Druids happen to be one of the most diverse classes WoW has to offer. They can heal, they can sneak, they can tank and they can cast painful Nature spells. They're jacks-of-all-trades, but masters of none. It also means that they're a really annoying class to kill and can go through a few dungeons all on their lonesome.
Druid Races
Like it or not, Horde and Alliance each only have one race that can be Druids. Each has their own skins for Cat and Bear Form, so anyone can identify allied and enemy Druids (as if the names in red and green weren't enough).
Night Elves vs. Tauren
Night Elves Tauren
+1% dodge
+5% health
Stationary Stealth / Improved Mobile
+15 Herbalism
Stealth
2-second stun
2% Nature spell hit reduction
2% Nature spell hit reduction
50% ghost speed
Tauren for the win, I say. The 5% health boost alone makes the cows much better Druids than Night Elves. The Night Elf dodge rate doesn't do very much in combat and the increase in ghost movement speed certainly doesn't do them any good if they're alive and kicking.
There is one noticeable change. Nature resistance is no longer actual resistance but just a reduced chance to hit. Now you take full damage f Aion Nature spells. Ouch. I'd rather have the resistance stat, thank you very much.
Druid Skills
Balance
Balance spells to Druids are like Elemental spells to Shamans. It turns the Druid into a spellcasting machine, tossing green lightning and lunar fire.
Barkskin
Mana Cost: None
Casting Time: Instant
Range: Self
Duration: 12 seconds
Cooldown: 1 minute
Special: Usable in all forms and while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep
Acquisition and Effect Table
Level Effect
44
20% damage reduction and immunity to spellcasting delay by damage
Available any time and in any form, this spell pulls the punch out of damage done to you and makes spellcasting that much easier. It's cooldown makes it available for most PvP conflicts, giving you enough time to burn your enemies or save your friends.
Cyclone
Mana Cost: 8% of base mana
Casting Time: 1.5 seconds
Range: 20 yards
Duration: 6 seconds
Special: One target only. Target is invulnerable during effect.
Acquisition and Effect Table
Level Effect
70
Immobilizes target
More crowd control, but this has more use against players than monsters. Six seconds means a lot more to people than monsters since the latter tend to have so much HP that you couldn't kill your primary target before the other one decides to join the fun.
Entangling Roots
Mana Cost: 8% of base mana
Casting Time: 1.5 seconds
Range: 30 yards
Special: Damage-breakable
Acquisition and Damage Table
Level Damage
8
20 Nature Damage with root over 12 seconds
18
50 Nature Damage with root over 15 seconds
28
90 Nature Damage with root over 18 seconds
38
140 Nature Damage with root over 18 seconds
48
200 Nature Damage with root over 24 seconds
58
270 Nature Damage with root over 27 seconds
68
351 Nature Damage with root over 27 seconds
78
423 Nature Damage with root over 27 seconds
This is the way to tell your enemy to shoo. Root them, run away, then cast Starfire. If Starfire doesn't break the roots on the first go, you'll have at most 23.5 seconds to cast another Starfire to compound your enemy's pain.
Faerie Fire
Casting Time: Instant
Range: 30 yards
Target: Enemy
Duration: 40 seconds
Special: Target cannot stealth or turn invisible.
Acquisition, Mana Cost and Effect Table
Level Mana Cost Effect
18
8% of base mana
- 175 armor
30
8% of base mana
-285 armor
42
8% of base mana
-395 armor
54
8% of base mana
-505 armor
66
7% of base mana
-610 armor
76
7% of base mana
-1260 armor
It's mana-efficient and lasts longer than a DoT, making it more effective against stealthed characters than anyone else. But if you have the time and mana, stack this with other armor-reducing spells during dungeon raids to help out all those physical classes.
Force of Nature
Acquisition Requirement: 40 points in Balance Talents, 1 point in Force of Nature talent
Mana Cost: 12% of base mana
Casting Time: Instant
Range: 30 yards
Duration: 30 seconds
Cooldown: 3 minutes
Acquisition and Effect
Level Effect
50
Summons 3 treants to attack enemies
The treants, despite their low damage and susceptibility to AoE death, are surprisingly annoying to everyone. Spell interrupts are enough to get on everyone's nerves... and give the druid enough time to put Starfire on someone.
