On State of the Blog Speeches:

Yup. I did exactly what every other blogger out there did, once Cataclysm came out. I started playing, and didn't stop until I hit a wall.

Oh come on, like blogging would be the first thing on YOUR mind with a new expansion out there dangling in front of you!

So, one... two? Two months in now? And I've made some impressions.

I am not pleased with the state of Bear.

In Wrath, Druids were THE tank to beat. Oh, go on, say what you will about Paladins and Warriors. Druids had the spammable AoE snap threat, massive HP pools, and more avoidance and mitigation than you could shake a stick at. I tell you the truth, there is no way that my guild would have downed Sindragosa with a disconnected MT if I was anything other than a druid, putting my fuzzy butt on the line there. 22 stacks of Mystic Buffet, I held her, and was able to properly hand her off to the MT as soon as she reconnected. Had I been able to do it one second earlier, I would have been behind the ice block, been able to drop stacks, and return to the fight.

Now, not so much. Bears are fantastic in single-target fights, just as Warriors are. A Bear's Mangle is analogous to the Warrior's Shield Slam. Both hit like a truck and a half, and fancy mechanics affect it in some way, shape or form, like Shield Block boosting its damage, or Berserk letting us spam a cleaving Mangle for 15-20 seconds. We're great there. No problems with threat whatsoever. But the AoE threat game is dominated by the Death Knights and the Paladins. Now, obviously, I don't expect a tank to be absolutely phenomenal at everything. The last thing we need is Wrath 2.0 to roll back around again. But Bear tanking worries me somewhat, especially given how much of a hell it is to juggle Thrash uptime, three stacks of Lacerate, Demo Roar, Pulverize, watching your rage for Maul, and Berserk proccing mangles.

It's no secret that Bears take the most about of damage when tanking multiple mobs, compared to the other tanks. As far as survival is concerned, Warriors are seen gearing straight Block, to get themselves as close to a passive 30% physical damage reduction as possible. Death Knights, are stupidly hard to kill, what with that one DK Ragewyn soloing Marrowgar. And Paladins, well. You know what I say. Paladins are the cockroaches of Azeroth. Savage Defense sucks compared to Blood Shield + Death Strike. Savage Defense only stops one hit then disappears, regardless of whether it was 1 million damage, or 1 damage. Savage Defense sucks compared to Paladins and Warriors. Their mitigation mechanics are entirely passive, whereas Savage Defense requires continued, active damage output. And it only has one charge. We smack a mob, put up a shield, his buddy taps us for 1/5th of the shield's strength, pops it, and until we get to attack again, we're taking damage. I would like to see Savage Defense be turned into an absorption shield, a la Death Knights, where if the damage doesn't total up to the bubble, it doesn't pop.

I'm also concerned about some fairly large nerfs on the horizon:

• Skull Bash (Cat) / Skull Bash (Bear) now prevents spell from that school from being cast for 4 sec, down from 5 sec.
• Maul now scales from 24% of Attack Power, down from 30%.
• Lacerate now scales from 7.66% of Attack Power, down from 9.58%. Now makes enemies bleed for 35 + 2.56% of Attack Power, down from 35 + 3.2% of Attack Power.
• (Mangle) Mangle (Bear) now deals 235% normal damage plus 681, down from 300% plus 870.
• Pulverize now deals 80% weapon damage, down from 100%. Additional damage reduced by 20% as well, from 450 to 360.

Also, Berserk doesn't break Fears anymore, and shifting doesn't break roots. I confess to not having tanked as much as I would have liked. I resolved to not tank myself until I had learned every dungeon as a DPS. I still mess up here and there, but I am mostly able to keep the rising sense of dread in check.

Cat State of the Blog comes next.

-BTC

On Karsh Steelbender's easy mode:

I was taught how to do Karsh Steelbender by a bunch of people in an RDF they other day. (Whodathunk? Learning from an RDF group!)

The method that was taught was sufficiently awesome that it just completely blows everything that anyone else is doing out of the water. Here's the skinny.

Karsh Steelbender is a fight that is exactly identical between both Normal and Heroic modes, save the increased damage output. It may be worthwhile just to practice this method in normal before you do Heroic.

At no point in time will you ever "soak" Karsh in the forge. Ever. This places too heavy a burden on the healer with the reflected AoE that pulses with each stack of debuff he gains, and can quickly obliterate a group. Instead, the tank should "dip" or perhaps even just "clip" him into the forge every time his debuff gets down to about five seconds or so, by kiting him through the edge, only adding one or two stacks of the debuff each time. To visualize, think of a circle, then draw a pentagon, that is just a little bit too small for the circle to fit into. The sides of the pentagon are the path that the tank should kite along. If by 12 or 13 stacks, Karsh does not look like he will be dead within the next application of debuff, allow the debuff to drop, kite the adds out into the grates surrounding the forge area, and kill them there, before repeating.

