The Druid Team

The Druid Team's Birth

noreply@blogger.com (Aquien) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:26:00 +0000

Hello all, it's Aquien again. I'm going to keep this rather short. I'm really excited about what the summer holds. With time to spare I might actually be able to sit back and write what I want to write... or get hit over the head by Kag until I finally write something.

I, being but a simple druid who has almost no understanding of how things work (like Tigor and Kag), have decided to reflect back on some of the funny mishaps that had occurred during our time together. I remember, all those months ago, when I sat down in the chair at the computer, completely and utterly bored to tears. I really wanted to play WoW, but I didn't want to play alone. Luckily, after some brief persuading, I finally talked them into making characters so we could play together. The next issue at hand was the classes/races we would be playing. Because I had no experience with any of the classes other than druid, I voted for that. Kag and Tigor agreed to make druids as well, and that's how it really started.

Next came character creation. Because we were all going to be Tauren, we simply just selected a random server, Cenarius, and opened up a blank character sheet. After several rounds of the Random Name button, we came up with three names; Aquen, Kaggra, and Tigorasou. After some brief modifications to the names, we were all set... now we just had to select our pelt colors and all the other necessities of a Tauren. I went with the black pelt, with no piercings/facial hair, red eyes, and black horns--with one of them snapped off. Why? Because I got to accuse Kagrra of pushing me into a well when we were calves.

I never really thought we'd play these characters to levelcap at all. I honestly thought we'd give up, because of school getting in the way. But, in the end, we made it... although I do miss playing with them. I wish we'd have a chance to play more... maybe even start new lives as new characters... that's just me though. I'm not a raider, or a PvPer, I just don't enjoy it.

Look at me ramble on and on and on... this post is getting too wordy for me. Have a wonderful stay in the land of Azeroth.

Catching Up: Pre-Naxx Restoration Gear

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:08:00 +0000

The other day I received an email from Feralhoof of Eonar asking about heroic 5-man gear. This got me thinking about how it may be hard to catch up from hitting level 80 to getting into Ulduar. There's also difficulty in selected gear for your off-spec when you've be playing and thinking about your main spec all this time. Therefore, I present to you Kagrra's picks for Heroic 5-man pre-Naxx gear!

Note: The selected gear is, of course, not considered the "best" gear in all cases. These pieces were selected for their ability to get you into 10 or 25 Naxx to finish gearing up for Ulduar. These pieces were chosen based on how easy they are to obtain and the likelihood of getting a group for said instance.

Head

Helm of Anomalus
21% from Anomalus of Heroic Nexus

Wrists

Cuffs of Winged Levitation
14% from Cache of Eregos of Heroic Oculus

Handler's Arm Strap
21% from King Dred of Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep

Hands

Gloves of Glistening Runes
19% from Keristrasza of Heroic Nexus

Waist

Sash of Phantasmal Images
18% from Mage-Lord Urom of Heroic Oculus

Elegant Temple Gardens' Girdle
40 Emblems of Heroism

If you insist, there's these as well:

Girdle of Bane
19% from King Ymiron of Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle

Sash of Blood Removal
19% from Gal'darah of Heroic Gundrak

Legs

Breeches of the Caller
19% from Ingvar the Plunderer of Heroic Utgarde Keep

Feet

Boots of Transformation
20% from Gal'darah of Heroic Gundrak

Footwraps of Teleportation
29% from Xevozz of Heroic Violet Hold

Rings

This is a list of my favourites so select the two that best suit you.

Inscribed Loop of the Kirin Tor
1250 Gold and Loop of the Kirin Tor

Loop of the Kirin Tor
8500 Gold

Spectral Seal of the Prophet
20% from The Prophet Tharon'ja of Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep

Band of Guile
10% from Dark Runed Chest of Heroic Culling of Stratholme

Annhylde's Ring
18% from Ingvar the Plunderer of Heroic Utgarde Keep

Band of Enchanted Growth
20% from Mage-Lord Urom of Heroic Oculus

Trinkets

This is another list of favourites. Pick what suits you.

The Egg of Mortal Essence
40 Emblems of Heroism

Forge Ember
18% from Sjonnir The Ironshaper of Heroic Halls of Stone

Talisman of Troll Divinity
21% from The Prophet Tharon'ja of Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep

Weapons

I'm only going to list two-handed weapons since you only need to work on a single drop and you can worry about optimal gear later on.

Staff of Draconic Combat
13% from Cache of Eregos of Heroic Oculus

Staff of Wayward Principles
21% from Skadi the Ruthless of Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle

As I said before in the note that I'm sure many of you will conveniently forget to read, this list is merely my personal favourites for easily obtainable gear. This list is only for those who want to quickly catch up and start raiding as a Restoration Druid.

By no means are these pieces optimal but they're pretty damn good and available to any player (unless, somehow, there aren't enough people on your server to run a heroic). Keep in mind that there are also the options of profession BoE pieces and world drops but I think using my gear list would be more fun (even if slightly slower). I hope some of you are able to use this list to further your progress into Naxx and Ulduar. Good luck!

Balance Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Tigorasou) — Sat, 23 May 2009 09:21:00 +0000

Recently I wrote about a thread started on the WoW forums that had some really good ideas about how to change Balance. The thread was visited by Ghostcrawler and he shared in the brain storming. Many great ideas were proposed: critical DoTs, changing the way Eclipse works, re-itemization of gear and maybe some new spells to spice up the Moonkin rotation. I think that adding new spells to the Moonkin arsenal would be an awesome way to add more flavor. I have been pondering what kind of spells would be cool to see added and have worked out some rough ideas for you all to enjoy.

NOTE: these are NOT from Blizzard. These are spells that I came up with and have no relation or bearing on the game what-so-ever. The purpose of this post is to get a creative spark going and I encourage other Moonkin to come up with their own ideas as well. Maybe one will catch Blizzard's eye and become something we see in-game one day.

First up is a pretty simple Direct Damage spell; it's called Starburst.

Starburst	Rank 1
12% of base mana	30 yd range
Instant cast	6 sec cooldown
Blasts the target with arcane energy causing 2194 to 2726 damage.

One of the things that plagues Moonkin in Ulduar is movement. I wanted something that would give a nice kick but wouldn't be tied to Eclipse. So no risk of wasting an Eclipse proc with this, you can use it as you like. It deals a nice amount of damage and has a 6 second cooldown. It's not quite spamable but should provide a nice DPS increase for just a GCD and some mana.

Assuming the spell power coefficient is the standard for instant-cast direct damage spells and a Druid with 2500 spell power we have this:

Damage_low = 2194 + ( 0.4286 * 2500 ) = 3265.5
Damage_high = 2726 + ( 0.4286 * 2500 ) = 3797.5

DPS_avg = [ ( 3266 + 3798 ) / 2 ] / 6 = 587.8

We can see that the damage output of this spell is fairly good. A non-critting DPS of 587.8 when using Starburst every time it's off cooldown is a great (and much needed) addition to improve Balance DPS.

