Sunday, September 19, 2010

The 70-79 bracket

Northrend is quite an interesting place.  The gear disparity between a player just exiting Outland and one about to hit the level cap is incredible.  Blizzard just throws gear at you.  In the ten levels between 68 and 78, I've nearly doubled my stamina and intellect, tripled my spell power, and gained a decent amount of hit, crit, and haste, which were before quite low, if even existent.

This is very fun, and an effective way to motivate players through the drudging 1.5 million experience points required to make it past each level.

There are a few problems caused by this, however.  Everyone knows you shouldn't play in battlegrounds if you are in the bottom of a bracket, but this is even truer in the 70-79 bracket.  In lower brackets from Classic WoW, there might be a few attribute points of difference between non-twinking players, but nothing major.  At that level in the game, significant factors come from class abilities and hit chance.  At the WotLK level, the differences between gear are huge.  Every other quest throws new gear at you, and because it takes so many quests to level up, gear disparity between yourself and a player just one level above might be as great as what you would have seen before when compared to a player ten levels above or more.

But if that didn't already complicate things for PvPers who don't want to wait to level to join battlegrounds, there are other things to consider that make the 70-79 bracket difficult for anyone not very close to 80.

Level 78 PvP sets
On my first Boomkin, I had farmed leather for several days with my leatherworking friend and guildmate, so that he could make me my Overcast set.  Granted, this set is better suited for Restoration Druids, but this wasn't such a problem.  The spirit to spellpower from Improved Moonkin Form compensated fairly well for the total lack of critical strike rating.  In fact, it gave me an additional 90 spell power, which is a nice amount at that level.

Level 78 PvP sets require a lot of materials, but somehow everyone has them anyways.  Several of my friends had them, and from what I could tell, so did a substantial amount of other players.  They're great as an introduction to PvPing at level 80.  I imagine Blizzard introduced them to compensate for the even greater gear disparity you can find at the level cap.

But in essence, these sets are ridiculous.  I had all 8 pieces of it ready and waiting when I hit 78, and equipped them all at once.  I suddenly found myself with 4k additional health, a considerable spell power boost, and went from 0 to 300 resilience.  Excited, I joined a Warsong Gulch and I was amazed at the difference it made.  Suddenly, I felt like a walking tank.  I hit hard and it was more difficult to take me down than ever before.

Farmers
But if having to fight against full blue PvP-geared 78+ players wasn't bad enough for lower level players in that bracket, as it turns out you often won't find anyone in the bracket that isn't level 78+.

A lot of people at that level have the notion that farming honor at 80 is insanely hard due to epically geared veteran 80s, and choose to stay at 79 for a while to build up honor.  Not to mention that players generally join in battlegrounds when they are among the higher levels of that bracket.

Conclusion
If you just dinged 70 and you're so PvP-hungry that you don't want to wait until you've leveled up a few times to start doing battlegrounds again, here's a few tips.
  1. Be discreet.  Don't get yourself noticed, and you might be able to provide good help to the team.  That means you probably shouldn't try to carry the flag yourself.  The main issue with being a lower level is that you are very easily killed, so try to get yourself focus-fired the least amount possible.
  2. Stay close to someone.  If a high level player singles you out, you're done for.  Stay close to someone who can help you if needed, and who you might also be able to help.
  3. Play a healer.  At first, this may seem contradictory, because ideally, the opposite team should always be focus-firing either your flag carrier or your healer.  But that said, we don't live in an ideal world, and most players - especially not before 80 - don't know how to play smart, and you can usually get away with healing without having the entire opposite team suddenly concentrate on you.  Furthermore, you're a healer.  If you play the role well, you can survive decently well under fire, even if you're lower level.  That said, you should still abide by the first tip - be discreet.  If you're a Resto Druid, you might want to stay out of Tree Form, unless you're already being meleed.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

A bitter taste

I'm currently very disappointed with the Molten server.  I switched to it from Spermik expecting high quality, open and scripted instances, and professional support.  I expected these things because the Molten site encourages visitors to look forward to them.  But the reality is, so far, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

Here is why.

I am now level 77 and I have, at this point, entered four different dungeons on Frostwolf.  Leveling is fast, so I haven't taken the time to savor more dungeons yet, which is something I intended to do with an alt.  Keep in mind that at Spermik, I had obtained the Classic Dungeonmaster and the Outland Dungeonmaster achievements, and was close to soloing Outland Dungeon Hero.  All of these dungeons were open and properly scripted.  I say this to point out that I know these dungeons fairly well and what to expect.  I'm not someone who just ran into instances that were totally foreign to me and is about to rant because I sucked at them.

