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Get in line! Rezzing order and you
So someone moved, someone pulled aggro, someone didn't heal fast enough, or you just don't have the DPS. It's a wipe. Everyone's dead on the ground, and the raidleader calls for a Shaman to pop, or for someone to use their soulstone. I'm a resto Shaman, so this happens to me pretty often: I Reincarnate and I'm standing over 24 dead people. Who do I rez first?Obviously, the first people I go for are those who have a rez to use, so we can do some chain rezzing. Priests, other Shamans, and Paladins. But after that? Caralynn lays it out: while your first instinct may be to rez your MT or your friends, you should really be rezzing pet and buff classes before melee.Which makes great sense. Warlocks and Hunters need to drink and resurrect their pets, and that's a lot of time wasted if you rez them last. Mages and Druids use all kinds of mana casting those buffs, so they usually have to drink, rebuff after a wipe, and then drink again. And Warriors and Rogues are easy to refill-- Rage doesn't refill, and I wish my mana filled up as quickly as Energy did.So it's Other Rezzers > Pet Classes > Buffers > and then Melee. There are other schools of thought on this (one player says to rez RL girls first, wink wink say no more), but this plan seems to be the best. Plus, Caralynn points out that this has the added bonus of not having melee standing around trying to pull while clothies are rebuffing. If you time it right, everyone can be ready to go again at the same time. And this time, watch that aggro!
Officers' Quarters: Keeping your hybrids happy
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. This week's question deals with a topic that another recent addition to the WoW Insider team, Jason Lotito, has been covering in his excellent Hybrid Theory column. Of all the classes in Warcraft, I find that the true hybrids -- Druid, Shaman, and Paladin -- can cause the biggest issues when dealing with loot. Sometimes you can really find yourself in the lions' den, and in Warcraft those feral kitties have sharp claws! Here's a common problem: Hey Scott, I stumbled upon your column, and I'm happy to see that someone is taking the time to address guild leadership. My original guild started on Everquest, and moved to WoW when it came out. I was an officer/raid leader in that guild for eight years, then they recently split up [. . .] I decided to pack up and start anew on another server, this time as Horde. A good chunk of players decided to follow me [. . .] So now we've leveled from 1 to 70, [ground] out our Karazhan keys, and blam-o, we're back to raiding again. We used to use the typical earn DKP/spend DKP system, but I haven't decided to apply it in Karazhan. I figured it's a 10-man zone, and 25-man is the greater goal. So I've done with just rolling 1-100. But the other night, I had a problem that, as Alliance, I didn't have to face before.
Druid epic flight form is live with patch 2.1
Patch 2.1 brought many treats to the adventurers of Azeroth, but one of the sweetest is the Epic Druid Flight Form quest. Unlike its predecessor, Flight Form, this ability isn't handed out to every high level shape shifter with the appropriate riding skill. The quest to fly at epic speed is long and complex. Revered reputation grinding, Heroic instance running, escort quests, exploding foliage and much more await the intrepid druid. Oh, and they have to pay the 5000g riding skill upgrade before they can even start the quest. When they finish, druids not only get the Swift Flight Form ability, but also a relic that works for any druid spec: Idol of the Raven Goddess - Increases the healing granted by the Tree of Life form aura by 20, adds 9 critical strike rating to the Leader of the Pack aura, and adds 9 spell critical strike rating to the Moonkin form aura.An excellent walkthrough, Wiki style, can be found here at the Servants of Seagis guild site.EDIT: Another reward received in the quest chain: Charm of Swift Flight, Trinket, Equip: Increases speed in Flight Form and Swift Flight Form by 10%. Thanks to Felixia from the Uldum Server for the heads up!
Where to start with 2.1 content
The 2.1 patch this week introduced enough new quest lines, top-end raid content, flying mounts, and L70 solo & small group content to qualify as its own game. With a three day weekend looming I didn't even know where to begin. So I scoured the web and found the where to go and what to do to get me started. THE BLACK TEMPLE: Already planning to strut around Shattrath in your T6 Raid gear? Don't bank that T5 set too quick. The Black Temple attunement quest is ... epic. And it hasn't even been fully discovered so far. What is known is that you will have to slog through a great deal of the Burning Crusade raid content that comes before it: Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, Serpentshire Cavern, The Eye and The Battle of Mount Hyjal. And many of those raids require extensive attunement quests of their own. If you are still itching to begin, you can dig in with the Tablets of Baa'ri chain out of Shadowmoon Valley to start grinding that Ashtongue Deathsworn rep. NETHERDRAKE EPIC FLYING MOUNT: First, don't confuse this with the Swift Nether Drake top Arena teams are awarded with at the end of every season. That one has a speed increase of 310% and has an armored appearance. This is the normal epic nether drake with a speed increase on par with other epic flying mounts: 280%. What's special about this epic flying mount is that it can be obtained through solo and small group quests. No raid required. What is required is a great deal of dedication.The first steps on your journey is to dig yourself out of Hated reputation with the Netherwing clan and get all the way to Exalted. This is accomplished through solo, 5 man and 3 man daily quests. Head to the south east corner of Shadowmoon Valley and speak to Mordenai in the Netherwing Fields. A complete write up can be found here.
