Trees can Moonfire, wha?: Resto Druid Talents in the Cataclysm Alpha

So, a Turkey is still a Turkey, except for the dizziness from the nerf-bat and the fact that we can throw mushrooms and summon lasers from the sky.

But a Tree is no longer a Tree, at least in the 'traditional' sense.

The Resto talents that have been presented with the Alpha leak are quite interesting and my analysis is presented for you to, er, analyze.

Please bear in mind that all of this information is subject to change between now and release!

The talent changes presented via the leaked information can be found here.

New Talents

• Blessing of the Grove: Providing small buffs to a key ability for each spec (alright, feral gets two), this talent will likely be taken by everyone, just as IGotW was, on the way to that lovely Clearcasting talent.
  
• Perserverance: The 6% spell damage reduction taken from Balance of Power in the Balance tree has been moved here, but now for 10% over 5 points. It's a low-tier talent but with three points needed for Natural Shapeshifter as a pre-req for Master Shapeshifter, I'm not certain there are more than two points to spend on it. Edit: Actually, after looking through it further, I lied; since I'm still not sold on the new usefulness of Tranquility you could easily place all five points into here in order to reach Tier 6.
  
• Fury of Stormrage: Blessing of the Grove hinted at a dual-nature for Resto druids; this slaps us in the face with it. Nourish one person and get a nuke, free! Except that the 'free nuke' will likely trigger the GCD which, as a healer, I might be using to heal someone else. With the Moonfire->Starfire portion, this really feels better placed in the Balance tree where it would likely be overpowered.
  
• Efflorescence: God, trying to type that out is a pita. I expect it to be called 'Eff' or 'Flower Patch'. Have you seen the patch of flowers that sprout under the feet of someone who uses the Herbalism HoT Lifeblood? I expect this looks a lot like that, except with maybe more flowers. 15 yards is a reasonable distance (the same as Lifebloom) but this HoT is uncontrolled; your party members are going to have to run to it themselves. Highly useful in fights where people are clustered and this extra HoT will of course heal the person you originally healed unless they move. Overall expect lots of overhealing and grumbling because you finally critted on that lone guy over there and not on the cluster of six you've been healing for the last two minutes. Also, the spell doesn't say what part of the healing done by Regrowth is transferred; healing from an entire Regrowth or only from the direct heal? This talent is 'broken' and displays as Living Spirit's tooltip for Rank 2 and Rank 3.
  

Old Stuff that's Really New

• Empowered Touch: If we're seeing HP values dip that low... I'm excited and worried all at the same time. The Nourish->Lifebloom synergy implies that the devs really do expect us to use our entire bag of tricks now.
  
• Revitalize: I am not a fan of the Lich King fight. Trees are not strong on this fight; in fact, I'd say overall we're pretty weak for raid-healing here because we cannot directly battle Infest. What we still bring to the fight, however, is Revitalize which ups DPS overall and at least helps us kill Arthas more quickly. Blizzard says there will be no more of that! It makes sense, else many druids would continue in a 5x1 rotation just to keep Revitalize on everyone. Now we're going a complete 180, to the spells that are used very little currently. Another sign that crit is coming.
  
• Tree of Life: This is the biggest change to the entire tree in the eyes of most Resto druids. We're no longer trees while healing--at least most of the time. The druid community is split on this matter; I personally am excited from a PvP standpoint. However, we didn't just use a cosmetic effect. Not only do they remove the 20% mana reduction to healing spells, it looks like we're back to being slow. If they don't provide a glyph to remove the movement decrease, I probably won't use it except on Patchwerk-style fights. AoE and other fight mechanics that require movement are too dangerous to have a speed decrease; hell, they're too dangerous at normal speed, which is why a huge majority of raiders currently use Tuskarr's Vitality on their feet. Some information on what the 'temporary enhancements' might be will help with determining just how useful this will be, but don't expect that info for some time. At the moment, I'd say this should be a useful cooldown for a raid-wide damage phase, such as during BQL's Bloodbolt Whirl, but there's too little information to really say what good it will do. The slow, however, pisses me off. Notice the removal of spell restrictions, which leads us to...
  
