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 finishing the bucket list:

IT IS DONE.

One long-ass, annoying, artificially-lengthened questline and $DEITY I hate farming Elementium so damn much, I am DONE with the AQ questline. Push button, receive shiny Feat of Strength.

On other things:

• Complete Loremaster.
• Get Raven Lord mount.
• Get Twenty-Five Tabards: 
• Failed. Somehow, I conflated this with Twenty-Five Exalted Reps. Whoops.
• Get Insane in the Membrane: 
• Scratched. It will continue to exist, sans Shendralar. I am very pleased that when it was announced that it might not make it, that I was able to unload all of my stockpiled Darkmoon Cards, Pristine Black Diamonds, and Librams for DISGUSTING MARKUP. =3
• Get a rogue to level 60 to use for Insane in the Membrane.
• Scratched. See above. Also, couldn't stand doing ANY 1-60 content. I blame Loremaster.
• beat The Lich King like a rented mule.
• Get a Venomhide Ravasaur.
• Run Zul'Gurub as many times as possible in order to try to get the mounts.
• But, given my luck, I will likely never see one drop.
  
• Finish out the holiday events for a VPD.
• AND I didn't cave and buy super-fast-flap. =3
  
• Get an Ulduar drake.
• Scratched. No raiding. ._.
• Farm up mats to sell once Cataclysm hits.
• Will be working on that soon.
• Farm up a Piccolo of the Flaming Fire for the sake of goldseller griefing.
• Farm up a Deathcharger
• There's still hope that it will drop before Cataclysm!
• Farm up a full set of Dungeon Set 1
• Scratched. The dungeons aren't going anywhere.

On Eating Crow:

Here's a quote from a while back:

"Now, we move on to Ulduar, and knock out those hardmodes so we can get 310% speed mounts before the expansion hits, save everyone 5K gold. Again, not as excited for this, because you know that I am only ever going to use Swift Flight Form, anyways, although the extra speed boost will be nice."

 ...okay, confession time. I finished the What A Long, Strange, Trip It's Been achievement, which, as I have mentioned, came out literally days before I was ready to finish it and get the VPD. And despite the ghastly purple color.... Proto-drakes are REALLY REALLY COOL! +_+

Which makes it all the more tragic that we stopped raiding due to people's schedules changing. I am not *entirely* opposed to the idea of actively seeking a Rustbound Proto Drake anymore. (You know, as opposed to passively, "Oh, well, if I get it, I get it. I'm just along for the ride")

....pardon me. I need to go bribe some people into Ulduar. +_+

-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 Bucket Lists:

Things to do before Cataclysm hits:

• Complete Loremaster.
• Get Raven Lord mount.
• Get Twenty-Five Tabards.
• Get Insane in the Membrane.
• Bloodsail Admiral
• Steamwheedle Cartel
• Darkmoon Faire
• Ravenholdt
• Get a rogue to level 60 to use for Insane in the Membrane.
• beat The Lich King like a rented mule.
• Get a Venomhide Ravasaur.
• Run Zul'Gurub as many times as possible in order to try to get the mounts.
• Finish out the holiday events for a VPD.
• Get an Ulduar drake.
• Farm up mats to sell once Cataclysm hits.
• Farm up a Piccolo of the Flaming Fire for the sake of goldseller griefing.
• Farm up a Deathcharger
• Farm up a full set of Dungeon Set 1

 More to come...

-BTC

On /khaaaaaaaaan:

Blizzard, you bastards, why did you have to change Nom Nom Nom to something else?!

-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 deflation:

Like taking an icepick to an inflatable bounce house, seriously.

So, found this on WoW.com:

Jason asked:

So ... I'm concerned about the guild achievements, in particular the 50,000 quest achievement. I've heard that any quests done prior to Cataclysm don't count towards that total. If that's true, then my guildies and I who earned Loremaster are looking like we're screwed. Also, can someone explain what's meant by the top 20 players in a guild being the only ones who count towards guild achievements? Is that based on guild rank or total achievement points?

You might be misunderstanding what a guild achievement is. It isn't "if 20 people in your guild have Loremaster, your guild has the Loremaster achievement." While you might have an achievement for being in a group that kills Cho'gall, your guild has a separate achievement for killing Cho'gall in a raid where 20 or more people are from your guild.

The top 20 earners count toward guild advancement, not achievements. Your guild can gain levels by people PvPing, killing bosses, doing quests, etc., and only the top 20 earners for the week will contribute to end-of-week XP gain. You also get guild XP for getting guild achievements, and Blizzard says it grants a "big chunk" of XP, so it feels good to get them.

The quests you completed prior to Cataclysm's launch won't count toward your guild's total for the 50,000 quests achievement -- but that's so when the system becomes available, everyone will be on equal footing. Note how all of the achievements say "as a guild" in them, too.

Dude. Top 20? And 50,000 quests? We don't *have* 20 active people in our guild. And let me tell you, doing Loremaster was the Worst. Thing. Ever. I mean, yes, I wanted the title, so I cheerfully made like a Korean and ground my way through them all, but Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick with Mary and Judas, but I do NOT want to do anything remotely even LIKE Loremaster again. Never again!

-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 Cataclysm changes:

Did you guys have a good weekend? Happy Mother's Day to any and all mothers out there. I'm pretty sure that's not the only thing that happened to you guys over the weekend, though. Because, y'know, there's just a tiny little thing called a "Cataclysm Friends and Family Alpha Leak" that happened over at MMO-Champion...

...and I'm not going to cover it. I'm not. Just flat out, plain not going to cover it. It's an Alpha build, plenty of talents have not yet been implemented, not all of the boring talents that need to be pruned have been pruned, and I don't care to have to revise things every time a new alpha build comes out. Maybe once it hits closed beta, definitely once it hits open beta, but not at the alpha stage.

I hear there are some pretty screenshots to be looking at, though!

-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

Finally, some sanity.

I've expressed respect and admiration for Allison Robert of Wow.com to others before, but she's recently written an article that that makes me breathe a sigh of relief that reassures me that yes, Virginia, there are people who are looking at the Tree of Life forms rationally, and don't need to be talked down from the ledge*. It's a good article that expresses pretty much how I feel about what they're doing as well, except that while we both play female tauren**, the casting animations don't matter to me one bit.

-BearTreeCat

*Ouch. Bad turn of phrase. I just watched the first episode of the latest season of House.
**I was not about to roll a character that liberally scratches its ass every five seconds. The exasperated sigh works much better, especially given the nicknames that get thrown around the poor girl's, and, by extension, my direction. "Steak", usually. But "Bear butt" is a close second.