I plan to build a Tauren (racial Herbalism bonus) Druid with Herbalism/Alchemy for the purpose of developing these two professions as fast and high as possible. The Druid will be played solo most of the time, and neither special group support skills (healing, buffs) or extra toughness for the most difficult mobs will be required. To gather the resources (herbs) fast, DPS and killing speed vs. 1-3 level lower mobs ("green" mobs) are the focus.

Which form would you recommend for that purpose - cat or bear - and how should I distribute the talent points from level 10 to 60 (reasonable healing/regeneration skills for low downtimes between fights included)?

And another question, which leatherworking branch would be recommend for such a Druid - Tribal, Dragonscale or Elemental?

From what I've seen, bear form druids are very competitive in PvP circuits. They'd fight normally, use up most mana, then switch to bear form to regen mana.

Cat form can do some nice damage... So play with those as you see fit before distributing points.

For DPS against single green targets, Cat form is probably better than Bear form. You may also be able to use Prowl (stealth) to sneak up on herbs, but I don't know if you can gather them while in cat form and stealth.

Cat, now that they added some damage and a new ability, is better 1v1. Bear form is for multiple adds. Between your healing spells and bear form it can be pretty hard to die. For groups you will usually end up the healer though.

For talents IMO you are better off beefing the restoration tree. Healing = durability. Personally I got feral charge and stopped. I'll probably eventually get the +5 rage per crit talent (name escapes me) maxed sometime too. And if I do that I'll probably invest into bear form faerie fire just to have a long ranged taunt.

If you want to know one item you can REALLY excell at gathering as a druid it's stranglekelp. Find yourself a shoreline where it is pretty easily found (like southshore) and you can get a lot pretty quickly.

I believe you can gather in cat form, but gathering will break stealth.

I'd go for either 21 in Restoration (for Nature's Swiftness) or 31 (for Innervate). Plow the rest into cat form skills plus Feral Charge. Swiftshifting is now quite nice, so a diversion of 8 points into Balance is not unreasonable. Place in a warm server for 60 levels and season to taste.

The form you'll use the most is not cat or bear, but travel. It's the form that makes a gatherer Druid so very easy. You can do combat as a druid with either feral fighting form or as a caster, it's really a matter of personal style. I'd lean to cat form under the newest rules, but I've run a Druid solo for many, many levels using nothing but caster form.



Since you've already got two trade skills, the answer would be none of the above.

All of the specialties have fairly intensive entry requirements, and not a huge lot of recipes to make, so I can't recommend any of them for pure profit purposes. If you're making stuff for yourself, the Tribal recipes are the most Druid-oriented.

Thanks for all the tips, folks. I'll try out both options now - cat and bear - to see what fits the purpose of a Herbalism/Alchemy specialized Druid best

Even fighting green mobs you should get the second highest rank of Healing Touch, in my opinion. From 20-30 I used this tactic (kill, heal, shift) to kill dozens of monsters at a time with 3 seconds down time. Sometimes even less, as I can heal often before the monster dies (from being ripped).

There's a stranglekelp plant on the Zoram Strand, and probably some more there in the ocean I haven't seen...

edit:
I meant dozens of monsters in a row, naturally.

Part of developing any trade professions in this game is fast levelling. This is not a game (as Star Wars: Galaxies and to some extent Everquest 2 were) where you can become a proficient crafter without being a capable adventurer

Not only is there a hard cap - you need to be level 20 to learn expert skills, for instance - but also because it's not remotely possible to run around a level 40 area with a level 20 character - none of your abilities including prowl will be effective. A level 45 character on the other hand could run through the area without waking much up at all, simply by being higher level without even bothering to prowl

If you simply level as fast as possible, keeping your herbalist radar up, I think you will progress faster than if you adopt some specific gatherer strategy



I had intended to go cat druid but was disappointed with it for soloing. I found that against slightly lower mobs I'd finish on 75% life which is low enough to make me shift to caster form and heal( in case I got an add next fight). So if you're imagining a D2 Frenzy Barb style romp through the monsters with minimal life loss and enhanced move speed that wasn't what my experiences as a 20-something cat druid led me to expect (and I consequently repecced). I doubt that particular scenario improves at higher level. Fights are hard enough that movement speed is not a major factor for grinding

Mid-20s I feel the best soloing is against fairly tough creatures (even to +2 relative level) and my technique is Starfire, Moonfire, Faerie Fire, Bear Shape. If they flee when low then I don't bear shape, I just fight them in caster shape and root them near the end of the fight

