All In A Day's Duel. (Long post ;_;)Follow

I groan inwardly, looks like its back to The Barrens. I finish sythesizing the last of my potions and take one last look at Thunder Bluff. I actually enjoyed being here, and i mean although i could come back, The Barrens is well... The Barrens. As i make my way to the lifts to take me down into Mulgore, i stroll down memory lane. My first experience with The Barrens wasnt the best, 3 hours looking for a moonwell, getting attacked by dinosaurs, centaurs and other nasties.. the apparent emptiness of other WoW players, possibly due to the fact it was 2am and i really wanted bear form before i went to sleep. Meh.

Its not too long a walk, nothing has changed. The Barrens is still the quagmire of bleakness, (in comparison to Mulgore and *sigh* Camp Narache). I pass through the first village, gathering herbs whilst being careful not to stray too far from the path as i travel to meet a fellow Druid at The Crossroads. Its a long walk, and fairly uneventful. However, upon arrival at The Crossroads, i can see a lot of commotion. There are quite a lot of people duelling here. I know that somehow, im going to get roped into this, but there are three problems. The first is that im incredibly stoned as i set foot in The Crossroads. The second problem is that this is my fifth day playing WoW and i have no experience at all so i can foresee how the majority of duels will go. The final problem is that everybody is a higher level than me, and they ALL seem to have equipment which is green. Now ive got two green pieces myself, 3 if i include the spare trousers i carry in my backpack. So i figure im just going to quietly walk by, and speak to Mr Runetotem (If i remember correctly). This works out, as he is quick to point me in the direction of the peak of Dreadmist. The Barrens is poisoned, maybe thats why it looks so dismal, and its up to me, and Runetotem to heal it.

I figure i might as well make myself comfortable here, and try to locate an inn where i can lodge while i conduct whatever business i have/will have in The Crossroad. Of course easier said then done, as a level 16 shaman decides he wants a piece of me as i run by. 'XXX challenges you to a duel!' Well this is brilliant. In my condition, i figure ill just click accept and try anyway. Im on a PvP server, i chose this server, i WANT to PvP... just when i have an idea of what i should be doing! So the countdown begins, 3...2...1... and i reach over and puff some more on my joint as i watch this shaman lay waste to me. I know, not the best approach to take, but its 1.30am and im stoned... i dont have the mentality to care. I manage to find the inn, activate a few more quests and log out for the night.

So today i log back in, sober and ready to finish the Dreadmist part of my quest. The Crossroads is quiet, i dont need to worry about duels, yet. So i head out in search of this peak, picking up a few more herbs along the way. Eventually i see it, looming up maybe not so high.. but high enough. I make my way to the top where im greeted by some friendly members of the Burning Legion. Now although im new to WoW, i do have a (very) brief knowledge of some of the history. Our races = good, Burning Legion = bad. So i waste no time in giving them the same similar kind treatment. I find the pool i need to find, it looks like a green infected puddle of nastiness. I dip my flask in, and scoop up some of the disgusting water, when out of nowhere.. like three or four Burning Legion people charge me. One of them, a toxic-something yells at me, obviously angry that im here to spoil his plans. I turn and attempt to flee, as im not equipped for battle but alas, my reactions were to slow and i was defeated.

Angrily, i guide my spirit back to the peak and ressurect. I head back to the top determined to crack the skulls of those b******s, but alas they have disappeared. If we meet again, i will exact my revenge. I make my way back to the crossroads and give my sample to my Druidic friend. He tells me he needs some earthroot, and kodo horns. Luckily for me through my herbing, i already have earthroot. But the kodo horns... (if thats indeed what i need), are another matter. As i ponder this a level 14 mage runs up to me and challenges me. Well thats fine, he is the same level as me so i think why not, hell i need the experience.

The fight begins, and before i can blink im a freaking sheep. Now wtf? I just blink at my screen, wondering if im still stoned from last night as i run around, unable to do anything. A level 22 shaman runs up and laughs, taking a seat to the side to watch the fight as i pop back to myself. My mind switches on, if only for second to tell me that that ability is special for mages, and that they cant do it if im a bear. So i proceed to entangle this mangey mage, and follow up with a moonfire. Then i switch to my bear form and with a great roar befitting a bear of my calibre, i charge this rooted mage. Well things begin to work out for me, as i start clawing away. I repeatedly hit my '4' key, as it does a more powerful attack when i have rage. My roots wear off, and i suddenly find my feet are now blocks of ice as this mage dances away and begins hitting me with what i think are fireballs or something. Great.

