Tag Archive for 'druid'

Lonely Chicken turns Cat

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Yashima
on December 9, 2008
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Yáshimá

Yesterday I started playing a bit with Yáshimá and quickly noticed that I wasn’t having much fun soloing with an under-geared, low-level moonkin. [And yes: Alts are mostly for solo-play - especially when I don't know how long I'll be in the game.]

I had to drink a lot, take breaks, I wasn’t able to choose a lot between abilities and damage cycles.

In a group with Tenobaal her big sister Yashima is able to use a lot of her different abilities. With a Hunter and a tank pet we’re effectively a nice 3-man group and can take on many challenges. We AoE a lot, try large pulls, big elite mobs etc..

As solo Moonkin I noticed I had to really try and pull mobs solo because the most mana efficient – and therefore fastest – way to kill them was

/castsequence Starfire; Moonfire; Starfire; Starfire; Starfire

Becomes boring quickly. So … without waiting for more feral quest rewards to appear or level 70 to “just happen”, I beamed over to Moonglade and told my teacher “I’m not a chicken at heart, please let me be a kitty again!” I took me then about an hour to spend my talent points and configure my macros and buttons.

The talent spec is probably not particularly bright, I just looked real hard at all talents and decided wether they were good for a solo-ing cat druid or if they were supposed to be bear or group talents. I didn’t even buy Shredding Attacks (yet …) because in my mind I wasn’t using Shred much for solo-ing. I quickly noticed how sorely I missed the talent.

I bought some gear on the AH and was happy to see I had a little stash of high level items hidden away on an alt for later use. 2 Enchants later I was good to go.

My theory of endless energy being faster for solo leveling proved true and it is also much more fun to stealth around. Added Bonus: being one of the papery professions – Scribe & Enchanter – I can always use the Humanoid Radar in Cat Form as I have no Herbs or Minerals to look for.

From Screenshots 2008

Moonkin: Level 80 Starting Gear

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Yashima
on December 5, 2008
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So here’s my plan for minimum effort to obtain a nice starter set of spellpower items to heal and dps at level 80:

Since I will of course also be running an instance every once in a while each and any of these items can be replaced by what I can obtain through instances. I just hate to depending on winning a roll on an item that doesn’t even drop every time on a boss.

What I am wondering while looking through items: is there no Hit Rating + Spellpower Gear???

The most stressful will probably be to camp the AH for the BoE items and get to Revered with the Kirin’Tor. Currently I am half-way to honored thanks to the Cooking quest. We have already finished most of the other quests that award Kirin’Tor faction. So I’ll have to champion them at 80. I have no idea how hard the Sons of Hodir reputation will be to earn …

Update: I already managed to snag the boots and the off-hand and I am finally making my new Alchemist’s trinket. I decided that in direct comparison for “leveling items” I will keep my S3 Wrists and S3 Chest instead of choosing the items selected above. I’ll see if any upgrades come when they came :)

Deterministic Blue Spellpower Gear for Druids

Published
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Yashima
on December 5, 2008
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Yashima

I call this gear list “deterministic” because all the items are otainable with a (admittedly more or less) measurable amount of effort. When I plan out my gear for a character I usually look at available items in a certain order based on how much effort and most importantly luck is involved. Items that need luck are last on my list. On top of my list are items that I can easily obtain by solo-ing a fixed amount of content.

What kind of gear is qualifies as deterministic?

  • Quest Rewards – you complete the quest and get the reward, this is the easiest and most often fastest way to get a reward.
  • Faction Rewards – you can repeat dailies or run instances until you reach the desired level and then you can go to the quartermaster and buy the reward. In Northrend several factions have dailies that reward large chunks of faction points and easily get you up to the desired level. For other factions you just wear their tabard and go to an instance.
  • Some Currency Based Rewards – you do whatever is required (usually killing bosses in instances or doing repeatable quests) to obtain the currency and buy the reward. Note: PvP rewards are currency based but I am not going to list them here for two reasons: 1) because there is PvP gear for every class and spec nowadays and 2) PvP depends on too many other people that you have no control over … so there is luck in getting good groups involved unless you farm pre-mades.

