Brutal

Naxxramas is definitely a step up in difficulty - or two...

We managed to down one boss - Anub'Rekhan - and get very close on another - the Grand Widow - but that was our lot for the night.

Anub'Rekhan we downed on our third attempt. I had a great bird's eye view of our second wipe, being dead high in mid-air from the spikes, and there's a certain beauty to the way that each player's death makes things that notch harder.

Faerlina was frustrating as we weren't getting the hang of the mind control mechanic so, while we got her down to around 10% on our third attempt, that was the best things got. In a way I'm glad we didn't kill her since that would have given us a false sense of optimism that would have been dashed the following week, this way around I'm fairly sure that we now understand it much better and so should down her this week. I'm hoping that for these mechanical fights once we understand them it will be reasonably straightforward to repeat the feat. Time will tell.

For now I'm looking forward to progression, but wondering if or when we'll hit a wall.

Sort of ready for Naxxramas

I'm looking forward to seeing Naxxramas and should get a peak tonight after our main raid (which will need to be AQ40 given the late release hour). The question of whether I or my guild are ready for it is slightly in the balance.

Emotionally its definitely a Yes. Although there are lots of things I ought to be doing with Duillnar - mainly rep grinds - I'm spending most of my time levelling my rogue at the moment. My Alterac Valley grind is stalled half way through Revered, since apart from one good experience during a battleground weekend those games became an unrelenting series of dispiriting losses with a significant part of the team clearly not trying. I ought to be getting Cenarion Circle rep in AQ20 in order to be able to convert my Qiraji Ornate Hilt into a Mace of Unending Life but it's far easier to find bits of time for levelling than to commit to a third scheduled raid. And the respec costs and lack of achievable targets (other than the idol from Stratholme, which I'd still rather like) have put me off tanking. So fresh content is welcome.

In a way the release of Naxxramas relatively soon after AQ40 seems rushed, but given the increasing number of people taking a break from the game - whether burning out, moving on to new things or otherwise re-examining their real life balance - I think it's no bad thing.

I'm not sure how big the difficultly jump will be though - I'm expecting fairly steep, especially for the final bosses. My guild finally downed Viscidus on 19 October to complete our clear of AQ40, once we'd (a) persuaded enough people to take up engineering and (b) got everyone bringing cleansing consumables. Apart from the occasional welcome clean clear we still usually have trouble somewhere in there though, most commonly from Ouro, the Bug Trio, or maybe the Twin Emperors. We're also often having to raid with a not-quite-full team, or with less core raiders filling up gaps.

So while I'm expecting us to complete a wing or two fairly quickly I'm not sure how much we'll hit a wall further on. I'm really looking forward to some guild first kills (and sort-of the wipes those entail!) but unsure how well we'll be able to keep enthusiasm and attendance up if the curve is too steep.

Overall though the timing seems quite good - certainly a longer wait for the new raid wouldn't help any of the things I'm unsure about.

C'thun and Mor Grayhoof down

With C'thun down a major milestone on my Classic journey is completed. We still have Viscudus (the real end boss of AQ40?) to go, and then in a way I'll have seen all that Classic has to offer (having completed Naxxramas in the Lich King expansion).

It's interesting what a step change the end bosses of AQ40 are, with the Twins requiring warlock tanks and good raid awareness and plenty of stress on healers, C'thun really putting responsibility on everyone and Viscudus it seems requiring extreme preparation. Our first kill of C'thun involved 7 wipes (including a obligatory run-in-too-early half-wipe which doomed the attempt) but for such a complex fight seemed easier than the Twin Emperors in the end. Our second kill took only 2 wipes, but the same evening involved two wipes on the Bug Trio and 4 on Ouro so we're a long way from having mastered the instance.

Our struggles seem to be symptomatic of a slight malaise in Classic at the moment. Our guild has lost some key players to burn out and in two cases to more "hardcore" guilds, we have in turn recruited from a couple of disbanding guilds. There are rumours of the final phase of Classic coming around December time which I've seen suggested as too soon but to me seems about right - Classic definitely has a shelf life.

I've also nearly finished the dungeon set 2 upgrade chain to the point where I've got the Idol of Rejuvenation (and a rather nice off-hand, at least until my Alterac Valley rep grind is complete) from Mor Grayhoof. I'm pausing there for now so that I can help the guilds other druids summon him (since I don't yet have the set 1 chest piece and so can't complete the chain). The annoying thing about this is that the quest items are taking up 3 bank slots, which are in short supply at the moment!

There are plenty of things in the game for me to still see and do, but I'm not sure how many others have the same mindset.

Roundup - First steps into AQ and other patch content

Things have moved on somewhat from my previous post but I wanted to blog a few things while they're relatively fresh in my mind.

As I mentioned previously one of our tanks was aiming for the Scarab Lord / sceptre quest which, shortly after the patch released, seemed like a bit of a fools errand. One of the hardcore guilds on our server had finished the fragment collection within a couple of days and, with a fairly limited number of people helping him initially, our guy was languishing at around 10% of the way through and morale seemed to get quite low. However eventually a real team spirit built around the collection effort and more players got involved, to the point where our guild pretty much claimed one of the Silithus hives as our own. This has become one of my favourite periods of Classic so far - although the bug grind is a slightly odd form of fun, with frantic tagging of newly spawned mobs interspersed with periods of waiting and occasionally surrendering to taggers with clearly better latency, the guild effort and community that built around it is an experience I'll remember. On top of that is the fact that I never saw this aspect in the original game (and wouldn't have this time around either if not for the guildmate who decided to try to complete this ridiculous chain).

A family holiday meant that I missed the later raid- and world-boss stages of the chain, although I followed along via the guild discussions. We were all pleased when our guy, through luck or superior latency, became the sceptre-holder to bang the gong and get emoted across the realm. A few members of some of the "proper" hardcore guilds were a bit put out for our lowly guild to receive this recognition, which seems to show that although the hardcore / casual divide from the original game has softened a bit it's still there in some players' hearts.

Our raid calendar meant that our first experience of Ahn'Qiraj was the 20-player Ruins which, apart from Ossirian the Unscarred, gave us very little trouble. I'm fairly sure that my vanilla guild never completed this raid which reminds me again of how much has changed in nearly 15 years since this was last new. My mindset is now that of a regular raider (with BWL-level gear to show for it) but more broadly there are now PUGs easily competing this content whereas on my original server PUGs would only really take on Molten Core towards the late stages of the game.

The 40-player Temple is giving us somewhat more trouble - in the first reset we downed Princess Huhuran after several attempts (insufficient nature resistance preparation) before thoroughly wiping on Viscidus, giving us a 5/9 completion including the bug trio. This last week our achievement has been to get over the hurdle of the pre-Emperor trash before failing to down those bosses. Our performance improved over each attempt so hopefully we're not far off, but so far the coordination of DPS and bug handling is evading us.

On the dungeon set upgrade chain I'm at the The Left Piece of Valthalak's Amulet stage, so near-ish the end but still a fair way to go. Again this is something I never fully experienced in the original game - I remember parts of it, including gathering the ectoplasm, and I'm sure at least my shaman had the Extra-Dimensional Ghost Revealer but I don't think I got much further than the 45 minute Stratholme run. The stages I'm on now seem to be class-specific so I'm really hoping I get a summon for Mor Grayhoof at the next stage (since I don't yet have the chest piece of the dungeon set so obtaining that from Upper Blackrock Spire will be quite a bump in the road). On the plus side most of the expensive steps are now behind me so I can start rebuilding my character's finances.

And my final current to-do of Alterac Valley reputation is slowly proceeding - I'm now 5,000 into Revered. This has been quite demoralising over the last few days though, with constant losses and (no doubt related) increasing blatant AFKing (or perhaps it's now that I know what to look for?). Unlike the rest of the game this part really has become a grind instead of a pastime.

