Druid Week

Druid is a class that is extremely important to me. My own feeble attempts at druidism make up a sad story, so this is mostly about the other druids that I love.


Ponder

Ponder is my best friend, my love, my life partner, my soul mate. We live together in a house with three cats (feral druids).

When he introduced me to WoW six years ago, he was playing a pretty badass level 70 undead warlock. Watching him play, I was amazed by the graphics and the cute little Winter Reindeer that followed his scary-looking character around. Of course I started playing, but... After I had seen the draenei, I didn't have an option; I had to play Alliance. As some time passed, and it was clear that I was gonna keep playing and had found a regular raid team, he transferred his old druid, his first character, over to my server. (What a kind and romantic act, right?) Since then we've been raiding together, him as boomkin/resto, me as priest/hunter/monk. (Yeah, it seems I'm not as loyal to classes as I would like to think I am.) He is a very good druid; both as boomkin and resto, and he does thorough studying of the class. Having our entire guild work on Tarecgosa's Rest for Ponder is one of my favorite memories in WoW. Not because Ponder is my partner, but because it felt so nice having the entire raid team cooperate on getting this powerful weapon. The event in Stormwind was unreal!


Marilill

Early in 2009, Marilill the feral druid joined the guild we were in. We quickly became friends, and the three of us have been in nearly all the same guilds since then. I remember weird little things about the time I've played together with Mari, like when she finally got Ikfirus' Sack of Wonder, allegedly best in slot for feral kittys back then. And how badly I wanted her to have the fire-kitten staff in Firelands. And all the damned mounts she won when she and I went farming for mounts... It became a running joke in our guild that she had to have contacts on the inside of Blizzard to produce /rolls like that. Mari is the only person I've done arenas with. We almost got the 1550-achievement back in Cata, she as feral and me as hunter, but it slipped right in front of us. I'll have to take the blame for us not getting further, cause she's an excellent PVP-er. Marilill stopped raiding with the launch of Mists, but she is still in our guild and still an officer. I'm hoping to lure her back with Flex-raids, although I am happy to have her as company outside of raids as well. :)


Edmund

During Trial of the Crusader (late 2009?); Ponder, Mari and I (and several other non-druid friends, which I'll leave out of the story for now) joined a new guild, where we met resto druid Edmund. Edmund, Nabmund, Wrath of the Bitch King, he goes by many names. He has a sick and really disturbing sense of humor, AND he blames my jokes for being bad... But despite the jokes, we became good friends. At the end of WOTLK, the three druids, a couple of other dear friends, and myself started our current guild, Release and Run. We made a forum thread, asking what class and spec everyone would play in Cataclysm. Edmund's response: Edmund - Resto Sex Machine. (You see what I mean about the jokes?) He thoroughly hated healing in the start of Cataclysm, and at some point I was genuinely worried that we'd lose him. Luckily he changed his mind after a while (or it became different in next tiers or with more gear, I can't remember), and we got to endure his jokes in all of Cataclysm and Mists too.

Edmund is a leveler. When we're not raiding, he starts new characters, equips them with shinies, levels them in a racing speed in optimal routes that he has refined over the years, and also levels all their professions. And then he deletes them! Not straight away, but as soon as he feels the urge to level again. (I usually transfer them off the server when I need more room, I hate deleting characters.) I was lucky enough to get to level Death Knights together with him last summer, although it must have slowed him down immensely. He loves cats! And he is a selfless, funny and good man.

Edmund hasn't logged on for about 3 weeks now, and last week he gave us notice that he would have to quit playing; at least for a good while, maybe forever. I cried. Despite never having met him, our friendship is the real deal.

Farewell, dear Edmund, friend of the Grummles! I hope your life out in the real world will be perfect and happy and rich. We all love you a bunch. Ponder and I already miss you loads, and I know everyone else does too.

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Here is a picture of all the guild's main druids that I was working on, but scrapped, for Christmas 2011. All the male night elves are missing their eyes, and all the shoulders are enormous...

My druids

My first character was a druid actually; Arwienne - female night elf. Made on the trial account and leveled to 12 I think. Rotation was pretty much: Moonfire in caster form, change to cat to DPS, and then change to bear when I started getting low health. Half the time I survived, half the time I didn't. It sure was hard work killing those harpys in Teldrassil. I kept her for a long time, but eventually I needed the space for new characters, and she was evicted to the Twisting Nether... :-/

My second druid was a troll. She is in ghost form somewhere in Durotar, at level 11...

My third druid, Lilliel, is actually 88! She was a free 80 from a Scroll of Resurrection I did back in Cataclysm. I can actually not remember leveling her from 80 to 85... But I know how she got to 88! When my monk and hunter were maxed out in levels in the start of Mists, I was in dire need of ore and herbs to level my professions. Being my only character with both professions, she got to 87 just by farming materials. Since then she's gained one more level from Darkmoon Faire and Sunsong Ranch. This week, however, is Druid Week, and I have two goals:

1. I'm gonna try feral spec, cause this boomkin-thing is doing nothing for me (sorry Ponder!), and 
2. She's gonna be 90 by the end of the week.

Happy #DruidWeek everyone!

/bow