Posts with tag cataclysm-druid

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we equivocate on the best means of filling a bottomless pit.

Beta build 12759 dropped early Saturday morning, and with it the introduction of mastery and quite a few changes to the feral and restoration specs. I think Blizzard may even have fixed some of the issues with feral damage, but the newest bug on the block is making that a little difficult to tell. The default scrolling combat text is now broken -- you can't see how much damage or healing you're doing to hostile mobs or friendly players, respectively -- so at best, you're confined to guesses based on how much health the mob's losing when you hit it. For me, this requires squinting at a very small portion of a laptop screen with my nose two inches from the monitor, and I'll be damned if I'll wind up financing the purchase of another Maserati for my ophthalmologist.

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we push off from the island of Swipe spam and float toward the ominous continent inhabited by Lacerate spam.

Hail, druids. I've had another week in the beta, and my main's now level 82. While I would love to tell you that all of the bugs we talked about last week have been tracked down and eliminated; that's not the case, so I'm not sure that a big analytical article on abilities that Blizzard's by no means finished with is a great use of our time. But I did tank a very successful Blackrock Caverns run, and Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) recently wrote something interesting about the future of AoE tanking, so today's post is going to take a quick peek at how bears are developing.

Also, there's a great quest in Mount Hyjal where you throw bears off a tree, which naturally I recorded. It recorded upside down for some reason, so I'll have to figure out how to flip it before it gets posted.

Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week, we are looking at how to start up a conversation with random internet strangers. Also, I am in need of some screenshots of pro balance druids doing whatever it is that balance druids actually do. Please send them to tyler@wow.com; put something akin to "Balance screenshot" or "Moonkin screenshot" in the subject line, and don't forget to list the name you would like to have credited for the shot.

Yesterday was a very good day. Why was yesterday a very good day? A very simple reason, really: Yesterday was my birthday. That's right, get excited. I'm so excited that I got all of you guys a gift. It's the best gift that my egotistical, driven self could think of: my wall! What is my wall and why should you care? Well, you probably shouldn't care, but I like my wall. It's where I collect all of my thoughts. I use the white board and the cork for storing the random things that pop into my head so I don't forget them. It's highly useful. If you don't have something like it, I'd seriously suggest getting one.

Rambling about myself aside, I do want to talk about something that is very important in this week's column; I want to discuss a more "proper" method for giving feedback on Cataclysm. Really, this is probably something that could be said to all classes out there, considering that, you know, everything is going to be changing and Blizzard will want feedback on it. However, I don't like the other classes. Magi and warlocks just creep me out with their little personal war thing that they've got going on, plus I'm pissed at how all the hunters wanted to touch us in bad places. This information is also useful to all the feral and restoration druids out there who accidentally read Shifting Perspectives every Friday thinking that just maybe this week I'm going to be talking about them. I won't be (like, ever), but you can keep dreaming, 'cause I love you guys. Sure, I may call you ferlawl and restolol, but it's all about the love, guys.

Attention everyone, before we begin today's lessons, allow me to indulge in a moment of temporary insanity as I squee like a little schoolgirl.

SQQQQQQUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Ahem, with that out of the way, maybe we can get right down to business. As I'm sure it goes without saying, Blizzard has been systematically releasing previews of class changes to expect in Cataclysm. Other classes may have had their time in the sun to relish in whatever meager glories that might have been thrown out to them like ducks at a pond, but we balance druids are not mere ducks. No, my friends, balance druids are the swans of WoW. We are graceful, elegant and deadly. All right, maybe a swan is bad avian choice; perhaps a hawk would be better. No matter how you look at it, moonkin are amazing. With the recently announced changes, we're only going to become even more so.

Past all the glitter and glitz given out to our lesser-specced brethren, the true meat of the druid changes can be found. Though there are several great discussions going on about the topic around the interwebs, allow me a moment of your time in order to given an in-depth analysis of the changes. Keeping true to our nature, each change will be rated on the Eclipse scale, using a range of "The sun is still in my eyes and it burns" to "Total eclipse!"