Just a quick one for you here.  My wife’s family has a mini Pumpkin carving contest every year.  Five or so of us carve pumpkins the week of Halloween and a few neighbors from across the street judge.

There is no prize in this contest, only pure glory.  In that way, I suppose it’s much like an achievement! 

Anyhow, I think we did a pretty good job this year, and thought I’d share the pics.  Halloween is my favorite holiday, after all. 

The fist pic is all of the pumpkins, and the next two are close-ups of the winner.

Not bad eh?  Pictures don’t QUITE do them justice, of course.  That Frankenstein is pretty good looking, though.  From a little ways away he almost looked REAL.  Creepy.  Guess who carved him? 

That’s right, I won it for the second year running.  Woot! 

PTD has earned the achievement [Pumpkin Carving Master]!

I’ll be honest.  I generally don’t cover "news" or events in game.  There are plenty of blogs that do that, and they do it far better than I ever would.  Suffice it to say that I have been having a blast with the Halloween events, including the ultra-cool zombie/undead invasion.  Sure, I ended up zombified in a couple of bad situations, and it did make things a little tricky here and there, but I’m not here to cry about anything.  I think Blizzard once again showed just why their game is so much better than the others.

How is that you say? 

The zombie event is all people would talk about.  That right there is a success, in my mind.  No matter what percentage of those people were complaining. 

Anyhow, so what has old PTD been up to? 

Well, I’ve been back on an alt kick, as I am wont to do from time to time.  Specifically I have finally gotten serious about leveling my warrior.  Shortly after the arrival of the Burning Crusade, I rolled a Draenei warrior.  I just thought a Draenei would look particularly cool in full plate armor with giant, nasty weapons.  Anyhow, he’s been languishing at level 42 for a long, long time. 

The thing about warriors, for me, was that though they were VERY tough to kill, they also took a lot longer to kill anything.  In my limited playtime, I’m more likely to level classes that just blow mobs out of the water, hence my Druid (who leveled kitty) and Hunter.  Both those classes just flat out mowed mobs down.

The Warrior, once he reached his 40s, played like he was fighting through molasses.  Steady, to be sure, but awfully slow.  I think the big, slow 2-handers I was using contributed to this, this feeling, but dual wielding never seemed much better.

So he was forgotten for a long time.  Joining my host of low to mid-40s characters, like my Rogue, Shaman and Priest.  I didn’t know if I’d ever go back to him, and he sat around gathering dust.

Then, the patch hit, and a few things conspired to make me decide to pick an alt to focus on for awhile.  The fact is that when 3.0 hit I was a little less interested in spending time on either of my 70s.  Here is why:

• 25 Man Nerfs – I really have no desire to continue doing 25 mans now that they are on easy mode.  I don’t begrudge those of you who are enjoying your time in them, seeing things you never thought you’d see.  I certainly can respect that.  But for me they are a shadow of their former selves, and are no longer a priority for me.
• The coming race to 80 – I am no longer all that focused on gear for my two 70s.  Both have MORE than adequate equipment to last them quite some time in Wrath leveling, and because I’m not interested in "progressing" in raids, I have no real need to upgrade.
• Talent tree changes – There are a lot of interesting new tricks to try for every class.  I toyed a bit with the new resto talents for my Tree, but again, I don’t plan to do much with him right now.  Ditto for the hunter, who is still in search of the elusive Nuramoc.

Once I realized these things, I took an inventory of my non 70 alts.  I have a 65 Shadow Priest, but I lost interest  in him a bit with what I heard of the changes in Wrath.  Their overall DPS was bumped, but some of their uniqueness was gone.  My next highest alt is my Enhancement Shammy, who sits at 49.  I LOVED him in his 30s, but started to grow tired of him as I got higher.  I couldn’t invest in the uber weapons to keep him killing fast with no downtime, and found that I spent a LOT of time on my behind.  So he was out. 

It was down to my 43 combat swords Rogue, my very first WoW character, and a 42 arms Warrior.  I loved how fast the Rogue could take things down, but there was one thing that always bugged me:  all those dang misses when dual wielding.  Yes, I know they still kill darn fast, and the misses will slowly go away when I get +hit gear in the outlands, but I just couldn’t handle seeing "Miss Miss Miss" in my scrolling combat text. 