One last thing to mention is that the game seems to be heading towards its end - our guild has had players dropping away for some time now, and some previously staunch raiders who we expected to return with the launch of AQ haven't. I know a lot of people are looking forward to the rumoured re-release of the Burning Crusade, but my feeling at the moment is that, assuming it happens, it will be a much smaller event than I would have thought it would be a few months ago.

Wizards, warlocks and bugs

A few weeks ago I was feeling about done until AQ released - my raid gear is missing only a few of the rare bits (rings / trinklets / weapons) so, seeing as one-handed weapons seem better for healers here onward, I was planning to mainly grind some Alterac Valley reputation.

Also, having had a dabble with warlock alts a while back, I also planned to get my level 17 warlock up to level 20 so he could be a summoning taxi for the guild.

But of course, having spent a lot of time PvPing, there was an irresistible temptation to dust off my Horde side. As my shaman is level 16 I tried some Warsong Gulch in the twink bracket, he was of course hopelessly undergeared by comparison but I feel I managed to contribute to some degree to the one game I played. However, having looked into what classes are in demand on the Horde side, and considering what classes I've had at 60 already, I thought I'd try out another Forsaken mage. My original mage became my banker after I totally failed to get my head around the class, but this time I'm enjoying it a lot more - there's a lot to be said for levelling a pure DPS class. Having just done some levels on a warlock I really miss Life Tap, but my attitude to drinking mage water has totally changed and the speed with which he takes down enemies, and the good degree of crowd control, keeps things interesting.

The AQ patch has also brought a load of new content, notably idols for druids and the Sceptre quest which one of our tanks is attempting. On the idol front I've collected the Idol of Ferocity (since the boss who drops it is soloable) and, having collected most of the dungeon set for nostalgia value, I'm now working on the "tier 0.5" upgrade quest mainly to be able to summon Mor Grayhoof who drops the restoration idol.

I'm also trying to help with the carapace fragment collection in Silithus which is sort of fun and an impressive feat of players shaping the world - the hives have gone from being highly dangerous to totally camped by players desperately trying to tag mobs as they spawn. It can be frustrating since there are so many players there, but it's quite a sociable guild activity with the occasional bit of world PvP thrown in.

A bit of a lull

My guild has gone into slight pre-patch doldrums - we've struggled to fill our last few raids and some players are playing less or not at all. A good number will return for Ahn'Qiraj no doubt, but presumably not all.

Meanwhile I'm mainly working on Alterac Valley reputation, primarily for Lei of the Lifegiver since single-handed weapons seem to be the best for healers from here on in. It's a slow and sometimes dispiriting process, I'm not sure how many games I've played but I've only been on a winning Alliance side there twice, and not at all since I started going to the battleground again.

At the current rate I reckon I have around 32 hours more play needed, which shows how very different my approach is to the game this time around. I'm sure this isn't just true for me either, given how much more raiding there seems to be than in the past. As a druid the grind is slightly improved by there being several different items for various specs at the end of the tunnel.

The games are sometimes quite fun though

I tanked a raid!

Over the last week our guild has organised four runs of Zul'Gurub and across those runs only two of our regular raid tanks have signed up. As a result my signup for last night's raid, where I was expecting more of an off-tank role, turned out to be a proper tanking role.

There were not-so-good moments including a terrible pull of mine in the spider boss's area and a rather grumbly wipe on Hakkar's pyramid due to some poor raid positioning and communication but also some good experiences on some of the bosses where my challenge was to see exactly how much threat I could put out.

I imagine I'll be back again, probably not next week as the constant respecs are draining my gold, but perhaps the week after. The frustration is that there are several healing drops I'd like from Zul'Gurub but only one possible tanking upgrade, however if we continue to have plenty of healer signups but a shortage of tanks then duty will presumably call.

