New Cat Forms

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!

March Madness

I have been a bad, bad blogger and I know it – but this March has been rough for me. There’s been a lot going on for me both in the game and in real life. I’ve been so overwhelmed with things going on that I’ve kinda pushed this blog onto the back burner. I have tons of ideas for posts, and I’ve started writing some, but I keep running out of steam or hitting some major writers block.

I have checked out the PTR some – unfortunately I haven’t raided Ulduar yet, but I have been inside it empty and the place is beautiful and huge. I’ve also played around with creating what will be my 3.1 Spec, so long as Blizz doesn’t do a massive change of things again for Ferals. Primal Gore, which grants periodic damage from Rake, Lacerate, Rip the chance to crit, is awesome and I think will help bump up our overall DPS numbers. The change to Improved Mark of the Wild which now increases all attributes by 2% is a welcome change for myself, as I have picked up the talent because I often end up being the only druid in 10 mans, and want my group to have the best buffs possible. I have also been checking out MMO-Champion daily to look over the Feral changes, new gear, and new weapons. (I hope to have a post up soon with more 3.1 data.)

Two things are apparent about the above picture. One is that I have been doing a lot of quests, the other is that I am guild less. I got my “Seeker” title a few weeks ago, without even realizing I was that close to completing 3,000 quests. I have done many more since then, as I am working on getting the “Loremaster” achievements and title. (I have roughly 200 quests left to go). I have been working on achievements hard core this past week because I’m not raiding, because of the guild less thing.

I left my guild <Leviathan> about a week ago because I wasn’t happy with the direction the guild was taking. Being that I was basically a Co-GM type of Officer, it was kind of a big deal to all the guild members. The other officers who were same rank as me were starting to miss the point on a lot of things I thought were major points on how to run a guild. They have this idea that in a serious Raiding Guild there is no place for “nice”. I wholeheartedly disagree. I think that there needs to be a balance of tough and nice, strict and respectful. They are fine with being assholes to everyone from fellow Officers to Trial ranks. I am of the mindset that the name over my head says a lot of me, and if I can’t stand behind my guild I can’t be in it. So I left. They just assume I will come back even though the officers are not really acknowledging the problems, and are not wanting to do anything about them.

So am I LFG? Maybe? I don’t know if I want to transfer to a new server. But for the record:  Alliance Feral DPS Druid seeks highly ranked Raiding Guild. 3.5K DPS, 5K Achievement Points. Have downed all bosses Normal and Heroic. Downed Sarth 2D. Highest ranked Alliance Feral Druid on Dalvengyr according to WoW-Heroes. Raids after 8PM EST. Prefer guild with other female raiders, no annoying teen players, and room for advancement.

I have a lot of new posts in the works. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things here soon. Thanks for the continued readership.

PTR Patch 3.1 – Feral Glyph Changes

Well, as they say it does, March has certainly come “in like a Lion“. My hopes for an early Spring were some what squashed today as Old Man Winter decided to dump another pile of his crappy white crap all over the North East yet again, causing much mayhem in its wake. While we in Upstate NY weren’t hit quite as hard as a lot of other parts of the country, the snow was enough to make the roads horrible locally, and so I stayed home from work to spend way too much time staring at the TV and grinding mostly-pointless WoW Reputations, like Wintersaber Trainers and Timbermaw hold.

I did, however, decide to make something productive out of my day, and so here I am with newly formed thoughts on these ever changing PTR Patch 3.1 notes. As it seems that some of the overall class changes and abilities haven’t made their way to the PTR quite yet, I am sure there more changes in store for us that just haven’t been announced yet. And so with that thought, I have decided to first go over all the Glyph changes and put in my two cents on the changes.

Glyph Changes

• Glyph of Shred

New: Each time you Shred, the duration of your Rip on the target is extended by 2 seconds, to a maximum of 6 seconds.
Old: Increases the damage dealt by Shred to stunned and incapacitated targets by 20%.

This is a very welcome change. This Glyph was really only useful for soloing previously. Anything that increases damage or duration of Rip will make a big change for overall damage done while raiding. And I haven’t tested this out yet, but I am sure that this will stack both with the Tier 7/7.5 set bonus and the Glyph of Rip bonuses to Rip, as those two stack with each other.

New Glyphs

• Glyph of Berserk -

Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 seconds.

This will up the durations to a total of 20 seconds. Nice glyph, but I think that there are other glyphs I would rather have for a Kitty DPS build. I’m not sure if it is one I would include in a Tanking build. I will have to play around with it to see.

• Glyph of Savage Roar -

Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 6% bonus damage done.

With the overall change to Savage Roar, changing its effect to an extra 30% Physical Damage from and increases 40% Attack Power, I am not sure exactly how much this will buff Savage Roar compared to how it is now, but this is definitely a glyph I want to have in my Kitty DPS build.

• Glyph of Barkskin -

Reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 1 to 0% while Barkskin is active.

Barkskin isn’t something I think about much as far as Cat form, but I found it very useful last night while I temporarily respeced Bear to OT for Naxx 10. Using Barkskin in Bear form is still very new to me, as when used in BC it would shapeshift you out of form. Now it can be used while tanking to lessen damage taken while tanking by 20% for 12 seconds, every 60 seconds. If you are defense capped already, this will make no difference to you, but if you are still working on your tanking gear and are a few points under, this Glyph will help you stay alive just a little bit longer. Eek! Sorry to all Bears! I am so used to Bear Tanking in BC still that I forgot that “defense cap” doesn’t apply to Bears anymore. So this Glyph is really not for us ferals. ><

I will need to look for these new glyphs on the Auction House on the PTR to see if these are Major or Minor glyphs. I am thinking they are all Major, with a chance that the Barkskin may be a Minor. I will update once I figure it out!

