restoration-druid-gear-guide
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Shifting Perspectives: Gearing your restoration druid for Mists of Pandaria heroics
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, masochists eager to heal a pack of early dungeon-runners sort through gear options. This picture's already a bit dated -- my main's been 90 for about a week now -- but you'll probably find yourself in Mogu'shan Palace for several runs trying to get some useful gear to drop. As an aside, the rush of leveling monks continues apace, and more and more of them will start appearing in your level 85+ groups. Get gear now, people! As NocturNamos pointed out in last week's article on how to gear a guardian druid for Mists of Pandaria heroics, the ilevel requirement for heroics (or more accurately, queuing for heroics through the dungeon finder) has been lowered to ilevel 435. As such, I've included some ilevel 437 quest rewards in this guide that I didn't think were usable last week. Again, most of this guide's advice can be condensed to the following points: Quest through the Townlong Steppes and the Dread Wastes. Be prepared to spend some justice points. Farm normal Mogu'shan Palace. If you have a good option available from professions (whether primary or secondary), don't ignore it.
Shifting Perspectives: The best and the worst of patch 4.3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we chortle our way through 5-man trash. Oh, patch 4.3. I didn't know what to expect from you after so many bad, ugly, or just plain bizarre PUGs on the public test realm, but you turned out to be pretty cool. I don't have to wear ugly gear anymore, the Dragon Soul raid is live, Vengeance blows up like a grade school volcano science experiment, and Deathwing no longer roasts all my archaeology dig sites with the sadistic glee of an NPC who knows that I will never get the Crawling Claw if I am dead. On the downside, I have to deal with Echo of Tyrande trash ("Hey, where'd the healer go?"), and Thrall still does not seem to have realized that the rest of the world moved on to epic mounts several years ago. You win some, you lose some.
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: 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: Gearing a restoration druid at 85, part 3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This week, we finish our series on how to gear a restoration druid at level 85. Hello, folks. This week, we're going to finish our series on gearing a resto at level 85, and next week, we're going to change course and address bears with a Cataclysm 101 guide and then gear post. For the kitties out there, Dan O'Halloran will be splitting off a cat-oriented Shifting soon, so we'll eventually have three Shifting articles per week -- one for bears/resto, one for cats, and one for moonkin. I'm so rarely DPS these days that it's a bit of a relief to focus on the two specs that get my play time, so I hope I'll be able to bring a bit more depth to bears and resto in the Tuesday Shifting column. On that note, the low-level Tank Watch project continues. I regret to say the numbers are slightly more depressing than last week if you'd been hoping that the bear population would rebound this expansion. So far, this is the tank representation I've seen in dungeon finder groups between levels 15 and 40: Paladin: 66% Warrior: 23% Druid: 11%
Shifting Perspectives: Gearing up your Resto Druid for Kara Part 1
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, the Big Bear Butt Blogger, tries to bring some Resto Druid gear info with the haelp of 4 Haelz. Andrew: "Right. Right. Gotcha." [pause] "I bet even covert operatives eat curly fries. They're really good."Spike: "Not as good as those onion blossom things." Andrew: "Ooh, I love those." Spike: "Yeah, me, too." Andrew: "It's an onion... and it's a flower. I don't understand how such a thing is possible."Spike: "See, the genius of it is you soak it in ice water for an hour so it holds its shape. Then you deep-fry it root-side up for about 5 minutes." Andrew: "Masterful." Spike: "Yeah." [pause] "Tell anyone we had this conversation, I'll bite you." - Buffy the Vampire Slayer Now you know exactly what I'm thinking when someone says "Lifebloom" around me. So, you really sure you want me to write for the Resto set? Plus, that'll teach Allie to quote Veronica Mars at me the other week. I'll see your modern day Nancy Drew and raise you a Spike. Dare to escalate? This week, I present you with the first part of a list of gear that the aspiring Resto Druid should be looking for to prepare for Karazhan. Since if left to my own devices I'd just get you into all kinds of trouble, I enlisted the services of Bellwether at 4 Haelz to bring together the research. 4 Haelz is a blog by an end-game raiding healy Druid kinda person. She's smart and funny and neat and stuff, so go check her out. Her blog, check her blog out. Follow along after the break and we'll get into the specifics!