Merry Christmas!

For all of you who celebrate Chrismas, I hope you get great gifts.

For all of you who don't. I hope you had/have wonderful holidays.

You've been Hathmasorned.

Whoa, Whoa, Arena is this Fun?!

No one ever informed me that I can have fun playing 10 games of 2v2 a week and get my S2 shoulders in 5ish weeks. That is, until someone did, and I did just that.

Yes, that's right, my first ever piece of PvP gear (read: I don't even have my Talisman of the Alliance).

Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders

My new pride and joy, my first ever welfare epic that is soon to be joined by the S3 Legs.

All this PvP business is actually a really fun alternative to Karazhan.

S3 Legs and the S1 Maul are on their way to my Paper Doll.

You've been Hathorned.

The Most Epic (WoW) Movie Ever Made

In left corner, 1.5 years in the making, 2.4 GB with no streaming option, is Tales of the Past III!!!

In the right corner is... well... there are no corners in a circle.

Here it is ladies and gentlemen,

Tales of the Past III

Please, don't be daunted by the download size, or speed at which you do download it. Yes, it will take some time, but if you are a WarcraftMovies Premium Member like me, I downloaded it at an average of 1027 KB/s from the Premium Server on a Cable Modem connection.

It is well worth the wait and size.

You've Been Hathorned.

Stuff To Do = Suck, Starting a New Character = Win.

So, it's holiday time, and there's always a lot of stuff to do and deal with. I'm sort of putting the blog in the back of my mind for now, until things settle down for a bit.

However, I am currently enjoying my new Blood Elf Mage that I decided to roll. Mages, as I have found out, can be a really fun alternative to someone who has his roots as a Balance Druid Caster, who now melee's full time.

Anyway, sorry for not paying so much attention to this blog, I don't know if anyone reads it either because I don't get many questions or comments to my post, except for the occasional one.

Anyway, Happy Holidays to everyone out there.

And as always,

You've been Hathorned.

Feral Druids and +Hit

As I was standing in front of Gruul's Lair on Sunday waiting for the last couple of guildies to show up, I was asked to take a look at the gear of some of the people standing around to make sure that they could handle Gruul's Lair.

As it turns out, while most people were fine, some were not, and it inspired me to write a segment on what hit rating is, and why you need it.

So, Hit Rating... what is this mysterious number on my stat page?

Well, I'll tell you. The amount of hit rating your have determines, and subsequently lowers, your chance to miss the target.

At level 70, a Druid needs 15.8 Hit Rating "points" to lower their chance to miss their target by 1%. Furthermore, you have a 5% base chance to miss a target your level, and a 5% chance to have your attack dodged, parried, or blocked.

So, against a Level 73 (73 used for calculations) Boss, you have a base 9% chance to miss. If you have a hit rating of 142 you will completely push misses off the table.

However, getting 142 Hit Rating will cripple your AP/Crit so much that you would actually do less damage having your +Hit capped, than losing some Hit Rating and focusing more on AP/Crit.

As you can see by taking a look at my armory profile, I am about 20ish points away from the hit Cap by have a good AP and Crit Rating.

While the allocation of these points are of course dependent on the individual person, these are simply my recommendations.

Have fun!

You've been Hathorned.

Edit: Jacemora makes a good point that Spicy Hot Talbuk is a great alternative to having a low hit rating, eat some of this before every raid, and during to make sure your hit rating stays up while not sacrificing too many other stats.

Can Someone Say.. Progress?

So, REROLL HORDE, the new guild I'm rolling with (GET IT?!), went into Gruul's Lair for the (semi) first time tonight, and killed Maulgar in a little under 2 hours.

For your first day, with some people who have gear, other's who don't, this was an amazing feat, and I am proud of everyone.

You've been Hathorned.

New Gear, New Guild, New Outlook

After some recent things that have taken place between some people in AC and myself, the GM thought it would be best for me to leave for the betterment and anti-hindrance of the guild. I agreed with him in most senses of the word, and while there were some things I would have liked to have taken the time to explain to justify my personal position, I didn't want to, because it wouldn't have changed anything. However, at least myself and a couple of the people in the guild are still in good standing with each other, including the GM himself.

Everything probably turned out for the best, and I still love them dearly and will miss them for a while.

Now to the fun part!

I got 3 new upgrades from Karazhan on Friday:


Stag-Helm of Malorne

Drape of the Dark Reavers

and

Mithril Chain of Heroism

I have gemmed up and gotten my Glyph of Ferocity for the Helm.

All in all, an okay week, the drops sure help.
Plus, REROLL HORDE has been really nice to me and invited me
to their guild for some fun and games before I decide to go somewhere else.
(Which I might not.)

You've been Hathorned.

WoW Podcasts That Everyone Should Hear

The Instance

"The Instance is a weekly World of Warcraft podcast hosted by Scott Johnson of the ExtraLife Comics and ExtraLife Radioand Randydeluxe. The podcast has a large fanbase that actively contributes emails and phone calls that are used on the show.

The Instance first aired on January 7th, 2006 with hosts Scott Johnson and Andrew from Cranial Jacks & Converse and has been running on a regular weekly schedule (personal circumstances of the hosts permitting). Randydeluxe was added as a third host in December 2006. With Andrew leaving in May 2007, Scott and Randy are the main hosts of the show."

World of Warcast

"World of Warcast is one of the longest-running podcasts dedicated to World of Warcraft. Its format is information-based and covers news and feature segments on a variety of World of Warcraft topics, including both game basics and end-game raiding, class features, and technical topics such as discussions about mods. Guests appear on the show occasionally to discuss their own areas of expertise. There are also recurring features, such as Warrior's Den and Mod of the Cast.

They maintain a website and forums and the show is distributed through iTunes and by RSS feed in AAC format only. The show has been featured on the front page of iTunes and is currently one of the most popular World of Warcraft podcasts, with six-figure downloads for individual episodes.

World of Warcast, unlike many gaming podcasts, steers clear of explicit language and topics that would jeopardize a "PG" type rating."

I am a subscriber on iTunes to both of these wonderful Podcasts and I highly recommend both. I rely on both of these Podcasts to provide me with information I may have missed, and the personalities on both ends add great personality to both shows.

Check out their websites, subscribe to them, and if you like them, leave a comment on their respective forums or on iTunes.

You've been Hathorned.

Patch 2.3 and Blizzard Screws Up Again

While the new Patch: 2.3 was released today that contains Zul'Aman, Guild Banks, and several leveling improvements, as well as many talent and class changes.

However, Blizzard is still a little mentally challenged when it comes to applying patches with little to no bugs.

I think this kind of thing might be one of the big things you'd check before releasing a major content patch.

In case you don't want to visit the link. The Shaman Tier 6 Restoration Set is currently without a cost requirement (i.e. no tokens required from Black Temple.)

EDIT: Blizzard has fixed this problem, and they say it will only be a matter of time until the shards from d/eing it, and all of the gear will be taken away.

A link to the patch notes may be found here.

While Blizzard does need to be given props for producing and creating a game that harbors over 9 million customers, after 15 major content patches and at least that many more small patches, you'd think they would be adept at catching almost every bug that is catchable, and for a slip up this big, it makes you think, "WTF?!"

Anywho,

You've been Hathorned.

Sorry!

Sorry everyone for the lack of posts recently, just been really busy.

Will be posting some new stuff either tomorrow or Wednesday.

Thanks for the support,

You've been Hathorned.

Patriots FTW!!

Patriots win 24-20.

I'm a huge Pats fan, and this was one of the best games of the season.

The Patriots are down by 10 with 9 minutes left to go.

Brady throws a 55 yard pass to Moss, and then they score a touchdown and a sequential extra point.

