I didn’t have time to blog about this earlier this week because, well, it was a busy week and there was lots of other stuff to write about. But Wednesday brought not only The Shattering, but a new chapter in the Story of Qieth.
While Orgrimmar and the rest of the world was devoured by a dragon who had been hibernating for years, Qieth slept soundly in a hut in Moonglade. Don’t ask me why I logged out there, it just seemed fitting. When he woke up, he was a troll!
In the recent developer chat Blizzard had with Best Buy, people asked about the moonkin forms for trolls and worgens. Are the versions on the PTR the final version, or are they just placeholders? The answer was prompt, they are “Final!”.
This caused quite a lot of uproar. It didn’t take more than a few hours on MMO-Champion before a good measure of threads were created, filled with people expressing their… distress, all of them in a clear, calm and productive way. Well, maybe not everybody. Let’s just say that some people didn’t take it too well.
Now, the way that people react to this, I suppose, depends on how they read the answer, or how they assume that Blizzard responds to it. Some people saw this as a dark omen that we will forever be stuck in our age-old moonkin forms, and that Blizzard has no intention of ever updating them.
While we are still waiting for the release of the final versions of the troll and worgen moonkin forms, I thought it was quite exciting to see their respective flight forms. After all, it is something that we will probably have to stare at quite a lot in Cataclysm.
And I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the worgen flight form. It is a treat to the eyes, as majestic and proud as the night elf and tauren crows, looking like a strong and sturdy beast, capable of dominating the skies with its might.
But when I laid my eyes upon the troll fight form, I shrieked back in horror. What has happened to the beautiful birds of the druids? How could this abomination have been introduced? I can just imagine the developer meeting:
- So, what flight form do we have for night elfs?
- Crow.
- And taurens?
- Crow
- Cool. What are you doing with worgens?
- Eeeeh, crow.
- Splendid, how about trolls?
- We’re thinking a disfigured troll with the face of a Predator.
I don’t know if you can quite spot where it went wrong, but somewhere along the line they went “crow, crow, crow, GIANT BAT”.
Maybe I just need to ease into it. Maybe it just takes a bit of time to get used to. Maybe I’m just scared because I was actually planning on going troll. I just have a hard time imagining a druid, who can shapeshift into these magnificant beasts, suddenly switching into a giant, deformed bat. The thought of it kind of disturbs me.
Perhaps I am just overreacting. What do you think?
Over the past few months, the beta testers has expressed a lot of worry about our current mana problems at level 85. And in fact, during Raid Warnings Druid Roundtable, we discussed this issue extensively.
Mana is not a problem at level 80. It’s only around level 84, where the mana costs of our nukes goes up by a factor of five, that our spells begin to seriously hurt our mana. In fact, reality was that we could barely get through two eclipse cycles before running out of mana.
Patch 4.0 is right around the corner, and with it comes a whole lot of changes to our class. For some reason, I thought I had plenty of time before I needed to re-write the Moonkin guide, failing to realise the abundance of questions that are bound to come when 4.0 hits the live servers.
So I buckled up and started typing. Obviously, some things are still the same. Professions and enchants hasn’t been changed on the PTR, so I won’t meddle with them in the guide before the changes are active. I assume that most enchants such as +81 spell power will be changed to +81 intellect, but until they do, I’ll keep those sections as they are.
Rest assured that I will keep updating this as 4.0 comes out, and naturally throughout Cataclysm as well. I’ll add this guide to the button at the top once 4.0 hits the live servers. I’ll also post this guide out to MMO-champion and the like when 4.0 comes around – you get to read it now, because you are here 
The Warcraft podcast Raid Warning has sent word to all of the mightiest druids in the lands, and we convene this weekend to have a little chat about the current state of druids, and what is to come. Raid warning has previously made some great gatherings of classes; Holy priests, elemental shamans and the like. It’s time for the minds of great druids alike to come together.
Raid Warning has invited some very high profile characters to join the roundtable – a handful of bloggers, some writers and the like. It wont be “just moonkins”, but the show will probably have segments clearly defined by spec. I’ll be sending my sweet, silky voice over the interwebs, and the podcast should be available on October 5th.
I’m sure that we will have plenty of things to talk about, but if you would like to have us discuss a particular topic, write a comment below or use the contact section at the top, and I’ll send it to the producer of Raid Warning before the show. I’ll post a link to the podcast here when it’s live, but you can also check out Raid Warning‘s website.
Whether you are just starting out at level 80, have been on a break from raiding or simply want to find a new home foryourself, getting yourself into a comfortable place in a PvE guild can be difficult to swing.
I’ve been in a lot of guilds over the years. Some, because I was having a fresh start on a new server and a new character. Others because I needed a change of pace or perhaps a guild with focus other content.
So how do you do it? How do you find that perfect guild?
