Sep 30

Grabbed this shot while doing Ring of Blood–I literally laughed out loud! Click the small to make larger!

Related posts:

1. My Favorite WotLK Change So Far
2. New Stuff in Kara
3. First!
4. Just a Cool Screenshot
5. Another Change due to PvP Balancing

Sep 29

Wrath of the Lich King, to me, represents a paradigm shift in the way we think about classes and stacking, both in the smaller 5-man group and the larger 10- and 25-man raids. This is especially true of tanking. Let’s take a look at some blue posts, or at least a portion of them (some of them are a big large):

Ghostcrawler in "Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King"
Threads have popped up in several class forums that seem to be converging on a few of the same issues. So rather than cross-posting a lot, I thought I would start a new thread.

Tanking design:

1) Our goal in Lich King is for all 4 tanking classes to be viable.

[...]

5) For raids, we want all 4 tank classes to be viable. If your group has e.g. a Prot paladin and Feral druid as main tanks with appropriate gear and reasonable skill, you should be good to go.

6) This is a shift in philosophy for us. Previously, we sometimes tried to steer Ferals as being better off tanks than main tanks. We also expected specific classes to appear in the raid. Our new assumption is that you might have any of the 4 tanking classes as a tank. We are trying to achieve as much parity as we can among the 4 tanks without making them too similar. If nearly all guilds want the same class as their MT, we’ve failed.

Here’s another one, in response to the question, "So can someone tell me (preferably Ghostcrawler) why someone would chose to bring a bear druid over a protection warrior to a raid? As nearly as I can tell all bear abilities are available to a warrior and a protection warrior has far more utility while tanking.":

Ghostcrawler in "Feral Tanking, looking for enlightenment"

There is no reason to bring a druid over a warrior. Not if we do our jobs right. There is no reason to bring a warrior over a druid either. We want you to get a tank. We don’t want you sidelining your X tank while you are trying hard to recruit a Y tank.

Bring the tank with the best gear or the most skill. Bring the guy that always shares consumables or can make every raid. Bring the dude who doesn’t complain or researches boss strategies or finds great new people to join your group. Don’t bring a player because his class has the magic button for a boss fight; if we do our jobs right, there won’t be any.

I mentioned to a good paladin friend of mine, "Hey, they removed the target limit on Swipe and Thunderclap, nice." to which he replied, "Great, now Pally tanks are useless."

His statement got me to thinking: why? Why are paladins suddenly useless? Is it because Druids, Warriors, and Death Knights can do respectable AoE threat now? Say this same friend was a warrior. I would much, much rather bring him to a raid or dungeon because he’s my friend and I know that he’s competant, than go, "Sorry, we need a paladin for some big pulls."

I’m sorry, but I can’t see how this is anything but a good thing. The fact of the matter is, if you’re a competant player, or you have, you know, any friends at all, you’re going to be able to get a group. This will actually let me play with people that, you know, I acutally like and know how to tank.

Furthermore, instead of me going, "Wow, I should really level a paladin, tanking would be easier and my friends would invite me to groups more and girls will like me and I will like myself," I can say, "Wow, I can play my feral druid, a class that I actually enjoy playing, and I can tank as well as any other tank. I’m now an asset to my team, instead of a liability (thanks Ratters).

Part of me can understand the idea that "Oh no, the thing that defined me as a class is going away, how will I ever be useful," but the answer is, "You’re a tank, you’ll always be useful." Just because some random druid can AoE tank a bit now doesn’t mean your friends won’t invite you to a group.

Personally, I really like the new idea: play the class you enjoy, bring the folks you enjoy playing with, and still get the job done.

Related posts:

1. Decisions
2. Moving Forward
3. The Slightly Deeper End of the Big Kids’ Pool
4. Why Can’t I Decide?
5. Chill of the Throne: Sunwell Radiance 2.0

Sep 18

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been playing a Death Knight and loving it. The resource system is extremely unique, and takes some planning and strategy to use effectively–face-rolling will severely gimp your DPS and/or tanking. I thought I’d take a bit of time to discuss Death Knight combat.