Rewards that need a little luck or patience:

  • Crafted Rewards – farming most crafting mats is not quite straightforwad, since most drops have a less than 100% drop chance there is always some luck involved. Crafting mats that can be obtained solo-ing or on the AH are absolutely on my list. Once you have the mats you need to find a crafter but for many items this is not impossible to find someone in your guild or among your friends or get referred to a crafter
  • BoE Random World Drops – can usually be bought on the AH for more or less reasonable prices – getting money is deterministic by doing dailies …

What gear does not qualify?

  • BoP Random Drops from instance bosses. 1) you often need luck to find a group for the instance your drop is from, 2) you need to be lucky to have the boss drop the desired item and 3) you need to win the roll on that item. This is the type of gear that either requires a lot of effort and much time or a lot of luck. That is why I don’t really focus on boss drops until I have figured out what kind of equipment I can get from other avenues. I have rarely “farmed” an instance for a drop …

So without much more discussion, here are a few items that should be attainable for most Druids:

Blue Quest Rewards (search)

Faction Based Gear

Crafted by Leatherworkers (search)

Crafter by Jewelcrafters (search)

Crafted by Tailors (search)

Crafted by Blacksmiths

Bought with currency (search)

BoE World Drops (search)

When I get to 80 and have all the Blues I want, I will make an upgraded listed with nice purplies.

Just an Update: Idols … forgotten because they rarely contain spellpower which I used to filter out feral gear ;) The best for leveling balance druids should be available through Venture Coins: Idol of Arcane Terror.

Spec Decisions

Published
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Yashima
on November 17, 2008
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So I have a plan now.

A few days ago I wasn’t sure what to do with my 2 druids and their specs.

Here’s what I’ll try to do now after experiencing my first 2 Wrath instances (Nexus + Keep):

Yashima will level as Moonkin. She collects caster gear and can also heal in instances at least that’s what it looks like now. If we are going to have dual specs she’ll have Balance + Restoration available to her. She is questing with Tenobaal and they AoE very well as a team. Even should I need to respec to tree for a time she’ll not be alone. She stays Herbalist/Alchemist and already has her Swift Flight Form.

Yáshimá will level as Feral (as soon as I get enough Feral quest rewards to switch – I dissed all feral gear). I’ll probably go for a DPS spec as well and once we get dualspecs she’ll have a pure tank and pure DPS spec available. I will collect feral gear of both types and I’m hoping to be able to use several items for both purposes. She will level solo mostly which is fine because that way I can Stealth a lot to speed up certain quests. She is Scribe/Enchanter and will get her Swift Flight Form out of the Family Fund managed by my Priestess as soon as she can fly in Northrend.

After those two, I will level Thalya (Mage) and after that I’ll see about Lakshmi (Shaman), the unknown Death Knight or Ifirnia my lowbie Huntress. I think I have solved my problem with Druid specs: one caster Druid and one melee Druid …

Talent Dilemma: Cat – Bear = Moonkin?

Published
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Yashima
on November 11, 2008
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Ever since that first patch that made the Feral tree useful for the first time (1.8 or so?) I was specced Feral more often than Resto. I specced Feral because my favorite mode of play is just soloing quests, farming stuff and testing out the newest version of my interface while chatting the time away. I do group but it is not my preferred style of play because of time constraints and “sudden-afk” problems – I hate to have to ditch people in the middle of something, so I only group when I am absolutely sure that the chance of an interrupt coming along is low.

So for most of BC I was a happy cat and sometime bear-tank or tree-healer. With the latest developments in druid specs I may yet spend my playtime as a Laser Chicken or Boomkek in Wrath. Here’s my analysis why and please bear with me to the end:

I am not the world’s greatest melee DPS. I specced DPS because it is the smart thing to do if you solo a lot. I don’t really enjoy DPSing in instances. Of two possible DPS specs Feral was the better choice  because it had the added bonus of being able to tank and since there was a tank shortage for the longest time …  Balance seemed like a waste. So Melee DPS and Tanking it was. But:

I think tanking is the most stressful of all the roles, because in degrees of failure, tank failure is the most epic and causes the fastest wipes – at least that’s what I felt like in instances. Also the tank is most often expected to lead the group it seemed to me and I am pretty casual in my knowledge of instances and bosses … so I often felt overwhelmed tanking. When I want to play to relax, I don’t tank an instance. And to tell the truth , mostly I do indeed play the game to relax.

