Girls of Elune

First of all, I don’t claim to be an expert on anything especially MMO’s and I don’t have any insider knowledge on the next expansion.  This is just my own personal view/analysis of the druid restoration talent tree that can be found on wowhead.com… or as I like to call them, wowzserhead.com.

Secondly, I’m still hoping for some small revisions and adjustments to the talent tree.  It looks nice but it isn’t perfect.  I’m particularly going to review the new talents in the lower (or is it higher?) tiers.

First up is Living Seed.  It sounds like an awesome talent but I don’t like how its dependant on a crit.  On the other hand I’ve had some big crits, like over 9k Healing Touch.  That would make the Living Seed proc for an additional 3k heal.  Not bad i guess. 

Next talent is Replenish.  I probably won’t be wasting any points in this talent.  I suppose if they changed the proc chance from Rejuvenation to Lifebloom then it would be something to consider.  Another option would be to increase the percent to proc to about 50% instead of 15%.  In the meantime, Replenish does nothing to improve my healing so no thank you.

Improved Tree of Life.  Sorry but the armor bonus isn’t much of an improvement, not even for pvp.  I don’t recall taking physical damage the last time I raided. Even if I did get melee hit I’m sure the mob would still one or two-shot me with this talent.  The 15% increase to Tree of Life Aura is pretty hot!  I’ll probably pick up this talent just for this.  However, I do believe Blizzard was revising this talent a while ago so I don’t know if wowhead is displaying its most current description.

Gift of the Earthmother.  Wow!  This is great for some players like myself that suffer from latency issues.  I occassionally have a difficult time rolling my lifebloom on multiple targets because of the evil global cooldown.  With so much raid damage flying all over the place its hard to keep up my heals.  I don’t like stacking haste gems because I would have to give up some +healing and other stats just to reduced global cooldown by a fraction of a second.  Its great to have a talent do it instead.

Our 51 point talent is Flourish.  Its another HoT but with an area of effect twist to it.  It sounds awesome but the aoe only has a 15 yard radius so it looks like its intended to be cast on melee and/or tank.  I still see lifebloom as our primary healing spell despite this pretty nice talent.

Well that wraps up my review of the Alpha/Beta talents for Wrath of the Lich King!  Over all it looks awesome but the one thing I’m absolutely looking forward to isn’t even in the talent tree.  Its our new ability to resurrect out of combat, Revive!  Please let it go live!!! Please!  Please!  Please!

Blizz already stated there won’t be anymore big patches arriving soon as they prepare for the upcoming expansion (which I’m totally psyched about).  There was still some nice things that came out of the latest patch 2.4.3.  Probably my most favorite thing is they finally added a 28 slot herb bag! 

• Mycah of Sporeggar has discovered how to create 28 slot herb bags.

Before I jump for joy, allow me to be a little bitter.  This bag should have been available WAY earlier in the game.  Like patch 2.1.  All the other gathering profession had a 28 slot bag when TBC launched.  Where was the herbalists’ bag???  Prior to  [Mycah's Botanical Bag], the biggest herb bag in game came from a rare tailoring recipe that a lot of newer players and newer servers did not have because it required grinding rep with an old world faction.  I personally felt it was a big slap in the face especially since Blizzard gave the newest profession, jewelcrafting, a 28 slot gem bag before considering giving one of the most popular professions a big bag.

Ok, I’m calm now.  Hooray we got a 28 slot herb bag!  I’m going to pick me some mageroyal and firebloom right now!!

My guild recently opened up recruitment as we try to make a push into The Sunwell Plateau.  We already got a few good applications.  Theres one app in particular that caught our attention in a not so serious, LMAO way.  This guy that goes by the name Illidan thinks hes got what it takes to join us.

Apparently word spreads fast and we also got apps from a mage named Vargoth and a hothead named Ragnaros.  Hopefully we’ll get these guys on a trial run or something real soon…

I was farming [Fel Armament]s last night in Legion Hold when an alchemy recipe dropped for me, [Recipe: Fel Strength Elixir].  I never heard of this recipe so it was a pleasent surprise to see it especially because I was having a hard time getting armaments to drop.

My first thought was that this is a very impressive elixir for dps warriors.  They already have lots of hp so the -10 stamina would be insignificant.  The +90 attack power is a big improvement from [Onslaught Elixir] which only gives you +60 attack power for a difference of 30.  In my opinion the fel strength elixir is also easier to make since the onslaught elixir uses an old world herb.  Although I think Mountain Silverage can be found in Hellfire Peninsula.

Anyway, after farming 6 of the 8 Fel Armaments that I needed I got a little annoyed at the drop rate and decided to take the easy road and buy the last 2 in the auction house.  Funny how the armaments are three times more expensive than the Scryer equivalent, [Arcane Tome].  That might explain why I can’t get rid of the 20 Arcane Tomes in my bank.

So I AFK for a couple of weeks and the world has gone MAD!  According to the latest Wrath of the Lich King Alpha notes druids are getting a noncombat resurrection ability!

Revive:  Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead target to life with 1800 health and 1365 mana. Cannot be cast when in combat.

Looking at the screenshot, it seems that its a retroactive spell that druids get early in the leveling process.  This is great for all the nooblets out there.  Theres so many great things being tested in the next expansion, I’m almost afraid to keep my hopes up.

I realize its just the alpha phase and there has already been revisions/deletions but OMG I hope this stays in the game when it becomes live!  I don’t know how other druids feel, but I’ve been in situations where a pick-up group was looking for a healer and I would volunteer only to be turned down because I didn’t have a noncombat rez ability.

