How to gear up a druid at level 85 without entering an instance

Way back in the days of Wrath of the Lich King, I wrote a post about how to gear up a druid without entering an instance due to my own aversion to dungeons and my hesitance to rely on random drops to gear up. Well, now that Cataclysm has gotten underway, I thought I'd write a similar post for this expansion pack. This post is a collection your options for gearing up a Druid before you set foot in any 5-mans. Keep in mind that some slots don't have very good options, and you are probably better served getting gear for those slots from 5-mans themselves, but I included your options for those slots here just for completion's sake. Like last time, I will give you multiple options for each slot so you can pick the one that best suits you. Since balance druids can dip into resto's sections'for spirit pieces with the talent Balance of Power and the two feral druids share many pieces, I tried to avoid redundancy when there are actually different options for each one. In those cases, if you don't like any of the suggestions for your spec, check your corresponding partner spec's section for other options.

Weapon(s):
Balance: Beak of Julak-Doom (drop from a specific rare mob, most likely to be found on the AH), Insidious Staff (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, revered), Elementium Spellblade (blacksmithing), Very Manly Staff (quest in Twilight Highlands) Staff of Solemn Secrecy (world drop)
Feral (tank): Spear of Trailing Shadows (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, revered), Mobus's Vile Halberd (drop from a specific rare mob), Elementium Poleaxe (blacksmithing), Staff of Old Woes (world drop, most likely to be found on the AH), Staff of Draconic Pacification/Torth-Slayer's Staff (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Feral (DPS): Spear of Trailing Shadows (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, revered), Mobus's Vile Halberd (drop from a specific rare mob), Elementium Poleaxe (blacksmithing), Staff of Old Woes (world drop), Staff of Draconic Pacification/Torth-Slayer's Staff (quests in Twilight Highlands)
Resto: Elementium Hammer (blacksmithing), Shimmering Morningstar (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, revered), Gurgthock's Garish Gorebat (quest in Twilight Highlands), Mace of Apotheosis (world drop)

Off-hand:
Balance: Dungeoneering Guide (inscription), Skyflight Beacon/Air Raid Beacon (quest in Twilight Highlands) Book of Origination (dungeon drop, look on AH)
Resto: Heartbound Tome (world drop), Divine Companion (inscription) Bone-Inlaid Sarcophagus Key (world drop)

Idol:
Balance: Tattooed Eyeball (inscription)
Feral (tank): Halted Clock (world drop), Silver Inlaid Leaf (inscription)
Feral (DPS): Silver Inlaid Leaf (inscription)
Resto: Tattooed Eyeball (inscription)

Head:
Balance: Bloodied Wyrmhide Helm (leatherworking), Hood of Lost Solitude (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Feral (tank): Hood of the Crying Rogue (world drop), Dunwald Winged Helm/Shocktrooper Hood (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Feral (DPS): Hood of the Crying Rogue (world drop), Dunwald Winged Helm/Shocktrooper Hood (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Resto: Bloodied Wyrmhide Helm (leatherworking), Wax-Filled Hood/Mechano-Assembler Headguard (quest in Twilight Highlands)

Neck:
Balance: Lightning Flash Pendant/Yellow Smoke Pendant (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, exalted), Charm of the Muse (dungeon drop), Eye of Many Deaths (jewelcrafting)
Feral (tank): Elementium Guardian (jewelcrafting), Don Rodrigo's Fabulous Necklace (world drop), Acorn of the Daughter Tree (Guardians of Hyjal, revered)
Feral (DPS): Don Rodrigo's Fabulous Necklace (world drop), Acorn of the Daughter Tree (Guardians of Hyjal, revered), Barnacle Pendant (dungeon drop), Brazen Elementium Medallion or Entwined Elementium Choker (jewelcrafting), Nightrend Choker (world drop), Pendant of Victorious Fury (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Resto: Acanthia's Lost Pendant (dungeon drop), Lightning Flash Pendant/Yellow Smoke Pendant (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, exalted), Pendant of Elemental Balance (Earthen Ring, honored)

Shoulders:
Balance: Spaulders of Rolling Incineration (quest in Uldum)
Feral (tank): Aledrinker Shoulderpads/Cult-Hide Spaulders (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Feral (DPS): Aledrinker Shoulderpads/Cult-Hide Spaulders (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Resto: Mantle of Wild Feathers/Spaulders of the Endless Plains (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, honored)

Back:
Balance: Ritssyn's Ruminous Drape (world drop), Cloak of the Dryads (Guardians of Hyjal, honored)
Feral (tank): Zom's Electrostatic Cloak (world drop), Twilight Dragonscale Cloak (leatherworking), Shroud of Dark Memories (dungeon drop)
Feral (DPS): Razor-Edged Cloak (leatherworking)
Resto: Cloak of the Dryads (Guardians of Hyjal, honored)

Chest:
Balance: Chestguard of Nature's Fury (leatherworking)
Feral (tank): Assassin's Chestplate (leatherworking), Sly Fox Jerkin (Guardians of Hyjal, honored)
Feral (DPS): Assassin's Chestplate (leatherworking), Sly Fox Jerkin (Guardians of Hyjal, honored)
Resto: Chestguard of Nature's Fury (leatherworking), Robes of the Loving Ursine (world drop), Wrap of the Fallen City (quest in Uldum)

Wrist:
Balance: Bracers of Caustic Purification (world drop), Keg-Stealer Bracers/Alefire Bracers (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Feral (tank): Bloodied Leather Bracers (leatherworking), Flarefire Bracers/Buildingblast Bracers or Whirlpool Bracers/Dragonheart Bracers (quests in Twilight Highlands)
Feral (DPS): Bloodied Leather Bracers (leatherworking), Keg-Stealer Bracers/Buildingblast Bracers or Flarefire Bracers/Dragonheart Bracers (quests in Twilight Highlands)
Resto: Bracers of Caustic Purification (world drop), Keg-Stealer Bracers/Alefire Bracers (quest in Twilight Highlands)

Hands:
Balance: Aessina-Blessed Gloves (Guardians of Hyjal, revered)
Feral (tank): Stormbolt Gloves/Liar's Handwraps (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, exalted), Safecracker's Gloves (world drop), Thartuk's Inimitable Gauntlets (drop from a specific rare mob)
Feral (DPS): Stormbolt Gloves/Liar's Handwraps (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, exalted), Safecracker's Gloves (world drop), Thartuk's Inimitable Gauntlets (drop from a specific rare mob)
Resto: Aessina-Blessed Gloves (Guardians of Hyjal, revered)

Waist:
Balance: Lightning Lash (leatherworking), Belt of the Untamed/Withered Dream Belt (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, exalted)
Feral (tank): Belt of Nefarious Whispers (leatherworking), Quicksand Belt (Ramkahen, revered), Belt of a Thousand Mouths (drop from a specific rare mob)
Feral (DPS): Belt of Nefarious Whispers (leatherworking), Quicksand Belt (Ramkahen, revered), Belt of a Thousand Mouths (drop from a specific rare mob)
Resto: Lightning Lash (leatherworking), Belt of the Untamed/Withered Dream Belt (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, exalted)