20-17

Colts get the ball, and are stopped by the Patriots' defense.

Brady works his way back up the field again for another touchdown, which only took 47 seconds from the time they got the ball.

24-20.

The Pats just held out, and came back to take it out of the hands of the Colts.
Amazing game, awesome to watch, at the end I was on the edge of my seat.

Also, I'm back home, the drive to and forth sucks and blows at the same time.


Anyway,

You've been Hathorned.

Carolina is PURTY!

I'm here for a wedding, but the weather looks like it was meant to be. It couldn't get nicer, blue skies, about 65 degrees. Just awesome.

Not much to report but.. erm.. hello to everyone from North Carolina!


You've been Hathorned.

Going To Carolina In My Mind

Yep, leaving tomorrow for North Caro-line-i-a as Stewie Griffin would say.

Have a wedding to attend, plan to be back Sundayish, it's a long drive.

I will have my Laptop, and I hope to blog, and maybe be on WoW a little in between golf and wedding preparations.


You've been Hathorned.

P.S. +5 Hathorn Pwn-Points (not affiliated with BRK Cool Points) if you can tell me the author of the song so subtly put in as my Title.

The New Fansite Kit

Is pretty darn cool.

The new Fansite Kit for Wrath of the Lich King released by Blizzard today here, is actually a barrel full of win.

It comes with a bunch of stuff including fact sheets, screenshots, and web building files.


Along with the new Fansite Kit, Blizzard has implemented a new feature that allows your to change your characters name, and more information can be found here.

You've been Hathorned.

Mod of the Week

This week's Mod is: Recount!

Recount is a damage meter that is designed with being a raid analysis tool and get better information on you can improve player’s performance. This is achieved via using graphs to better convey information than normal to show time based data or pie charts to get a better sense of proportions.

I use Recount myself as my primary raid tracking tool.

I highly recommend it to everyone.


You've been Hathorned.

Pit Lord Destruction

Bigredkitty and I had a lot of fun in Hellfire Peninsula!



The stream doesn't do the movie enough justice, I suggest downloading it here:






You've been Hathorned.

Long Time No Post

Hey everyone,

I know it's been a long time since I last posted but I've been bogged down with family, work, and general stuff. Family came in from California on Tuesday, left today, really enjoyed seeing them.

I've been playing a lot of golf lately but that's beside the point, I have a question to answer.


"Dear Hathorn, I'm somewhat new to the Druid class. My friend had too much to do with work and school, and gave me his 70 Druid. He's currently in quest blues as well as some 5 man gear, and is specced Feral. This is my "first" 70 that I've gotten to play, and I wanted to try and start raiding with my guild and wanted to know some good base stats to have to start Kara, and be efficient at DPSing, and tanking.
--Anonymous

P.S. Sorry for the anonymous, but I don't want to be caught by Blizzard for using someone else's account.

Thanks again!"

Well, thanks for the question Anonymous. Let's get to business.

Firstly, if you are looking for the type of gear you should use to tank, here is the perfect place.

All credit due to Emmerald for compiling such a great Feral Druid resource. As you see on the far left, the green numbers go in descending order of "effectiveness" the higher, the better. Of course, up at the top, you have specific slots, and Cat Burst DPS and Cat Sustained DPS.

Stat wise, what you're looking for tanking is:

19k armor (20k+ is recommended for post-Curator mobs.)
415 Defense if you have 3/3 SotF, if not, 490. (Get SotF.)
25-30% Dodge
13k HP
And some hit so you don't miss too many lacerates

For DPS:

~2k AP in Cat Form
~27% crit with LotP
~Attempt to be at the hit cap pre-Kara, if not ~90 or 100

You've been Hathorned.

New RSS Feed Added!

If you noticed a change in the top rightish portion of the blog, you would have seen the new RSS Feed directly from the WoW Site, so you have updates every minute as soon as they are announced, all there on Druids Do It Animal Style.

Enjoy!

You've been Hathorned.

WoW Druid Forums Getting Some Much Needed Love

Here
Here
And Here



The forums have sparked with blue posts, linked above are some I found worthy of, well, linking, so go check them out.

You've been Hathorned.

ZOMG: A Hunter Post in a Druid Blog

Being a frequent reader of BRK's blog, one thing is more than apparent, the DPS of Hunter Pets is treated as the Hunter's DPS too, and if your guild has a problem with that then, tell them this:

"If pets are separate from the Hunters, then they get to earn DKP. And that DKP can be used to boost the pet's stats.

Since the only way to upgrade a pet's stats is with Hunter gear, it's a win-win.

I offered this alternative to my guild and pets are always included in damage meters now."
-Morganna from Twisting Nether


See what they say when you tell them this.

You've been Hathorned.

Maulgar is down.. for good.

The guild killed Maulgar yesterday for the first time, unfortunatly I was unable to make it, but our resident yelling, ear-shattering, Squeekie Priest, Cayleigh, got it all on tape.

You may download the video here.


Congrats guys, hope to do it with you sometime!



You've been Hathorned.

Netherspite Down and Gear Almost Finished

Here they are, one of the last pieces of armor I need. (I still need a few trinkets and such, and one more piece of actual armor, plus, Terestian's staff.)

We killed Netherspite for the first time yesterday, that's 13/13 down in Kara.

Yes folks, we have cleared Karazhan, and now on to bigger and better things, including more Kara :D

We are giving a stab at Gruul's Lair tonight, and by we, I mean the 25 people that are going, because I can't make it.


Will update tomorrow on the results of that, if you see any more ACers around, give them a pat on the back for the job well done.


You've been Hathorned.


P.S. Netherspite Sucks, not as much as Aran though.

AND, We're Back!

Computer is back, everything is good.

First try at Netherspite is on Sunday... /drool @ http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28741

I want that so much, last piece of non-set leather that I need in Kara.

God I hope we kill him.

I really do, wish us luck!

*SIGH*

My computer assploded, I am getting it fixed right now, using one at work to post this, hopefully it will be fixed by Friday.


You've been Hathorned by a sad Hathorn/Panda.

All Quiet on the Home Front

My now prized possession is seen above.

The guild had two groups running on Monday night of this week.
We had 10/10 in one, and then 9/10 in the other. I normally can't make it on these days, but it was labor day, and we were only (really) attempting Nightbane, who we downed first try, and dropped the baby above.

We went over near Aran's room to try Illhoof a couple times for some more loot, but we didn't have the right group makeup, and couldn't quite do it.

So, we cleared to Netherspite to take a look for the first time, ran in naked, and died a painful, dragony, death, getting Netherspite to 97% with the whole raid naked.

"Hathorn, I have a question for you, I am leveling a Druid right now, he's level 32 at the moment, and I wanted to know, what do you think the best spec is to level up fast?" --Hsunda

Well, Hsunda, I may have answered your question in game, but I figured it would probably be asked again some other time, so here it is. I leveled up Resto to 30, Feral to 60, raided Resto at 60 in MC/BWL/Ony, respecced Balance, and leveled Balance 60-70. It was pretty messed up. I would NOT recommend Resto to level.

Honestly, I think the fastest, would be Feral, there is no real downtime so long as you keep your First Aid up, you have no Mana Pool to have to refill, and you just have to worry about your health bar. Also, so long as you keep up with the gear, you can also be used as a tank in instances.

Hope that answers the question that may have been on your mind.


You've been Hathorned.

Even More Kara Love, Plus Someone Now Close To My Heart

The item you see above, is now possessed by me, I love Kara.

However, the person I love even now, is our resident Shadowpriest/Healing Shaman - Anhk.
(Be wary, the blog is set to private, if you want in, contact her).

Now to the reason as to why she is now my love.. I have been saving, and saving forever for my Epic Flying Mount training. I reached 4400g, and she then gave me, the other 600 I needed. Now, understand, I have to pay it back, but god do I love her now. Instant gratification FTW!!


