Druid Guide - Introduction

The following is a guide/walkthrough for the first 12 levels of the Druid class in World Of Warcraft. It will primarily be of interest to beginner players wanting to play a Horde Druid but parts of it should also be useful to players going for an Alliance Druid. A lot of it should also be useful to players wanting to create a Tauren character because the guide contains information about the quests that you will encounter.

I would highly recommend quickly reading the First Few Levels page on the Official World Of Warcraft website before starting this guide. It will give you some basic information about the game, though I do go through most of the points in more detail. This guide assumes you know the basic concepts of the game, such as health, mana and experience, and that you have a basic understanding of the interface.

The views in this guide are my own and I'm sure there will be others out there who have different views on playing the Druid class. It's important to realise that you should use guides as a basis for your playing style only and in time you will come to your own conclusions.

If you spot any mistakes, can think of something you would like added to the guide or would like me to explain a certain part of the guide in more detail then please . You can also download a PDF version of this guide for printing out, so that you can have it close at hand while you play.

1. Introduction
2. Creating Your Character, Setting Up Your Interface
3. Sorting Out Your Spells, Getting Some Quests
4. Planning your attack, Your first fight
5. Looting the corpse, Completing your first quest, Getting to level 2
6. Getting your reward, Selling your loot, Finding your trainer
7. More killing, Getting your skills up, Death
8. Recovering your corpse, Better rewards, Aggressive monsters, Close fighting
9. More inventory space, Spell casting monsters, A monster with a name
10. Hidden quests, Death to the chief, Back to camp for the final time
11. Damage over time spells, On to Bloodhoof Village, Going for a swim, Fishing
12. Find a new home, First aid, Ingame mail, New quests for a new area
13. Other trainers, Two quests at once, New combat technique, Picking your target
14. New monster attack, Fleeing monsters, Cloth for bandages, Hitting level 6
15. Spell upgrades, Repairing your gear, Professions
16. Skinning, Cooking, Getting on with it, Longer aggro range, Treasure chests
17. Drop rates, Playing with your technique, More Spells At Level 8
18. Entangling roots, Rest experience
19. First follow quest, Thunder Bluff
20. Seer Wiserunner, Self healers, Handy scrolls
21. Breaking the picks, Banking In Azeroth, Flying around
22. Skinning the corpse, More wells
23. Reaching level 10, Bear form quest, Teleporting spell
24. Moonglade, Great Bear Spirit, Back to Thunder Bluff
25. Your first flight, The Barrens, Camp Taurajo
26. Moonkin Stone, Lunaclaw and Lunaclaw Spirit
27. Bear form, Actionbar setup, Rage
28. Item bonus stats, Talent tree, Improved Mark of the Wild
29. Bear form technique, The last of the wells
30. Red Rocks, Venture Co Mine
31. Forming a party, Supervisor Fizsprocket
32. Upgrading First Aid, Ghost Howl
33. Arra'chea, Dungeons and Instances
34. New spells at 12, Going to the Crossroads
35. Goodbye for now!
36. Page for your own notes!

Creating your character

The first step to becoming a druid is of course creating a druid character. Fire up World Of Warcraft and choose the server that you want your druid to be on. For the purpose of this guide I'm going to pick a normal server.

You only have two choices of race for your druid. Tauren, if you choose to fight for the Horde or Night Elf, if you choose the side of the Alliance. I'm going to help out the Horde and create a Tauren druid. The rest of this guide will of course not be as useful for all you Alliance players out there. Later on I intend to create a guide for an Alliance race, though probably not for the Druid class but the quest walkthroughs will be hopefully be useful.

Anyway, back to getting us playing a Tauren Druid. Use the Create New Character screen to create a Tauren Druid to your liking. As you can see from the screenshot I went for a dark, big-horned, evil looking one. Once you've finished you'll be returned to the character list screen. Double click your new character to get started.

If this is your first time creating a Tauren character then take a few minutes to watch the intro sequence. It's pretty damn cool and contains some interesting World Of Warcraft lore. If you've seen it all before then hit the escape key to get straight in to the game. You should see a screenshot similar to the one below when you start. You'll notice that I'm not using any interface addons for this guide. While some addons are very handy to have installed, not everybody uses them and I want this guide to be useful to everyone.

Setting up your interface

There are a couple of things you might want to change on the interface though. For instance, later on when you have a lot more spells at your disposal it is useful to have lots of places to put them. I always start by setting up my interface the way I want it for the rest of my playing time. Hit the escape key and press the Interface Options button. From the screenshot below you can see what settings I have chosen. Set them up whatever way you feel comfortable with.

Sorting out your spells

Now we're ready to sort out our initial spells. Already setup on your action bars should be two spells. Wrath, which is your first damage spell and Healing Touch, which is your first healing spell. You also have a spell that's unique to the Tauren class. Hit the P key to bring up your spellbook and on the first page you will see War Stomp. Drag this to your action bar.

War Stomp is an Area Of Effect stun spell and will stun up to five enemies close to you for two seconds. This is a great spell to have if you get in to trouble and need to make a run for it. When you stun an enemy it takes them out of the fight for a short period of time, leaving you time to heal or get the hell out of there.

Now setup your actions bars so that you have those three spells, your drink and your Hearthstone all available for clicking. Drink allows you to replenish mana while out of combat and your Hearthstone allows you to return to your home village or city from anywhere in the world. You can see how I have mine setup below.

Getting some quests

Now you need to get something to do. You will probably spend a lot of time in World Of Warcraft questing. Quests are tasks given out to you by NPCs that will earn you experience points (XP) and help you to advance through the levels. NPCs with available quests for you have a big yellow exclamation mark above their heads. NPCs with gray exclamation marks have quests that you will be able to get from them within the next couple of levels.

It's always handy to make a note of NPCs that have gray exclamation marks so that you know where to return to later on to get more quests. From the screenshot below you will see that Grull Hawkwind has a quest for us and behind him in the distance there is another NPC with a quest for you.

Start by picking up both these quests by talking to the NPCs. You will have one quest to collect seven each of Plainstrider Meat and Plainstrider Feathers and one quest to talk to Chief Hawkwinds mother. At any time you can bring up your quest list by hitting the L key. While viewing your quest list if you hold down the Shift key and click a quest name you can bring up a handy list of objectives on your screen. Do that with the The Hunt Begins quest.

Planning your attack

Ok, so let's get started. I know from previous experience that Chief Hawkwinds mother is close to an area I can get plainstrider meat and feathers from. Head out in an south-easterly direction from the camp to get started. You will soon run across lots of plainstriders. We're going to need to kill these to get our feathers and meat.

To kill them we are going to use our Wrath spell and our Staff. To get the most out of the Wrath spell you need to start attacking from a distance. Find a suitable plainstrider and target him by clicking on him. You want to be about 30 yards from him when you start attacking. 30 yards is the maximum range of the Wrath spell. Since we don't have any indication of how far that is in the game you need to use your best judgement. There is one trick you can use though.

While you have a target selected take a look at your Wrath spell on your action bar. If you are within range of the target (30 yards or less) then the number on the spell will be white. If you are out of range then it will be red. While you have a plainstrider targeted run about a bit and see how this works. I've shown examples in the screenshots below. You want to start attacking while the number is white and just before it turns red. Over time you will get a feel for how far you need to stand away from the target.

The plan for taking down this plainstrider is to cast up to three Wrath spells on him and then finish him off with your staff. If you are at maximum range and you have full mana then you should be able to get three Wrath spells cast before he gets to you. Then you will rely on your staff to finish the job and possibly your healing spell to keep you alive.