Build Shop: Druid 0/47/14
Last week I asked for Druid builds. How many of the builds I got do you think were Feral? That's right, all of them. Never let it be said I can't take a hint; here's a Feral build for this week. The tree is enjoying a justifiable period of popularity right now, I think. Every druid I regularly group with is Feral, and bear tanks do a great job. Tanks are in demand on my realm, so I haven't seen many druids get a chance to go kitty and shred some face butt, but when I have seen it it's been pretty impressive. And of course, like any other class that can heal, if they carry a healing set they can be pretty solid off-healers.I got two 0/47/14 builds from two different people. One build included Intensity and Savage Fury, while the other one had Brutal Impact and Natural Shapeshifter. For reasons I'll get into later, I prefer the first variant, by Athaliana of Moonrunner, so that's what I'll look at here. Oh, and to answer your question, bwest0526, there is, as you can see, no set reason why builds have to be 0/41/20 or 31/0/30 or other such patterns like that. However, talent trees are designed such that particularly appealing one-point talents are placed at 11, 21, 31, and 41 points into each tree, so many builds go into trees with the goal of getting one of those talents, and then put the rest of their points in a different tree for some other purpose. The 21, 31, and 41 point talents especially tend to be very good values in many cases.
Dear Alliance Mage (and three friends)
As I've said many times before, I'm not particularly good at PvP. This is primarily because I generally don't ever take PvP quests, and I avoid the battlegrounds for the most part. But the other night while running around on an alt, I ran across the PvP quest I'd skipped on my main to capture the three posts in Hellfire Peninsula. Since it was 2 AM server time, I figured what the hell (no pun intended) and took the quest. Hellfire seems to be deserted on most days with everyone playing World of Motecraft lately. Surely 2 AM had to be even better for my chances to capture the towers and get away without any trouble! So, I accepted the quest, jumped on my trusty kodo, and hauled my Druid butt out to the first objective. Sure enough. As expected, nobody was around. The Alliance had the flags, so I dropped off my kodo and flagged so that I could "recapture" the Stadium. After waiting a few minutes... *whoosh!* Horde had control! Hooray! Still cautious, I jumped back on my kodo and beelined for The Overlook. Waited a few minutes, and *whoosh!* The second objective had come under Horde control as well! Woot! Still flagged, I hopped back on my kodo and headed for Broken Hill. Almost as soon as I got there, two level 70 Alliance players flew by on their birds. As my Druid is currently level 63, I knew no amount of bear tank weardown would save my noob PvP self from the beatdown they would undoubtedly soon be coming to administer. Nervous, I slid off my kodo and surveyed the area. Good. Nobody else around. Maybe I could finish and get back to Thrallmar! But just as the flag slider on the bar was about to go into the grey area between Alliance and Horde control, the two Alliance players landed and started towards me. They were unflagged, and talking between themselves in that strange Common language. I mentally prepared myself with the certain knowledge that I was about to become a rug...
Around Azeroth: Super elf!
I'm really not convinced that it's a bird or a plane. In fact, it looks an awful lot like a blood elf. But a flying blood elf? Kurthon of Aggramar explains that the shot isn't any kind of hack, but instead the combination of the quest item Sunfury Disguise and Druid's Flight Form. The result? Super elf!Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: Mommy?
Darkcow of Gorgonnash sends in this rather sad screenshot. How can such decorations make our druid brethren feel? Darkcow provides an appropriately Larson-esque caption for the scene:Dead as a door... mat? No, that's not quite it. Mom? Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Alts and alts and alts, oh my!
