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Totem Talk: The Fury of Drek'Thar
Totem Talk is the column for Shamans. Matthew Rossi, our humble yet proud correspondent, feels that there are lessons we as shamans can take from Drek'Thar, Thrall's instructor and one of the most famous shamans in the World of Warcraft. One of those lessons is 'spam disarm on him before he whirlwinds' but that's less a shaman lesson and more a dead night elf warrior lesson. Then again, as shamans, we can all get behind a lesson that leads to dead night elves, right? Well, okay, maybe not those of us with tentacles, but everyone else in the shaman union probably doesn't have a problem with it. And admit it, draenei: you don't really mind when the night elf dies trying to tank Drek with a two hander.Ah, Drek'Thar. Before he moved into Alterac Valley and killed himself a mess of alliance, he was chieftain of the Frostwolf Clan, the first teacher who brought Thrall along the path of the Shaman, blind Far Seer and one of many who had to redeem himself after falling for Ner'zhul and Gul'dan's warlock tricks. I'm sure, as shamans, we can all relate to falling for warlock tricks, right? Stupid Death Coil... anyway, we all know that Drek'Thar was one of the standard bearers who kept the traditions of shamanism alive during the dark period of the Old Horde, who kept the Frostwolves intact in the Alterac Mountains long enough for Thrall to grow to manhood and find them, and today he spends his time killing a whole lot of alliance folks and taking trips to Outland to watch Thrall's home videos of the Orc Cinematics from Warcraft III. Drek is a trend-setter for us. He was dual-wielding before it was cool. Heck, he was dual-wielding before it was possible. He's just that cool. Think of him as the Saurfang of shamans, except with a lot larger body count. That's right, I'm saying Drek has killed more people than Saurfang. Drek kills a lot of people. I'll admit this column so far is kind of turning into a lore-nerd festival, and I can't really help it. After writing the big paean to Uther yesterday I kind of feel like I need to balance it out with a testimonial to an awesome horde NPC, and this is the shaman column, so a great shaman should get some press. But I don't want to turn this into Know Your Lore, inasmuch as we already HAVE that column. So, then, why talk about Drek'Thar at all? Because he serves as a model of what shamans should be, and therefore, gives us ideas to discuss about the future of the shaman class.
