Treeform is getting the heaveho, so why not Moonkin too?

So asks Happytreez.  I agree with the logic as the difference between Moonkin form and Tree form is nill.  Treeform provids buffs to healing that could easily be imparted without a form at all.  And the current plan for Cataclysm is to do just that by removing permanent Tree form and instead turn it into a short term buff that has a cool down.

Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time. 

Moonkin form also imparts buffs that could easily be imparted in caster form.  And like Tree form, Moonkin form has certain limitations placed on it in regard to what spells can be used while in the form.  I'd like to see Moonkin given the Tree of Life treatment and turned into a short term buff with a cool down and let us run around in caster form.

Cataclysm - when is it coming and what will you be playing when it does?

It’s that time of the year when people are beginning to seriously ponder when Cataclysm will be released. I’ve actually seen people argue that it’ll be released prior to Thanksgiving, which I feel might be stretching it a little. Blizzcon isn’t until October 23-24 and Cataclysm would have to be virtually completed by then in order to be released in November. Remember, while patches can still be developed the physical media has to go gold and they have to have the required time to burn enough to fill all the orders. I think it’s a safer bet to assume Cataclysm will be released near Christmas or in January. Since we all have absolutely no real information to go on there are other questions one can focus on right now. Like what your character plans for the next expansion might be. That’s a question I’ve been giving much thought to lately.

The characters I’m playing now are not the characters I started off playing when WotLK released. But they are the characters I enjoy the most and so I’m virtually certain they will be the two characters I continue to play on into Cataclysm. My Druid was my main in Vanilla and BC though I’ve been playing him as an alt during the past year and didn’t play him much at all prior to that back to the end of BC. But more and more lately I’ve been pondering whether I should play him as my main again. I enjoy playing Balance and Resto immensely and as a hybrid class I regularly respec into either Feral bear or Feral cat to complete content or change up my play style for a bit. I have the same ability to do that with my Paladin as well but PVP is a big deal with me and I generally like to PVP On my Druid more. I actually spend more time on my Druid – much more – than I do on my “main”. The fact that my Paladin is my “main” is really because I progression raid on him instead of my Druid whom I only pug with. The more I think about the situation the more inclined I am to play my Druid again as my true main and play my Paladin as my alt.

The allure of the Worgen class isn’t that high for me. I may race change at some point, but I won’t roll a new character just to play a Worgen.

Following up on the Balance and Elemental comparison

Following up on Monday’s post regarding Elemental versus Balance inequities lets look at just one common example that I see regularly involving a Rogue. On my Druid in Balance PVP with 1000 Resil I’ll ride up in a group to the lumber mill and hang back a bit so I’m not immediately focused. I’ll drop into cat form near the top of the road up so I can track humanoids and see how many Horde are coming, but more importantly to see if any disappear which would indicate either a Rogue or a Druid. Some times I see dots disappear but other times I don’t. If I do I’m careful to stick close to the largest group otherwise I give myself a little more latitude. I’ll choose a target – normally a caster or healer – and open up with IS and MF and begin casting Wrath. But many times a Rogue is there and I just didn’t see him and as I’m often the focus target for stealthers it usually doesn’t take very long before I find myself in trouble.

A Rogue will always open with Cheap Shot, with it’s automatic stun. My first reaction is to pop Barkskin for the 12 seconds of damage reduction and then wait for the kidney punch. When I see kidney punch I’ll use my trinket and start running, hitting Nature's Grasp and then dropping into travel form to give me some distance. If I’m facing a not so well geared Rogue, or for whatever reason didn’t take all that much damage in the opening I have the option to drop into bear form and use bash before switching to travel form and getting some distance. If I’m lucky and the Rogue didn’t have Cloak of Shadows, Sprint or their trinket on cooldown I can usually get enough distance so I can pop out and throw on some heals and then root and hit him with IS/MF or dropping back into travel form and putting more distance between us if I feel its necessary. If he’s stealthed again I won’t stand still long enough to find out if he’s still gunning for me (of course he is), instead I’ll be running until I’m out of combat and then stealthing myself. On the occasions when he apparently doesn’t have any cool downs available and is still rooted I can usually nuke him easily enough but how often does that happen? Not all that often.