This method:

Eliminates the need to manage adds when the debuff drops off.
Makes incoming damage manageable by spacing out the pulses of AoE damage caused by the application of the debuff, allowing your healer time to top everybody back up.
Eliminates the need to worry about group members standing in the "Ring of Fire" that erupts when the debuff is dropped until the very end.
Allows DPS to conserve their cooldowns until Karsh has seven or eight stacks, and not have the usable uptime be wasted by the debuff dropping.

I've posted this to Wowhead, just because it *needs* to be seen by everyone. Hopefully it'll be up there soon.

Here's an explanatory image, whipped up in GIMP:

-BTC

On terrible puns:

Okay, I know that nobody out there reads my blog, but I'm going to pimp this anyhow:

Yes, I love terrible puns. Yes, I also love the Raid Warning podcast. But the class roundtable special podcasts are particularly awesome, and you should all totally go listen when it goes down October 12th.

-BTC

On a finalized tanking rotation and spec:

So it's coming close to Cataclysm, and my usual druid tanking forecasting annoyances aside, I think we can finally put together some kind of tanking priority list.

Since I generally tend to do The Hybrid Thing, here's the spec I've been throwing around lately: 0/31/9 with one floater.

I think it, as well as some of my glyph choices, could be tweaked significantly, especially since switching glyphs back and forth will be much easier. The fact of the matter remains though, that there is really no good 3rd bear tanking glyph, which is what I usually will be doing. Lemme break it down row by row:

T1 Feral: Of the three talents, only Predatory Strikes is not hybrid, so we don't take it. The other two are both useful to us, and we need five points to get to T2, so we grab them all. The five-point requirement aside, maxing Furor will save us headaches down the line when we make our initial charges, as we will likely be using the redesigned Thorns spell on ourselves just before we shift to Bear and charge in. Since word is that it's not castable while in Bear or Cat form, we don't care about the glyph as a result, but it will definitely be used just before pulling despite its steep mana cost. Yes, 3/3 Furor is also wasted on a cat, since between the GCD afterward and haste increasing our energy regeneration, we likely will shoot from 66 to 90 or 95 energy before we can even do anything, but having to shift back and forth to get the rage required to Feral Charge will save some sanity. Feral Swiftness, free 4% dodge, 30% extra movespeed. Yaaaaaay.

T2: Oh how I hate this tier so much.

Infected Wounds is necessary as a tank. Primal Fury is necessary whether you tank or DPS. Fury Swipes is purely a DPS increase, but math right now says it's more useful to Cats because of their inherently faster swing timer. Feral Aggression is also valuable to both tanking and DPS. Since we're hybrid, we put points into everything except Fury Swipes.

But why Feral Aggression? And why 2/2? Unlike Warriors, we are going to have to juggle both Lacerate and Feral Faerie Fire stacks on our tanking targets. We also don't have a Devastate to apply stacks of Faerie Fire/Sunder Armor for us as well. And given that it only stacks to three instead of five, I figure it's better to eat the extra talent point in Feral Aggression to save the many, many extra GCDs needed to apply that ONE last stack of Faerie Fire. As a result, in for a penny, in for a pound. This may pan out differently, though, since more classes are getting the major armor debuff, it may not be imperative for just us to handle it. No word on whether any one will overwrite the other, though. It would totally suck if you slapped a stack on a boss, only to have someone accidentally hit the wrong button and wipe it out, making you start over.

T3: Get everything.

Okay, so maybe it's not that cut and dry. King of the Jungle is necessary to DPS with, although whether or not we can get by with just 2/3 or 1/3 remains to be seen. Feral Charge is absolutely necessary, no contest. Thick Hide is necessary for tanking. But IFC/Stampede... well. The increased melee haste after a Bear Charge is interesting enough. It's not increasing haste rating, otherwise, you'd never see a Cat Charge ever again, but the way things are set up right now, I would say is a bit of a tossup. If you were a full-on Cat, I could see you Bear Charging in to take advantage of the immobilize and increased melee haste to throw out more white hits and proc more Fury Swipes. It's a LONG buff, relatively speaking, too. The damage on Ravage still needs to be shaken out, a bit though. If this becomes more attractive to Cats than Cat Charge + Ravage, something probably needs to be tweaked. As it stands, Stampede isn't *explicitly* necessary? But it's certainly very tasty. If you choose not to put points here, hold onto them until T5.

T4: Leader of the Pack got it's Improved effect rolled right in, grab it. Brutal Impact is necessary as a tank, grab it. (We have a ranged interrupt now! Yay!) Nurturing Instinct is one of those spells that only helps if you have the time to shift out of form to take advantage of, (i.e., emergency Cat Tranquility) but since we're tanking most of the time, no-go.

