The patch notes from Patch 2.1 stated that the Balance talent, Nature’s Grace could be triggered by critical hits from Swiftmend and the bloom component of Lifebloom (as well as triggering from casts of Cyclone). When the patch went live, however, players noted that Nature’s Grace was still not triggering from Lifebloom crits. This was generally considered a bug, but yesterday Blizzard QA Hortus stated that Lifebloom cannot trigger Nature’s Grace due to a limitation of the spell system:

Lifebloom can not proc Natures grace, this is a current limitation of the spell system.

There was a mistake in the 2.1.1 patch notes that included Lifebloom when it should not have.

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Mookysolo of Ner’zhul posted an extensive guide to PvPing as a Restoration-specced druid (Resto4Death?) on the official forums. He addresses several different aspects, including:

Decked out in Mooky’s Best

• Items for every slot, with ratings of “Good,” “Better,” and “Best”
• Enchantments for every available slot
• Gems, grouped by color
• Comparisons of 4 PvP-viable talent specs
• Frequently Asked Questions

The guide focuses primarily upon gear recommendations, although it looks like he’s setting up to respond to individual questions in his F.A.Q. section. Definitely worth a look.

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• Forum Watch: Mookysolo’s Resto PvP Guide v1.3
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Patch 2.12 will include the start of Arena Season 2. Along with reduced costs for the currently available Arena armor sets, new class armor sets will be made available at the old costs. Just as the Season 1 set was modelled after Tier 4 armor, the Season 2 set is modelled after Tier 5 (sans kilt) with new textures decidedly less “sunny” than their PvE counterparts:

Image courtesy of MMO-Champion.com

Set bonuses for Season 2 will remain the same with the 2-piece set bonus for all three druid sets being +35 Resilience. The 4-piece set bonuses are:

• Merciless Gladiator’s Sanctuary (Restoration): Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.
• Merciless Gladiator’s Refuge (Feral): Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.
• Merciless Gladiator’s Wildhide (Balance): Reduces the mana cost of your Moonfire spell by 10% of its base cost.

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Community Manager Eyonix finished levelling his druid to 70 last night, a fact which he decided to share with the Offical Druid Forum community:

Last night I leveled to 70 with my Druid, and have decided that it’s better for me to respec restoration.

Okay, I’m lying. I am completely in love with balance, and this week I plan to begin running through the various end-game dungeons as a dps/off-healer, gaining reputation and gear so that I can make my way towards heroics, and eventually raiding. I also wouldn’t mind doing some runs main-healing for purposes of testing and comparison. At level 69 I was able to successfully main-heal Botanica on three consecutive runs.

Also, I’m going to try and form a 2v2 arena team today, but I do suck at pvp… *sigh*

As might be expected, the thread has degenerated into bickering among druid players of the three talent-specs about which talent tree is the most deserving of developer attention. It’s interesting that many players clamor for CM-representation for their chosen class (see a CM post on the druid forums and you’ll have readers from other classes immediately imploring their participation in the paladin/shaman/warrior/mage forums). Much of the playerbase seems to feel reliant upon community managers bending the ears of the development staff to have serious issues weighed appropriately. In general, this is a very bad perception to have fostered. Community Managers are (rightfully) not chosen for their playing skill or knowledge of game mechanics. Were they to be the primary source of feedback to developers regarding individual classes and specs, many pressing issues would undoubtedly be overlooked.

Unfortunately, posts like these (however well-intentioned) do little to dispel this myth. Eyonix no doubt wanted to give the druid community warm fuzzies that we among the other, more popular classes were his currently chosen class to level to 70. Instead, players feel as though they must urgently convey all of the class’s issues to him for recognition. After all, if Eyonix doesn’t notice these issues and agree that they are problematic, they are unlikely to be addressed.

A better way of fostering the notion that class concerns (and not merely the concerns of CMs playing individual classes) are being appropriately considered would be a monthly post that recognizes the discussions of individual issues that were brought up for the previous month. These issues wouldn’t necessarily have to be addressed; it would be enough for many players to see that the topics themselves had been presented to the development staff. City of Heroes/Villains does something like this on a regular basis — a sort of “State of the Union” for individual types of characters. Such a policy would have the added benefit that players of an individual class would not feel ignored when no Community Manager had recently declared for them.

Of course, in the meantime, I hope that Eyonix tries out Tree of Life in heroic instances and feels the lack of an out-of-combat res!

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Patch notes for PTR Patch 2.1.2 were released by Blizzard this morning. Among the most notable changes is an upcoming buff to the PvP trinket:

PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde have all been redesigned. The trinkets for all classes now have the same effect: Dispels all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character.

Of course, a buff of this nature is a nerf to users of crowd control. Particularly hard hit will be druid Cyclone which presently suffers extremely diminishing returns and a short duration (6 seconds, 3 seconds, 1.5 seconds – less time than it takes to cast the spell). This change could well make this ability near worthless which is really a shame given the poor showing that druids are making in all three Arena brackets.

More druid-specific changes are also included with this patch:

• Druids in Swift Flight form can no longer loot herb nodes.
• Force of Nature: This spell will no longer causes players it is cast on to enter combat with nearby creatures. All of the treants summoned will now attack a neutral creature they are summoned on.
• Tree of Life: The bonus healing aura from this talent will reactivate when a Banish effect wears off a Druid in Tree Form.

Anzu, the final encounter in the druid epic form quest chain, has also been retuned:

• Anzu, the Raven God may no longer be pulled far away from the location where he is summoned.
• Anzu’s Spell Bomb is now a curse and he will no longer charge.
• The quantity and health of Minions of Anzu that spawn have been reduced.
• The frequency and duration of many of [Anzu's] abilities have been retuned to make the fight more forgiving.

There have been a lot of complaints related to this fight on the druid forums, so I’m glad to see it’s being retuned before it applies to me.

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• PTR Patch 2.2
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