Druid talent analysis

• Now up to date for all trees as of 1/15/09.

---

Druid talents, perhaps more than those of any other class, serve to drastically change the character and playstyle of the class. Druids can be called a very weak class with very strong talents. For example, a Resto druid's feral utility is very, very weak; with a respec that same druid suddenly becomes a powerhouse in melee. This makes druids a very fun class to play since the druid's gameplay, be it tanking, melee DPS, spell DPS, or healing, can easily change with a respec. Therefore, it is important to understand not just the relative value of each talent but the way in which your build will affect your desired gameplay.

Each talent is listed with its maximum talent point investment. Notes are included in the analysis where lesser investments are common or useful.

Note that "nothing special" doesn't mean that the talent is or isn't valuable in a particular situation, merely that there aren't any special benefits unique to that playstyle.

Talent Trees In General

First of all it is important to note that druids of every spec can find a niche for themselves in most playstyles. There are Balance and Feral druids who raid, and Restoration druids who PvP, for example. Each bring unique strengths and capabilities to their role; however, it remains true that certain specs are naturally linked to certain playstyles. As usual, each talent tree contains some abilities which are useful for the role associated with one of the other trees (like healing bonuses in the Feral tree, or melee damage increase in the Restoration tree).

Balance is the offensive spellcasting tree. It will lead to a ranged magical DPS gameplay similar to that of a Mage, Shadow Priest or elemental Shaman. Since Balance Druids in Moonkin Form have a chance to recover 2% of their total mana with spell critical hits, stacking Crit Rating is a good way to both maximize your DPS and ensure that you won't run out of mana any time soon; with enough crit rating and mp5 you can virtually fight indefinitely.

The Feral combat tree concentrates on melee power through the druid's cat and bear forms. As of patch 3.0.2, the talents allow more ability to focus on either Bear or Cat form, so you can sub-specialize in this tree. It is a very popular multi-purpose tree for soloing, leveling, raiding and PvP. Notably, the Feral tree is the only Druid talent tree that does not give an additional shapeshifting form.

Restoration talents improve a druid's healing capabilities, add a few new healing spells, and the Tree of Life form. Restoration druids tend to have a game experience similar to that of a Restoration Shaman, Holy-spec Paladin, or Priest. They are very good raid healers and a popular PvP healer thanks to their many Heal over Time effects. This tree has additional talents that complement both the Feral and Balance trees, you WILL be taking talents here.

Balance (as of Patch 3.0.3)

[Starlight Wrath]

5 points: Reduces the cast time of your Wrath and Starfire spells by 0.5 sec.

• Lower cast time equals higher DPS and less likely to be interrupted.
  • Solo Utility: The two main damage spells a balance druid uses are [Wrath] and [Starfire]. This talent makes both of them shorter, effectively speeding up the time it takes to down a mob.
  • Raid Utility: Nothing special apart from DPS increase. This means more chances to crit, and more chances to have an ability proc.
  • PVP Utility: Nothing special; in PvP the faster casting time is even more important so you can down players as fast as possible.
• Bottom Line: If you are planning on a nuke-focused build (such as a full-out Moonkin), this is a must-have talent.

[Genesis]

5 points: Increases the damage and healing done by your periodic damage and healing effects by 5%.

• Restoration: The majority of Druid healing is periodic. This is the best talent for Restoration Druids to take on their way down the tree to [Moonglow] and [Nature's Splendor].
  • Overall Utility: Nothing special apart from DPS increase.
• Bottom Line: Useful for Restoration Druid's to reach the next tier of the Balance tree. For Balance, unless you rely a lot on [Moonfire] and [Insect Swarm] the DPS gain is small and there are better places to spend the points.

[Moonglow]

Requires 5 points in Balance Talents
3 points: Reduces the Mana cost of your [Moonfire], [Starfire], [Starfall], [Wrath], [Healing Touch], [Regrowth] and [Rejuvenation] spells by 9%.

• Restoration: This should be the next 3 points spent in the Balance tree followed by [Nature's Majesty] to achieve the next Balance tier for Restoration Druids. The only other choice is [Improved Moonfire], which is useless for a Resto Druid.
  • Solo Utility: This is mostly a grinding efficiency boost. This affects all the main spells you will be using solo, which will keep you from having to stop and drink so often.
  • Raid Utility: Fantastic. Raid encounters usually are drawn out, very mana-intensive affairs, so a talent that helps mana efficiency is critical whether nuking or healing.
  • PvP Utility: Mana efficiency isn't that important in PvP, but it's still useful, get it if you want it.
• Bottom Line: A must have. Can greatly help a Boomkin or a Healer.

[Nature's Majesty]

Requires 5 points in Balance Talents
2 points: Increases the critical strike chance of your [Wrath], [Starfire], [Starfall], [Nourish], and [Healing Touch] spells by 4%.

• It's a cheap way to up DPS considerably, and is a pre-req for (and increases the proc rate of) [Nature's Grace].
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special besides the DPS boost and use as a pre-req.
  • Raid Utility: Nothing special besides the DPS boost and use as a pre-req.
  • PvP Utility: Crits make the damage spiky and less predictable, which is always a good thing in PvP.
• Bottom Line: Useful just to unlock [Nature's Grace] for a Balance Druid, or [Nature's Splendor] for a Restoration Druid. The actual effect of this talent is most beneficial for Balance in PvP.
• Second Opinion: If you max [Vengeance] then this talent gives you a 4% damage increase at no increased mana on wrath and [starfire] which are usually the main nukes. Definitely, a good deal.

[Improved Moonfire]

Requires 5 points in Balance Talents
2 points: Increases the damage and critical strike chance of your [Moonfire] spell by 10%.

• This is a strong upgrade to the already-useful [Moonfire] spell.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special besides the DPS boost.
  • Raid Utility: Nothing special besides the DPS boost. A very nice damage increase especially when used in conjunction with the [Glyph of Moonfire] & [Glyph of Starfire]
  • PvP Utility: Awesome. Balance-spec druids do spam Moonfire sometimes, for example, to chase someone down while finishing them off. And the crit bonus nicely makes the spell even burstier. Also, with the extra crit, moonfire can be used to force a [Nature's Grace] proc, to get a fast spell cast in the heat of battle.
• Bottom Line: PvP balance druids will definitely want this. Others will also want this, but I would recommend waiting until you have a few spare points at the end of your build to throw them in here.

[Brambles]

Requires 10 points in Balance Talents
3 points: Damage from your [Thorns] and [Entangling Roots] increased by 75% and damage done by your Treants increased by 15%. In addition, damage from your Treants and attacks done to you while you have [Barkskin] active have a 15% chance to daze the target for 3 sec.

• How much of your DPS really comes from roots and [Thorns]? That's right: not much at all.
  • Solo Utility: You'll be rooting a lot, pretty much at the start of every pull. The damage increase is useful to move down the tree, increase the damage of a spell you'll use every pull, and considerably increase the damage to your Treants which should be used whenever you get adds. The thorns buff isn't very useful however since you shouldn't be getting hit that much.
  • Raid Utility: Not useful. Even with tank aggro multipliers, the aggro gained is minimal, and the boost from this talent is as well. You most likely won't be rooting too much, even though you can use it inside now.
  • PvP Utility: Against a couple rogues or other duel-wielders with fast attack rates, this talent actually does decent damage over the course of the fight, but it's still pretty situational. The Treants also do a good amount more damage, and when coupled with a daze, its a very nice talent to have for PvP.
• Bottom Line: Up to you, there are pros and cons to it, may be better places to put the points depending on your play style.

[Nature's Grace]

Requires 10 points in Balance Talents
3 points: All spell crits have a 100% chance to grace you with a blessing of nature, decreasing spell casting time by 20% for 3 seconds.

• • Solo Utility: Decent when using [starfire], but normally you don't need another 0.5 secs off [Wrath] if you took the [Starlight Wrath] talent.
  • Raid Utility: Better, since you'll be using [starfire] a lot more while raiding than when soloing.
  • PVP Utility: Useful every once in a while to get a really fast cast off.
• Bottom Line: For 3 points, this is a good talent. Reduces the global cooldown on [Wrath], so your next Wrath assuming Starlight Wrath is at least 33% faster which makes it add 50% more dps.

[Nature's Splendor]

Requires 10 points in Balance Talents
1 point: Increases the duration of your [Moonfire] and [Rejuvenation] spells by 3 sec, your [Regrowth] spell by 6 sec, and your [Insect Swarm] and [Lifebloom] spells by 2sec.

• Restoration:Extremely useful for Restoration Druids. Lengthens the time of some of your HoTs, meaning more healing and less casting for more mana efficiency.
  • Solo Utility: Pretty useless. Normally you'll kill most mobs either before or shortly after your DoTs run out, making the extra tick time a waste of talent points.
  • Raid Utility: Makes your DoTs last longer. This in theory means less time casting DoTs and more time casting direct damage spells like wrath or starfire. Less time recasting DoTs is more DPS, get it.
  • PvP Utility: Could be useful depending on your playstyle. If you tag several people with [Moonfire] and/or [Insect Swarm] this could be worth it since it will last longer on your target(s) and deal out more damage.
• Bottom Line: Forget about it for soloing, pick it up for PvP, and try to do your own research on its effectiveness in raiding. (Restoration druids definitely pick up. Probably one of the best Restoration talents in this tree).

[Nature's Reach]

Requires 10 points in Balance Talents
2 points: Increases the range of your Balance spells and [Faerie Fire (Feral)] ability by 20%, and reduces threat generated by your Balance spells by 30%.

• Feral: An OK talent if you need a longer Faerie Fire range, however you will waste at least 5 talent points in the 2nd tier of Balance on the way to get this. Not worth it.
  • Solo Utility: Increases your survivability because it allows you to hit mobs from farther away. This gives you more time to hit them before they hit you. It also allows you to hit a mob that is running before they pull other mobs.
  • Raid Utility: Extremely useful. Many mobs have ranged attacks on non-aggro targets, or AOEs. If they can be out-ranged at all, this talent usually lets you cast from outside that range. Also the threat reduction on this talent makes it a must have for raiding.
  • PvP Utility: Similar to soloing--use it to catch that pesky flag carrier.
• Bottom Line: A must have if going balance.

[Vengeance]

Requires 15 points in Balance Talents
5 points: Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your [Starfire], [Moonfire], and [Wrath] spells by 100%.

• This makes crits do double-damage. It's a significant overall DPS boost.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special apart from the flat DPS boost.
  • Raid Utility: Nothing special apart from the flat DPS boost.
  • PvP Utility: Makes your attacks far burstier if you're going to be nuking. Bursty damage is very good in PvP.
• Bottom Line: If you're this deeply invested in Balance, it's a very worthwhile talent to have. Nice synergy with anything that increases crit chance.