I probably play World of Warcraft way too much. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right? My addiction stems from not being happy with one character, or two, or three... I have 7 characters leveling in the Outlands right now, two of which are raiding Karazhan. Why can't I stick with just one and work on it until it's the best of the best? Because I love my alts! I created my first alt when my primary character, a Hunter, hit level 52. I'm not entirely sure why I did so, but it probably had something to do with having out-leveled my friends by about 20 levels and wanting to help them without hindering our playing experience. My first alt was a Warlock, who I took to 60 first, becoming my first instance grinding and raiding main character. The hunter stood on standby for a while, until my guild had Molten Core on farm-mode, upon which I took him to 60 and brought him in for our alt runs. He was one of the first to complete the Lok'delar/Rhok'delar/Lamina quest in our guild, which he still has (at least, until I dust him off and bring him out of retirement). After a few months with them, I met other people who played on a different server, and they needed main tanks for their progression. So I was off and running with a Warrior, who was level 60 in a matter of a few weeks. I helped that guild progress through Blackwing Lair when I took my first burnout hiatus. It took a few months of enjoying other things, more real-life than virtual, when I was feeling the pangs of withdrawal and logged back in.
To shield or not to shield? Rage is the question.
The forums are abuzz with the debate on when to use the ability "Power Word: Shield" on the tank in your group. The original poster on the forum asked why pre-shielding the tank was looked down upon, and the response was abundant! Warriors and feral Druid tanks need to generate rage to use their abilities to generate the rage required to hold a mob's agro so that it doesn't run rampant in the group, slaughtering the squishies. They generate rage by being hit by a mob and also by hitting the mob as well. In order to be a raid/heroic tank, you have to have your mitigation and avoidance up to a point that you're almost always dodging, parrying, or blocking, in order to not die from a single hit, but in turn that will decrease the amount of rage you can generate. "Power Word: Shield" only decreases the rage generated, while not protecting the tank from that much damage. On boss mobs, it gets even more tricky. In order to successfully hold (most) bosses, you have to front-load your agro and maintain that agro lead throughout the fight. This means that they need an abundance of rage up-front in order to establish that agro, and they also need time to build up that buffer to keep them ahead. Most tanks only need a few seconds to accomplish that, but the shield just prolongs that time. This also hinders the raid on fights where time is a factor. For example, the old Kazzak enraged after 3 minutes of fighting (he probably still does), and every second of dps counted.
The challenge of twinking out a healer
When you think of PvP twinks, you usually think of DPS. People usually twink rogues, hunters, or sometimes warriors (even though at level 19, where people usually twink toons, there's not much difference between a fury and a prot warrior). The idea, of course, is to see how much damage you can push out at the lower levels (usually by finding early blues and upping stats like strength and agility with extra enchants). But Lane over on livejournal has another plan: she wants to twink out a healer.It's an interesting thought, but it seems a lot harder than a normal twink. For one thing, most healing classes don't really come into their own until you get the higher level talents involved; at 20, most of them don't have a lot to play around with. And healing gear isn't as easily found at the lower levels-- I'm sure there's a few +healing pieces around at 40, but I can only find three at level 20 (and those aren't anything to write home about). Sure, you could still twink it, just by maxing out intellect or buffing out on armor or stamina (come to think of it, a paladin with a ton of armor and stamina would be hilarious to play as a healer in 10-19 WSG), but you don't have nearly as many options as the DPS twinks.As for classes, most priests would get eaten up, especially if you're playing with other twinks. As a few people point out on the LJ thread, both shaman and druid don't really have all their worthwhile abilities until later in the game (a shaman will have ghost wolf, but if you're seriously healing, you shouldn't be in that form much anyway). A paladin would probably be the best (because a healer in mail is always fun), but it would be tough, too -- you wouldn't have that bubble yet (not quite true-- see update).Have you ever twinked a healer or heard of anyone who did it well? A good healer is already a pretty rare thing to find in BGs, so if nothing else, it might be fun to forge a new playstyle as a healer twink.Update: That's what I get for never playing a paladin-- they do have a bubble at level 18. (Thanks, cluelessnoob).
Beep, beep! I'm a Jeep!
