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Shifting Perspectives: Balance DoTs in Cataclysm
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week, are taking a look at those two abilities that some druid seems to have forgotten. What sad, sad times these are. Do you like that screenshot? That would be what happens when you cross a bugged version of Lunar Justice -- I don't even have the talent, I never had the talent -- with a large AoE group that swarms around you. You can hide entire Ancients in that thing; seriously, you can. I have something that I must confess to all of you today; I've been a bit remiss in the work that I've done with all of the Cataclysm information that's going around right now. I've spent a lot of time focusing on topics such as Eclipse, mana regeneration and Moonkin Form -- all of which are very important -- yet I have completely failed to take into account the whole picture. How Wrath scales, the way in which Eclipse is influenced by RNG, how useful Moonkin Form may or may not be to a player -- these are all important, but so too is the value of our entire spell arsenal. To that end, I'd like to take you back into the downward spiral that is my life as a beta addict as we take a not so quick gander at how our lovable Moonfire and Insect Swarm are holding up their end of the bargain thus far in the next expansion. Before that, let me say that I haven't done any testing of the new instances as of yet, mostly because I'm scared to -- very, very scared to -- so everything I've been doing is limited to questing and work on target dummies. These are nice tools, but they aren't quite the same as seeing how everything works out within a boss setting. Movement and other caveats to every boss encounter can heavily sway the importance of any single ability at the drop of a hat, so I am saddened that I haven't been able to actually get in and try my hand at any real encounter. There's a reason for it, though. Like I said, I'm scared; I'm scared because tank threat is really, really, really, really, really screwed up right now, and I have this thing against seeing my face splat against the ground, eating dirt. I cheat on my balance druid with a protection paladin from time to time, and running anything makes me want to cry at the moment. Until that's fixed ... you probably won't see me running much of anything. Anyway, back on point of DoTs -- let's get right into it, shall we?
Shifting Perspectives: Pulling 101: Deeper into the dungeon
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we continue to get hit in the face. This week, we're continuing our series on Pulling 101 with a look at what happens during the dungeon itself. I was surprised to discover exactly how much of this advice concerns rage management, but shouldn't have been; any discussion concerning how to pull as a rage tank invariably touches on how to get the most out of an eccentric resource system. A good chunk of this advice will become obsolete as of the Cataclysm content patch, but if you're leveling and gearing a bear through the dungeon finder, there are still an awful lot of 5-mans between yourself and this fall.
Shifting Perspectives: Recreating balance druids in Cataclysm
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week, we are watching a moonkin dance with a mushroom once again, mostly because it amuses me, and talking about all the recent beta goodies. Mmmm, I like goodies. I do believe I made a promise last week that I'd discuss some Cataclysm information this week, and I intend to make good on that promise. There's certainly quite a lot of information to talk about, should you actually be a person who sleeps at a decent hour like most folks; luckily for all of you, I am not one of those people. As per usual, later into the night for most of us, Blizzard released another beta patch with a number of balance changes: a talent tree polish (a basic one, but a polish pass nonetheless) and yet another revision of Eclipse. There's actually a good deal to be excited for this time around. Now, we aren't paladins, so I wouldn't be jumping out of your chain to go running naked down the street screaming in joy ... But a little "whooo!" is appropriate. Before we get started talking about all of the new changes, let me first mention a few things that are currently missing, bugged or simply not yet implemented. First and foremost, Eclipse in of itself does not currently work in beta. The bar works, you can shift the bar in every direction that you like, and the procs certainly work; however, the procs currently don't actually do anything. There's no bonus damage there at all, but this a bug from the mastery change when they switched over the talent trees. This actually brings up the next point: We still do not have any specialization effects as of yet, and frankly, I'm a bit at a loss as to what they might end up being. Previously, I assumed that they would merely be the old mastery effects, but looking at elemental shaman, I don't think that will be the case. It is safe to assume that one of our mastery effects is going to be Vengeance, to help difference ourselves from other druids. Another will likely be pushback resistances, and I'd venture to guess that the old Wrath of Cenarius benefit will also be baked in there. If there will be anything else, I cannot really say. Last but certainly not least, there are still a few things missing from the talent trees -- the effects of Improved Moonkin Form still haven't been found anywhere else that I've seen, anyway -- so I still wouldn't expect this to be the last pass on the druid talent trees. Things are still very likely to change from how they stand now, so don't get too upset. With that out of the way, let's get started.
