While switching from Druid to Rogue is a seldom-made choice (why play a Rogue when you can already play a Cat?), I thought I’d share with you a few tips on playing a Rogue from my extensive experience playing with Valenna over the years:

1. Stab things. Or slash them. But don’t smash them. People who smash are PEE-VEE-PEEers, are considered inferior, and are not really cut out for raiding.
2. Damage meters are your life and are almost as important as loot.
3. Exclude Beastmaster Hunters from your damage meter output. They’re so easy to play, they should be considered hired NPCs. And exclude Mages who have the unfair advantage of AOE. Exclude Warlocks for being … Warlocks. If you ever find yourself not at the top of the damage meters, it is because Blizzard hates you and has designed the encounter to screw over Rogues. On the other hand, when you do top the damage meters, it is clearly due to your superior skill.
4. Watch your threat. Watch it go higher and higher. Whee!!
5. Never use Feint. If you absolutely have to, make sure everyone knows (a raid-wide announcement is appropriate). If, after using Feint, you end up below #1 on the damage meters, blame it on the tanks’ lack of aggro forcing you to waste valuable energy to Feint.
6. If you die, it’s because Vanish is broken. If you pull aggro, it is because Vanish is broken. If you aren’t #1 on the damage meters … you guessed it. It’s because Vanish is broken.
7. Running out of AOEs is for pansies and people who aren’t #1 on the damage meters.
8. Don’t use poisons. They’re expensive and time-consuming to create. Just press your stabbing/slashing buttons harder; it’s almost the same thing.
9. Complain about how Blind is an inferior crowd control to Cyclone. Ignore all other forms of crowd control at your disposal. Fervently insist that Gouge, Sap, Kidney Shot, and Cheap Shot are not forms of crowd control but merely roleplaying features appropriate to your class.
10. Never, under any circumstances, use bandages, healthstones, or — Elune forbid — healing potions. Give a healer any room to slack off and you’ll be expected to maintain your own health indefinitely and waste valuable seconds and global cooldowns that could instead be used to DPS.
11. If you ever must violate #10, make sure everyone knows. Keep a running tally of how much money the healer owes you in expensive, life-saving consumables.
12. YOU should get the battle rez. No one else. Not the MT healer, not the Mage responsible for crowd controlling the Square who’s about to break. Not even the other Druid who still has a battle rez. And if you know your Druid has a battle rez available, be sure to die before the DPS Warrior.
13. Gloat over your ability to destroy X, Y, and/or Z class in PvP. Ignore the fact that it is merely a current design quirk of your spec/class/gear that allows you to do so. Bemoan the nerfing of this clearly (unadmittedly) overpowered ability.
14. Playing DPS is HARD. Don’t let anyone tell you different. You are important! You are a beautiful and unique snowflake! Along the same lines, frequent AFKs are acceptable as long as you leave yourself on auto-attack and within range of the mob you’re stabbing (or on auto-follow).
15. Never get rid of anything. You never know when you might need that level 65 quest reward with 4 more attack power (but otherwise vastly inferior stats) than what you’re currently wearing. Who says Druids need to be the only ones with four sets of armor in their banks?
16. Your racial abilities are vastly inferior to those provided to Rogues of other races.
17. It is acceptable for you to always be the person who aggros additional mobs when your group is moving through a dangerous area. This makes up for all the times you don’t aggro things while sapping.
18. "I thought I was stealthed" is a perfectly valid excuse … for anything. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise; they aren’t Rogues and wouldn’t understand.
19. Mana Tide doesn’t increase your standing on the damage meters. Windfury does. Therefore, a Shaman in your group is worth two in the raid.
20. Lament every new Rogue that joins your raids, be they newly-leveled alternates of guildmates or an applicant to your guild. Simultaneously complain that your class is much less desirable than it was at release.
21. If, in an upcoming Patch, changes are made to all other classes that would be considered nerfs, bemoan the fact that Blizzard just doesn’t care about Rogues.
22. It is completely unfair that there is only one set of gear for you to roll on. You should at least be allowed to roll on Ret-Pally and Enhancement Shaman gear to make up for the fact you only get to roll on DPS-Rogue leather — of which there is none.
23. Along those same lines, there is not, nor will there ever be, an upgrade for you wherever you go. In fact, all your current items are probably just sidegrades from the gear you had at level 60.
24. DPS Warriors should never have priority on weapons, rings, necklaces, trinkets, etc. because they can also tank. All you have is DPS! This goes double triple for Druids!
25. Opening lockboxes is hardly a class-defining skill. The skill should either be made self-only, or the boxes that you unlock should become soulbound.
26. Blog … but only occasionally. And only when you’re guilted into doing so by your best friend, Phaelia.

In parallel to this guide, Valenna has written a guide for Druiding (he refers to it as "Druidity").

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I’m not always the most diligent at completing daily quests. Occasionally, I’ll go for stints where I complete the BEM quests for Simon Says, Bombing, and Nether Ray Wrangling for a week or so and then stop until raid repairs and consumables have eaten through most of my surpluses. Patch 2.4 introduced a whole new set of dailies for me to neglect, including some with the potential to grant Heroic Badges! One such quest is called Intercepting the Mana Cells and is given by Exarch Nasuun on the Terrace of Light in Shattrath City. Once you have the quest, you’ll have to fly up to North-central Blade’s Edge Mountains, to an area marked on your map as Bash’ir Landing. The most convenient flight point is Evergrove which is southeast of your destination (but labeled "Ruuan Weald" on your map).

Once you arrive at Bash’ir Landing, you’ll need to kill the resident monsters until one of them drops a [Bash'ir Phasing Device]. Restoration- and Balance-specced Druids should avoid the Unbound Ethereals. They’re immune to arcane damage (Moonfire and Starfire), so you’re better off killing the Ethereals whose names start with "Bash’ir." As far as I’m aware, none of them are claw or tooth immune, so kitties and bears can kill anything they want. The drop rate for the Phasing Device seems pretty high, and it shouldn’t take more than a few kills to get one.

Activate your Phasing Device, the world will go all blue and wibbly-wobbly, similar to the effect experienced by Mages when they cast Invisibility. At this point, all the Ethereal mobs will disappear, and you’ll be able to see small glowing cubes called [Smuggled Mana Cell]. The objective of this quest is to collect 10 of these cubes, but the spawn point for each is guarded by one or more Phase Wyrms. As with most collect quests of this nature, it can be very frustrating to be clearing the mob guarding a Mana Cell only to have another player come in and nab the item for himself. Luckily, I’ve discovered a foolproof technique for protecting yourself from these shenanigans! To easily and efficiently collect your 10 Mana Cells:

1. Shapeshift into Flight Form.
2. Fly up a little ways so that you’re outside the aggro range of the Wyrms but can still see the box spawn points.
3. When you find an unclaimed Mana Cell, fly down directly on top of it. Chances are, you’ll aggro its guardian Phase Wyrm.
4. Cast Cyclone on the Wyrm. As it’s casting, spin your camera so that your cursor turns into the gold activation cog over the Mana Cell.
5. As soon as your Cyclone goes off, ctrl+right click on the Mana Cell (or whatever key combination you have specified for auto-loot). The Wyrm should just break free a second or two after you’ve acquired the Mana Cell.
6. Kill the Wyrm and repeat. Note: Should you die while collecting, you’ll lose your Phasing Device and have to acquire a new one!

Using this technique, it’s practically impossible to be "scooped" by another player, making what might otherwise be a frustrating and odious quest (especially for Restoration Druids) a quick and easy way to acquire a bag of [Shattered Sun Supplies]! And remember, always use your powers for good, not evil; don’t take Mana Cells from other players. The QQ in the official forums has finally subsided to the merest trickle of tears. Let’s not garner any further ill will from the lesser classes!

For a more extensive write-up on the Daily Quests in 2.4, I invite you to read Part 1 of the new series that my friend Runycat from Unbearably HoT is working on!

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Amidst the excitement surrounding the release of Patch 2.4, I think it important that we Druids not lose sight of an issue that has plagued our class almost since its inception. While Bears, Cats, Moonkin, and Trees lament the sameness of their forms, they take for granted the immense personality granted to them by one simple feature: /dance. Alas, the poor, neglected Aquatic Form has no such emote. We swim to the left and swim to the right but can’t even put a flipper in and take it out in some semblance of an underwater hokey-pokey. I know that some will argue that the awkward Sea Lion form doesn’t lend itself well to dancing, that Sea Lions simply can’t dance! Therefore, I submit the following for your consideration:

Special thanks to Bellwether from 4 Haelz for sharing this with me!

As part of this community-driven effort, I hope to convince Andrige, creator of the gorgeous skins for all of our other forms to modify our Aquatic Form as shown above. ^^

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As you might remember, I’m lucky enough to be in a guild with a large concentration of members in the Salt Lake City area. This is great for fostering a sense of community, but it’s even better for party planning. This Saturday, several of my guildmates got together for a structured activity: Poker. The twist? We played for WoW gold! (Shhhh! Don’t tell Blizzard!) I’m so happy with how this event turned out that I’d like to share with you how we did all the planning and structure in case any of you would like to try something similar.

The Rules

I won’t go into the full details, but here are a few of the highlights from the rules created by Valenna and Mr. Phae:

• Blinds increase every 30 minutes, starting at 1/2 and eventually reaching 50/100 with one blind increase from 10/20 to 25/50 at two and a half hours.
• The players who place fifth through first place receive an increasing percentage of the total payout. In addition, the player with the best hand for the night (who does not also place in 1^st-5^th place) receives a smaller % of the total payout. The breakdown for payouts is as follows:
  • 1^st Place: 37% of total gold
  • 2^nd Place: 24% of total gold
  • 3^rd Place: 16% of total gold
  • 4^th place: 11% of total gold
  • 5^th Place: 7% of total gold
  • Best Hand: 5% of total gold

  In our case, with nineteen players (each of whom purchased one or more rebuys and a single add-on), our total pot size ended up at 5200 gold.