I woke up this morning, started reading through the LJ World of Warcraft community, and there was a post there that made me stop and stare. I just couldn't believe my eyes. After all, I have a druid, and I enjoy playing her -- but if my eyes were working correctly, things were about to get very interesting! True, it wasn't quite as good as the suggested Octopus on a Motorcycle form, but it at least had the potential to be really interesting! As Taishokao pointed out, when you go to the WoW Europe forums here, select druid, and then check out the Gladiator set, you can verify the above screen shot. The druid set 4-piece bonus does indeed currently list a car form. (I don't know how long that's going to take Blizzard to fix, but for now, it still says "car." hehe) For all the potential funny in that, we know it's a typo. (There again, it's probably just as well, because if we had car forms, I'm relatively sure my noob-feral-druid-self would probably wind up as a Geo Metro. :P ) But that led me to thinking about typos in game. I know I've seen them here and there on quest givers, but I think by far the worst ones I've seen have been from other players. I know I'm guilty of accidentally mis-typing "1 sec" wrong while in the middle of instances which has gotten me picked on a lot. (No, I'm not saying what I typo it as -- this is a family blog!) Personally, I think the one that gets me irked the most is "rouge" for "rogue." Of course, I suspect that's because my main is a rogue, and I can never get the image of the "Moulin" Dark Legacy strip out of my head when someone says that, but I digress... Are there any typos that have gotten you harassed, picked on, or just irked you when they were repeated over and over? I know I can't be the only one who has messed that kind of thing up. The fact that someone made a comic strip about the rouge/rogue typo tells me I'm not also the only one who's been somewhat amused yet frustrated by it, either. So share yours with the rest of the Insider crew! Have you ever noticed a hilarious typo on an NPC? How about personal typos? Any that get you in trouble with your guilds or that you make you crazy? Vent to the rest of us, or share with us your own personal moment of lol. [via the WoW LJ]
Behold, the power of moonkin
I agree with myrch over on Livejournal-- there's been a spec creeping up in the DPS charts lately that we might not have expected to get there. Slowly but surely, these players have been finding a niche of gear, talents, and class choice and exploiting it to the fullest. While their class is known for the other two specs, a third is definitely coming to light as one of the best DPSers in the game. The class is druid, and the spec... is moonkin.Laugh if you want (and I certainly do when I see that dance), but moonkin (or Balance-specced) druids are doing well for themselves lately. Druid tanks have been getting all the press because of the new feral gear in Outland (and more recently, a few solid nerfs), but moonkin have been slowly building up their buffs, and using the best gear in both cloth and leather to max out their DPS. While the spec is really meant for PvP, it seems, they can definitely shine in PvE-- everyone loves Innervate, of course, but moonkin give that great crit bonus that adds a lot to any DPS raid group (definitely useful for Shaman, too, despite the Clearcasting nerf). They've got a nice armor bonus, so while they have to really be careful about managing aggro (they so far have no threat-reducing abilities), they can still take a few hits, and they have a few nice roots (Cyclone and the Tauren War Stomp, and Entangling Roots if they happen to be outside) that can hold things down until the tank intercepts. Not to mention that if need be, they're just a gear change and a shapechange away from becoming respectable offhealers, if not main healers.Myrch lays out what moonkin need to do to really shine-- they've got to really concentrate their focus and load up on the spell damage gear (a guildie of mine, a moonkin who routinely fights mages and hunters for the top DPS spot, often wears cloth just for the spell damage), add a little mp5 to the stuff they wear, and of course watch that aggro. But more and more, we're seeing that a well-geared, well-played moonkin is a really great class to have along in almost any situation.
Guardian pets need a mind of their own
This forums thread points out something interesting about player "guardians." Not pets-- guardians like Shadowfiend (which a priest I know called his shadowfriend), the druids' treants, and my shaman's totem elementals. After players wonder why shadowfiends keep breaking shackles, Neth says something that made me do a double-take: shadowfiends, as guardians, have an actual AI that is supposed to go after non crowd-controlled targets first.That's news to me. I haven't spent a ton of time around shadowfiends, but in my experience, shaman and mage elementals and other "uncontrollable" pets (that's why they're called guardians) tend to go after anything that happens to be close to them. That's why they don't get popped when there's sheep or shackles around-- my guild could have used that fire elemental DPS on Moroes, but because it was so important to keep those shackles up, I've been saving the elemental for later. If there really is an AI (and if it works-- even Neth agrees that may not be the case at this point, though she says the shadowfiends on the PTR are supposed to be doing things right), then maybe we can start trusting summoned guardians not to touch CC'd targets until it's OK to do so.Of course, there's other ways around it-- normally, I just don't pop my pets out until I'm sure there's no more CC left to break, but my pets are leashed to my totem, so with careful positioning, I can still avoid CC. And I believe both mage and druid guardians are targeted-- they open fire on whatever you've got targeted at the time, right? But I'd love a little AI, or at least a little control, in something like my Searing Totem. If there's a CC'd target out there, it's not worth the trouble to drop it even for the extra DPS.
SimTank
As a project while learning Java programming, Morn of Executus-EU decided to create a tanking simulator and run some experiments. The simulator, which can be downloaded here, lets the tanking classes input their "to be missed", block, dodge, parry, block value and armor, and run it against the boss's attack damage range and speed. You can also use it to compare how much damage/crushing blows/burst damage paladins, druids and warriors would have while tanking the same fight. As a cool side bonus, the site also shows a "combat log" of the fight against the boss, complete with your hits, misses and damage. A better theorycrafter than I could have some fun with this, but Morn found that assuming comparable gear, a druid takes 15 percent more damage than a warrior and 10 percent more than a paladin. He notes that it could be a good way for tanks to figure out what stats they need to improve to become better at damage absorption. Who do you think makes the best tank? What information can you gain from this simulator?