This next one is a doozy. It came to me as I was walking home from the college the other day. It was like a wave of awesome hit me in the face! I rushed home and quickly wrote the idea down so I wouldn't forget. The original idea was WAY OP, so it went through about 3 or 4 changes before Kagrra and I settled on this more balanced version.

Super Nova	Rank 1
21% of base mana	30 yd range
Instant cast	1 min cooldown
Causes the target to become unstable with arcane energy, taking 2911 damage over 20 seconds. When the Super Nova completes its duration, it explodes causing 2144 arcane damage. In addition, each source of direct arcane damage increases the explosive potential, stacking up to 5 times. Cannot be cast on players.

This is a sexy hybrid spell (damage+DoT). Let's look at its damage after spell power, again assuming 2500:

SpellPower_DoT = 1.3333² / ( 1.3333 + 0.4286 )
= 1.7778 / 1.7619
= 100.9% (10.09% per tick)

SpellPower_DD = 0.4286² / ( 1.3333 + 0.4286 )
= 0.1837 / 1.7619
= 10.43%

Damage_DoT = 2911 + ( 1.009 * 2500 ) = 5433.5 (543.4 per tick)

Damage_DD = 3043 + ( 0.1043 * 2500 ) = 3303.8

This would imply that the DoT portion of this spell is the primary damage provider. However, the Nova can stack up to 5 times with the introduction of direct Arcane damage (Moonfire DD, Starfire, Arcane Barrage, Arcane Shot, etc). Let's look at the Nova's explosion possibilities:

Damage_{1 stack} = 3303.8
Damage_{2 stack} = 6607.6
Damage_{3 stack} = 9911.4
Damage_{4 stack} = 13215.2
Damage_{5 stack} = 16519

DPS_{5 stack} = 16519 / 20 = 825.95

Wow... not bad, right? What about if the explosion is a crit? Let's assume it's the standard 150% damage.

Crit_{5 stack} = 16519 * 1.5 = 24778.5

DPS_{5 stack} = 24778.5 / 20 = 1238.9

That sort of DPS increase could very well bring Balance Druids up to the DPS levels of Hunters and Mages.

I really wanted a spell that would have a major impact on the health of a boss. This is a DoT that does a pretty decent amount of damage over its somewhat long duration. The real gem here is the stacking damage multiplier on the finishing blow. Any Arcane spell would count toward the stack so Mages and Hunters could help you get that stack up there fast; then watch the fireworks.

These are merely dreams, though. I would love to see these along with Criting DoTs, and maybe a change to Eclipse and better Itemization on T8 (pretty please).

Well these are my ideas, what can you come up with? If you are a blogger, write a post and share your ideas. If you are just a reader, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me if you are the shy type. Let's see what the Chicken Roost can cook up!

Changing Things Up A Bit

noreply@blogger.com (Tigorasou) — Fri, 15 May 2009 05:30:00 +0000

In case you may not have noticed, TDT has a new theme! For a little bit we are honoring our fine feathered friends, The Moonkin. Kagrra went through and made us a whole new theme with a more Lunar feel to it.

If you are reading this from your RSS reader I recommend you take the time to check out our page to see the changes first hand. I think it looks awesome.

Feel free to leave a comment on what you think of the new design!

Druids And Ghostcrawler

noreply@blogger.com (Tigorasou) — Sun, 10 May 2009 19:50:00 +0000

Murmurs from over on the Garona server started an awesome thread about moonkin yesterday.

Link here: A Moonkin's Plea

The post was essentially about what's wrong with the Balance spec as a whole. Everything was covered from itemization to talents and more. There is a gold mine of information here, especially on the first page. The first page has a lot of moonkin posting WWS data and a few more posts after that we get a visit from Ghostcrawler.

GC actually gave us some ideas about how he would fix things to address some of the concerns brought up in the thread.

I'm in total hand-waving, brainstorm mode here. This is not a design we have cooking that we're all ready to implement, but imagine Eclipse worked something like this: Every Starfire you cast has a 20% cumulative chance of making your next Wrath do 30% more damage. So after SF1, the chance is 20%, but after SF5 the chance is 100%. That encourages you to swap spells somewhat randomly, but less random than the system we have now. The goal is to have something where you sometimes switch after SF 3 and sometimes after SF 5. Good druids would always switch at the right time and those who are still trying to maximize their potential could get better about switching at the right time. You could also have a system where every SF has a chance of making Wrath slightly better, with a stack on that effect, so that at some point it's the right time to switch. Don't feel the need to point out how you could game this system -- I spent all of 2 minutes coming up with it. If and when we decide to change it, we'd put far more work into the design.

I think the sharing of an off-the-top-of-the-head idea was really cool; props to GC for that. The thread is a really good read, moonkin and even non-moonkin/raid leaders should read it to better understand the plight that we face in the new content.

Automatic VS Manual Healing

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:46:00 +0000

This post idea comes from the lovely Sylly of Rolling Hots.

Do you have a "thinking" healing style and an "autopilot" healing style? What changes?

The short answer to the first question would be: yes. In the past moreso than currently but the answer is yes regardless.

Prior to the Lifebloom change of patch 3.1 I would just mindlessly roll Lifebloom as my "autopilot" healing style. When it came time to think about what I was doing, however, I was throwing around Lifeblooms, Rejuvenations, Regrowths, Nourishes, Swiftmends and Wild Growths based on what the situation called for.

Since Lifebloom can't be efficiently rolled in the same manner as it had in the past I'm no longer able to reliably use it for my autopilot mode. More often I find myself using Wild Growth for my "I don't care to look at who to heal right now" autopilot and Lifeblooms/Rejuvenations with the occasional Nourish for my "they're not taking much damage anyway" autopilot.

During times (such as bosses) where I do have to think about who I'm healing and in what manner I find myself selecting a unique set of heals depending on the encounter. During encounters with a good amount of splash damage I keep Wild Growth going while spothealing with Rejuv and talk healing with Regrowth, Lifebloom, and Nourish. Fights including more heavy damage on tanks with little raid damage I'll use Regrowth, Lifebloom, Rejuvenation and Nourish all on just the tank(s) but often won't heal others much at all. It's all very situational.

I've noticed that when I'm not really thinking about how I heal, I stick to only one or two spells. During fights involving neurons I try to use all of my heals (except HT since mine blows). What does this say about me as a healer? Probably that I appreciate all of my heals for what they provide to my spell arsenal but also don't want to throw them around like they're not important to ~~my mana pool~~ me.

But now I have to wonder if this isn't the way other Trees handle their "thinking" and "autopilot" modes. Are yours truly different or relatively the same? If you've never given it much though, perhaps try to evaluate why you heal the way you heal. Does it make it more fun? Do you only heal your way to provide the highest HPS or HPM? Leave a comment and let me know!

Query Response: Moonkin Rotations

noreply@blogger.com (Tigorasou) — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:20:00 +0000

We've been getting a lot of hits from Google lately from people looking for the best Balance rotation. First, let's break down the different options we have and then compare them to each other.

