This post is in response to Maiara of Voodoo Ventures’ Screenshot Challenge, in which blog authors are asked to open their screenshot folder and highlight the sixth screenshot therein. As someone who has repeatedly reformatted her system over the years, my first batch of screenshots only dates back to my guild’s first forays into Serpentshrine Caverns. The picture below appears to be just after I installed a certain someone’s beautiful model pack. You can probably still see the guilty glow in my arboreal eyes:

And now apparently it’s incumbent upon me to challenge a few other bloggers to participate in this quick and easy blogosphere challenge. Therefore, I throw down my leafy gauntlet to:

• Runycat of Unbearably HoT (please, try to pick a PG-13 screenshot at the very least)
• Karthis from Of Teeth and Claws (where might the bear have been THEN?)
• Leafshine (I know he’ll love this)
• Graylo of Gray Matter (think the camera can angle around his big boomkin bottom?)
• Kalon from Think Tank (maybe we’ll get something juicy like Kalon playing a healer and wearing a dress! or heck, tanking in a dress!)
• Keeva from Tree Bark Jacket (hopefully we don’t catch her /mooing at passing Alliance)

Related Posts

• Welcome, Karthis!
• Community Spotlight
• Community Spotlight

Public Service Announcement for Fans of the Big-Bottomed Bear

Devoted readers of BigBearButt who have despaired at his recent silence may still be subscribed to a defective version of his RSS feed. You can subscribe to a working version of his feed at http://thebigbearbutt.com/feed/.

Resource Highlight: The Daily Druid

Dan O’Halaran of WoWInsider renown has created a fabulous new resource that may just obsolete the Community Spotlight feature here at Resto4Life (though I enjoy these posts too much to admit as much)! The Daily Druid reviews the most topical Druid-related posts from all around the blogosphere. Best of all, these posts are categorized by spec, making it a snap to get the information that’s most relevant to you and your playstyle. Check him and subscribe out here!

Posts I Loved

Here are a few of my favorite reads since the last Community Spotlight post:

• 3.09 and You from Orbital Bombardment
  Wondering how the upcoming change to Ferocious Bite will affect you? Raine explores this (mostly) PvP-related nerf to burst DPS.
• Best in Slot for Resto Druid from Sydera of World of Matticus
  Sydera shares her thoughts on the best items by slot from all currently available raid content. Warning: may become outdated with the upcoming nerf to Spirit.
• The Best Raid Heal from Passport to Shandris
  Dave Ciskowski breaks down the total amount healed over time of all available raid heals. Includes some very cool step-graphs!
• A Comparison of Two-Handers from Unbearably HoT
  Runy takes a look at the best DPS-oriented 2-handers available to Cats. Let it be known that I take no responsibility for the ridiculousness of her double entendres.
• Doing It Kitty Style: The Basics from Of Teeth and Claws
  Everyone knows that CATIS4FITE. Karthis shows you how in this great DPS primer for cool cats and wanna-be dps-kittens.
• Eclipse: Parts I, II, III, and IV from Gray Matter
  In a series larger than a boomkin’s bottom, you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know about the Balance talent, Eclipse.
• Flavors of Tanking – A Healer’s Guide from World of Snarkcraft
  A guest post from Joveta’s significant other and detailing the different “flavors” tanks come in: threat and mitigation. Personally, I prefer Karamel Sutra.
• Healing without the Tree of Life Form from Casual WoW
  Byaghro rebuts my earlier post Mailbag: A Deforested Restoration Build with his recommendations on a build and playstyle for healing without Tree of Life. Due to its limitations, he strongly emphasizes this spec as unsuitable for raiding.
• Heroic Cheat Sheet: Utgarde Keep from 4 Haelz
  Bellwether walks (waddles?) Resto Druids through healing this Heroic instance.
• How to Level a Moonkin from Gray Matter
  A straightforward approach to maturing from plucky chick to a level 80 laser turkey of death.
• Hybrid Envy from Of Teeth and Claws
  A great rebuttal to the assertion that Druids (and other classes capable of speccing for more than one role) should perform at less than 100% than their “pure” counterparts.
• Macros for a Leveling Druid from Druid Main
  As a devoted user of the Nostromo Gamepad, I’m a big fan of space-saving macros. Here are a few fun and useful ones to add to your arsenal.
• More on Wild Growth from Nerf This Druid
  Averna reviews the basic mechanics of Wild Growth, a spell that seems to confuse many Druids.
• Representation of Mice from Out of Mana
  A fantastic explanation of the cascading effect class imbalance can have on class distribution in competitive Arena play.
• Waxing Philosophical: Healer Squabbles from Tree Bark Jacket
  Keeva takes a look at the underlying reasons for the seemingly disproportionate animosity among healers on the official role forums.

