AMG HALP ME BELL-WAN-KENOBI

Recently I was sent an e-mail a fellow blogger named Doodle, the author of HoTs & DoTs. The following e-mail conversation could be helpful to those who are a little overwhelmed, spec-wise, and with some comments on gear.

So I just got recruited into a Sunwell raiding guild... and since you're the only resto drood I kinda know, I am gonna bombard you with questions. LOL

Is 5/0/56 the preferred Resto build right now? Is Elitist Jerks still the best theory-crafting place to look at? What would be the first thing you'd change, looking at my armory:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kael%27thas&n=Doodlebug

Thanks in advance for your help! ^_^

Since 3.0.2 there are a lot of options open for resto druids. I have to run to class, but after I'm done I'll be sure to send you links to a bunch of talent trees I've made up; there's a lot of options.

Pre-3.0.2 boss health nerf, I would have said you were woefully undergeared for Sunwell. However, that's no longer the case. If you have the badges, pick up the chest and/or pants that the SSO blacksmith offers. If you don't mind PvP, I'd pick up a Guardian or Vindicator's belt; I've used mine since Kara and way into BT (I still have it). A lot of bosses are health-oriented; I would get stam or stam/movement increase on your boots unless you think you're going to replace them very soon (in which case, don't bother). You've honestly done very well gemming and enchanting yourself; the little bit of stam is negligible, but can help.

Have to get to Philosophy and then Research and Design Analysis II, but afterwards I will most certainly have some specs for you.

Good luck with Sunwell!

♥Bellwether

Yay! Specs would be awesome. I'm thinking basically a 5/0/56 --- Genesis looks nice.

Not sure yet what the overall plan is, but I'm excited to be in a progression-guild!

For badge stuff: do you mean these? —

• Shroud of Nature's Harmony
• Grovewalker's Leggings

I'm scared of doing 40 ABs, but that belt is sex-ay.

Thanks for your help! ^_^

Here's some specs...if you have a moment, can you link me what your 5/0/56 spec is, exactly?

10/0/51
This spec is good overall. Boosts up just about everything, and gets you Wild Growth. It ignores some of the nice Balance talents, however, and doesn't really go into the Healing Touch talents.

14/0/47
This spec is really neat, in my opinion. It's about getting the talent to increase the duration of your HoTs so you have more time to throw out other heals before refreshing them, and increasing the crit chance of those heals to add Seeds of Life. Also, those crits will increase your cast time of your spells, so you can add even more into the mix. When I go back to resto, this is probably what I'll be. Downside is: no Wild Growth.

28/0/33
This is a dreamstate build. Its focus is on mana regen, period, and it isn't that great right now unless you're having a real problem with keeping your mana pool up. When you can invest 10 more points in at level 80, it'll be a mana machine, but right now it's missing a lot of important things like ToL form, Emp Rejuv, and full points in Living Spirit. However, it's really versatile if you find yourself in situations where you're not always healing, or need to fill multiple roles.

Yes to the chest and legs. They're pretty awesome; on par with Hyjal and BT gear. The legs actually beat the leather equivalent that drops off of Shade of Akama. And yes, PvP belts are sweet, unless you can manage the one from the ZA timed chest, which is better.

ARRRGH! I lost a roll on the belt last week! QQ

Here's the spec I was thinking of:

5/0/56

What do you think?

Ha, I've never even seen the belt drop. The ferals in my old guild all had it, though. ><

It's a nice spec, but I've heard Gift of the Earthmother is kind of a filler, and Replenishment doesn't proc enough to be worth the points. May consider putting them somewhere else. However, it'll work, and I see nothing wrong with it :)

(All links and information were posted with Doodle’s full permission, and the title is the subject of his e-mail. All references to Jedi from long ago in a galaxy far, far away are his fault. I claim no Jedi powers whatsoever, even if I can move things without touching them, through Typhoon.)

(Quick Edit: Doodle, Wyrmhide or Kodohide for the Guardian's belt will work.)

You Didn't Even Say Goodbye...

I've had a lot of friends leave in WoW, whether they transferred servers, switched factions, rerolled, dropped out of contact, or quit all together. Some I still talk to, some I have a hard time getting a hold of, and some I've never heard from again. It's always a little depressing for me, as I play WoW for the people. I have alts on so many servers I just cannot visit them all the time. Or much at all, really.