All of the rotations are going to start off the same: you cast your DoTs to open. Moonfire, Insect Swarm and Faerie Fire. You can change these around into any order to suit your personal preferences. Once your DoTs are up, you must constantly refresh them to make sure they are on the target as often as possible.

Lunar Rotation

This is the one I currently use. Open combat with your DoTs and then begin casting Wrath. Eclipse has a 60% chance to proc when Wrath casting so not every crit will trigger the buff. When Eclipse does proc, cast Starfire until the buff ends. At that point, return to casting Wrath.

Solar Rotation

Open with your DoTs and cast Starfire until Eclipse procs. With this rotation you have a 100% chance to proc Eclipse when you crit with Starfire. When Eclipse procs you begin casting Wrath until the buff ends and you return to casting Starfire.

Wrath/Starfire Spam

This one is pretty straightforward. Put up your DoTs and just spam the heck out of either Wrath or Starfire.

So now you are probably wondering which one is best. Well, I packed up my Balance gear and took a trip to good ol' Thunderbluff to do some testing. For each test I had the same gear and buffs. Combat lasted from having a full mana bar until I went OOM. Each test included an Innervate. I did 5 rounds with both the Lunar and Solar rotations.

I followed the rotations hitting the Heroic dummy like it was a real boss. When all the dust settled, I compared the results and I found something I didn't expect... the Lunar and Solar rotations were pretty much the same. The spam rotations were considerably less effective than the Eclipse rotations are should not be considered for actual gameplay.

Now we are both left wondering, if they are the same, which one should you use? We can see from the tests that the average DPS is very similar. Lets look at some other aspects and see if we can find a perk. Is one more mana efficient than the other?

As we can see on this graph, the amount of time before OOM was nearly identical, about 2 seconds difference on average.

Well now lets break down the rotations themselves and see what they look like.

When we look at Wrath and Starfire casts notice that in a lunar eclipse your Wrath casts will be much higher than your Starfire casts. This is the missing 40% proc chance in action. Due to Wrath's fast cast time you would usually end up running OOM faster than if you were casting Starfire, but with the mana return from crits, it appears that it levels out.

The Final Decision

So after all these tests we know that the difference between Solar and Lunar Eclipses is nil, but there was one big difference I found while testing that I couldn't show in a graph. That was the difficulty keeping Moonfire and Insect Swarm up on the target. When you use the Glyph of Starfire, it increases the duration of your Moonfire by 3 seconds per cast. When using the Solar rotation your main source of damage is going to be Starfire, therefor you will cast Moonfire less often. The downside to this is that instead of both DoTs ending at approximately the same time (depending on whether you proc Lunar eclipse or not) you will be refreshing them at different, odd times, which makes the Solar rotation a bit more complicated, in my opinion.

TL;DR

Tests show that the Lunar rotation and Solar rotation are about equal in DPS. My recommendation is that you use the Lunar rotation; the simplified DoT applications make it much easier to manage than Solar.

EDIT: This post (and its research) is not meant to be taken as gospel. Had it been written with only raiders in mind, it would be titled Raiding Moonkin Rotations. These are findings to help new moonkin and are written in a general context.

Leveling A Restoration Druid

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:06:00 +0000

I've had many people come up to me and ask "how did you level as Resto?" and my global answer has always been "I dunno." The common verdict is that I have lost my sanity for having leveled from 10 to 80 as a Restoration Druid. I can't say it was fast or easy but it was certainly a unique and fun experience. Here's what I learned from it.

Don't play alone.

Really. A Resto Druid can't properly solo. Your options are to either pretend to be Balance (and go OOM after doing almost no damage) or pretend to be Feral (and hope the baddie dies just before you do). The Tree of Life form, which you can obtain at level 50, only has the potential to melee or heal. It's rather comical to watch your tree punch and slap their way to victory but this can make battles drag on forever. Thus, using Tree form while soloing isn't the best option.

You are better off finding a friend, relative, coworker, whatever to play with. It becomes difficult to level quickly when you have to almost depend upon another person to be there for you but it is well worth it. My favourite leveling partners include Feral Druids, Warlocks and Warriors. Rogues are also fun to play with since you can Prowl to keep up when they're doing their sneaky thing.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can benefit a great deal from running instances. There are a good number of instance quests to complete so you don't have to worry about it being just a grind for XP. Plus, everybody needs a healer. You will never have trouble finding a group as a leveling Resto Druid. And did I mention the awesome loot?

Joining a leveling guild can help out some people. On my server and faction there aren't many guilds out there with lower level characters doing instances and leveling as a team but surely there are some out there. Joining a guild with leveling in mind can also lead to making friends who may be helpful in raising your Druid.

There is a major benefit to leveling as Resto: you are made of healing. If healing is what you've been doing since day one then it's what you've built yourself to be... a healer. I would take a Resto Druid who leveled Resto over a player who leveled Feral and just decided to dual-spec Resto any day. You have time to get to know your talent tree and grow comfortable with this style of playing.

However, this leads to Druids who can't properly DPS or tank when they pick up their second spec via dual-specs. One of my recent trails was learning how to play Balance when I had done Resto my entire career. It takes getting used to but I expect that's the case during any change. However, I'd rather a healer have to adjust to a DPS spec than a healer have to adjust to their healing spec since they leveled DPS.

I'm a firm believer in doing what you intend to do. I know this makes leveling healers difficult and slow but it's worth it in the end. This doesn't mean all players who level Resto will be better than those who level Balance or Feral. It certainly doesn't mean you have to level the slow, hard way in order to be the best. But I do think it's an enriching experience and I would never trade it for speedy leveling.

Just remember to party up. Being the healer means you play a supportive role so make sure you have people to support!

Boring Bears: Druids Need New Forms

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:08:00 +0000

In a game that is constantly evolving and has changed considerably since release, the only things that don't seem to change are Druid shapeshift forms. Once a Druid reaches level 20 he will look the same in form for the rest of his career as a Druid, aside from being able to learn Moonkin at 40 or Tree of Life at 50.

First there's the issue that your character's growth is not reflected by the appearance of your form. Thus, a level 80 bear looks the same as a level 60 bear and a level 40 bear. But what about gear?

A common topic amongst Tree Druids is the fact that Night Elf Trees and Tauren Trees are indistinguishable. Many have proposed that they be separated by changing the Night Elf Tree of Life skin to the purple one while leaving the Tauren Tree of Life as the current skin. This is great and all but perhaps not very fair to Horde Druids since they don't get anything new out of the deal.

Ah and then we have cat forms. The Night Elf Cat Form isn't half bad. For the longest time it had a unique model with a beautiful skin. Only with the release of The Burning Crusade did there emerge the lynx cats which used the same model as Elf Cats with orange skins.

However, there's the case of the Tauren Cat Form. If you have ever seen a Tauren Druid in Cat form, you already know what I'm talking about. Why, oh why, did Blizzard decide to grace Tauren Druids with this mouth-breathing abomination? It's not even very original since it's a mutated version of real lions which can be found in the Barrens. Seriously... this form needs to be changed ASAP.

Another fairness issue between the factions arises when we look at Moonkin Form. The models are roughly the same height so surely they're the same size, right?

