What a Long, Strange Trip it's been!

So I finally joined the Brew of the Month club, which therefore got me the title of "Brewmaster." And this was the last achievement that I needed for What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been.














So this is just one that I have now been able to finish, since work and life come before WoW. But I am happy to announce that I am starting to play again, and can officially start going for the rest of the achievements.













The next that I am going for are the ever elusive One that Didn't Get Away and Loremaster. There are others that I am attempting to get, but now since my guild members have all gone their separate ways, there are not as many to come help me as there used to be.

Have a delicious day!

Taking a break.

So I have decided to pretty much become a very casual player on WoW. I am going to try for those elusive achievements like Loremaster and Salty. Those are just a few to name. I will still be on Muradin but I also have Cusper and Cuspy on a few other servers as well such as Argent Dawn, Uldum and Wyrmrest Accord. I will probably be primarily on Muradin as my main Cusper is there, but who knows. I may transfer, I may not. So keep on the lookout for Cusper, The Delicious Druid.

Have a WoW filled and delicious day!

Raiding no more... at least for a while.

Well, my guild has decided to stop raiding. I have been in Is Being Repressed for almost 2 years now, and have had a wonderful time with the other raiders and members. There are times that I will always remember and I will never forget those who made a real impact on my WoW life and some in my real life.

So I will most likely be posting a little less as I figure out what I want to do in game as well as in my real life.

Good luck to all of my IBR guild members.

The Argent Tournament

THE ARGENT TOURNAMENT

So I have become a HUGE fan of this. I love the medieval connotations, but you get to earn new mounts and pets, and of course I collect those, so I love it even more. Along with the new achievements that we can earn, it just makes it fun.

After doing the dailys for some time now I have become a Champion of all the Cities, but mostly I use the title: Cusper of Darnassus. I have finally also earned exalted faction with Argent Crusade and Argent Dawn so I have the title, Crusader, if i desire.

If you still want the dailys for the money, I suggest getting all of the titles except one and just not turning in the last 25 tokens. This allows you to keep doing the dailys. I personally after reaching the desire level of faction, stop with the dailys and go onto another set. My next ones to get are the Oracles and Frenzyheart.

So now I only have the Champion's dailys which are fine with me. I do my 4 jousts; make sure you always have 3 shields up and if not, stay in lancing range. Always easy to find a group for the group quests, and might as well add the scourge to that in the middle. So I do the dailys not for the money, but mainly for the pets and mounts. I have 3 of the 5 pets and 1 of the 11 mounts (which includes the flying mount).

SO keep jousting and have a delicious day!

Bringing HoTs Back!

So there are many different ways to heal as a druid. Pretty much it depends on what your assignment is.

Raid healing: For the most part a druid will always be on the raid. Only in extreme circumstances will a druid ever be on a Main tank.

This consists of throwing out Wild Growth on every cooldown and casting Rejuvenation as much as you can within the WG 6 second cooldown. Every now and again if someone does not get a bigger heal from a priest of shaman you can throw a Nourish up.

GLYPHS
Glyph of Wild Growth
Glyph of Nourish
Glyph of Swiftmend

With these, your WG hits an addition person, if you need to quickly heal someone, Swiftmend can be used without taking off a HoT and Nourish also heals for extra when there are multiple HoTs on a player.

If you are MT healing, which should be rarely, throw up all your HoTs and then Nourish spam until you need to refresh your HoTs. Lifebloom you do not really have to use, just Regrowth, Rejuventation and Wild Growth.

I did not do the math to prove this, but I find this healing method to be effective.

Patch 3.1

Ok so 3.1 is a new major release from Blizzard. And the changes include some about swimming mounts, and dual specs. I am going to be a balance/healing druid. WHAT A SURPRISE!

Here are my specs:
Balance 55/0/16
Resto 12/0/59

They have a few talents that are the same, but I go way down into the tree to get what I want out of it. These talents also have the glyphs that I intend to use with the specific specs.

Ok so here are the changes to druids (or at least the ones I care about).