Recently, I logged on and decided that I hadn't seen one of my friends online in a while, so I'd send them a mail for when they did log on. I bought a black rose, pulled open the mailbox, wrote "I miss you" as the subject, put in the rose, added a short message (mostly just a joke on how the rose was black like my emo soul without them) and hit send.

"Mail recipient not found."

...What? I pounded send again and again, checked to make sure I had written the name right, and then opened my friend's list in confusion. Name gone.

Just another reason I hate that message "Player removed from friend's list because the character no longer exists." It never says who it is, so you kind of have to mentally guess at times.

I pulled up armory; his name was pretty rare. His character was gone. I looked up his arena partner (also with a rare name); he had server transferred and had no one of the class and race of my friend on his arena teams. It was...depressing. Perhaps more so because my friend, at the last time I talked to him, told me he would tell me if he was ever quitting the game.

So, Magroo, I don't know if you ever knew I had a blog, so I don't know if you'll even see this. I don't know why your characters are gone or why you didn't say anything before leaving. But I want to let you know you were one of the best tanks I've ever had the pleasure of raiding with. You were fun to talk to and I enjoyed being in your group for every raid, even though I couldn't always give you my aura. Thank you for talking with me when I was bored, and thank you for taking time out of your play to let me duel you so I could practice CCing and kiting a warrior. Thanks for always being helpful, even when I was as scrubby as could be.

And, if you're around, drop me an e-mail or an IM sometime, as you are sorely missed.

♥, Bellwether

Less QQ, Moar BRAAAAAAAAIIIIIINSSSSS

I'm going to say this very seriously. Lighten up, all of you who complained about zombies and infections and quest killing. It was one weekend out of your lives. It's over now, and I for one am sad. There is nothing to break up the monotony like an army of the living dead coming to eat your flesh and make you one of them.

Now, I understand the frustration of finding your auctioneers, flight masters or quest givers dead. Perhaps I understand it all too well, as on my server, a PvP server, that can happen at any time. And perhaps that makes me more tolerant of being ganged up on, whether it's my own faction or not, and being turned into a zombie.

I do not understand the people who became upset about the zombie event for one simple reason: if it bothered you so much, you could have shut off the game. You could have read a book, you could have played a different game, you could have taken a nap, gone to the movies, began thinking about NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo, you could have written a song, volunteered at a hospital, watched some TV, daydreamed, called your Mom or Dad, gone out with friends, gone camping, done theorycrafting, taken up kickboxing, played with your children...the list is endless. If something you want to do becomes something you do not want to deal with, the answer is not to complain about it, especially when it is temporary.

Try enjoying it, instead of figuring out every way it is an inconvenience to you, next time. And if you still can't, you're wasting more time complaining when you could be doing something else.

Indecision, Patch 3.0.2

So, I have a lot to talk about and little time. The patch came during Midterms week, and I'm still recovering. Honestly, I am a very, very tired druid that could use some time in the Emerald Dream. Perhaps a week, at the least. Unfortunately, that's not an option and I shall continue to run around like a chicken with her head cut off until Thanksgiving break.

Now, 3.0 hit and I became lost, confused and overwhelmed rather quickly. I was never in beta and my PTR kept erroring upon download, so I couldn't even muck around there. When the patch hit, I had to hit the ground running.

Pre-patch, I had used WoWHead's druid calculator to create ten or more different Resto specs. I had Dreamstate specs, levelling specs, raid healing, crit healing, mana conservation, five-man, ten-man, and all sorts of specs, both ingenious and ridiculous. And the night before the patch I sat there, going through the links, looking them over, picking through them and pretending there wasn't an exam I needed to study for (I think I aced it, though).

Then the patch came and I specced Moonkin.

The original idea was to spec Doomkin and test it out in arena with a warlock partner. However, midterms and my partner's work schedule (as well as my work schedule) cut our available time down. Then Hallow's End hit, and I'm much more concerned with getting a Squashling and Hallowed Helm than I am with playing in Arena (I lost the pet and broom twice in one run! and the helm in another! injustice!).

