Speak softly...

... and carry a giant Melia's Magnificent Scepter. First drop I've bagged myself that was immediately useful since the swamp near IF. That was a while back.

Moonkin'info's "Ulduar Wishlist"

From My Moonkin Ulduar Wishlist | Moonkin | World of Warcraft Blog & WoW Tips:

Weapon: [Soulscribe] - this thing is absolute God-mode.  Perfectly itemized for us, to boot.  What’s funny is that from the weapons I’ve seen on WoWHead, it may turn out that [Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings] could be our BIS weapon from Ulduar.  I mean, apart from the +equip effect, there really is nothing else to separate it from a great DPS weapon. 

And drool...

Spellpower still >> Haste

Another look at haste for caster druids | Restokin:

Graylo concluded for moonkin that gemming for haste & eating haste food wasn’t a good use of resources. I’m going to have to second this, and add that it’s probably not that great of an idea for healing druids, either. Something with spell power is going to give both moonkin & tree druids more than putting pure-haste gems in your gear. Spell power food, fish feasts, or mana/5 food is going to be better for resto druids than haste food, in general.

Man, I hate the mathes. Actually, I like math, but I hate how much time you can lose worrying about it playing WoW. It's like an extended Wonderlic test. Why not just see who can throw the football during a game? Or, in this case, who can rack some major DPS while helping you have fun in an instance or raid.

Which is not to say I don't appreciate Lissanna and Co doing the theorycrafting for us.

Ding! 77

Took a few days off during the week for RL, but played a bit last night. Got 77 right at the moment in the quest line where you unexpectedly go from friendly with the Frenzyheart to Hostile, and vice versa with The Oracles. Laser Chicken's rep list has two items from each faction worth pursuing, but the real benefits seem to be getting the Mercenary of Sholazar achievement and grabbing the Mysterious Eggs which reportedly have a 4-8% chance of turning into a Green Proto-Drake. Which reminds me that I might should have saved my 1000g for Cold Weather Flying rather than spent it on dual-speccing, which I haven't done yet. 77 is the level where flying's back in Northrend.

You can switch back and forth between Frenzyheart and the Oracles, but I'm probably going to rep up just the Oracles so I can start waiting a week for each egg to hatch. And I'm going to have to start saving up for flying too, I suppose. Time to finally grab Auctioneer again and bring the bank character back online.

Let me add that the questline is hella easy. I'm not impressed. Fun, but waaaaaaay too easy.

One quick note: The Frenzyheart/Oracle questline sure ain't PC, is it? You start by whacking gorillas (not that I didn't whack scores in STV for leather), later poke baby gorillas with sticks until the mother shows up ("Run away dumb softknuckle! We gonna poke you more!") -- so that you can kill her!, and then kill Oracles, proverbial sentient beings, for no good reason. You're a "slave" the entire time, and then the Oracles are dumb enough to turn on a dime and friend you after you've been murdering them. Compare this with the werewolf line where the werewolf clan has you, what, go to capture an orc and dismember it, but you're stopped by some girl before you do it. Blizzard seems to be having a good deal of fun with the people who quickly click, "Accept" and click talk bubbles without reading, but they're also putting grinders and completionist through some questionable lines for no good reason.

Not arguing it makes everything okay, but the Frenzyheart text cracked me up a few times.

"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: I placed most of the spikes. Good amount of pointiness I think. You like?"
"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: Dajik's last learner eaten by sand-thing. We do better this time though!"
"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: You do okay enough with that one. Just okay."
"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: Oh! Dajik has idea! Make chicken sounds and maybe they come to you!"
"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: In case you wonder, wasp sting not feel so good. No need to try."

etc

Update and panzerkin staff

The great DPS staff I grabbed was the Staff of the Sorrowful Chieftan. Insanely good DPS for me, but it really brings to light how bad damage mit is for 'kin since the LK nerf. I really miss Braxxis armor x 360%. The staff was a cinch to get with three in the group, and takes about a minute after landing at Zul'Drak. Get it.

In other news, I'm behind on posts, have dinged 76 which I'll backfill, and have been running the Nessingwary questline now that I'm 76. Also bagged my first rep reward, dropping back in with the walruses to grab the Whale-Skin Vest. I think I might also grab the Whale-Skin Breastplate (not on Laser Chicken's list; this is panzerkin only, folks) next time I log in, as that'd be a good upgrade for when I'm panzering solo with the Staff.

