Reaching to the other end of the aisle...to stab it in the back

It's been a while since I've posted. I noticed I have a few posts I've never completed, and are still in editing, so... recap- quit Rift, went back to wow, quit wow, went back to ....wow, then went back to rift for....a few weeks, then now, back to wow.





Since then, we hit the Cataclysm dungeon wall, leveled pallies, got wind that pallies would get nerfed (at least, heals), abandoned pallies, we went back to roots and leveled druids instead, druids got scary, then got fun, now recently they got buffed and they are somewhat OP. Not as OP as paladins though. And my lovely healer has taken a break, but we still have wow time, so I've decided to dedicate myself to the one non-tanking class I do enjoy- rogues.




At first my intention with Sicari was to just quest, and do some leatherworking serviceable enough for my druid.





Well, that changed quickly enough. Around the beginning of wrath, I felt confident enough in my knowledge in the 5mans that even if my dps sucked, I would still be a non-fail dps. And well, my dps did suck, quite a bit, but at least I cc'd and I didn't stand in the fire. After a few weeks of tweaking and discovering that duh, backstabbing is awesome, last night I actually did 3rd place dps by an 80 point margin, to 2nd place, and I was doing 2nd place damage overall. And while the experience has been fun, it has also been illuminating.

The first thing I noticed was how easy it is to fall into what the other roles consider the DPS mindset: Recount is this driving force. You need to be number 3 or higher. Number 4 has this certain ignominy... seeing your name there begs for an answer. In your brain, it means you are most certainly doing something not only wrong, but profoundly wrong. You seek for explanations: I know I did. Why am I last place dps if I'm second overall damage!?

The competitiveness is intoxicating, and in truth, it's desperation setting in: The healer is extremely necessary, the tank could be replaced but it would take a while, but me? They can kick me whenever they like it! I now understand the DPS desperation. I don't understand the entitlement yet. I don't understand how that desperation turns into - " I'll be a dick, because I feel you're doing your job wrong"

But then, I think I'm now a class apart, within DPS.

I also started noticing bad tanks...people running a level 77-80 5 man in level 70 end game gear...one particular warrior was fully decked in end game TBC gear. I can't remember how many rewards I had sold as trash in the last few days that would have been improvements for this player...not only was he undergeared, he would make stupid pulls, and would have aggro issues....well, I was outdpsing this particular tank, so...sadness. Other tanks simply don't know how to do the five mans, and are nice about it and ask, and are quick to get trampled. I could of course commiserate with my brother in arms (or prot...?) and lent some feedback, but non-knowledgeable tanks aren't as effective, and obviously, when would they learn? But they quickly get trampled by some of the other dps....which is always sad.

I've noticed how quickly tunnel vision sets in too. I had to train myself to ensure to get behind a mob so I could stab him in the back...I can't count the number of times I clicked that '5' key to no avail, and not knowing why nothing happened. Well, of course, the huge Vykrul is attacking me, can't stab him in the front with BACKstab. Duh. Improving on my DPS has also taught me how aggro works. Aggro is a sensuous being....and a whore. It goes where it likes. Now in retrospect, I realize that not enough dps'ers manage their aggro. I was, like I said, doing very decent dps last night. And while I did grab aggro a few times, I dropped it almost immediately, and I never died. And my health bar never really dipped, except during one boss fight...either the tank was phenomenal, and I would say he was apt, as he lost aggro a few times, to a mage of course...or I know how to manage MY aggro. It's fairly easy...truth be told, it's almost comical- 1. allow the tank a moment to attack 2. if you pull aggro, either drop it or CC. I've gotten out of that flashing red screen with kidney shots a number of times now. And it works almost instantly.

But it seems that...this doesn't happen as often.

So far it's been an interesting few days. And very insightful.

Rift- initial take

Well. I had never really played a 'WoW-clone'. It's strange. It feels fresh yet has that familiar feel that I know will bite me in the ass at a later date. It's a strange feeling, kind of like riding a bike. It's essentially the same mechanics, and you're ultra aware of what to do, just looking out for a different 'skin'. With LOTRO and GW the differences were vast enough that it didn't feel like a clone, and then again, I disliked those games. But I liked Rift. The similarities are disconcerting.


