Leveling a druid

Introduction
Leveling a druid is initially very slow, but like most classes, really picks up once you have your full range of talents and abilities to call upon.

Level 1-9
At this time you have very few options and your method of killing things will be Wrath and Moonfire, finishing enemies off with your staff if you run out of mana. Make sure you carry some water to drink because your staff is painfully slow.

Level 10-19
At level 10 you pick your specialization. Either Balance or Feral are viable for leveling and damage dealing in groups. If you're interested in tanking then you should pick Feral, and if interested in healing Balance is a better choice. Choosing restoration is of course an option, but it will result in much slower leveling, and in the early levels is not a necessity to successfully heal instances. If you're dead set on restoration then outside of instances you'll need to deal damage either with balance spells or feral forms anyway, so follow the tips for those specialisations.

If you picked Feral then you'll spend most of your time in Cat Form. Use your healing spells to heal yourself between fights as needed, and by the time you need to heal up again you should have regenerated to a full mana bar, meaning you never need to drink. Your first talents should definitely be Feral Swiftness to speed up moving between mobs. Until you get some more abilities you'll Rake, Mangle and Ferocious Bite things to death with little finesse. If things get rough shift to bear form for better survivability - Bear Form's lower damage is more than offset by its better damage reduction (against enemies that deal physical damage) so while it's slower, enemies that are too tough for you in cat form can be beaten in bear.

If you picked Balance then you'll keep doing what you've been doing and killing things with spells and entangling roots. You should find your mana bar now supports killing a few enemies before drinking and if you watch your mana you shouldn't need to resort to beating things with your staff any more.

At level 16 you'll get a nice bonus in the form of Travel Form.

Level 20-28
As a feral druid you'll want to collect gear with agility and stamina on it. While spirit and intellect will improve your mana regeneration, they should not be necessary if all you use it for is healing between fights. At level 22 you'll get Ravage, which finally makes Prowling worthwhile. This is an impressive opening move that does considerable damage. You'll also get Tiger's Fury, which is a free damage increasing ability that should be used just before Ravage when opening.

As a balance druid you'll want to collect gear with intellect. Spirit is useful but not as important as intellect. At level 20 you'll get Insect Swarm for more damage-over-time.

At level 20 you can train riding and buy a mount. This is certainly worth doing, but isn't actually that much faster than travel form, so if you're short on cash it won't hurt to put off the purchase for a while.

At level 25 you'll be able to use glyphs. These might be a bit expensive for now, but a glyph such as Glyph of Mangle, Glyph of Wrath or Glyph of Entangling Roots is worth getting eventually.

At level 28 you'll get Innervate. This is an excellent ability for balance druids to keep their mana up, and will considerably reduce (or even eliminate) the need for drinking. For feral druids it's less interesting, though if adventuring with a spellcaster they'll usually appreciate you casting it on them when they need mana.

Level 29-38
At level 29 you'll get your first ability granted from talents. For feral druids this will be Feral Charge, which makes it quick and easy to get behind a target to Ravage it. For balance druids this is the extremely important Moonkin Form. This grants a damage and spell haste bonus for more damage and an armor bonus for more defense.

At level 30 all druids will gain Mark of the Wild which should be cast on yourself at all times.

At level 36 feral druids will gain the Pounce and Swipe abilities. Pounce stuns an enemy and causes them to bleed. At this point there's not much to choose between this and Ravage as an opener, except that Ravage's damage is reduced by armor while Pounce's bleed is not, meaning Pounce may be better for warrior-type enemies. Swipe is your first ability to damage multiple enemies, which you'll find very useful in instances, and when fighting multiple enemies on your own.

Balance druids will get Typhoon from talents to keep enemies at a distance (beware though, Typhoon will hit anything in its path and has a deceptively long range, so can pull extra enemies).