Nobody can convince me that just because those models are the same height they're anywhere near being the same size. The complaint I hear from Moonkin most often during instances is that they can't see around their character. An extreme case is when Tauren Moonkin visit the Scarlet Monastery. You're lucky if they don't get caught in the hallways.

Blizzard has made multiple promises that there are new forms and skins coming for us but damn... how long will we have to wait? I just hope Blizz knows what they're doing. The longer they put it off, the more upset the Druid population will become.

Comprehensive Druid Changes For 3.1 Part 2: Balance

noreply@blogger.com (Tigorasou) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Time to go over the balance tree changed that were included in patch 3.1! Out of all three specs balance is my personal favorite. Though, it didn't get as much love as I would have liked. Let's see what's in store for us.

Celestial Focus redesigned: Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Starfire, Hibernate and Hurricane by 23/46/70% and increases your total spell haste by 1/2/3%.

Celestial Focus was changed to reflect Blizzard's newfound disdain for random stun procs on spells. Blackout for Priests and Impact for Mages were also changed to remove the stun component. To me, this change adds a bit of use to this talent. I personally don't find pushback to be that big of an issue but while doing dailies it could help. The random stun on this was COMPLETELY useless in anything other than PvP, where it was negligible at best. This change adds a bit more benefit and we retain the 3% haste, which is the whole reason why we take it at all.

Eclipse: The benefit to Wrath triggered by casting Starfire has been increased to 30% bonus damage.

This is a fun one! I have yet to see any theory crafting to refute the Wrath 'til Eclipse then Starfire rotation's prominence, but I think we will be seeing these numbers soon. I intend to play with it on my next raid. It would be really nice to see a significant DPS increase in a real world setting... but I am also very optimistic.

Insect Swarm: The bonus damage from spellpower on this damage-over-time ability has been increased significantly to match similar spells on other classes.

This is a definite PLUS! Better scaling spells are always a good thing. I have always felt that Insect Swarm was a bit lackluster. I never really picked it up until I hit endgame. I welcome this change with much enthusiasm!

Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild can now be cast while in Moonkin form.

All I can say is: about time!

Moonkin Form: Mana cost reduced.

Yay?

Nature's Grace redesigned: All spell critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to grace you with a Blessing of Nature, increasing your spell casting speed by 20% for 3 seconds.

Ok, this one is kinda mixed. While 20% reduction is a slight nerf, the fact that it now lasts 3 seconds will turn this into a buff. The size is debatable but from what I have seen when Wrath spamming you can normally get two casts off. My Wrath with Haste is a 1.33 sec cast, with the old Nature's Grace it was 0.9. With the new Nature's Grace its 1.1, thats a 0.2 difference. Without hard numbers I won't say much but from what I have seen, I think I like it.

Owlkin Frenzy is now properly considered an Enrage effect. Now also does not trigger from spell hits, only physical ranged and melee attacks.

I could have sworn that they changed this on the PTR, then reverted it back to include spells again. I must have missed the re-rechange... Seeing as I consider this to be mainly a PvP talent, I must say that this change drastically reduces it's usefulness.

Typhoon: Now causes a 3-second daze.

Hmm... I think Blizzard has the right idea here. Typhoon needs a buff but this wasn't quite what I had in mind. While I haven't had the chance to play with this yet, the previous implementation was 'lacking' to say the least. I love the idea of the spell but I think it should be more like the Shaman Thunderstorm. They could either keep the daze to compensate for the fact it's not 360 degrees like the Shaman or change it to a self-centered AoE. Either way I think the knockback needs to be increased. Just my 2 coppers.

Well that's all for balance! Next up will be Restoration, and finally Feral. I'm going out of order due to the fact that my current specs are Balance/Restoration. See you all next time!

Azeroth Arbor Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:11:00 +0000

Running with the tradition started by Phaelia of Resto4Life, Tree Bark Jacket's Keeva will be hosting this year's Azeroth Arbor Day.

For further information please visit her post here!

In short, you submit your Tree of Life screenshots and pictures to Keeva at her email here:

I've picked out my pictures and am about to send them off so GO GO GO send yours in ASAP! You have until Wednesday, April 22nd to send them in! Hurry!

Comprehensive 3.1 Druid Changes Part 1: General Changes

noreply@blogger.com (Tigorasou) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:42:00 +0000

Yesterday, after a massively long maintenance, we have ushered in the new patch 3.1! So many new things have come with this patch: Ulduar, Class changes, Dual Specs and some new glyphs. There is a lot to cover so we are going to jump right in with general Druid spell changes.

Druid Changes (General)

Abolish Poison: Now ticks every 3 seconds, up from every 2. Now lasts 12 seconds, up from 8.

Abolish Poison has the same number of ticks but has a longer duration, I'm sure this will have some use, although I have never desired Abolish Poison to have a longer duration in PVE, this is probably a PVP centric change.

Faerie Fire and Faerie Fire (Feral): Now decreases armor of your target by 5%. Has a 5-minute duration, and a 40-second PvP duration.

This is an awesome change. I remember reading that the math showed a static % decrease of armor was far superior to the 1800~ or whatever it was previously. The 5 min duration is just awesome! That means as a Boomkin, Improved FF is now more attractive because I will debuff the boss probably once on most fights and not have to worry about it anymore. In contrast, pre-patch I constantly had to refresh it. This will provide me with the ability to refresh my Moonfire or Insect Swarm rather than FF which will help down the boss more quickly.

Feral Faerie Fire: The damage generated by this ability in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form has been increased substantially.

This is a nice change. In the lower levels the damage and subsequent threat generated by this is more than sufficient. Although, in an endgame Raid setting it is entirely inadequate. One good blast from one of your DPS and it is very likely that the mob will be torn away from you-- if you haven't had time to build any other threat yet, of course.

Innervate: This spell no longer costs mana.

All I can say about this is FINALLY! I always thought it was rather stupid that a spell meant to help you recover from being OOM wouldn't help you if you were OOM! Especially as a healer; if you don't have enough mana to cast this, someone or everyone is going to die. This change just removes another needless concern from the table.

Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications.

Oooooh! Now this is probably the most controversial change in this patch. I remember when the change was first announced on the PTR there was a variable firestorm in the blogosphere and on the forums about this "nerf". Our own Kagrra posted about this when it was first announced. This was one of the first things I checked out when I managed to lag out of Dalaran and get to the Argent Tournament. Since I haven't chosen what my two specs are going to be I am still untalented. This spell costs about ~950 mana per application and with 3 stacks it blooms for about 5500 and then you get half the mana you spent back.

I don't really know how I feel about this change since I'm not the resto expert here at TDT... but this past week I have spent my entire time raiding as resto so I have an idea of what it's like in Naxx encounters. To be completely honest with you, I can only think of a few situations where this would be very useful. For example, timing blooms on Loatheb and Gluth. I don't know what Ulduar has in store for us yet, but I am eagerly going to be watching where this will be applied in an effective manner.