Your first fight

Walk about till you are at maximum range and begin casting Wrath. When you cast it you will see a progress bar on the screen showing you how long it will take you to finish casting. As soon as the first spell is cast press the Wrath spell button again to being casting another. As soon as that one is finished cast it again. By now the plainstrider should be on top of you and hitting you but you will have damaged him substantially. Hit the attack button, the first button on your action bar, to begin hitting him with your staff.

You could of course keep casting Wrath on him while he is up close. However, when you have an enemy attacking you your spells get interrupted and take longer to cast and will therefore be less effective. Attacking with a weapon does not get interrupted. Also, your mana will not begin to regenerate until five seconds after you cast your last spell. You want to get mana regeneration started as soon as possible so that you do not have to wait as long after each fight before starting another one. You should aim to start each fight at this level with close to maximum mana. After each fight you can take a drink, if you have any, to speed up mana regeneration.

Looting the corpse

Once you have killed him you can now loot his corpse to retrieve items or money that he might have been carrying. You do this by right-clicking on the corpse. With any luck you will receive a plainstrider meat and plainstrider feather. Some plainstriders will only have one of the two on them and some will have neither.

Completing your first quest

As you kill them keep heading south-east until you reach a contraption that looks like some sort of well. Beside this you will find Greatmother Hawkwind, who you have been tasked with finding. She should have a yellow question mark above her head to indicate that you need to talk to her as part of a quest and she will also appear on your minimap as a yellow dot. If the question mark was gray then it would mean that you need to talk to her for a quest but you haven't collected all the items you need first.

Talk to her to complete your first quest and get 17 copper coins as a reward. She will also offer you another quest to return a water pitcher to her son back at the camp. Accept this quest and walk up to the well. Right click on one of the three pitchers on the ledge to get your water pitcher. Once you have that start heading back to the camp, killing plainstriders along the way to complete your other quest.

Getting to level 2

Somewhere along the way you should level up to level 2. This means that you will be able to receive new spells from your trainer back at the camp. We'll get to that in a bit. For now just make sure you have enough plainstrider meat and feathers to complete your quest before returning to the camp. If you pick up pieces of leather armor while killing plainstriders then make sure to put them on to give you a bit more protection.

You can put a new bit of armor on by right clicking it from your backpack (B key) or by dragging it to your character sheet (C key) from your backpack. If you find a better bit of armor than you currently have then use that instead. Better bits of armor will have higher armor numbers on them. Don't bother with cloth or mail armor pieces that you find, sell those instead. You will need some money for the new spells you will get.

Getting your reward

When you get back to the camp you will see two NPCs with yellow question marks. Talk to both of these NPCs to complete your two quests and to receive new ones. When you hand in the Hunt Begins quest you will have to choose between two bits of armor as a reward. Make sure you choose the leather Nomadic Belt because you cannot wear mail armor. You can tell what rewards you can't use by the fact that they will be coloured red. Grull Hawkwind will have two new quests for you and Chief Hawkwind will have one new one for you. Accept all three.

Selling your loot

Before we do anything else we want to sell off some of the loot we received. In one of the tents to the east side of the camp you will find Kawnie Softbreeze who will buy your loot from you. Make sure you put on any armor you want to keep before selling your loot, so that you don't sell it by accident. Sell everything else you get except for drinks or pouches if you were lucky enough to get one. Don't worry about keeping food that replenishes health for you. Remember, you have a healing spell for that. You should now have between one and two silver.

Finding your trainer

One of the quests you just received, Verdant Note, is to talk to your druid trainer. It just so happens he is in the tent next to Kawnie. Go and talk to him and complete the quest. If you talk to him again you will also see the option to receive training. This is how you get new spells. You will get the opportunity to receive new spells every two levels. For now, just get the new Mark Of The Wild spell from him.

Mark Of The Wild is your first buff spell. Buff spells increase some of your character stats for a specific length of time. Mark Of The Wild will increase your armor by 25 for 30 minutes. Open up your spell book and drag the new spell to your action bar. Bring up your character sheet, target yourself and cast the spell. You will see your armor go up by 25 points.

You can also cast this on other players in the game. This is a nice thing to do because you will often receive a buff spell back from them if they have any they can cast on you. You should always make sure you have your Mark Of The Wild spell active on yourself before heading out fighting.

More killing

Back to the quests. You should now have one quest to find Seer Graytongue and one to collect 10 cougar pelts. Again, both of these quests can be completed in the same area. Head off in a south direction until you find a load of cougars roaming about. Don't forget to shift-click the The Hunt Continues quest to get the objectives up on your screen.

You will find the cougars just beside a big fallen tree to the south of the camp. Also, if you look up on the hill you will see a tent and a totem. Seer Graytongue is waiting up there for you. For now, use the same tactics to kill cougars until you have ten pelts.

Getting your skills up

As you are fighting you may also notice that you get messages in your chat window about your defence and staves skills going up. These two skills determine how well you defend yourself and how well you hit with your staff and are important to keep as close to maximum as possible. You can see you current skill levels on your Skills Window (K key). Also, you should level to up level 3 sometime soon. Unfortunately, you don't get any new spells on the odd levels, so there's no reason to head back to your trainer for now.

Death

One thing I haven't mentioned so far is death. As long as you are careful about having close to full health and mana before each fight then there isn't much risk of death up to now. If you do die then don't worry. It's a small inconvenience, especially compared to other online games like this. If you do die then you will end up with a screenshot like below. Press the Release Spirit button and you will be transported as a ghost to the local graveyard for the area you are in. Luckily this is right beside the camp for this area.

You now have two choices. Talk to the Spirit Healer to bring yourself to life in the graveyard or you can also go and recover your corpse. The disadvantage of reviving at the graveyard is that all of your equipment will take 25% damage, which you will need to repair for a fee. For now we are going to go recover our corpse because money is tight at these early levels.

Recovering your corpse

Your corpse will be lying where you fell, so it's a simple matter of walking back to where you were fighting. An orange arrow on your minimap (top right of the screen) and a gravestone on the your full map (M key) will help you find it. Once you are close to your corpse you will get a message asking you to resurrect. Do so and then heal yourself before continuing.

Better rewards

Once you have got your 10 pelts, head up to talk to Seer Graytongue to complete your other quest. He will give you a quest in return to retrieve 12 bristleback belts and offer much better rewards than you have been used to, including a nice replacement staff. Don't worry about that one for now because we're going to go get another couple of quests that can be done at the same time. Head back to camp.

When you get to the camp talk to Grull Hawkwind to complete the The Hunt Continues quest, choose the bracers as a reward and accept the The Battleboars quest from him. You will also see Brave Windfeather walking about the camp with a quest for you. Talk to her to get the Break Sharptusk quest. Before you head out to do these make sure to sell any loot you don't need.

All three of the quests you should now have can be completed in roughly the same area. If you bring up your map you will see a cave marked Brambleblade Ravine. Chief Sharptusk can be found in there, along with the bristlebacks that drop the belts. Along the way you will also come across battleboars that will drop the snouts and flanks you need. Head out towards the cave.

Aggressive monsters

As you get close to the cave you will come across the battleboars you need. You will notice that the name above their heads is red in color. This means that they are aggressive enemies and will attack you if you get close enough, even if you haven't started to attack them.

Walking about in areas filled with aggressive enemies is a lot more dangerous than what you have been used to up until now, so be more careful as you approach the cave. Kill the battleboars you meet along the way to get your snouts and flanks. Don't worry about getting all of them because you will have to pass back through here later and there are more battleboars inside the cave.

If you do get in to trouble and end up with two or more attacking you at the same time then don't forget to use your heal spell and your War Stomp spell to escape. If you use War Stump to stun them then you can run away and hopefully shake them off. When you run far away enough from an attacking enemy then they will eventually lose interest in you and give up trying to kill you.

Close fighting

Once you reach the cave head on in. This will be your first example of a dungeon like area, where aggressive enemies are pack in more tightly than out in the open areas. It's important to keep alert in these areas while fighting in case a second or third enemy sneaks up behind you and joins in the fight. You will need to make your way through the cave at a slower pace than before and make sure you kill the enemies in your path rather than try to avoid them.

More inventory space

You need to make your way to the east part of the ravine, killing the bristleback quilboars that drop the belts for your quest and more of the battleboars. The Chief lives in a tent on the east side of the ravine. When you get out of the tunnel entrance and in to the ravine keep heading east up over the hill, killing quilboars as you go. Somewhere along the way you should reach level 4. Don't worry about going back to your trainer yet though, just keep killing.

If you are lucky you may find that the quilboars drop pouches for you to use. Drag any pouches you get to your equip container bar on the bottom right of the screen. This will mean that you can carry more. You can also setup a key to open up all your backpacks at once. To do this hit Escape and click the Key Binding button and scroll down about half way until you see the Open All Bags option. I have this bound to my I key.

Along the way you may end up running out of room in your backpack. You could go back to camp and sell loot to make room but that takes time and I prefer to juggle the loot I get, keeping the items I think will sell for more. Generally the items with the better stats will get you more.

Eventually you will come across the hut where the chief lives. He is inside and surrounded by loads of his mates. To get to him you will need to clear a path. Before we do that there is another quest we can pick up. To the south of the chiefs hut you will see a hill with a cave at the end. This is where you want to head to.

Spell casting monsters

You will encounter your first spell casting enemy on the way to the cave. Like you, these Bristleback Shaman will cast damage spells at you from a distance. Use the same tactic as before with these guys except you may have to run up to them once you have cast your three wrath spells to finish them off.

A monster with a name

Once you get to the cave you will find Squealer Thornmantle, who is guarded by at least one of his friends. You need to take both of these guys out at once. This is good practise because taking on multiple enemies at once will be something you have to do a lot in the future.

For me, the best tactic is to concentrate on the higher level enemy first. He will be able to do more damage, so you want to take him out of the picture first. Then take out the second enemy. You may need to use your heal spell during the fight, so be on your toes. Some players might like to take out the weaker opponent first because he will go down quicker. Try out both techniques when you can and find the one that suits you best.

Hidden quests

When you have killed them then check the ground for a dirt stained map. Right click on this pick it up and then right click on it in your backpack to start the new quest and receive some battle plans. You will see that you have found plans for an attack on your camp and that you need to go and give them to Chief Hawkwind. We can do that when we return with the other chiefs head. For now get out of the cave before Squealer returns.

Death to the chief

Now we want to get the chief. Go back to the hut and start killing all the enemies near the entrance. Once you have cleared a path to the hut go to the entrance. As the screenshot below shows you, the chief is behind the cauldron and he has two friends with him. Take out each of his friends first before taking him on.

The best way to make sure the chief doesn't join in is to wait until the enemy you are about to fight is as far away as possible from him. The closer the enemy is the more likely it is that the chief will join in. Be prepared for taking on two or more at a time though. If you die then just return and try again. It's all good practise and helps you find the best use of your spells and skills.

Once you have taken them out then loot the chiefs corpse to recover his head and head back out of the ravine the same way you came in. If you are short of belts for your quest then now is the time to get the rest by killing the quilboar along the way, If you need more snouts and flanks then kill the battleboars along the way as well and remember there are more of them outside the ravine. Once you have all the three quests you started with complete then head back to camp.

Back to camp for the final time

When you get back to the camp you will most likely have a full inventory, so go and sell the loot you don't need first. You need room for the quest rewards you are going to get. Now hand in the four completed quests. Choose the Nomadic Gloves for the Break Sharptusk quest and the Elder's Cane for the Rite Of Strength quest. This new staff will be very useful to you. For the Attack On Camp Narache quest you will receive a shield which you cannot use but will sell well.

You will also receive your final quest for this area from Chief Hawkwind. This quest will lead you to the next area you can get quests from. Before we leave though we need to visit our trainer. You will have probably got to level 5 by now and you will have some new spells to get from getting to level 4 before. First put on the new staff, nomadic gloves and nomadic vest and sell the shield and your old armor and staff. Then visit your trainer.

Damage over time spells

Your trainer will have two new spells for you. Moonfire, which is a new damage spell and Rejuvenation, which is a new healing spell. Get both of them from your trainer and set them up on your action bar. Moonfire is a new type of spell for you because after the initial damage it will continue to damage your enemy for a few seconds after.

This damage over time spell is commonly referred to as a DoT. Now that you have this spell you will need to adjust your combat technique but I will cover that later. For now I suggest putting Moonfire after Wrath on your action bar and Rejuvenation after Healing Touch.

On to Bloodhoof Village

We've finished in Camp Narache so leave the camp, following the dirt path to the south. Along the way you will meet Antur Fallow who has a quest for you. You have to make a delivery to Bloodhoof Village, the same village you are heading to, so pick this quest up as well and continue on the path until you get to the new village. At a point along the path you will see the village on the other side of a lake. This is a good time to learn to swim for the first time, so head towards the link and jump in.

Going for a swim

When swimming you can swim on the surface for as long as you want without any side effects. However, if you dive down under the surface then you need to hold your breath. The amount of time you can hold your breath for will be shown by a blue bar that will slowly go down. Play about in the water and get used to swimming.

You can return to the surface at any time to get your breath back and don't forget you will need as much breath to get back to the surface as you needed to get down to the depth you are at. If you are diving down and reach the half way mark on the bar then it's time to head back up. If you run out of breath then you will start to lose health until you are dead.

Fishing

On the other side of the lake you will also find a Fisherman who can teach you how to fish. Not surprisingly, the fishing skill allows you catch fish. These fish can then be cooked to make food that you can eat to restore health out of combat. Since we have a healing spell and we don't have a lot of money then we should leave fishing for now. Continue on in to Bloodhoof Village.

When you walk in to Bloodhoof Village you will see a message letting you know that you have discovered a new area and you will get XP for doing this. If you check your map then you will also see that the new area has been uncovered. As you do quests that bring you to new areas you will slowly uncover the whole map. Of course, you can head off exploring if you want to uncover all of the new areas now and pick up some XP if you so wished.

The first thing to do when you reach the village is talk to the innkeeper, who can be located in the building with the big totem on it's front as shown below.

Find a new home

We need to talk to the innkeeper for two reasons. The first is that you need to talk to him to hand in the quest you picked up along the path and also you want to setup this village as your new home. Innkeepers allow you to change where your home is, so that when you use your hearthstone you will be returned to that place.

If we used our heartstone now then we would be returned to Camp Narache, so talk to the innkeeper to hand in your quest and make this inn your new home. Don't forget to choose the drink as a reward because it's much more useful to us than food is.

First aid

Beside the innkeeper you will also see a First Aid Trainer. First Aid is a very handy skill to have because it allows you to create bandages that can heal you and that don't use any mana. It is a very important skill to have later on and is easier to advance if you train in it early on.

To create bandages you need to use cloth dropped by humanoid monsters and as you go up in levels the humanoid monsters will drop different types of cloth, which are used for different types of bandages. If you get First Aid early on then you can keep it levelled as you level up. Go ahead and get it and drag your new first aid skill to your action bar.

Ingame mail

As you leave the inn you will see a postbox on the ground. This is used to send and receive ingame mail. You can send and receive mail with your friends and when you use the auction house later on the items you win will be delivered to you using mail. You will know you have new mail when a letter icon appears near your minimap.

