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Druid glyph changes in patch 5.0.4
When the new 5.0 patch flips over on Aug. 28, will you be ready with glyphs? Blizzard is recycling old glyphs instead of making new spell IDs and charring old ones. Some glyphs are staying the same, some are new, but some share IDs with old Cataclysm glyphs. Below is our list of new or changing glyphs for druids. This is not a list of changing tooltips, just which glyphs you ought to have if you want to automatically have the new glyphs when the patch flips over. The glyph switching occurs across roles more often than not, so feral and guardian druids will want some of the current balance and restoration glyphs in order to automatically switch over. Druids have one new glyph, Glyph of the Cheetah. Glyphs that are changing into new majors: Unburdened Rebirth becomes Blooming Tiger's Fury becomes Cat Form Monsoon becomes Cyclone Lacerate becomes Fae Silence Focus becomes the Master Shapeshifter Starsurge becomes Might of Ursoc Starfire becomes the Moonbeast Wrath becomes Nature's Grasp Rip becomes Prowl Moonfire becomes Savagery Bloodletting becomes Shred Starfall becomes Skull Bash Swiftmend becomes Stampede Savage Roar becomes Stampeding Roar Berserk becomes Survival Instincts Glyphs that are changing into new minors: Challenging Roar becomes the Chameleon Mark of the Wild becomes Charm Woodland Creature Thorns becomes Grace Insect Swarm becomes the Orca Feral Charge becomes the Predator Mangle becomes the Stag Typhoon becomes Stars It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
A song of trees and fire: A deeper look at DDO's Update 15
Earlier this week, Turbine released Update 15: Song of Druid's Deep for Dungeons and Dragons Online. Seeing as this was the first post-expansion update and that it took us further into the Forgotten Realms setting, we had to get a closer look at what Update 15 added to the game. Lead Content Designer Ricardo Liu and Community Manager Amanda Grove invited us along to a tour of the new content. Liu said that the speed of Update 15's arrival is a sign that Turbine wants to kick up the pace of releases. The update includes a new four-quest adventure pack, the monster manual, and an additional challenge. With Update 15, many more options are available in the DDO store. Turbine's set the pricing as follows: Menace of the Underdark adventure packs are 2495 Turbine Points for all, account-wide epic destiny unlock is 995 TP, the Eveningstar Challenge Pack is free for VIPs and 695 TP for others, and the Druid class is free for VIPs and 1495 TP for others. The pricing details out of the way, we got right into the fun of all of Update 15's new adventures. It's a tale that will give the green thumbs among you a plague of nightmares.
Ultima Forever opens the doors to Druids
While it might not be a full-fledged MMO, Ultima Forever remains on our radar due to its heritage and studio backing. Executive Producer Jeff Skalski revealed a few more details about the title, including the third class to join the character roster. The as-of-yet unrevealed class is a Druid, who will take her place alongside the Mage and Fighter. "She's an interesting one," Skalski said, "but unfortunately at this time we like to hold back on the details behind her for a little longer. I will however say there will be five additional classes beyond these three that we plan to launch every few months following launch." Skalski said that Ultima Forever takes place 21 years after Ultima IV and has a Lady British on the throne of Britannia ("We wanted to be respectful to Richard and his rights," he explained). BioWare's skill as a spinner of yarns will be on full display as well: "At its core is a story of a journey with choice. The eight virtues are threaded throughout the game and your actions will dictate how you progress those virtues."
