Welcome to the Fold

Welcome to "Natural Perfection", a World of Warcraft blog that will focus on the Druid class, most notably the restoration tree. I hope to chart my progress through current PVE raiding and any tips/tricks I stumble upon, as a resource for other like-minded druids.

After being a long time reader of Resto4Life, I decided that it would be fun to join in and helping the druid community grow.

Firstly some background information about me, as I mention in the blog summary, my first level 70 main is a draenei paladin called Paradise. Healing used to be fun, I had two spells to choose from, and "pallyvate" (casting Divine Illumination and then spamming as many Holy Lights as possible on my other half - a protection paladin) worked wonderfully. Then came the paladin nerf, with Illumination being changed from 100% of the mana cost for the spell refunded down to 60% of the mana cost, and Spiritual Attunement being changed so over heals no longer provided mana. It felt very much as if the cost of Holy Light was suddenly too prohibitive and Flash of Light spamming was enforced. After several raids, it was quite clear healing on Paradise was not holding my attention.

So I levelled a level 70 priest Ameratsu, where my paladin had been a long slow arduous haul to level, playing as shadow was a refreshing change. Annoyingly enough, I suddenly had more invites to heal for parties once I hit level 70 than I ever did on my paladin despite being shadow specced.

Alas whilst priest healing is very varied and has many tools at its disposal, (using Prayer of Mending at Terrestian Illhoof makes me giggle like a schoolgirl, watching all five charges disappear faster than a speeding bullet, gleefully gloating about mana efficiency), many of them are situational, and mana efficiency as ever is still the priests main problem. The tools given to a priest to anticipate damage e.g. shields, prayer of mending, renew, clear casting and inner focus use to stay outside of the 5SR, never felt an acceptable way to regenerate mana whilst healing. I found that once again I was very unsatisfied with the direction priest healing took in the Burning Crusade. So Ameratsu is now specced shadow, and is my grinding character.

Which leads me to my current main, Aftereight, and I must say its nice to get back to healing in raids (<3 all the pretty druid spell icons). It felt very odd not staring at health bars ;) So I am now currently gearing up my druid for PVE progress within my guild who has been very patient with me and endured my search for the right character.

I hope you'll enjoy reading this blog, as much as I have enjoyed reading the blogs linked to here.