Anyway, Aran and Prince were wiped off the floor tonight by the highway maintenance crew that came back after we left Kara.


Until next time,

You've been Hathorned.

More Kara Love!

So we are now officially 12/13 in Kara, with only Netherspite left to kill.

We killed Curator last night, and then called it a night. I got lucky enough to win the item above from Maiden of Virtue.

We (the guild and I) have heard that Netherspite sucks. Really sucks, but we hope to overcome him soon enough.

Come tomorrow, we will clear from Aran-Nightbane, probably doing Nightbane first.

My love for this guild still stands, and will never dwindle.

Until next time,

You've been Hathorn.


P.S. I am happy to see Hsunda from REROLL HORDE, back playing again, and good guy, and a great hunter.

Glad to have you back Hsunda.

God I Love This Guild...

So tonight, we had 2 groups in Kara. Group 1 killed Curator, Aran, and did Prince. Group 2 killed Aran, Prince, and did Chess. It was amazing. Lots of epics flew around tonight, including 2 for me. The Violet Badge, and the Belt above.

Tonight was amazing, our guild is amazing, and I love them all.

We wiped 5 times on Aran, went did Chess, came back, one shotted Aran. We then cleared to Prince, wiped 4 or 5 times on him.. then finally downed him.

The synergy in our guild is just magnificent.


Love you guys..

You've been Hathorned.

Two groups have been achieved... for now...

So we officially (for the 2nd time) got two groups in Kara going. This means more epix, and more runs for the people that feel left out.

Not much to report this week, other than the fact that the Bungie Podcast was delayed to next week. (Yes, I am a huge Halo fan).

Also, to stir things up, I don't like BioShock at all. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are great, but the whole system seems screwy. Every enemy has a health bar, and to pick up ANYTHING, you have to look at the ground and hit "A." Now, what happens when you're in the middle of a firefight, and you run out of Machine Gun ammo, and you have no EVE Hypos, you have to look at the ground, to pick something up, in the meantime you have been slaughtered by corrupted humans. Fun... not really.


You've been Hathorned.

Stuck in the duldrums...

So, my hours changed, I am now only available to actively raid on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I tend to get on during my break to do my dailies, because I am so close to getting my epic flying mount. Only 1498g left to go.

Guild news:

Our dedicated group of raiders that expands everyday (almost, more later), took down Prince on our 2nd week of attempts ever. You can find the video in the announcement section of our guild webpage. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't there to witness it.

As I said earlier, we are gaining members everyday, but in the last couple days, we have lost quite a few people to a guild called Vanquish, 3 or 4 have switched over, but is seems to be due to scheduling conflicts, so it's not too bad.

We are starting our second attempt at having two seperate groups for Karazhan, and I am pretty sure it will flourish, allowing more people to raid. I do not believe that we are actively recruiting any class, but that may change as the demand for more people to be on at once grows.

And if I hadn't mentioned it before, a month or so ago, I was promoted to the Druid Class Leader/Officer for our guild. So... w00t!


You've been Hathorned.

Well.. Aran is down, plus.. AC Arena PvP?

Unfortunately I was not in the group for the kill, but he was taken out by 10 other fine AC Raiders.

That brings us to what.. 9/13 bosses? From starting in July, we are doing pretty well.

Now that I am getting more and more epics, my DPS keeps rising and rising, and so long as Doom isn't there *shakes fist* I am usually #1 on the DPS meters.


AC's Blooded Aether 5v5 group had their debut on Thursday. The team consists of Me, Giddg, Fiordhraoi, Jacemora, Xian, Anunaki, and Doomilias. We also bought a charter for our 2v2 team: The Spanish Inquistion, read: NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISTION. Our reason for this is because it is a team of all stealthers, Fiordhraoi, Doomilias, Myself, and Giddg.

Oh, did I mention, on our first 5v5 night, we went 1-9? We so own.

We own hard.


You've been Hathorned.

Aran is.. still a.. a...

Words can't even describe it. We are on our 3rd, 4th, or 5th week, I don't know, and he's still not dead. I think the lowest we have gotten him is 5%, but we have the worst luck. At 40% he summons his Elementals, and it seems like each time we get Flame Wreath or Blizzard immediately after.

The suck however, is people's lack of attentiveness to the Arcane Explosion, and the Flame Wreath. We tend to have 1 or 2 people who don't understand the concept of run away, and don't move, respectively.

We are in for another try tonight, maybe we can down him this time.

On another note, other than BRK's damage, who's pet doesn't sync with him on MY damage meter, I was the #1 DPS on last nights trash, chess, and try to kill Aran run.


You've been Hathorned.

Blizzcon Pics Coming Soon!

They are.. I promise.

:D


This is such a short post but...

You've been Hathorned.

Blizzcon Bound!

So, my plane leaves tomorrow at 1:30 EDT for LAX nonstop. Going to pick up my badge, and go sleep, or eat, or something.

Will update with everything that happens during Blizzcon!


Edit: I get to the Airport at 12:00 or so to find out that my flight has been delayed until' 4:00 PM. *sigh* I go have some lunch and come back, check in, and sit down in a chair to wait. The PA comes on, "The flight to LAX has been delayed to 4:45." *sigh*

Edit: Well, I'm back. It was fun. Look for upcoming post with pictures from Blizzcon.

Could it be? Did it really happen?

We had 20 attuned 70's on at the same time. We now look good, damn good.

The second group managed to kill Moroes with ease for phat lootz including his Pocket Watch.
However, the stopped immediatly after Moroes due to a RL emergency.

Group 1 however, managed to get to clear past the Opera with ease, the first time doing 4 things in one night. Sadly, however, we got the same drops as last week, which both got sharded.

Oh well, better luck next time.


I forgot to mention that I had my first real tanking debut last night, tanking all of Moroes' adds. I must say, people complain about how it sucks for Feral tanking that mobs can't bleed, don't get me wrong, it sucks for DPS, but for tanking, it doesn't really matter. I have a regimen of a couple of things I do to succesfully build agro, that helped me save the raid at least once.

1) Spam Lacerate. Even though the mobs can't bleed, it still builds tremendous agro.

2) Start Maul then Hit another Button. Maul has an effect that works on "the next hit." So, you can hit the Maul button, then hit Mangle or Lacerate, and thin Maul will go off. It all happens at the same time, giving a huge agro boost.

3) Bash and Feral Charge. This doesn't work all the time, but it did on the stunnable mobs that are in the Moroes fight. If you need agro, Bash, run away, and hit Feral Charge, not only does it stop casting but keeps them in place.

4) Growl. Everyone knows that Growl is the "oh $%&# the mob is on the healer" button. So, it shall stay that way.


As I said earlier, I "saved" the raid once. That's thanks to Bash, Feral Charge, and Growl. The trap headed for a healer, I bashed the mob I was on, Feral Charged the "trapped" mob, and taunted it off the healer, day saved!



You've been Hathorned.

How to: The Shartuul Event

Before beginning, make sure you have at least 5 Charged Crystal Foci.

Demon 1: Felguard
Very easy fight, if you use a charged foci on this fight, you might not get past the second phase. Use your hammer whenever it's up, Mortal Strike Single enemies, and abuse Charge. Charging nearby enemies causes you to run a very short distance and create an AoE that basically clears the area. Avoid using Whirlwind and if you get overwhelmed use fear. When the Doomguard comes out begin this sequence: Mortal Strike, Fear, Charge, Mortal Strike, etc. Hopefully he goes down easy.