Shifting Perspectives: Pulling 101: Assessing the group
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. For a long time, I've been kicking an article around on the art of the 5-man pull. Knowing how and when to pull is arguably the foundation of a smooth dungeon run, and it's certainly among the first skills that any tank needs to develop. While a not-insignificant portion of one's ability to pull cleanly only arrives courtesy of experience with a wide variety of players, there are a few rules that approach universal status. Moreover, I expect them to be equally useful when I hit the new Cataclysm dungeons and have to figure out how to tank for a group safely in a new environment with new mobs. The more I wrote on pulling, the more I realized that the subject can be divided into two very distinct categories: what happens before you pull, and what happens while you're pulling. This week's column addresses the former. Everything I am about to tell you in this column is something that you, as an experienced tank, will eventually do in the space of a second without even realizing you're doing it.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance Ruby Sanctum guide
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are sipping some iced tea, sittin' on our porch swings, enjoying a nice sundae cone and talking about that time we slew the giant, rampaging, pink dragon. I want to take a spot of a breather from Cataclysm information just for this week. Mostly because I'm slightly frothy at the mouth, which I've been told isn't a good health sign, but more so due to the fact that so much is in the process of being changed right now that going into an in-depth discussion on a topic that's likely to have every scrap completely altered tomorrow is silly. Perhaps silly is the wrong word, after all that's never been something to stop me before, so let's just consider this to be an isolated case -- promises that next week will be a real Cataclysm discussion. In light of that, if there's anything specific that you'd like to see covered, shoot me an email and I'll see what I can do for you. Focusing on the here and now, which is actually what this article is about, I'd like to quickly go over the more recent raiding addition Ruby Sanctum. Although I've seen mixed reviews of the instance from others, I at least think the instance is a nice little dash of refreshing. It doesn't hold the same sense of urgency, the same notion that you're going to be stuck in here for hours upon hours, days upon days (even though many guilds, particularly those working on hard mode, will be) that I get from going into ICC. RS is a nice little cooldown raid; it's light, fun and refreshing like a cool glass of lemonade. To start us off, we'll take a quick look at the shiny loots, since that's what everyone really wants, and then we'll look into a brief little guide on how to slay the giant purple/pink dragon at the end.
Shifting Perspectives: Ruby Sanctum loot for druids
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. Today, we check the loot tables, smack a dragon around until he barfs up epics and all-powerful thingamabobs -- and it's another Tuesday night in Sunnydale. I'm still in a World Cup kind of mood, hence the above video. Oh, Iker. Never change! Yes, I know about the Cataclysm druid forms. I haven't written anything about them yet because: I wasn't really keen on the new tauren druid forms I saw around this time last year, then wound up loving them once I saw them in motion. I don't want to make the same mistake with the Cataclysm druid forms, which is all the more likely because ... The Day-Glo coloration of the troll forms sent me into fits of despair over the implausibility of their stealthing past anything that wasn't a Palm Beach divorcée in a Lilly Pulitzer dress (to borrow a phrase from P.J. O'Rourke). Bah. Anyway, Ruby Sanctum ilevels are pretty straightforward -- the 10-man coughs up ilevel 258 gear (the same you'd get from ToGC-25), the 25-man coughs up 271 (between ICC-25 and ICC-25 heroic quality), and their heroic versions offer 271 and 284 respectively. In other words, you'll find some quality stuff here. Beyond the cut are the pieces that feral and restoration druids might want.
