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Shifting Perspectives: A history of feral weapons
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This week, we visit a now-vanished world. Once upon a time, feral druids had their own specialized set of weapons. This was very good, because it meant that you weren't rolling against half the raid when an upgrade dropped. This was also very bad, because it meant that 98% of the game's weapons were completely useless for us. This was before the dark times. Before gear consolidation. Before every two-bit jackass with a hard-on for agility thought himself entitled to the armory of the game's noblest class. They were elegant weapons for a more civilized age.
Shifting Perspectives: When am I outside?
I am lame, a noob, and whatever else, but I still love my Entangling Roots, even at level 70. Give me a break people, it is the only crowd control I have as a proud dps kitty who moonlights as a tank. All the rogues have this wonderful sap that apparently brings all the boys to the yard in an instance. Cyclone lasts 6 seconds, which is nice, but doesn't "control a crowd" per se, not like Entangling Roots. For some reason, Entangling Roots only works outside, and I am okay with it. That may seem like a simple and very ordinary uncomplicated statement. As a Druid, I feel it is my duty to complicate everything (a result of the "overpowered class" buff), so let us decide once and for all what this term "outside" means. Apparently Blizzard is confused about this whole "Outside" thing as well. It may not seem important to non-druids, but just think about having to pee and not knowing whether you are outside or not. I think you'd agree that this is a major problem, peeing or not.
Shifting Perspectives: The forgotten feral form
Shifting Perspectives is the Druid column normally written by someone else other than Ryan Carter, but he is currently cutting his level 68 teeth on everything that moves, so he is filling in for your regularly scheduled Druids, who are on vacation in Nagrand and points beyond.Moonkins, mongeese, and bears oh my! Is there a reason that everyone hates cats, or is it that no one likes them? As a Druid, I hear about Dire Bear tanks, I hear about those party-animals, the Moonkins dps-ing their way into the lime light, and of course those restro Druids, who hang out with healers. What about the feral kitty? Why does no one play them but me? Is it harder to be a cat, or is it just a misunderstood sub-class? Personally, I love playing the cat, since there are many advantages to this spec. Sure, bears, owlbeasts and trees are great, but since I am biased, let me explain what I consider to be the distinct advantages of playing a kitty.First off, Prowl (stealth) is an extremely powerful tool in groups, solo, or in an instance. Rogues have this ability too, but putting 3 early talent points into Feral Instinct makes it even harder to detect you when roaming around (like a talent rogues have). Stealth is useful for recon, figuring out the best way to pull a difficult group in an instance or for doing things other classes can't even dream of doing, like soloing LBRS to get your own Smolderweb Hatchling or Worg Pup. I was a level too low to be running LBRS in daylight, yet was inside stealthing through LBRS to get my pets, all alone. Wanna be the talk of the town or do the impossible before it should be possible, roll a druid.
Shifting Perspectives: Flight form, not just for flying anymore
You veritable shape-shifter you, you've leveled, quested, and hit at least 68. As you know, you now get the express privilege of one of the coolest things in the game, Druid Flight Form. Sure, for the first while, simply soaring over Outlands is teh coolest, but after a while, you start to wonder if there is something more that flight form is good for besides high altitude tourism. Don't even get me started on how cool the Swift Flight Form is once you hit level 70.Flight form does have distinct advantages over regular flying mounts, and rather than bore you with that, since you probably already know about them, consider these interesting uses for your newly acquired and admittedly overpowered form. Feel free to /evillaugh at this point.
Shifting Perspectives: The Druid-Shammy double whammy
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them.Lately I have been leveling a Shaman, and I was surprised to learn that Druids (my all-time favorite class) and Shamans (might become my second favorite) are quite similar. I know I am a Shammy noob, having never leveled one before, but am quickly learning to love them and hoping to suck in all the knowledge I can in coming days. Not only with Shamans and Druids, I guess you could say that there is a lot of class crossover in many areas, for example, a Warlock functions much like a Hunter, being a long ranged fighter with a pet, or how druids double up on many of the Rogue's trademarks, at least in feral form. The list is endless, and I could go on, but after all, this is a Druid column, so let's get to it.I don't think crossover is all that uncommon, nor is it detrimental to any class, in fact, much of the time, the class crossover actually helps and can fill a void especially in instances when your (insert loser class here) bailed on you at the last second before a big fight. This is what makes druids the cream of the cat, um, crop. We druids can do almost everything, but with varying degrees of effectiveness depending on spec, motivation, and of course fun-ness index. Shammies are also quite versatile and varied in their skills, which makes me like them for sure, and thus our first class crossover comparison between Druids and Shammies today.
Shifting Perspectives: The human druids
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by Dan O'Halloran and David Bowers.Druids weren't always night elves and tauren, you know. Well, in World of Warcraft they were, but centuries before the first snowflakes started to form in the clouds of Blizzard's creative minds, the authentic human druids actually walked around casting regrowth, shapeshifting, and spamming moonfire.Or did they? How much of the class that we know and love in WoW is actually based on the real life druids of old? How did the word "druid" come to refer to our fantasy fighters rather than some ancient wise men in robes?
Shifting Perspectives: How fun is a druid?
Welcome to Shifting Perspectives! This is a new feature here on WoW Insider, which will bring you various perspectives on shifting forms as a druid, from David Bowers one week, and Dan O'Halloran the next.I'm here kick off our little druid feature for this week with a simple pair of questions to answer: "Is playing a druid fun?" and "should I play a druid?" I reply to both with a resounding yes, of course. "But why?" you ask. "What has the Druid class got to offer me that other, so-called 'superior classes' haven't got?" The answer is, naturally, everything! Well mostly everything. You see, more than any other class, druids have such a variety of abilities and can specialize in these abilities to such a degree that there are many very different play styles available to each druid player. The Druid is the ultimate class for the player who wants to tank sometimes, stealth and kill sometimes, heal sometimes, and then sit back and nuke things from a distance for a few months in order to get a change of pace. A druid can alternately be very good at healing, tanking, dealing up-close melee damage, or dealing far-away nuking damage, filling the roles of a priest, warrior, rogue or mage -- all in one class!