Seal of Ascension

I spent a chunk of the weekend tanking in Scholomance and Lower Blackrock Spire, the first for some Skin of Shadow to get my Zulian Headdress enchanted and the latter to finally get the one key I didn't yet have in the game. It's well past the stage where owning a Seal of Ascension is a rarity but it was still an achievement I wanted to complete.

I'm naturally quite cautious as a tank, probably more so than many groups would like, but there's been a step change in the quality of my gear since I last was hunting for the seal's gems. I now have two items from Molten Core (Medallion of Steadfast Might and Heavy Dark Iron Ring), three from Blackwing Lair (Taut Dragonhide Shoulderpads, Elementium Threaded Cloak and Interlaced Shadow Jerkin) and a number of quest, crafted or dropped items from Zul'Gurub taking me up to 7% hit rating.

In short I'm now significantly out-gearing all of the dungeons in the game and, once I got a feel for the groups I was in, could take a much more aggressive approach than I was used to. It seems odd in a way as a lot of the challenge is gone, but it's also nice to enjoy the benefits of gearing up.

I then had the less fun experience of healing in Molten Core as full feral bear spec but still managed to give a decent account of myself - 8th of 12 healers according to the logs...

I (off) tanked a raid!

Outside of main raids the tank shortage in Classic seems to be becoming more pronounced - it's been there for a long while for dungeon groups and now seems to be the case for a good number of my guild's Zul'Gurub runs as well. As a result a couple of times in the last week or so I've had the opportunity to off-tank a raid, fulfilling one of my remaining goals for the game.

The first of these last week seemed to go well but I'm less pleased with last night's raid. In both raids the set-piece boss fights were fine but things weren't always so good with random patrols or some of the large packs that need to be dealt with. On reflection I don't think there was necessarily more of a problem last night but instead a couple of other factors - one that the first raid contained more of our first team damage dealers with a gung-ho attitude that aggro was a price to be paid for enthusiastic DPS, and secondly that I'm becoming more aware and critical of my mistakes.

One reaction is that my current respeccing, as well as being expensive, means that I'm not getting properly settled into the tank role and that I need to be careful of not letting my healing slip. The other, opposite, reaction is that I need to find more opportunities to tank and improve!

Another thought is again that I'm lucky in my choice of a druid main character. My rogue alt has struggled up to level 25 but really my alt is my bear spec. While I do sometimes see loot that I want drop while in the wrong role to legitimately roll on it, I never see it drop while on the wrong character and often I do get the chance to pick up off-spec gear. Not least are the Elementium Threaded Cloak and Taut Dragonhide Shoulderpads from Blackwing Lair and a couple of upgrades from Zul'Gurub in my first two runs as a healer. Along with some recent focus on my bear gear now that nearly all of my possible healing upgrades can only come from one weekly raid I'm feeling happy with where I am gear-wise. So now what I need is experience and skill, which could be trickier!

Regrowth

When I first read about the druid Regrowth spec I was sceptical to say the least - it seemed to be a theoretical exercise that ignored the practicality of a druid's strengths and weaknesses. However I've now tried it, and am a cautious convert...

On my restoration journey I've tried pretty much all the specs: Moonglow (quick, I need a healing build, I've been asked to switch from moonkin and the raid starts in 20 minutes!), Heart of the Wild / Nature's Swiftness (a big mana pool, wouldn't it be lovely if a hybrid spec can work in a raid?) and then Swiftmend. All the way through I've struggled to do decent raid healing, with a couple of exceptions.

The thing is raid healing is very different from dungeon healing, an crucially heal over time spells don't stack. On the first point - at any level of progression raid there will be a fair number of healers, and although theoretically overhealing is bad in practice it's impossible and undesirable to coordinate the healers too closely. If you try for efficiency what you'll actually get is underhealing and characters will die. Secondly one of the druid's great strengths is the Rejuvenate spell - use it on the tanks, warlocks, those DPS who can't help drawing aggro, and the whole raid in burst damage situations. For one druid (the one with the most +healing) this will give spectacular results, but the other druids are left choking on their dust.

