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Here is a longish post about my career as balance druid from beta to present. Especially the early levels were rather interesting and maybe some veterans recognise themeselves on similar past.

For a little more insight on how things used to be I dug up some old talent trees, beta 8 and 2.0.3. Instead of listing all talents here and making really long post even longer I made a separate (rough) page for them, just click this link to view them.

First of all I love elves – did not play much else in Warcraft 3 – so it had to be something what they can be. Warrior, hunter, rogue, priest, druid. Ending up with druid was probably because I already had a fixation to that type of stuff from my real life. I’ve done a fair share of studying and reading about nature-based religions and witchcraft. There’s something in the mysticism and magick I find very intriguing. So, druid it is.

Back in the beta when I started playing I can honestly say I did not have much clue about what I was doing, how game mechanics work etc. Pretty much I always just went with what felt nice and just cope with that. That’s how I ended up picking balance tree – it felt the most appealing to me. I liked the offensive spellcasting and that was the only tree that boosts them. I suppose at that point it was not so important how practical my spec was as long as I enjoyed playing – and I did.

I’ve always thought playing a druid is very easy, it is a versatile class with options to just about anything. You can attack from range, heal when needed and you’re not bad in close combat either. Of course later you have to pick one part where you really excel but at early leveling phase the gap between all three is very small.

The way I played obviously prefered the range. Open with Starfire, followed by Moonfire, Entangling Roots and another Starfire – Wrath when SF was not available (pre lvl 20). And then the funny part; finish the last few health points by smacking the mob with melee weapon. Well hey there used to be confusing talent called Weapon Balance that increased your melee weapon damage by 10% – not that I remember did I actually spec into it. Using melee for the last few health points saved mana which was probably the main factor, same as you’d wand the last bit. Also using cat form for stealthing past mobs was something I did a lot.

What comes to gear I had no clue, absolutely none. If I could get intellect I’d go for it but beyond that nothing. Heh, most driving factor for choosing gear was pretty much how it looked. So I ended up using gear that was very old for my level but man I looked good!

My first instance ever was Blackfathom Deeps during the beta. This is when I found the aspect of the game I would come to love above all else; team playing. It’s a whole new level of gameplay when you have to fill different roles with other people to achieve a goal what you could not do by yourself. That felt absolutely epic. And look at those shiny rewards. Blue items?! Woah. Getting the Rod of the Sleepwalker was truly something.

Speaking of filling different roles in group. I did not even think I should join specificaly as damage dealer. Rather just do what was needed – if I was only person capable of healing then I just healed. Nobody even ever asked am I specced for it. Not that it would matter at early stage but still. I might have tossed the occasional Starfire or Moonfire but other than that I pretty much sticked to healing.

As time passed, beta turned into retail and levels went up it came time for bigger instances. Stratholme, Scholomance and Blackrock Spire. Challenge went up as did group size. UBRS with 15 people was a whole new level of gameplay for me. Eventually they turned the group sizes down a little, Stratholme into 5 instead of 10 and Blackrock Spire into 10 instead of 15. At first that felt somewhat annoying because I enjoyed the gaming on larger scale so much but it also turned the difficulty up so in the end I think it was for the best.

I had been in a small guild since level 20ish and by the time I was at late 50s we merged with a bigger guild. Bigger number of members meant a shot at raiding and more of that epic feeling. 40 person groups? Jeez. At that time it was of course the legendary Molten Core.

I was still going with balance spec but healing in raids, and only buying healer loot. Just as before I had no problem with this. Mostly I was just grateful I was allowed to keep my spec and experience the wonders of raiding.

Getting into raiding wasn’t all for the best though. Until now there was no judging people based on how they were specced but after I got to raiding there was always few people who would take every chance to pick on it. Of course it didn’t feel nice but ultimately I just didn’t care – I was having a blast with raiding so I am not going to let few people drive me off. Not that it justifies such behaviour but obviously the balance tree was utter crap at that time. But also life was simpler. For a druid the spec did not ultimately determine how you could play – it was the gear. Even the resto druids in our guild had couple among them who were specced high enough to feral tree to get the Heart of the Wild. Mostly you just lost the Innervate if you did not go mainly resto, nothing else.