Mists of Pandaria: Druid Symbiosis updated (includes tables)
The latest beta build includes the most recent changes to the druid Symbiosis spell. Symbiosis, as you may know, is essentially a spell swap between a druid and any other class. It's not done automatically, so if the druid is in a class-run raid group -- a group where there are no duplicate classes -- the druid can choose to give it to any raid team member. In return for this generosity, the druid receives a spell back from the target, which appears on the druid's bars and is currently usable with all the usual restrictions of that spell, such as cooldown, range and similar. The spell distribution follows after the break -- first, the spells that other classes receive from their druid friends.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Druids get new default travel form
The folks over at MMO-Champion have a video and images of the new default -- that's right, I said default -- druid travel form, the stag. If you love your cheetah form, don't fret; there's a glyph for that. The Glyph of the Stag, meanwhile, will allow your fellow party members to ride on your back and pretend you're a megaloceros. Well, that's what I assume they'll be doing. I know it's what I will be doing. As for you druids, you can pretend to be Malorne now! I really like the ornamentation on these forms, and I'll admit I find the small tusks on the Horde form to be adorable. Very nice job on the design here, in my opinion. While these are some pretty awesomely detailed stag forms, I won't pretend I'm not disappointed we're not also getting some variety for certain other forms, like a rhino tanking form. If we had a rhino tanking form, I would be sorely tempted to actually level a druid. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Dungeons and Dragons Online: Menace of the Underdark goes live [Updated]
Hope your dice are polished and your character sheets fresh from the copier: Dungeons and Dragons Online's first expansion has gone live on Turbine's servers. Menace of the Underdark is now available for all players who have purchased the digital expansion pack from the studio. Menace of the Underdark represents a sizable addition to the game. With it, DDO is expanding into the Forgotten Realms campaign setting and offers a new class, the Druid. Players will also be able to level up to 25 and expand their characters with the epic destinies system. "Menace of the Underdark delivers a wealth of content for our players and introduces significant engine upgrades that allow us to bring to life in a striking, visually impressive manner two of the most requested features, the new Druid class and access to the Forgotten Realms setting," said Executive Producer Fernando Paiz. While you patch up the game, you can check out the last of Menace of the Underdark's developer interviews after the jump! [Source: Turbine press release] [Update: Turbine just announced over Twitter that the game is now available on Steam!]
Raid Rx: Recap of recent healing changes
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. There's been some large changes to healing for some of the classes in recent builds. This week, we'll recap and go through the classes to see what's new. You might be interested to know that at level 89, my priest has 250k mana. Who wants to wager that 300k mana is the maximum cap at level 90? Remember with the new intellect and mana system coming in with the expansion, intellect stats no longer raise the mana pool anymore. Your mana regeneration is governed strictly by your spirit levels. Priest Lightwell receives a few tweaks to the healing numbers. More importantly, it now has a glyph that completely changes the functionality of the spell. Glyph of Lightspring turns Lightwell into an automatic healing ability with a catch. Lightwell will only heal players with health lower than 50%. It will only perform the check once every 5 seconds. That is a fair compromise to me. I've never been truly satisfied with Lightwell since my experience has shown me that most players never click on it when it really matters. At least this glyph helps remove control from them and I gain the knowledge of my Lightwell kicking in when it'll be needed.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Horde and Alliance Incarnation moonkin forms
Things just got real in the Mists of Pandaria beta, folks. With the most recent patch, the new moonkin forms for the druid talent Incarnation have hit MMO-Champion. I don't really have much to say other than Blizzard just might be opening a can of worms here for druid players. Armored moonkin forms actually look pretty awesome. Druids, run with this one. While Incarnation is going to have its own special models, attaching armor to the existing moonkin form might have proven easier than imagined. Could druids get the option in the future to augment their forms with their own armor choices? Not yet, but Incarnation's forms are already shaping up to be pretty exciting for druids. Now, to dust off my druid ...
New DDO Menace of the Underdark video profiles Druid class
Turbine continues its Menace of the Underdark info blitz this morning with a new video centering on Dungeons and Dragons Online's maiden expansion. If you've been hiding in a troll cave for the last month, you may not be aware that the devs are taking players from Eberron to the Forgotten Realms starting on June 25th. There's also a new Druid class, which is the focus of today's dev diary clip. Executive producer Fernando Paiz calls the Druid the single most requested feature by the DDO playerbase over the last six years. Click past the cut to learn more about the class and see if it measures up to your expectations. [Source: Turbine press release]
Encrypted Text: Rogues can actually tank
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. In the original WoW beta, rogues were designed to be off tanks. Complete with a high dodge coefficient from agility and a buckler, rogues could survive quite a beating. Evasion was a tanking cooldown, and Vanish was a useful tank-swapping ability. Hunters worked similarly, also sporting bucklers and using Feign Death to lose aggro. Obviously, the developers scrapped both of these ideas before launch. During The Burning Crusade, Gaeowyn broke the combat table by achieving unhittable status with 102.63% avoidance and using it to successfully slay Illidan. After that, the crew slew Gruul with just five people while it was still relevant content. In Wrath, Jider abused Shadowstep and our amazing damage output to solo several Naxxramas bosses. The upcoming Mists expansion looks to again revitalize rogue tanking, with the advent of the druid ability Symbiosis and our bonus ability, Growl.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Incarnation druid cat forms appear
Wowhead has datamined some pretty cool new models, which are apparently new druid cat form models coming in for the new druid talent Incarnation. Even though they're not a whole new model, they look slick, and I cannot imagine Blizzard won't have something more to say about them soon, now that we've seen them. Ghostcrawler said that new forms are coming for Incarnation, and this might be the first salvo of models for druids. Personally, I hope the new forms are a subtle hint at a Blizzard reversal in its reluctance to add in some class-specific content again. While doing something cool for every class is a daunting process and the required resources are extensive, it's been shown that players react favorably to that type of content. In the meantime, check out the epic cat forms for worgen, night elves, tauren, and trolls over at Wowhead. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Druids, Drow, and destinies in an epic DDO expansion tour
On Thursday, Turbine will take the wraps off of Dungeons and Dragons Online: Menace of the Underdark and commence with the closed beta. It's a heady time for both the team and playerbase, as this 2007 title steps into the big leagues of expansion-holding MMOs. And because we know you hate waiting for all the goods, we joined Turbine on the test server for an advance look at some of the hottest features coming with June's launch. On the phone with us was Senior Producer Eric Boyer, Community Specialist Amanda Grove, and Design Director Ian Currie. "We want to show players how big the expansion pack is and how much it'll be changing the game," Boyer began, telling us that levels one through 20 were merely "heroic" -- now it'll be time to make the move into epic territory. From a look at the much-anticipated Druid and the previously vague Epic Destinies to a lightning tour of your first day in the Forgotten Realms, the team was out to convince us that Menace of the Underdark is fully worthy of the "expansion" moniker. How's it looking so far? Take a look for yourself!