Legs:
Balance: Blazewing's Furious Kilt (drop from a specific rare mob)
Feral (tank): Swiftflight Leggings/Leggings of the Impenitent (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, honored), Shaw's Finest Leggings/Garona's Finest Leggings (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Feral (DPS): Swiftflight Leggings/Leggings of the Impenitent (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, honored), Shaw's Finest Leggings/Garona's Finest Leggings (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Resto: Blazewing's Furious Kilt (drop from a specific rare mob)

Feet:
Balance: Treads of Revelation/Vision-Tainted Treads (quest in Stormwing/Orgrimmar)
Feral (tank): Flameproof Treads/Heartstone Treads (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Feral (DPS): Flameproof Treads/Heartstone Treads (quest in Twilight Highlands)
Resto: Tarvus's Poison-Scarred Boots (drop from a specific rare mob), Treads of Revelation/Vision-Tainted Treads (quest in Stormwing/Orgrimmar)

Rings:
Balance: Band of Singing Grass/Band of Lamentation (Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan, revered), Diamant's Ring of Temperance (Therazane, revered), Ring of Warring Elements (jewelcrafting), Abandoned Dark Iron Ring (dungeon drop)
Feral (tank): Felsen's Ring of Resolve (Therazane, revered), Red Rock Band (Ramkahen, revered), Elementium Moebius Band (jewelcrafting)
Feral (DPS): Terrath's Signet of Balance (Therazane, revered), Band of Blades and/or Elementium Destroyer's Ring (jewelcrafting)
Resto: Ring of the Great Whale (dungeon drop), Ammunae's Blessing (Ramkahen, honored), Ring of Warring Elements (jewelcrafting)

Trinkets:
Balance: Stump of Time (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, exalted), Darkmoon Card: Volcano (completing the Volcanic Deck), Talisman of Sinister Order (quest in Uldum)
Feral (tank): Unsolvable Riddle (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, exalted), Mirror of Broken Images (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, exalted), Darkmoon Card: Earthquake (completing the Earthquake Deck)
Feral (DPS): Unsolvable Riddle (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, exalted), Impatience of Youth (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, exalted), Darkmoon Card: Hurricane (completing the Hurricane Deck) Schnotzz's Medallion of Command (quest in Uldum)
Resto: Mandala of Stirring Patterns (Baradin's Wardons/Hellscream's Reach, exalted), Darkmoon Card: Tsunami (completing the Tsunami Deck), Rainsong (dungeon drop)

A photo-tribute to Tree of Life

Well, it looks like patch 4.0.1 will be playable some time around today, give or take a day for unforeseen additional maintenance. As you already know, this patch, for me, marks the end of an era: the end of Tree of Life as a permanent form. The comments section for that post tells me I'm not the only one mourning the loss of this beloved form, so I thought it would be appropriate to put together a photo-tribute to the tree. I do this not only to pay my respects, but because this may very well be the last time I see a tree outside of a group, for patch 4.0.1 may mark the end of my time as a druid healer. I'm with Tesh when he/she (sorry, Tesh, but I dont want to make any assumptions) said, "Shapeshifting is the point of Druids for me. I almost never spend time in caster form; if I wanted that, I'd have played a Shaman. " Well spoken, Tesh; well spoken.

So, without further ado, let's move on to the tribute.

A druid in his natural habitat: Moonglade.

A lucky screenshot of the tree's idle animation. You can't plan this one.

"Should I or shouldn't I?"

Did you know that Tree of Life has a swim animation? Neither did I. Most trees don't do so well in water, but apparently ours does.

I can't tell whether he's waving hello after making it across the lake, or goodbye. I'd like to believe it's the former...

Guess he just found out...

One last goodbye to the home zone of druids.

The tree enjoys one last dance...

Before giving in to his fate.

R.I.P. Tree of Life form, December 5, 2006 to October 12, 2010. You will be sorely missed.

It's so hard to say goodbye: Tree of Life

I thought I'd be over it by now. I thought the pain, the sadness, the grieving would have come to an end, but I just couldn't accept it, and I still haven't. When patch 4.0 hits, I really don't know whether I'll be able to enjoy all of the great new additions, because of one little hitch: Tree of Life. I know the point has long run its course. I know this discussion has been held before, and has probably been done to death in every conceivable venue where it can be discussed. I know that those who don't share the sadness of those who will miss this form will probably roll their eyes at this post. But I can't help it, because this blog is a receptacle for my feelings about WoW, and right now, my feelings are those of sadness at the loss of this form.

You might be wondering, if this blog is just a receptacle for my feelings about WoW, then why do I advertise it as a blog where I look at WoW from a philosophical perspective? I do that because most of my thoughts on this game tend to wax philosophical. But take a look at the subtitle of my blog: "The lengthy ramblings of a World of Warcraft player who happens to be into philosophy." I promise nothing about consistently writing about philosophy, but I try to do that as often as possible, because that's the draw I try to give this blog. But right now, I can't wax philosophical, because the grief I feel about tree form is just too great. I suppose I'm going through the depression stage of grief. I've been through the denial stage ("They would never make a change like that; that's just preposterous, and not at all like our class."), the anger stage ("Gah! Why! Argh!"), and the bargaining stage ("Can't they try to improve Nature's Swiftness? Then we'd have a good cooldown and wouldn't have to lose our form."), and now I'm in the depression stage. Perhaps I can move on to acceptance before patch 4.0 hits. Until then, allow me a bit of catharsis in today's post.

If you're wondering why these emotions are coming out now, you can thank Allison Robert, a writer for WoW Insider, whose recent column about the upcoming changes to druids--which was organized in sections by our forms; i.e., it had a "the bear" section, a "the cat" section--included this heading:

The tree

A moment of silence, please.

And I bowed my head, for I am still sad to see this form go. I don't think my first post on the subject did a good enough job of explaining why I feel this way, but then again, I was probably still in denial back then. Maybe now, now that my kvetching can't do anything to change Blizzard's mind, now that everyone's probably over the subject, now that my self-deprecating introduction is probably getting on your nerves, maybe now I can express why I am sad to see our beloved form go.

For me, it has something to do with the fact that shifting is integral to the druid identity. I might be the only one who reads this deeply into it our class mechanics, but something about the very act of shifting itself is what makes the druid class so special. It may cut us off from many of our abilities, but that's what druids are all about; we sacrifice our utility for the sake of gaining new abilities or empowering abilities we already have. Our identity as the "jack of all trades, master of none" class was one we could only lose (in favor of a "jack of all trades, master of all" identity) because our shifting prevents us from being a master of all; we can only be a master of one thing at a time. That concept, the concept of sacrificing most of our arsenal so that we can fulfill any roll, has been integral to the druid class for ages, and our forms are the visual representation of that concept.

Now, I'm not going to resort to appeal to tradition to make my point, for it is one of the logical fallacies that I find most objectionable. Besides, tradition has nothing to do with my grief over the loss of Tree of Life. No, this is not a matter of tradition; it is a matter of mindset. Perhaps I'm more affected than most because I am a long-time feral druid, but the class design of our class has created a very distinct mindset that I will not assume is universal to all druids, but I'm sure is shared by at least a few. The fact that every one of our specs becomes more viable when we shift into its respective form means that when I shift into an animal form (or plant form, as the case may be), no matter what form it is, it's a way of psyching myself up. It's a way of saying, "I'm ready for battle." Caster form is for non-combat situations--repairing, crafting, transportation, running around Dalaran aimlessly, etc. By shifting into a form, I am saying, "It's time to get serious; it's time to fight."