[Celestial Focus]

Requires 15 points in Balance Talents
3 points: Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting [Starfire], [Hibernate] and [Hurricane] by 70% and increases your total spell haste by 3%.

• Combined with [Nature's Focus], this talent reduces pushback for nearly all Balance and Restoration spells. 3% haste will make the new casting time of 1.5 sec [Wrath] 1.4631 sec without any other haste included.
  • Solo Utility: Allows you to spam [Starfire] without suffering much pushback, making grinding more mana-efficient. Haste is okay for speeding up killing.
  • Raid Utility: Many fights have raid-wide AoE damage, and the less your cast time is hurt by this, the better. The haste is probably the best thing about this talent if you want a faster spell rotation. If you do pull aggro while channeling [Hurricane], this will save a lot of your ticks.
  • PvP Utility: Moderately useful for a PvP focused balance druid. This allows you to pull off [Starfire]s in the same way [Wrath] has been traditionally used because of its pushback reduction.
• Bottom Line: The pushback is somewhat useful for PvP, 5 mans and soloing, but the haste would be the main reason for getting this talent.

[Lunar Guidance]

Requires 20 points in Balance Talents
3 points: Increases your spell power by 12% of your total Intellect.

• Scales nicely with gear, gives you another source of much-needed +dmg, this is a great addition to a casting Druid's repertoire.
  • Solo Utility: A Flat DPS boost but nothing special.
  • Raid Utility: A Flat DPS boost but nothing special.
  • PVP Utility: A Flat DPS boost but nothing special.
• Bottom Line: More DPS = good. A must have talent for balance spec druids, you should have a ton of Intellect laying around anyway.

[Insect Swarm]

Requires 20 points in Balance Talents
1 point: 8% of base mana, 30 yd range, instant cast. The enemy target is swarmed by insects, decreasing their chance to hit by 3% and causing 1290 damage over 12 sec.

• • Solo Utility: A very mana-efficient DoT to dump on a mob that will also increase the damage done by [wrath] if you take the [Improved Insect Swarm] talent. This spell does about the same damage if not more than [moonfire], with the added bonus of extra wrath damage.
  • Raid Utility: Somewhat useful because it helps the tanks' damage mitigation. However, the less hits tanks receive the less rage they will generate. The use of [Glyph of Insect Swarm] will increase the damage it deals while taking away the hit chance reduction, which is arguably better for a tank.
  • PvP Utility: Another cheap and effective source of damage.
• Bottom Line: A decent debuff that's good for both PvE and PvP. Most useful when raiding since it has time to tick. If used when soloing/PvP it's recommended that you invest at least a point or two in the [Improved Insect Swarm] talent.

[Improved Insect Swarm]

Requires 20 points in Balance Talents
Requires 1 point in [Insect Swarm]
3 points: Increases your damage done by Wrath spell to targets afflicted by your Insect Swarm by 3%, and increases the crit strike chance of your Starfire spell by 3% on targets afflicted by your Moonfire spell.

• • Solo Utility: Very nice "buff" to the already pretty powerful Insect Swarm. Increases damage with your most used spell, [Wrath], while dealing its DoT that it would anyway if you didn't get this talent.
  • Raid Utility: Same as soloing, increases damage from Wrath, and especially good when raiding since it will help with [Eclipse], increasing your [Starfire] crit chance, and doing even more damage from Eclipse when you switch to Wrath.
  • PvP Utility: Pretty good, nothing too special besides the added DPS.
• Bottom Line: If you decide to take the Insect Swarm talent, this is a must have.
• 2nd Opinion: 3% Damage from Wrath isn't very noticeable until higher levels, however the extra Starfire crit is very helpful, especially if you decide to take other talents which improve your crit rating with Starfire.

[Dreamstate]

Requires 25 points in Balance Talents
3 points: Regenerates mana equal to 10% of your Intellect every 5 sec, even while casting.

• Also known as MP5, in-combat mana regen is very powerful for caster classes. This one talent usually yields around 35 mana/5(at 70).
  • Solo Utility: When soloing, this talent isn't very important, because you can stop and drink whenever you want. To increase efficiency however, this a good way to do it.
  • Raid Utility: Absolutely essential. Long drawn-out fights demand good mana regen.
  • PvP Utility: PvP tends to be burstier and normally offers plenty of opportunities to drink. Can safely be skipped.
• Bottom Line: Useable but not required for raiding, Replenishment and Innervate should be plenty of mana regen for Moonkin.

[Moonfury]

Requires 25 points in Balance Talents
3 points: Increases the damage done by your [Starfire], [Moonfire] and [Wrath] spells by 10%.

• This is a flat DPS improvement to all of your most common spells.
  • Solo Utility: DPS improvement .
  • Raid Utility: DPS improvement .
  • PVP Utility: DPS improvement .
• Bottom Line: Highly recommended.

[Balance of Power]

Requires 25 points in Balance Talents
2 points: Increases your chance to hit with all spells (by 4%) and reduces the damage taken by all spells by 6%

• • Solo Utility: You have a 4% chance to miss an equal-level mob, and a 6% chance to miss a mob two levels higher than you. If you don't have hit on your gear, and regularly fight on-level or higher mobs, this is useful. Most "solo" damage is physical, but the spell-damage reduction is nice when applicable.
  • Raid Utility: Absolutely essential. You have a base 17% chance to miss a ?? level raid boss. The chance to hit from Balance of Power is effectively a flat DPS upgrade, and spending two talent points for a 4% DPS boost is a good deal.
  • PvP Utility: Very situational; reduces damage taken when your opponent is a caster. However, in equal-level PvP, the base spell chance to hit is 96%. With 4% from BoP, any hit on your gear is wasted. Additionally, the 6% hit reduction only affects spells; melee attacks against you are unaffected.
• Bottom Line: Chance to hit isn't a bottomless pit: there's a limit to how much is useful. However, Balance itemization doesn't include much +hit gear, so raiding offensive caster builds should almost always make room for this talent.

[Moonkin Form]

Requires 30 points in Balance Talents
1 point: 13% of base mana, Instant Cast. Shapeshift into Moonkin Form. While in this form the armor contribution from items is increased by 370% and all party and raid members within 45 yards have their spell critical chance increased by 5%. Single target spell critical strikes in this form have a chance to instantly regenerate 2% of your total mana. The Moonkin can only cast Balance, [Abolish Poison] and [Remove Curse] spells while shapeshifted. The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of Polymorph and Movement Impairing effects."

• • Solo Utility: Fantastic. Sure it's impossible to heal in this form, but there's usually no need to do so, and it's always possible to shift out and heal if necessary. Normally you can root a mob once, and kill it either before it reaches you, or just after.
  • Raid Utility: This form will be a significant DPS boost to all casters in your party/raid. While Moonkin were once something of a liability in raids, Burning Crusade offers better itemization for caster-type druids, and many Moonkin now report being able to keep up in damage with other spellcasters in raid situations. Alternatively, this can be used in conjunction with healers. Paladins regain 30% of the mana cost of a heal if it crits. Also, all your single target crit strikes help you to regain mana, which is perfect for a raiding situation.
  • PVP Utility: Excellent! This talent is a significant reason Balance is considered a good PvP build. Survival is essential in PvP so the armor boost is a substantial gain vs. melee opponents. A 5% boost to crit for yourself and group members helps towards spike damage. This form will significantly boost your ability to defeat any melee class, although it’s far less useful against magic classes that can ignore armor. Remember that this form will ensure that your enemies can pick you out as a balance druid easily, even in raid sized battlegrounds.
• Bottom Line: Hallmark talent of the Balance tree. Excellent for any situation, not to mention a pre-requisite for three other talents. If you go Balance, don't even think about not getting this.

[Improved Moonkin Form]

Requires 30 points in Balance Talents
Requires 1 point in Moonkin Form
3 points: Your Moonkin Aura also causes affected targets to gain 3% haste and you to gain 30% of your spirit as additional spell damage.

• Since patch 3.0.2 spirit is useful for both Tree of Life form and now Moonkin form, making all spell power gear with spirit viable for either Balance or Restoration specs.
  • Solo Utility: Depends on playstyle. If you need more haste, this talent can help. Otherwise, this talent helps convert some spirit you have laying around into more spell power. Pretty nice.
  • Raid Utility: Excellent. Enhances effect of Moonkin Aura (your group/raid will love you), and again transforms some of your spirit (now a primary Druid attribute) into more spell power.
  • PvP Utility: The haste will help you cast faster, and the additional spell power will help do more damage. Pretty straightforward.
• Bottom Line: Greatly improves your spell damage and haste. A must-have if you get Moonkin form.

[Improved Faerie Fire]

Requires 30 points in Balance Talents
3 points: Your [Faerie Fire] spell also increases the chance the target will be hit by spell attacks by 3%, and increases the critical strike chance of your damage spells by 3% on targets afflicted by Faerie Fire.

• This talent is a nice upgrade to Faerie Fire, but its usefulness varies wildly based on playstyle.
  • Solo Utility: Helps your chance to hit which is useless for soloing. Crit strike is nice, but not really needed much either.
  • Raid Utility: More hit for the raid makes it infinitely useful if you are a consistant raider, your entire raid can skip 3% hit rating.
  • PvP Utility: Faerie Fire rocks in PvP, but chance to hit is still useless. The crit strike may be the only reason to invest any points in this talent.
• Bottom Line: Highly recommended, less itemizing in hit rating means more spell power.

[Owlkin Frenzy]

Requires 35 points in Balance Talents
3 points: Attacks done to you while in Moonkin form have a 15% chance to cause you to go into a Frenzy, increasing your damage by 10% and causes you to be immune to pushback while casting Balance spells. Lasts 10 sec.

• Basically the Moonkin version of [Natural Perfection].
  • Solo Utility: Very helpful. You shouldn't be getting hit too much if you keep the mobs rooted, but for those instances where you pull some adds or your roots break early, this is a great way to make the fight a lot easier.
  • Raid Utility: Not as useful. Ideally in a raid/dungeon, you should not be getting hit. You may pull aggro every once in a while, causing some people to take this talent. In my opinion, it's a waste of points for a raider. It is, however, probably most argued Druid talent ever. At first glance, it's useless in raids. But it can proc off from certain unavoidable AoE attacks, making it useful in certain bosses.
  • PVP Utility: Incredible, you'll be getting hit a lot, and it will really mess up your opponents when they can't interrupt you any more. Unfortunately many classes are able to silence/interrupt in other ways.
• Bottom Line: Highly recommended for soloing/pvp, but for raiding its best to invest just 1 point if any, and only if you think you'll be getting hit in a raid often enough to make this worth it.