• Improved Tree of Life: Doesn't have Tree of Life as a pre-req, heh. 5:00 to 3:30 is not terrible; in a 10-minute fight, you'll be able to use it 3 times instead of 2. 15% damage increase, though? They've removed the 'healing and buffs-only' restriction of Tree of Life form but since when do healers get to DPS? Since Cataclysm, it seems.
  
• Gift of the Earthmother: Goodbye haste and a CD reduction to a spell we really didn't use much (pretty sure no one ever took the talent for the Lifebloom CD reduction), hello buffs! Again the talent is a little-here-little-there to a few different spells but, with all that it's bringing, I can certainly see why this talent is Tier 10. The Tranq buff is, of course, situational. The LB bloom will be useful if LB becomes useful (the devs certainly seem to think it will) and since Rejuv will still be used a lot while people kick the 5x1 habit, the immediate heal will be of use overall.
  

Old Stuff with New Changes

• Naturalist: Moved from Tier 2 to Tier 3; replaces Intensity as the pre-req for Nature's Swiftness.
  
• Improved Rejuvenation: Bonus now affects Swiftmend as well.
  
• Nature's Swiftness: Naturalist replaces Intensity as its pre-req.
  
• Improved Tranquility: This one is a little odd. The first point switches a cooldown reduction of 30% for a 25% damage reduction while channeling the spell. The second point goes back to the original talent of 60% cooldown reduction. Assuming the change is the first, 50% damage reduction will be amazing, but Tranquility is still a spell that I'm uncertain about and I'd rather have the cooldown reduction.
  
• Living Seed: Moved from Tier 9 to Tier 6 and is now the pre-req for the new Efflorescence talent.
  
• Nature's Bounty: Now the pre-req for Swiftmend, it looks like crit will be added to our plates once again.
  
• Swiftmend: Nature's Bounty is now a pre-req. Cost decreased from 16% of base to 12% of base.
  
• Natural Perfection: Removed the crit chance and moved from Tier 7 to Tier 8. Still a PvP talent if you ask me, just a less useful one with the crit removal. So, why did this go up a Tier?
  
• Empowered Rejuvenation: Now affects Swiftmend.
  
• Improved Barkskin: No longer reduces the chance for Barkskin to be dispelled. PvPers everywhere are mourning.
  
• Wild Growth: I almost put this one under 'unchanged', but the mana cost has: up to 37% from 23%. Combined with the promise of 'mana problems' during a fight, devs certainly don't want this one spammed on cooldown.
  

Old Stuff that's Gone Missing

• Improved Gift of the Wild: Blizzard is removing all 'improved' versions of buffs; bye-bye super-paw.
  
• Intensity: Here's the first hint of Resto mana conservation. Naturalist is now the pre-req for Nature's Swiftness.
  
• Gift of Nature: Swiftmend's new pre-req is Nature's Bounty.
  
• Living Spirit: Most trees were beginning to drop this, anyhow.
  

Nothing's Changed... Yet

• Nature's Focus
  
• Furor
  
• Subtlety
  
• Natural Shapeshifter
  
• Omen of Clarity
  
• Master Shapeshifter
  
• Tranquil Spirit
  

My thoughts? It's not that unheard-of for a DPS to switch to healing in the middle of a fight to cover some slack while a battle-rez happens or during a nasty transition. But for a healer to go DPS? No, usually you want your healers watching for that next big damage spike or constantly spamming their big heals with /stopcasting macros built in. Aside from BQL after 16 bites when folks are self-healing enough that Moonfire from healers is alright or during Arthas' last 10%, healers don't DPS while raiding as a healer.

Blizzard seems to have other ideas.

I HATE the slowdown in tree form. Without knowing how some spells will be specifically affected by being in Tree of Life form, there's not much to say at the moment other than if we get to look like the Ancients in Darnassus, hell yeah, and I want it to be permanent! The speed thing is going to be a sticking point with me, however.

Blizzard has removed just about all of the appeal of the 5x1 rotation: the insane mana regen and cost reductions are out the window, the increased cost of Wild Growth, the changes to Revitalize--they've attacked 5x1 from all sides. Most of the talents now look like a hodge-podge of synergistic "if this then that" thought processes that will just require nice, new mods that tell us what we should be doing (see feral's Bad Kitty mod). Sure, haste will be useful with HoTs affected as well as cast times, but with so much emphasis on criticals to trigger other abilities as well as the permanent implementation of 4T9's crit for HoT ticks, I think we'll be trading in our current haste-stacked gear for new crit-stacked gear come Cataclysm.