I can't help but think that Blizzard wanted to encourage that mentality in every druid spec. After all, in ye oldie days of vanilla WoW, feral combat was the only spec with shapeshifting spells. Hurricane was the final talent for balance druids until patch 1.8, and restoration druids didn't get their form until Burning Crusade. But Blizzard intentionally added these forms to specs that once did not have them, leading me to believe that they wanted druids to have the mentality of a shifting class, that they wanted us to equate being in a form to being ready to fight. Granted, Tree of Life had a rocky introduction when it was first introduced as a form with enough drawbacks to make people need to seriously consider whether they would use it or not. That rocky introduction was probably what doomed it to its current fate, for Blizzard wanted us to use the tree, so they removed any and all significant drawbacks for Wrath of the Lich King. This, however, made the tree more of an incidental ability than anything, since all it did now was limit our arsenal to healing spells and some balance spells and give us an aura that increased healing received by raid members; it was something we used because it objectively helped us perform better, but something we weren't all that excited to use.

But Tree of Life form fed into that very druid mentality of "shapeshifting = ready for combat" so well that we probably didn't notice that we were excited to use it, that was, until we were told it was going away. Tree of Life, like every druid form, takes on a life of its own once it is donned by the druid. We druids don't have just one personality like some classes, you see; we have many, and those many personalities come from our forms. They have their own sitting animations, their own lying down animations, their own dances (the bast part by far), and though they may not look better as we get better gear (though I went over ways they could look better as our gear got better long, long ago), they are part of our identity. Again, I don't mean to argue this from the perspective of appeal to tradition; all I mean to say is, Blizzard has made shifting an inexorable part of the druid class, and for them to take away one of our forms now just because they didn't give it better bonuses and make it more useful is to take away part of our identity.

And I really can't help but wonder: why was Moonkin Form spared? I don't mean to say that our balance brothers and sisters should suffer the same horrible fate that resto druids have, but Moonkin Form is in an almost identical situation to the one Tree of Life was in. It locks balance druids out of using half of their spells (their healing spells), gimping their utility, and if it were made into a temporary ability that would increase their damage done, it will fill the current hole in the balance arsenal of a throughput-increasing cooldown. The only difference between Moonkin Form and Tree of Life now is that Moonkin Form has more and better bonuses. Honestly, if that's the only thing that spared Moonkin Form the fate of Tree of Life, then I can't help being angry at Blizzard for letting Tree of Life reach the point where it wasn't exciting enough to keep around as a permanent form. And for their oversight, we have to suffer the loss of our beloved Twist-dancing form.

In short, I see shifting as an integral part of being a druid, as part of the druid mentality, and for Blizzard to change that now just seems unnecessary and callous. Yes, there were complaints about how the form locked us out of our offensive spells, but those could have been addressed by changing the form itself, rather than scrapping it, which was basically throwing the baby out with the bath water. And to all the people who say they get tired of looking at the same form all the time (which, again, could be remedied), if that's how you feel, then you picked the wrong class... sorry.

Well, I'm glad I could work a bit of philosophy into my reasoning for why I'm sad to see Tree of Life go. I don't want this blog to become a cesspool of moaning and complaining, but I couldn't distract myself from this train of thought long enough to write about anything else. Hopefully now I'll be able to return to whatever usually distinguishes the posts on this blog as WoW Philosophized posts. Until then, thanks for bearing with me.

The druid resto tree: she's not broken, she's just a baby

Though I've been trying to keep myself spoiler free when it comes to the story of Cataclysm, one thing I have not denied myself is news on the mechanics of the game and how those will be changing. New spells, changes to the professions, changes to the stats, etc--I have been keeping up with all of these changes, mostly because I want to be prepared when Cataclysm drops to make the best decisions and not spend my time undoing or regretting a bad decision I made due to lack of information. It was only through the reflection brought on by this news hunt that I decided that my inevitable Worgen alt would be a rogue (Before that choice, I had considered a mage, warrior, and hunter, but it was upon reviewing the talents and ability distributions, as well as the abilities themselves, and some personal reflection on why I enjoy playing my druid, that I decided on the rogue.)

But there is a darker side to that news hunt, and that darker side is that we see classes in the middle of the great balancing act that is game design. We grow attached to abilities or talents that never make it to the live servers, or we languish in worry as we see that our class just isn't doing well in the design process. That latter point is affecting us resto druids on the beta right now. The comments I've seen from druids on the beta trying out resto healing consistently say that it needs work, and now the math has shown that our mastery bonus is the worst thing since pre-nerf Oculus. It's fair to say that this isn't a good time for resto druids, and that has lead to a lot of worrying on the part of the druid community. Will it be fun to heal in Cataclysm? Will mastery, this new and exciting stat, be of any use to us? Will we all just roll/switch to shamans/priests/paladins when we find out that we can't really heal anymore?

I used to worry about these kinds of things, but I now realize that it's better to think of resto druids on the beta as a work in progress, rather than a broken class that Blizzard needs to fix. After all, we're going to go through quite a shift in game design when Cataclysm comes out, and with Blizzard actually trying to keep all of the classes balanced, it can't be easy designing us druids to fit that philosophy, so I'm happy to not cry foul until a week or two before the game ships.

Let me elaborate on that point about game balance. Back in the day (I'm a player who grew up during vanilla WoW but came of age in Burning Crusade), the game was much less balanced than it is now. Once upon a time, warriors were the class that could tank, and any class that could heal was expected to do so (they couldn't do much of anything else; the game just wasn't designed to support them doing so). To put it simply, Blizzard didn't really care all that much about the classes being on par with one another. This mentality allowed the classes to evolve in their own special way, since they Blizzard wasn't all that worried about balancing them, and each class gained a unique feel to it. However, as the expansions went on, Blizzard started to care more about class balance, to the point where Wrath of the Lich King has been the most successful class balance in WoW history.

Of course, by the time Wrath rolled around, the classes had all developed their own unique feel to how they play. We druids, for example, specialize in healing with HoTs (heal-over-time spells) and tanking by absorbing damage, rather than avoiding it (this was especially true in Burning Crusade). This worked fine in Wrath of the Lich King, where the rapid damage spikes of raid bosses and our HoTs somehow worked well to make us good healers without us being overpowered (to my knowledge). However, come Cataclysm, that damage model will change. When Cataclysm rolls around, damage will be much more consistent, and healing won't be a race to top off every player's health bar. Healing will be more about using the right spell at the right time than using your most powerful spell as quickly as possible. Because of this, players will spend more time with their health below the maximum.

In an environment like this, HoTs would have dominated. The biggest weakness of our HoTs right now is that players are likely to snipe our healing by healing a target to full health before our HoT has run its duration, leading to wasted mana (though that was never really an issue). In a world where players won't be healed to full health immediately after they take damage, this would not have been the case. Our HoTs would have been able to do much more healing than they can now simply because players will be at less-than-full health more often, giving our HoTs ridiculous mana efficiency. After all, their current mana costs are balanced around the idea of them not healing for the full amount because of other healers bringing our targets to full health almost immediately. If those mana costs stayed the same while HoTs were able to heal for much more, they would have been ridiculously mana-efficient.

