Mooonfire!

When I first zoned into Quel’Danas, I thought it was a great idea. And the atmosphere, the lovely, somewhat chaotic, help-help-we-are-under-attack atmosphere, was, to my way of thinking, lovely. Compelling even. But

Magister’s Terrace. I DON’T like it. There’s only so much “You must be perfect” that I can handle, and that instance not only tops me off but overflows me, in that regard.

Then there’s the dailies. Oh, the dailies. I pretty much have to do them every day to stay abreast of my expenses (more on this in a minute) but… There’s only so many times I can do the same things over and over and over and over and over again until I start to hate them. I tell you what, Blizzard- let me do the Distraction at the Dead Scar, I.E. My Favorite, once for each of the daily quests otherwise available? Please?

I am enjoying the fishing dailies, though, and to some extent the cooking ones (though since I’ve finally tracked down both of the blue recipes from there, those, a little less).

So what does this mean?

Simple-

The new content added in 2.4 is already stale for me.

New badge rewards? That’s… nice I guess? The problem is that my guild isn’t stymied through lack of gear (for the most part). We’re geared fine. We just don’t have the manpower to make the jump out of Karazhan.

Gee, I guess that means that Sunwell Plateau isn’t going to hold my interest very much, is it?

The new dailies? As I’ve heard it said- “Twelve bear asses, go!”

And again.
And again.
And again.
And again until you want to scream.

So, apropos of screaming, what am I doing in game these days?

1: Arenas.
I’m not going in expecting to be the top the best near the best good poor acceptable at this game, but I am having fun with my young lady and a friend of ours who is an almost-identical troll hunterette to match Maliata. This means that I have to rely on my raid frames to tell who’s taking damage, since all I can tell in the field is “The hunter’s getting attack!”

And they both have scorpid pets. Identical scorpid pets.

Arenas leads well into the second thing, which is

2: Panzerkin (AKA The Mad Cow Chronicles)
I tanked my first (as a caster) five-man last week and I’m going to continue burbling about it until I get the video posted, which could take quite a while. Durnholde may be a 66-68 instance but I did it in blues/scattered badge rewards/bg rewards for the most part, which I figure means I didn’t outgear it too harshly. The challenge will be to pull the same trick with, oh, Steamvaults or Arcatraz or something.

I’m finding this fun, but the only real upgrades are via arenas, and there’s a static limit on how fast I can gain arena points.

3: Prismspec work
This is one of my other ideas. I want one, single, solitary spec that is adequate, if not brilliant, for my druiding needs. I think what I’m using now is just about it, though I’m still debating between Furor (for the rare times I AM in a feral form) and Imp Mark (normally useless except when you really NEED that extra bonus, heh).

4: Soloing Older Content
I can do up to (but not including) Baron Rivendare on Undead Strat. By myself. As a non-feral. I can do up to (but not including) the final boss on the Scarlet Side as well, though that’s harder (bloody healer caster four-pulls melee interrupting rassin’ frassin’…).

To be fair, I’ve wiped (twice) on Rivendare, and never actually tried the final Scarlet boss. I also skipped the Cannon-master- bad druid!

My best time so far is engaging Rammstein with 20 seconds to go on the ultimatum timer- though, to be fair, I managed to accidentally kill myself earlier in the instance. Remove that little timer foible (and figure out a way to handle the 5x Elite pull that comes after Rammstein) and I may be able to actually attempt Rivendare with some time left on the clock.

For those who are curious, my problems with him were based on not being able to do AoE damage four times per minute to take his skeleton assistants down, but I’m fairly sure I’ve come up with a way to handle that. I’ll let you know.

This entire activity is exempt from “Must Be Perfect” syndrome because, if I wipe, I have not wasted anyone else’s time.

5: Old-School Tuesdays.

I tried to start this when I was in my last guild, but the chronic lack-of-interest problem stopped me. I tried it again in KMM, and was immediately taken up by three people, with the same number again going “That’s cool, but I can’t usually make Tuesday nights. :(”

We’ve spent the last months or so working on our Onyxia attunements (SUCH a pain for Horde players- contrast one instance run and three raid runs plus four elite world bosses to kill starting at level 55 vs something like two instance runs, one world boss and three fed-ex quests starting at level 48 for Alliance). Tonight, we get a third player his Onyxia key (half a dozen of us also picked up Blackwing Lair attunement).