Runes and Runic Power

Death Knights use a unique system to activate their spells and abilities. This sytem consists of runes and runic power. Some abilities cost one or more runes to activate–these abilities generate runic power, which maxes out at 100 (without talents). Like rage, it begins to decrease when out of combat. Other abilities use up runic power.

Death Knights use three rune types–Blood, Frost, and Unholy. There are two of each rune type, as shown in the picture. When you use an ability that uses one or more runes (and it successfully lands), it places each of those runes on a 10-second cooldown. (If an ability does not successfully land, it gets placed on a shorter cooldown.)

Let’s take a look at some of the Death Knight’s abilities and their cost to cast.

Abilities that Cost Runes

Here are some of the abilities that you start off with as a level 55 Death Knight. You can mouse over them to see the entire spell, I will only list the rune cost and the major details.

Icy Touch (1 Frost) – 50-54 Frost Damage + Frost Fever (Disease)
Blood Strike (1 Blood) – 50% Weapon Damage + 23 + 11 * Number of Diseases
Plague Strike (1 Unholy) – 30% Weapon Damage + 10 + Blood Plague (Disease) + Removes one HoT from target

As you can see, the basic abilities cost one of its corresponding rune type, and do differing amounts of damage. Icy Touch and Plague Strike do less damage than Blood Strike, but are designed to get diseases on your target so you then get more damage out of Blood Strike.

Let’s take a look at a more advanced spell that you learn at level 56.

Death Strike (1 Unholy, 1 Frost) – 60% Weapon Damage + 67 + Heals the Death Knight for 100% Damage Done * Number of Diseases

Another strike that scales with your diseases. Starting to see a pattern here?

As you start to refine your talent spec, you’ll start noticing patterns, and eventually, a rotation will evolve. Let’s take a look at a few talents from Unholy, my favorite talent spec.

Epidemic, Outbreak, Reaping, Desecration, Crypt Fever, Ebon Plaguebringer, Wandering Plague, Rage of Rivendare

As you can see, Unholy focuses a lot on your diseases. But, take a very good look at Crypt Fever. “Your diseases also cause Crypt Fever, which increases the damage of other diseases on the target by 20%.” So, not only does it make the diseases already ticking away on your target stronger, but it also causes a new disease. Remember how Blood and Death Strike scale with additional diseases? Yep, this counts as another disease! That’s an extra 11.25 damage with Blood Strike, and another 100% damage done toward healing with Death Strike.

Also in the Unholy tree is a new strike.

Scourge Strike (1 Unholy 1 Frost) – 65% Weapon Damage as shadow damage + 84 + 42 * Number of Diseases

A few things about this ability: (1) it scales very well with your diseases (42 damage per, as opposed to 11 with Blood Strike), and (2) it does its damage as shadow damage, which means it is unmitigated by armor. Pretty nice huh?

Getting Your Diseases on a Target

So, as you can see, Unholy is all about your diseases. To get the most damage from Scourge Strike, or the most healing from Blood Strike, it is in your best interest to get your diseases on a target as early as possible. But, if you’re not careful about which abilities you use and in what order, you can find yourself without a rune that you really need. Let’s take a look at the beginning of a typical Unholy cast rotation

IT = Icy Touch
BS = Blood Strike
PS = Plague Strike
DS = Death Strike
SS = Scourge Strike
BB = Blood Boil (see below)
Numbers = Seconds/End of Global Cooldown
* = End of Global Cooldown
F/B/U = Frost, Blood, Unholy Runes (Dashes indicate cooldowns)

0  *  3  *  6  *  9  *  12 *  15 *  18 *  21
|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
IT PS SS BS BB
F-------------------F                          < Frost
      F------------------F                     < Frost
         B------------------B                  < Blood
            B------------------D               < Blood
   U------------------U                        < Unholy
      U------------------U                     < Unholy

So–we start off with Icy Touch at 0 seconds. We use Icy Touch because (1) it is a ranged attack, and (2) because it sets up two diseases on our target (Frost Fever and Crypt Fever). After that global cooldown is over, at 1.5 seconds, we cast Plague Strike, setting up Blood Plague. We now have 3 diseases on our target, so at 3 seconds we’ll cast Scourge Strike to deal a good amount of damage to the target.