Besides, I’ve ALWAYS wanted a high level warrior, and here is why:

• Plate Envy – Man, I see some of those numbers and drool.  After spending most of my time with a leather/cloth healer, that plate armor with its huge numbers looks awesome.  I also like the way a fully decked out warrior looks.
• Big, Nasty Weapon Envy – You can see the massive Axe in the screenshot above.  That’s what I’m talking about.  I like the idea of having a weapon I actually USE instead of just carry around for show (think druid, hunter).
• Tank Envy – I’ve always wanted to REALLY try my hand at tanking.  I’ve done it a bit with my Druid, but frankly I’m not into the whole respec thing.  I know it’s cake for you guys that run dailies every day, but for me that’s just too much cash to sling around.  I prefer to pick a spec and stick with it.  And when I think tank, I think Warrior.

And that’s how I’ve found myself doing nothing but leveling my warrior.  He’s up to 58 now, and I hope I can get him to at least 68 before Wrath hits.  I think I should be able to do it, thanks in large part to Jame’s Leveling Guide (if you’re leveling an alt, there is NO BETTER WAY than Jame’s guide).  The exp curve change from 3.0should help as well.  The idea is to get him high enough to join the "Who Will PTD Level First" competition for Wrath.  I figure I’ll throw up another post soon with my leveling spec, which is presently 43/5/0, and what I like about it.  For now, I think I’ve droned on long enough.   Thanks for reading, and don’t be surprised to hear a lot about Warriors in the near future!

I’ll be honest, I’m still wrestling with how to handle the new firewalled-at-work nature of the blog.  It was fiendishly convenient to write posts on my lunch break, but that is no more, unless I can figure out some work around that doesn’t involve spending a few hundred bucks on an iPhone.

So, what in the heck have I been up to?  Well, honestly I’m pretty sure I’ve been up to the same crap everyone else has been up to.

Enjoying the living hell out of the patch.  The fanboy in me loves Blizzard, and would marry it if it weren’t for Mrs. PTD.  They’ve just plain got their crap together.  Sure, there have been a good helping of server issues to go ’round, but that’s to be expected with such a big patch.  Luckily, I reside on one of the more stable realms, and have not had any real problems logging in whenever I want.

Well, except for those damn QUEUES, anyway.   (Is that the hardest word to spell in the English language, or is it just me?)

The funny thing is I haven’t been spending a lot of time with either of my 70s.  I did run SSC in guild the other night, and we wiped the floor with the first four bosses.  I can confirm that the nerf is in place.  That HP nerf along with our buffed talent trees made SSC MUCH more relaxing than it used to be.

Other than that, I have spent a small amount of time on my druid in search of a rare, Purple Chimera.  You may have heard of him, his name is Nuramoc.  I still haven’t even seen him, much less tamed him.  I’ve probably logged a good 6 hours in Netherstorm so far in fruitless searching.  I log on to the hunter, check all the known spawn points, log off.  Rinse and repeat.

You see, I’m a sucker for a PRETTY pet, especially if it happens to be rare.  I have no interest in a Corehound, but that pretty purple Chimera has my attention.  Heck, I’ve spent a LOT of time on my hunter camping spawns for rare pets.  It started with Humar the Pridelord.  I HAD to have that pretty black cat.  I also spent a LOT of time looking for and taming both Spiteflayer and Deathmaw.  I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.

Literally all my hunter has done is search for that pet.  Luckily, he’s a miner and engineer to boot, so I’ve collected 11 Primal Mana and about 50 each of Fel Iron and Adamantite.  Not bad!

Anyhow, OTHER than that, I’ve been working on my baby warrior.  I’ve ALWAYS wanted to have a 70 warrior.  I like the idea of a big, bad tank with the biggest, baddest weapons and that plate armor with ungodly AC.  I just never could get him past the low 40s hump.

I started on him again in earnest just before the patch.  He was level 42 then, and he’s now sitting just shy of 55.  I got him a nice blue 2 hander, and it’s been cake ever since.  It’s nice to play a character that can actually TAKE a few hits for once.  I particularly enjoy seeing how many mobs I can group up and take down solo.  The changes to Thunderclap help that quite a bit, as do the changes to retaliation. 

Retaliation was always my second favorite warrior skill.  I love mowing down groups of mobs with it.  My favorite warrior skill?  Overpower.  And now there is that nice new talent that makes Overpower sometimes proc when rend does damage.  It makes for pure huge crit sweetness!