[Wrath of Cenarius]

Requires 35 points in Balance Talents
5 points: Your [Starfire] spell gains an additional 20% and [Wrath] gains an additional 10% of your bonus damage effects.

• The benefits from this spell are largely gear-based. With a lot of +damage gear, it'll result in a big improvement; otherwise, it may be hardly noticeable.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special other than DPS increase.
  • Raid Utility: Nothing special.
  • PVP Utility: Nothing special.
• Bottom Line: This far down in the tree, you should have quite a bit of gear complementing your spec. As long as you have gear that gives you +Damage, this is a great talent no matter what you are doing.

[Eclipse]

Requires 40 points in Balance Talents
3 points: When you critically hit with [Starfire], you have a 100% chance of increasing damage done by [Wrath] by 30%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 60% chance of increasing your critical strike chance with Starfire by 30%. Effect lasts 15 sec and has a 30 sec cooldown.

• This talent's usefulness partly depends on the attentiveness and skill of the player. You must see when this effect triggers and know to switch from Starfire to Wrath, or vice versa at that time.
  • Solo Utility: Unless you switch between starfire and wrath a lot while soloing then you don't need this. Spammed Starfire or spammed Wrath should do the trick by themselves.
  • Raid Utility: Can create a decent increase in DPS if you rotate your spell casts correctly.
  • PVP Utility: Again, depending on how much you change spells in PvP; this talent could be very helpful, or not helpful at all.
• Bottom Line: Absolutely essential, the cornerstone of Moonkin raiding.

[Typhoon]

Requires 40 points in Balance Talents
Requires 1 point in Moonkin Form
1 point: 36% of base mana, 30 yd range, Instant cast, 20 sec cooldown. You summon a violent Typhoon that does 1190 Nature damage when in contact with hostile targets, knocking them back and dazing them for 3 sec.

• This is a cone AoE spell that knocks back an opponent in addition to dealing damage, which is useful for interrupting spellcasters.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing Special; the knockback can buy you some time to escape hostile monsters. Helps the most when you pull adds.
  • Raid Utility: Not very useful. Knockbacks can be an annoyance. Should only be used with extreme care in situations where the instant damage is useful and positioning and tank threat are not an issue, e.g. finishing off a large pack of non-elite trash. Beware of pulling another pack of mobs with the fairly long and wide range. If used correcly, this can be used to throw mobs back to the tank, making it useful at times.
  • PvP Utility: Pretty good. It can be highly enjoyable, knocking enemy players off of bridges and cliffs, and does decent damage. Typhoon can also act as an interrupt for nasty spells, having the advantage over [Cyclone] of being instant-cast; however, its effectiveness is limited by the cooldown. The cooldown is usually not a problem in anything but PvP.
• Bottom Line: Very worth it for only one point unless raiding. Just another good spell to throw at helpless enemies. A [Glyph of Typhoon] can remove the knockback making it more useful for PVE but much less so for PVP.

[Force of Nature]

Requires 40 points in Balance Talents
1 point: 12% of base mana, 30 yd range, Instant cast, 3 min cooldown. Summons 3 treants to attack the enemy target for 30 sec.

• This is a controversial power. Individually, the treants do a decent amount of damage, and when all 3 treants attack, they are quite effective in interrupting or delaying spells from being cast. Treants are also supposedly affected by the caster's +spell damage, increasing their damage slightly. They do a respectable amount of damage, although they are quickly dispatched by AoEs due to their somewhat low health.
  • Solo Utility: Incredible to have, especially when soloing groups of mobs.
  • Raid Utility: Before the 90% damage off from AoE attacks, these were not so useful. Now they will not die from single blast, and can provide a nice DPS boost for a moment.
  • PvP Utility: Useful for distracting and harrying most classes (especially casters) while doing very nice damage.
• Bottom Line: This talent can greatly enhance your survivability in PvP. In PvE, the treants can noticeably increase your overall DPS. Still worth having.

[Gale Winds]

Requires 40 points in Balance Talents
2 points: Increases damage done by your [Hurricane] and [Typhoon] spells by 30%, and increases the range of your [Cyclone] spell by 4 yards.

• • Solo Utility: Augmented Hurricane helps you kill multiple mobs efficiently, which can help grinding.
  • Raid Utility: Great, as your tank will often be swarmed by multiple mobs. Since Patch 3.0.2 Hurricane has gotten a good increase in DPS too, making it a very powerful AoE even without this talent.
  • PvP Utility: Hurricane isn't very useful at all in PvP, but the damage increase to typhoon could be worth it.
• Bottom Line: If you find yourself frequently using Hurricane and/or Typhoon, this is a good place to spend a couple points.

[Earth and Moon]

Requires 45 points in Balance Talents
3 points: Your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon effect, which increases spell damage taken by 13% for 12 sec. Also increases your spell damage by 6%.

• This effect only triggers when you tag a mob with [Wrath] or [Starfire], but being that those are your two main damage spells, this talent basically applies to everything you attack.
  • Solo Utility: Flat increase to DPS.
  • Raid Utility: Applies this effect to your target, increasing all spell damage taken by the mob. This will increase your DPS as well as everyone else doing spell damage to the mob you hit with Wrath/Starfire.
  • PvP Utility: Increases your damage as well as your teammates.
• Bottom Line: Highly recommended, especially if you are this far down the tree. A flat increase in DPS for yourself and everyone else attacking your target.

[Starfall]

Requires 50 points in Balance Talents
1 points: You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yards of the caster, each doing 563 - 653 (rank 4) Arcane damage. Also causes 101 (rank 4) Arcane damage to all other enemies within 5 yards of the enemy target. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 sec.

• • Solo Utility: An AoE that will follow you around, not channeled, very helpful if AoE grinding.
  • Raid Utility: Not useful. Only affects targets surrounding you, most of the time you will want to stand back from where the tank has all the mobs. Also, this will hit everything within 30 yds of you, which could pull a lot of adds in certain locations.
  • PvP Utility: Very good. Does damage to everything around you, and you can continue casting, capping a flag, etc.
• Bottom Line: Mainly a PvP talent, could be useful in soloing, but a raider should ignore this talent altogether.
• 2nd Opinion: When in raids, the stars will still hit something that is within your spell range, which is where you should be. Against 5 mobs, that's 4 stars each hitting the mob with the spread of when the star hits.
• Since the 3.3.3 buff, Starfall does ridiculous damage. Take it.

Feral (as of Patch 3.0.3)

[Ferocity]

5 points: Reduces the cost of your [Maul], [Swipe - bear]/[Swipe - cat], [Claw], [Rake] and [Mangle] by 5 Rage or Energy.

• Wow. This is a flat DPS upgrade. Good for cat form, fantastic for bear form. This one talent basically upgrades every bread-and-butter feral combat move you have.
  • Solo Utility: Noticeable improvement. 33% rage efficiency is huge for bear grinding, and cat DPS is also substantially increased.
  • Raid Utility: In addition to the significant DPS boost, this talent also lets your bear form generate stupendous aggro.
  • PvP Utility: With the rage you save, you will actually have enough rage and energy handy to use those special moves like Bash.
• Bottom Line: If you plan on putting talents into Feral at all, you would be insane not to get this.

[Feral Aggression]

5 points: Increases the Attack Power reduction of your [Demoralizing Roar] by 40% and the damage caused by your [Ferocious Bite] by 15%.

• A decent talent for bear form tanking and cat form DPS. The problem is that Ferocity and other nearby talents are so good that something has to give, and this is it.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special. You'll usually be soloing in Cat form and finishing with Maim. Even if you use [FB], +15% to a move you use once per fight at most is a bit weak.
  • Raid Utility: Little usage for raid, since your Demoralizing Roar will be overwritten by [Demoralizing Shout] (warrior). Also, cat DPS is maximized if you use [Rip] instead of Ferocious Bite. Handy when no warrior is available and when Rip is ineffective, either due to the target's bleed immunity or impending death.
  • PvP Utility: Ferocious Bite is very useful as a source of burst DPS in PVP. Worth 5 points? Probably not.
• Bottom Line: In most fights you'll be casting one or the other of these, and only once per fight. Not a bad talent, just that there's so much better that very few druids find a reason to buy this one.

[Feral Instinct]

Requires 5 points in Feral Talents
3 points: Increases the damage done by your [Swipe] ability by 30% and reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while [Prowling].

• Unlike a Rogue, you can't [vanish], so being revealed is often a death sentence. +30% damage from swipe will put you on par (and in many cases above) a Warrior's threat generation. This talent provides the same stealth increase as [Master of Deception] thus giving you the same stealth level as that of any rogue. [Glyph of Maul] diminishes the usefulness of Swipe, however.
  • Solo Utility: Not bad. This talent fully specced out allows a definite increase in the Druid's ability to stealth and can make many quests soloable that would not be otherwise.
  • Raid Utility: As long as you're tanking, the increase in damage to swipe now stacks nicely with the fact that swipe hits everything in front of you. A worthwhile talent for tanking groups of trash mobs; you will notice the difference in your dps.
  • PvP Utility: Worthwhile. Being able to sneak up on an opponent unnoticed and open with a large attack or stun tips the odds in your favor.
• Bottom Line: If you plan on solo-leveling or PvPing, it's a very nice talent to have. Useful for tanking as well.

[Savage Fury]

Requires 5 points in Feral Talents
2 points: Increase the damage caused by your [Claw], [Rake], [Mangle], and [Maul] abilities by 20%.

• This is a strong talent for cat druids, especially if you PvP. No longer the boon it once was to bear form, and therefore skippable for pure tank builds.
  • Solo Utility: Get it. It's nearly a 20% upgrade to your yellow damage for grinding.
  • Raid Utility: For cat form, in most encounters you will be [Shred]-spamming, making [Shredding Attacks] a better investment. However, maintaining the debuff requires an occasional [Mangle], so you'll still see an effect.
  • PvP Utility: Dealing more damage rarely hurts. Your enemies will rarely allow you to stay in behind them after your initial ravage/pounce combo, and you'll end up spamming Rake and Mangle quite a lot.
• Bottom Line: No longer a must-have, but very useful. In PvP and solo PvE, get [Savage Fury]. If you're raid DPSing in cat form, get [Shredding Attacks].

[Thick Hide]

Requires 5 points in Feral Talents
3 points: Increases your Armor contribution from cloth and leather items by 10%.