Those other druids are left looking at fast spells - very low ranks of Healing Touch, and Regrowth. Regrowth is expensive, but with my moonkin experience I'm used to judging how quickly to exhaust my mana pool (or how many consumables to use!) according to the length of the fight. Having also picked up my fifth piece of the tier 2 set on Thursday my Regrowths are usually very fast (74% of the time with the Onyxia buff!), and I also have Nature's Swiftness for the occasional emergency. I'd like to have at least two Swiftmend druids in the raid, but otherwise Regrowth definitely has its place.

PS. I often find "published" specs sub-optimal. For Regrowth I'm using this - since the most of the Balance tree is filler, and my cat gear is pretty good, I prefer those damage talents so I can actually quest a bit. Similarly the standard moonkin spec didn't include Improved Healing Touch, whereas a spec that takes that actually allows you to be a pretty decent dungeon healer.

Roguing

Compared to the original game I've found nearly no time for alts this time around. I have much less time to play than I did 15 years ago but a big factor as well I think it the focus on gearing, raiding and other costly activities (for example I didn't bother about getting a fast mount first time around).

My alt though, such as he is, is a level 17 dwarf rogue which I'm really enjoying playing. Sometimes (when not in the right mindset) I find him dying a lot, but when played properly he's some of the best single player fun I've had with the game. Yesterday I completed the quest Bingles' Missing Supplies which involves recovering said supplies from an island heavily populated with troggs. As a soloing rogue this involves lots of stealth, waiting for certain troggs to path away from their groups and judicious use of Sap, Evasion and occasionally health potions and Sprint!

It certainly isn't what you want if you're after efficient levelling but it was a thoroughly absorbing time.

Planning for the Burning Crusade

The big news of the weekend was the Blizzard survey with the not unsurprising hint that they're thinking of releasing a "classic" version of The Burning Crusade. This set off my alt-itis and initial decision to start a Classic alt (a warrior) to stay at level 60 while my druid would progress to Burning Crusade.

Having thought about this some more I think what I need is... another druid.

I find it interesting to read back and see what I was thinking (or perhaps "what was I thinking?"), so I thought it would be useful to detail out my current reasoning.

First, and most importantly, while expansions offer new content and possibilities (druid flight form and Alliance shaman spring to mind) they also diminish or even destroy older achievements. It may be true "that we'll always have the memories" but some expansion changes were (to my mind) for the worse. One example that still irritates me is the removal of keys for older dungeons - they keys were destroyed in return for a payment which, from memory, was less than the 15 gold that the Scholomance key sets you back. In contrast I still have the non-key keys, such as the Upper Blackrock Spire Seal, in the banks of my shaman and various other characters.

Secondly, and key to my reverse-planning, is that I'm very happy with my decision to have a druid as my Classic character. I've spent a lot on respec costs, and occasionally resented the hybrid tax, but generally I've done very well out of being a versatile and less-played class. I've found it easier than average to find raid and dungeon groups, and had relatively little competition for some drops (caster drops being the exception, but I've had an easier time than, for example, mages). I've also come to really enjoy some of the class perks, especially stealth but also the immunity to disarm and the ability to break out of snares.

So currently the plan is to create a new druid - either fully levelling an alt or, if there's the option to create a level 58 character, taking advantage of that - and having that druid progress into the Burning Crusade. There will be drawbacks and timesinks but it seems to me will offer the best of both worlds.

Heart of the Wild-ed

Having started as a dedicated healer with a rushed Moonglow build I'd been itching for a while to try the Heart of the Wild / Nature's Swiftness spec which promised decent healing output with much more versatility (and, importantly, the ability to tank).

