They build ‘em, I link ‘em. Tons and tons of new Druid blogs to share with you this week! Information on how I decide who to feature included below!

• A Tale of Two Druids
  Nasirah of Muradin (US) knows Druids. Seemingly experienced with (and interested in) all aspects of our class, her blog is a great resource for Druids of all shapes and fur patterns.
• Aspect of the Hare
  Tawyn “Pike” of Silver Hand (US) writes a Hunter blog packed with personality. One of the most immediately endearing blog designs I’ve seen.
• Crusader Aura
  Written by Twalkins of Dark Iron (US), Crusader Aura is Azeroth from the perspective of a once-Retribution, once-Protection, now-Holy-specced Paladin.
• Druid4Life
  Unwilling to commit herself to a single spec, Artemis of Khadgar (EU) writes refreshingly of her quest to level to 70.
• Feather Duster
  Nalik of Moonglade (EU) seeks to bring some “balance” to the Druid blogosphere by writing as a European, Tauren, Balance Druid. If there were affirmative action for groups, he’d definitely be getting in!
• Our Warcraft Family
  Arethadruid of Drenden (US) writes about her unique experiences playing with her husband and children on Our Warcraft Family. Oh, and she and her husband both play Druids!
• Purrfect
  Ceera of Turalyon (US) writes about her purple kitten of doom (+2 Vorpal). Bonus points for selecting a guild called Renegades of Funk.
• The Rambling Bear
  Surania of Steamwheedle Cartel (US) was born a ramblin’ bear. She’s doing her best to pay repairs. (Okay, that was a little weak, I admit.) Feral goodness abounds at The Rambling Bear.
• The Hidden Grove
  Tarhoguk of Khadgar (EU) is building a resource dedicated primarily to Moonkin tanking.
• Yashima Plays
  World of Warcraft, of course! Yashima of Terrodar (EU) is a Druid with experience playing all three talent trees. She shares her thoughts on all aspects of our class: tanking, DPS (spell and melee) and healing!
• Xial: Just another WoWer
  Xialey of Bleeding Hollow (US) writes about her adventures, particularly soloing dungeons (a practice seemingly popular among Hunters) as she levels up.

Girls Don’t Game

And, while not necessarily directly related to World of Warcraft specifically, I’d like to highlight a recent find of mine, Girls Don’t Game. Featuring a kickass design and five equally kickass (female) writers who don’t attempt to shove girl power down your throat, GDG includes articles on video gaming — both retro and contemporary — and the gaming industry in general. A new favorite of mine to be sure!

Q. How do you find all of these people?

A: I watch the list of incoming links to Resto4Life.com through StatCounter. So if you link to me and someone follows that link from your site to mine, I might find your blog. Usually that happens within the first couple of weeks you’ve started writing, and it’s rare for me to immediately feature it, especially if it’s so new the paint hasn’t dried. Instead, I’ll add it to my bookmarks under “Blogroll Possibilities.” That way, I can browse through my folder of links to pick out a group of new ones to feature (it usually takes me a couple of days to transfer these links to my blogroll). Of course, if I find another Druid author has added you to their links list, I’ll bookmark you as well.

Q. What criteria do you have for features/additions?

A: Criteria differ for Druid and non-Druid blogs but aren’t particularly rigid. Here are a few of the factors that help me decide:

• Druid Blogs
  Serious bonus points here. We Druids have to stick together and prove our superior verbosity over the Hunters and Priests (the other two classes who seem the most prolific).
• Writing
  This one is pretty self-explanatory. I appreciate intelligent, well-written articles that demonstrate an understanding of sentence structure. Super duper extra bonus points for making me laugh or smile, though!
• Design
  As someone who has designed a lot of web sites over the years, I appreciate the effort that goes into crafting not only words but the stationary upon which they’re presented. Certainly, substance should come before style, but a nice design will get me visiting rather than only subscribing via RSS.
• WoW-Centric
  It should go without saying, but the blogs I feature are all WoW-centric in one way or another.
• Math and Theorycraft
  They crunch numbers so I don’t have to? Yes, please!
• Up-to-Date
  For non Druid blogs, I’ll usually wait to see if a blog has more than a handful of posts before featuring it. Both Druid and non-Druid blogs should have been updated within the last month. (This reminds me that I probably need to do some pruning based on inactivity.)
• RSS Feed
  It’s rare for me to feature a site for which I can’t find an RSS feed, mostly because I know many readers prefer syndication to keep up with the multitude of great blogs that exist.
• Links
  Even if the blog doesn’t necessarily link to Resto4Life, making the gesture of wanting to be part of the blog community is often good enough for me. Having no links at all makes a blog seem anti-social.
• Advertisement
  Showing ads all over a blog — especially if it’s a new blog — makes it seem like the author might be blogging more for profit than out of enjoyment. And if she isn’t enjoying writing, chances are I won’t enjoy reading. Extra demerits for gold ads! If you’re determined to display advertising, please filter what you allow to be advertised. If I want to see gold ads, I’ll log onto the game and accept random level 1 group invites
• Ability to Describe
  This is really a personal limitation. It gets really difficult to think of something to say about the 8th or 9th link I’m adding. If I can’t easily determine a blog’s purpose, I may leave it in “Blogroll Possibilities” to return to later. “About” pages can really help with this.
• Self-Hosted
  While by no means a deal-breaker, having a self-hosted blog — especially with its own domain name — is a strong indication of dedication and that a blog is more likely to stand the test of time (and vacations).

