Hey Moonkins, Check Your Gear (So You Don't Get Screwed on 4.0.1)

I was over on the Moonkin Repository, a great resource for moonkins by the way, yesterday where I thought of some things that caster druids will want to check before 4.0.1 hits, which is really looking like it is next week. (Which also happens to be the day of my surgery.  Oh yeah.)  

1) Hit - I'm not expecting this to be too big of an issue because we will have a talent that converts all spirit to hit, but you will want to take a look at your hit rating.  If your caster hit rating is only 10% after 4.0.1, it is not good enough anymore.  In 4.0.1, we are losing hit bonuses to both Balance of Power, which provided 4% of our hit, and Improved Faerie Fire, which provided us 3% of our hit.  This means that our new hit cap will be 446 and will provide all 17% of our hit.  Now, with spirit converting to hit, I'm not anticipating a problem.  However, if you are way over hit cap, like I have a feeling mine will be since I have about 500 spirit from gear and gems (natural spirit does not count in the conversion, only gear, gems, and enchants), you will want to reforge some of your gear to hit close to the hit cap and get more crit or haste.

2) Leather Gear Only - There are some pieces of cloth gear that are BiS for caster druids.  The immediate ones that come to mind are the Crushing Coldwraith Belt off of heroic Marrowgar 25 man and the Plague Scientist Boots off of heroic Festergut 25 man.  Come 4.0.1, you will want to get the 5% intellect bonus from using spellcaster leather, so you will want to make sure all of your pieces are leather.  This means you will likely have to take the best leather BiS piece versus the actual BiS, which may be cloth.

3) Reforge to the Caps - I have not had a chance to play with the gear yet enough on the PTR, but you want to make sure that you are hitting all three of your caps (hit cap, soft haste cap, Lunar Crit Cap).  Reforging gives you the perfect opportunity to do just that.  If you have a lot of haste after gem conversions but not enough crit, you can reforge some gear to get to the crit cap.  If you are way above the crit cap,  you can convert some crit to haste.  Reforging gives a real opportunity to be a little less dependent on the gear we do have and can add a little more skill to it.

So, those are the basic things to get your ready for 4.0.1.  We are going to take on heroic Professor Putricide 25 man on Thursday so, personally, I will be looking for a nice 277 leather belt to replace my current cloth belt to prepare for 4.0.1. 

Also, just a reminder, this week, we are recording the druid roundtable, Shift Happens, with the cast of Raid Warning and some of the biggest moonkin bloggers in the world.  I'm looking forward to a few drinks, a few laughs, and a lot of talking about the balance class and where it is going in Cataclysm.

Also, final thing, since I am having surgery next week and may be out for two weeks, I'm looking for some guest bloggers to do some blog posts to cover for me while I'm out.   If you are interested, you can contact me on Twitter, @redhawksgaze, or you can e-mail me at bigdog1862@yahoo.com.

7 Rules for Pleasing a LFD Tank

While running Maraudon (again) on my pally/shaman duelboxing combo, I ran into the first instance in LFD of someone telling me to go faster and make big pulls.  When I asked him if he was the tank, he decided to be a smartass and start pulling ahead of me.  So, I told him knock himself out.  He was a pally healer and so I thought I would just sit back, eat up 3 times the XP as everybody else, and eventually watch him kill himself, which he did.  With both of my characters being the only other rezzers in the group, I essentially told  him that I was not going to rez him and he would be better dropping group.  Eventually, the entire group decided to vote kick him and we get another healer.

However, this experience made me think back to my main and all the LFD groups that I have tanked with him.  Yes, we all run into the people who wants us to go faster or pull bigger because they want to get through an instance faster.  And I understand the mentality of getting through an instance quickly.  However, speed and efficiency are not the same thing.  Don't believe me.  Remember trying to go quickly through the section up to Loken after the lightning boss when you first started heroic Halls of Lightning.   Those pulls were about efficiency, not speed.  To this day, I see undergeared people wipe constantly in Halls of Lightning because they choose speed over efficiency.

So, whether you are a DPS or a healer, how do you keep your LFD tank happy?  Let me give you the ways to keep a LFD tank happy.

1) Tank Decides the Speed of the Instance - I personally don't care if you want me to pull the whole room in front of the first boss in Drak'theron Keep.  I'm the tank and I'm doing what is good for me and the group.  If  you don't like the speed I'm going, too bad.  You can either drop group and wait for the next queue or you can live with it.  Besides, Wrath instances are nothing like older 5 mans and none of them take long anyway.

2) Healers Must Speak Up - I'm focusing on nothing but the next pull.  If you are the healer and you need mana to heal, you better speak up.  Nothing is worse for me as a tank than pulling and 5 seconds after I pull, I see the healer say in party chat "Mana".  If we wipe because of it, that usually will lead me to starting a vote kick against the healer.

3) Healers Priority:  Tank -> Themselves -> DPS - As the tank, I will protect you, but you better heal me as first priority.  Unless you yourself are at low health, you should heal me first because in any 5 man instance, we can kill the boss as just the tank and healer.  It may take a while, but we can do it.  After that, if DPS is being stupid, you can heal them.

4) DPS Should Not Be Stupid - This is more than the obvious things like don't pull, etc.  This means drop aggro if you grab it.  This means that if you don't have a way to, run to the tank, not away so that I can get aggro back.  Don't stand in stupid stuff like slime puddles, etc.

5) DPS Should Out DPS Tank - Now, I know, tanks cheat a little bit on trash with this because we all have really powerful AoE attacks.  But the tank should not be the number one on DPS on bosses.  Now, yes, I understand some people in LFD are not geared and are trying to gear up.  That is fine and I'm happy to carry those people.  But if you are equal with me on gear, you better out DPS me.

6) Think About the Tanks Needs - More than heals and buffs, but think specifically for each type of tank.  On my druid tank, I just need to get rage.  I can shape shift until I get 10 rage or just enrage and start pulling.  As a paladin, I need mana, at least while leveling.  As a DK, I may need to let my runes regenerate.  Also, if the tank is just starting and you overgear the tank, you may want to wait because you will likely pull aggro.

7) Know the Fights - If there is a fight that will incapacitate the tank for a bit, you better know what to do.  The instance that I'm thinking of is Zul'Farrak.  There are mobs in there that polymorph the tank into a frog.  During that time, don't be insane.  Just wait and survive until the tank comes back and gets aggro.  Also, if you have a way to cleanse the status effect, clear it so that I can continue tanking.  The more you know about the fights, the easier for the tank.