Tranquility is another matter. As it is now, I use Tranquility to heal my group to full after a wipe, that's about it. It's already been said that Tranquility will now be raid-wide which ups its usefulness significantly. Two Resto druids popping this after a Precious/Stinky Devestate would be quite sick to see. It could also potentially give you some fast, over-time healing that gives you a moment longer to survey the battlefield and figure out who needs to be fixed up next--or to heal while scrounging the mini-map for where the silly hunter died so you can brez. I'd still want to see it in action before I pass judgment, but something so situational and on such a long cooldown probably won't cause me to spend Talents on it.

Keep in mind that the above is from a raiding perspective; PvP and 5-mans are a different story. I DPS while healing quite often in 5-mans because otherwise I would fall asleep at the keyboard. Assuming we ever get to the point that the healer can go AFK for the whole run and everything be alright in a random heroic Cataclysm dungeon, the changes won't be so bad.

As with the Balance tree, however, the PvP side seems to be getting better. Since our heals outside of Tree of Life form in Cataclysm should be in roughly the same ballpark as they are inside of Tree of Life form currently, being a Resto Druid in PvP has become more viable. Sure, we could just heal like crazy and keep ourselves and our allies alive, but having to drop from tree form to cast Cyclone or Entangling Roots is annoying--and don't get me started on the Hurricane bug a few weeks back. I spent most of my time in BGs in caster-form with gimped heals but with more options available to me and without the huge 'kill me!' sign over my head that Tree of Life form is.

All in all, I'm interested in knowing how this will play out.

Fried Turkey: Balance Druid Talents in the Cataclysm Alpha.

Note: I'm making some updates as I continue pouring over the talent tree and finding new nuances and typos. I'll flag important ones.

You know how curiosity killed the cat? Well, it's a good thing I'm a tree. I'd read a bunch about the talent information that had been released and I finally lost my willpower. I must say, if these talents are representative of the new place of druids in WoW society, we're becoming the epitome of hybrid-mode.

I'll start working on Resto now that Balance is done, but it won't be posted until later tomorrow morning since Anakha and I have a movie date and I want to have more time at it. From what I've seen so far, the Resto tree is where the hybrid feel is stemming more from at the moment.

Please bear in mind that all of this information is subject to change between now and release!

So, first, a link to the tree of leaked information can be found here. (No pun was intended in the writing of that sentence.)

New Talents

• Lunar Justice: This could be interesting. Unless Blizzard plans to reduce our mana pools significantly, 2/4/6% of base will not be a huge boost. Nice for PvP, grinding, and no downtime on groups of enemies, sure. Not as useful for boss fights unless they have adds that will actually trigger it. I hope the 'first ally' clause is actually 'first ally who uses mana and is not already at full'; wasted triggers will be annoying. Edit: The bonus is only granted if 'you kill a target'; the BoA trinkets have a similarly-worded proc and only proc if you actually get the killing blow, not if you assisted with the kill. This talent is now leaning more toward 'not impressed'.
  
• Solar Beam: This reminds me of the Hammer of Dawn from Gears of War, except without the ability to move it once summoned. How wide is this beam? Is the 'disoriented' effect like Blind? How or will this affect bosses? So far it seems like only a PvP tool to me; nice for that cluster of healers standing just inside the corner of the boss rooms in AV.
  
• Starsurge: 2s cast to knock down, so don't expect to use it as an interrupt. You can get a free crit on someone laying down, but does being knocked down count? Especially if they stand back up again immediatly. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Spellstorm damage is mixed Arcane/Nature, similar to a mage's Frostfire. Solar Beam is a pre-req.
  
• Fungal Growth: A Magic Mushroom Enhancer that also affects our Treants, could be great for kiting boss-fights if they'll actually be affected. Also nice for running away in PvP or the leveling scene.
  