Hibernate
Casting Time: 1.5 seconds
Range: 30 yards
Target: Enemy Beast or Dragonkin
Special: Damage-breakable
Acquisition, Mana Cost and Duration Table
Level mana Cost Duration
18
8% of base mana
20 seconds
38
8% of base mana
30 seconds
58
7% of base mana
40 seconds
Crowd control, period. There's at least one or two beast types hanging around in most dungeons and taking them out of combat always makes a difference. Just be sure to yell out which beast you're putting to sleep before one of your trigger-happy comrades decides to take a shot at it.
Hurricane
Casting Time: Channeled Spell
Range: 30 yards
Target: Area, Enemies only
Duration: 10 seconds
Acquisition, Mana Cost and Effect Table
Level Mana Cost Effect
40
91% of base mana
100 Nature damage per second + 20% attack speed slowdown
50
91% of base mana
142 Nature damage per second + 20% attack speed slowdown
60
91% of base mana
190 Nature damage per second + 20% attack speed slowdown
70
81% of base mana
303 Nature damage per second + 20% attack speed slowdown
80
81% of base mana
451 Nature damage per second + 50% attack speed slowdown
Before Typhoon, this was the only true area-of-effect spell that Druids had. Unfortunately, this spell eats so much mana and can be broken with enough hits that it's not very worthwhile if you're fighting alone. With a tank that can hold all the aggro, dropping the crowd's attack speed by 50% buys you both a lot of time.
Innervate
Mana Cost: 4% of base mana
Casting Time: Instant
Range: 30 yards
Target: Friendly
Duration: 20 seconds
Cooldown: 6 minutes
Acquisition and Effect Table
Level Effect
40
Spirit * 4 and full mana regeneration while casting
Healers will love you if you cast this spell on them. It's a group-preserving spell, especially if your healers have trouble coping with all the damage that's being done to their healing targets.
Insect Swarm
Acquisition Requirement: 20 points in Balance talents, 1 point in Insect Swarm
Casting Time: Instant
Range: 30 yards
Target: Enemy
Acquisition, Mana Cost and Effect Table
Level Mana Cost Effect
30
9% of base mana
3% reduced accuracy + 144 Nature damage over 12 seconds
30
9% of base mana
3% reduced accuracy + 234 Nature damage over 12 seconds
40
9% of base mana
3% reduced accuracy + 372 Nature damage over 12 seconds
50
9% of base mana
30 seconds
60
9% of base mana
3% reduced accuracy + 744 Nature damage over 12 seconds
70
8% of base mana
3% reduced accuracy + 1032 Nature damage over 12 seconds
80
8% of base mana
3% reduced accuracy + 1290 Nature damage over 12 seconds
Insect Swarm becomes an essential part of your combo, as you'll later find out. This spell is quite cheap and comes with damage-over-time like Moonfire, but the real kicker is that anyone with the improved version of Insect Swarm will take more damage f Aion Wrath spells.
You'll often find yourself casting Insect Swarm, then Wrath for an offensive combo, so don't miss this unless you want to spend the entire battle casting Entangling Roots before Starfire.
Moonfire
Mana Cost: 24% of base mana
Casting Time: Instant
Range: 30 yards
Target: Enemy
Acquisition and Damage Table
Level Mana Cost
4
7 - 9 Arcane + 12 Arcane over 9 seconds
10
13 - 17 Arcane + 32 Arcane over 12 seconds
16
25 - 31 Arcane + 52 Arcane over 12 seconds
22
40 - 48 Arcane + 80 Arcane over 12 seconds
28
61 - 73 Arcane + 124 Arcane over 12 seconds
34
81 - 97 Arcane + 164 Arcane over 12 seconds
40
105 - 125 Arcane + 212 Arcane over 12 seconds
46
130 - 154 Arcane + 264 Arcane over 12 seconds
52
157 - 185 Arcane + 320 Arcane over 12 seconds
58
189 - 221 Arcane + 384 Arcane over 12 seconds
63
220 - 258 Arcane + 444 Arcane over 12 seconds
70
305 - 357 Arcane + 600 Arcane over 12 seconds
75
347 - 407 Arcane + 684 Arcane over 12 seconds
80
406 - 476 Arcane + 800 Arcane over 12 seconds
The mana efficiency on this spell is terrible. As nice as it is to have a DoT to break stealth and as nice as it is that this spell is instant, it should be used only in instances where the enemy might escape.