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.

Talents, prerequisites, and thinking like a player

It has been quite some time since the event that inspired me to write this post occurred--almost two weeks, to be exact--but the issue I want to discuss doesn't derive its relevance from any recent development; it is a point that is, I think, worth discussing at any time. About two weeks ago, Ghostcrawler (WoW's lead systems designer) posted a comment in a forum topic about senseless prerequisites within talent trees (like when a PvP ability is a prerequisite for a class's core PvE ability; Dragon’s Breath being required for Living Bomb was given as an example). In response to players asking for their removal, Ghostcrawler had this to say:

This is the kind of feedback I categorize as thinking like a player not like a designer. As a player, removing prereqs in talent trees removes restrictions. Rather than having to make a hard choice, you can take what you want. Under that logic, it makes sense to you for the developer to remove the prereqs. But you could make a similar argument about the talent tree tiers as a whole. If I didn't have to spend those 5 talent points in tier 2, then I could get that extra talent point somewhere else! Wouldn't that give me as a player more freedom, and doesn't more freedom always lead to a better game?

I can see where his thinking is coming from, and like many of Ghostcrawler's posts, I can sympathize with the point he is trying to make, but I think he missed one key point in this discussion: what about the developers thinking like players? Because from the other comments he made in the thread, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of that going on.

Ghostcrawler's main point seemed to be that the reason these seemingly senseless prerequisites exist is to force the player to make actual choices about whether it's worth it to take those less useful talents in order to take the more useful ones. This I can understand, but I find his method misguided for several reasons. For one thing, when the prerequisites are for talents that players need to take, because those talents are part of their main DPS arsenal (the original post lists many examples), it really isn't a matter of choice. When players are forced to take talents they'll never use in order to get their necessary talents, all the designers are doing is inconveniencing those classes. Now, this can be justified by the idea that it's up to the players to find creative ways to take advantage of these situational talents, but there are some cases where that just isn't possible. When will a frost death knight DPSing in a raid use Hungering Cold? And won't an arms warrior who's DPSing in a raid lose damage if he going out of range to charge?

And here's the thing: yes, these paths force us to make choices about how we spend our talents points, as Ghostcrawler himself said.

A lot of the game is about making choices. If the choice is hard, that means both options are compelling. If the choice is easy then the game has less depth because instead of picking left vs. right you are picking right vs. wrong.

I completely agree with him on this, but being forced to choose between taking a lack-luster talent in order to take a good one and not taking either isn't a compelling choice if no player in their right mind would take the second option. When that's the case, the developers only succeed in making the player resent the game for reducing his choice by forcing him to spend extra talent points that could be spent elsewhere.

I can think of another reason Blizzard might want these abilities to be behind less useful talents, but that one doesn't hold up, either, even from a developer's standpoint. That reason is that, perhaps those abilities are behind prerequisites because they give the player too much power after spending only one talent point. Maybe the developers are just trying to increase the cost of the more useful abilities without flat-out increasing the number of talent points it takes to unlock them. If that's the case, there are other alternatives to putting them behind barely useful/useless prerequisites that only make the player resent receiving a useless talent when he reaches his odd level. They could always nerf the talent so it isn't as important of a part of the player's rotation, thus making it feasible the talent would be worth just one talent point. The other option, though, is a much better one when you think like a player: make the other talents in the tree more appealing.

To go with the old saying about trying to keep kids on the farm when they've seen the city, don't make it harder to get to the city; instead, improve the farm. Do you want players to actually consider whether or not they should take the talents you want them to put thought into taking? Then give them some viable alternatives. This is especially important in an era when we are only getting a talent point every two levels, so each talent needs to feel significant. If they really want the choice to be difficult, the solution is to improve the less attractive options, not to make the more attractive options more difficult to get. As players, this would be a much better alternative than direction Blizzard seems to be taking now. I know I'd rather antagonize between two excellent choices than two mediocre ones, and this would still create the same kind of difficult choice between two compelling options that Ghostcrawler is so focused on.

What really irks me is that it seems like Ghostcrawler, and possibly Blizzard in general, hasn't considered this option. This possibility shines through especially in this response by GC:

Let's take your argument to the next level. What if there is nothing in the first tier that appeals to me? Why can I just skip over tier 1 and spend points in tier 2 directly? For that matter, why do I have to spend down a talent tree at all. If I would use both Earthquake and Feral Spirit, shouldn't I be able to get both of those? Is it a better game that I am denied that option?

While I agree with him about his larger point, that talent tree mechanics exist the way they do now to prevent players from cherry-picking talents, I can't agree with where he's coming from about skipping the first tier of talents if nothing there appeals to you. I can't agree with him, because in that case, the problem isn't a player trying to maximize his potential power within the system; the problem is the system itself. If there is really nothing within the first tier that appeals to players, but Blizzard still plans on making players spend talent points in that first tier, how can they call that talent tree successfully designed? See, though the current talent tree system exists as it does so player can't cherry pick talents, that doesn't mean that players are supposed to feel as if they would like to cherry pick talents. The fact that players can feel the restraint of those restrictions shows that the talents in the tree just aren't that appealing, which is the fault of the designers, not the players. In an ideal world (of warcraft), players wouldn't notice those restrictions because the talents would be so awesome that players would wish for more talent points to spend. The fact that players can feel those restraints shows that the choices just aren't as appealing as they should be, and when those choices aren't appealing, the talent tree is just not well-designed.

All of the conclusions I came to in this post would be abundantly clear to Ghostcrawler and team if they would try thinking like players. We players are fine with making difficult decisions when it comes to our talents if both options are viable and both are appealing. If Blizzard can make that happen, then there will probably be less complaining about the talent trees. Sure, players will probably just complain about how the talent trees are too good and they need more talent points or fewer talents, but at least it would be easier for Blizzard to defend their design against that kind of criticism. After all, it's easier to defend there being too much of a good thing than there not being enough.

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!

The inherent risk of replenishment

Replenishment is an interesting little buff. It has been added to a variety of talent trees over the course of Wrath of the Lich King, from the most overpowered to the ones in greatest need of a buff. The first three trees it was added to (Survival (Hunter), Shadow (Priest), and Retribution (Paladin)) were all less than popular during the Burning Crusade, and I suppose part of Replenishment's raison detre was to increase interest in these trees. Replenishment was later added to the Destruction tree and the Frost tree (Warlocks and Mages, respectively), and though I can't speak about the state of Warlock balance when Replenishment was added to Destruction without risking saying something horribly incorrect, I know that Frost has been falling behind the other Mage trees in terms of DPS and is only now coming to the forefront on the PTR. It seems to me that Replenishment was just a band-aid to make Frost seem more raid-viable while Blizzard worked on an actual fix to Frost's DPS, just like how Replenishment was likely added to it's original three sources in case Blizzard wasn't able to make them viable by the time Wrath of the Lich King came out.

There is a risk in using Replenishment in such a way, though. That risk is that replenishment may let Blizzard off the hook when it comes to fixing specs. We saw that risk manifested in Frost Mages, who are still falling behind on the PTR, though not as much as previously. Though I can't say for certain that Survival wasn't as attractive as Marksmanship when Wrath began, I do know there were few talents in the tree that actually boosted ranged damage, and I know that Black Arrow was originally slated to be included in Burning Crusade, but was scrapped because it was too powerful. The fact that Blizzard added a spell to the Survival tree that they once considered too powerful says a lot about how Survival was matching up against the other specs.