Eggo on Wild Growth and Nourish

This week reader and avid Druid illustrator Eggo shares a comic related to the recent change to Nourish whereby it benefits from the HoT applied by Wild Growth. Here’s the first panel, but be sure to click to view the whole comic!

Personally, I’m excited about the prospect of “Zomg Boob Tree.” Hopefully Blizzard takes notice and gives my Tree boobies and a grass skirt in their upcoming graphical revamp. (I’m kidding, of course. Mostly.)

Blue: I <3 Graylo

A recent blue post in the official Druid class forum caught my eye a few moments ago. Eyonix writes:

<3 Graylo’s blogs

A big congratulations to Graylo! It is really exciting – for all of us – to think Blizzard might read some of the many fantastic class/spec-based blogs out there. This makes me feel a little guilty about all my crab-related posts. Well, sorta.

Paininabox’s WotLK Restoration Spreadsheet v1.31L

Paininabox has updated his WotLK Restoration Spreadsheet with a number of significant changes and bug fixes, among them:

• Added gems
• Added Innervate
• New stat scale options
• Added Tauren support (cows are HEAVY)
• Beaming Earthsiege and Ember Skyflare Meta gem support

You can always find the most current link to download this spreadsheet in the Resources section.

Blogroll Additions

New Druid blogs! New Druid blogs!

• Druid Main – And alternates!
• Foofy’s Cupcake Factory – Who wouldn’t want to visit a cupcake factory? OM NOM NOM!
• Gnome Druid – Blasphemy!
• Nerf This Druid – Well, not THIS Druid. That’s just the name of a blog. Please don’t nerf me.
• Passport to Shandris – Just make sure you store all fluids in containers of 3.4 ounces or less.
• Sauteed Sunfish – Best enjoyed with a glass of Chardonnay.

Save 14% on Tree Shirts until February 11

U.S. and Canadian residents can save 14% on Tree Shirts orders of $25 or more today and tomorrow. Simply enter codes FEB19 (U.S.) or CADFEB19 (Canada) upon checkout.

P.S. I love words that I can type with just one hand because then you can use the mouse at the same time. Did you know that "warcraft" is one such word?

Related Posts

• Community Spotlight or “Stuff to do while Waiting for Server Up”
• Community Spotlight
• 2008: A Retrospective

At the risk of revealing personal politics, I just had to share a snippet from a recent post from Sean Hyde-Moyer of Chrome Cow: US Democracy Server: Patch Day:

Vice President

• The Vice President has been correctly reclassified as a pet.
• No longer immune to damage from the Legislative and Judicial classes.
• The Vice President will no longer aggro on friendly targets. This bug was identified with Ranged Attacks and the Head Shot ability.
• Reveal Identity: this debuff will no longer be able to target Covert Operatives.
• Messages to and from the Vice President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.
• A rendering bug was affecting the Vice President’s visibility, making him virtually invisible to the rest of the server. This has been addressed.

Check out the full article for more of the same!

Related Posts

• Guest Post: Leveraging Shadowmeld
• Some Follow-Up
• Community Spotlight

It’s patch day! Here are some things to read while you wait for your download to complete.

New Tree Shirts: Stormcrow Wings and Adult Critter Form

There’s a new vinyl, vector design in the Tree Shirts shop featuring the wings of the Night Elf Stormcrow, depicted in purple and brown and embellished in metallic gold. These wings are positioned on the back of the shirts on which they’re shown.

By request, I’ve also added some adult options for the Critter Form shirts, including a maternity shirt. Note that most (though not all) of these are in pre-set colors because of design limitations.

Posts of Interest from Around the Blogosphere

• The Death Knight Survival Guide from Healer Envy
  Learn the tricks of this new Druid-obliterating hero class.
• Druid Tanking: Overview (WotLK) from Of Teeth and Claws
  Karthis takes a moment to summarize the changes to tanking in Wrath.
• Healing Sartharian (25-Man) with Drakes from Tree Bark Jacket
• Leatherworking Goodies from the PTR (3.08)
  Learn about important changes to this typically Druid profession.
• Mixology 101: Kitty Cat Consumables from Unbearably HoT
  Optimize the FITE in your Cat Form with these potent potions.
• Prepping for Patch 3.08 from Think Tank
  A great overview of changes Feral Druids can expect to see with today’s long-awaited release of Patch 3.08.

