My baby druid, last of the 70’s in The Burning Crusade, hit 80 this week!  As is the fashion I made the ding special – seeking out  a pile of rhinos to AoE grind down.

Most of my levelling with Jhai has been done in this manner – grabbing piles of mobs and seeing how many I could take.  Jhai was, and still is, a ‘bear spec’ druid and was glyphed as such too – I did a little tanking as I levelled but mostly all of that survival was put into use versus upwards of ten mobs at a time. *grin*

On hitting 80, she had the following waiting for her:

• [Durable Nerubhide Cape]
• [Trollwoven Girdle]
• [Trollwoven Spaulders]
• [Polar Vest]
• [Polar Boots]
• [Gloves of Fast Reactions]

Add a pile of [Heavy Borean Armor Kits], [Jormungar Leg Reinforcements], and [Fur Lining - Stamina] and I was a happy little bear! Fear not, furry tank readers – some of those stamina kits will be replaced with other enchants when the mat costs are reduced in the next patch and I gemmed for threat and avoidance not just more HP.

I reccomend any other alt or still-levelling druids to check out the posts at think tank:  Part 1 and part 2 which details which gear ranks best pre and post starting Naxx and Flyv’s Gem List – both sites have a plethora of information for baby bears beside what I’ve linked as well as some very good kitty articles.

Heroics!

So, sitting around, all eager, and knowing I could get a head-piece upgrade from the Utgarde Pinaccle quest I signed myself up on LFG as a tank – for heroic.  I don’t know why I was feeling so brave as usually the idea of jumping straight into something like that worries me but I didn’t have long to think about it – being a tank in a low-tank world meant an invite within moments.

“Er.. thats not your tank gear, right?”

I looked at my gear, oops, I’d switched to kitty gear to check if I could throw some items out.  Changed gear, hit bear form and they seemed a bit more pleased about the numbers.  Now, I could have had n0 avoidance but, as is the way with pugs, HP is king.  All was well, though, it seemed they had cleared to the first boss but lost their tank.  Worrying, but, hey no trash to clear.  First boss went well, I got a feel for their dps and off we went, romping through the instance.

I’m loving my new tools as a tank, on that run the second boss killed the healer (I think it was the rhino charge thing but I’m not entirely sure) and I survival instincts+frenzied regen+barkskinned which got myself and the dps through killing one of the ’sub bosses’, battle rezzed the healer and finished the boss off, no problem.

Third boss was tough for me – I’m not used to handling so many mobs running away from me (towards the healer) but otherwise it was fine.

The last boss I battle ressed another fallen comrade just after the boss had run for a boat and the stun had worn off.  Just scraped back into bear form before he hit me again but it was our second try and we had been low on dpIs the time before so I didn’t want to leave our rogue dead.

All in all though, I had forgotten how fun it could be to tank!  I signed up straight after for the daily heroic (Nexus) and had a similarly congenial pug once the retridin had learned not to hit a mob which was still running to me, hehe.

Bigger Groups

So it was, an evening or so later that our guild went to 10-man Archavon.  I asked to come on my druid as a pile of other alts were changing in and was allowed – I also asked to tank as my dps was terrible compared to the other off-tank (a death knight).  I had major trouble keeping my aggro up versus a raid pouring out thir highest dps – it felt so differnt to 5-mans where I had been able to keep my aggro up on mobs with little difficulty once I’d established it.

The next day, too, a 25-man I offered to tank due to their being a lack of tanks about and was having a very, very hard time keeping aggro.  A few misdirects helped out on our second try (we’d lost three dps before the first try so ran into the enrage) and I managed to keep above most of the dps except, I think, a mage, lock and paladin.  I was offtanking so the lack of rage didn’t help but even using enrage whilst offtanking, berserking as early as possible, stacking lacerates, keeping FFF up every time it came off cooldown and using maul/mangle I was still having trouble.  I’m hoping my threat will improve a little with gear (all those agi enchants add up!) but I would appreciate any extra tips on threat building for bosses where I need to have my maximum survival gear on (whilst writing this, Triz has suggested some changed to my talent build which I think I might implement)!

Eeep!

Khi and I have an odd issue with our router that when his laptop signs onto the network it sometimes boots the rest of the computers off and then falls over.  This means that we have to reset router/modem to get things working again.  Today, he signed in at the end of the above Wintergrasp 25 pug justas loot was about to be rolled.  The first item on the agenda? [Valorous Dreamwalker Legguards].  Cue a franctic scrabble to get back online.  Luckily I got back in before loot was assigned and asked if I could roll.  It seemed they had already rolled for offspec for the other two druids in the raid but both immediately renounced a claim on it when I came back (which is more than some would do in a pug, so I am eternally greatful).

Just a small upgrade…

…and that’s without taking gems into account (the numbers are including bear form, but bear form doesn’t show my new shinies so I pasted in my lithe, druidy self to one side).  Funny how she looks more like a clown now than whilst levelling – bloody bright blue polar gear.

Funnily enough, another druid got their first piece of tier gear (ever) from Archavon, too. Looks good, Khi *grin*