Old Stuff that's Really New

• Lunar Guidance: The old SP-from-Int version is out the window. The new version increases the range of Solar Beam by 2 (from what? 10?) and causes Starsurge to generate some of that new lunar or solar power that Eclipse will be based around. Starsurge is a pre-req.
  
• Wrath of Cenarious: This almost should be listed as a new spell, since the old static buffs to Wrath and Starfire are gone and replaced with MOONFIRE SPAM! I won't be the only one doing this in PvP anymore. It's nice that they're trying to give something for us to do without losing DPS on movement fights, but why embrace that stupid old cliche'? Changed from 5 points to 3.
  
• Eclipse: Another new incarnation of an old talent, it looks like the Lunar/Solar meters will be innate to all Turkeys, rather than only gained through the Eclipse talent. Without knowing how this new balance-of-power works, it'll be hard to know how good this talent is. The extra-energy-when-critted is interesting; will it apply to your current highest like Lunar Guidance? Sounding like a PvP talent unless bosses are going to have 100-yard 360-degree cleaves--I wouldn't put it past Blizzard.
  

Old Stuff with New Changes

• Genesis: Now affects Swiftmend
  
• Nature's Majesty: No longer a pre-req for Nature's Grace and Nature's Splendor
  
• Improved Moonfire: No longer increases crit chance and no longer affects DoT portion of moonfire
  
• Celestial Focus: Moved from Tier 4 to Tier 3 and no longer increases haste
  
• Nature's Grace: No longer has Nature's Majesty as a pre-req.
  
• Nature's Splendor: Now a 33%/66%/100% chance to increase duration of those spells by 3s, rather than the scaling increases across them per point. Moved from Tier 3 to Tier 4; no longer as Nature's Majesty as a pre-req. Edit: It looks like this is another 'broken' talent; rank 1 is identical to the current version; rank 2 and 3 are the new version listed here. Take that as you will.
  
• Brambles: Moved from Tier 2 to Tier 5. Should we assume that Treants, Thorns, and/or Entangling Roots are going to become more commonly used/useful?
  
• Vengeance: Moved from Tier 4 to Tier 5.
  
• Balance of Power: Spell damage taken has been removed and shifted to its own talent (see the Resto tree). Flat 4% hit and 100% spirit-as-hit-rating? The exponential growth of ratings must be getting out of hand; soon the required hit rating to reach boss-level creatures will be infinity.
  
• Moonkin Form: Turkey got nurfed! Lost: Damage reduction while stunned, party critical chance increase, and mana return from criticals. And we still can't cast Rebirth without wasting a GCD. They should make the turkey-Rebirth the party member hatching from an egg in 10 seconds; could make timing fun.
  
• Improved Moonkin Form: The 5% crit from the old Turkey form is moved here for 6% over three talent points. No haste, no SP-from-Spirit. Ironically does not require Moonkin Form to take.
  
• Owlkin Frenzy: Removes the mana restoration but otherwise it's our familiar feral-turkey. Also does not require Moonkin Form to take, heh.
  
• Typhoon: Now a pre-req for Starfall. Edit: Cost increased from 25% base to 32% base.
  
• Force of Nature: Now a pre-req for the new Fungal Growth.
  
• Earth and Moon: Spell Damage taken reduced from 4%/9%/13% to 2%/4%/6%.
  
• Starfall: Base damage nerfed, no longer splashes. It was too good to last. Typhoon is now a pre-req.
  

Old Stuff that's Gone Missing

• Insect Swarm: This talent is missing but the spell is still referenced by Nature's Splendor; looks like it'll be going the way of the trainer.
  
• Improved Insect Swarm: Also missing.
  
• Moonfury: Gone. Too much of a good thing?
  
• Improved Faerie Fire: Honestly not missing this one. If you ended up in a run with no shadow priest and two turkeys, someone was going to have to scrounge up more +hit for the fight.
  

Nothing's Changed... Yet

• Starlight Wrath
  
• Moonglow
  
• Nature's Reach
  
• Dreamstate
  
• Gale Winds
  

My thoughts? I'm really feeling the PvP vibe here. With the new rated Battlegrounds, that's not as surprising, but if some of these new abilities existed in current content, that's all they would be used for. I have faith in Blizzard and their making use of these abilities in PvE... eventually. The loss of many regen abilities, namely from Owlkin Frenzy and Moonkin Form, will cause more turkeys to hoard that Innervate for themselves rather than giving it to the silly mages. It is of course too early to tell as any and all of these are subject to change, but it certainly will give food for thought.