Do you see what’s happened now? We’ve used both our Frost runes and both our Unholy runes. The earliest we’ll get another Frost is at 10 seconds. Since our only strike in the meantime is Blood Strike, we’ll use it at 4.5 seconds, again taking advantage of all our diseases, but not doing as much damage as Scourge Strike.

Next, I’ve decided to cast Blood Boil. Let’s take a look at Blood Boil (a level 58 ability).

Blood Boil (1 Blood) – 59-71 Shadow Damage * Number of Diseases (all enemies within 30 yards)

So, we do a decent amount of damage to our target–a minimum of 59 * 3, since we have 3 diseases on our target. But, remember that talent, Reaping? “Whenever you use Pestilence or Blood Boil, there is a 100% chance that the Blood Rune becomes a Death Rune when it activates.”

A Death Rune is a rune that can act as any other type of rune; if you need a certain rune type, and it is on cooldown, it will use your Death Rune instead. If can be useful for longer rotations or grindnig; by using Blood Boil and Pestilence now, I can have two Death runes up instead of Blood runes, giving me the ability to use them as Unholy and Frost for a Scourge Strike. I’ve marked it in red on the chart above.

In the meantime, these abilities have been generating runic power.

Runic Power

There are many abilities that use runic power. A few examples are Death Coil, Summon Gargoyle, and Unholy Blight. Notice that Unholy Blight is the bottom tier Unholy talent, and although it doesn’t actually add a disease to a target, any mobs within 10 yards of you are considered to have another disease on them, giving even more power to your strikes that stack with diseases.

Conclusion

I hope you can see now regarding what I meant when I said you couldn’t just spam/faceroll your way to the top of the charts with a Death Knight. As you gain levels, you will learn even more abilities to add another layer of complexity into your rotations, such as Blood Tap, Rune Strike, Death and Decay, and Obliterate (which by default consumes all diseases on a target, but does very good damage).

All in all, the Death Knight rune/runic power system is very engaging. I recommend everyone try it, even if they don’t plan on playing a Death Knight in the end.

Related posts:

1. Tanking as an Unholy Death Knight
2. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Unholy Tree
3. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Basics
4. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: DPS
5. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Blood Tree

Sep 18

Recently, I received an invite into the WotLK beta. I considered not using it, as this late in the game a great majority of the bugs are likely being caught by the legion of other beta testers in there, and I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to see content before the game came out. But, end the end, I decided to give it a looksee.

So far I’ve only toyed briefly (ever so briefly) in Northrend, but I have leveled a Death Knight to 61. And, I have to say, I absolutely love the class. I love the way combat works. I love the possibility of doing non-sucky DPS and still being able to tank. I love giant two-handed swords. Pretty much everything about the class, I love–except one thing.

How many of them there are, and are going to be.

Related posts:

1. PLAYXPERT Beta Released
2. WotLK Beta: Wrath Gate and the Quality of Quests
3. Back in Business!
4. Status Update
5. Decisions

Sep 12

There are two additional things I am very excited about in Wrath for my feral druid, and I forgot to mention them in the previous post. First of all is the new and improved Swipe. Now with four targets! A buff, surely, but wait, there’s more! With a Glyph of Swipe, that number is increased to five!

Swipe probably won’t be replacing Lacerate completely, now that it scales with AP, but this is surely a great boon to tanking druids everywhere!

Related posts:

1. 15 Reasons Feral Druids should be Excited about Wrath
2. I Love Being a Feral Druid
3. Am I Doing Something Wrong?
4. Why I Love Druids
5. BA Shared Topic: Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King

Sep 2

I’m pretty excited for my feral druid. I realize it’s still beta, but as of right now, Wrath of the Lich King is bringing several buffs to the druid class, both direct and indirect. Let’s take a look at 15 reasons every feral druid should be looking forward to the content patch and the expansion.

Before we get into new abilities and talents, let’s talk about the changes to energy and mana regeneration. Before, energy and mana was awarded every two ticks, meaning if you were two energy away from a Shred (and oh, how often did that happen!), you had to wait a full two seconds before being able to Shred again. No more! Now enery regenerates in a constant, smooth fashion, ticking once for every point of energy! This is a huge buff to anyone except Death Knights and Warriors (and druid Bears), because their special ability resource (rage or runic power) works differently.