Breakfast Topic: Who's healing you?
There's plenty of room for argument on the topic of "best healer" in the game. And with some big changes coming to paladins in the upcoming 2.1 patch, the debate will only intensify. We've got priests with their versatile array of healing spells; paladins with their excellent mana efficiency and great buffs; druids with HoT domination and in-combat rez; and shamans with powerful (but difficult to use) totem buffs and self-rez as wipe protection. We could spend all day arguing the pros and cons of each class in a raid or small-group setting without coming to a conclusion!But let's overlook the debate for now and just ask this basic question: who's actually out there healing you? A priest? A paladin? A druid? A shaman? A rogue with a good supply of bandages?
Tier 6 in motion
By now, you've probably seen the Tier 6 shots (if not, you've got to read Elizabeth's great critiques of them all), but here they are in all of their full-motion glory. Yes, even the Warlock (lol) set. Don't watch this if you're not into spoilers, especially because there's a little surprise at the end... Was it just me, or did the Paladin set just look like weird flat spikes before? Here, you can see it's actually glowy. And it's awesome to see the eyes on the Hunter set blink, although I think that if I ever did get my Hunter to the point where he could wear and obtain those shoulders, all that blinking would annoy me after a while. The Mage's head just looks all pointy. But oh yes, that Shaman set does look awesome. You hear that, guild? We've got to get to the Black Temple... it will be mine.
The continuing saga of Druid consumables
Druids make great tanks. Like any other class, they have strengths and weaknesses, and one of those weaknesses is that they can't use consumables, like health potions, in feral forms. A while back there was some buzz about the devs letting them use some potions in forms, and just having to decide which ones; that's been the Blizz party line for a while now. Now it looks like that may not be happening after all, basically because Druid tanks are currently working as intended™:Unfortunately we do not yet have much new information available regarding this topic. The developers are still evaluating which pots and procs should be usable in forms, but it is not an easy evaluation process because for the most part Druids currently appear to be performing where the developers want them to. Because the Druids appears to be performing the way the developers want, then they have to be very considerate and cautious in the evaluation process in order to avoid potential balance issues, which means that they also have to consider whether or not pots/procs in forms is even necessary anymore. I know that this might sound like bad news to some of you, but please remember that the evaluation process has not yet finished so it is still too early to proclaim doom and gloom. Druids, what do you think? Do you need pots, or are you doing OK without them?
An Outland gear guide for feral druids
Kaliban's Class Loot Lists (a.k.a. WoW Loot) does a pretty good job at providing overall views at gear for different classes, but I've never seen anything as detailed as this incredible list of Burning Crusade feral drood gear. They've got what looks like every piece for every gear slot, all organized according to its benefit to feral druids.And in addition to the Bear tanking gear list, whoever put this together (I heard about it from outintospace) has also provided a gear list for "Cat durids" (they're for fite)-- both for sustained DPS and burst DPS. This is a lot of work-- even if there was some kind of script involved in an API, this is a lot of information to put together and organize, and it could be the only gear guide you'll ever need as a feral druid in Outland.It's got all the way up to Tier 5, too, which makes this even more complete than Kaliban's List. Tier 6 isn't in there, but of course that's because we're just now hearing about what it will be. There you go, feral druids-- now you know exactly what gear you want and where it is. Get to tanking!Update: And to go along with the Hunter Wiki from a few days ago, someone has started a Druid Wiki as well. Thanks to commenter Metaphyzxx for the link!
Breakfast Topic: What do I level next?
Throughout vanilla WoW I'd managed to create a small selection of alts that I managed to level all the way to 60. Since the expansion, I've been focusing on gearing out my main character, the irrepressibly cute gnome warlock pictured here. But what's next? I have a druid, warrior, and a hunter that I've leveled up to 60, and a Draenei mage that I've leveled up to 20 just to see the new starting area. I'm tempted to level the mage up as a tailor so I can crank out more shadoweave cloth for the warlock's nefarious purposes, but leveling my druid alchemist up could also be a nice moneymaker. I enjoy playing all the classes I have, or I wouldn't have leveled them up as high as I have, so that's not an issue.Any thoughts on what I should level next? Are there any leveling catches that I haven't heard, things that make a hunter, druid, or warrior easier to level than the others?
