Swipe

When I first got swipe I learned what it meant to tank. This was the ability that first made tanking possible for me. It may not have given me alot of single target threat, but it did give me a rage dump and at the same time gave me some aggro on my off targets. Along came lecerate and improved single target aggro to the point swipe got put on a back burner to single target. After gearing up a little and increasing attack power it became easier and easier to hold threat on a single target and I started using a rotation to keep mangle and lacerate debuffs up and swipe the rest, that way I deal more damage to the target. Now SuraBear has told us that at 2600 AP swipe will in general cause more threat then lacerate pretty much moving lacerate to the back shelf in all situations. Except one: you cant lacerate around crowd control. Yes you can position yourself not to hit it, but in general that's a risk you dont want to take.

But wait, I sence news from the test realm patch notes:


Swipe: This ability will no longer strike any secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.

on another note lacerate is also getting a buff based on your attack power. Maybe this will negate swipe becoming the single target move of choice, or at least make it take higher AP to do so. But now we will be able to use it without fear. Good news, good news. Continue reading 'Swipe'

Profession

What profession should a druid take?

There are many professions out there. Many reasons to take this one or that one. The biggest benifite of a profession are those that can improve your character directly. Most of these include BOP items or items only usable within your profession. Leatherworking, engineering, alchemy, enchanting and jewelcrafting are all professions I would suggest.

read on




Leatherworking:
obviously leatherworking gives you a lot of equipment to wear. As a druid you will have many sets of armor. being able to make it yourself can save you a lot of headache. Drums come in handy as a usable buff/fear while in combat, now usable in forms.

Engineering
I dont know a whole lot about engineering, but I do know it has some nice items that you cant use otherwise. There are a set of goggles that are quite popular and can compete with many of the other helms available. There are bombs and odd trinkets that you could use (but as far as I know not in any forms). you can make jumper cables to try to offset our only 1 res per 20m limit. you can make repair bots. There is a new extractor thing that lets you pull motes of water/shadow/air similar to another gathering profession on it's own.

All in all it has some nice tricks.

Alchemy
Most alchemy stuff can be traded to other characters. But there is worth mentioning a trinket you can equip which increases the amount of health/mana you get back from a potion as well as giving you a deacent stat bonus. Also worth mentioning are mad alchemist potions, these potions require alchemy to use, restore mana and health, and sometimes give you a random flask bonus.

Enchating
there are few enchants that you can only cast on your own items. right now these consist of ring enchants raising your stats/melee damage/spell damage or healing. The biggest reason I see taking enchanting though is for disenchanting. Yes lots of clothies generally take it and can shard for you in an instance or raid, but clothies cant go with you on stealth runs just to disenchant shards.

Jewelcrafting
Jewelcrafting has many trinkets and jewelery that is BOP. Esp useful while leveling as they are available long before normal trinkets are. Also in the end game there are gem cuts that are BOP.

Which ever profession you chose just have fun with it. There really is no best answer. just make sure whatever you are doing that you enjoy it.
Continue reading 'Profession'

Weightstones

Ive been working on maxing out my potential during raids. First I started out with Flasks and Elixirs. Then I added food. Then I came accross some other buffs that could be benificial. 1 is an item that you add to your chest piece sometimes reducing the damage you take from hits by 400 (cant remember the name, will get back to you) and the other is an item added to your weapon Adamanitite weightstone this item gives you 14 crit rating. While not the biggest deal its a buff equal to about the same as some sockets.

Well after running into these and trying them out I was thinking to myself, "this is nice but I wish that we got the damage bonus too.

Low and behold, what do I find in the 2.4 patch notes?

* Weightstones and Sharpening Stones: The bonus damage from these temporary enchantments now works while shapeshifted.

!!!
They read my mind. nice DPS increase for about 2g per hour. yep Feral druids just obtained a new flask. Continue reading 'Weightstones'

Grull is cleared.

Last week the mystic knights cleared Grull! we one shot high king on a messy pull and moved on to grull which took a few tries but we got him down. I was the OT for the fight. Our main tank (jules)was another feral druid who got the pants. Jules died with grull at 5ish% and I tanked him down the rest of the way. each hurtful strike after jules went down took out another DPS. Soon we should have him on farm (I think 3 kills = farm status). Wish us luck again tonight in proving last week was not a fluke. Continue reading 'Grull is cleared.'

