toskk
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Patch 3.3: More community members honored with item names
In the vein of Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed and the BRK-1000, Blizzard honored several community members with items named after them in Patch 3.3. Ones we've seen so far: Maghia's Misguided Quill - Named after the well-known cosplayer who came to BlizzCon as Alexzstrasza and the Eredar Twins. Toskk's Maximized Wristguards - Named after the player who maintains a popular druid DPS calculator. Aldriana's Gloves of Secrecy - Named after the player who maintains a popular rogue DPS spreadsheet. There are other items in the patch files that look to be named after certain individuals, but I'm admittedly not familiar with everyone ever involved with the WoW community, so I'll leave it to you guys to let me know if I missed someone. I'm always happy when I see items like this in the game. They show that somebody out there is paying attention to the players that are making an impact in the community, and that's good enough for me. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Shifting Perspectives: Gearing your Feral (bear) Druid at 80
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, we take a look at gearing your lolbaretank for the rigors of standing in front of raid bosses and screaming, "Is that the best you've got?" EDIT: This article has been updated for patch 3.3 and Icecrown content. Please click here to see a guide to gearing a bear druid as of May 2010. My main spends most of her time tanking, so I have a little more experience with the gear on this list as opposed to others. Dan O'Halloran will be writing a guide to gearing a Cat Druid next week, and with that we'll be rounding up pre-raid gear for all 4 specs. As with our entry on pre-raid Restoration gear at 80 and our entry on pre-raid Balance gear at 80, this guide assumes that you do not presently have access to either 10-man or 25-man raids, and if I miss any piece that you've found helpful, please drop a comment and I'll make sure it gets added. I should also add that this gear set presumes you are gearing your bear tank with an eye toward main-tanking in raids and/or tanking the more difficult heroics. If you're mostly DPSing or off-tanking, please feel free to swap in more DPS-oriented pieces prioritizing +hit and +crit over +expertise, +dodge, and stamina. Before we get any further, some helpful links: Toskk's Bear Tank Time-To-Live Method, allowing you to look at upgrades from the context of your present set of gear and calculate how long you can go without healing assuming different talents and items. ThinkTank on pre-raid gear: While I don't think that Kalon's been able to update this for patch 3.0.8 yet and he weights items a little differently than I do, this is a terrific list. He'll also give you a much better sense of just how good PvP gear is right now (much to my everlasting annoyance concerning arena). Rawr: Use it. Know it. Love it. Big Bear Butt on +hit, +expertise, and +dodge conversion and numbers that you will need at 80.
