Hey Guys:

not new to WoW, have a 70 lock and 70 mage. but have never played a druid.

my girlfriend is playing a pally and the entire premise of the pally/druid is that we are going to be duoing. Im generally the solo type. dont do a ton of instances and stuff. just questing and exploring.

we are just starting, level 23.

the way i think we should be doing it is me tanking and concentrating on Feral, and her doing heal and helping with DPS.

my questions are these.

A) coin isnt an issue all that much since dailies afford us 100gp / day. so we are twinked. wont lie. What type of armor should i be concentrating on? From what i have read im thinking "of the monkey" since that gives +agi and +str, <attack power from str and armor from agi>. does this make sense? or should i be working some other? basically what should i be looking for stat wise on armor, like top 4 stats in order of most important.

B) generally when we are together i pull with my moonfire and switch right away to Bear form and stay in bear til the mobs dead. I have read of others switching from cat, to bear or vise versa. I honestly want to be a decent tank / druid. Is that the way to go? switching from cat to Bear? and without sounding stupid, why?

thanks a ton for the help guys :buttrock:

Feral druids, to be good, should be prepared to be both cat and bear when the required situations arise.

You should collect, at the least, two sets of gear: Bear gear which focuses on armor, stamina, defense (until 415) and dodge rating; and cat gear which focuses on agi, tohit, attack power and crit rating.

If you've got a Paladin healing, you should be in cat form.

You can kill a lot faster.

Don't focus on gear for now, you're just going to be replacing it in the long run.

Focus on levelling and doing quests that appear red in your quest log.

ucho experienco.

Well, nothing wrong with focusing on stats. Just don't buy gear. You're going to replace them quick enough. Gear swap out happens so often at that level, but having two 70s, I'm sure you're aware of that.

I, too, am leveling a Druid (lvl 54.5). Until recently, I focused entirely on +str gear (taking +agi as needed) as pre-2.3 1STR=2.4AP. That said, I have read several articles which state that with 2.3 patch agi>>>>str.

Since you will be duo'ing I suggest putting your first 41 points in the Feral tree. There is no point wasting a point on Nature's Graps. I don't have it and I solo. There has been maybe 4-6 times I wish I had it. But, honestly, high Kitty DPS combined with Dash work just as well when dealing with multiple mobs. And since you will have 2 players multiple mobs will NEVER be an issue while questing.

Once you get Cat form, you should never need bear form again while questing until you try a group[4] type quest. I have also learned that until your Kitty AP is above 1K, FFF-->Mangle*3 is faster and does more damage than the Pounce->Shred->Shred.

I'd beg to differ with the above post. Buy or make your gear. The pre-BC non-instance quest rewards are total crap. Thru lvl 54 I have used maybe 4-6 quest reward items. Everything else is from the AH and/or LW (which I dropped once I hit lvl 53). Sure, once you reach the Outlands this will no longer be true, but Old World quest rewards are a complete joke.

Here's my 2 cents.

Have her go ret, you go feral. You guys will fly through 99% of all quests until you run into some 5 man quests.

Focus on bear gear with stam and str ( AP at higher levels after the patch ) and just kill stuff fast. Leveling my druid I could solo lots of quests most people couldn't just because druids scale VERY quickly low end, but stop high end ( which is hopefully being addressed with 2.3 ).

You will each till have mana to be able to pop out and heal each other, but you don't need a dedicated heal bot.

Well, nothing wrong with focusing on stats. Just don't buy gear.

Yeah, sorry....that's what I meant.

Trying to type and work sometimes messes up my message.


:D

Is that the way to go? switching from cat to Bear? and without sounding stupid, why?

Effective shapeshifting comes when you know how to react to the situation you are in.

For example, if you have aggro from a mob or know you're about to get aggro, then going bear form is a good idea. If you're trying not to get aggro and just want to do lots of damage, cat form is better.

Literally that's all there is to it. Go bear form when you need to be tough. Cat form when you need to do damage. And caster form to heal your dudes :> Everything else is just detail.


-Annikk

I find there really is no need to buy anything for your druid whilst leveling up with the exception of maybe a couple weapons around the level 40+ range (and even then buying one like Blanchard's Stout is often enough).

And you guys should both spec dps specs (probably feral and her ret). I find it overkill to have one person spec a healing spec even while leveling. It's not hard to toss your gf a couple heals while still being feral and vice versa with her being ret.

good luck and hf

One more thing, while you are looking for cheap greens on the AH (which seems to be a point of contention), buy 360 Unidentified Plant Parts (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24401) (or use our alts to grind them). Prior to level 62 do not complete a single CE rep quest (there are a few in HFP so avoid those). Once you hit level 62, run into Zangarmarsh and pickup Plants of Zangarmarsh (http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=9802) quest line. And turn in your 360 plant parts. This will get you to Honored with CE rep. Then you can do your CE rep quests. As a feral tank you want to become exalted with CE rep so you can by the Earthwarden (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29171).

thanks alot everyone. i really appreciate all the ideas. and basically, none of them are truly shocking. mostly what i had thought of. perhaps a slightly different outlook than i originally thought but they all make sense.

I levelled with a Warrior and very rarely ran in bear form. My kitty is crazy strong and the two of us pretty much sailed from Booty Bay thru Outlands together. In dire situations, I morphed out to throw in a heal every once in a while...but Kitty DpS pretty much rocks.

I never focused on tanking gear until I hit 70. That's when I started needing bear more and more often. PuG's get pretty excited when they pick up a Feral Druid Tank.

A fun aspect of levelling with a friend is that the two of you should pretty much own WsG. Druid's are perfect flag catchers. Especially Druid's with reliable back up. :dance: