Also, some instant casts DO reset the swing timer, Moonfire being the only example that comes to mind for me at the moment. I have no idea why Moonfire does, and Lifebloom doesn’t, the reverse would make more sense to me.

And just think: in the expansion, you may be able to buy an alternate talent spec with 40+ points in Balance! Any difficulty soloing at that point should be a thing of the past.

@Kalaghan: That’s interesting about Lifebloom and the swing timer. I didn’t realize that instant-casts don’t reset it. Now they just need to give Moonkin an instant-cast Wrath … The two spec thing was actually mentioned at the WWI by someone at Blizzard so I’d say it’s a pretty reputable source!

Also, I’ve heard the 2-spec rumour as well (you get 2 specs, and can switch between the 2 at will). I can’t remember where, but I thought it was a fairly reputable source. I think it may even have been a blue post.

Then I started really looking at my talents.

With 42 talent points, you have every talent point you will need as a Resto Druid for instancing/raiding 99% of the time. Even then, you can take a point out of Subtlety that you’ll never miss. That leaves 19 to 20 talent points to put into something else. The other talent poiints for that 1% won’t change a whole lot, you can still do ok in those scenarios without going 61 pts. into Resto.

I invested the remaining points into Balance, which I was already pretty familiar with, and had pretty decent gear for. I ignored Nature’s Grasp (good for PvP, but I’ve never liked it for PvE), and invested all the points I had to improving the potential damage I could do, except for 3 in Control of Nature, and 2 in Nature’s Reach.

Soloing and healing heroics/kara is fairly easy with this build. Key thing is gear and spell rotation. Healing gear does have free spell damage, but the problem is a lack of crit. The downshot is that most DPS caster gear is not really meant for a healer who relies heavily on spirit for mana regen, so I’ve found the trinket quest reward from Underbog (that gives 200 mana back after a kill) to be really helpful, as well as keeping some of my healing pieces on for my soloing adventures. Its also nice when you are having a rough run (i.e. dying a lot) that you have some items that make decent backup healing items.

As for spells, Starfire, Starfire, Moonfire, Insect Swarm, and a Wrath or 2 to finish them, if they still 20% health or more. I only use Roots on certain mobs, or when I get outnumbered by 3 or more to 1. Although it is kinda fun to play warlock style too: Starfire/Wrath, Entangling Roots, Moonfire, Insect Swarm, and then use the formr spell rotation on another mob, refreshing Roots and Insect Swarm till the first mob dies. It can be a little faster, but it ends up being more mana intensive. If I’m really lucky, I 2 shot a mob with Starfire crits before they can get close enough to melee, or have chance to fire back at me with a spell.

Will you be as fast as an equally geared DPSer? No, but you should not fall too far behind. The key is efficiently questing or grinding. Its significantly faster to grind out mobs slightly lower than your level than ones at or above, and you don’t lose much in XP value. I actually am considering the idea of leveling through instancing as well, just because that is the aspect of the game I enjoy most, it will be nice to arrive at 80 with some pretty good gear in hand already, and it will be good to know those instances for when it comes time to do heroics.

@Aedos: I once DPSed for an instance. Everyone laughed and laughed. >.< @Nebelmond: Great idea about leveling as a Boomkin. Despite its mana issues, I think that’s going to be a LOT of fun to play. Just make sure you get some biscuits before you go. P.S. Switching between Feral and Balance? Blasphemy! At least one of those talent templates should be Restoration for instance healing!

@Breana: Thank you, ma’am! And thank you for recommending me to them! I’m afraid that my blog has mislead yet another plucky commenter to comment in the wrong place, though. ^_^ Sorry about that!

@Pike: Yw! And I love the name RestoBear. =)

@Yunk: Maybe it’s booooorrrrrinnngggg to you, but some of us are attached to our leafy ways. And then some of us have husbands upon whose hard work we can mooch …

I imagine this strategy (HoTs + cat or bear) may not work so well as I continue to level, though, so it is always nice to see other leveling strats. Thanks for posting ‘em!

Pikes last blog post..So You Want to Play a Hunter? Part 1

Just listened to the cast and have to tell you that I almost want to roll a druid now! Awesome job!

The reason why I decided to level as a moonkin was that I never played one before and this sort of “completes” my druid experience. Nuking things from a distance could be some fun, I guess. But while reading more about moonkins I’m afraid that leveling as one wouldn’t be so smooth as I thought at first because the mana “situation” will force me to sit down and drink often.

There were rumours that Blizzard finally implements two talent builds to switch between – maybe I’ll have a balance and a feral build then and decide from day to day if I’m in a rawr- or in a nuke-mood.

But at least when I ding level 80 I will rejoin the forest, no doubt.