Q. Why do you do it?

A: It’s a lot of work, especially writing the interesting description each blog deserves (something at which I know I need to get better). But I also remember how hard it was when I first started, trying desperately to find people willing to read what I’d written. And when I got my first (non Valenna) comments, I was so thrilled. Without that initial encouragement, I might not be here today!

Q. How do you choose who to feature?

A: An unfortunate result of wanting to share all the quality blogs that I find is that I can’t possibly hope to include them all on my sidebar. The ones that I do feature are my personal favorites, generally represent “best of breed”, and are usually well-established blogs. It’s rare for me to make an addition to my “Favorites” though I do subscribe to everyone I feature and add to my blogroll.

Related Posts

• Community Spotlight
• Community Spotlight
• Community Watch or “Yet More Blogroll Additions”

…And steals all my plugins!

I’m thrilled to announce that after months of near-constant hounding (what are friends for?), Valenna of Parry! Dodge! Spin! has switched his Rogue blog from Blogger to WordPress. He’s still putting the finishing touches on the design but has moved over all the content and comments. Go check it out and make him feel welcome!

Related Posts

• Druids vs. Priests
• More Recommended Places
• Welcome, Keredria and Tree of Life!

Flynx of Bronzebeard (US) recently completed an update of Hydrar’s Resto Gear Calculator to include those items made available in Patch 2.3 and has generously offered to make this update available through Resto4Life.com. From the original post on Hydrar’s Resto Gear Calculator:

Hydrar of Uldaman has created an amazing spreadsheet that automatically calculates many healing stats including HP, MP, +Healing, MP5, and tick values for Druid Heals over Time. Possible inputs include “race, gear, set bonuses, gems, meta gems, socket bonuses, talents, buffs, and enchants.”

Thanks, Flynx and Hydrar!

• Download Hydrar’s Resto Gear Calculator (updated for Patch 2.3)
• Download Hydrar’s Resto Gear Calculator (original)

Note: I have attempted to contact Hydrar for permission to post the updated version of his gear calculator, to offer him the option to host it himself, or to offer not to share it but have so far not received a response. Should he contact me with a request to not host this updated version, I will willingly remove it.

Related Posts

• Hydrar’s Restoration Spreadsheet
• Wearing PvP Gear for PvE Content
• Community Spotlight or “Stuff to do while Waiting for Server Up”

So … many … blogs. Here are some more!

• Kitty McPounceALot
  With what is possible one of the cutest blog names I’ve seen, KMP is written by Whimsy of Perenolde (US) who writes about DPSing, tanking, and her PvP experiences.
• Letters from Birdfall
  Birdfall shares her daily experiences in Azeroth. Fun to read and, possibly best of all, she uses the WoW Model Viewer the same way that I do!
• Lifebloomer
  Sioban of Magtheridon (US) writes about her experiences as a raiding Restoration Druid.
• Lost in the Grind
  Lost in the Grind is written by a Feral Druid, Tabeyus of Sen’jin (US), although the author plays a variety of other games and shares his thoughts on many things MMO-related.
• MoarHPThanJesus
  Named for a well-known quote wherein a forum poster complained that Cat Druids can turn into Bear Form when focus-fired. Includes an awesome online utility for calculating the value of various Feral items!
• One Among Many
  And she does mean MANY! The author of OaM plays a host of characters, both Horde and Alliance, although she professes her main to be a 70 Tauren Hunter.
• Tank Hard
  Written by a collection of authors who play tanks of various flavors (Protection Warriors, Feral Druids, and Protection Paladins), Tank Hard focuses on anything and everything related to keeping the nasties bashing their faces in.
• Wiggi’s World of Druiding
  And Stuff. Written by Wiggishanks of Nazjatar (US), the “stuff” primarily refers to her experiences tanking various raid bosses in Karazhan and Tempest Keep.

