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.

Ishnu-alah, stranger…

It’s been a long and circuitous route but my baby druid finally hit 70 three days ago. She’s also almost met my old druid’s stats 10 minutes after hitting 70 simply due to the [Strength of the Clefthoof] set, a couple of pieces of Merciless Gladiator gear and knowing which quests to target for tanking gear - such as that which gives [Umberhowl's Collar].

I got the mats together for a [Belt of Natural Power] and [Shadowprowler's Chestguard]and am working on my leatherworking level so I can craft [Boots of Natural Grace].  Oh and maybe I can buy a [Cloak of the Craft] and some [Swiftstrike Shoulders] if I suddenly find a gold tree.  The wonder of having a ’suger daddy’ main, eh?  And all of this whilst grinding my way into some nice SSO rep and golds for my epic flying form.

0 - Kara in 2 Days

So, I’ve gotten myself some decent gear together with minimal instancing.  The only gear I’ve gotten which was not crafted, quested or … honored? is my [Burnoose of Shifting Ages] (yes I know it’s a warrior cloak but it had more armor and defense than my current one) and [Dragonhide Gloves] (which require a couple of Durn/BM runs).  I’m not a huge fan of running with pugs and not a lot of people in the guild are running normal instances these days so I didn’t want to spend a lot of time looking for gear in them.  The only one I will be doing until I’m sick of it is Steamvaults for my [Earthwarden].

If you have enough gold / resources and a will to pvp whilst levelling then you can easily hit Kara-ready tanking stats soon after hitting 70.  I did the daily pvp quest every day from level 60 and usually one other game.  My dps was terrible but I took some healing kit and helped by adding a few heals here and there - this got me my shoulders.  I then spent one whole day pvp-ing to get enough to get my helm at level 69.  Even if you did this at 70 it’s still only one day.

Belt, neck, one ring and clefthoof set were crafted.  Wrist, idol and one trinket were quest and the other trinket, ring, and the gloves were bought / rep items.

So, really, it’s entirely possible to hit Kara right after hitting 70 but it does require some preparation.  Of course, I’d totally recommend doing plenty of tanking prior to hitting 70 so you’ve had experience as this is as important as just having decent gear.

Kara, really?

Yep! Though I’m not sure our raid lead agreed at first either. Oddly, this week one of the groups hadn’t finished Prince / Netherspite - they wanted to go again to finish it but didn’t have a full group.  Tanks are always short in our guild so I offered myself.  I rattled off my stats to our druid lead and he approved me to OT - he would MT Prince since his gear is, obviously, a lot better than mine.   So, off we go, get Prince down and… our druid lead had to leave.

I got to MT Netherspite two days after hitting 70.  /cheer. I know Netherspite can be tanked by a non-geared tank but I was tanking him between phases too so we could go all out on dps (low dps group).

Now, tanking one of the easier bosses in Kara (tanking wise) doesn’t mean, necessarily, you can tank all of Kara easily.  However, you could easily main tank the earlier bosses (for a guild newly starting Kara) and definately off-tank anything.  Druids are one of the easiest classes to do this with - like the tailoring casters you can hit Kara with gear which will last you a long time.  Hell, if I’d tried harder I could easily have even gotten a more druidy cape ([Thoriumweave Cloak]) and Earthwarden already.

The one big downside to this is that my kitty gear is pretty lame, still.  I’ve been concentrating almost entirely on my tanking gear and have only picked up kitty upgrades as they’ve come along.  My run in Kara yesterday, though, grabbed me some [Skulker's Greaves] so I’m on my way to getting my kitty gear on par with my tanking gear.

Netherspite

The Netherspite fight has special meaning to me.  On Mharai, my first druid, I was invited to off-tank Kara 5 minutes after getting attuned.  I hadn’t expected to go, hadn’t read tactics, had no buffs except food buffs.  I had my druid mentor with me (one of the best druids I’ve ever met) and we stood and practiced beam jumping.  It was just so much damn fun, I was doing something which was more than just ‘tank and spank’ and was getting to be the ‘main tank’ during that time.

It’s always been one of my goals since those first few Kara runs to main tank Kara and, hopefully, it won’t be long until I can fulfill that wish.

OMG DMG!

