Shadowmeld has changed. Previous uses of this ability involved hiding from mobs while outside of combat or getting out of combat in Arena, sitting to drink, and using Shadowmeld to hide from your opponents. Now however, thanks to the powers that be, this Night Elf racial can remove you from combat and even temporarily from the hate list – permanently if you happen to be alone. We can all see the obvious advantages of Shadowmeld in a PvE dungeon setting, but you might be underestimating its full potential. Let’s consider a few additional uses:

While in a PvE dungeon setting (5-man only), use SM to take you out of combat mid-fight to:

• Drink or Eat: Even in a heroic dungeon where downtime is low, you can find yourself an 8-second quick drink (think of it as another mana pot).
• Revive: Yes, you can use our 10 second resurrection mid-battle (good luck finding those 10 seconds, though).
• Gear Change: If you have Itemrack or another gear-swapping mod installed, a Boomkin could switch over to healer if the healer goes down.

In PvP:

• If Shadowmeld is paired up with Nature’s Grasp via macro (neither is tied to the global cooldown and will therefore activate at the same time), the pursuer will drop you from their target list and will need to reacquire you. In such a situation, you will most likely be running and will break Shadowmeld immediately. The first attack after the pursuer reacquires you will most likely be an auto-attack and not a stun, thus entangling your opponent and giving you some breathing room.
• Outdoor PvP holds a cheeky benefit. If you’re being ganked, use Shadowmeld to take you out-of-combat, hit Swift Flight Form, and high tail it to the nearest bed and breakfast.
• There is currently a bug in Wintergrasp that will keep you in combat for long periods of time, even though there is no battle to be seen. Using Shadowmeld will break you out of combat so you can mount up.
• You can still use Shadowmeld to drink in Arenas, though it’s more challenging since your stealth will break once you’ve started drinking. Alternatively, you could use it in the same manner as before, running to get out combat long enough to sit and drink then activate Shadowmeld. However, given the now longer cooldown on the ability (3 minutes), you only get one shot at this in most matches.

Can you think of any other uses for this revised ability?

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Guest Post: Leveraging Shadowmeld

Upcoming Changes to Shadowmeld

The Night Elf racial ability Shadowmeld is slated for a significant change in an upcoming build:

Shadowmelded Night Elf or proof I was too tired to make a new picture?

This new ability can be used in combat and will allow Night Elves to “vanish” to allow their tank re-establish aggro, canceling the effect as soon as they determine it’s safe to do so. Bears may also find it to be great fun to preemptively assassinate the person creeping too close behind them on threat, sort of like “Oh I know you jus’ didn’” but with a bear paw. There are many implications for this change, including:

1. If you aggro one or more mobs while ungrouped, you can use Shadowmeld to de-aggro them, wait for them to path away, and saunter (or sashay, if you prefer) away unharmed.
2. While still possible, the Shadowmeld + drink technique will only be usable once every three minutes in Arena.
3. Now Druids can wipe their raid recovery efforts just like stupid Hunters who are too good to die like everyone else.

And for those worried about the loss of the descriptor, “Night Elf Rogues and Druids with Shadowmeld are more difficult to detect while stealthed or prowling,” have no fear. This ability is being separated into a new, passive racial skill called Elusiveness.

8926 Build Changes

Restoration (and Restoration-related) changes that went live in last night’s build include:

Skills

• Abolish poison now lasts 8 sec on the target. (Previously lasted 1 min)

Talents

• Gift of the Earthmother (Tier 10) changed to – Reduces the base global cooldown of your Rejuvenation and Lifebloom spells by 2/4/6/8/10%, and causes your Healing Touch and Nourish spells to refund 1/2/3/4/5% of their base cost for each healing over time effect on the target.
• Replenish (Tier 9) changed to – Your Rejuvenation spell has a 5/10/15% chance to restore 8 Energy, 4 Rage, 1% Mana or 16 Runic Power per tick.
• Subtlety (Tier 2) now reduces the chance any of your spells will be dispelled. (Previously only affected HoTs)
• Nature’s Splendor (Tier 3) increases the duration of your Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom and Flourish spells by 2/3 sec.

I have to boggle at the nerf to Replenish and assume that people are seeing larger returns from it than I have been expecting (I admit I haven’t tried it, yet). That’s just going to make the decision to skip over that talent even easier.

