So I have to admit, I haven’t been playing my level 80 druid all that much lately. Not because I dislike playing her, since I do like playing her– but because I have a lot to do on my hunters right now. At the moment I primarily log into my tree if friends or guildies are desperate for heals for a heroic or something (yes, I’ve given myself away), and that’s about it. Overall, I really do enjoy having a healer “in queue” if needed.
I have come to a terrible conclusion though. Namely, there is a severe deficit of good healers on my horde server. I think they’re either all in guilds, or PvPing. I work primarily through PuGs, though, Hordeside at least, and healer problems is the constant issue that I keep running into.
And so, because I am largely of the “If you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself” school, I’m… leveling another druid.
Yep.
And because I’m a masochist, I’m leveling it just like I leveled my first– pure resto.
And because I’m a purist, I’m making very few concessions to make my leveling life easier– I am taking 5/5 Naturalist, which I don’t take as a max-level druid, because it gives me the buff to physical damage which is nice when my modus operandi as a lowbie is typically HoTs + cat form– but other than that, it’s a genuine healy spec.
Now to all the people asking “Whyyyyy?” to my RestoKitty ways, I have a few answers. Firstly, I never understood the “leveling as heals is hard” argument. It takes a little longer to kill things than it might on one of my hunters, but not much, and it’s pretty much just as easy. With tons of heals at my disposal, it’s rather difficult to die. As a Tauren especially, with Warstomp, it’s super handy to cast that, then a heal, then pop back into cat or bear.
Secondly, although boomkin isn’t bad from about Outlands-onward, I’ve personally found it to be pretty intolerable pre-level-60-ish. Mana issues galore, and a lack of Eclipse making things interesting. (Don’t hurt me boomkins).
Thirdly, I don’t like carrying around more than one set of gear because I lean towards bagspace problems enough as it is. And since I pretty much only play a druid to heal, my lowbie druid is always in LFG as a healer, thus, Feral would be an unwieldy spec for me.
In the long run, though, I just think leveling as resto is FUN! ^_^
Now you’re probably asking what the point of this post is, and the correct answer is that there really is none, I just wanted an excuse to use the terrible joke I used in the title. Bad blogger, bad! /whaps her own wrist with a ruler
Songlark, level 34 moocow RestoKitty: for the win!
And slated to get heirloom items as soon as my main hordie Lunapike can snag some. (Gosh I wish you could trade your heirlooms cross server and faction. Sooo much. Tawyn has so many unused Emblems of Heroism and Stone Keeper’s Shards… and heck, my Alliance druid isn’t using her heirloom shoulders anymore… /target Blizzard /beg)
When I was leveling my Druid to 80, I was initially leveling with a hybrid 0/30/31 talent spec for leveling, with the occasional instance with the rest of my guild. I remember after a talent reset, I put all the points I had at the time into Feral, because it was obviously quicker to kill things, but in all honesty, I missed instant rage/energy with Furor, and the clearcasting procs from Omen of Clarity, that I went back to my hybrid spec.
So you’re absolutely right. Even if killing things takes longer, leveling kitty resto is still a blast!
Level 34? When did you start this druid? I started my tauren druid (which I’m also leveling resto) about 2 weeks ago. And he’s only level 13 (granted I don’t really play on him much). I 3 manned RFC last night on him though! I made this tauren on the same server as my main as soon as Blizzard allowed me to make characters of both factions on the same server since my server is a pvp server (o this will be fun) but a couple people from my main’s guild also rolled Horde characters for fun. Anyways…you level too fast! Slow down.
Woot! What a lovely name for your furry healer. 🙂
Leveling as resto on a PvP server is quite handy. I did just that and was really good at getting away from those pesky Undead rogues that had a nasty habit of magically appearing when you are in the middle of fighting a mob. Boy, how I would have loved to have the current Shadowmeld back then! However, I did maintain two sets of gear and used the feral one for questing/soloing. It did take me a bit longer to kill things, but I could outlive situations most other classes could not.
Doing things the “hard” way, as some would say, is a great character builder!
My third druid is being leveled resto. She’s only 25, but it’s really not as bad as people think it is. Of course… I’m also the person who leveled her pally to 80 as holy. >_> Even in an era with dual specs I still do my solo-ing and daily quests with my spellpower gear on. Ret? What’s that?
Moocow RestoKitty, possibly the best description of a class / race combination ever 😛
I’m levelling my Druid feral so far, on the grounds that the new forms are gorgeous and I want to use them a lot and that my original aim was to tank. I’ve found myself ‘accidentally’ healing once or twice though, and… I think I enjoy it more than being a meat shield.
Oh well. By the time I get round to finishing levelling him, maybe the theoretical new Tree forms’ll be in!
@ clra 2 – *giggles* worry not, my friend. I am actually and very proudly The Slowest Leveler Ever. Songlark the Druid has been around for about a year and a half. I’m not exaggerating. I made her several months before Tamaryn, my current level 80 druid. I’ve been playing her off and on for quite some while now, and didn’t start really seriously looking into her until a few weeks ago when she was probably 28 or 29 or so.
It wasn’t until just the other day that I decided I really was going to aim for endgame with her though! *nods*
But yeah. Slowest Leveler Ever.
No, see, what you do with the Emblems of Heroism and Stone Keeper’s Shards is buy epic gems! (Turn the Stone Keeper’s Shards into Honor into Epic Gems). :O
I was looking at my Horde 29 druid last night, i think I last logged on to it sometime in early tbc:) been switching around various old and ancient alts looking for a new project, but the inability to easily twink the horde side makes it a bit of a turn off. But for slowest leveler ever I nominate my warrior. He dinged 30 last night at the end of a wsg which is a bit slow for a 4 and half year old character. Still Boa in 4 slots has given him a lift.
@ Hara
I too leveled my pally 1-80 as holy. Soloing elites was rather difficult, but at least I only ran out of mana spamming consecration. Once dual-specs came out though, I dropped the 1000G and moved to ret as soon as I finished up the gear set.
I recently switched from holy to prot as an off-spec due to terrible PUG tanks and hate from poor dpsers…
Rilgon… thanks! Just casually running WG I can go from zero to capped out on honor in about 10-14 days. And I use that honor for all my gem needs. I had totally forgotten about converting Stone Keeper’s Shards to honor as well. I think I’ve got almost 1000 of them, lol.
And I know, most peoplez don’t like AV (or PVP/BGs in general), but my friend and I jumped in 3 matches last night just to experience the XP gains (my 73 resto druid, his 75 frost tank DK). It averages to about 3 quest turn-ins per run. I was getting 2-3 bubbles for 15-20 min. worth of AV. I like AB, but only saw small XP gains in there.