The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Hanners is Flummoxed by a Tree
by Hannelore
First thing first. Someone recently mentioned envy, and writing something up about it. Personally, since I have absolutely no experience with the emotion, I’m looking forward to reading about the problems you common people face with your common…emotion things. This also serves as a reminder that their idle chatter will not be considered idle chatter, and people will now be constantly harassing them about “that envy post”.
I am a devious person, oyesIam.
Second thing, completely unrelated to the first, so don’t get the wrong idea. It just happened to come to me just now. It’s really for your benefit, because I’ve noticed there are some people out there that seem intent on defending themselves against my ire, like there is any defense when I see The Dumb right there in front of me. C’mon hunters, rogues, fury warriors, deathknights, paladins. You know there is The Dumbness and it is strong with you. Grr. (Paladins, I hate you simply because that one retadin in my group yesterday decided to start the instance event while the warrior tank was off “trying to get that level so [he] can train”. It was silly, but I was willing to wait. Until the event started, begun by our retadin friend. And then the paladin asked where the tank was. I stopped explaining the strategy of the fight, explained where the tank was, and then stepped out of the instance before the monsters swarmed my little party. I said good luck and wandered off. Stupid paladins…)
NO! That’s not what I wanted to talk about. Druids. That’s it. Druids. I hate druids. Stupid druids. It’s dumb. I don’t mean the cats, the bears, the silly boomkins.
It’s the trees. I hate them. They don’t pull agro, they don’t feign death and kill me, they don’t charge into a herd of monsters and then tell them where I’m hiding. And they can’t kill me in the battlegrounds. I don’t think. At least I don’t recall being pummeled to death by a tree… you would think I would remember something like that.
They heal things. And I hate them for it. I mean, in the Nexus, with that big ice-cube dragon? I bet they don’t even realize that if you stand still, you get this “I am totally not wearing enough clothing for this place” effect that hurts. And it stacks up. No, they don’t even know it exists, because they’re always bouncing around anyway. Sproing sproing, boing heal heal boing heal boing group heal sproing. It’s like a rogue, only…useful.
Apparently they were nerfed, recently, too. Except guess what happens when you hit a TREE with a NERF STICK.
Nothing. Apparently. Bringing a doucheknight tank from something like 25% life to full, in a couple of seconds, and not even using any cooldowns? How’s a priest to compete? I don’t have anything instant-cast except renew. Or holy nova, I guess… pfwoooshplosion! Geeze, how embarrassing.
I have shields, though! You might be saying that right now. Yeah, I have shields, and my crit-heals even have another shield component! But who needs shields when you can heal a tank through whatever? Bah, sadface. And they have some huge armor thing, too. I mean, the whole bark thing, that makes sense. But they’re already wearing leather, what do you want? Their bark should have, like, a time limit. And charges. And they should call it “that lame priest armor spell that most priests forget about because it’s got a time limit and charges”.
Also, they have bling. So unfair. My earrings can not compete with the giant seashell necklace bling.
Anyway. Druids. I hate you. Stupid trees.
I’ve been seeing a lot of scrubs in my pug groups lately. The sad part is that most of them could be decent, but they keep making scrub mistakes. So I, in my benevolent way, will educate you once again in how to make things easier on your pug.
When you first hit up the LFG tool option thing, you can put in a little message at the bottom. It shows up when people hover over your name in the listing of “Who wants to get beat up so I can do my nails and maybe heal you?” It’ll show where they’re wanting to go, too. Like this:
———–
Drak’Tharon Keep
The Nexus
dps-boomkin
———–
So this means the druid is looking for those two places, and will be transforming into a huge, goofy cowbearowl thing. What this also means is that you don’t have to whisper them and ask if they’re a tank. Or you could. You could even ask them if they’re a healer. Personally, I put things like “Healinator!” or something like that. It shows I am fun-loving and carefree and a silly silly blood elf who has sparkly magic to make you feel better, ‘tee hee’.
Another thing to do to make the whole process less painful is to be pro-active. Especially if you’ve been designated the leader, either by fate or lazy coworkers. Keep an eye on the chatter of people looking for a group, and also glance through the handy LFG tool itself to see if there are people sitting idle and waiting for you to adopt them and offer them a home and a place to get the snot beat out of them. Look for the little messages like I showed above, it’ll save you time. Also, ask people before you invite them to your group. They may have a few places they want to go, and they may know someone in your group. They may know them in such a way that convinces them they’d rather go anywhere else but where your group is going. Giving this option is polite and saves you heartache later, when they see the person they have reviled since baby troll school.