T5: Primal Madness: I don't see this as explicitly necessary for tanking or DPS. It's just one of those talents that boosts the top end damage. Survival Instincts is necessary as our Shield Wall. Natural Reaction is required as a tank. If you didn't take 2/2 Stampede earlier, you can grab 2/2 Endless Carnage here, which pads out the Rake, SR and Pulverize durations. Since physical bleeds aren't affected by haste, (no, you read that right. Bleeds aren't affected by haste.) this will primarily just make the rotation less tight.

T6: Blood in the Water: Damn you for changing the name, Blizzard. ;_; Cat-only talent, also dead to us. Dead to us, I say! Rend and Tear gets maxed, as before. Pulverize.... I wish we didn't need to take Pulverize. I wish it were more like Devastate, were it refreshes instead of consumes. But alas, it is not to be. Necessary tanking tool, take it.

T7: Berserk: Take it.

Resto T1: Blessing of the Grove no longer buffs Rake damage, so that's one less thing we have to take. Naturalist is useless to us. Heart of the Wild is only three points, so what's left? Natural Shapeshifter. I'm not thrilled to have to take it, but since Thorns has a very steep mana cost, (35% of base) it helps take the sting away. On the plus side, it makes Master Shapeshifter (just one point) available, so.

Resto T2: Hooray for Perseverance. 6% less spell damage will stack with the Effulgent Skyflare Diamond, bring that passive spell damage resist up to 8% Are we still going to be of the "we handle spell damage by having massive health pools" school? Probably not, since we now have a Shield Wall equivalent, so it remains to be seen how important it is. But less damage taken is always a good thing, so 3/3 that sucker. Drop a point into Master Shapeshifter while you're at it.

-BTC

On a new mission:

Well, it's official. Zul'Gurub is going poof in Cataclysm. Now I know what my new thing-to-do is.

-BTC

On topics that change while you write:

So I figured at some point, I should write some articles about actual Druid issues in general again. But let's face it, I can't bring myself to write about the stuff that's going on now, not when there are others who are still writing excellent articles about things like tanking cooldowns.

(That, and it's kind of hard to hold a candle to the Big Bear, y'know?)

So then I decided that I should look forward to druid tanking in Cataclysm. Specifically, cooldowns.

Mechanically speaking... we really ARE becoming like Warriors. Survival Instincts is becoming the bear's AND cat's Shield Wall, while Frenzied Regeneration picks up the old Survival Instincts's effect in addition to its old regeneration effect. Barkskin, thankfully, remains just the same. Skull Bash is Intervene + Gag Order. Bash is becoming Concussion Blow.

My criticism of the druid tanking experience in general still holds, namely, that it is becoming incredibly close to Warrior-style tanking, that is, tanking in the buff. (An awesome shirt, by the way, even if it *is* a Night Elf. *rolls eyes*) Recent changes to the game bear this out as well, given that Swipe is no longer spammable, and the threat values of our attacks have been shuffled around. At this point, it appears that we will likely deal with trash packs as Warriors do now; Feral Charge in, (Note the lack of an interrupt effect.) Swipe, Thrash, Demoralizing Roar, then tab-target around and Lacerate, (Only stacks to three, now) Mangle, and Feral Faerie Fire. (which is now a Sunder Armor effect. Both only stack to three.) The only appreciable difference is with the new changes to Maul/Heroic Strike, (Maul hasn't gotten the tooltip updated to reflect the changes to it yet.) where we can no longer macro these in with every attack, and instead now save those abilities to burn off excess rage.

For reference, the current Cataclysm Warrior setup is to Charge in, Shockwave, Thunderclap, Demoralizing Shout, then tab target around with Revenge, Shield Slam, and Devastate, using Heroic Strike or Cleave to burn excess rage. As I understand it, Warrior tanking is not fundamentally changing.

I suppose homogenization is inevitable, really. Even as big a studio as Blizzard is, I really don't expect them to try and create two completely different tanking methodologies with two completely separate toolkits using the same energy source. It's a Herculean task of asinine proportions.

But I still have a number of reservations about this setup.

Namely, uptime. Between all of our abilities, in order to maintain the absolute maximum threat on a group, we need to, in no particular order:

1) Keep 3 stacks of Lacerate going
2) Keep Pulverize going
3) Keep 3 stacks of Feral Faerie Fire going
4) Keep Mangle up
5) Possibly keep Thrash up, depending in how the numbers bear out.
6) Keep Demoralizing Roar up

Of particular contention is the difficulty of maintaining stacks of two abilities on multiple targets. Warriors only have the one to deal with, Sunder Armor, which not only is automatically applied with Devastate, but is neither consumed for any ability, and when glyphed, applies multiple stacks at once, or if a glyphed Sunder Armor is used, affects two targets at once. Sadly, the glyphs are purely speculation at this point, given that the new glyph system is not yet implemented, especially with the added tier of glyphs.


It's pointless for me to complain about this, given that I don't have a beta key with which to test things and see just how difficult this task is going to be, but I do hope that the consumption effect of Pulverize is either changed into a "Adds a charge of Lacerate" a la Devastate, or "adds X seconds to the duration of Lacerate" or "refreshes Lacerate to its full duration".