Level 39-48
At this level balance druids will get Solar Beam. This doesn't do any damage and so is usually unnecessary, but it's worth noting that if facing a tough spellcaster enemy, Solar Beam and Entangling Roots can completely shut them down. At level 44 balance druids will get Hurricane, which is their first real area effect ability. This is extremely useful in instances and when fighting multiple enemies alone (and try to ignore the warlocks when they remind you they got something similar at level 18).

Feral druids get Leader of the Pack (old), which is a good boost to your damage and a welcome aura in groups. At level 46 you get an important ability in Shred. This ability is important because it tips the balance in favor of Pounce as an opener instead of Ravage, because it takes advantage of the stun to get some shreds in from behind. Provided the mangle debuff is up shred out-damages mangle if you can get behind the target to use it, so is also a good move for DPS in instances where you have a tank, and allows interesting combos for tough enemies such as Bash (druid ability) followed by shred.

At level 40 you can train the next level of riding and buy a faster mount. This is highly recommended because the improvement over travel form is just too good to pass up now.

AoE leveling with balance
Around level 45, I decided to try out leveling as balance so I could AoE things down. I highly recommend it both for fun and the speed at which you can grind. Go fully into the balance tree and move toward Gale Winds asap. Max out your spellpower and intellect as much as possible, and cheap elixirs/chants are probably recommended as well. Moonkins can be fragile so here's how this should work:


 * 1) Mount up on your rider
 * 2) Quickly ride to gather 4-5 mobs
 * 3) Use rejuvenation to dismount
 * 4) Shapeshift to Moonkin
 * 5) Cast hurricane onto yourself
 * 6) Repeat hurricane until dead

Optional: barkskin is nice to mitigate a little damage. Be sure to use your herbalism heal if you have that profession (recommended for leveling anyway). Use innervate when up to replenish mana.

Notes: You're going to burn through mana like crazy, so get in the habit of carrying around an 80 stack of water. I did this at 45 and owned with it, so I suspect it is viable much earlier. Once you hit 50 and get the second rank of hurricane you'll be an amazing AoE killer. Have fun!

Level 49-58
Not much new happens in these levels. At 49 feral druids get Survival Instincts which is good in a pinch, and balance druids get Force of Nature, which is a nice cooldown.

At 58 all druids get Barkskin. This is mostly interesting to balance druids as it allows you to channel hurricane while being hit without shortening the spell. It can be used in feral forms so can be used as a general damage reduction cooldown by feral druids as well.

Feral druids will gain Rip, which is useful for instance bosses but regular enemies in the wild should die before it's run its course, making Ferocious Bite generally a better choice.

At level 58 move to Outland immediately because the gear there is significantly better than anything in the old world.

Level 59+
At level 60 you get possibly the best benefit to being a druid - free flying! Train Flight Form at your trainer and you'll get the next level of riding for free, saving a tidy 650 gold.

New abilities of note for ferals after this level are Maim, which is a stunning finishing move that allows you to get some shreds in, Savage Roar, which should be kept up as much as possible, and Berserk, which is a very potent cooldown. Balance druids get Starfall, which is a powerful area effect spell, but can easily pull extra enemies. All druids also get Cyclone, which is mainly a PvP ability, but that can be useful occasionally in PvE.

What if I want to heal?
The most important thing is to collect a spell-casting gear set (which balance druids will already have). Until level 40 you should find that while wearing a decent set of intellect gear your innate healing abilities are sufficient to heal instances without resto talents. After level 40 you may find it difficult, but investing in Dual Spec will fix that problem.

If you plan on leveling resto, make sure to get all the intellect gear you can. Intellect will buff both healing and damage, and you will do most of your damage in caster form, from range. An effective way of leveraging your healing abilities is to pull multiple enemies and dot them up with Moonfire and Insect Swarm, then cast Thorns and heal yourself. The enemies will be eaten away by the dots and thorns damage while you heal through the damage they cause to you until they all die.

What if I want to tank?
A feral damage build is just fine for tanking right up until the level cap. Just follow the feral path and you'll be able to tank. Collecting high stamina pieces will help. If you have trouble then drop some damage talents for Thick Hide (druid ability).