Spell power is just as confusing as it I thought it would be. I am in possession of over fifty different pieces of spell power gear, and no Outfitter to organize them for me. I haven't had time to download and fiddle with Closet Gnome, and I find myself hunting through my bags and manually clicking on various different pieces of gear depending on what I'm doing and what I hope to accomplish. That and the introduction of spell power has completely nerfed off-spec healing, but I suppose that's just a minor quibble.

At the moment, levelling a ret paladin (Divine Storm is gorgeous), a warlock, and a priest, combined with trying to sort Bellwether out, is just completely overwhelming. Besides that...I really miss being a healer. I imagine I'll be trading in my antlers for branches quite soon.

Though, Typhoon + Tree Mafia? Hella good times.

Recruit-A-Friend Revisited

Once upon a time I posted a short rant about Recruit-A-Friend. I was mostly in a bad mood that day, and it showed. However, now that I've actually participated in the Recruit-A-Friend program, I'm a bit more qualified to report upon the pros and cons of the program.

Shall we get started?

Pros
Ding! Ding! Dingdingdingding...
You gain triple experience from both mobs and quests. This causes levels to speed by, and you can have a level 60 in a couple days with little effort (level 60 is when triple experience ends). A red quest for SM can give around 17550 experience, catapulting a level 31 to level 32. Stocks runs can give two or three levels, both from mob experience and quest turn-ins, even when the run is lead by a level 70.

LFM...NOT!
The great advantage of the triple experience requires that you be grouped with the linked account and be within a certain level range. This encourages group play. Besides enabling the buddy system on a PvP server (where you're less likely to be ganked unless they're ridiculously higher level than you), it also means less downtime in the form of looking for members for a group quest or dangers of high-level mobs catching you unawares. If you pick classes that compliment each other, you gain a lot of experience and can adapt to many different situations. Also, you can get higher level quests done at a lower level, increasing the xp gain you receive from turning them in.

New Class, No Hassle
If you've always wanted to play X class but never had time to seriously level an alt, the triple experience smooths the way for you. Even if you simply need an alt at high level so you can get them max rank of a beneficial profession, such as alchemy or inscription, that you just don't have room for on your main, this is an effective means of gaining it. As well, you can try out a role you've never filled before, such as tanking instead of healing or DPS.

Cons
Penniless and Friendless
If your friend is using an account, likely they have no money. Triple experience gains speed you through questing areas and levels like no other, but what comes with levels? Skills and spells that need to be trained. Training costs progressively more and more money, but you're not doing enough quests to make that money. Therefore, it's an intense monetary burden upon the person who recruited the friend to supply money for both rapidly-levelling characters so that they can train and improve. In addition, since less quests are needed for levelling, reputation gains falter behind. If you want a certain class and race but want another race's mount, this is a detriment.

That Look is SO Last Month
You're doing less quests, making less money, and blowing through zones. At some point, you're going to notice your greens from VC and WC just aren't cutting it, and you haven't been picking much up along the way. You're stuck; do you keep going as you have, do you rope a 70 into some instance runs, do you grab a group and hope what you want drops and no one else needs it, or do you buy yourself some equivalent level greens which you also may/may not outstrip in just a few hours? It's a difficult question.

What Does This Button Do?
When in a group, mobs often die fairly quickly, before you're even through a full rotation. Group settings against squishy mobs often favor burst damage moves rather than a damage-over-time or a debuff setup. You can settle into a pattern of what works and works quickly, especially if you notice your partner is killing the mob before your DoT gets two ticks. You're training skills, but you're never using them. Some don't get bound or even read. I cannot speak personally for everyone who uses this levelling system, but my lock is at level 32/33 at the moment, and I only have a basic grasp of how to play her. I do not know what all my buttons are for or how to use them in a real rotation. I barely even know how to spec, because if I take too long to make a decision, the points pile up. Though my partner does not have the same difficulty (he's played a paladin before), I'm looking at all the different curses and have only the barest grasp of what works in what situations.

*~*~*

There are pros and cons to every system, as is evident. Of course, there are the bonuses of the free month and the Zhevra Mount, and it's all going to amount to personal choice. I'm going to feel incredibly noob on my lock and every other character levelled this way for a while, but hopefully I can figure it out.

All comments and additions to the list welcome.

Also, opinions: are there any races that actually look good on the Zhevra?

WTF NERF?!