Far be it from me to criticize Blizzard's balancing efforts, for they have a lot of things to consider when tweaking the numbers behind class balance. That said, Replenishment seems to me to act as no more than a consolation until Blizzard can come around to fixing a spec. After all, most raids already had a source of Replenishment in the form of a Retribution Paladin, considering their massive popularity during most of Wrath, and considering the prevalence of Replenishment when it was added to Improved Water Elemental (now Enduring Winter), most 25-man raids (the only place where Replenishment was considered a necessity, rather than a bonus) had some source of it already. Point is, giving Replenishment to Frost Mages didn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things; it was little more than a symbolic affirmation that Blizzard recognized that Frost Mages were falling behind and wanted to improve them.

Blizzard could have accomplished the same thing with an actual buff, however; something like adding Glyph of Eternal Water earlier. Now, I don't know the logistics of how Blizzard goes about buffing and nerfing classes, but it seems to me like giving a minor buff to a class would be a better option than adding Replenishment. It would allow Blizzard to dip their feet, so to speak, in the buffing pool and get an idea of how much buffing the class needs to be even with everyone else, it would actually improve the class in a tangible way, and it would give the same affirmation that adding Replenishment to a class gives.

Of course, Blizzard probably would have buffed Frost Mages if they thought they really needed to be buffed. Perhaps Frost Mages weren't falling behind at that point in time, or perhaps Blizzard didn't see keeping them competitive as a necessity, considering their survivability and thus viability as a solo-ing and PvP spec. (Perhaps one of the commenters could enlighten me on the state of Frost Mages around the time when patch 3.1 was released.)

Regardless, the fact that Frost Mages fell so far behind shows that adding Replenishment or a similar effect to a spec isn't enough to make that spec worthwhile. Many people think Rogues should get an effect similar to Bloodlust/Heroism in order to make them more popular, but considering how many shamans there are in the world, how much would that really help? After all, like Replenishment, the Rogue version of Bloodlust would need to be subject to the same cooldown as the Shaman's Bloodlust, meaning if there were already a shaman in the raid, the Rogue's Bloodlust would be a pointless addition. The key to making classes and specs attractive is not adding homogeneous buffs, but to either bring the class up to speed with everyone else or add something that makes the class unique (or both). Adding a carbon-copy of another class's buff to an underpowered class is nothing more than pointless consolation, an easy way out for Blizzard.

Tips on leveling a priest

A while ago, I went over some general things I have learned by leveling a shadow priest. That priest is now level 47, and though I still have a ways to go before hitting the level cap, there are some things I have learned by leveling him that I would like to share with anyone out there considering leveling a priest.

1. Be prepared to be bored.
Priests are definitely near the top of the list of most boring classes to play at early levels, along with paladins and druids. You'll spend a lot of time spamming Smite, since that will be your only worthwhile offensive spell until level 10, when you get Mind Blast. Shadow Word: Pain? Only worth using if your enemy will be alive for a while, which, at low levels, they won't be. Things get much better at level 20, when you get Holy Fire, Holy Nova, Devouring Plague, and if you spec'ed shadow, Mind Flay. Yep, your offensive arsenal more than doubles in size when you reach level 20.

2. Take advantage of Mind Flay's speed debuff.
I like to start every battle with either Mind Blast or Holy Fire. Obviously, once you get Shadow Form, Holy Fire isn't an option, but before then, it's usually more mana-efficient and causes more damage. Anyways, start your battles at maximum range, then use whichever ability you plan on starting out with. Immediately when your cast finishes, use Mind Flay. That will slow your enemy and damage them, and if you used Holy Fire, it gives some time for the DoT to do its work. I can usually use Mind Flay twice before the enemy reaches me if I start at maximum range. Doing this also applies five stacks of Shadow Weaving if you have three points in that, allowing you to start the battle out strong. Also, if your enemy runs away from you, use Mind Flay to finish them off and slow them down at the same time, reducing the risk of them bring back more of their buddies. In fact, I often find that when I use Mind Flay to slow down a runner, he tends to run in the opposite direction when I use it, meaning back to me and away from his friends, but he is still technically fleeing, so he won't attack me.

3. Use this macro.
#showtooltip Mind Flay
/cast [nochanneling:Mind Flay] Mind Flay
This macro allows you to cast Mind Flay, but only if you are not channeling it already. Thus you can spam it and start using Mind Flay again immediately after you finish casting it, which is useful for the above-mentioned method, without clipping it and losing out on damage.

4. Don't use your DoTs unless your target will take a while to kill and the DoTs will run their full duration.
Your damage-over-time spells are some of your most mana-intensive spells. They aren't worth using unless you are using them to their full potential, meaning you won't get the most out of them unless your enemy takes a long time to die. Now, granted, I have been known to drop Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain on an enemy that attacks me while I am attacking someone else so that they don't have as much health once I get to them, but aside from doing that and when facing elite enemies or targets a few levels above you, DoTs aren't worth using. When facing a target a few levels above you, it's generally better to use one of your DoTs, rather than both, otherwise you'll burn right through your mana. Use whichever one is more mana-efficient. Once you get Improved Devouring Plague, that will generally be Devouring Plague, but until then, it's usually which ever one you last bought an upgrade for.

5. Keep Inner Fire up at all times.
With Inner Fire active, you'll have a similar armor-count to what a leather user has, which definitely makes it amazing. Trouble is, you lose one charge everyone time you are hit, so after 20 hits, you're right back down to your crappy cloth armor-count. This means you'll need to refresh it at the end of every two or three battles, or even in the middle of battle if you are facing multiple enemies or an elite (yes, you can solo-kill elites on a shadow priest if you know what you are doing; I solo-ed Big Game Hunter while it was still yellow in my quest log). Like a shaman's shields, it's easy to forget to reapply it in the middle of battle, but be sure you do so.

6. Take advantage of Spirit Tap to buff yourself while regenerating mana.
Speaking of buffs.... Spirit Tap is an amazing talent that doubles your spirit after you kill something and allows most of your spirit-based mana regeneration to take place, even if you are casting. That means you should use it as an opportunity to reapply the multitude of buffs you'll need to keep active on yourself so that you don't gimp yourself out of mana by buffing yourself when it will activate the five second rule.

7. Get Glyph of Shadow.
Spirit Tap alone is a good reason to stack spirit on a Shadow Priest, but this glyph makes it an even more lucrative stat. I don't know why, but this glyph was particularly hard to find on my realm's Auction House. If the same is true on your realm, then as you start approaching level 40, you should look on the auction house to see if someone put it up. Anyways, this glyph gives you a spellpower boost based on your spirit when you crit with Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Sear, or the instant damage of Improved Devouring Plague, and considering that you'll probably use the first two pretty frequently, you are bound to learn personally just how sweat this glyph is, especially when that Mind Blast you start the battle with critically hits.

Since this post probably qualifies, I will be submitting it as part of Tree Burglar's Elder Blogging Event. You can read about it here on his blog or here on Blog Azeroth.

Tips on leveling a shaman

As I mentioned in my Discovery Channel tribute, I have a shaman alt that I have been leveling since early in the Burning Crusade era. Because of my less-than-consistent dedication to him, he is still languishing in early Burning Crusade content; he's just the character I go back to when I need a break from end-game, so I play him pretty infrequently. Still, in leveling him, I have learned quite a bit about leveling a shaman that I thought I would share here for anyone else who is doing the same.