Druid Pole Dancers Video

Are Feral Druids the new Arena Pole Dancers this season?

Credit to Aurdon of I Sheep Things for submitting this giggle-inspiring video.

New Druid Blogs

Antileah the Druid by Pippa

I’m re-evaluating the way I handle my blogroll. I’m no longer going to provide descriptions for blogs since they often end up sounding very generic – yet writing them takes a huge amount of time – and they don’t typically remain relevant. Druid blogs will still be categorized by spec, and I will continue to remove those who haven’t updated in a month or more, but I need to look at areas where I can save time and this is definitely one of them.

• Achievement: Name a Blog
• Casual Cow
• Druid Heal
• Druids Do It on All Fours (French)
• Moonglade Exalted
• Orbital Bombardment
• The Tree House 
• A Tree’s Tale

Related Posts

• New Tree-Shirts!
• Community Spotlight
• Community Spotlight

This week, I am honored to bring you a guest post from Karthis Winterleaf, author of the well-respected Feral blog, Of Teeth and Claws. I asked Karthis to educate a noobish Tree like myself on what I’d want to look for when building a kitty cat set for dailies, soloing, and the occasional catnap under a tree.

Druids, no matter what their final spec, all start life walking down the same path: we spend nine levels exclusively in caster form dabbling with a mix of Restoration and Balance spells before earning the durable Bear Form at level ten, and then the fierce Cat Form at level twenty.

I distinctly remember the great power that seemed to be granted to me upon reaching that magical level twenty milestone all those years ago – no longer was I stuck as a frail caster or a curiously weak bear, instead suddenly I could shift into the form of a graceful killer and deal some real damage. The joy that I felt when I first sunk my claws into a foe and then proceeded to tear its face off remains unsurpassed by anything since. Bliss.

Surely, gentle trees, you too sometimes wish to leave your stiff limbs behind and slink into the shadows? Surely you too wish to taste something more fulfilling – far richer – than just simple water and sunshine? Surely you too wish to feel bones snap between your jaws, watch flesh part beneath your razor claws, and hear howls of helpless pain fill your ears as you destroy those who dare to stand in your way?

If so – and I know that in your heart of hearts you all do – then read on.

Evaluating Feral Gear

Druids are nearly alone in being able to utterly change their play style from healing to DPS (two flavors) to tanking with a single respec. It is because of this innate versatility that many Druids collect multiple sets of gear for when they want to step outside of their traditional role, and do something different for a while. It can be a great change of pace to heal a battleground after off-tanking a heroic raid, and I’m sure that the reverse is also true.

If you are to truly unleash your inner kitty, it pays to understand what makes a cat tick, and to ensure that your off-spec gear collection is as potent as it can be without passing up usable main spec items. Gear-wise, Cat Form benefits from the following stats: Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Crit Rating, Expertise Rating, Haste Rating, Armor Penetration, and (Feral) Attack Power. If that seems like a lot of trade-offs to juggle, then you’re not far off the mark.

Attack Power

Attack Power (and for now, Feral Attack Power) increases the damage that all of your attacks deal. Both white and yellow attacks scale directly with attack power, and thus the more of it you have the harder you will hit. Although the bonus attack power that you see on gear often looks enormous, it pays to calculate the equivalent Strength or Agility this converts to (or vice versa) so that you can compare apples to apples when making a loot choice.

Strength

Strength is a strong stat on Druid gear in WotLK, which is a change from the later stages of TBC. Each point of Strength is worth roughly 2.2 Attack Power, which as discussed is the underlying stat that all kitty dps abilities scale with. Picking up leather gear with lots of strength is never a bad idea, and often times strength gems and enchantments are your best choices.

Agility

Agility used to be the key stat for all feral Druids, however it has fallen behind strength in terms of DPS utility. Offensively, agility increases both your Attack Power (1 Agility = 1.67 AP) and your chance to score a critical hit on a foe (1 agility = 0.013% chance to crit). Despite losing some prominence in WotLK, Agility is still an excellent stat to stack, and the ideal piece of cat gear will have a healthy dollop of Agility AND Strength on it.

Hit Rating

Hit rating decreases the chance that you will miss with your attacks, and thus indirectly boosts your overall damage. While it is not as flashy a stat as Attack Power, Strength, or Agility, it is probably the most important stat to pay attention to when building a Feral DPS gear set, since missed attacks deal zero damage no matter how much attack power that you have stacked. Against raid bosses the best current theorycrafting suggests that you need enough hit rating to overcome an 8.0% miss chance – this translates to +263 hit rating. If you are sticking to level 80 mobs you will only need to overcome a 5% miss chance, which requires +164 hit rating. Please keep in mind that stack hit rating beyond the cap is wasting stats, so some critical thought is required to maintain a good balance.

