Druids of Azeroth Wallpaper from Andrige

Andrige brings us yet another beautiful wallpaper this week, this one featuring Druids of all both Horde and Alliance and of all specs. This is a piece that required weeks and weeks of painstaking effort, and I’d say the end result was well worth the time and dedication. There are presently two versions of the wallpaper: one with an orange background (for ebil Hordies, no doubt) and one with a blue background.

On a related note, I’ve added a Resources page, specifically to archive things like Andrige’s gorgeous wallpapers and to prevent great utilities like Paininabox’s Wrath spreadsheet and Rawr from being lost among the many other posts here.

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIINS!!!

And for those of you who just couldn’t get enough zombie fun this week, Andrige has also released a great video featuring his own undead escapades:

Bear-o-Lantern (now with Boomkin-o-Lantern)

Reader Tone also sends in this screenshot of his bear dressed up as a jack-o-lantern. Who says Ferals can’t wear costumes?

Bears aren’t the only ones dressing as pumpkins; reader Athryn sent in this screenshot of her Boomkin boyfriend Loupana of Moonrunner (US):

The Feral Prince of Dire Bear

Some people have WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many free macro slots.

Thanks to Gidget of Bloodhoof (US) for sending this in!

Stormcrow in Flight

Reader Mike sent in the above picture after having recently completed the Swift Flight Form quest line. This quest series was my favorite in all of WoW, and I’m quite sad to hear that many new Druids will miss out on it since SFF will soon become trainable at level 71. I encourage everyone to do it anyway, because it really is a joy.

Related Posts

• Andrige’s Tree of Life Wallpaper
• Andrige’s Tauren Tree of Life Wallpaper
• Mana Regen Calculator Updated

Phaelia: I AM EATING A RED GUMMI BEAR AND PRETENDING IT’S YOU BERSERKING
Phaelia: OM NOM NOM
Runycat: I WAS HANDLING SOME WOOD THIS MORNING AND THINKING ABOUT YOU
Runycat: OH SHI—

Related Posts

• "Shift Happens" Contest and Community Spotlight
• OMGBBQPWND! or ‘Aegis Hestia Meets’
• Runy and Phae Get Their Nethers in a Twist

I’m sure that this is probably old hat to many of you — especially those of you who spent long and arduous hours smushing bugs in AQ20/AQ40 — but I finally reached Exalted with the Cenarion Circle last night after discovering that the Guardian of Cenarius achievement carried with it a very smexy Druid-oriented title by the same name. Prior to the release of TBC, Mr. Phae and I spent two months in the sandy wastes of Silithus, running quests and collecting … stuff … required to raise our reputation. He was after something at Exalted, but I was only after a reward at Revered, the [Grace of Earth], then the only on-use threat reducer. Various AQ runs pushed me to about 13/21k toward Exalted, leaving me 8,000 reputation left when I headed back to Silithus last night.

In all, it probably took me 3-4 hours to grind out that last bit of reputation, which was so much less painful at 70 both because I could kill mobs in 2-3 spell casts and because they’ve quintupled the reputation gain from turning in sets of 10 x [Encrypted Twilight Text] to Bor Wildmane, from 100 to 500 reputation. If you’re after the title yourself and are curious about the method I used, here’s a brief summary:

1. Run to the area marked in yellow on the map below:
   
2. There’s a Twilight camp around this area. You’ll want to stand on the south end and kill Twilight NPCs, collecting both [Encrypted Twilight Text] and the various articles of clothing ([Twilight Cultist Robe], [Twilight Cultist Cowl], [Twilight Cultist Mantle]).
3. Be watching for the spawn of the Twilight Prophet and her two cronies from some rocks to the West.  Tag her as soon as you see her. She can drop 7-10 [Encrypted Twilight Text] by herself, saving you tons of time. Once you’ve killed her (or someone else has), you should expect a respawn 25-35 minutes later and are free to move about the camp causing mayhem and destruction until that time. If you should ever need to return to town (to sell or turn in), be sure you only do so between Prophet respawns.
4. As you complete a Twilight ensemble (collecting a hat, robe, and mantle), use one of the two Lesser Wind Stones in the camp to summon a Templar. Each of these that you kill will drop an [Abyssal Crest]. 3 x [Abyssal Crest] can be turned in to Bor Wildmane for 150 additional reputation.

There are probably faster, more complex ways of gaining reputation that involve summoning Dukes, but as I only needed 8,000 reputation, it wasn’t worth the effort to investigate for me.

Here are a couple of pictures of the happy result:

  Having acquired the title, I finally gave into my long-standing urge to buy a [Cenarion War Hippogryph], the Exalted reputation mount from Cenarion Expedition. He’s a flavor addition to my very small mount collection since I’ll probably still primarily use Swift Flight Form, but Fedryen Swiftspear practically foisted him on me for a mere 1,600 gold. His name is Tairneanach, and he enjoys chasing Warriors, eating apples, and having his beak scratched.

Additional Resources

• Cenarion Expedition Reputation Guide via WoWWiki
• Cenarion Circle Reputation Guide via WoWWiki

Related Posts

• Daily Quest: Intercepting the Mana Cells
• [70+] Personal Quests (Complete)
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Restoration Spreadsheet for Wrath Talents and Equipment

Paininabox of Runetotem (US) has released an updated, beta version of Hydraar’s original Restoration spreadsheet that includes our new talent trees and items from Wrath of the Lich King. This is something several readers have asked me about, but keep in mind that the sheet is still considered beta. Eventual features Pain would like to add include buffs, consumables, and Glyphs. If you’d like to contact Paininabox to provide suggestions, comments, or corrections, your can e-mail him at .