The differences are enthralling though. I can see where this game's strong suit will be a problem in the near/far future, but right now, it is incredibly addictive. Where Rift separates itself from WoW is the class system. There aren't that many races, just three per faction: good humans, bad humans, dwarves, giants, good elves, and bad elves. Not that much, and I couldn't see there being any difference between one race and another. There are passive traits, but I did not really pay any attention to them initially.

There are four MAIN classes: Cleric, Warrior, Rogue and Mage. Pretty meat and potatoes, and yet I feel it's incredibly comprehensive. Within each class there are 8 (if I'm not mistaken) specializations, or souls. You are able to level three at a time. That's 96 combinations possible within the game. That's like saying there are 96 possible specs, but that's not really accurate, I think. Because you still put in 'talents' or points within each tree of each specialization, so I doubt you would be able to max out all three trees you could potentially have ...I think that makes for n*96=specs overall in this game. Boggles the mind.

Specializations are interesting to say the least. They can be defensive, offensive, supporting, and I don't know what else. I initially tried a Warrior as a Void Knight. It's a knight that counterattacks magics well. Then I specced him again as a paladin, a warrior of the light (weird), and finally, I WAS going to choose my third soul as a warlord, but I went the way of the champion, so as not to go defensive the entire way.


THIS is where I feel this game pulls a fast one on WoW. I can already see how Trion worlds (Spelling please) will have a hell of a time playing a balancing act on the classes (to be fair though, there are only 4 classes, hah! So awesome) to appease the qqing that will come. But so far, wow, it's...so immersive I haven't really had time to study and learn all the combinations you could end up with in this game.

Some of the conventions have been broken too. Ranged dps falls under Rogue, so there would be an opportunity to be MORE than just an autoshooting toon, and not all range have pets! Warriors have a spec for pets as well! It's a bit daunting to be honest. Clerics are the healers and they wear chain. Plate is better, of course, but the days of squishy healers seem to be gone, not to mention that the versatility achievable by three possible leveling trees make healers much more self reliant, I would say.


I think this game's weak point is the lore, but it's not like WoW had such great lore that everything should just stop trying. The lore in this game though...it's like a weird mix of religious mythos and viking mythology. I don't really get it yet.



More on this surprising contender later!


Oh! And by the by-shield slam, paired with a proc that increases blocking=this game gets me!

Azeroth...you are dead to me...

As I mentioned before, the better half and I decided to call WoW quits. We've done this before, but we never had a Blizzard designer confirm that this is the right thing for us to do. here are some excerpts of Greg 'Ghostcrawler' Street's response to the apparent healer backlash on the forums. My interjections included-

" We've seen and heard a lot of discussion about the challenge presented by the Cataclysm Heroic dungeons, and to a lesser extent the raids. I'm not sure this is the kind of issue where we're going to be able to change anyone’s mind on the subject, but I can try to provide more insight into our point of view as well as offer some suggestions for success."

The arrogance underlying bothers me a bit...we're not going to change anyone's mind...the consumer is right, unless he disagrees with me? Caveat emptor, I guess.


" First, let me state that we do hear you. We understand some of you aren’t having fun and preferred the Lich King paradigm, or at least something closer to the Lich King paradigm. We greatly appreciate the feedback and it always makes us sad when players aren’t having fun. We're not ignoring you. We get it. We may not always agree on every point, but we understand where you’re coming from, and we want to try to help you understand where we're coming from."

Now, this opener, to me, shows promise, except for the sentence at the end.In this sentence I read- I hear you, I know you dislike my product but let ME show you why I made this product as it is. I'm not going to show you how to use it exactly, but I'm going to show you why I made it this way. You can thank me later.

" We want players to approach an encounter, especially a Heroic encounter, as a puzzle to be solved. We want groups to communicate and strategize. "

I can't fault him for this if it is indeed the goal, because it is a very lofty goal, however, the misanthrope in me scoffs at the prospect of strangers working with each other in a positive way more than 50% of the time ON THE INTERNET.