Druids

• Abolish Poison: Now ticks every 3 seconds, up from every 2. Now lasts 12 seconds, up from 8.
• Faerie Fire and Faerie Fire (Feral): Now decreases armor of your target by 5%. Has a 5-minute duration, and a 40-second PvP duration.
• Feral Faerie Fire: The damage generated by this ability in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form has been increased substantially.
• Innervate: This spell no longer costs mana.
• Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled.When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications.
• Starfall: Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds.
  

• Balance

  • Celestial Focus redesigned: Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Starfire, Hibernate and Hurricane by 23/46/70% and increases your total spell haste by 1/2/3%.
  • Eclipse: The benefit to Wrath triggered by casting Starfire has been increased to 30% bonus damage.
  • Insect Swarm: The bonus damage from spellpower on this damage-over-time ability has been increased significantly to match similar spells on other classes.
  • Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild can now be cast while in Moonkin form.
  • Nature's Grace redesigned: All spell critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to grace you with a Blessing of Nature, increasing your spell casting speed by 20% for 3 seconds.
  • Owlkin Frenzy is now properly considered an Enrage effect. Now also does not trigger from spell hits, only physical ranged and melee attacks.
    

• Restoration

  • Living Seed: This talent now accounts for total healing including overhealing.
  • Improved Mark of the Wild:Now also increases all of your total attributes by 1/2%.
  • Intensity: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.
  • New Talent: Improved Barkskin: Increases the damage reduction granted by your Barkskin spell by 5/10%, and increases your resistance to Dispel mechanics by an additional 30/60% while under the effect of Barkskin.
  • Improved Regrowth: This talent is renamed Nature's Bounty. Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth and Nourish spells by 5/10/15/20/25%.
  • Replenish: This talent is now re-named Revitalize and also works with Wild Growth.
  • Tree of Life: Now receives 240% increased armor. You can now use Nature's Grasp and Thorns while within this form. In addition, the discount on heal-over-time spells from this talent is now active at all times, whether or not the druid is in Tree of Life form. Mana cost reduced to match the cost of Travel Form.

So these are some of the changes that will be implemented from the PTR patch notes.
So it looks like Insect Swarm may be part of the rotation again and FAERIE FIRE is a 5 minute spell! YAY! If you can not tell, that makes me very excited.

Now one thing that I am not the excited about is the change to Nature's Grace in the Balance tree. I have not decided if I like it at all. We shall have to see how it goes.

As my guild goes through Ulduar I will be posting some strategies that work for us, as well as things to avoid. So have fun with the patch and dual specs!Lets Raid and gave a delicious day!

I miss Blogging...

Wow, I must be the worst blogger ever. But I have been looked at for a promotion at work, so that is taking up a lot of my time. As well as my family being very involved in the Masonic Family; my sister will be the head of the Order of the Amaranth in 2 weeks. So I have been very busy, but I will post soon. I promise.

So have a delicious day!

Congrats Phae

Congrats to Phaelia from Resto4Life! Blizzard acknowledged all of her work and added a leather chest piece for druids into the game. Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed also to indicate her sprouting a little Phae!

Congrats!

Happy Birthday!

Today is my birthday, and my guild had their 3 year anniversary about 2 weeks ago to... And my sister's birthday is tomorrow!

So Happy Birthday to all, and have a delicious day!

Eclipse: Starfire or Wrath

So, now is the debate on Starfire versus Wrath...

Now this is a serious debate on which rotation actually outputs more dps and which deals more damage. There are many factors that come into play with these two spells.