• In most forms, this is a decent waste of points. In Bear form, though, the bonus multiplies. The base 400% armor bonus in dire bear form is multiplied by 110%. Depending on your armor, this can be substantial.
  • Solo Utility: Decent. Bear form is already pretty good, so it's skippable if you don't spend much time in bear form. The bonus is especially noticeable for soloing elite mobs, which is usually done in bear form.
  • Raid Utility: Excellent, a solid upgrade to your damage mitigation for bear tanking.
  • PvP Utility: Also excellent. You'd think a bonus like this wouldn't be noticeable, but it is. It's great for fighting melee classes, helps to tip the balance in your favor.
• Bottom Line: Skippable, but you'll notice it if you have it. If you are tanking at all end-game, this is a must.

[Feral Swiftness]

Requires 10 points in Feral Talents
2 points: Increases your movement speed by 30% in cat form and increases your chance to dodge while in cat form, bear form and dire bear form by 4%.

• Keystone talent. For levelling, you can use cat form as an early travel form.(Travel form now gained at level 16.) Also improves your survivability. Note that this speed upgrade applies even when you're stealthed. It also stacks with the 15% speed increase from the Sanctuary PvP set which can put you very near the non-epic mount speed. Now also works indoors as of the WotLK expansion.
  • Solo Utility: Fantastic. While levelling you'll move faster, which means you'll level faster. The survivability means you'll pop out to heal less frequently (which in turn means at some point your regen exceeds your use of mana, which means you won't be drinking at all usually).
  • Raid Utility: Excellent. Two points for 4% dodge? Hell yeah. If you have to run out, nothing can catch you either.
  • PvP Utility: Moving faster while stealthed in BG's is extremely useful since players fidget and wander even when they don't know you're about to ambush them. The dodge is also handy.
• Bottom Line: A must have for nearly any feral build.

[Survival Instincts]

Requires 10 points in Feral Talents
1 point: When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 sec while in Bear Form, Cat Form, or Dire Bear Form. After the effect expires, the health is lost.

• Useful emergency button for Tanks or in PvP.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special.
  • Raid Utility: Awesome as a Emergency button when tanking and it'll give your healers a chance to heal you before it disappears. Must have.
  • PvP Utility: Useful as an Emergency button in PvP, could be the difference in winning an arena match or not, if you and your last remaining opponent are near death.
• Bottom Line: It's one point. Whether you're tanking or in PvP this can save your butt.

[Sharpened Claws]

Requires 10 points in Feral Talents
3 points: Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form by 6%.

• In addition to being an overall DPS boost, this talent is a prerequisite for both [Primal Fury] (fantastic for druids with a high crit rate) and [Primal Precision]. So it's a must-have for Feral druids.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special.
  • Raid Utility: Nothing special.
  • PvP Utility: Crits make your damage burstier, which helps make you less predictable and harder to fight.
• Bottom Line: Get this. If you're spending points on this tier, you'd be crazy not to.

[Shredding Attacks]

Requires 15 points in Feral Talents
2 points: Reduces the energy cost of your [Shred] ability by 18 and the rage cost of your [Lacerate] ability by 2.

• Important for most cat form builds, and useful for tanking.
  • Solo Utility: Druids who build and gear for [Pounce]/[Mangle]/[Shred]/[Maim]/[Shred] progressions can see Shred go up to as much as 15% or more of their overall DPS along with a pseudo-stunlock. Also, when combined with the [Brutal Impact] talent, Shred becomes just cheap enough to use twice immediately after a pounce. For most mobs, this means you have done a fair amount of damage and gained three combo points (or possibly more with [Primal Fury]), all before the target has had a chance to act.
  • Raid Utility: In a raid, if you're using cat form at all, this is a talent that you must have. This talent supplies the best cat form raid DPS and you get the bonus of 30% more damage when the debuff from Mangle is on your target.
  • PvP Utility: In many situations you will be using [mangle] instead of [shred] due to shred only being usable from behind a target, and the fact that the slightly lower cost on [lacerate] doesn't justify the talent by itself, as you won't be using it much in PvP. However, as with soloing, a pseudo-stunlock is possible using this talent that delivers significant damage, and in big melees there's a big chance of consistently attacking someone from behind during a relatively long period of time. And we all know how many runners become victims of "[dash] and shred" :).
• Bottom Line: This is a great talent for DPSing on raids, a good talent for soloing, and maybe only occasionally used for PvP. If you invest in [Omen of Clarity], [Brutal Impact], [Primal Fury] and [Mangle] for a "druid's answer to Assassination spec", this talent becomes an excellent investment.

[Predatory Strikes]

Requires 15 points in Feral Talents
3 points: Increases your melee attack power in Cat, Bear and Dire Bear Forms by 150% of your level and 20% of any attack power on your equipped weapon.

• Level 80 --> 120AP --> about 10 DPS. With AP now added from your weapon, and the advent of special Druid itemized weapons, this talent adds a sizeable chunk to your attack power.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing Special.
  • Raid Utility: Nothing Special.
  • PVP Utility: Nothing Special.
• Bottom Line: If you're going for [Heart of the Wild] then you need to get this, and it adds a fair amount of damage to boot.

[Primal Fury]

Requires 15 points in Feral Talents
Requires 3 points in Sharpened Claws
2 points: Gives you a 100% chance to gain an additional 5 Rage anytime you get a critical strike while in Bear and Dire Bear Form and your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point.

• A must-have for any feral druid. For Cat Form, this talent is essentially the [Seal Fate] talent that rogues get. For bears, there are all kinds of tricks you can use ([Swipe] on lots of mobs, for example) to turn this into a bottomless pit of rage. Not to mention a nice boost to your DPS.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special, though it makes a pseudo-stunlock possible with fast combo point generation and [Maim]. In Bear form, you can AoE farm certain mobs for rep and cash using Swipe and this talent.
  • Raid Utility: The aggro you can generate with this talent and some other typical talents is unholy. The extra combo points raises your DPS considerably-- not only do you get to [Rip] faster, but you reduce the number of wasteful [Mangle]s you need to use to keep the debuff up while you [Shred].
  • PvP Utility: Finishing moves like [Ferocious Bite] and [Maim] are raw burst DPS and control, so the fast combo point accumulation helps a lot. Rage is another story-- it's feast or famine anyway whether you have this talent or not.
• Bottom Line: This is a must-have.

[Primal Precision]

Requires 15 points in Feral Talents
Requires 3 points in [Sharpened Claws]
2 points: Increases your expertise by 10, and you are refunded 80% of the energy cost of a finishing move if it fails to land.

• Raid talent through and through. PVP Druids should skip this for much more critical talents.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing Special.
  • Raid Utility: Nothing Special.
  • PvP Utility:' Nothing Special.
• Bottom Line: Unless you need it to push to your expertise cap, skip it. The lack of it can be made up for with gems.

[Brutal Impact]

Requires 20 points in Feral Talents
2 points: Increases the stun duration of your [Bash] and [Pounce] abilities by 1 sec and decreases the cooldown of Bash by 30 sec.

• This is a great power, though precisely how great is up for debate. For some, the bash is just long enough to get a [Healing Touch] off and shift back. For others, it's a crutch and you can get a heal off anyway. In instances, stuns have situational value (e.g. if the healer goes down) but the value of an extra second of stun per pull is questionable.
  • Solo Utility: As above, the main use is for self-healing, however, the combination of [Shredding Attacks] with this one makes for an excellent opener.
  • Raid Utility: When stuns are needed in raids, the mobs needs to be stun-locked, which druids can't do.
  • PvP Utility: In PvP, stuns rule, mostly as interrupts, but also to get self-heals off, or to escape. There's a lot of debate among PvP druids as to whether this is essential or superfluous.
• Bottom Line: If you have points to spare, by all means get it. If you can't afford to, or if you are sticking to group PVE, you don't need it.
• 2nd Opinion: Brutal Impact is situationally helpful for raiding. In pulls of multiple controllable mobs, Bash on a short cooldown is a handy 3rd control option for many fights when Feral Charge and Growl are exhausted and allows the raid greater confidence in your ability to control monsters (caveat emptor). Tanking Druids investing in [Omen of Clarity] may find it difficult to justify placing talent points into this ability. This talent is mere flavor for a raiding tanking druid; I choose to invest my final two talent points into this ability only after I have everything else I need.

[Feral Charge]

Requires 20 points in Feral Talents
1 point: Teaches Feral Charge (Bear) and Feral Charge (Cat).

Feral Charge (Bear) - 5 rage, 8-25 yd range, Instant cast. Causes you to charge an enemy, immobilizing and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 sec. This ability can be used in Bear Form, Dire Bear form. 15 sec cooldown.

Feral Charge (Cat) - 10 energy, 8-25 yd range, Instant cast. Causes you to leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds. CAN be used while stealthed.

• Updated in the WotLK expansion to now include Feral Charge (Cat), this is now even more useful than it was before. Both can be used in midair and if done correctly will prevent any falling damage.
  • Solo Utility: Not essential for solo play, but it can make grinding go faster, especially now that it's usable in cat form also.
  • Raid Utility: Good when tanking. Mobs with knockback or who change targets can be quickly charged and taunted back into control. Also a very effective way to catch runners or pull a mob off a healer. Feral Charge (Cat) will allow you to get back into the fight in the correct position to continue dps after any kind of knockback has happened.
  • PvP Utility: Fantastic. Use it to interrupt hostile spellcasters. To stop that hunter who is trying to kite you. To root an enemy flag carrier. As a kind of "bear sprint" when carrying the flag yourself. Cat form now allows you to slow that opponent down and puts you in a great position to open up your damage. Use to get behind someone who is casting a big spell at you, you'll end up behind them and the cast will fail.
• Bottom Line: It's just one point, and a great power for many situations.

[Nurturing Instinct]

Requires 20 points in Feral Talents
2 points: Increases your healing spells by up to 70% of your Agility and increases healing done to you in Cat Form by 20%.

• A talent that makes your heals in full feral gear better, with potential to give you a very nice increase, however your mana pool in this armor will be another matter entirely.
  • Solo Utility: It boosts your heals by a little bit.
  • Raid Utility: Allows you to heal nicely if you have to take over the role when in feral-spec gear, however your mana pool in this armor will again be too small to allow to heal for very long. The Cat Form bonus is a nice helping hand to the healer, however.
  • PvP Utility: This talent may improve your survivability greatly depending on your play style. For example, you can drop heal over time spells on yourself, then shift to cat form, and your heal over time spells will gain the 20% bonus. This, combined with the agility bonus, can make for some very powerful self-heals. The 20% Cat Form bonus also stacks with Leader of the Pack. Set up some macros to switch to healing weapons while dropping heal over time spells for an additional bonus. If you are a PvP healer and trying to get the [Survival of the Fittest] talent this is a great talent to get along the way (note that you will not have much agility gear as PvP healer but your base agility will be worth the points already).
• Bottom Line: Now active all the time, these points might now be worth taking as they allow you to be a bit more efficient. Useful but never essential. You might consider investing points into [Naturalist] in the restoration tree instead.