It is probably my favourite spec so far as it nearly allows a druid to do everything - but only nearly. I spent most of my time tanking, especially in Blackrock Spire getting a gem for the UBRS key (but only one so far) and remembering how difficult Dire Maul North is. Apart from that my main focus was PvP, as I'm still working on Warsong Gulch reputation, and with a 50:50 mix of bear and casting gear enjoyed myself there much more than I have recently. It probably also helped that, presumably due to the release of Arathi Basin, premades are much less prevalent than they were before.

The big drawback of the spec though was that my raid healing was very sub-par. Part of this is undoubtedly tactical but also due to missing some of the deeper restoration talents meaning that, even making use of the larger mana pool by using higher rank heals, I simply wasn't keeping up. I'm going to try for a bit with a PvP-focused Swiftmend spec and then reassess once I've really got the healing tactics for Blackwing Lair nailed down. I might try HotW again, but more likely will do the occasional feral respec, funds permitting.

Fast mount and some interesting tanking

I've been focused for a while on getting my fast mount - mainly through herbing and keeping respecs in check - and last night finally got my Swift Stormsaber. Only to find I could have got it somewhat earlier if I'd realised that PvP rank 3 gives a 100g discount!

When I played originally I didn't bother with a fast mount except as a step towards my flying mount in Burning Crusade but I'm really pleased I've made the effort this time. The difference is night and day, and I feel I get whiplash when starting from a standing start being so used to the slower speed of my old Striped Nightsaber.

My main activity for the evening though was tanking living Stratholme - using my Moonglow restoration spec... A mostly guild group had been looking for a tank for a while and eventually persuaded me to take the opportunity, and not bothering to respec since it's BWL raid night in a couple of days. Despite my advice that this wasn't a good idea they seemed confident, and in fact we managed a fairly smooth, if slightly slow and messy, run. This was largely down to a good, well geared group and them compensating for a non-optimal tank, but it worked far better than I'd expected.

I'm not keen to repeat the experience - missing Feral Charge, feral Faerie Fire and Furor in particular, and being constantly rage starved - but it did illustrate the gap between what players prefer for an easier run versus what's possible.

It also illustrated a key problem with Classic's dungeon versus raid design, and hence the lack of tanks, that such a good group could have been in the position of having a wasted evening as a result.

Full tier 1

After slightly prematurely celebrating over a month ago I finally got the last two pieces of the Cenarion set - the head and the bracers - in Molten Core last night. It was definitely a druid night, both there and with Onyxia lots of set pieces dropped, generally to be sharded as both me, the other resto druid and even the feral had them already. Much chat from the rest of the raid about how soon they would be able to bring their druid alt along.

I'm not sure I quite believe them - although I'm sure lots of alts will make their way into raids as they move more towards farm status, I think the demands of progression and their original motivations for choosing whatever class is their main will keep druids in the minority generally.

Blackwing Lair cleared

It's been a very satisfying week of raiding. Thursday was the start of our third week in Blackwing Lair and we managed to down the Broodlord to Chromaggus on our first attempt at each. This was particularly satisfying for Flamegor after all the trouble he gave us last week, and Chromaggus given it was our first proper attempt. We finished the evening with a "let's take a look" wipe on Nefarian.

Last night we downed Nefarian on our first, very clean, attempt. I got completely stomped by the constructs at the start of phase 3 but fortunately we bring a lot of druids these days so I was able to get a Rebirth and participate with the climax of the fight.

We then split the raid into two groups which each downed Onyxia.

All in all a very satisfying couple of raid nights.

End of an experiment?

Last night, ahead of my second and the guild's fourth venture into Blackwing Lair, I was asked to respec to restoration, probably for the medium term. Our feral druid also respecced so I'm not seeing this as a lack of faith in moonkins but more that the new raid needs a higher proportion of healers than was the case in Molten Core. I'd much rather be raiding and healing than have the spot go to someone else, so I'm now a rather rushed Moonglow spec which I must tweak when I can face the cost of changing it!

