Druid Class Overview

Druid is the most versatile hybrid class in the game. Druids can melee or ranged DPS, tank, and also heal. Tank Druids use Rage like Warriors, Melee Druids use Energy like Rogues, and Ranged or Healer Druids use Mana like most other casters and healers. Because of gear similarities due their primary attribute being shared, you will usually find Ranged/Healing hybrid Druids who use Intellect or Tank/Melee Druids who use Agility, and only rarely Druids who mix both Intellect and Agility specializations.

Druid is able to choose from four specializations: Guardian, Feral, Balance, and Restoration.

• Guardian — Druid is the new tanking specialization and the equivalent of old Feral Tank. While it is very easy to learn and play, it no longer has the high off-tanking damage potential that it used to because it is now a purely tanking focused specialization. Regardless, it is a tank that scales well with gear and will become a strong tank in later tiers.
• Feral — Feral is now a pure melee DPS specialization and can no longer off-tank defectively outside of the short Heart of the Wild windows. As compensation, it will be a very competitive damage specialization in Mists, especially once Rune of Re-Origination can be obtained from the Throne of Thunder raid.
• Balance — is a strong ranged DPS based on the Eclipse mechanic, which provides regular periods of high burst damage. The specialization also sports multiple damage over time effects with Moonfire and Sunfire. Finally, it has great spread damage dealing potential with multi-dotting and Starfall.
• Restoration — is a healing over time focused healer with many spells designed for this purpose such as Lifebloom, Wild Growth, Rejuvenation, and Regrowth. The instant cast nature of many of these spells provides great mobility while healing, and you will be able to do great spread healing by targeting all players at range with your heals over time.

Each Druid specialization is very different and the specialization you should play depends on how you like to enjoy the game. Play Guardian if you wish to relax while tanking, Feral is fantastic for players who enjoy min-maxing melee DPS due to its complex snapshotting mechanics, Balance is a strong and simple ranged DPS that brings an unique fantasy and a mix of damage over time and burst damage, and Restoration is one of the best spread raid healers and only healer that relies heavily on healing over time effects.

Guardian benefits from a very simple playstyle where much of your survivability comes from passive sources, allowing you to focus on the encounter mechanics rather than your tanking rotation, and scales well with gear later in the expansion.

Feral is a complex melee to play due to having Energy, Combo Points, and plenty of damage over time snapshotting with Rip and similar bleeds. This complexity is rewarding on its own, but you will also be able to do very high DPS once you master it, especially once specialized gear such as Rune of Re-Origination is unlocked.

Balance is a great caster to bring at least one of for raiding because of its unique damage profile which emphasizes multi-dotting many targets at once and using Starfall for high spread damage. This allows Balance Druids to shine on encounters where most other DPS, ranged or melee, would have a hard time dealing area damage due to their targets being heavily spread apart.

The heavy healing over time kit of Restoration gives it a unique flavor and allows it to stand out in the Mists of Pandaria meta as the best healer for healing while moving. Often, heals over time provide a valuable cushion against incoming damage, and they are usually also the best way to heal far away allies against consistent damage, making Restoration a powerhouse in the spread area healing niche.

Druid should be one of the most represented classes in Mists of Pandaria due to being the only class that can cover all roles with a single character. Guardians are strong and easy to play tanks, while Ferals have a high skill cap and are engaging to play. Balance is a strong ranged DPS class with an unique damage profile and multiple rare raid buffs, making it an easy pick for any sort of group. Finally, Restoration also has an unique playstyle heavy on heals over time, which is a perfect fit for movement heavy fights and heavy rot damage, and is one of the most mobile healers which makes it easier to deal with encounter mechanics while healing.

In Mists of Pandaria Classic Druid can be played as Worgen or Night Elf if you are playing Alliance, and as Troll or Tauren if you are Horde. Worgen are the best Alliance Druids due to Darkflight and Viciousness, while Troll are the best Horde Druids due to Berserking and Beast Slaying, unless you highly value the extra Stamina provided by Tauren Endurance.

• Night Elves are not a very good race for non-tank Druids, but Quickness is a good ability for tanks.
• Worgens were one of the two new races added back in Cataclysm. Viciousness is the main racial offered, granting 1% crit chance which makes it the best racial for DPS and Healer Druids on Alliance. You will also get Darkflight, giving you a 2 minute movement speed cooldown.

• Trolls are a great choice for all roles due to their strong cooldown Berserking. This grants 20% Haste, which helps your throughput significantly when needed.
• Taurens are a good tank race due to Endurance, which grants you 5% more base health. Note that base health is only the raw health that you gain from levels and does not scale with your gear at all, making this only about a 1% increase in total health at maximum level in raiding gear. War Stomp can also occasionally be useful to stop enemy casts.

Druids are relatively easy to gear due to a lack of competition for most Leather pieces, especially Intellect ones where they are the only class that wants to roll on them due to Leather Specialization, which forces each class to equip only its highest armor class available.

Druid are able to wear Cloth and Leather armor, as well as using a large variety of weapons, including Daggers, Fist Weapons, Staves, Maces, and Polearms. What is important is using gear that has your primary stat (Intellect for Balance and Restoration, Agility for Guardian and Feral) and is Leather in the case of armor, as it does not really matter whether you use a Dagger or a Fist Weapon outside of cosmetic concerns.

Your stat priority as a Guardian should be as follows: Stamina > Hit > Expertise > Crit > Agility > Haste > Mastery > Dodge.

Feral prioritizes Agility > Hit > Expertise > Mastery > Crit > Haste.

Balance will instead want to prioritize Intellect > Spirit, Expertise, or Hit > Haste > Crit > Mastery.

Finally, Restoration will aim for Intellect > Haste > Spirit > Mastery > Crit.

Agility Druids will face competition from Rogue and there will be high competition from many classes for some of the more rare weapons, trinkets, and jewelry pieces.

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