Maim: This ability is now considered a stun, and shares a diminish category with all other stuns. It no longer has a chance to break from the target taking damage. Duration lowered to 1 second per combo point.

Hooray! A seemingly useless ability finally has become useful. Back in the day when I was feral and PVP'd, Maim was always, in my opinion, a complete waste of combo points. It was essentially a much more expensive gouge that more often than not would be broken by either your auto attack or someone else. This change finally makes it into a Kidney Shot like it should be. The only other thing I can say about this is: what took so long, Blizz?

Pounce: No longer affected by diminishing returns with other stuns, however, it now shares a diminishing return with Cheap Shot (Rogue).

This just sounds like a fix; nothing special as far as I know.

Savage Defense: Trainable at level 40 with Dire Bear Form as a prerequisite. When the druid deals a melee critical strike, it gains a physical damage shield equal to 25% of its attack power. The next hit completely consumes the shield, regardless of how much damage was done. Only active in Bear Form.

While I personally haven't heard much about this (which leads me to believe it isn't stellar) it sounds interesting. Almost like a block mechanic... but not really. ~~I'm going to take a wait until our friends at Elitist Jerks come up with some hard numbers.~~ Actually I've lost all respect for them now.

Starfall: Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds

All I can say about this is: FINALLY! Starfall's usefulness was severely limited by the cooldown. 3 minutes was just insane, and for a moderate amount of damage. Now, if it would have done OMG damage then maybe the cooldown would have been alright. This change with the glyph makes it a 1min CD (like the old Hurricane) which is much more reasonable. Now we can use it more than once per boss!

Swipe: The Bear Form and Dire Bear Form version of this ability no longer has a targeting requirement and hits targets behind the druid and to the sides.

This is another change that does away with an annoyance. Swipe was hard to manage and quite inferior to Thunder Clap that warriors get. This change will certainly make tanking multiple mobs and groups easier!

Lots of cool changes in this patch for druids in general. The spec changes to the individual trees won't be as pretty though.

Rant: As a side note I would like to state that I am very disappointed in the eye color change to druids. I WANT MY RED EYES BACK! Personally I think the gold color looks hideous on my beautiful white fur. I demand that Blizzard give me my red eyes back to complete my Albino look again, lore be damned!

Player Housing: Part VII: Ironforge

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:06:00 +0000

After a long break I've finally written this part of the Player Housing series. In part VII we will take a look at the housing options for the Dwarfs and Gnomes of Ironforge. I've wasted enough time already so let's just jump right in.

Here we have the Grand city of Ironforge! There were a ton of places for players to live in this city because of all the homes along the walls. Blizzard could easily place a portal in the doorway of one of the buildings to lead players to their special residence. I think the locations in red, green, purple and blue would work great!

I also had a small idea in terms of where the Gnomes live. The Orcs and Trolls of Orgrimmar shared a housing location in my earlier post but I think there is a possible location for Gnomes to live away from the Dwarfs. It wouldn't take much to "install" a lift in Tinker Town behind High Tinker Mekkatorque, shown in yellow, that took players up to the Gnomish housing district. I think the idea's cute even if it doesn't sound likely.

So anywho... moving on.

Dwarfs

I've noticed that many a Dwarf lives in a home located sort of underground. They're almost like hovels, I guess. This is also convenient since the locations I gave in the last section happen to be already indoors.

Tier One

Here we have the first home. It's pretty small like the rest. There's a staircase that brings you down into the one-room home. This room happens to come with a stone hearth and plenty of shelves for storing whatever your heart desires!

Tier Two

This home has two floors. Upon coming in the entrance you'll notice a staircase on the opposite side of the room leading down to the other level. The upper level is mostly just an entryway but is spacious enough to enjoy as a room on its own.

The lower floor has a stone hearth like the first tier home and a good amount of storage space as well. There's also a smaller room at the far end which you could use as a bedroom or lounge if you like.

Tier Three

Now THIS is a home. It's huge! I realize it's pretty much just a single room but because there is a giant hearth in the center it feels sectioned off into smaller rooms. Some of you may recognize the original building from Anvilmar. I was unable to find a "mud hovel" version of it without all the snow on the floor but you can probably imagine it without the snow.

I can very clearly picture a few dozen Dwarfs getting totally plastered and having a great time in this house. It's so big and open and inviting that it would be hard not to throw parties all the time. And hey, if you have the gold to dish out for this place you may as well pay for your friends' beer!

Gnomes

Gnomish houses happen to be very industrial in appearance and very much have a tinker's flair. I also happened to notice a few other themes which became important when it came to the third tier.

Tier One

Here we have one of my favourite homes of all. It has a hat! Well... it looks like a mage hat to me, anyways. Like all the other first tier homes it's quite small. It has what appears to be a boiler on one side of the room and a little nook on the other side. I suppose this home would be sitting on a small plot of diamond-embossed steel flooring.

Tier Two

This home looks like a mushroom! Or... something else... but we won't go there. It's made of two floors that are bridged by a lift. Figures you'd either have to be rich or Gnomish to have an elevator in your house.

The first floor is pretty small but the second floor is much larger. The second floor's flooring happens to be made of some kind of grate so you're able to see down below through the holes. This is great for keeping an eye on your various robotics -- can't have them becoming autonomous and running off.

Tier Three

Now might be a good time to make a confession. I couldn't find a third Gnomish House! I'm sorry! I searched for days through all the models but couldn't find a third one. Blizzard may have spent all their time putting Gnomish architecture into Gnomeregan and forgotten about stand-alone houses. Who knows.

So umm... I noticed a pattern with the first two homes. They have parts that are orange and they're totally cute. I don't care what anybody else says... living in a mage hat or a mushroom is cute. So I went with the whole orange and cute theme and needed a big house so I made a pumpkin!

The design is a bit awful but to be honest I didn't put a huge amount of effort into the image (lest we delay this post any longer). It's supposed to be a two-story home. The lower floor is a big, open workshop. In the center of the room is a lift similar to the one in the second tier house. Upon reaching the upper level you'll see what I would call scaffolding; various walkways with metal grate flooring like the mushroom house.

Hopefully my silly pumpkin hut is alright. I know it's probably not what you were expecting but I really did put a good amount of thought into it. Maybe someone out there will think it was cute. At any rate, I don't think Blizzard would use a house like that. :P

So I hope you enjoyed this part of the series! It took a really long time and I apologize a billion times. Part VIII will be about the role of crafting professions in the home. I want to say it's coming soon but there's a chance it may be another long wait. Let's hope I'm free enough to write it up more quickly this time! Until then.

Of School And Midterms

noreply@blogger.com (Tigorasou) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:21:00 +0000

Greetings everyone! Tig here with a POST! Can you believe it! Things have been quiet around here since our massive invasion via WowInsider, but that is because of school. Midterms and equivalent tests have mostly ended and we have been trying to get back into the swing of things. Believe it or not we put a lot of effort into the housing posts that (some of) you enjoy. We have, in effect, lost our mojo, so to speak.