It costs 30 copper to send a mail and you can send an item or money along with it. Mail containing items will take about one hour to be delivered but mails containing only a message or money will be delivered immediately. Received mail will stay in your inbox for 30 days if you don't read it or 3 days if you do. It will then be returned to the sender. If it is an item you have won in an auction then you will lose the item forever.

New quests for a new area

Just past the postbox you will see Baine Bloodhoof. He's the guy that Chief Hawkwind wanted you to deliver something to. Go talk to him to hand your quest in and receive two new quests from him. One of these quests is to kill various types of Palemanes and the other is to visit another NPC in the village. There are also four more quests for you to pick up here.

Just east of Baine is Mull Thunderhorn who has a quest to kill 6 prairie wolves and 4 plainstriders. Inside the hut behind Mull is Harken Windtotem who has a quest to collect 8 swoop quills. To the south-west of Mull is Ruul Eagletalon who has a quest to collect 8 windfury talons. To the north of Mull is Maur Raincaller who has a quest to collect a wolf heart, cougar femur, plainstrider scale and a swoop gizzard. Again, all of these quests can be completed in the same area.

Just beside Maur is the NPC you have to visit for Baine's quest, so go talk to him. In return he will give you one final quest to retrieve 2 well stones and 2 ambercorns, again collectable in the area we are about to go to. You should now have a total of six quests to do.

Other trainers

You will also find some new types of NPC in the main building to the north of the village. There is a cook trainer, leatherworker trainer, skinning trainer and various other merchant NPCs. Don't worry about them for now because it's unlikely you have very much money. We will go and do a couple of these quests first and then return here later.

Two quests at once

The first three quests we are going to do are Poison Water, Swoop Hunting and Rite Of Vision. Shift-click these quests to get their objectives up on screen. If we are lucky we may also complete the harder Mazzranache quest because the monsters we will be killing drop the items we need for that quest, so shift-click that as well. You will find this happens with quests on a regular basis in World Of Warcraft and that while killing one monster for a quest you can often pick up other items for another quest.

Head east out of the village, past the warrior training circle, until you reach a forked road. The quest we are about to do are all in the south-east area from this fork. You should see plainstriders, prairie wolves and in the distance another wind generator well. We are going to work our way towards the well, killing plainstriders and wolves to get the paws and talons. Also, we will be checking the bases of the trees for the ambercorns we need. If we happen to come across a swoop then we will kill that as well for the quills.

New combat technique

First we need to figure out our new combat technique with the new spells we have. This time, instead of just casting Wrath we want to include Moonfire. We still want to open with Wrath but this time we want to cast Moonfire just before we start hitting them with our staff. You could cast Moonfire first to get the DoT active earlier but because Moonfire takes longer to finish casting it would mean we couldn't get our Wrath spells cast until the monster was over half way towards us. Play about with both techniques to see what I mean. The more you try things out now the better it is for you later on.

Picking your target

So the new technique is cast three Wrath spells as before but just before we attack with our staff we want to cast Moonfire. It's also worth mentioning that this is the first area you will hit that has monsters in it that would probably kick your ass. You don't want to attack monsters any more than two levels above your own level. Ideally you want to be attacking monsters of the same level as you or at most one level above.

Go ahead and make your way towards the well, killing everything you need along the way and picking up any ambercorns you find under the trees. If you get to level 6 along the way don't worry too much about getting your new spells just yet. Finish the Rite Of Vision quest first and then return to the village to sell your loot and collect your reward. This way you should have the money you need to buy your new skills. You will need 2 silver for your new skills, so make sure you stay out long enough to get that.

New monster attack

You will also notice that each of monsters has different combat skills. Swoops like to knock you down, taking you out of combat for a second or two and wolves like to growl at you, reducing your strength and agility for a short period of time. Each monster in World Of Warcraft has different combat skills.

Once you reach the well you will see it's guarded by lots of monsters. You need to collect those gray stones you can see in the screenshot below, so clear a path to them first. You will notice two things about these particular monsters around the well.

Fleeing monsters

First, they have a nasty habit of running away when low on health. This is probably the first monster you will have met that does this. It can be really annoying sometimes because if they run towards other aggressive monsters then they will get them to join in the fight. This is something you need to learn how to manage as it happens a lot during the game.

As a young druid you may find Moonfire a handy spell to finish them off if they run away. You can cast Moonfire to get their health down and to also keep reducing their health until they are dead. That way, if they happen to recruit a friend to help, you can think about running away, knowing that they will probably end up dying from your Moonfire DoT anyway while you escape from their friend.

Cloth for bandages

The second thing you may notice is that they are humanoids and that they drop cloth. As I said earlier, this cloth can be used by your First Aid skill to make bandages. When you collect a few cloth hit your First Aid button and make a few bandages. As you make bandages your First Aid skill will go up, which will allow you to make better bandages later on. Drag the new bandages in your backpack to your action bar so that they are handy and try one out after a fight.

Once you have the two well stones you need then go back to the village, killing any plainstriders, wolves and swoops along the way and making sure to stop by the base of the trees to get the two ambercorns you need. Sell your loot and then return to Zarlman Two-Moons to complete the Rite Of Vision quest. He will offer you another quest but for the moment leave it because it involves following an NPC in the other direction.

Hitting level 6

During all this questing and fighting you have probably reached level six, so we should pick up our new druid skills. The druid trainer is in the big tent shown in the screenshot below.

Spell upgrades

We get two new spells at level six. The first is a upgrade to our Wrath spell and the second is Thorns, which is another buff spell. Replace the old Wrath spell on your action bar with the new one and put the Thorns spell next to your Mark Of The Wild spell. When you have Thorns cast on yourself you will cause extra damage each time you are hit, so having both of these buff spells active before fighting is a good idea. I've included a screenshot of what my action bar now looks like below.

You will also notice that Baine in the center of the village has a new quest for you. Go pick that up but don't worry about it for the moment. First, go back to the area beside the well and finish off the other two quests.

As I said before, while you are killing plainstriders, wolves and swoops you may pick up the items needed by the Mazzranache quest. The one other thing you will need is a cougar femur. The closest cougars can be found north of this area across the path, so take a trip back and forth till you have all the paws, talons, quills and items for Mazzranache that you need.

Also, walking up and down this path is an NPC called Morin Cloudstalker who has yet another quest for you to pick up called The Ravaged Caravan, so pick that up as well. Once you've completed all three quests get back to the village, sell your loot, hand the quests in and pick up the new quests from Mull Thunderhorn. You should have got to level 7 by the time you handed all of these quests in.

Repairing your gear

Go back to the main hut in the village and talk to any of the armor or weapon merchants on the left. On the bottom left hand side of the trade window you will see a set of repair options. As you use your weapons and armor they lose durability and need to be repaired every now and then before they break. Go ahead and repair all of your equipment. It shouldn't cost you more than a few copper for now.

Professions

In World Of Warcraft you have the option of picking up to two professions that allow you to gather materials from the world around you and then to make items using these materials. The gathering professions are skinning, mining and herbalism. The crafting professions are alchemy, blacksmithing, enchanting, engineering, leatherworking and tailoring.

Since money is very important to us at this early level and since gathering professions are a good source of income I would recommend going with two gathering professions at the start. Later on you can switch one of the gathering professions to a crafting profession when you have a little cash stored away. I'm going to go with skinning and mining for this character.

Skinning

If you want to do the same then head over to the skinner trainer in the same building and train in apprentice skinning. For skinning you will also need a skinning knife, which you can pick up from the trade goods NPC in the same building for 82 copper. When you kill monsters that are skinnable you can skin them to get hides that you can then sell to a merchant NPC or on the auction house later on.