My Brief Experience in the PTR - Lessons Learned

I finally was able to get into the PTR and play around with the 4.0.1 moonkin changes (albeit through streaming while downloading).  Also, thanks to whoever took Redhawks.  I had to name my character Reddhawks on the US PvP PTR server. Here are some of the things I have learned so far.

Lesson 1 - Wow, this is going to be a huge download.  Thankfully, they had the thing that allows you to play and stream parts of it while it is downloading because if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to do anything on the PTR.  Thank goodness the Background Download is already running for the live client.

Lesson 2 - Moonkin DPS is equal to current or maybe even higher.  I was able to top over 10k on a practice dummy in Stormwind with a higher than normal latency and only about 15 frames per second.  This makes me think that it could even be higher than I thought.


Lesson 3 -  The Eclipse Bar is cool.  I love having a little more control over the Eclipses and it has a long cooldown so you can move.  Now, if someone can come up with an addon that makes it movable, that will be great.

Lesson 4 - Starsurge is incredibly interesting.  Just with my own personal testing, if you cast it during an Eclipse, it pushes it backwards allowing a little more time to Eclipse.  I could see this working in either one of two ways and it all depends on damage output.  Either it will be cast during an Eclipse to push it backwards and get you more Eclipse time or it can be used after you stop moving to regain some of the Eclipse time you lost.   

Lesson 5 - Our mana pools are gonna be huge post patch.  Currently in the PTR with my moonkin gear, I have over 30k mana unbuffed.  This is only gonna get bigger leveling up in Cataclysm.  Of course, my HP is also above 30k as well. 

Lesson 6 - I like the new Glyph system.  Assuming you can find someone to make all the glyphs.  As it happens to be, I only have my current glyphs and the new glyphs. 

Lesson 7 - Treants and Starfall are still not affected by Eclipses.  I was hoping they would be, but my personal damage output does not show it is true.  What will be more than likely true is you will want to cast Treants while moving towards the Lunar Eclipse but outside of the Solar Eclipse to push it further towards the Lunar Eclipse and you will want to cast Starfall while moving towards the Solar Eclipse but not during the Lunar Eclipse to push it further towards the Solar Eclipse.  Of course, it may just end up like now where you just cast them on cooldown outside of an Eclipse.   

Lesson 8 - If you are currently not on the PTR, good luck.  The Launcher started weirding out on me when the Background Downloader for the Live Client started downloading the patch.  If anybody can help tell me where I can download the rest of it, maybe like on FileFront or something so I can run it better in the PTR.

How To Level A Druid - Resto vs Balance vs Feral

I received some interesting questions via my Twitter feed lately about what is the best way to level a druid.  Honestly, it is an interesting decision, even more so with Cataclysm coming out and getting class defining abilities at level 10.  Let me go through each of the specs and give the pros and cons of leveling that way.

Restoration - The advantages of leveling restoration is that  you get pretty quick queue times in LFD.  The disadvantage is that you really can't do much else.  You may be able to kill some mobs for quest with some balance spells, but they will be nowhere near as effective.  Unless you really want to level as a healer as a challange, I would probably avoid this one.

Balance - I love raiding as a balance druid.  Leveling is a bit more difficult, at least until Cataclysm.  You don't get Moonkin Form until you are deep in the Balance tree.  You don't get Eclipse until you are deep in the Balance tree.  You don't get Starfall until the very end of the Balance tree.  In Cataclysm, this will change.  The advantage is once you get all of these things, you can start to kill stuff quickly.   But that is not until level 60.  Nothing better than Starfall, Barkskin, and Hurricane a pack of mobs.  Of course, you also have downtime regaining mana, even with Innervate.  Also, using LFD may mean some wait time, especially before you get duel spec at level 40.

Feral - My raiding love will always be Balance, but my leveling love is Feral.  Why is that?  First, there is very little downtime.  If you are questing, you go cat form and like a rogue, you can kill stuff before it even turns around.  If I am using LFD, it is instant tank queues.  It is by far the fastest leveling spec definitely before level 60 and more than likely after level 60.  And in Cataclysm, it will still be the fastest way to level since everybody will want to be in LFD to see the new content.  Second, you have the forms from level 20 on.  You can start tanking at level 10 as a bear and you can start DPSing as a cat at level 20.  Third, you can change their color by going to the hair salon.  I love my white polar bear.  Finally, people love bear tanks.  Swipe spam plus glyphed Maul means most DPS can burst out AoE immediately.  The only tank I have seen it similar with is paladin. 

So what does this all mean.  Here are my recommendations.  Pre-level 60, no question, it is Feral all the way. (At least until Cataclysm).  After level 60 and you can pick up Starfall, you can Feral or Balance, but I still prefer Feral in my opinion for speed.  Resto is for the people who want a challenge while leveling.  Not necessarily the fastest, but still okay.

Moonkin Gearing Decisions - A Case Study

Being a pharmacist, I loved it in school when they would give us a case study, or a question wrapped up in a situation and we had to determine the best answer.  I actually had a great one happen to myself last night while we were raiding.  Hopefully, you will enjoy this.

Situation:  We just downed Valethria Dreamwalker on 25 man ICC HM and Frostbinder's Shredded Cape drops.  Here are the major important stats for this cloak.

Intellect: + 78

A Yellow Gem Slot (With +5 SP bonus)

Critical Strike Rating Improved by 68

Haste Rating Improved by 60

Spellpower Increased by 100

A few weeks ago in 25 man Ruby Sanctum regular, I got the Cloak of Burning Dusk.  Here are the important stats for this cloak:

Intellect: +73

A Red Gem Slot (With +5 SP bonus)

Critical Strike Rating Improved by 56

Haste Rating Improved by 64

Spellpower Increased by 104

Here are my current stats:

Intellect:  1498

Critical Strike Rating: 968

Haste Rating: 1035

Hit Capped

264 Idol

Quiz Time  

Question 1: My guild runs a loot council where you can specify if you want a drop for your main spec and it is a major upgrade (Main), whether it is a side grade but you are still interested (Pass), or whether it is an offspec item (Off).  You can also say nothing and just pass on this item.  What would be the correct action in this case for my moonkin spec (My offspec is tank so he would never use it)?

Question 2: Knowing the new info about Cataclysm, it is unlikely that we will actually complete hardmode Ruby Sanctum.  Does this change your answer?