Demon 2: Doomguard
Kind of an easy fight too if you keep an eye on the little guys. Basically white damage and kill the fight few little guys, they're no issue. The little guys are just walking healthstones for your Steal Life ability. Whenever you see a little bugger run off or channeling any spell use your stuns ASAP or it'll make your life harder. When the big guys spawn use your Super Jump ability to stun them and get in close. Once he is stunned and you're in melee range use your Punshing Strike to deal a huge amount of damage and dramatically reduce his dps. Basically just keep them stunned for your punishing strikes. When the Shivan spawns, use Lift off using up one charged foci. When you get better at this event you can down her without a Lift off. Treat her as a Big guy, stun locking her and punishing striking her until she drains life.

Demon 3: Shivan

Stage 1: Eye of Shartuul
Stay in shadow form and wait for beholder to spawn. Cast siphon life and shadow nova then go into Flame form. FLAME BUFFET IS YOUR FRIEND! Stack it constantly casting pyroblast in between CD's. When he begins casting Dark Glare go into Ice form and ice block. This will reflect the damage dealing huge damage. Go shadow form when it CD's and use death blast if Siphon is still up. Apply another Siphon and go fire. Repeat until dead.

Stage 2: Hound of Shartuul
apply Siphon and go fire form. Spam flame buffet and just kite the dog. Watch for a debuff on you and cleanse it with the Clensing Flame move of fire form. Simply kite and use to restore health and he'll die from the flame buffetx 10 pyroblasts.

Stage 3: Shartuul
Go shadow Form, apply siphon life and shadow nova, go Fire form. Spam Flame Buffet and watch for debuffs that you MUST cleanse or Shartuul deals a lot more damage. if he casts incinerate go ice and ice block to reflect it. Once Flame Buffet is stacked to 10 make sure Siphon Life is still up, if not go shadow and reapply. Once both debuffs are up, go Ice and run up to him and Frost Nova, then, cast Chaos Strike (the two charged foci move.) IMMEDIATLEY go Shadow and cast Death Blast. Bam, you're at full health. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. If you run out of foci just spam Pyroblast.


You've been Hathorned.

Our First Try at Two Kara Groups Tonight!

Will we (AC) actually have 20 attuned 70's on at one time? Or is this all a big sham to make us look good?

Well.. I believe that if we do get the 20 attuned 70's on, we will look good AND have two Kara groups running at the same time.

Now if you take in to account the bi-spacial polar distortions, combined with the angle of the dangle, multiplied by the height of Bigredkitty, that gives us a 1:1804738294000 chance that 20 attuned 70's will be on at one time.

However, if Bigredkitty drinks some Winterspring Firewater, increasing his size by 20%, the chance increases to 1:584729203, much, much better odds.



Until next time,

You've been Hathorned.

A New Day, and a New Outlook on... Guides!

So, today, we start with the first Druid guides of many to be posted on this Blog.

Without further ado, I present to you: The Druid FAQ - Read and Learn

Presented by Azoth.

