Friday, February 13, 2009

A walk on the wild side

Given that I'm slowly becoming more bored with my main, recently, (especially considering that I can no longer viably play in Warsong Gulch at 80, due to the overpowered state of the Paladin and Death Knight) last night I continued dusting off my very oldest alt.



Meet Cloudwalker. He is the single oldest character I have; made less than 24 hours before the character that was previously my main, a Mage. This was back in April, 2006, just after the patching in of Ahn'Qiraj. I always knew Cloud wasn't going to be my main, even at the start, but I was very curious about the Druid as a class back then, and still consider them interesting, if overly fragile.

Despite his overall age, Cloud wouldn't have more than 10 days /played, while Mirsh has more than 70, and probably more than 80 now...I haven't checked recently. The main reason for that is because during TBC in particular, I began to find his lack of survivability at low levels (he's level 30 now) to be very annoying.

I ended up doing two instance runs with him last night; one to the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard, and the other to Razorfen Kraul. On both occasions I was Restoration spec, but I'd earlier tanked the SM Graveyard with him as well, a week or two ago. In RFK, although I was still Resto, we had a Priest as well, and when the tank complained that the run was going slowly because of a lack of DPS, I went into Cat form, while putting Renew and Regrowth on my Cat actionbar, and exploiting Natural Shapeshifter to rapidly shift out at times, stack HoTs on the tank when the Priest was getting overloaded, and going back to Cat.

I'm starting to realise that where hybrids are concerned, the Druid is actually a better overall fit for me than the Paladin, as well. The reason why I say this is because with Cloud, I'm willing to be genuinely role agnostic; I will join a group, ask whether they need a tank or healer, and then spec/gear accordingly. With my alt Paladin, on the other hand, if I don't tank, I don't go; healing with that class is basically a one button affair, and I can't stand it.

The other thing I appreciate whenever I play either hybrid, truthfully, which I don't get to experience with my Hunter, is being a member of a class/role that people actually have respect for, and want to have around. The Hunter has been at the very bottom of WoW's social food chain for longer than I can remember, and as much as I love the Hunter as a class, it occasionally feels good not to be a pariah all of the time.

I'm also in the process of levelling another Hunter on Nagrand. I probably won't go to 80 with her; I am thinking of probably a 29 or so twink, so I can enjoy some WSG and AB again, because I am sorely missing those. I've realised, somewhat sadly and regretfully, that the Conqueror title may never happen for me now, but c'est la vie.

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