If you have been reading DruidKitty for quite some time, you will remember my love for the plethora of Holiday Achievements and my many associated guide posts. The culmination of these in game Holidays and their Achievements is the grand meta achievement, “What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been“. And boy, oh boy, has it been a long strange trip.

I wish you all the best of luck in completing this achievement and a big gratz to everyone who is scooping up their Violet Proto-Drake this Holiday season!

I am still on my little blogging hiatus, as I am still not settled in to my new home yet (but almost!). But I did want to take the time to say THANK YOU to all my readers as today marks one year since my very first blog post here on DruidKitty. In that time the site has reached almost 40,000 views.

I can’t believe all that has changed in the past year. Hard to believe that in that time I went from playing the Wrath of the Lich King Beta to raiding with several amazing guilds that were on the top of their game and on top of progression, to finding myself back where I started – guildless again. I’m not sure my next step as far as WoW goes, but I would love to find myself back in a successful raiding guild once again.

Thanks to all my readers who have given me such love. I really hope to be back to writing for you all soon.

And to all my fellow bloggers, I hope you all can have such amazing years when it comes to blogging. What started out as just a hobby has become successful in my mind: If I have helped just one person through this blog, than it has been all worth it.

Thanks and Love to all, Kathoid

My life outside of WoW has become increasingly hectic the past few months, culminating in a move back to my home state next week. This added stress has been the foremost reason I have been neglecting maintaining DruidKitty with regular updates: I do still have a lot to say, and a lot of information I want to share, but I simply don’t have the time currently to put in to this blog.

For this reason I am officially going on hiatus until I am more settled in from my move. I am not retiring the blog, just simply taking a step back from it for some time.

I am not taking a break from WoW or Raiding with my guild, Concedo Nulli, at all. We are still forging ahead, stronger than ever. It is worth noting that we are still recruiting – please check out our website Concedo-Nulli.com for information on how you can join our winning team.

In the mean time, you can always check out my twitter updates here.

Thanks for all your love and support, and I hope to have new content for you all soon!

Kathoid

Due to the insanity that is my life right now, I have yet to delve completely into devouring the Patch 3.2 Notes. Needless to say, the thing I am most looking forward are the newly redesigned Feral Druid forms for both Night Elves and Tauren, and for both our bear-y best friends and we felines.

My first reaction to the new Night Elven kitty cat forms was: “YES! I can be a PINK cat!”! I have, quiet honestly, always wanted to be a pink cat. But after some thought, I was truly on the fence whether I really liked these new forms or not. I don’t know why I need to wear little bracers or why I have bells around my neck, and I was unsure if I liked all the color combinations. I was starting to feel like the Tauren got the better end of the staff on this one.

But as soon as I got onto the Public Test Realms I finally got to sink my claws into the new forms, first hand. After spending several hours with my future self, I am decidedly very happy about the changes. I have really only played around with the pink coloration. I had planned on playing with the other colors a bit, but I am so loving the pink kitty and have been traveling the world with her to see how different scenery and lighting affects how pink she really looks. I, of course, took many screenshots along the way, and will share them with you here.

If you are also PTR-ing it up, you can find me on Broxigar, both as “Kathoid” and as “Druidkitty”.

A side by side comparison of New Pink Kitty vs Old Kitty.

Stopping to sniff the flowers in Timbermaw.

Finally! Four toes to match out four-toed footprints!

New Pink Kitty running through Winterspring

Going for an RP stroll around Stormwind.

Decided to stop and take a quick dip in the Canals of Stormwind.

Run! Hogger is after us!!

In Duskwood, I slowed down for a breather.

If you have Berserking on your weapon, this is the fun color you will turn when it procs!

Rawr!

Woo. That was exhausting!

So as you can hopefully see, the lighting really affects the coloring of this new pink Kitty option. I will definetly be sticking with the pink once Patch 3.2 goes live!

If you would like me to check out a different color for you, or would like to see the Pink Kitty travel to your favorite destination in Azeroth, send me an email at DruidKitty AT gmail DOT com!