We know we need to post, but since our recent exposure we really want to take everything that we have learned and apply it to future posts. We have some stuff in the pipe that you should be seeing soon. I am currently working on a post about Moonkin and raiding and Kagrra is working on Part VII of the housing series. In addition I will be writing a post about all the fun that we are having in game (when we do actually play).

So stay tuned to your favorite TDT channel and lots of exciting stuff will be coming your way.... I hope...

Award Or Meme? Who Cares?!

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:23:00 +0000

It appears that Anea of Holy Discipline has bestowed upon me some kind of award! Her post smells an awful lot like a meme but I'm honoured to accept this villainous award either way.

“This award is bestowed on a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

I'm flattered, really. Oh? What's this? There's a CATCH?! Figures. Here are the rules:

When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Jeez, demanding Draenei... Well here is my compliance with section three of the Award's conditions:

Some of my favourite desserts are tart such as lime popsicles and lemon pie.
I'm a cat person. I like working for my pet's affection.
I'm afraid of the dark and of clowns.
I can play 7 musical instruments.
I'm impatient and short-tempered.
My favourite season is Winter and favourite weather is rain.
In my free time I like to draw and paint.
I'm allergic to sunlight. (Yes, really)
I'm often mistaken for a woman in public settings such as restaurants.
I can't fall asleep without getting tucked in.

Glad that's over with. What next? Oh yes, list 7 other blogs.

Now go. Go on. Read those blogs. Now. Don't come back until you do! Or... come back even if you don't... please. :D

Kagrra Wins At Life

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:25:00 +0000

A quote from twitter by Faulsey of Master's Call:

First person to draw or photoshop a resto cheerleader druid wins at life. :3

Click for larger view.

Edit: Apparently my friggin' awesome cheertree wasn't good enough for SOME PEOPLE. This time with more pompom action!

Click for larger view.

Seven Questions with Aquien

noreply@blogger.com (Aquien) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:34:00 +0000

Hello again, everyone. I've finally come back, and have decided to do one of the memes that Kag had been tagged for. Why? Well, I wanted to start with something simple...and I really didn't like his responses to the meme. Here are my answers to the questions Anea asked.

1. What is your name and where do you come from?

My name is Aquien. I was born and raised in the grassy plains of Mulgore with my older brother, Kagrra, and started training as a druid at a very young age. As the youngest Druid of the Team, I tend to be a little less experienced, and tend to charge into things without thinking first.

2. How old are you and when is your birthday?

I will refrain from giving my age, but my birthday is on April 29th.

3. Are you in love and with whom?

I...uh...I say yes, but I won't give a name...it's personal.

4. What is your favorite mount and why?

I don't have many mounts at the moment, but the one I tend to use is my white Hawkstrider, which I aquired after a successful run of Magister's Terrace.

5. Do you prefer a certain type of Azerothian meal and where do you get it from?

I tend to enjoy fish, as I spend most of my time in the form of a bear or a cat.

6. You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be and why are they so huge?

The mushrooms in Zangarmarsh...honestly I haven't a clue. I'm more of an animal person than a plant person.

7. If you saw the Lich King walking toward you, what would you do?

I would probably try to stealth away, or if there is no escape from him, I'd probably defend myself in bear form.

There, I hope you enjoyed my answers, and yes, I will try to post more...my next one, the screenshot meme!

One Night Stand

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:59:00 +0000

So a Tauren walks into a bar and sees a pretty Night Elf there. After a few rounds they share a Gryphon home. Many moons later and this is brought into the world:

Click to enlarge

So yeah... it's possible... but not pretty. My current guild doesn't raid on Monday and I had nothing better to do. Let's hope I stay busy in the future.

Lifebloom: End Of The World? Not So Much

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:57:00 +0000

Tigorasou alerted me to the "nerf" to Lifebloom about 8 hours ago. I do my best to avoid touchy subjects like this but this time I feel I need to say something. First allow me to present the subject of recent debate:

Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications.

Source: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html
Or: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=8136495630

Everyone is screaming NERF! with this change. I disagree.

First off let's get this straight: If you stack up your Lifebloom to 3 and let it bloom you gain three times as much healing on the bloom for the same mana cost that you use on the current live game. Awesome! That's a pretty sweet buff!

What most are complaining about is that if you continue to roll the Lifebloom stack after it is already stacked to 3 you will be using twice as much mana for the same amount of healing that you current do on live. Nerf?

No, and here's why. Blizzard is changing the way Druid healing works. Previously Druids were just preemptive healers that threw HoTs around to lessen the blow of spike damage. That's not a very nice role. Kagrra the Spike Damage Eater! No... I want to be Kagrra the Healer.

Isn't it obvious what Blizzard is trying to do? They gave us new spells (Wild Growth, Nourish), glyphs like Glyph of Healing Touch and have been buffing Nourish by allowing it to benefit from more talents like Nature's Bounty. Blizzard is trying to show us that we don't have to be the proactive healer all the time. We can be reactive healers!

Some of you may call this blaspheming but I'm sick of rolling Lifebloom all the damn time. Who wants to be programmed to hit a certain key every 9 or whatever seconds? I didn't spec into Clock Form. Sure, healing by rolling Lifebloom and threading in other heals between refreshes was fun for a while... but I want variety in my life!

Blizzard has given you an amazing gift, fellow trees. You have the ability to be reactive healers. No more of that monotonous Lifebloom rolling like before. This "nerf" to Lifebloom is meant to wake you up and show you that maybe you should be letting it bloom now and then. Maybe you should be using your other fancy heals. They're really good, I promise!

Just take a moment to think it through. Bigger Lifebloom blooms means you can use the bloom as a serious heal and instead of being totally OCD about keeping your stack going you can enjoy healing again.

I welcome this change with open arms and a happy heart. And honestly, if you wanted to be a robot that hit Lifebloom every so often maybe you should have rolled a Night Elf Metronome or perhaps a Tauren Stopwatch.

P.S.: This rant was brought to you by The Druid Team. All hate mail can be directed to druid_kagrra [AT] rocketmail [D0T] com. This post was written with a generally peeved attitude and thus may include poor citations or rude comments. Kagrra the Healer was simply tired of hearing everybody whine about the brand new horizons of Druid healing when opportunity clearly awaits us all. Over and out.

Another Meme: Seven Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:08:00 +0000

Well crap I got roped into another meme. Anea over at Holy Discipline ninja-tagged me to do it at the bottom of her post so here it is. You're supposed to answer the questions as your character so we'll see how this goes.

What is your name and where did it come from?
It's Kagrra. I was randomly generating names and Kaggra came up... There's a band called Kagrra that I like so I swapped the G out for an R and there you go. (I fail at RP :P)

How old are you and what is your birthday?
I'm 31 and my birthday is on January 29th, I believe.

Are you in love and with whom?
Yes. I am madly in love with Tigorasou. His enormous feathered body gets my roots wiggling.

What is your favourite mount and why?
My trusty kodo, of course. His name is Tiggy. He is my favourite due to being my only mount but I am quite fond of kodos either way.

