I’ve actually been playing my healer a lot lately. Mostly because she’s been sitting around in this patchwork mixture of blues, Naxx10 my-first-epics, and super OP new-badge-stuff, and I’d like to even that out a little and that way potentially be a help to my guild in the future if an extra healer is needed. (I know you’re about to warn me “Don’t do it Pike, once they start taking your healer you’ll never get to DPS again!” but my guild is actually unusual and informs me that “TAWYN IS 4 FITE”, so I don’t have too many worries about having to scrap DPS forever.)

Not to mention, ever since Tawyn got that trinket, DPS’ing heroics has turned into “Hey check it out, I can pound on random buttons and get 4k DPS”, so I’d might as well play something that can use the badges a little more, eh?

I’ve also started to enjoy my Tree more ever since I started using Lifebloom again. I stopped using it at the advice of a Very Good Tree who told me you could do just fine with Regrowth/Rejuv/Nourish, and I tried that style for a while, and it was effective and you got less overheal, but I didn’t like the style. Druid Healing, to me, has always been like Disc Priest: it’s about damage prevention and anticipating when people are going to take damage, and pre-healing. But with a Regrowth/Nourish heavy style, I was back to Whack-a-Mole, and it just wasn’t as fun. So I’ve gone back to my tactic of triple-stacking Lifebloom on the tank, and letting it bloom (for your instant heal + mana back), and using my other heals as needed for AoE damage or an extra buffer or preventative stuff. It is just a lot more fun to me and I don’t have any mana problems with it.

Anyways, I’ll stick my Tree in LFG for heroics that I know are Super Easy to Heal. Heroics that are Super Easy to Heal = Nexus, UK, Drak’theron Keep, and VH. Maybe CoS if I’m feeling adventurous. Some of the others are pretty easy too but they’ll have some aspect to them that I don’t like or something– for example, the Chain Lightning crap in Halls of Stone, or the stupid fish in the water in Gundrak. I have actually now successfully healed HToC as well, and it was a very smooth run, but I’ve convinced myself that it was a fluke and am still scared to go in there, for the most part, so it is also off of the list.

For some reason I keep getting invited to Nexus, and for some reason I keep going, despite the fact that Heroic Nexus is shaping up to be where all the bad PuGs happen.

First Special Group:
Consisted of a Fury Warrior who was doing a spectacular and amazing 417 DPS, and a Paladin tank who was running out of mana about 10 seconds into every pull, and blaming it on me not healing him enough. And for those of you who are about to say that he was overgeared: he was in Blues and getting upgrades from this Heroic.

After defeating Anomalus the whole group (sans-me) bravely leapt off the edge into that hole– you know the one I’m talking about– the Hole of Death From Which There Is No Rez’ing.

One guy had to abruptly leave because apparently his wife was yelling at him or something, and our brave, mana-thirsty Paladin Tank decided we could four-man it! Of course, he wasn’t aware of the fact that I was outDPSing the Fury Warrior with Moonfires and Starfires between heals, but hey. We actually somehow finished the Heroic. I was shocked.

Second Special Group:
This group actually wasn’t as bad, and the tank was way overgeared. When you’ve got a way overgeared tank and a healer who has at least a small idea of what is going on, you can brute force your way through most heroics even if none of the DPS is doing over 1.2k (as was in this group). As such, this heroic went overall smoothly, it just took three times as long as it should’ve.

I’ll admit to making a mistake here, namely, all the DPS jumped down, sans-tank, after fighting the Ormorok the Tree Shaper Guy. Now for those who do not know, there are baddies roaming around down there. In a moment of hubris I figured I could keep the DPS up and save the day, since two of them were plate wearers, so I hopped down as well, but it turns out that Arms Warriors and Ret Paladins are about as squishy as a mage. Byebye Tree. Hey, I tried, right?

As I was flying away from that run, I got a whisper asking me to heal H. Nexus. I was very relieved to inform them that I’d just finished it and was saved.

I don’t think I’m going to put myself in LFG for Nexus again for a while…

Recruit-a-Friend is insane. Last week my tauren druid was level 38 or something. As of yesterday, she is level 50.

Proof:

(I’m actually leveling as fast as a normal person levels now! Crazy I know!)

