Posts with tag druids

Don't tell moonkin blogger Tyler Caraway, but I sort of like druids. Whether or not they're the best at tanking or the best at DPS never really matters to me, though. I just like being able to change shapes and forms. Beating things up as a bear is cool. Being a ferocious cat is cool. Being a ferocious cat that's on fire -- even cooler.

There's only one thing I can think of that would make me even more excited to play a druid: more shapeshifting forms. So how about it? Do you like playing in shapeshifted form, even if you have to rely on trinkets to do it? Is there a new shapeshifted druid form that you'd like to see? Maybe the ability to play as a naga or a ferocious timbermaw?

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The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Garrosh Hellscream is probably one of the most contentious additions to the Cataclysm expansion. Oh sure, he existed all the way back in The Burning Crusade, but he wasn't Warchief at that point in time. Nobody thought for a moment that the depressed Orc in Garadar would one day be leading their characters into battle against the Lich King. And nobody dreamed that Garrosh would one day be sitting on the Horde's throne.

It wasn't so much the surprise of the situation that people took issue with, however. Instead, it had much to do with Garrosh's attitude throughout Wrath of the Lich King. Headstrong, ruthless and downright bloodthirsty, Garrosh's decisions in Wrath didn't ring right or true with the playerbase. Even more jostling to players was the notion that despite the player dislike of the character, the NPCs of the world loved the guy. It may very well be the first time that a large chunk of a faction's players have blatantly disagreed with a fictional NPC faction -- and the NPC faction won out.

The Shattering makes it clear that Garrosh's position is only temporary, but in Cataclysm, he's certainly attacking the job with gusto.

Today's Know Your Lore contains pretty much every possible spoiler that exists for the novel The Shattering by Christie Golden. If you're avoiding spoilers, run away! Run away!

Feral druids, rejoice! Majordomo Staghelm turns into a pretty cool-looking flame cat during his encounter in patch 4.2's raid, The Firelands. Druids have been clamoring for Blizzard to in some way or another give feral cat druids that awesome flaming cat form. Well, your hopes and prayers were answered -- Fandral's Flamescythe, a drop from Majordomo Staghelm, will shift you into flame cat form when in cat form as long as it is equipped.

This is wonderful news for druids, as more customization is always welcome. Blizzard's design philosophy of You went to the Firelands and came out looking like the Firelands is in full swing. Feral druids went to the Firelands, looked Fandral Staghelm in the eyes, and left with a tangible reward -- a sweet new form. This also paves the way for other items to also change players' forms, much like Deathbringer's Will from Icecrown Citadel in Wrath.

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The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!

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Welcome to Monday! To help stave off the Monday blues, today we've got a collection of adorable druid kittens created by Serthida of Bloodhoof (US-H). Astute readers may recognize the name -- Serthida was also responsible for some spectacular flickpainting as well as a couple of moonkins, one conventionally colored and one in a bright shade of pink for Raid for the Cure. Needless to say, all this crafting is old hat to Serthida. Tauren, troll, night elf and worgen -- there's a cuddly kitten for every race here!

Check through the gallery below for a close-up look at each of the druid kittens in the litter, and continue on for a short chat with Serthida about the little beasts!

It's no secret that we love Laura Shigihara, the composer for Pop Cap's amazing Plants vs. Zombies and now the voice of Cataclysm's singing sunflower pet. Shigihara has stepped into the WoW machinima world with her own original song and video, Blood Elf Druids, an adorable song making a plea to Blizzard for the inclusion of blood elf druids. Shout-outs to Tooga the turtle are pretty obscure, which makes it even more fun.

It's adorable, catchy and a great first shot at machinima. There's even a behind-the-scenes video posted here. If this is the quality of song we're getting for the first video, I cannot wait to see what's coming next. An orc ballad, perhaps? I can only hope.

Boubouille at MMO-Champion has datamined the long-awaited new Tree of Life model from an upcoming beta build (click the image above for a high-res version), and commentary's already starting to fly on the forums. Some players are really enthusiastic, others are not (Cirocco of Rexxar's notable soundbite: "Hunchback of Notre Lame"), and others think it's a little too masculine-looking in comparison to the older treant model.

If the posture looks a little familiar, it's because the Tree apparently shares the male orc's skeleton and animations (at least for the moment), although I'm having difficulty locating the YouTube video that a player claims to have seen of this. The new model isn't yet live on the beta, so unfortunately I can't yet get a video for myself. EDIT: Thanks to our readers, it's been located -- go here.

