A Night in the Life of a Level 70 Druid

On Monday nights you will normally find me at my computer playing World of Warcraft, generally on my level 5x Hunter attempting to get him up to level 60 and into Outlands where all the money is. Last night though I decided to waive that and try and do an instance with my main character, my level 70 Druid. Instances are the other name for dungeons.

In this case, I wanted to do one of the dungeons in Terokkar Forest. Since I have never ever done Mana Tombs, I decided to put myself down as LFG - Looking For Group.

The first group I get are a Warrior, a Mage and 2 Druids (one a healer, the other a dps feral), all lower level than me. This puts me into a different category. The dungeon is levelled at around 65 whereas I am level 70. So this gives me some ability to shrug off the damage I'm getting. Not much, because even though I'm 5 levels above, 2 or 3 monsters of 5 levels lower will be able to beat the living daylights out of me.

I ask the team, "What Role should I play? Healer, DPS Cat or Tank Bear?"

The Warrior pipes up with "Duh! We have a Tank, me! Play a Healer."

The Druid DPS comments "Duh! We have a DPS, me! Play a Healer."

The Mage shrugs and picks his nose.

The Druid Healer hugs me and says "Yay! Please help me!" In private he messages me with a "I'm so glad you're here."

The reasons behind this is that the Warrior and the DPS Druid have no idea how to play their classes and lack even basic knowledge of what to do to in a Dungeon (Don't wander around because it will aggro monsters. Don't think that you can dodge attacks, you will only make it harder for your team mates to help you. Don't shout at the Healer when he doesn't heal you, he's avoiding Threat so he doesn't die when you wipe from your stupidity).

After over aggroing the healer, Tank and DPS, I decide to switch my role to a Bear Tank.

Druids have the amazing ability to play a variety of classes - Bear Tank, Cat DPS, Tree Healer, Moonkin-Mage. The last two are specifical specifications which mean that if you choose either of them, you can only play in a very limited way with the others. But that's not to say that you can't play as anything else at all. I am a DPS Druid, meaning I excel when in Cat Form. I'm good in Bear Tank form, and only less than average as a healer or mage.

Anyway, I'm now Bear Tank. This now makes things interesting because I'm out aggroing the Warrior, and requiring less healing. He decides to quit, taking with him the mage, leaving us with holes in our group. After a few minutes, we get another level 70, this time a Warlock and a Hunter. Both classes use Pets, so this allows us to crowd control a bit more. But it would be better having a dedicated healer and a Mage, for the DPS. However, spending time looking for these classes will take longer than we have, therefore we make use of what we have and plan accordingly.

So we get back into the game. 40 minutes later we confront and take down the 2nd Boss monster. Hurray. Suddenly the Druid Healer decides to scarper (Sorry I have work to go to). So we replace with a Priest. Another 30 minutes later and we take down the 3rd and final Boss, in a battle that kills everyone.

2 and a half hours after I've started, I trudge off to sleep, Mana Tombs vanquished. At the back of my mind is the fact that if I had gone with my guild, we could have raced through in half the time with minimum casualties. General players don't know how to play their classes.

The Warrior was not taunting. The DPS Druid was not watching where he was going, and he didn't know what Innervate was. The Healer Druid did not heal entirely well but he was trying, so he can be forgiven. The Hunter didn't know how to leash his pet, which continuously aggroed as it raced to keep up with its master.

All in all, it was a fun night, but one that needn't have gone on for so long.