-------------------- Table of Contents: Search for these numbers (CTRL + F or COMMAND + F) to get to the respective areas of the faq. Ex: z1 will return the first section z1 - General Druid Information z2 - Professions and Grouping z3 - Shapeshifting z4 - Druid Specific Quests z5 - Druid Spells z6 - Introduction to PvP z7 - Druid PvP Tips z8 - Druid Movies (PvP/PvE) -------------------------------------------------- Section z1 - General Druid Information Who wrote this piece of junk? I did! (Azoth) I played a leve 60 Druid in closed beta and now I play a druid and a warrior. You can contact me by sending an in game mail to Azoth on the Hyjal server. What the heck is a druid? A druid is a class that can adapt to situations and fit the roles of other classes. We are not quite a "jack of all trades" class, that is more the shaman. The druid is supplements other classes by filling their place. Though we are not as versatile, we are every bit as powerful in our own way! Here is blizzard's description: The Druid gives players several play style options. A Druid in normal form is a caster that can fight with spells or weapons. In Bear form the Druid becomes a Warrior with Rage. While in Cat form the Druid becomes a Rogue with Energy and stealth. The Druid can also transform into two other special animal forms. With its ability to heal itself and fellow characters, the Druid can also take on the role of a Priest. A Druid is not as versatile in its abilities as a Priest is, lacking the spells Holy Word: Shield and Resurrection, but is otherwise a very capable healer. What is the best race for a druid? There is no "best" race for a druid, but Nightelves and Tauren do give different advantages. Nightelves start off with 18 strength, 25 agility, 19 stamina, 22 intelligence, and 22 spirit. Tauren start off with 26 strength, 15 agility, 22 stamina, 17 intelligence, and 24 spirit. The most important stats for a druid tend to be pretty much everything. Each of the two races has a healthy mix of these so this is personal preference. Tauren get warstomp (stuns nearby enemies for 2 seconds, 2 minute cooldown), endurance (5% more hp max), cultivation (+15 max herbalism), and nature resistance (+10 nature resist) for their racial abilities. Nightelves get shadowmeld (stealth while out of combat and immobile), quickness (dodge chance + 1%), wisp spirit (25% faster ghost speed), and nature resistance (+10 nature resist). Just remember that when picking a druid, pick the race that appeals most to you, and remember that Tauren are the Horde and Nightelves are the Alliance. How do I get to the human lands as a Night Elf? As a night elf, you start out on Teldrassil, a great tree growing in the ocean in North Western Kalimdor. To reach the lands of the Eastern Kingdoms, you will have to enter Darnassus, the capital city of the elves. Take the pink portal down to Rutherford Village (or whatever it is called), and take the boat to Auberdine. Then at Auberdine, take the boat to Menethil Harbor. Methithil is an alliance seaport in Eastern Kingdoms in the Wetlands. From here, follow the road east until you hit a crossroads and then go south, through Dun Algaz and into Dun Morogh. This is a very dangerous trip, so be careful. Once in Dun Morogh, head west until you reach the gates of Ironforge, the dwarf capital. Make sure you get the flight points at each of the cities you pass through. You are now in the dwarf lands, and if you want to get to human lands, simply take the train in Tinker Town inside of Ironforge. What weapons can I use as a druid? Druids can use staves, two handed maces, one handed maces, daggers, and fist weapons. When using a two handed weapon, we cannot hold anything in our offhand. When using a one handed weapon (dagger/fist weapon/mace), we can use an offhand item (not a weapon). Using a two handed weapon generally gives more dps, slower attack speed, and high ability bonuses. Using a one handed weapon + offhand gives faster attack speed, lower dps, and higher ability bonuses. Can druids use ranged weapons? No. Druids can only use the weapons described above. If you want to attack something from far away, use entangling roots, wrath, moonfire, or starfire. What kind of armor can I use? Druids can wear leather and cloth. Leather gives higher armor, so use it whenever possible. Can I use a shield? No. Can I dual wield? Never. Relics, Idols, oh my! Relics are a recent addition to the World of Warcraft world. Previously, druids, shaman, and paladins could not gain any benefit from the ranged weapon slot. That slow is now a "Relic" slot and is simililar in nature to a third trinket slot. The druid variant of a relic, the Idol, is designed to give a subtle boost to a particular aspect of the druid. Idols are found in instances and raid dungeons. A current list of idols is available here: http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.8 I mainly use restoration/balance/feral combat. Which stats are best for me? Ideally, you want an even mix of all stats as a druid. If you are going to be healing more than anything else, high +healing, mp5, spirit, and intelligence are agreat plus. Spirit increases your mana regeneration rate and intelligence increases your maximum mana. MP/5 increases your mana regeneration in combat while casting spells, and +healing increases the effectiveness of every heal you cast. If you are going balance mainly, the same applies, but focus on spell damage instead of +healing. If you are going feral, it is best to get a nice even mix of stats, with strength and agility taking priority. Stamina is extremely important no matter how you spec your druid. If you are dead, you can't heal, can't do damage, and can't well, do anything! How fast am I moving? See this link for information on speeds in all forms with various enchants and speed boosts: http://www.forgoodnotevil.com/druid/speed.html Moonglade? Is that on THE Moon? No! Moonglade is the druid sanctuary located in Northern Kalimdor. It is connected to the rest of the world by Timbermaw Hold, a cave held by the Timbermaw (level 50ish and up). It connects with both Winterspring and Felwood (high level zones). At lower levels, your only way here will be via your teleport spell and your only way out will be via the flight path (flight masters are in the middle of Nighthaven. Moonglade will be the source of many druid quests, and is held by the Cenarion Circle. As you do druid quests, your reputation (press U) will raise with them, allowing you to gain access to special things at higher levels. Also note that there is a flight path that connects to other areas in the south part-west part of Moonglade that you will need a higher levels. Moonglade is a contested zone on the PVP server, which means you can kill and be killed by the opposite faction. There is nothing stopping you from doing this, but just have some respect for your fellow druid and remember that they are here to quest just like you are. Section z2 - Professions and Grouping What classes go well with the druid? Pretty much any class can go well with us, because we are like four classes rolled into one. Some of our best companions are rogues, shaman/pally, or anything else. With a rogue we can both stealth and get past creeps, and the Druid can always lay down a heal when needed, do damage in caster/cat, or tank in bear form. With shaman and paladins, you combine a role specialist with a hybrid and it is very effective. We go well with any class because we can mold to situations. How are druids in groups? Druids are excellent in groups. We bring things that no other class can, but grouping can limit your options at times. Generally you will be expected to heal in a group, thanks to our excellent healing ability and the shortage of classes that can heal. At higher levels you will find yourself healing a large amount of the time in groups, but that is not all you will be doing. If you play the class well and have good sets of gear, you can fit into a tanking, damage dealing caster, or damage dealing melee role. You can also fit into a hybrid role by getting gear that has a wide array of stats. What are good professions for a druid? Note: These are in no order of usefulness to a druid, but are just some of the many options. 1) Alchemy/Herbalism With alchemy and herbalism you can cultivate herbs and make powerful potions. These potions can range from a simple healing potion to a potion that adds +2000 mana for 2 hours. There is generally less profit involved here and high competition for recipes. Alchemy allows you to live longer and do more damage in battle. 2) Herbalism/Skinning/Mining (two gathering skills) Druids are the best gatherers in the game. We can use stealth, travel form, and soothe animal to get in close to resource nodes. If you take two gathering skills you will be able to make a lot of money, and can always drop one later. 3) Mining/Engineering Engineering can be used by any class, and gives you the ability to make some pretty cool items. More information can be found here: COMING SOON! 4) Skinning/Leatherworking (Tribal Leatherworking/Elemental Leatherworking/Dragon Leatherworking) Since we can wear leather, leatherworking is a great skill to have. Skinning is also great for making money. Leatherworking allows you to make many very useful items that will make character progression easier. It branches into tribal, elemental, and dragon leatherworking at 225+ skill. Tribal is best suited for druids, elemental for rogues, and dragon for shaman/hunter. 