I love healing instances. I really do like it. I like to hang back behind the group and be master over the life and death in the group. I like watching how fights unfold and throwing around my HoTs.  I find healing much more relaxed than any of the other roles and I also think it’s what I do best. Of course a healer also depends on having good tanks around and right now I have plenty of those.

So now … I am facing a dilemma what to do with my 2 druids. Yashima(70) is definitely the main and Yáshimá(67) an alt, I want to level both to 80. Right now they are both Boomkeks and I am really indecided what to do in Wrath.

Here’s a list of the Druid facts relevant to my decision:

  • Caster DPS aka Moonkin is finally a valid spec
  • Melee DPS does not automatically include a great tanking spec anymore. This is the change that inspired this article: too many different Cat and Bear Talents. I fear I am not able to make a Feral spec that is both a good tank and good DPS.
  • Swipe is an AoE tanking ability now
  • Moonkin can use CC (Roots + Hibernate), Cat has a much harder time to do that
  • With 4 valid tank classes there will be no “tank shortage” and one less reason to spec feral

There are also a few “unknowns”:

  • So far no dual specs and it will probably take a while
  • Melee DPS used to have a much harder time in fights: I remember the sigh that went through the group when we stood before Prince and there were a lot of Melees. I don’t really think this will change. Being close to the mobs is more dangerous than staying at a distance.
  • How are Glyphs going to change respeccing? Are we going to change our glyphs when we respec?
  • Tanking may however be less stressfull in Wrath or so several comments from the Blues on the forums seem to indicate (sorry don’t have a link to that right now)
  • Those same comments seem to suggest that mana management for Healers may become more stressfull
  • Concerning Gear: it seems to me like both Cat and Bear itemization and Tree and Moonkin itemization are getting more similar with a few differences but few enough to make collecting gear much easier. However this pairs “specs” in a certain way and I may want to specialize with both Druids.  (This is worth a whole new article)

So this is what it looks like right now: to be a good tank now, I will need to spec explicitly for tanking. Before this being a good tank didn’t include respecs for me it was just an added bonus of speccing DPS. I am afraid this will no longer be the case.

I wonder how many druids will face the same dilemma. Before 3.0.2 there were a lot of Druid tanks out there because Feral was – and is – a great tree to spec into and being a tank was part of being the best DPS spec for druids.

Now there are two great DPS specs and neither includes being a tank. What will you do come Wrath? What about the casuals, what about the raiders? How will you spec: pure Caster DPS? Pure Healer? Melee DPS? Tank? A mix of Melee + Tank for leveling?

I am undecided …

Druid Class Achievements

Published
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Yashima
on November 10, 2008
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I enjoyed reading Rohan’s idea on Class Achievements quite a bit and when I saw Lassira’s take on Hunter Class Achievements I knew it was time to write down ideas for Druids. (While writing I noticed Rest4Life has already done the Druid Themed Achievements in August … I’m too late – should have known,  I’ll read her post when I finished mine now that I’ve started).

Class Quests

There are a couple class quests and those should be included of course:

Typical Class Activities

  • Reputation: Guardian of Cenarius: reach Exalted status with Cenarion Circle and Cenarion Expedition (there is an Achievement for that already and it even grants a title, this Achievement should be a pre-requisite for any Druid Meta Achievement!)
  • Instances: Successfully execute Stealth Runs for selected instances.
  • Heal, Tank, DPS in groups – there are no comparable achievements, I just think a Druid player should check out all the roles available to the class at least once
    • Tank: can be measured with the amount of aggro built or damage taken or time spent in Bear Form
    • DPS: measured by damage done … or time spent as Cat or Moonkin
    • Heal: measured by the amount of healing done or time spent as Tree
  • Lore: Visit and talk to all important Druid NPCs in the game (there’s a list here)
  • Exploration: Explore Moonglade and other places important to Druids
  • Social: Dance with a Tauren Druid – historically there have always been good relations between the two types of druids
  • PvP: shift out of Sheep :D + kill a few Mages, Hibernate another Druid, successfully carry the Warsong Flag

Right now I cannot think of anymore. I would love if Blizzard implemented class specific Achievements. I know however how much whining it took on the part of us Druids to even get the Swift Flight Form including the epic quest. Right now there are still classes that don’t even have such an epic quest line in the game.