A while back I mentioned my glee at tanking Prince Malchezaar for the first time but in the last few weeks I’ve trumped that personal best!

Since the patch went live there have been pugs aplenty going through Gruul and Magtheridon - now I usually wouldn’t touch 25-man raid pugs with a 10ft barge pole but I figured that post-patch it wouldn’t be too bad and there was a guildie heading along with them. Now, there were the usual mishaps and mess-ups which happen with pugs (loot was a nightmare) but I walked away with the biggest prize of all - I main-tanked Gruul and Maggy!

Again, I know, it’s not so amazing for all you BT / MH / SWP tanks but for my little baby druid this was above and beyond my dreams tanking wise.  When I joined the pug I was asked for stats and immediately placed as ‘main tank’.  Oh crap, thinks I, I’ve never tanked these, hell, I’ve only been to Gruul and Magtheridon maybe twice ever.

Oh well, I have a fair knowledge of the boss abilities even so - what the hell.  Lets do this!

On the tanky side of things since the patch, my tps has gone up by more than double.  I am specced into every bear talent I can get my grubby paws on and was using the same gear as I was pre-patch (which I might need to re-evaluate a bit as it was pretty heavy on defence which we no longer need…)

A lot of the excess armor on gear was turned into strength or stamina etc. but on the whole I’d say tanking is so much easier now it’s unbelievable.  Even with the big dps boosts everyone else got very few people came even close to me on threat - a nice change to pre-patch where my high defensive gear didn’t lend itself well to high tps.  Oh, also, rage for dodging with a dodge rate which was as high as 50% at times? OMNOMNOMNOM.

Now to go learn how to kitty-dps again! Bleargh.

I know, late to the finish line for the BA topic as usual but better late than never, eh?

I’ve played a variety of classes - some to 70 and some not - and have experienced a wide range of play-styles amongst them.   There are two classes, though, which draw me in completely: Druid and Shaman.  I’ve always been a bit of a nature-lovin’ hippy at heart - I don’t kill critters and I’ve hugged lots of trees.  I like the ‘nature’ of the classes (harhar) and how they play but for very different reasons.

Druids

Versatile, Graceful, Strong, Fast

Druids are the jack-of-all-trades - even unspecced they can fulfil any role in a pinch and fully specialised are a force to  be reckoned with.

Doing anything as a druid has always felt slightly graceful to me, in that I feel there is a nice flow to my actions - one leads to the next which brings you to the next.  There are so many buttons and so many ways to do things that one has a plethora of choice and can turn any situation around like some sort of choreographed dance.

Druids are also strong -  when the goin’ gets tough they hunker down and can outlast a flurry of blows under a thick fur hide or protected by barkskin.  In leather gear they’re no pushovers and even our caster form has a big, feathery shell to protect them!

The nature of hots and other instant abilities makes this class feel very ‘fast’ paced for me - though I guess that might just be lack of practice!

Shamans

Solid, Strong, Powerful, Flexible

Whilst I think of druids as versatile - able to take on another role in a pinch - I think of shamans as flexible.  Why? Well, I’ve spent a lot of my time as a resto shaman in any other group except the healer group - I buff the melee or casters most often and, although I may not have the buffed totems that enhance or elemental do, I am still able to provide some measure of benefit to almost any group I join.  I can tweak my totem set-up and tailor it to the needs of my party - flexibility within my chosen role.

Shamans are healers in mail.  Not as tough as paladins maybe but they have a shield and can take a few bumps and bruises in a dire situation - they also tend to have reasonably high health pools and generally survive better than their squishier leather and cloth counterparts.  I’m a big fan of survivability so this aspect of shamans is greatly appealing to me.  The fact I can add an Earth Shield to that and make a warrior get so bored of lesser healing wave spam that he walks away has always tickled me.

Resto is my chosen spec and, despite being a little focussed on one particular spell, I do feel it is a powerful one - not only in terms of ‘efficiency, hps, etc.’ but when my chain heal connects it hits reaonably big.  As much as I do like being a resto druid from time to time I admit that it can be a little disconcerting having to wait for all the little numbers to add up…

But what about rogues, etc.?

As much as I do love my rogue and enjoy playing him, and although his ‘personality’ is more in line with my own, I don’t feel I am, deep inside, a roguey type.  Maybe the hugging sorta gives that away?  I like happy, cheerful and strong - which is why of all races I chose a dwarf for my rogue.  I can be happier playing a dwarf rogue than any other race but as much as I loved my big swords I’d hang them up in a moment for a good sturdy staff or hefty, healy mace.