One of the odd things about going from being DPS / Healer for so long is getting used to taking damage again.   On the first pull I had this moment of “OHSHIT so much dmg!”. Then, of course, I was heal spammed.  I wasn’t actually losing that much  health but I was tanking three mobs who were higher and hitting harder than anything I’ve tanked on Jhai up until now.  It feels nice to be the focus of heals by design rather than getting them because I’m a rogue who likes to attract a little bit of special attention from the trash mobs in Mount Hyjal.  *ahem*

Life’s all aboot strivin’ fer things - whether it’s fer a few shiny sword or just tae be the best person y’can be.  Doin’ things ye shouldnae supposted tae be doin’ is somethin’ ah like to strive fer.  Ah ken ah’m no amazin’ at it but ah like tae push mah own limits!  Seems a little o’ that attitudhas been rubbin’ off on the wee druid ah took under mah wing and now she’s doin’ allsorts!

It’s true - I like trying stuff to see if I can get away with it.  One of my favourite ways to do this is to go and play with elite mobs - on Mharai, when I was levelling,  I found it hard to get groups.  Low population server + fast leveller = scarce people.  So, I had to do it for myself! Being a druid I had a number of tools at my disposal, tank, melee dps and healer all wrapped into one.  It took a while for me to get my methodology down but conquering elites by myself really gave me  taste for that sort of thing.

On Jhai, as I’ve levelled, I’ve tried more of these sorts of things than I did on Mharai.  The confidence I’d gained by Netherstorm on one druid bolstered me to try much earlier with my younger druid.  So, with this in mind, I decided to plod around Nagrand and try my hand at the Nessingwary quests solo at level 67.

Banthar: No real issues here.  He has a lot of health but doesn’t hit too hard - tanking gear on, throw a few hots and charge in.  It came close and I had to shift and heal a few times (so much harder when you don’t have Warstomp!) but I made it through without too much fuss! I ended up having about 1/5 health at the end of this fight.

Jhai: 1 Nagrand: 0

Bach’lor: This fiesty talbuk was a whole different kettle of fish - he hasn’t got much health but he hits like a truck.  It came very close two times, got hm to 1% then… dead.  Ouch.  But wait, he died too?! W00t! One of my bleeds had killed him just as I died.   Obviously, I finished this fight with no health.

Jhai: 2 Nagrand: 1

Gutripper: The easiest of the three, I’d say.  Hits moderately hard and does moderate damage - the biggest problem was avoiding the tonne of mobs around him. I finished this fight at around 1/3 health.

Jhai: 3 Nagrand: 1

So far, so easy - they’re all 67 elites and not the special super-amazing-imba type world elites.

So, next up was the momma of all elephants -  Tusker.  She’s a formidable level 58 elite, hit’s like a bag of bricks and does a nasty bleed effect.  She also does a throwback and has a tonne of health.  Hmm.  Charging in with hots did no good and after a couple of tries I was getting a bit frustrated.

Jhai: 3 Nagrand: 2

I went back to levelling since I was close to 68 and, not long after dinging, remembered an old technique I’d used to use.  I can’t beleive I didn’t remember and it’s mentally prodded me into realising my druid skills are terribly rusty.

Pounce > mangle (4) > rip > bear > bash > run > heal > charge > etc.

Jhai: 4 Nagrand: 2

I had completely forgotten how useful pouncing and then taking a deep chunk of hp out was when trying to kill high hp mobs.  Bear is eventually a necessity as are heals but that little thing makes all the difference.  I killed Tusker so comfortably easily I reckon I could have done it prior to hitting 68 if only I’d remembered that one thing .  Ah well, live and learn!

Soloing

As a soloing class I’ve always felt druids beat most others - HoT’s, easily obtainable high stamina / armor and pretty good dps mean a class which doesn’t rely on having to kite mobs into oblivion (though this is also totally doable for a druid).  Of course, I think half the battle is knowing or at least being very comfortable with the class you’re playing.  I have a hunter - I’m terrible at huntering and don’t much like it so I find I don’t have the concentration or inclination to learn all the ‘tricks’ it requires to pull off the more spectacular stunts - my rogue and druid, on the other hand, I am much more comfortable about maneuvering becaus I like both classes and enjoy picking at their abilites.

I’m sure a while back someone mentioned posting on the subject of soloing things but I cannot for the life of me remember who - if someone could furnish me with a link I’d give much huggage!

Since I didn’t manage to get a screenie up last Sunay (bah!) I’m putting up a double round this week!  A while ago I was in Darnassus on my Tauren druid, trying to take some screensfor Phae’s Arbor Day celebrations.  I ended up in trouble with the guards and spent a lot of time swimming about in the water leading to my first shot:

In other druidy goodness, last weeks Kara run was choc full of all sorts of ‘em:

Hopefully, at some point, we’re going to try a full 10 druid Kara!  Two shy people seem to have snuck off the side - or perhaps the warrior and shammy wanted to get in on the druidy goodness!