Grats me!  The one thing that motivated me to level up my jewelcrafting was this awesome trinket, [Figurine - Shadowsong Panther].  Sexy, I know.  Its a much needed upgrade for my extremely undergeared hunter.  It will replace [Hourglass of the Unraveller] which I must say is way overrated.  The hourglass rarely procs and when it does its usually on the killing blow… at least thats my experience with it.  The figurine has an on use effect that I can control which is better than a chance to proc effect.  It also has a cute little black cat that spawns when triggered which is the coolest thing ever.

So BIG thank you to Florise for supplying me with the two Shadowsong Amethysts needed to make the figurine.  Hopefully one day I can help you as much as you help me all the time.

BIG no thanks to the 80 mote of shadows I had to farm.  These things don’t drop like they used to when the TBC first launched.  I had to spend hours killing void walkers in Netherstorm for them.  I really wish these elementals (technically they’re demons) would at least drop some silver.

Many of you may be regular readers and posters of the official WoW forums.  You may be familiar with the Community Managers there too.  They are often referred to as “Blue” because all their posts are written in a blue font color.

One of the most popular Blues is a guy named Drysc.  I personally like him a lot because hes very informational and witty.  Some of the other Blues are too noobish (Bornakk) or too casual (Nethaera) and lack anything insightful that players seek when they come to the forums.  I get the impression that Drysc is an endgame raider like myself.  I guess thats why I like him so much.

Anywho, I was strolling around Exodar on my hunter the other day.  (Btw, the Exodar is an ugly city.  I understand its supposed to be a Naaru spaceship that crash landed but they could have designed a better floor plan, like Tempest Keep).  I occassionally like to watch the NPCs converse with each other and learn more about whats going on in the game world.  (Note to self: find out whats all the ruckus with the fruit vendor in Lower City).  Its the little details like this that really impresses me about the game.  So I notice a class trainer lecturing his students about the ways of the shaman.  Thats when I notice that one of the students is Drysc!  OMG he’s a level 20 Draenei noob!!!  haha!

On this day, the seventh day of the sixth month of the 2008th year A.D., I found my very first Khorium Vein since hitting max skill level in mining!  There are a couple of things I can make with it as a jewelcrafter but Khorium is mostly used by high level blacksmiths.  I’ll probably end up selling it on the auction house once I gather more.  The veins can spawn just about anywhere.  Its sorta like Truesilver Ore but less sucky. 

I know its silly to get excited over, but I am!  Its the first time I ran into a Khorium Vein and was actually able to mine it.  Of course I had to screen shot it for the ol’ scrap book…

So another non-raiding Monday night. What to do? Jazzy and I often find ourselves off on most of our adventures on Mondays for some reason. Usually when two people ask each other what they want to do and neither has an idea, it’s a recipe for boredom. Somehow though, when we do that we usually wind up having one of our more fun evenings. Last night was no different.

We’ve had this quest for a while to make that black hearted villain in Stratholme , Baron Rivendare, give up his undead steed. Unfortunately we haven’t been too lucky yet in getting it. We have gotten the flute that makes all people around you dance though. This is great to piss off your raid during the buffs. Although I’ve only heard this from stories. I would never do that myself. Ok, back on track! Off to Stratholme we went seeking our mount.

We’ve been here so many times we can probably count the number of mobs for you. The good thing is it allows us to move quickly. Tonight we actually tried to go for the 45 minute run. You know, you make it to the Baron and kill him in 45 minutes and save the girl? Well, anyway, we missed it by about 5 or 10 minutes. We would have made it but Jazzy had to go potty. I told her to go before we left!! Ok, I’m just kidding but that’s still funny. Stop side tracking me!

So we killed Magistrate Barthilas and as luck would have it he dropped the [Crimson Felt Hat]. In case you didn’t know Jazzy already has one (she’s very fashionable) and so it was a perfect compliment for me! Well, as I said in the beginning we were after the Baron’s mount but of course it didn’t drop again. *sigh* We decided to head back to Shatt. Jazzy got her hat out and we got a nifty photo for you. Aren’t we styling? Umm….our hats are up here. Hello!! That’s better.

Well the next thing that happened was kinda strange. We went back to Ironforge to hang out. Well I think I teased Jazzy too much over something. She got really emotional and the next thing I knew…BAM! She killed herself! I thought…oh my god what have I done? How could I have been so selfish and mean and cruel?!? Needless to say I was overcome with grief and flung myself from the balcony where we were standing. I plummeted to my death but I deserved it. The strangest thing happened then. Jazzy got up!!! It’s that whole feign death hunter thing she has going. Boy did she feel foolish when she looked over the balcony. She rushed down to my side and broke into tears! How could she have been so selfish and mean and cruel?!? Needless to say she took her life, there on the pavement of Ironforge. It was quite a scene.

There was a crowd of hundreds watching this! You can’t see them in the screenshot but they were there. I wouldn’t make this up would I? Well there you have our Monday night. From triumph to tragedy. Who says Mondays have to be dull?

Toodles!

Times up! Well, we finished our Black Temple farming this week early and got to go play in the Sunwell a little. Trash was…interesting. That’s like a whole other post. Maybe Jazzy can whip one up because evidently the super secret druid club has a way to defeat wiping on trash. TRAVEL FORM. Anyway, back on topic. After getting over our wipe fests we made it to the first boss. His name is Kalecgos. He’s pretty cool looking. We took one shot at him for fun. Not everyone had read the strategies for him and weren’t really prepared (no bad Illidan jokes please, those are for Jazzy). I know I hadn’t read up on him but don’t tell my GM. Wait…did I just…

I did ask Jazzy what to do and she was very insightful. “You see the big dragon guy? We kill him and I think we need to run somewhere when your group or someone in there goes…”. Needless to say we need more work on him! Still, it was very fun.