I really like the new model, but I'm surprised that Blizzard thought it was a priority for an update given the Tree of Life's new status as a Metamorphosis-like cooldown. Bears and cats finally got their update in patch 3.2, so I'm hoping that Moonkin, Travel and Aquatic Form are next on the list. At any rate, it's a spot of good news (well, to me, anyway) in a patch where cat DPS has nose-dived, bears are going crazy trying to hold aggro in 5-mans, and trees are ... well, no longer trees. Past the cut you'll find a quick note on the WoW Insider team's take.

The problem is sometimes things appear to get missed. Let's take the druid forms as an example. The old druid cat and bear forms were around long past their prime before finally being updated. The aquatic and regular flight forms for both night elves and tauren have the long, elvish ears instead of each race getting something more unique like the art above. The land travel form itself is nothing more than the cheetah monster model without any tweaks for either current druid race.

Another example is our old enemies, the murlocs. In Wrath we got cousins to the murlocs know as the gorlocs which have a newer and shinier model than their non-arctic brethren. We've even seen a few glimpses of deep-sea murlocs coming in the expansion which are also up to the modern modeling standards which put the old murlocs to shame.

Hopefully, all of the old art will be brought up to what we're come to expect for new content. It would be a shame for something to get left behind. Which things do you hope they'll update the art for?

Fear not, my fellow druids; your feral analysis post is going live later tonight, and resto sometime tomorrow. Daniel Whitcomb and I have been talking about the incoming changes to the spec, and particularly the decision to change the tree of life from a constant form into a cooldown. I honestly didn't know how to feel about it at first. But before we get to that, Ghostcrawler stayed up hellaciously late last night to answer questions from druid players about the Cataclysm changes currently planned, and we've collected all of them here for you.

Balance druid performance has been noticeably lagging in raids. While moonkin have long had a problem being too easily +haste-capped with Wrath, there's another issue on the not-too-distant horizon in the form of the "lunar +crit cap." Essentially, when a lunar eclipse procs and the player turns to the Starfire portion of the rotation, the combination of raid buffs, gear, and procs make Starfire crits all but inevitable. While this may sound like a welcome DPS increase, it does have the unhappy result of the spec seeing increasingly less benefit from the +haste and +crit that exists in abundance on Icecrown raid gear.

Blizzard has known about this for a while, but the issue with Nature's Grace and the soft +haste cap isn't easily fixable without impacting both Restoration and Starfire (where the NG proc is still useful), and the +crit cap is the effect of unintended stat inflation in Wrath. Enter Zarhym on Wednesday to announce news of a possible change to the Earth and Moon talent in a future mini-patch, granting 2/4/6% spell damage to the moonkin, up from 1/2/3%. While this isn't set in stone (and Balance players are already aware that an overhaul to the Nature's Grace issue probably won't happen until the Cataclysm content patch at the earliest), it's been greeted as a decent short-term fix. It's also a means of improving the scaling of what remains the moonkin's best stat (+spellpower).

Zarhym did warn that the change may not go through in this form, and we're also waiting for news on when this mini-patch will hit. Stay tuned for future announcements.

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Modeselektor's Tetrispack. Allison Robert offered a challenge to our most beloved columnist last week. Ms. Roberts has chosen a clever and palatable piece with Richard Shindell's On-A-Sea-Of-Fleur-De-Lis. And now we come to my retaliation. My wife recommended our musical selection today -- it just happened to be on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum. How fitting. We love this song, albeit mostly for the intro. Upon your first listen, if you correctly predict the timing and type of shift in the first thirty seconds, serious e-props to you.

To wit, Robert: pan flute > no pan flute. Your move.

Last Week: part two of our beginner's arena guide. We featured the cute ukulele kid who pretty much controls the internet right now. After that, we discussed frequently asked questions from new arena players. We talked about how to spec and what team composition to choose, with two different types of answers (easy and long).

Today, we'll be talking some very basic class strategy. If you know your class inside and out, you'll know what I'm going to say when it comes to your class and arena. You can still learn about other classes here. I've written over 2500 words about individual class perspective inside arenas, that's a lot. Full article after the break.

WoW.com's prestige in the community has afforded us the opportunity to speak to major Azerothian leadership figures on any subject, and we're letting you, the reader, Ask A Faction Leader!