Shifting Perspectives: Thoughts on the "new" Eclipse
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are getting into the Cataclysm spirit and taking a good look at the biggest change that balance druids have been expecting for a long time coming. That's right, we're talking Eclipse. Well, this has certain been a major week for Cataclysm news, if I do say so myself. If you happen to have been living under a rock the past couple of days or just read the only important article the gets sent out every week, then you should know that talents are taking a major change here in the next couple of weeks. That's right, the talent trees are getting cut down to 31 points, while players will only be getting talent points approximately every other level instead of every level as they do now. It's a major change, one that's going to impact the way every class in the game picks talents -- but honestly, for balance druids, I really don't think that it makes much of a difference. Allow me a moment to clarify. The balance tree, at the moment, is already fairly heavy with talents that you are going to end up taking no matter how you wanted to choose to spec (mostly because there simply isn't much else to take). This lack of choice for balance druids has been something that I've been commenting on rather frequently the past few weeks, along with several other balance druids. It's mostly due to a disconnect between what Blizzard believes is an optional talent and what the players see as optional. The new talent system isn't something that I want to focus on, however, as there still needs to be more information released before we can really get down into it. What I would really like to talk about is our primary mastery, Eclipse. Eclipse has been the single most fickle talent that balance druids have dealt with all throughout Wrath, and it came as no surprise to the community when Blizzard announced that they would be making some very big changes to it. After all, the core of Eclipse has been broken for quite some time -- we've managed with what we had to, but it hasn't been a very pretty sight. Still, for those who have been following along or those who are in beta, you may have noticed that the new Eclipse really isn't all that new at all. This is problematic and really the focus of what I'd like to discuss today.
Shifting Perspectives: The tree in Cataclysm raids
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, a square peg meets a round hole. Yeah, this is another week with a video that has nothing to do with druids, but it's summer and I plead: a.) residual schoolgirl mischief, and b.) mounting hysteria from home renovation and the effort to convince my grandmother to jettison a garage full of canning jars before we can move her. Anyway. As a few people have figured out, the beta came at an ugly time for me personally, and we've got some ground to cover. Before we do, I'd still like to address an issue raised two weeks ago when we talked a bit about the changes that resto players will see going into Cataclysm. This week's article is a more in-depth examination of how the new Tree of Life cooldown fits into Blizzard's wider sense of raid design in the new expansion. With the advent of the closed beta, we're getting a closer and better sense of how the class will function in the Cataclysm world, but we still have no real idea of how it'll play at 85 in a vastly different raiding landscape.
Shifting Perspectives: Dungeon leveling as balance
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are going back in time once again to visit those pesky little dungeons. Do you have what it takes to make or break a group? Greetings and salutations once again my fine, feathered friends. No superfluous pomp or wayward attacks on ferals in the opening this week; instead, I want to jump right into the topic at hand. As I've mentioned for a couple of weeks now, I've recently transferred my balance druid to a new server, forsaking all of my alts along with the ride, and because of that, I am in the process of leveling a host of new toons. Although most of them are still back in Azeroth, I've got a few now that are into Outland and Northrend. You see, back in the pre-60 content, I very rarely expect much out of players. They might be new, having never played their class before, and thus still learning all the different ins and outs of how to play. Not to mention, a lot of classes don't always have the best of tools to perform the jobs that they wish to at earlier stages in the game -- just ask me how attempting to tank Ragefire Chasm using a paladin before getting Righteous Fury or Consecration went. Even still, once you hit The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King content, I gain a certain amount of expectation of what a player should know. Perhaps I am nothing more than an elitist prick, but it is no longer cute nor humorous having to teach a warrior that, yes, they need to be in Defensive Stance and use Thunder Clap in order to tank, or that using AoE spells against one or two targets is highly ineffective, not to mention inefficient, and you would really be better off just sticking to one target at a time in that situation. Don't get me wrong, I rarely tell these people anything -- well, except for the tank thing, because my mage is terrible at doing that -- instead I usually just sigh and get frustrated at my computer screen. The thing that gets me the most, however, is what I see balance druids doing.