My issue is that a lot of the time I never survive long enough to get away. My 12 seconds of Barkskin is often not long enough to get me through the encounter, and it’s irrelevant if my trinket is on cooldown. I have no innate damage reduction whereas an Elemental Shaman can easily get 30% damage reduction from talents that applies passively whenever stunned, feared, or silenced. That’s pretty powerful considering a Balance Druid has to pop Barkskin and then hope he doesn’t need it again before the cooldown is up and Elemental shaman have the same mechanism to root a player and then also use travel form to get distance.

Using the same example, with my much undergeared Shaman, once I see kidney punch I’ll trinket out then immediately hit Thunderstorm and drop my earth bind totem. Thunderstorm knocks back further than Typhoon does but doesn’t daze so the Rogue will be back on me in little time. Except I’ve already started running and cleansing before dropping into Ghost wolf form for more distance, and the Rogue has to run around or through my earth bind. If he doesn’t have cloak of shadows or sprint available I’m gone and can turn around to flame shock then hit him with lava burst and drop my elemental for additional damage if necessary.

If you look at this dispassionately I think the Elemental Shaman has the slight advantage for escapability under these circumstances. Especially in that the earth bind totem is a powerful ranged root that even if it doesn’t root someone still can act as an obstacle that has to be avoided or destroyed. But I think the Druid has the decided advantage from range. I don’t think Druids have quite the burst DPS as an Elemental Shaman but they have ranged, spammable roots and have a pretty nice burst AOE spell in the form of Starfall that can be used while on the move and can heal and remove debuffs with travel form. It’s darn nigh impossible to stop a Druid – you either kill him or he gets away generally.

This to me is definitely the way to look at things. Standing back and comparing two not entirely similar classes isn’t easy. But when you look at things situationally they become much clearer and put things in proper context. For me the ultimate consideration in any battle ground is being able to pick and choose my fights. As a Druid I can stealth. I can ambush or flee entirely hidden from view but I can’t as a Shaman. As a Shaman I’m at all times viewable while at the same time not being able to see those who aren’t. A lot of time I don’t have the option to decide whether I want to engage or not as I can only escape once in combat through my ghost wolf form and can be ridden down. I never have the option to run away and vanish. Even with the perceived disadvantages I still prefer my Druid over the Shaman.

Let the guild poaching begin

I've got a friend that used to raid with us and was actually really good.  When we transitioned from Ulduar to TOC he left the guild and joined another guild and ended up becoming the raid leader.  They're not the top progression raid guild on the server but they're very respectable and are well into heroics at this point.  In fact that 10-man heroic I ran last week was his group and I ended up running the weekly with him and a couple 5-mans on my Druid and afterward I got the "you should leave xxx guild and come raid with us".  I laughed, but not because I thought it was funny.  I laughed because I've thought about joining them many, many times over the last few months.  I stayed in my current guild because of the core.  I like the guild leader and the officers a great deal and they've always been strait by me and I like that feeling of not just being a body.  I might have to accept that I will probably never get to do everything I want to do but some times you have to give up something to get other things you want more.

Now this isn't what I'd really consider being guild poaching, but it's a good enough example to speak about something that has been going on for as long as there have been MMOs and if anything, intensifies during the summer doldrums.  Guild poaching is the act of actively recruiting another guilds members, and usually the better geared or better playing members.  To make matters worse, it's usually done by top progression guilds who treat the smaller or less progressed guilds as a minor league whom they can farm talent from at will.  Most of the time these guilds are trying to replace retiring players, but just occasionally the tactic is used offensively to halt or stymie progress in competing guilds.

No one can make anyone leave a guild and join another, but if the price is right they usually will given the chance.  And personally I'm not in favor of that sort of thing.  I have no beef with someone leaving a guild of their own accord, but I do with another guild actively recruiting players out of someone else's raid.

24-hour extended maintenance for many today

Today is not just any maintenance Tuesday. Today is the mega-maintenance day in which Blizzard will be performing maintenance on select realms for at least 24-hours. While they don’t tell us these things, one can only assume they’re performing hardward replacement and network upgrades, along with the normal maintenance that happens on Tuesday. Blizzard performed similar maintenance prior to Burning Crusade and as far as we know haven’t significantly upgraded the servers since. I’m simultaneously happy my realm isn’t on the current list to be upgraded today, and dreading the fact that that day is coming in the future because 24-hours is a very long down time and Tuesday is a prime raiding night for us.

Elemental vs Balance inequities

I really enjoyed my day of Elemental Shaman PVP yesterday and it’s made me all the more interested in gearing up with better gear. And if anything it’s also given me insight into the class inequities between the Balance Druid and the Elemental Shaman. I say inequities specifically because now that I’ve taken my head out of the sand and started PVPing as Elemental I can already see several instances where Blizzard hasn’t balanced out these two hybrid classes well enough. I survived several fights yesterday as Elemental I know I would have died in as Balance and I’m wearing Hateful/Naax-10 gear on my Shaman and wearing Wrathful/Relentless and a couple pieces of Furious on my Druid’s Balance suit. Being able to drop a rooting earth bind totem, drop a trailing Grounding totem to suck up any spell if necessary, and insta-ghost wolf is pure win. Tremor totem is just the icing on the cake because I can’t even begin to tell you how annoying having a Lock or Priest come in and fear me about until I’m dead. Obviously I can’t avoid all of that but having Tremor totem available in addition to my trinket helps out tremendously.

Druids are more mobile, and travel form break all roots with the exception of two whereas Ghost wolf doesn’t. But Elemental Shaman lose no offensive capabilities when having to heal whereas the Balance Druid does. A Balance Druid has to drop out of Moonkin form in order to heal, losing 5% crit, additional spell power conversion, and armor. Elemental Shaman have much higher burst DPS as well with the synergy between Flameshock and Lavaburst. Balance Druids have to front load their DPS with IS and MF before beginning casts of Wrath hoping for an early Lunar Eclipse. My problem has always been that I don’t normally ever stand around in one place long enough to use Lunar Eclipse. I rarely use Starfire unless I’m in a big group. When I’m on my own or in a small group I’m casting Wrath and moving as much as possible. And all that movement severely restricts access to my Eclipse effects. As no other class’s DPS is boosted to the extent Eclipse does for Balance Druids that requirement for movement impacts them much more than it does Elemental Shaman. Elemental Shaman need only stop, cast Flame Shock then follow up with a Lavaburst before moving on. Casting Lightning bolt or Chain Lightning are incidental really.

There are so many additional factors I could talk about and maybe I’ll do that in a series of posts rather than make this one too long. But I did want to mention just one final factor in this post regarding the differences between Thunderstorm and Typhoon. I’m going to have to check the tooltips, but my observations are that the knockback from Typhoon are more limited than those I see from Thunderstorm. I have absolutely no trouble blowing people off the cliff at the AB lumber mill with Thunderstorm but I do with Typhoon. One of my favorite tactics yesterday was to run with the crowd to the lumber mill and hang back just a little so I can come in behind the scrum around the flag and use Thunderstorm to clear the area. It’s very funny to watch bodies flying through the air off the cliff. Thunderstorm is uni-directional while Typhoon is mono-directional so the least Blizzard could do is fix Typhoon so that it works at least as good as Thunderstorm does.

It's time for a new project

I like achievements but some times I get a little burned out pursuing them.  That isn't to say that I won't continue to peck away at various achievements on my Paladin and my Druid but during those times I'm just not feeling it I need something else to do.  Normally I PVP but I've got a a near full Wrathful/Relentless on my Ret Paladin and have a full Wrathful/Relentless Resto suit, a partial Wrathful/Relentless Balance suit, and a partial Wrathful/Relents Feral suit on my Druid.  All the upgrades I need on either character will only come with arena points now, and as I'm already doing the daily pvp match most of my honor just goes to buying gems.  And frankly I don't need any more gold.  What I need is another character to play with.

I have my 80 Rogue but I just never really did get into him.  He's fun to play around on every once in a while but if I'm going to take on a project I want it to be thoroughly enjoyable.  Not just fun every once in a while.  I also have a 77 Warlock that I could never get into, my 80 DK, and my 80 Shaman.  The lock falls into the same category as my Rogue and quite frankly I'm over my DK.  I still like the class but I grew tired of the constant major changes every patch.  It's why I switched mains to my Paladin in the first place last Summer.  So I find myself playing on my Shaman who I haven't played on since the beginning on WotLK.  He was the character I was playing at the start of WotLK and who I had to bench to play my DK when the raid needed additional melee.  I intend to gear him out first as Elemental, then dual-spec him and get him geared for either Enhancement which I haven't played since BC.

I have to say I'm having a bit of fun doing this.  Didn't have much experience in PVP on my Shaman, but I can remember when I played him at the beginning on WotLK how frustrating it was to play him in any BG.  I was always so easily killed and I felt very tied to a point on the ground where I dropped my totems.  This time around I was determined to figure out what I was doing wrong because I see Elemental Shaman in BGs all over the place.  And I see them rockin the world.  Right off the bat I can see I should treat Storm, Earth and Fire and Improved Ghost Wolf talents as essential.  Dropping an Earthbind totem that can root and instant cast Ghostwolf form are keys to mobility.  And mobility is the key to survival as Elemental on the battlefield.

Now all I have to do is get some better PVP gear.  Right now I'm wearing a mix of hateful and Naax-10 gear.  I don't currently strike much fear in any BG but given a week or two I'll be changing that.

LOTRO going F2P

Apparently business has been good enough for Turbine's DDO in the past seven months for them to also make the jump for LOTRO as well.  You just know many other developers are watching this closely.  I'd still like to see the financials for DDO, but Turbine wouldn't be making the change unless it made true business sense at this point.  I never played LOTRO and never played DDO, but once it goes F2P I just might try out LOTRO.  I've always been a tremendous Tolkien fan but was never entranced enough about LOTRO to pay a monthly subscription.  Now that that impediment is being removed I just might give it a look, though I do still have misgivings about the F2P model.  You will always be second guessing the developers why specific development decisions are being made, and why game play is exactly as it is.  Are game decisions being made to force you into paying for items from the cash shop (of course they are) or not?  You can play the game free, but is it unnecessarily grindy because they want you spending money in the cash shop?  I tend to not like that very much.

Haste, oh how I hate thee

delving back into progression raiding on my Druid again brings up some very painful choices for me.  Previously I only ran a weekend ICC-25 and we generally killed the same bosses every week, so the only upgrade I really expected or desired was the token off Saurfang.  Having three Sanctified pieces now, I actually had very little that I was looking for outside of the badges themselves.  But the 10-man progression raiding I've gotten back into changes that a bit.  Seeing new bosses and doing heroic content means I now have access to new gear and can improve.  The problem is if I stick with my T10 pieces, all the off-tier pieces have hit, crit, or haste on them.  And I'm already over budget on hit and haste.  additional haste is bad.  Horribly bad for me as my current raw haste (424) and my talents combine to make a problem casting Wrath when Heroism is used.  My Wrath casys are .7 or .8 seconds under Heroism and depending on lag can cause me to actually miss casts as I have to contend with GCD.  Starfire is another matter as Heroism drops my cast time from 2 seconds to 1.6 seconds, but whether I'm under Lunar Eclipse or not is completely at the mercy of RNG.

So, needless to say I can afford little additional haste, and I generally won't even consider pieces with haste on it.  The problem is that as 3 of my 5 tier pieces have haste on them and the other two have hit.  Unless I want to replace my tier pieces, losing the set bonuses, I have an extremely small number of off pieces I can choose from.  Cataclysm is reportedly going to fix the situation yet that's months away.  What's a poor Moonkin to do before then?  Not a whole lot, it appears.

10-man ICC progression

Ahh, the feeling of progression! I had gone through a bit of a rut the past several weeks where I essentially stopped caring about raiding and about progression. I’d grudgingly accepted that I’d seen about as much of the end-game as I was going to see and that was that. However, the past two weeks I’ve begun aggressively seeking out additional raiding opportunities on both of my main characters and it’s paid off quite well so far with my Druid. I hadn’t been running 10-man’s for quite some time but last week I started looking for solid, static, 10-man teams I could join. I was able to join a group over the weekend on my Druid that was trying to finish up. All that was left was Sindragosa and the Lich King. We killed Sindragosa and got a few attempts in on the Lich King as well. Then a friend came through with a raid invite last night and I finally got into some heroic content. We cleared the first wing by one-shotting the first three bosses then killing Saurfang on the third attempt. We also one-shotted Festergut and Rotface before I finally had to leave. There was a lot of talk about people wanting to stabilize the group as there had apparently been quite a few people switched in an out, kill Arthas on normal mode as only one person in the group had actually done that, and get back into heroic mode on those farm-status bosses for the better loot. Hopefully I’ll be part of that as I was number one on the over-all DPS and always placed highly on the individual boss kills. Not to mention I bring the combat rez. I’m scheduled to join a 10-man group on my Paladin starting Friday night as well, so it looks like I will be seeing some much desired progression on them both in the coming weeks.