Trading Plate For Fur?

I completely forgot we didn’t have anything scheduled raid wise for last night. We just weren’t going to have the people we needed for Ulduar Hard Modes or Heroic ToC.

So what’s a Paladin to do? I knocked out the Heroic Daily. Many thanks to Blue for helping me put together the group, Donk for agreeing to pew pew, Grim for healing even though he was in PVP spec and Shad for coming along even though it probably cost him the chance to buy his Warlock’s PVP pants from Wintergrasp. (We lost Wintergrasp during the run). I appreciate it guys.

Unplanned PVP

Afterwards, I headed up to the Tournament to work on some quests. While doing the “kill 10 Risen Soldiers” quest, I was attacked by an Alliance Death Knight. I had 6 Risen Soldiers on me, that I was AoEing, when Mr.DK attacked.

I tend to quest in full tank gear/spec. I finished off the Risen Soldiers and turned my attention to the Death Knight. He was at about 80% life from the Consecrates and Hammer of the Righteous, and I was at around 60%. Thanks to the Risen Soldiers procing Blessing of Sanctuary, my mana bar was full. He did that thing that puts you into an ice block and didn’t have a Ghoul out so I’m thinking he was Frost. We started to duke it out, but I could tell he was getting the upper hand. I used Hammer of Justice to get off a heal or two, but Prot spec/Prot gear the heals aren’t anything to write home about. I waited for Ardent Defender to proc and hit Lay on Hands. Hey, its world PVP, and you attacked me while I had 6 mobs on me. I think you’ve lost any right to cry about ‘fair play’. I used Divine Protection instead of Divine Shield since I have my 4pc Tier 9 bonus (90 second cooldown on Bubble Wall). He realized that the tables had turned and hit his rocket boots to try to escape. I nailed him with an Avenger’s Shield to drop him into Hammer of Wrath range, which finished him off.

I can only imagine the unprintable things he was saying about Paladins, either under his breath or in his guild chat.

Luckily those 6 were the last I needed for the quest. I definitely did not want to be in the area when he rezzed, so I mounted up and flew back to the Tournament. That quest gave me my 25th Valiant token and I am now I am once again a Champion. Somehow ‘Of Silvermoon’ just doesn’t excite me the way ‘Of Ironforge’ did. I miss me dwarf.

Trading Plate For Fur

I spent the rest of the evening having a blast on my Druid alt. Each time I’ve taken a toon to 80 (and I’ve got 3), I’ve said ‘Honors, this will be the last toon we take to 80’. I said it when Honors hit 80, I said it when the Hunter hit 80 and I said it when the Warrior hit 80.

Yet, here I am once again, leveling an alt. I guess I’m just one of those strange people that actually likes leveling. My Druid has been especially cool because he’s my first Horde alt to get past 51.I’ve never seen the game from this side. While some quests are repeated from my Alliance experience, some are brand new to me.

One of my favorite things about the Druid is having Stealth. Let me tell you just one story. Coming out of Marshall’s Refuge in Un’goro, I was being chased by a Warrior/Priest combo. I dismounted, switched to cat and went into Stealth. They gave up the chase. I started stalking them. I figured if I could hit the priest then I might have a chance to burst her down and go one on one with the Warrior.

As I’m looking for them, I get knocked out of stealth by one of those huge Elite Devilsaurs that roams around Un’goro. How does something THAT big SNEAK UP on you?

Another really cool thing about the Druid is the talent Predatory Strikes. It gives you a buff that makes your next spell cast instant. It was put in to give Ferals a change to Cyclone in Arena. It may be the most amazing leveling talent in the game. It’s basically kill, kill, instant heal to full, kill, kill again. It’s also amazing for getting you out of tight spots. You can be fighting, instant heal to full, and be right back in Cat fighting again.

So far I’ve done quite a bit on this toon. I tanked Sunken Temple, DPSed in Uldaman and I’ve actually had a chance to heal! It was a Maraudon run. I was experimenting with Balance at the time, but I agreed to try to heal the run. We had a Shaman with us who would help out with Maelstrom Weapon procs if I got into trouble. The crazy thing was I kind of liked it. Healing with HoTs was so much more fun than spamming Flash of Light.

I really enjoy the versatility of a Druid. What I’d really love to do is turn this guy into a Swiss army knife. Basically whatever a group needs, I can do it, whether it’s Tank, DPS, or Heals.

What I’d need to do is find a Feral spec that could both Tank and DPS, and then find a decent Resto spec. I thinking of trying to build to something like http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZxGGsfrzceRccuVkbA0z for my Feral spec. For Resto, I’m looking to build something like http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0VG0zZZf0IuiuxiuVhsVo. I’m planning on buying his Dual spec once he hits 60.

These would be for use in Outland and Northrend 5 man normals. I’ll worry about a level 80 heroic spec once/if I get there.

Comments

Icarus said…
a druid that does it all? go figure!

the spec you posted would be pretty decent... its more tanking oriented than dps... If you want a bit more dps definately swap out infected wounds for predatory instincts and I also use 2 points in improved mangle over the improved leader of the pack...

with that spec I have had no problems tanking anything and everything while still benig able to do some awesome dps. I have thought about doing a full bear and a full cat spec too but since I heal A LOT and i never know if will be needed to tank or dps from one night to the other I have kept that spec and it has served me quite well.

The diversity is definately my favourite thing about a druid.
Sard said…
My druid bear was shelved for a ret Pally at the end of BC. After leveling him to 80 in WotLK, and hitting naxx 25 with him, I realized that melee DPS and subsequent low framerates weren't much fun. But I loved the pally as a solo and 5 man.

I pretty quickly got the druid to 80, and spec'd him moonkin for his excellent raid buff's. My regular 10 man has taken down yogg a few weeks in a row now, and ToC hasn't been a problem for us, excepting the occasional bad-makeup for the 'pvp fight'.

My moonkin has a 2xT8.5 and 2xT9, and tree has similar.

Ret pally has similar Tier pieces, except that most of his other pieces are from Naxx or ToC 5 man.

I love stealthing and insta-flight form on the druid.

I love the non-stanced versatility of the pally, and the flow of ret dps.

At this point, I'm 'stuck' raiding on the druid, but farming on the pally.

Am debating the switch back to Feral on the druid, to see if it's as fun as ret-pally.
klenta said…
I definitely agree that your feral spec is much more geared towards tanking.

Mangle as a tank gets used on every cooldown just because of its high damage and threat. And if you're questing solo, mangle is going to be used much more than shred. So as Icarus said, I would suggest taking points out of Improved Leader of the Pack and putting it in Improved Mangle.

In addition, while leveling, I feel that Berserk is not worth it. As a questing kitty, mobs die rather fast imo. And your energy is going to be to full by the time you reach the next mob. In an instance, ideally you wouldn't be close enough to the next pack to need the fear breaker portion. The temporary dps boost is nice but in the scale of things, it's not going to make a huge enough difference in an instance. Hitting swipe and a glyphed maul works pretty well for aoe tanking.

P.S. Feral charge in kitty form is the most amusing thing ever.
Tegoelf said…
that is why i dont play on a pvp server... though he was a stupid DK to take on a pally solo. I laughed, I've had pissed off hunters etc pull groups onto me because i pissed em off some how.... yeah, kinda dies when they realize that even with 25 to 30 of those sob on me its not enough to kill me.

Thanking them for the fun is the best part =)

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