Guild Invite Harassment.

It's not a WoW session unless I'm asked to join a guild. I don't mind signing charters; Blizzard should wise up and give up on the whole signature thing. Heck, I even make some gold out of it from time to time. Being asked to join a guild isn't so bad either. I'm not ready to guild-search at the moment so I always decline, but it's nice of them to ask.

There are those, however, who do not seem to have the common decency to ask. Instead they shove their guild in your face, inviting without asking, assuming that you actually give a rat's arse about their gathering of individuals. It's presumptious, it's rude, and it pisses me off. Inviting without asking will get you placed on my ignore list in a jiffy.

One guild in particular just doesn't get it.

I received a guild invite out-of-the-blue while questing on Laurewen. I responded, telling them that they were inconsiderate and would be enjoying time on my ignore list.

Not five minutes later I received another guild invite. This one was from a different person, but they were a member of the same guild. At that point I was getting irked. I told off the invitor and he now holds a place on my ignore list with his guildmate.

Maybe they only have two recruiters, but I survived for about an hour on Laurewen before logging off of her and into Aesmarele to work on her Enchanting. Not long after logging in I get a guild invite. From the second guy. From that same guild. That was the last straw.

As I informed him, if anyone from that guild ever invites me to that guild on any of my characters without asking me first, I'm reporting that individual for harrassment. Hopefully he passed the word along and is a decent guess at my alt's names, as my husband recieved a guild invite from these people just last night.

Speaking of which, my husband has purchased the Battle Chest and is now at level 35 on his gnome warrior. I've done all of the lowbie stuff so many times, I just quest-stack as quickly as possible. However, since it's his first time playing, he is taking his time and enjoying everything. We'll be rolling Blood Elves later to play together. I'm not familiar with the Horde side so taking time won't be so annoying there.

Off Topic: Train Travel.

I'd only traveled by train one time before, a short jaunt from San Jose to Portland. The train was over ten hours late pulling into Portland due to a tragedy on the rails, so it really could not be considered an accurate experience of Amtrak travel. Having just completed my first cross-country trip by rail, I think I can better claim this experience as a typical one.

My first leg was the entire length of a long-distance train. We started out ahead of schedule so, naturally, we had to fall behind--by three hours in this instance. The trip was quite enjoyable; my seat-mate was a friendly guy, recently moved to inactive reserves after having served eight years in the Marines. He had played World of Warcraft a bit while on base, so we talked about how easily the game can suck you in. There was a trio heading to New York, the grandmother and granddaughter traveling to the funeral of the great-great-grandmother, and the Canadian with a very chatty personality. By the end of the 51-hour trip, my shower had certainly worn off and I was beginning to feel grimy--while you can sponge-bathe, washing your hair on a train is nigh-on-impossible.

I missed my connecting train, which left over an hour before we even arrived. I tried to get transeferred to the train that had stayed late to take on its connecting passengers; it would have been a different route but would still have connected me to my final train. I was informed, however, that while my fare for the original second leg would be accepted for this one, I would possibly have to buy a ticket to cover the extra portion of my final leg. Forget that, I'd already paid plenty for these tickets. As the train I was originally slated for only ran three days a week, Amtrak opted to send us by charter bus to meet the train at the next big city.

Now, if I had wanted to ride on a bus, I would have gone by Greyhound and paid less money. I didn't say anything, however. The driver was nice enough, though he cranked the heat up way too high for the two old ladies and caused the rest of us to melt. I don't do well in confined spaces, nor with other individuals driving over about 45 m.p.h.; combining the two is why I do not travel by bus. I was quite ill by the time we arrived at the location to meet our train. Amtrak's saving grace: there was a White Castle right up the street, and by having been sent by bus I was able to partake of it (for those not familiar with White Castle, their claim-to-fame are little four-bite square cheeseburgers smothered in onions for $0.74 each; we call them 'grease-burgers' and were the best part about trips to see family in Missouri.)

