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*