Until now I did not really have items with spell damage since all leather with some exceptions had only healing on them. The AQ patch brought some amazing items I could bid on without having to feel kinda dirty about it. Leggings of Immersion from the first boss in AQ40, Gloves of Ebru from the bug family and the Southwind’s Grasp from AQ20. I also ended up with Genesis Shoulderpads and Genesis Boots. Before this the only item with spell dmg I had was Staff of Dominance.

This was truly a time of wonders. And even more followed when (after I nagged about it) guild leadership decided to drop the class restrictions on old instance loot. This meant Robe of Volatile Power, Ring of Spell Power and Zandalarian Hero Charm for me. Caching! Spice that up with Libram of Focus and Zandalar Signet of Mojo and you’re rocking.

Suddenly I had a spell damage gear and this inspired me to get back to the thing where I could play my spec: PvP. And I did that a lot. Hours and hours.. and I don’t think I was that bad at it. Back then there was no cross-server battlegrounds so you really got to know your opponents and remember the nasty ones. Makes me wonder did anyone learn to recognise me. I sure as hell gulped every time I saw a specific warrior, shaman or mage. Eventually I was a regular sight on some premade groups and those guys accepted me for what I was without any further comments. Thank you for that, truly.

I don’t remember it but I probably fainted when I saw the talent changes and spec specific tier sets. At that time I still did not know was it good enough to valid me a raid spot as DPS but it surely looked promising and I was determined to do my damnest to try.

Comparing from where I came, leveling in TBC was a joke. I don’t mean it would have been boring or anything.. just easy – my druid pretty much annihilated everything on her way. Well, this again looked promising but what about playing in instances then. Pretty much the same really, well I would not use such an extreme term as ‘annihilate’ here but new talents and gear proved the DPS was high enough.

It wasn’t all red wine and prawns (or would you prefer milk and honey?) though. This is the time when I first noticed a decrease in quality of pugs and started to avoid them at all costs (nowadays I don’t pug at all). Also I noticed some of the fellow balance druids weren’t that connected either. Of course there is bad players no matter the class and spec but this was the first time I actually paid attention to it. Expansion also spawned a whole army of new balance druids. Some of them I knew had been resto or feral before – grr! In the original game it felt like the balance druids were somewhat of a secret society. It honestly felt I knew each one on the server and they were so few you did not even need all fingers to count them. And now a sudden boom in numbers.. I felt like a sellout. Heh.. it’s just so funny, a while ago majority could not care less and radicals spit over their shoulder three times when you walked past. I am not saying you have to walk trough broken glass as rite of passage to becoming a ‘real’ balance druid or anything. I just found it funny how people changed. That was not very well expressed wasn’t it? Meh… Look, a flying kodo!

New expansion did not bring anything game breakingly exciting. New talents were a buff yes and the casting rotation got more interesting with Eclipse. Inscription and glyphs made it possible to refine the aspect of the game you had your focus on – PvE vs PvP.

Speaking of buffs. During WotlK so far… first they buffed Insect Swarm. And now in the upcoming patch 3.2 Eclipse will get a significant buff. I hear other classes complaining about nerfs all the time but what about us, balance druids. I don’t even remember when there ever would have been a nerf. Well during TBC the Moonfire idol did get a nerf but that wasn’t because of us, but rather because of resto druids abusing it on arenas, and it also got changed back later. Glyph of Starfire used to increase Moonfire duration indefinetly but I think that was a bug. Other than those two ‘nerfish’ things I can’t think of anything. While it’s nice you’re not getting nerfs I can’t help to think are we just constantly below others so much. That can’t be good either. Would be funny to see Blizz overdo a buff to us and then tone it down. Ideally of course I would want balance DPS to be on target but I suppose that’s impossible no matter what class you’re talking about.

Expansion is still fairly young but I haven’t enjoyed it as much as I did enjoy previous one. I suppose everything turns old at some point. But one thing I can say for sure: playing over the years and getting to this point has really been an adventure of a lifetime. Things you’ve done and shared with other people is just undescribable. There has been bad times too but still I would not change anything.. not really. Even some pointless drama enriches the experience. Hopefully this journey will continue few more years.

Last but not least I would like to thank three different types of players who really made the game so wonderful for me.

* old guild leadership who did not enforce specs.
* my PvP buddies who were the first to truly accept me.
* all my friends over the years who supported me – you know who you are.

Well that came out kinda long. Did someone actually read it? If so, /hugs for you.