Pencils Down.  You get to grade  your own paper so you will make a 100% anyway, but lets go through what my decision was in the moment.

Question 1:  I said nothing although I would have accepted Pass as an answer.  Saying nothing is the ideal answer though.  Looking at my stats, I am hit capped, soft haste capped above 408, lunar crit capped at 968 plus the 264 idol.  Although the 277 cloak is a higher iLevel, trading it out would mean an increase in my critical strike rating, which is not really needed, and a decrease in my haste, which is really not needed.  In addition, the 271 cloak from Ruby Sanctum is better itemized with the red gem slot because regardless of the cape, since it is only +5 spellpower.

Question 2:  I would argue that this cape is still better even if we never do hardmode Ruby Sanctum.  I mean, the hardmode version of this cape is best in slot for pretty much any caster, but I'm thinking in my circumstance that the regular version is better than the ICC HM cape.  This means that this cape is likely the one I use until I replace it at level 83.

Going back to several blog post I have made in the past, I have talked about gemming within the caps.  When you are upgrading your gear, it is important to look at your caps as well.  When you are above the Lunar Crit Cap, haste becomes slightly more important than critical strike rating.  This is the reason for gemming with spellpower  plus haste gems versus spellpower plus critical strike gems when you are above the Lunar Crit Cap.  If I was not above the Lunar Crit Cap, my decision would be to go with the 277 iLevel cloak to get more critical strike rating.  However, since I am, I know it is more of a sidegrade and is arguably a downgrade.

Looking at the gear list I get from Gray Matter, whose blog is listed on the side, she mentioned the HM Dreamwalker cape is higher than the 271 RS cape.  However, that is for a specific situation.  In my situation, where I value haste over critical strike rating, I chose the 271 cape.  This is why gear list are guides.  You still need to know your caps and what you are going towards when choosing your best gear.

Managing the GCD - How Should It Affect Your DPS?

The GCD, more commonly known as the global cool down, can be important in figuring out what order to use abilities during DPS.  Yes, your Starfall may be off cooldown, but you just procced your Lunar Eclipse.  Which is more important in terms of your DPS?  This is not an easy question to answer and a lot of different factors can play a role in it.

The first and most important factor is how much DPS will you gain or lose out of doing one action in a GCD versus another.  Lets just look at some normal numbers at what occur.  These are close to what my numbers and depending on where  your gear is, it may or may not be close.

Ability	Non Critical Strike Hit	Critical Strike Hit	Affected by Eclipse
Wrath	8k	15 - 20k	Yes
Starfire	8k	22 - 30k	Yes
Starfall	2k per Star	2k - 5k per Star	No
Treants	800 per hit	1k - 1.5k per hit	No
Insect Swarm	DoT		No
Moonfire	DoT		No

Now that we have a base idea of numbers, lets look at different conditions: 

The first condition is during no eclipse.  This means at that time, the critical strike rating is anywhere from 37 - 42% depending on cool downs, etc.  Also, remember, that Starfall is not affected by Eclipses.  This would mean the best time to use Starfall would be when no Eclipse is up and there are multiple mobs up.  Same thing for treants.  They are not affected by Eclipse bonuses.  Also, DoTs have the potential to proc an Eclipse, but are not affected by one.  In other words, it would appear that the best time to apply DoTs, Starfall, and use your treants are when there is no Eclipse.

The second condition is a Lunar Eclipse.  At this point, your critical strike for your Starfire goes up to 100% (assuming you are Lunar Crit Capped).  This means that Starfire would give you more DPS even though it is slightly higher than the GCD (My Starfire is currently at a 1.66 second cast time).  This means that even if DoTs fall off or Starfall comes off cooldown, it is better to keep casting Starfire because of the damage increase.

The same holds true for the third condition, a Solar Eclipse.  Although it is not possible to get 100% critical strikes for Wrath, you can get up to around 60% during an Eclipse.  Wrath is also equal to the GCD when you are above 408 haste so in two GCDs, you are likely to get around 35 - 40k worth of damage, which would be better than even a multiple mob Starfall.

It would appear that all your abilities are cut and dry when to use except for the fourth condition, which is moving.  If you are moving, you are not able to cast Wrath or Starfire, so you are only left with all of your other abilities.  If you have to move during a Lunar Eclipse, you can still use Starfall or treants while moving or refresh your DoTs to get DPS on the boss.  

The fifth condition is what I would call situation specific.  For example, during phase 3 of the LK fight, you have to DPS down the vile spirits.  Even if I don't have an Eclipse currently and the Starfall just came off cooldown, I will wait until right after the LK calls out the Vile Spirits so that we can DPS the vile spirits down easier by me casting Starfall.  Or even if I just procced an Eclipse, the Vile Spirits dying is more important than 100% critical strike on LK.  But I will be able to use the Lunar Eclipse on the Vile Spirits as well.  And if you want to break my heart, let me proc a Lunar Eclipse and get Unchained Magic at the same time during phase 3 of HM Sindy on 25 man.  I have all this power and can't use it due to the AoE effect of Unchained Magic.

There is also one exception to all of these rules and it is Faerie Fire.  Now, in 25 mans, where  you will probably have a feral druid and a shadow priest, you may worry about it a little less or not at all, but you need that 3% hit to be hit capped.  If nobody else can cast it, you have to.  And hitting the boss every time is more important than your 100% critical strike Starfires during a Lunar Eclipse because you will not hit the boss with full effect or may even miss the boss entirely.

So hopefully, this will help you in giving you a guide when to use abilities based on the GCD.  There are other factors that play a role, like trinkets, etc. but this should be a general guide for you.  And this holds true for all the classes.  Everything is based on how much DPS or healing or threat you can do per GCD and how to maximize it. 

Moonkin Gemming - Within the Caps

I got a question from a friend of mine last night who is looking to gem his moonkin.  Thinking back on it, this is one of the few topics that I have never discussed on this blog.  How to gem as a moonkin.

Starting off, there are only a few gems you should be gemming with anyway.  As a general rule, you should be using epic gems except for your meta.  They help your gear the most and shows that you care about your gemming.  Plus, at this point, epic gems are not that expensive.  Here are the gems you should be using (if you are not a jewelcrafter):

Chaotic Skyfire Diamond - Meta Gem for your headpiece
Runed Cardinal Ruby - Goes in all red slots 99.99% of the time.
Purified Dreadstone -  Need two of these for your meta gem.
Veiled Ametrine - If your need hit.
Reckless Ametrine - If you need haste.
Potent Ametrine - If you need critical strike rating.

There are blue quality gem equivalents, but they are not really worth getting.  So now that you have your gem list, what to do with them.  Remember my saying about the 3 caps.  Your first priority is hit cap.  Now you probably notice that I did not include a straight hit gem.  The reason why is most of the time, you will get more benefit from using two of the Veiled Ametrines than you will get for using a Rune Cardinal Ruby and a pure hit gem.  The Runed Cardinal Ruby is + 23 spellpower.  The pure hit gem is + 20 hit rating.  The Veiled Ametrine is + 12 spellpower and + 10 hit.  Just looking at the pure numbers, you will get 1 additional spellpower using two Veiled Ametrines over straight spellpower and straight hit.

This is true for the Reckless Ametrine as well.  If you are not at the soft haste cap, it will be better to use two Reckless Ametrine to get to cap versus straight spellpower and haste.  And they can go in red or yellow sockets to meet your gear bonuses.

However, this rule does not hold true for Potent Ametrine.  Since the Lunar Crit Cap is at a high critical strike rating, you will get more bang for your buck just putting Potent Ametrine in yellow sockets to hit your socket bonuses versus changing out a red to get one additional spellpower.  In time, you will be able to hit the Lunar Crit Cap without gems.  At this point, you just go back to Reckless in yellow sockets only.

Speaking of gear bonuses, there are a few rules about what to go for in terms of socket bonuses.  In general, moonkins look for these stats in this order.

Hit > Spellpower > Haste > Critical Strike Rating

This is the reason why the first rule of socket bonuses is only gem socket bonuses if they are spellpower.  If they are hit or haste or critical strike rating, don't gem to get those bonuses.  Second, even in spellpower bonuses, there is a limit.  Elitist Jerks says gem for anything above + 5 spellpower.  I tend to disagree with this.  I say gem for anything about + 7 spellpower because the loss of using a yellow gem versus a red gem is not as great if the spellpower bonus is above + 7.  In addition, always remember you have to have two blue gems socketed at any time.  Ideally, you would want to find blue gem slots to put these in, but if you don't have two, you can either use the eternal socket on your belt (since it does not affect the belt's socket bonus) or just substitute a red gem for it.

The final thing about gemming is don't be quick to regem all your yellow sockets.  Once you are above the haste cap, you may be tempted to change everything over to the Potent Ametrine.  First, look at how much haste you are taking out.  If it puts you below the haste cap, don't take it out.  If you are above the Lunar Crit Cap, you may be tempted to go straight haste with the Reckless Ametrine in your yellow sockets.  Use the equation I mentioned before and find out what your cap is, then you can replace what will keep you above the cap.  Also, think about your meta, especially when you get new gear to replace gear that has a blue gem in it to make sure you do not lost the meta gem socket bonus. 

So hopefully, this little guide will help you when gemming your gear for moonkin.  It is not difficult, but it does take a careful eye when gemming.

The Rookie Druid: Part 5: Druid versus Priest - A Guest Blog Post by Viktory

Welcome to the final part of this week long series by my guild mate, Viktory.  Today, he talks about the contrast between his main and his alt and why his alt may be his main sooner rather than later.

Last time I talked about how people should research and learn the details of their class. After all, that bear form icon does not mean someone who has always played Boomkin can say they know how to tank by default.

Now here I am debating whether I want to push my druid up as my new main in Cataclysm. So beyond learning the class and the tactics, I have to decide which I like more; my (now level 58) druid, or the disc priest I used through all of Wrath.

Step One of any good research is compare and contrast.

So I made a quick list:

Druid vs Priest
X Tank Healing  X
X Raid Healing   X
X Smart Heal     X
X Ranged DPS  X
X Raid Buffs      X
X Melee DPS     -
X Cool Dances   -
- Sexy in Armor X

So, after everything is tallied up, it comes down to whether you want to play a kitty and have cool dances, or if you would rather look super sexy in your armor and have everyone else in your raid envious of how good you look. Sort of a Jackie O./Marilyn dichotomy if you will.

But wait, what about.... BATTLE-REZ!?!

Holy crap, way to keep an ace in the hole, druids.

No doubt, if I was looking from a purely raid-utility standpoint, the druid would win, hands down. Plus, with Hit Rating becoming a factor of Spirit, Boomkin/Resto gearing will be even easier than Shadow/Disc gearing is today.

So now it looks like it’s time to push this character to 80 and get some raids in while the gettin’ is good. No better way to decide than to try it out, right?

The Rookie Druid: Part 4: Bear to Boom - A Guest Blog Post by Viktory

Welcome to part 4 of the week long series on a rookie druid, written by my guild mate Viktory.  Today, he discusses moving from tanking to lazer chicken.

 
As I detailed above, my RAF partner and I had agreed to spec as tank and healer so that we could always get rapid queues in the LFD system, owing to a third friend’s endorsement that RAF + LFD = fast levels without questing.

Only problem was.... well, there were lots of problems. The most basic of which was, as we got higher in level, I became more reliant on the the pug dps to do their jobs right and work together. At the same time, I swear that my threat generation did not scale up at the same rate as their dps. I had found myself in a system where despite getting fast queues, instances were taking 2-3x longer than they should because careless people were causing wipes.

I fully admit that I am picky/arrogant/impatient/you-name-it, and that this is amplified when I am the tank. I’m not sure what causes this, because as a healer (especially one who raids with Matticus) we’re always taught that we MUST heal the stupid.

Perhaps the issue is that when I’m tanking, I figure I have everything under control, very much “here’s some mobs, come whack them with your weapons and let’s move on in an orderly fashion”. Any deviation from this causes me to /facepalm.

I think the final step was when I kept getting orange-side Marudon runs with those damn plants that reset aggro and stun everyone. Hooray! Such a great mob design! Actually, it probably was a good mob design when 1-60 was supposed to be a hard journey, but nowadays everyone wants to zoom, and this run was agonizing, again and again.

So right about the time I hit level 50, I went to Moonglade and just told my partner that I was making the switch, I was going to try life on the feathery side.

Let me tell you, the difference was exactly what I needed. After 50 levels of tanking, here I was rejuvenated (druid pun intended)

I was destroying quest mobs that before I just sorta held in place and growled at.

I didn’t mind the wait time between queues, I was typically able to squeeze in a quest or two between each BRD run (...and boy was I glad not to be tanking in BRD. That place needs a transit system)

And the topper; blowing things up is FUN. So fun, in fact that while the first 50 levels took 89 days to level up, on the last day I was able to crank out 8 levels in only a couple hours and had a blast (druid pun not intended) doing it.

I know the other day I sort of bemoaned people who try to play their different specs badly, but you know who’s worse? People who never try the other specs at all. You’re a hybrid for a reason. If you only ever wanted to be ranged DPS, you’d have been better off rolling a Warlock (we all know Blizzard loves THEM). But you shouldn’t be just a boomkin or a cat or a tree. You can get dual-spec at 40 now for a reason. Go out, have some fun. Screw up in some random lowbie dungeons where everyone else is “teh suck” as well.

I did it, and I liked it, and that’s probably what saved this toon from languishing away, incomplete.

The Rookie Druid: Part 3 - Class Versus Player - A Guest Blog Post by Viktory

This is Part 3 in the series by my guild mate, Viktory.  Today, he looks at the hybrid conundrum, flexibility and why some people lack it.

   

I raid on a Priest.

I know that this is a Druid blog, so I’ll pause for a few minutes to allow you to list off the ways that Priests drool and Druids rule.

About done?
Okay, so here’s my take.

Three specs covering all four roles you’ll find in a raid offer great opportunity to be flexible and a solid role player for your guild, but also opens the door to great amounts of FAIL.

Just as with every class, I’ve raided with some really good druids, and some fairly crappy ones. I think that druids (and to a less extent the other hybrid classes) are plagued by both the opportunity to play multiple roles, and players who just don’t quite get it.

These days, I raid on both my healing and DPS specs on the same character, switching based on the fight and raid composition. (Meaning I get abused to fill whichever spot we have the least of) I applied to the guild as a disc priest understanding it would be a part-time spot, and when an opening came up for a shadow priest, I figured raiding was better than sitting on the bench.

In doing so, however, I accepted that I was responsible for putting up solid numbers in both specs.

What I sadly see happen more often with druids, though, is when I come across an applicant, pug or social who thinks their druid can play all three specs equally well with a minimal amount of adjustment. And they FAIL at it.

Yes, the great advantage of the class is that a druid CAN play any role. Unfortunately, not every player can play every role, and those ones who don’t hold up their end make a lot of hybrids look bad.

Clearly, though, I shouldn’t form my opinion of the class just based on the quality of player I have grouped with. I have faith that as I learn to play my rookie druid, I can figure out how to contribute in each spec, and while I may not like playing feral DPS, I’m sure that I’d put in the same level of research before trying to raid as one.

...and that research is exactly what spawned this post. Why don’t more people try to play multiple specs very well?

Do people really like playing resto/balance/feral to the exclusion of the other specs, and to the point that they are willing to be benched for someone who’s more flexible?

The Rookie Druid: Part 2 - Cheap Labor (LFG Adventures) - A Guest Blog Post by Viktory

This is part 2 in a week long series by Viktory, a guild mate of mine in Conquest, about leveling his new druid.  Also, after part 1, he said he wanted to see some Lolcats, so here it goes.

 

Now I had a RAF partner and a plan, but I still had to learn how to play the class, and, oh yeah, level up the toon.  To that end, we decided that instead of power-leveling on our mains and hitting 60 in 19 hours, as I did on my priest pre-3.0, we would actually play the low levels.  Further, I would go feral and he would go resto, so we could exploit the insta-queues in LFD as we leveled.

Let me tell you, this worked pretty good about 1/2 the time. 

The rest of the time, here's what I ran into:

●        That one dps that blizzards/consecrates/volleys before I even got to the pull

●        The dps who really wants to tank extra pulls while we're still on the main group; I’m looking at YOU retadins.

●        A healer who fell asleep/watched tv (hey, wait... my RAF-partner was healing me, why did I have to use cool-downs on trash?)

●        Party members who don't pay attention and drag in extra pulls, then run the mob AWAY from the tank...../facepalm

●        Instances I had never run on any toon (hello Mauradon, why are you the worst place to run back to after a wipe?)

●        DPS that want full clears instead of just the assigned run

On that last point, I've come to realize that this is because while I had insta-queues, and thus turned a HIGH profit on the LFD bonus multiplied by RAF, these dps were waiting 15-45 minutes for a run that yielded 1/3 the xp I was getting.  A regrettable difference, but not something that I was often swayed to deviate from.  Hey, gotta get THIS alt up, not everyone else's alt.

Stay tuned for the end of the bear and the birth of Kaboom!

The Rookie Druid: Part 1 - Background and RAF Start - A Guest Post by Viktory

Welcome to the first in a week long series of post by a guild mate of mine, Viktory.  He is an incredible priest in our guild.  This week, he is going to be discussing the process of leveling his druid and I hope you enjoy it.  

When I unpacked WoW and created my first character (link:http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Greymane&cn=Toronus), was a druid.  I figured "hey, here's a class that can do damage and heal and looks like I have few options how I want to play it". 

I went along happily leveling this character as balance-spec, spending copious amounts of time in Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, right up until Patch 1.8 was released.  Yes, I quit playing balance when Boomkins (known as "oomkins" in those days) came out. ::Queue the booing::  Not that I didn't like the class changes, but leveling was going too slow and my hunter alt became more appealing.

Fast-forward 4 years to this summer, I’m raiding ICC-25 HM on my priest, have 80 hunter and warrior alts, and yet as I read the first class changes from Cataclysm, I realized that I wanted a druid again.  Having fond memories of PvP, I tried playing my original toon, but couldn't pick up the mechanics as easily as I'd hoped, and, in truth, I'd geared him pretty awkwardly back then, and was disgusted with myself for it.

To solve these problems I got myself a RAF (recruit-a-friend) partner and convinced him that between raiding, work and social-life, we should level a pair of druids.  Sounded like a great idea:

●        Flexible gearing as we leveled (oh wow, every piece of gear that comes out of those blue bags is useful for one of my three specs?  Shoot, that's awful!)

●        Hate tanking? Go Boom!  / Bored healing? Go Boom! / Don't like Boom? What's wrong with you?  Meh, go play a kitty and eat your cheezburger.

●        I'd always wanted to pull off a squadron of boomkins for world pvp. 

C'mon, flight-form in, multiple burst dps, flight back out; tell me that's not totally bad-ass.

