Pulling at 33Follow

Which spec are you? How come you aren't using kitty? Bear is great for multiple mobs or elites but cat will kill stuff WAY faster in normal PVE situations.

If you're balance or resto you're probably wearing more caster gear so spelling them up the way you are is probably a good idea.

But if you're feral (or maybe even if you're not, depending on your gear and the mob), try prowling up to them, shred, rake, claw to full combo points, then rip (ferocious bite instead if they're almost dead). In just 3 more levels you will get pounce. When this happens, your whole life will change. Your laundry will fold itself, all the traffic lights will be green, and strangers will remark on how poised and good looking you are. Somewhere around that point you will wonder why it took you so long to start a druid.

Edited cause I am forever calling rake rip and vice versa.

Edited, Jan 2nd 2008 10:06am by teacake

Well since you're feral I suspect you're about to get a lot more fun out of your druid by using cat form. At that level I generally only used offensive spells for pulling or fleeing mobs. You'll also want to use it to cast Faerie Fire until you get Feral FF as a talent. Otherwise just go through everything in cat, pop into bear if you get adds, and enjoy.

As far as healing, I usually conserve my mana for just this purpose:
- If you get in a tough spot during a fight, pop out and Regrowth, then Rejuvenate, then back into cat (or bear) to finish the fight. At level 36 you'll get a skill called Frenzied Regeneration that converts your rage to healing in bear form and that'll save you popping out.
- Throw a Regrowth+Rejuv on yourself just before a tough fight and you're less likely to have to heal during.
- Heal yourself between fights.

You'll have no down time. Food and drink will be a thing of the past. See previous comment about laundry etc.

1. Prowl up to the mob and Ravage it, Ravage is better then Shread.
2. Rake it once(personally I dont)
3. Claw until full cobmo points and (like teacake said) Rip the mob if it is about half life, or FB it if it is close to being dead.
4. Replace Ravage with Pounce as your opener.
5. At level 51 you will get a special move via talents called Mangle, cherish this move beyond all, remove claw from your bar. Mangle also gives you a reason to use Shread again.

Things change as you go up in level. Indeed they go down faster in the lower levels, so you probably don't ever need rip unless fighting elites. But later it starts to really shine, especially when you hit the Outland and your AP goes through the roof.

When I have to decide between a fully charged Rip and Ferocious bite, I'll take the one that ticks for over 500 instead of the one that hits once for just a bit over 1000. Even if it doesn't last the full duration, it's much more powerful. Often I'll just rip at at 2-3 combos points, just to get more out of it. It still is more painful than a fully charged FB.

Rip is valuable in dungeons when you're fighting tanked elite mobs that don't go down so fast.


Patience, grasshoppa. At level 32 you'll get a big burst damage finisher called Ferocious Bite, and way down the road at level 62 you'll get a cool finisher called Maim that combines DoT and a brief stun.

It's not unanimous, but for the most part druid 'experts' don't use Rake because Claw (and then Mangle) is better damage-per-energy.

I prefer:

1. Prowl
2. Pounce
3. Feral Faerie Fire
4. Mangle (to get the shred bonus)
5. Shred
6. Second Shred if the timing is right or if Omen of Clarity procced.
7. Rip
8. Watch health fall down at top speed.

That last one is a great order at 50+ (61+ if counting the OoC proc.) For your level, however, the earlier posts have an attack order about as good as you can get it.

There's really a two ways to start a fight while griding those levels, sneaking up and attacking (in the open) or pulling with faerie fire - feral if you don't have the room to attack without getting friends or it's a runner and you need some space.

At 30+ and feral specced, you should have faerie fire (feral), so you can pull with that and still have 100 energy to start the fight. In this situation, it's really just FFF -> Claw -> Claw ... -> Claw til it's dead.

If you have the room to attack where the mob is standing, then
Pre-36: (Prowl) -> Ravage -> FFF -> Claw ... -> 5CP FB or Rip depending on health
Post-36: (Prowl) -> Pounce -> FFF -> Shred -> Shred -> Claw ... -> 5 CP FB/Rip

Hmm, I've wondered about this. When I'm questing solo, I'm usually in cat form, but sometimes I get bored and pull 6 or so mobs and burn them down in bear form. I can't really tell which is quicker because I never really pay attention.

Is this not something other feral druids do?

Oh, I totally do this. You'll note that when I said cat was way faster I did qualify it with using bear for multiple mobs. If I have more than two I always go bear, and I often round up 3-4 at a time (I am not as brave as you and don't recall going for 6 on purpose, although sometimes with adds I end up with that many bodies). I have no idea whether it's more efficient as doing the math on xp/hour is not interesting to me. It's fun.

Whenever I'm running buddies or guildies through lower level instances I like to literally run around aggro'ing everything in sight -- and end up tanking/fighting literally DOZENS of mobs at a time. I've had so many on me that I literally couldn't see my big bear butt anymore. It's silly fun, but fun nonetheless. : )

You are not doing anything wrong. You just aren't level 40 yet. That's when you get Dire Bear form which boosts your armor considerably, similar to the armor boost many other classes get at that point (leather to mail or mail to plate). At that point your bear becomes unstoppable.

I know we keep saying "wait a few levels" to everything. The thing with being a druid is that you don't get to be this unstoppable juggernaut until your 30's and 40's while other classes come into greater power much earlier. It takes a lot of patience, but it really pays off. I guess it's Blizzard's way of weeding out the unworthy. ;) Just hang in there.



Agility (AP in cat form, dodge, crit), Strength (AP AP and more AP), and Stamina. For solo play that set will suit you for both bear and cat form. If you're doing instances you may want to start carrying around a set of healing gear as well (just save the odd healing piece you get as a drop or quest reward for starters), and if you end up liking to tank then down the line you will undoubtedly separate your DPS and tanking gear.

There is a thread right here on the first page (something along the lines of "new, read sticky" although that isn't exactly it) in which there are links to all sorts of math on the great Agility/Strength debate. I'd suggest having a look at that. Some druids prioritize one over the other, others balance the two. Personally I've always worn lots of Stamina and prioritized Agility over Strength (though I wear both, I've often had twice as much Agi as Str) and it's served me very well for solo questing. I rarely die unless I did something stupid.