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Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid feedback
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Early on in the week, Blizzard started threads in each of the class forums on the official website asking for players to provide feedback regarding their classes and specs in preparation for 4.3 and the next expansion. For any of you who have not yet posted, I highly encourage you to go do so. No matter how late it may seem or how buried among the pages your post might end up, Blizzard representatives will be reading those threads, and it is the absolute best opportunity for you to let the development team know how it is you feel. They expected that these threads would grow to a vast size; they're prepared to handle the volume of feedback and report their findings. I, too, have posted in that thread, stating what it is I think and feel about balance druids. In doing so, however, I felt that I was rather limited by the system in which I was posting. Writing for balance druids every week, it's obvious that I've got a lot to say about the spec, so attempting to cram all those thoughts into a condensed forum post was difficult. This week, I'd like to take the opportunity to expand upon the feedback I provided, and invite you once again to go and leave your own.
Shifting Perspectives: Rolling a new bear or restoration druid in Cataclysm
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, there can never be enough druids in the world. Our editors have asked us to write a column or two about leveling new characters in Cataclysm, as we've been getting lots of requests and, uh, we haven't updated our leveling guides in a while. I was horrified to learn that my own were written two years ago. So, without further ado, here's my comprehensive guide to druid leveling in Cataclysm: Go anywhere. Do anything. Ding! Go anywhere. Do anything. Ding! I suspect this is not going to pass the laugh test with our editors, so let's see if I can rustle up some slightly more useful advice past the cut. Update: A few hours after this column was submitted on Monday morning, Blizzard went live with its class feedback series on the forums, seeking input from players on potential changes to their classes. The last time they did this was around the time they were tossing around ideas on class updates that later appeared in the Cataclysm beta, so this is your chance to weigh your experiences in this expansion and write suggestions. The druid threads are here (US version) and here (EU version), and we'll talk about this next week.
Shifting Perspectives: Soloing as a feral druid, part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin! After my deployment, the time I had for organized raiding shrank dramatically. I searched for something else to do but found few answers. The new solo content in 3.2 quickly grew stale and repetitive (as did trollroics), and high latency made feral PVP a daunting challenge. I could've hung it up; instead, I rediscovered an old love -- instance soloing. Soloing through old content may seem pointless to those who simply chase item levels, but it has several benefits. I was one of those who never got to see The Burning Crusade raids past Karazhan; now I can, enjoying the scenery and fights at my own pace. The fights will challenge you, requiring you to learn every aspect of your class and how core game mechanics operate. Finally, it's pretty profitable and a hell of a lot less boring then doing dailies. We might not be able to solo certain bosses like DKs do, but we can get through trash much faster and easier due to stealth.
Shifting Perspectives: Avoid these common balance druid mistakes
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Welcome back, my little space turkeys. It's been a fun couple of weeks here recently with all sorts of nothing announced for us. Despite Blizzard's new plan to be speedy like the rabbit, it doesn't quite seem to have gotten a handle on what that actually means. Information about the next patch in slow in the making, and all that we have gotten so far hasn't really been of any use to us here in constantly-in-the-shape-of-a-fat-mutant-chicken-form-land. Shouldn't complain, I suppose. It could be worse -- it could be raining. Oh wait ... it is raining. This week, in light of the dreary New England mood that's been permeating my area for the past few days, we'll be going over some of the common mistakes that balance druids make (and sometimes those who think they know balance druids). I'm not entirely sure how the weather is related to this topic, but I promise you, the correlation is there. Prepare for a mildly exciting read that's also rather informative -- like a science textbook only better, and it doesn't cost you several hundred dollars.