I’m not entirely surprised by the change to Gift of the Earthmother whose benefits were likely conceived long before the design and addition of Nature’s Splendor. At 3 points, Nature’s Splendor extends the length of your Lifebloom by 3 full ticks, making the GCD reduction from GotEM less important. The previous bonus of having 0.5 seconds shaved off the GCD for Lifebloom and Rejuvenation also devalued spell haste rating, of which there seems to be an excess in Wrath. With the aforementioned nerf to Replenish continuing to make Rejuvenation the pink-haired stepchild of Druid HoTs, this talent is significantly less attractive than it was, though it still retains the 1/2/3/4/5% mana cost reduction for each heal over time on the target for both Healing Touch and Nourish.

Nature’s Splendor has been changed from a percentage-based bonus (10/20/30%) to a concrete increase of 1/2/3 sec. This is a nerf to the benefit it provided to spells lasting 10 seconds or more (Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Moonfire, Insect Swarm) and a buff to Lifebloom and Flourish. This will still be a must-have talent for Restoration Druids.

Sadly, the change to Abolish Poison was reverted. I guess stupid-OP-Shadowsteppin’-Hemo-Rogue-Say-“Nyah! Nyah!”

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Night Elf is to Ninja as Tauren is to Giant, Stompy Cheeseburger

PvP Itemization

Some of you may remember that prior to Patch 2.4, Blizzard considered converting MP5 to Spirit on Kodohide gear. At the time, there was a tremendous outcry from players (myself included) that this was an intentional decision to handicap Druid mana regeneration in Arenas since MP5 was widely regarded as the superior regeneration stat in PvP. With the buff to Spirit-based mana regeneration in Patch 2.4, however, it suddenly became apparent that Spirit was no longer a stat to be discounted. In fact, the change in 2.4 single-handedly made Kodohide significantly less valuable in PvE.

According to reports from MMO Champion, this will no longer be an issue in Wrath of the Lich King. Druid PvP armor will come in three flavors:

• Feral with Agility, Stamina, Critical Strike, and Attack Power « link »
• Spell Power with Stamina, Intellect, and Spirit « link »
• Spell Power with Stamina, Intellect, and Critical Strike Rating (mmm … tastes like Laser Chicken) « link »

The Spirit-based set is obviously intended for use by Restoration, but the spell critical set could be used either by a Balance Druid, or a hybrid Restokin spec (assuming that spec continues to be viable). However, the complete absence of either Spirit or MP5 leads me to believe its itemization is as yet incomplete. After all, everyone needs some form of mana regeneration. It’s also worth noting that none of these sets include pieces with “green” armor, and the set bonuses appear to be unchanged (though the Balance set reads slightly differently, I suspect it’s a typo).

Druid Changes

Unfortunately, there was nothing particularly earth-shattering for Ferals anxious about their relevance as a tank. Here are the changes that have been discerned so far:

Feral Skills

• Ferocious Bite damage slightly increased.
• Swipe now hits 4 targets.
• Savage Roar now increases attack power 40% and lasts 14/19/24/29/34 sec depending on how many combo points you have up. (Previously 35% attack power and 9/12/15/18/21 sec)

Balance Talents

• Celestial Focus (Tier 4) reduces the casting time lost when damaged by 25/50/70% when casting wrath. (Previously reduced interrupt chance)
• Control of Nature (Tier 2) reduces casting time lost when damaged by 40/70/100% while casting Entangling Roots and Cyclone. (Previously reduced interrupt chance)

The change to Celestial Focus was likely made because of the previously mentioned spell pushback changes. We can probably expect a similar change to be made to Nature’s Focus which functions in the same way as Celestial Focus on live. The Swipe change when considered with the [Glyph of Swipe] will allow Druids to hit five targets at once which is certainly good news.

There have also been bug reports that Swiftmend is not functioning at all on the Beta servers. Unfortunately, this will make healing in the new instances more difficult for Restoration Druids. Thankfully, we have a functioning version of Revive handy!

Balance Revamp Coming

Responding to a detailed and eloquent post by beta tester Ashthra, in which she details several key areas of unnecessary bloat in Balance, Developer Koraa promises that further polishing to the Balance tree is currently in the works. Hopefully she was kidding when she promised Boomkin more bloat:

Currently working on a polish pass of the Balance tree. Get ready for more bloat!

Clearly, the Developers haven’t taken a good look at Moonkin recently. They’re already quite bloated!