Cooking

You could also pick up the cooking skill from the cook in the same building. Cooking allows you to create foods that you can eat out of combat to replenish health and get extra buffs. Like First Aid, Cooking doesn't count towards your maximum of 2 allowed main professions so if you can afford it then pick that up as well if you want. For this character I'm not going to bother with cooking.

Getting on with it

Now let's get back to questing. The next three we are going to do are Winterhoof Cleansing, Sharing The Land and Dangers Of The Windfury. Head back out towards the well we got the well stones from. This is the Winterhoof Well. We're going to need to clear away some of the monsters again. Go ahead and clear enough of them so that you can reach the well without getting attacked. When you get close open up your backpack and right click the Winterhoof Cleansing Totem to cleanse the well and complete the quest.

Longer aggro range

Now head to the area south of this well to do the Sharing The Land quest. You will come across a camp with the Palemane tanners, skinners and poachers you need. Go ahead and start killing them until you have the required amount. These guys have better sight than the ones you have been used to and will attack you at a longer distance than other aggressive monsters you will have met, so be careful here.

This is also another area where you can get in to fights with multiple monsters at once and each type has different combat skills. If you can, fight your way in to the centre of the camp where you will find a treasure chest that may contain some goodies for you.

Treasure chests

Once you have killed all the Palemane you need head east along the mountain until you come across the windfury harpies and wind witches. Kill those until you get the eight talons you need. There is another treasure chest among the trees beside the harpies, so keep an eye out for it. Sometimes you can pick health potions from these chests that are very handy if you run in to trouble.

Drop rates

The rate at which talons drop can be quite low, so you may have to spend a fair bit of time killing these guys. Some quests that you do will have regular drop rates and some will have very low drop rates. Somewhere along the way you will likely get to level 8 but wait to finish these quests before going back to get your new skills.

Playing with your technique

Also, around level 8 it is worth trying to get four Wrath spells cast before casting Moonfire because you have a bit more mana to play with and monsters are getting harder to kill. Play about with how many to see what suits you best. Some people don't mind having more downtime at the end of a fight if they can kill quickly. It's important to find a style that suits you.

When you have your talons head north back to the path and start heading back towards the village. There is one more quest we want to do quickly before heading back. When you get back to the dirt path shown in the screenshot below follow it out to the north. At the end of the path you will find the smoking ravaged caravan that you need for your other quest.

Clear a path up to the center of the caravan and right click on one of the sealed supply crates to complete the The Ravaged Caravan quest and get a new one to return to Morin Cloudstalker who was the guy we met on the path. Head back along the path you followed to get here and find him. Talk to him to hand that quest in and pick up the two new ones he will offer you. Now head on back to the village.

You know the drill by now. Sell your loot, hand in the quests, pick up the new quests, repair your equipment if necessary and then go see your druid trainer for new spells. The only new quest you will get now is the Thunderhorn Totem from Mull.

More Spells At Level 8

The two spells you get at level eight are Entangling Roots and a new version of Healing Touch. Replace your old Healing Touch with the new one and put Entangling Roots down beside Moonfire. Entangling Roots

If after getting your new spells you have some money to spare and you haven't managed to pick up any pouches for extra inventory space then it's worth thinking about buying one or two. They pay for themselves fairly quickly because you can carry more loot back from your expeditions. You can get them from the general goods merchant in the main hut for 5 silver each.

Entangling roots

Entangling roots is a very useful spell. When you cast it on an enemy it will stop them from moving and also inflict 20 damage on them over 12 seconds. If you do any other damage to them with your staff or other damage spells then there is a good chance the spell will break and they will come after you.

The main use for this spell is if you have to take on more than one enemy at a time. You can cast it on one of the monsters and concentrate on the other for a few seconds, knowing that when he joins in the fight he will already have reduced health. It's also useful to stop fleeing monsters in their tracks, allow you to run away from a fight if you get in to trouble and can also be used to start a fight when you want more time to get some Wrath spells off before he reaches you.

Again, it's best to play about with your new spells when you first get them. I've played some classes where I've ignored spells because I didn't think they were that useful at first, only to find out later on that they can come in very useful.

Rest experience

This is me returning for a second day to continue this guide and I've just spotted something else that's worth a paragraph or two. When you logout for the night make sure that you logout in an inn or a city. The reason for this is that while you are logged out in an inn or a city your character starts to gain rest experience. You will continue to gain rest XP until you log back in again. You also gain rest XP if you logout elsewhere but the rate at which you gain rest XP is greatly reduced.

Rest XP is a bonus XP system that means for a period of time you will receive double the normal amount of combat XP. Take a look at the XP bar in the screenshot above. Just to the right of the end of the blue bar you will see a marker. This marker shows you how much rest XP you have stored up. From now on and until you reach that bar you will get double XP for every kill, meaning it will take less kills for you to reach the next level.

You can save up to a maximum of about one and a half levels worth of rest XP. However, this would take about ten days to accumulate and I doubt very much that you can stay away for that long. It is a nice bonus to get when you return from a holiday though. It also comes in very handy later on, when you need more and more XP for each level.

First follow quest

Remember that quest that Zarlman Two-Moons had earlier for us. We're going to do that now because after we complete it we can complete two other quests on the way back to the village. Go and talk to Zarlman and start the quest. He will give you a Water of the Seers item that you will find in your inventory. Stand beside him and right click on the item. After a few seconds a ghost wolf will appear and start to head off in a north-west direction.

Follow him along the path. Try to avoid fighting along the way because if you lose track of him it can be tricky to find the cave that he will lead you to. However, do keep your eyes open along the way. There are a number of things you should look out for.

The first are the stalkers and cougars that roam about in the area to the right of the path after the bridge. You will need to kill these guys for the Thunderhorn Totem quest. Just past them you may also spot another well that we will need for another quest later on.

Thunder Bluff

Further along the path and on the left you will see an up hill area that leads to an large opening in the mountains. The dwarves that you need for the Dwarven Digging quest live there. Just before you reach the cave if you look up to your right you will see a large city on the top of a hill. This is Thunder Bluff and is the first major city you will encounter, which we will visit shortly.

Just below Thunderbluff is an area where the Darkmoon Faire can be found. Depending on when you are playing, the faire may be open or closed. Darkmoon Faire will probably be your first example of a world event. A group of NPCs will start to setup the faire on the first friday of each month and on the following monday it will be open for business. The faire alternates each month between this horde location and an the alliance location on the other continent.

There are some quests and attractions that you might want to check out at the faire, so keep an eye out for it. You can use google to find out more info on it. There are some really nice website guides out there about it.

Seer Wiserunner

When you reach the cave that the wolf leads to you, talk to Seer Wiserunner to complete the quest. Choose whichever reward you need the most. You will also receive another quest for him called Rite Of Wisdom. We're going to leave that quest for a bit because it involves travelling to another bit of the area we aren't quite ready to go to yet. For now make sure you have the objectives on screen for the Thunderhorn Totem and Dwarven Digging quests.

The first one we are going to do is Dwarven Digging. Leave the cave and head south along the base of the mountains. You will soon comes across some tree stumps and uncover an area called the Bael'dun Digsite, home to the dwarves we need. Head up the hill and start killing the dwarves. They will start to drop Prospector's Picks. You need five of these. However, they won't count towards your objectives yet because there is one more step we need to do once we collect five of them. Now is also a good time to try out your new Entangling Roots spell to catch fleeing monsters.

Self healers

Around now you should hit level 9. You may also encounter a new type of enemy, one that can heal itself. Among the dwarves are some Bael'dun Appraisers, who have the ability to heal themselves. You need to be careful with these guys because you are going to have to use more spells and mana to take them down.