Download Paininabox’s
Restoration Spreadsheet

Posts I Loved

• How to get 50 Mounts before WotLK from Tree Bark Jacket
  Keeva shows you how to get your own Albino Drake by collecting 50 or more mounts, no easy feat for a Tauren! Crit Immunity – Redux from Of Teeth and Claws
  Karthis discusses the changes Feral Druids need to make since the release of 3.0.2 made much of their defense rating redundant.
• Advanced Druid Healing from Part Time Druid
  Pummra discusses the things that makes a Druid different from other healers and shares tips on increasing your effective healing throughput, including the liberal use of Swiftmend and Nature’s Swiftness.
• L2PvP: Fakecasting from Yet Another Warlock Nerf
  Horns teaches you how to cast a less desirable spell in the hopes of causing an opponent to waste a crucial interrupt ability. Once their interrupt is on cooldown, you’re free to cast what you will. This will be a valuable skill with PvP-implications of the Lifebloom nerf.
• Feral Druid Profession Choices from ThinkTank
  Kalon takes a look at the benefits to a Feral Druid from each of the available tradeskills.
• Arena Spec Prep for 3.0 (Part I) from Out of Mana
  Megan (whose name is just one letter away from “mean”) examines several possible Arena specs for Druids post-3.0. Part II is available here.

“Mark of the Ancients” Wallpaper from Andrige

Beloved Druid artist Andrige has released a new Druid wallpaper, this one featuring the “Mark of the Ancients” depicted on the Tree of Life’s adorable wooden chest:

Modifying Your Rebirth Macro

With the introduction of Revive, Druids no longer need to downrank Rebirth out of combat to save money. Reader Alathi today submitted this modification to our old downranking macro:

/cast [nocombat] Revive; Rebirth

Thanks, Alathi! However you forgot the “/say This resurrection brought to you by Resto4Life.com” that comes standard with ALL of my resurrections!

Bloggy Bloggers and the Bloggers who Blog Them

It’s harvest time here in the U.S., and accordingly I have a crop of new blogs to share with you:

• Feral at Heart
  The author of FaH plays two Druids, one Feral and the other Restoration. Contains lots of commentary on talent specs.
• Flash of Moonfire
  Dedicated to her two main characters, the first a Balance-specced Druid (a Moonfire caster) and the other a Holy-specced Paladin (a Flash of Light caster), Flash of Moonfire celebrates the versatility of two of the most “hybrid” of classes.
• Ride the Pain Train
  Groloth plays a predominantly PvP-oriented Druid with experience in Balance and Restoration. Definitely seems to take a page from Megan’s l33t coloring book of post images.
• Tree Bark Jacket
  Keeva of Caelestrasz (US) brings us a fantastic new blog about her play as a Restoration Druid. Amazing pictures, humorous writing, and a diverse set of topics make this blog a must-see/must-subscribe!
• Trigger Wicked
  Mooyagi of Mug’thol (US) blogs about WoW “rumors, news, and adventures with friends” from the perspective of a Feral Druid.

Talent Chic: 31 Flavors … of the Month

Resting Resto Tauren Druid by Melissa O’Brien

Curious what everyone else is doing so you can be rebellious and spec for Dire Aquatic Form? Check out Talent Chic, a site that aggregates the most popular talent specs by class by mining Armory data. Uses a great system whereby the most popular builds are given a numerical identifier and variations on that build are expressed as a +/- change to that build! Some interesting facts about Druids:

• The 11 most popular builds for Druids are primarily Restoration, all of which include 53 or more points in the tree and Wild Growth. Apparently, the AoE healers have made quite an impression on us!
• The 10 most popular builds for Druids include 3/3 Living Spirit. This may have something to do with the increased mana cost for many of our spells, including Lifebloom.
• The top 2 builds comprise by and large comprise the most popular choices for Druids and include a 5/0/56 build and an 8/0/53 build. The primary difference? The latter swaps Replenish for Moonglow.

Summarized builds by individual spec are also available: Balance | Feral | Restoration

Thanks to reader David Peterson for the heads up on this fun tool!

Related Posts

• Peesontrees’ Resto Arena Guide
• Poll: WUT R U 4?
• Community Spotlight

Three designs from the “Shift Happens” contest are now available in the Tree Shirts store:

Restoration Wreath by Diego SS. Dicaro	Comic “Strip” by Angela Bamblett	Druid Amalgam by Taylor Eshelman

The designers of each of the above will receive a shirt proudly displaying their artistic talent, just as soon as I’ve heard back from everyone on their color, style, and size choices!

I’ve also recently created a new storefront to display available designs. Instead of page after page of different Tree Shirts, grouped together by design, you can preview all of the designs at a glance here. Clicking on a design will take you into the Spreadshirt shop with all products that feature it. I hope this makes navigation a simpler and more manageable, especially as the number of available designs and products continues to grow.

Finally, I’ve created a survey about the Tree Shirts offered here. The first part of the survey asks for your opinions about the available products and the second part includes questions for people who have already purchased shirts. If you have a moment, I’d appreciate you taking a couple of minutes to fill it out, so I have a better idea of what improvements I can make.

Related Posts

• New Tree-Shirt Designs and Store Changes
• New Tree-Shirts!
• Attn: Shirt Design Revisions