While gearing up my Feral Druid, there was something peculiar that caught my attention. Keep in mind that other than that Kara run (which I was basically carried through, since my heals were insignificant at the time), I had yet to do a single instance. If I was a new player to the game, I would have zero experience with group dynamics, or working with a group at this point. I wouldn’t know the basics about waiting for the tank to get aggro, waiting for casters to get mana after a pull, or even what “marking” is. The idea of a “boss” would be something new for me, especially a boss with unique moves that I had never seen before.
This game almost forces you into groups if you want to get gear, so you don’t end up in a Kara group without knowing anything about running with a group. I remember grinding instances on my Mage to get minor upgrades, which affected my DPS and survivability so significantly. And gear that I couldn’t get in instances, I’d have to spend a lot of time working towards. I can’t even remember how many hours it took me to farm for just the [Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders], let alone the other two items in the set. And don’t even get me started on the primals needed for [Spellstrike Hood] and it’s companion. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of time and gold that went into powerleveling my tailoring up to 375 so I could make and use the full set. Now compare it to my druid.
I bought [Heavy Clefthoof Leggings], [Heavy Clefthoof Vest], and [Heavy Clefthoof Boots] from a LWer in Orgrimmar for 150g. I bought the gems ([Enduring Talasite] and [Solid Star of Elune]) uncut from the AH and had the guild jewelcrafter cut them for me. I spent a day doing AV for [Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders], and gemmed that up as well. Paid the guild LWer 10g for a [Stylin' Purple Hat], and he gave me 4 Heavy Knothide Armor Kits free. I hit him up a little later and paid him 100g for [Nethercleft Leg Armor] which I attached to the leggings. I bought [Braxxis' Staff of Slumber] from the AH for 30g, and I had [Dabiri's Enigma] from a Netherstorm quest that I stashed in case I needed a defense rating boost. I also grabbed [Strength of the Untamed] from the CE quartermaster. The rest of my gear was made up of random odds and ends that I had picked up while leveling or during my first Kara run (like [Bracers of Maliciousness]).
Without stepping into any instance, and without paying that much gold (<500g), I was already set with crit immunity, 14k life, and 20k armor self-buffed. I was basically ready for Kara. If you read my post from a few days ago where I talk about gearing up a new Druid, you saw that I could get a Druid to almost 17k health and 23k armor without even running a single normal instance!
It becomes increasingly interesting once you look into the respective play style of each class, and what’s required of them. I found that most of the time on my Mage I was spamming a single hotkey over and over, occasionally hitting another one to put it on cooldown, all while watching the DPS charts. Depending on the fight, I may switch target or move around a bit, but it all came down to spamming a button or two. On the other hand, my Druid required full situational awareness, and the ability to instantly react to a change in situation, whether that be a CC breaking that I need to pick up, losing aggro on a target, or even having to reposition or move around, based on the fight. I need to have my “oh shit” buttons ready, and need to be able to react to anything at anytime.
It’s an interesting juxtaposition, if you really take the time to think about it. The class that is simpler to play requires a lot more when it comes to gearing up, while the one that is harder to play and requires more attention (and, may I say, requires more skill?) and focus and reaction time, is significantly easier to gear in comparison. Hm… perhaps this is another way that Blizzard balances the game?
What do you think? Anyone else play any classes that they had an easy time gearing? Or the opposite, any of you found yourselves having to invest a lot of time towards gearing up your class? And how hard (or easy) would you say it was to gear yourself up? Share your thoughts in the comments, or in your own blog post (link back so I see it)!
Arguably one of the easiest classes to gear up is a Feral Druid. This is due mostly to how easy it is to obtain good gear (especially at the early raiding level). However, no Druid should leave home without doing their research. A Druid who walks into a heroic without crit immunity won’t last to tell the tale. Lucky for you, fellow Druid, I’m here to do most of the hard work for you.
For most of this research and work, I’ll be using Rawr, a phenomenal tool for Feral Druids (and quite a few other classes as well). I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t already created a giant excel spreadsheet that does all their math for them (*cough*). Not only will it rate items based on it’s mitigation and survival values (for druid tanks), but it even has a big [Optimize] button, where all you give it is what gear and gems you have available, and it finds the best combination possible! It even has a similar button for finding upgrades! Absolutely amazing, and no druid should be without it.
Each gear level below will have a title, and next to that title will be a download link for the .xml file for the character I used for that level. To save it, right click the link, and chose “Save Target As…” or “Save Link As…” and save it somewhere you’ll remember. Then in Rawr just go to File->Open (or hit Ctrl-O) and select the .xml file you just downloaded.
We’ll start at the beginning, where all Druids have to start out. You recently hit 70, and you’re looking to run a few level 70 instances, both heroic and non. Due to the ease of obtaining gear, you can very quickly turn this gear set into a heroic set, and eventually a Karazhan set. The biggest help you’ll have at this point is either a high Leatherworking skill level yourself, or a friend with a high Leatherworking skill level. Since you recently hit 70, I’ll assume you’re completely ungeared, and won’t ask you to get anything from instances (yet). To make up for this (and to get you crit immune), we’ll be relying heavily on gear you can obtain by just PvPing for a while.
Our armor set will look like the following:
| Head | Neck | Shldrs | Back | Chest | Wrists | Hands | Waist | Legs | Feet | Finger | Finger | Wep |
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All of the PvP items together will cost you a total of 73,442 honor, 20x[Warsong Gulch Mark of Honor], 80x[Arathi Basin Mark of Honor], and 50x[Alterac Valley Mark of Honor]. This is quite a sum of both honor and marks, and I highly recommend you don’t try going for all of it at once. If possible, build up your non-PvP gear and then get a PvP item or two, and then run some instances to fill in the spots of other PvP gear (see the next section for instance-level gear suggestions). Finally, throw in whatever idol and trinkets you happen to have at the time. If you still have your [Idol of the Wild], that will do just fine.
If you have all of the above gear, you will find yourself with the following statistics (self-buffed with MotW):
| Health: 16657 (T) 15814 (NE) | Armor: 22554 (T) 22576 (NE) | Dodge: 21.67% (T) 23.43% (NE) |
| Miss: 6.20% | Mitigation: 65.35% (T) 65.37% (NE) | Dodge + Miss: 27.87% (T) 29.63% (NE) |
| Total Mitigation: 72.57% (T) 73.20% (NE) | Chance to be Crit: -3.16% | Overal Points: 80780.09 (T) 78814.52 (NE) |
| Limited Threat: 718.85 (T) 703.22 (NE) | Unlimited Threat: 975.04 (T) 959.72 (NE) |
Okay big bear, you’ve gotten yourself most of the gear from the previous section, and you’ve probably already taken a shot at tanking an instance or two. By now, you’ve probably figured out that while Druids can’t parry or block, we bring lots of health and armor to the table. Soon we’ll be focusing on our dodge as well. If you have enough of the above gear to have crit immunity (0% chance to be crit or less), and you have at least 10,000 health, you’re more than ready to try some normal instances. Try and aim for some of the gear shown below and work your way up the ladder. Once you can remain crit immune and break 14,000 health and about 25% dodge, find yourself a good group and run some heroics, you shouldn’t have too many problems. At this point, save up some money and buy yourself a [Badge of Tenacity] if you can. Additionally, try and hit exalted with CE for the [Earthwarden]. With all the [Badge of Justice] you get, make the first item you spend them on a [Idol of Terror], and the second item a [Band of the Swift Paw]. One final note, run BM enough times to hit Revered with the Keepers of Time for the [Glyph of the Defender].
Our gear for this level will be as follows:
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