Shifting Perspectives: Not seeing your gear is no excuse
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, hunter polearms are tossed into the trash bin and are then very quickly retrieved. As many of you know, transmogrification -- from the ancient Greek trans, meaning "To make one's gear look better," and mogrification, meaning "Than it actually is" -- is coming to the game in patch 4.3. As such, we are joined again by Letitia, the official fashion consultant and Snark Passenger to the Shifting Perspectives column. Some of you may already know her from Shifting Perspectives: Fun with race choice, in which we pronounced one particular human model a perfect in-game example of Stalinist realism, and Shifting Perspectives: The druid of 2010, in which Allison was scraped off a bus station bathroom floor in order to write the article. In the interests of not seeing a flood of druids run around in uncoordinated ensembles, we have assembled a set of suggestions you may wish to review. They were compiled and ranked according to the scientific rationale of not wanting to flinch whenever I shifted out of form. Our priorities are the helm, shoulder, cloak, and chest slots -- the ones that really define an outfit -- and I'll revisit the series on some future date, or whenever I can get Letitia away from her chosen career of throwing garbage at Los Angeles stylists. Oh, and as an important aside -- Anne's World of Wardrobe series has a lot of good tips for anyone looking to put together a complete tier set. Reddit's WoW Transmogrification subreddit also has a lot of good tips, as do Wowhead's blogs on unique items and NPC sets to copy. The Visual Roleplay Gear List is also an incredibly addictive site, though not all of the sets it features will be possible to use for "mogging."
Shifting Perspectives: The state of feral raid DPS in patch 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin! Now that we've got several weeks of 4.2 data under our belt, I'd like to take a look at DPS across the classes to see how feral shakes out comparatively. Obviously, this is a topic that is always heavily controversial, so I'm doing my best to document my opinions using hard data rather than anecdotal observations. My primary tool for this is going to be the charts from Seri's wonderful site, raidbots.com, which aggregates public data from World of Logs reports. I know several guilds don't report to WoL, but it's still a wonderful data source for information.
Shifting Perspectives: The new face of balance druid PVP
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. It is fairly common knowledge that I am not an avid PVPer. It isn't so much that the balance spec is weak in PVP (even if it is); nor is it a matter that I find the system frustrating. It more has to deal with my having to be exceptional at what I do, or I won't do at all. Sure, I may not be an instant superstar at everything, but normally I feel I can learn, improve. The PVP learning curve is steep, further complicated by playing a very difficult spec in that environment -- so for me, I avoid it. That being said, I do throughly enjoy watching PVP, theorizing on the balance of PVP, and keeping up with the scene in general. This week, I want to bring my newest PVP observations to you in hopes that I can help those out there who want to give balance PVP the shot it deserves. We aren't as terrible as people would lead you to think!
Shifting Perspectives: Feral cat raiding strats for the Firelands, part 4
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin! This is it. You've defeated Shannox, Beth'tilac, Lord Rhyolith, Baleroc, Alysrazor, and Staghelm. Only Ragnaros, the Lord of Fire remains. Again. I'm changing things up a bit for this guide. Because this encounter is so complicated, I'll discuss strategy and tips for each phase in turn. Ragnaros, phase 1 Your raid will be formed in a loose semicircle or U-shape around Ragnaros, who remains immobile throughout the fight. Tanks will be on one end, melee the other, and ranged and healers hang out in the middle. There are two knockback effects in this phase -- Wrath of Ragnaros, which targets a random player and everyone within 6 yards of him, and Hand of Ragnaros, which targets everyone. You'll want to be aware of your positioning at all times, to avoid an untimely death.
Shifting Perspectives: On the matter of Moonkin Form
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Glory to the moonkin! Since the initial release of information, transmogrification has pretty much been the dominating topic around the WoW sphere. Naturally, being a druid, I really didn't care much about it. That's untrue. In fact, I went through what I've coined as the five stages of druid patch notes: Excitement Realization that it doesn't matter to me Deep depression Angry resentment Giving up, defeated Any time that Blizzard makes some new fun, silly project for the game, these are the exact steps that I follow. All those neat transformation items? Worthless. Pretty new mounts? Please, I already have Flight Form keybound and it's instant; why would I need anything else? Suffice to say, druids always do seem to get left out of all the reindeer games -- that is, of course, unless you're a restoration druid. Trees don't, well, have to be trees. They stay unshifted, which is the downfall of all other druid specs. I'm not alone in this, and the introduction of transmogrification has brought about a new surge of players asking for the removal of Moonkin Form. This week, we'll lend an ear to those complaints.
