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Shifting Perspectives: So you're thinking of playing a Druid
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week brings John Patricelli, sometimes known as the Big Bear Butt Blogger, to begin looking at leveling the class from the ground up. So, you've been thinking of rolling a Druid. You've seen Druids in your guild tanking Heroics or Prince Malchezaar with their Big Bear Butt, you've seen them flying overhead in Flight form, before dropping from the sky in the middle of a pack of mobs and clawing faces and chewing limbs as a Ferocious Cat, or maybe you've seen the incredibly smooth and powerful healing of your favorite Golden Tree. Or maybe the last thing you saw in PvP was a Feathered Owlbear bringing down the Wrath of the Starfire on your head, or holding you immobile and helpless with their Whirlwind. Or maybe you just want to look like another hunter pet. Whatever the reason, something about the Druid class interests you, and maybe you'd like to know a bit more before making the plunge. Well my friends, with the changes to experience brought in Patch 2.3, leveling a new alt or creating a main character has never been more attractive. This article is to get you acquainted with the Druid class and give you an idea of what playing one is like, both early on and in later levels. In later articles, we'll go over the specifics about what you can expect as you level.
Blood Pact: Let's lock and roll to 60!
Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman.Freshly mounted, you are perched at the beginning of the end of your Azerothian adventures: levels 41-60. The fantastic Outland beckons, but it is not time yet. While your demonic collection of minions is almost complete, and your spellbook is swathed in shadowy flames, your training is far from complete.More power, more dungeons and more slaughtering of hapless fauna wandering stupidly in the wilderness awaits. With a resolute glint in your eyes, you give a silent command to your flaming steed and gallop into further depths of shadow and flame.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Outland awaits you
The Care and Feeding of Warriors brings you the last installment in its leveling guide this week, taking you from the Dark Portal to the foot of Tempest Keep. Matthew Rossi has gotten three warriors through Outland, and yet he kept discovering new quests and things he had missed the first two times through, so he has no problem believing that he'll leave your favorite part of Outland unmentioned. He apologizes in advance.Today's column is about Sentry Totem.I'm just kidding. No, today's column is instead about getting your warrior from the first time you step through the Dark Portal to level 70. It's possible to step through the portal at level 58, and so I'll be assuming that's what you are doing, although my three 70 warriors were all 60 when I brought them through. (I have another 60 warrior I haven't bothered to get to 70, and a couple in the low 50's/ high 40's who may or may not go through at level 58, if I decide to level them over my current paladin.) This is not going to be an exhaustive list of every quest or every dungeon, just some general pointers to quests of particular interest for a warrior.Spec advice is going to be limited here. This is purely aimed towards grinding your way to 70, as most of the advice from previous posts about talents and specs still applies. There are several new abilities one gains between 60 and 70, and we'll go into them in a later post, this one will be very long already. (But yes, Spell Reflection and Intervene rock very much, and only replicants don't like Commanding Shout.)We start our sojurn in Hellfire. Specifically, Hellfire Peninsula, one of the best named (or at least most accurately named zones) in Outland.
Blood Pact: Free mount at 40!
Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman.I confess that I rolled a lock for simply the coolest mount in game, back in May '05 when I was still a wide-eyed WoW newbie. Yes, the one thing that visually - and financially - sets us apart from most other poor sods who have to cough up 90g or so: the free Felsteed mount at level 40!When you ding 40, put EVERYTHING on hold, fly/run/swim to the nearest Warlock trainer and get Summon Felsteed for 1g (or probably just 90s, depending on your reputation with the city). For this low, low price, you also get 75 riding skill, so that you can ride all other basic mounts - but why would you wanna?!Now that I've stuck this carrot-on-a-stick in your face, let's hope that this will spur you through the enchanting mid-levels of 21 to 40.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling Up 41 - 58
The Care and Feeding of Warriors heads into the home stretch of this series of leveling guides with a look at the levels that used to be just before endgame, and which now are just before stepping through the dark portal. Luckily, Matthew Rossi has so many warriors that it's not terribly hard to find one he hasn't leveled that far yet. The poor tauren warrior in today's header was actually his first tauren warrior, only to fall away neglected when he rerolled on Malfurion. Looks lonely, doesn't he?We've covered getting your new warrior up and running, and we've covered getting her or him through the mid-level game. Now it's time to talk about the time before you can go to Outland, when you're finally wearing plate, running some of the most well designed instances in the game (hopefully, anyway) and finally getting access to the highest tiers of talents.I've been asked in previous posts to tell people what talents to pick for the fastest leveling. I haven't done that because it really depends on if you're playing solo or grouping often. If you're running groups with a pack of like-minded, same level friends, then Protection is the strongest talent tree for leveling. Running instances and doing instance quests will get you to 58 faster than soloing, and Protection is probably the most useful spec for a single warrior in a five man group. If, however, you're going to be spending a lot of time solo, then Arms is probably the easiest spec to level in. Get some decent 'of the bear' or 'of the tiger' greens, keep them updated every couple of levels, get the biggest, meanest two hand weapon you can and go to town. I personally leveled my most recent warrior (draenei) to 55 in Fury just because I'd used arms for my human, my tauren and my orc (my night elf was all over the place) and while it can be more difficult, it's not as bad as you'll often be told it is if you have the right gear. Patch 2.3 has actually gone a long way towards fixing itemization for the leveling fury warrior. Either way, Arms or Fury are better for leveling than Protection if you are spending the majority of your time soloing. If you're running a lot of instances, go Prot. These are the levels where you can actually feel your spec. Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam are in your grasp, the former kings of their respective talent trees. You'll be able to go 41 points in a tree, should you so desire, by level 50. So it is in this band that you'll be able to say 'I'm a Prot Warrior' and really be accurate.