- – - – -

Please see my Patch 3.1 Post here to see what all the changes were once the patch went live.

PTR – Yes!

Yes! After days of trying to log in and copy a character over to the PTR, I have finally succeeded! My druid is being copied over as I type this to the PvE PTR realm “Broxigar”. I am downloading the client now, which is probably something I should have started a while ago.

A few tips if you too are trying to get a character copied onto the PTRs:

If you use an authenticator to log in to WoW, you need your authenticator to log into your online WoW Account. I didn’t know this until the other day when I heard copies were up and tried to log in at work.

Try to copy at night! I finally got lucky at a little before 2am. I figured one last shot after tonight’s raid couldn’t hurt, and it certainly paid off!

Good Luck with your character copies, and I hope to see you on the PTRs!

PTR Patch 3.1 Notes

As a blogger, there should be a rule against going to sleep early. Last night I decided to hit the hay a little earlier than normal, therefor missing the release of the Patch notes and all the hub-bub that went along with it. And now the PTRs are up! And, why of course, it has to be a hectic day for me otherwise, so I am just sitting down to digest all the patch notes and changes now.

Here is the PTR Patch 3.1 Notes Digest for Druids:

Druid Tier 8 !

Finally we get our first look at what our Tier 8 gear will look like for us. I was concerned after seeing what the Rogues had to work with, but am very pleasantly surprised that our T8 is quite Druidic indeed! Check it out here! I love all the paw prints, vines, and moons!!

Druid Glyph Changes

There are a few changes as well as a bunch of additions for all druids. No say on whether these will be Major or Minor glyphs, but it is nice to see a few additions that interest me. Feral Glyphs are bold.

• Glyph of Rebirth — Players resurrected by Rebirth are returned to life with 100% health. (Old: Increases the amount of health on a character brought back to life via Rebirth by 100%.)
• Glyph of Starfall  — Reduces the cooldown of Starfall by 90 sec. (Old: Increases the duration of Starfall by 2 sec.)
• Glyph of Berserk *new*  — Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 sec.
• Glyph of Wild Growth *new*  — Wild Growth now affects up to 6 targets.
• Glyph of Nourish *new*  — Your Nourish heals an additional 6% for each of your heal over time effects present on the target.
• Glyph of Savage Roar *new*  — Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 6% bonus damage done.
• Glyph of Typhoon *new*  — Reduces the cooldown of your Typhoon spell by 3 sec.
• Glyph of Barkskin *new*  — Reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 1 to 0% while Barkskin is active.

Druid Class Changes

It’s nice to see changes across the board for all Druid Specs. Many changes for us Ferals. I will post more on what the changes will mean to me very soon.

Balance

• Faerie Fire now decreases armor by 5%. (Previously decreased armor by a set amount)
• Owlkin Frenzy (Tier 8 ) now procs off physical melee and ranged attacks. (Previously was triggered by all attacks)
• Owlkin Frenzy is now properly considered an Enrage effect.

Feral Combat

• Faerie Fire now decreases armor by 5%. (Previously decreased armor by a set amount)
• Savage Roar changed to increase physical damage done by 30%. (Previously increased attack power by 40%)
• Maim now stuns the target instead of incapacitate.
• *New Spell* Savage Defense, 1 rank, level 40 – Each time you deal a melee critical strike, you gain Savage Defense, reducing the damage taken from the next physical attack that strikes you by 25% of your attack power.
• Survival of the Fittest (Tier 6) now increases your armor contribution from cloth and leather items in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 11/22/33%. (Previously 22/44/66%)

• Predatory Strikes (Tier 4) now increases now includes Moonkin Form in its effect.
• *New Talent* Primal Gore, Tier 10, 1 point talent – Grants the periodic damage from your Rake, Lacerate and Rip abilities the ability to critically hit.
• Savage Roar is now considered an Enrage effect.

Restoration

• Abolish Poison now ticks every 3 secs for 12 secs. (Previously ticked every 2 secs for 8 secs)
• Replenish (Tier 9) : This talent is now re-named “Revitalize” and now also works with Wild Growth.

• Improved Regrowth (Tier 6) renamed Nature’s Bounty. Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth and Nourish spells by 5/10/15/20/25%. (Previously increased just regrowth crit by 10/20/30/40/50%)
• Intensity (Tier 3) now allows 17/33/50% of mana regeneration to continue while casting. (Previously 10/20/30%)
• Improved Mark of the Wild (Tier 1) now also increases all of your total attributes by 1/2%.
• *New Talent* Improved Barkskin, Tier 10, 2 point talent – Increases the damage reduction granted by your Barkskin spell by 5/10%, and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 30/60% while under the effect of Barkskin.
• Living Seed: This talent now accounts for your ineffective healing, rather than effective.
• Replenish: This talent is now re-named “Revitalize” and now also works with Wild Growth.
• Tree of Life: You can now use Nature’s Grasp and Thorns while within this form.

There are many, many other changes that will have an affect on myself and many druids regarding dual specs, mounts, raids, gear, among other things, that I plan to discuss soon.

These changes will certainly be tweaked many times before they ever hit us on the live Realms. I am trying my best to get my Druid copied to the PTR so I can mess around will all the changes (and maybe get in Ulduar raiding) before it does go live. There is also no set date for when this will go live.

Want to stay up to date with all Patch 3.1 goodness? Check out MMO-Champion.com for their great coverage on all the changes coming to the game we love.