Cat form is great in groups where there's a competent tank and a competent healer but I've not been impressed with it for soloing

Some Amazon Basin players report good results from soloing in Bear form, notably with Frenzied Regeneration. I like the idea that you can plow through mobs with less micro-management than using several shapes requires. Right click mob, wait, hit Frenzied Regeneration near the end of the fight is much more my (lazy) playstyle than my current caster/bear soloing technique

Movement speed is of course desireable but the cat improved movement speed frustratingly only comes at level 30 when you get your travel form anyway



Gathering herbs is partly about mileage. The more ground you cover the more you will see. But it's mainly about levelling speed. Being higher level will help you gather herbs far more effectively than any talent spec



I initially wanted to be a cat druid. As I've played the class I've come to the conclusion that cat/bear/caster is a false perspective, a not very helpful way to consider the class. You will want to use all your shapes. Any druid, no matter where you put points is likely to use all three shapes according to the demands of the current situation. Possibly soloing purely in bear form is viable later. Which shape you optimise is, I suggest, between extra tank effectiveness, extra healing effectiveness and extra dps mode effectiveness. However the dps mode is quite specialised - I only use cat form when I'm grouping with a good tank and a good healer - it's my third choice group role. It's also not really a great solo mode since putting them down a split second faster then having to stop to heal is kind of pointless

Don't underestimate War Stomp - it's an important ability and caster mode only

So far I've found in my hit things, heal myself, hit things more approach that the best talent is 60% uninterruptible heals. I'm restoration specced which I don't think disadvantages my soloing at all and of course helps my grouping a lot

Grouping sometimes will be to your advantage. There is a very good staff from the Leaders of the Fang quest in the Wailing Caverns and another good blue staff which drops pretty regularly in Razorfen Kraul. And groups will probably expect you to heal. Even if there's a priest I do something else until we're in trouble then take caster form and help heal when it's needed



Look up the lists, pick your end game armour then learn that branch. Alternatively just pick whatever seems to sell best and buy your stuff since loot drops are generally better than crafted

Confirmed

It breaks stealth when you start the process so you have to be quite lucky to start the gather and have it complete before nearby mobs spot you and hit you

Shift gather is useful in those circumstances

True, but the game allows you to push certain "crafting characters" to a good extent, notably Tailors/Enchanters. For example, a Level 20 Warlock can push Tailoring/Enchanting up to Level 225 without collecting any resources himself. My Undead Warrior, now Level 48, sends via mail all quickly grinded Linen/Wool/Silk and lowend good/superior items to my new Undead Warlock (Tailor/Enchanter). My goal is to develop 4 additional Level 30+ Horde "crafting characters" that cover all 10 professions, incl. my main character, the Blacksmithing/Armorsmith specialized Undead Warrior. My new Troll Hunter will do Blacksmithing/Weaponsmith (for the "Arcanite Reaper" Axe and "Hammer of the Titans" Mace), the Tauren Druid Herbalism/Alchemy (for Potions, Metal and Elemental Transmutations), the Orc Shaman Skinning/Leatherworking (for Bags, Armor and Weapon ingredients), and the Undead Warlock Tailoring/Enchanting (for Bags and enchanted Metal). I'm very pleased so far with the profession "synergy" among my 5 Horde characters, which will make trading and (expensive) purchases in auction houses unnecessary in the near future.



That sounds to me as if Bear is the way to go in the long run for what I plan to do.


Hmm .. I've heard that the latter is not the case with specialized Blacksmiths (Armor or Weapon), and thought the same goes for specialized Leatherworkers (i.e. the "Devilsaur" 2-item set from the Tribal branch). Actually, highend crafting should not yield weaker results than superior "blue" loot drops because getting the required ingredients is often very, very hard, let alone the time required to level up professions to their highest levels. Are you sure that loot drops are generally better than crafted? I assume that's true only for the hardest instance bosses and their extremely rare "epic" item drops, and there you usually have to share the loot with other group members.

This seems really ambitious. I don't want to discourage you, but this could be a big undertaking.

First, I assume you know that to get to 300 in a skill, you need to be 35. Second, I hope you know how hard it is to become an armorsmith or master weaponsmith. I can link you to some guides, but basically it involves doing numerous quests, mining hundreds of mithril and truesilver, and farming some other rare ingredients. Some of it is hard to do solo, and may require you to be in your 50's. I assume the leatherworking specializations are equally taxing.