Shifting Perspectives: Soloing as a balance druid
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are showing that we are so much better than every other druid out there. Oh yeah! Brothers and sisters of the owl, I have a confession to make. I have stood before you to make claims many a time over about the superiority of balance in comparison to its lowly cousin feral combat. Today, I have to admit that there is one thing, just one thing, that these beasts are better than us at, that being taking hits in the face. Although I am unsure whether this unique ... gift is really a boon (after all, considering one's capacity to sustain several blows to the head seems an odd thing to me), yet it is this benefit of theirs that makes them slightly more apt at being able to solo older content. Let's face it, my friends, if you want to go farm Molten Core or BC heroics, you're pretty much far better off being a feral druid than you are as balance; even still, I caution against despair. Feral druids might be better at soloing certain content than balance druids are, but we are certainly far from helpless in the endeavor. Balance druids, too, can solo some of the more perilous quests, farm old content that was once classified as difficult, and get our hands on virtually any prize that we wish. To that end, I would like to present to you this guide to soloing various content throughout World of Warcraft in hope that one day all shall see that balance really is better than feral -- because, let's face it, in the choice between a slack-jawed, untamed beast and a highly intelligent, silly-looking, destructive force of nature, I think it is rather clear which one is the better option. Before I begin, I would just like to say one thing. This is actually going to be something of a work in progress. If you have any interest in soloing content at all or to hear how other druids are soloing content, then keep a watch on this article, because I'm going to be spending additional time going out into the world to test many a different theories on what works and what doesn't. I will be starting off with some of the bigger challenges out there, but there are also more to go and explore. If you have a tale you'd like added, or there's a particular encounter you'd like for me to attempt to solo, then drop me an email and it shall be done. And now ... on with the show!
Shifting Perspectives: Fear itself
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we condemn vuvuzela abuse while secretly hoping that someone manages to sneak one into Wimbledon or the local maternity ward. The above video has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with druids or World of Warcraft but I promised myself I'd try to sneak it on the site anyway. The official version of the Cataclysm restoration talents doesn't differ hugely from the one we saw back in mid-May, so I'm not going to repeat a talent-by-talent rundown like we did for the resto talents then and their feral counterparts last week. However, we do have a better sense of the spec's future due the clarifications afforded by blue posts, and what Ghostcrawler's written on the forums shed a lot of light on what Blizzard sees for the spec. I've been in contact with a number of people over common worries for the spec's future in Cataclysm, and below the cut I've collected a number of them (many of which I've previously expressed myself) with potential answers for these concerns. EDIT: Shortly before this article was set to go live, I wound up excising the last portion, which concerns how the new Tree of Life cooldown fits into Blizzard's raid design in Cataclysm. I'm going to bump it to an expanded column next week.
Shifting Perspectives: Aesthetics of balance druids
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are getteing ourselves distracted by all of the pretty colors that balance druids have to offer. I spend my days dealing with numbers; numbers, spells, talents, and gear. This is the aspect of the game that I enjoy the most, because it is constant; you can pinpoint the mathematical specifics of this game fairly accurately. That appeals to me. It allows for me to feel that I have control over the game to a certain degree; that I can make important choices for my character and succeed or fail because of those choices. WoW is not all numbers, however. The game is driven by numbers, it is constructed by numbers, but, ultimately, it is the player base that makes the game what it is. Players like many different things about each and every game that they play. As I said, I personally enjoy the math behind games, particularly WoW, but other people prefer the visual side of the game. For some, how their player looks, the animations, and just the overall graphics of a game are a large drawing point for why they play. To this end, it can actually be rather disappointing to play a balance druid; you have to miss out on a lot of things such as weapons, armor, hairstyles and certain emote animations. Despite, or perhaps in spite, these issues, there are still players that enjoy the visual outlook of playing as balance druid -- not just Moonkin Form, though it is a big part of it, but everything else as well. This week, I'd like to talk about the looks and styles of balance druids. It isn't particularly my cup of tea, but it is for many players out there and their viewpoints should be considered as well, so bear with me on this one if I'm a touch off my game on this one.
Shifting Perspectives: Revisiting Cataclysm talents
Every Tuesday week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, Allie gulps Motrin and predicts your future. Hey folks. I apologize for the lateness of the column this week. As an aside, those of you interested in old home renovation may want to rethink your purchase if: a). the home inspector crashes through the porch within 5 minutes of stepping onto the property, and: b). you have to extract a nail from an inconvenient portion of his anatomy before the inspection can continue. Just saying. An official set of Cataclysm talents broke last week, which was highly irritating to all those of us who had spent hours scraping together a look at their (ahem) unofficial but still largely accurate counterparts back in mid-May. Today we're going to start off with the full set of official feral talent changes, and next week we'll cover restoration.
Shifting Perspectives: What are optional talents?