The second leg was uneventful; being filthy and tired, I slept through most of it, keeping curled up in my blanket so my seat-mate wouldn't have to deal with any body odor I hadn't been able to mask with deoderant and wet-wipes. A five-hour layover between the second and third legs of my journey allowed me to get further on my crochet and cross-stitching, at least, and I spent the three hours of my last leg playing Sudoku on my iPhone.

The scenary was breathtaking, the folks were great, the space and freedom was top-notch, and the food was halfway decent. Next time, however, I will get a sleeper if for no other reason than to be able to bathe.

First thing I did when we arrived at my mother's place is get a shower. I'm now waiting for my little brother to wake up so I can get the WEP key for their wireless and stop leeching from their neighbors' single bar connection.

On-topic: It seems that low-level greens are selling for significantly more gold these days; either higher-level characters are flowing in money or they're power-gamers who want to always have the best gear; maybe a little of both? My new method will be to auction items once unless the materials are worth more; if the item doesn't sell, it gets disenchanted.

It does, however, seem that folks are smarter on Nesingwary, and aren't willing to purchase limited-stock recipes for significantly higher amounts. I'll keep trying.

My husband has started playing with the trial key that I provided him from my Battle Chest set. He seems to be enjoying his Gnome Warrior; we'll see if he decides to continue playing after his two weeks are up.

Balance Levelling, levels 20-30

With my original druid, I leveled up to 60 as a feral spec and changed to Restoration for dungeons and off-night raids. With the release of The Burning Crusade, I made her my main rather than my warlock, switched her to Balance and began the upward grind with the original intention of going back to Restoration at 80 for raiding. I never planned to fall in love with the big ball of feathers on my screen.

This time around, my desire was to actually level fully as Balance. This has provided some new and more interesting challenges since the actual Moonkin form is not obtained until level 40.

o Just because you aren't heavily armored doesn't mean you can not take a hit.
A lot of the moonkin guides I'm seeing say "Root, root, root!" Is it really necessary? Sure, you're not taking hits so you're not having to heal yourself, but with the mob's chance to break the Entangling Roots early and any damage done having a pretty good chance of breaking it (even when talented), it does not actually seem as useful for one-on-one fights.

My alternative is what Graylo calls the "machine gun method" in his blog. Even under-geared and even or lower-level compared to the mob you're after, if you make careful pulls you should find no problem.

My typical rotation can hardly be called a rotation: Starfire, WrathxN. If the mob is yellow and not a caster or other low-hp creature, it becomes Starfire, Moonfire, WrathxN and while waiting for the Global Cooldown after Moonfire, back away; those few steps could prevent one more hit over time which is slightly less damage taken.

I generally can get four mobs to a mana bar, unless they are lowest-level green and then occasionally I can squeeze in a fifth. Before you mana up, throw Rejuvenation on yourself or, if you're completely Out Of Mana, bandage yourself. Which brings...

o Don't overlook First Aid.
Sure, you can heal yourself. That's great! ... until you run out of mana. If I find things getting too rough but the mob is almost down, I'll Entangling Root it, back up and bandage, and wait for my mana to regen for one last Starfire or Wrath to take him down.

o Use a dagger (preferably a fast one) rather than a staff.
Lag is, well, lag. There's not much that can be done with it. IceHUD colors my casting bar, letting me know when I can likely start queueing my next spell due to latency, but it's not 100% accurate. By having a fast dagger as a weapon, there's a greater chance that during that lag time of ending the last cast and starting the next one, you'll be able to get a hit in. Every little bit helps, and it could be the difference between the fleeing mob having 1 hp left after your last Wrath or being dead. It also help with runners with very little health left as you can usually stab them down rather than waste the mana for another Wrath.