Totem Talk: So you're still working on your Shaman...
Totem Talk is the column for Shamans. Matthew Rossi lives in Canada, so he had Thanksgiving last month and today is just Thursday to him. On the down side, this means no turkey, but on the up side, this means he's desperately trying to get instance runs on his Draenei Shaman and failing because no one's on his server. He just noticed that the up side kind of isn't all that up. However, he's buoyed by the fact that William Shatner, a great Canadian, is the new voice of shamans. We are conduits, people!Last week, we talked about Shamans from 1 to 20. This week, we'll cover 21 to 40, and also talk about the new Water Shield before we get to the meat of leveling concerns.From my reading of how it's going to work, you will get roughly the same benefit from it (600 mana every minute basically works out to 50 mp5) but for instance and raid healing, this new version is better. Heck, it's much better, because you won't have to worry about wasting a global cooldown on reapplying the shield and then not being able to cast that heal as fast as you might want to. Nature's Swiftness can only do so much, and the only thing close to a HoT that shamans have is Earth Shield (which will cost less mana, woo hoo) so it's nice to not have to burn the GCD every minute.For an enhancement shaman in a raid, it'll probably be slightly less efficient if you're not getting hit (which, after all, you don't want) and slightly more efficient if you are. For soloing, I can't imagine it will change at all. You'll attack a mob, he'll hit you back popping the shield three times, you'll recast it. As long as the new version doesn't cost mana to cast, it's still 600 free mana every time you reapply it. An elemental shaman should find herself pretty much in the same boat, not having to waste the GCD to cast it every minute and not wanting to be hit in a raid or instance anyway. In short, it's a minor buff if it goes as it seems it will.Okay, now that we've covered that, on to leveling 21 - 40. To my mind, this is where most of the meat of the class is, where you really start to get the cool abilities and understand how shamans work, how they amplify other classes and stand out from the pack.
The Light and How To Swing It: Surviving 1-20 as a pally
A lot of people want a high-level paladin to heal, tank, or (as of 2.3) smash faces, but aren't sure how to get up to the point where it becomes fun. Does it get beyond Seal of Righteousness, Judge, Seal of Righteousness, Judge, heal? How can I make the same content I've done five times interesting? When are people going to stop laughing at my blood elf? Read on, as The Light and How to Swing It takes you and your paladin to level 20. First off, you should know what to roll. Four races -- human, dwarf, draenei and blood elf -- can be pallies. If you're Horde, your choice is limited to one. Alliance have more choices, so you need to look at the racials of the classes and what races you've already played. If you haven't made a draenei yet, I would recommend them, as the 1-20 content will be new to you. Plus, the 1% hit aura is pretty nice. The human Diplomacy racial is killer if you're planning on doing heroics, and both Sword and Mace specialization come in handy if you're going Ret. As for dwarves ... well, dwarves have Stoneform, which is nice for PvP. There aren't a whole lot of benefits to being a dwarf paladin, but they are kind of cool-looking, especially female dwarves.
Blood Pact: So you've picked a Lock ...
Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. There's been a chorus from my dark brethren calling for the return of Blood Pact. As a career Warlock player - with a /played of 105 hours days (oops!) since May '05, you can say that I've been afflicted by the demonic embrace of this fascinating class. Observant readers will notice that I'm also the Blood Sport columnist - bloody coincidence? There may be more sinister forces at work here ... With quicker 20-60 leveling in patch 2.3, this is the best opportunity for you to start on brand new alts, and what better class to invest in than the solo powerhouse class of magic-users gone all dark and emo (no other class takes large chunks out of their own health bar all the time ...).This 1-20 leveling guide assumes you're not new to WoW. I will focus on abilities that become available as you level, and how to maximize their effectiveness, rather than a zone-by-zone laundry list of quests.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling Up 21 - 40
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is focusing again on getting new warriors up to speed. Matthew Rossi has done this quite a few times (at present, all of his warrior alts are at least level 45 except for the tauren on Zangamarsh, poor neglected tauren) and he's not always done it very well, so at least we can all point and laugh and learn from his mistakes. It's fortunate he makes so many of them for us to learn from, really. We're blessed by his unique way of finding the pitfalls in our path by blundering straight into them.So now you're a newly trained level 20 warrior. You've definitely decided you're not going to twink for the 19 WSG bracket, you're geared up and looking forward to the next twenty levels and finally getting a freaking mount so that you can keep up with all the Aspects of the Pack, Cheetahs, Spirit Wolves and Blinks out there. You're not at all bitter about your lack of a travel form, especially is this is your fourth or even fifth warrior and you're saying to yourself 'man, I forgot how much it sucks to have to run all over the freaking place'. Oh, sorry. That might just be me.Anyway, time to talk about the warrior specific quests, class abilities and other aspects of the class you'll be picking up in this swatch of the class. 20 to 40 is when warriors really start to feel distinctive based on their spec. It's when you can actually start to seriously tank anything and when you'll be getting your final stance and a nice warrior specific weapon. (If you like two handers, anyway.)Oh, and the image with today's column doesn't really reflect any of this. I was just mad that they shrank my hat, and I wanted to show you what they did.