Tonight, we hope, we’re going to go in and see what she’s got that’s so exciting. We hope.

If we win, that’s 50g each and an eighteen-slot bag for one of us, so…

6: Enchanting

I dropped mining and have been levelling enchanting. It’s been pleasant.

7: Old Content (Rep and attunements)
I’m actually in higher standing with the Argent Dawn at the moment than I am with the Shattered Sun. Go figure. The Strat runs are providing me with extreme amounts of reputation. I’m going to be running Blackrock Depths next to get enchanting mats, and that should help me level my AD rep further via the Dark Iron turnins.

I’m also a key-and-attunement fanatic. Thus far in the list of ‘keys not often picked up’-

Blackwing Lair attuned
Onyxia Key
UBRS key
Anzu Key
Key to Stratholme
Master Key to the City of Stratholme

I’m working on my Molten Core and naturally my Naxxramas attunements.

So, I’m keeping busy and regard the new daily quests as a boring, but necessary evil to keep me financially solvent through all of this (ever tried to gem, enchant and keep in good repair five sets of gear? It ain’t pretty).

In other words, I’ve been occupying my time with fighting the Scourge threat and hunting dragons- What are you doing to keep yourself interested in the game?

This one runs long. If you get bored or are shocked and dismayed at any point, roll it on down to the bottom of the post where you get a TL;DR explanation.

So the time has come to announce it.

I did, of course, briefly dabble in a Balance-weighted healer build, before switching out due to mana inefficiency. In a spec-tacular blunder (I’m sorry, the puns are worth it) I managed to completely lose sight of the fact that I’d just swapped specs right before 2.4 and an insane boost to my mana efficiency via more MP5 and cheaper Regrowths. The point, however, is that the druid community has a nickname for this sort of build- we call it a ‘Restokin’.

We have names for our other builds too, of course. A build with at least 31 points in Balance, assuming the Moonkin Form talent is taken, is referred to as a ‘Boomkin’, or sometimes a ‘Doomkin’ or, if you really feel like having a feathery fist embedded in your teeth, an ‘oomkin’.

A druid with at least 41 points in Restoration (again, assuming Tree of Life is taken) is usually known simply as a tree druid.

A druid with a 31/30 or 30/31 Feral/Restoration split is known as a lunatic. Sorry, sorry, bad joke, but I can’t find a way that build can be viable. I’ve run it. It’s not so good for me. The opinions of Mooonfire are not those of Blizzard Entertainment and we do not necessarily in any way represent the pure mathematical truth of the matter. If you can make a 30/31 or 31/30 split work for you, by all means go ahead with my blessing. Druids are meant for exploring the mechanics of the game and for pulling crazy ideas out of nowhere.

But there’s one more spec that has acquired a nickname. It’s a monster whispered about in dark corners. Respectable druids don’t even think about them. Even the ‘edgier’ druids who might try speccing Restokin, the druidic equivalent of the guy with all the facial piercings, don’t dare use this spec. Even the guy with “DIAF Staghelm” tattooed on his forehead turned white and muttered about having an appointment to skin some furbolgs when this spec was brought up in conversation.

The reaction of the WoW community at large is to scream about what idiots these folks are. Of course, given that that’s the reaction the WoW Forums will give you if you say you like raspberry jam more than peach jelly, that’s nothing new.

But even other druids shy away from this spec. “I wouldn’t do that,” is the most common response (though this becomes the second-place finisher if you count “You’re joking, right?” as a formal response). Others are harsher. “No. Just no.” “It can’t be done.” “You off your meds?”

Druids comprise only about 10% of the game’s active players.  Within that, a disproportionately large number are Arena Resto druids and presumably will fall out of favor once Arena Resto stops being the flavor of the month.

It falls to a very few players- perhaps less than a couple hundred in the ten million players of this game, perhaps as many as a couple thousand, to take this nightmare spec.

If you spec this way, you can expect a complete and utter lack of PUGs. You may have trouble even getting guild runs. And so it is with some trepidation that I write this post. Phaelia will probably call for my druid license to be revoked. Bell might just set me on fire. Leafy will call for me to be turned into steak. Wara won’t hurt me, but that’s presumably because he’s a fellow Murlock and not because he doesn’t have a sense of the proprieties.

This nightmare spec I have been so obliquely referring to is called a Panzerkin.

Assuming my server software has not rebelled at having to display that nightmare word, I’ll continue to explain. It uses a couple dynamics of the Druid class to turn us into a leather-wearing tank.

“Uh. Llanion? Druids have a tank build. You might have heard of it. It’s called the entire Feral talent tree.”

*busily checks this off his checklist of responses expected to be seen*
Yes, the Feral tree makes for amazing tanks and vicious close-quarters DPS. I should know, I levelled that way. And it’s true, they get a tasty stamina boost.

“Llan, they get an armor boost too!”

Yup. So do Moonkins. An identical one, in fact.

“Bears get a talent to reduce the likelihood of incoming crits!”

I currently am, due to a combination of resilience and defense, uncrittable by any mob below level 72. Oh, and I figure a couple more pieces of PVP gear will put me at completely uncrittable even by raid bosses. Did I mention that the PVP Wyrmhide pieces are heavily focused on intellect and stamina, both statistics critical to Moonkins? As it turns out, of the three specs, Moonkins have the easiest time using PVP gear in PVE.

Oh, and the Wyrmhide’s high on armor, which plays in well to the armor boost in deathchicken form.

“Buh… mana pool!”

About 7k at the moment, planning to drive that up.

“That won’t hold you through any lo-”

Innervate. Melee to regenerate mana when I have a decent threat lead. The Blue Dragon if I have any spirit left, which I doubt. Sporefish, Distilled Wisdom+Dreamstate and oh, yes, Rejuvenation and Mana potions. Plus, Shadow Priests.

“You expect a non-tank to hold threat against a Shadow Priest?”

I’m just going to laugh here. Have you ever run with a deep Balance druid? Balance druids scramble for the normally-pointless 26/2 Meta and slap down a subtle cloak. Quite a few of them also have 5/5 Subtlety and they’re always happy with Salvation. Even with all four of these, a string of ‘lucky’ crits can bring the mobs away from the tank and running towards the Balance druid faster than a level 19 night elf Warsong rogue runs for Crusader/Fiery duals.

“Um… how are you going to handle a two-pull?”

With crowd control, exactly like a warrior would.

“All your crowd control’s used up and you have to tank two mobs-”

All right. We’ll designate them MT and OT, main target and off-target. We’ll even assume I’m slack enough to have a half-second of dead air between spellcasts. Time zero is when the first spell hits and the mobs start running.

0: Starfire hits OT

.5: Moonfire hits MT

2.5: Wrath hits MT

3: Moonfire hits OT

Then it’s just a juggle- Wrathspamming the main target while keeping Insect Swarm and Moonfire on the off-target to keep it off the healers.

“The off-target breaks away and”

Gets Moonfired.

“He’s still running towards the healers so-”

I cyclone him and we finish up on the MT.

“And… then… he… uh…”

Hates me even more when I time a Starfire to hit him coming away from his Cyclone.

“Your health pool is too low for this!”

That’s actually true, at the moment. However, PVP gear is heavy on stamina and I intend to enchant for yet more of the same. I’m hoping to top out to 9k at least, 10k if I’m lucky.

“So you’re mentioning this because…”

I thought it might interest some folks. Also, if you look on my sidebar below ‘/grabby hands’, I have ‘/kaboom’. ‘/kaboom’ tracks my goals (and exploits!) as a Panzerkin. There will eventually be movies, naturally.

Now, it’s off to grind for more gear!

It behooves me (ahahaha!) to learn that I should never make predictions about upcoming posts, either in particulars regarding date, substance, category or number. It seems that saying I’m going to post, no matter in what way or how nebulous the reference, leads to my being compelled to spend at least one week not-blogging.

In theory, I have now learned this. In practice, I suspect, not so much.

---

I respecced recently. I went from 17/0/44 “Angry Tree” Heal/Solo/Utility build to a 37/0/24 “Raid Support” Heal/Solo/Utility build. I am finding many things about this.

1. Dreamstate + Intensity = Mana Regen, whoa.
2. Nature’s Grace is my friend. Suddenly there’s a point to getting crits on spells.
3. I need to run a heroic to see how this changes my healing style. I do have a couple ideas involving spamming downranked spells to force crits.
4. I miss Swiftmend.
5. My raidmates love me; Improved Faerie Fire means that the hunters, rogues, enhancment shamans, tanks and fury warriors can pretty much slice 47 hit rating out of their gear without injury to their DPS. They’re all happy now about how they can put more gear, gems, and other enhancements towards straight-up damage stats. (In some cases, this means they can use buff foods they want instead of Spicy Hot Talbuk.)
6. Just the fact that Faerie Fire will be on the mobs means the damage happens faster and harder. If only Imp FF gave the same bonus to spells…
7. Insect Swarm. 2% chance to miss makes for happier healers. Just the fact that I can put this up during fights now makes for shorter fights, which also makes for happier healers.
8. Healing Touch can weasel its way back into my healing rota. In fact, I have this neat theory about a downranked Healing Touch- I can’t say too much here, lest the curse strikes again.
9. I can see my gear again. I’ll be frank, I don’t like looking like a wilted piece of broccoli, and I really don’t like the 80% movement snare. If Andriges’ skins (thanks to Phaelia for showcasing these on Resto4Life) were in the game, this would be a different matter, but they aren’t.
10. I have Moonkin form for the first time in my druiding career. It’s rather tasty, though I must admit I keep forgetting to use it. On the other hand, now that there’s no pressing reason for me to be glommed in with the tank group, I can be in the caster group, which means that there are some evil things happening on, say, trash pulls… or during Curator’s Evocates… or on Shade if he’s not hitting us hard enough…
11. I have found that I much prefer Control of Nature 3/3 to Nature’s Grasp+2 points of Impr. NG.
12. If I want to group and they already have a healer… I’m actually useful now. I don’t have to just mumble about raking my leaves and rustle off to sit in a corner. I can DPS in five-mans.
13. Spirit is now on-par, in my personal item-budgeting thoughts, with Intellect (Int takes the place of Spirit as regards the 25% bonus to +healing… though now it gives +damage as well. And even when not in tree form). This is great, because, uh, there are a lot of sources for +int. Including the [Flask of Distilled Wisdom]. An actual flask that has a point for healing now! It’s great. (Well, okay, so 16 +dmg/heal and 6.5 MP5 isn’t exactly gamebreaking. It’s more advantage than I got from that flask in my old build, and better than yet more mana regen).
14. MmmmmmmOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONFIRE!

The world is quiet here. I have about six posts half-written and jumbled up in my brain, and I need to get one of them out.

To tide you over:

I’m in ur PTR, testin’ ur 2.4. Or at least such is the theory, I’ve yet to try any such testing.

Netherspite down on the first try once we’d gotten the beams figured out correctly.

New neckpiece from Netherspite.

Want to try out the new AV and the ‘new’ Lifebloom.

New guild (Thanks to Matticus for some thoughts on leaving a guild when you’re an officer).

Still recovering from the flu, thus the total lack of postage. WTB Medicinal Drake Essence.

[[This is a BlogAzeroth shared post topic.]]

The short version? Yes.

I admit it. There are things I miss about being a Priest. There are things I’m loving about my baby mage alt. There are things I really (no, really really really) miss about being a Mesmer. They all have to do with indirect (not damage-based) problem-causing for the enemy.

“Wait, wait, you miss being a what?”

Confession time. I played Guild Wars for a year. Had Guild Wars Factions not been so terrible, I’d likely still be playing it. Because the plain truth of the matter is, despite how shiny it was to heal people as my monk… I dearly loved my Mesmer. He started out a Mesmer/Elementalist and ended up a Mesmer/Necromancer because- here’s where it goes off the deep end, kids.

There is something I enjoy even more than healing.

Yes. Really. There is. I call it Denial. The Mesmer class was focused around Denial wholesale. The Necromancer also had a fair chunk of Denial skills.

It’s time to explain what the Mesmer does, because it’s a truly alien concept to most (not all) Warcraft players.

The basic premise of the class is very simple, and it can be stated like this:

“I am willing to forego having many directly offensive abilities in order to recieve abilities that can hinder, drain, prevent, deny, halt, disrupt, drag out, slow down, interrupt, leech away, nullify or in any other way make it much more difficult for you to perform the role assigned to you.”

Mesmers had counterspells- some were just counter-spells, some caused damage, some transferred energy (the GW equivalent to mana) to the Mesmer on a successful spell stop.
Mesmers had ‘backlash’ spells- Backfire placed a debuff on the target that caused heavy damage each time the target cast a spell until the debuff was gone, Empathy placed a similar (lower-intensity) effect on physical attacks.
Mesmers had one or two DoTs.

They had debuffs that caused a miss chance with physical attacks, debuffs that caused physical attacks to drain energy, or that increased casting time, or that increased the cost of spells.
They had snares, one or two snares that were coupled with DoTs. They had the equivalent to Mana Burn. They had an upgraded version of mana burn that burned mana off one target and dealt the burn damage to that target and surrounding hostiles.

There were others- a light-damage AoE that damaged both health and mana; a spell that could remove a magic-based debuff and cause damage to hostiles around the target; a spell that could suck a buff off a target and convert it to mana for the Mesmer or, a perennial favorite, a spell that could pop off a buff from the target and smack down a goodly amount of damage unto them for the audacity of daring to buff themselves.

Mesmers also had beneficial skills- they could extend the duration of debuffs caused by allied characters, increase a skill’s cooldown on its next cast in exchange for making it cost less mana (or even be free)… even put a self-buff on that would have no benefit until it expired and then grant mana.

So let’s look at the period in my gaming career when I made the transition.

Well… let’s see… Rogues can do a little disruption. Priests have a Fear ability and a mind control, that’s sort of Mesmerish… Warlocks can mess with people… uh…

I almost rolled a Rogue. I didn’t because, as it turns out, I hate playing them. But I admit it: If this new class came up, I would switch so fast your head would spin. I’d keep Llanion around, but I would be so very in to a Denialist.

I want to see a spellcaster who can sit back and drop conditional DoTs, or skills that punish the target for being healed, or that cause a backlash when spells are cast. Mobs get this sort of skill- why can’t we? I want to be able to apply blinding effects, snares, to be able to ‘lock off’ a chunk of mana in a buff and get it back later. I want the ability to….

Well, I want to do what I could do as a Mesmer. What I’d really love to do in WoW.

I want, without doing much damage, to be able to tie my enemies in knots and make them cry while my teammates beat the snot out of them.

(Granted, finding a group as a Mesmer was always harder than a traditional role until people figured out just how scary you could be. I wouldn’t mind. I want a Denial class.)

No really.

I get that we downed Horseman in fifteen minutes including trash.

I get that we burned Moroes after one abortive attempt (trap broke early).

I get that Maiden chain-fired us and we came back for a second try and pasted her against the wall.

I get that while this was happening we got two epics off trash. I get all that.

(I don’t quite get why this guy actually had these as an upgrade, they seem rather… out of place…)

Anyway. We were in Karazhan today. We burned Attumen with, and I’m going to brag here on other people’s behalf, such accomplished grace we made it look casual.

My nightmares about Moroes from last week? Gone. This week’s group burned down the adds, shackled, trapped, and in general blew a hole in the universe so smoothly that I was actually and honestly surprised at “First down. Second down. Third dropped.” coming through my headset.

Maiden? Well, I’ll be honest, I actually thought we’d down her more easily than we did. But, still being honest, the reason we wiped the first time was because we were too close together on the melee group. Adjusting for one melee more than we had last week was hard, and the tank caught the end of one of her Chain-Holy Wipe-o-Matic Cluster-Killers.

We got her the second time though.

Then there was some discussion. “Well, you know, we could just clear up to Opera. See what it is.” I didn’t mention that it resets and possibly changes after everyone leaves for a half-hour. I wanted to see!

The entire way up, I’m hearing- from the three people who’ve run Opera before- about how nice it would be if we got Red Riding Hood, since that’s both fun and simple.

I also heard how we had a good group for Oz…

…and how we must live in dread of Romulo and Julianne.

“Of course you know,” I said in jest, “Now we’re going to get them.”

Our brave few cast lots to see who would get to strip buff and go out onstage to provoke the curtain.

“Tonight” the stage manager bellowed as Wild shivered in his unmentionables, “we explore a tale of forbidden love!”

My headset lit up. “Crap! It’s Romeo.”
“Can we try it anyway?” I’m not sure who suggested that.

One reasonably-fast explanation later….

“Romulo’s 20, swap to Julianne.”
“Fifteen and six.”
“Keep at it- eight and four.”
“Four and two!”
“Two and one- she’s down, get him!”

“YES!”

I admit to yelling over voice chat. It was amazing. That was two hours ago and only now is the adrenaline draining.

What I don’t get is this.

In two weeks, I have gotten no fewer than five epics.

FIVE.

Gloves of Saintly Blessing. The VERY NEXT DAY, Mitts of the Tree-Mender. This week? Both dropped again (naturally I didn’t need them this time) plus Earthsoul Leggings and Bands of Indwelling.

I don’t get it! Please, give the tanks some love!

No. Really. Wild, you’re my witness here. If the Forest Wind Shoulderpads drop tomorrow off Curator- (because you just know that punk’s going down) I will cry. I mean it. I will actually cry. The Wrynn Dynasty Greaves or a T4 glove need to drop instead. The tanks need some love.

And this is where it all goes kind of sour, you know?

I want- I desperately want- to try a new build. It’s part of the fun of the game for me.

Besides, A: Tree was supposed to be temporary.
B: I hate not being able to see my armor.
C: I want nicer solo viability so I can do some quests without asking people for help or taking nine years/drinking a lake.

So this is what it all comes down to, calculations and so on taken care of:

34/-/27 for the MP5 bonuses and Moonkin when I’m soloing?
27/-/34 for the Swiftmend and Imp. Regrowth?
Or stay as Tree?

Maybe I should just flip a coin.

Of course, we’re just starting Karazhan and perhaps I should wait until we know it bet…. nah.

This, however, is not it.

This is about Karazhan.

I had never been before last week. Oh, sure, I understood that there was sweet gear (Mother of murlocs, there’s EPICS in there!) but I’m in a very laid back, very casual guild.

Well, five of us found ourselves together running an instance.

It went well.

We ran another. It went very well.

We ended up doing the entire Karazhan keying chain. With no wipes. In two days.

We’ve since run several more instances in this five-man, and it’s fun every time. Karazhan, despite our keys, seemed an unattainable goal.

We said to our allied guild “hey, we have some people with Kara keys. If you do, too, you want to poke around in there sometime, wipe a few times, have some fun?”

I figured we’d have a chance to gear up a bit more first.

Then that lunatic Wildhermit got involved and started prodding. We ended up going that very week (four of us and six of them).

We dropped Attumen in one try. We dropped Shadikith in the basement with the same amount of trouble.

We went back the next day and turned Maiden of Virtue into Toasted Woman on Floor, one try. Moroes was a little trickier, but we got him on the fourth attempt.

Karazhan, as it turns out, is fun. Really, really fun. I am looking forward to next week and getting more epics.

I highly recommend Karazhan if you have a chance to go in a low-stress environment. If you can drop Attumen, you’re geared okay. If you can drop Moroes, you’re coordinated enough.

This week we’re going to try for Opera.

P.S. Mitts of the Tree-Mender!

I haven’t updated in a while. I get the feeling a lot of this blog will be spurts of activity interspersed with apologies about me not updating.

Christmas, New Years and Exciting New Stuff have conspired to hold me blogless. Well, it is time for some updates.

Later, I have to write a nice numbery post about comparative damage in the Balance tree, because I promised my guildmaster I would. Tonight, though, I have a different topic in mind.

Innervate. It’s an awesome spell. (more…)