He also got himself an entire levels worth of exp just through trick or treating.    Not bad!  I am also now forgoing stats for looks as I level with his shiny Hallowed Helm he got from a treat bad the other day.  Thus far I have seen every treat bucket in both Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.  I’m presently wondering whether I should get a port to Shatt and see how many I could get in the Outlands!  I have no REAL goal to get the title, but I sure wouldn’t turn it down.

Anyhow, that’s what I’ve been up to.  To sum it up, I’ve been up to having a hell of a lot of fun in game.  How about you?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but since the patch I’ve been literally obsessed with the new achievement system.  I’ve been running all over Azeroth with my warrior alt (now 52) and trying to complete as many of them as I can.  Which, for a 52, isn’t all that many.  I suppose I could be doing this with my Druid or Hunter, who have the ability to clear all the BC and before achievements, at least.  With the Warrior, I can only do so many.  I suppose part of the fun doing it with an alt is that I’m gaining actual experience while I do them.

This brings me to my point about achievements.  Why am I doing them anyway?  What do I get out of them?

If you really look at it, there are very few quantifiable rewards for achievements.  The more difficult to complete achievements give titles a lot of the time.  There are also the nebulous achievement points, but I have no idea what you can use those points for anyway.

So what’s the deal?  Why do I bother? 

Is it for the pop-up on the screen when I successfully complete an achievement, along with the message in guild chat?

Is it for the fact that something that was once "grayed out" on my achievement panel is now colored in?

I suppose that the answer is really none of those, though they do help at least a little.  I think the real answer has to do with the completionist in me.  This hearkens back to my days playing Mario games.  If you remember Mario 64, that was one of the first games that really CATERED to that completionist tendency.  Sure, you could beat the game with a fairly low percentage of the 120 available stars, but who did that?  I spent a LONG time after beating it scouring every nook and cranny for the deviously hidden "secret" stars to get all 120.

I suppose I wanted to feel like I had really "beaten" the game, and wasn’t satisfied with just taking down Bowser.  It’s funny, too, that in the end the reward for getting all 120 stars was absolutely and completely underwhelming. 

So are achievements a way for people to feel like they "beat" WoW?  Do we now have a way to say we "beat" the classic and BC content before Wrath hits?  Even if you do manage to unlock ALL of the pre-Wrath achievements, what exactly will you get for it beyond the satisfaction of having done so?

In the end, though, if you look at all the different things you can achieve in the game, be they loot, boss kills, or how many vanity pets you own, none of them mean all that much.  Even the shiniest Warglaive of Azzinoth will soon be deemed unworthy of an equipment slot, and I’m sure the day will come that you will vendor your Kara or T5 or T6 gear.  Achievements, though, will be here to stay.

I’ve been in the beta for awhile now, but the fact is I’ve paid no attention whatsoever to anything resto.

I know, I’ve been a bad Tree.

You see, I just wanted to take a gander at the new CONTENT, not the class changes.  I sure as heckfire wasn’t going to take a look at it all weak and leafy.  I went Boomkin in beta to, well, make the mobs go boom. 

I hadn’t even LOOKED at the resto tree until last night. 

So I logged on around 11 pm last night (with my 48 warrior I’ve been working on) to see how my UI looked and get things set up.  Of course, my UI was a bit on the borked side.  So I went to WoW Interface to download any new and updated Addons I needed.  (WoW Interface had a very low bandwidth addons page set up, good idea!)  I also decided to do a bit of spring cleaning, and cleared out the bulk of my Addons folder.  Just too much junk in there.

So here I am wrestling with a new bar mod and working on getting things set up when I get a tell asking if I wanted to heal Heroic Blood Furnace.

Hmm.  Tempting.  I haven’t even LOGGED into my druid yet, I have no idea what talents I’m going to take, and surely his UI is borked, too.

"Sure," I say. 

So I jump over and spec to this.  My method?  I just go down the frigging tree and go "yes, yes, yes, no, no, yes" until I’ve spent 55 points in resto.  Some good looking stuff in there that I had to at least try.  Living Seed?  Check.  Imp Tree of Life?  Check.  Gift of the Earthmother?  Check.  And, of course, Wild Growth.

I looked everything else over.  I had upgraded Clique already, and Grid worked as is.  I had to change my Clique settings quickly to fit in Wild Growth, but that was about it.  I got my bars in reasonably working order, got the daily, and took the summon.