At this point the goal is to get her to level 60 as quick as possible for two things: a.) Outlands instances and b.) Wild Growth. Let’s discuss these. Outland instances… I don’t think words can describe how much I love these. It’s really funny cause during Burning Crusade I was like “Well the Outlands instances… they’re okaaaay…” but now that I look back on them, oh my gosh. Have I lately mentioned my undying love for Underbog?

But yeah, healing Outland instances on Tamaryn = one of the best things I’ve ever done in WoW and I can’t wait to do it again.

And Wild Growth I need. I feel like a gimpy tree without it. Nourish is handy but I can live without it. Lifebloom… as much as it saddens me to say it, I’ve used it like… three times since the latest nerf. Poor Lifebloom.

But yeah Wild Growth, give please. *grabby hands*

For the uninitiated in Alpha-Theta-Pike Fraternity, this means I now have in my possession: Two level 80 hunters, one level 80 restodruid, one level 53 hunter and one level 50 restodruid.

You are now free to leave copious amounts of comments about how I really need to branch out and experience more of the game. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you do that. /nod

Don’t worry though, I’ve started the World’s Most Adorable Gnome Warlock Ever and I’m going to pair her up with my long-forgotten paladin and they’re going to be the Team Chaotix to my Hunter/Druid Team Sonic. I’m excited for that.

In other news, I signed up for… something… tonight on Tawyn. I say “something” because it is either going to be “Finishing up 10-man Ulduar, or 10-man ToC”, according to the calendar invite. I’m kind of nervous about it being Ulduar because I’ve only done up to Thorim so far and I’m going to feel like a noob. >.>

It’s funny because I am totally not a raidy-type of person. I mean, I love it, but I can really only do it once a week or so and then I burn out for the week. So, I would actually be pretty okay if tonight’s dealy didn’t happen and then I could do alts instead~ ^^

The desert stretched far and wide under the young druid’s hooves and she found herself sighing at this wasteland that she had come to. The goblins had plenty of tasks for young entrepreneurs, but few would help to test and grow her skill with the healing arts, which was her focus– no, most of the goblins asked for bandits to be chased off and roving animal bands to be culled.

She shifted effortlessly into the form of a dust-colored lion and stretched, as she did so briefly inspecting her claws– they were not as sharp as they could be. Neither were her teeth. She hadn’t studied feral combat at all, and she knew that as time went on and she dealt with more and more dangerous foes, this form would no longer cut it. She sighed again, shifted back into her tauren form, and muttered a brief prayer to the Earthmother as she strode into Gadgetzan’s inn.

That was when she saw him; a blood elf with a red lion’s mane of hair and a large, beautiful cream-hued moth fluttering next to his head. There was something about this elf that shook the druid as unusual, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

She thought for a bit, wondering if she should approach him; these blood elves were somewhat unpredictable in their actions and many of her comrades at home in Mulgore had muttered their quiet disapproval of having to work with them. Still, she figured it was worth a shot, since there was no one else around at this time except for the goblins, and so she sat down next to him on the bench.

He immediately glanced up at her with expressive bluegreen eyes as she attempted to word her request in Orcish, a language which she still did not have a strong command of. “Hello, sir… I am a healer… would you like my help?” Mentally she berated herself for not being able to word that as eloquently as her mind cwas able to, but her thoughts were soon interrupted by the blood elf chuckling and responding– in Taurahe, no less– “I certainly wouldn’t mind some company.”

The druid found herself taken aback at his use of her language. She blinked as he continued, “Did you have anything in particular that you aimed to do while here? I have spent a lot of time here myself; I’m sure the goblins are sick of me by now.” He laughed a bit again– a friendly, good-natured laugh.

The tauren studied the blood elf; here she noticed what it was about him that had flagged him as “unusual”. Namely, instead of wearing the bright, polished armor and colors preferred by most of his race, he was dressed in practical and somewhat bland mail and leather garb, and wore beads and feathers in his hair. His weapon was a gun of typical Tauren worksmanship, and to top it off, his Taurahe, albeit having a foreign (but not entirely unpleasant) lilt to it, sounded fluent.

It was as though he had come from Thunder Bluff instead of Silvermoon.

All at once the druid relaxed. It was a mystery to be sure, but there was a down-to-earth friendliness in the blood elf’s face, and it was reassuring.