Zul'Farrak was the first dungeon I entered on Frostwolf.  I completed it twice and there were no issues, so I won't linger there.

The following three dungeons, however, were nothing short of disastrous.

The Nexus
I like The Nexus.  It was the first ever Northrend dungeon I entered on my first character and I had a good time.  It had its own, unique flavor and I liked that the bosses kept me on my toes.  Molten's Nexus bosses, however, only kept me frustrated.

The first thing I noticed was that Keristrasza wasn't there.  Okay then, that's weird.  Maybe he's bugged and they're working on him, I thought.  Let's go tackle this dungeon.

Not there? Fine! I'll just dance on your platform!
The group and I made our way to Ormorok the Tree-Shaper, without much trouble.  I did notice a Spermik-like bug, however.  The small, Crystalline Frayers wouldn't die when attacked - rather, they would disappear at low health and a new untargetable Frayer would spawn and attack.  This caused some combat bug issues but we made it to the boss and started getting ready to engage.

By the time we were past the first spell reflect, I suddenly noticed that my girlfriend, our Restoration Druid, was getting hit - but I didn't see anything around her.  But it got worse.  Soon, her Tree of Life looked like it had begun a crazy, twitching dance, being hit by what could only have been dozens of invisible mobs, her health rapidly depleting.  In fact, we wiped.

We were all a little surprised and decided to try again.  We hoped this was just an exceptional, one-time thing.  But it happened again and we wiped for the second time.  So, we decided to skip that boss and we went all the way to Grand Magus Telestra.

We wiped at 50% when she split herself.  Aside from my girlfriend and I, the group was a PuG composed of three Paladins that had never done Nexus before, so this was expected.  We made our way back, and we were distraught when we saw Telestra standing in the middle of her room, accompanied by her three copies.

We gave up and disbanded.  Nothing more to do there, the instance was obviously plagued with bugs, and persevering wouldn't lead to much.

Magisters' Terrace
Yesterday, two guildies were going to do Magisters' Terrace normal-mode as DPS and asked me to be the final damage-dealer.  I said sure.  I like dungeons.  Our group was composed as such: a level 76 Paladin tank, a 75 Discipline Priest, a 72 Blood/Unholy Death Knight, a 70 Retribution Paladin, and myself, a 76 Boomkin.  Not a bad group for a simple MT normal.

Unfortunately, we encountered issues right from the start.  Gripy, the DK and one of the guildies, had his ghoul out and it somehow went through the platform we were on, aggroing Priestess Delrissa and her guardians below.  We managed to kill them all as they came up to us, except for one which stayed down there and kept us flagged in combat.

Gripy ended up dying and our Priest left the instance to get rid of the attack bug and resurrect him, because I didn't want to waste my Rebirth in case it would be needed later.  When he tried to reenter, he was teleported to Dalaran.  And so were the rest of us when we tried ourselves.  In fact, the only way not to be sent to Dalaran was by having Gripy release.

We reformed the group outside the dungeon and tried again.  We got to Selin Fireheart's room and we wiped.  At first we weren't sure why, because we were all killed very quickly, and we ended up assuming that we had somehow accidentally pulled the boss.  As it turns out when we wiped again later, even after having taken the time to be careful with our pull, it was the trash that had been one-shotting us.

So we left, and tried another dungeon.

The Violet Hold
I'd never been in The Violet Hold before, because it was still being scripted at Spermik.  But I did my research and I got the gist of it.  We start a script, and random bosses and mobs get thrown at us, until we finish with Cyanigosa.  Pretty straightforward, and actually sounded kind of fun.

On Molten, not so.  We were given three waves of trash, followed by Cyanigosa herself.  We killed her, and she didn't even use any special abilities.  It was a mere tank and spank.  After that, there was no way to encounter any other boss.

We decided we were done for the night.  This was truly disappointing.

Bring it on! Or not..
Poor service
This morning, I went to the Support/Q&A forums at the Molten site and started a thread titled "What works?"  I made a polite, well-written post addressing the problems I just described (though more concisely, of course), and asked what to expect from the server.  What works?  Are level 80 raids fully functional and scripted?  I made sure the tone of my post was neutral, pointing out that I was not criticizing the server but rather asking well-grounded questions as a member of the community.  Finally, I said thanks for reading and for the responses I was hoping to receive.

