Kitty Swipe: A Week in Review

I have written an updated review of “Swipe (Cat)” which can be found here.

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Well it has been a little over a week now with my new best friend, Kitty Swipe, aka “The Easy Button”. While I had been anxiously awaiting the addition of Swipe (Cat) since I heard rumors of its incoming existence back in December, I didn’t really expect it to be as awesome as it actually is.

Let us review what it does again, shall we? Swipe (Cat): Swipe nearby enemies, inflicting 260% weapon damage. Pretty sweet, huh? Well if you, like many a Feral, picked up “Feral Instinct” in your Talent Tree, then you are in for quite an extra boost. Feral Instinct not only reduces the chance that enemies will see you while Prowling, but with all 3 points put into this talent it will increase the damage done by your Swipe ability by 30%! WoW wee!! So if you do the math there, that will put your Swipe damage at 338% weapon damage to all your nearby enemies (which also happens to be what the tooltip says if you have Feral Instinct). Now add in “Naturalist” which increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%, “Tiger’s Fury” a move that increases damage done by 80 for 6 seconds, and “Savage Roar” which will increase your attack power by 40%, and you are really starting to add up  the damage. There is also an Idol worth mentioning that will increase your Swipe damage as well. I will write more about this Idol of Perspicacious Attacks, and other Idols, in a future post.

Of course, if you could exclusively spam Swipe without a care that would be ridiculously OP, so there are some limitations on the ability. Swipe normally costs 50 energy, which is half of our precious 100 energy that we have. There are, however, things that can be done to make this awesome ability a little more friendly to our energy wallets. “Ferocity” will bring down the cost of Swipe by 5 points to a total of 45 energy. Berserk will reduce the cost of all Cat Form abilities by 50%, leaving Swipe to cost only a mere 22 or 23 energy (I am not sure if it gets rounded up or down, as it is 22.5) for a full 15 seconds. With points put into the Restoration Tree, you can pick up “Omen of Clarity” (which every druid should have, feral or not) which gives a chance for any damage, healing spells, and auto attacks to cause the caster to enter a “Clearcasting” state, which essentially gives you a free move.

So what does this all mean? I could sit here and do math all night, but really the results speak for themselves. In Naxxramas, with Savage Roar, Tiger’s Fury, and Berserk active while attacking a group of mobs I can hit 12K DPS. Yes, that is 12,000 Damage Per Second. And I have hit that 12K DPS on both trash pulls and Boss Fights, like Grand Widow Faerlina 25 with all adds up. This is rather on the high side of things, but on groups of mobs when I have extra energy through Berserk or Tiger’s Fury I am usually on par with Mage AoE DPS. For the record, the only time I have seen anyone else get near my insane 12K DPS in a similar situation is a Rogue using Fan of Knives. Its so much DPS that people make funny faces in Raid chat, and say all sorts of “Huh?”s in vent. Which really just makes me giggle about my love affair with my newest of abilities. I am in no way saying that this is 12k DPS sustained, it is merely just very high burst DPS (oxymoron?).

Saying all this, you would expect me to say that I am having a litter of Swipe-Kittens after we get married and head off on our honeymoon. While we are clearly in love, and I do not regret my addition of Swipe at all in the least, I feel a bit of sadness. This ability can just be mashed throughout just about all of instances and raids on trash mobs and bosses with adds. Yes, my DPS is through the roof with it on trash, but Swipe makes it too easy. Before there was thought and strategy put towards how to optimize DPS on trash pulls or bosses with adds. Now I can just lazily drift my eyes to my other monitor and read twitter while raiding.

I both love and loathe Swipe.

But knowing Blizzard and how they deal with all things OP, I’m sure we can expect some sort of nerf to this in the future. I know that the other 24 people in my raid group would be thrilled that the silly Girl who plays a cat wouldn’t be kicking their bums in DPS (temporarily) anymore.

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I have written an updated review of “Swipe (Cat)” which can be found here.

A Year in Review

It’s hard to believe that a year ago I had never stepped foot inside any Raid instance. Back then I was still running my first real guild “Order of Cenarius”, trying to recruit a solid 10 members so we could finally raid Karazhan. I was level 70, trial-and-error learning my way to how to tank. DPS was something I only did soloing, or when we found a better tank. I certainly wasn’t an expert at anything I was doing then, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to ever become a “hardcore” raider.