ICC Hard Modes - Moonkin Style

Moonkins and hardmodes in ICC go together like bread and butter or peanut butter and jelly.  However, the strats you use in regular ICC do not necessarily translate over to hardmodes.  Let me give you a rundown of a moonkins strategies in hardmode ICC based on every fight except LK, since we are still working on it in 10 man and have not touched it in 25 man.

Lord Marrowgar - The biggest new mechanic is that he still Bone Spikes during Bone Storm.  This is great for moonkins since this means we can Starfall on cooldown and we are going to hit 2 mobs all the time, whether the boss or spikes.  In 10 versus 25 man, the strat changes slightly.  In 10 man, all of the DPS and healers group up on one side with the tanks on the other to allow for the Bone Storm to go between them.  In 25 man, we split the DPS and healers in two groups to go to the two sides while the tanks are against the wall.  Little hint:  Tanks cannot be Bone Spiked.  Beyond that, normal stuff including avoid fire, DPS during Bone Storm, etc.

Lady Deathwhisper - Moonkins have a very important role in this fight and, unfortunately, it is not DPS usually.  In 10 man, you may have a mage who can sheep the mind controls leaving you free to DPS.  However, in 25 man, you do not have an option since there are 3 mind controls.  The ability for you to Cyclone mind controlled players is more important than your DPS.  Beyond that, DPS the fanatics, Starfall after mind controls but not right before the bosses mana shield breaks as this will make you get aggro and there is no taunting in 25 man hard mode, and avoid ghost since they one shot you.

Lootship - Don't change anything.  Not that hard. 

Deathbringer Saurfang -  The biggest change I have noticed between normal and hardmode is that you don't Typhoon.  Now, it seems weird to say that, but it is true.  In 10 man hardmode, you will likely have the melee killing one blood beast while it is stunned and the ranged killing the other.  In 25 man hardmode, you will have melee killing one blood beast while it is stunned and the ranged split between the other 4 blood beast.   Since melee is killing blood beast in hardmodes, the last thing you want to do is Typhoon unless a blood beast gets near you.  Beyond that Starfall normally and DPS normally.  Realize that Marks do come out a lot quicker in hard modes and hit harder so be ready to use Barkskin if you are a Mark to give your healers a little break.

Rotface -   Remember the Vile Gas from Festergut.  Well, Professor Putricide throws it out during the Rotface encounter.  This means like Festergut, you will need ranged spread outside of the room.  The big thing this also means is you have to put up with the slime filling the room.  However, let me give you a little secret.   At no point in the encounter is slime filling both sides of the room.  What I mean by this is if you are on the right side of the room, it will not fill up both the back and front areas on the right side of the room at the same time.  This means if it is on your left, just move right.  If you see it coming on your right, start heading left.    Beyond that, it is normal mechanics including move out for slime explosion, etc.

Festergut - Remember Malleable Goo from Professor Putricide.  Well, now you have to put up with it in Festergut.  The easiest way I have noticed to take care of it is to angle your camera at what would be about a 45 degree angle behind your character where you could see the floor.  If you see green area under you, move.  The tough part is when you are grouped up for spores and you see a green area below you.  At this point, you have to communicate to everybody on the spore to move to avoid the Malleable Goo.  Also, if by chance you only get two spores (which you shouldn't do on hard modes since you really need all 3), you can throw up Barkskin to maybe save yourself with some heals.  Beyond that, DPS normally.

Professor Putricide - We have downed him on 10 man but not on 25 man, but most of the mechanics are the same.  This is a communication fight especially with the Unbound Plague.  6 raid members need to hold it for 10 seconds each.  Also, once a raid member has held it for 10 seconds, they cannot hold it for another 60 seconds.  The best way we have had to go through this was to have a rotation with clean ranged people in the middle of the room who could take the plague while those on cooldown were on the outside of the room to avoid giving it to the same person since you take more damage if you take it again and reset the timer.  Also, we line up on the right side of the room where the green slime comes out to help group on who it is targeting.  Also, the transition phases do not involve tear gas, but something much more sinister.  You get both an orange and a green slime at the same time.   In 10 man, you can DPS both.  Yes, Starfall does work great for this.  On 25 man, you get a debuff that says whether you can attack the green or the orange.  Starfall is still pretty good, especially if you can get near Putricide and hit him with the Starfall as well.  Also, transitions are important because if you tip him at the wrong time, you could end up with 3 slimes, which is almost certainly a wipe.  Beyond this, DPS normally and avoid stupid stuff like Malleable Goo and the orange bottle he throws down.

Blood Princes - A hard mode that encourages you not to move.  (What is better for ranged?)  Every movement you make gives you a stacking debuff called Shadow Prison, which increases shadow damage.  So the first thing is do not move unless necessary.  Also, kinetic bombs become a huge problem in hard mode and it becomes the responsibility of every range to hit them if possible.  Especially on 10 man where you may only have 2 ranged.  However, moonkins have a great trick for dealing with kinetic bombs.  Starfall is direct damage to the bombs and will send them back up.  So not only use Starfall on cooldown, but use it near kinetics to drive them back up so you can keep DPSing.

Blood Queen - In terms of mechanics, there is not a whole lot different.  The major mechanic difference is she hits harder the more vampires there are.  However, you will likely still use the same bite order and will have to do the same things to survive the air phase.  So really, there is not a lot different than normal besides more damage.

Valethria Dreamwalker - For ranged DPS, the mechanics are not really that different.  The major difference is it will be your job to take down the zombies since melee will get killed by the explosion.  This also means you may have to get aggro and kite them a little bit.  If need be, typhoon them too.  Beyond that, DPS normally.

Sindragosa - We have not touched Sindy on 25 man, but I can give you our 10 man hard mode strategy.  There are two major differences.  One, Unchained Magic causes an AOE effect when it goes off and causes more damage around you the higher the debuff gets.  This means during the first two alternating phases, you will just move out from the middle with the ranged and healers if you get Unchained Magic.  During Phase 3, you just don't DPS if you have Unchained Magic because you will still need to shake your stacks of Magic Buffet and you don't want AOE behind the blocks.  The other mechanic is that the frostbolts during the air phase will one shot anybody.  Now on 10 man, there is still only 2 blocks and they go down easily.  We just maneuvered behind the blocks while doing some minimal damage and then destroyed them after the fourth frostbolt.  On 25 man, I can tell you already that this will not be an option so it will deal more with how we arrange the ice blocks during the air phase.