I know I have recently fallen back into being a lazy blogger and neglecting this blog some, but I certainly have not been neglecting World of Warcraft. After being on raiding hiatus for over a month, I’m back into the swing of things here on Khadgar-US raiding with my new guild <Concedo Nulli>.

Last week was our first week raiding together as a guild, and we cleared 10 man Naxxramas in about 3 hours, OS +1, Malygos, and both bosses in Vault of Archavon, as well as jumped into 10 man Ulduar and downed 4 bosses and smacked around a 5th who most people had never seen before. We are growing very fast as a guild and I am hopefully we will step foot into 25s in just a few more weeks.

Like any new guild, we are of course short in a few departments. We have absolutely no Ranged DPS currently, and only have Shaman Healers. We are looking to buff up our numbers and are currently recruiting to fill up our rosters before we embark into 25 man raids:

<Concedo Nulli> means “never back down”. We are a raiding guild located on the Khadgar-US server, and are recruiting to rebuild our 25 man raiding team.

Our founding members are highly knowledgeable, skilled players from other servers who came together to create an exceptional new guild – where building a strong core raid team is just as important as progressing through content.

Both new and seasoned raiders of ALL CLASSES AND SPECS are welcomed to apply. Raid experience and gear are preferred; a strong drive and desire to be in a successful raiding guild, and a deep understanding of your class and game mechanics are a must. Must be a team player.

Currently, we have a VERY high need for RANGED DPS and non-shaman HEALERS. However, we are not full on most classes and welcome all applicants.

Our 10 mans are currently scheduled for 11:45pm-3:00am EST, Monday – Thursday. Our 25 man raids will be similarly scheduled.

Please visit our website at: http://www.concedo-nulli.com to fill out an application, or speak to one of our officers in game on the Khadgar-US Server: Kreeoni, Kathoid, Tracerec, Thespia, or Sahne.

As you can see, I am an officer in this guild, which is great because I have so sorely missed being one. I am also in charge of recruiting, so if you decide to apply to our fantastic guild, please mention me on your app! Also of note, is the fact that our Guild Leader is Kreeoni, who you probably know from my last post on Druid Glyphs that he co-wrote with me, and also from his Twitter and his Blog. As a guild we are pretty active on Twitter, and have had many Tweeters reroll new characters just to join in on the fun!

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I have also finally broken down and purchased Dual-Specs and decided to go Resto instead of bear! I haven’t played around with healing, but I have certainly done alot of my favorite thing in Tree form: /DANCE!

Rejoice Druids of Azeroth, for it is Earth Day! And while Blizzard has no in game events tied to the Holiday, there is no reason why we shouldn’t celebrate, both in and out of game.

What’s the big deal with Earth Day, anyway? Just like we have Mother’s Day to celebrate our mothers, and Valentine’s Day to show how much we love our significant others, Earth Day is a day set aside to show our support and love for our Earth, our Environment, and what we can do to protect it for the generations to come. And just like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, it isn’t a message we should show just once a year, but a day to higlight our feelings we have the whole year through.

We only get one planet to call home, so we should protect it and keep it strong and healthy. Even if you only show your love for the Earth once a year on Earth Day, every little bit you can do adds up.

But I’m just one person, how can I make a difference? Even if you just recycle just one Mountain Dew can, you are making a difference by keeping garbage out of the landfill. If you turn the lights off in other rooms when you settle into your computer room for a night of raiding, you will reduce your energy consumption, and lessen your energy bill in the process. When it is time to get rid of old computer parts, look into recycling instead of just tossing them out in the trash – some recyclers will also pay you for computer parts that contain metals such as gold.

Want more ideas how to make your gaming more Eco-Friendly? Check out my post on Earth Hour.

Of course, you can do more than just greening up your gaming. Here are some tips that are easy and don’t take much time (or money) at all.