Edit: Oops, seems I pressed sumbit insteadof save… oh well, ‘Saturday’ screenies this week ;P

One thing I’ve oft said when referring to my old druid is that I did not like healing with her.  Something about hots etc. just didn’t click for me.

However, I promised myself that I’d do some pvp whilst levelling 60-70 in an effort to have some honor when I hit 70 for my pvp tanking items.  Now, a level 62 druid has little chance of damaging anything in kitty or baer so I figured - hey, I might as well be useful and heal!

Now, of course, I’m used to healing in bg’s with Avarix (my shammy) who has a lot more oomph to his heals but I started to find it oddly satisfying to hop in, throw a few hots into the fray, and hit some big heals before I was inevitably mortal squished by some Tauren warrior.

So - now I’m actually keeping a third set (kitty, baer, resto) as I level.  I’d done this, sorta, on Mharai but it had been a case of making sure I had something for all slots for ‘healing’ in my bank with more heed paid to how it looked than it’s value as healing gear.

A few runs in Slave Pens / Underbog netted my new little druid some tasty feral items along with the utterly awesome looking [Coilfang Hammer of Renewal] and [Tunic of the Nightwatcher] which, along with some crafted gear and quest rewards (for which there was no feral alternative) has brought me up to a whopping ~350 +heal *ahem*.

Now, my first love as a druid will always be feral - I love the challenge of tanking and shredding things kitty-style, but I’ve found a new fondness for the resto side.  I’m really not sure why I’ve suddenly found an ‘understanding’ or any enjoyment with druid healing.

I suspect that because I’ve now had another healer whom I enjoy playing and have had some experience with the ‘flow of damage’ in a fight, that I now find it easier to deal with triksy hots.

For a first time healer, in my opinion, or someone doing druid off-healing, hots are hard to fathom - you need to know how much all of that hot will tick for or have a good idea at least.  Priest, shammy and paladin healing has a much more immediate effect in terms of a persons health boost (I know priests have hots, too, but they tend to be stopgaps from what I’ve seen) and it’s easier, in my opinion, to judge how and when to heal.  As a druid, healing a group seems much more preemptive in nature.

Anywas, I’ll stop rambling now before I make a fool of my little nooblet-druid-healery self and leave it at the fact that I now have an eye on learning a bit about the leafy side of druiding.

I never thought I’d say that…

Busy, busy, busy! Ah’v been doin’ everythin’ this week an’ ah’d like tae tell ye all aboot it.  Helps me relax, ken?  After a long week o’ smitin’ all sorts ah jist feel like sittin’ back and chewin’ the fat wi’ u lot.

I feel sorry for my poor wee blog - it’s been half abandoned these last few weeks due to everything seeming to hit at once busyness wise.  So, this post may be a bit rambley and all over the place but I was to stick it down for posterity.

Rogue

I has a new hat.  It is an improvement on my old hat.  I r happy rog.  Of course, it clips my hair so I’ve turned helm off again and I’ll continue to look… exactly the same.  /sigh  I also need to drag myself into AV or something this coming week, too, as Blizz felt it was a great idea to make pve off-hand swords none-too-easy to come by in TBC.

Shaman

I have spent so much gold on my shaman this week and I need to spend more.  Having s4 coincide with your new pve gear is not nice.  Many, many primal lifes have been farmed and I’m still not maxed on what I’ll need.

I managed to grab [Light's Justice] last week - it’s nice to have something other than the s1 mace to look at - even though I did love its glowyness.

Avarix has also rounded out his gear with [Runed Scales of Antiquity] thanks to a few guildies helping me farm 2 badges after tonight’s Kara run! Now I need more primal lives and gems… Ah well, happy is me that my shammy is wearing a dress again! *Ahem*

Druid

Mushrooooom.  That is what my druids level has done since I last mentioned her (apparently much to Softi’s despair).  She’s now done what my other druid did about a year ago:

It’s such a difference to when I brought my hunter through the Portal - I had to make myself log in and dragged my way through the quests.  Now, on my druid, I’m eager to go and even enjoyed grinding Hellboars so I could quickly boost my leatherworking skill.

Learning from the past I had collected any unidentified plant parts I’d come across on my hunter and saved them.  When I dinged 60 on my druid I promptly rode to the Cenarion Expedition Outpost and handed in 360 to achieve honored status.  /cheer That grabbed me quite a number of leatherworking patterns (the all important [Strength of the Clefthoof] ones) and a nice chunk of reputation towards the coveted Exalted.