We recently spoke to Nexus-Prince Haramad, leader of the ethereal Consortium, and he shed light on several key issues, including goblin rearrangement, investment opportunities, bad business practices, proprietary bandage technology, and static cling. In this installment of Ask a Faction Leader, we'll be sitting with Archdruid Fandral Staghelm of the Cenarion Circle.

Our first reader question:

Dear Fandral Staghelm,

Over the years, I have many times assisted your morrowgrain research. I have found many weird plants in my quest for that elusive herb. I have been awarded many (useless but, I am sure, heartfelt) scrolls and pieces of food by your research team. My question is: Where is all this effort ending up? What end does all this morrowgrain research lead to?

Sincerely,
Bowjób-Lightbringer EU

Staghelm responds:

Look, pal, when I send you on an errand, you say "how high." You don't ask "what exactly do you need all of this eldritch herb for." I need it, you need to get it for me. You know the saying? Yours is not to question why, etc?

Oh, wonderful. See her, over there? My handler is signaling me. I guess that means "answer the poorly-named hunter's (yes, I know you're a hunter) question, you magnificent king among kaldorei." I guess it's just as well, I got a dozen emails about what I was doing with morrowgrain.

Fine. The big reveal. What am I doing with morrowgrain?

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco be your host today.

Happy fifth anniversary, everyone! In honor of such a prestigious age for our young upstart MMO, this edition of the Queue ... has ... well, basically nothing to do with the anniversary at all. I mean, it's not as if you guys asked any anniversary-related questions. So, we're just setting today's Queue to "normal view" and takin' care of business.

Shall we?

Pemberton asked...

How come we can't fly from Darkshore to the Exodar?

So, wait a minute. If Strength on leather gear is going away in Cataclysm, how are feral druid tanks going to be itemized? Ghostcrawler's got it handled.

We talked about druids in bear form also getting AP from strength. Strength won't appear on leather and no piece should have Str and Agi together, so it's not like they would really double dip. That lets us still have tanking necks, rings and cloaks with strength on them that are attractive to all 4 tanking classes.

Ghostcrawler, you machine, you. First you tell us that all of these stats are just plain goin' away in Cataclysm, and now you give us specifics? Such an industrious crab. But how is this change going to be carried out? Turns out he's got something to say about that, too.

If you've ever wanted a close-up look at the game's healing zeitgeist, Miss Medicina has it -- she recently started up a survey/meme of healers around the WoW blogosphere, and the answers are now in and posted on her site. They make for some interesting weekend reading, especially if you're interested in healing and what healers think of it. I'm sure there's lots of conclusions that could be drawn out of this (I'll let you all come up with some in the comments as well), but just reading through them on my own, it seems like there's a few threads between them. The majority of healing seems to be done in 10-mans, which probably isn't too surprising, given that's where most of the endgame players are right now as well. There's no clear winner on class or spec (all four healing classes are represented pretty evenly, though I didn't really crunch the numbers), though there are quite a few priests, and of those, things seem to be split between holy and disc.

In terms of a favorite spell, there's almost no crossover at all -- people are all over the place, from Beacon to Penance to Circle of Healing. To hear these guys tell it, healers have all kinds of fun spells to play with. In terms of a weakness to healing, two main answers appear: mana regeneration (always an issue with mana-heavy classes like healers) and mobility. Shamans and druids have problems with big burst healing, and paladins say they need more group healing strength, but almost everyone mentions either mana or movement. There's a lot more to look through, too, in terms of how healers evaluate their performance and addon recommendations from everyone. As a look inside the healer "scene," there is a ton of information in there about what healers are up to out on the realms.

Ahh, lovely Radiohead. The entirety of Scotch Mist (which is In Rainbows played live) will be our listening music, as I expect today's article to be somewhat...lengthy. Starting out with "Weird Fishes" is a nice touch -- you gotta love Radiohead's set order diversity. By the way, I'm going to continue supporting the Blood Sport column with listening music, due to overwhelming positive response. If you have any suggestions for songs, please let me know in the comments below!

Instead of talking about minor changes, I'm going to try to only hit the major ones here, as this is a giant patch. If you think I skipped something important, please let me know via the comments below and I'll reply.

Today, we'll be covering pet resilience, the Will of the Forsaken nerf, death knight, and druid changes, and what they hold for arena combatants. Expect the other classes and item/glyph changes soon! You can find all about Patch 3.3 here.

Check out what the last major patch of WotLK has for gladiators and challengers alike after the break!