Saturday 6 September 2008

Things I miss when playing the other character

We had another of our weekly Karazhan runs last night and due to a surplus of tanking specced classes Medrare got to go as dps. With no other feral druids in the party I had the extra challenge of keeping Mangle and Faerie Fire up on the mobs being focussed on. It was a lot of fun especially as I was acting as raid leader again so had to run tactics as well.

Given that running around in Cat form is a lot like playing a rogue it got me thinking about what I miss from one class whilst playing the other. So here is a non-definitive list for each of them:

Rogue
Heals - Relying on food, bandages and natural regen can be slow and expensive at time. Linked with this is Improved Leader of the Pack with it's improved crit chance and heal every so often when you do crit helps you to do the Duracell Bunny thing and keep on going.
Instant pulling - Whilst stun locking and getting the first blow in from stealth is the way of dispatching a mob 99% of the time. That other 1% requires you to pull 1 away from the group to dispatch away from his friends who might be slightly upset with you. Throw or Shoot take time to happen plus the travel time which means that the bad guy has the opportunity to wander. Something like faiere fire means that you use it you know you're only going to pull the mob you're interested in.
Variety - When raiding or instancing the rogues job is usually the same in every fight, do as much damage as you can whilst not causing the tank a headache, an occasionally preventing a spell cast. Whilst you can tweak and perfect your rotation to try and eek out those last 1 or 2 dps after a while it can become a bit samey. With a druid, even a feral one you've got all the tools to heal and provide ranged damage, it's not the best but whilst raiding I've provided a combination of tanking/dps and healing all in the same run.

Druid
Interrupts - There is nothing more annoying that seeing a mob casting something that would cause a lot of pain should it complete. Whilst Maim can be used it does rely on not just having spent all your combo points on Rip and having the energy to use it. Having something else in Cat Form such as Kick would be fantastic.
Vanish - Not only great for dumping threat should you need to during a fight but when things get a bit tricky due to running mobs or things wandering in during the middle of your fight being able to trick them all that you're not there can be a big life saver.

Now this isn't a wish list for either class, just trying to highlight some of the key things each class can bring by noticing them when they're missing when you play a different one.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed your post. I can sort of sympathize. My main is a mage, as such I have access to all sorts of neat things my main-alt doesn't have, like blink, conjured food/water/manna biscuits, mana gems, etc. I always find myself trying to blink on my priest and having to buy water sort of annoys me after playing a mage for 2 1/2 years.

That said, when I've been playing my priest (main-alt) regularly, who is an IDS priest, and go back to my mage, I miss the ability to HoT myself, have the Improved Divine Spirit buff, and pretty much live through anything!

So, it sort of goes both ways. :D

Anonymous said...

I really only have one alt, my bank alt, which is a Pally. What do I miss.... Blink.

Running from the AH to the Bank is an incredibly long way, when you are used to blinking 1/2 the distance.