In early 2008, after losing many members to larger guilds, the most active members of “Order of Cenarius” and I set out to find a new guild to call home. After trying to PUG Kara, and joining other Kara PUGS, we knew we couldn’t do it on our own. We decided to find a guild that would take us all, and that guild was “Brilliance”. We quickly embarked out on Karazhan, learning everything as we went, growing stronger and stronger with each week of experience and loot. I became a raid leader and main tank for my Kara group, and after many attempts we finally cleared all of Kara. As a guild we progressed on to defeat Gruul and Magtheridon, and eventually on to Void Reaver who we downed once. Yet, after all these successful raids, the guild began to crumble beneath us due to disputes and drama. Many of the members, including me, splintered off into a new guild, named “Intolerance”. I however quickly lost my tolerance for them, then decided to set off on my own to find a new guild.

After applying to many guilds, and a few short stays with some guilds I really didn’t like, I settled down with “Maelstrom”. I took a step back in my own raiding progression to join them, heading back into Karazhan raiding and prepping for 25 mans. We raided together very sucessfully through the summer of 2008, downing Gruul, Magtheridon, and Void Reaver yet again. As the summer waned, people started raiding less which in turn led to more drama and then once again, the guild fell apart due to disputes and drama.

By this point I was spending only part of my gaming time playing WoW, as I was participating in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta. I put my raiding career on hold, as Wrath was only a few months away, and spent the time I had playing around in Beta and farming gold in BC. I rejoined my old guild “Order of Cenarius”, which at this point had become just a bank for all of my characters’ junk.

In early November I decided it was time for me to start looking for a guild who planned to raid in Northrend. After a lot of searching, I came upon the guild “Luminosity”, and joined them as a trial member. Next thing I know I am in Black Temple, killing lots of baddies. I eventually backtracked with them and saw some more TK, SSC, and Mount Hyjal. I never got to down Archimonde or Illidan with them, but the experience of being in those big 25man raids was enough. This guild, too, suffered from more problems and the guild dis banned. Many of the members reformed as “Evolution” which also bit the dust after not very long. Once again many of the members reformed into yet another new guild. This one being “Paradigm Shift”.

Then we all got what we were really waiting for: Wrath of the Lich King. The members of “Paradigm Shift” quickly leveled up and began gearing up for Naxxramas. Two weeks after WotLK hit, I was already level 80. Next thing I know we are in Naxxramas and wiping, next thing I know after that we are in Naxxramas and downing stuff. It was definetly quite a high. But, alas, all good things must come to an end. A few weeks into raiding and I am out of “Paradigm Shift”. I don’t need to rehash out all the details, and frankly it all doesn’t matter anymore.

With just a few days left to the year, my boys of “Paradigm Shift” finally hang up their hats with that guild and that GM, and join our new guild, “Leviathan”. All my friends have come together to be in this guild, and we are running it right this time. We haven’t started raiding together yet, but that will all come in the new year. I will not be screwed over in this guild, I know it. We all respect each other more and know each other so well. I’ve also been made a Senior Officer, which is basically a Co-GM-type rank that a few of us share. I am also in charge of the guild website. It feels nice to be in this kind of guild. I’m looking forward to a lot in 2009 with these guys.

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I started this blog in early August of 2008 to document all of this. In the beginning I barely had any traffic, other than my fiancé and one or two friends. I really began blogging for myself more than for anyone else, that people were reading and enjoying my blog was a huge bonus, but just a bonus. I started using Twitter not long after, and then became friends with many of the so-called “WoW Twitteratti” on there, which increased my blog traffic slightly. Then thanks to another WoW Blogger, Matticus from over on WorldofMatticus.com, and a link featured in an article on his site, my blog traffic went up exponentially. In the entire month of November I had a whole 52 views. In all of Decemeber my views had gone up to 836. While I haven’t gotten near the almost 200 hits I got on the day the Matticus post went up, I have averaged around 50 views a day since.