Five minutes later, my thread was deleted.  Gone.  Not moved to a more appropriate section, not locked, but quite brutally erased.

Now that pissed me off.  Why would they do that?  Did they fear someone might read my thread and be discouraged from playing on their server?  It made me wonder how many threads I missed because they were deleted for addressing similar things.

The fact that a moderator read my post and decided to delete it instead of replying to it hurt me personally.  Suddenly, this server is giving me a new, sour feeling - dishonesty.

I now cannot trust Molten.  They have led me to expect great quality, but I have so far been deceived, and that my formal address was squashed rather than heard was reminiscent of tyrannic regimes (extreme comparison, I realize, but you get my point).

What can I do now?  If level 80 content does not improve, I doubt I will want to stay at Molten much longer.

A few weeks later
As it turns out, Molten's core was a Mangos/custom hybrid.  At first, I had believed they had a totally custom emulator, but as I now understand it, MoltenEmu is just a hybrid implemented to provide more stability.  The content itself was Mangos-based.

However, and fortunately, the Molten developpers have created a new core, a Trinity/Molten hybrid.  Trinity, a Mangos branch-off, is well known for its content, being far less bugged than Mangos itself.

Today, there are still some bugs to be worked out, but things are looking a lot nicer. From what I can tell, all dungeons are now working properly.  /cheer

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Complete guide to my UI

EDIT: My current UI is now very different. However, I still use almost all of the addons listed below and remain true to the same interface philosophy.

My current UI - labeled.
One of the gameplay aspects of WoW that keeps recurring is the user interface. The UI refers to everything you see on your screen that isn't the game world itself, whether this be your action bars, your unit frames, your buff bars, your [mini]map, etc. Most people don't bother customizing their interface. The majority will simply download QuestHelper and let this be the only addon they ever use. Or, as some players I know, they will have a lot of small addons, but none that actually change the way they interact with the game, such as GearScore, chat mods, tooltip mods, and the likes.

So first question first.

Why should I customize my UI?
When I ask most people why they haven't done anything about their UI, they will generally retort with a question of their own - Why should they? What's the point?

Others might have considered it before, but have found themselves intimidated by the sheer amount of addons available out there, or did not want to bother figuring out how to set them up.

Firstly, and fortunately, dealing with addons - if the right ones - is not a difficult task. You don't want to let the thought that it might be difficult to stop you from customizing your interface. You can find almost any addon at the Curse addon site, and easily download them, remove them, or update them with their client.

Secondly, if you're any serious about playing WoW, you need a custom UI. And when I say "custom UI," I mean an interface that is tailor-made for you - and who else to do that job right but you? At level 80, once you start doing serious PvP or getting into raids, the default Blizzard interface will start becoming inefficient. Clunky. You want an interface that is clean and shows you only what you need to see - the rest gets in the way. Having this sort of UI and making it so that you are fully comfortable with it will allow you to focus less on anything that is keeping you from performing well. Additionally, it will help you see things you could not have seen without any customization.

Let's use an example: I use Grid combined with GridManaBars. When I'm in a raid or a battleground, this addon allows me to see the HP and mana of everyone there in a nice, clean frame. I like this a lot more than restricting myself to seeing only the people in my party - not to mention Blizzard's frames show portraits more than what actually matters, health and mana. Additionally, Grid automatically knows that I'm a Druid and that therefore, I can remove curses and poisons. Because of this, if someone in my group is affected by either, it will display the debuff icon on the appropriate player's frame, with the debuff type's color appearing as a small square in one of the corners (in this case, purple for curses and green for poisons).

In PvE, this is usually a healer's job - but in battlegrounds and PuGs, this becomes a very effective tool (and not all healers can remove these types of debuffs). Grid shows me who needs an off-heal, decursing, or who might need an innervate tossed their way, provided I can afford it. Not to mention that it allows you to assess the general state of the group as well. Grid also fades a player's frames when he is out of your cast range - this is extremely useful for healers, so that they don't have to click on a player and cast a spell only to see a big red message say "Player is out of range" flash on the screen.

Now that I have [hopefully] convinced you to start customizing your UI, let's look at the essential addons I use, in alphabetical order.