[Natural Reaction]

3 points: Increases your dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form by 6%, and you regenerate 3 rage every time you dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.

• • Solo Utility: Nothing special.
  • Raid Utility: Essential when tanking; given you've also taken [Feral Swiftness], that's already a 10% dodge chance from talents alone. While tanking, mitigation is key, and if you dodge a lot, you'll also be gaining rage a lot.
  • PvP Utility: Nothing special.
• Bottom Line: A good talent to take if you're planning to go raiding, not so useful otherwise.

[Heart of the Wild]

Requires 25 points in Feral Talents
Requires 3 points in [Predatory Strikes]
5 points: Increase your Intellect by 20%. In addition, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form your Stamina is increased by 10%, and while in Cat Form your Attack Power is increased by 10%.

• This is the key talent of the Feral tree. As the official talent guide puts it, "this talent makes you 20% more druid."
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special.
  • Raid Utility: Even if you are a healer in raids, this mana boost is huge, especially since it scales well with gear. The stamina is essential for tanking. The attack power is great for DPSing. And it all scales with gear.
  • PvP Utility: More AP = more damage. More damage = faster kills.
• Bottom Line: Clutch. Must-have. If you're this far into Feral, get it. It helps every playstyle and every build.

[Survival of the Fittest]

Requires 25 points in Feral Talents
3 points: Increases all attributes by 6% and reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 6%. Also grants 33% bonus armor in Bear form and Dire Bear Form.

• Not bad, not bad at all. The 6% to attributes may be barely noticeable, but it is the 6% to avoid crits that makes the talent. All world, instance and boss mobs have a 5.6% crit chance and this eliminates that completely. As of patch 3.0.8 it also now grants the bonus in armor that offsets the elimination of the effects of talent armor multipliers which used to work on bonus armor. The net effect is to increase your armor count by a sizable amount.
  • Solo Utility: Nice, but not essential. However, with the release of the Dungeon finder, it is really useful to have this talent for tanking dungeons while leveling.
  • Raid Utility: Absolutely essential. With the 6% crit reduction, feral tanks no longer need any Defense Rating or Resilience Rating on their gear to reach immunity to critical strikes from raid bosses. The new armor effect now makes what was a very high armor count even higher, for example, a druid with 25,000 AC before the patch now has over 28,000 AC which makes this talent even more desirable than before.
  • PvP Utility: Very nice talent to have. One of the key benefits of resilience is the crit chance reduction. In that respect, this pushes the envelope even further, increasing your survivability. The new armor count makes bear form even more survivable against physical damage. For a PvP healer looking for more survivability, this is a key talent to reach in the Feral tree.
• Bottom Line: Must have if you plan a lot of tanking in heroic or raid instances, or if you wish to PvP. Otherwise you can safely pass this talent.

[Leader of the Pack]

Requires 30 points in Feral Talents
1 point: While in Cat, Bear or Dire Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases the ranged and melee critical chance of all party members within 45 yards by 5%.

• Excellent talent. Not only are crits good, but with [Primal Fury] you're getting free Rage/Combo Points out of it.
  • Solo Utility: You blew three points into [Sharpened Claws], didn't you? This is nearly the same for only one point.
  • Raid Utility: This is why feral druids are loved by melee DPS groups. It's great for you, great for them.
  • PvP Utility: Also great. Crits = burstiness, and PVP is all about bursty damage. In battlegrounds you'll find fewer of your party members are close by though.
• Bottom Line: Take this talent.

[Improved Leader of the Pack]

Requires 30 points in Feral Talents
Requires 1 point in [Leader of the Pack]
2 points: Your Leader of the Pack ability also causes affected targets to have a 100% chance to heal themselves for 4% of their total health when they critically hit with a melee or ranged attack. The healing effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec. In addition, you gain 8% of your maximum mana when you benefit from this heal.

• This talent requires three things: first, that the members of your party be white-damage types and second, that they be critting fairly often, and third, that their hitpoint totals be relatively high. With the Burning Crusade changes to stamina on gear, it's pretty much godly.
  • Solo Utility: This is a good grinding talent. With this you won't have to pop out to heal between fights. On long fights in bear form, you can get a lot of staying power.
  • Raid Utility: Makes fights much easier on healers, Melee DPS can now continue to heal themselves and continue to do damage. Useful for fights like Loatheb where normal healing isn't possible, and helps keep a DPS group up while healers concentrate on the MT.
  • PvP Utility: Eh. When you take damage at all you'll take way more than this talent will help. The secondary effect is excellent for conserving mana for powershifting and instant cast crowd control spells with procs from Predatory Strikes.
• Bottom Line: Good in solo play, great for raiding.

[Primal Tenacity]

Requires 30 points in Feral Talents
3 points: Reduces the duration of fear effects by 30%, reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30% while in Cat Form.

• Completely revamped in Wrath of the Lich King, changed the resist chance for less duration and the damage mitigation.
  • Solo Utility: Worthless, use your points elsewhere.
  • Raid Utility: Original effect replaced by [Berserk]. Now of situational use, nice against bosses who fear or do AOE stuns and then damage like Gruul; you decide if you need it for the specific raid. Either you need it, or it's worthless.
  • PvP Utility: This talent owns. Against warlocks, rogues and ret pallies especially you'll spend a good part of your time feared or stunned and taking damage. Very nice.
• Bottom Line: For PVP, a must. For raiders, if the situation demands it.

[Protector of the Pack]

Requires 35 points in Feral Talents
Requires 1 point in [Leader of the Pack]
3 points: Increases your attack power in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 6%, and the damage you take is reduced while in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 12%.

• This needs experimental confirmation, but this talent appears to effectively bring your physical damage mitigation to the cap of 75% if you have enough armor and limits the amount of armor that will be useful to you, which allows you to focus on gear that has stats other than armor. It is also the only way druids can directly mitigate magic damage.
  • Solo Utility: Mostly useless unless your play style means pulling a bunch of mobs and [swiping] them all down at the same time.
  • Raid Utility: Absolutely must have if you tank, it increases your damage output, and therefore your threat generation; and also increases your damage mitigation. Investing all the points may not be worth it if you hit the mitigation cap by spending less than 3.
  • PvP Utility: Not worth the points, you shouldn't be using bear form in PvP much. Magical damage mitigation is important, however casters should always be engaged from cat form.
• Bottom Line: Get it for raiding or instance tanking, otherwise it's not worth the points.

[Predatory Instincts]

Requires 35 points in Feral Talents
3 points: While in Cat form, increases the damage from your melee critical strikes by 9% and decreases the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 30%.

• This talent provides a decent mix of offensive and defensive capability. The bonus on the damage done by crits is nice (the talent is different from the Rogue/warrior versions [Impale] / [Lethality], it adds a direct 9% damage to a crit, which means 200% * 1.1 = 220%). Though not large for where it is on the talent tree, the 11% bonus to crits from other talents make the bonus to overall damage substantial. The reduction in AOE damage is situational but comes up more often than one would expect. This talent does not stack with [Primal Tenacity].
  • Solo Utility: Soloing, you won't notice much of a difference. But DPS is DPS.
  • Raid Utility: In raids, much of the damage that the damage dealers receive is from AOE, so this talent helps a lot. It does NOT affect Bear form anymore, so of little use if you're tanking. This talent is very strong for bosses with AOE magic effects.
  • PvP Utility: Very nice. Directly mitigates damage from the magic AOE spells and effects that you will come across in PvP. Also ups your burst damage a bit.
• Bottom Line: A solid talent for almost any build for bridging the gap to [Mangle], unless you're tanking and then it's not worth the points.

[Infected Wounds]

Requires 35 points in Feral Talents
3 points: Your [Shred], [Maul], and [Mangle] attacks cause an Infected Wound in the target. The Infected Wound reduces the movement speed of the target by 50% and the attack speed by 20%. Lasts 12 sec.

• • Solo Utility: Useful but lackluster. It decreases the damage you take and gives you a better chance of getting away if necessary, also allows you to effectively kite when combined with [Feral Swiftness] while [Rip] and [Rake] tick away.
  • Raid Utility: Essential, the attack speed decrease means less damage on your tank or yourself if you happen to be it. Careful, it can hamper kiting if you start [Mauling] right away. Skip if you're cat.
  • PvP Utility: Essential, the speed decreases allow kiting and make you take less damage.
• Bottom Line: If you're this far down, put at least some points into it. Mostly a tank and pvp talent. Dps builds will have better talents to put these points into.

[King of the Jungle]

Requires 40 points in Feral Talents
3 points: While using your [Enrage] ability in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form, your damage is increased by 15%, and your [Tiger's Fury] ability also instantly restores 60 energy. In addition, the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form and Dire Bear Form is reduced by 60%.

• Now makes [Tiger's Fury] worth using every time the cooldown is up, you get more energy to use up and more flat attack power; as opposed to the worthless energy drain it used to be.
  • Solo Utility: You'll notice its usefulness while grinding.
  • Raid Utility: Essential if you dps, useful if you tank.
  • PvP Utility: Must have, this talent greatly increases your ability to stunlock a foe.
• Bottom Line: While the damage increase from [Enrage] is only situationally useful, the buff to [Tiger's Fury] makes it essential for any druid who does any DPS at all. Take it.

[Mangle]

Requires 40 points in Feral Talents
Requires 1 point in [Leader of the Pack]
1 points: Mangle the target, inflicting damage and causing the target to take additional damage from bleed effects for 10 sec. This ability can be used in Cat Form or Dire Bear Form.
Mangle (Bear): 20 rage, 5 yd range, instant cast, 6 sec cooldown, requires Dire Bear Form. Mangle the target for 115% normal damage plus 155 and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from [Shred] and bleed effects for 12 sec. Generates a high amount of threat.
Mangle (Cat): 45 Energy, 5 yd range, Instant, Requires Cat Form. Mangle the target for 160% normal damage plus 264 and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from [Shred] and bleed effects for 1 minute. Awards 1 combo point.

• This is a phenomenal talent for all seasons. For cat form, this is a replacement and upgrade to [Claw], which does more damage and accentuates your DOTs and Shreds. For bear form, it provides a much more powerful, high aggro attack to burn that extra rage, and enhances the damage and aggro generated by [lacerate].
  • Solo Utility: More DPS = better soloing.
  • Raid Utility: More DPS = more aggro in bear form, also boosts overall dps from rogues or warriors that use bleed effects. With the recent Mangle (Bear) nerf, the damage is lower but the aggro remains considerable. Cat forms with appropriate spec and build can compete successfully with comparably equipped rogues.
  • PVP Utility: Nothing Special, though you'll have higher DPS with some burst capability. Mangle doesn't hit quite as hard as it used to, but it is still quite powerful. It still manages to completely replace Claw in Cat form.
• Bottom Line: For a full frontal feral build, this is a critical talent. Get it.

