When I first ventured on my adventures in Teldrassil, I had a very different idea of what sort of druid I'd be. I thought I'd be the ultimate shape-shifter, swiftly blending from form to form, to fulfill whatever role the party needed at that moment. Need some heals? Here they come! Need some damage done? Rawr! Kitty cat Leaf! Need some tankage? Leafy Bear!
Now, two and a half years later, I spend all my time in groups lurking at the back, pretending to be a tree.
How did this happen?
Well, for one thing, there was the shortage of healers in the guild I mentioned yesterday - something that persists to this day. We only have two main character healers - all the rest are alts. For another, there seems still to be a philosophical resistance to hybrid classes acting as, well, hybrids. In five mans in particular, you are healer, or you are tank, or you DPS. People seems to have the holy trinity clearly fixed in their minds and are resistant to people doing anything else. Pallies get to off-tank as well as DPS or heal occasionally, but I've rarely seen druids get the same flexibility. Once in a while I get to off-tank, if we've got a Shadow Priest in the group who can switch from DPS to healing as needed, but it's a pretty rare event. And it's a shame. Surely the point of being a druid is to get to do a little bit of everything?
At 60, I got a few chances to run instances. I DPSed and off-tanked Stratholme with a Pick Up Group one afternoon, and I managed to tank Scholomance in a guild group after I'd picked up my entire PvP Blue set and a Warden Staff, and it was surprisingly successful.
Now we're getting the Outland 5-mans down pat (the only one I haven't finished on normal mode just yet is the Shattered Halls), I'm beginning to hanker for a little bit of that hybrid action again. And, having picked up the first bit of my Moonglade Rainment in the Black Morass a few weeks back, I'm thinking that it looks like a really nice hybrid set, one that will allow me to move away from the 3 sets of gear I carry around with me (healing, DPS/solo, PvP).
But am I dreaming? Am I doomed to spend all my time in instances throwing our woody healings, and cycling Lifeblooms? Are druids really hybrids at all, but three classes under one name?