The addons
Addon Control Panel -
You know you’ve got too many addons when you need an addon to manage them. Ok, well, not really. If you’ve ever delt with addons before, you know that to [de]activate them, you need to log out and do so at the character screen. With Addon Control Panel, you can do it easily ingame without ever having to relog. It’s a simple utility, but it gets useful when you’re juggling between which addons to use or just working on your interface.

Afflicted3 -
Afflicted3 tracks enemy cooldowns, such as Vanish, Counterspell, or the PvP trinket, and displays their remaining time before they’re off cooldown again on your screen. You can customize how the cooldown bars look, where they are, how they are categorized, and which cooldowns to even show. This addon can become invaluable to you if you’re a PvPer. It’s useless to you if you only PvE, but if you do both, it will never get in the way because the bars won’t show until an enemy has used a cooldown, and obviously that’ll never happen in an instance.

Bartender4 -
Oh, Bartender, how I love thee. Bartender is an awesome action bar mod. It will let you do whatever you want with your action bars, let you put them wherever you wish, let you customize how they change when you shift (if you’re a Druid) or switch stances (if you’re a Warrior). One of my favorite things about this addon is how it lets you keybind whatever button you like - just hover over it with your mouse, press the key[s] of your choice, and .. voilĂ . With the default Blizzard bars, you cannot bind any key located on the top action bar. I cannot stress how much I think keybinds are important. I’ll definitely be making a post about them later.

Deadly Boss Mods -
DBM is a great addon for PvE and PvPers alike. What it’ll do is give you a warning each time a boss is using, or is about to use, a certain ability (depending on whether it’s triggered by a timer or the boss’s HP). Some boss abilities are on cooldowns and it’ll show you those as well. It will also tell you things like when an Arathi Basin base is about to be captured, or when a flag in Warsong Gulch is going to respawn. Additionally, you can customize it to give you warnings of your own.

Elkano's BuffBars -
I don’t like the default buff display. It gets in the way when you have a lot of buffs, and it’s hard to see what’s going on. With EBB I can move my buffs wherever I want them and make them look however I want. I can also separate them into groups, which is something I’ve become quite fond of.

I like to have normal buffs and auras show up on the upper left-hand corner of my screen. I don’t make them big because they’re not important once I'm buffed. Next to them, I have Heals & Abilities in green - things like Rejuvenation and Barkskin show up there. And next to that, Procs, in purple. Eclipse, Nature’s Grace, trinket procs – they all show up there, easy to see but not in the way.

Debuffs show up in red on the top right. Lately I also added a place for target debuffs (only mine). They show up on in blue-green a little to the left of the center of my screen, which is usually where my target would be, not far from my eyes. It helps me remember when to refresh DoTs and such (I don’t like the Squawk & Awe  Moonkin addon, I find it ugly and clunky).

Omen Threat Meter -
A must for raiders. Not useful for healers, however, as even though they also generate threat, they’ll hardly ever target bosses - not to mention that if they pull agro, that’s the tank’s fault. If you’re a tank or DPS, though, this addon is a baby. Omen will show you the threat you’re generating as well as everyone else’s. It’ll also display your threat-per-second (TPS), so if you’re close to 100% threat and your TPS is higher than the tank’s, you might want to slow down a bit. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve saved myself from aggroing thanks to this addon.

OmniCC -
Shows all your cooldowns. Get it! It’s way more informative than that tiny spiral - it’ll replace it with an actual timer, and by default it’ll even make an ability flash when it comes off a long cooldown.

Pitbull4 -
Pitbull is a unit frame addon. A popular alternative is X-Perl, which I used before. At the time, Pitbull4 didn’t exist yet, and Pitbull3 was simply too complicated for me to bother with the customization. Thankfully, Pitbull4 is much, much more user-friendly than its predecessor, and far more customizable than X-Perl.

It’s hard to go over all of the benefits of a unit frame mod, because there are a lot. So let’s just start with the beginning. Blizzard frames = suck. They’re way up in the left-hand corner and you can hardly see your health and mana bars. I like my bars at the lower center of my screen - they’re right where I can see them, which is extremely useful for PvP and PvE alike. It’s a hassle to go out of your way to see your health/mana status.

Additionally, I make my health bar very thick. This is more of a PvP preference but it’s generally useful in raids as well. There’s also all sorts of nifty things you can make this addon do, like glow based on the debuff type placed on you.

