Shifting Perspectives: Mists of Pandaria shopping list for restoration druids
Every week when our writers actually have internet access, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, jewelcrafters are still the 1%.
Oh, how I adore the new version of Travel Form. I don't care if it's slower than a mount, for I shall use it forever, and it shall be mine, and it shall be my Travel Form.
As with its guardian counterpart, I'll be fixing up the 101 guide to the restoration spec after things settle down a little. Raid testing is still ongoing on the beta, and Blizzard may also reevaluate their approach to the spec after the Mists of Pandaria content patch hits the live servers. However, if I had to guess, I would venture that resto is a bit more stable than the guardian at this point, if only because early tank balance is always an extremely sensitive issue. But I'd watch whatever Blizzard is going to do to Wild Mushrooms, because our 'shrooms are pretty weak after the recent nerf. As in, take them off your bars and sob quietly in a corner weak.
Editors here at WoW Insider have also asked us to write short guides to the specs in order to get players up to speed as quickly as possible, so a bare-bones piece on rotations, stat priorities, and such-like will hit the site at some point before MoP goes live.
All right, druids! Who's ready to spend their savings account into an inescapable black hole?
Tentative enchant and item modification list
This bears repeating: Early enchants will be expensive enchants because people won't be sitting on a lot of Sha Crystals for at least a month or two. The situation will be somewhat alleviated by enchanters' ability to combine three Ethereal Shards into a crystal, but equipping a character for early raiding is still going to be a horribly expensive proposition.
As with the article on a shopping list for guardian druids, I've assembled this list assuming that Blizzard has yet to do a final pass-through on resto and that stat priorities may change, so there will be a few possibilities listed here in order to reflect that. Early raiders also have to worry more about regen and longevity than later and better equipped raiders, so use your best judgment.
Resto enchants are generally more straightforward than their bear counterparts, unless there's a whole mess of them out there that I don't know about.
Head Gone! Head enchants are no longer anything to worry about.
Neck N/A.
Shoulders Scribes have now taken over the shoulder enchant market, which is good news if you're a scribe and bad news if you're anyone else. The top-of-the-line shoulder enchant will be the Greater Crane Wing Inscription. The regular Crane Wing Inscription will be the cheaper option. Scribes will have access to the Secret Crane Wing Inscription and also the Secret Serpent Pearl Inscription, a spirit option, which may very well be the more compelling of the two.
Cloak Enchant Cloak -- Superior Intellect will be the go-to pick. Fortunately, it doesn't look very expensive.
Chest Glorious Stats and Mighty Spirit are your two options. Spirit is shaping up to be extremely useful, which is good because Glorious Stats will require taking the in-game equivalent of a second mortgage.
Bracers Super Intellect.
Gloves Your choices will be Superior Mastery or Greater Haste. Haste is only likely to be the better of the two if it pushes you past a break point.
Belt The Living Steel Buckle will be the MoP equivalent of present belt buckles.
Legs Tailors will be able to create the Greater Pearlescent Spellthread.
Boots Pandaren's Step is going to win here unless Greater Haste pushes you past a break point.
Rings If you're an enchanter, you'll be able to slap Greater Intellect on both rings.
Weapon Your two choices will be Jade Spirit or Windsong. The interesting thing here is that you can't control which proc you actually get out of Windsong, or at least you couldn't as of the last time I looked at it. Jade Spirit will be the better of the two enchants -- but again, second mortgage.
New alchemy flasks and potions
Alchemists will want to make an Alchemist's Flask for themselves.
Don't forget to stock up on Master Mana Potions for dungeons and raids.
If you're willing to spend your potion cooldown on a throughput boost rather than chugging a mana pot (and I'm not), Jade Serpent is your option.
New jewelcrafting gems
Second. Mortgage.
So glad I finally knuckled down and leveled jewelcrafting on an alt.
Meta choices will be the Burning Primal Diamond, the Ember Primal Diamond, or the Revitalizing Primal Diamond. Without knowing what final stat priorities will look like, I'm hesitant to say now which one you're going to want, but it's likely to be a fight between the Ember and the Revitalizing.
Pure intellect and spirit options will be the Brilliant Primordial Ruby and Sparkling River's Heart respectively. Mixed gems will include the Artful Vermilion Onyx, Purified Imperial Amethyst, and Reckless Vermilion Onyx. Once we have a firm grip on stat priorities, we'll discuss which of these you'll be gemming more.
Jewelcrafters will want to create their Serpent's Eye gems (intellect and spirit) for themselves.
New cooking recipes
The Pandaren Banquet and Great Pandaren Banquet are the MoP equivalents to the Seafood Magnifique. For stamina and agility, I don't think all of the pandaren recipes are on Wowhead yet, but the Steamed Crab Surprise and Mogu Fish Stew seem to be the terminal recipes for spirit and intellect respectively.
Shifting Perspectives: Bear and Resto Edition takes a peek at healer balance in Dragon Soul, discovers why bears and PvP gear are a pretty good mix, lends advice on gearing up to hit the Raid Finder, and helps you level a druid in the Cataclysm era.