Finally, some of the plans you mention are extremely rare drops. To this day no one in the Alliance on my server can craft the Arcanite Reaper. In the end it may cost you less time and money to buy some of the super-items you seek then to try to craft them all.

Also, remember that 98% of engineered items can only be used by engineers, so don't expect to use tons of bombs and gadgets on your main.

I know, but I assume that I have at least 12+ months until the first WOW Expansion comes out


I'm thinking about around 250 for most "crafting" chars. 300 maybe for the Weapon Smith, which shouldn't be too hard as he is a (Troll) Hunter with best item support from my highlevel Warrior.


Yes, my Undead Warrior has just recently finished his kinda "epic" Armorsmith education (with the help of our guild), and I believe it was around 400 Mithril bars total for all Heavy and Ornate Mithril stuff I had to deliver, not counting the Truesilver, Black Pearls and the hard-to-come-by "Heart of Fire" from the Elementals in Searing Gorge. I had a guild friend get me the latter, and also got some very nice highend armor plans (level 270+) so far (for free) from the guild like this one or this one. I bought 50% of the Mithril bars in the auction house, which made the grinding of these much less painless.


I'm counting on my guild here (currently over 60 players), where I'm the only Armorsmith at the moment


Good point. Engineering is the only profession I did not choose

If you are between lvl 20-35, 225 is the max trade skill. I had the same plan as you did, but got tired of it when all 6 of my guys hit 20, and needed 15 levels to go farther in trade skills.

Your guild seems like they are happy to help their only armor smith out, will they be as happy to help out their 4th alchemest?

Interested in hearing your experience with this. I'm also planning on starting a solo druid (who will be converted to a raid specced druid closer to cap).

That said, I've already done one round of alch/herbalism on a shaman. I got him to 35, twinked him enough herbs to have skill for arcanite transmute, and he's now an arcanite mule. I didn't really enjoy the class that much.

Contrasting that experience, on my lvl60 main, I dropped skinning and picked up herbalism and had herbalism up to 300 in less than 3 days. Grinding up a gathering skill is trivial when you can travel in all but the highest zones with no fear of aggro.

So... the plan is to take my Tauren Druid "Alt" to 60 where he can be equally useful. Still researching talents atm.

The Alchemist is my own little thingie, so that I don't have to bother the other guild Alchemists with my Warrior's demand for nifty (highend) potions

Don't expect to be making bags with your leatherworking character. They'll all be coming from your tailor.

This will be quite the accomplishment.

As a weaponsmith you can further specialize into master swordsmith, master axesmith, or master hammersmith. These subspecializations are mutually exclusive just like weaponsmith vs armorsmith. They become available choices for a weaponsmith at level 45 or 50 (working from memory).

Arcanite Reaper is craftable by the master axesmith
Hammer of the Titans is craftable by the master hammersmith

You will need a sixth character to accomplish your plans.

Yes, but you need Rugged Leather for the Runecloth 14-slot bags

Thanks for the hint, I didn't know that yet. I think I'll specialize in Axes then because Orcs will love them

You won't be skinning your own kills for rugged leather until about level 50, so don't expect to be getting that until your skinner is a very high level. Besides, rugged leather is usually plentiful and relatively cheap at the AH.

It's been a while since I made this post (April 4, 2005), and I now want to report back and say: "Mission complete!"

In April, I started my "crafting project" on the Horde side, where I wanted to cover the best professions all by myself with four characters, one main and three "twinks". Today, my first crafting twink, a level 40 Undead Warlock with Tailoring/Enchanting could finally get to level 300 Enchanting. All other professions have been completed earlier. I now have on the Horde side:

- a 60 UD Warrior (300 Armorsmith)
- a 40 UD Warlock (300 Tailor/300 Enchanter)
- a 40 ORC Shaman (300 Alchemist), and
- a 30 TAU Druid (will be a 300 Alchemist by the end of the week as soon as she is 35)

I've dumped the idea of making a Weaponsmith and a Skinner/Leatherworker, and made a second Alchemist instead for transmuting Arcanite Bars faster (now 1 per day). Yes, it was a really ambitious, time-consuming project, but it does pay off now. First, it is a pleasure to be able to make everything of importance yourself and second, I have now a very good cash flow which will allow me to get some of the very best game items, recipes and epic mounts in an acceptable time (read: 2-3 weeks) WITHOUT doing MC runs and the like over and over and over, actually without doing any high instance run at all

That's a terrific achievement, well done Nobbie!