Of course, in a world where mana is supposed to matter and where Blizzard wants us using most of our spells, this just couldn't be. They would need to balance us around the ridiculous efficiency of our HoT's, making our direct heals much less appealing and effectively gimping us when we needed to use them to add extra healing to our style, like when we are the only healers in a five-man or when we are tank healing and our HoTs aren't doing enough. We would have been stuck in a style reminiscent of Tree of Life healing circa early Burning Crusade, when Tree of Life limited us to casting heal over time spells, meaning we could never use our only pure direct heal at the time, Healing Touch. It was this limitation that lead to the creation of the Dreamstate build, which forewent Tree of Life in favor of buffing Healing Touch. This was a viable build in heroics, where our HoTs might not have been enough to heal everyone there, but it petered out in raiding once the efficiency of Tree of Life HoT healing was revealed.

But I digress. We have been a HoT-centric class ever since Burning Crusade, and that needs to change in Cataclysm for us to remain balanced with the four other healers. In order to do that, Blizzard needs to effectively rebuild the druid class from scratch, taking our old abilities and reworking them to fill new niches, allowing us to retain some of what makes us unique (our HoTs) while still allowing us to fit into their new philosophy of healing design without being overpowered. Blizzard really had to overhaul our class to make us fit into this new game design, so it doesn't surprise me that they haven't perfected us yet. And considering everything else they have to do on the beta, I'm going to be patient as I wait to see what they do to make us good again.

In other words, the druid's resto tree and resto playstyle as they stand in beta aren't a failure, or a disappointment, or a sign that Blizzard isn't giving the same level of attention to us as they are to the other classes; they're just an indication of just how much work Blizzard has to put into designing it. While all of the other trees started mature and didn't need to change too much, Blizzard had less to work with when it came to designing the resto tree, so our tree is, if you will, younger than the rest. It isn't broken; it's just a baby.

Suggestions for Cataclysm's Druid talents

A while ago, Blizzard announced their intentions to trim down the talent trees for Cataclysm, making them smaller, while also making each talent choice more fun and meaningful. I can't find the exact quote, but the announcement, or one of the same topic, mentioned that, these days, we have to take quite a few boring talents just to open up the more interesting talents, the ones that will actually change the feel of our class, and Blizzard wants to change that. This is a design philosophy that, assuming they can pull it off, I am totally in support of; I'm willing to trade off the excitement of getting a talent point each level for making each talent itself more exciting, and after looking at the new trees themselves, the current trees seem bloated and cumbersome by comparison.

Which brings me to the point of this post: the first drafts of the new talent trees have come out, and thus we can finally give our thoughts on them, and I intend to do so right now. Specifically, I'll be giving my thoughts on the Druid talents, since that's the class I play. I'll be skipping over issues discussed in the latest developer chat, like the fact that the first tier of the feral tree only has two talents, the fact that some talents had their maximum number of points one could spend in them reduced without the effects of their ranks being increased, the loss of the shapeshifting cost reduction from King of the Jungle, the the fact that Primal Fury no longer causes critical strikes of combo-point generating abilities to give and combo point, or the fact that Swiftmend is gained from taking Restoration as our main spec and still present as a talent within the tree (no pun intended) itself. All of these issues were acknowledged during the developer chat and are scheduled to be fixed. So let's focus on the things they didn't mention. Also, because I dual-spec and feral/resto, I won't be giving my thoughts on Balance, since I have no useful thoughts on Balance to contribute. Sorry, boomkins.

-Move Furor into the Feral tree.
This long-suffering Restoration talent needs to be put out of its misery and resurrected as a Feral talent. As it stands, this talent is one of three in the first tier of Restoration, yet serves no purpose for healers. There aren't any other talents any deeper in the Resto tree that Balance or Feral Druids would want (except maybe Perseverance, which could be moved up a tier), so why have this here? It forces Resto druids to take Blessing of the Grove and Natural Shapeshifter, the former of which is pretty underwhelming as a healing talent, the latter of which is greatly underwhelming. It would be far better to put a talent that all Restoration druids would find useful in Furor's place (Genesis, perhaps?)

-Blessing of the Grove should include Mangle (Cat)
As it stands now, Blessing of the Grove increases the damage of Claw and Shred, yet does not increase the damage of Mangle (Cat). However, Mangle (Cat) is designed to flat-out replace Claw. It costs the same amount of energy, adds a combo point like Claw does, and causes much more damage, in addition to making bleeds cause more damage on the target. There is, quite simply, no reason for a Feral Druid to use Claw, so if this talent is going to increase the damage of Claw, it should also increase the damage of Mangle (Cat), or else Claw's inclusion will be completely meaningless.

Now, some might argue that, because one needs to be spec'ed as Feral Combat to acquire Mangle, and thus not all druids have it, the inclusion of Claw isn't completely meaningless. But here's the thing: Balance and Restoration Druids have no reason to ever enter Cat Form and fight their enemies with melee attacks. Balance has all of its offensive spells to help it fight, and if a Restoration Druid needs to cause some damage, it's going to do so with Balance spells, as well. After all, any Restoration Druid will have gear with intellect, and thus spellpower, rather than gear with agility, and thus attack power, so the damage of their Balance spells will gain a bonus from their gear, while the damage of their Cat Form attacks will not. The only Druids that would conceivably use Claw are Druids with agility on their gear, i.e. Feral Druids, and they get Mangle right off the bat. In fact, Claw is looking to be pretty useless in general now...

-Fury of Stormrage should be retooled to be more useful.
One of the things the developer chat revealed was that Blizzard wants to give healers a way to cause damage when they don't have to do any healing, as a way of getting some mana back. That's why Restoration Shamans have the spell Telluric Currents. If that's the way that they want offensive abilities to work in the hands of healers, then Fury of Stormrage can't remain in its current form. As it stands, Fury of Stormrage gives Druids the occasional opportunity to use an offensive spell (Wrath, specifically) without using mana to do so. However, there are no benefits to the Druid himself for using Wrath under these circumstances, and the Druid needs to work the casting of Wrath around his healing, or else he risks wasting the proc. While homogenization isn't necessarily a good thing, I'd much prefer a talent that resembles Telluric Currents to the current incarnation of Fury of Stormrage.

-Rend and Tear should increase the damage of Mangle on bleeding targets.
I've never been a fan of Rend and Tear, and have always viewed it as a talent that is only useful to Cats doing raid DPS. Maul doesn't account for nearly enough of my threat to justify taking it as a Bear tank--and it won't account for much more when Cataclysm comes--and the only time a Cat uses Shred a lot is while DPS'ing a raid boss. While solo-ing, Mangle is used much more, and on trash, Swipe is used much more, though that will probably be changing come Cataclysm. Regardless, R&T is only useful to Cats during raiding, but in Cataclysm, it will be a prerequisite for the Bear ability Pulverize. Since talent points are going to be even more scarce in Cataclysm than they are now, I'm really not comfortable with needing to spend so many talent points on a talent that is only useful to Cats in order to get a Bear Form ability. However, there is a simple way to remedy this situation: make R&T increase Mangle's damage as well. Not only will this make it a useful talent for Bears (for whom Mangle accounts for a good portion of their threat), but it will also make it useful for Cats outside of raids.