“To tell the truth I just arrived not to long ago,” she replied, glad to be conversing in her native tongue. “I am training to be a healer, though, and it’s getting hard to find such work when there are so few about…”

The blood elf nodded. “That’s unfortunate, but sadly, understandable. You’re welcome to adventure with me, though… I could use the company. Not that Chakapas here isn’t good company…” he reached up and gently stroked the moth’s furry face, and it chattered back happily. The elf turned back to look at the druid. “We’ll start you with the basics; this is a rough land. I know a good place where we can practice working together.” He stood up and brushed off his trousers, then extended a gloved hand out to the tauren. “I’m Althalor,” he said. “And you…?”

“Songlark,” the druid smiled.

–

So for Recruit-a-Friend I transferred my Sapling Tree (as opposed to the Full-grown Tree I already possess) over to my new account, specifically so she and the third hunter in my repertoire could level together. The main catch is that for the lowbie to receive bonus XP, the group must not be killing anything that is “gray” to either character, and for both to receive bonus XP, they must be within a few levels of each other. And currently, Althalor has a head-start on Songlark of some ten-odd levels.

Still, I figured I could find something in the middle of their respective leveling ranges and at least get Songlark started on her way.

Enter Zul’Farrak.

The mobs are orange (or red) to Songlark and green to Althalor. Armed with Spirit Bond and a Glyph of Mending, I was able to successfully solo the vast majority of the trash in that place, with Songlark obediently following along and providing Mark of the Wild and the rare backup heal, whilst soaking up all the bonus experience.

I experimented with a couple different computer setups, including this one:

However, the windows were too small to do much work in, and since I was spending 95% of my time on Althalor the Hunter anyway, I eventually wound up making both windows larger and simply keeping one minimized. I didn’t full-screen either of them, to make it easier to swap between them, though.

Oh, and before you ask, it works flawlessly on Linux/Wine. /flex

By now I’ve toted Songlark through good portions of ZF, several quests in both Feralas and Tanaris, and also jumped onto Lunapike to run her through Scarlet Monastery a few times for Whitemane’s infamous hat (which failed to drop and then I got bored…) Suffice to say she was level 38 when we began this little adventure and she’s now a fraction of a bar away from level 43.

I like this Recruit-a-Friend thing. *cough* It feels super awesome to have both Hunter PewPew and Druid HoTs at my disposal– two of my favorite things!

It does feel odd, in another way, though. See, leveling is something I really enjoy doing. I even like leveling “the normal way”. So this would aaaaaallllmost feel like cheating, except that I already have a level 80 hunter (two actually) and a level 80 druid and I’ve leveled both Horde and Alliance characters to 80 at this point so it’s not like I’m missing out on anything new, ya know?

I don’t think I would actually ever use Recruit-a-Friend with someone who hadn’t played before, though… I’d level with them the old-fashioned way, I think. Personal preference, really.

By the way– I’ve gotten LOTS of comments about dual-boxing and programs to use and that sort of thing. I do appreciate all the advice, but at this point I have little interest in “serious” dual-boxing beyond sticking the druid on follow and having the hunter go demolish stuff. Not to mention, I have my doubts about how well various dual-boxing programs would work on Linux. Still, I will keep all the input in mind, just in case.

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)

The fact that we got this far, as a PuG, and on my first trip in there on my druid– and as one of just two healers for a good bulk of it, still hasn’t quite sunk in yet. Furthermore, that last Kel’Thuzad fight was one of the smoothest things I’ve ever seen, me half-asleep and yet somehow still feeling “in the zone” and Rejuv+Swiftmending those iceblocks… it felt amazing. I’m so glad I FRAPS’d it. I can’t wait to make a movie; “The Day Pike Played a Druid And Was Actually Good At It”.

…did I mention I got the [Safety Dance] achievement today too? Irony. Both my level 80s have it now o_o

Lemme tell you though, healing Naxx is nuts. It’s all improvisation. I am completely tuckered out.

Right after that was over, I hopped over to Tawyn, and was soon chucked a guild invite from the guild I was accepted to. Check it out, it lines up with my title + name and everything:

The second I joined I was met with several very friendly “hellos” and “welcomes” and lots of jovial banter. I felt almost bowled over with the niceness.