1. Spec Enhancement
Of course, this piece of advice comes with the universal leveling-spec-advice caveat: you should level as whatever spec you like the most. No matter what you want to do with your alt, you'll likely do it better as a spec you like than as an "efficient" spec. Are you leveling for fun? Well, it's a no brainer there. Trying to get your alt to 8o quickly? You'll want to play it more if you enjoy your spec, so you'll likely get your alt to 80 faster with a spec you enjoy than with the "best" leveling spec. With that said, Enhancement is both a good leveling spec and a fun spec to play. The mix of melee and casting (especially with the inclusion of Maelstrom Weapon late in the talent tree) makes the enhancement shaman one of the only specs (probably the only, in fact) that feels like a true hybrid class. Enhancement also has good mana efficiency, especially as you level, to the point where by the time you reach 50, you'll rarely need to buy water again.

2. Weapon choices
If you level as Enhancement, the type of weapon you use will be an important decision to make. Of course, once you hit level 40 (or 41 if you took Stormstrike first), you should take the talent Dual Wield and equip the two slowest one-handed weapons you can find for your level. There's no reason to do anything else. Before then, you'll need to decide whether to use a two-handed weapon or a one-handed weapon and a shield. If you use a two-handed weapon, battles will be over faster, since you'll be taking more damage (without the shield) and causing more damage to your foes. You'll also need to get two replacement weapons once you hit level 40 (or 41). If you use a one-handed weapon and a shield, you battles will be more drawn out, giving you more time to react and making the battles less hectic. You'll also only need to get one new weapon when you get Dual Wield. Ultimately, my advice is this: if you want to rush your shaman to the level cap, use a two-hander; if you want to play him to relax, use a one-hander and a shield. Either way, it all evens out at 40: you get to wear mail, so that will make up for the loss of the shield, and dual wielding will likely increase your damage either way.

As an extra note, if you use a shield, then defense rating becomes surprisingly useful between levels 30 and 40, assuming you took Spirit Weapons. The combination of being able to parry and block means you'll be able to take advantage of all of the aspects of defense rating, so if you see a ring with it that is an upgrade for you, think about taking it.

3. Totems are mana-intensive.
Although totems can bring many benefits to your shaman in battle, they cost a lot of mana to drop. Until you get Shamanistic Rage at 50 (assuming you spec'ed enhance) you have no quick way of getting that mana back, so totems are only worth using if you'll be able to benefit from them for a while. As such, you should only drop them in a spot close to a few enemies that you are going to kill. If you are running around for a quest, never staying in one place for more than one kill, dropping totems is not a good idea; you'll burn through mana faster than classic-era balance druid. If you want to get the most out of your totems, try using Lightning Bolt to pull an enemy from afar, then run toward your totems and fight him by them. Use shocks to keep him interested in you if you have to. With all that said, if you are going to fight more than one enemy in one spot, at least drop Mana Spring Totem. The others are only worth using if you are going to be killing at least four or five enemies by the spot where you drop them, but Mana Spring Totem, when used at every opportunity, really adds up. Try to use it right before battle so that you gimp your spirit-based mana regen as little as possible.

4. Use your elemental shields intelligently
At level 8, you get a spell called Lightning Shield that causes extra damage to enemies that attack you. At level 20, you get Water Shield, which restores mana when you are attacked and also constantly restores mana. There are a few important points to remember when using these spells in order to use them well.
-Use Lightning Shield if you are finishing battles with less health than mana (percentage-wise). Use Water Shield if you are finishing battles with less mana than health.
-If you are using Water Shield, make sure you always have at least one orb left so you can benefit from the passive mana regeneration as well as the orb effect. Because Lightning Shield is on an internal cooldown, you don't need to activate it immediately after it runs out, but don't delay too long or you'll miss out on that free extra damage.
-In the heat of battle, it's easy to forget to refresh your shields when they run out. Make it a habit to refresh whatever shield you are using whenever you aren't casting anything else and won't case anything else in the next second and a half.
-If you are just riding somewhere and have no intention of fighting anything, don't leave up Lightning Shield. Water Shield is fine, but Lightning Shield will cause threat to enemies that attack you, making them chase your farther than they usually would.

Leveling a druid (what moves to use): Levels 61-80

And now we hit the home stretch of druid leveling. You should start investing points in restoration now. I'll advise you on which talents to pick up as we go along; for a healing tree, resto has some very good feral talents. Unlike before, the moves you get in the next 20 levels will change your strategy quite significantly, so they will warrant more discussion than previous moves.

Level 61
Start investing points in Furor. It's the best way for a leveling feral to start investing in the resto talents tree, and once you start using it, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. Furor gives you ten rage when you shift into Bear Form and allows you to gain energy when you shift into Cat Form. It used to always give you 40 energy, but people abused that fact to get extra energy, so now it simply allows your energy regeneration to continue out of cat form and gives you that energy when you shift back in. At least, that's how I understand it. So, if you shift into Cat Form the first time after you log in, you'll have the maximum amount of energy that the talent lets you have. However, if you have zero when you shift out and then immediately shift back in, you'll only have about 10 or 15 energy. Regardless, it's useful since you'll be able to shift out to heal yourself and then jump right back into the fray when you shift back.

Level 62
You now get Maim, which is a great ability when used right. It's a finishing move that stuns your enemy for a certain amount of time. The more combo points you have, the longer the stun. Though it is useful to interrupt spell casting or stop enemies, it's best application is in using it as another chance to use Shred. After you stun your enemy, if you have enough time and energy, you can run behind them and use Shred for more damage. As such, when you get five combo points, this is what you should do, based on your enemy's health:
>75%: Use Rip
75-40%: Wait until you have at least forty energy, then use Maim, then Shred
<40%: Ferocious Bite

Level 64
You now get Lifebloom. This spell is a hollow shell of what it used to be, and when you have no spell power, it is your least mana efficient healing spell. Still, if you only need to heal the amount that Lifebloom will heal you for or less, there's no sense in using a spell that costs more mana when you won't be doing any more healing.

Level 66
You now get Lacerate, an ability that will make your Bear Form combat more interesting. It applies a damage over time effect to the target that can be stacked for more damage. It's not worth using when you are fighting large crowds in Bear Form, but when you are fighting one very powerful enemy, you should keep five applications of Lacerate on them at all times. Still, you need to use Mangle (Bear) whenever you can, so what you should do when fighting a very powerful foe is start with Mangle, then use Lacerate until you get to five stacks, using Mangle whenever it is off of its cooldown, and then use Swipe when Mangle is on its cooldown. Make sure you use Lacerate before it runs out so that you don't need to reapply it; I'd say do it within five seconds of when Lacerate will run out.

You should also start investing your talent points in Naturalist, which will increase all physical damage you do by 10% at max. It's a very powerful boost.

Level 70
You get Cyclone at this level. It makes the enemy immune to all attacks and unable to do anything for six seconds. I didn't use it much while leveling, so use it if you find situational applications of it. I suppose you could use it with the instant-cast aspect of Predatory Strikes to allow yourself six seconds of uninterrupted healing without needing to use Barkskin.

Level 71
You finally get an AoE ability for Cat Form at this level: Swipe (Cat). If you are fighting two enemies, using this will be faster than fighting each one individually if you have invested in King of the Jungle and you use Tiger's Fury once you run out of energy. If you start out at full energy, that should give you enough Swipes to kill one and seriously injure the other. If you need to kill three or more and want to do it more quickly than Swiping them in Bear Form will allow, then use Swipe (Cat) in conjunction with Berserk; you will not be disappointed. However, if you really want to get the most out of Berserk, then don't use it until you have no energy left and have already used Tiger's Fury.

