you activate Nature Swiftness, even though it may feel like there's one in heavy lag. The ability itself is on 3 min cooldown.

Innervate - 1/1 point

Increases the target's Mana regeneration by 400% and allows 100% of the target's Mana regeneration to continue while casting. Lasts 20 seconds. Dispellable by priests and mobs that dispel magic buffs. Also purgeable by Shamans, I think. Cooldown 6 minutes. You can cast it on yourself or on another character (some have been known to cast it on rogues and main tanks). This can give you 3000 mana with modest equipment at level 60.