Also, I got a whisper from the guy who invited me. “Wanna come to our alt-run of 10-man Ulduar?”

I told him I had to go to bed because it was super late.

Bed is more important, right?

I can go to Ulduar later, right?

…riiiiiiiight? >.>

*twitches excitedly*

Yeah, me too.

I still have a rather distinct memory of when I decided to roll Tamaryn, though the “whys” have since largely been lost to the mists of time. I do remember saying in guild chat something akin to “I’m bored, I think I’m gonna roll a druid”, then making one and whispering an officer and being chucked a guild invite within ten seconds of my new character’s existence. I also remember a fellow guildie coming and making a druid alongside me. We did the starter quests together and were soon joined by this random naked hunter who kept challenging us to duels (I always won, because I never let him have range. Class experience for great justice.) When me and my buddy couldn’t shake the guy, we went into the deepest part of this spider cave and got as lost as we could, then hearthed simultaneously, leaving him behind. Good times.

My friend stopped playing his druid once we hit level five or so, and to the best of my knowledge he never played the character again. I kept playing, though, largely because of the sheer nostalgia of playing through the night elf starting area for the first time since Tawyn, my first character.

Upon hitting level ten I put my first tentative points into the Balance tree because I figured I probably would not like melee as much as casting. Leveling was slow going, though, and honestly I probably would have lost interest in the character (as I did all my non-hunters) once I got out of the nostalgia kick that was Darkshore… were it not for that fateful day when a bunch of guildies got on alts all about my level and asked me to heal Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep.

I was very nervous; I had never healed before, ever, well, outside of Mend Pet. Because I was so worried about it, I ran to Darnassus, found the druid trainer, cleared all my talent points, and put them into the Restoration tree. My plan was to respec again and put them back into Balance afterwards.

That didn’t happen.

Because that day, in Deadmines and SFK, I became fascinated with healing. It was like reverse-huntering! It was a completely new experience, so very different than what I’d been doing all this time on my hunters, and I was hooked.

And so, with the exception of a few flirtations with Moonkin-ing (once at level 40, and then again permanently when dual specs came out when I was level 74 or so), I leveled my druid full resto. I RestoKitty’d through the occasional quest, which was slow but effective, but the vast bulk of my leveling was through instances; I kept myself constantly in LFG and shoved myself into as many healing roles as possible. This culminated in a rather unique experience to put on my WoW résumé: I healed almost every five-man instance in the game. At the appropriate level.

It’s been ups and downs, really, but mostly ups.

There was the very slow process of learning about the delicate art of not-healing-too-fast so as not to pull aggro.

The little “squee” I emitted upon running into a group of roleplayers in Southshore when I was leveling there and letting Tamaryn put her fledgling skills to use to aid a “dying” character.

The joy of getting Tree of Life form mid-Maraudon run and using it right there and immediately bursting into /dance.

The rush of winning a single Alterac Valley game (by a hair… literally something like two reinforcements) at level 60 after dozens of losses, and looking at the “healing done” chart afterward and feeling like I had made a tangible difference in the outcome.

There was the perplexity I felt when first learning Lifebloom, because it kept changing all the time– first I was never supposed to let it bloom, then I was, et cetera… not to mention I couldn’t figure out how to use the dang spell, so I quickly resorted to my “healing fetal position” of Rejuvenation + Regrowth.

But then there was the thrill of first hitting 1000 spell power, and soon after, the deep satisfaction of doing Azjol’Nerub and Violet Hold and pulling up the healing meters and realizing that Regrowth had pretty much been completely replaced by what else but that oh-so-stubborn spell Lifebloom– I was, at long last, a bona fide HoT healer.

Yeah, it’s been a pretty crazy ride.

…and yes Virginia, after all these years, Pike finally has an endgame character that isn’t a hunter.

NOW ONWARD TO EPICS!

I’ve gotten a couple comments asking who “won” the contest. I tallied up the votes and yes, the druid won. (To be fair, the reasons given for “hunter” tended to be much more passionate and convincing! But I decided to go purely on numbers.)

So I’ve been playing the druid and having a surprising amount of fun. I’m making good headway on the Wrathgate storyline (thanks to dual specs, I am able to quest more often than I could before), and I even got to experience being a Moonkin and not a Tree in a Violet Hold.