You can also train Swift Flight Form at this level if you have Artisan Riding. It's like Flight Form but with the speed of an epic mount. If that idea doesn't make you excited, then you clearly need to try more things with Flight Form.

You should invest your talent point in Omen of Clarity at this level. It will occasionally make your next ability free to use, and it is quite useful for that reason. It affects Thorns, so while you are buffing yourself, you should use Mark of the Wild first, since Omen of Clarity doesn't affect Mark of the Wild, though it can be triggered by Mark of the Wild, and it does affect Thorns. You can also use Lifebloom when Omen of Clarity is active to get some free mana, but the mana you get back is less than the cost of any other ability that is affected by Omen of Clarity, so that is only worth doing if the last spell you plan on casting for the next few moments triggers Omen of Clarity.

Level 75
You get a new finishing move for Cat Form for raids now: Savage Roar. It buffs your damage for a certain amount of time, lasting longer when you have more combo points. As awesome as this ability is, it shines most when you can attack for the majority of its duration, so save it for raids or when you take down an elite enemy in groups (in which case you will probably be tanking, anyways.)

Level 80
You did it! And your reward is... a healing spell! Nourish is actually a great ability for healing as a druid. It's a fast heal that heals for more when your target has a HoT on them. Truth be told, it's only really worth using when your target has a HoT on them, or else it loses a lot of it punch. Without any spellpower, it is less mana efficient then Regrowth, as mana efficient as Healing Touch (if you already have a HoT on yourself), and more mana efficient than Rejuvenation and Lifebloom. If you need to heal yourself out of combat and thus need to think about what is most mana efficient, I suggest starting with Regrowth, then calculating how much health you still need to heal after the initial heal. Subtract 2,000 from that, and use Nourish or Healing Touch to make up the difference.

So there you go; you've reached level 80! What you do now is your own choice, but whatever you do, you are now doing it with the best class in the game, hands down. You may wish to read my post on how to avoid those "What do I do now?" moments.

Leveling a druid (what moves to use): Levels 41-60

Here is the next installment of my druid leveling guide, which will hopefully not become completely irrelevant when Cataclysm rolls out and everything we know about WoW changes forever. Here's the first installment, and here's the second one, dealing with level 1-20 and 21-40 respectively.

Level 41
You'll want to start investing in the talent Improved Leader of the Pack. The passive self-healing provided by this talent is extraordinarily useful and one of the best reasons to play a druid and level it feral. Between the healing you gain from this talent and the ability to heal yourself, you'll never need food again. The mana it provides is pretty useful as well.

Level 44
You now get Barkskin, which reduces the damage you take for twelve seconds and makes you immune to spell delay effects, meaning that if you are being attacked by enemies, you can use Barkskin to heal yourself easily. I suggest you save it for when are out fighting and you need to shift out to heal yourself, since you'll be able to do so without attacks against you slowing you down. When you do this, I recommend starting with Regrowth, because of its short cast time, then Healing Touch, for a more substantial heal. You can use Healing Touch again if you need more healing, but make sure to get all of your healing done before its duration runs out. In an instance, you can use Barkskin while tanking to take less damage when fighting enemies; it's short cooldown means you can use it frequently for that purpose.

Level 50
You get two abilities at this level. The less amazing one is Gift of the Wild, a full-party/raid version of Mark of the Wild that requires a reagent. I don't suggest you actually buy those reagents and use this ability unless you run a lot of instances, which will probably be at level 80. You can just use manual buffing until then.

The real exciting ability you get at this level is one you get through talents: Mangle. You should pick up this ability the minute you hit level 50; it will change your life. It causes a high amount of damage and makes the target take more damage from bleed effects, and considering that a lot of your damage comes from bleed effects, that is a big bonus. It also increases the damage of your Shred and Maul abilities, which makes it even better. Take Mangle (Cat) and use it to replace Claw on your action bars; you have no use for Claw anymore. Mangle (Bear) doesn't replace anything, but it is still one of your best abilities for Bear Form, and unless you are fighting more than four enemies, you should use it whenever it is off of its cooldown.

Since Mangle is so life changing, you might be wondering how you should incorporate it into your strategy when out solo-ing. Here you go:
Cat Form: Start in Prowl, use Pounce, Mangle (to maximize Pounce's damage), Shred (if you have enough time and energy to use it), Rake. From here, use Mangle until you have five combo points, then use Rip if your target is above 75% health, Ferocious Bite if otherwise. Use Rake if its duration runs out, unless your target is about to die. When your target reaches 20% health, use Ferocious Bite to use up your remaining combo points.
Bear Form: Use Mangle at every given opportunity, Swipe when Mangle is on its cooldown, and Maul when you have extra rage. Much simpler, yes? If you are fighting more than four enemies, stick with Swipe and Maul

Level 51
Although you can start by investing your talent points in Improved Mangle (which is pretty awesome), you should know about a little talent called King of the Jungle. When you max out this talent, Tiger's Fury will give you 60 energy when used. Whether you want to save energy with Improved Mangle or get more with King of the Jungle is up to you, but you should invest in King of the Jungle at some point while leveling. It makes Tiger's Fury an awesome ability to use when you need a bit of a boost of damage in Cat Form.

Level 60
You get two fantastic abilities at this level. One is the talent Berserk, which pretty much makes you awesome, no matter what form you use it in. While in Bear Form, Berserk removes Mangle's cooldown and allows it to hit up to three targets. While used in Cat Form, it reduces the cost of all of your abilities by 50%, but prevents you from using Tiger's Fury (so you don't use it with King of the Jungle to get some cheap extra energy). If you are fighting three powerful enemies, then using Berserk in Bear Form in conjunction with Mangle is quite useful. You can also use it in Cat Form when you need a sizable boost to your single-target damage.

The other new ability you get is Flight From, which is better than a flying mount for several reasons. For one thing, learning it teaches you expert riding, or at least it did back in my day (can someone confirms that it still does?). You still need journeyman riding to learn it, but you should have that by now, anyways. Flight Form mimics a flying mount in several ways, but it is much better. Why? For one thing, it is an instant cast, so you can use it while moving, something no other class can do. It is also much cheaper than a mount. You can loot corpses, as well as skin corpses and collect herbs without leaving flight form, meaning if you are attacked in while doing those things, you can just fly up and leave combat. (An act colloquially knows as the "roflcopter") Finally, and I feel this is the most important part, YOU CAN USE IT WHILE FALLING! That means that you can jump off of a cliff and use it before you hit the ground, and you'll survive. This also means that if you are ever "dismounted", you can immediately "remount."

Here is a list of all of fun things you can do with Flight From, courtesy of WoWWiki.