Whew.  I wasn’t prepared to hit the ground running, that’s for sure.  I thought I was going to just spend a couple hours getting things set up.  Oh well.

On to heroic BF.

It went very, very well.  The group consisted a Warrior, a Boomin, a Lock, an Enhance Shammy, and myself.  I know myself and the Warrior are geared VERY well, though I’m not sure of the others we went with.  Still, we went through BF faster than I’ve ever gone though it before.  I’m not sure if we have new, "overpowered" spells and talents now or what, but we wasted that place.  Blew its doors off.  Took it out to the woodshed.  About the only hiccups were a couple times when the DPS pulled aggro from their OPness.  No biggie.  It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to more heroics to see whether that was just a fluke or what.

Here are my initial reactions to the tree changes.

• I LOVE that I can move just as fast as everyone else now.
• I LOVE that I can fricking rez people now.
• I LOVE that I actually got Soulstoned.  As a matter of fact, the one time I died I sat there with a stupid look on my face for a good 30 seconds before realizing I had the option to rez myself.  I guess I’ll have to get used to that.
• I LOVE Omen of Clarity.  Especially since it’s not a buff like it used to be, but an always on, passive talent.  It seemed to proc constantly, and I tried to use Regrowth or another, bigger heal whenever it did.
• I LOVE Wild Growth

It’s not as overpowered as it once was in the beta, but it is a VERY useful addition to my healing arsenal.   I know, 861 isn’t a huge amount.  And the fact that it takes 7 seconds to HEAL that whole amount isn’t great either.

However, it’s a HUGE boon for 5 mans at the very least.  Under normal circumstances, I often have to totally ignore damage to the DPS in tough situations.  I often have to focus 100% on the tank to keep him up in hairy spots.  With Wild Growth, I can work a group heal in WITHOUT losing focus on the tank.  It’s instant, it has a cool animation, and it works.

I’ll have to see in the future how it function in a raid environment, but because it’s a TARGETED group heal, I think it will work VERY well.  I look forward to taking this baby out into Kara or something in the future.

As far as the other stuff, I have no idea if and when living seed went off.  I wasn’t tracking stats or anything, and I had no kind of DPS meter, so I have no idea how, overall, the healing or DPS was.  I’ll try to look closely in the future.  I wasn’t really prepared for this last night. 

The only meter that mattered though, the fun meter, was very high.  Big patches like this one just always bring out the geek in me.  I love, love, love everything so far.  The graphics tweaks are noticeable, I love the new loading screens, I love the new pet/mount system, I love the achievements.  In short, I love WoW patch 3.02.

I’m a fanboy.  Sue me.

A lot of things are about the change, for Resto Druids and for everyone else.  Patch 3.0 and the new talent trees are right around the corner.  We’re going to have new tricks to use, and we all will have a lot to learn.  With all of the changes, though, a lot of things will stay the same.  I thought it would be appropriate to take the time to look back before we look forward to our coming fancy tricks. 

What makes a good druid healer a great druid healer?

I’ve been around the block as a Resto Druid.  I’ve been a part of kills from Leotheras the Blind to Shade of Akama to Zul’jin.  In my time, I’ve worked with quite a few other druid healers, and I’ve also seen how other druid healers play while DPSing with my hunter.  I think I can give a fair estimation of some keys that separate the men from the boys.

Druids are the most efficient healers in the game.  With our innervate ability and our high mana efficiency, we have more healing longevity than other healers.  Also, our healing style is more pro-active and less re-active.  That translates into less over-healing or "wasted" healing and an overall higher rate of effective healing.  A great druid healer will often find him or herself on top of the overall healing charts.  (Excepting, of course, those fights that involve a lot of group-intensive healing, like Hex Lord Malacrass, for instance.)

You can be a good druid healer just by managing lifebloom stacks and rejuvenation rotations efficiently, along with throwing in the occasional regrowth.

In order to be a great druid healer, however, there are a few tools and philosophies you must have a firm grasp on.  Let’s take a look at those.

Swiftmend

The first tool that many druid healers lose sight of is Swiftmend.  If I see a druid in a raid that is in the middle to the bottom of the healing charts, I first look at their breakdowns to see if they are using Swiftmend often.

They usually are not, and often aren’t using it at all.