More Comments on Feral Tanking

Following up on the now legendary tanking thread with many blue responses, Developer Ghostcrawler made several additional statements concerning Bears in WotLK. Once again, due to the length of these responses and the fact that this is a Restoration blog, I’ll try to summarize the key points:

• Of the four tanks, two have shields and two do not. All four are intended to be equally viable through talents like Survival of the Fittest.
• Ideally, they’d like to see raids filled based on how well players are liked rather than a must-have utility or buff.
• Efforts are being made to improve the ability for Tanks and Healers to fill other roles when not needed to tank or heal. This should hopefully lead to less raid member swapping due to changing encounters.
• Blizzard agrees that it’s a problem when a tank outgears content and cannot generate enough rage to maintain threat.

Here’s hoping the aforementioned polishing pass to Balance will simultaneously include some of these promised improvements to Ferals.

Hairstyle Names

Shamelessly procured from WotLKWiki, here are a few of the new names for hairstyles (replacing the placeholder names like “Female Human Hairstyle 1”): Bald, Peasant, Solider, Monk, Barbarian, Dashing, Loose, Scholar, Rogue, Fabulous, Samson, Bearded, Colonel, Duellist, Goatee, Wizard, Chops, Van Dyke, Mustacioed, Clean, Prince, Wild, Swept, Foxtail, Slicked

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Wrath Build 8820

This post was inspired by Megan from Out of Mana, whose unique sense of style and humor makes me smile every time I see that she’s posted something new. Have you visited, subscribed to, and stalked her lately?

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<3 in the Battlegrounds

• Entangling Roots will be usable indoors, so Druids won’t lose out on this essential method of crowd control against Warriors, Rogues, and pets.
• The new Arena has said to not allow mounts. This could indicate that it will be flagged “indoors.”
• Feral Swiftness will be usable indoors, according to a recent post from Developer Koraa. This ability is considered essential by many Ferals since it helps to counteract the Cat Form range bug.

What exactly would this mean? Well, for one Druids would obviously lose the ability to use Travel Form for a quick getaway. It would force Restoration Druids to use either Bear Form or Cat Form to break snares, a much more expensive option (Feral and Balance probably wouldn’t shift to Cheetah unless they thought they were going to be immediately resnared since they probably want to return to their Feral Form or Moonkin as soon as they can). While the above-listed changes do help mitigate the difficulty presented by indoor-only Arenas, the mana cost to break snares in and of itself would be a huge nerf.

This may be one reason that Blizzard has opted to remove the movement penalty of Tree of Life, a restriction long seen as the reason that the form could never be considered viable in PvP. Additionally, Tree of Life will gain a 100% armor increase, making it a desirable form against melee. Remember, however, that using it completely cuts you off from any form of crowd control (Cyclone, Entangling Roots, and Hibernate) and makes you susceptible to Warlock Banish, a form of CC on separate Diminishing Returns from Fear.

Why this May Not be Happening

Fortunately, there is reason to believe that we won’t be seeing indoor-only Arenas in Wrath of the Lich King. Enhancement Shaman have a new talent deep in their tree that effectively turns Shaman Ghost Wolf into a slightly slower version of Travel Form (Improved Ghost Wolf makes the ability insta-cast):

After all, it doesn’t really seem to make sense to make a change like this with the expectation of invalidating the use of the newly-improved Ghost Wolf form in competitive PvP.

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Druid Changes May Indicate Possibility of Indoor Arenas

After 45 minutes of unsuccessful and frustrating skirmishing in midfield, we decided to take all 10 players — including Mr. Phae carrying the Horde flag — and march over to them. I won’t tell you where that flag ended up, but it wasn’t pleasant for a certain Horde Warrior who seemed determined to turn me into so much orange-and-black-spotted goo (the two deaths I have listed were probably his kills). The overall frustration of playing against a turtle team made our eventual victory so much sweeter; our new 10-man offensive strategy took us to 3-1 caps.

The moral of the story? Please don’t turtle on top of the graveyard. Also, wear thick, flag-pole-proof pants.

This St. Patty’s Day, why not celebrate your arboreal nature with a Resto4Life Tree Shirt? Now through March 12, U.S. residents can save 17% on all orders $25 or more with code MARCH39 (Canadian residents can use code CADMARCH39).

