As I detailed above, my RAF partner and I had agreed to spec as tank and healer so that we could always get rapid queues in the LFD system, owing to a third friend’s endorsement that RAF + LFD = fast levels without questing.
Only problem was.... well, there were lots of problems. The most basic of which was, as we got higher in level, I became more reliant on the the pug dps to do their jobs right and work together. At the same time, I swear that my threat generation did not scale up at the same rate as their dps. I had found myself in a system where despite getting fast queues, instances were taking 2-3x longer than they should because careless people were causing wipes.
I fully admit that I am picky/arrogant/impatient/you-name-it, and that this is amplified when I am the tank. I’m not sure what causes this, because as a healer (especially one who raids with Matticus) we’re always taught that we MUST heal the stupid.
Perhaps the issue is that when I’m tanking, I figure I have everything under control, very much “here’s some mobs, come whack them with your weapons and let’s move on in an orderly fashion”. Any deviation from this causes me to /facepalm.
I think the final step was when I kept getting orange-side Marudon runs with those damn plants that reset aggro and stun everyone. Hooray! Such a great mob design! Actually, it probably was a good mob design when 1-60 was supposed to be a hard journey, but nowadays everyone wants to zoom, and this run was agonizing, again and again.
So right about the time I hit level 50, I went to Moonglade and just told my partner that I was making the switch, I was going to try life on the feathery side.
Let me tell you, the difference was exactly what I needed. After 50 levels of tanking, here I was rejuvenated (druid pun intended)
I was destroying quest mobs that before I just sorta held in place and growled at.
I didn’t mind the wait time between queues, I was typically able to squeeze in a quest or two between each BRD run (...and boy was I glad not to be tanking in BRD. That place needs a transit system)
And the topper; blowing things up is FUN. So fun, in fact that while the first 50 levels took 89 days to level up, on the last day I was able to crank out 8 levels in only a couple hours and had a blast (druid pun not intended) doing it.
I know the other day I sort of bemoaned people who try to play their different specs badly, but you know who’s worse? People who never try the other specs at all. You’re a hybrid for a reason. If you only ever wanted to be ranged DPS, you’d have been better off rolling a Warlock (we all know Blizzard loves THEM). But you shouldn’t be just a boomkin or a cat or a tree. You can get dual-spec at 40 now for a reason. Go out, have some fun. Screw up in some random lowbie dungeons where everyone else is “teh suck” as well.
I did it, and I liked it, and that’s probably what saved this toon from languishing away, incomplete.
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