First Aid

First Aid is a secondary profession that turns cloth into bandages and venom sacs into anti-venoms. A bandage heals a large amount of health over a few seconds without using mana, so for most of Classic every class carried a stack, from warriors catching their breath between pulls to priests saving mana in a raid. It takes cloth that drops from humanoids, the same cloth Tailoring uses.

How it works

A character with First Aid can use a bandage on themselves, a party member or a pet. The bandage channels for eight seconds and heals in ticks as it goes; any damage to the target stops it. When it ends, the target gets Recently Bandaged, a debuff that blocks another bandage for 60 seconds. Bandages need no fire or forge and can be made anywhere, and the better ones need a minimum First Aid skill to use as well as to make.

Because damage interrupts the channel, bandaging in a fight takes a bit of planning. Players used stuns, fears, sheep or a Frost Nova, or simply ran far enough to break combat, to fit eight seconds of healing in. Rogues bandaged after Blind, mages after a Polymorph, and warriors at the end of every pull.

Anti-venoms cure poisons. [Anti-Venom] is made from a [Small Venom Sac], [Strong Anti-Venom] from a [Large Venom Sac], and [Powerful Anti-Venom] from a [Huge Venom Sac]. The last needs 300 skill and cures poisons up to level 60, which made it useful in raids against poisonous bosses.

Trainers and skill ranks

Trainers stand in every capital: Shaina Fuller in Stormwind City, Nissa Firestone in Ironforge, Arnok in Orgrimmar and Mary Edras in Undercity, among others. [Expert First Aid - Under Wraps] is sold by two vendors in the open world, Deneb Walker in Arathi Highlands and Balai Lok'Wein in Dustwallow Marsh, who also sell the manuals for [Manual: Heavy Silk Bandage] and [Manual: Mageweave Bandage].

Triage

The Artisan rank comes from a quest that is unlike anything else in Classic. A character with 225 skill speaks to Doctor Gregory Victor at Hammerfall in Arathi Highlands (Horde) or Doctor Gustaf VanHowzen at Theramore Isle in Dustwallow Marsh (Alliance), who hands over a set of Triage Bandages and opens a field hospital. Wounded soldiers are carried in, marked as injured, badly injured or critically injured, and each will die if left too long. The player has to save fifteen of them before too many die, treating the worst cases first.

Finishing Triage or Triage lets the surgeon teach Artisan First Aid and the runecloth bandages. Triage is remembered fondly as one of the few tests of skill in a Classic profession.

Leveling route

Every rank of bandage uses one kind of cloth, so leveling First Aid is mostly a question of having enough cloth:

• 1-40: [Linen Bandage] from [Linen Cloth].
• 40-80: [Heavy Linen Bandage], also from linen.
• 80-150: [Wool Bandage] and [Heavy Wool Bandage] from [Wool Cloth].
• 150-210: [Silk Bandage] and [Heavy Silk Bandage] from [Silk Cloth], after the Expert book.
• 210-260: [Mageweave Bandage] and [Heavy Mageweave Bandage] from [Mageweave Cloth].
• 260-300: [Runecloth Bandage] and [Heavy Runecloth Bandage] from [Runecloth], after Triage.

A character who saves cloth while leveling can bring First Aid to 225 at around level 35 and finish it with the Triage quest. Since it is a secondary profession, it costs neither primary slot, and nearly everyone kept it maxed.

In play

At 300 skill, [Heavy Runecloth Bandage] heals 2,000 health over eight seconds, more than most potions and available every minute. Bandages mattered most where other healing was scarce: for solo characters of classes without heals, for warriors who had no way to recover between pulls, and in raids, where a damage dealer who bandaged between boss phases took pressure off the healers. Hunters and warlocks also bandaged their pets.

First Aid shares cloth with Tailoring, so a tailor who also bandages has to decide which gets the runecloth. In practice there was usually plenty: runecloth dropped so often at level 60 that much of it went to the cloth quartermasters in the capitals for reputation.

Sources

• First Aid on Warcraft Wiki
• Triage on Warcraft Wiki