The last thing you want to do, again, especially if you’re the leader, is to sit around and hope people come to you. Screaming out that you need this or that, constantly, without actually looking, is equally stupid. Plus annoying. I hate you for doing that. No no, I realize you haven’t done it YET, but if you do it in the future, I hate you now.
I’m that good. Pre-emptive hate. Oh yeah. We blood elves hated the Horde before we loved the Horde. I was for Kael’thas before I was against him. The swiftboat pirates will – wait, what?
Oh, right. Get ye to the summoning stone! Get there and chill out, waiting for the next person to get there, so you can yank everyone else through the ether and shove them into the air beside you. On the other hand, if you think you may be the only person heading to the stone, and you predict that you may be standing there quite a while, it may be time to do a calculation.
What is the expected time you’ll be standing, alone, beside the meeting stone? Is this length of time perhaps longer than it would take you to find a new group, perhaps one more interested in the dungeon than in ‘finishing this one last quest’? Will the last person to the group be the first one to the stone, and thereby initiate that pervasive feeling of irritation and high-strung bitterness that can only come when you realize everyone else in the group was counting on you to be the sucker and waste your time while they take out a few more monsters. “Lawl, thanks for the summ- hey, how come I am in Wyrmrest? I don’t have any flightpoints to here, and my hearthstone is in the bank!”
Have a nice run. Watch out for the dragons.
ps: have you noticed how many skeletons are down in front of the entrance to Wyrmrest? I finally realized it was not some epic battle that happened there. It’s the people running away from kobolds and dragons and things, who then soar off the side of the glacier cliffs and fall for about a mile to smear themselves on that path of the Titans. Splort. Night Elf pizza.
I suggest everyone sit and practice their first aid or something, there on the doorstep, and watch to see if it happens while you’re there.
Stupid tree druids…
December 1st, 2008
So if you don’t like trees the way they are, what should happen to them?
December 1st, 2008
Raiding will turn that tree inspired frown upside down. (lame FTW!)
December 1st, 2008
As a Holy Paladin in Arenas, I am envious of ALL other healers, be they Priest, Druid, or Shaman. With that in mind… after two years of Paladin healing, I leveled a Druid to take over my healing tendancies.
As for the ettiquite of LFG: I leveled that druid from 60 to 70 by healing all the new Death Knights. And there were a ton of DKs looking for healers. And it absolutely amazed me how many were willing to let the extremely rare healer run to the Stone for summons. If I hadn’t been doing these with a guildy rogue about 75% of the time (who joined me at the stone), I’m not sure I would have got them done.
December 1st, 2008
@Tomo
Obviously they should… um. Hm. I mean, the real solution would be…uh.
Next question!
@dorgol
Yeah. It’s like they could FEEL my desperation. And on my part, I knew I wasn’t getting any levels by slowly trying to holypewpew through quests. Hopefully 70-80 will land me with more meatshields. I seem to have let the big herd of new DKs pass me by.
December 1st, 2008
“reviled since baby troll school.”
winner
December 1st, 2008
So, you grouped with a tree, and allowed them the dubious pleasure of healing in your stead (mayhaps hoping to see them fail and/or struggle to succeed), and were then disappointed to learn that they can do the job, too? I suppose I fail to see the source of your ire with the leafy healers.
If it makes you feel any better, as a tree, I was constantly flummoxed by well-played priests, paladins, and shamans, which were/are fortunately quite rare.
December 2nd, 2008
When I finally hit 70, I was immediately pulled into Kara by one of my raid group leaders. A tree. A tree that was damn good at his job. Having skipped all heroics and jumped straight to Kara in two pieces of PvP armor and the rest blues and greens, I found myself a bit lacking when people did crazy things in Kara…like pulling mobs. Any mobs.
That being said, I can’t count the times I cried “Omg we’re gonna wipe cuz I can’t heal fast enough,” in my head, only to have everyone’s hp suddenly jump to full. A second or so after this, that damn tree would jump across my screen, throwing his stupid hands up and saving everyone.
Once we got another tree in the raid group, I was asked to go Shadow for dps and the manas. I love trees in raids.
That being said, when the guild was on a heroic-running kick, I was paid to respec Disc/Holy and come as the healer. This was all pre-nerf. After the nerf, I just tagged along on raids I had no place taking part in and leveled my fishing.
Anyway, rambling aside, trees are good. Hug a tree. When I see a tree in my party/raid I pull the, “Oh well I’m Disc, so I’ll just DPS if you want,” card. <3 ty, tree.
December 2nd, 2008
I have never, in all my months of playing WoW, come across a tree druid who knew what they were doing.
