Shifting Perspectives: Having fun with all Druid runs!
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, the Big Bear Butt Blogger, takes a trip down memory lane, and looks once more at the crazy hijinks Druids get up to.
In the months before Burning Crusade was released, when players knew that the raiding rules were about to change and a new game-changing patch was imminent that would cause everyone to re-examine their specs and gear choices, many guilds eased up on the raiding focus a bit.
As the focus on raiding changed for some guilds, and players suddenly had a bunch of extra time on their hands, folks that had been raiding relaxed and looked for new ways to have fun.
Being WoW players, the desire to try new and wacky things just for the heck of it flourished.
Dire Maul tribute runs, Baron Rivendare speed mount run competitions, naked gnome raids on Hogger, and many other antics were seen.
Of all the classes out there, though, In my opinion, players that roll Druid style just seem to look for more fun and crazy ways to goof around and try to take on stuff together.
Sure, I'm biased. But while there are plenty of hybrid classes in the game, it just seems that it's always the Druids that I hear about going off and trying crazy things together.
For example, look at the evidence of Druid fun and games, from before the Burning Crusade as seen in this video from back in November of 2006.
More recently, of course, we had the infamous Murder of Crows that swept Dark Iron, terrorizing the Horde server wide. As far as I know, the Penny Arcade Alliance of guilds remain unchallenged after that one.
Doesn't that look like a lot of fun?
Well, here we are at the same point in the life of the game, where a new game-changing patch is imminent, a huge expansion of goodness is coming soon, and some raiders are relaxing a bit in anticipation... and looking for different ways to have fun.
Continue on after the break for more neat all Druid hijinks!
We've talked about 10 Druid Karazhan runs before, such as the fun run by Immortal Trust back in June.
Sadly, the attempt by Immortal Trust could go no further than Romulo and Julianne, but they did have a great deal of fun destroying Attumen, Moroes and Maiden before calling it a night. And the story of their partying in Deadwind Pass sounds pretty awesome, too.
Having seen an attempt once, it was only a matter of time before someone tried again.
I've seen mention before on the WoW Forums of other guilds and groups of Druids doing Karazhan and even Zul'Aman. For example, I know that Kalimdors Legion on Hydraxis claims to have done a full clear of both Karazhan and Zul'Aman with all Druid groups.
However, this is the first time I've had someone involved in one of these kinds of fun events actually cough up lots of screenshots and a full description of the run. Like the beautiful shot of the team showing off in front of Nightbane featured on the front page.
So today I'm here to tell you a little bit about a guild called 'and the Wheelies', a casual raiding guild on Dragonblight (EU), and their latest adventure; a full Karazhan all Druid run.
The questions we ask, of course, are; how far did they get, what did they do, and how were they geared?
Natrius, a level 70 Feral Druid in the guild gave me the breakdown.
They went into Karazhan with ten Druids;
Now, I added the links to each character's Armory, because I think it's fun to be able to see how each person chooses to gear out and spec their character. Since we ARE talking Druids, however, you have to keep in mind that you never know when someone may have chosen to respec, or may have logged out in a different gear set than what they would have used on their run.
Natrius says that 'and the Wheelies' is currently progressing through SSC and have almost cleared ZA. So we're not talking about a guild of fully decked out Tier 5/6 bored raiding champions. We're talking about a couple solid steps above Karazhan, but still not so overpowered that there was no challenge to the run. It sounds like the all Druid Karazhan was a ton of fun to try.
They put together their run, mixing mains and alts to get a solid group of Druids, but Natrius says they didnt hold out great hopes of completing every boss due to a lack of shackles, dispells and interrupts.
However, they were confident going in that they would be able to at least get a few bosses down.
One of their biggest concerns was Maiden and her Holy Fire, since only Priest and Paladin classes can remove it entirely. They chose to ignore the Holy FIre and focus on Lifeblooming through it, without using protection potions, and it turned out to work very well for them, with only one Holy Fire related death.
Attumen, Moroes and Maiden therefore went down with ease.
When they reached Opera, it turned out that they got Wizard of Oz as their event.
Natrius said Wizard of Oz was a lot of fun with all Druids, and much Off-Tanking was performed. Dorothee cannot be tanked, of course, but with a tank or Off-tank on every other mob, it wasn't a great deal of trouble for them to have their remaining DPS take care of her in short order. Their biggest concern had been if they got Romulo and Julianne because of the need for constant interrupts on Julianne's heal, but the luck of the draw and a solid collection of Off-tank capable players saw them through.
Shade was reported as being an interesting and hectic experience, but multiple Tranquility spells after the Pyroblast were an outstanding benefit.
During the Netherspite battle, 'and the Wheelies' discovered that Moonkins can take the whole of the blue beam during the fight, as long as you have some great Restoration Druids keeping them up with HoTs.
Prince went down easily to the team, despite a difficult infernal drop, and every other boss, including Nightbane, was one-shotted.
All, that is, except one.
That's right, every boss encounter was one-shotted by this excellent team... except Terrestian Ilhoof.
They did give it a solid try, but in the end they couldn't quite manage to control the waves of imps successfully with applications of Hurricane. They ended up getting butt deep in imps, and overwhelmed.
Regardless, a great time was clearly had by all, and I think it's awesome that a guild was able to step up and take a first shot at a run like this, and walk away with such a solid success.
Congratulations to 'and the Wheelies', and good luck to you all in your future raiding!
So, the bar has been set, with screenshots to prove it. Who is next out there, to step forward with your all Druid clears of Karazhan, maybe with Romulo and Julianne or Illhoof to boot?
Or perhaps an all Druid Zul'Aman clear?
So send those stories and screenshots in, I'd love to see them, and if you share your tips and strategies for the specific bosses, you can be sure I'll be delighted to share them with your fellow Druids right here!
Looking for more Druid goodness? Every week Shifting Perspectives provides you with advice, strats and humor for Druids of all specs. Read our complete guide to gearing your Bear Tank for Karazhan, leveling tips for Moonkin and our two part Bear tanking guide.