-BTC

On advertising

Hooray, I got linked by John Patricelli! You guys may have heard of him. He's kind of a big thing amongst Druid tanks. And we don't mind when he decides to go on a tirade, either. =3

It's been a while since I've posted, obviously. Between a two-week break in raiding because people were getting burnt out, and the subsequent release of Starcraft II, things have been very quiet on the home front. Pretty much the only thing that stands between us and our shiny Kingslayer titles is Harvest Soul. And then after that, we take a break from ICC, and go clear out our older raid achievements. Ulduar is first on the list, so we can get those shiny 310% speed mounts, and then who knows what we'll do from there. (Really, it's not like I ever use anything other than Swift Flight Form anyhow. The only mounts I ever have bound to my bars are SFF, my Mechano-hog, my Raven Lord (YES! I FINALLY GOT HIM AFTER A YEAR OF FARMING! (Woo! Parenthetical abuse!)) and my Cenarion Hippogryph. I just want the mount for the 310% speed.)

Still steadily whacking away at achievements, though. Since I finished Loremaster, AND beat Anzu into submission, I've been looking for some new, overarching project to complete. Insane in the Membrane is an option. Twenty-Five Tabards, en-route to 40 Exalted Reputations is on the list as well. These are also on top of the Venomhide Ravasaur I'm doing daily. Since I just got exalted with Scryers as well, I'm inclined to start farming the materials needed to switch over the Aldor and get Hero of Shattrath as well. One of the other  non-achievement things, that I mean to do as well is roll that second druid for Boomkin, but I've been inclined to hold off on that so I can try the new Mulgore and re-learn Cataclysm druid tanking from scratch. I've also been pondering letting out some slack on my altitis as well. There's an Arms/Prot warrior I've been meaning to make, as well, and a Frost DK that needs levelling from 70 to 80. I'm giving up on the priest as well. The cost-benefit for making a threadbot isn't worth it, seeing as Fox told me that the epic spellthreads are rep-earned, and therefore out of the reach of a level 65 profession-only alt. Oh right, and I need to make a rogue for that Insane in the Membrane too.

....yeah, I've got a lot on my plate. Any suggestions?

-BTC

On hedging one's bets:

Just a quick note here, because I sit in wait with bated breath. From His Crabbiness:

If I had to guess, Omen of Clarity will be a trained ability. It's too useful to different kinds of druids. Even if you put it shallow in Resto, Feral wouldn't be able to benefit from it until very high level.

But we'll see....

Long story short: Talent trees REALLY AND TRULY TRIMMED this time around, "boring talents" turned into passives that are level-based, everyone picks a specialization, blah, blah, blah, you don't live under a rock like I do. =P

But this brings up some very interesting ramifications. Hopefully if it *is* trained, it should help smooth low-level druid levelling, especially if, as has been hinted, that we will not have access to our second talent tree until something heinous like 70+. Assuming things stay relatively the same as they are now, missing Furor for 70+ levels is going to be an utter pain in the ass. At the same time, though, one wonders if we'll be able to delve far enough into Restoration to be able to pick up Naturalist for the +10% damage, or if that's getting streamlined into passives as well.

Here's to hoping there's some tasty news that comes along later today!

-BTC

On downtime:

Slooooooow week out here in BTC-land.

With all the trying to 8-man the Jarraxus for the raid weekly, ('FLESH TROMBONE!' Now you won't be able to hear it otherwise. You're welcome.) the regular main tank having prior engagements both this week and the next, and out usually top-DPS DK having to switch to the Tankadin alt to fill in instead, we did not get to the Frost quarter... shame, too, because I really was looking forward to taking down Sindragosa. Hopefully, next week things will be ironed out between me and my temporary-co-tank, and we will be able to take her down. (ASDFJAKSDFJAKSDFALSJ HATE HER SO MUCH.)

Had a chance to take my Cat-based PVP build into ICC25... managed to top out at 8k DPS according to Recount on Saurfang.... I think I screwed up somewhere. I'll get another chance to try it again this coming Monday, but I think the raid leader will want me back on tanking duties. We'll see!

PVP post is still forthcoming, although it appears that I'm being recalled back to Resto duties... not so sure I want to go back, but I am entertaining the notion.

On ohgodkillmenow:

Just got The Argent Dawn, Argent Champion, Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms, and  Somewhat disappointingly, it was off of Chromatic Mantle of the Dawn, and not In Dreams or The Battle of Darrowshire as I had intended. But hey, it's done, I'm finished and I don't have to finish...... the rest..... of the...... *twitch* quests...... there........ right? *twitchtwitch*

(Goddamn me and my completionist streak. It *will* be the end of me, one of these days.)