As a confession, I literally NEVER used Swiftmend in my early career as a druid healer.  I concentrated almost solely on getting the feel for rolling lifebloom stacks with rejuv and regrowth thrown in when necessary.  This got me through regular dungeons and T4 content fairly easily.

Once I hit up heroics, though, the rules changed.  I needed a way to deal with damage spikes when lifebloom and my other HOTs weren’t quite doing the job.  I soon learned the glory of Swiftmend.

Swiftmend is instant cast, has a reasonable mana cost, and it can heal for a LOT.  (As an aside, you’ll notice it will consume either a rejuv or regrowth.  If you have both spells active on the target, it will consume the one with the least time remaining.)  My average swiftmend of a rejuvenation is in the  neighborhood of 3700 or so.  If the swiftmend crits (yes, it can crit) I can heal for upwards of 6k instantly. 

I don’t know why I see so many druids that don’t use this often, but I do.  I think perhaps the tooltip doesn’t quite do it justice.  I can’t tell you how many times swiftmend has saved my bacon, and with that short cooldown I use it recklessly. 

One other note about swiftmend is that it doesn’t matter how many "ticks" are left on your rejuv or regrowth, it will heal the same amount.  So one of the best times to use it is when your HOT is just about to expire.  Unless, of course, you are using it because the tank is about to die.

Nature’s Swiftness

This is our other "oh crap" button for instantly dealing out some big time healing.  It’s also the other druid skill that many druids don’t use often enough.

Couple this spell with healing touch, and you have yourself a fancy little 6k+ instant heal.  You can also use NS to make regrowth instant cast, but for the most part I reserve it for use with my biggest possible heal.  About the only time I use healing touch is when I use NS to make it insta cast.  Sure, it pops you out of tree form (until 3.0, anyway) but it’s worth it if the tank is about to go down.

NS can also be useful to make rebirth instant cast.  If your OT goes down mid fight, you can have them back up, well, instantly. 

I think perhaps people overestimate the cooldown, and that factors into how often they use NS.  They try to reserve it for those true "oh crap" moments.  With a 3 minute cooldown, though, use it early, and use it often.

The Flow

The third thing I would like to address is not quite as concrete as a particular skill you should be using.  My last point focuses on the "flow" of druid healing.

In essence, what separates the great druid healers from the merely good druid healers is how efficiently they manage the global cooldown.  Because so many of our tools are instant cast, we have to focus more closely on the GCD than any other healing class.  For other healers, the GCD is a mere afterthought.  For a druid healer, the GCD is everything.

You’ll often have the task of HOTing up multiple targets.  If you want to be able to run a full complement of HOTs on more than one target, you have to be able to manage the GCD in such a way that ALL your HOTs are up at ALL TIMES.  It’s easy to keep everything on one target at a time, and in fact in those situations I often find myself bored.  If I have to handle 2, 3 or even 4 targets, though, I really have to be on my toes. 

This is where the flow comes in.  In my opinion, you need to have a FEEL for the GCD more than anything.  You have to get an inner sense of how quickly you can cast the next spell.  If I am really on my game, I get into a zone when it comes to managing my HOTs.  On a good night, I can keep full lifebloom stacks on as many as four targets fairly easily.  I can also keep a full lifebloom stack WITH rejuv and regrowth on 2 targets if I’m really feeling the GCD.

It’s difficult for me to quantify exactly how you would go about this.  In my estimation, this largely depends on experience running HOTs on multiple targets.  Over time, you just plain KNOW when you can cast your next spell with no wasted motion or keystrokes, and without allowing a lifebloom stack to expire unless you want it to.  I don’t know of any mods that can really help you with this, though the use of a mod like Clique or Healbot along with any HOT timing mod can make it much easier.  My suggestion is that you just keep on keeping on, and try to push your abilities whenever possible.  Experiment, and see just how many targets you can keep fully HOTed at once. 

If you have a good grasp of the GCD and the flow of druid healing, you can also quite easily work in assistance on other targets.  You’ll know when you can spare a GCD for a lifebloom on a DPS, for instance, or when is the best time to reapply regrowth to the tank.  The best druid healers, in my experience, are those that seem to constantly be casting.  You don’t see them standing there motionless, they almost always have their hands flying back up in the air for their next spell. 

If I see a druid who’s hands fly up only every 4 seconds or so, there is a good chance that they aren’t performing to their full capabilities. 