I’ve had a tree druid who rolled on a Paladin hammer because it had +healing on it which was a major upgrade for the Pally in question, but only was a +2 healing yield for the druid and a loss of mana.
I’ve had a tree druid who constantly switched to caster form to pewpew things in instances rather than heal.
I’ve had a tree druid who thought that Gift/Mark of the Wild was a waste of mana.
I know some great druids. My guild has two Druids that can out-boom mages, spend ten-minutes respeccing, and out-tank Warriors. But I have yet to come across a tree druid who could differentiate between their healing spells and their assholes. When I’m LFMing, I take the Priest everytime.
December 2nd, 2008
heck, at least you have a non-talented instant cast heal… pity the poor shaman and paladins.
December 2nd, 2008
Yes, healing with a druid is very effective.
Just to comfort you: you have CoH and we don’t.
Oh wait! We have tranquility, 4500! heal ticks on 5 people, 4 ticks, no aggro and the most beautiful animation in the game. Sometimes I deliberatly let everyone down to 30% just to get the maximum effect from it.
There is just one thing I don’t understand: why all the trees whine about nerfs all the time.
December 2nd, 2008
Hahahahaha thats cheered me up what a fantastic read.
I am not the greates druid lover and can you believe they gave them a run of the mill rez as well i mean what the hell.
December 2nd, 2008
“C’mon hunters, rogues, fury warriors, deathknights, paladins. You know there is The Dumbness and it is strong with you. Grr. ”
Haha, you will be heartened to know that the ‘Dumbness’ has not overlooked the Priestly class. At least not on my server, as evidenced by the Priest artfully pulling a ninja on my ninja. She snagged a nice BoP sword from my Rogue.
A lapse of reason, you say? Perhaps, had it not been followed the same DAY by a ‘need’ roll on some nice BoP plate pauldrons. PLATE pauldrons. Our Doucheknight stood ummm, ‘Dumbstruck’? Sure, he was several levels too high to really use them, but there you go. I wanted to see how they looked on her. She graciously declined. To make things worse, this was a PUG and she was a guildmate. The GM chastised her for rolling ‘need’ on an obvious melee item. But I think she’s one of those ADD Priests that sees something shiny and forgets all about those lessons. No, my squishyness, ‘Dumb’ is not wasted totally on Hunters, or any class.
Totally enjoy your articles. Laughed my ass off again and again. Keep up the good work, and tell Vonya to let us know how she did on the NaNoWriMo contest.
December 2nd, 2008
Le sigh. I’m with you hannerbear. Although I am certian you hate that nickname. One of my raid leaders is a Druid .. who can .. DPS… Tank .. AND HEAL. And what’s worse? Not only does he have gear for all those things, and can DO all those things VERY well .. but he could heal me under the table with his eyes closed.
December 2nd, 2008
You used sarcasm.
+1 point.
Sarcasm so clever than not everyone gets it.
+3 points.
“It’s like a rogue, only…useful.”
+2 points.
“It’s like a rogue, only…useful.” (and they STILL didn’t get it)
+4 points.
Keep it up!
December 3rd, 2008
Wonderful post made me laugh and maybe feel a little better about my horribly borked lifebloom. Maybe. And sorry about all the bouncing. It’s a nelf thing.
@Illiara You probably grouped with PvP flavor-of-the-month resto rerolls. A healer trying to do PvE in gladiator gear is so bad it can take your breath away. Some of us raiding trees do actually know what we’re doing.
December 4th, 2008
Hm… Healer … Envy … that reminds me of something. Oh, my own blog http://healerenvy.blogspot.com/
Seriously, though, love the post. One of the reasons I (currently) don’t play my druid is that I didn’t like the lifebloom-rolling. Nerfing it didn’t make it any less boring. Sure, you have the option of using other healerstyles as a resto druid now, but … not as different as another healing class.
By the way, suggestion: Glyph Renew. It increases Renew’s throughput, for those situations you can’t rely on casting-time heals. Useful in PVP too.
December 4th, 2008
@Vendric
The gentleman behind you with the sharp, sharp knife would like to…oh, well, nevermind, then…
December 5th, 2008
It’s true. Trees rule.
Better commit yourself to worshipping the roots we wiggle on, protected by our verdant boughs.
Another glass of replenishment please. Don’t forget the umbrella.
Hands off the spirit cloth btw, totally druid loot.
Eldr, my priest, has been retired since priests became CoH-bots. In Naxx-25 last night, CoH was 50-75% of the priests’ healing done…
I’m pissed I had to reroll, but now I’m here it’s woooonderful!
I warmly invite all holydins to die in a fire. Just say NERF to bacon!