On the other hand, still wiping on Sindragosa. I had *hoped* that I would be able to carry it out without any Frost Resist gear, after seeing my co-tank resist damage like nothing else, I got suspicious that it really might be me that was holding everyone back. So, one quick trip to the AH, one quick trip to my local Leatherworker, one quick trip to the bank to fish that dusty mark out of the vault, one quick trip to the leather armor shop, and one short hop to Dun Niffelheim, and I now have a set of frost resist gear, and a Sanctified Lasherweave Headguard to go with it, gemmed with an Effulgent Skyflare Diamond. After today, I should also be able to pick up an Idol of the Crying Moon as well. (My sense of overkill, or lack thereof, will probably be the end of me, too.)

Yes, that's right. I plunked down 95 Frost emblems for a second Lasherweave Headguard, and then gemmed and enchanted it up as Sindragosa gear. Now, the new meta gem is nothing new. I have been seriously considering using it in place of the time-tested Austere Earthsiege Diamond, but intended to use it once I had gotten much closer to the armor cap. Now, however, appears to no longer be an option. Testing it during the rest of ICC this next Tuesday should give me the data I need to determine whether I should be using this full time, geared as well as I am. I'd also resisted getting the Frost Emblem idol, since the ramp-up is murder on trash packs, but against Sindragosa, I want to leave nothing to chance.

With apologies to Mary Schmich, Baz Luhrmann, and Lee Perry:

Ladies and gentlemen, tanks freshly 80:

Talk to your group.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, talking to your group would be it. You let them know what you're up to, they let you know what they're up to, and things generally go smoother that way. The rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own long-suffering experience. I will dispense this advice, now.

Look around you, and enjoy the environment. Oh, never mind. You will not understand just how awe-inspiring the dungeons that Blizzard makes are until long after everything's on farm status. But trust me, in 20 levels, you'll look around when retro-raiding and recall in a way you can't grasp just how fantastic the environment and atmosphere was, just how much detail Blizzard put into the game.

Don't worry about wipes. Or worry, but know that worry about wipes is about as effective as trying to /silly them to death. The serious wipes are apt to be the ones that happen when you go and one-shot Blood Princes, two-shot Blood Queen, and then bring Sindragosa down to 1% on your very first try.

Try to tank something more challenging each day.

/dance.

Don't be recless with other people's repair bills. Don't put up with people who are reckless with your repair bills.

Repair.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you win the loot roll. Sometimes some Elesham with a Resto offspec and no business in a Melee DPS trinket wins it. The path to BiS is long, and, in the end, loot comes and goes.

Remember the fun people when using the Dungeon Finder. Forget the insults from stupid ones. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old tank trinkets. Sell or DE your blues and greens.

Move out of the fire.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know if you want to keep tanking at 80. The best tank I know started playing WoW on a Warlock. She still plays that Warlock.

Run 5-man Normal Trial of the Champion. Get The Black Heart. I still use that trinket when tanking ICC-25, to this day.

Maybe you'll get A Tribute to Insanity, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll beat The Lich King, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll keep wiping on the last part of Heroic Halls of Reflection, maybe you'll PUG 25-man ICC and one-shot Sindragosa Hardmode. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your tanking is only one part of the equation. Healing and DPS are too.

Enjoy your insta-queues. Use it to help people out whenever you can. Guildies, friends, random strangers. They will appreciate it and you more than you'll ever know.

/dance, especially in the killshots when you first down a raidboss.

Read the guides to tanking on Tankspot, Wowhead, or Wowwiki, even if that one obstinate DPS doesn't follow them.

Do not read the sites of top raiding guilds. They will only make you feel inferior.

Get to know your guild officers. You never know when they'll retire from the game. Be nice to your guildmates. They work just as hard at content as you, and you need them to progress.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Try to bridge the gaps in geography and work and school for raid times, but understand that a game is a game, and real life takes first precedence, even if you're the main tank or the fight-gimmick-enabler.

Play a healer to 80 once, but stop before it makes you bitter. Play a DPS to 80 once, but stop before it makes you soft. Tank.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Epic BoEs are expensive. Raids will wipe. You too, will get tired of tanking. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, epic world drops were cheap, raids never wiped on Professor Putricide, and Children's Week quests weren't bugged.

Respect your elders. The internet does give you free rein to be rude, ya whippersnappers.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a rich guild. Maybe you've cornered a market on the AH. But you never know when either one might vanish in a puff of smoke.

Don't mess too much with your spec, or by the time you figure it out, you'll have blown more gold than a goblin competing against a gnome trying to build a better death ray, only to come to the same conclusion that Elitist Jerks did five patches ago.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of looting a crystallized element from a trash mob, mailing it off to an alt, running it through a few professions, then crafting a BoE and putting it up on the AH for more than it's worth.

But trust me on talking to your group.