[Improved Mangle]

Requires 40 points in Feral Talents
Requires 1 point in [Mangle]
3 points: Reduces the cooldown of your Mangle (Bear) ability by 1.5 seconds (to 4.5 sec), and reduces the energy cost of your Mangle (Cat) ability by 6.

• Practically increases the speed at which you can use Mangle in both Dire Bear and Cat forms. Also, makes your [Claw] ability look even more hilarious.
  • Solo Utility: Killing mobs faster means faster leveling.
  • Raid Utility: Notably increased threat generation from being able to use Mangle (Bear) more often, and increased overall dps in cat form because of the lower energy usage.
  • PVP Utility: Quicker work of your opponent means less chance to get killed.
• Bottom Line: Useful for a raider, but also for soloing/PvP. Remember that in Dire Bear form Mangle is your only (effective) instant attack. For a cost of three points, though, you might not find the talent very useful. Ideally, a feral dpser should only reapply mangle before it falls off. Patch 3.33 has increased the mangle debuff length to 1 minute, thus making the rate of mangle application much lower on high hp single targets (bosses). Thus, this talent can be safely dropped for a feral dps build.

[Rend and Tear]

Requires 45 points in Feral Talents
5 points: Increases damage done by your [Maul] and [Shred] attacks on bleeding targets by 20%, and increases the critical strike chance of your [Ferocious Bite] ability on bleeding targets by 25%.

• • Solo Utility: A decent talent to take for the Ferocious Bite buff, which makes finishing off a target more predictable. However, you may not want to take it because you normally don't need to apply a bleed.
  • Raid Utility: Godly, it either increases your threat generation and/or gives your most powerful attack a flat dps boost. The bite component will not be very useful.
  • PVP Utility: Bleeds are good in PvP because they ignore armor; they should usually be applied. In addition to increasing some of your damage against bleeding opponents, the Ferocious Bite crit chance increase makes it a superb PvP talent. Combine with [Feral Aggression] for maximum burst.
• Bottom Line: Raiders should get all 5 points, solo and pvpers should weigh the advantages of putting in all the points versus other talents.

[Primal Gore]

Requires 45 points in Feral Talents
Requires 5 points in Rend and Tear
1 point: Causes the periodic damage from your lacerate and Rip talents the ability to critically hit.

• • Solo Utility: Get it, it's only one point if you've come this far. Great for elite quests, high armour foes and sundry. You may consider skipping it for berserk in a levelling build however.
  • Raid Utility: Excellent. No cat or bear should miss this. Effectively doubles damage done by Rip and Lacerate. This translates to higher dps for cat and higher threat for bears, especially when coupled with 2t10.
  • PVP Utility: Excellent against highly armoured foes, having this talent makes the already powerful rip a death sentence on any platewearer, provided its a 5 CP with savage roar up.
• Bottom Line: Get it. Soloers and levellers can skip it if you find yourself ferocious biting more than ripping.

[Berserk]

Requires 50 points in Feral Talents
1 point: When activated, this ability causes your [Mangle] (Bear) ability to hit up to 3 targets and have no cooldown, and reduces the energy cost of all your Cat Form abilities by 50%. Lasts 15 sec. You cannot use [Tiger's Fury] while Berserk is active. Clears the effect of Fear and makes you immune to Fear for the duration. CAN be used while stealthed.

• • Solo Utility: Get it, it's only one point if you've come this far. Useful for nuking down a group of mobs.
  • Raid Utility: Awe inspiring. In cat form your dps is at least doubled, combine it with [Savage Roar] and your trinkets and you can double your attack power and double the rate at which you can build up combo points. When tanking it allows you to spam that mangle and generate tons of threat on 3 targets at once, and gets rid of those pesky boss or mob fears.
  • PVP Utility: Excellent, finally a way for druids to counter fear and boost their dps to unholy levels, almost an automatic death sentence against cloth wearers.
• Bottom Line: If you go deep into the Feral tree, there is no reason to stop before you get to this talent.

Restoration (as of Patch 3.0.3)

• Note: Soloing for this section is primarily concerned with Balance and Feral specced druids investing a few points here, as it is generally not the best idea at all to solo as a Restoration druid.

[Improved Mark of the Wild]

2 points: Increases the effects of your [Mark of the Wild] and [Gift of the Wild] spells by 40%, and increases all of your total attributes by 2%.

• • Solo Utility: Nothing special other than increasing the effects of your buff and boosting your stats slightly.
  • Raid Utility: Increases the stat and armor bonus for all raid members.
  • PVP Utility: Nothing special other than increasing the effects of your buff and boosting your stats slightly.
• Bottom Line: For a restoration build, it's a must have since it's not a bad talent, and for a pure restoration build you will not use [Furor], so you'll have to spend the points to get to the next tier. Balance druids may want to choose this over 2 points in Furor - it's an exchange of 2% intellect for 2% of all other stats.

[Nature's Focus]

3 points: Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting [Healing Touch], [Wrath], [Entangling Roots], [Cyclone], [Nourish], [Regrowth] and [Tranquility] by 70%.

• This is another great talent to have.
  • Solo Utility: Very useful. Greatly helps your ability to heal and damage while taking hits, and can be critical in many situations.
  • Raid Utility: Not as useful since you won't usually have aggro, but there are lots of times when adds jump on you or AoE damage slows your casting and you'll be glad you had this talent.
  • PVP Utility: Awesome. People see you healing and they will start beating on you. Sadly, this talent won't help you defeat interrupts like [Counterspell], [Kick] or [Earth Shock]. Helps you put out damage faster by avoiding pushback.
• Bottom Line: For a restoration build it's well worth the investment for the same reason as [Imp MotW]. You will need the points to advance to the next tier. For a balance build, it's also very beneficial in solo and PvP situations. For a raiding boomkin however, the points will be better spent in [Furor].

[Furor]

5 points: Gives you a 100% chance to gain 10 rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form, and you keep up to 100 of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form, and increases your total Intellect while in Moonkin form by 10%.

• This is a damn good talent for Feral Druids that is under-rated because so many raiders have to buy [Improved Mark of the Wild].
  • Solo Utility: OK, you've just shifted out, healed yourself, and are ready to shift back. What now? Well, if you have this talent, instead of starting with an empty energy/rage bar, you start with enough to get a special move off or two. Does wonders for your mana in moonkin form.
  • Raid Utility: Good for emergency rage or energy, especially for bears who are out of rage. However, not necessarily needed if you are a Restoration Druid, as you will almost never change into cat or bear forms during a raid or party. For raiding moonkin, it helps out with your intellect-dependant talents, and boosts your longevity.
  • PVP Utility: Fantastic. Druids shift all the time in PVP, to escape roots and snares, to break a polymorph, to do an insta-heal. That 10 rage or full energy bar comes in damn handy when you return to feral form.
• Bottom Line: If you're Feral or Balance, you'll want this. For a restoration build, since this talent doesn't do anything for Tree form, the points are better spent in other places.

[Naturalist]

Requires 5 points in Restoration Talents
5 points: Reduces the cast time of your [Healing Touch] spell by 0.5 sec and increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%.

• This used to be two talents, for a total of ten points. Those were ten points well spent then and they are five points very well spent now. Faster healing touch and a flat DPS upgrade, what's not to like?
  • Solo Utility: One of the better talents for a feral build, but for a restoration druid it's nearly useless. Restoration was not made for doing damage. This talent may help while soloing, but you will lose good points that should be put elsewhere. (You will hardly ever see someone speccing into restoration for soloing)
  • Raid Utility: Healing Touch takes forever to cast; it's one of your biggest weaknesses as a healer. This talent fixes that. Expendable talent, however, if you are going for Tree of Life form. As a raid healer in a full restoration build, you will rely on your HoTs much more than Healing Touch. The only good time to even bother casting it is if you set up a macro with [Nature's Swiftness]. If you are feral it's a must, 10% increase to all your DPS is always good.
  • PVP Utility: Nothing special.
• Bottom Line: Full Restoration druids should not get it unless you find yourself casting Healing Touch a lot, which is extremely situational. Great for a feral dabbling in healing, or a feral who just likes doing 10% more damage. There are better ways to spend talents for Balance.

[Subtlety]

Requires 5 points in Restoration Talents
3 points: Reduces the threat generated by your restoration spells by 30% and reduces the chance your healing over time spells will be dispelled by 30%.

• This talent reduces healing threat, some may like it, some may find it useless.
  • Solo Utility: Not useful. When soloing, you're the only one with aggro and very few soloable mobs use dispel.
  • Raid Utility: A handful of mobs have dispel effects, but not many. Seeing most druid heals are instant casts and HoT based, you will be the best raid-wide healer, drawing threat from a lot more targets at once than just the tank. You may find yourself pulling aggro off of DPS or other healers for this reason, so it is a good place to spend some points.
  • PVP Utility: Threat is irrelevant in PVP, but while the dispel resistance is nice, if you're going to be dispelled at all, it is usually spammed on you which makes this talent irrelevant. However, anti-dispel is great for intensive PvP fight like arena, where every move counts. If the dispeller wastes a global cooldown on your healing over time spell, they have less chance to dispel more useful buffs like blessings or [Bloodlust].
• Bottom Line: For soloing or PvP, not worth it. For raiding or 5-mans it has some utility during the first few seconds of the fight before the tank has built up a good aggro lead, or when there are adds being picked up by DPSers and other healers.

[Natural Shapeshifter]

Requires 5 points in Restoration Talents
3 points: Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by 30%.

• Shapeshifting is expensive so cutting costs on it will help your mana supply. But, how much this discount is worth it depends on your play style.
  • Solo Utility: Solo players shift once in a while, so a moderate discount is to be had here. Druids with little or no investment in balance or feral trees will however need this, having to shift and heal themselves more often due to their limited capability to inflict damage.
  • Raid Utility: Raiding druids hardly ever shift-- your gear and strategy will have you doing one thing in one form. So you won't see much benefit here at all except to unlock [Master Shapeshifter].
  • PVP Utility: PVPing druids shift all the time, repeatedly and spastically. You shift as the situation changes, you shift to break certain attacks, you shift to escape vulnerability to other attacks. This discount is gargantuan for the PVP druid, especially ferals who won't have a big mana pool to throw around.
• Bottom Line: Whether this talent is worth it depends on your play focus. This is a major boon for Balance and Restoration; lower mana costs for shapeshifting means more mana is available when you go into Moonkin or Tree of Life Form. Also, this talent unlocks [Master Shapeshifter] which is a great bonus for Restoration, Boomkin, and Feral Druids.