How to: Be a Jerkface on Warsong Holiday Weekend

MMO Champion recently posted lists of the “leaked” talents and abilities for several classes, including the Death Knight. I wanted to point out one ability in particular, from their Unholy school:

Degeneration Rank 3 1 Unholy 5 yd range Instant cast   Instantly attack the target, dealing 60% weapon damage and inflicting a disease dealing 182 over 21 sec. Any existing heal over time spells on the target become corrupted, dramatically increasing the damage done by the disease and removing the healing effect. Stacks up to 3 times.

This ability would seem to be targetted at Restoration Druids, converting our heals over time into a disease that causes damage over time instead. Because it can stack three times, it can consume an entire Lifebloom stack. While it isn’t clear whether the conversion of the final stack would cause it to bloom for its direct heal component, having Lifebloom running on a target at three stacks gives the DK the potential to get three stacks of this disease on your target, so I can see a general shift away from the use of multi-stack Lifebloom in PvP and an increased reliance on single stack (if it does bloom on conversion, it could end up as a wash) and our new direct heal, Nourish.

If you have any doubt that this ability wasn’t intended entirely as a counter to Restoration Druids, note that its original effect also included making your target “immune” to heals over time for 21 seconds. It looks like Death Knights might be intended to serve as the anti-Druid class since we are the only healing class without the ability to remove Disease. That’s bad news for us given the plethora of Death Knights likely to emerge after the release of Wrath.

On a happier note, you can check out their summary of the new Druid talents and abilities here.

This St. Patty’s Day, why not celebrate your arboreal nature with a Resto4Life Tree Shirt? Now through March 12, U.S. residents can save 17% on all orders $25 or more with code MARCH39 (Canadian residents can use code CADMARCH39).

Death Knight Degeneration to Convert HoTs to DoTs

I only spent one season (Season 2, the one with the attractive set of Arena and BG epics) doing Arena-based PvP, and then only at the ardent begging request of Mr. Phae. It all started with me spending a couple of nights in Alterac Valley, curious what all the hubbub was about. This was prior to the changes that re-introduced actual PvP into AV, and I was amazed at how fun it was to participate in “PvP” as a healer. (I later discovered that spamming heals on a few over-eager Warriors and Druids while the “raid” of BG participants beat frantically on Drek is not PvP.)

Surprised at my burgeoning interest in PvP, Mr. Phae convinced me that we should do some 2v2 Arenas together. He’d read that Warrior/Resto Druid was a strong combo and thought we’d be crazy not to take advantage of that fact while we could. Up until that point, I must confess that I was one of those players with an attitude of, “Moonfire?! Why would I cast Moonfire?! Don’t you know that I’m Restoration-specced?” In fact, I was quite irritated when Mr. Phae informed me that he would not let me in his group to level unless I put at least a few points into Balance at the start of Burning Crusade. (Shhhh – I did, but I didn’t really use them.)

Full Season 2 The gear of which I am most proud, despite none of it dropping in a 25-man

Stepping into the Arenas, I can remember being initially appalled at all of the horrible, horrible people who wanted to stab me, smash me, stun me, blow me up, set me on fire, or turn me into a farm animal (HAHA /shapeshift) … anything they could do to prevent me from doing “my job.” (Remember, at this point I saw “my job” as being solely to “make the bars go right.”) I quickly learned that I would have to do more than spam Lifebloom, Regrowth, Rejuvenation, and Swiftmend if I wanted to be able to cast those spells at all. Poisons were suddenly no longer something I could yawn at and outheal. Faerie Fire found a place on my action bar once again. I dipped further than I’ve ever dipped into the Feral tree so that I could pick up Rocket Bear I turned into a Cheetah, I humped pillars, I used Cat Form for more than jumping from high places. And oh the Cyclone, the beautiful Cyclone!

/sniff

My point is that — had I not had the courage to step foot in an Arena —  I wouldn’t be half the Druid I am today. I learned timing and counters and a lot of positive protective measures that have served me well in PvE: instantly shapeshifting when polymorphed, pre-emptive casting of HoTs, using Abolish Poison before the poison lands, using Barkskin, utilizing line of sight, bunkering down in Bear Form and using Bash to give my tank some time to help me. At the same time, I’ve learned to leverage my class debuffs, too, the ones that aren’t available in Tree of Life like Insect Swarm, Faerie Fire, and Cyclone (the latter sometimes to the chagrin of my tanks). And when it comes time for Wrath of the Lich King, I look forward to being quick on the draw when it comes to casting Entangling Roots, an instinct that will likely serve me well since a mob rooted once it’s reached the group is still very much a threat.

For this reason, I’d like to encourage all Restoration Druids to try their hand at Arenas. I recommend this specifically for Restos for two reasons:

1. Your general spec performs very well in Arenas, even though you’ll likely have to shuffle some points into Balance and Feral.
2. Diehard Feral and Balance Druids are more likely to be familiar with the Druid’s healing spells than a healing Druid is likely to be familiar with a Druid’s Balance and Feral skills, so you stand to gain more than the other two who cannot generally augment their playstyle as much as you can (no healing in Bear Form or Moonkin).

For those interested in giving PvP a shot, I’d recommend the following sites:

• PvP Source
  A great source of news for all things related to Arenas and PvP, including information on tournaments (which was always not very interesting to me, but I guess it’s cool for people into heavy competition). They also have a nice selection of videos as well as a searchable strategy database that lets you specify your team composition and the composition of the other team to find tips on beating them (hint: press Cyclone).
• Arena Junkies
  Arena Junkies is most well known for their forums which are like the Elitist Jerks of PvP (for those unfamiliar with Elitist Jerks, this is a good thing). Posting on their forums is restricted to only those players who have a team rated 2000 (with the notable exception of the “Ask a Gladiator” forum) which ensures that what you can read there is sure to come from serious players with a lot of experience. AJ has a really active community of players and there is a ton of information to be gleaned from them.
• Out of Mana
  Having trouble getting into the Cycl-own spirit? Read Out of Mana! While not specifically dedicated to PvPing as a Restoration Druid, Megan has the right attitude and the mindset of someone who really enjoys PvP. She recently wrote a pair of great articles on Confidence and Humility (part 1, part 2) in which she details how not to be the schmuck that costs his team a Battlegrounds victory because he refuses to do what is needed. All in all, it’s a fantastic blog that’s only made better by her slick MS Paint skills. (Hand-drawn “LOL” FTW!)

As I said earlier, I only PvPed a single season. I eventually had to give up Arenas due to stress and anger management issues. I bruised my hand pretty badly and threw a LOT of hairbrushes into the kitchen before learning that my keyboard pad was a good thing to smack into the wall instead. ^_^ I am not a competitive person by nature and am easily frustrated. I also hate feeling like I’m being “picked on” which, as a Restoration Druid, is pretty much your entire role in Arenas. Nonetheless, I’m very glad for the experiences I did have as there were some fantastic victories (no glorious defeats, though, losing … FTL) and doubt I would started Resto4Life if not for the feeling of empowerment I got from participating.

This St. Patty’s Day, why not celebrate your arboreal nature with a Resto4Life Tree Shirt? Now through March 12, U.S. residents can save 17% on all orders $25 or more with code MARCH39 (Canadian residents can use code CADMARCH39).

The School of Hard Knocks: Learning to PvE by PvPing

In another surprise, Feral Druids will be relieved to know that, while Scare Beast has had its range extended to 30 yards, it will retain its 1.5 second cast time. Thanks to reader Jaegor for pointing this out below!

» See all patch notes for Patch 2.4.2 (via MMO Champion)
» Read Flyv’s humorous impressions of Patch 2.4.2 and Druids

This St. Patty’s Day, why not celebrate your arboreal nature with a Resto4Life Tree Shirt? Now through March 12, U.S. residents can save 17% on all orders $25 or more with code MARCH39 (Canadian residents can use code CADMARCH39).

Change to Natural Perfection Reverted

Druid Talent (Restoration) – Natural Perfection will no longer proc by normal melee attacks.

What this may mean is that the 3-point talent will no longer proc from those melee attacks that would have otherwise been critical hits if not for the Druid’s Resilience rating. Interestingly, no such change is being made to the similar Priest talents, Blessed Resilience or Focused Will. Obviously, what’s good for one should be good for the other, and if they really are nerfing this ability (and it is a nerf, regardless of being classified as a bug fix), the same should apply to both classes.

This St. Patty’s Day, why not celebrate your arboreal nature with a Resto4Life Tree Shirt? Now through March 12, U.S. residents can save 17% on all orders $25 or more with code MARCH39 (Canadian residents can use code CADMARCH39).

Patch 2.4.2: Natural Perfection "Fixed"