Quickly, i switch back to my Tauren form, and cast a healing spell. Its my upgraded spell, and its good as it healed a lot. A nice surprise for me, maybe not for the mage as i entangle and moonfire him again, switch back to bear and charge him again... well at least thats what i wanted to do. Instead i got as far as moonfire before i turned back into a sheep. That move is really annoying. Sod this, the effect wears off and i change into a bear, determined to stay as a bear and charge. I hit this guy, 1..2..3. times with a big hit, my stun ability finally works and im able to finish off the mage.

"Good duel", says the Mage as he runs off into the distances. I turn around to be met from a challenge by mr 22 Shaman, who quickly mops the floor with me. Why bother? Seriously im no challenge, thats what i was thinking. I wasnt angry, and im not angry now. Just amused and curious. Well there are a few more people around, who want a piece of whatevers going. Unfortunatly for me, i fall into the 'whatevers going' category. Next up was a level 14 priest, and this is where things get interesting as it was a looooooooong duel.

Straight away i go with entangle and moonfire, im glad i dont have to worry about turning into a sheep. Instead i have to worry about these black shadowy things that keep hitting me and greatly slowing down my spellcasting. I switch to bear form and find myself running in the opposite direction, a weird symbol above my head. I again cant control myself, man these abilities are annoying. I regain control of myself and run to this priest and start hitting him. I dont know what he is doing but half the time, i dont do any damage to him at all, he just absorbs everything. What the hell? Is this class like invincible or something? Im forced to switch back and heal myself, which is harder to do as again im hounded by the black things. Im just glad the heal is powerful otherwise would have been dead there and then. Determined to do some damage, i run back in as a bear and stun him, (yay it worked, yep there have been many times when it hasnt) and i start beating on him. I use the ability which lets me generate 20 rage at a cost of -defence, and i hit him with my claw attacks. He is down, below halfway, im above 3/4 health. Its looking good but again, im running otherway, the weird symbol above my head. This cycle continues for about another five minutes, although every time i attacked him after this he seemed to be absorbing my attacks. Then he would just run away and hit me with the black shadows, and eventually he got me before i could get off a final heal.

I admit defeat, and we both exchange 'gg'. A level 16 warlock is next to challenge me, there is no break from PvP here. I accept and get swallowed up by his black shadow, it was over quick. I couldnt do anything, my spells were interrupted and my health just drained in bear form. He finished me off and then a random dwarf appeared out of nowhere and hit me in the back. Ok now wtf?! It seems a group of higher level alliance players want to kill everybody in the crossroads. All is going well for them as they begin massacring the population, until the guards accompanied by a level 70 mage appear and send them packing. While this is happening, im talking to the warlock who turns out to also roll a high level druid and shaman. We become friends, (which is nice) and he has to go.. and so do i to do another freaking essay. Life certainly can be a *****, hell im supposed to be doing it now but i just had to get this off my chest first.

I have no doubt that later when i log back in, i will again be swamped by duel challenges, by people of similar level and not. I want to be prepared, i want knowledge to be my latest weapon instead of playing in ignorance, blindly swinging my Goblin Smasher. So here i am, telling my tale of woe, the tale of my decimation at the hands of this world. I want this to end, therefore i would be very grateful if i could get some answers to a few questions of mine. I have read the sticky, quite a few times actually, and it is helpful but to be honest i find it a little, brief. Maybe this is because i used to play ffxi, and there are guides for everything in that game. Oh well, here goes.

1) First and foremost, i love PvP. The reason i bought this game was to play PvP. However PvP isnt fun when you have no knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of other classes. Ive flicked briefly over the other forums but i want to ask my fellow druids. How do you deal with the other classes in PvP.. are there any specific tactics that i may use to make my fights slightly easier? I am currently at level 14, but any experience would be appreciated. Druids are very versatile, according to what ive read and to a small extent experienced. How can i use this versatility to exploit the weaknesses of the other classes, in fact, what are they?!

2) A more general question perhaps, but is there a way to auto target people? I ffxi, if you press '*' whilst having something selected you lock onto it. Is there something similar in WoW? The reason why i ask this is because when i was fighting the priest, he would hit me with the shadow things and run off, and for a while id get mixed up whilst curing myself and end up target other people having other duels. Then he would just run back when he was ready and continue beating on me.

3) Today i saw a level 16 warlock beat a level 20 druid. The following conversation basically talked about how it was impossible to kill warlocks, the higher in levels they get. Is this the case? Are they really hard to kill at level 70 for us druids?

4) A question about the talent system. When i hit level 10, i had a message telling me i can spend points in this talent system. I like this idea but whilst browsing the talents i accidently clicked a talent and spent my point. It was in balance i think, and it lets me cast a spell where if someone hits me, there is like a 35% chance they get entangled. When i spoke to my trainer, he told me i need to give him 1 gold to reset it. Now at the minute i have about 12 silver after spending my money on upgrades for my crafts and spells.