WTT Chips for Gold

To make things more fun, we substituted plastic pirate gold and colored gems for poker chips. You can find packages of plastic gold coins at most party supply stores for around $4/144 coins, and we found craft stores to be a great source for fake gemstones. We bought two bags of gems: one from the mosaic crafts section that are like rhinestones but without a mirrored back and one with clear plastic diamonds about an inch in diameter. The gems came in two sizes and several shapes, so we divided each kind into two denominations. All the "currency" (coins and gems) were collected in a small, wooden treasure chest we found on sale for $6, giving things a polished look when we presented it at the game.

Special Items

In addition to the gold coins and gemstones, we included special items. We purchased some from the party store where we found the pirate coins, but many were things we had around the house. We created custom tooltips for them printed on heavyweight parchment paper. Mrs. Valenna used an eyelet-punch to insert a metal ring in them so we could attach them to the items with colored string without damaging them. She also rounded off the corners so they wouldn’t get bent up. Below is a slideshow of photos I took during the preparation process:

Each item was worth 100 gold a piece and were offered during the "addon" phase. As a twist and to encourage the total pot size to grow, players could pay 100 gold for two items (essentially doubling their investment). And here were few of my favorite tooltips:

• A wide, copper, chain-link bracelet with small copper coins hanging from it became [General's Mail Legguards of the Tiger] (Female Only)
• A silver and gold pocket watch because [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch] with the flavor text, "It’s GARROTIN’ time!"
• A simple, wooden kitchen spoon became [Cookie's Stirring Rod] with the byline, "Used to make Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle soup."
• A gold hoop earring that Mr. Phae found on the ground outside our apartment became a [Gold Pirate Earring] with the flavor text, "To err is human, to arrggh, pirate!"
• The plastic cutlass I bought for my pirate costume last Halloween was named [Gladiator's Quickblade]. We added the flavor text, "WELFARE?! Do you know how many Druid/Warrior teams I lost to for this?!"
• A red, stuffed dragon Mr. Phae won for me at the Excalibur casino in Las Vegas became [Crimson Whelpling]. Playing on the well-known in-game video and voicechat, its tooltip was "LEEEEEEEEROY JEEEEEENKINS!!!"

If you need some ideas for your own items and tooltips, you can download a printable Word Document of the ones we created. It should be easy to change the ones we made and add your own.

Denominations Summary

In summary, here are the denominations we included in the game:

• Coins: 1 gold (we bought around 600 coins)
• Small, colored gemstones: 5 gold
• Large, colored gemstones: 25 gold
• Small diamonds: 50 gold
• Items: 100 gold
• Large diamonds: 200 gold
• Tier tokens: 400 gold

To make this easy to remember, I created a couple of sheets that detailed the value of the different denominations with flat-backed gemstones glued onto the first three categories. The first sheet only included coins and the gemstones excluding the large diamonds. When we revealed the items at 1 hour into the tournament, we replaced that sheet with a full-length one featuring all seven denominations (clipart was used to represent diamonds, items, and tier tokens).

The Game

I think that the game went incredibly well. Everyone seemed to get along and have fun (the presence of alcoholic beverage is always helpful in that regard). With nearly twenty players (including a few spouses staked by their husbands or wives — including Mr. Phae), we had to divide into two tables. To make things fair, we drew suits to determine who would be at each table with red cards going to one table and black cards going to the other. An hour into the game, we offered the Item addons and took a half hour break before returning to our tables to resume play. Two hours later, we were down to only ten players (which did not include me) and so condensed to the larger of the two tables with everyone else gathered around to watch. It took about an hour to an hour and a half for the tournament to finish from that point, though I suspect things would have been faster if a certain Night Elf Rogue hadn’t been so intoxicated!

In the end, Valenna placed first, taking home 1924 gold. Mr. Ebene placed third, more than recouping the money I supplied to stake his play. I very nearly won the prize for best hand of the evening (one of only two I actually got to play with my highly conservative strategy), but lost out when the wrong player placed in the top five. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the game:

Click to enlarge or view the full album here.

Next time we do this, I plan on preparing a couple of Bronze Kettle recipes. The initial outlay for all the gaming materials was such that I couldn’t justify spending any more this time around, but I’ve been dying to try out their Moonglow recipe!

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As you may have noticed, Resto4Life has been experiencing some pretty serious slowdowns and downtime over the past week. More specifically, the cluster where my site is hosted has a borked file server, affecting not only web sites but related e-mail. Ostensibly, they’re trying to move sites from the old server to a new one and adding a third file server to help distribute the load more evenly. I can only imagine the hell in which their tech-guys are living trying to get things up and running again, having been through something similar last week.  But while I’m sympathetic, it doesn’t help my readership any! I hope you can bear with me while they get things straightened out. In the mean time, why don’t you visit, read, and subscribe to one of the following great sites:

• 4 Haelz by Bellwether
• Big Bear Butt Blogger by B3
• Leafshine: Lust for Flower by Leafshine
• Lifebloomer by Sioban
• Of Teeth and Claws by Karthis
• Points of Convergence by Rhoelyn
• Unbearably HoT by Runycat

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• Hasta Luego