Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. Itemization in Cataclysm is changing, and this week we'll be talking about how you can prepare yourself for the oncoming storm.

I've talked quite a bit about various changes that are happening with balance druids in the coming expansion: the Eclipse changes, the talent tree changes, Moonkin Form and a slew of other topics as well. One vital change that I have somewhat neglected, however, is that to spellpower and intellect. Blizzard announced many moons ago that, come Cataclysm, the spellpower stat would be completely removed from the game; instead, raw intellect from gear would passively provide spellpower for all classes. The only exception to this rule would be caster weapons, which would still retain pure spellpower as a stat in order to balance the difference between a melee player's gaining strength/agility and weapon DPS versus a caster's simply gaining intellect. Unfortunately, this is a change that's come and gone untouched.

As a core concept, removing spellpower to allow intellect to provide the same bonus is a strong change. To start with, it significantly reduces the time required to revamp lower-level quest rewards (despite the fact that most previous low-level quests are gone anyway, and thus, rewards would have had to be redone to a certain degree regardless), given that all of them already have intellect on them yet more often than not lack spellpower. This also allows for more commonality between all of the "base" stats: agility, strength, stamina and intellect (spirit is technically a secondary stat, not a primary stat). In removing spellpower and attack power as well, Blizzard allows for better balancing between spellpower and attack power values. Just as with spellpower, intellect is the new top dog in the caster stat options, especially for balance druids due to Heart of the Wild, Furor and leather armor mastery.

Leather armor mastery is another new concept that Blizzard has introduced for the druid and rogue as a method by which to "force" players of these classes to use only leather gear (with the same principle for the highest-level armor type of every other class). For balance druids, this effect increases our intellect by 5 percent whenever we are wearing nothing but leather gear. Combined with Heart of the Wild and Furor, that's a total increase of 18 percent additional intellect just from talents and gearing choices.

Overall, intellect is certainly going to be the single strongest stat a balance druid can get come Cataclysm, but what about now? As things stand in Wrath, a lot of balance druids are finding themselves wearing a variety of cloth pieces as a part of their BiS list. Here, instead, I'll provide a list of some leather options out of ICC and RS that, while you may not use them now, you can keep part of your gear set for when the next expansion finally hits.

Why leather?

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, I'd like to take a brief moment to talk about why wearing all leather is important. The slightly higher than 5 percent intellect that a player gains for wearing all leather gear is certainly enticing, but will it really end up being enough to cover the cost (as it were) of wearing leather over cloth, given that in the past, Blizzard has always itemized spellcaster cloth far better than leather? The short answer is yes, the bonus is certainly worth it -- but possibly not for the reason that you think.

Although intellect is a very strong stat, this bonus probably in the realm of a 240 increase in spellpower, and that's assuming that a balance druid will reach a value of 4,000 intellect once fully raid buffed in Cataclysm gear. In Wrath gear, it's really only around a 150 increase. Now, here is where a pretty bad assumption kicks in. Assume for just a moment that a balance druid does not have access to any non-spirit leather gear and that he is able to reach the hit cap using only four pieces of tier gear, which are going to be leather. The last part isn't exactly a requirement, as there are occasions where a BiS armor neutral item has hit on it, but making this assumption makes matters easier. Now, going off those assumptions and the assumption that leather and cloth items have the same intellect value, the druid would then have the choice between 240 or 150 intellect or the secondary stat of up to three cloth items. If the collective stats on these three cloth items holds a greater DPS-per-point weight than the intellect gained from wearing all leather, then it wouldn't be worth it to wear leather.

Frankly, that's within the realm of possibility. Blizzard, however, has built in a fail-safe known as reforging to guard against this ever happening. With the ability to convert 40 percent of any unneeded spirit on leather gear into a different secondary stat, there's a very low chance that a cloth item would ever have the stat requirement to outweigh the bonus from wearing all leather gear. Remember, this is merely speculation on my part, but it's at least mathematically sound speculation.

Weapons have additional spellpower?

This part is a little bit more tricky to define. Blizzard has stated in the past that caster weapons will have both intellect and spellpower on them in order to compensate casters for the DPS disparity between the power increase that melee classes gain from increasing their raw weapon DPS. So far as I've seen, this is only partially true. This might be the case for higher-end instancing gear or raiding gear in Cataclysm, but it certainly is not the case for every caster weapon in the game. A vast majority of the ICC weapons up to this point, for example, have not been converted to have additional spellpower on them; instead, they merely have intellect and their previous secondary stats. Whether this is a mistake that will be corrected or not, I cannot say, but it will certainly make ICC caster weapons rather weak in comparison to their melee counterparts once the expansion hits. I have also noticed several quest rewards that do not follow the system of having both intellect and additional spellpower.