Quartz -
Quartz is a cast bar mod. If you’re a caster - get it. It’s extremely customizable and it looks good. Blizzard cast bar = suck! Quartz can do a lot more than just show you what you're casting, as well.  This includes things like a cooldown spark, displaying buffs on your target and focus, and more if you choose.  You’ll thank me later.

Recount -
Everyone sees Recount reports all the time from overenthusiastic DPSers wanting to show off their damage. Recount records practically everything in a fight, which is a great tool after a raid. If you’re a DPSer, you can check it to see which abilities gave you the most damage, and compare to how well you perform in the same situation but with another glyph, or rotation, or AoE management. Whatever you want to do. As a healer you can look at your overhealing and work at being more efficient. As a tank, you can look at the damage you took - could you be taking less damage with a different meta gem? By using your cooldowns at a different time? Recount is a great tool for self-improvement.

SexyMap -
This is the minimap addon I use, but there are plenty competent ones out there. A minimap mod is useful to move your map in a more convenient location, as well as resize it. Some people prefer having no minimap at all. A minimap mod is not really necessary but it does contribute to making everything look clean.

FuBar -
FuBar ties in to the next section of this post. My FuBar is a simple black bar that appears when I hover my mouse at the top of my screen. Attached to it are plugins like GuildFu, FriendsFu, DurabilityFu, ExperienceFu, etc. They can allow me to see or access secondary utilities easily without getting in the way, that I might have eliminated in the original interface in exchange for more space on my screen.

Putting it all together
All right, so you’ve decided you were going to take your interface into your own hands and you’ve downloaded some addons. In fact, while you were browsing, you ended up getting way more addons than you had initially expected (and believe me, that will happen).

You’ve logged in and everything was a mess. You sorted some things out but your UI still looks cluttered by all of the new, nifty addons. Addons are great, but a clean UI is a whole other story. What do you need to see on your screen? Unit frames, action bars, minimap, chat. That’s it. While in combat, add a threat meter. That’s pretty simple - Omen hides automatically when out-of-combat. Then there’s cast bars, but obviously those don’t show unless you’re casting.

Put your action bars somewhere at the bottom of the screen. Unless you’re a clicker, their size doesn’t really matter, so you can make them small to leave room for other things. Move the chat down to their level, on whichever side you choose. Put Omen and the minimap in the remaining space. Make it all even, and there you go, now you have a nice, bottom panel of what’s essential. If you have a wide screen, you could even put Recount or Grid down there. By all means, do what works for you - but keep the screen as clean as possible.

Do some creative thinking.  I have RecountFu, which hides or shows Recount whenever I click it on the FuBar. What I’ve done is place Recount exactly where Omen is, and hid it. I don’t look at Recount while I’m in combat because it’s distracting and useless, so during a fight, I will see Omen. When out of combat, Omen automatically hides, leaving a blank area on my interface, and if I choose to look at Recount I can simply click it on my FuBar, and it’ll appear.

Conclusion
The important rule of the UI is that it needs to be efficient.  You need to be able to see everything you need to know in the blink of an eye, and be able to do whatever you need to do just as fast.  Your interface should be clean.  I can't tell you how many "clean" UIs I've seen that are full of clutter.  Clean means you've got the least amount of stuff possible in the middle of your screen - you need to be able to see as much of the game world as possible.  This is not clean.  This is.

Also, have fun with it!  Finding addons you like can be quite entertaining, and when you're done customizing your UI, it'll feels great.  Suddenly you'll have, in your hands, an interface that no one else has, and that will help you become a better player.

If you'd like to see my UI in action, please check out my old OS10 video.  There's some things I've changed since then as you can see if you compare it to the screenshot above, but it functions the same way.

Good luck and have fun customizing!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Why I play a Moonkin

As I mentioned in my first post, I was lucky enough that the first class/spec combination I tried was the one that was perfect for me.  I never respec-ed and never rerolled.  I've loved Balance ever since I began understanding the concept of talent trees and I still remember being excited about getting Moonkin Form way before I was the level required for it.  At level 80, Balance is still as exciting for me as it used to be.  All my alts remain just that - alts, and I never have a serious thought about going Resto or Feral.

So why do I like Moonkin so much?

Why I picked Druid
Before I explain what I love about Moonkin, perhaps it would be best to look at the bigger picture.  Why did I choose to play a Druid in the first place?