[Intensity]

Requires 10 points in Restoration Talents
3 points: Allows 50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting and causes your [Enrage] ability to instantly generate 10 rage.

• The mana regen helps both Balance and Restoration specialists greatly. The enrage bonus is a bit more situational.
  • Solo Utility: Nothing special.
  • Raid Utility: A must-have for Balance and Restoration druids. Raiding is all about mana efficiency and regeneration and this talent delivers, especially now that you can only use 1 mana potion per fight. Ferals also enjoy the improvement to Enrage, as they can put out a little more aggro at the beginning of a fight, but don't need it tremendously. They won't be spending nearly as much time in caster form, too.
  • PVP Utility: Mana regeneration in PvP is a nice-to-have. But for a bear druid, Enrage delivers enough instant rage for a special move, and is critical, especially when you're being kited or feared around and your rage isn't building normally.
• Bottom Line: Well worth it, especially for raiding Casters. It's also a prerequisite for [Nature's Swiftness], so even if those three points did nothing whatsoever, it would still be worth taking.
• Second Opinion: With the 3.1 regen nerfs, this is probably a must have for both Balance and Resto specs in any dungeon setting.

[Omen of Clarity]

Requires 10 points in Restoration Talents
1 point: Each of the druid's damage, healing spells and auto attacks has a chance of causing the caster to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the Mana, Rage or Energy cost of your next damage, healing spell or offensive ability by 100%.

• Changed: This talent is now a passive ability rather than a castable buff. Also, it applies to spells now as well as physical attacks.
  • Solo Utility: Very useful for mana efficiency when grinding, but also handy for healing yourself mid-fight. Single most efficient upgrade for cat DPS (apart from [Mangle]). Useful to moonkin druids for mana; if it procs you have a free heal or cast.
  • Raid Utility: Great for aggro generation and cat DPS. Casters will now see the benefit as well, granting a Balance or Restoration druid a free nuke or heal every time it procs.
  • PVP Utility:Again, just a helpful way to save mana. For Feral, a free [Shred] or mangle from a cat is devastating.
• Bottom Line: A must have for druids of all specs now. A great way to conserve mana, and a great way to gain free attacks and abilities while in feral forms. On the topic of feral forms, nothing is nicer then dropping a critical [Healing Touch] on yourself after a tough fight, for no mana at all!

[Master Shapeshifter]

Requires 10 points in Restoration Talents
Requires 3 points in [Natural Shapeshifter]
2 points: Grants an effect which lasts while the Druid is within the respective shapeshift form.

   * Bear form - Increases physical damage by 4%.
   * Cat form - Increases critical strike chance by 4%.
   * Moonkin form - Increases spell damage by 4%.
   * Tree form - Increases healing by 4%.  

• This talent provides an upgrade for any spec and form, making it a good talent no matter which way you want to go.
  • Bear Utility: Increases damage, which is good for killing mobs while soloing or players while PvPing, but most importantly generating threat in raid situations.
  • Cat Utility: Cats are crit-based, making this a very nice crit chance increase for cat-specced druids for soloing, PvP, and raiding.
  • Moonkin Utility: Same as cat form, increases all damage done, which is useful for all aspects of the game. A moonkin is also crit based however, so it is not as useful for balance druids as it is for feral.
  • Tree Utility: A flat increase to healing done, you can't beat that.
• Bottom Line: A good talent for whatever spec you decide on. It provides a good upgrade for everything.

[Tranquil Spirit]

Requires 15 points in Restoration Talents
5 points: Reduces the mana cost of your [Healing Touch], [Nourish], and [Tranquility] spells by 10%.

• Healing is all about mana efficiency, and this is a flat improvement to it.
  • Solo Utility: You won't be healing yourself that often, and with plenty of time to regen between heals, this isn't as important a talent.
  • Raid Utility: A very nice talent. Though you probably won't be casting tranquility or Healing Touch as much, Nourish has turned out to be a decent spell for the druids with its mana cost being the only turn off. This talent helps that mana cost.
  • PVP Utility: Crap. Even if you are a PVP healer, healing is already relatively efficient. The points are better spent elsewhere.
• Bottom Line: The only real usefulness will come from the mana reduction of Nourish. If you find you don't use it very much, this talent is pretty much worthless.

[Improved Rejuvenation]

Requires 15 points in Restoration Talents
3 points: Increases the effect of your [Rejuvenation] spell by 15%.

• • Solo Utility: Useful situationally, but probably not useful enough to blow three points into it.
  • Raid Utility: Essential. If you go for Tree of Life, you'll be casting this spell all the time and 15% is a lot of healing. With stacking heals over time, you can even use this to bear the brunt of main tank healing. Plus it's a prerequisite for [Improved Regrowth], another talent with great Tree Form synergies.
  • PVP Utility: The spell is useful for heals on the run, but again, maybe not useful enough to blow points on.
• Bottom Line: If you are going to be doing healing in raids or going deep into the Restoration tree, definitely get it.

[Nature's Swiftness]

Requires 20 points in Restoration Talents
Requires 3 points in [Intensity]
1 point: Instant, 3 min cooldown. When activated, your next Nature spell with a casting time of less than 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell.

• This mostly includes heals, but will also work with roots, [Hibernate] and [Wrath] (among others). Instant cast lets you avoid spell interruption, cast on the run, and get a spell off now. [Force of Nature] and [Mangle] must contend against this spell even in Balance and Feral builds. It's that good.
  • Solo Utility: Great to have, but not really essential. Just yet another way to get a heal off, then be back to DPSing immediately.
  • Raid Utility: Damn useful. Some call it a crutch, but in raids the main tank is always a bad run of crushing blows or crits away from an emergency. Druids don't get emergency management spells except through talents, and this is a great way to save the day. Even feral hybrids can use this to pop out, save the main tank, and get back to business. A good idea is to make a macro with this and [Healing Touch].
  • PVP Utility: Again, incredibly handy. Instant heals while flag running, fighting, etc. are an awesome source of a "free extra life". Also, popping an instant [Hibernate] on a flag running druid is a rude way to bring their feral career to a screeching halt.
• Bottom Line: If you're this far into Restoration, get this talent. One of the best in the game. Even non-healers can find lots of opportunities to use this.

[Gift of Nature]

Requires 20 points in Restoration Talents
5 points: Increases the effect of all healing spells by 10%.

• For healers, another way to make your mana go further and your heals hit harder.
  • Solo Utility: Like most Restoration talents, not as useful for soloing.
  • Raid Utility: Incredibly useful for raid healing, more bang for your buck.
  • PVP Utility: Usually in PvP situations you will be just throwing as many HoTs around as you can, the more they heal for the better.
• Bottom Line: A solid part of a Restoration build. Also a prerequisite for [Swiftmend], which is a fantastic talent.

[Improved Tranquility]

Requires 20 points in Restoration Talents
2 points: Reduces the threat caused by [Tranquility] by 100% and reduces the cooldown by 60%

• How often do you cast Tranquility? Yeah, I didn't think so.
  • Solo Utility: Useless, you'll never ever need to use this while soloing.
  • Raid Utility: Nothing special-- you can spread [Rejuvenation] over a whole group (not just your own) about as quickly and without the chance of being interrupted, though it will do less healing. It should be noted Tranquility is not raid wide, only affects yourself and the 4 others in your particular group, making this suited as a five-man panic button.
  • PVP Utility: Threat doesn't matter anyway in PVP, and Tranquility rarely used there.
• Bottom Line: Not worth it even for Restoration builds. The added cooldown reduction is nice, being able to cast it more frequently, but you still will rarely ever cast this spell.
• Second Opinion: As of 1.12, Tranquility was buffed to do a lot more healing per second. If your group finds itself low on hp, Tranquility will often save the day, ticking for around 2k health every two seconds. However, that much healing will generate A LOT of threat (AoEs cause a lot of threat, Healing causes a lot of threat; an AoE heal... Tanks would kill to be able to cause that much threat). As resto druids may not find better talents available to them, this talent is a decent choice as casting Tranquity now is pretty much an AoE Taunt. Summary: Tranquility can easily save the day in certain situations, and with this talent you can usually heal your group to full with no threat caused whatsoever. The reduced cooldown also means that you will have this powerful spell available quite frequently.

[Empowered Touch]

Requires 25 points in Restoration Talents
2 points: Your [Healing Touch] spell gains an additional 40% of your bonus healing effects and your [Nourish] spell gains an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects.

• A somewhat strange power. You aren't going to have it unless you're deep in the Restoration tree, unlike the other Healing Touch talents that are easy for other specs to grab. But Restoration specialists are often going for Tree of Life, which is best for casting the myriad of HoTs you possess. Improving Nourish (or [Glyph of Healing Touch] for leveling Druids with Spellpower) provides a substantial boost to your single-target healing.
  • Solo Utility: As with most Restoration talents, not terribly helpful soloing.
  • Raid Utility: Situational. Your raid healing will be dominated by [Rejuvenation] and [Wild Growth]. If you are assigned to tank healing, a bigger Nourish (and a bigger Living Seed from Nourish) is a major asset.
  • PVP Utility: Nothing special. Taking the time to cast direct heals in PvP is dangerous.
• Bottom Line: You can safely skip this talent unless you are leaning hard on Healing Touch or Nourish for your heals. In that case, go wild once you have the gear to take advantage of it.

[Nature's Bounty]

Requires 25 points in Restoration Talents
Requires 3 points in [Improved Rejuvenation]
5 points: Increases the critical effect chance of your [Regrowth] and [Nourish] spells by 25%.

• Regrowth is an interesting bird. It starts as a slightly faster-cast heal that is incredibly inefficient. With relentless investment in the Restoration tree, though, it turns into a powerful tool in your healing arsenal. The secret is that over time, those Regrowth crits will on average deliver more healing for the mana. Plus the heal over time effect, which now can crit, will deliver a useful supplement to your [Rejuvenation] ticks.
  • Solo Utility: In solo play, you're not going to care about Regrowth crits.
  • Raid Utility: Combined with Tree of Life, you can buff this enough to make this a potent replacement for [Healing Touch]. Still not spammable except as a raid patch, but an important supplement to [Lifebloom] and Rejuvenation stacking.
  • PVP Utility: If you plan to be a PvP healer, this is one of a few must have talents in the Restoration tree, though Nourish is a faster cast heal, and crits for about the same when your target has another HoT on it already.
• Bottom Line: This talent used to be very useful, but with the addition of Nourish, Regrowth has lost its appeal. Nourish can crit just as much as Regrowth now and at a faster cast time. The only time Regrowth in necessary is when you need one extra HoT on your target.