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are looking into the future, pondering what may be in store and learning a little bit about ourselves along the way. Talents are the in thing this week, so let's talk about 'em. Many of you know whom I am; I am Tyler Caraway, also known as Murmurs, and I am a balance druid. I deal mostly in theorycrafting about how things work for us -- spells, rotations, talents and the like. I'm not the only one who does this, though. There are others such as Hamlet who do great work as well; however, probably one of the most well known public figures is a guy who goes by the name Graylo. If you don't know about Graylo, then I have to ask if you live under a rock -- but you probably also know of his blog, Graymatter. It is no surprise to those who happen to follow both Graylo and myself that we often don't happen to see eye to eye on many topics. Graylo is a brilliant man -- bloody brilliant, I must say -- and one of his more recent blogs is something that I would really like to discuss. Apologies to Graylo if I am stealing any of your thunder in this, but this does happen to be a topic that I am highly touchy about. That topic, of course, is one of optional talents. With Cataclysm, Blizzard is hoping to shake up the cookie-cutter mold by composing talent trees primarily out of talents that are not direct DPS increases in the strictest sense of the word. Right now, it is fairly easy to argue that a talent such as Nature's Reach is excessively valuable within a talent build. Nothing about the talent actually increases the damage that you do, but the utility that it provides -- additional range and threat reduction -- hold an extremely large theoretical DPS gain. Having the capacity to not move as much to remain within range of a mob or the ability to output more damage before becoming threat-capped are essential parts of being a DPSer -- so essential, in fact, that every single caster class in the game has similar talents. It is these type of talents that Blizzard wishes for trees to be made of, but that means adding in a lot of additional utility to classes. How can we know what utility is actually useful, though? More importantly, does it even matter anymore?
Shifting Perspectives: Troubleshooting cat DPS
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we attempt to locate your cat DPS problems with a small flashlight and a cricothyroidotomy. Dear CatBearTree Girl, DPS no good. Am parked on boss rear but is not dying, just mad. Send halp. Sincerely, Sad Cat p.s. Is hard to write letters with paws. I get versions of this letter pretty frequently, and whenever I do, I ask for an armory link and (when available) a World of Logs entry. Afterwards, we start going through the following possibilities in an effort to pinpoint what might be causing problems for a player who's trying get more damage out of his or her cat.
Shifting Perspectives: Don't be a failkin
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are finding our thickest layer of skin and honing our beaks as we take a stab at how to deal with one of the worst words a balance druid can read from the fingers of mutants. There are many names that balance druids go by these days: moonkin, boomkin, doomkin, spamkin and critchiken are just a few. Sadly, though, there is one more name which has been cast at many balance druids throughout their time in WoW: the highly stigmatized failkin. Being called a failkin isn't a pleasant experience; being called out negatively in any light is never a positive experience. People do not like to fail. They don't like messing up, and they like it even less when others make mention of it. There is little that can be done for the sometimes jerk-ish attitude that other players in the game may take toward what happen to be innocent mistakes, but there are a few things that you can be familiar with in order to better present yourself in a group setting. First and foremost, know that many of these principles apply across all level ranges and all forms of group content. Whether you are running a dungeon on your low-level alt, getting your daily heroic done or raiding with your guild, you should always keep proper group etiquette in mind. It's not only polite, but people will recognize the difference and it can make the playing experience better for not only yourself but others as well. For all of the features, content and other perks that are in this game, no one can deny that it is the players themselves that are the driving force behind what makes WoW so enjoyable. As a single-player game, WoW would have long been dead and forgotten. It's the interactivity of playing with other people that keeps players around far more than anything else. Even though a majority of players focus on their guildmates, other random players matter just as much. In all of my time playing alts or running instances on my main, I find that I am grouped with random players just as often as I am with my guildmates. Players like other players, but they also like winning at the game; in the case of WoW, this means completing the task at hand as smoothly and effectively as possible. Following are some basic guidelines that you, as a balance druid, can use in order to better assist in making all of your grouping experiences as enjoyable as possible for everyone involved.