Although there are exceptions (and it is always possible that these items are merely incomplete), the general trend seems to be that caster weapons treat spellpower as an additional secondary stat. This means that a weapon will have, say, additional spellpower and crit on it, or it will have haste and mastery on it. This isn't always the case for every weapon, but it has shown up several times. At the very least, pay close attention to the weapon you select once you begin you Cataclysm experience.

The gear list

Before considering any portion of this gear list, it should really go without saying that tier 10 is going to be the item of choice for pretty much every single slot out there. Five-piece tier 10 is pretty much one of (if not the) best building block to any high-end gearing list, and obviously the more pieces that you can upgrade, the better. Although the four-piece bonus might not seem all that spectacular for leveling, it still holds out to be pretty strong, not to mention that the stats themselves are spectacular on all of the pieces. You will end up with loads of excess hit when going with this option, but that is going to occur in any gear set that is fully leather, given that a vast majority of ICC leather has spirit on it. With that in mind, I am going to skip the helm, shoulder, chest, gloves and leggings item slots; even if tier 10 isn't the best choice in these slots (although you'd be hard pressed to find better in nearly every instance), there simply isn't anything that's easier to get, so there's simply no reason to not pick them up.

Wrists

• Phaseshifter's Bracers These drop from Halion in 25-man and are simply your best choice as far as leather wrists go. They are the only option that you can pick up that do not have spirit on them, which is perfect for shedding some of the excessive hit that you are going to end up with.
• Bracers of Eternal Dreaming are the only pair of bracers that you can get out of 25-man ICC. They are more geared towards restoration druids than balance druids, meaning they have spirit on them. Still, they aren't a bad choice to pick up.
• Wrists of Septic Shock come from Festergut on ICC-10 and are an exact replica of the Bracers of Eternal Dreaming, just a bit weaker. If you happen to only run 10-man content, then these will be your best bet.

Waist

• Belt of Petrified Ivy comes from the Emblem of Frost vendors and are the best leather belt option that you are going to be able to find, as they are the only pair without spirit.
• Professor's Bloodied Smock, as you might expect, drops from Professor Putricide in 25-man ICC. It isn't a terrible belt, but it does have spirit on it, which becomes a lot less valuable for the leveling experience.
• Cord of Dark Suffering is the 10-man ICC option for leather belts. It isn't a bad choice, but the Belt of Petrified Ivy is far better.

Feet

• Boots of Unnatural Growth drop off of Gunship in ICC-25, so it's easy to PUG to for the most part. They do have spirit on them, but there isn't an ilevel 264 pair that doesn't, unless you can down heroic Deathwhisper in 10-man.
• Blessed Cenarion Boots are the crafted 264 option. They aren't all that bad, but you'll either have to spend money or Emblems of Frost in order to get the Primordial Saronite. Honestly, if you plan on spending any time in ICC, then I wouldn't plan on making these, as the Boots of Unnatural Growth drop rather frequently
• Boots of the Frozen Seed offer the only non-spirit option that you'll find, but they drop from 10-man Lady Deathwhisper. You can choose whether the ilevel disparity is all right; personally, I would say go for them unless you can get the heroic version of Boots of Unnatural Growth.

Outfitting yourself in a full leather kit isn't all too difficult provided that you do go along with getting every piece of tier gear available. As I said before, the tier pieces are pretty much going to be the best and easiest options that you can pick up for those slots. The more important aspect of the tier gear is that only the gloves and the leggings have hit on them, and none of the pieces have spirit. Hit is a lot less important for leveling than it is for raiding -- which isn't to say it's not useful, but the hit cap for the mobs you'll be fighting is much lower; thus, you'll need less of it than you do in a raid.

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Every week, Shifting Perspectives treks across Azeroth in pursuit of truth, beauty and insight concerning the druid class. Sometimes it finds the latter, or something good enough for government work. Whether you're a bear, cat, moonkin, tree or stuck in caster form, we've got the skinny on druid changes in patch 3.3, a look at the disappearance of the bear tank and thoughts on why you should be playing the class (or why not).

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