" We don’t want healers to be able to make up for all of the mistakes on the part of the other players. "

The way they corrected the situation where a good healer could carry a bad group was ...they nerfed the healing model. Made it more of a challenge. They made a hard job even harder for already talented players. Ok.


" Ultimately, we don’t want to give undergeared or unorganized groups a near guaranteed chance of success, because then the content will feel absolutely trivial for players in appropriate gear who communicate, cooperate, and strategize."

Which would mean that PUGs are guaranteed failure. Again, expecting total strangers on the internet to work together favorably more than 50% of the time is a pipe dream. Sorry, going by personal experience.


" We didn't like that the Heroic dungeons in Lich King and early Naxxramas had become zerg-fests. It made the rewards feel like they weren't earned. It made all rewards except the best-in-slot items feel transitory -- why enchant or gem an item when you don’t need the performance boost and you’ll quickly replace it anyway? Furthermore, it set the expectation that everyone would eventually earn all best-in-slot items rather than those being rare and treasured goals. It made class abilities feel less useful and interesting. Who needs that crowd-control or survivability talent when nothing is hurting you? Who needs a mana-conservation talent if you’re never going to run out of mana? Who needs a crit talent if your heals often overheal anyway?"

This I agree with- the culture created by BLIZZARD at the end of the WOTLK life was a deplorable one that bleeds into the fact that pugs are a horrible experience at least 50% of the time, given that anyone with enough time in their hands nad not necessarily working hard or having the skills to back them up would be able to rise through the ranks with little exertion. This is a blizzard-created mess, and I guess it needs to be addressed. But I dont agree withhow it's been addressed.


" Finally, the encounters, even the bosses, ended up having a sameness to them because you could ignore their mechanics. It didn't matter -- in fact, you didn't even notice -- if the dragon breathes or silences or drops a void zone. The fights all felt the same."

I disagree, in all earnest. Our guild struggled through Naxx, and we never finished Ulduar, because of the mechanics. And don't get me started on Malygos.




" Tanks, you can’t pull and AE every group in a Heroic (again, until you overgear the content). It’s a good idea to crowd control at least one target "

CC is not the tank's job, it's the dps' job. Tank- keep aggro. CC can be a way of maintaining aggro, but, not our job. But we get it, can't take on EVERY mob in a group of 5. This is where I see a flaw. This means that out of 4-5 mobs, 2-3 cannot be tanked, they have to be cc'd. This means I will not be keeping aggro ON these 2-3 that need to be cc'd, otherwise I'd die quickly. This means aggro will be had ELSEWHERE. Maybe the healer, maybe DPS. This means the HEALER will have to keep up with more damage going to the healer or to dps on top of the same damage they would have to keep on top off before, on the tank. BUT...you said so yourself, you don't want healers to be able to carry a group, and this was done by nerfing the way healing is done...SOOOOOOO....you made the game more challenging by turning it into CONTRA.


" The responsibility for marking and setting the pace often falls upon the tank, but sometimes other experienced players are happy to take the mantle."


Marking. Ok, so we have to revert to CCing and to marking. After zerging for a year. That's expecting a lot from the client, from the user base already used to the gogogogo mentality. And again, this is a blizzard created issue.

" Where I have personally seen them get into trouble is when they slip into overconfident “I got this” mode and try to tank too many things at once."

Again, so, tanks shouldn't be taking on ALL comers, that falls on the dps' collective shoulders to CC, the healer will have to heal itself and the dps on top of the tank while gimped. Ok. Great.


" DPS specs often get blamed the most for not knowing what is going on. It should be your business to understand the mechanics of the fights. You’re a member of a team, not a follower who can always rely on someone else to tell them what to do."


Let's see...dps is 3/5ths of a group. You're asking 60% of all users that they need to learn to play. Just as an example, do you know how many balance druids I've been grouped with that insist on playing as if a 5man were a battleground?! Too many! So, ok, again, pipe dream, in my opinion.