Shifting Perspectives: Gearing a restoration druid in patch 4.2, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we finish gearing up in Firelands. Greetings, my fellow trees. This week we're going to finish off our series on gearing a restoration druid in patch 4.2. Part one included headpieces, neckpieces, shoulders, cloaks, chestpieces, bracers, gloves, belts, legs and boots. Today we'll address rings, trinkets, weapons, off-hands, and relics. Yes, the tank threat changes from this past week merit commentary as well, but before we do that, run -- don't walk -- to your nearest tier 6 raid in search of Thunderheart. Aaaaaand ... transmogrify! With God as my witness, I will never wear a hunter polearm (or at least give the appearance of doing so) again! As before, if your druid is brand new to level 85 or still leveling, you'll probably find the older series of guides a bit more immediately useful: Helm, neck, shoulders, and cloak Chest, bracers, gloves, belt, legs, boots, and rings Trinkets, weapons, offhands, and relics Read: Gearing a restoration druid in patch 4.2, part 1
Shifting Perspectives: Comparing T12 boomkin gear against T11
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Last week, I allowed the unthinkable to happen: I allowed myself to be out-DPSed by an elemental shaman. It was a terrible day, one from which I don't think I shall ever recover. It happened the day that I had finally gotten my new, shiny four-piece bonus. I was eager to try it out, estatic that I finally got myself out of that god-awful dress. Then something just fell through. This week was more of a redemption, but I will still never forget losing out that one time. If anything good did come of it, at least you could say that it got me thinking. Upgrading from tier 11 to tier 12 should be a pretty big deal. The set has more and better itemization, the set bonuses are pretty spectacular -- so what could possibly be the issue? This week, we'll be talking about how tier 12 is great but not the bundle of roses that you might think it is. Depending on the encounter in question, which tier is actually better can change on you. Given that, should you ever go back to your old tier 11?
Shifting Perspectives: Gearing a restoration druid in patch 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we turn our attention to intellect leather. As a quick note, I'm going to revisit our bear gearing guide over the next few weeks in order to add PVP gear and to split normal/heroic versions as per the request of our commenters; I agree that the present version probably isn't as convenient as intended. I'll drop another note in the column once I've finished with that. There's lots of new gear for restoration druids to look for in patch 4.2, so -- as with the bears -- it's high time to update our gear lists. Once again, I've split the guide, and the ring, weapon, offhand, relic, and trinket column will run next week, as they require more discussion. As this guide addresses gear that's been added to the game from the Zandalari heroic level through Firelands, it's probably most helpful to people who are already sitting on a few epics (or at least heroic blues). If you're a fresh level 85 restoration druid or still leveling, you'll probably find our previous series on gearing a resto druid more immediately helpful, but please keep in mind that stat priorities have shifted more toward mastery these days: Helm, neck, shoulders, and cloak Chest, bracers, gloves, belt, legs, boots, and rings Trinkets, weapons, offhands, and relics
Shifting Perspectives: Feral cat raiding strats for the Firelands, part 3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin! In the last column, we rolled over Rhyolith and beat down Baleroc. Before that, we shredded Shannox and went berserk on Beth'tilac. There are only two more bosses before the big event in the Firelands: the flame phoenix Alysrazor and the elf man everybody loves to hate, Staghelm. More importantly, mowing down these two bosses gives you chance for the staff that turns you into the fire kitty we always were in our hearts. So let's get to face shredding.
Shifting Perspectives: What to do once you've hit level 85 as a balance druid
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. There are times when it can be slightly awkward writing for two different class columns. While all of us strive to bring the best information for whatever it is that we write about, there are loads of tidbits that really do span across the entire game, stuff that people really do need to know. I find myself in this predicament at the moment. This past Monday, I did a piece for warlocks regarding this very same topic. Writing the same thing for balance druids as I do warlocks? Lazy? A cop-out? Nah -- well, maybe ... but probably not. Much of the information in that article holds true for balance druids as well, although there are itemization differences I'll be covering here; further, it's about readership. It is good information; it's stuff that everyone should know, and I want to make sure that everyone does get it. Just because I write about warlocks doesn't mean all of those who read Shifting Perspectives will also read Blood Pact. This week, I'm stealing one of my own pages and bringing you what to do once you hit level 85. Enjoy, perhaps even for the second time!