I know this entire last section is a bit vague, and perhaps more difficult to understand.  I also know, however, that any experienced druid healers reading this will know exactly what I’m talking about.  It’s kind of like when Michael Jordan occasionally got in the zone and "went off" on the opposition.  If you have a good grasp of the flow of druid healing, you’ll often find yourself in your own little healing zone, and the overall healing numbers will definitely bear that out.

Conclusion

I know it can be easy to lean on lifebloom and the occasional rejuvenation and be successful as a druid healer.  If you want to excel, however, you have to use ALL of our tools.  Swiftmend and Nature’s Swiftness are often ignored, and they shouldn’t be.  Anyone who tells you that druids have no good way of dealing with spike damage may have just never played with a great resto druid.  I’m also well aware of the fact that things are going to be changing quite a bit fairly soon.  In my opinion, though, the essence of what makes a great druid healer will remain the same.

Use all your tools, practice, and get yourself into the flow.  I know meters don’t mean everything, but that doesn’t mean it’s not nice to perform well.  Strive for excellence in druidic healing, and you can get there!

The end of the Amani War Bear is almost upon us.  It’s now only a matter of days until you can never get the fancy shmancy bear mount again.  You’re all well aware that my guild has been working hard in ZA to get at least a Bear or two.

Well, we have been flat out getting it done.  Since our first success roughly two weeks ago, we’ve frigging owned the place.  Well, when I say "we" I’m referring to our guild, I haven’t been part of it.  Not until tonight, anyway.

It turns out the regular Tree that has been going couldn’t make tonight’s run, and yours truly just happens to be second on that nebulous list.  I gladly accepted the invitation to fill the spot.

Well, I will freely admit that I was pretty dang nervous.  They’ve been running this VERY successfully with very nearly the same 10 players each time.  They knew what was what, and they were getting the job done.  The last thing I wanted to do was waltz in and screw up their Mojo.  So from the very start, it was pure white knuckle time.  I checked and rechecked my inventory, checked and rechecked my gear, and maybe triply positive that I had everything I needed.  I also made sure to get all the advice I could get from the other tree and the priest I would be working with.

Well, I’m not going to bore you with the details.  It went just plain swimmingly, and we did indeed get ourselves another Bear mount.  I was a little nervous during the lynx fight a couple of times, and we almost let one scout get away that could have been a problem.  In the end, though, we finished up with at least 3 minutes on the clock.  I’m not sure how many minutes exactly, as I was just too drained at that point to take note.  Here are a couple of shots to prove it!

I was very, very happy to have been part of a successful run.  I was doubly happy to have not fouled it up for everyone else as a "sub" and all.  I didn’t even roll on the Bear, as 8 of them there have been working on it solid for awhile.  Besides, I want the Headless Horseman’s mount.    It was quite stressful, I won’t lie.  I was putting a lot of pressure on myself.  I didn’t let the team down, though, and we walked away successful.  That’s all I could really ask!  That’s one more tick off the running scorecard in my head pre-Wrath.  Successful Bear Run, check.

No, I’m not talking about your level 80 spec, either.  I don’t expect to see level 80 for some time, so I’m not even thinking about the new end-game right now.  What do you plan to do out of the gate?  Stick with the basic spec you’ve been running, with a few tweaks for new talents?  Or are you considering a major spec overhaul?

Just as this is the best time to change your main, for many of the same reasons it’s the best time to change your spec. 

Take healing classes, for instance.  I will freely admit that I did not level as a healing spec.  Leveling as a healer should be reserved for the purists among us, or those who know they will ALWAYS have a group.

Me?  I’m a casual player, and much of my game time is spent alone.  For that reason, healing specs don’t make sense while I’m leveling.  Now that +healing and +spell damage have gotten together to have their love child in +spellpower, healers should see a healthy boost in their DPS and, therefore, their solo-ability. 

Still, that’s not good enough for me.  If I’m going to be alone a lot of the time, which I am, I want to BURN STUFF DOWN! 

When I copied my druid over to the beta server, I first took an inventory of my gear.  I had some very nice kitty gear, and I initially went with a feral spec.  It made sense since that’s how I leveled and I knew how to play that way. 

But, well, it just didn’t seem fun anymore.  I suppose after 50 levels worth of cat form, it lost its luster just a bit.

So I went back to the drawing board.  I looked at my shiny purple healing gear, and noticed for the first time that it was some pretty dang good caster DPS gear.  Well, it  just turns out that there is one druid spec I have NEVER tried.  Boomkin.