• This form is instant cast, so it can be used to beat a strategic retreat if a fight is going badly. As soon as you are out of combat, it is possible to attempt an instant upwards escape.
• Skydiving! With practice and if you are high enough in the air when you start, you can dismount or unshift, cast an instant spell, and then shift back before hitting the ground and dying. In a case where you are being chased aerially, this allows you to heal and re-buff without making yourself vulnerable by landing. Be very careful of crashing when you do this!
• 'Gravity Chicken': two Druids fly up as high as possible, shift out, and the first to shift back loses. Extra points for talking non-Druids into playing.
• Flight Form can of course be used to avoid taking falling damage.
• Flight Form can be used to scout or bypass small obstacles quickly without the inconvenience of taking the time to mount up.
• This form can be used to quickly bypass content in a manner similar to that of stealth, but with differing limitations. It is also very useful for browsing for herbs, minerals, or rare-spawn mobs.
• In order to do a loop, enter the command /mountspecial. This only works while not moving. There are two actions, Pitch Up and Pitch Down, that can be key-mapped to permit gradual loops in motion.
• Moonbomb: In a heavily farmed area you can gain an advantage by scouting for mobs and Moonfiring immediately after reverting to caster form and before landing.
• RAWRbomb! Shift out of Flight Form while airborne, shift to Bear Form, and Feral Charge your target before you land. Practice until you can accurately land on top of your victims. Important note: You must have the resto skill Furor to get enough rage while falling to be able to Feral Charge; if not, you perform a RAWRsplat (unless you time Enrage perfectly).
• Sneaky Sneaky Sir: You can even shift out of Flight Form, pop into Cat Form, then Prowl all before hitting the ground. Perfect for surprise attacks! This also allows you to shift out from a higher altitude, with the Cat Form's inherent lowering of fall damage.
• You cannot be dismounted while in Flight Form or Swift Flight Form by a mob's Daze effect. This makes mobs like the Monstrous Kaliri in the Skettis area not nearly as annoying to Druids as they are to normal mount users.
• Flight Kite: In your Flying Form, at zero altitude, you are able to aggro ground beasties. You can instantly break combat by gaining altitude. And, since you move at the speed of a ground mount, you can easily kite by getting close, getting aggro, and fly away; when you've gotten it far enough, lift off and back they go. Let them hit you once in a while for the damage from Thorns to keep them interested.
• While the Flight Form doesn't run along the ground, it does seem to act as a ground mount at zero altitude. If you fly down and touch the ground, you bounce up to standard flying beastie height, and follow the terrain. This seems to allow movement-affecting effects to apply. It's also possible to fall off of things in Flight Form while doing this. You do take falling damage after sliding down steep slopes, unless you have a moment of free-fall, prompting your flight form to fly again.
• Water to Flight Form: rapidly and in this order - jump straight up from the surface of the water, move forward (or backward), then shift into Flight Form.
• Cliff escape: if you're caught in a tight spot near one of the endless Outland cliffs and don't have the time, health, or space to run far enough to drop combat, just jump off the cliff. You may have enough distance falling to break combat with the mob, and by spamming flight form you will stop yourself before you die. Note that this is far from guaranteed; vertical distance does not break combat like ground-level distance does.
• Farming/grinding quests: when doing quests where you have to pick up 10 items of some kind from the ground, you can fly over the item and loot it without changing out of Flight Form. If all mobs in the area only can do melee damage, you will be able to do this quest with no fighting in less than a minute.
• Entering the command /sit while hovering over a flat surface will cause you to perch upon it. Entering the command /sleep while hovering causes you to freeze in place.
• Escape Combat: Night Elf druids can use Shadowmeld to leave combat and then shift to Flight Form, allowing them to get out of the area. Flight Form of course breaks shadowmeld.
• If you are an herbalist, you can collect herbs without leaving Flight Form, allowing you to fly away if you are attacked and try again. This also applies to skinning mobs and looting corpses.
  

Citation: http://www.wowwiki.com/Flight_Form#Tips_and_tactics

Next week, we'll finish the leveling trek and go from 60 to 80. See you then!

Leveling a druid (what moves to use): Levels 21-40

You can find the first part of this guide here, which covers which moves to use from 1-20 and how your strategy changes over time. Now that you have cat form, feral combat will really start to shine, so lets continue.

Level 22
You get two abilities at this level, one of which is key for leveling. One is Soothe Animal, which allows you to get closer to a beast- or dragonkin-type enemy before they attack you. I've used it once or twice, but its largely useless since you can Prowl right past enemies. The other is Shred, a high damage ability for Cat Form that you can only use when you are behind an enemy. As such, your new strategy for battling your foes should be to start in prowl (unless their name is in yellow text, in which case you only need to move behind them), move behind your enemy without them seeing you, use Shred, and then proceed as you have before, using Claw until they are at 60-70%, then Rip, then Claw until they die. If an enemy tries to run away from you when it is at low health, use the opportunity to use Shred to finish them off.

Level 24
You get three key abilities at this level. One is Rake, an ability for Cat form that causes damage over time and adds a combo point. It's a pretty awesome ability, especially when paired with its glyph, which I highly recommend you pick up. With Rake, your new strategy should be to start in Prowl, then use Shred, Rake, then go back to your normal strategy. If Rip's duration runs out and your target has more than 50% health, use it again. The second ability you get is Tiger's Fury. It provides a flat damage boost for six seconds, and with only a thirty second cooldown, I'd recommend you use it frequently. It's use will become more specialized as you level up and get new talents, but for now, use it when you need a burst of damage. I recommend using it at the beginning of a battle so you can get the maximum effect from it. Your final new ability at this level is Remove Curse. Not much explanation needed here; you will be bothered by curses no more! Like remove poison, you can't use this in Cat or Bear Form.

Level 26
You get two abilities at this level. One is Abolish Poison, a flat upgrade to Remove Poison. You should replace Remove Poison with Abolish Poison on your action bars. It's use isn't that different, so it won't actually affect your strategy. The second ability is Dash, an ability that increases your speed in Cat Form. Use it when things get hairy and you need to make an escape.

You should also start investing in Predatory Strikes. Although that instant heal is mostly meant for PvP, it can still be useful while leveling when things get hairy. If you need to face a powerful enemy, you can use this to get an instant heal in while fighting him.

Level 28
You get two more abilities at this level, but neither are very useful while leveling, so I won't give them much explanation. Challenging Roar is an emergency ability for when you are tanking an instance, you have lost control of the mobs, and you need to get them to attack you again. Cower is honestly not that useful; the threat reduction it causes could be accomplished by simply stopping your attacks, which would also save you energy. It might be useful in lower-level instances when your tank isn't that great. If that is the case, then use it when an enemy is attacking you and you want to get it to attack the tank instead.

Level 30
For a ten-factor level, this one doesn't give you a lot of new stuff. One new spell is Tranquility, a large group-heal on a long cooldown. Because it's channeled, it's not too useful while you are solo-ing, but using it in an instance when you are a DPS and your healer has just died (or just needs some help) can save the group. Assuming you picked the right talents, you'll also get Feral Charge. The Bear Form version probably won't see much use outside of instances, but the Cat Form version will be quite useful for you. Once you get it, go out and try in on an enemy; the first few times are always fun. If you didn't get the glyph of rake, then you can use this to catch up with an enemy who runs away from you when it has low health. You can also use it if you want to immediately get behind an enemy, which can be useful when you are prowling and can't figure out how to get behind an enemy without them noticing you.

Level 32
In order to make up for the disappointing amount of new abilities from that last level, you get some awesome ones this level. One is Ferocious Bite, which uses combo points like Rip, but causes instant damage instead of damage over time. As such, your new strategy should be to rack up the combo points until your enemy is around 25% health or you get five points. Once either case happens, use Ferocious Bite, then start again. If you manage to get five combo points and your target still has 75% health, use Rip. That won't happen frequently, but if it does, you'll get more damage out of Rip.