[Living Spirit]

Requires 30 points in Restoration Talents
3 points: Increases your total Spirit by 15%.

• This is obviously another healer-focused power. On the surface, it gives you raw non-casting mana regen and bigger [Innervate]s. With talents like [Intensity] you will get a boost to your in-combat mana regeneration, too. Also, [Imp Tree form] will use 15% of your spirit to convert into +healing.
  • Solo Utility: None, really.
  • Raid Utility: Useful whether you get Tree of Life or not. While Tree of Life does gain much more of a benefit, everyone can take advantage of the extra spirit with some more regen.
  • PVP Utility: None.
• Bottom Line: If you're not healing in a raid, skip it. Otherwise the additional Sprit will be more than welcome. Remember the more Spirit you have the more this talent will benefit you.

[Swiftmend]

Requires 30 points in Restoration Talents
Requires 5 points in [Gift of Nature]
1 point: 16% of base Mana, 40 yd range, instant cast, 15 sec cooldown. Consumes a [Rejuvenation] or [Regrowth] effect on a friendly target to instantly heal them an amount equal to 12 sec of Rejuvenation or 18 sec of Regrowth.

• To make the description more plain, this spell removes a heal over time buff from the target and gives them that whole heal buff all at once-- even if the HoT has mostly run its course. It's basically a complicated insta-heal, great for handling emergencies and keeping tanks up.
  • Solo Utility: While not designed for soloing, you could use this as a kind of poor man's [Nature's Swiftness] heal. 15 seconds is a much shorter cooldown than 3 minutes.
  • Raid Utility: Fantastic for healing raids-- you finally get an emergency measure with a reasonable cooldown. Perfect for main tank healing.
  • PVP Utility: Useful also, since you can cast it on the run. Don't you dare try to carry a flag like this, but keeping a flag carrier up with Swiftmend is very doable. Or, better yet, use it to keep people up defending flags in any battleground.
• Bottom Line: If you're this far into Restoration, it would be criminal not to get Swiftmend. I think you can actually be arrested in some jurisdictions for having Tree of Life and not having Swiftmend.
• Important Note: The newly added [Glyph of Swiftmend] will cause the same instant healing effect 'without' consuming your HoT. This glyph is one of the most phenomenal restoration glyphs you can get making swiftmend a hugely powerful instant cast that costs nothing now except a small amount of mana.

[Natural Perfection]

Requires 30 points in Restoration Talents
3 points: Your critical strike chance with all spells is increased by 3% and crit strikes against you give you the Natural Perfection effect reducing all damage taken by 4% for 8 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

• • Solo Utility: You won't be this far down the tree for a solo build, so you don't even have to worry about this talent. Even if you are soloing as resto, if you keep mobs rooted you won't have a problem.
  • Raid Utility: Not too useful, unless you are for some reason, really interested on increasing by 3% your [Regrowth] crits.
  • PVP Utility: If you are a PVP healer, this is an important talent. To get an equal amount of crit damage reduction at level 70, 3 stacks up, you would need 295 resilience rating. (Note that this talent doesn't affect crit frequency or DoT effects, though.)
• Bottom Line: Primarily useful for reducing incoming burst damage in PVP. While soloing and raiding, you shouldn't be getting hit that much, and especially having to get crit for this ability to trigger for a relatively low damage reduction, this talent is garbage.

[Empowered Rejuvenation]

Requires 35 points in Restoration Talents
5 points: The bonus healing effects of your healing over time spells is increased by 20%.

• This helps not just [Rejuvenation], but also [Regrowth] and [Lifebloom]. Since you'll be loading up on +Healing just from Tree of Life, not to mention all your +healing gear, this is a great talent.
  • Solo Utility: Again, healing isn't terribly useful for soloing.
  • Raid Utility: A great talent to boost your already powerful +healing effects.
  • PVP Utility: Not terribly useful, but necessary to get to Tree of Life, which in PVP can be useful for defense in BG's.
• Bottom Line: If you're going for Tree of Life you have to get it. Even if you didn't, this is a flat increase to the majority of your healing spells.
• Second opinion : If you want to have PVP resto spec aside from Tree of Life, you should still consider this, because you will often run and spam HOT's on yourself and others.

[Living Seed]

Requires 35 points in Restoration Talents
3 points: When you critically heal your target with [Swiftmend], [Regrowth], [Nourish] or [Healing Touch] spell you have a 100% chance to plant a Living Seed on the target for 30% of the amount healed. The Living Seed will bloom when the target is next attacked. Lasts 15 sec.

• • Solo Utility: Again, you won't be this far down the tree with a solo build.
  • Raid Utility: An amazing talent. You will be casting [Swiftmend] and [Nourish]/[Regrowth] a lot. Every time it crits, you'll get an extra bit of healing done.
  • PVP Utility: Very good. For PvP you will most likely have a lot of crit built up already anyway, this will feed off of that.
• Bottom Line: A good place to put some extra points once you've done your build.

[Revitalize]

Requires 40 points in Restoration Talents
3 points: Your [Rejuvenation] spell has a 15% chance to restore 8 Energy, 4 Rage, 1% Mana or 16 Runic Power per tick.

• • Solo Utility: Again, you won't be this far down the tree with a solo build.
  • Raid Utility: An ok talent. 1% mana is not that much, but it is better than nothing. You'll also be casting Rejuvenation a lot, so you'll have a lot of opportunities for it to proc.
  • PVP Utility: Take it or leave it, same as for raiding, you'll cast Rejuvenation a lot, and a little mana regen is better than nothing.
• Bottom Line: If you have done your build and have extra points put them here, otherwise, don't lose sleep if you don't spend any points here.

[Tree of Life]

Requires 40 points in Restoration Talents
Requires 5 points in Empowered Rejuvenation
1 point: 28% of base Mana, Instant cast. Shapeshift into the Tree of Life. While in this form you increase healing received by 6% for all party and raid members within 45 yards, and you can only cast Restoration, [Innervate] and [Barkskin] spells, but the mana cost of your healing over time spells is reduced by 20%.

• Tree of Life is primarily a raid healing form. As of Patch 3.0.2, [Healing Touch] can be used in this form, and efficient HoT spells due to its inherent bonuses ([Lifebloom] has an outstanding health-per-mana ratio), combined with a wise use of [Swiftmend], make a very solid main healer. When paired with another healer that uses fast-casting direct heals, such as a Paladin, Shaman, or Priest, a druid in Tree of Life form is arguably the best possible raid-wide healer in a raid setting. The aura, combined with the 20% mana cost reduction to HoTs, the ability to use [Innervate], and the extra incentives ([Living Spirit] talent, [Improved Tree of Life] aura) to acquire large amounts of spirit gives this form incredible longevity while healing in a raid setting.
  • Solo Utility: This form is tailor-made to not be solo-friendly.
  • Raid Utility: Healing-wise, the Tree of Life form drastically improves healing output (both by reducing the own mana costs and by increasing healing done to party members). The movement reduction has been removed from the Tree form as of Patch 3.0.2 as well, so you won't have to ever worry about that anymore.
  • PvP Utility: It increases the potential healing at cost of flexibility. An important note is that in Tree of Life form, the caster is considered elemental, not humanoid, and can be banished by warlocks. However, it does render them immune to CC that does not affect elementals (such as sap). You can't cast any CC abilities such as [Entangling Roots] or [Cyclone] while in this form, but it remains useful in PvP, especially paired with the talent to improve it.
• Bottom Line: The main talent of Restoration builds. Soloers shouldn't be this far down the tree. Other than that, Tree of Life form is the must have of must haves.

[Improved Tree of Life]

Requires 40 points in Restoration Talents
Requires 1 point in Tree of Life
3 points: Increases your Armor while in Tree of Life Form by 200%, and increases your healing spell power by 15% of your spirit while in Tree of Life Form.

• • Solo Utility: Again, you won't be this far down the tree with a solo build.
  • Raid Utility: If you take Tree form, this is a must have. While increases to your armor for a little increased survivability is not very impressive, it also increases healing done.
  • PVP Utility: Depends on whether you took tree form or not. If you did, and are intending on using tree form, the added armor will benefit you, as well as the + healing.
• Bottom Line: Since tree form is a must have, and this increases plus healing in tree form, this is too a must have for the Restoration druid.

[Gift of the Earthmother]

Requires 45 points in Restoration Talents
5 points: Reduces the base global cooldown of your [Rejuvenation], [Lifebloom] and [Wild Growth] spells by 20%.

• This talent makes your most popular instant casts even faster. How do you make an instant cast faster you ask? Well every time you cast a spell, these is a 1.5 sec global cooldown on all your spells until you can cast your next one. So even though your spells have no cast time, there is a 1.5 sec periods where you cant cast. With the addition of spell haste, or this talent, the global cooldown is reduced, so you can cast your next spell even faster. Less wait time in between spells = more casts = more healing done. As simple as that.
  • Solo Utility: Again, you won't be this far down the tree with a solo build.
  • Raid Utility: Hugely important. Allows you to places lifeblooms/Rejuvenations on multiple targets faster than ever, effectively increasing your usefulness as a raid healer.
  • PVP Utility: Definitely useful if you're this far down the tree. The more heals you can get out, the better your team will do.
• Bottom Line: Working as natural spell haste, this is a must have for an restoration druid. Though some may say you don't need faster casts if your casts are instants, but ignore them, then out heal them ;).
• Second Opinion: The benefit is directly tied to how many hots you cast without interruption. Spamming rejuvenation on 18 people in a raid could provide a 20% hps increase. In a 5 man dungeon the effect is negligible.

[Wild Growth]

Requires 50 points in Restoration Talents
1 point: 23% of base Mana, 40 yd range, instant cast. Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 1442 over 7 sec. The amount healed is applied quickly at first, and slows down as the Wild Growth reaches its full duration.

• • Solo Utility: Again, you won't be this far down the tree with a solo build.
  • Raid Utility: A very nice talent. This is a instant cast, less powerful [Tranquility]. The only problem with it is that with a high mana cost, it prevents you from spamming nothing but this.
  • PVP Utility: Definitely useful if you're this far down the tree. Good for healing groups of teammates while fighting on a flag or node.
• Bottom Line: A very good talent, adding one more instant HoT to your arsenal. Mana cost is heavy, but use it sparingly when a group is getting AoEd and you'll see the huge benefit.

See also

• Druid builds
• Druid talents

---

External Links

FranksPlace.org World of Warcraft Cataclysm Druid Tanking FAQ