That’s right. Boom Boom, baby!  I have no experience with this spec.  I’ve never even looked at the talents, other than the first 2 tiers or so for my extra points as a tree.  I just kind of went on down and picked up everything that sounded good to me.  I’m not going to bother posting my spec, as I couldn’t even tell you what it is.

What I CAN tell you, though, is that I am having a LOT of fun with it already.  I’ve played the tree for a long time, and I never see crits for more than 2-3k at the most.  With my hacked together boomkin spec, I found myself routinely critting in the 5k range.

Now that’s fun.  Killing mobs before they even get to you?  Priceless. 

Soloing in my live resto spec boils down to a lot of roots and a lot of lifeblooms.  Feeling the raw power of the Boomkin is quite a change indeed.

So this post is for you, healers of the world.  Don’t be married to your PvE raiding spec.  You’ve got leveling to do here! 

Maybe you play a CoH priest, and you’ve had shadow envy for awhile.  Now is the time to explore your dark side. 

I’m sure you healadins are at least a LITTLE intrigued by the newfound power of the ret pally.  Give it a try.

Brain healing shammys, now is the time to unleash your inner chain lightning.

Trust me when I tell you this, going from a healing spec to a DPS caster spec is a LOT of fun.  It’s kind of like putzing around in an old Yugo for awhile, and then your friend loans you his Ferrari.  It’s thrilling to melt pavement for awhile and give the hamsters in your Yugo a rest.  Don’t hesitate to give you resto spec a, well, rest!

I can no longer deny the truth. I have tried to push it aside, I have tried to weasel my way around its edges. But it’s there, and it’s undeniable. World of Warcraft, at its core, is a game about time. 

Given that "time" is part of my blogs title, and I’ve deftly plugged another piece in this sentence as well, time is something that is often on my mind.  The way I approach the game is largely an attempt to wrestle time to the ground, and bend it to my will.  I try to divvy up my time as efficiently as possible, assigning as the majority of my game minutes to "important" activities.  I schedule raids and instance runs at times that are convenient to me, because I know if I just log on randomly the chances of me getting anything significant done are slim and none.  If I cannot do that, I will have a specific plan for what I want to accomplish alone and how I want to accomplish it.

With Wrath right around the corner, I’ve begun to put together my plans.  Who will I level?  Will I level one character, and at least try to keep up with my guild?  Should I level 2 characters in tandem to take advantage of rested XP, knowing full well I will fall behind?  I just don’t know.

And the fact that I have to think like this makes me a little sad.

Allow my arrogance to surface for a second.  I consider myself a pretty strong player from a skill standpoint.  I have a good feel for healing, and manage my GCD quite well.  This often bears itself out in the overall healing charts for T6 raids.  Though not the best geared, I am often at the top.  I would go toe to toe with any healer I have come across with no reservations, if there was any way to truly do so.  I expect this is due to quite a few supporting factors, including my console gaming history that goes back to the Odyssey2 and my tendency to want to know EVERYTHING about any subject that interests me.

Heck, that’s a big reason I started this blog.  I’ve learned as many things as I have taught, I assure you.

Since there is no real way to quantify it, let’s assume that I am a very skilled WoW player, for the sake of argument.  I’ve recently realized that skill, though a big part in my eyes, is not so big a part overall.  Let me explain.

Skill is only part of the equation, in order to truly succeed in WoW, and see all there is to see, you also need a lot of time to play.  I’m not just talking about raid availability, either.  Try to think about any aspect of "progression" in the game and what it requires.  We grind mats.  We grind primals.  We grind levels.  We grind badges.  We grind reputation.  We grind trade skills.  Heck, it might be easier to try to think about what we DON’T grind in WoW. 

Let’s see.  We don’t grind…umm…well…

I can’t think of anything.  Can you? 

That makes me kind of sad.  Any skill I may or may not have will almost always be secondary to how much time I have to grind.  WoW is just plain set up to reward people based on the amount of time they can devote to the game.  Think about a game like Mario Kart.  You can get an edge through experience, but as far as the raw TOOLS go, everyone is on the same playing field.  You can’t level Bowser to 80 and blow away all comers. 

Is there any alternative?  Sadly, I haven’t been able to come up with anything.  Not yet, anyway.  I’m hoping a flash of inspiration will hit, but I’m not holding my breath.  So I will have to play within the rules just like everyone else.  I will have to resign myself to the fact that I can only go SO FAR in WoW.  I will never approach the upper echelon of gear or progression.  Not because I don’t have the ability, but because I don’t have the time. 

