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Shifting Perspectives: Tree 1, Arthas 0
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we save the world (of Warcraft). Originally this week's article was going to concern stomping Karazhan from top-to-bottom as a feral/resto druid, and then I got Big Bad Wolf for the opera event. Suffice it to say that the stomping took an abrupt U-turn, and I never got pictures or video of the other Kara fights that I've successfully solo'd on dozens of other occasions (though I grant they were all occasions that did not include humiliating wipes to an overgrown dog). If I weren't in the middle of a time crunch it probably would've been doable, but regrettably I will have to run a feature on how to make 1,000 gold soloing Karazhan on a later date. In the meantime, Alaron's managed to solo Big Bad Wolf successfully, but my main is in the somewhat sticky situation of not being a night elf. With the upcoming Icecrown raid buffs going all the way to 30% damage/healing/health/absorbs eventually, more and more raids are going to find their way to Arthas. Buffs aside, a lot of Arthas' difficulty lies in execution, and I started jotting down a few notes that I hope might be helpful to other druids likely to attempt the fight. We were fortunate to get both the 10- and 25-man version down, and I got astoundingly lucky on one 10-man attempt with back-to-back selections as a Harvest Soul target while I was running a video capture. I've seen a lot of comments online that caster druids aren't well-suited to dealing with this, and that's just not true at all.
Shifting Perspectives: In defense of a glyph everyone hates
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we make a dangerous segue from curling to the issue of Healing Touch in raids, shattering our once-promising career with a finger cramp. I'd be the first to admit I don't take the game quite as seriously as the hardcore theorycrafters at EJ. To be fair to WoW, it's hardly the only game in that position; with the Olympics on, I've had the opportunity to acquaint myself with many questionable pasttimes like curling. Someone even went so far as to set hipster music to a series of clips featuring expert players crouching on the ice, staring down the run with the coiled alertness of a Serengeti hunter. The athletic grace is impressive until you consider that they are watching a large rock slide down the rink at the speed of a miniature dachshund while teammates scrub frantically at the ice in the hopes that the rock will travel a few more inches. One realizes: a). the fundamental absurdity of the human condition, and: b). that the effort to maintain a dignified façade has caused you to soil your pants. The inability to treat what is meant to be a fun hobby with the gravitas due, say, a shuttle launch or an Irish wake, has occasionally resulted in problems when readers take material more seriously than I do. The official forums have also convinced me that any deviation from the standard imposed by theorycrafters and spreadsheets is going to be greeted with hostility by anyone who decries the notion of individual choice in a game, which makes today's topic -- finding a place for the druid's worst heal in progression raiding -- a bit touchy. I am required by law and contract to be sensitive to the needs of the differently-minded in our community, and as such, I am going to borrow (read: steal) a technique first employed by the humorist Dave Barry in a 1991 column. Yes. The following article has been closed-captioned for the humor-impaired.
Shifting Perspectives: Restoration 101
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, a quick and dirty guide to raising one's tree from a young sapling to a mighty oak, or other suitably impressive arboreal species. Whenever other columnists here write really good columns, I sit at my computer and swear a blue streak, for I am a jealous god. Sacco, damn him, turned out a great article on the basics of elemental shamans, and for a while I've been kicking around bits and pieces of 101-esque columns for all four druid specs. This was the last shove I needed to get that done. While I expect our new balance blogger (a.k.a. Murmurs, the person I will be forcing to do all my number-crunching in the future with bribes or, when necessary, threats) will address moonkin, I'll cover bears, cats, and today, trees. A quick note on what I want to accomplish here: I'm addressing this to people with no prior knowledge of the spec who want the tools to become reasonably competent healers quickly. By necessity, that means we're going to gloss over a few finer points; this is a cheat sheet, not an encyclopedia. When I say (for example) that Improved Tranquility needs to be dragged out behind a barn and killed with an axe, I'm not going to spend paragraphs explaining why that is, or examining situations where you could actually get some use from it. If you think I've glossed over something truly important, please drop a comment and I'll direct readers to anything they really need to know.
Patch 3.02 for Restoration Druids, part 1
The single biggest change for most restoration Druids with patch 3.02 will be the disappearance of at least four commonly-used PvE and PvP specs: 8/11/42 (the traditional resto PvP spec) 11/11/39 (Resto PvP with Insect Swarm) 13/11/37 (Resto PvP with Insect Swarm and Nature's Reach) 11/0/50 (PvE Tree of Life with Insect Swarm). The first three are kaputski because Feral Charge is now a 21-point talent in the feral tree, and the last three are bye-bye because Insect Swarm is now a 21-point talent in the balance tree. If you still want talents from the balance tree especially, you'll have a ton of stuff to play with (frankly I ran out of space here to discuss the new restokin specs but we'll cover it as soon as we can), but for the moment we're only going to concern ourselves with stuff squarely in the Restoration tree. Shifting Perspectives later today will have a full run-down on moonkin in patch 3.02 and Wrath. Otherwise, there's still a ton of new stuff for tree Druids in this patch, including a resurrected Tier 3 set bonus, a vastly-improved Tree of Life form, an out-of-combat rez, and an insane +haste buff to two of your most-used spells. If you also want a look at what early 5-man healing in the beta is like as a resto Druid, head here.Read on for a comprehensive look at the new healing and mana regeneration mechanics, Restoration abilities, talents, and glyphs!