(Update: Argh, now that I do some wowheading, it looks like going after the Dark Iceborne Chestguard gives me both a better piece plus gives me the iceborne set bonus back, which I recently lost putting in a few new pieces. Argh. See what I mean about theorycrafting ruining your playtime?)

And Nessingwary's is danged busy. I didn't realize how many achievements were available in that zone -- mostly hunting -- until an 80 was nice enough to link a few for me.

Finally, let me reiterate how important it is to ignore theorycrafting pre-80. Not spending much of any time figuring out exactly what to wear or what rep to grab, etc, has paid off in much faster leveling. About all I did was leave Zul'Drak for the Dragonblight storyline, as those rep rewards will eventually be better. For now, the Kalu'ak rewards (76 & 78 level usables) are doing just fine. There'll be time enough to count points when the dealin's done.

PS -- Paid for my dual spec. Now I just need to find the time to pick a set of resto talents.

3.1 talents -- a new bag

3.1's talents are much different on the balance tree than I would have expected from what casual reading I've done up until this point. A few observations...

* Seems to be some Starfire pimpige. Celestial Focus has Starfire pushback reductions, not Wrath. Improved insect swarm for some reason makes you more likely to crit Starfire on someone who already has Moonfire DoTting, making that talent affect two spells without any connection for the spell in the talent's name. Strange. I'm still lamenting the loss of 70+ of Nature's Wrath gear.

* Brambles is a sneaky boon in that it adds serious Treant damage. That is new, right?

* I'm guessing the Spirit bonus with Improved Moonkin isn't new, but it's new to me. Gotta start paying more attention to my +SPI. I don't think I had this talent earlier.

* Does anyone use Hibernate? Really?

Right now I can only figure out how to spend 63 points confidently, and if you pushed, I'd have to admit that I feel the three in brambles really isn't necessary. I could throw a few points into mana reg while casting, but pre-raiding this usually isn't a huge problem. /shrug

Saving for the dual-spec

From Official Druid notes from Patch 3.1 : The Daily Druid:

Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild can now be cast while in Moonkin form.
Moonkin Form: Mana cost reduced.

In spite of the latter, the former means I'll hardly shift now aside from when I Starfall too many mobs and go into heal thyself mode.

Looks like lots of us are going to be out 1000g tomorrow, eh? Looking forward to trying out resto for the first time. Haven't paid for a respec yet, and each time I got a freebee, I've gone balance again.

In other news, I've finally got a staff that keeps my melee rotation within 200 dps of my spell-only rotation. Would get the name, but the Armory's down. Feel like a Panzerkin for the first time since BC. This plus Starfall should make things pretty viable again. We'll see at 80. Also finally got +1000 spellpower with the leatherworking self-buff. Note to others pre-80: Level to 400 LW sooner than later. It's not like there's a lack of leather around.

Ding! 75

Lots of Zul'Drak. The picture was taken after Starfall aggro'd a few too many mobs (six total)... when that happens, I usually bust out the trees, cast a few Moonfire DoTs, and start healing like mad while the trees down two or three. Luckily LevelSnap got the picture I wasn't anywhere close to thinking about capturing.

Now that I'm 75, I should head back to Nessingwary. I noticed that the two Nessingwary chains make up two of my very few quest achievements, not that I put much stock in those. Still, the bat and spider kill X of Y quests in Zul'Drak have been good with leather, especially others running them at the same time who don't skin, since the quests require they loot the mobs.

So nothing exciting. Quest loot is finally getting impressive. I'm well over +900 spell damage now in 'kin form, which is nice. Could probably go whack Abdul without an issue now.

PS -- Pretty phat 7.1 fps on the iBook G4 in that picture, eh? Not sure why, but I've dinged my last two dings on the old book, sitting in my chair, relaxing. In Dalaran, I've gotten it as low as 1.0 fps just walking around. Need about 6 to be playable soloing, I think. Most of my play is on the new Mac Mini, but it's nice to sit back every so often with the laptop.

Can we tie LFG to AIM, Gtalk, etc?

It's so obvious, it's probably been done.

I don't really care to sit in-game, waiting for someone to run Caverns of Time (okay, I can't choose that one any more at 74, which makes the sting that much worse!). But if I could sign up for LFG and have it IM me any whispers, sending, "Healz?" to my AIM or Gtalk account, I'd be all over it.

(The answer, of course, is that my freakin' comment says Boomkin. NO HEALZ. [until dual spec] Though I do off spec heal if they ask the rest of the group first.)

Does this already exist? