Guest Post

While I am still on my little sabbatical from Wow, Macbook has been kind enough to submit this great post.

Speccing your Balance Druid Appropriately

Introduction

Macbook is a raiding Moonkin on the server Stormscale US. You can follow him on his blog Moonkin. Razorbax gave me the opportunity to guest blog on his blog, and I thought it would be great to keep some posts coming while he is taking a RL break.

So What's the Problem?

As you all may know, the new talents for WoTLK were released just this past Tuesday. Everything we currently knew with our talent builds was essentially shattered, and there was hardly anywhere to turn. Blizz combined Bonus Spell Damage and Bonus Healing, making it even more confusing.

Finding a Spec You Are Comfortable With

When picking your new balance spec, the most important thing is to address what you are going to use it the most for. I am not a firm believer in respeccing all the time for arena, then respeccing for BGs, respeccing for dailies, and then respeccing for raids. But people still do it, and they're paying tons of gold to do it.

So, like I said, the key thing is to make yourself happy. I tried out almost 3 different specs when the patch came out, and finally settled on one that I am more than satisfied with. I picked a full balance spec, 61/0/0 and its working beautiful for me in both PvE and PvP settings.

Find a spec that suits what you do the most. If you hardly raid and mostly do 5mans or 10mans where you may have to pop a heal here and there, then you probably want to go spec some points in the resto build and go hybrid. You'll probably also want to throw some points in Natural Shapeshifter to decrease the mana cost of all the shapeshifting you will be doing. You'll also probably want to pickup Nature's Splendor and Genesis, to both increase the duration of your Rejuvenation and Lifebloom spells, as well as increase the heals each tick does.

If you raid as Moonkin and don't have the pleasure of having a shadow priest in your raid, you'll probably want to go with putting 3 points in Intensity to allow 30% of your mana regen to continue while casting. You probably want to throw some points in Furor, which while drastically (up to 10%), increase your intellect and therefore your mana pool. You'll also definitely need Balance of Power because all Moonkins raiding anything above Kara need to be hit capped (152 hit rating if you have both points in this talent). Full points in Earth & Moon have proved to be amazing for me, seeing as how its essentially increasing all your damage by 13%.

I'm not great at PvP, so I won't even try to tell you guys what to get, I usually just PvP in PvE gear (great damage), and never respec for BGs/Arena.

At any rate, the main thing is that you probably won't want to follow anyone's talent build just yet. No one really knows 100% what they're doing, so your best bet is to decide what you do the most of, and go through each and every talent carefully. Be sure to read the description of each one carefully, as they also made small changes that are hard to see (like at first, I didn't realize that Subtlety was changed so that it only decreased threat on resto spells, no longer all threat). There is now a talent in the Balance talent tree that gives 15% threat reduction.

Healing While in Balance

You can definitely heal while in balance spec. You will even heal very nice amounts. My Healing Touch spells usually heal for 4500 and crit for 6k-7k healing. The problem with healing while Balance specced is going to be your mana pool. Its going to drown rediculously. Still, I have healed many 5 man trash pulls while being balance. For example, if a healer is AFK, we usually keep doing a 5 man with me healing because I can usually keep everyone up. Boss fights though, are a different story, and I wouldn't really recommend trying to main heal anything while balance specced.

Conclusion

The new patch and the WoTLK expansion makes the Moonkin druid a much more viable source of DPS, both single target and AoE. My DPS jumped from around 1000-1200 DPS in a raid setting to over 2000 DPS on some bosses. The merge of spell damage and bonus healing has somewhat complicated things in term of gear (some of my resto set now has more spell power than my Moonkin set), but it is my belief that balance druids can heal 5 man trash pulls and throw useful offheals occasionally if needed.

Anyway's, I hope this helped any of you guys out there, and if you get a chance, check out my blog over at www.Moonkin.info!

Read more...

Multi-Boxing Guest Post #1

I am going to try something new here and I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I do. A while back on the BA Forums there was a post regarding Guest Posts. I found this interesting and put my name down. DrZ from Multiboxing in World of Warcraft has taken up the challenge. So without further adieu.....

Close Encounters of the Multi-Boxing Kind!

