First aid

I'll stick to the road that I entered in the blog the other day, pondering about professions. There are some professions that you don't have to think twice about. It's just to make your decision and level it up.

It there's something in the game that I'm happy about it is that I pretty early decided to level first aid. For a levelling mage the downtimes are quite frustrating. Yes, the first 40 levels or so I was happy whatever I did in the game. Sitting drinking and eating, flying on a bird watching the view was almost as exciting as to bring down mobs. I was so fascinated by the new world I had discovered. As time went by a little of the brilliance faded away when it came to bred nibbling and water slurping. When I noticed how much the bandages helped me - not the least in combination with evocation - how they could spare me at least some of the pauses - I was committed to keep levelling it up.

It wasn't hard really, basically you just keep doing new bandages as your cloth stor is growing. I remember a couple of stops on my way. The first one was to get my hands on the Expert book. You could think it wouldn't be that hard, after all it's sold by a vendor. The only thing is that this vendor is a bit hard to find, he's hiding in the most dark and shady corner of Stromgarde in Arathi Highlands. It took me a couple of turns of searching in there before I finally caught him, and I remember that I bought a couple of books extra and sent to the guild bank character just to save others the same trouble.

The next stop was the notorius first aid quest Triage. I guess we are a few players who got painful memories from standing fighting at the practice of Doctor Gustaf Van Howzen in Theramore. You're supposed to save 15 dying patients from dying. Of course I obeyed to the suggestions from Thottbot and put the bandage on a hot key, standing in the middle of the room, clicking "vi" in order to see the health bars of the patients, trying to move as little as possible while I was shifting targets. But did it help? The patients were in pain and died like rats. Time after time.

I wasn't alone in there, since I earlier had ran into a little dwarf who had nothing better to do but to watch my struggle, full of compassion, but also with a huge grin on his lips. Sometimes he was lazily laying on the bed, sometimes he was jumping around, trying to help me by positioning himself by the patient who was most urgent to lay hands on.

It wasn't until he had given up about me, convinced that I was judged to be stuck on silk bandages forever, that I suddenly succeeded. On the seventh try or so. Triumphant, with my whole bag full of unused surplus bandages I could learn my new skilled. It was well deserved.

A couple of nights later I was back with Doctor Gustaf, but now the roles were changed. A guildie was about to learn the noble art of bandaging, and now I was the teacher. "The bandage on hot key, make sure you see the healthbar, stand there, do that and that" I instructed him, as if I had never done anything else in my life. I lay down on one of the beds, with a malicious smile on my lips, watching how my guild mate started to sweat. And fail. Over and over again.He, normally a much better player than myself, faster, better geared, more experienced in every aspect. Now he had to fight, well aware that noobie-Larisa already had done it.

I laughed silently until my stomach hurt, I knew exactly what he was going through and I was so happy to be on the other side myself. Finally, after the fifth or seventh try, he couldn't stand the pressure anymore; he broke up in anger and went to bed. The night after he came back and completed the quest - alone. I guess it's easier that way, without having an audience.

I still use first aid now and then when the healer has better things to do. Most of the times it's on myself, I feel a resistance when it comes to using it on others for some reason. Maybe because I feel like it's a way of trespassing the personal integrity. After all it will result in a cooldown, and it's a bit rude to give that to someone else without asking, he or she may have wanted to save the possibility to throw a bandage for later.

The only part of first aid that I've never bothered to use is the anti poison remedies. Being an alchemist I can make Purification potion, that is more useful. Even if it honestly has been long since I last made one of these. But except for that, there's no doubt about it. First aid is an excellent profession, well worth every single cloth you use for levelling it.