-The second tier of Restoration needs another talent.
As it stands now, not only does the top tier of Restoration only offer two marginally useful talents for trees, the second tier doesn't even offer five points for those spec'ing purely for higher healing. As it stands, Restoration Druids can put three points in Perseverance and three in Improved Rejuvenation. While some Restoration Druids probably appreciate the opportunity to take some defensive talents, unless wide-spread magic damage is going to be a huge part of the Cataclysm raiding scene, there just isn't enough choice in the second tier of Restoration.

-Nom Nom Nom [name not final, unfortunately] is too specialized to be worth two points.
Currently, Noms has the benefit of allowing Cats to keep one of their longer lasting bleed effects active on their target as it nears death, which is beneficial, considering that as a raid boss gets closer to dying, most Cats likely start using Ferocious Bite instead of Rip, hoping to avoid the lost damage that would result from Rip not lasting its full duration. However, this talent will only provide its bonus during the last minute or two of a boss battle. After all, Cats don't use Rip on trash, and even if we get long-living trash in Cataclysm, the limited health range of this talent means Ferocious Bite may only benefit from it once per a fight, twice, at most. And yet, we are forced to spend two points to get that limited effect, and with points much scarcer in Cataclysm, that's not something I'm comfortable with Now, if they made it so that this talent applied at all health levels, then I could see it being worth taking.

-Bring back Omen of Clarity
Seriously, where did it go? It was here one expansion, and gone the next. That free ability every so often is an important part of the Druid's identity. I suppose they may have gotten rid of it because it was pretty much a mandatory talent for every druid, yet was also in the third tier of restoration, which is now inaccessible to all non-Restoration Druids. Say... perhaps Omen of Clarity could be the replacement for Furor. Just turn it into a multi-point talent, add the phrase "(higher than rank 1/2)" after the word "chance" in ranks two and three, et voilà!

A few Cataclysm beta predictions

In considering the news that has come out about the class changes coming in Cataclysm, I have reached a few conclusions about what may happen on the beta testing realms. I say on the beta realms because everything we know now will likely change by the time Cataclysm ships, so for the sake of realistic expectations, I am limiting the duration of these predictions to the beta. Normally I don't make predictions like these because predictions of this nature are often based largely on conjecture, something that does not come easy to me. Still, from my experiences in game, I am pretty certain about what few predictions I make bellow.

1. Mastery will be a horrible stat for Restoration Druids.
As it stands, our third mastery bonus is this:
HoT Scale Healing – HoTs will do increased healing on more wounded targets. The mechanic is similar to that of the Restoration Shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct heals.
Now, Blizzard has stated, that it is their intention to make us worry more about healing efficiently in Cataclysm than healing quickly in response to high damage, but even knowing that, I doubt that players will be at constantly low health. The healing mentality simply doesn't allow us to let players have low health for extended periods of time, except on fights like Anub'arak. All of the other healing classes will be using their direct heals to heal a target before our HoTs can tic on then, so our HoT targets won't be at low health for very long. This is problematic, for our mastery bonus will only be of any use when our targets are at low health. Sure, most of the other healing mastery bonuses are similar in that they are also only activated at low health or they cause extra healing, but while their mastery bonuses affect all of their spells, our mastery bonus will only affect our HoT spells, spells we don't depend on to save a low-health target. That's what Nourish and Regrowth's direct heal (and Healing Touch once Cataclysm launches, apparently) are for. Because of this, I predict that not only will our mastery bonus be pretty useless when the beta starts, but Mastery will also be a horrible stat for druids.

Now, there are two potential situations that could prove me wrong. A simple one would be if Blizzard changed our third mastery bonus to something with more universal appeal, such as increasing the healing of our heal over time abilities, or perhaps of our direct healing abilities (it would certainly be an interesting bonus). Another possibility is that the scaling applied to our HoTs could be so ridiculously large that a well-timed HoT tick on a low-health target could do a very large amount of healing. Even then, I feel that it would still be too random of an element for druids to favor while gearing up. We'll just have to wait and see.

2. Haste will be better for DoT- and HoT-based classes than direct damage and direct healing classes.
One of the announcements that seems to apply to all classes universally is that all HoTs and DoTs will scale with haste. However, haste will not indefinitely reduce the duration of our HoTs and DoTs; if the duration of a spell is reduced enough, then extra ticks will be added to the end of the spells as needed to keep the duration from getting too low. This means that haste will increase both the damage/healing per second and the damage/healing per mana of our over-time spells, while our direct damage/healing spells will only have their damage/healing per second increased. As such, I predict that the situation on the Cataclysm beta will be the reverse of what it is now: classes that specialize in over-time spells will pursue haste more actively than classes that specialize in direct spells.

3. Enhancement Shamans may stop using Flame Shock (and Lava Burst) once they get a certain amount of Mastery.
The Shaman's third enhancement mastery-bonus is currently set to increase their nature damage. This means that the damage of their Lightning Shield, Earth Shock, and their Maelstrom'ed Lightning Bolts will be increased as they invest more points in the Enhancement tree and get more mastery on their gear, but Flame Shock will not receive that same effect. (I mentioned Lava Burst because it will be affected by Maelstrom Weapon once Cataclysm hits, meaning Enhancement Shaman may use it.) However, it appears that Blizzard will still want Enhancement Shamans to use their fire abilities. Lava Lash doesn't show any sign of losing its Flametounge-based damage bonus, so Enhancement Shamans will probably still be applying Flametounge to their off-hand weapons. This means that when they use Unleash Weapon, (a new spell they will get at level 81), the damage of their next fire spell will be increased by 20%. This damage bonus may be designed to make up for the fact that mastery won't increase the damage of Flame Shock, but will it be enough? With Unleash Weapon on a 15-second cooldown and Flame Shock lasting 18 seconds, it might be, but at some point, I bet shamans will get enough mastery that it won't be enough of a bonus. Whether they reach that point in the beta or in tier-13 raids remains to be seen.

My take on the Tree of Life change

Well, the Druid class preview hit about a week ago, and I was quite giddy with anticipation. I don't think I'd been that excited since the Burning Crusade class preview (Wrath's was rather boring for a feral soloist. A healing spell and a raid finisher? Yawn.) That was until I read this little tidbit:

Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.

The druid community has been in quite an uproar since this was announced, with calls of "Save the trees!" appearing everywhere, even though about a year ago, it appeared the druid community was split 50/50 between people who liked Tree of Life and people who didn't. Still, such a radical change certainly deserves some scrutiny. For the record, in spite of what the announcement said, this is not an issue of mechanics. There is no reason that any of the bonuses we get in tree form can't be baked into the other resto talents. This is also not a matter of druids lacking an emergency healing ability (Nature's Swiftness is rather underwhelming), since we can always be given one, or they could improve Nature's Swiftness. No, at its heart, this issue is one thing and one thing only: cosmetic. Should healing druids be trees at all times, or should they be able to be in their caster form?

I already touched upon this issue a bit in my take on "The disappearance of the bear", so here are the bits from that post that are relevant to our current issue:

"WoW is a very visual game, but I am surprised that players actually have time to look at their characters during raids... I suppose I am biased in this issue, since any dedicated druid will have long given up on their forms being as cool as other people's armor. Like I said, though, time spent in combat leaves little time for admiring your character's shiny gear, and if you really want to see the gear, you can spend time out of combat in caster form... Armor is cool, but there is plenty of time for admiring it when you are going from place to place on a mount or waiting between a wipe and the next pull. These times are much more appropriate for thinking about how cool your armor is than during battle..."