Do you prefer a certain type of Azerothian meal and where do you get it from?
I enjoy fish. Many a fishy fish dish. I cook them myself after fishing them up. <3

You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be and why are they so huge?
That's an easy one! They came from spores and got huge by growing. No really... I think they just weren't disturbed for a very long time and were allowed to be all raaaawr huge.

If you saw the Lich King walking toward you, what would you do?
I would HoT up and run away unless behind any given tank of massive healthpool/mitigation.

I don't really know who to tag next for this meme so I guess if you see this and want to do it, too... go for it. If not, I won't hold it against you. :P

Player Housing: Part VI: Gathering Professions

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:13:00 +0000

Hey there! This post took me a very long time to finally write. My excuse is that I recently joined a raiding guild and have been working hard to get caught up to everyone else in terms of gear and boss competency. I won't make you wait any longer! Here are my thoughts on the role of gathering professions in your home.

Skinning

I may have failed you guys on this one. I couldn't really come up with anything for skinning. All you do is go out and skin things. What would you do at home? I got to thinking maybe you could make things with the leather you earned! Except that's already a profession.

Alright, I lied. I did have one idea... but I'm mostly horrified at the thought. I figured that you want to be able to gather leather while at home since that's all skinning does. This led to the thought of having a small critter farm. The thought of lovingly raising animals to rip the skin from their bodies does not sit well with this Druid. Therefore, there is no image for it. You'll just have to use your imagination here. :P

Mining

I had a similar problem with this profession. It seems odd to try mining in your backyard. But then it hit me; miners can smelt!

Allow me to introduce the forge! You must have seen these all over the world(s) during your adventures so they should be familiar. You use a forge to smelt ore into metal bars. Sweet deal, huh? Having your own personal forge means being able to work with your ore without leaving your home to find some other forge.

Herbalism

I had the most fun with this. There may be some bias since I am an Herbalist but this one just makes so much sense.

A garden! I mentioned that I desperately want a garden in a previous post. I originally played around with the thought of planting your garden in the ground but it would be difficult for Blizzard to code that, I think. Instead, I propose the use of planter boxes. The way I have them in this image depicts each box as being able to support three herb spawns.

I even went as far as to figure out a possible mechanic for this feature. This does not currently exist in-game but it does follow a style that Blizzard has implemented across other professions. Firstly, gathering herbs in the wild would (very) rarely provide you with a seed. This seed could be planted into the box and watered to produce herbs.

Currently I feel that the seed would not be consumed when you pick the herb as that would make it quite a hassle to resupply your garden. The inspiration for the rest of the mechanic comes from Jewelcrafting or more specifically the frame where you socket gems into armour. Each planter has three available herb "slots" in my image so that is how I will describe it here. Blizzard may want to go with more or less depending on the impact on Warcraft's economy and profession difficulties.

Here is a frame I threw together. I don't believe Blizzard would make theirs similar to mine in any way but it will help get my idea across. This planter has an empty left section, Icethorn spawn in the center and Lichbloom spawn on the right. The Icethorn seed has been watered by dropping a water into the slot below the herb. The Lichbloom seed has not been watered and thus will not yield any herbs at the moment.

I would think that after placing the seed into the slot you could leave it there indefinitely. You would then water your plant and after a certain amount of time the herb would spawn for gathering. The amount of time required for your plant to grow could depend on level of the herb or quality of the water or just be a static time such as 10 hours. After your herb is picked you would need to put more water on it and wait for the next spawn.

This mechanic seems fairly simple to me and would likely not take very much coding. A few days of design and a week or so of public testing and it could be perfect. I'll just add that I put a good amount of thought into this so I hope I didn't leave too many gaps in my theory. If you see flaws or have other suggestions please report them in the comments below.

Thank you very much for reading. I know I haven't been too diligent with these posts lately but I am doing my best to stay on this project. The next part will be for the Dwarves and Gnomes of Ironforge. Stay tuned!

P.S.: I was talking with various folk on Twitter and mentioned that I take notes by writing them in MS Paint. This helps me because I can brainstorm with text as well as make little drawings. When I came up with the idea to use a forge in this post I drew a little picture of it which didn't turn out quite as I had planned. For your amusement:

Let's Germinate

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:10:00 +0000

Last night I was running (lagging) through Dalaran and I passed by Applebough. In case you hadn't noticed, he's the fruit vendor... and he's an ent. Some may find it odd to eat the fruit that an ent sold to you since it grew on his body but I usually stop by and buy a few. I like his flavour.

This got me thinking... if Applebough is an apple tree then what kind of tree am I? I wonder if any other Restoration Druids had thought about what species of tree they are. Do you flower and bear fruit? Are you an evergreen? I decided to ask myself these questions and I finally came up with my species.

I'm a plum tree! The reason is actually quite obvious. I'm bitter on the outside and sweet on the inside. Now I know it's hard to use that logic since my fruit is that way because of hydrogen cyanide and my personality is that way because I have trust issues... but we'll just say it's all related.

So what about you other trees? What species are you and why? Don't be afraid to bear your fruit; we're all trees here, right?

Damn Memes

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:24:00 +0000

Alright so Anea over at Holy Discipline tagged me to do this meme. Normally I hate memes but in this case I gave in and did it.

Basically, you post your sixth screenshot. I've been playing a long time and have played on two machines thus far. The first was a sad little laptop I had for school and now I play on a sad little laptop for goofing off. I didn't go get the sixth image from my first laptop (though that would be really nostalgic) but here's the sixth from my second one.

Click to enlarge

This image had to be converted to .JPG because it came from back when Blizz saved screenshots as .TGA. The image is dated June 21st, 2007 so it's fairly old. This was back before Burning Crusade came out. I apparently hadn't even hit 60 on this character which was my old main. He's a Marksmanship Hunter back when it was cool and I had the perfect Cat pet (who wasn't too happy with me at the moment).

Doing this really brings back some memories of old WoW. I remember going into Molten Core and being thrilled at how well we did on that last run where we had 6 wipes. I remember when Hunter was THE class to be. #1 in PvP, PvE and sitting in the Stormwind Inn (as I'm doing in the picture). Those days are long gone, I'm afraid.

You know, I feel happy when I think about how the game used to be and then I think about how it is now and I wonder if I really am happy with how Warcraft changed. It's not even remotely similar to how it used to be.

I had so much fun back in the day but can I say I have the same amount of fun now? It's hard to tell. Blizzard made so many changes that I don't agree with and yet they still managed to keep me coming back. I suppose they knew what they were doing since I do think I'm still having fun with the game. But... sometimes I just wish things were back to how they were before.

Well enough about that. Old WoW is gone now so no matter how much I wish to be back in Molten Core with 39 other people with the same mindset it will never happen. It's time to take down Arthas, right? Let's all do our best to defeat the Lich King and destroy his undead armies. Until next time!

Mood lightener: Every time I look at the Wrath loading screen with Arthas I hear him saying "'ey baby" and it looks like he's presenting the goods. Everyone look closely next time they see that loading screen and let me know if he winks at you.