[Late Edit] I almost forgot! Furor is being modified to allow you regenerate energy out of Cat Form, and allows you to keep X of it when reentering Cat Form–fully talented, it’s 100%! Fly around for a while, find a mob, shift into Cat and have 100 energy. Sweet!

Now let’s get on to the new/changed stuff!

Druids are finally getting a "normal" rez via Revive! While this is technically a restoration spell, feral druids will still, of course, have access to it, allowing tanks and DPS to assist with rezzing fallen party members after combat.

Next we have Savage Roar, the new druid Cat Form finisher. I haven’t been able to play with this spell, but it seems the idea is to use spell rotations similar to a rogue: get Savage Roar up for the bonus damage to Rip, and keep Savage Roar and Rip running throughout the fight (Similar to rogues using Slice and Dice and Rupture).

Tiger’s Fury got a significant revamp. The energy cost and low returns in DPS made it so useless, some druids didnt’ even have it on their hotbar. Now, however, it has no energy cost, does not invoke the global cooldown, and talented (see below), returns 60 energy to the druid. Even untalented, it’s worth hitting every time it’s up.

Primal Precision is a new talent in the feral tree, offering expertise to both Bear and Cat Form. Expertise reduces a mob’s chance to dodge and parry, and is always a welcome addition to a feral druid’s arsenal. Furthermore, Cat Form finisher’s that are dodged or miss return 80% of the energy to the druid, making a second attempt quicker.

One of my favorite changes to an old-time druid ability is Feral Charge: now with Kitty power! In cat form, Feral Charge does not require a path to the target, only line of sight. It works basically like a rogue’s Shadowstep, in that you end up behind the target, although currently you don’t face the target’s back. Doesn’t break stealth, so a great way to get behind a mob quickly for a nice Pounce. Furthermore, Cat Form Feral Charge dazes the target for three seconds.

Survival of the Fittest has been modified to provide 6% crit reduction. With the removal of crushing blows from mobs three levels above you, and assuming the mechanics behind critical strikes from bosses hasn’t changed, feral tanks can now receive crit-immunity solely from this talent. No defense needed!

King of the Jungle is a new talent in the feral tree, giving a boost to damage in Bear Form while enraging by 5%, which may or may not counter the loss of base armor. However, the addition of Tiger’s Fury returning 60 energy in Cat Form is amazing.

Infected Wounds is yet another new talent in the feral tree. While at first it seems that this is a PvP oriented talent (and that is certainly part of it), it is also a decent tanking buff. After a few seconds of tanking with your face, your mob will move up to 50% slower (making it easier to catch if it strays), and their attack speed will be reduced by up to 20%, a great addition to the feral tanking arsenal.

A reduced cooldown/rage cost of our staple ability is never a bad thing.

Rend and Tear gives a bonus to Maul when using Lacerate, and the increased critical strike chance to Ferocious Bite is incredible while soloing (with my mediocre gear, this would put Ferocious Bite at a 90% crit chance on a bleeding target).

Berserk, the new top-tier feral talent, is amazing. I don’t care if you’re tanking and need some extra AoE threat right now, DPSing and need a sudden boost, or PvPing and need to become immune to CC, this ability does it all. Its cooldown is longish, but not horrible for such a great ability.

Omen of Clarity has been changed a bit. First of all, it’s a passive ability instead of a buff. Great change, one less buff to cast every 30 minutes. Secondly, it no longer procs from yellow (special) abilities–only auto-attacks. However, the proc rate has been almost doubled. This is theoretically a buff, but that is yet to be seen.

Master Shapeshifter is a new talent in the restoration tree that gives good bonuses to every druid form there is. However, picking up this talent is difficult without giving up some feral talents.

The only problem with all these new amazing talents is that it’s very difficult (if not impossible) to hit them all. Blizzard has stated that they want players to have to choose a little between Cat and Bear form abilities, so my guess is they’re not done playing with the feral tree quiet yet. At any rate, I’m excited, and you should be too!

Related posts:

1. 2 More Reasons Feral Druids should be Excited about Wrath
2. Why I Love Druids
3. IS NOT MAN ANGLE
4. Follow the Crowd: Feral Price of Dire Bear
5. BA Shared Topic: Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King