I still dont know how i want to play my druid so ive saved my other points. I was wondering if i decided to go feral, would my first point be a waste? I read somewhere that a good feral build goes 5/5 with the first talent option. With me it will probably be 4/5 as ill need an extra level to make it up. Would i notice a difference in performance? Or should i stick to balance because i already have a point in there?

5) I notice there are not really any equipment guides for like low levels or indeed new players like me. I check some people who are like 1 level above me, and they have say level 14 armor, whereas my armor is like level 9-10 something like that. The auction house is waaaay too expensive for me, so do any of you know of any equipment guides i could possibly look at, something which will show me a few options and how to acquire them for my level? At the minute im relying on whatever equipment gets dropped from my exp mobs which seems paltry in comparison to the green stuff that other people wear.

I do have more questions, but these five, (especially the firt one) is what i really would like answers to. In ffxi, it generally goes Player > Gear > Race, which is why id like to get some PvP tips from druids, who actually have to fight the other classes. I apologise if these questions have been asked before, indeed i did check! Well, ill get back to my essay now, but thanks for any responses, they would be greatly appreciated.

Sarathai.

You weren't kidding about the long part. Anyway, if thing you get when you get a funny symbol over your head when you can't do anything but watch your character run around like an idiot is Fear. Similar and equally annoying as Stuns and Disorients, where in either case you can't do anything.

The problem with your toon at the moment is that it is only level 14 (I guess). No high DPS cat form, not high armor/HP dire bear form, just mostly spell casting. You won't get very far with that. Get to at least 20 where you'll get your Cat form, then your real game starts from there. And ends after T5 at 70, but that's another story.

1) Wowwiki.com is going to be one of your good friends. Learnt quite a bit from there, but you do have to be at a higher level, and you'll have to learn the finer points for yourself.

2) A macro "/targetlasttarget" would work, I think.

3) They are a real pain, but at 70, a good gear Druid would have a roughly equal fight with an equivalent Warlock. Before that, you're there source of Soulshards.

4) Nature's Grasp. It's very good in PVP for Ferals, keep it. And don't worry, you can spend the points you get anyway you like, so you can actually get all the Tier 1 Talents of all trees if you like.
And for your would-be next question...
Feral, Balance and Resto, my personal preferences. =)

5) Can't really help you with level 14, but get to level 20 and lets talk. =) Or you could go Wow-pro.com. I suggest James Leveling Guide, it used to be one of the fastest leveling guides around, not sure about it now though. And not too sure if it does have a loot guide.

Edited, Oct 21st 2007 2:51pm by Bloodthunder

the game is more like rock paper scissors very unlike FFXI where there is far more balancing between classes, blizzard made X class kill Y class 80% of the time for different level brackets

as to the other balance issue, yes FFXI like we knew it is balanced on skill -> job -> gear

unfortunately, wow has the complete opposite balance.

Gear > skill <> class

a super well gear'ed epic pvp equipment job will easily defeat another job even if they are weak to that job if their opponent is not simularly dressed and even if they are the same level

at high end lv 70 pvp's it's all about the gear and then class usually followed by skill.

There are some jobs that are simply meant to be direct counters to other jobs. Sometimes these counters reverse at higher levels due to new skills gained.

For instance, rogues are usually pretty easy for a warlock to kill at <lv 60.
At lv 70, cloak of shadows made it so rogues gain temporary invincibility to DoT's fears, even death coil. Same to be said about hunters after lv 50 when they can talent for bestial wrath+the beast within.

As a druid, you will be adaptable as the above mentions. There will be many situations where you will do pretty well for yourself but others like vs a warlock you will see that druids are very weak since they are the direct counter for us.

we tend to do well vs some warriors, ok vs shamans, very well vs mages, and faily decent vs priests. if you spec moonkin, you can do well vs hunters, shamans, priests, and I dare say rogues too. Pld's have been strange to fight, sometimes they kill me so fast doing 800 a wack, other times they just survive 40 min by curing and what not so I can't say if we hard counter them or us one way or the other.

Rate up for the good read.

Sends me back though the Twisted Nether to a simpler time when my Druid was just a baby.

Cheers and keep em coming.

Just a couple of things:
For the pvp strategies i found an awesome site, hope nobody bothers i link: PVP-Strats
Also, if u play a druid dont worry about equipment. Just gather your cash and buy yourself some potions (druids dont tend to drink to many of these, but they still be saviors from time to time) and a nice weapon (every 5 lvls or so) from the Auction House.
As a feral (best way of solo leveling past 20) you should keep track of your equip next to never... Just make sure your stuff isnt outdated like 15-20 levels and you'll be allright =) Try to find out when you should use bear form and when you should stick to cat, and get a nice combination-strategy.
Once you get the hang of it, you will be around 30 (cat form skills start getting interesting around 24-26 i think) and at the start of the long, but for druids, easy leveling.