5) Other options There are many other options, but I'm lazy! For a great Profession FAQ, see this thread: COMING SOON! What about secondary skills? Learn them all! There is no limit, so why aren't you learning them? Section z3 - Shapeshifting When do I get shapeshifting? Druids get shapeshifting starting at level 10. Right now, only bear form and water form will require you to do a quest to get (details later). At level 16 you get water form (increased water speed), at level 20 you get cat form (increased dps), at level 30 you get travel form (40% increased movement), at level 40 you get dire bear form (upgraded version of bear form), and at level 68 you get flight form (60% increased movement in Outlands only). All of these with the exception of those rewarded via quests will be available at the druid trainer. If you use your talent points to spec balance, you have the chance to get Moonkin form (increased armor and spell crit) at level 40 at the earliest. What are the hotkeys for shapeshifting? The shapeshifting hotkeys, by default, are CTRL + F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6. Each F# corresponds to a form on your action bar, the one to the left being number 1 and going up by 1 each time it goes right. You can change these in Key Bindings section of the in game options menu. How is damage determined in forms? In shapeshifted forms your weapon's dps has no effect on your damage. It is a static base amount determined by your level. Strength is the only stat that will increase this damage in both cat and bear form. Strength increases attack power, so any items that add attack power will also increase your damage. Agility will increase your chance to crit and will increase your attack power in cat form only. NOTE: THIS INFORMATION IS FOR LEVEL 60. LEVEL 70 DATA COMING SOON. One strength = 2 attack power in all forms. One agility = .05 crit, .05 dodge, and 2 armor in all forms and 1 attack power in cat. How is miss rate determined in forms? Since your weapon has no affect on your feral ability other than stats/on use, your miss rate in forms is independant of the weapon you are using. At every level, Shapeshifting will be maxed out in terms of melee attack (Imagine that your weapon skill is maxed out at every level). There is no way to raise your melee skill in shapeshifting, as it is always maxed out for your level, meaning that you have the same miss/hit chance as you would with a maxed out weapon. You can, however, get +hit gear that will reduce your chance to miss an opponent. You can also use +feral skill items to increase your chance of hitting high level opponents. How do items benefit me in forms? Items can only benefit you in forms by raising stats and having various "on equip" effects. Weapon speed is irrelevent. Forms will still allow abilities from weapons that say "on equip," but "chance on hit" will not work. "On Use" will work only if you have them equipped. You cannot use "on use" items that you are not wearing. All of the darkmoon cards will work while shapeshifted, as well as anything else with "on equip" or "on use" (barring the restriction mentioned above). What's so good about shapeshifting? Shapeshifting allows you to take on the role of a warrior or rogue, and also allows you to move faster on land or sea. Shapeshifting makes you immune to polymorph and breaks all movement imparing effects. When should I use bear form? Bear form gives increased armor, hit points and attack rating. It is best used for defensive purposes, and can be used to pull units off of other players with taunt (growl). Your attacks in bear form cause additional threat/agro. It is very useful against fast attacking creeps, as they do little damage to begin with. This also goes for pvp, it is useful against a very fast attacking or hard hitting player. Bear form is also good for soloing, though cat form tends to be better in that respect. Bear also gives you two interupts in pvp, which can be very useful - bash and feral charge (with talents). When should I use cat form? Cat form gives greatly increased damage and stealth. It is best used whenever you are soloing and want to do more damage, when you want to sneak past enemies, and when you want to do something besides heal (and not tank) in a group. Cat form does 20% less threat (threat determines when you pull agro) than your other forms. When should I use travel/water/flight form? Whenever you want to move faster or escape from enemies. Flight form requrise you be ot of combat so use it in conjunction with your other movement increasing forms. When should I use Moonkin form? If you have spent the talents to earn this form, you should use it as much as possible. Remember that moonkin cannot cast anything but offensive spells, and remember that you always have the ability to shift out into caster form. If you can afford to not heal, you might as well be in moonkin for the increased survivability and crit chance. It only takes a second to shift out and cast a heal on yourself, so always remember you have that option. When should I use Tree of Life form? This is a very situational form and is tricky to use. It suffers from a movement speed penalty and can be banished, but it does give a very powerful aura to your party increasing healing done, and makes your instant cast spells cheaper. Only use this form if you think you will be in it long enough to gain some benefit from it to outweigh the shifting cost. It's very good for non mobile encounters or fights where your party needs a lot of healing. Remember that you don't have to use it all the time if you get it - and that you can always shift out whenever you need to. How does rage work? Rage (replaces mana in bear) increases when you do melee damage and when you take melee damage. Critical hits generate more rage. Your abilities in bear take rage to use so you rely heavily on hitting the enemy to use abiilties, or taking a lot of damage yourself (which bear is great for). How does enrage work? Enrage gives you 20 rage over 10 seconds while reducing your base armor amount by 75%. This means that your armor before bear form bonus armor is calculated is reduced, resulting in a small change in bear form armor. How does energy work? In cat form you get an energy bar instead of a mana bar. Energy has a maximum of 100 and regenerates 20 every 2 seconds. Using abilities subtracts from your existing energy amount. If you time your opening attacks well, you can get the energy "tick" right after you use a move, resulting in less downtime before your next special attack. How do combo points work? In cat form, you will notice that some abilities add a 'combo point' when you use them. Combo points are represented next to the portrait of the creep you are attacking as little dots. There are five of them, and they change the damage that your finishing moves (currently rip, ferocious bite, and maim) does. If you check the tooltip, rip, ferocious bite, and maim will do more damage depending on how many combo points you have built up. Maim will last longer with more combo points. Combo points will be erased if you land a successful rip or ferocious bite or if you select a unit different from the one you are attacking. How does stealth work? Stealth is sort of like a limited invisiblity, it makes it so you are very difficult to detect. When you are in front of another player and stealthed, you are easy to see. Go behind them, and they will not be able to see you at all. Level plays a big role in stealth, as each level your feral combat skill goes up by 5, and feral combat skill determines how well you can stealth. The more levels you have over an opponent the less likely you are to be spotted. The further away from them and the less you are in front of them the higher chance you will not be spotted. The improved prowl talent basically acts as +1 level when determining stealth, up to a maximum of +5. Is my Ferioucious Bite doing enough damage? What about Swipe, etc? The damage listed for all of your moves in any form is before armor mitigation. Depending on the armor of your enemy, your moves will do significantly less than the listed damage. Section z4 Druid Specific Quests How do I do the bear form quest? Tauren Version: At level 10, Gennia Runetotem in Bloodhoof Village will have a druid quest for you. This quest will ask you to speak with Turak Runetotem on Elder Rise of Thunder Bluff. After you have completed this, you will get the next part of the quest. You will now be given a spell that allows you to teleport to Moonglade. This spell will be in your spellbook under balance. Use this ability whenever you want to get to Moonglade. After you arrive in moonglade, you will have to talk with Dendrite Starblaze (who should be in the building right in front of you). You will now have to seek out the great bear spirit, who is located in North-West moonglade. Speak with him, and return to Dendrite Starblaze (if you don't know your way back, just teleport and you will be in front of the building again). Speak with him again, and he will tell you that it is time to return to Mulgore. Find your way to about the center of Moonglade, and find the wyvern master. Take the free flight back to Thunder Bluff, then go to Elder Rise and complete this part of the quest. You will be given some dust to summon Lunaclaw to receive your bear form ability. Luncalaw is just inside of the barrens and to the south, located here: http://www.thottbot.com/?m=2100. This a fairly tough fight, and you may want to have someone help you. The best strategy is to root Luna, then cast some spells before allowing him to get into melee with you. If you fail, abandon the quest and go get the dust again. If you succeed, go back to Elder Rise and you will be taught bear form! Now you will have a new bunch of bear form specefic abilities to choose from at the trainer at higher levels. Night Elf Version: Part 1: http://www.rpgexpert.com/3681.html Part 2: http://www.rpgexpert.com/index.php?art/id:3682 (Thanks to Antropov for submitting link) How do I do the cure poison quest? Night Elf Version Get quest in darnassus. Port to moonglade, speak to npc. Fly to auberdine, (speak to npc?). Go to cave where clearbrook river starts, use bottle to collect water sample. Careful of aggro level 13-15 mobs. Back to auberdine. Collect 12 mushrooms, found in moonkin caves. As well as 5 earthroots, get with herbalism or just get them from another player or AH. Back to auberdine, get cure. Find 10 sickly deer and cure them, roams around outside auberdine. Finish quest. Get Velidust medecine bag + cure poison spell. (submitted by Annah) How do I do the water form quest? Tauren Version: At level 16 your local druid trainer will have a quest for you that will once again take you to moonglade. Use your teleportation spell and speak with Dendrite Starblaze once again. He will ask you to retrieve a bauble from the lake in Moonglade. This can be a difficult quest if you aren't paying attention in the lake. The bauble will be on the bottom of the lake somewhere, usually near the middle. It is small and hard to see, so look carefully. After you find the bauble, you must quickly head over to the Shrine of Remulos (western Mooonglade) before the timer runs out. Speak with whomever here, and you will receive the next part of the quest. You will be asked to speak with the "inhabitants" of Moonglade. These "inhabitants" are simply the flight masters located in the center of Nighthaven. One of the pendants is in Sludge Fen, Barrens in a tiny box underwater. The other is in Silverpine, on the North-West shore. Find a large broken boat on the shore, and get ready to swim. Go directly west from the boat, do not stray north or south. Swim down until you find a Bubbly fissure, which should be quite a ways out. You should be perpendicular to the T of the The Great Sea. The box should be near the fissure. Return to Moonglade, go to the Shrine of Remulos, and combine the two pendants. Return to Dendrite Starblaze to hand in the quest, and you will then be able to get Water Form from you class trainer. Night Elf Version: http://www.wowguru.com/db/quests/trial-of-the-sea-lion-id30/#guide_2 How do I do the Epic (Swift) Flight Form Quest? See this link for a very well put together guide: http://www.servantsofseagis.org/wiki/Epic_Flight_Form_Quest Section z5 - Druid Spells What spells can I learn as a druid? The complete list is here: http://www.thottbot.com/?c=Druid Can I ressurect other players? Yes you can! We have a ressurection spell (rebirth) usable once every 30 minutes. It can be used in combat, unlike any other res in the game. It costs a large amount of mana, takes 2 seconds to cast, and takes a seed reagent. The reagents are available at the reagent vendors located in each major city. What can't I use indoors? Indoors (as in not outside), you will not be able to use entangling roots, travel form, feline swiftness, or nature's grasp. What is my role in a group? Right form Blizzard: The Druid has three potential roles in a group. When in their normal, biped form, they act well as a healer and can give support in the form of buffs and debuffs; they also have limited crowd control against dragons. Their Bear form gives them offensive and defensive power enough to step up to a monster and take the hits (we're looking into aggro management for the form). In Cat form, the Druid becomes a damage dealer. This trio of roles in one class gives the Druid a diverse feel and allows them to perform nearly any role perceived as "needed" in a party. We're not telling you how to play the game - one of the fascinating practices of this genre is the ingenuity exercised by the players every day! Which of our spells are Nature Based? Arcane? Our Arcane spells are as follows: Moonfire, Starfire. Our Nature spells include wrath, faerie fire, entangling roots, all healing spells, mark of the wild, thorns, and anything else I haven't mentioned. How does Entangling Roots work? Entangling roots is one of our two crowd control (CC) spells. It is only useable outdoors and is a nature spell. It roots the target in place preventing movement and does damage over time. It is likely to break when you do damage to the target, and semi likely to break from its own damage. What is Gift of the Wild? Gift of the Wild is a druid only spell learned from a rare dropped item. It has a level requirement of level 50, and only drops from high level creeps in instances that level and higher. It buffs everyone in your group with an improved Mark of the Wild that lasts longer. Rank 1 tends to drop in instances level 50 and higher, like ST and BRD. Rank 2 tends to drop in instances much higher level, such as BRS. Rank 1 costs 900 mana, lasts one hour, buffs your entire group, increases armor by 240, stats by 10, and resists by 15. Level requirement of 50. Rank 2 costs 1200 mana, lasts one hour, buffs your entire group, increases armor by 285, stats by 12, and resists by 20. Level requirement of 60. Rank 3 costs 1515 mana, lasts one hour, buffs your entire group, increases armor by 340, stats by 14, and resists by 25. Level requirement of 70. What talents do we have available? Druid talents are broken into three categories - restoration, balance, and feral combat. Restoration deals with healing and "restorative" type spells. This talent tree will help you be an very effective healer, with many useful upgrades. There are also a few talents in here that will offer direct cross benefit into other trees, such as Furor and Improved Enrage. Balance contains talents that will greatly increase your spell damage output. It offers a new shapeshift, and many talents that cross over into both feral and restoration, such as Natural Weapons, Natural Shapeshifter, Omen of Clarity, Moonglow, and Nature's Grace. Finally, feral combat deals with our shapeshifting forms and has no talents that will overlap into other fields. Here is an online talent calculator: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0 And here is another: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html When do I get talents? How can I unlearn them? Starting at level 10 you will get one talent point per level until you reach the level cap (currently 60). To unlearn your talents talk to your local druid trainer. It costs money to unlearn talents, so choose wisely! Which talents are popularily seen as "must haves?" These are just general talent suggestions that are posted often. They are not actually "must haves," but many find them useful. Balance has many popular talents that you can take. Depending on your initial investment, you can get points in improved wrath or nature's grasp, wrath being more offensive and grasp defensive. Omen of clarity is a great talent if you plan to melee often, or use your feral shapeshifts. Vengeance greatly increases your spell damage crits, and Moonglow and Moonkin offer benefits to others and to other spells than just balance. Feral focuses on improving feral ability only. Ferocity is a great talent to have, increasing the frequency you can use certain abilities. Feral charge can close the gap between enemies and can interupt spellcasting and is a good talent to get. Feline swiftness makes cat form 30% faster at its max rank, and is another good talent. Finally, heart of the wild will benefit you in all of your forms, including caster. Leader of the Pack benefits everyone in your party, and when used effectively can greatly increase group damage. In restoration, the talents focus on improving your healing capability. Nature's focus is a talent you will see many benefits to getting, as is Nature's Swiftness. Gift of nature increases the healing done by your spells by 10%, and Tranquil Spirit reduces their mana costs by 10%. Swiftmend gives you a very powerful heal that can be used once every 15 seconds and has no cast time. Remember that these opinions for "must have" talents, and there are many other choices that are entirely dependent on how you want to play your druid. Can you explain Nature's Grasp? Nature's Swiftness? Omen of Clarity? Innervate? Swiftmend? Etc? Omen of clarity is a self magic buff. Whenever you strike an enemy and hit, you have a chance of getting an Omen of Clarity buff to your character, making your next spell mana free or ability energy/rage free. Nature's Swiftness is a self buff useable once every three minutes. It makes any of your nature spells instant cast, and goes away as soon as you cast a nature spell. Lastly, Nature's Grasp is a self buff. It lasts 45 seconds, and will attempt to root any melee enemy who strikes you. It can be resisted, and fades once it is cast on an enemy (even if they resist). The buff for Omen of Clarity is independant of weapon speed. It is set to go off a certain number of times per minute, and will go off as many times with a slow 3.8 speed mace as it will with a fast 1.3 speed dagger. This is of course, assuming you hit as often with your slow weapon! Innervate gives you 400% increased mana regen in combat for 20 seconds once every 6 minutes. What this means, is that in combat while casting spells you will regenerate mana 4x faster than if you were NOT even in combat! This spell is directly benefited by spirit which increases your hp/mana regen. You regenerate at the same rate whether you are casting or not. Swiftmend consumes the heal over time portion of either regrowth or rejuvenation on your target. It will take your +healing into consideration when consuming this, and provide the full effect of that heal over time as an instant heal on a 15 second cooldown. This means that you can allow your rejuvenation to heal for all but the last tick, swiftmend, and essentially get two heals out of that one rejuvenation/regrowth. It is useful on many end game encounters and in pvp. Working with another druid, you can mimick nature's swiftness by having one druid rejuv and the other swiftmend immediately, providing a powerful instant heal. Is Improved MoTW/Demoralizing Roar/Etc Working? Yes, they are indeed working and you are getting your upgrade for the talent point. If you look at the tooltip (the window when you mouse over the spell in your spellbook), you will notice it is updated. Sometimes the bufftips (mouse over the buff on yourself or another character) do not update to the talents, but you are still getting the benefit from your talent. Section z6 - Introduction to PvP How does PvP work? This isn't really about pvp, just a general background on how pvp currently works. On the pvp server you will always be pvp enabled (can attack other faction and they can attack you) whenever you are in contested lands. If you are in a hostile or friendly territory, you will have the protection of not being in pvp mode if that is your faction's territory, but opponents will always be in pvp mode. On the normal servers, pvp can be done at anytime anywhere (like the pvp server), but only at the consent of the players. Attacking enemy npcs, players, or typing /pvp will put you in pvp mode, allowing other players to attack you. Are druids good in pvp? Have any strategies? Every class is good at pvp if played well. We can throw all kinds of stuff at other players, switching forms to confuse them and change up our tactics. Entangling roots is great for healing and holding back people. Depending on your talent build, you may want to be more aggressive (feral the most "in your face" of the three). Ask on these forums for suggestions for talent builds, same with strategies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section z7 - Druid PvP Tips [part 1] Entangling Roots -Roots is a great crowd control ability to use on melee characters, though it is useful on every class. -Entangling roots is a great way to slow down anyone, even if they can dispel it. Most players will focus on their primary objective (healing, attacking, running, etc) before they dispel themselves, leading to a small delay in their reaction time. -Root druids frequently. If they expend the mana to shift out of roots they have both wasted mana and lost 1.5 seconds of attacking you. -Entangling roots works very well with cat form. When your enemy is rooted, you have the complete advantage in mobility against your opponent. Use your speed to move around them and stay behind them as much as possible, avoiding melee contact unless you have enough energy to attack. -Nature's grasp is a useful way to escape from someone or enter any of the above root tactics. Barkskin -Great way to heal yourself mid fight against someone without an interupt, especially with regrowth. -Can be used before shifting to bear for a "bear-wall" like ability granting immense physical damage reduction. -Can be used before shifting to cat to give cat the damage reduction of a lightly armored bear. It will only slow your autoattack, not your energy gains to do special attacks. Healing Touch -It is a tremendous heal in pvp if you can time it to let it finish casting. If you have nature's swiftness, the impact of an instant 3 to 7k (depending on +healing) heal can be devastating. -PvP