Overall

I think that both druids and shamans are the best fit classes for me - playing both gives me the ability to help others and be a strong solo player - druid gives me the ability to play a complex, graceful class with many twists and turns to it and shaman gives me a nice, earthy, solid and dependable healer to help my teammates with.

Ah cannae say ah find the sight o’ the knickers o’ some big blue demon aw that appealin’ but Jhai seems tae be somewhat pleased a’ this picture she took.  Somethin’ about action shots an’ dreams and… well, ah don’t really want tae know why that lass is so keen on gettin’ hersel’ hit like that.  Druids, eh?

SQUEE I got to tank Prince, I got to tank Prince!  *ahem*

I know the screenie this week isn’t too amazing to look at but it marks a big achievement for me.  There are bigger bosses, there are badder bosses, there are more complex bosses to tank and we got about the easiest infernal drops you could hope for last night… But I TANKED PRINCE.  One of the main reasons I got so irked with my first druid / guild was being asked to sit out and dps whilst a warrior tanked.  I am not hugely fond of kitty dps (though it is growing on me now…) but I love tanking.  I wish you could have a section in the new achievements window to list ‘personal achievements’ - this is one I’d add.

I also tanked Attumen (I’ve only been on midnight before), Moroes, Maiden, Illhoof (had only done Kil’rek before) and Nightbane - and my guildies had to listen to me squeeing about tanking them each time, hehe.

This post details the druid epic flight form quest.  If you do not wish to be spoiled for it then please look away now!

I can’t seem to get my blog to cut in feed-readers so I’m going to add a nice, big, shiny picture so that you can hopefully remain unspoiled if that is your wish.

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Seems ah’m hangin’ up mah boots fer a while and going back tae Ironforge tae dae some er ’secretarial’ work.  You know, stuff tae dae wi’ documents and ‘filin’ them right’ and stuff. *Ahem*

I blame The Bloggers.  I really do.  It’s all their fault.  All those resto druids and shamans, holy paladins and priests. They’ve changed me.

Chain-Healing
What am I talking about?  About a week or so ago, now, I changed my main to my shaman.  I had been getting tired and bored of stabbing things from behind - I don’t know why as I’ve always loved melee.  A couple of times, however, we were short on healers for Mount Hyjal and I offered my shaman - he’s decently geared with quite a few of the T6 quality badge loot and the pick of Kara epics (still no bloody shield though /bitter) - and was taken along.

Wow.  Just… WOW.  There was a thrill and of  a new sort. A few subs like this and it had gotten to the point where I was actively hoping a healer would drop out just so I could go heal.  When I realised I was doing that I figured it was time to ask for a main change.  It might seem weird so close to Wrath but the guild is currently a little short of healers and heavy on melee dps and here I was with a reasonably geared resto shammy and wanting to chain-heal!

I have to say - it really has put the thrill back in raiding for me.  If you’d told me a year ago I’d actively seek out a healer role I’d have laughed.  If you’d said I’d give up a melee dps spot to do it I’d have laughed doubly hard.  Yet here I am. What has changed? No clue.  I have just found that I really, really enjoy healing and that, in a raid, it engages me far more than roguery does.

Even if most of what I seen in an evening looks something like this:

Hyjal has come alive again for me - every boss fight is not the same old dps cycle, the same old trinket clicking, the same old… old.. *snooze*.  Now I have to pay attention to totems, mana, incoming damage.  Each time I heal the same boss different people take different damage and everything is so new and exciting.  I guess the other thing is that I actually feel like I make a difference.

Doing a fight like Kaz’rogal where you’re staving off mana-reducing deuffs and still having to heal your little heart out is amazingly fun.  Every boss fight feels like a small triumph - more so than whittling away at a ginormous health pool over the course of five to ten minutes.

So, what now?

Of course, that doesn’t change stuff around here.  Aurik is and will remain ‘me’.  He is the personification of my real life self - short, dumpy, scottish, hyperactive and, of course, huggable! *ahem* This has never been a rogue blog nor one which shies from posting about alts so all you might find is that any ‘I went to BT and saw this boss, wow’, posts will be shamany rather than roguey.

Durid is for haelz!

But, that’s not the only healing I’ve been up to…

Yes, the tree is yours truly.  Embracing my new-found enthusiasm for the healy side I grabbed a respec to go heal for the budding young paladin tonk you see here.  I could have healed normal ramparts as feral but I really wanted to try things tree-style with all of the available bells and whistles.  It was a blast but perhaps a bit too easy an instance to judge if I’ve been tempted away from my feral side…  I had to respec the next day to tank some instances but my respec cost at the moment is very low so I might jump the fence a few more times!

