Druid PvE guide

Things Druids want Non-Druids to know

 * Druids are the only class in the game able to fill 4 completely different roles: melee dps, magic dps, tanking and healing. Always make sure you know what you're getting and what the druid expects to be doing.
 * Generally speaking, a druid can fill any role regardless of gear up to level 30, and can fill any role they have gear for up to level 60. Your mileage beyond that will depend on player ability, but off-spec roles can be accomplished right up to non-heroic level 80 dungeons, provided the druid has a gear set for it and knows the role. While performance may be suboptimal, the goal for the party can still be accomplished.


 * Druid tanking in general: Bears need time to build aggro. Give the druid a moment to build some hate, especially on multiple mobs, before you unload the trinketed super crit Fat-Boy fireball nuke. Melee should always attack a target from behind; bears cannot block or parry like Warrior and Paladin tanks, so you get parried a lot if you are attacking from the front of the target and if the bear doesn't dodge, then you could easily destroy your tank in a matter of seconds.


 * For Rogues and Warriors when working with a druid tank. Use all your bleed effects, remember that mangle increases their effect by 30% so it becomes a significant addition to overall DPS.


 * For any crowd controllers when working with a Druid tank. If the Druid is planning on tanking more than one mob at a time it is often helpful if you pull your targets away before crowd controlling them as Druids will often rely on swipe in order to keep aggro on the targets.


 * For the following situation: you're a class that can resurrect and in an instance, you've just died and the group is about to wipe. The druid then casts rebirth on you with the last of his mana: Do NOT Resurrect! This should be treated as Wipe Recovery: wait until everyone is dead and the mobs have left, then res yourself and everyone else. :)


 * Though a druid in bear or cat form can come out to heal in an emergency, don't expect us to heal for an extended period of time. More likely than not, a feral druid's gear will not have many intellect or spirit bonuses on it. If we heal for too long, we will run out of mana and be unable to shift back into our previous form, which you do not want.


 * Druids in caster form have no real ability to shed aggro gained by healing or casting (unlike a priest's Fade, although druids do have cower in cat form). This means that the starting phases of combat tend to be touchier with a druid healer than with a priest healer until the tank has had time to build up a clear aggro advantage.


 * If we're sharing healing duties with you, negotiate - tell us who you want to heal, we'll tell you who we want to heal, so overhealing doesn't happen.


 * If your druid is healing and they suddenly shift to bear form and start running around, they're probably not trying to tank and instead are in trouble and need help. Bear form is considerably more survivable than caster form so many restoration druids' reaction to getting aggro is to quickly HoT themselves and shift to bear to mitigate the damage.

Things Non-Druids want Druids to know

 * If you are in a party, understand your role in the party. You are a hybrid class, and versatility is your primary asset. Nothing endangers a party more than a druid not being ready to switch roles. Don't stay in caster form when the party needs more DPS or Tanking.


 * If you have a choice between a paladin and a priest to rebirth, it is better to go with the paladin since he or she has a better chance to survive a patrolling mob while trying to rez.


 * Remember that Shamans have Reincarnation starting at level 30, but like Rebirth it is on a long timer. Make sure to communicate and know whether your party Shaman's Reincarnation is available in case of an impending wipe.


 * Make sure you restock reagents after every instance: no one wants to hear that you are out of maple seeds halfway through an instance. A Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth may be a worthwhile investment if you have this problem often.

Things Druids want New Druids to know

 * When in looking for group, advertise your talent spec. It makes it much easier for group leaders to figure out if they need you. Druids fill a variety of roles, so a party inviting a druid can get confused easily. And while at lower levels you can get away with filling any role so long as you have appropriate gear, spec starts to become important in Outland.


 * If a party asks you to heal, do not go into bear or cat form. It is near impossible to heal when you already have aggro on you.  Even if you think your heals are not needed, stay in caster form.  A seemingly good situation can turn ugly in a matter of seconds, and you may need to start healing at a moment's notice.