Handy scrolls

While I was fighting the dwarves I also received my first scroll as loot. Scrolls will drop randomly from monsters that you kill and are a one off temporary buff that you can cast on yourself. In my case I got a scroll that increased my armor by 60 for 30 minutes. There are scrolls out there that will also increase your other stats.

When you have all five picks take a look at their description. You will see that you need to be by a forge to break them. There is a forge further on in to the Bael'dun Digsite but there is also one up in Thunder Bluff, so now is a good time to check it out. Head back towards the path leading from Bloodhoof Village and head north along it until you get to the lifts up to Thunder Bluff. Take one of the lifts up, being careful not to fall off.

Breaking the picks

In the first area you get to you will see a small pond and a new quest for you to get. Get the quest and walk past Eyahn Eagletalon until you get to the forge you need. While standing beside the forge, right-click on the picks until you have 5 broken tool quest items. Your quest objective should now be complete.

Banking In Azeroth

Just before we leave we want to take a look at the banking and transport available. East of the forge you will see the Thunder Bluff bank and just to the left of that you will see the entrance to a massive totem. Head towards the bank first. Talking to one of the bankers will allow you to transfer items from your inventory in to your bank vault. This is a handy place to store items that you collect that you don't want to carry around with you. You can buy extra bank slots for extra space but you don't need to worry about that for now.

Leave the bank and go to the right and in to the bottom of the massive totem. Follow the spiral staircase all the way to the top, again being careful not to fall off. At the very top you will meet Tal, the Wind Rider Master. Wind riders are the primary form of transport in World Of Warcraft. They allow you to fly from one area to another for a small fee.

Flying around

Before you can use the wind riders you must first open up the flight paths to the destinations you want to fly to and from. This means that you have to travel by foot at least once to each area and introduce yourself to the wind rider master. You begin the game knowing at least one wind rider, meaning you can always return to your starting city. For now you won't be able to go anywhere, so head back down the stairs and back down the lifts to ground level.

Skinning the corpse

Head back along the path towards Bloodhoof Village and just before the bridge turn left to find the stalkers and cougars we need for our next quest. Start killing them to get both types of claw. If you picked up the skinning skill earlier on then you will notice something different this time when you have finished looting the corpse. If you hover your mouse over the corpse you will have the option of skinning it. Go ahead and right-click on it to start skinning.

Skinning allows you to get various types of hide from the skinnable monsters in World Of Warcraft. These hides can then be sold on to merchants or other players for a nice profit. You should try and always skin monsters of your own level or slightly above. This will ensure that your skinning skill goes up as you level. You only get skinning skill points if the monster is close to your own level.

More wells

When you have all your claws head back to Bloodhoof Village to hand the two quests in. Sell and repair as usual. You will get one more quest from Mull, Thunderhorn Cleansing. Head back on the road to Thunder Bluff and go to the well you should have spotted earlier on the right side of the path after the bridge. Clear a way to the well and cleanse it in the same way you did with the previous well. Return to Mull to hand it in and pick up a new quest, Wildman Totem, which you will need to gather prairie wolf alpha teeth for.

The best spot I've found for prairie alpha wolves is back along the road to the east, where we picked up the quests from the wandering NPC earlier. Head out there and further along the road than you've been before you should spot the prairie alpha wolves we need on the left. Start killing them to get the teeth and watch out for the pairs of centaurs that patrol that area. When you have the teeth return to Mull and hand the quest in. He will give you one final quest for him, to cleanse another well. In return you will get a nice new staff. We'll get back to that later though.

Reaching level 10

By the time you handed this quest in you should have reached level 10. This is a landmark level for the druid class because it means we will soon have access to our first animal form. If you haven't reached level 10 by now then it's worth going back out to the prairie alpha wolves and killing them until you do. We are going to take a detour from our normal question.

Head in to the tent where your druid trainer lives. You will see he has a quest for us. First pick up your new spells and then get the quest from him. You will receive upgrades for your Moonfire, Rejuvenation and Mark of the Wild spells. Drag the new spells to your action bar and then take a closer look at the new Mark of the Wild spell. You will notice that not only does it increase your armor but it also increases all of your stats by 2. This makes this a very useful spell to have and well worth making sure you have it cast on yourself before combat.

Bear form quest

Now accept the Heeding The Call quest from Gennia and head towards Thunder Bluff. This quest is the first in a line of quests that will eventually allow us to turn in to a bear, a form that allows us to fight like a warrior and what makes the druid class so unique. Later on you will be able to turn in to a cat, allowing you to fight like a rogue. Fantastic!

Teleporting spell

Head out to Thunder Bluff to do the first part of this quest. We're going to leave the other five quests we have for now because having our bear form will help us a lot in doing them. When you get to the top of the lifts in Thunder Bluff take a look at your Heeding The Call quest. We have to find Turak Runetotem on the Elder Rise.

Use your map to get to the Elder Rise. It's clearly marked. You will have to go up the stairs in the big totem, get off at the first floor, cross the yard and head through a building to get to the rope bridge. He is in the big tent on the Elder Rise. Talk to him to complete that step of the quest and to receive a new one.

The new quest will give you a new spell called Teleport: Moonglade. This will allow you to teleport to Moonglade, a special area just for druids and where all of the special druid quests take place. Before you use it to get to Moonglade talk to Arch Druid Hamuul Runetotem to pick up a quest we will do later on, which will lead us to our next questing area. Drag the teleport spell to your action bar and click it to begin teleporting.

Moonglade

You will find yourself in magical village, filled with plants and waterfalls. Take a look around if you want but use your map to remember where you are. Moonglade is a bit of a maze of buildings, hills, rivers and bridges and it's easy enough to get lost.

In the building in front of the spot you teleported in to is Dendrite Starblaze, the NPC we need to talk to for this stage of the quest. Head up to the top floor of the building and talk to him. He will ask you to seek out the Great Bear Spirit to continue your quest.

Great Bear Spirit

Leave the building and head in an easterly direction. Rather than talk you through the directions you need to find the Great Bear Spirit, take a look at the screenshot below and use your map to go to the spot indicated on the north-west part of the map. There you will find the Great Bear Spirit. Talk to him to complete the next step. Now return back to Dendrite and talk to him to complete this part of the quest.

Back to Thunder Bluff

Now you need to get to Thunder Bluff. But how? You teleported here and you don't have a teleport spell to get back. You have two options here. One is to use your hearthstone to return to the inn at Bloodhoof Village. The other option is to fly back. I'm going to assume that you've used your hearthstone recently, so you need to make your way to the flight master. Again, rather than give you directions, use the screenshot below to find your way to him.

Your first flight

Talk to the Tauren flight master to store the flight path to here and then talk to him again to get a free but long ride back to Thunder Bluff. This will be your first flight so the time will fly by while you admire the scenery. It does wear thin after about dozen or so flights though.

When you get land, return to Turak and pick up the final and hardest part of the quest.

The Barrens

Head back to the lifts and follow the path back to Bloodhoof Village. Don't actually head in to the village, keep following the path and take a left at the fork in the road after it. Keep following the path to the east, towards an area called The Barrens on your map. Before long you will get a message saying that you have entered The Barrens.

Camp Taurajo

As soon as you get to The Barrens look up to your right and you will see a small hut. This is where the final part of this quest will take place. Before we do it though we are going to take a slight detour to save us time later on. Ahead of you there is a small village called Camp Taurajo. Head towards that and find the wind rider master who is standing to the right just as you enter the village. Talk to him, store the flight path to here and double back towards the tent we spotted.

When you reach the tent, look around until you spot some big lizard type monsters called Thunderheads. If you hover your mouse over them you will see that their level is reported as ??. This is a useful thing to note because it means that the monster is away above your own level, so far in fact that you won't know what it is. Under no circumstances try to kill monsters like this and avoid them like the plague. They'll kick your ass!