…by the way, they’re OP. *cough* >.>

Boomkinning is interesting; playstyle-wise it feels like a somewhat less hectic version of Survival Huntering, in that you are waiting for a proc (in this case, Eclipse) which then changes up your rotation. (Said proc likes to happen on the last spell you cast before the mob dies, by the way.) I gotta say though, you’ll never be able to take the hunter out of the girl, as was evident to me anytime my treants died and I went into a panic and reached for my Revive Pet button. Overall it was a very interesting experience to do something I’ve done so many times on my hunter– DPS a familiar instance– as… well… a non-hunter.

Okay, clearing-things-up time. I think a lot of people are worried that either a.) I am not interested in my hunter anymore, or b.) I will be writing less huntery things here now. Neither of those could be farther from the truth. You should all know by now that I’d never be able to leave huntering, and on top of that, I’ve had several great huntery post ideas hatch in the incubator that is my head recently and I’m really looking forward to doing some of these posts. I’m mostly just waiting for next week because I’m OCD and like to start things on Monday.

I also think that there is a misconception going around that I am making a conscious effort to fill the shoes of BRK and as such I am actively trying to change the direction of the blog. The truth is, I’m not. As in, I’m not either actively trying to be or not-be the new BM hunter hotspot. Aspect of the Hare has always been an amalgamation of information, education, personal stories, and an attempt to document the WoW experience from the standpoint of someone who is okay at the game but not great and would rather set 80s dance music over thrash metal to her WoW movies. Because there are a lot more of us out there than people realize. That’s what I’ve always been, and that is, well, what I still am. If that makes me the new BRK, then hey, that’s great! And if not, then well, I wasn’t trying to be the new BRK anyway! =P

The only effect that other bloggers quitting blogs has had on my own blogging is that I am determined more than ever to not become a victim of the disease where blogging usurps playing. Blogging about WoW, especially once you have an audience, is hard work. You play for yourself but you have that “Would my audience find this interesting? Would this make a good post idea?” in the back of your head. I don’t think it’s bad to have that in the back of your head, especially if you enjoy blogging (which I do); it becomes bad when that jumps over to the front of your head, if that makes sense. I’m not gonna let that happen. I was never really one of those people that tried to become THE-BESTEST-BLOGGER-EVER anyway, beyond the basics.

All that said, believe me, it does flatter me greatly when I receive positive comparisons to BRK or other blogging “greats”. The comments I get from people saying I helped make them a better player, or I brighten up their day, or they love my writing style– all of these combined with my general enjoyment of blogging are what keep me going. So, thanks, and I hope to provide lots of fun and hunteryness for many months to come. ^_^

/off soapbox

…and sometimes it’s backwards day.

HoT.

The Grizzly Hills Outhouse Quest: Putting the BOOM in Boomkin since 2008.

Tamaryn demonstrates to Commander Eligor Dawnbringer that she has already discovered the preferred method to defeating Heigan.

…and now you know why you should fear a Pike with a camera (or Print Screen button, as the case may be).

And it came to pass that Pike was no longer allowed to cry about druids flying all over the place and grabbing herbs while she had to keep dismounting and remounting. Because now, she can finally join in the fun. Bwahaha.

Yes, my druid is now level 68. It officially makes her “Northrend level”, which is sort of intimidating, because Tawyn and Lunapike were both 70 when they headed in. And all dressed up in level 70 blues/purples. Oh, and they were both hunters, aka Solo Class Extraordinaire. Now I maintain that leveling a resto druid is easier than a lot of people say (HoTs + Bear Form anyone?) but it is slower and despite the heals, there are fewer tricks in your bag for getting out of sticky situations. Fortunately, seeing as according to my achievements I did a grand total of 25 non-instance-related quests in Outlands (an average of 2.5 quests per level… yes, that is really all I did), it means that in Northrend I might be able to get away with doing basically what I did in Outlands: instances, instances, instances, aaaaaand instances, and maybe a random Kara run if I get lucky (OHMAHGAH I WOULD LOVE THAT, you guys don’t even know). But yeah, especially since I have some friends and guildies who have characters sitting around at level 70 or thereabouts and would love some heals… instances are in the cards, I think!

So yeah, that post wasn’t hunter related. Sowwy. =( I have some Hunter Kindergarten stuff in the works. No, really!