• Start Recycling! Many things, from yesterday’s newspaper to empty Mountain Dew cans can be recycled. Unsure of what can be recycled? Check out Earth911.com for tips. Unsure of if you can recycle? Contact your town (or your apartment complex) for laws on recycling.
• Start Composting! Composting helps in many ways: it reduces what you throw out, it creates wonderful rich compost for your gardens, and also helps make you more aware of what you are wasting. Apple cores, grass clippings, coffee grounds, pet hair, and egg shells, among many things, are compostable. And contrary to popular belief, a well maintained compost pile does not smell. For more info, see Wired’s Wiki.
• Turn of the faucet when you brush your teeth! Brushing your teeth is a great way to keep yourself healthy. Turning off the water while you brush is a great way to keep the planet healthy. And just like flipping off the light switch when you leave a room, this will save you money in the long run.
• Eat Vegetarian! I am personally a vegetarian for lots of reasons, but a great reason to eat vegetarian just once a week (or month) is that will help cut down on emissions: both from the trucks used to transport, but from the cows themselves. “Cows are responsible for 20 percent of U.S. emissions of methane, which traps 20 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.” (source)

So what am I doing for Earth Day? Working, and Raiding. I wish I could have spent some time outside today, but my work schedule and the weather aren’t really co-operating. However, this weekend it is supposed to be sunny and warm! I plan on setting up my compost bin this weekend, doing some much needed yard work, doing some spring cleaning, and going to see Disney Nature’s new movie: Earth. It should also be mentioned that for every ticket sold to the movie for opening week, Disney will plant a tree in your honor.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

(Image Copyright SuperKathoid 2008)

Now that it has been many months since “Swipe (Cat)” has been added, I would like to take some time to talk about it again.

Yes, I still think that Swipe is a little OP – in the numbers. However, Swipe is still in no way sustained DPS and there is no way to make it sustained DPS, therefor it is really not all that over powered at all. I like to think of it as a fun thing to play around with, not something that is going to make me the best DPS overall for the raid.

When I say “fun”, this is what I mean:

No, I did not photoshop my Recount meter. Yes, that is 21,380 damage per second. I wish I could say that this is from a Level 80 instance, but this is from Ahn’Qiraj: the “gauntlet” you have to run down that has dozens of little bugs in it. We pulled the whole hallway and AoE-ed them down at the end. I just had to bash Swipe a few times to get them all down, but there were so many of them that it added up to a whole lot of damage. (For reference, the druid below me on the chart is a Boomkin, also AoEing.)

I don’t think Blizzard ever intended for any class to do 21K damage per second; hence this small, unnoticed “Bug Fix” from the patch 3.1 notes: “Swipe: Now properly affected by area-of-effect damage caps.” I don’t know the specifics on what this will cap the Swipe DPS at, but I am pretty sure that we won’t be seeing any 21K DPS for a while.

Even though this “Bug Fix” seems like a nerf, I am hopeful that this small change will help fix my biggest problem with Swipe: Dying. Because “Swipe (Cat)” does so much damage, it also pulls a ton aggro, which results in me dying. A lot.

I finally got down to doing my own testing with the Idol of Perspicacious Attacks to see if it would effect Swipe (Cat) at all. While I’m not the best at running scientific experiments, my results seem to show that in Cat form the Idol doesn’t have much affect, if any at all. In Bear form it does noticeably, albeit slightly, increase DPS. In my testing though, I did notice that the thing that increases damage most with “Swipe (Cat)” is when Omen of Clarity procs. So if you haven’t included Omen of Clarity in your Feral Build and you want to maximize your Swipe damage, you might want to include it when you get your free respec tomorrow when Patch 3.1 hits.

Have a very Happy Easter!

I’m off for a few days to celebrate Passover and Easter with family. Enjoy your Holiday, and I will see you all back soon!

The other night I did something I never thought I would do: After more than two and a half years of calling the Dalvengyr server home, I have uprooted my entire Druid life and transferred to my new home: Drenden.