In truth, I had no idea which class to pick when I started WoW.  Today, each class seems clear and well-defined to me, but at the time, even after lengthy research, it was all a little confusing.  Druid seemed the most versatile so that ended up being the class I chose, because I figured it wouldn't limit what I could do as much as the other classes.

Prowling to avoid the baddies.
I don't have a single regret.  Druid is really fun and it is one of the main reasons why I like Balance.  At any point in time I can go in Cat Form and Prowl around in Horde cities, off-heal if it's really needed without being bad at it, and shapeshift into Flight Form to escape sticky situation.  The capability to do so many things - even if I don't always make use of them (it's just the feeling of feeling free that matters, right? :P) - makes Druid a really enjoyable class.

Moonkin is creative
Each class or spec, to an extent, has it own unique theme, or style.  Its own flavor.  Rogues have stealth and poisons, Hunters use pets and guns, Priests use the power of words (how fitting), Druids shapeshift and control nature, etc, and all of these things contribute to the feel of the class.  Everyone's got their own thing.  If a certain class didn't unique, there wouldn't really be a point in having the class exist in the first place.

Hybrid classes have specs that define the role they play.  Pure classes have specs that determine the way they output damage.  For example, Destruction Warlocks get their damage through nukes while Affliction Warlocks do it through DoTs.  Some specs are more PvP viable and others are more PvE oriented - such as Subtlety vs. Assassination Rogues.

In the end, however, I feel like nothing compares to the epic style of Moonkin.  While a Warrior might charge you, a Hunter might shoot you, a Paladin might judge you, who else but a Moonkin will grow roots out of the ground and proceed to aligning the sun and the moon themselves in order to nuke you down?  A Mage might send chills down your spine with a Frostbolt, but a Moonkin will summon an entire typhoon your way and command the very wrath of the sun to destroy you.

Moonkin is fun
In part, this is because of the epic style.  Maybe I got so used to Moonkin that today I can't properly play any other class.  That said, I've tried every other class in the game and I haven't been able to stick to any (save Protection Warrior).

Somehow - and I don't always understand why because at times I will be extremely frustrated at my feathery character - Moonkin just never gets boring.  Maybe it's the huge Starfire crits or the amazing AoE burst of Starfall + Hurricane.  Maybe it's that I can solo nearly everything, or that I can do a silly dance.  I don't enjoy how saggy my butt looks when I'm running around, but who cares? - I have antlers!

Some people hate the Moonkin Form, but personally, I love it.  How could you dislike a giant, feathery chicken with antlers who looks like he has anger management issues?  Check this video out by Voodooray, it says it all :)

Not to mention that even today, after months of having seen hundreds - maybe thousands - of Eclipse procs, I still haven't gotten tired of them.  They still feel great every time.  I crit, and then a huge moon shows up above my head, as if telling me "You have become more powerful than you have ever imagined."  And then I fire it up.  That excitement is still there - Eclipse just feels great (except when you chain non-crits afterwards :P)

More powerful than you could ever imagine.
Moonkin is challenging
Let's face it - some specs are really easy.  When I was level 72, I switched to Restoration for a while, just to try it out, and owned every battleground I ever joined.  At level 74, I healed Heroic Shadow Labyrinth with 3 cloth-wearers and 1 Hunter and we didn't even struggle.

I don't really like easy mode.  Essentially, WoW is still going to be a moderately easy game (till you hit high level PvE content), no matter what class you play, but I don't think I'd ever roll a Retribution Paladin or a Shadow Priest.  You know what I'm talking about ;)

I believe Moonkin isn't downright facerolling material, like some other specs.  I saw a video of a Mage in the world's first Anub'arak hard mode (found it! Here's the link), and I was disappointed when I saw he had to do nothing more than spam Frostfire Bolt the entire time to achieve 4th DPS (he was 3rd the entire time except at the end, actually), punctuated by Blizzards when adds came.  Boring!  I want a character that scales well with skill, not gear. EDIT: Nevermind, it's most than just Frostfire Bolt spam :P I'm a noob.

I look at Recount after raids to see what abilities other classes use, what gives them the most damage.  My damage is spread out over 6 spells.  I remember I looked at an Arcane Mage's Recount once and he literally had only used 2 spells the entire time.

