Leveling a druid (what moves to use): Levels 1-20

There are plenty of leveling guides that tell you where to go at what level, so this guide won't be concerned with that. This guide will only focus on strategies to use while you are out solo-ing as a druid, what moves to use when, etc. For starters, let me give you my first piece of advice. While you are leveling, spec feral. If you enjoy balance more than feral, then by all means, level balance, but this guide will be concerned solely with feral leveling, for feral druids are some of the most efficient solo-ers in the game, much more so than their mana-dependent balance counterparts.

Level 1
But they certainly don't start out that way. You're only offensive tools when starting out are Wrath and your weapon. While fighting an enemy, use Wrath until you run out of mana, then use your weapon until you get enough mana back to use Wrath again. When you first get Mark of the Wild, keep it active at all times.

Level 4
You get Moonfire at this level, but when you first get it, it is less mana efficient than Wrath. Sure, you'll kill things faster if you use it, but you will also run out of mana more quickly. It's your choice. I'd advise you to keep using Wrath exclusively. You also get Rejuvination, which is more mana efficient than Healing Touch, so use that if you need to heal yourself for less than Healing Touch heals for and don't need the heals immediately. (Though at this low level, that shouldn't be an issue. Your spirit-based mana regeneration can probably keep your health topped off.)

Level 6
Now you get Thorns, which you should also keep active on yourself at all times. It might not cause much damage, but any damage means that the enemy dies faster.

Level 8
Now you get Entangling Roots. Using it will keep the enemy in place for twelve seconds, unless it breaks, which it will at some point. As long as you aren't using Moonfire (it's still horribly mana inefficient), it won't break too frequently. Make sure you do use Roots, too, because in caster form, druids are really squishy.

Level 10
Make sure you do the quest for Bear Form (which starts from a druid trainer) as soon as you can so you can start using it in combat. Until then, just use the same tactics you've been using before. You will gain access to Nature's Grasp at level 10, a nifty ability that afflicts someone who strikes you with Entangling Roots. Use it when you need to make a break for it to halt the enemy in his tracks. It is also especially useful if you are leveling on a PvP server and you get attacked out of nowhere. Also keep in mind that it is usable in Bear Form and all of your future forms.

Combat in Bear Form isn't that exciting, but remember, you are basically starting a new class at level 10. Simply attack your enemy until you have enough rage to use Maul and use Demoralizing Roar if you want to mix things up a bit. (It's not horribly useful, but it's more interesting than just spamming Maul.) You won't need to put Growl on your keybindings unless you are in a group.

It is by using bear form that you will become familiar with one of the druid class's greatest strengths; fighting in our feral forms allows us to regenerate mana while we fight, which was can use to heal ourselves. As such, when you are fighting in bear form, if you get low on health, shift out to heal yourself. Just make sure you have enough mana to switch back. As one last miscellaneous note, if an enemy puts a snare effect on you (an effect that slows your movement speed) moving in or out of bear form will remove the snare. This does not apply to being dazed when an enemy strikes you from behind.

Level 12
You'll now get Enrage, which you can use to give yourself 30 rage every minute. Maul uses a lot of rage, both because of its fairly high rage cost and the fact that when you use Maul, you don't generate rage. Thus, you should use Enrage whenever you can so that you can use Maul more. You also get Regrowth, which at this level, is more mana efficient than Healing Touch until you get to level 14. It has a shorter cast time than Healing Touch, so you can use it when enemies are attacking you and you need to leave Bear Form to heal yourself, since it will heal you faster than Healing Touch and continue to heal you after you have cast it. Finally, you get Revive at this level, which you can use to resurrect dead players. If you are reading this, then you may not know that for the longest time, we druids did not have a resurrection spell we could use repeatedly out of combat. All we had was Rebirth, and it was on a thirty minute cooldown. And we were happy!... ok, that's a lie; we have waited for an ability like Revive with bated breath, and when Wrath of the Lich King finally came out, we jumped for joy upon seeing that we were getting this ability.

Level 14
Now you get Bash. This allows you to stun your target, making them unable to do anything for two seconds. It also interrupts their spell casting for three seconds, meaning that even if your target is immune to being stunned, you can still use it to interrupt their spell casting. Still, you'll probably find more use for it in stopping enemies from running away. Also at this level, you can get Cure Poison. You can't use Cure Poison in Bear Form, so you may wish to just soak up the damage caused by poisons if you don't want to spend the time to shift out, but when you do shift out to heal yourself, you'll appreciate having this ability.