I haven't been at the last two raids due to family commitments so have missed the guild's first kill of Broodlord Lashlayer, a much improved performance on Razorgore and quite a lot of wiping.

Wiping was how we started out on Firemaw as well, but with a clear sense of progression on most of the attempts so, while it was a relief to finally get him down, it never felt like it would be a wipe night. We then downed Ebonroc on our first attempt and Flamegor on our second before finishing with a "let's take a look" wipe on Chromaggus.

All in all a satisfactory night of progression raiding in a casual-ish guild.

Third look at Blackwing Lair

I recently unearthed some old screenshots including one from November 2006 of my original priest at Razorgore. I'm guessing we didn't get very far as I don't remember that raid, before seeing the screenshot I'd thought I'd only been there at a higher level (70 or 80?) such that the fights were trivialised.

Fair to say that, even with our current better understanding of gearing and a decent raiding guild, BWL is far from trivial in Classic and rather harder than my guild was anticipating.

On our first visit last night we downed Razorgore and Vaelastrasz at the cost of 7 and 4 wipes respectively. Given the time spent on Razorgore it was quite late, so we called it a night at that point.

I'm glad to see that the new raid will present us a challenge, and it's great to be involved in some guild first kills, as frustrating as the wipes were at times.

Purples make it better

Actually that headline is unfair on both me and my guild...

Last night in Molten Core the Staff of Dominance dropped. My guild runs an odd system partly of free rolls and partly of a sort of loot council. In the past I've been on the wrong side of the latter, with items being restricted to certain key raiders or to warlocks or mages - this seemed fair enough since they would put the item to good use, but there was the worry of how that would restrict me. However last night it was decided that the staff should go to me.

A big part of that was that many of the mages have the mageblade or other good loot, or are keeping their powder dry for the next time that drops, but also there was recognition that I'm now part of the main team. I also had support from "my" mages that appreciate their extra crit.

So while the purple is a physical (virtual?) representation of it, what really makes it worthwhile is that I'm seen as an asset to, and not a drag on, our raid team.

Historic ambition achieved

In last week's Molten Core run I picked up two more pieces (the gloves and chest) of the Cenarion Raiment, and so have nearly a full set. I'm just missing the bracers - which I could get from the Auction House - and the helm, which doesn't seem a big deal since I already have the Stormrage Cover.

Recently I found some old screenshots from 2006 which included a Tauren shaman from one of the top raiding guilds on my server in full Earthfury. This was something I aspired to but without wanting to go through what I then saw as the niche path of the hardcore raider. And now I've pretty much assembled a set of my own from the discards of my guild, in quite a short time.

I'm lucky in a couple of ways, one in that I randomly joined what would once have been seen as a top raiding guild (but is actually fairly relaxed and casual*), and also that we run with few druids and that I'm one of them. Typically we have a druid of each spec, and it so happens that our feral druid used to be resto and so has little use for the healing drops.

* A caveat to the casual - last week our raid leader decided we should speed up from our previous 2 hour clear, aiming for an hour and a half, which we duly did. It was messier than usual with noticeably more deaths, but pretty much always in control. So perhaps we're not that casual, but are miles away from the stresses and constraints you'd expect in a "hardcore" guild.

That said I am feeling a bit constrained by my raiding spec, or perhaps looking at it differently my lack of the gold needed to respec frequently. Long term I think I'd like a bear-focused Heart of the Wild / Nature's Swiftness spec due to its great versatility and grouping potential. But for now, with Blackwing Lair on the horizon, I'll stick with where I am.

Alt time?

Last Tuesday my resolve finally broke and I created a new alt, a rogue. After debating between a hunter or warlock as a solo artist, and a rogue or mage as classes I've not properly levelled before (paladins didn't merit consideration, sorry) I settled on the rogue as a chance to experience the proper stealth class. However thoughts of the long road ahead drained my interest and so he's now sat at the inn in Kharanos.

