Posts with tag patch-2.3

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, sometimes known as the Big Bear Butt Blogger, starts his series on leveling a new Druid from 1st level all the way to 70th.

Before I begin my series on leveling your new Druid from 1st through 70th levels, I'm going to start with some of the things you can do to prepare.

Why not just leap right on into level 1? My reasoning is simple, just like me. When you have been watching Druids claw face as bears or cats, or as a new player you read about the description of the class and the shapechanging capabilities Druids enjoy, you might just expect to walk in and start doing the same yourself right from the start. The promise of the class is the fun of shifting from one form to another, depending on your playstyle.

Well, when you start your new Druid at level 1, you won't be clawing faces. Instead, you will be leveling as a caster... a ranged DPS caster for levels 1 - 10, and likely on towards 20. Just as Hunters don't get the ability to tame a pet until level 10, Druids do not get the chance to learn their first form until the Bear quest chain becomes available at level 10.

If, as you were sitting at the character creation screen, you were thinking you were going to be a kitty, all up in the face of the bad guys right from the start, it can be a bit of a let down. Especially if you don't care for playing a caster class in the first place.

Hopefully, however, by knowing how to set yourself up in advance with the in-game Options, useful User interfaces and Addons, you'll find yourself leveling up as a caster painlessly, and may even come to enjoy the versatility of some of the Druid's powerful casting abilities.

While the focus of this series of articles will be to help guide a brand new player into the fun of playing a Druid, hopefully there will also be some suggestions that an experienced player trying the Druid for the first time will find useful.

Check your in-game mailboxes today. Greatfather Winter may have sent you a recipe. Deacon sent us a tip this morning saying that he got a Tailoring recipe for "some fine green winter clothes", so I ran and checked Freja's mailbox to find that she had received a recipe for Hot Apple Cider.

• Pattern: Green Winter Clothes -- Tailoring, Horde only
• Pattern: Red Winter Clothes -- Tailoring, Alliance only
  
• Pattern: Winter Boots -- Leatherworking
• Recipe: Hot Apple Cider -- Cooking

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week brings John Patricelli, sometimes known as the Big Bear Butt Blogger, to begin looking at leveling the class from the ground up.

So, you've been thinking of rolling a Druid. You've seen Druids in your guild tanking Heroics or Prince Malchezaar with their Big Bear Butt, you've seen them flying overhead in Flight form, before dropping from the sky in the middle of a pack of mobs and clawing faces and chewing limbs as a Ferocious Cat, or maybe you've seen the incredibly smooth and powerful healing of your favorite Golden Tree. Or maybe the last thing you saw in PvP was a Feathered Owlbear bringing down the Wrath of the Starfire on your head, or holding you immobile and helpless with their Whirlwind.

Or maybe you just want to look like another hunter pet.

Whatever the reason, something about the Druid class interests you, and maybe you'd like to know a bit more before making the plunge.

Well my friends, with the changes to experience brought in Patch 2.3, leveling a new alt or creating a main character has never been more attractive.

This article is to get you acquainted with the Druid class and give you an idea of what playing one is like, both early on and in later levels. In later articles, we'll go over the specifics about what you can expect as you level.