 * Following the above, if the healer goes down and you are the only other class that can heal, and you're not tanking, change to caster and heal. You may not be able to do it very long, but you may be able to do it long enough. You are a druid, which means you can do it all. In fact if you use rebirth on the healer, heal the group while the healer rezes, and innervates them immediatly after you can single handedly save your group from certain death.


 * If you are wearing +intellect and +spirit gear, don't try to fight in cat or bear form. If you are wearing +strength, +agility, and +stamina gear, don't try to fight in caster form.  If you want to really be prepared, keep two or more sets of armor: one for feral fighting and one for healing, or more specifically, one for bear-tanking, one for cat-fighting, one for healing, and one for caster fighting.


 * If you're fighting in feral forms, heal yourself between battles. Your mana will regen while you're in bear or cat form, and this saves the healer's mana, and/or means he doesn't have to drink as long.


 * Don't underestimate Teleport: Moonglade. Respeccing and training new spells as you level is just 10 seconds away.


 * Don't underestimate your racial ability. Night elves should know how to use Shadowmeld to get out of combat to resurrect the party.  Just make sure all HoTs and DoTs have expired before using Shadowmeld.  Tauren can use War Stomp to stun their opponents and make a hasty getaway out of combat.


 * If you are not a resto druid remember that your innervate may be needed by the group healer. As a balance druid you may prefer to use innervate on yourself, but a healer running out of mana can kill a group far faster then losing your dps.


 * when innervating others consider having a macro that sends a whisper to the person receiving an innervate. The sooner they realize that they have mana incomeing the sooner they can stop perserving mana.


 * as a low level tank you may wish to consider starting a pull with a starfire and then shifting into bear form. This does a minor amount of damage and threat, and is the only viable way for a low level druid to do a range pull.  As you go up in levels starfire will grow comparetivly weaker and you will gain access to Faerie Fire (Feral) for range pulls, signficantly lowering the usefullness of starfire as an opening pull.

Things Bears want Cats to know

 * Remember that you can usually drop combat pretty easily, and innervate the healer or cast Rebirth on someone. If yours is on cooldown in a normal instance, you can switch to bear and take the aggro for a moment to let the bear do it.


 * If you are in DPS gear then you are not the tank, so do not act like one and try to pull off the main tank. In most heroic 5-man to 25-mans instances, you won't be able to hold mobs or bosses long before dying when in DPS gear.  You can, however, with high enough agility, achieve enough dodge chance to be a decent emergency tank.

General tips
Always cast Mark of the Wild/Gift of the Wild on your party members, it saves lives! It's common practice if you meet another buffing class in the wild to 'trade' buffs, so give a passing priest, mage or paladin a Mark of the Wild and you'll usually get stamina, intellect or a blessing in return.

If balance speced remember you can play an adequate tank(as moonkin) or healer in a pinch. Generally your not good enough at either role to do harder instances, but when in the 'wild' grouping with one or two others tanking or healing as needed can be a viable option.

Mage
Casting Mark of the Wild on them will help in certain situations, and you'll get an Arcane Intellect out of it. Ask for water if you need it, but don't yell out or demand it. They probably have to make water for plenty of other people as well. Casting Thorns on them could be a good thing if they're AoE farming, but don't bother doing it if they're not, it's no use. Good communication when it comes to rooting can also help a lot. Casting Entangling Roots on a mob that's about to be Frost Novaed is useless. If balance and AOE farming remember you have far more survivability then the mage and your hurricane lowers damage done by enemies; it may be posible for you to stand and take the hits that would kill a mage rather then using a mages standard kitting tatics.

Rogue
In most cases do not give them thorns unless they ask for it--although they are good enough at losing aggro, over-aggroing is still a problem for some. Heal them if needed; however, remember that they're not tanks so don't focus your heals on them. Normally a rejuvenation with an occasional Regrowth should keep them topped just fine. Remember that they don't have huge health pools.

Hunter
Entangling Roots is your friend. Normally, Hunters prefer ranged combat, and in this regard roots is great to keep enemies at bay. Don't forget about the hunter's pet! Hunters will thank you for buffing their pet with Mark of the Wild and Thorns, and occasionally healing it. Depending on the species, a pet can be a decent enough tank for regular mobs. Also, you can switch to bear form and tank yourself.