-BearTreeCat

On Achievement Spam:

I have been a *very* busy BearTreeCat lately. We one-shot Blood Princes, which was a complete and utter stumbling block for us for AGES now, two-shot Blood Queen, three-shot Valithria, and then brought Sindragosa down to ONE! FREAKING! PERCENT! on the first try. And then we wiped it the next four times. But no matter, we'll definately get it next week! And then.... The Lich King!

I'm cooking an article right now, though. Trying to figure out the legend and mysteries that are Feral PVP. I shall record my findings here for all to see, a testament to the ages.

-BearTreeCat

Point Break

Um... new blue post is up. And I dare say it fills me with trepidation. Still, I'm going to keep the "woohoo!~" in the holster.

Basically, the point is this: Instead of Emblems, you rack up points instead. Hero points (low-end) and Valor points, (high-end) like how we have Honor points and Arena points. (Arena points are being converted to Conquest points, earnable from both the rated BGs and Arena, but that's a different matter.)

When a new tier of raiding gear or PVP gear is released, everyone gets their high-end points converted into low-end points. Fair enough, it'll keep the bloat of different flavors of emblems down to a minimum. (I'm up to 195 EoF, by the way. I think I might just hold onto them all until I can buy the head and chest T10, and the Corroded Skeleton Key all at once. This way, I can keep renting the Skeleton Key from the ICC vendor in the meantime.)

Also according to the devs, there's a cap on high-end points earned weekly:

"To explain the reasoning for the weekly cap on points for the higher tiers, this is to provide flexibility in how players choose to earn the points without feeling like they have to do all of the content as often as it is available. If your Valor income from raiding is sufficient, you may not feel the need to run Dungeon Finder every night, or perhaps even at all. Likewise, a PvP player could choose to participate in a lot of Rated Battlegrounds but no Arenas, or focus on both, and still be able to earn the points they want."

Now, I am *all* for rated BGs. If there is one thing that has consistently irked me, it has been that Arena just doesn't fly for me at all. Either my 3v3 isn't all on, or we suck to much, or whatever, point being, PVP weapons are consistently Top 5 in terms of PvE tanking thanks to the overinflated Stamina and Agility numbers on the weapons. Also,

"We're removing personal rating requirements on almost all items; they're definitely removed for weapons"

There is no guarantee that future seasons' gear will remain overinflated with Stamina and Agility once everyone's stats are revamped, but if they remain even somewhat in-line with their current state, you can bet that you will see a LOT more Ferals in PvP, gearing themselves for raid content.

-BearTreeCat

Mangle experiment results:

Quick post, because I *really* don't want to write about the Cataclysm stuff. Really, I don't. Matter of fact, I'm sick and tired of it all.

Largely because one, everyone has pretty much beaten it all to death, but also:

• I know that Blizzard is still going to be changing more than they just told us
• Blizzard told us stuff, without actually telling us stuff, so any theorycrafting is utterly useless.
• I believe that Blizzard has some seriously intelligent minds working on game design.
• I am very laid-back. Do *not* harsh my chill.

So I'm going to talk about Glyph of Mangle, instead.

A week ago, after tanking 25-man Deathbringer, I forgot to replace my Glyph of Mangle with Glyph of Maul. And I kind of have been too lazy to fix that. That being said, I seriously have not missed it at all. Single-target tanking only benefits from the 10% damage boost to Mangle, Boss + Add situations also benefit during Berserk, and large-pull tanking still seems to be just fine. I mean, I already tab around with my Swipe + Maul macro, like a Cleave-spamming Warrior, it wasn't a stretch to have to do it for extra targets. Just spam Swipe until Maul hits (look for the Infected Wounds debuff to show up), tab to the next, throw out a Mangle if it's up, or wait for the next Maul, tab to the next, and so on and so forth.

And my PVP performance certainly hasn't hurt either. Since I don't Shred, (positioning behind during battles royale is something that I am so woefully incompetent at) I mangle, and the 10% extra damage is wonderful too.

So I'll say this. If you are really intent on Hybrid-ing, you cannot go wrong with a Glyph of Mangle.

-BearTreeCat

On Glyphs: Cat Edition

Man, I'm not even going to go into a big fuss, but here's the thing. Since we're approaching Feral from a hybrid perspective here, one, Survival Instincts is more useful to us, since we reap its benefits in both Bear and Cat. Two, since I am giving up Shredding Attacks for a massive cooldown reduction on my Bear stun Bash, my combo point generation is primarily Manglespam. Which means that the newly redesigned Glyph of Mangle becomes a very attractive option when I am DPSing in earnest.

Now, I know you're going, "But what glyph would we replace?!" For me? Likely Maul. Since I'm already tanking 25-man Deathbringer Saurfang these days*, I already have a stack of Glyph of Survival Instincts and a stack Glyph of Maul to swap back and forth between when we get to that fight. Since my current glyphs are Frenzied Regeneration, Growl (because I HATE missing taunts), and Maul, I should probably go to Survival Instincts, Growl, and Maul, then swap Maul with Mangle depending on whether I am tanking normally, or tanking AoE-sensitive fights/DPSing.