Grats Nobbie! I find leveling proffessions incredibly boring, so anyone who can level 4 of them is a grinding machine in my books. (I'm currently in the process of leveling enchanting at the moment...Ragefire Chasm huzzah!)

I missed this post first time around, and I just thought I'd chip in my thoughts on cat form.

Like everyone else (except Gnollguy) I assumed that cat form was bad while I was leveling, and left it at that. Cat form collected dust. I have recently begun to doubt that.

As Brista noted, the "trick" with a druid seems to be to think of your forms, not as a seperate "mini-class", but as a tool, and this game is all about choosing the right tool for the job. There is no point soloing as a "bear druid" or a "caster druid" or a "cat druid", you solo as a druid, with each form being used as the situation dictates. So the question becomes "when do you use cat form while you are soloing?"

The answer? Squishies! Cat form is great against caster mobs. Against a lightly armored mob ravage (stealthy backstabby opener thingy) hits for a little over 500 and crits for around 1000 points of damage. Add to that quick damage and a Feral Bite (finishing move) and you can use cat form to churn through the squishy mobs. (I was using this to kill the Dread Weavers in EPL the other day and found it to be increadibly effective relative to the more standard starfire moonfire bear form strategy.) Do you use cat form against heavily armored mobs? No. It just doesn't work and spells coupled with the high damage mitigation of bear form are far more effective.

So, long post short: cat form good when fighting squishies, bad when fighting tanky mobs. (Even bear form isn't that hot then. Sure, you won't die, but it's going to take a while to kill the mob. I'd rather burn some mana and root kite the thing.)

Incidently, huge thanks to Gnollguy. His post about druid builds got me thinking about cat form and started the experiments.

And congratulations to Nobbie again!

Cheers,
Watto - I'm currently having a ball experimenting with cat form in group PvP - 44.

Thanks I too am not focused on any Druid animal form, I just pick whatever gets me experience faster, i.e. Cat against low-armor caster mobs as Watto mentioned. Leveling up professions means that you need to reach level 10, 20 and 35 (for the max. profession skill level 300). There is no way around it (and that is a good thing IMO). While I made my three Horde crafter chars, and also an Alliance char (Night Elf Druid), I noticed that doing the usual quest series per area for the additional quest experience bonuses isn't that hot at all. Grinding equal, or 1-2 levels lower mobs, is king here because each character can be twinked with the best possible "green" equipment for its level without making big financial investments. Green stuff, and even some of the "blue" stuff for level 1 to 35 is very cheap now that the game is a half year old. The experience bonuses you get from the usual quest lines is rather low compared to what you can grind in the same time with twink equipment. The usual Hillsbrad quest, for example, yields about 2000-2500 xp, and a dead Bear, Lion or Spider already gives 175-200 xp at level 20+. Compare that to the time required you need to find and visit the quest mobs, and you'll see that you can get these 2000-2500 xp much faster by killing, for example, spiders and lions (lower armor mobs than bears) near Darrow Hill or the Lordamere Internment Camp. So, if you intend to build crafting chars, there are three ways to level up fast: Grinding, grinding and grinding

I don't think that's true, or at least not true for all players. In sheer exp over time comparing the 200 exp per mob with the time it takes to run to town and hand in the quest and get 2500 exp suggests questing wins out.

I think where there's an element of merit to your theory is in terms of concentration. It may be easy for some people to "switch off" and just kill kill kill as almost a meditative pastime. Questing requires more thinking about different things where grinding requires thinking about the same thing

The next point, not relevant to your progress Nobbie, but relevant to some others is that grinding is by far the safer of the two methods on PvP servers if you just pick somewhere quiet and, if disturbed, move

I find that if I really want to power through exp then questing as fast as possible and really concentrating on what I am doing, planning several quests at once, is far more effective. Then again, I've levelled up lots of characters now and I know the Horde quests extremely well

Yes, the time it takes to run to town and hand in the quest and get 2500 exp is shorter than grinding 10x 250 xp mobs, but questing involves finding and getting to the quest mobs, plus quests are usually more difficult to solve than safely grinding mobs in quick succession. So, in the end it's at least the same xp/time ratio, I'd say