In instance/raid, good hunters are the tanking druid best friends besides the healers. Their Misdirection can make some difficult pulls becomes easier, and help improve your threat level in the mid of the fight.

Paladin
Of course, buff one another. Discuss specs beforehand to decide who will fill what role. The feral Druid will likely hold aggro better than a holy or retribution Paladin. As for healing, the Paladin, while an effective enough healer, has no more than one instant cast heal (Holy Shock, and it has a cooldown), no HoTs and no AoE heals. Paladins are, however, very mana-efficient healers, which is good for long fights.

If you are tanking in raid with another paladin tank, no matter who are the maintank or off-tank, let the paladin pull with Avenger's Shield first, then taunt your target off him! Reason: Avenger's Shield is a very good preload of threat. If you taunt your target after it is hit by the Avenger's Shield, you also share that good initial threat load. As you can see, if you do it correctly, it is a win-win situation for both!

Warrior
If you are Feral then you may offer to let them enjoy doing DPS, as from 40-60 there is a good chance you will have much better tanking equipment than they do. If you are Cat Feral, be very careful not to Ravage or shred too early and remember to use Cower. Warriors don't have as much threat building ability as your bear does so you have to be careful not to pull aggro. If there is no other healer in the party then healing may be a better option than your forms, as warrior bandage healing is weak compared to even feral healing. Also, your Improved Leader of the Pack may very well provide all the healing a warrior will need for cutting through even-level non-elite mobs.

If you are Resto then, just keep him healed, and you should be fine. Don't forget to Faerie fire his target. Possibly add to the fight with DPS, either in cat-form or with Balance spells. Don't forget if all else goes wrong you've got a combat-rez.

Warlock
A Warlocks Soulstone is more useful on you so ask him whether he can use it on you. Normally they use either DoTs or critting shadow bolts, if they use the latter they might suddenly grab away the aggro of their pet/you so prepare for that with healing or a readily available Taunt. If for some reason (out of instance, or sub-par off tank) the warlocks pet is tanking, be sure to heal it, as the warlocks methods of healing are both high threat and don't allow them to do anything else during that time (channeled). Additionally it drains their health and gives it to the pet, so regardless, if you're healing, you will have to heal them anyway.

Warlocks use Life Tap to get mana back, so if they run low on mana they will greatly appreciate a Heal Over Time spell if your own mana can be spared for that.

Priest
The simplest strategy is to just let the Priest heal you while you're tanking in Bear, or DPSing in Cat as the situation demands. Another way is of course to root your foe and then try and blast them away. Buff each other, use Renew and Rejuvenation when pulling. A druid / priest duo is one of the most effective in the game. Find a Priest. Make him or her your best friend. Always keep your priest alive be it by healing them or bear tank taunting away baddies that like them too much.

A priest may cast a shield to reduce damage taken when they pull aggro. It is preferable to have the mob pulled off them rather than waste mana healing them.

Druid
Divide your tasks - DPS, tanking, and healing. Keep your buffs up at all times. If your specs differ, it should be fairly easy to decide who will be doing what.

Shaman
Shaman talent trees and specializations are similar to your own; the main difference is in the melee trees. Enhancement shaman are closer to your cat form's DPS; they lack the mitigation that comes from plate/dire bear form. Realize your roles and fill them accordingly.

Shaman have buffs that can either be spectacular or lackluster, depending on what each of you are trying to do. Their Strength of Earth and Healing Stream Totems can bring incredible Agility, Strength, and HP regen (respectively) to Cat/Bear form druids. Alternatively, their Totem of Wrath (41 point elemental talent), Wrath of Air, and Mana Spring Totems can provide your Moonkin with extra crit, spell damage, and mana regen (respectively). Keep in mind that you're not the only person in the group, however, and your Shaman (usually) knows what totems he needs to drop.

Reference

 * Feral DPS guide