Tag Archives: Shifting

Shifting Perspectives: Your patch 4.3 feral cheat sheet

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin!

Patch 4.3 is upon us. It’s time to take down Deathwing. Are you prepared? If not, fear not: This handy cheat sheet will sum up all the feral changes you need to know to keep you performing at your best. (As always, thanks to Tangedyn and Yawning for their invaluable analysis; make sure to check out Mew, if you haven’t already.)

I’m going to put this right up front, since this is easily the most frequent question I receive: What should I reforge to, and what are my stat priorities? Easy — it doesn’t matter.

Seriously. All of the secondary stats (mastery, haste, crit, hit, expertise) are roughly equal in value for DPS purposes. This was the case in 4.2, and it remains the case in 4.3. (To put a more exact number on it, it’s a roughly 1% DPS difference, which is well within the margin of error for any given fight.) My personal preference remains the same: Cap hit and expertise (960/780 rating, respectively) to reduce rotational unpredictability, which has benefits that aren’t captured by computer simulations that play perfectly. By all means, however, reforge to whatever you prefer; just make sure you’re still gemming and enchanting your gear, going for agility wherever possible.

OK, on to the interesting stuff.

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Shifting Perspectives: Your patch 4.3 feral cheat sheet originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: Patch 4.3 gear list for balance druids

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday — learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests for something you’d like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or on Twitter @murmursofadruid.

Hail, druids, and welcome to the wondrous world of a new patch! This patch didn’t hold much for us in the ways of personal meat. We got a wicked-awesome new Hurricane animation and a neat new Wrath one as well, but otherwise, things trudge along as normal with our lot. That’s perfectly dandy in my book. We’re still going along strong as a solid DPS choice, and things are good.

This week I’m dedicating to gearing ourselves up in all of that lovely new content that has just been released. Whether you’re a dungeoneer or a hardcore raider, there’s tons of new loot to look at, and that’s exactly that we’re going to do. As a side note, I do have to say that I am super-excited about having patch 4.3. The content so far has been gloriously fun, and though I’m sure I’ll change my mind once I’ve done enough of these heroics to last a lifetime (as with the troll versions of last patch), I’m content to make do with what we have. Let’s get to work, shall we?

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Shifting Perspectives: Patch 4.3 gear list for balance druids originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: Symbiosis speculation

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin!

So, last week, I said I was going to start talking about 4.3 this week; of course, Blizzard decided to release its official talent calculator a couple of days ago. Oops. I posted my snap reactions to the new stuff on Twitter, but let’s dive in and take a more in-depth look.

Front and center in the discussion is our new ability, Symbiosis. Teased by the developers during Blizzcon, we finally have a tooltip, and the possibilities are potentially mind-blowing (if you have a priest).

“Symbiosis: Creates a symbiotic link which grants the Druid one ability belonging to the target’s class, varying by the Druid’s specialization. In exchange, grants the target one Druid ability based on their class and combat role …”

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Shifting Perspectives: Symbiosis speculation originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: The matter of Mists talents and abilities

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday — learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests for something you’d like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or on Twitter @murmursofadruid.

Druids, friends, brothers and sisters, we need to have a right good talk. Earlier in the week, Blizzard released the ability list and talent calculator for every class and spec in the next expansion. As we all knew, there were many significant changes that were made in terms of what abilities each spec received and, in some cases, how these abilities worked. Oddly enough, this seemed to cause something of an uproar within the druid community over several choice changes. It’s strange to me that a community preaching patience quickly froths at the mouth, but fret not, nothing is nearly as bad as it seems.

The changes are massive — of that there is no doubt — but at the core, everything that we’ve known is still there. The majority of the balance druid spec as it exists today is virtually intact; as far as changes could go, this is close to the best that we could have hoped for. There are still tweaks that should be made, but those shall come in time. For now, allow me assuage your fears.

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Shifting Perspectives: The matter of Mists talents and abilities originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: 4 tips for intermediate ferals

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin!

This week, we’re going to break away from Mists of Pandaria talent speculation and look more at concrete matters: how to improve your DPS in a raid. Judging from the mail I’ve received recently, several newer feral players have mastered the basic rotation but are having troubles dominating the meters. Forgive the Cosmopolitan-esque title, but I’ve compiled four helpful tips to help ferals in their quest for blood, destruction, and nice purples.

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Shifting Perspectives: 4 tips for intermediate ferals originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 20 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: Retaining key talents in Pandaria

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday — learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests for something you’d like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or on Twitter @murmursofadruid.

Welcome back to another week, my favorite space turkeys. This week is one of those that I happen to detest and often wish that we could find a way to remove the from the calendar; alas, I’ve been told that this isn’t possible. Next week is a holiday, and the next patch is expected the week thereafter, leaving this week simmering in nothing but anticipation. As anyone will tell you, I’m not a patient person.