I’ve managed to pic up some pretty nice epics just from doing some heroics where noone else wanted them so I’m sitting at around 1k healing already on my druid.  My spirit is a little low, though, as is my mp5 so I’m working on that.  I’ve also not enchanted anything yet - though as I don’t expect to be healing anything difficult I think I’ll see if I can grab some more healy gear whilst tanking before I start grinding out those primal lives.

Oh and I started playing my paladin again a little bit…

a third healer in the making?

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Seems like only yesterday she wis runnin’ aboot Azuremyst playin’ wi’ moths and jumpin’ off cliffs.  Then she got herself intae Outlands and finished her Druid trainin‘ an’ started tae learn how tae tank wi’ her face… Noo the wee scamp has been makin’ friends and got herself all sorts o’ new shinies.

It’s been a busy week for druidlet Jhai - since the all-druid Kara romp.  I’m working on a whole lot of things in order to get her a little more ‘ready’ for Wrath.  She won’t have the time to gear-up as substantially as my Rogue and Shaman have so I just want to make sure she has what she needs to start out fresh with on the next levelling push.

It’s important to me, personally, that I ‘vindicate’ my druidness.  I am a druid at heart, I love druids and I talk about them a lot bot here and in guild.  I sometimes get the feeling the ‘real’ druids (those with a druid as their main’ see me as somewhat of a nublet annoyance and that I need to prove myself to them.  It doesn’t help I’m totally under confidant about my abilites (this is not constrained to my druid, though) so I always shy away from pushing myself towards doing groups.

I had dreams and hopes on my old druid.  I had wanted Earthwarden, and I had wanted the Gilded Thoriumweave Cloak before I moved and started playing with Aurik.  It’s become a somewhat happy/peaceful thing for me to get these things on Jhai as it’s like fulfillment of old dreams.

Anyway, enough of my cheesy soppiness.

Factions

• Cenarion Expedition - Exalted! I got my [Earthwarden].  2H Maces > Staves. Tabard, too!
• Kurenai - Exalted! [Cobalt Riding Talbuk] I really like the white armored one but Mharai has that.
• Shattered Sun Offensive - Exalted! Almost every neck (except the boomie one) to play with.
• Aldor - Exalted! Well, once I had my necks I had to be able to use the fun procs, right? Access to the shoulder enchants is nice, too.
• Keepers of Time - Revered.  Well, at least I can get to Tanaris easily now?

So, via factions, I’ve gained a few nice upgrades.  These are all the really easy ones, though - I wouldn’t mind grabbing Lower City, The Sha’tar and Honor Hold revered / exalted just so I have access to some recipes, glyphs, tabards and nice items for both main and off sets.  Although Wrath is coming soon-ish the beta has shown that a lot of the really nice TBC items won’t be replaced for at least a little while and I’d like to be able to comfortably instance on my way up!  Oh and  I wouldn’t mind Sporeggar / Ogri’la rep for the pet…

Skills

• Cooking - 330 and on its way up.  I need to go around and get myself recipes so I can cook all of the meat I have kicking about in various toons bags.
• Fishing - Ugh, I think I’m sitting about at 245 or so? I always enjoyed flitting about and fishing on the druid, though, it’s a lot faster than re-mounting for all of those little pools of fishing in mountain ponds.

What Next?

So… what else do I want to work towards my ‘druid v2′?  First of all I could do with boosting my dps gear.  Oddly enough, lately I’ve been asked to dps rather than tank a few times and I feel more than a little sub-par as I’ve gotten most of my dps from quest /crafted gear.   I have a few nice pieces, no doubt, but other bits are a little lacking - I need to get my fuzzy butt into Black Morass and see if I can get my trinket, for instance.

Epic flying form I could get… but I’d like to actually have some gold so  I can buy, you know, repairs?! Hehe.  Maybe if I spend a little more time on dailies and less time putting about trying to avoid them now I’m exalted.  I could also finish all the quests I have in SMV or do the Ogri dailies instead to avoid boredom.  As soon as I have a decent cushion I’ll see about getting myself epic pidgeon form.

Oh, and I need to go PvP and get myself some s2 gloves.  /sigh

Ok ok, I know.  Beta stuff.  I’m not meant to be posting much about it! The rest of my posts are pretty beta free, though, and I really wanted to show off parts of the two of the cool new druid abilities - Feral Charge (Cat) and Berserk (Bear).

