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.