I am outraged. This is by far the worst, most hurtful nerf of the year, if not the worst in the game's entire run. I am so upset, I'm beyond words. Except not really, because then I wouldn't be able to post this breaking news about the most over-looked, hardest-hitting, game-breaking-est nerf ever.

I am, of course, talking about the DPS nerf to this year's Blue Stein.

There has been a 60% nerf in the DPS of this year's stein, bringing it from the intense 2 DPS of last year's model to the paltry 0.8 DPS of this year's. You can clearly see the lost benefit of the Blue Stein thanks to WoWhead's new Item Comparison.

Was it not enough that they must take away our gain-by-quest mounts and make us suffer through agonizing RNG for a Kodo or Ram? Must they take our dignity as well? It's already shameful to realize you forgot to replace your tankard with your staff of tentacle groping, must they make our DPS so paltry?

I tell you, I am outraged.

I skipped so much content!

Champion of the Naaru, in particular this time.

Oddly enough, I don't have that title yet. The Naaru trial quests for Shadow Labyrinth and Arcatraz have been sitting in my quest log for forever, and I've just never gotten them done. Honestly, who needs Heroics when you're in BT every other night? Badges can be found lying in the carcasses of Karazhan bosses!

But, I digress.

To finish up the Trial of Strength, Sharlet and I recruited some PUGs (read: Sharlet did dailies while I advertised in trade chat) and headed in, me hoping to finally see Murmur. Grand Master Warlock Voidwalker Eating Banishing C*ckblock Vorpil had always stopped me from getting anywhere in Heroic Shadow Labyrinth other than the floor. Of course, the eventual "run away we're going to wipe I'm almost at the door OH CRAP TELEPORT *death*" is always amusing, in that repair bill sort of way. But to complete the trial, you have to kill him, not just be morbidly amused by your ineffectiveness.

First two bosses go out without a hitch, Sharlet and the lock dying in one of the early pulls thanks to a lag spike on my part. Followed by a disconnect in which no one died, and we're off to a great start! Still, the first two bosses are downed, including my favorite, without incident. "It's time for fun!" is truly what it is. Goodness but I love that boss.

I digress.

Anyway, we got to Vorpil, and unlucky banishes screw us over time and again. The worst was where Sharlet was banished...three times? in a row. Kiting was non-existant, dps was dying, and our repair bills mounted. By that point I was no longer amused, just frustrated. But he finally went down, and I was proud of myself for feral charging and bashing voidwalkers when I got a free moment to slow them down. Utility pvp spec ftw!

So then it's the mind controller pulls before Murmur, and 2 out of 3 times I ended up dead. Luckily, no one else did. You know, luckily for them.

Anyway, so now we're at Murmur. Sharlet explains him, and in we go. And there we die. And then we die again. And again. And one of those was completely my fault for dying in the first Sonic Boom. I felt horrible; I hate causing wipes. Hate it. So, back in we go. And this time, I watch it. I watch it so close that I don't get hit with it but once when I got Touched right before a Sonic Boom and got thrown into the air at an unfortunate time.

Thank you Health Potions.

Anyway, what was interesting about this fight was...well, the only ones who didn't die were Sharlet and me. Warlock died, hunter died, rogue died twice. Sharlet and I DPS, tanked and healed Murmur for about 10% of his life. And when he starts out at only 30%, that's a third of the boss. The rogue was taking bets about when I was going to run out of mana; he must have seen me chuggin' pots. In my mind I was thinking "What do you mean? I'm a resto druid, beyotch. Until the expansion, I don't run out of mana!" and, in actuality, I ended the battle with about 1/5th of my mana gone in total, due to needing to innervate at about 2%.

It was a scary game, me relying on my Vial of the Sunwell for a Silence, ticking HoTs for others, my Redeemer's Alchemist Stone helping me get more from my Health Potions, my Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch for an emergency, and quickly memorizing exactly how far I had to go to avoid the SOnic Boom but still get in without taking his ranged attack to the face At one point I ran too far and Feral Charged in. In the end, it was exhilerating. A tank and a healer, against all odds, ripping into Murmur and kicking him til he dropped his loots.

I think I earned my reward for the Naaru trial of Strength.

Next up, saving Millhouse Manastorm, my absolute favorite NPC of all time. I'm coming for you, Mr. Manastorm.