So,  hopefully, this information will get you started on your way to taking down the hardmodes in ICC.  As we get our strategy for 25 man HM Sindragosa and HM LK down, I'm sure there will be some updates to this.

    

Lunar Crit Cap - The Third Big Cap

I have mentioned this several times before, but for moonkins, there are 3 important caps.  The first is the hit cap, which is 263 hit unless you have a dranaei in your party.  The second cap is the soft haste cap, also known as the Solar Haste Cap, which is 408 haste.  This brings  your Wrath spell to be equal to the global cooldown of approximately 1 second.  The third cap is the most difficult to understand and does not really become an issue until you get in the highest gear possible.  This cap is the soft crit cap, also known as the Lunar Crit Cap.

The Lunar Crit Cap is the one cap that is not a fixed number as it is a variable based on your intellect.  The Lunar Crit cap is the point that while fully raid buffed and during a Lunar Eclipse, you will crit with your Starfire every single time.  That alone should make you want to get to the Lunar Crit Cap.  Unfortunately, it is not necessarily that easy.

First thing you will need to hit the Lunar Crit Cap is the T10 idol, Idol of the Lunar Eclipse.  This adds 220 critical strike rating.  You could possibly hit it otherwise, but you will really have to be stacking critical strike to get it.  Getting this idol will be the first step in getting to the Lunar Crit Cap.

Second, you have to figure out what your critical strike rating has to be to be at the Lunar Crit Cap.  The first piece of information you will need is your unbuffed intellect number.  The best way to get it is just to go to the armory and pull the intellect number from your character sheet.  This is the best number to get.  Do not get it during a raid from your character screen.  The reason for this is some of the buffs you will need to get to the Lunar Crit Cap will already be on you and you can't count them twice.

The next piece of information you will need is the Lunar Crit Cap equation.  Now, you can stick it into programs, like WrathCalcs.  However, I prefer the quick and dirty equation.    Here is the equation to determine your Lunar Crit Cap critical strike rating.

1575 - (Intellect/3) = Critical Strike Rating Needed

As any math teacher will tell you, solve the parentheses first.  I love my old math teacher.

Let me use myself as an example here.  My current intellect is 1457 according to the WoW Armory character sheet.  Putting it in the equation, I need a critical strike rating of  1089 to be at the Lunar Crit Cap.  Now, my current critical strike rating is 873, so it appears that I am not at the cap.  However, this is where having the T10 idol is important.  From the 1089, I can subtract out 220 critical strike rating.  This puts my requirement to be at 869, which means that I am above the Lunar Crit Cap with 873.

A couple things you may notice about the equation.  First, the more intellect you get, the smaller your critical strike rating needed.  This means that the better your gear gets, the less critical strike rating you actually need.  Second, without the T10 idol, it is almost impossible to hit the Lunar Crit Cap.  You need to have it.  This means when you are gearing up a moonkin, you may not be at the crit cap until you get all of your T10 first, which would be my first purchases with Emblems of Frost.

A lot of moonkin gear has critical strike rating, however, you should also notice that some trinkets have the potential to put your easily over the crit cap.  Those two trinkets are Muradin's Spyglass and Phylactary of the Nameless Lich.  Both of these trinkets have high amounts of critical strike rating.  Of course, the Spyglass is the easier to get of the two since it is from Lootship.  The reason I bring this up is the recent situation I have run into.  

I got both the heroic version of Dislodged Foreign Object and the normal version of the Charred Twilight Scale.  Both of these trinkets have huge amounts of haste but no critical strike rating.  Once I got both, I was about 100 critical strike rating from the Lunar Crit Cap.  I had to look at my gemming choices again and decided to put yellow critical strike gems in my yellow slots that could be changed.  As I get more 277 gear, I will be able to change those back to the spellpower plus critical strike gems or even spellpower plus haste gems.  (Although looking at Moonkin Repository, I may be up against the hard haste cap now.  But that is another discussion for another day.)

So when gearing up your moonkin, look at your gear and get to the first two caps of hit and the soft haste cap.  Then start aiming for the third.  When you hit the Lunar Crit Cap, watch your DPS explode.

To DoT or Not To DoT? - A DPS Question

Note:  Thanks to this blog goes to Qieth (see sidebar for his blog) who made a comment about DoTs on the moonkin DPS rotation.  He started me thinking along the lines of this blog.

I mentioned a few post ago about the DPS rotation that I'm using for my moonkin.  However, even with that rotation, there will be small changes based on the situation.  The best moonkin players realize they may have to make some small alterations to their rotation based on the situation.  We try to minimize alterations and get in our standard rotation, but there are times where you just can't help it and have to change.

One of the things I have been thinking of personally is are there times where you will not want to apply your DoTs?  Could your DPS actually be hurt by applying DoTs?  While I'm still doing some personal research, the answer I'm coming to is yes.

Now, on actual bosses, there is no question.  You apply Faerie Fire, Moonfire, and Insect Swarm like you are suppose to.  As was mentioned in the comments on the moonkin DPS rotation, Faerie Fire should be on at all time, Moonfire should be on during a Lunar Eclipse, and Insect Swarm should be on during a Solar Eclipse.  That is the optimal DPS for bosses.

However, not all fights have just bosses.  Some fights have adds.  Does this mean we should DoT up every add before going into our Eclipse rotation.  I'm gonna make an argument for no.  Here are my reasons why:

1) Adds Die Too Quickly - Take the Dreamwalker fight for instance.  All the adds in this fight die really quickly.  By the time you use 2 global cooldowns to apply Faerie Fire and Moonfire in anticipation of your first Lunar Eclipse, they are dead most of the time, which hurts our DPS.

2) Adds are Not the Same Level of Bosses - Our hit cap is based on what is required to hit the boss 100% of the time.  However, adds typically are not the same level as bosses.  Most adds I have seen are 83 Elites.  Now with moonkins, we get 4% hit from our talents.  A moonkin should also be at 10% hit on their gear.  For bosses, our extra 3% hit comes from either Faerie Fire or a Shadow Priest's Misery.  However, since trash is lower level than the bosses, they do not require the extra 3% hit from Faerie Fire.  This gives a reason not to cast Faerie Fire on every add.

3) Time Is of the Essence - Take LK for example.  In that fight, there are 3 instances where adds must die quickly.  First is the raging spirits.  Second is the valks.  Third is the vile spirits.  Putting DoTs on adds that will die in under 15 seconds does not really help out anything.  Just start casting Wrath and hope for a Lunar Eclipse.