TALENTS
Here are the talents that help both WRATH and STARFIRE:
Starlight Wrath (5/5) Reduces cast time of Wrath and Starfire
Nature's Majesty(2/2) Increases crit of both Wrath and Starfire
Vengeance(5/5) Increases crit strike damage of both Wrath and Starfire
Celestial Focus(3/3) Increases Haste and gives Starfire a stun.
Moonfury(3/3) Increases damage of both Wrath and Starfire
Improved Faerie Fire(3/3) Increases crit chance of all spells
Wrath of Cenarius(5/5) Increases Starfire damage by 20% and Wrath by 10%
Eclipse(3/3) Procs give Wrath more damage and Starfire more crit chance
Earth and Moon(3/3) Increases spell damage of all spells

Talents that only affect WRATH:
Improved Insect Swarm(3/3) Increases damage of Wrath with target affected by Insect Swarm

Talents that only affect STARFIRE:
Improved Insect Swarm(3/3) Increases crit chance of Starfire when target is affected by Moonfire
Celestial Focus(3/3) Increases Haste and gives Starfire a stun.
Yes I put this as affecting both, but it gives a stun which is helpful for soloing.


IDOLS
Idols are a very big part of a Druid's gear and depending on which idols you have... you may want to change your rotation. Idol of Steadfast Renewal is available through one of the badge vendors. Idol of the Shooting Star is a drop from Instructor Raz in 25 man Naxx. Now I have the Starfire Idol... and have not bought the wrath one yet, even though I probably will to have most of the idols in the game.

GLYPHS
Other items that can put one spell in front of the other are glyphs. There are only a few glyphs for a balance druid.
Glyph of Focus, Glyph of Starfall, and Glyph of Typhoon (even though the typhoon one is a minor glyph) - are three that I will never use because I plan on not having those talented spells.
Glyph of Insect Swarm - This will make Insect Swarm a more viable spell also with the additional crit to Starfire and extra damage to Wrath.
Glyph of Moonfire - This make the DoT portion of your Moonfire higher and reduced the initial damage.
Glyph of Starfire - This allows for your Moonfire spell to last 9 seconds longer without recasting.

So I have actually tested and will continue testing new rotations and such. But when casting Wrath until Eclipse procs and then casting Starfire, I tend to forget that it extends the DoT of Moonfire and I recast it anyway.

Now I have started casting Starfire until Eclipse procs and then casting Wrath. This has actually upped my dps to over 4k on some fights. And when I was just testing it on the dummies in IF, I was getting up to 3k, self buffs... usually hovering around 2.8k. Now with the Wrath spam I was around 2.4k dps.

But remember if you are raiding... only cast Starfire during Heroism, because at that point, I know I have enough haste that I am over the haste cap for wrath, and it doesnt affect it as much as it does with Starfire.

So I have changed my rotation because of more research and it is now.

Faerie Fire --> Moonfire --> Insect Swarm --> Starfire (Eclipse) --> Wrath
Repeat whenever Moonfire needs refreshing.

I still use the othre rotation if it is a fight where a lot of movement is needed, because of the shorter cast time of wrath. So use all of my research wisely and do some of your own, and your own testing. A lot of this also depends on gear.

So I wish everyone Phat Lootz and a Delicious Day!

P.S. Look at Resto4Life as it will be shutting down soon. Good luck Phae!

For you, the reader...

So I want to make this blog helpful to all of you that read it... and I would love to hear from all of you about what you want me to write about.

I can talk about druid specs, the differences between the trees and what is needed for raiding vs. pvp. I can talk about gear in more depth or instances. I can write about anything ideas you may have. So please give me some feedback and I will take ideas into consideration. I will also keep just writing about things that I research and find interesting.

So write me a comment or an e-mail and have a delicious day.

P.S. I am finally getting a new computer! YAY!

Boom...kin!

So in a rare change for me, I offered to my guild leaders and officers that I would go balance if we needed it for our raids... and they said we do. Our guild seems to have an over abundance of healers which is good, but then we cannot down bosses when we need to.

So here is my balance raiding spec. You will notice that I do not have typhoon or starfall in my spec. They are not very useful in raiding circumstances so why spec into them when I do not need it.

The main thing to get when looking for gear as a boomkin is hit and spell power. Those are the 2 main things to get. You can really never have enough spell power but if you are raiding, hit cap is 10% or 263 hit. That is if you have the talents which give you 4% hit, as well as either Imp Faerie Fire for another 3% hit or have a shadow priest in group (Actual hit cap is 17%).