Yes, I had been actively looking for a new guild, and therefore a new server, but somehow in my heart I still believed that “Leviathan” and it’s leaders would snap out of it and realize how idiotic they were being and truly accept me back into the mix, listening to all my ideas on how to bring the guild to greatness. After all, I helped formed the guild, helped recruit members, created the guild’s website, and helped teach many of the fights to new members. I did a lot more than that too; I became friends with many of the members on what I thought was a deeper level than just raiders and guildies.

I really truly cared about these people, about the guild, and about progressing with them into Ulduar. They felt differently. And after the last straw fell there was too much broken to ever repair. So I quickly said my goodbyes to the people I will miss the most, signed off for the last time, and paid for what I hope will be my only server transfer ever. Even though I felt very confident in my decision to leave Dalvengyr, I still feel that it was done too hastily and I should have done more research into my destination realm.

I really like to think things through, but I followed my gut and my heart on this one.

And I don’t regret it one bit.

Once I arrived intact on Drenden, there was a guild ready there to catch me: “No Vacancy”. I know the Guild Leader, Kreeoni, from both his Twitter and his Blog. As a fellow Feral Druid, albeit a Bear, I knew he would be understanding and accepting of a Feral DPS Druid. In fact, he was actually the one who sought me out and recruited me. On Dalvengyr no one really understands a Feral DPS Druid nor wants one in their guild. Here, I don’t feel so out of place or that I need to explain my existence. Here in this Guild I feel accepted and appreciated even after just a few days, something that took years to feel on my old server.

I thought the hardest part of this whole transition would be leaving all the people I thought were my friends behind. But even with only one person on my friends list I don’t feel so alone here. Nobody knows my past here, so I get to write my own future without all the drama and baggage that Dalvengyr had.

Are you on Drenden? Please let me know!! My name is, of course, “Kathoid” and I would love to add some new people to my friends list!

UPDATE: I have found my new guild: “No Vacancy” on the Drenden-PvE US Server!

Alliance Night Elf Feral DPS Druid “Kathoid” seeks an established, serious, professional, highly ranked Raiding Guild for an immediate raiding position.

My Armory

According to WoW Heroes, for Dalvengyr-US, ranked by gear score :

• #1 Alliance Feral Druid
• #2 Feral Druid Overall
• #3 Druid Overall
• #23 Character on Dalvengyr Overall

I do approx 3.5K DPS in raids, but it fluctuates depending on the boss. I also tend to be a little bit lower if I am Raid Leading. I have raided all current WotLK content on Normal and Heroic Modes, and Hard Mode Sarth 1D and 2D. I have lead raids in Naxx 10, and have been Loot Master on many occasions in all raids. I have also raided much of the Old World and BC raids. I am on the PTR but I have not raided Ulduar, but am more than willing to.

I have Off Tanked in Naxx 10 and in some instances. While I plan to make tanking my other spec when Dual-Specs arrive, I have absolutely no intentions of tanking in raids, so please do not ask me to join your guild to be a tank. I tank in a pinch, and like to keep it that way.

Ideally I would like to join a guild that has room for advancement. I have been a Guild Master of a small leveling guild and an Officer in every guild I have raided with and I feel confident in my abilities to be a honest and fair Officer. I have also created and maintained several guild websites.

I would prefer a guild that has other female Raiders and has a more mature age range (20s+). I am respectful to all other guild members and expect the same of them. I would prefer a guild that uses Loot Council to one that uses DKP or similar points system for loot. Yes, I am a female gamer – and if you have a problem with that I do not want to join your guild.

I work until 8pm EST three nights a week, so raid times must be approximately 8:30 PM EST. I don’t mind raiding several nights a week, but do not want to raid more than 5 nights a week. 3 nights is ideal, but I understand that it is to be more likely to raid 4-5 nights once Ulduar is released.

Please note that I am on a US Realm. I am also currently on a PvP realm, and prefer staying on a PvP realm, but would also be interested in moving to a PvE realm if the right opportunity came up. I do not care what time zone the Realm is in, so long as I can meet your raid times.

If you are interested in me, or know a guild that is looking for a Feral DPS Druid, please send me an email at: druidkitty AT gmail DOT com.