4) Adds Don't Require a Lunar Crit Cap Hit - You want bosses to be hit with a critical Starfire everytime during a Lunar Eclipse.  This requires that your DoTs be on the boss.  Adds die so quickly, you don't need to hit them with a Lunar Crit Cap Starfire.  Also, since bosses are lower level, they are easier to crit, so you will still likely get 100% Starfire crits during a Lunar Eclipse.

5)  Massive AoE - In some fights and trash especially, you are just going to be casting Hurricane and maybe Starfall if it is safe.  This is more of a reason not to put DoTs on because you will be channeling during Hurricane.

I only have anecdotal evidence of this, but I saw my DPS double in World of Logs from about 3k DPS in Dreamwalker (for some reason, they look at each individual mob DPS instead of encounter DPS with Starfall, etc.  My personal Recount had me at about 7k DPS.) to 6k DPS by not casting DoTs on the adds during that fight and just focusing on Eclipse rotations.  I know it is not strong evidence, but it was enough to convince me to not worry about casting DoTs on adds and focus on our nukes. 

Again, this likely will change in Cataclysm where our Moonfire will have a nuke capability.  I wouldn't be surprised if we just cast Moonfire on adds in Cataclysm since it will be our moving nuke.

I want to remind everybody about the Christmas in July contest.  You only have 11 days left to enter to win some great stuff.  Also, check out WoWCentric on the side link and show them your love.   

Twitter Dev Chat from 7/16/10 - My Thoughts On Blizzard's Thoughts

Blizzard decided that after the insanity that was RealID and with the addition of 31 point talent trees, it was time to do another Twitter development chat.  Here are some of my personal thoughts about the general and druid specific things from that chat.

1) For the Love of God, Stop Asking About Guild Housing - Blizzard has done this chat a few times now and every single time, someone thinks it would be a good question to ask about guild housing.  Blizzard has said no, it is not going to happen.  If you are that hard up for guild housing, go play Age of Conan with nobody else.

2) Glyphing Has Become Interesting - Giving the description of the new glyphs, it is starting to sound like that some passive abilities are going to become new glyphs.  This means that maybe Omen of Clarity is not dead.  My guess is passive abilities will either become Prime or Major glyphs.  Minor glyphs are going to be the fun glyphs. (Like Polymorph: Penguin)


3) Mastery Capping Will Not Happen - I'm thinking by their descriptions that only 7 pieces of gear will have mastery on it (Head, Chest, Wrist, Hands, Waist, Legs, and Feet) and there will be no mastery gemming or enchanting. Thus it will be impossible to hit a mastery cap.  I could see shared items like weapons, rings, cloaks, trinkets, and neck pieces having mastery, but I still don't think it will be cappable.  That being said, you will still want as much as mastery as possible regardless of your class.

4) Blizzard has A LOT to Do with Druids Still - Only to get me as close to a heart attack as I have ever been, I thought that Omen of Clarity, Typhoon, and Moonkin form were all being taken out when the 31 point talents came out.  Thankfully, those were more errors than anything.  Omen of Clarity may be out, but Typhoon and Moonkin form will come back.  They said they have a lot to do with all the classes, but it really seems like all the druids still need a lot of work.

5) Welcome Back, Moonfire - Moonfire is going to become the Balance druid's friend when moving.  We are going to be spamming it on the move since it will have a new nuke capability as well as its normal DoT ability.  Plus, with some of the suggested talents, it will be refreshed by just moving.  Don't even have to spam it to get more effect out of it.

6) Eclipse Will Be Awesome - From their description, an Eclipse will last until either the Balance bar either returns to center or 45 seconds.  So, it does not sound like you will be able to store up a Lunar Eclipse and then use it for a boss.  However, 45 seconds is a lot of time to move and then start casting.  What we don't know is how much solar power we get for each Starfire cast.   We know that if we critically hit with either a Starfire or Wrath, we get 12 of the appropriate power per the talents.  I'm also guessing that when moving from a Lunar Eclipse to a solar eclipse that 1 Solar Power = - 1 Lunar Power and vice versa for a Solar Eclipse.  These means we have to subtract out 100 Lunar Power to get back to center during a Lunar Eclipse.  Another thing with Eclipse is possibly finding ways to prolong the Eclipse.  If you get near center, you may cast Wrath a few times in the middle of the rotation to get a few more Lunar Eclipse procs in the 45 seconds.  And mastery will affect how much damage we put out during our Eclipses.  I think the balance druid's new goal will be to get an Eclipse, make it last 45 seconds, and then get to the opposite Eclipse.

7) Duel Speccing Will Be Earlier and Cheaper  - Thank God.  If you are going to tell people they have to put their first 31 talents in one tree, you have to provide a way to duel spec earlier.  I'm hoping either level 10 or 20.  More likely, it will be level 30.

8) Spec Specific Talent at Level 10  - Awesome.  I think it will make every spec a viable leveling spec, whether you are leveling doing quest or just LFG.  (I'm trying to level my DK while staying in the DK starting area and just DK tanking with heirloom gear.)  Balance druids will have Eclipse.  Feral druids will have Mangle.

9) Intellect Stat is About to Explode - End game raiders currently have around 3-4k spellpower unbuffed.  When asked what the conversion rate is, they basically said it is 1 intellect for 1 spellpower.   That means one of two things.  Either they want to decrease how much spellpower everybody has or they are about to have a lot of intellect on gear.  I tend to think it is the latter.

10) Hybrid Specs Are Still Not Back - I was hoping for a combination feral spec that could do good kitty DPS and tank.  Apparently, that is not happening.  They are actually making it a point that a DPS feral spec is different enough from a feral tank that it cannot be combined.  Also, goodbye Restokin for PvP.  But that is okay, because between Starfall, Moonfire Spam, and our AoE silence, moonkins will be incredible in PvP.   

Hopefully, they will have even more answers for us as we get closer and closer to Cataclysm.  Speaking of Cataclysm, if you think you know when the release date is going to be, enter our Christmas in July contest for some cool free stuff.

Finally, I mentioned WoWCentric not to long ago.  Well, it is up and running now and you can find a big link on the right side.  You will find druid and raiding content from me as well as great content from a bunch of other bloggers, podcasters, etc.  Bookmark it, visit it daily, and see some great content.