Ah telt ye that thon bloody Paladin wis gonnae end up healin’ an’ a wis right.  Ah caught him goin’ we some other adventurers tae the Deadmines (they still huvnae sorted that wee problem oot it seems…) and he had some interestin’ clothes on.  In fact, when he came oot he had even more interestin’ clothes oan…

What is this monster I’ve created….

Well, see, there’s this guy and he has some issues and he wants ye tae fix ‘em fer him.  Well, ah’m a believer o’ fixin’ things fer yerself - especially when the asker looks so shifty - so ah  wisn’t havin’ anything to do wi him but thon shaman is a bit o’ a soft touch and said he’s go do his dirty work. *grumble*  Anyways, he comes back tae me a wee while later wi’ the biggest most ridiculous hat ah’v ever seen… all proud of himself.  Well, it was all ah could do tae no laugh…

Since the patch I’ve been wanting to get my grubby mitts on [Don Carlos' Famous Hat].  I mean, come one, what could be more awesome than a full size ghost wolf pet?  Especially alongside a shaman in ghost wolf form!  After a bit of fun with Archi I grabbed a few guildies and we set off to procure our hats.

It took a little while to find him first time (he patrols the long, straight road) but when we did we unleashed all sorts of doomkin on him!  Softi tanked him whilst our enhance shammy, Az, took out his pet.  The mage (Grav) pewpew’d and I did the healzor beams thing I do.

As you can see, this pic was taken after Grav and I already grabbed our hats.  The encounter, despite being in heroic, is so easy we didn’t need our real ones.  Although killing him saves you to the instance you can zone out, set the instance to normal then heroic again, zone back in and he will have respawned.  This may be fixed in future patches so I reccomend you scoot along now to do it!  You don’t even need the quest to do this, though it will get you a basic version of the same hat (same model, no on-click wolfie).

Showing off our lineup of three gazillion wolves.  Ok, so maybe a small exaggeration but still…. can you figure out which are the shamans!? (the floaty water globes are just a small hint ;P)

Dancing with this hat cannot be beaten.  /dance

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!

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…