Player Housing: Part V: Orgrimmar

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:20:00 +0000

I'm back with another player housing segment. This time we will take a look at the Horde city of Orgrimmar. In previous posts I examined two cities at once but this time it is just one. This is because Orgrimmar currently houses both the Orcs and the Trolls. Let's not waste any more time!

I don't know why I had so much trouble finding an appropriate place to house players in Orgrimmar. The location in yellow is my best attempt so far. There is a space on the right side of Grommash Hold. With a little effort Blizzard could make the canyon wall and the building "bottleneck" and place a portal there.

It makes sense to me that Thrall would want to house his people behind him. He may have a scary face but he's secretly a softy who loves his faction and would quickly place himself between them and their enemies. By that logic, I declare that my housing location is perfect... even if it might be better elsewhere.

Orcs

Orc architecture is often considered barbaric. I disagree. Orcs simply want to intimidate other races by making their homes SEEM barbaric. Bet you didn't know Orcs were so tactical, huh?

Tier One

This is a simple house. Like most of the first tier homes there isn't really much to it. There is a single room and a single door. The inside is more spacious than you might think. Its sturdy design provides you with the assurance that this home was built to last.

Tier Two

This is a nice home. It includes a long entryway and a loft in a ring around the main room. The size of this home allows for inviting over friends to hang out and trade PvP tactics. There is also some space outside for relaxing and having a barbecue.

Tier Three

This house is pretty big. There are technically three floors but in this diagram I depict it as two. After entering the home you can go left or right to get to the backyard or up the stairs in the center to reach the second floor. A staircase on the right takes you up to the third floor where you can find two more rooms. The main room feels very open due to the three exits and high ceiling.

Trolls

The Trolls certainly have interesting houses. Most of them don't consist of much more than floor planks and a straw roof. It's a good thing Orgrimmar has fairly stable weather.

Tier One

The first Troll home is a small hut. I expect that Trolls must like the open, wall-less feel of this one. But wait! This hut also duals as a stage! Invite your friends over and show them your /dance moves.

Tier Two

In contrast to the Orc homes I find this home to seem rather frail. No running while inside or it will collapse on you! The first floor includes two "rooms" and after slowly ascending the staircase you will find another "room". Yet again I am able to picture gatherings with your friends in a home like this. Throw down various feasts and let your guests mingle.

Tier Three

Walls! This house comes equipped with a very large main room with three balconies. Sweet. There is also a staircase up to a deck on the roof. When the party starts getting too hot you can go up there for some quiet time to cool off. Or maybe bring someone with you to keep it hot. (Oh my.)

There were a large number of alternatives for both the Orc and Troll homes but I think these ones fit the required size best. I particularly enjoyed looking through Troll architecture and noticing that they really love stairs. Helps to have a Troll's long legs with all those stairs around.

The next part of the series will be about the role of gathering professions in the home. Keep an eye out for it!

Player Housing: Part IV: Secondary Professions

noreply@blogger.com (Kagrra) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Sorry for the wait! Here is the fourth part of the player housing series. This time we're taking a look at the role secondary professions can play in your home. More specifically these are my ideas on how a home can contribute to your professions. Let's get started!

This gives away part of another mechanics post I have planned but I intend homes to be almost like a character. By this I mean that you can equip your home with items, or rather sets of items. Some of those item sets would be socketable as well which provides a deeper level of home customization. For now let's take a look at how secondary professions will use this mechanic.

Cooking

Naturally you want to be able to cook food in your own home. Even the smallest of apartments will usually have a kitchen area. I'm not sure what profession would be best suited to craft the kitchen set but perhaps an engineer could get the job done. After crafting the set and equipping it to your home let's take a look at what you have.

The first item you have here is your stove. Good for, well, cooking food. The components used in making the stove portion of the kitchen set would likely come from a blacksmith, I'd assume. I'm not sure what else to say about it other than it's quite convenient when campfires cost coin and expire after a while.

I would guess that the mats required for this portion of the set would be bought from a vendor. Simple wood, yes? Now is a good time to mention the mechanic I hope this set would provide. In Jewelcrafting you reach a point where occasionally your cut gems turn out better than normal. Cooking currently doesn't have this mechanic but if you're paying so much for a house you might as well get some extra bonuses, right?

I propose that cooking at this table has a chance to create food that's better than what you would have created. You do know your own kitchen best, after all. This would require Blizzard to add duplicate food items to the game with slightly altered stats but that is easily accomplished. It would just take a little time to actually type out the information. Items like Spice bread become Scrumptious spice bread.

I may not have looked very hard but I couldn't find a nice spice rack that I like. Therefore, we have a box. It's reasonable to keep different spices inside a box on your counter, right? Let's pretend everyone does that. My suggested mechanic for this is limited stock. Have the box be a "vendor" that sells up to 100 of any of the required spices in cooking (save for Northern spices). The spices would still cost the same as with any other vendor that sells them and is refilled over time as with all other limited supply vendors. This creates the realism that you used the spices and paid to have your box restocked later on.

First Aid

I didn't come up with much for first aid. To be honest, I'm not sure there's much of a role it can play in your home. At any rate, I came up with a few little things.

This kit would likely be in every home if Warcraft were reality. I couldn't think of anything special for it to do so I went with the extra proc mechanic that Alchemy specializations give. Let's say you're crafting Heavy Mageweave Bandages. You're crafting and crafting those 20 bandages you queued up and FINALLY you're done. You go to look in your inventory and see that you actually have 26! Awesome! Each "cast" would have the potential to create multiple bandages for the same mats as one. It's a nice mechanic for alchemy and I'm sure first aid wouldn't mind it.

This is something not currently in the game. This model which is normally used for alchemy labs can be used for creating antidotes. Now I know there are already a few anti-venoms in the game but is this really all first aid will ever offer? What about an Antiseptic created only with this lab? That might help put out the Death Knights' fire.

Fishing

Finally getting to fishing. My one good idea for fishing at home is almost too obvious. A pond. It's like a fish tank but for death instead of aesthetics. There is a bit of a problem with this idea, though. Not all of my planned homes have an outside section where you can put a pond. Allow me to show the alternative first.

This seems a little ghetto to me but oh well. We'll go with it for now. This is one of those items that you equip onto your home that has a socket. You know those useless fish you get sometimes? Socket your "pond" with one of those and suddenly you have fish to catch! It makes sense to have a catfish produce catfish and a mudsnapper to produce mudsnappers so let's assume you get what you put in. Now I don't think Blizzard wants you getting endless money from it but how much does a catfish sell for anyway? You'd make more money killing mobs in starter zones, I think. Go wild and throw a fishing party or something.

This is the sort of pond that I would like to be able to give to everyone. The lack of an outside area for some homes (Dwarves, Gnomes, Draenei, etc?) just doesn't make it fair, though. Either everyone would use the bucket or some get the pond while others get the bucket. Whichever happens, I think the pond should use the same socketing mechanic as the bucket and let you put a useless fish inside to make more fishes.

This part ended up being longer than I expected. Hopefully it was worth the wait. I apologize again for taking so long and will do my best to bring the next part more quickly.

Part V will be Orc and Troll homes. FOR THE HORDE!