Another Off the Bench

So I hinted to it in some recent posts, but lately I have dusted off another old retired character of mine, Zao the feral Druid. I do enjoy Rai. Hunters are fun classes, especially for a player like me, who prefers playing alone. However, I can't always play alone. I like running instances too. If you have a halfway decent group, they can be good fun.

Therein lies the problem that I should have realized a long time ago. It is hard to get groups as DPS. Koji often had issues, I don't know why I didn't consider it for Rai. Add to that the general stigma against hunters. The huntard label continues to stick. It is easy to play a hunter even poorly and breeze through levels. Like every class, it takes skill to play a hunter well. Unfortunately, most hunters fall in the former category so they are often judged negatively from the start. I just frankly don't want to spend all day to get one group that seems to more often than not be a mess.

I'm playing Zao as a kitty now but will likely play primarily as a tank once I hit 80. However, that'll take some time.

It has taken some getting used to playing Zao again. I had retired him even earlier than I had Rai, which was quite a long time ago. It has taken a bit of time getting back into the groove. There's also been plenty of new things to learn. He can charge, swipe, Nature's Grasp, Barkskin, just to name a few things. Tiger's Fury is useful now, I never used it in the past. I can use items, potions, all that, which is quite nice. It seems that as you get even higher they get pretty complex, keeping up dots, debuffs, and buffs during a fight. I look forward to it.

With 3.1 around the corner, there is also the potential of dual speccing resto, which I probably will. I intend to on Koji as well, so that gives me two chances to see if I like healing or not, in two very different styles.

And just a little testament to how much of a nerd I am. I spent probably almost an hour yesterday trying to get Mik's Scrolling Combat Text to play a Mortal Kombat II "Finish Him" sound effect whenever I have 5 combo points. It seems the better part of the time was spent learning that I just had to change the events drop menu from "Incoming Player" to "Notifications". Regardless, I am quite proud of my accomplishment =)