Also, I’d like to take this opportunity to point out a few administrative changes to the site (I like bulleted lists):

• New Web Host!
  If you’ve noticed any slowdowns in the site over the past few weeks, it’s because my old web host sold my account to another company who apparently couldn’t get their act together. To give you an idea of how bad the service was, Valenna and I were using the same web host. He received a “welcome” e-mail from the new provider. After hearing nothing from them for two weeks, I put in a support ticket asking where my welcome e-mail was since it contains all of our new account information. I was told that they were sending out these letters in batches and to be patient (er … I think account info is sort of IMPORTANT). That was almost a month ago.
• Blogroll Changes
  I’ve separated the Druid blogs on my Blogroll into Balance, Feral, and Restoration subsections with a couple blogs overlapping more than one category. Hopefully this will help direct visitors interested in more information about a particular aspect of our class.
• Shared Items
  I’ve also added the list of shared items I feature to the Nature’s Grasp section of the Guides page. These are articles from other blog authors I think everyone would benefit from reading. I felt they weren’t visible enough at the bottom of the page but didn’t think I had enough horizontal space in my sidebar to output them there. The guides listed there are likely to fluctuate from time to time, so be sure to check back occassionally (maybe I can find a way to easily highlight the most recently added).
• Ideas and Things
  I’ve created a new category entitled “Dreamstate” that includes all the posts of mine that, while not necessarily intended to be informative, are ideas that I have for the class. Some of these articles are among my favorites, and I didn’t want to see them “lost” 30 pages down into my blog. You can find these listed under the Dreamstate section of the Guides page.

Finally, I’d like to give a great big THANK YOU OMG YOU ROCK SO MUCH THANK YOU THANK YOU to Valenna for the bestest Christmas gift ever: A World of Warcraft Druid shirt from J!NX Clothing:

Want one for yourself? Ladies | Gentlemen

Related Posts

• Blogroll Changes
• Community Spotlight
• More Places to Go Barefoot

Here are a few more great blogs to read that you may not have found yet. These plus your current subscriptions should help tide you over since many authors (including myself) aren’t blogging as frequently due to the holiday!

“Nimh” by Minkee of Minkee’s Illustration Blog

• 4 Haelz A great new Restoration-based Druid blog by Bellwether of Dark Iron (US). I’ve directed several visitors to her list of “Pre-Kara Level 70 Resto Gear”, a great resource for any newly-minted Restoration Druid!
• Ardent Defender A large number of writings from Galoheart of Zangarmarsh (US), a Protection-specced Paladin. Includes posts on a diverse number of topics. A recent find (for me), but a great one.
• Blue Priest Pathos of The Scryers (EU) shares his perspective on levelling a Priest (the “Blue” is because he’s a Draenei). A fun read!
• Coralin of Spirestone Coralin is a Feral Druid currently writing of her experiences instancing, questing, and levelling in Outland.
• Blood Paladin Zerei of Skywall (US) is a prolific blogger writing on such diverse topics as instance-running, Jewelcrafting, itemization woes, and healing as a Holy Paladin.
• Girl Meets WoW Imagine my surprise when I discovered I hadn’t already linked and given a shout out to Girl Meets WoW, a blog from … well … a girl who plays WoW! Great writing and a nice selection of subject matter make this a must-have subscription.
• Rawr Kitty Kitty Nelthilta of the Forgotten Coast (US) is a brand new Druid blogger writing about things from the Feral perspective. (Credit to Bigbearbutt for this find.)
• RP Stories A blog about roleplaying in World of Warcraft. As someone who has always had at least a passing interest in in-game roleplay (mostly reaching back to my early EverQuest days), I was thrilled to find this great blog.
• The Stealthin’ *Essys While Deressy of Runetotem (US) plays several different characters, her blog so far has a decidently Druidish bent!
• They See Me Trollin’ Delmain of Arthas (US) is a recent addition to the blogging scene, writing about his experiences as both a Shadow Priest and a member of one of the minority races on the Horde side.
• Tiddly! Tiddlywinks of Cenarion Circle (US) writes an awesome-looking blog about his time in Azeroth as a Gnome Mage.
• Tree Iz 4 Healz Arianas of Gilneas (EU) is a new Resto Druid blogger who proudly states that “perennial woody plants are for restoring health and well being.” And how!
• Yet Another Warlock Nerf YAWOWN is primarily Warlock-focused but also covers other topics of interest to all players, including a collection of ways to make money in-game.
• Zanderfin’s WoW “Casual” Raiding Leiandra of Bronzebeard (US) leads a self-professed “casual” raiding guild whose progression is pretty closely in line with that of my own guild. Her blog is well-written and sure to be relevant to anyone just entering SSC and ZA.

And while Minkee’s Illustration Blog isn’t necessarily devoted to World of Warcraft specificially, it’s authored and illustrated by Minkee, one the readers here, and does include some truly stunning artwork, including the image of a beautiful Tauren Druid shown on this article. It even includes an RSS feed so you can subscribe and see each new piece as it’s posted. Truly excellent!

Related Posts

• More Places to Go Barefoot
• Community Spotlight
• Druids vs. Priests