Shifting Perspectives: Fun with race choice
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we have absolutely no excuse for the column we've written. I'll be honest; I wrote this week's column purely for brainless fun. You won't learn anything (not that you do normally), there are no insights to be gained (not that there are normally) and I don't have any new Cataclysm alpha information. I am very sorry to anyone who came here looking for a solid, informative column, and if you wish to excoriate me in the comments then I encourage you to do so. Anyway. When it comes to druids, the deal with race choice is that you don't really have any. If you play Alliance, you have to play a night elf; if you play Horde, you have to play a tauren. We're the most race-restricted class in the game, and even in Cataclysm, that's not really going to change. Some of you might recall a bug from a little while back that allowed you to model-swap between characters on the same realm by "choosing" two of them at once. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed now, so I wouldn't bother trying it if I were you, but I had lot of fun swapping non-druid races into our various tier sets and wondering what it might have been like to play them. I screenshotted like a maniac while doing so and then set them aside for a future column whenever I felt like doing something just for fun. That would be today. %Gallery-94013%
Shifting Perspectives: Moonkin form in Cataclysm
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are taking a look into that strange, dancing, awkward manbearpig thing we've all come to love and hate and adore. Once again, I find my mind wrapped around thoughts of Cataclysm. Perhaps it is the soon-to-be-coming beta release that has me all atwitter with the notion, or perhaps it is merely that the theoretical aspects of an ever-changing, ever-improving game excite me. Last week, I spoke a bit about the topic of mana regeneration and how it may need to be changed for Cataclysm; this week, I wish to somewhat continue upon that discussion and talk about what changes may be in store for one of the most prominent talents within the balance tree. Moonkin Form is, at least from my perspective, a highly controversial talent for balance druids and has been for a very long time. Allow me to be frank for just a moment; Moonkin Form has always been a talent without a true purpose. When the talent was first introduced back in vanilla as a replacement for Hurricane, it seemed as if it was nothing more than a placeholder rather than a true talent. Perhaps it is merely my personal opinion, but when I think of shapeshifting, I think back to my days of playing Dungeons and Dragons, Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights. In all of these systems, shapeshifting is a meaningful thing. When you shapeshift, you would gain access to new abilities totally unique to that form. When WoW was first released, druids followed that system too. Cat Form and Bear Form have meaning; they do something, and they drastically change the druid's playstyle. Moonkin Form, on the other hand, does none of these things.
Shifting Perspectives: Applying to raiding guilds as a druid
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we are uncomfortably reminded of how similar the job and guild application processes are. Appearances to the contrary, the waning days of an expansion are actually a pretty good time to apply to a raiding guild. That's when attendance gets choppy, the pool and the grill issue a siren call from the deck, people go on vacation, or -- having "finished" the expansion -- they just take off, period. If you look at the recruitment forums, you'll see a ton of guilds looking for players right now. If you've ever wanted to raid but haven't gotten the chance, I think there is no better time. The Icecrown zone buff is a fantastic buffer for anyone who's not emerging with a bevy of best in slot from tier 9, and the raid itself is one brilliant lore moment from beginning to end. However, applying to a raiding guild -- particularly if you haven't done much raiding in the past -- can be on the intimidating side. With that in mind, here's a guide on how best to present yourself if you're applying anywhere as a feral or restoration druid.
Shifting Perspectives: Mana in Cataclysm
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are taking a look into the concept of mana and the changes that it will undergo in the next expansion. Time for fun! Last week I made a pretty stern comment that I did not want to discuss leaked alpha content. I am still holding true to that principle; however, that does not mean that I am against speaking about things which have already been released, which is why I wish to talk about mana regeneration this week. As with all of my Cataclysm articles at this point, everything contained herein is pure speculation existing in a void of what-if. I do not work for Blizzard, I do not know Blizzard's design goals; I only know what the rest of you know that post of the forums know. Mana is a very important resource mechanic. I want to bring attention to this thread that is currently running in the damage-dealing forums that has so far held a lot of very good discussion on the topic of mana. Mayeli makes a number of very good points, but most important of all is that this view is very consistent with Blizzard's views on how mana regeneration is going to work in Cataclysm. I am sure most of you remember this following post by my favorite dragonling two months ago, right? Eyonix Spirit - Come Cataclysm, this stat should only be found on healing gear. Non-healing casters will have other systems in place to regenerate mana, and we are designing special solutions for Elemental shaman and Balance druids who often share gear with healers (more on this below). Raid buffs that currently boost Spirit (such as Blessing of Kings) will only boost the primary stats of Stamina, Strength, Agility, and Intellect. We are also likely changing the five-second rule and other quirks of the current regen system. source