" Which are the adds that must be burned down (and conversely, when should you ignore the adds and focus on the boss instead)? If you aren’t sure, then ask. Almost every group would rather take the few seconds to explain a fight than to wipe "

Almost every group I've ever played with will censor you and treat you like dirt, and maybe even vote to kick you if you so much as ask where to go. I really don't know who Ghostcrawler has grouped with, in all earnest.


" Healers seem like they largely understand that Heroics are challenging, and sometimes get penalized when the rest of the group doesn’t understand that. If you feel like you can’t cast anything but your efficient heal or you’ll run out of mana, then something is going wrong with the fight. Likewise, if you feel like you must spam your inefficient heals to the exclusion of all else, then your group is ignoring key mechanics or is just undergeared. [..] Gear also makes a huge difference for healers, which leads to my next point."

I already exposed my opinion of why this paradigm shift fails with healers being less powerful. And a good healer, according to him, would fail if the group is undergeared or if the group is inexperienced. Well, this would mean that you can expect to fail a lot at first. Who knows how to play at first? It's silly. Moving on...will bring this up later.


" If you just can’t make progress and you are literally wiping on trash pulls over and over, it may be time to analyze your gear. The Dungeon Finder's Heroic item level requirement should be considered a minimum -- and remember, it doesn’t look at enchants or gems or even if the gear is appropriate for you. We are assuming an entry-level Heroic player has a lot of item level 333 gear from Twilight Highlands, normal dungeons, or any of the reputation vendors. These 333s are probably mixed in with a few 318 quest greens, but offset by a few 346 items. If you finished the Hyjal quests, you are probably Revered with Guardians of Hyjal and have access to their 346 items. Questing might only earn you Honored with some of the other reputations, but that is easily rectified with daily quests or dungeon tabards (and don’t forget the Tol Barad reps). There are some nice crafted items. No, the weapons aren’t purple, but when you look at their stats, they are quite competitive."


translation- you're going to have to grind absolutely every single quest, every daily until you go blind. That's not hard. Is it FUN?


" The item level requirement is intended only to keep out players who have no idea what is appropriate content for them. We know you can game it by getting PvP gear or hiding off-spec gear in your bags. Congrats on being sneaky!"


Congrats on totally missing the point that your system has a horrible loophole!


" I’ve PUGged the Cataclysm content a lot. So have all of the designers. We want to stay in touch with what players are experiencing. Heroic PUGs are definitely harder than going with groups of people you know, but they aren’t impossible. If things start to go wrong, you might want to take a moment to analyze why they are going wrong before you bail. I do weep for those players who join an in-progress Heroic Rajh attempt (with suspicious player skeletons everywhere), immediately pull without any discussion, and then have the tank leave the group following the first wipe. That’s not fun for anyone and not going to lead to success. These aren't the original Scholomance or Arcatraz runs that could take four hours with respawns. Making a couple of concerted attempts on Rajh is probably going to be faster than going into the queue again."

These aren't going to lead to success...and yet the mentality you fostered for two years has led to the situation. So....ok?


" We've seen a few threads that suggest that we're too proud to admit mistakes. I find that logic strange, because we do it all the time."

As far as I know, you've addressed WHY the game is harder, not what you're going to do about it other than to expect your customer base to ship up or ship out, and you haven't addressed why it's not fun anymore. So...yeah, pretty proud I would say.



" We do understand that some healers are frustrated and giving up. That is sad and unfortunate. But the degree to which it's happening, at least at this point in time, is vastly overstated on the forums."

If it was so overstated, the wall of text he gave the forum would have been also overstating the importance of pointing out where the designers are coming from. If this was a minority just throwing a tantrum, it's something that could have been ignored. But no, you took the time to address it, thus it must have been of some importance.


" In any case, we want to ensure that everyone is having fun and enjoying their time with the game"

Bottom line is, we're not. We're not having fun, we got BORED, not so much as frustrated, and you failed to address that in any way. We're sorry. What bothers us the most is that you resorted to tell us we need to learn to play on top of paying YOU $15 for rented time on your MMO. Well, no. Ok? I pay someone $15 an hour for fun or to learn something. I don't learn anything worthwhile from WoW. So I pass. We pass. Thanks!

