So, a few days ago a guildie made her return after a 4 or 5 month hiatus, and since the levelling guild we share is not one of vast changes over time, her old levelling buddies were still around and still had a handful of alts that she could party up with for the few hours per week she can play.

I’m one of her old levelling buddies, there are three of us in total, plus some friends we each picked up along the way who tag along at times.

So, the other night we took a look at all of our alt toons and discussed which were closest to one of hers that we could all party up with and spend some of her long-accumulated rest bonus.

In the end, the three of us went into Razorfen Kraul - me on my 33 Druid, and my two long-time guildmates and levelling partners who were on a 32 Rogue and 25 (healing) Priest.

“I guess you’re the tank?”

My Druid has long been spec’d Resto, although at times I will go for a Resto/DPS mix in my stats, to go along with the two different gearsets I carry with me on this toon.

So, uh, I threw on my DPS gear and hopped into Bear form, and tanked my first instance, with friendly partymates who were supportive while I fumbled and follied and got the Priest killed.

So Many Fun Aspects To This Game…

I’m someone who likes to challenge myself and to learn and to improve, and World of Warcraft just keeps on entertaining me with the same content, from a different viewpoint.

Last night was about two things: Trying to recall what I’ve seen other good Druid tanks do, and Challenging the healer enough that she didn’t have time to contribute DPS via wanding ;)

I grabbed a Marking addon via the WoWMatrix addon updater, and while it works okay for me, it’s got some problems so I’ll probably be looking for a replacement if I start to tank a little bit more. The one thing about the addon I did get is that it only shows up when I’m party leader, and most times it’s the tank who’s the leader, so it doesn’t show up to bother me at all.

We didn’t get a chance to complete the instance because our Healer friend (the one who just got back into the game) had a slightly unruly child not wanting to go to sleep, and we had to call it after a couple of bosses, not really wanting to turn to the LFG line to fill out the party at the late time of night it already was.

But in the time that we played I had a bit of practice with some of the key Druid tanking strategies, including slapping a Rejuvenate on myself before going to Bear form to gather up 3-4 mobs and beat them down, pulling with Fairie Fire and doing LOS pulls.

It was kinda neat, but I’m not really looking to make a job of it quite yet ;)

Tags: bear druid, cat dps druid, druid tank, druid tanking strategies, druids in dungeons, low level druid tanking strategies, razorfen kraul, resto druid, tanking with a druid, world of warcraft

Since it’s Christmas time and I’m at my parents’ place on a 56k dial up connection, I thought to use my at-home computer time for posting some updates on the statuses and recent advancement activities of my various toons that are below level 70 (well, below level 60, actually!).

Druid Hits 27, Advancement Postponed

My Druid is Resto spec’d with a little bit in Balance. I focus mainly on healing in dungeon parties, and I’m documenting my path for others who might be interested in advancing a Horde toon/alt largely on dungeon parties, ignoring a lot of the solo content on the game.

This toon isn’t being played much at this moment, while I put efforts into getting my Rogue and Priest into Outland and to level 70 before the Expansion raises the level cap to 80 and leaves Outland a different landscape for dungeon groups than it is today.

Here’s what I’ve done so far, however:

Druid Advancement History - Solo To 12, RFC to 17

This toon I advanced solo to level 10 and then started collecting all the quests for Ragefire Chasm, using WoWWiki to chase down all the pre-requisite quests, and then I advanced myself to level 12 and parked myself in Orgrimmar near the portal. I ended up healing for about 15 Ragefire Chasm PUGs over the next while, until I hit level 17.

Let me say here that while the LFG Tool and the Dungeon itself allow player entry into Ragefire Chasm as early as level 8, it is still recommended a player reach level 12 before joining RFC pick-up groups with complete strangers. I’ve written about why I believe and recommend this to players over in this blog entry.

Using WoWWiki.com To Gather All Dungeon Quests

Occasionally I’ll get into a dungeon run with zero quests for the instance, but in that case I don’t even bother to ask other people to share their quests - I’m already “okay” with just going into the dungeon party for the experience and potential gear upgrades. Besides, there’s always someone else in the group who will ask “anyone got any quests to share?” and I can benefit then.

In general, I take responsibility for doing my own quest-gathering, and I use WoWWiki almost exclusively for the process because their site makes it so easy - from the ease of correctly guessing the URL to the specific Instance I’m looking for details on, through to how perfectly the quest chains are laid out, it’s excellent… with one flaw - if I want to look up a quest mob, I need to head over to Thottbot to find out where to go!

17 to 26

At Level 17 I went back to WoWWiki and looked up Wailing Caverns (WC) in order to repeat my steps from before: Gathering all of the quests for the dungeon and doing all of the pre-requisites required for the quest chains that ended up in Wailing Caverns. I then advanced to 18 with a quest or two from Crossroads and at level 18, got into Wailing Caverns PUGs until I hit level 20, at which point I added Shadowfang Keep (SFK) to my PUG list and at 23, I added Blackfathom Deeps (BFD) as well.

Friends Barter On Occasion

I got most of my quests done in PUGs but did take friends up on “dungeon run bartering” twice for this toon, enabling me to get all of the Fang Lords killed in Wailing Caverns and letting me have a chance at the cloth drops in Shadowfang Keep (since there were always 3 cloth-wearers in any given SFK PUG, since SFK has great cloth boss drops).

Deciding To Postpone Advancement

Recently, however, I’ve decided officially that this toon will be riding the Fourth Wave of Level Cap Advancement, and since I’m working on the Third Wave of Level Cap Advancement (First Wave: Hunter hit in Sept, Second Wave: Mage in Oct/Nov, Third Wave in Progress: Rogue/Priest slotted to hit together), I’ve only done a run or two in the last month - a couple of Razorfen Kraul (RFK) parties starting at 26 have gotten me to 27 where I currently sit.

Pondering Staying Resto/Going Feral

I am pondering turning this one from a Healer spec to a Tank spec and starting the scary process of learning how to be a good Tank in a dungeon group. Tanks and Healers are always sought after in groups, and if you’re a good one, it’s much easier for you to build a list of competent tanks/healers (whatever you are not) and damage-dealers (DPSers) because they’ll seek YOU out, too.

I wonder if it won’t be easier to learn to be a Tank where the pressures are low because the content is “old” and there’s a lot of familiarity amongst the players already (Azeroth) instead of trying to learn it on my level 61 Warrior in the Outland where bosses do things that actually need explanation! But, we’ll see, as this toon is largely parked for now.

Tags: azeroth, druid spec, Dungeons, how to find a pug, leveling through dungeons, LFG tool, LFM Tool, lowbie druid, pick up group, pugging, PUGs, resto druid, tank or heals, trading dungeon runs