Remember that without a second target for Maul, the glyph does absolutely nothing for us. If anything, Glyph of Mangle is clearly and DPS and threat increase when we are restricted to single-target attacks.

-BearTreeCat

*ICC10's Deathbringer is stupidly easy. I sigh in annoyance every time we fight him. Since we have found that the best way to beat Deathbringer is to just burn the Blood Beasts down in place, ignoring their Blood Power mechanic, kiting be damned, I no longer bother to switch glyphs, so I *can* hit the one Blood Beast that invariably gets stuck in melee. So lacking in finesse!

HA!

Just a month in and bearly a fistful of blog posts later, I have to change my blog name. Why? Because I started Kitty DPSing. You see, at first, I didn't *want* to Cat DPS at all. I wanted to be the renegade, the rebel, the maverick! I wanted to make a full-on bear tank spec, with no regard for cat DPSing at all, the hybrid nature of Druids be damned!

Hand me that bottle of Tabasco, will you? This foot is a bit bland.

Back when I started playing my Druid, it was because my guild had hit GUILD DRAMA, and we'd lost a rogue DPS and our warrior tank. Because of this, raiding was pretty much out the window because we only *had* 10 people, and until our raid leader found someone to replace the two slots we weren't going anywhere. So we had a month of downtime, and I was getting more and more disillusioned with my Shaman. I'd originally wanted to make her an Elesham for raiding, But like any good Trekkie, I held to Spock's famous words, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," and converted her into a Restosham. But something rubbed me the wrong way about it. As time went on, I found myself growing to rely more and more and more on Chain Heal spam to heal my raids. And that was getting seriously boring for me, just mashing the same button over and over again. I've had many arguments with my Discipline priest raid leader over this. I think she still considers me a moron for giving up such a great spell. But I hated it. My line of thinking was that when that one spell becomes the *only* thing you do, something needs to change. So I went looking for a new healer to make. Now since, my favorite Shaman healing spell is Riptide, I naturally started looking at the most HoT-centric healer I could find, the Restoration Druid. And so I bought some heirlooms, and started to level.

Along the way, we discussed a number of things in guild chat. We also recruited friends from other servers to help us. In the end, it was concluded that if I were to go Bear with my druid, we could source another Resto Shaman from our alliance guild and, along with a guildie's roommate, we would be 10-man ready once again. This wasn't really a problem for me, since I was absolutely loving being a bear. A Repurposed Lava Dredger enchanted with Crusader, with a Darkmoon Card: Heroism in one trinket slot, a Mark of Conquest in the other slot, and Improved Leader of the Pack meant I could get away with all kinds of stupid antics overpulling and still get away, alive.

So I sped towards 80 blindingly fast, and geared myself up. Heck, the Restoration offspec that I originally wanted was rapidly left by the wayside, untouched from levels 40 to 80.

Now, since I was gearing a pure Bear tank, this required me to spec and gear in a certain way. All gems? +30 Stamina gems, except for one Nightmare Tear! Forget Improved Mangle, I gotta have Bash down to thirty seconds! Shredding Attacks? Who needs a reduced Lacerate energy cost, those points are going to go into 5/5 Furor instead. I want instant rage when I shift! And.... I kind of have one point left over. Eh, let's reduce shapeshifting mana costs and drop it into King of the Jungle. And I'll get a small 5% damage boost when I pop Enrage, too.

And off we went. We went through all of Ulduar 10-man and ToC 10-man, and I blissfully upgraded my gear as we went along. But as we went along, there weren't always fights that needed two tanks. Or four healers. So as to actually be contributing and pulling my weight during those one-tank fights, I started shifting into cat and whacking things, throwing down 5-point Rips before shifting back to refresh Lacerate, and struggling to even do that, with only 1/3 King of the Jungle. I even started to gem my new gear with a mix of red and blue gems, slowly inching along towards hybridism. But I still resisted, putting myself as a tank first, and using cat to help the raid burn things down faster.

And then T10 came along. If you've been playing for quite some time, you know the four-piece bonus by heart now. That was pretty much the last straw I needed to finally respec. As soon as I was able to buy an Ikfirus's Sack of Wonder off the auction house, I bought my T10 pants, and then respecced from 5/5 Furor and 1/3 KotJ into the more mainstream 3/5 Furor and 3/3 KotJ.

Which brings us to the last two weeks. My guild has been running heroic 5-mans a lot, lately. Several of us have gotten freshly-80 alts. A veritable DKpalooza, really. One of our hunters has been picking up tanking on his DK, and we've been having him Blood tank instances to practice. Our main tank's DK finally hit 80 as well, so she's feeling out Unholy DPS. And since I wasn't needed to tank, and we had healing in various forms, ranging from the aforementioned guild alliance Restosham, picking up Elemental gear for his long-neglected DPS set, to another hunter's trying out her Retadin's Holy spec.... I started DPSing as well.