It remains to be seen if it is still the case, but for a long while a one-handed weapon and and off-hand implement had better overall stats than a two-handed weapon.

o Don't waste your talents on DoTs.
People put a lot of emphasis on Druid '*-over-time' abilities. But Druids are not Warlocks and our DoTs will not generally have an opportunity to fully run their course. I always check to see how long it takes to kill a mob with Moonfire and without it in my 'rotation'; creatures with lots of hitpoints or nature resistance/immunity will certainly die faster with Moonfire in the mix. In general, however, that is usually not the case and the extra damage that did not trigger equals mana wasted.

o Don't spend your coin on Feral skills.
The only ones I'd suggest picking up are Cat Form and Prowl for those times when you really don't want to have to kill everything in your path. Without proper gear and talents, your feral damage is not going to be anything spectacular. You'll be better off saving that coin for more useful things (like training your Balance and Restoration skills, profession materials, Auction House fees, and your mount/riding skill.)

UI, Oh My.

The default WoW interface is just not enough. A lot of folks claim that the use of addons and mods is a crutch, however I see them as a tool, similar to Thottbot or Allakhazam--they are something that is there if you want to use it or you can ignore it if you'd rather not. Part of my goal in redoing my UI is making sure that everything I need is easy to find, well organized, and pleasant on the eyes.

This is what I've got so far on Laurewen (click for full-size image):



Visible Mods:
o Bartender
o Cartographer Waypoints
o FuBar + Extensions
o IceHUD
o Prat
o SexyMap
o Sunn Viewport Art (and Art Pack 5)
o Tour Guide

I'm actually quite pleased with how this is turning out so far. I've tweaked Grid a bit as well, but it's hard to see what will happen until you have a group going.

My next addon will likely be Cellular or some other module that will allow me to put whispers somewhere obvious and/or have the screen slap me when someone is trying to talk to me.

-----

In other news, Aerika is now level 14. I'm working through Boston's 12-20 quest guide right now. According to my UPS tracking number, it looks like I should have media in-hand tomorrow; time for that up-to-70 grind.

I'll be AFK starting early Sunday afternoon as I do not have a Satellite Internet card for my laptop and I'm rather certain that Amtrak trains don't have their own source of connectivity.

The Trials of Trial Accounts.

Things I cannot do in a trial account:

o Create a group.
This has led to sitting around for lengths of time waiting for a quest object to respawn so I and the other 8 trial players can all kill the guy and take his head.

o Try out instancing.
Well, that's not wholly true. I received my Deadmines quests right as I hit level 20; needless to say, they don't do me much good since I can no longer gain experience. Between Deadmines alone and the quests, that's at least a level and a half of experience that I'd much rather have.

o Utilize the WoW economy.
I cannot buy glyphs to test out this inscription thing. Also of annoyance are all of the greens and crafting materials just sitting in my bank and the inability to purchase larger bags. This is a hindrance to leveling, especially with a gathering profession of any sort. I've spent most of my levels so far leveling trade skills inefficiently in order to have the bank/bag space. Grey and white items are evaluated for trade value so I can determine which to toss out in order to loot the corpse and skin the creature.

o Ask questions regarding, well, anything.
Trade is still the true General channel, but trial accounts can not use either. Has anyone seen the Defias Messenger? Who knows; I certainly can not ask in General and I'm pretty sure most of the other lowbies standing around me have no idea what I'm talking about.

o Answer my mail.
At least let me take the stuff out of my mailbox, even if you block trial accounts from sending. That envelope icon is driving me nuts. It's pointless receiving a letter regarding my mount and riding skill access if I can not read the stupid thing.

Things I can do with a trial account:

o Receive random group invites and PvP requests.
No, I really don't want to. Unless you're standing right next to me and I know that this upcoming part is pretty tough or has a named quest spawn, I really don't want to auto-join your group.

o Receive random whispers and charter requests.
I don't understand how I can be asked to sign a charter if I can not join a guild. And by not being able to, I missed out on about 36 gold based on all of the whispered offers I received. That could have been my mount and riding skill.

o Hack together a UI with only half of the mods working.
This is actually only an issue with the load-on-demand client, where X-Perl Unit Frames, Tom Tom, and Cartographer Waypoints all threw Error 132s. The description surrounding the full installer is quite unclear; the implication I gained from reading it was that only those with real accounts could log in via the full client. I'm glad that I took the chance (since I'll need it all come Thursday anyhow) and I've been playing happily with my new UI settings.

We're Not In Kansas Anymore.