Now, I'm not going to say Moonkin PvE is hard, but it does require thought and careful timing.  We don't really have a rotation - our style is more reactionary than anything.  In a nutshell, Starfall is about 10% of our DPS.  That one is pretty easy - I just fire it and let it do its thing.  My two DoTs comprise about another 10% of my damage, but if I don't use them properly, they will reduce my overall damage.

Then about the remaining 80% of my damage comes from Wrath and Starfire.  But if I don't use them carefully in balance with each other, my DPS will hurt badly.  Moonkin PvE is all about timing, procs, and internal cooldowns.  In my opinion, that's much more fun than simple Frostfire Bolt spam.

PvP, however, is a whole different story - Moonkin isn't viable in PvP (sad face).  I'm not just saying this merely because it's the spec I play, but it is the most underpowered PvP spec in WoW, hands down.  No real survivability, no real control, no real damage.  I won't get into Moonkin PvP in this post because it deserves one all to itself, but suffice it to say that it is very hard to take down opponents of equal skill and gear.  Just google it or try dueling / 2v2 arena as a Moonkin and you'll see what I mean.  Maybe I'll post some links later.

TL-DR
In the end, it comes down to the style.  Moonkin is a combination of big crits, off-heals, and utility, all wrapped up in an epic theme of cosmological proportions.  I'm not saying sending bolts of frost at people isn't cool, but it just ain't quite as fun.

Welcome to Owlkin Frenzy

Because this is my first Owlkin Frenzy post, I figure I should post a bit about this blog and myself.  I'll get to personalizing the design of the blog later, when I've decided just what I want to do with it (definitely something Moonkin-y).

As you may have guessed if you're a World of Warcraft player, this blog will be dedicated to talking about Balance Druid-related .. things.

History of my character
I started playing WoW in December 2009.  That's pretty recent, though I feel like I've gathered enough knowledge about the game - and my class especially - not to be called a newbie.  By some stroke of luck, the first character I made was a Balance Druid, and I ended up loving it.  I hit level 80 four months later, and really I haven't been serious about any alts.  I chose the name Clov, short for Clovis, which wasn't available.

Now, I hope I won't lose any credibility saying this, but so far I have only played on Blizzlike private servers.  I don't have the money to play on retail at this point, though I plan to make the switch some time in my future.

The first server I played on was Spermik.  Though the server was plagued with bugs and crashes (mostly following patches), the developers made their best efforts to remain as Blizzlike as possible, which is what I wanted.  No custom items, no high rates, no bonuses for donators.

Unfortunately, the content was sub 3.1.  The only raid open was Obsidian Sanctum, and the highest level gear available was 213 (with the exception of OS25+2D, which drops 226 gear).  PvP gear was at the Hateful level with Deadly off-pieces.  When I joined, the highest gear scores were in the 3900s.  When I finally quit, only 3 people had above a 4k gear score.

Recently, my girlfriend's brother (we all played together at Spermik) was temporarily banned for an unknown reason, and he switched to the Molten WoW private server.  My girlfriend ended up doing the same, and I followed suit.  Molten has 4 realms - one of which, Frostwolf, is completely Blizzlike except for a 3x rate, which I'm okay with because I don't see the problem with getting to 80 three times as fast when all I'm doing is leveling a Balance Druid again, and I've already done that the hard way.

Today
At the time of this post, my Moonkin on Frostwolf just hit level 48.  I have to admit, it felt really good when I hit 40 and was able to change into my form again.  I'm one of those people that walk around in Moonkin Form even when it's not needed - I don't care if I can't see my armor, show me the feathers!

Hopefully I will hit 80 pretty quickly, and I'll be able to gear up - past tier 7 this time.  Everything on Molten is open and scripted, including ICC, so I am definitely looking forward to it.

Links
Spermik: OS 10 + 1 drake
This is the only WoW video I have made thus far.  As you can see, there's a few bugs, such as incorrect buff stacking.  Also, a mistake from my part when I stand in the void zone :s  That said, I'm quite proud of my UI (which has changed some more since then).

Clov - PvE
This is my Moonkin on Spermik as I left it, in his PvE gear and spec.  The shoulders and weapon are incorrect - I have others with more hit that I used for 82+ bosses (I was almost hit-capped).

Clov - PvP
Same thing, except for PvP.  I had over 16k honorable kills.  Arena rating was irrelevant because of the nature of the server, and only in the last days did I really compete in rated matches.