Skill Mastery: Symbiosis -- why you should be nice to druids
I don't know what class you play. I don't know if you're any good at it. If you're looking for gold, I can tell you I don't have any. But what I do have is a very particular skill -- a skill I have acquired at level 87 after a long career of pleading with Blizzard for relevance. This skill makes me a nightmare for people like you. If you let the contents of your action bar go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will take everything you hold dear. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Symbiosis -- or as we like to call it around these parts, the reason you need to be nice to druids in Mists of Pandaria. Or as we also like to call it, the endless, numb suckhole where raid balance goes to die.
Breakfast Topic: Dumb things are fun
Opinions were pretty mixed when druids lost permanent Tree Form going into Cataclysm, but two distinct camps emerged. Lots of people who'd been playing since classic WoW resented having to be in a low-poly model all the time just to be competitive with other healers. Others really liked playing a tree, missed the form, and have sulked their way through Cataclysm with only temporary access to the (admittedly awesome) Captain Disco Soul Patch Groovy Tree. When Glyph of the Treant was introduced on the Mists of Pandaria beta, I was among those who hurried to glyph it in order to enjoy the form again and subsequently found myself running around Azshara like an idiot, one-shotting the mobs as a tree again. I have difficulty defending this. It literally adds nothing whatsoever to the class. It takes up a valuable glyph slot, gives no combat advantage, and exists only to be enjoyed. And then I realized -- a lot of the stuff I've liked about Mists has absolutely nothing to do with the druid's combat effectiveness. Something that contributes to tanking, healing, or DPS always has to be balanced with other classes, and a degree of homogenization results because you can't have wildly different mechanics without usually getting wildly different results. Something that doesn't contribute to combat can just exist to be fun and doesn't have to be balanced with similar abilities elsewhere. What skills, spells, or abilities does your class have that are only for fun? And on a more thoughtful note, would the game benefit from more "dumb stuff"?
The Heart of the Wild controversy: Should players be allowed to change specs in combat?
In a recent Mists of Pandaria beta build, the tooltip for one of the currently inaccessible druid talents, Heart of the Wild, was significantly rewritten and updated. The full tooltip is long, but the key assumption is that every six minutes, a druid of any spec can click a button and automatically be able change to another combat role for 45 seconds, with little drop-off in effectiveness. Restoration druids can start dealing damage, DPSers of either persuasion can throw around some heals or tank an add, and guardian tanks can even spread around a few HoTs without having to leave Bear Form and turn into paste. That's the theory, anyway. As you can imagine, this idea generated some heated debate in the druid blogger community. The noted Lissanna of Restokin called it "(likely) the the least used talent out of any talent tree in the history of the game" Murmurs also agreed, saying "HotW has a pure functionality problem. It can never truly fulfill the position that it is attempting to grasp." In opposition, Tangedyn, the co-creator of the Mew feral druid simulator and frequent contributor to The Inconspicuous Bear, wrote "... there's no reason to deny druids that want the versatility the capability to perform to their best of their abilities." So who's right? Well, let's take a closer look at both sides of the argument, since this debate brings up several important issues to any WoW raider.