With that said, I would also like to address the point brought up by Blizzard that "it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time." Any druid will tell you that anyone who rolled a druid hoping to admire their armor while in combat picked the wrong class to play. Druids are masters of shapeshifting, and our shifting allows us to visually make a statement about what we will be doing. We don't shapeshift to give ourselves a temporary boost; we shapeshift because that is what we druids do. To have one spec not fit that mold just for the sake of letting us look at our armor (which, as I already mentioned, is a point I don't give much credit to) seems to be an unnecessary break from that design. After all, Moonkin Form is similar to Tree of Life in terms of its necessity by game standards, yet it is staying as a permanent form. Why change Tree of Life?

Now, I know people reading this are probably thinking that I am just suffering from a case of reactionary "They changed it now it sucks" thinking, but that shouldn't surprise you. Since this issue is a completely visual one, it's one that cannot be decided easily by rational thinking and is better decided by emotion. I know Blizzard has said that Tree of Life has become more and more of a visual spell and made less of a difference in our play-style, but the same can be said of Moonkin form. I'd much rather Blizzard address the issues that Tree of Life has (constriction of our spell arsenal, lack-luster model) than scrap it and only make us use it every once in a while. I ask, why change tree form? Why change that which is so fundamental to the class without changing it universally across all of our specs? Why make restoration the exception? This change is simply without merit.

I think Big Bear Butt said it best: "I know that Ghostcrawler seems to feel that the Treeform mechanic doesn’t add anything to the game, it doesn’t bring anything special to the Restoration Druid’s table. It does. What it brings is Treeform itself. What he just doesn’t seem to grasp is that Treeform, for a Restoration Druid, is a goal in and of itself. Not something to be pity Glyphed, but an outwards symbol of a Druid Healer’s resolve." [source]

Druid healing in heroics, part II

I have already covered the basics of healing in heroics with this flowchart, but a flowchart cannot give the whole picture (see what I did there?), so this post will be a companion guide to that flowchart. For the record, the strategies herein are for druids who are still using heroics to gear up; if you already out-gear heroics, then just follow Jen's strategy:
1. Rejuv the tank
2. (Optional) WG the group
3. Afk until the Rejuv runs out
4. Collect emblems
What follows is advice for people who don't have good enough gear to follow this strategy. This advice is also meant to help healers build the habits they will need when they enter the raid scene.

1. Get some sort of HUD mod that puts your health bar in plain view.
One of the main issues new healers face is forgetting to heal themselves; they get so focused on keeping everyone else's health bars topped off that they forget about their own. That's why I recommend you get a mod like IceHUD (that's the one I use) that puts your health bar in the middle of the screen so it is right in your face. Here's a picture of it in action:














It may seem like it would just be in the way, but trust me, this bar is a life-saver. Having my health Bar right there is the only way I can remember to heal myself. You may want to man it out and try to watch your own bar along with everyone else's, but though your intentions may be good, they won't be worth anything when your carcass is on the ground not healing your party. Trust me; get the mod, or one similar to it. I use it all the time, so it's not a bad addition to your usual mod lineup.

2. Healing Priority: Tank, you, DPS
In heroics these days, you aren't likely to encounter situations where you will need to prioritize healing, but these situation do arise. Your tank may get overzealous with his pull, or you may get Moragg in Violet Hold, or you may be plopped in a Frozen Halls instance. Either way, remember this: the tank must survive. When you need to decide between dropping a heal on the tank and anyone else, the tank's survival comes first. Your survival comes next, for, without your healing, the party will drop like flies. Now, this does not mean that your should not heal your DPS; without them, the boss won't die. However, most DPS these days are in such good gear that they don't need to be healed immediately; still, clothies will be clothies, so if you and the tank are all set for healing, make sure the DPS gets their share.

3. Use Barkskin if you are attacked.
Nothing too complicated about that. Barkskin reduces the damage you take and allows you to heal without your spells being delayed by damage, so if enemies decide to head your way, toughen up a bit with this spell. I also recommend using it before using Tranquility so as not to lose ticks of that spell.

4. Use Innervate when your mana reaches 10,000 less than its maximum.
Innervate restores 7866 mana at level 80, or about 8,000. Since it is your main way to get back mana, you want to have it available frequently, especially when you move into raids, where boss fights will be long enough to allow you to use Innervate two or three times. As such, you want to use it early, but how early? If you use it when you are lacking exactly 8,000 mana, you may regenerate mana in the time that Innervate is active, causing you reach maximum mana and waste your innervate. If you wait until you are lacking 10,000 mana, you probably won't regenerate enough mana to cause you to waste the mana you gain from Innervate. So, if you have 30,000 mana, use Innervate when you have 20,000.

5. Rebirth the tank if the fight is salvageable; rebirth a person capable of resurrection if it is not.
Let's say your tank has died on a boss fight, but that Death Knight DPS went into Frost Presence and took control. He can tank it for now, but you know he won't last long (of course, in a heroic, he will, but we are building habbits for raids, here). In this case, the fight is salvagable, so use Rebirth on the tank and heal him as quickly as you can so he can get back in the game and start tanking again. Now, suppose the tank has died and none of your DPS can off-tank. In this case, the boss will probably rush through and massacre your party before you can resurrect the tank and get his health back up, and if no DPS survive, the fight will take forever. As such, if any of your DPS can resurrect, it's better to use Rebirth on them once they have died. They can then wait for the fight to end, then accept your rebirth and resurrect everyone else. That way, people don't need to run through the heroic again. Note that, in most heroics these days, you are unlikely to encounter a situation where using Rebirth on a DPS is better than using it on the tank, but again, you are building habits for raids here. In fact, you probably won't ever use Rebirth in a heroic, but still, if you encounter a situation where you do need to use it, it's important to know how.

I accidentally posted this early, so you get your advice early this week.

Druid healing in heroics in flowchart form

I have resigned myself to doing heroics so I can get a cloak for when I level from 80 to 85, and in order to save my sanity, I have decided to run them as a healer. I find healing to be a much more relaxing job than tanking, and with all of the gear everyone has, healing in heroics has become quite simple--so simple, in fact, that it can be reduced to a flow chart, which is exactly what I have done here. For the sake of ease of use, I have highlighted the starting point of the chart in a red box.

















Click for the full size.

When spells are put in pairs or triplets, use them in order from let to right. For the sake of space, I used icons rather than spell names. Here's a visual guide in case the spells aren't familiar to you.

= Healing Touch




= Lifebloom




= Nature's Swiftness




= Nourish




= Rejuvenation




= Regrowth




= Revive




= Swiftmend




= Tranquility




= Wild Growth




Note that this post is only meant to visually cover what spells to use for restoring health. For a more complete guide to druid healing, I highly recommend Lissanna's healing guide. I was going to write more on the other points of druid healing, but I am too busy to do so this week; expect more info on druid healing in heroics next week.

What mastery bonuses I want for Druids

I have already written a post about what mastery bonuses I want for druids, but this was back in the days when we didn't know much about mastery bonuses would look like. Now that we have a better idea of what they will look like, I think it's time I revisit this topic. I'll reprint the part of that post that summarizes the general set-up of Mastery bonuses.