Totem Talk: So you've decided to roll a shaman...
Well, I sure hope you have, otherwise the entire premise of this column is faulty. And you wouldn't do that to me, would you? I mean, no one likes a faulty premise. They're like leaky ostriches. Anyway, welcome to Totem Talk's look at taking a starting shaman from 1 to 20, both for new players and for players who've leveled other classes. Last week we talked about how shamans were by far the least played class, so this week it's time to try and give a leg up to new shamans, especially now that patch 2.3 has brought faster leveling options to the 20 to 60 game.First off, as is the case with most classes, the first ten levels aren't representative of how the class plays later. Whether you're intending to be a healer, a melee DPSer or a caster, you'll be playing those ten levels more or less the same due to the limited spate of abilities you'll have access to. The class starts to open up around level 10 when you get the second totem quest (we covered the totem quests in this post, so I won't go too into detail about them again) and can start learning fire totems and spells. Basically, from levels one to four you spend a lot of time throwing lighting at things so that they come over to where you can hit them with a mace or a stick, and you'll be making that stick hit a little harder with a weapon buff around the same time you learn how to drop a stick in the ground so that you don't get so badly hurt when things hit you back.And you get Earth Shock at level four, which is going to be your friend from then on out. Repeat after me: spell interrupt. You will wonder how you got to level four without it.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling Up 1-20
The Care and Feeding of Warriors anticipates Patch 2.3 the way Cookie Monster rips the plate from your hands and devours the cookies with a 'gnom gnom gnom' sound and flying crumbs everywhere. Matthew Rossi learned to do a mean Cookie Monster, Grover and Elmo impersonation when he was in his twenties. He doesn't like to talk about it.Since we have in the past been accused of focusing too much on the 70 game, this week's installment of TCAFOW will be spending some time with the brand new warrior. Since we know Patch 2.3 is on the way with improvements to leveling and instancing between 20 and 60, it behooves us to be level 20 or thereabouts when it hits, and that's what this post is all about. While it's not terribly hard to level to 20, it never hurts to discuss the do's and don'ts of the initial 'trying-on' period of the class.The first few pieces of advice are general ones. First off, if you can, go to the Draenei or Blood Elf starting zones to level grind. The quest progression is better, the rewards are better, the zones are well designed to funnel you from place to place, and you can solo almost everything you'll come across with a few notable exceptions that will require grouping as you near level 20. Do as much in these zones as you can, perhaps even set your hearths there if you don't mind being fairly cut off from other zones. The blood elf starting zone has the benefit of a transporter in Silvermoon that will take you to Undercity, and thus the zeppelins for transport to Kalimdor, while Azuremyst and Bloodmyst isle are a touch more isolated, requiring two boat trips to get to. But at low level, a few corpse runs are no major impediment compared to the experience you'll gather in those zones.There are things you can always do to make a new warrior's life easier if you have a higher level main: they're obvious, and I won't cover them here because either you have such a higher level character and can figure it out pretty easily, or you don't and therefore don't have recourse to them. Similarly, higher level friends can help you, but if you don't have them you don't have them. This post assumes you just bought the game.Levels 1 to 10 of the warrior are, like most classes, incredibly basic. You start off with Heroic Strike and Battle Shout at level 1, gain Charge and Rend at level 4, Thunder Clap at 6, Hamstring at level 8. Clearly, since these are all the abilities you are going to have, and you won't have gained any talents yet, these are the abilities you will be choosing from. You may not even have a ranged weapon yet: get one as soon as you can. While charge is fun and awesome and a rage generator, there will be times you're going to want to pull a mob over to where you can more easily control the fight. Remember, adds are not your friend at this level, as you have no real way to deal with them.
How to raid Karazhan as an Enhancement Shaman
How can that be, you say. Enhancement's for leveling, not for raiding! Kessin of the Dark Iron server would beg to differ and to prove his point, he wrote up quite an excellent guide to playing an enhancement Shaman from creation to Karazhan.The first half of his guide covers what you need to know to get from level 1 to the front door of Karazhan. He includes this sage advice: if you guild doesn't want you playing weapon wielding, totem throwing, whammy shammy, then get a new guild. In my opinion, this goes for every class working with an off-spec. Skill and talent trumps cookie cutter spec every time.Once in the 10-man raid zone, the guide gets interesting. Kessin provides the strategy for this spec for every major boss fight. Don't worry, all you hardcore raiders, Kessin also recommends off healing when necessary. If you love your enhancement shaman, or play with someone who does, this is the guide for you.