In a way, this makes me appreciate those things I can do just a little more.  I’m glad that I have managed to see so much of Serpentshrine Cavern, Mount Hyjal and the Black Temple.  I’ll never see Sunwell, at least not at an appropriate level, but I got pretty darn far for someone who can only play a handful of hours a week.  As long as I remember that I will most likely never sport all the best gear, and down whatever the present "last boss" in progression is, I can still have a great time in WoW.  There is also a way in which I have an advantage over those with more time to play the game.  I rarely burn out on WoW like many of them. 

Before I get to talking about quest rewards, I have some site news.  PTD has joined the illustrious ranks of such blogs as WoW Insider, World of Matticus and The Big Bear Butt.  No, I didn’t get a job with WI.  No, I didn’t get 1.2 million hits in the last week.  What happened is my blog is now blocked by the firewall at work.  Doh!  What this means is that I’m going to have to rethink how and when I do my posts.  I normally write and post during my lunch break, but with my access blocked that is now an impossibility.  Please bear with me if my posting habits change a bit in the coming weeks.

Now, about those early quest rewards.  If you were around when BC was released, there was an enormous gear "reset" because the stats and such on the gear in BC was far and away superior to anything you might have collected in the old world.  Raiders found themselves replacing shiny purples from Molten Core with green drops and quest rewards.  It was a little disheartening for some, as they had worked quite hard to get that great gear.  Once BC hit, that gear was VERY quickly replaced.

Because of this, people have feared the same would happen with the release of Wrath.  Well, I am here to tell you that this is not the case.  The drops and quest rewards are GOOD, mind you, but they aren’t leaps and bounds beyond top level BC loot.  Here is a pic I put together with a smattering of early quest rewards.  I was able to pick any of these up within my first hour or so questing in Northrend.

My apologies for the random distribution, I failed miserably at trying to arrange them in a sensible way.  I just wanted to get them all on one page. 

What I’ve gathered thus far is this:  if you are in a lot of T4 or higher gear, you won’t find a lot of use for the early quest rewards.  If you’ve got your drops from Kara, or from SSC or whatnot, you’ll be good for at least a little while. 

If you just recently hit 70, however, or you have a 70 you haven’t done much raiding with, you might be VERY interested in some of the quest rewards.  This is just one of the reasons that now is the perfect time to Change Your Main. 

These quest rewards can potentially also be very nice if you have holes in your gear you just never filled through raiding.  Maybe you’re still sporting a blue pair of bracers from Ramparts or something.  Maybe you just had bad luck with epic drops in a certain slot.  (I know my hunter has TERRIBLE luck with ranged weapon drops!)  You’ll probably find some good upgrades here.

There are a few general good things I’d like to note about the quest rewards. 

First, the change from healing or damage gear to just plain spellpower gear is a great help.  This really streamlines the gear table, and, in turn, the quest rewards.  In the past, many quests had to EITHER give a caster DPS piece OR a caster healing piece.  Not anymore.  While it’s true that this could make sorting out drops in instances more difficult, it has really improved the quest reward system. 

Next, I found that the quests had something for more classes this time around.  I don’t see any quests with a silly choice between a wand or a shield like in the old days.  Most quests were giving a wide assortment of upgrades that would appeal to MOST.  The quests I saw had at LEAST 3 or 4 upgrades to choose from, and they covered a lot of different bases. 

Lastly, one thing I noticed is there is a heck of a lot of stamina on some of this stuff.  I don’t know if this means we can expect to see mob HPs going way up or what, but there were some stamina numbers that I have rarely seen before.  Heck, the feral staff reward in that pic has more stamina on it than my Wildfury Greatstaff.

So there you have it.  Fear not, there is no huge gear reset this time.  Your shiny epics will remain shiny for at least a few levels in Northrend.  If you’ve been wondering whether you should bother continuing raiding for drops, the answer is why not?  Your epics will serve you well in Northrend, and what else do you have to do?  Also, if you’re gearing up a fresh 70, you’ll go all googly eyed over some of this stuff.  You’ll get some great upgrades, and you’ll get them FAST.  I finished most of the quests that gave the above rewards in about an hour.  That’s all for now, thanks for reading!