isn't so much about healing efficiency, it is often better to heal less often for more than more often for less because of spell interupts. -Keeping yourself alive is your top priority in most situations. Rejuvenation -Use it to heal against any enemy lacking a dispel. If they do have a dispel mechanism and are not actively using it, go for it. -Cast it proactively, it takes three seconds for it to hit its first 'tick' of healing. Lifebloom -It can be used safely against classes with a form of dispel. -Cast it very early, as it takes six seconds to give you its bulk heal. -Do not rely on it alone to keep your health up, it is a very weak heal that should be used to discourage enemies from dispelling you or as an additional hot. -Do not waste mana (or more importantly time) stacking this on yourself in pvp. Moonfire -Moonfire is a great way to inflict extra damage on someone. Use it as a dot, not as a direct damage move. It will do more damage if allowed to run its course. It prevents bandaging due to the dot portion, as well as restealthing. -It is an instant cast spell, so try to cast it whenever your enemy puts too much room in between the two of you. -It will do damage through a mage's mana shield, as will all other spells. -In some situations, it may be beneficial to "moonfire-execute," or "moonfire spam." If your opponent is running and has very little health, it may be easier to cast moonfire a few times to kill them than to charge or root them. This burns your mana and makes you look stupid, so avoid it if possible. Insect Swarm -Treat it like moonfire if you have it. Use it as a dot to build damage and to lower your opponents chance of hitting you. Starfire -Like all magic spells, it ignores armor, so it is great against high mitigation targets. -No class has an ability to negate arcane damage (like fire ward, shadow ward, etc), though they have ways of lessening it (dampen magic), or negating it (power word shield, ice block, etc). -It is a very slow casting spell, even talented, so always either have distance when using it or use it after bashing someone. -When using it to finish someone off, cast moonfire as soon as starfire finishes for a better ending. Wrath -It is a very fast casting spell, especially talented. Use it to bolt out damage to enemies if you have the spell damage. If your +spell is lacking, it is still useful against runners or in situations where shifting would not be a viable long term solution (lots of snares). Hurricane -Try to use it from the maximum distance with barkskin up, and position it so that it hits the most targets possible. -It does very little damage unless allowed to run the full duration on many targets. Cyclone -Use it to incapacitate any target; cyclone cannot be gotten out of by the target by any means, including divine protection, though it can be trinketed out of with the level 70 pvp trinket (as of 2.1.2). -It is a nature spell, so having it interupted will prevent you from healing for a long time (don't let this happen). -When using cyclone, have some idea of what you will do when it wears off (six seconds). Use that time to heal, or to possibly drop combat and re-stealth in cat form, or to gain distance or some other advantage over your opponent. Hibernate -Hibernate can be used to sleep both hunter pets and shapeshifted druids and shaman. -A good strategy for fighting hunters is to root the hunter from their deadzone and then immediately sleep their pet. -Hibernate breaks on any damage, so remember that when trying to sleep another player. -When sleeping other druids try to do it when they are focused on doing something else (such as positioning themselves behind you to shred). It is usually obvious if you go for a bash to hibernate combo, though against slower reacting enemies this will work. Do not attempt to use it without barkskin against a cat. Thorns, MOTW, Omen of Clarity -Keep them up all the time (assuming you have all three!). -Against felhunters, cancel all of your magic buffs if you are planning on killing them. Faerie Fire -Always cast this spell on your opponent if they cannot dispel it. If they can dispel it, only cast it while shapeshifted (where you pay nothing but a global cooldown for it). -It prevents rogues from stealthing but does not prevent them from using vanish to break roots. -It increases your damage on everyone. -Use it on rogues as they approach you before they can stealth. Most rogues stealth at the very last second to gain as much distance as possible. -Use it on warriors that are approaching you to put them in combat and prevent them from charging. It does no damage so it will not give them rage to intercept unless they waste a cooldown to gain rage (and if they do, you have time to root them, and should). Section z7 - Druid PvP Tips [part 2] Shifting -Time your shifts so that you shift right before an event actually happens. If you are going to bash someone in bear, shift out of bear before bash officially lands. The only way to learn this is through learning the animation and noise of bash. When someone uses concussive shot or some other snare on you, shift so that as soon as it hits you are shifting out of it. Reactive shifting is too slow. -Do things in between shifts when you have time. Drink potions, drop bannners, use instant spells. -Always consider the implications of shifting on your mana pool. Is getting out of that snare worth losing the ability to use a spell or shift later? Is the damage you will take less if you shift out now? Bear Form -Great way to mitigate damage quickly. -Always remember to use enrage when it is not on cooldown. Rage is power. -If you have enough rage, use both maul and swipe. Swipe is instant and will hit up to three people, and can add a respectable amount of damage. -Frenzied Regeneration will not keep you alive very long, use it to stall for cooldowns or time to come up with an escape route. When using regen you will have little to no rage to attack with special abilities. Feral Charge -It is one of our few ways to interupt a spell. In many cases you will start a fight out of cat form and take either stun your opponent with pounce or take them to low health. Their next move will be a defensive one if they cannot get distance, which will usually be fear (if a warlock does not have deathcoil up), or healing (if a priest does not have scream up). If you have predicted this move and are already shifting into bear form and moving back, you can interupt this spell and shift back to cat form while it is counterspelled, or bash them at the end of its duration for an even longer silence. -Use feral charge to get distance from opponents. It immobilizes your target for 4 seconds, so use that time to get distance (do not shift out of bear until you are safely away), and root them and/or heal. -Feral charge can prevent you from taking fall damage if you charge someone before you hit the ground. -Feral charge is a good way to gain distance quickly. If you are facing many opponents, it is often a good idea to charge the furthest one away and then quickly shift into travel form as you are charging them for a quick escape. Demoralizing Roar -Use it on any opponent that deals physical damage. -Use it to break stealth of rogues and druids. If you think a rogue may be nearby, it is often worth it to powershift/demo roar a few times to break their stealth. Wasting the mana here is justified, because a rogue or druid getting the first hit heavily favors the fight for them. Bash -It is a great way to slow someone down by completely stunning them for up to 5 seconds. -It shares diminishing returns with pounce and warstomp (if you are a tauren). -Always have a plan when using bash. It is too valuable of an ability to use unless you will take advantage of it. Use it to powershift catform and shred, or to heal. It lasts long enough to cast a full 3.5 second healing touch, or alternatively cast entangling roots and regrowth. -If you will be shifting to do something else, shift before bash is displayed on your screen. -Always try to bash someone from behind so they cannot parry or dodge. Cat Form -Shred deals higher burst damage than claw/mangle, but claw/mangle leads to faster combo point generation. Choose which will be more important as you begin your fight. -Against heavily armored classes or classes with the ability to incapacitate you, bleeds are better than direct damage. Rake may seem like it does little damage, but it ignores armor and continues to do damage even if you are stunned. The "dot tactic" works well against paladins, warriors, rogues, and other druids. Build to 5 cp as fast as possible, using rake to get your 5th cp and then use rip. After landing rip, shift out and use moonfire. -Against lightly armored classes, try to use shred as much as possible. The bulk of your damage will come from normal attacks and not finishers. Use ferocious bite as your finisher unless you are fighting a warlock, in which case it may be safer to rip them. -For high health targets, use rip until they are lower on health, than use ferocious bite. -Use pounce to stop moving targets. To stop someone running past on a mount, start using pounce before they get to you. The same goes for using ravage on a moving target. Maim -Maim will not break on any damage over time spell, including spells cast by other classes. -It is a great way to buy time to heal or reposition yourself, but it comes at a great cost. Using maim forfeits a lot of damage and all of your combo points. -As with bash, have a plan when you use maim. Learn to execute your plan before maim has officially hit, learning the animation, sound, and energy return of hitting/missing. -Always try to maim someone from behind so they cannot parry or dodge. You've been Hathorned.

Talent Calculator Added!

A new late night addition to the newly formed blog, a WoW Talent Calculator provided by Wowhead.

Scroll to the bottom of the page to check it out!

Last night's Chess Event and Aran try

As Bigredkitty said in his blog, Doomilias is constantly pushing us to do better, with a wide margin of 4% over me in 2nd, his DPS is outstanding.

After our first time doing the Chess event, it is now the "Free Epicz Event." It's just so easy.

You've been Hathorned.

Well.. here we are.

Well, hello everyone, this is my first blog post, BRK (Bigredkitty) inspired me to make one, because when I grow up, I want to be just like him!

On second thought... I lied, I'm happy being me.

Currently I am in the Guild: Aetherial Circle on Drenden and am really enjoying it. We are progressing our way through Karazhan at a rather rapid pace, killing Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, 2/3 of the Opera Events, Curator, Illhoof, the Chess Event, and we have Aran down to 5%.

So, I will update this blog pretty regularly, whenever I'm not on call.


You've been Hathorned.