MMORPG.com World of Warcraft Correspondent James Wood writes this guide to playing a Druid in Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Today, we present Part One.

Druids happen to be one of the most diverse classes WoW has to offer. They can heal, they can sneak, they can tank and they can cast painful Nature spells. They’re jacks-of-all-trades, but masters of none. It also means that they’re a really annoying class to kill and can go through a few dungeons all on their lonesome.

Read the Druid Guide, Part One

 Not bad but I  would have to disagree on a few things, as saying Hurricane isnt good solo. If you spec full balance with Starfall/typhoon, use barkskin and gogo aoe madness, suprisingly it works well. And for treants, they are the best Damage per mana spell  for balance druids, period, with starfire coming in close second.

Moooooonkin ftw.

not interested in balance. balance is the loser one because u dont need much skill to play balance druid.

i want to see ur feral guide and how it turns out, feral 4ever.

Originally posted by leumasx7

not interested in balance. balance is the loser one because u dont need much skill to play balance druid.

i want to see ur feral guide and how it turns out, feral 4ever.

and it takes skill for feral lolol? Mangle mangle dash mangle mangle

i was a feral druid and while not overly effective in raids, one of my favorites was throw down barkskin and hurricane to get start of aggro lock as my pull -grin-

but what do i know.........

and that was before BC overhauled the game........ back when a lvl 60 druid with 16K armor was actually useful...... (kinda)

Actually Feral Druids are a tough class to play. Try Feral Druid against a Mage and enjoy the button mashing.  Mage immobilizing effects turn this into a shape shift nightmare so you can break from whatever they cast they use to stop you completely in one spot.  I wish dash would fuck shit up when I'm frozen stuck.

Shadowmeld outclasses any horde side racial for a balance or restoration druid in PvE.  Having an agro dump and the ability to live through a nasty wipe is far better than some extra health.  Maybe not so much for feral, but nothing funnier than the tank surviving the wipe to resurrect the healer.  Shadowmeld is amazing now.

Also, you may not want to suggest innervating all type of healers.  Most paladins carry next to nothing in the way of spirit.  Often a better us is for shadow priests as they have the spirit to get solid gains from the innervate and they also return mana to the rest of the group. 

About racials:
-The tauren racial now affects only base health, which means that at level 80, it represents about 200 health points.
-The elven "dodge" racial is now "2% chance to be missed by ranged or melee attacks".

Do you still think that the tauren racial is better?

i disagree, with u sanders, kry. and other dood dissin feral druids/tauren,

feral does take skill, because you have to be right at them, sure its  easy in pve, but try dashing when your stuned, feared, incapitated, frozen. it done work. so the trick is improving your ability to use the other moves and combos against each class. not just the same ol' thing.

(starfire,moonfire, typhoon, entangle, starfire, wraith -wraith -wraith, moonfire)

as for kry, not like im dissing u. but mages are not a challenge for me, only arcane. when u get frozen u can shift right out, of all imobilize effects. so frozen in place dont work; i have no challenge against fire, lil with frost, and lil more with arcane.

 now for---for taurens...

5%hp,  helps a lot with how much health u have in good gear=over 20k, so 1k or more bonus, and it stacks in bear.

as well as warstomp- 0.5 second cast, to stun all enemys for 2 seconds... if timing is right you can pull of a regrowth. shadowmeld sucks, u cant move. sure they buffed it. but its a very easy sighted stealth, and for improved stealth. its not that much, i think stun lot better then improved stealth.

also im talking pvp, pve is sucks, really dont need much skill there- PVP server, and PVP all the way.

You do know shifting gets you out of slows and snares right? :P And no, feral still doesnt take that much, it's not as easy as the Sl/Sl Warlock was but it's still not as hard as say a Mage (I find them hard to play), I would match them with the difficulty of a rogue, which isnt that difficult to master.

I leveled a druid to 22 going feral.  It was good, but nothing special.  I re-installed wow 3 days before wotlk and decided to start leveling a druid again just for fun.  Balance FTW.  I was amazed at how much better they made the balance tree.  I was streamrolling through mobs.  Balance gets my vote.

Originally posted by leumasx7

 now for---for taurens...

5%hp,  helps a lot with how much health u have in good gear=over 20k, so 1k or more bonus, and it stacks in bear. 

Endurance, the racial tauren, works only on base health, that is, the health without any gear. That means about 200 health. (I haven't checked that number though, I don't play a level 80 druid.)

And it doesn't scale with bear form, because bear form scales with stamina, and the tauren racial does not influence stamina.

Wow, normally I wouldnt be so harsh on a guide like this but I can't help it. For a guide that I would assume is for the Balance side of Druids, written well after 3.0.3 to have so many things wrong. Hurricane "can be broken with enough hits", the obvious Night Elf "1% Dodge" and lacking the new changes to Shadowmeld, Faerie Fire being used as a armor reduction (Speaking from a Moonkin PoV with 3% Spell Hit and 3% Spell Crit), Moonfire "mana efficiency on this spell is terrible".

I mean Imp Insect Swarm is in there, however completely missing the moonfire half of it, most of this guide is completely out of date and just plain wrong. Before writing another guide like this I would suggest actually getting someone who knows what they are talking about instead of some random person from the office who has a 23 Druid alt that they never play.