Instead some YouTube videos and a respec have renewed my enthusiasm for my druid. I hesitated for the longest time before committing the gold but with my fast mount so far off the more immediate gratification seemed the right course and so it has proved so far.

My 0/30/21 spec has far more utility in Warsong Gulch, thanks in no small part to Feral Charge and Nature's Swiftness, and I can either tank or heal in dungeons. My return to tanking was in the living side of Stratholme with a guild group (which was probably not a wise choice of dungeon), but a run through the undead side last night with another guild group was much smoother, marred only by poor handling of the guards just before Baron Rivendare.

I also managed to farm myself a pair of Atal'ai Spaulders of Defense. I'll probably go back for a set of the Monkey or Stamina at some point, but those are nice enough for now.

I'll respec back to moonkin for our raid on Thursday but I can see myself respeccing every couple of weeks. Being able to take advantage of a druid's versatility really does seem worth the gold.

How will we fare in Blackwing Lair?

I'm not sure how the world would categorise my guild - perhaps semi-casual? We raid one or two nights a week with a fairly stable core of raiders and a rotating cast of the rest - perhaps those who cannot or don't want to raid every week, experienced raiders on alts and relatively newer raiders. We're slowly improving our performance on a good base: for the last two weeks we've cleared Molten Core in under two hours and for the last three have killed Ragnaros before he submerged.

Last night there was discussion on Discord of how we'll do when Blackwing Lair is released. The tone was fairly confident, perhaps overly so.

I'm really looking forward to being in on some guild first kills, and happy to work through the wipes that will inevitably be part of some of them. It will interesting to see how things pan out - I hope that the "new" raid gives us a good level of challenge.

Moonkin problems

I'm struggling a bit with my moonkin spec at the moment. Outside of guild groups I'm sometimes not wanted as a damage dealer, and while I can heal I rarely want to offer myself as a healer since my spec's not really ideal for that.

Inevitably there are stronger and weaker classes for different roles, and I feel it's fair that druids and others should pay the "hybrid tax". It's hard to argue with the general theme of rankings such as those on Icy Veins - if you're looking for a damage dealer you'd really like a mage, if a healer a priest, if a tank then a warrior.

It's also frustrating. If I was wanting to play as a shaman tank (something I've done out of necessity in the past) then it would be fair enough for a lot of groups to not be interested - it's their time as well. But moonkins aren't such bad damage dealers that you'd avoid them, anymore than you'd avoid a shadow priest.

Contrarily, the struggle has motivated me to look harder at my gear and consumable options and see how I can maximise my damage. It seems that I'm valued in our raid. As much as the received wisdom seems to be that the moonkin buff isn't worthwhile and it's better to bring another, "proper", damage dealer, this doesn't seem right to me. For one thing it's not just any four mages that I'm buffing, it's the four best mages in the raid, so the buff is disproportionate, and for another while my damage is low there are fights where I'm competitive with the lower performing "proper" damage dealers.

For now I can live with the problems.

It isn't 2005 anymore

WoW Classic may be pretty much the same game that we were playing 15 years ago, but no one I've met seems to be playing it the same way. For one thing many blue items dropping in end-game dungeons are looked on with disdain - the class "tier 0" set items are a collectable curiosity, but with a few exceptions you wouldn't expect to see these actually in use. It used to be that if a warrior tank didn't use a shield at all times then they didn't know what they were doing, while now furyprot is a thing. And so on.

The things that seem to have changed are information and attitude. Websites like Elitist Jerks and now Icy Veins have made it commonplace to know what gear is best for your class and role, and players now seek this out. I imagine that the game's designers didn't really know what was a good and what was a great item, and I'm sure they expected players in Upper Blackrock Spire to think "oh, that's interesting, Jed Runewatcher is here" (or not know that was unusual), not to have members of a group reset the instance until they found one where he'd spawned.

Or maybe the old distinction between hardcore / raiders and casuals meant that this behaviour was there, but 15 years ago I was never aware of it.

Either way, much seems to have changed.