Reflections From The Pond

Posts Tagged ‘druid’

When I was a kid I watched the television series The Incredible Hulk starring Lou Ferrigno as the green giant and someone else as Dr. Bruce Banner (although iirc the split-personality scientist was oddly enough called David and not Bruce in the series).

Being a kid, it was no trouble accepting that a thin, average-sized man could turn into a green-skinned giant who couldn’t talk but hit like a ton of bricks (hey! There was this scientific experiment that went horribly wrong, these things happen you know…) and the real mystifying question was: How could this man’s normal outfit of jeans, shirt, whatever he was wearing when the rage hit him, how could this set of ordinary clothing turn into a frayed and tattered pair of pink-purple jeans?

No matter what he was wearing in man-mode, he inevitably ended up wearing those purple cut-offs in hulk-mode.

Well, being a curious girl kid, there was some other questions that went unanswered, like, was he really green all over, and did the size increase really apply to everything, and if so, how come the pant’s seams only bursted up to about knee height. Stretch jeans?

When I got older, I started reading Terry Pratchett’s excellent Discworld series (a must-read! Go get a book immediately if you haven’t done so!) and there was this werewolf named Angua who was employed in the City’s Night Watch. A strong beautiful woman most of the time, a lethal beautiful wolf the rest.

Angua, unlike the Hulk, did not retain any of her clothes or gear when she shapeshifts, which is why she wore her watchman’s badge on a chain around her neck and aimed to shapeshift out of sight , preferably someplace where she had previously stashed some articles of clothing rich in the covering department. (I am not sure which would attract most attention on crowded city streets, a naked woman or a green decently clad giant.)

Hmm, sounds a little like my druid Joaquime is like a cross between Angua and the Hulk – a strong beautiful woman who turns into a purple cat ;P

Anyways, where does Joaq’s gear go when she shapeshifts? She runs along, dressed in her leather tank outfit, green-shimmering Earthwarden bouncing on her back, when suddenly she transforms into a furry but naked cat… Sure, she’s furry, lethal, feral, lithe and beautiful but she is still naked… Where did her gear go? The same place Dr. Banner’s mad scientist-garb went?

Maybe they went to that place where all her bags are, her 4 jammed-to-the-bursting-point bags of extra gear (bear, cat, healing, had to stash the old moonkin gear in the bank or the bags would indeed burst) and good to have around things, and her one herb satchel, also filled to the limit with as much herbs as she can cram into it.

And while we are on the subject of bags, how can those bags that you carry around actually contain your mount? Or even several mounts? Hunters’ pets need feeding, why don’t mounts need that?

Hmm I guess there really are some infinite mysteries in this world and some things we will never know the how-and-why of…:-)

So how did you spend the patch day?

I got my baby warrior Dizzie out of her hibernation, scuttled over to Theramore and cheered at the sight of so many new yellow exclamation marks! I love doing quests! Happy as a hobbit in a wine cellar she ran around exposing agitators – but wait? Why didn’t I get credit for exposing them? Got just 1/5 and I had killed/scared off more than that! Bugged q or what? *getting mad at Blizz for another patch day f-k-up!*

But wait again – *blush* – I realised I was in a raid group…was waiting for the other raiders to show up and we had already started invites… ah well, it was time for me to let my baby rest up a little more and get one of my big girls up to action again.

Wednesday is one of our usual Kara raid days and (despite it being patch day) we clung to tradition and went there to kill off some of the nasty denizens of that dreary cobwebbed place.

For some reason that I can’t recall at the moment I was there on my (usually) lethal feral druid Joaquime (think we were a little short of healers at the time as they were downloading the patch after work and I had offered to heal at the first bosses so we could get the raid started, but I am not sure…my memory is excellent, only very short…)

Anyways, the healers popped up after all and I shifted into bear for the those trash clears to the Huntsman. I haven’t been tanking in Kara for months and was a bit surprised to find that I could not pull aggro from the other tank, a warrior.

Our gm’s warrior has always been a bit tricky to pull aggro from but far from impssible, the other warrior I used to run with was way too easy to overaggro, all I used to do was hit the mob and it immediately switched its attention to me, didn’t even have to use growl or anything. (And before anyone starts yelling at me for pulling aggro off the other tank so the healers have to ping pong heal, I do it to get some extra nice rage going and then I don’t mind giving it back for the rest of the fight).

This one warrior, however, was impossible to peel. Even when I used growl which, if I recall correctly, is supposed to glue the mob’s attention to you for 6 seconds, all I got was a lousy blink of the mob’s target switching before he went back to hammering away on my plate-clad friend. Gah, I had to use enrage throughout that entire trash clear except when I was tanking a mob or two of my own.

Well, this warrior and also our gm’s warrior have been running thru Kara for many weeks now while I have been ambling along far behind on mostly my warlock Paynne or my priest Jools, so I guess I am pretty undergeared compared to them.

And some nice leather gear actually did drop during that run, [Edgewalker Longboots ] from Moreos and [Bracers of Maliciousness ] from the Maiden, both of which would have been a huge upgrade for my kitty cat, but they went to a hunter instead of me. (Actually, the Huntsman dropped the [Bracers of the White Stag] for me since noone else wanted them, could be useful if I ever respecc to Moonkin).

Well, they were more than huge upgrades for the hunter too so its not that I mind him getting them, and I guess I could have argued my case if I wanted them and I didn’t bother, but still…when is a bear a bear and when is she a cat? Is the bare necessities for the bear only and not for the cat?

I am feral specced, which happens to encompass both bear and cat shapes. I am not either-or, I am both. I tank when tanking is needed, I do pretty good dps when dps-ing is needed. Actually I heal when healing is needed too since was healing at the Maiden in my healing gear, my druid HoTs are pretty neat even in feral specc. And now that I think about it, I was actually blasting my way to the Maiden with starfires and moonfires and wrath’s, courtesy of the new +spell damage on the healing gear, otherwise the only way I would have killed any mob was if it had laughed itself to death at the pitiful spell damage I could do in my healing gear. Hmm, I guess this raid did get to see me shine in all my capabilities…=)

For those pulls and/or boss fights that don’t require two tanks I do immensly more dps in kitty shape that in bear, and if we have two tanks already I might stay in cat form for the whole run.

I don’t want to roll on healing or spell damage gear unless noone else needs it, but what about dps gear? The pure tanking items that drops in Kara that I can use are rare, and some of these my fellow tanks have their eyes set on too, so even if they drop I may not get them. Am I doomed to wait until all rogues/hunters/shamans have gotten their leather dps drops until I can get a shot at them? How am I ever gonna get into Zul’Aman if I can’t upgrade my gear? Am I whining about something that is not an issue really?

Well, I have found two ways to resolve this not-really-a-problem-but-could-be:
* I will check the Kara loot lists and actually do the maths for which items would be an upgrade for me, both in bear and in cat form
* I will keep going to Kara with my druid (well, with all of my attuned girls actually) and get me those nice [Badges of Justice ] for the sweet rewards

I won’t be imba geared in a week or even two with this strategy, but at least I have a plan. And then I will grab that aggro back from those plate-clad target dummies easier than…, than…ehh, well, easier than a very easy thing!

Raid evaluation
- The new ”change out of bearform if you accidentally press a spell that you can’t use in bearform”-ability. NOT a good thing to do while tanking (yeye I know I can disable it but you try to get me to do that in the heat of the battle).
+ We are going pretty well atm. Some new players with us, and only one stupid wipe. Runs still takes a little to long though, we should be able to clear Huntsman, Moroes, Maiden and Opera in less than 2 hours.