Your second new ability is Ravage. This ability can only be used when prowling and behind an enemy, but causes more damage than Shred, so start using it in lieu of Shred to start battles. Here is a useful macro that allows you to use Ravage while prowling and Shred when not. I recommend you pick the red question mark as your icon so that it will show the icon of whatever ability you want to use.
#showtooltip [stealth] Ravage; [nostealth] Shred
/cast [stealth] Ravage
/cast [nostealth] Shred
Your final new ability is Track Humanoids, which really shines in PvP. If you are out on your own, you'd do better to have some sort of tracking ability for a gathering profession active instead. Otherwise, you can keep this active if you wish.

Level 36
You get two new abilities, one of which will change your life while you are leveling. The less exciting one is Frenzied Regeneration, a fairly useful ability when you are fighting in bear form (say, against multiple enemies or one elite) and you need some self-healing. Because it consumes rage when used, I suggest not using it until you have at least 80 rage and then only using auto-attacks while it is active so that you can generate more rage. You'll get the most benefit out of it that way. As you continue to level, you'll generate rage more quickly, so you'll be able to use some abilities while using this, but for now, you'll maximize its effect by not using anything else.

The other ability you get is Pounce, another ability that can only be used while prowling. It stuns the enemy for three seconds and causes damage over time, making it an almost completely superior ability to Ravage, which causes less damage over all. While your enemy is stunned, you can move behind them and use Shred for some extra damage. If you have Brutal Impact and Shredding Attacks, you can even use Shred twice. Here's a nice macro that I use to save space on my actions bars. It uses Pounce when prowling and Rake when not prowling. I recommend you pick the red question mark as your icon so that it will show the icon of whatever ability you want to use.
#showtooltip [stealth] Pounce; [nostealth] Rake
/cast [stealth] Pounce
/cast [nostealth] Rake

Because of your plethora of new moves, this should be your new strategy when facing one enemy in Cat Form: start in Prowl, use Pounce, then move behind them and use Shred until the stun wears off. Then use Rake, then use claw until you have five combo points or the enemy is around 25% health, at which point you should use Ferocious Bite. If you manage to somehow get five combo points and your enemy has 75% of his health or more, use Rip. If your enemy isn't dead yet, then use claw until you have five combo points or it is at 25% health, at which point you should use Ferocious Bite. If Rake's duration runs out and the enemy still has a fair amount of health, use it in lieu of Claw. Repeat until one of you dies, hopefully him. Don't forget about shifting out to heal yourself, especially if you have Predatory Strikes.

Level 40
This is a big level for druids. Not only do you get a slew of new moves, but you also get the talent Leader of the Pack. Long the signature talent of feral druids, this is an amazing ability, even when you aren't in a group, although that is where it shines the most. When you are on your own, though, think of it as another Sharpened Claws that you only needed to spend one talent point in, as opposed to three.

Now for your new abilities. The most significant one is Dire Bear Form, a direct upgrade to Bear Form. The only real difference is the Dire Bear Form provides a bigger boost to your armor, since Warriors and Paladins get access to plate armor at this level, giving them more armor as well. Another significant ability is Innervate. Which restores mana to your target. As a feral, it should fill your mana bar, so by using it, you'll never need to drink water again (if you ever did need to). Use Innervate on yourself when you are running low on mana, like if you were a bit overzealous in healing yourself and ran out of mana, and you need more to re-enter your forms. You can also use it while in a group to keep the healer's mana up if he/she begins to run out.

You also get some interesting passive abilities at this level. One is Feline Grace, which reduces all damage you take from high falls while in Cat Form. It's a pretty significant reduction, and with it, short falls that would damage most other classes won't damage you. You still can't survive really high falls with this ability, but regardless, from now on, enter cat form before jumping off of ledges. You also get Savage Defense, an ability that turns crit rating into a tank stat. Whenever you get a critical strike in Bear Form, with Savage Defense, you will get a shield that absorbs damage from the next attack that strikes you. It's a boost to your Bear Form defenses that comes from a stat that also increases your damage; what more could you ask for?

Your final new ability is Hurricane, a channeled area-of-effect spell, but if you are leveling feral (as I have suggested), you won't find much use for it. If you are facing multiple enemies, you should be in Bear Form anyways, in which case Swipe should be your attack of choice.

That's it for this week. If you get this far, keep plugging away; the druid class is about to get a whole lot more fun.

Leveling a druid (what moves to use): Levels 1-20

There are plenty of leveling guides that tell you where to go at what level, so this guide won't be concerned with that. This guide will only focus on strategies to use while you are out solo-ing as a druid, what moves to use when, etc. For starters, let me give you my first piece of advice. While you are leveling, spec feral. If you enjoy balance more than feral, then by all means, level balance, but this guide will be concerned solely with feral leveling, for feral druids are some of the most efficient solo-ers in the game, much more so than their mana-dependent balance counterparts.

Level 1
But they certainly don't start out that way. You're only offensive tools when starting out are Wrath and your weapon. While fighting an enemy, use Wrath until you run out of mana, then use your weapon until you get enough mana back to use Wrath again. When you first get Mark of the Wild, keep it active at all times.

Level 4
You get Moonfire at this level, but when you first get it, it is less mana efficient than Wrath. Sure, you'll kill things faster if you use it, but you will also run out of mana more quickly. It's your choice. I'd advise you to keep using Wrath exclusively. You also get Rejuvination, which is more mana efficient than Healing Touch, so use that if you need to heal yourself for less than Healing Touch heals for and don't need the heals immediately. (Though at this low level, that shouldn't be an issue. Your spirit-based mana regeneration can probably keep your health topped off.)

Level 6
Now you get Thorns, which you should also keep active on yourself at all times. It might not cause much damage, but any damage means that the enemy dies faster.

Level 8
Now you get Entangling Roots. Using it will keep the enemy in place for twelve seconds, unless it breaks, which it will at some point. As long as you aren't using Moonfire (it's still horribly mana inefficient), it won't break too frequently. Make sure you do use Roots, too, because in caster form, druids are really squishy.

Level 10
Make sure you do the quest for Bear Form (which starts from a druid trainer) as soon as you can so you can start using it in combat. Until then, just use the same tactics you've been using before. You will gain access to Nature's Grasp at level 10, a nifty ability that afflicts someone who strikes you with Entangling Roots. Use it when you need to make a break for it to halt the enemy in his tracks. It is also especially useful if you are leveling on a PvP server and you get attacked out of nowhere. Also keep in mind that it is usable in Bear Form and all of your future forms.

Combat in Bear Form isn't that exciting, but remember, you are basically starting a new class at level 10. Simply attack your enemy until you have enough rage to use Maul and use Demoralizing Roar if you want to mix things up a bit. (It's not horribly useful, but it's more interesting than just spamming Maul.) You won't need to put Growl on your keybindings unless you are in a group.

It is by using bear form that you will become familiar with one of the druid class's greatest strengths; fighting in our feral forms allows us to regenerate mana while we fight, which was can use to heal ourselves. As such, when you are fighting in bear form, if you get low on health, shift out to heal yourself. Just make sure you have enough mana to switch back. As one last miscellaneous note, if an enemy puts a snare effect on you (an effect that slows your movement speed) moving in or out of bear form will remove the snare. This does not apply to being dazed when an enemy strikes you from behind.