Here's how the system works: As you spend points in a given talent tree, you'll receive three different passive bonuses specific to that tree. The first bonus will increase your damage, healing, or survivability, depending on the intended role of the tree. The second bonus will be related to a stat commonly found on gear desirable to you, such as Haste or Crit. The third bonus will be the most interesting, as it will provide an effect completely unique to that tree -- meaning there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found on high-level (level 80 to 85) gear.

Balance:

Bonus 1: Damage - Improves your spell damage by X%.

Bonus 2: Perception - Increases your hit rating by an amount equal to X% of your spirit. Any extra hit rating will be converted into crit rating.
Blizzard has said that in order to allow Trees and Moonkin to share gear, Moonkin will receive their hit rating from spirit. That said, this creates the potential for them to get too much hit rating, which is why I added the second part of this bonus. Still, if Blizzard could balance (no pun intended) that conversion well enough, perhaps converting surplus hit to crit wouldn't be necessary.

Bonus 3: Crit Damage - Improves your spell critical strike damage bonus by X%.
This would replace Vengeance in the Balance talent tree. Though I don't know much about the Moonkin playstyle, I know that critical strikes are a large part of it, and this is one of the few boring talents in the Balance tree, so it warrants being converted into a mastery bonus.

Feral:

Bonus 1: Tenacity - Improves your melee damage by X% in Cat Form and reduces all damage you take by X% in Bear Form.
Since Feral Druids perform two rolls, we would need a dynamic first bonus like this one. The issue would be how to give the two effects different numbers, since a 100% bonus to damage is very different in potency from a 100% damage reduction. Perhaps it could be worded like this: "Damage done (Cat) X% / Damage taken (Bear) -X%"

Bonus 2: Ruggedness - Improves your attack power by X% in Cat Form and your stamina by X% in Bear Form.
This would replace Heart of the Wild, one of our boring talents, and would have the dynamic-ness we Ferals need.

Bonus 3: Bloodlust - Improves the damage of your bleed effects by X%.
Bleeds are an integral part of the Feral playstyle. Lacerate is important for Bears to cause threat and Cats need to keep Rip and Rake on their target to maximize their DPS, so it makes sense for our third mastery bonus to boost our bleed damage. After all, no other class depends on bleeds as much as we do, and the third bonus is supposed to boost what makes each class unique.

Restoration:

Bonus 1: Healing - Improves your healing by X%.

Bonus 2: Intensity - Improves your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat.
Since Blizzard seems to be intent on priests replacing their Meditation talent with a mastery bonus, it makes sense for us druids to do the same for ours.

Bonus 3: Splendor - Adds an instant healing effect to heal-over-time spells, such as Rejuvenation.
This would make many of our spells better: Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, and Wild Growth would all cause some instant healing when cast, which would probably make the Resto playstyle much more interesting. Regrowth is left out in the cold by this bonus, but perhaps the heal could instantly be applied when Regrowth is cast, but if the cast isn't completed, then the health restored by the instant heal is lost.

Don't be that Druid...

I was inspired by this post on WoW.com to write this how-to guide on how not to be that druid. These are things that some druids do that no druid should do. With that said, if you play a druid, don't be that druid who...
-Puts Thorns on anyone but the tank(s). If the tank loses aggro, those thorns mean more aggro for the poor DPS or healer who is hit, making the tank's job more difficult. No one else needs that extra threat. "But," you may say, "they'll only be hit a few times; what harm can a little extra damage do?" If they are being hit that infrequently (as they should be), that damage really won't make any difference. In short, only put Thorns on the tank.
-Who doesn't keep Thorns on the tank(s). This is especially true of you balance and resto druids, since you have spellpower, and thus your Thorns will cause quite a bit of damage, helping the tank keep threat. However, if you are a Cat feral druid and there are no other druids in the group, your Thorns will be better than nothing. Keep it up on the tank.
-Doesn't put Mark of the Wild on someone after they die and are resurrected. This one should be self-explanatory.
-Forgets reagents. Keep a stack of twenty of whatever you need to cast Gift of the Wild on you at all times, maybe even forty if you are a raider. At level 80, that's Wild Spineleaf. Also, always keep some seeds on you for Rebirth, unless you have Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth, a great glyph for any druid.
-Fights in caster form. Granted, feral druids can't really get away with this, and balance and resto druids don't get their respective forms until levels 40 and 50, respectively, but once you get your form, you'll rarely have a reason to leave it during combat. Between fights is fine, but not during them.
-Complains about any tank or healer shortage. Now, just because you can tank or heal doesn't mean you need to. That said, if you are tired of waiting for a group because you are a DPS, it is fully within your power to do something about it. As such, know that if you do complain, then you are complaining about an issue to which you can be part of the solution

Don't be that Bear who...
-Uses Swipe around enemies under crowd control. You need to remember that Swipe hits all enemies around you, and it has a range of eight yards, so it can hit enemies you can't hit with your normal attacks.
-Uses Lacerate on packs of trash when your group is AoE'ing everything down. Swipe is a better option, since it is better for short-term threat and damages everything around you, whereas Lacerate causes better long-term threat on a single target.
-Never uses Rebirth. It may be difficult for you to find an opportunity to use Rebirth as a tank, but those opportunities do exist. Don't think that Improved Leader of the Pack can replace your healer if he dies; bring him back to life. That said, if there is another druid in the raid who isn't tanking, let them use it first before you use yours.

Don't be that Cat who...
-Uses Mangle (Cat) when you have a Bear tank. Mangle (Bear) is a Bear's highest single-target threat ability, so they will be using it. Save your energy for more Shreds. The one exception to this rule is if you have an idol that is activated by Mangle, like the Idol of Mutilation.
-Uses nothing but Swipe (Cat) on pulls with two or three enemies. Ok, maybe spamming Swipe would be ok for three enemies, but not two (and certainly not one). Just focus on one, then the other.
-Always stays in Cat Form. I know that goes against the advice I gave before, but let's face it; you won't be using Innervate on yourself. Throw it on a healer in need of some mana. And if a healer or tank dies, Rebirth can save the run. Use both. If you are going through a 5-man and your healer dies, Barkskin and Tranquility, when used together, can save your group. Don't forget that you can also heal the tank if you need to do so.

Don't be that Moonkin who...
-Spams Moonfire. Seriously, just don't do it; it goes through mana like America and China go through oil.
-Never uses Remove Curse or Abolish Poison. You're healer could use the help, especially in The Frozen Halls.
-Uses Hurricane on pulls with one or two enemies. I've seen it happen, and it's a horrible waste of mana.

Don't be that Tree who...
-Stacks Lifebloom. Lifebloom is no longer mana-efficient when you stack it. If you want a HoT on your tank, start with Rejuvenation. If that isn't enough, use Regrowth. If you still need more constant healing, use a single Lifebloom, let it bloom so you can get your mana back, and use it again; that is a much more mana-efficient way of using it than keeping it stacked three times.
-Uses Wild Growth when you will only be healing one or two people. Using a single-target heal or two is much more mana-efficient.
-Uses Tranquility outside of 5-mans. Tranquility is a wonderful emergency ability in 5-mans, but it only heals your group, so it's next to useless is 10-mans and pretty much useless in 25-mans. It also needs to be channeled, so even in 5-mans, that limits its versatility. If your tank is taking more damage than Tranquility can heal, there is nothing you can do to heal him without canceling Tranquility and wasting all that mana.
-Uses Healing Touch at level 80. You have Nourish; it is better; use it. The only time you should use Healing Touch is in conjunction with Nature's Swiftness for a large emergency heal.

