Sunday, March 7, 2010

Druid 10-15

I was right in that I was level 12 before I moved into the Barrens. It's quite the hike without a travel form, or without the flight path!



You want me to find who??


Unfortunately the OP'ness that I experienced in 1-10 all but disappeared as I got closer to level 15. This being my first Horde toon, I don't have another character to fund my way which means I can't simply upgrade gear from the auction house as often as I probably need to. The prices on the auction house are ridiculous and I feel very sorry for the player who is just starting out now and has no high level character to farm on. The quests I’ve completed this far give money, but very few items that are usable meaning I either have to upgrade from the auction house, or continue on with the equipment I have and hope things improve soon. As I’m no longer over-geared for the content it takes longer than a two or three whacks with my mace to kill things and I’m doing a lot more healing that I have before. I’m still killing creatures with little trouble, but as they have generally have more health the higher I go, it simply takes longer to kill them and I consequently take more damage doing it.

The only other option is to drop into bear form and fight that way. Unfortunately that option isn’t much better because all I have in bear form is auto-attack and maul. Think of Maul like Heroic Strike for Warriors, and as Bear form works much like the Warrior class, Maul takes Rage just like Heroic Stroke takes Rage for Warriors. I gain rage in bear form by auto-attacking, so I might be able to get one Maul off on a creature before it’s killed. In my opinion, it doesn’t offer me much more than continuing to auto-attack with my mace. Especially as I do not yet have Feral Regeneration yet and can not heal in Bear form. And popping out to heal, then popping back into bear form takes up considerable mana. All in all, nothing has changed from level 10 to 15 in that you gain nothing new in the way of combat abilities, so for me it remains casting a couple Wraths, then auto-attacking. This being my second Druid, if I didn't know how much better things begin to get at level 20 I'd quit right now. Especially if all I knew was the Barrens. Questing in the Barrens can most aptly be described as "the hike". Travel is involved in every quest and I’ve had to travel all over the area surrounding the Cross-Roads. And all of it done at normal run speed because I won’t get my travel form until level 16. I've all but decided that the Barrens isn't for me and will be making my way to Silvermoon where I can experience the better leveling experience and hopefully get better quest rewards.

The only other consideration that you really need to make at level 10 is how to best place your talent points. I already know that at level 20 I will be using Cat form extensively, so I want to put my talent points in to best leverage that.