Countdown

A few things happened in the span of the holidays...


Basically, we're taking a break from WoW. I would not say it's indefinite, we might still come back, but this time it's less " we're bored, we're burnt out, we don't want to keep pushing uphill" and more "We're not having fun with our toons, even with new content" ...and it would seem that it's a common situation, not only the two of us. I would say that burn-out would be common after an expack hits, but Cataclysm has been out for a month...next Friday. A month. Err...that's not very promising. Sure, there will be content patches...but what, the next patch could come out sometime in February, it's not going to come out after a month. We're already bored, and we're not even level capped.

This presents a problem. I still like playing some, but I can see where I'll be bored in the next months, and I can't bring myself to paying more money to be bored. Moreover, we had plans for this expack... our plans consisted of having a healer/tank pair that would be our main pair. We had decided to do a priest and a warrior, because those were our favorite classes. Well, warrior tanks are more or less useless now, in comparison to, say, paladin tanks, so there's really no reason to play one. No one needs a warrior tank over another kind of tank. And my girlfriend had made a disc priest. There's no reason to play one. If you have a priest healer, you play as holy.

Given that state of affairs, we decided we've had it. For now anyway. I was thinking we could come back for another expack, but news of Blizzard selling inactive accounts to gold sellers really freaked me out. I know my toons are rented. I don't know, I failed to read the agreement, but the way I see it is this- I rent time and a space from Blizzard. But my content...I rent MY created content? That's like going to a pottery class, paying for the pottery class, paying the fees for the materials and the use of the kiln, and then at the end of the class term, having to leave your stupid fucking ashtray....now, there's no way I could take my level 82 DK with me, but god damn it, if I want to come back to him, let me come back to him!


Anyway, another thing happened, to add insult to injury. I got Mass Effect. I had wanted to play Mass Effect for a while...it was essentially the one game that interested me from the Xbox camp.

Why does this matter? Because it's Bioware, who are now making SWTOR, our next MMO home.

I had played KOTOR 1& 2 and Dragon Age. Those to me were not indicative of what Bioware is, as a company. KOTOR was super fucking fun, although it did not age well, and the story telling was last-gen, and it suffers for it. The IP carried the experience for me. KOTOR 2 was actually an Obsidian game, and while it was a great game, the ending and production mishaps hamper the game incredibly. Dragon Age is an INCREDIBLE game which I never grew to adore...despite how good it is. The world of Thedas is not my favorite, for one thing, and also, the fighting was fun albeit lacked a bit of oomph, in my opinion.

Mass Effect though, is...well...let's say in the 48 hours of last weekend, I played 20 hours. See, I woke up at 8 AM that Saturday, so that left 40 hours to play. I played roughly 10 hours that day. I took bathroom and eating breaks. I also took about an hour or so to tend to 'relationship' with the significant other. Now that I recollect, I feel I lost precious time. I went to sleep at around 1 AM, woke up at 9. Another 8 hours lost. The following Sunday I had another bout of roughly 10 hours. I went to sleep at 12 on that Sunday evening. This means that there are roughly 10 hours unaccounted for at this point in time, and I am beating myself up for I cannot say I spent those precious hours playing Mass Effect.

It scares me to think what an MMO produced by the same developing team could do to my waning social life...

The private life of my toons: why I RP in private

Although I enjoy when a game is carried by a well written character, I often relish the opportunity to design my own avatar, and forge my own way. This is often limited by current technology, so a lot of the 'fleshing out' process would have to happen in my head, when playing console games. With MMOs there's the added bonus of playing with others, so the 'fleshing out' process can be done outwardly. This is called Role Playing or RPing.

I love that my toons, the ones I come to care about, have dimensions. But I never RP. There are a few reasons why. One of the more poignant is some degree of shame, and fear of rejection. Given, the only MMO I've played with dedication is WoW, and the lore of this game is not that complicated, but I have not boned up on the lore anyhow. So I would be at a loss often, when RPing with other people. This disadvantage, coupled with the fact, that what I do in an MMO I don't feel is worthy of critique, positive or negative, as I do it exclusively for fun, is pretty much the main precedent for an inward RPing experience. Another reason is laziness. You can always go 'out of character', but I feel I would do it so often it would defeat the purpose. I have no stamina for making believe. My imagination gets bored easily, I would want to say. It wanders a lot.