Is there anything else you have seen a druid do that you would like added to the list?

Best Druid glyphs for your spec/area of play

Glyphs were added with the Insciption profession in Wrath of the Lich King, and they have added a new dimension to character customization. Because there are many druid glyphs, I figured it would be a good idea to write a guide to which ones I think are best. (However, because of the wide number of roles druids can fill and the fact that we don't have many more abilities than other classes, we don't have many glyphs to choose from for each role, so the decision isn't as difficult as it is for other classes.) That said, this is just my opinion, and if you feel you would get more use out of a glyph not mentioned here, feel free to use it.

Major

Balance (Leveling/Solo)
Glyph of Entangling Roots
Considering that Entangling Roots is the one thing keeping a mob from getting all up in your grill (I apologize for using that phrase), the utility of this glyph should be obvious.
Glyph of Wrath
Sometimes, however, no matter what you do, mobs will attack you, in which case its nice to have a spell that you can use without being interrupted frequently.
Glyph of Monsoon
Of course, sometimes you just want to get those pesky mobs out of melee range, and this glyph will help you do that more frequently. (Note: If you don't take Typhoon in your leveling build, then take either Glyph of Innervate or Glyph of Starfall.)

Balance (PvP)
Glyph of Wrath
Though you will have some interruption protection from Nature's Foucs, the fact that many people will probably be attacking you means that an uninterrupted stream of Wrath casts will certainly be helpful.
Glyph of Monsoon
You'll want to keep those players out of melee range as much as possible, so you'll want to be able to knock them back as much as possible.
Glyph of Barkskin
Of course, you will take damage no matter what you do, but with this glyph and with Barkskin up, you'll take less, especially from those stun-happy rogues.

Balance (Raiding)
Glyph of Moonfire
Since most raid battles tend to go on for a long time, Moonfire will do more damage with its DoT than its instant damage, so this glyph is a no-brainer.
Glyph of Starfire
Combine this glyph with Glyph of Moonfire and your Moonfire will be doing very mana efficient damage in no time.
Glyph of Insect Swarm
This one is a bit trickier. If you have a hunter using Scorpid Sting in your raid, then you have nothing to worry about, but otherwise you're tank will be taking a bit more damage. Still, it's worth it to make one of the most mana efficient spells in the game even better.

Feral (Leveling/Solo)
Glyph of Claw
Useful while leveling. However, the moment you get Mangle, replace this glyph with something... anything! (Except for Glyph of Mangle. Since you'll probably be solo-ing in cat form, you'll be using Mangle a lot anyways, so there is no point in getting a glyph that increases its duration.
Glyph of Rake
Keeps your enemies from running away. This way you won't need to chase after those runners to keep them from bringing some of their friends back with them.
Glyph of Berserk
Makes our only offensive emergency ability even better. Berserk is fantastic, so five more seconds of it is even better. That's three more multi-target mangles or 100 more free energy.

As for your third glyph after you hit 80, just take your pick from any of them. These are the only glyphs that directly benefit solo-ing ferals.

Feral (PvP)
Glyph of Berserk
PvP is all about burst damage, so now you can make your burst damage last even longer.
Glyph of Barkskin
This glyph is useful to all specs in PvP, so take it.
Glyph of Survival Instincts
For when you need to be that much harder to kill. Survival Instincts is a great way to add a bit more fight to your druid, so this glyph allows you to add even more fight to your druid.

Feral (Tanking)
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
Since this is one of our two defensive cooldowns in Bear Form, why not make it even better? It's going to be draining your threat anyways, so you may as well get the most out of it.
Glyph of Maul
Tanking two targets is a tricky game, but this glyph makes it a bit easier. Since you'll be using maul a lot, you may as well get the most out of it.
Glyph of Survival Instincts
While I personally don't use Survival Instincts, and thus have no use for this glyph, I know that many tanks do, so if you do use Survival Instincts, take this glyph. (If you don't, just take Glyph of Growl.)

Feral (DPS)
Glyph of Savage Roar
You should have Savage Roar up all the time as a raid DPS, so this way you will increase all damage you do by 3%. That's pretty damn good.
Glyph of Rip
Rip is an incredible finishing move, so this glyph makes it even better and gives you more time energy for Shreds of even the occasional Ferocious Bite.
Glyph of Shred
And speaking of Shred, since you will be using it so frequently, you may as well get the most out of it. This glyph makes Rip even better, allowing for a full 22 seconds of bleeding goodness.

Resto (PvP)
Glyph of Barkskin
Because they always seem to go after the healer, for some reason.
Glyph of Regrowth
In the frenzied pace of PvP, I usually end up throwing Regrowths on people whom I have already cast it on, so this glyph will be helpful for you if you do the same thing.
Glyph of Swiftmend
In PvP, you don't have the extra time to re-apply to HoT, so this glyph will be invaluable.

Resto (5-Mans)
Glyph of Swiftmend
So you never need to worry about sacrificing healing later for healing now.
Glyph of Nourish
Though PvE can get very frenzied, you should be collected enough to be able to cast Nourish on your targets with Regrowth active on them, so the Glyph of Regrowth will have limited utility. Thus you'll want to take this glyph instead.
Glyph of Innervate
This is more of a filler glyph than anything, since the really gem of a resto glyph isn't useful until you move on to 10-mans or 25-mans

Resto (Raids)
Glyph of Wild Growth
Ah, here we go. Though this is admittedly more useful in 25-mans than 10-mans, the fact is that it makes one of the best raid-healing spells in the game even better.
Glyph of Nourish
Raid bosses usually end up doing a lot of damage to the tank, damage you can't heal with just your HoTs, so this glyph will be even more useful than it is in 5-mans.
Glyph of Swiftmend
Saves time and saves mana. You know why you love this glyph.

Minor Glyphs:
Since these are mostly matters of personal choice, I'll simply say who I think each glyph is good for and leave the choice up to you. I have ordered these in what I see as order of usefulness, with the most useful ones on the top.
Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth
Though the reagents for Rebirth don't cost very much, this glyph frees you up from needing to carry them around. Although you can drop this glyph if you want three of the glyphs bellow, I recommend it for any druid.
Glyph of Thorns
This glyph is a life saver for any solo-ing or leveling druid. I highly recommend it. Anyone who has ever solo-ed without this glyph knows what a pain it is to keep shifting out of your forms to cast Thorns. It's also pretty useful for tanks in 5-mans, but if you have a druid with spellpower gear on in your group (which is more likely in raids), they should be casting Thorns on you instead
Glyph of Dash
Invaluable for PvP as any spec. Also good as a filler glyph for raiders for those long runs back after wiping on a boss far in the instance.
Glyph of Aquatic Form
This can be a pretty good glyph for people leveling, but its still more of a filler glyph than anything. Take it if you don't want anything else.
Glyph of the Wild
Nothing more than a filler glyph, but still worth taking if you are a raider and have an empty glyph slot to fill.

And those are what I think are the best druid glyphs. This is just opinion and you can take it with a grain of salt if you want, but I think you'll agree with at least some of what I say here. As for which order you take your glyphs in while leveling, I leave that up to you. By the time you unlock you first glyph slots at level 15, you should know enough about your playstyle to know which glyphs will help you the most.