Shifting Perspectives: Feral cat strats for the Firelands, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin! In the last column, we tackled the trash and the first two bosses of the Firelands that most guilds will encounter, Shannox and Beth'tilac. Today, we'll proceed to the next two, challenging Lord Rhyolith and Baleroc. Let's get your feral on!
Shifting Perspectives: Murmurs' moonkin Twitter feed!
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. I haz a Twitters! Like most everyone else these days, I too am a part of the social revolution that is sweeping the globe. Originally I was against the idea, but I've been a part of this network for some time now and I figured that it was finally the time to put that fact to work. This week, I'll be pulling questions from some of my followers on Twitter. @xvkarbear Should I be waiting to pop starfall until I have a lunar eclipse? Use mushrooms during solar eclipse?
Shifting Perspectives: Gearing a bear druid in patch 4.2, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we want the damn fire kitty staff. Hail, bears. This week, we're going to finish off our look at bear gear in the post-4.2 world. Our first installment, covering the helm through boot slots, went up last week. Today, we're going to look at rings, trinkets, weapons, and relics. As a note on the PVE versus PVP discussion that broke out in the comments last week, I have to admit that I'm still not very fond of PVP gear. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I'm not fond of an overdependence on PVP gear. The more arena and battleground pieces you add to your set, the more that you're likely to encounter threat generation issues. Even haste (garbage stat that it is) does more for us than resilience, which does precisely nothing in PVE content. So I'm hesitant to endorse widespread use of PVP gear in PVE. If you have the opportunity to use a few suitable pieces, go for it; just check its ilevel to see the gear to which it's roughly comparable. Be aware that its use comes at the cost of stat allocation that could've gone to something useful. As before, if your bear is completely new to level 85, our first set of bear gear guides may be more immediately useful to you.
Shifting Perspectives: Letting go of DOT-based AOE
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com. Firelands comes and goes, boss strategies are created and refined -- and with each passing encounter, players come up with different ways in which they can push the mold. What may be true for one raiding tier can quickly become the wrong way of doing things in the next, without any changes or direction from Blizzard. While we can sometimes point to spell scaling as the root cause of these alterations, often it is the changes within the design of the encounters that actually force players to adapt in ways that go against conventional wisdom. In the past raiding tier, using DOTs as our AOE has been the one and only method to perform. Our more traditional AOE was mocked due to the constraints that were placed upon it. That has not changed in the least; what has changed, however, in AOE in general. Throughout the first raiding tier and even into Firelands, Blizzard has made changes to the mobs that we AOE and the strength of other classes' AOE abilities, all of which impacts the way we perform. This week, we take a look at the new face of balance AOE.
Shifting Perspectives: Gearing a bear druid in patch 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This week, it's not like we're doing dailies for our health. Mmmm. Fresh meat gear, nicely charred by all that flame-broiling action in the Firelands these days. High time to update our gear lists! Stat priority for bears in patch 4.2 remains armor, stamina, agility, mastery, crit, expertise, hit, and haste. Rather than rehash territory we've already covered in our first set of bear gear guides for Cataclysm, the lowest piece I'm going to list in each slot is the best available piece from 5-mans, reputation, or the new Molten Front vendors. If you're starting from absolutely nothing and need some ilevel 333/346 gear to tide you over, I would recommend the previous bear guides. Otherwise, your goal should be to get to at least the lowest piece in each slot on this list. As always, I'm bypassing PVP gear because so much itemization is wasted on resilience. However, if you want to use it and you've got a better piece than would otherwise be available from PVE, knock yourself out. This week, we'll cover the helm through boot slots, and next week, we'll tackle rings, trinkets, weapons, and relics.
Shifting Perspectives: Feral cat strats for the Firelands, part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin! All of us want fire kitty staff, but there are a few obstacles in the way ... mounds of trash and five or so bosses. For my next few columns, I'll take a look at feral DPS strategies that will get you through mostly unscorched. The first thing you'll have to deal with is trash. There's a nice Firelands trash guide right here on WoW Insider, but let's start this week's study with a brief overview.