And I've been liking it so far. It's only in the past week or so that I decided that I was going to embrace all three roles, Tanking, Healing, and DPS fully. So that's my story. That's going to be the focus of this blog. There are going to be Druid blogs left and right. There are going to be dozens of Feral blogs, both Bear and Cat. There will be Restoration blogs as well. But this is going to be the blog that focuses on the druid (population: me!) that wants to do all three roles with one character, and never wants to roll another alt to slog from 1 to 80 and Loremaster AGAIN.

Welcome to Bear-y Leafy Kitty, folks.

-BearTreeCat

On Glyphs: Bear Edition

Woot for me, I picked up a Battered Hilt for roughly 8.8k in barter today. I'm very pleased with myself. I am going to love the hell out of the resulting Lightborn Spire, because my threat has been lagging severely, what with being stuck first with Marrowstrike all through ToC and then with the Orca-Hunter's Harpoon up until now. I'll not divulge my secret sales methods (which, by definition, are a secret, =D) but I will touch on glyph choices.

Now, like all good Bears, I glyphed my Maul. And like all good Bears, I ran into the problem where I had to unglyph it to tank Deathbringer without wiping the raid. It was a fairly easy thing to do, since I usually run with a Growl, Survival Instincts, and Maul, I dropped the Maul for a Frenzied Regeneration. (I *refuse* to work with a taunt that can miss in general, but especially on Deathbringer.) I didn't reglyph after the run, and frankly, completely forgot to reglyph again the following day, beating the tar out of Onyxia. (I mean, come on, I'm usually on Whelp tanking duty. Maul ain't helpin' THAT much there.)

But what came after was a bit of a disturbance. When doing my usual once-daily Heroic for the Emblems of Frost, I really found out just how much of my threat really is wrapped up in that one Glyph. Trash packs that were usually manageable without so much as a how-do-you-do were suddenly a lot more challenging, requiring Warrior-like tabbing around to make sure everything was suffering equally. I am rather ashamed to say that on the first pull of three Iron Dwarves and two Iron Golems in Halls of Stone, the healer and two DPS bit it. (Although I do note that the Frost Mage in the group was running Ice Armor the entire time, rooting the golems that would charge him in place, which would inevitably turn and beat on the thing closest to them, usually the healer.)

Long story short, I had to take that dungeon a lot more carefully, only going 3rd gear, instead of "ravening-hellbeast-furballrocket" gear, although the constant Tricks and Fan of Knives spam from the rogue probably helped a lot. (God bless you, whoever you are.)

But afterwards, I hit up the auction house to reglyph Maul back into my usual setup. Now, understand, what Elitist Jerks says is all fine and dandy... but Kirin Tor is kind of a laid back server. Progression-wise, we kind of only JUST had someone do a Realm First: Algalon achievethingummy about a month ago. My 10-man and 25-man groups are not uber-leet groups trying to get the Realm First achievements. So yeah, carrying around a stack of glyphs and swapping them out as the fight demands is a bit of a foreign concept to my groups, but I can recognize the rationale when the argument for it is presented to me.

But when the time came to reglyph, a thought hit me: Was Glyphing SI really the best choice? Would I get better mileage out of glyphing FR instead?

So here's the math:

Raidbuffed, I sit at about 50K HP.
Survival Instincts increases your max HP by 30%, while your actual percentage of health remains unchanged. (Yes, your current HP does go up to match the original percentage before going big and red)
Glyph of Survival Instincts makes SI increase your max HP by 45% instead.
Frenzied Regeneration, assuming you don't get ragestarved, will convert 100 rage into a HoT for 30% of your max HP.
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration, again, assuming you don't get ragestarved, will convert 100 rage into a HoT for 36% of your max HP.

So:

unglyphed Frenzied Regeneration: 15000 healed
unglyphed Frenzied Regeneration + unglyphed Survival Instincts: 19500
unglyphed Frenzied Regeneration + glyphed Survival Instincts: 21750
glyphed Frenzied Regeneration + unglyphed Survival Instincts: 23400
glyphed Frenzied Regeneration + glyphed Survival Instincts: 26100


So it's clear. If you only have room for one, glyphing Frenzied Regeneration is best.

OR IS IT?!

Seriously, though, you and I know full well that there are varying flavors of Bear. I myself tend to favor a full-bear spec, but if you're a hybrid, you might want to take Survival Instincts anyhow. SI works in both Bear and Cat forms, unlike FR which only works in Bear. On the other hand, if you've taken up Herbalism Frenzied Regeneration might be more up your alley, since Lifebloom will get a boost out of the increased healing effect of the glyph as well. Of course, if you're a Cat primarily.... WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU READING THIS BLOG FOR, MAN?!

Me, I think I'm going to experiment with the two before making a final decision.