Friday, October 12, 2007

Shifting Perspectives


Leveling with a druid is more fun than I had expected it to be. I come to playing a druid from playing a mage, so I knew I'd be at home with the casting portion that consumes levels 1-10. I stayed around the night-elf starting area at first, mostly because I hadn't done those quests with my main and it's always fun to do something new but there's something I just can't stand about Teldrassil, maybe it's because of it's remote location or maybe it just makes me sleepy the music is so soothing it actually makes me tired... who knows. I just couldn't wait to get off that island. I stayed around because I figured since Night Elves are the only race in the alliance that can be druids, I'd have to come back to Darnassus quite a bit to pick up my class specific quests. I prefer the Draenei starting area over all others, the quests are just more entertaining for me, probably because they were added after Blizzard knew what was fun and what wasn't! So... I stayed on that little island until I finished my bear quest, those moonkins outside the cave hit pretty hard on a level 10 and the actual quest mob was much easier to kill than the Moonkins outside the cave.

After completing the quest and shifting into my first form I happy danced right off the dock as I awaited the boat for Azure Myst. I wasn't sticking around that darkshore any longer than I had to, and luckily there is a druid trainer right at the point where the boat docks, so If any other young druids prefer the quests in Azure Myst it's just a short boat ride away and there is a readily available druid trainer! Now, I'm sure bear form is a lot of fun at higher levels, I know there's a druid in my guild that's been feral since he rolled his character and he absolutely loves tanking but... for leveling bear form was not my favorite. I did most of my killing as a caster (which oddly was not what I expected to be doing) shifting into bear only if I was about to go out of mana or the monster was closing in on me. I have quite few alts and I must say levels 10-20 on a druid are SLOW going. It's a good thing the quests aren't that hard to do (aside from a couple of group quests) and the story is fun to follow. I started on Azure Myst even though the area was slightly under leveled for me, it gave me a big boost and fast quests to run through. It only took me two days to go from level 1-20, but I really pushed it. I was home sick from work so I had nothing else to do.

When I picked up my quest to get Aquatic Form I was so excited. Who wouldn't want to be a seal? How cute is that? I actually had never really seen a druid in aquatic form before... it's absolutely terrifying.
Look at those fangs! That thing is going to eat me! Wait... no... that is me, *shudder* though useful for picking stranglekelp and leaving that poor shaman I've been questing with to swim to the next island slowly and alone it's quite a frightening form. I think this particular shot in the blood red waters of BloodMyst Isle amplifies it's creepy-ness.

When I picked up cat form things started moving a little more quickly, I'm really enjoying stealthing around and the ability to pop out and give myself a quick heal and keep dealing death is so much fun! I can't wait to expereince some more with this versatile class!

Sunday, October 7, 2007

In the beginning

So, I've just rolled my brand new druid on my favorite server ( where my main is basically) and I'm excited and nervous (a little) to be starting out in the world of druids. Basically, I know nothing about being a druid, nothing. So it's going to be an interesting ride.

A little background about me as a player I guess. My main right now is a mage, she's the first and only character in my world of warcraft experience to reach level 70. She's in a casual guild that raids occasionally, I have fun with her most of the time.

Why roll a druid? Good question. Before I played world of warcraft (yes, there were and are other games!) I always played a healer. I was actually tempted to roll my first world of warcraft character a priest but I was playing exclusively with my husband's rogue at the time and I didn't want to get wrangled into a bad situation. In another game I played while it was in beta, I played a healing class to his dps class and it was awful, the loot system was not fair for the healer. If you healed you got no loot because of two reasons.
1.) you did no damage to the monster so it wasn't lootable for you.
2.) You hit it so you could loot it, but there's no way you're going to be the first one to the corpse because you were in the back keeping everyone else alive.
Not knowing how this would turn out in world of warcraft back when I was a SUPER NOOB! (I'm still a noob, I'll be the first to admit it) I rolled a mage. At least I can still help everyone, with water and food right?

Well I want to heal again... that's why I've rolled the druid. Why not a priest? I don't like them. I tried to play a priest I got to level 22 and got super bored and quit. Why not a paladin? I don't know... honestly I don't have an answer for that, it's just that Druid looks like the most fun to me.

Well I start this adventure with the mindset that I will heal with this druid, who knows, Druids have got to be the most versatile class in the game. As I walk the path who knows where it will lead, I could end up a bear tank for all I know (I doubt it but it could happen)