Moonkin Stone

Ok, back to the bear form quest. Directly south of the tent and at the foot of the mountain you will see the Moonkin Stone we are looking for. Walk up to it and check it out but don't do anything just yet. This upcoming fight is a tough one and you need to prepare for it. Forget all previous tactics of trying to reduce downtime after a fight. We are going to have to use everything we have for this next fight.

Make sure you have Mark of the Wild and Thorns cast on yourself, and make sure you are at full mana because the next step will start the fight. Walk up to the Moonkin Stone and turn around to face the tent. The guy we will be fighting will be coming at you from the tent. Open your backpack and right click on the Cenarion Lunardust item to get the ball rolling.

Lunaclaw and Lunaclaw Spirit

Lunaclaw, a level 12 monster, will start running at you as soon as you are finished using the dust. As soon as you spot him, target him with your mouse and start casting Wrath as soon as he in range. There are probably a couple of ways you could do this fight but I went with constant casting of Wrath until I had used all my mana and then finished him off with my staff. This will work as long as Lunaclaw does not resist any of your Wrath spells. If he does then you may have to heal yourself during the fight.

Once he's dead a Lunaclaw Spirit will appear. Talk to him to complete this part of the quest. Don't forget to loot the dead Lunaclaw's corpse. Now get back to Thunder Bluff to receive your reward. The quickest way back is to use the wind rider master we met in Camp Taurajo. In fact, I've just realised that you could have left visiting Camp Taurajo until after this fight but no matter. Go back to the camp and fly back to Thunder Bluff in style. Or run back if you really want to save cash.

Bear form

When you land or arrive at the top of the lifts make your way back to the Elder Rise and to Turak. You should be getting excited about now because you're about to sample what makes a Druid really cool to play. Talk to Turak and finish the quest. You will be reward with three new spells, Bear Form, Growl and Maul. You will also get a new icon on your action bar. Go ahead and click it straight away. Cool, isn't it! Go ahead and run about in your new bear form or try sitting (X key) for a laugh.

Once the immediate excitement wears off you will want to take a few minutes out to sort out your action bars again. When you are in bear form there are only a certain type of spells you can use. You will not be able to cast any of the spells you have used up until now while in bear form. This will be obvious because your primary action bar is now blank. When you switch between normal and bear form your action bar will also switch, allowing you fill them with spells that are relevant to the form you are in. Switch between bear form and druid form a couple of times using the bear form button to see what I mean.

Actionbar setup

When in bear form you will be able to use your two new bear spells, Growl and Maul. Switch to bear form and drag these two spells to your action bar. Put Maul first because that is the one you will be using the most. I also find it useful to put the bear form spell in the same spot on both my druid and bear form action bars as you can see from the screenshots below. This means I can switch back and forth using the same key, the equals sign in my case.

Rage

You may also spot one other major difference when you are in bear form. If you take a look at your character portrait at the top left hand side of the screen you will see that you no longer have health and mana but health and rage instead. Rage is required to cast some of your bear form spells, such as growl. During a fight you build up rage when you are hit or when you deal damage. You then use this rage to cast some of your bear form spells. I'll explain this in more detail later on.

You will also notice that your health is higher than it was in druid form. If you bring up your character info page and switch between the two forms you will also see that your Armor, Melee Attack Power and Melee Attack Damage go up when in bear form. It is also worth noting that your staff is close to useless during combat in bear form. The damage rating of your weapon does not come in to play while in bear form but the bonus stats that you might have on it does have an affect.

Item bonus stats

As you progress past level 10 you will start to receive quest rewards that have bonus stats on them. These items can be identified by the green title they have, instead of the gray and white ones you have been used to so far. For example, you might pick up a new staff that has a +2 stamina bonus on it. This means that while you are wielding the staff your stamina rating will go up by 2 and therefore your health will increase. If you pick up an item with a +3 strength bonus on it then your attack power will go up.

There is a lot of discussion about which stats are best for the druid and it depends a lot on what type of druid you intend to play. I like to solo a lot, so for me the important stats are strength and stamina. In other words I want to do more damage and I want to be able to stay alive longer. Some people recommend trying to get a good balance of all stats. Again, the best advice is to do a bit of reading on the subject and make up your own mind.

Talent tree

Another very important part of reaching level 10 is that you also get access to a new area of the game called Talents. I could have mentioned this earlier on but I wanted to get you to the stage of getting bear form before talking about this. Look along the bottom middle of your action bar for a new icon labelled Talents. Click that button to bring up your talent tree.

Talents are a way of customizing your character and improving their skills and abilities. Every level you will receive one talent point that you can spend on your talent tree. This starts at level 10, so you will see that you have one talent point to spend. There are three groups of talents, each with their own advantages and are different for each class. The three groups for the druid class are Balance, Feral Combat and Restoration.

Balance is aimed mainly at improving your spells in druid form. Feral Combat is aimed at mainly improving your spells in the other forms, such as bear and cat form. Restoration is aimed mainly at improving your buff and healing spells. A proper discussion of all these talents is a guide in itself, so I'm not going to spend much time talking about them here. There are already some great guides out there that will explain them all and suggest templates for different styles of play.

Improved Mark of the Wild

For now I'm going to spend my one talent point on Improved Mark of the Wild in the Restoration tree. This will boost the effectiveness of my Mark Of The Wild spell, which is already a powerful spell in its own right. Ok, let's get back to trying out bear form and finishing off the quests in this area.

The first we are going to do is Preparation for Ceremony, which requires collecting feathers from harpies that you may have spotted near the bottom of the lifts. Bring up the objectives on the screen and head back down the lifts. One thing worth noting here is that you can stay in bear form while running about. While it may seem slower due to the slower animation of your character, it is in fact exactly the same speed as running about in druid form.

Bear form technique

When you get to the bottom of the lifts head in a north direction until you see a large group of windfury harpies. Before we start we want to decide on our new combat technique. The technique I like to use is to get in to druid form, cast wrath, moonfire and then switch to bear form to finish them off. By the time the monster has started to attack me I should be in bear form, which means I can take damage more easily. While I am in bear form and getting hit I start to build up rage, which I can then use to cast Maul to deal better damage.

This means that I do a substantial amount of damage initially, followed by a larger amounts of damage with my bear spells. Also, while in bear form I also regenerate mana, so at the end of the fight I have very little downtime. After a fight I then switch back to druid form, heal myself if necessary and then repeat the whole process. Don't forget that if you need healing during a fight you will need to switch back to druid form to heal yourself.

Find the technique that suits you best while collecting the feathers you need. Don't forget to recast Mark of the Wild and Thorns while in druid form when they wear off. When you get all the feathers you need head back to the lifts and talk to Eyahn at the top to hand in your quest. Sell your loot and repair if necessary. Now we're going to check out the second set of lifts in Thunder Bluff. Go up the big totem to the first floor and head to the north to find the second set of lifts and go down them.

The last of the wells

As you go down on the lift you will see yet another well off in the distance. Head north towards it. You need to cleanse this well for the Wildmane Cleansing quest. Go ahead and clear a path to it and cleanse it. You will also start to complete objectives for the The Venture Co. quest but we need a lot more of these guys to complete it and there is another area we can go to later to get them and knock off another quest at the same time. So for the moment just cleanse the well.

Red Rocks

Before we go back to Mull in Bloodhoof Village we want to do two more quests. Head east from the well until you discover an area called Red Rocks as shown in the screenshot below. The Ancestral Spirit we need to talk to for the Rite Of Wisdom quest is near those funny rock formations you will see. However, there is another hidden quest in this area that we can do at the same time. In among the trees to the south of the rock formation you will find Lorekeeper Raintotem. Talk to him to get another quest called A Sacred Burial, which involves killing bristleback interlopers that we need to kill anyway to get to the spirit.