Still, that doesn’t mean that we’re all dead in the water. True to form, I’ll be putting a spot of my predictive powers to work. It’ll be the last topic about Pandaria for a while, I promise you that, but this one is important to lay some groundwork. All of our talents are going away — a great idea in theory. However, the problem comes in that some talents are important to keeping the spec engaging. Merely shuttling them off to the nether isn’t an option; some will have to be baked into the class as a whole. But which? Let’s speculate!

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Shifting Perspectives: Retaining key talents in Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: In which Allison makes a stupid prediction

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we take a risk.

Well, I’m bushed. Post-BlizzCon, I reached that dreamy level of fatigue allowing me to hallucinate that I am on a Thai beach being served fizzy drinks by men in loincloths, and that was lovely while it lasted. But just as I had recovered from the delusion that this was ever going to happen, a freak snowstorm hit the American northeast and killed every tree and power line in sight. Folks, I spent a week without power or internet, and I am mad at the world.

Let’s see. What did I have on the docket for this week? Responsibly and rationally evaluating what we learned at BlizzCon 2011? The hell with that. Let’s start off by completely ignoring the new talents announced, and then getting into a quite possibly asinine prediction that I will try to pretend never happened if it doesn’t come true.

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Shifting Perspectives: In which Allison makes a stupid prediction originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: The hybridization and utility debate

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin!

As many of you know, the class Q&A was this week, and featured many thought-provoking questions and answers that reveal Blizzard’s intention of how the feral class will work going forward.. One of the most prominent topics discussed was hybridization. Blizzard has always loved the idea of druids shapeshifting more, but has never succeeded in implementing a model where they do. In today’s column, I’ll discuss feral utility and how it relates to the hybridization concept.

Class Q&A
Celestalon answered:

We are very interested in opening opportunities for more hybrid gameplay in druids, as you can see in the level 90 talent tier, while still allowing an option for players who want to never do anything outside their role. We don’t intend for that added hybridization to be offset by any sort of DPS nerf. While DPSing, a druid’s DPS will be entirely competitive with other DPS. We hope to see druids that do things like, DPS in Cat Form most of the fight, but during one phase, when healing is super difficult, pop out of Cat, hit Heart of the Wild, Tranquility, and spam heals on the raid to help top everyone off, then go back to Cat and resume DPSing. In that sort of the situation, the Cat will have spent less time DPSing than other DPSers, but his/her DPS while DPSing would have been competitive, and in exchange helped save the raid when healers were falling behind…To clarify a bit further on how the druids will perform at their off-roles: Ferals and Guardians will have Nurturing Instinct, which increases spell power based on Agility, and Balance and Restoration will have Killer Instinct, which increases attack power based on Intellect. They will have a smaller toolbox of spells for their off-role, but the strength of those spells will be competitive, when under the effects of those hybrid talents.


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Shifting Perspectives: The hybridization and utility debate originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: Why active shifting isn’t the solution for druids

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday — learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests for something you’d like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or on Twitter @murmursofadruid.

So on Wednesday, there was this small little thing that you may have heard about called a little live Q&A with the devs about classes and systems in WoW. While there were a few mentionings of things in the near future, most of the night’s focus rested on the next expansion rising over the horizon. Highly understandable. There are a wide variety of changes coming in the next expansion for all of the classes, and I don’t think that druids can claim to have a monopoly on the biggest ones.

The latest direction that Blizzard wants to steer druids, however, is certainly an odd one, and it may not be all that it’s cut out for. After BlizzCon, I spent some time talking about the released talents and the design considerations that came along with it. I also spent a spot of time guesting (is guest a verb now?) on Team Waffle Cast along with Arielle and Lissanna, when we talked about the druidic future. In the live chat, I fear that my suspicions were confirmed. Join me for a trip to the future that will never be.

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Shifting Perspectives: Why active shifting isn’t the solution for druids originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: Where have all the feral talents gone?

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin!

Last week, I broke down the new druid talents that were released at BlizzCon with lots of discussion about how this may lead ferals in a new direction. I’ve had a week to think about things more, and I’m still blown away by the magnitude of the changes Blizzard is making to the specializations. Much of the fundamental assumptions about what drives our characters is being reworked, and we’re not discussing the implications because OMG pandas! (For the record, I have a 3-year-old. Team Pandaren > Team Worgen.)

To quickly review, the traditional model of abilities has always been strongly tied to classes. If you were a druid, you got all the druid abilities as you leveled, regardless of what talent points you invested. There were a few key abilities for each spec that were unlocked via talents, but that was it.

With Cataclysm, Blizzard took its first swipe at reducing talent trees by introducing specializations. This served two purposes. First, it let specs have “cool” abilities earlier, instead of waiting until they were near max level to unlock them. And second, it once and for all eliminated the ability to have hybrid specs, such as the Dreamstate resto druid from The Burning Crusade. Previously, you were merely limited by your talent points; now, if the ability you wanted existed in another specialization, or below tier 2 in an off-spec tree, it was completely inaccessible.

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Shifting Perspectives: Where have all the feral talents gone? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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