If you are a wee bit curious then see after the cut!

(Won’t subject those to it as don’t want to see it /hugs)

Can’t get it to cut in a feed reader - apologies.  Can anyone tell me how to do it for next time?

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Ah know when ah’m no wanted, all them druids rompin’ their way through Karazhan and nary a dwarf nor a rogue in sight.  *Grumble*

Lightwalker’s furriest, featheriest and..barkiest? stepped into Karazhan with one aim - trash the place, druid style! I had been hoping to do this for a long time - especially after seeing Anna’s all-Pally Kara run - if those pretty-in-pink boys can do it why can’t we druids!?  We had some troubles getting things off the ground last week but this week things came together and we rampaged through the place.

There is little in Karazhan that is truly difficult for an all druid team - Aran and Romulo & Julianne require interrupts and Maiden reqires a dispell.  I managed to fraps most of it but, unfortunately, didn’t get any footage of moroes as I forgot to turn fraps on.  /crai

Please forgive the terrible youtube-quality and quickly-put-together video - I’m a newbie when it comes to recording and editing and compressing and and… yeah.  I kinda enjoyed it, though, so I’ma try to do some more and hopefully get better!

The Setup:

• 5 Ferlols
• 2 Boomkeks
• 2 Trees
• 1 HT Druid

Problems:

• No dispell
• No real interrupt
• No salvation!

Bonuses:

• 5 innervates
• 5 combat res’
• Pure, Distilled Awesome

Our guildies were mostly amused and seemed to think we’d lack dps or not be able to overcome the need for dispells / interrupts but I think, after thoroughly trashing the place, we can safely say we proved ‘em wrong.

Some notes:

Maiden we simply outhealed for the most part and combat res’d when there was just a bit too much damage going on.  Not really much trouble and in a pinch the melee could have all healed the tank (though it totally wasn’t needed with the number of hots flying).

Romulo and Julianne are actually pretty easy to interrupt - the Eternal Affection heal is a looooong cast and two feral druids can take turns standing out and waiting for it to be cast then feral charge interrupting it.

Aran is a pain in the big bear butt - we found that using the same technique as R&J meant losing far too much dps so eventually we just took the option of taking the poly.  As the video shows - druids can easily overcome this with a few tranquilities blasting!

Illoof isn’t actually too bad  You will end up with a lot of imps but we found that having a couple of swiping bears was enough to keep most of their attention and the relatively high health pool mitigated well (as well as some pretty awesome healing).

Plate will drop on every boss.  Whats not plate will usually be mail.  I think we ended up with 6 items actually going to people max… /facepalm

Dps is a bit slower than a mixed group and we weren’t setting any records but we finished in ~3 hours or so - not bad, really!

Screenies

(Oh and my little Jhai was the lootwhore of the evening, soaking up [Signet of Unshakable Faith], [Emberspur Talisman], [Aran's Soothing Sapphire], and squeefully [Gilded Thorium Cloak] (replaced my resto offhand twice in one run hehe).  I hate feeling like such a lootwh0re but, damnit, I hate seeing things sharded!)  The cloak was a really nice upgrade for me as was my new [Violet Signet] (dinged honored after downing Maiden!).

Go team druid!

Haha! That wee druid really has a thick hide - she decided tae go show them uppity inmates fae the Stockades o’ Stormwind what for! It wis a sight tae be beheld, ah’m tellin’ ye.

I wanted some wool cloth and a quick google told me the Stockades was my best bet for grinding some.  I have totally missed this sort of thing - barelling through an instance, pulling as much as I could and swipe, swipe, swipe.  Unfortunately Stockades has the problem that many of the mobs ‘backhand’ which stuns you no matter what your level so my health dipped a few times when I did some or the larger pulls.

Three runs and about 11 stacks of wool later and I was grinning from ear to ear.  I really missed having a tank char!  It’s so much more fun than killing things one at a time.

Seems tae me there’s somethin’ goin’ on around here. Somethin’ tae dae wi’ them druidic types. Well, ah told Jhai she’s tae spend a bit less time oan makin’ furballs an’ maybe spend some time lookin’ tae find oot what others o’ her type are up tae.  Seems they’re up to plenty, too.

Looks like there’s been a big ruckus involving Mr Kitty and his feathered, furred and barked(?) friends adversaries! Now, me, I loves my druids and I love the druid community - it’s one of the best class communities in wow, in my opinion, so I am furthering the cause with a little shoutout from my own two druids!

I’ll let Mr BBB explain.