Why do you play your spec? Druid

Aritâ - Korgath
Although her name has a funny a, I tend not to type it that way

I love alts. I make them all the time. I level them. I run dungeons. I pvp. And then eventually I leave them behind when I discover that another class is holding my interest better. Some make it though the leveling and reach 85. The ones that do are the ones I've found something that I absolutely love about them. Which makes me wonder, why do I play the specs that I do? And why do people play the ones that they do?

Ahh. Time for a trip down memory lane. As I mentioned in my first post, I started playing at some point during BC. That time when Greeks ruled the Westren world and where building temples and sculptures.

Well... ok. Maybe not. But sometimes it feels like it's been that long. When I started playing I had to use dial-up and was limited to an hour of internet time a day. Needless to say, I wasn't leveling very fast. But the leveling is really another story. I had been leveling a druid because I love cats and the idea of being a cat appealed to me. I didn't get to be a cat until almost a year later.

I was a happy little newblet, wandering around, turning in quests until I reached level 40. This was when I realized that getting the long awaited mount was not going to happen. Brewfest was introduced and I thought I'd be able to at least cut the cost of buying a mount from my tab. So after spending a few days getting tickets I bought a stamp and went to the mount guy only to learn... What? I would have to buy my mount! And at the same price as my faction mount! I figured after all the work put into getting the stamp I was going to buy the mount. Somehow, by the end of the week I had managed to scrape together enough gold to buy a ram. But I still wasn't able to use it. I was really feeling unhappy with being a druid at this point but the nail was driving into the coffin when I learned about dungeons.

I was leveling in Tanaris when I got a whisper asking if I wanted to do ZF. I asked what ZF was and was told about dungeons and groups. From what I remember, a higher level pally was looking to run some friends though ZF and was looking for someone to throw out some heals. After looking in the zone they had found my name and asked if I could heal. I said I had no idea how to heal but if they would teach I'd give it a try. So I had my first ever dungeon group. I don't remember if we finished or not. I like to think that we did. What I do remember was how awesome that pally was and how patient since he was teaching me a bit about what spells to use and when.

My next dungeon did not go so well. It was ZF again but this was almost an all druid group. 3 Balance druid, a warrior, and me. I had a very mismatched spec and apparently my gear was terrible. The three druids got together and had already planned which of them was going to get what loot while ripping into me about what a terrible idiot I was. I was really glad when the tank left after the first pull and the group fell apart. But it was a turning point of sorts. I didn't want to ever feel like that again. I spent the rest of the night trying to look up and learn anything I could about being a druid. I got an understanding of what the talents where about and what the stats did. I went to Darnassus and decided to pick a spec to put all my points in. I knew I didn't want to be a Boomkin. I wanted nothing more to do with them. But I remembered how awesome the first group was and picked resto. Than I looked at my gear and realized I'd have to replace almost all of my pieces. There went my meager mount gold fund.

I quickly realized one thing when I went back to leveling. If I was terrible at killing stuff before I was even worse now. It was frustrating. I was almost level 50, still didn't have a mount, couldn't kill anything very fast, and my gear still wasn't quite where I thought it was supposed to be. So I made a new toon. And than another one. I keep making toons until I came to my rogue. I fell in love with her. I was happy playing Warcraft again. But I'm not ready to tell Ursa's story yet. I'm still telling Arita's.

By the time Ursa reached level 50 I had realized a few things about looking for dungeons. One of these is that heals where hard to find. Eventually I just took to leveling Ursa, finding a group, and than trying to fill spots before switching to my druid for heals. This worked well and the two reached 58 about the same time. I also started leveling them in Outlands in the same manner. Eventually I realized I would level faster if I'd just pick one toon. I picked Ursa and leveled her. She reached 70 the week before Wrath came out. Not having much else to do I returned to leveling Arita who reached 68 when LK was realized.

I was set to play my rogue for wrath but after reaching level 80 on Ursa I wasn't happy with her and my guild was looking for heals so I decided to start leveling Arita again. It was not easy leveling as a resto druid. I managed but it was mostly though running a lot of dungeons and carrying agility gear so I could run around as a bear. I did some raiding with a group of my friends as we went though a few guilds trying to find a home. And when duel-spec came out I knew I wanted to be a feral druid. I had made a druid so I could be a cat but I wasn't running around in cat form much as a resto. Cat is a very difficult spec to master. I eventually gave up and thought I might have to try balance when one of my friends, who was leveling a healer, asked me to come tank regular nexus for her. The fact that I was 80 meant I could tank it easily enough and the group was happy I came along. So I left feral as my spec and my friend kept inviting me to tank all the rest of her normal dungeons. I was feeling pretty good about tanking so I decided to make my spec a bear one. Eventually we reached a point where we could try doing heroics. I still get a laugh when I remember all the groups that would kick me when I said I had no defense rating since bears didn't need any.

Eventually my formal guild leader learned I was tanking so he came with me. That night he had me tanking beside him in Ulduar. I was nervous, scared, and twitching. But it was a blast! I still had a lot of learning left to do but I knew I was a tank. She eventually picked up cat as her other spec and actually learned to play it rather well and was dps when she killed the Lich King. I still think of playing resto and sometimes inflict my healing on random dungeons but she's been a bear/cat for some time since even if she's no longer my main.

It's been a long journey for my druid and I think she'll always be special because of all we've been though together but I'm more excited about being a death knight.

I had hoped I might get into why I play what I do with the others but this post started getting really long. So I'm going to leave it for another post soon.