Cataclysm Feral Druid Leveling Spec

For new Druids starting out, it can be a real challenge picking the right talent spec to make the leveling process as painless as possible. Feral is definitely the fastest Best druid Leveling spec up to 85 because you need no mana, except for the occasional heal. Though with the rapid mana regeneration while shapeshifted, you will almost NEVER stop to eat and drink, except for food buffs if you care enough about that while leveling.

My druid was the first toon I created when I started playing. It is by far my favorite class due to the diversity, the lore, and group utility. Feral is also my favorite druid leveling spec and it is great for of endgame tanking or dps.

Cataclysm will be released soon, and the new talent builds have been released in patch 4.0.1 Keep in mind that these are all new talent trees and will be subject to a LOT of changes and tweaks before anything is final (Like it ever is), but for now, this is the best feral druid leveling spec.

1) Feral talents version 4.0.1 for 1 to 79 leveling:
Level 10 – choose “feral” in the talent summary page. According to Wowhead’s talent calculator, you get a point at level 10 and then another point every odd level as you are leveling up to 80.

Upon Choosing Feral, you will receive 4 new abilities:

• Mangle - Mangle the target, inflicting damage and causing the target to take additional damage from bleed effects for 1 min. This ability can be used in Cat Form or Bear Form.
• Aggression - Increases your attack power by 25%.
• Vengeance - Each time you take damage while in Bear Form, you gain 5% of the damage taken as attack power, up to a maximum of 10% of your health.
• Feral Instinct - Reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling.
• Mastery (trainable at 80) – Savage Defender Increases the damage absorbed by your Savage Defense ability by 32%. Each point of Mastery increases the absorb by an additional 4%.

10 & 11 – Feral swiftness (tier 1) – to move faster in cat form. You get cat form at level 8 now, so moving faster before you get a mount will be helpful.

13 thru 17 – Furor (Tier 1) gives you energy when you shift into cat form so you don’t have to wait after shifting. Also gives rage in bear form when you hit level 15.

19 & 21- Primal Fury (tier 2) – gives you more combo points in cat & more rage in bear when you crit

23 thru 27 – Fury swipes (teir 2) – This is a neat damage increasing talent that makes your auto-attacks proc for extra damage.

29 – Feral charge (tier 3) – gives you a new ability that allows you to charge up to your target fast.

31 & 33 – Feral aggression (tier 2) – increases ferocious bite damage, and makes your feral faerie fire stack up to 3 faster.

35 & 37 – Predatory Strikes (tier 1) – go back and pick up the ability to get an instant cast heal when you use a finishing move, and increased damage for ravage when you use it for your opener. You don’t get ravage until level 22, and you shouldn’t need to heal that much at the lowest levels, so this is about the point where I really enjoy having this talent available in beta.

39 – Leader of the Pack (tier 4) – increases crit chance, and you gain health/mana when you crit.

41 thru 45 – King of the Jungle (tier 3) – getting more energy when you use tiger’s fury can be helpful.

47 & 49 – Brutal Impact (has a couple really neat effects that should be useful for leveling – such as increasing the stun durations and lowering the cooldown on skull bash).

51 – Survival Instincts (tier 5) – Survivability ability to help keep you from dieing when things start to hit hard or gain up on you. Works in cat or bear, but is typically a bear survivability cooldown.

53 & 55 – Natural Reaction (tier 5) – This is a bear talent, but it’s likely that you may want to try tanking instances from 55 to 80 at some point, so you will need this. It will also increase your survivability when you pop into bear while soloing.

57 & 59 – Infected wounds (tier 2) reduces your target’s movement & attack speed. This should be helpful as you transition into Burning Crusade-level content for level 60 +.

61 thru 65 – Rend & Tear

67 – Pulverize (tier 6) you probably have to use bear form some, so you might as well pick it up.

69 – Berserk (teir 7) lowers the energy cost of your cat abilities, and stops you from being feared.

Level 71 thru 75 – Heart of the wild (restoration tier 1) – You can now put talent points in a secondary tree, which you should do at this point. Heart of the wild will increase your cat attack power by 10%.

77 & 79 – Pick whatever talents you want. In the build leveling up to 85, this is where natural shapeshifter would be picked up to unlock master shape shifter. However, you can’t get MSS until level 81.

Gear for Feral Leveling Druids -

Currently, Agility is the best stat for a leveling druid. It provides attack power, critical strike chance, dodge, and even some armor. You will want this to be your primary stat while leveling, with stamina obviously being a close second as your survival stat. Hit, crit, and dodge rating are all important stats as well, but less so in leveling as they are endgame.

Druids can wear cloth and leather armor - Feral druids will only be interested in leather. Obviously the armor will be higher on leather, and if you go into bear form at all, that armor makes a huge difference. Also, on cloth gear, you WILL NOT see any stats that are beneficial to a feral druid.

The way weapons affect a Druid's damage have been greatly re-worked recently. Formerly, the only stats that mattered were the attribute modifiers and added feral attack power on specialized weapons, but now ALL weapons have Feral Attack Power based on dps. Druids have also only recently gained the ability to train in polearms. It is important to note that the weapon damage and speed do not directly affect a druid's feral damage - Only the dps. Feral druids will primarily be interested in obtaining a high dps 2-handed weapon. Druids can use 2 handed maces, staves, and polearms. You typically won't want anything else.

So, look for a high dps 2-handed weapon and leather gear with agility and stamina.

For professions, druids may choose skinning an leather-working so that you can craft your own gear as you progress through the levels. Be on the lookout for quests that offer strong 2-handed weapons and start working dungeons as soon as you can. In early levels, this will work as a tanking spec as well.

This is just one of many routes you can choose while leveling your druid. This druid leveling spec sacrifices some group utility for pure damage and solo killing power. Keep in mind that talent specs are always changing with major and minor update patches. You will want to keep an up to date guide on the best leveling tactics to pair up with your Feral Druid leveling spec. wowpowercataclysm.com is always kept up to date with the best druid leveling specs and with Cataclysm coming soon, the talent trees are getting a huge makeover with all new features and abilities. wowpowercataclysm.com has links to guides with all new questing paths for cataclysm and step by step instructions to take you to the new level cap in no time.