Now go back to towards the rock formations and fight your way up to the first plateau. I find coming at them from the north is the easiest path to the spirit. When you have talked to the spirit and killed all the interlopers you need return to Raintotem and hand in the quest. Now we're going to finish off the The Venture Co. quest and the Supervisor Fizsprocket quest. It's one of the tougher quests in this area and since you should have hit level 11 by now it will be much easier to do.

Venture Co Mine

Head south along the base of the mountains until you discover the Venture Co. Mine. Fizsprocket is at the back of the mine and has lots of his mates looking after him. It was at this point I came across another player who was doing the same quest as me. We had a quick chat and decided to form a party and do the quest together. While the quest is easy enough solo if you take your time, it's a lot quicker and safer if you get one or more others players to help you out.

Forming a party

Parties in World of Warcraft are a way for you to join together with other players and either fight together or complete quests together. You share any experience and loot you get from kills between all the members in your party. This may seem like a downside to being in a party but because you can kill more quickly it usually ends up evening itself out in the end. You can also talk privately to other party members using the /party chat command. The other main advantage is that you have someone to watch your back and help you get out of trouble if needed.

There are a couple of exceptions to the sharing that occurs in a party. The first is that if the quest is one that requires you to kill a certain type of monster a certain amount of times then your whole party will get credit for each kill. The second is when you are required to kill a boss or named type monster and retrieve an item from them. For example, take the two quest we are doing at the moment. If you are in a party when doing this quest then you will all get credit for killing the Venture Co. workers and supervisors, and you will all receive a clipboard when you kill Supervisor Fizsprocket.

Supervisor Fizsprocket

Whether or not you decide to form a party for this quest you will find Fizsprocket at the back of the main passage in the mine. Fight your way to the entrance and continue going forward through the mine. There are a couple of branches to the mine off to the left but you can ignore those unless you want to explore a bit. It is pretty much guaranteed that you are going to have to handle two or more monsters at the same time in here, so keep on your toes.

When you kill Fizsprocket and retrieve the clipboard make your way back through the mine, making sure that you kill enough of the workers and supervisors to complete your other quest objectives. When you are outside again head towards the path leading from Bloodhoof Village to The Barrens and find Morin Cloudstalker again. Hand in the two quests that he gave you, choosing either reward for Supervisor Fizsprocket quest. You cannot use either at the moment, so you will just be selling the item to a merchant.

Upgrading First Aid

Head back to Bloodhoof Village for the last time and hand in the Wildman Cleansing quest to Mull and get your new staff. You will also notice that Skorn Whitecloud, standing outside the Inn, has a new quest called The Hunter's Way. Get that quest from him, go sell your loot and repair. If you have been working on your First Aid and Skinning skills then now is a good time to visit the trainers here again and see if they have any new skills for you to learn. I was able to get a new type of bandage from the First Aid trainer and learn Journeyman First Aid when I checked. I was also only two points short of being able to train Journeyman Skinning.

Leave Bloodhoof Village and head back towards Thunder Bluff. Go up in the lifts and head up the big totem to the second floor to find Cairne Bloodhoof. Hand in your quest and get the new one off him. We just have two more quests to do for Thunder Bluff and they can both be done in the same area. Head towards the second set of lifts on the north side and go down them.

Ghost Howl

We need four flatland prowler claws and the Horn of Arra'chea. I happen to know that Arra'chea patrols the large area of grassland just passed these lifts so head in an south-east direction. You will spot lots of Flatland Prowlers wandering about this area, so kill them along the way to get the claws we need.

You will also see from the screenshot below that I ran across a monster called a Ghost Howl while I was looking for Arra'chea. If you spot monsters that look out of place compared to all of the other monsters in the area and that have a unique name then it's worth killing them if they aren't too high a level. Often they will either drop a quest for you or a nice item. I got a Demon Scarred Cloak item from him that starts a quest that requires a quick trip back to Bloodhoof Village. If you also get this quest then do this trip after taking care of the prowlers and Arra'chea.

Arra'chea

You will see from the screenshots below what Arra'chea looks like and the rough area you can find her in. When you do be prepared for a tough enough fight, She likes to head butt you and stun you for a second or two and also tends to hit quite hard. When you have taken her down, get the horn from her corpse and keep killing prowlers until you have the four claws you need. When you're done head back to Thunder Bluff, taking a detour via Bloodhoof Village if you got the other quest from Ghost Howl.

Find Cairne Bloodhoof on the second floor off the big totem to hand in the Rites Of The Earthmother quest and receive your first quest reward with bonus stats. You will see that the Kodo Hunter's Leggings have a +4 agility bonus on them. Then head to the Hunter Rise area to hand in your final quest for Thunder Bluff for the moment. Melor also has a new quest for you to go to the Crossroads. That's handy because that is where we are head to now.

You should have got to level 12 by now, so before we leave let's go see our druid trainer in the Elder Rise. Just as you get on to the Elder Rise you will find Rahauro, who has two quests for us. You may have picked these up earlier but if you haven't then grab them now. You will notice that these quests are marked as Dungeon quests in your quest log.

Dungeons and Instances

Dungeons, commonly referred to as instances, are special quest areas in World Of Warcraft. They are areas that are designed to be completed by a party and have harder than normal monsters and better than normal loot and quest rewards. They are the toughest areas you will find in the game and will require time and coordination of your group to complete.

These two quests are for a dungeon called Ragefire Chasm, the first dungeon you will encounter. Ragefire Chasm is located in Orgrimmar, the main city for the area we are about to go to. This guide won't be covering this dungeon but if you search Google you will find a number of good guides out there already.

New spells at 12

Go talk to you trainer now and pick up your new spells. You will get three new spells. The first, Regrowth, is a healing spell that is a mix between Healing Touch and Rejuvenation. It will heal the target for a set amount and then continue to heal them for a smaller amount for a set period of time.

The other two spells are both bear form spells. Demoralizing Roar will reduce any nearby enemies attack power for thirty seconds, reducing the amount of damage they will do to you. Enrage will generate 20 rage over 10 seconds while reducing your armor at the same time. Of the two Demoralizing Roar will be the one you use most, in every fight in fact but Enrage is a handy spell to have when you need to get some rage built up for your maul spell. You can see below how I have my action bars setup now.

If, like me, you forgot about the talent points you have been earning, bring up your Talent Tree and spend the two extra points you have earned. I decided to put them both in to Improved Mark Of The Wild. Now it's time to leave Thunder Bluff for the moment. Head towards the Wind Rider Master at the top of the big totem and get a flight to Camp Taurajo.

Going to the Crossroads

We need to make our way to the Crossroads, the next major quest area for your level. Before we leave though you will see Kirge Sternhorn has another quest for us that requires speaking to someone in the Crossroads. Accept it and follow the past to the east out of the camp. When you get to the junction follow the path and the Crossroads sign to the north. Be careful to stick to the path because there are a lot of higher level monsters around.

After a long hike you will get to the Crossroads. As soon as you get there talk to the Innkeeper to setup your new home and the wind rider master to setup the flight path. Then hand in your three quests and get all of the new ones you can find. I found a total of nine new quests here.

Goodbye for now!

Unfortunately, this is where I will leave you for the moment. Hopefully I've shown you enough to get you started on the way to becoming a high level druid and that you've enjoyed reading this guide as much as I have writing it. Maybe some day I will come back and write some more.

You still have lots to see and do in World Of Warcraft as a druid. Good luck!

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