Level 12
You'll now get Enrage, which you can use to give yourself 30 rage every minute. Maul uses a lot of rage, both because of its fairly high rage cost and the fact that when you use Maul, you don't generate rage. Thus, you should use Enrage whenever you can so that you can use Maul more. You also get Regrowth, which at this level, is more mana efficient than Healing Touch until you get to level 14. It has a shorter cast time than Healing Touch, so you can use it when enemies are attacking you and you need to leave Bear Form to heal yourself, since it will heal you faster than Healing Touch and continue to heal you after you have cast it. Finally, you get Revive at this level, which you can use to resurrect dead players. If you are reading this, then you may not know that for the longest time, we druids did not have a resurrection spell we could use repeatedly out of combat. All we had was Rebirth, and it was on a thirty minute cooldown. And we were happy!... ok, that's a lie; we have waited for an ability like Revive with bated breath, and when Wrath of the Lich King finally came out, we jumped for joy upon seeing that we were getting this ability.

Level 14
Now you get Bash. This allows you to stun your target, making them unable to do anything for two seconds. It also interrupts their spell casting for three seconds, meaning that even if your target is immune to being stunned, you can still use it to interrupt their spell casting. Still, you'll probably find more use for it in stopping enemies from running away. Also at this level, you can get Cure Poison. You can't use Cure Poison in Bear Form, so you may wish to just soak up the damage caused by poisons if you don't want to spend the time to shift out, but when you do shift out to heal yourself, you'll appreciate having this ability.

Level 16
You finally get another ability for Bear Form: Swipe. I'm not sure how much damage swipe causes at low levels, but if you have maxed out Ferocity (as you should have), it may be more rage efficient than Maul, even when used against one target. It's certainly more fun to use. You also get two new forms that allow you to move faster: Aquatic Form for the water, and Travel Form for land. Both are very useful, even after you get your first mount. After all, mounts don't increase your movement speed in water, and Travel Form can be used in combat to make a quick get-away, whereas mounts can't.

Level 18
You get Faerie Fire at this level, as well as its Feral version. The feral version can be used as a way to pull enemies to you, so you'll want to use it as such. It also causes a minimal amount of damage in Bear Form, so until you get Cat Form, use it when it is off of its cooldown and you don't have the rage to use anything else. You also get hibernate, which can be situationally useful if you pulled more enemies than you intended to and one of them is a beast or dragonkin. If you see a human enemy walking around with a beast companion (not an uncommon sight), you can use Hibernate on the beast, keeping him from fighting you so you can focus on the human enemy.

Level 20
This is a significant level for druids (as it is for many classes). First of all, you get Cat Form. As awesome as Cat Form is, don't get too excited, for you are basically starting a new class again. Still, it's only going to get better from here. Cat Form can kill things faster than Bear Form, but it is more squishy than Bear Form, so if you are fighting multiple enemies, you should probably switch to Bear Form (you can handle two in Cat Form, but any more than that and you should make the switch). Bear Form is also a good idea if you are facing a powerful enemy (like an elite) that will take a long time to kill, since Bear Form's damage reduction will win out against Cat Form's damage.

You start out with three abilities for Cat Form: Claw, Rip, and Prowl. Claw causes instant damage and puts combo points on your enemy, while Rip causes damage over time and requires combo points. For now, you're strategy should go something like this: make sure you have full energy, use Claw two or three times, then use Rip if your enemy is at 60% health or above. If your target has lower health at that point, then Rip won't be active long enough to be worth it, so if that is the case, just keep using Claw. As for Prowl, right now, it's only use is to sneak past enemies. Thus is it still very useful for getting to a quest item or something like that without needing to fight all of the enemies along the way. When you use Prowl, you become almost invisible. Enemies will see you if you get too close to them. If they stop and look at you without attacking, it means you are almost close enough for them to see you, but not quite. An enemy can't see you if you are behind him and are Prowling.

You get two more abilities at this level: Starfire and Rebirth. If you are leveling feral, then you won't find much use for Starfire. You won't find much use for Rebirth if you are on your own, but it shines when you are in a group, for it is the only resurrection spell in the game that can be used in combat. It makes up for that with its long cooldown, but if your healer or tank dies, you can use it to bring them back and save the run. For that reason, make sure to pick up the reagents for it (and replace them at every rank) and keep it on your action bar. Depending on how you spent your talents, you may also have Survival Instincts. This isn't a terribly useful ability when you are solo-ing, so you may not want to pick it up unless you will be doing a lot of PvP or tanking a lot of instances.

I should also mention how to fight in Bear Form, since it will be your form of choice when facing multiple enemies or elites. If you are fighting a crowd, all I can say is to spam Swipe. If you have Primal Fury, this will probably result in a lot of extra rage, and with that extra rage, you should use Maul. A good rule of thumb is that if you have more than 30 rage, it is safe to use Maul. When you are fighting one powerful enemy, use Maul as your main damage ability, and be sure to switch out of Bear Form to heal yourself before you reach 35% health. Remember that exiting Bear Form will cause you to loose all of your rage, so try to use it all before you switch out. When you do switch out to heal yourself, I recommend starting with Regrowth (for its fast cat time), then using healing touch once or twice to top off your health. If you have the mana for it, you can also use Rejuvenation before entering Bear Form again.

That's all for this week. Depending on how much time I have, I may go right to level 80 with the next installment. Otherwise, I'll probably stop around level 40 and go from there the week after. Until then, happy leveling and happy druid-ing.

How to tank as a druid, Part 1

I know I said I wouldn't include many specific posts in my advice section, but one can only write about generalities for so long. As such, I decided to write a post about tanking as a druid, something I'm quite familiar with. This post will refer to tanking at level 80, and thus leveling druids will want to look elsewhere. This guide also assume that you understand the basic elements of the game's mechanics and are just new to tanking or druid tanking. With that said, let's begin.

Abilities
Because of the hybrid nature of our class, we may not have as many abilities available to us as other tanks, but that means fewer abilities for you to memorize and adjust to.

Mangle: This is our single greatest single-target threat-causing ability, and the bleed damage increase it applies makes it great when used in conjunction with Lacerate. Unless you are fighting four enemies or more, use it whenever it is off of its cooldown.

Lacerate: Sunder Armor for druids; this ability is useful, but only for the bleed effect. Swipe causes more instant damage than Lacerate, so Lacerate is only worth using if the target will live long enough for the bleed to cause damage. As such, it is worth using on bosses and trash that takes a long time to kill, but otherwise, it's hardly worth using more than once or twice.

Maul: Heroic Strike for druids, and an interesting ability, this; it increases the damage (and thus threat) caused by your next regular melee attack, while also preventing that attack from generating rage. It's good to use when you have extra rage, but if your rage falls bellow thirty, stop using it so that you can guarantee that you will have rage for your other abilities. Otherwise, spam the hell out of it. Any druid tank worth his salt will want to glyph this ability, which will make it great for holding threat against two enemies at once.

Swipe: This ability is simple enough; it causes damage to everyone around you. It's thus most useful when you are facing a large crowd of enemies, though it's also good for when you have five full stacks of lacerate on the target and Mangle is on its cooldown. Swipe causes about a fourth of the damage of Mangle, so if you are facing four targets or more, you'll want to simply spam this ability.