Then there's the fact that some of my toons lose steam, as they might only be a part of my own inner self-image.

Jurakan was my first serious toon. My first level capped character. Jura was supposed to be an innocent and naive soldier of the light. Most of my toons were the result of a pairing when playing with my girlfriend. Jura was a first attempt, and I actually came to flesh him out a while after I had been playing. He was a pretty simple character, a goody two shoes. And this didn't satisfy my more visceral fantasies. It's not that he was a badly thought out character, but a bit juvenile.


My second SERIOUS toon was Felwenn. Felwenn was a rogue, and it took me a long long time for me to come to terms with this toon. I kinda struggled to fall in love with him. I do not know if it had to do with the class (Rogues as a class are hard to play, although as I've stated before, there is a certain flair to playing a rogue that lends dramatism)or if it had to do with the fact that at that point I was not very intrigued by night elves, but it was a bit uphill. In the end, I never deleted Felwenn because I got so far with him, but to this day...I feel I failed to breathe life to Felwenn. I've jumped back to him from time to time, and I can't come to terms with the fact that I want to like him as a character, but I never fleshed him out in my mind. Something didn't click. Later on I revisited making a rogue and I tried a human- I don't like human models, but I made an exception- which I promptly deleted and made a dwarf instead. For some reason, that stuck.

I then made Akarius and Mendrick. Mendrick took a while to get used to, and to this day, his usefulness precedes his preferential treatment, rather than his appeal as a character. I imagined a life before becoming a Death Knight, of being a paladin full of righteous fury and vengeance that met an untimely tragic demise, but this is SO trite, it detracts from my enjoyment, to be honest. He quested with a Shaman. They were a great pairing gameplay wise, but storywise, it didn't click that well, I felt. He's terribly fun to play, not fun to RP with.

I then made a night elf warrior, and it was a big hit, and it had to do with the fact that I made an unpopular class with the most unpopular race for that class. I feel I projected myself well enough that the toon to this day, as nerfed as warriors got, is one of the more fun toons that I've made. As a contrast to Jura, Akarius was kind of a dick though, he was not a do-gooder. He had no qualms with cruelty, so I got to tap into my dark side.

There are other aspects that I have been able to satisfy through other characters though, and I have come close to try and RP with other RPers. It happens more often than not when on my rogue, Sicari. And I feel I fleshed out that character in my mind as best I could, but there's always the embarassment factor. The 'what if' holding me back.

It's kind of embarassing to come clean about other instances of embarassment. So weird.

Oh well. I'm currently working on two more, a new paladin called Sigridus. Sigridus I'm fleshing out as a pious and religious man, practical, but moral to a fault. It's fun to play as that character because in real life I'm more in the morally ambiguous spectrum, I THINK? Hmmm. The other character is Maximilianus, a worgen druid. I'm still coming to terms how a werewolf was a druid. Or how a human, a posh human, was a druid that THEN became a werewolf? It's a bit overwrought, and it bothers me, but I am a sucker for lycanthropy and shapeshifting.

As I mentioned, my reluctance to RP has to do with my lack of knowledge of the lore, and my being a stickler for purity to a certain degree; I could not just make it up as I go...I would feel I need to commit to my character and his background, with all the racial and 'cultural' baggage that ensues. Perhaps with SWTOR I'll have the upper hand, and my girlfriend and I will be able to RP and speak in emoticons until our fingers bleed, hah!

Druid tanking part deux

Well, I finally got to tank on a druid. Given, these experiences are definitely NOT representative of what will/could be. I mean, I just dinged 20 on the bear.

I ran two instances, Ragefire Chasm and Van Cleef...now rightly called Deadmines, as Van Cleef is not to be found in the Deadmines.