One of the more satisfying things for me though is seeing how many people come over from links and searches, versus how many come to the site without being referred through another site. The traffic from Google searches has certainly gone up a lot, with my Winter Veil guides I have written bringing in many people. But the thing I have noticed lately is that the number of people that come to the site directly has climbed higher than the number coming in over links. Which means I have a lot of people that come here on purpose, to read my bloggings.

I have a lot planned for DruidKitty the blog and Kathoid the actualy Druid Kitty for the year to come. 2009 will be a great year for me.

Thanks to all my readers that have made 2008 an amazing blogging year for me.

Love, Peace, and Best Wishes for this brand new year ahead of us.

-Kathoid

A Gift Giving Guide: Your Lady of WoW

Well with Winter Veil upon us in game and Christmas and Hanukkah right around the corner and all, it’s time to get shopping for your own WoW Lady, if you haven’t done so already. I can’t say for sure what she may love (be it a bucket of popcorn or that fancy pair of diamond earrings she has been not-so-subtly wanting) but one thing is sure: if she LOVES WoW she would probably LOVE a WoW gift.

Wrath of the Lich King: If she doesn’t have it already you are letting her slowly die on the inside. Or, if she does have it and is QQing about the lack of Companion Pets her Main has, upgrade her to Collector’s Edition! Pricey, I know, but love knows no bounds (and you do know which love I am talking about, don’t you?). The CE Edition comes with much awesomeness, but the Frost Wyrm pet is a gift that will make her giggle in delight at it’s absurd cuteness. If that isn’t holiday spirit, I’m not sure what is.

TShirts: Who needs long sleeves when she has you to keep her warm? She will definitely be in the mood for huggin’ once she unwraps one of these awesome Ts.

• Darnassus Nightsabers Women’s Tee – Let her show off her WoW Pride without it being too obvious! This WoW Tee is cleverly disguised as a Team Tee, although any WoWer out there is sure to recognize it!
• Locked Chest Women’s Tee – You better hope you play a rogue for this one though. Or else she may go elsewhere to be “lock picked”. (*I’m just realizing now that they should update the graphic on the shirt, as max level has increased.)
• Druid Class Women’s Tee – I of course have this one, so it gets my seal of approval. Actually, I’m wearing it right now! It’s a sign you WoW Lady also desires a class Tee of her own. They have one for every class, other than Death Knight, though I am sure that is to come soon.
• /Dance Women’s Tee – I also have this tee too, in Olive. A must have for any Night Elf.

Talking Murloc Plush Toy – I have a love for Murlocs. This little cutey stands (hunches?) at 9 inches tall, and sings that lullaby that is the Murloc Battle Cry: MRRLGLLRMMRRRGLLL!!! (I’m not sure on the spelling there.) If your love has a soft spot for the oft misunderstood underdog of Azeroth, pick up one of these guys so she will have someone to cuddle with when you undoubtedly stay up all night raiding.

Baby Murloc Plush – That last Murloc not cute enough for her (or you)? Seek out one of these ultra rare baby Murky plushes. As far as I know they were only available at a 2007 WWI event in Korea. Yes, he is a Blizzard Licensed Product. And oh so cute, too!! You can find them on Ebay, but the price isn’t cheap. But you know my feelings on love… (see above)

World of Warcraft Action Figures – Not into plush toys? How about hard plastic. (You know, so when its sitting out and your bros come over they won’t laugh, and you won’t have to explain who wears the WoWPants in your household…) Check out these Action Figures. It even comes in the delicious Broll Bearmantle flavor. (/insert druid crush xoxo<3xoxo /end druid crush)

And, of course, if you’re cheap, there’s always pre-paid game time cards!!

iPhone/iPod Touch App: Warcraft Characters

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch and are an Avid WoWer, listen up!

For all you “Humans” who don’t spend all your time glued to Azeroth, Outlands, or Northrend here is a fun little WoW related App. Time for you to check out this App out – it’s called “Warcraft Characters” and is available on the App Store now. It will pull character information off the Armory and display it in very iPhone friendly fashion so you can proudly show off your character to your friends and brag about your full set of T4 or that awesome staff you just got! (Or look up some noobs profile and laugh at their crappy blues!) You can also look at your stats, reputation, items, and arena team info, too.

Now you just have to remember to always log out in your best gear and not in some embarassing outfit.

Available for download now, or check out the developer’s website for more info.

<3 Kathoid