Shifting Perspectives: 5 moonkin issues that need fixing
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our DPS edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. This week, we go fast and furry. Well, it's happened again. Once more, I intended for this week to be a first look at balance druids in Mists of Pandaria, but as I wrote the article, I felt that much of it was lacking the proper context. Since we haven't had a moonkin post around here in some time, I'd like to step back briefly and discuss some of the issues with the specialization that were identified going into the new expansion. Next week, we'll discuss the changes Blizzard is implementing on the beta and how they fix (or don't fix!) the issues I've described here. Overpowered AoE/multitarget rotation For the majority of the expansion, balance druids were one of the best AoE DPS classes in the game. This was due largely to two factors, the relative strength of the moonkin DoT abilities plus Wild Mushroom and the ability to remain in a Solar Eclipse nearly indefinitely during AoE phases to buff those two abilities (aka solarcleave). Even for non-AoE fights, it was still very easy for moonkin to supplement their damage on their primary target with DoTs on a secondary target. Heroic Morchok and Warmaster Blackhorn are excellent examples of this for this tier.
GuildOx player analysis highlights the warlock decline
The folks at GuildOx have gone through their database and done some simple filtering that reveals some fascinating things about who is raiding heroic Dragon Soul. GuildOx started with level 85 characters, filtered for characters with ilevel 400 gear, and then filtered out anyone with PvP gear. What you see in the chart above is the result of that work -- a representative sample of who out of the over 13 million level 85 characters in the GuildOx database is raiding heroic Dragon Soul. If you remember the post about the complexity of systems and player retention that I made a couple of weeks back, you'll remember that I mentioned Cynwise's excellent posts about the warlock decline. Well, here it is again reflected in GuildOx's data. Warlocks are the least played class in heroic raiding. Warriors aren't doing much better, really. Most other classes seem fairly healthy, with classes that have healing specs doing fairly well and rogues absolutely ruling heroic raiding despite being one of the least-played classes in the game overall. It gets even more interesting once we get to look at the GuildOx spec-by-spec breakdown.
Raid Rx: Mists of Pandaria healing changes
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. You'll notice that there are a ton of new glyphs that have been added for all the classes. That list is by no means exhaustive. I also noticed some slight changes in the way certain spells work. I can assure you it won't be anything too drastic, but these changes are enough to keep you interested and wondering. This week, I'll be rounding up what we know healers will be getting, as well as any other notable modifications. New for druids Cenarion Ward appears to be a Prayer of Mending-like spell without the subsequent charges. Good spell to open with before an engagement. Won't have to pre-HoT as much. Just remember to pre-Ward. Wild Mushroom: Bloom! Hope you love 'shrooms, since you'll be gaining the use of these in addition to your Balance friends. Anticipate a moment where big AoE healing is needed, and plant 'shrooms. Detonate after raid group takes a hit, and relish in the healing spores that explode. Regrowth can be glyphed to remove the HoT component. Benefit? 40% increased chance of a critical heal. I guess you can configure a HoT-based class to switch to a non-HoT direction.
How to go tribal with transmogrification
Do you like hugging trees? Did you want to see more of D.E.H.T.A. in Wrath of the Lich King? If you answered yes to either of those questions, this week's transmogrification guide is for you. This week, we're going to be exploring that super-chic tribal look the tauren of Azeroth love so much. So if you happen to be a druid who wants to look more the part (or just want to be a rogue who inflicts cognitive dissonance), keep reading. First off, you should know that at the end of the day, there's a lot of flexibility to this outfit. Anything with wood, leaves, feathers, animal hide, fur, or antlers has the potential to be swapped in. Just be mindful of how you incorporate color. When using earthy-looking armor models, you want to try and keep the earth tones in the same color family. So for example, if your chestpiece is a mustard-colored brown, you may want to make sure most of your browns have a similar hue. When it comes to accents and contrasting color, try to make all of those little details match. So if you get a red headband, trying using a red belt or weapon to tie it all together.
Turbine reveals shape-shifting DDO Druid class
Turbine has a present for all you would-be shape-shifters out there, and it takes the form of the new Druid class coming with Dungeons and Dragons Online's new Menace of the Underdark expansion. The content drops on June 25th, and the Druid will be available as a premium playable class (and free to VIPs). The Druid is primarily a caster, but he's also proficient with daggers, sickles, staves, and clubs. His signature ability allows him to transform into a winter wolf, a dire bear, a water elemental, or a fire elemental. Each shape has its own set of spells, and the class also features a Druidic oath that boosts resistances to entanglement, poison, and other natural ailments. More info on the expansion is available via Turbine's official website. [Source: Turbine press release]
