SexyMap is a fantastic addon that improves the look of your UI by leveraging existing, in-game textures and spell effects to create beautiful map skins. Learn how to create your own, Druid-themed map in this tutorial by Korryna!
Voodooray of the Maelstrom created a video which answers the question I know I asked while watching Frank Miller’s 300 — wouldn’t this movie be better if they replaced all these half naked Spartans with 350-lb birdmen covered in fur and feathers? Voodooray does an amazing job of seemlessly integrating Moonkin models into the film’s trailer, likely having pulled animations from the WoW Model Viewer to achieve such high resolution. A must see, especially for fans of the original film.
Gift of the Wild(ly Underpowered)
Analysis, Spells and Talents 
13 Comments Lately there’s been a great deal of hubbub about the lack of endgame viability for the Restoration Druid relative to that of our healing counterparts, the Paladin, Priest, and Shaman. One of the primary complaints is that our class-specific buff, Mark of the Wild, scales so poorly in comparison to those brought to the table by other healers. The description of the group version, Gift of the Wild reads as follows:
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While the spell’s description may sound lackluster, it’s only by comparing Mark to the spells, blessings, and totems that can be brought to the table by other healing classes that the gross imbalance is demonstrated.
Priests: Prayer of Fortitude and Divine Spirit
While it is true that — unlike Prayer of Fortitude — Mark grants a benefit to all stats, most classes benefit only from a few specific stats, usually no more than three. Casters generally rely upon Intellect and Spirit, while melees focus on some combination of Strength and Agility. Common among the two groups is Stamina which benefits all classes. Gift of the Wild grants a total of 14 Stamina. Compare this to Prayer of Fortitude which grants a total of 79. Untalented, Mark grants 140 hit points, Fortitude 790. Are 650 hit points really countered by either 210 mana and whatever benefits can be derived from 14 Spirt (widely subject to the class in question) or 14 more Strength (28 AP for warriors, 14 for rogues) and 14 more Agility (14 more AP for rogues and a negligible amount of dodge)?
Also worth noting: any Priest who has made healing her focus is likely to have picked up Divine Spirit, a buff which grants 50 additional Spirit, further widening the buff gap between Priests and Druids. And, while it costs Restoration druids 5 talent points to grant an additional +4 to all stats, Priests have only to spend 2 talent points to gain the same 35% improvement — a 35% improvement to a spell that’s already much more desirable.
Hands down, Prayer of Fortitude is a vastly superior buff to the Druid counterpart, Gift of the Wild.
Paladins: Blessings
Here’s where Druids are hurt the most. Paladins bring a whole host of available buffs, and despite the hefty upkeep necessary to maintain them, they can afford a myriad of tremendous benefits to a raid group:
Although this ability requires an eleven point investment in the Protection tree, it effectively affords more than double the benefit of Mark of the Wild. And it scales. As raid members improve their core stats by upgrading their gear, this buff keeps pace by granting them additional stat points at the same rate as before.
Untalented, this Blessing affords casters 41 mana per 5. It can easily make the difference between loss and success for a given boss encounter by tremendously increasing healer longevity. And a Holy-specced Paladin will have picked up the talents to improve this blessing (20% for two talent points), increasing its return to nearly 50 mp5.
Compare this to the maximum of 28 AP granted by Mark of the Wild.
This buff can theoretically increase the total DPS output of your raid by an incredible 30% since it effectively raises the aggro ceiling that must be exceeded by the raid’s main tank.
Best of all, Paladins stack incredibly well. Adding another Paladin healer means one more of the amazing buffs listed above to be given out to raid members. Like the dilemma faced by Holy Priests, adding another Druid affords no additional benefit to the raid group.
Shamans: Totems, Totems, Totems!
I admit only passing familiarity with the Shaman class. However, take a look at some of the buffs that can be granted to a Shaman’s group in the form of one or more immobile totems:
Any of the above buffs is inarguably superior to Mark of the Wild, and in some cases, more than one can be made available to a Shaman’s party. And — like Paladins — it’s almost always advantageous to bring as many Shamans to a raid as there are groups. They stack almost as well.
“Buffing Our Buff”
What can be done to bring the quality of our class buff more in line with those of other healers? One or more of the following changes would be helpful:
At one point hailed as “the best buff in the game,” Mark quite simply can no longer compete. It is outshone in every way by buffs which grant greater and/or more universally useful stat bonuses. This combined with the fact that Druids stack no better than Priests but have fewer, feebler buffs to bring to the table (Mark of the Wild and Thorns versus Prayer of Fortitude and Divine Spirit) make us a far less attractive addition to a raid group than any of the classes with which we compete for a limited number of slots. Without regard to any of the other issues which plague healing-focused Druids, addressing the disparity between our class-specific buff and those brought to the table by Shamans, Priests, and Paladins would go a long way toward improving our viability as valued raid contributors.
Cyclone Your Enemies, Heal Your Friends
PvP, Spells and Talents
4 Comments One of the techniques demonstrated by Gronzy in his Restoration Druid Arena Video was the use of Cyclone spam. Assuming your chosen target won’t or can’t use his trinket to dispel the effect, you can effectively lock a caster out of play for 10.5 seconds (6 + 3 + 1.5). This sort of efficiency takes some time to intuit since you have to begin your recast before the target has broken free, and can easily lock you out of play for the duration. However, you can set up a macro that will allow you to divert your attention to other tasks (such as healing your teammates) rather than solely keeping an opponent incapacitated:
/clearfocus [button:2]
/clearfocus [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/cast [target=focus] Cyclone
The first time you target someone and press this button, it will set them as a focus. What this means is that you can perform actions upon them without having to switch back to them as your target, allowing you to target someone else for another purpose. Pressing this button again will recyclone your original target (the one you set focus to) without changing your current target. To change the person with whom your button is associated, target someone else and right click the button (this refers to the “/clearfocus [button:2]” line). Your focus will automatically clear should your focus die or leave your arena instance.
This macro (adapted from one of those listed at WoWWiki.com) can greatly enhance a Restoration druid’s efforts to assist her team with crowd control while not hindering her ability to heal teammates (or herself).
Jon623 shares a video of a 5-Man Moonkin Arena Team from the Public Test Realms. While the music accompanying the fights is well suited, the opposing team voice chat would have been even better: “Guys, I think I’m bugged. All I see are 5 dancing Moonkin…”
Nethaera: Tree of Life Spells under Consideration
Blue, Spells and Talents
Comments Off Good news to the forest of druids lamenting over their inability to decurse and buff while in Treeform. Nethaera posted today that the spells available to this form are still under review and, while she does not promise a quick response, it’s nice to know that the topic is under consideration:
We realize that people want Tree of Life form to have more of those types of spells available. In fact, I’ve mentioned it before on a thread awhile back. However, there is a lot of debate going on about which ones would be valid additions without being overbalancing or skewing something else. We will let you know what is decided as we move forward, but please don’t expect anything immediate. I can’t promise you that. All I can do is tell you that we know these are requests people have and are pondering the fate of the trees.