Hybrid Theory

My wife told me last night that she was jealous of me becouse I was needed as a tank and when Im not needed to tank I can switch over to the dps role and still do an awesome job. She on the other hand is a healer. She likes to heal, but she wants the option of doing some DPS when there are more healers then needed.

I have my feral druid. (Best IMO) hybrid out there when it comes to DPS/Tank. What I want to know is what class can pick up the DPS/healer role or the Healer/tank role.



Well lets look class by class at the hybrids available.

Druid:
Dreamstate/Healing touch

What this build loses from a strait DPS is. 10% of spell bonus, 5% crit, 4% hit, and no stun chance on starfire.

What does it lose from a strait healer? Swiftmend, 20% bonus on Hots, 50% crit on regrowth, 15% stronger rejuv, and tree form.

This seems like a strong option to me. still have good DPS and have a strong healing touch. you lose the tree's effect to keep alot of sustained healing up over a long period of time.

Priest:
Holy/Smite

Not using shadow as a DPS priest is the loss here. I dont really know the damage a smite build can put out. Im sure that with the right group it can be deacent though.

Paly:
"shockadin"

This biuld looks like it could be fun, loses very little healing. mostly things that make casting your off spells cheaper. you gain some good dps using holy shock as your main DPS staple.

Shammy:

Resto

Seems to me that you need to go deep into a tree to get the most out of it. resto looked better. There is nothing I can see missing from the resto tree and what you gain in resto may be enough to make up what you miss in elemental even when in DPS mode. Resto adds to damage, adds to hit, and gives you abilities to get aound annoyances like silence.


Any other ideas out there?
Continue reading 'Hybrid Theory'

What do you like about your class.

The question has been thrown out and answered by many of the bloggers over the past week. And I agree with many of them. But I also have my own take on why I love being a druid. This isn't a strait forward answer as why do you like being a druid but why do you like being a healer/bear/cat/dps caster.

YOUR HIDDEN TEXT HERE

Bear
Lets start with my favorite role. I love to tank, as could probably be seen by my site name and such. Why do I love to tank?

1) people depend on me. The squishies would be nothing without a ball of fur or a shield between them and the meanies.

2) I dont have to hold back, I dont have to be careful like all the DPSers in the group. I can go balls to the wall all run long only stopping long enough for the healer to regen mana. and often times I just innervate them and keep going anyway.

3) swipe, The ability to tank more then one mob at a time. mmm good!

Cat
What attracted me to Druid in the first place was the slick stylin kitty form.

1) high Dps, When not needed to tank I can put on my dps set and deal damage on par with the other dpsers in the group. or I can keep my tanking gear on just in case and go at about 90%.

2) stealth, I love the idea of stealthing past content I simply dont want to do. especially cool in world quests where I can stealth to the guy, kill, and stealth away.

3) Things just die. I kill faster as a cat then any other character, maybe becouse Im better geared then any other of my chars but things just die around me.

Healing
yep we can do this too.

1) NO DOWNTIME while questing (in feral form that is).

2) our heals accent the heals already going on in the group when a little bit more is needed. I pop out of cat and help heal the raid during fights like grull after a bad shatter or whatnot.

3) rebirth! oh crap the rogue is down, we dont have an interupt for the healer. ok, np I'll pick them up.

Caster DPS
moonfire spam FTW!

1) barkskin/hurricane

2) roots & sleep, who just CCed that add? oh it was the druid. Druids have cc? yes, sometimes we do.

3) Moonkin, next week in kara I think Im going to respec as a moonkin and not tell them untill we get to attumen. gotta gear up some first I guess. thats one way to get to tank as a moonkin, just not let them know you arent a bear untill it's too late to stop you.


What else?
That not all we have going for us.

1) Flight form, travel form instant speed traveling buff. nothing not to love.

2) snare free, shifting removes snares/roots.

3) cure poisons and curses.

Continue reading 'What do you like about your class.'

Alt Blogs

I want my site to be a place where a person can go to look for information relevant to his class. I play many different classes and can be quite opinionated at all of them so Ive decided to start a new blog for each character as I want to write about them instead of cluttering this blog with information about other classes. That doesnt mean you cant read them as well, I will be keeping a list off to the side. Also plan on putting up a blogroll of blogs I actively read. If you want to be on the list, and/or you want me to read your blogs post a link in the reply section. Continue reading 'Alt Blogs'