So, we have all heard about this thing called multiboxing right. You know, where some fat, skanky, jobless slob still living in his mama's basement who miraculously affords paying multiple accounts just so they can tool around Azeroth playing several toons at once to make up for his lack of skill. Being that your reading this on a blog whose main theme is about this very subject, I am going out on a limb and answer "yes" to that one
So, what would you do if you ever encountered a multiboxer? Sure, you've read about it. Maybe chatted about it. Hell maybe you've seen some videos about it. But have you ever seen it in action, in game, live? You know, just wandering around, doing your dailies or regular quests, and stumble across one. I'm willing to bet you haven't.
You see, multiboxing is by far in the minority when it comes to any particular server (Magtheridon US not withstanding). I back this claim up with two statements.
1. After almost 4 years of playing WoW, I have only met 1 multiboxer (dualboxer specifically) besides my wife in game.
2. People still react to me with a mix of awe, hate, and general curiosity on practically an hourly basis.
But I'm getting off track here. Back on topic, what would you do if you encountered a multiboxer? Lets gloss over the typical responses that I generally receive with my 5 man team:

If they are part of my faction....

1. The Groupie - This person follows around like a wide eyed puppy dog, constantly amazed at even your simplest actions. Nothing you do is mundane to this person, and they will forever be attached to your hip for extended amounts of time. Minor annoyance out in the world, but in BG's it will severely hurt your team.
2. The Stalker - Much like the groupie, except they don't say anything and stay an uncomfortably close distance. You'll start feeling weird and insecure as he just watches your every move like a statue. Will ignore your attempts to reach out to him and generally just makes you feel dirty, Other than that won't interfere with you.
3. The Prick - This genius generally will view you not so much as another player, but as another object to amuse him. Generally will order you to do something entertaining for him, similar to how you order a dog to do a trick. Except there are no treats offered as reward, just a threat to report you for botting if you don't comply/hand out gold. Will also generally let you clear out an area for a quest boss/gathering node, then ninja it from you.
4. The Waffle - This type generally starts out like the Hater at first, until they grasp in their noggin that you can run instances or other non-solo-able content without pugging. Then he's your best friend, spamming for a group invite.
5. The Hater - He despises you for everything that you are. Nothing you can say or do will change his mind that you are scum. Reports are a given, and generally followed by nasty tells to your main toon . Speaking back is useless, as you are on his ignore list before you even started to type. If in a battleground, expect to be reported AFK on all your toons. Generally has a 6th grade English level and immune to logic.
6. The Curious - Nothing special here, just someone who asks a few questions on how you do what you do and moves on. Probably the rarest reaction.

If they are on the opposing faction,

In addition to the Groupie, Stalker, and the Prick responses, there are some new ones you get from the other team when on a PVP server.
1. The Psycho - Generally a single player who will generally repeatedly attack you on site regardless of where you are without provocation. Also normally under/at your level. What goes through these people's minds to start a fight with 2-5 other toons and expect anything out of it is beyond me.
2. The Anti-botter - Usually these people don't know what multiboxing is, and view you in the same way as a bot. Normally high level characters who start fights from a extremely disadvantageous position (such as a hunter in melee range) without provocation. Also under the assumption, like a bot, you cannot fight back and will be "desynched" should your "main" die. These are the first to run for the hills when you prove them how wrong they are.
3. The Prey - Anyone that 5 levels above you and lower. They don't have time to react as they generally are pushing up daisies the instant you attack. Gnomes make the best Prey.
4. Sandwich No Jutsu - Same as the Prey.
5. The Ganker - Same type of person who tormented you in STV. Unlike the Anti-botter, is usually well equipped for PvP, starts the fight swinging and only starts it when your at your weakest. Warlocks and Warriors are common due to AOE fear and strong damage potential, followed by Shadowpriests, Mages, and the occasional rogue and lol(ret)adin.
6. The PAA - Same as the Prey, until you kill one to many and they send a legion after you.
7. The Runner - Potentially the most dangerous reaction. They won't fight you, but they will warn the entire zone of where you are in an attempt to get lv 70's /guildmates to their aid. Will try to constantly stay out of your range to continue providing updates of your location.
And that's the general take of responses I have seen in game from other players. I wonder if yours would be any different?

DrZ

If you would like to guest post, please email me at

razorbax at threedruidnoob dot com.

Read more...