A guidlie kindly ran me through Ramparts (though I’d been asking for a same-level group to practice tanking with, hehe) and I got just about every leather / melee dps piece which can drop except the staff.  Go me.  Ever had a char which seemed incredibly lucky drops-wise? Like my other druid, Jhai seems to have a gift for getting what she wants.  I’ve probably jinxed it now, oh well.

Unfortunately, this morning my PC’s HDD gave out on me (it’s been throwing errors for weeks and I’ve got a new one to replace it… I’m just short a cable!) so I won’t be tanking until that’s sorted - I can play my shaman on my laptop but both the rogue and druid need the PC as I use mouse-button keybinds which don’t work on the laptop without disabling the trackpad…  This wouldn’t be a problem for me as I never use the damn thing but the other half uses the laptop more and prefers the trackpad.

I started using mouse button keybinds when I got a new mouse after Christmas - I staved my finger and it hurt to flex it sideways too much so I bound one of my oft-used abilites (Slice and Dice) to the mouse, leaving Sinister Strike for my other hand.  This means less flexing and so less strain on my already slightly weird fingers.  For my druid shifting to bear is on the mouse - this works for levelling as it’s a very fast way to shift into bear but I may change it as it’s not something I should be using that extensively in instances - I think I might put mangle on that mouse button, or lacerate when I get it.  I’ll need to figure that out once my new HDD is installed.

Fire Festival

My favourite writing bone to gnaw on when it comes to WoW is replayability - this means you’ll be straddled with a post about my Fire Festival shenanigans soon concerning that and other fun aspects.  *ahem*  Suffice to say, at the moment, that I’m enjoying myself.

Ok, so ah pulled a bit o’ a fast one last night but, hell, I’m a rogue, whit dae ye expect?

I was sitting last night, playing my druid, and looking at her underwhelming leatherworking level.  You see, I’ve decided to make her a tribal leatherworker.  Yes, tribal.  She is still going to be feral but, to be honest, the elemental crafted items really aren’t worth crafting for a druid or at all - there are easy to get upgrades from quests and instances which are better.  So, I figured I’d get her tribal leatherworking so that if I ever decide to spec doomkin for fun in pvp I’d have a decent starter set.  I know you don’t need to pick a specialisation to continue levelling leatherworking but I like to do things in the right ‘order’.

Anyways, as anyone who’s levelled tribal leatheworking knows it is the most painful leatherworking profession quest.  Or, rather, it has a set of pre-quests which are just painful to do.  They start here and end up costing the following, ingredients wise:

• 8 Wildvine
• 112 Turtle Scale
• 192 Thick Leather

Not so bad, you think?  Well, let me beg to differ. See those scales? Y’can’t buy them for love nor money! Noone grinds them unless they’re doing this quest, it seems, and noone wants to grind more once they’ve done it! You’ve gotta go out and skin the buggers.  Now, the turtles in the Hinterlands drop around 90% - some drop none but some drop two.  However, being turtles it takes rather a long time to kill them if you’re of a level with them (which I was last night).  I spent about 45-55 minutes last night and got around 20-30 scales.  Bah.

Now, I think half the problem here is that I’ve done these quests twice before - on Aurik for fun as I wanted the recipes and leatherworking was new and on Mharai because I went tribal leatherworking on her for the same reason as I am on Jhai.  Now, doing it a third time, I was utterly bored. Not only that but it’s incredibly expensive to level it this way in terms of mats cost (something I wish they’d address…).

However, an idea struck me - when I had been doing alchemy on Avarix and having trouble getting BM runs for my specialisation I was tempted to spec transmute mastery (which I could solo-quest) and then change specialisations as it meant you didn’t have to do the other quest.   I was sure you could do the same for leatherworking but was not sure tribal would be available this way because the quests needed to get the tribal specialisation are pre-requisites, not just a direct quest.   I could find no info on it except one post on thotbott which did not confirm either way but suggested what I had been thinking.

The easiest, by far, to do is elemental (for me, anyway as I had the stuff in the bank).  I figured, hell, at level 49 it’s only going to cost me 25 gold to try the ‘respec’ so why not?

Quick hop to Searing Gorge, picked up Elemental Leatherworking and dropped it again for 25g (this reportedly increases to a max of 100g at level 70), flew to Tanaris and, with some trepidation clicked on “Soothsaying for Dummies”.  BINGO!  One Tribal respec done without the arduous task of completing the wild leather quests.  Hopefully they won’t patch this - it’s a pain to level leatherworking multiple times and go through that whole, irritating quest line over and over.