Ragefire is not a hard one, in fact, I have completed this with just a healer at level, when running it with the paladins. It is a bit of a joke, actually. This went fine. The group actually asked to keep going to get all the bosses within the instance. Interestingly enough, we had a level 20 hunter, who took aggro ever so often, but I was able to tank for, at level 15. Hah.

Deadmines was a bit more challenging, and aggro was a bit of an issue at times, but I must admit that we had no casualties, and our biggest hurdle was the healer's grid going bonkers. We decided that we should level a bit more before we continued instancing, so I could manage aggro better, and so I could be less squishy, as the healer, my significant other, was complaining how difficult it was.

Tanking on druids is weird. You have -

1. Auto attack (oddly enough, a must. You can crit at 310% with auto attack, so, a must)
2. Taunt (which I feel should have a shorter cooldown)
3. Bleed attack- forget the name.
4. Go to-aggro grab attack
5. Aoe debuff

That's as of now. I know that soon enough I'll get more stuff, but honestly, it's not that much. The cooldowns are long too, so very similarly to dk tanks pre- 4.0.1, you get a lot of dead time where you're just waiting for stuff coming out of cd.

Where the druid gets interesting is this- unlike pallies, they have few (so far, no) aoe abilities to speak of, and there is little to no hang time when you cast the ability, only the cooldown. So I ended up tab-cycling quite a bit. It felt very similar to Warrior tanking. Except warrior tanking is now plagued by a queue system for their abilities. I jumped on Akarius last night and tried pulling big groups, to see what it felt like. The ability queue is still there, but it doesn't feel as blatant as before.

But as of right now there's one BIIIIIG problem with my druid. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, BUT, I find myself without rage ALL THE TIME, a problem I do not have with the warrior. Maybe this will change as I gain more talents, or as I start critting more, but dangit, was it difficult.


Questing as a tank on a druid though, is...retardedly fun. Questing as a protadin prior to 4.0.1 was....idiotic. It took forever. Post 4.0.1, it's...idiotic. It doesn't seem fair to the rest of the specs, that a tank can do so much damage. Questing as a prot warrior is nifty: you are hard to kill, and you can zip around with charge and intercept, but stuff still takes time to kill. Questing on a DK...is...weird. They have some very interesting resources, and hardy, but they don't necessarily kill things fast enough to make the going faster.

On a druid though...imagine this: you approach 1 mob, you root it to the ground, approach as cat, start killing it FAST, it starts running away and brings 3 more mobs, you turn into a bear, start killing them FAST, they start hitting hard, you rejuv fast and pop back into bear, it goes the mob's way, you turn into a cheetah, and run away.

...It's like a tanking rogue. It's awesome. OH! Except rogues don't turn into mutated sea lions and swim faster. Never mind.

...Druids are OP. More on this class when I level it up. But man...so OP.

Druids part 1- Why not?

Tonight the expansion comes out, and in about 24 hours or so, I should have a druid made, unless something goes wrong with WoW or my internet. Jinx.

I've tried making a druid 3 times now. Twice as a night elf, once as a tauren. All of these were within the year, but not recent enough to benefit from the more recent patches.

There's some few things that have always bothered me about druids.

-The lack of shield. This also bothers me in DKs. Somehow, it always clicks in my mind that a rogue could somehow tank better than a DK. Because they...dodge more? I dunno. But the lack of shields on tanks always bothers me. If they ever took shields away from pallies, it would bother me too.

-The lack of plate. Leather doesn't seem to have as much armor....sure, bear form fixes that, but those two things...I dunno.

-Having to shapeshift. See, I like the idea of shapeshifting...for fun. Not for tanking. It feels....weird. It could be argued that stances are the same thing. But the stance doesn't really change your cosmetic make up...just your repertoire.

-The fact that druids were considered the easy, OP class, aside from paladins. And this held true up to recently. It seems that druid healing is no longer as OP as it used to be. Druid tanking was infamous for being a no-brainer, but also lackluster. I've been reading that where it used to be somewhat difficult to tank mobs with a bear, now it's doubly so. And this particular tidbit fuels my interest.

We'll see how it goes. Right now, I don't even have bear form yet, so I wouldn't even know where to begin, truth be told. We'll see indeed.