I saw a rather large amount of the content of Vanilla and TBC. Never completed AQ40 or stepped foot in Naxx and never waved hello to Lady Vashj, but everything else up to those points I was able to participate in and help clear. Needless to say, it was a significant amount of content that now exists only as a shadow of its former self. With the changes I've seen, I half expect candy-colored midgets to start dancing around my house with ruby slippers.

o 25-man raid PuGs
Seriously? The idea makes me break out in hives. The only raid I've ever PuGed was AQ20 on an alt and went in knowing it would be a joke. It certainly didn't disappoint. People actually do this successfully? I know it's been a common occurrence in Dungeons and Dragons Online for ages, but in WoW, where the idiot ratio of 100:1 stands in stark contrast to DDO's 1:5 (before free-to-play), I just can not wrap my brain around the idea.

o Mount training at level 20...
Back in my day, unless you were a druid or hunter, you ran to your next quest/town/instance/trainer/herb and you liked it! Uphill, in snow or blistering heat--the best you could do was line yourself up, turn on auto-run and go make a sandwich while you headed to the next zone and flight point. At least with the flight points it was only one way.

o ... for 4 gold
It only makes sense for the price to be lowered with the level attained being lowered. Even 4 gold is a large sum for a level 20 character without a rich main to supply it with extensive amounts of gold. Talk about deflation; and people complain about the WoW economy.

o Achievements
With the Achievement system already implemented, we're just asking for an X-Box 360 port. Just for logging in, I received a "Feat of Strength" achievement (5th Anniversary.) Some of them are amusing, but I feel like I should be displaying a banner with this score alongside my X-Box Gamer Score and PS3 Trophies.

o Inscription
I don't know what to think quite yet as I haven't been able to actually use these (no AH/trades on trial accounts). The concept reminds me of the Druid Idol trinkets; it just seems that they've been expanded to all classes and don't take up my trinket slot.

o Boomkin, Feral Tanking, and Tankadins - 'Off-Specs' are no longer very far off
Even in TBC, Moonkin were not generally taken seriously in raids. Paladins could tank most non-heroics and even some heroics; same with Feral Druids, but you rarely saw them filling such roles on raid nights. Druids and Paladins healed and that was about it until the content was on farm.

o Dual-Speccing
This is awesome and I'm looking forward to it when I get toward end game. No more nights of "We need you to respec to Resto for the evening", it sounds like it's just 'click a tab and you're good to go' (after a purchasing the ability, of course.) Due to this, it seems not as uncommon for folks to request trash and things noone else wants for off-specs, which makes any Moonkin happy for those times that they do have to crack out the healing.

Like flattening a wicked witch with your house, some of the changes are pleasant. Others have me wanting to click my heels together to teleport back to 2007.

Rebirth.

It's Tuesday, which means patch day. Rather than sleeping (it's now 07:15) I've been reading through the Elitist Jerks forums where I still have an active account. Color me surprised since my last login was in August of 2007.

Yes, it has been over two years since I last played World of Warcraft. Life very much got in the way of my WoW obsession and I left it all behind--even rid myself of the media (and subsequently the rights to my account). Occasionally I would wonder how old guildmates were doing, relive raid achievements in my mind, and flirt with the idea of going back to a game that had consumed a literal year of my life (in actual played time for those curious.)

And now I have returned.

I blame Mana, the wife of a coworker, who piqued my curiosity. There has been an entire expansion, an achievement system implemented, and a plethora of other changes during my absence. She elaborated on her goal of collecting 50 pets, explaining that her next month of playtime was a self-reward for having survived her classes. We chatted about the differences between my era of WoW and the current world, discussing the current and future changes in store. The seed had been sown.

I'm confident that my illness was just a scapegoat; I could have just as easily continued plotting but never playing Fallout 3 characters or worked on my plans for a speed run of Final Fantasy VIII. Instead, wrapped in a blanket with a box of tissues nearby, I registered for a trial account and installed the 'load-as-you-go' client.

That was last Thursday. I've situated myself on the Nesingwary server and have already 'level-capped' two characters at 20 while I wait for my World of Warcraft Battle Chest to arrive in the mail ($20 at GameStop? Heck yeah.)

Now I sit here debating if I should try to sleep for four hours before going to work or if I should tough it out. It is a debate that feels comfortably familiar.