Of course, if you’re sensible you won’t level leatherworking in the first place.  *ahem*

Sometimes…. sometimes ye come across somethin’ which makes ye’ tear up. Ah’m a Dwarf who cannae understand random acts o’ nastyness - ah just don’t know why anyone would do it. What’s even more surprisin’, these days, is when someone goes oot o’ their way to be nice to ye.

“Log your Druid Aurik!”
“Hmm? K” *log* “Whut now?”
“…”
*checks mail randomly whilst hanging around*

As the title of the mail said - he’d sent me [The Master's Treads] as well as a few of the agi elixirs I’d given him which he’d not used. All I’d done was loan him some spare elixirs in a raid which went on a little late - which I had offered since my alchemist had procced nicely when creating them and I had plenty spare for the giving.

I’d also happened to mention lack of leveling enthusiasm earlier in the day. I would love to have a tank again at 70 - so often even things like key-frag runs aren’t possible as we have so few tanks available - even as alts. This mail really has given me a wish to get on with leveling - not just to wear the boots but because I got the warm fuzzy feelin’ of being cared for! (Which is why I was promptly verbally abused by Softi when she came online and found she was now 3 levels behind *ahem*).

This guy is pretty awesome - he’s the guy I go to for shamany questions - “Er, crap, any hints on healing Vexxalus?” type of stuff. He always takes time when I ask things and when I need to rant. He sticks up for people when the RL gets a bit shouty and isn’t afraid to speak his mind when he feels something has been said unfairly - he’s also damn good to his friends.

And he was thoughtful enough to send me some stuff to motivate my druid levelling. So I just wanted to make a post to say how awesome he is. Even if he’ll never know as he doesn’t read the blog.

Thank you, A.

Well, whit de ye know, ah got myself somethin’ other than a sword… Gotta say it looks pretty funky but ah’v no clue how to use it…

I’m afraid you’re going to have to suffer through another gear post - there’s something a bit more substantial in the works but, unfortunately, it’s slurping up all my blog-creativity! So, yet another shinies post. At least there’ll be pretty pictures, right?

So, tonight was Mount Hyjal and, for about the millionth time, a [Claw of Molten Fury] dropped. I think everyone and their Granny has one by now in our raid group - even the resto shammies have ‘em for offspec etc. so I picked it up for base dkp!

It’s a little better than my main-hand sword [Talon of Azshara] but I’m not sure if it’ll actually be worth taking over a sword - I’ll need to grab a respec and try Fist / Sword (which is apparently second highest dps anyway) -it might be a nice change. Of course… I’ll have to get my ‘unarmed’ fighting skill up from 246.. ouch.

I’ve been a huge swords fan since my early levels but this fist gets major bonus points for being as big as I am…

Avarix, my Shammy chain-healbot got his first full Kara run this week too - I’d previously only been up to Opera on him and so jumped at the chance when the guild mentioned they were short a healer for a second Kara group! I was in mostly blues with a few rep purples and buyables but I think I managed ok - though a little more mp5 wouldn’t hurt!

I walked out with [Pantaloons of Repentance], [Forestlord Striders], and [Cord of Nature's Sustenance] for main spec and [Rapascallion Boots], [Dragonheart Flameshield], and [Scaled Breastplate of Carnage] for offspec.

I’d just gotten myself back in all mail and once again I’m catapulted into leather and cloth for healing! I don’t mind, of course, all of the healing items were decent upgrades for me but I seem to be looking a lot more priestly / druidy since Wednesday, hehe. Very… purple, too!

As for the offspec gear? I was absoloutely tickled to get the Dragonheart Flameshield - it looks awesome!

One day I might actually get enough pieces of gear to try enhancement. *cough*

Last, but by no means least, my little ferlol, Jhai has been geting herself some gear courtesy of a guildie giving a few alts a run or three through Deadmines! I snagged myself a few peices of the Defias set and was amused to pick up both [Rhahk'Zor's Hammer] and then [Smite's Mighty Hammer] in two consecutive runs. I love two handed maces on my druid - much more funky than staves, in my opinion!

I came out of those runs with a decent tanking set - 1.7k hp at level 23! Shame noone wants to run old-world instances these days… I’ll need to see if I can grab a whole group of low-level guildies and blast through some of them for fun and old-times-sake shenanigans.

Ok, this post seems to have gone on a bit longer than intended for just a gear-splat. I think I’m just rebelling, temporarily, against writing more in the post’o'dhoom to come. Bah.