The next that you want to stack is haste. Many people think that crit is the way to go as most of our damage is done by crits, but with talents most of our spells will crit anyway. The reason that I say haste is next after Spell power and hit is because you will get the crit with loot and gear. It is the stat that is on our tier 7 gear so I would suggest trying to get enough to make your wrath a 1.0 second cast instead of 1.5 seconds. This will cause a boomkin to output more damage by being able to cast more spells, especially when Eclipse procs. So as for stats to stack, here is how it goes...

Hit (10%) > Spell Power > Haste > Crit > Intellect + Spirit

The reason is that you do not want to miss any spells being below the hit cap, then Spell power because you can never have too much. Then haste, the more spells you cast the more damage you do. Along with that is crit, the more you crit the more damage you do... Then Intellect and Spirit for more spell power with talents and more mana and regen.

Now the next part of druid raiding is our spell rotation... Because of procs, you cannot always have a set spell rotation. I have looked a lot of different sites, and talked to other moonkins about it and it entails IFF if needed, Moonfire, Improved Insect Swarm (If desired), and then Wrath spam until Eclipse proccs and then Starfire until the buff is over. But NEVER allow Moonfire to expire.

Faerie Fire --> Moonfire --> Insect Swarm --> Wrath -(Eclipse)-> Starfire
Rinse and Repeat

There is also some talk about improving mana efficiency with down ranking spells but since the XPac came out and all the changes to raid mana, I do not see why any druid would sacrifice damage for a little mana, especially when I rarely drop below 70% mana during a raid fight.

So until that time, have fun raiding and have a delicious day!

P.S. My Guild, Is Being Repressed downed Sartharion with 3 Drakes last night! Congrats to all!

Gemz: Aren't they pretty?

Ok so now that I am doing 25 man raids again, it is time to look at gems and see which ones are the best for a tree specced druid.

Now with the changes in spirit, and intellect and they way that mana is replenished, I am looking at different gems that I used to. During the Burning Crusade I looked at pure healing gems as well as spirit gems. Wrath has given us more choices than we had before.

I am one of those people who tend to use socket bonuses unless they are completely bogus. But There are gems that can be found for any socket color that are useful to a resto druid.

Red
Runed Scarlet Ruby

Orange
Luminous Monarch Topaz

Yellow
Brilliant Autumn's Glow

Green
Seer's Forest Emerald

Blue
Sparkling Sky Sapphire

Purple
Purified Twilight Opal

The purified twilight opal is not actually able to be cut yet... not until 3.0.8 so we still have to wait a little while for that. But as we know, Red = Spell Power, Yellow = Intellect, and Blue = Spirit. So any combination of those make a hybrid gem.

The reason that I picked all of these gemz are for different reasons. The more +spell power a druid has the more their HoTs will tick for and the more healing that will be done for one spell. The more +intellect a druid has the more mana they will get back with replenishment and the more spells they can cast before going out of mana. The more +spirit the druid has the more healing in tree form as well as a higher base mana regen.

So depending on what you actually want from your healing you can gem all +spell power and have huge hots or you can gem all int and spirit for greater mana pools and higher mp5. I like a mix off all the gemz and tend to go for the +spell power +int, or +spell power +spirit gems.

Good luck with the the gems and have a delicious day!

Achievements

Ok, I admit it. I am an achievement junkie. Though I would have to say that there are people out there that are a lot worse than I am. My achievements are growing, and I am working on a few specific ones.

I have a friend on Muradin who also has a blog Windfury Crits who just wrote about his love/hate relationship with achievements. I on the other hand LOVE them. I love the fact that there is something else for me to aspire to besides just raiding.

As we speak I am currently going back to all the old instances and completing them. I am trying to get eventually get the title of Salty - for completing all of the fishing achievements as well as getting Loremaster for finishing all the quests everywhere.

I find that I get bored doing one achievement, so then I just find another and try to do that one. It sometimes seems like a daunting task to work on some of them, but I enjoy it.