Growl: The spell's description is simple enough, but I'll elaborate. This spell not only forces the target to attack you for a little while, but if someone has caused more threat than you, you will instantly cause the difference in threat. If you have 2000 threat against an enemy and your mage somehow has 10,000 threat, this ability will cause 8000 threat. Also note that this spell is not subject to the global cooldown, so you can use it any time it is off of its own cooldown. It's worth repeating that this will be next to useless if your target is already attacking you. I say next to useless because, in order for someone other than you to catch a mob's attention, they need to cause 110% more threat than you if they are in melee range or 130% if they are farther away (forgive me if my numbers are wrong). Thus it's worth it to use this ability if you have threat meters and your rogue is hovering around 108% threat or your warlock is hovering around 128%. Also note that many bosses are immune to this ability, but it's still worth using if someone else draws aggro, just in case the boss is not immune. Finally, because this has a thirty-yard range, you can use it on an enemy that runs off to attack a party member when you don't want to rush over to help them, due to positioning or something like that.

Feral Charge - Bear: This ability causes you to rush your target, while also stopping them from casting any spell they are casting and making them unable to move for a short while. If one of your enemies runs off towards a party member, this stops them dead in their tracks and gives you some time to build up threat or use Growl. If no one in your party can interrupt spells and you are facing a boss whose spells need to be interrupted (and Bash is on its cooldown), keep in mind that you can use this ability as a last resort. Just back up and charge back in. You'll loose threat from not being in melee range, but those are the sacrifices we make.

Bash: Stuns the target for four seconds, making them unable to move, attack, or do anything, really. I often use this on trash by stunning a target when he is about three or four seconds away from death while moving on to another target to start causing threat. Most bosses are immune to the stun effect, but you can still use this to interrupt their spellcasting. Keep that in mind if they have a spell that causes large amounts of damage.

Faerie Fire (Feral): This does decrease the targets armor, but it's really not worth using too frequently. It's a good ability for pulling an enemy because it causes some damage and thus gets their attention, but the extra damage caused by the decrease of armor is only really worthwhile on bosses, so once you are in combat, don't bother to use this ability unless you are fighting a boss and it has run out.

Demoralizing Roar: This makes enemies cause less damage to you (about 30 less damage every second, if the AP conversion rate is the same for mobs as it is for players.) The thing is, the damage reduction is often negligible (1800 over one minute), so it's only really worth using on large crowds when it will make a bigger difference. Otherwise you're just wasting time that could be spent causing threat.

Enrage: This ability does exactly what is says it does, though I have found the armor reduction to be not worth worrying about. This ability is more useful at lower levels, but considering that most trash pulls in high-level dungeons allow you to go from zero to 100 rage in ten seconds, it becomes situational at the level cap. It's good to use before a pull when you have very little rage to start with, and it's also good to use in conjunction with Frenzied Regeneration, which will eat up your rage. If you have less than 20 rage before going into a fight, use this.

Barkskin: A useful spell for all druids, but as a tank, it's main use is as our only no-strings-attached defensive cooldown. It may only reduce damage by 20%, but for a one minute cooldown, that's pretty good. I usually use it at the beginning of trash pulls when the most mobs are alive, but I also sometime wait until we are facing a particularly difficult pull to use it. During a boss fight that requires you to use your defensive cooldowns at a specific time, save this ability for that time.

Challenging Roar: This works like an AoE taunt, but unlike Growl, it causes no extra threat, so it only really gives you a six-second window to catch up with your DPSs' threat. That said, it's useful if an entire group of mobs has gone after the healer and you don't want to take any chances.

Berserk: Remember how awesome Mangle is? How would you like to use it without a cooldown? And have it his three targets? For fifteen seconds? For multi-target pulls with no more than three mobs, this really shines, and it's a good way to start a boss fight where you are facing two or three bosses at once since it lets you build up a large amount of threat on up to three people. It also makes you immune to fear effects and dispells any fear effects already on you, so if you are facing a boss with a fear effect, save this ability for when the boss uses it's fear and use Berserk immediately afterward. That increases the chance it will last until the boss does it a second time. It's one flaw is that it activates the global cooldown, so if you are going to use it for it's multi-mangle capabilities (as you always should, even if you intend to use it to break a fear effect) use it about a second before you intend to launch your first attack.

Frenzied Regeneration: It's unfortunate that this ability is our most potent emergency ability, because it isn't a perfect one. You should only use it when you have full or near full rage and you are somehow generating more, since it needs to consume ten rage with each of its ten ticks in order to be most effective. I have generally found that I can usually keep using swipe, mangle, and/or lacerate with FR up with no problem, but maul spamming with FR up will usually cause you to run out of rage, so don't use maul with FR up. As long as you follow those guidelines, FR should serve you well when your healer lapses or you take some heavy damage and you need some emergency self-healing. Dedicated tanks will want to glyph this ability.

Survival Instincts: I personally don't use this ability, but that's because I mostly run heroic 5-mans, where burst damage is rare. This ability is only useful on a boss that causes easily-healable damage normally and simply causes high damage every once in a while, since if the boss is causing consistently high damage, that damage you take after 20 seconds will only make it more difficult for your healer. If you do use this ability, you will probably want to glyph it.

Savage Defense: This is technically a passive ability, but it's still worth mentioning. This ability makes crit rating worth getting on our gear, and also makes swipe-spamming even more worthwhile, since swipe hits multiple targets, and each of those hits has a chance to crit, and a crit means a mini-shield.

Talents
If spells make the class, then talents make the role, so you'll want to choose a good spec for your tanking druid. This build contains all of the necessary tanking talents with a few points left over for you to play around with. You can put those in talents to further improve the nuances of the tanking role or talents to help you while solo-ing. The decision is yours. This is the build I use, though if you copy it, you'll probably want to take a point out of Brutal Impact and put it in Survival Instincts. It's intended use is to have all of the necessary tanking talents while still having some talents useful for solo-ing, thus making it a tank build and a solo build.

Gear
As leather wearers, we druids need to share armor with rogues, but we can still wear tank gear in the form of our cloaks, rings, amulets, and trinkets. Because of that, there are basically two sets of guidelines you need to follow for gearing up: one for armor, and one for the rest.

Armor:
We druids share itemization with rogues, so you'll be choosing among DPS armor for your tank set. You'll want to look for pieces with more stamina than agility and with hit, expertise, or crit.
Haste and armor penetration aren't completely useless for a druid, but they don't have as much use for a tank as they do for a DPS'er, so look for pieces with at least one of the three above-mentioned stats. Two is ideal, but you can't always get what you want.

The Rest: Tank pieces are pieces with strength, rather than agility. Thus you will want to look for cloaks, rings, and amulets with strength on them, and the rest will generally be stats you need. There are, however, some DPS pieces with strength on them, but you can usually tell the strength pieces apart because they will have defensive stats and much more stamina than strength. Just avoid pieces with parry rating, block rating, or block value, all of which have no use for a druid. As for trinkets, just take what you can get, and try to avoid the chance-on-hit or chance-when-hit trinkets, since as a tank, you'll want to save your trinkets for when you need them. Extra armor used to be an important druid stat, but now extra armor is only really useful on cloaks, since they will get the 370% bonus from Dire Bear Form. As such, look for cloaks with armor quantities in green, but treat armor on rings, amulets, and trinkets like you would any other defensive stats.

Weapons: There are very few two-handed weapons with tank stats, so look for weapons with a lot of stamina and with hit rating or expertise. It's also a good idea to look for weapons with agility on them, rather than or in addition to strength, since agility increases your dodge chance, and is thus a defensive stat as well as an offensive one.

Next week: Strategies and placing abilities on your action bars.