src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/64874">
In past articles we have covered soloing strategies that encompass
levels 1-60 that spanned the scope of the original versions of the
game. Now we delve into the content introduced with the first two WoW
expansions, ‘The Burning Crusade’ and last years
hit ‘Wrath of the Lich
King’. While there are some great moments to be had in the
first 60
levels and they are obviously unavoidable, in my opinion comparing the
original content with that of the xpacs is akin to comparing Ishtar
with Bladerunner. Unlike prior pieces however with vast areas to
explore and quest, these two are a bit more linear and the quest lines
will lead you from zone to zone with only a couple of deviations to
choose from. If you complete every quest available in each zone you
will most likely not see all of the content before you level past it.
In a bit of a departure let's start with a brief rundown of those zones
first and then get into class specifics a little later.
Leveling Zones 61-70
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Level
Zone Name
Continent
Status
60-62
Peninsula
Edge Mountains
Valley
This reflects my personal preferences based on quests and relative
speed of movement through the level ranges, I don’t enjoy
Terrokar personally however that doesn’t mean it
isn’t a good zone with some excellent quests, if you love to
explore do check it out. One could conceivably skip either Netherstorm
or Shadowmoon as either one will take you to 70, I just personally
enjoyed quests in both areas and the Blood Elf camps in Netherstorm are
an excellent spot to make some coin and gather large amounts of cloth.
Class Quest
Prior to the newest expansions release there was a class
quest at 70 that was handed out by Loganaar in Moonglade for you to
receive your epic flight form. This quest line which starts with
‘Morthis Whisperwing’ and ends with
‘Eternal Vigilance’ granted you Swift Flight Form,
but this is now trainable at 71 once you purchase the appropriate
riding skill.
Balance
I want to start the meat and potatoes of this week's article a little
differently than the other level specific guides we have done, I
usually start with Feral and lose steam by the time I hit the other
specs, so this week I shall show some love to the Boomkin.
target="_blank">
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 118px; float: right;"
alt="" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/64873">61-80
is where this talent tree really begins to shine. You are finally able
to delve deep enough into the spec to start to see some incredible
power. Still strongest against melee, Balance comes into its own
against casters as well in this range, thanks in no small part to
amazing critical strike damage. Our rotations become even more
important now with the introduction of Eclipse, essentially this talent
allows your
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells#Wrath"
target="_blank">Wrath spell to do 10% more damage
after you land a critical strike with
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells#Starfire"
target="_blank">Starfire, and conversely it gives
you a 60% chance of increasing your crit chance on Starfire when you
critically hit with Wrath. The effect lasts 15 seconds and has a 30
second cooldown. This talent is most deadly in raids but it is also
hugely effective in the solo game as well, it won’t set up
the cycle of increased damage like it does on a boss mob, however it
will provide you with some serious DPS on your enemies.
Our rotation isn’t drastically different from the last
article, but its much more powerful now with eclipse. With a melee mob
we will start by rooting the mob in place then start stacking our DOTs.
If you have spec’d into Improved Faerie Fire, launch it
first. Next we will add
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells#Insect_Swarm"
target="_blank">Insect Swarm and then
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells#Moonfire"
target="_blank">Moonfire to complete the DOTs. Now
it’s time to blast away with Starfire. The damage from the
nuke will most likely break your root spell, but if you can manage, get
a Wrath off immediately after the Starfire and then reassess the mob.
If your foe is at less than 20% life remaining one to two more blasts
of Wrath should finish the job. If not, reapply your root and refresh
your DOTs. If you’re up against a caster the rotation will be
similar. You can elect to skip the initial root as they will stay at
range against you until they run out of mana. If they still have
greater than 50% health once they close in to melee range then go ahead
and apply your root and refresh the DOT stack and nuke them into
submission. I didn’t find too many mobs throughout the
leveling process that lasted that long however unless they were either
elite or several levels above me. With multiple mobs or bad pulls you
have several options to deal with the situation. If you don’t
have the ability to cast a traditional root on the mob (you're getting
too much pushback from the throng of angry baddies) then this is a
perfect time to cast your reactive root spell
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells#Natures_Grasp"
target="_blank">Nature’s Grasp to get
some distance from one of your opponents. Once you have lowered the
mobs health a bit via DOT stacking and some direct nukes, its time to
whip out
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells#Hurricane"
target="_blank">Hurricane and bring them down
quickly. Keep in mind that your arsenal of heal over time spells can be
the difference between a stellar win and a humiliating defeat. Stack
them up and get back into Boomkin form.
Feral
The king of the hill continues to get better with every single level.
Our rotation will be similar as the other level ranges –
whatever you prefer. There is no one “best”
rotation for feral but there are some new twists to the rotation I went
over last week.
most of your
combat in cat form, ideally sneaking up behind your prey and initiating
combat
the smart way, getting in the first shot. If you can manage to sneak up
on your
opponent, open with a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Pounce"
target="_blank">pounce style="font-style: italic;"> and then hit them
with a quick href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Shred"
target="_blank">shred style="font-style: italic;">, now you can open up your
attacks to continue adding
combo points. I personally recommend hitting every mob with style="font-style: italic;"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Faerie_Fire_Feral"
target="_blank">Faerie Fire (Feral) style="font-style: italic;"> to reduce their armor,
it’s a great way
to increase DPS and with a 30 yard range it is a great tool for pulling
a mob
that can’t effectively be singled in stealth mode. There is
no one true
rotation that every druid follows as I mentioned in our first look at
soloing,
however I have some general rules that I use to maximize my DPS and
minimize my
downtime. If you are facing a caster mob that is going down quickly go
with
your least expensive opener, for 41-54ish (can be sooner depending on
your spec
choices) use href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Claw"
target="_blank">Claw style="font-style: italic;">, stack four or five combo
points and then finish with style="font-style: italic;"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Ferocious_Bite"
target="_blank">Ferocious Bite style="font-style: italic;">. If you are facing a beefier
melee mob that
has the stamina of Foreman and the upper cut of Tyson, stack up your
4-5
combos, one of which needs to be style="font-style: italic;"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Rake"
target="_blank">Rake style="font-style: italic;">, and then slap a style="font-style: italic;"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Rip"
target="_blank">Rip style="font-style: italic;"> on them, repeat your 4-5 points
and then finish with
Fero Bite, remember that all of your finishing moves are increased by
attack
power and combo points.
Now that we have advanced deeper into the tree we add
target="_blank"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Mangle_-_Cat">Mangle
- Cat as one of our main lead attacks. Its high damage and
ability to
increase damage from bleed effects is amazing. My personal rotation
once combat
was opened was Mangle x2, Rake x2 to get me to a 5 stack then hit with
a
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Ferocious_Bite">Ferocious
Bite. Remember not to spam these abilities
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alt="" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/64875">
but allow about 50% of the energy
they use to return before hitting the next ability. This rotation
against the
vast majority of the mobs was the most efficient for me, usually
resulting in a
kill shot on the finisher. The main beef added to this tree was some
handy get
out of jail abilities. Last time I recommended going to bear form if
you had
multiple mobs beating on you and that it would be a slow road but you
would win
the fight. Now it’s very possible to remain in cat form and
win or in the dire
need to become a dire bear, it’s a much quicker fight.
target="_blank"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Swipe_-_Cat">Swipe
(Cat) allows you the same functionality of bear form but with
much higher
damage. I like to use swipe after stacking up bleeds quickly and then
triggering
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Savage_Roar">Savage
Roar the increase in DPS really makes quick work of them. In
bear form
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Lacerate">Lacerate
and
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Berserk">Berserk
add a high DPS component to the already formidable survivability of
bear form. Berserk
gives your
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Mangle_-_Bear">Mangle
- Bear the ability to hit up to 3 targets and removes its
cooldown for 15
seconds. The deciding factor for me was usually the damage output of
the mobs I
was fighting, if you're going down faster than a pint on St. Patrick's
Day then
pop into bear form trigger
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Enrage">Enrage
and
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/druid/spells1-40#Frenzied_Regeneration">Frenzied
Regeneration and go to work.
Restoration
I have railed on tirelessly against
this spec for the solo
minded player since the first guide and I still mostly stand by that
position. With
recent spell power changes that went live back with the 3.0 patch Resto
druids
have had an easier time soloing. While this change was mostly
beneficial to
level capped characters that were doing daily quests or farming, it
does allow
a solo player to level up with a deep resto build. Your best
bet is going to be “Balance druid
light” mode which will give you some of the pop, but none of
the sizzle.
Rooting your opponent and stacking your DOTs followed by nuking the
crap out of
them will be your best bet. You do have a shape shift option available
to you
in this spec, however it's tree form and you can only cast healing
spells.
Unfortunately most mobs in this game don’t take much damage
from heal spells,
so go ahead and stay in your default form and hope for the best. The
advantage
to this spec choice is that you can keep yourself alive for a
ridiculously long
time and some mobs may chose to simply fall over dead from boredom and
allow
you to loot them. If you enjoy this style of play I would really
suggest a
hybrid build with more balance abilities and allow you the
awesome heal power that you desire (there
are a million PUGs wanting you to heal for them you selfish
prat).
Conclusion
Whatever path you have chosen for
your Druid, the solo
aspect of the game will be a fun and interesting one. For me personally
the joy
of this class was getting myself into seemingly hopeless situations and
always
finding a way to come out on top. The wide number of weapons in the
Druids
arsenal may be among the most complete and diverse in the game and I
was
forever finding new combinations of spells and abilities to keep myself
alive
and swiping away. I highly recommend grabbing items to complete several
sets of
armor so that you can sample each of the specs the class has to offer.
The
quests in this level range, especially those from 70-80, will flood
your
inventory with tons of items to facilitate this so you need not drop
all your
hard earned coin at the auction house.
Playing multiple specs will help you to adapt to the end game should
you
choose to give up your reclusive lifestyle and play nice with the rest
of us.
Once you have reached the level cap you may be inclined to hang up your
soloing
shoes, but if you still want to play only with yourself the druid will
continue to provide many choices of playstyle.
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