Level 16
You finally get another ability for Bear Form: Swipe. I'm not sure how much damage swipe causes at low levels, but if you have maxed out Ferocity (as you should have), it may be more rage efficient than Maul, even when used against one target. It's certainly more fun to use. You also get two new forms that allow you to move faster: Aquatic Form for the water, and Travel Form for land. Both are very useful, even after you get your first mount. After all, mounts don't increase your movement speed in water, and Travel Form can be used in combat to make a quick get-away, whereas mounts can't.

Level 18
You get Faerie Fire at this level, as well as its Feral version. The feral version can be used as a way to pull enemies to you, so you'll want to use it as such. It also causes a minimal amount of damage in Bear Form, so until you get Cat Form, use it when it is off of its cooldown and you don't have the rage to use anything else. You also get hibernate, which can be situationally useful if you pulled more enemies than you intended to and one of them is a beast or dragonkin. If you see a human enemy walking around with a beast companion (not an uncommon sight), you can use Hibernate on the beast, keeping him from fighting you so you can focus on the human enemy.

Level 20
This is a significant level for druids (as it is for many classes). First of all, you get Cat Form. As awesome as Cat Form is, don't get too excited, for you are basically starting a new class again. Still, it's only going to get better from here. Cat Form can kill things faster than Bear Form, but it is more squishy than Bear Form, so if you are fighting multiple enemies, you should probably switch to Bear Form (you can handle two in Cat Form, but any more than that and you should make the switch). Bear Form is also a good idea if you are facing a powerful enemy (like an elite) that will take a long time to kill, since Bear Form's damage reduction will win out against Cat Form's damage.

You start out with three abilities for Cat Form: Claw, Rip, and Prowl. Claw causes instant damage and puts combo points on your enemy, while Rip causes damage over time and requires combo points. For now, you're strategy should go something like this: make sure you have full energy, use Claw two or three times, then use Rip if your enemy is at 60% health or above. If your target has lower health at that point, then Rip won't be active long enough to be worth it, so if that is the case, just keep using Claw. As for Prowl, right now, it's only use is to sneak past enemies. Thus is it still very useful for getting to a quest item or something like that without needing to fight all of the enemies along the way. When you use Prowl, you become almost invisible. Enemies will see you if you get too close to them. If they stop and look at you without attacking, it means you are almost close enough for them to see you, but not quite. An enemy can't see you if you are behind him and are Prowling.

You get two more abilities at this level: Starfire and Rebirth. If you are leveling feral, then you won't find much use for Starfire. You won't find much use for Rebirth if you are on your own, but it shines when you are in a group, for it is the only resurrection spell in the game that can be used in combat. It makes up for that with its long cooldown, but if your healer or tank dies, you can use it to bring them back and save the run. For that reason, make sure to pick up the reagents for it (and replace them at every rank) and keep it on your action bar. Depending on how you spent your talents, you may also have Survival Instincts. This isn't a terribly useful ability when you are solo-ing, so you may not want to pick it up unless you will be doing a lot of PvP or tanking a lot of instances.

I should also mention how to fight in Bear Form, since it will be your form of choice when facing multiple enemies or elites. If you are fighting a crowd, all I can say is to spam Swipe. If you have Primal Fury, this will probably result in a lot of extra rage, and with that extra rage, you should use Maul. A good rule of thumb is that if you have more than 30 rage, it is safe to use Maul. When you are fighting one powerful enemy, use Maul as your main damage ability, and be sure to switch out of Bear Form to heal yourself before you reach 35% health. Remember that exiting Bear Form will cause you to loose all of your rage, so try to use it all before you switch out. When you do switch out to heal yourself, I recommend starting with Regrowth (for its fast cat time), then using healing touch once or twice to top off your health. If you have the mana for it, you can also use Rejuvenation before entering Bear Form again.

That's all for this week. Depending on how much time I have, I may go right to level 80 with the next installment. Otherwise, I'll probably stop around level 40 and go from there the week after. Until then, happy leveling and happy druid-ing.