Two months between posts

Not something I’m happy about. I just never seem to have anything exciting happen to me.

I suspect that’s why this blog has rarely been updated; I have found my ground state, my equilibrious point. My guild runs Kara and clears it, and we poke our heads into ZA now and again. Old-school night is fun but inconstant. My spec is locked solid. The only thing I really have to do is worry about what will happen in the future.

Unlike most of the other bloggers I read, I am not in the Wrath of the Lich King beta. Like Bellwether, I’m not sure I’m looking forward to Wrath. Like Pike, I can see my niche disappearing (boy howdy, is my niche disappearing- both Dreamstate and Panzerkin are going to become much harder, if not impossible).

This is worrying. Since April, I have been more or less constantly a 34/0/27 druid. There was the one weekend when I flirted with 48/0/13 (and brought the Wrath to the Alliance in PVP briefly) but, for the most part, I’m Prism specced. Unsubtle Dreamstate. I love this spec, as it has done great things to me-

• Healed Karazhan (Entirely)
• Healed, partially or fully, every heroic in the game except Black Morass
• Healed: First three animals in Zul’aman, though not the fourth one (Tanks say: Ow, my face!)
• Tanked, on heroic: Steamvaults (45 minutes); Underbog (1:20 with four people); Slave Pens; Hellfire Ramparts; Blood Furnace (Partial only); Mechanar; Botanica; Sethekk Halls. And on normal mode, everything else except, if I recall correctly, Mana Tombs.
• DPS: ‘Most everything. I never get to DPS on the Prince Malchezaar fight. It’s like they’re worried about my aggro or something…

This is just a small selection. My spec allows me to be the theoretical jack-of-all-trades that a druid is, and have a blast in the process. There’s just a small problem.

Well, two small problems.

1: It’s going away. According to what Blizzard says, the ‘exceptional armor’ items like Shermanar Great-Ring and the Earthwarden are going away. Rogues can’t possibly be expected to maybe have to deal with leather items not built for them… upshot is, I won’t have the armor to tank instances any more. Besides, my major threat generation was via Wrath-spam and, well, the anti-pushback talent doesn’t exist any more.

Edit: YOU take 1293 Ignorance damage. YOU are afflicted with “Read The Talent Changes Properly, Noob”.

Thanks to Thorn of Glyph of Thorns for pointing out that the pushback resistance on Wrath, Roots, and Cyclone are all folded into Nature’s Focus (a talent I would be picking up anyway).

2: I’ve always identified primarily as a healer. I love to DPS- it’s something I rarely get to do. I enjoy tanking on occasion, if I know I have a good group. Healing… is my major role. This blog was originally about a resto druid, and even if I tend to have more points in Balance than in Resto these days… I’m still a healer. The problem is, I don’t know if Dreamstate will still be viable come Wrath. The deep Restoration talents look amazing and depending on the encounter design they could practically be required.

My entire playstyle is out the window. Blizzard’s giving us indoor crowd control at last, a real rez at last, but… I’m not really that excited. If I can get my character transferred to the PTR, I’ll walk the talent trees through their paces and tell you what I think. I’m hoping that the new talents will make me be more excited about this whole thing.