Expertise Rating

Expertise is a stat that feral Druids love to hate; it reduces the chance that enemies will dodge or parry our attacks (which is great) but seems to either appear in huge doses or else not at all (which makes stacking it a pain). Similarly to hit rating, capping your expertise is advisable if you intend on aiming to maximize your DPS. Against raid bosses you need to counteract their 6.5% chance to dodge which requires +214 expertise rating (parry is of lesser importance since you will be attacking from behind most of the time). Level 80 mobs only have a 5% chance to dodge, which +163 expertise rating will take care of. (Note: The Primal Precision talent – a core of any serious feral build – grants 10 expertise, or 82 expertise rating, so subtract this from the above numbers if you have specced into it).

Crit Rating

Crit rating increases the chances that you inflict double damage on your foe with either a white or a yellow attack. It is difficult to exactly quantify the DPS increase that crit rating grants you since a properly talented Feral Druid will have their Primal Fury talent maxed out, and thus receive an extra combo point in addition to double damage when they score a critical hit. More combo points leads to easier management of the complex Feral DPS cycle, which indirectly leads to higher sustained damage. Still, the consensus seems to be that crit rating is less important than raw attack power. Number junkies will want to know that every 46 crit rating that you acquire will bestow a 1% increase to your chance of scoring a critical hit.

Armor Penetration Rating

Armor Penetration Rating decreases the effective amount of armor that an enemy has to protect itself with against your attacks. While an increase in armor penetration leads to higher DPS, this is not a stat that feral Druids should go out of their way to acquire – if the gear has great other stats and some armor penetration thrown in then it’s not a bad thing, but armor penetration should rarely make or break a gear decision. Every 15.4 armor penetration reduces enemy armor by 1% (and keep in mind that enemy armor values are far lower than most players).

Haste Rating

Haste speeds up the time between white damage melee attacks. Since Druids in cat form have an attack speed of 1, this stat is of minimal impact to our bottom line DPS. Like armor penetration, having gear with haste on it cannot hurt, however it is not nearly as beneficial as the other stats that could be found in its place. Every 32.8 haste rating will increase attack speed by 1%.

Quick Comparisons

If your head is spinning a little bit right now, I don’t blame you – Feral Druids have a lot to consider when selecting their gear. As a rule of thumb, however, here is a guideline to follow:

hit > expertise > strength > agility > attack power > crit > armor penetration > haste

If you reach the cap for hit rating or expertise, then they drop to the back of the flow chart.

For an in-game numerical comparison of gear, I highly recommend that you use an addon like Pawn. Pawn allows you to assign weights to stats and that calculates a composite "score" for an item and displays it within the item tooltip. For reference, here is the Pawn scale that I use for evaluating cat gear:

Ap = 1, FeralAp = 1, Strength = 2.2, Agility = 1.565, CritRating = 1.025, ExpertiseRating = 1.033, HasteRating = 0.786, ArmorPenetration = 0.922, HitRating = 1.133, RedSocket = 25.04, BlueSocket = 16, YellowSocket = 24.264, ColorlessSocket = 25.04, MetaSocket = 32.865

Toskk and Rawr are also good sources for alternate gear scales for those who are interested in different points of view.

Always remember to keep the Hit Rating and Expertise caps in mind when making gear decisions, as their value cannot be modelled with a simple number in a scale like this. A composite stat-based gear score is no substitute for a little bit of critical thought.

If you want to plan your cat gear in advance, I have prepared a Loot Rank template that can be used to get a listing of kitty gear ranked by slot: Karthis’ Kitty Loot Rank. If you do not expect to be raiding then you can uncheck some of the boxes on the Loot Rank form, and click the "View Loot Ranking" button to regenerate the list to get a bigger list of gear that is relevant to your situation.

Final Thoughts

It can be a wonderful change of pace to play a different style than you are used to for a while, and the Druid class offers the ability to do this without having to roll an alt and level it up. It only furthers your enjoyment if you have a functional set of gear that makes your transition even smoother. In the end the Feral path may not be for everyone, but all Druids owe it to themselves to surrender to their inner beast for at least a little while, and get up close and personal with their foes.

Related Posts

• Guest Post: Balance vs. Restoration Gear
• BA Shared Topic: Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King
• Phaelia’s Guide to Roguery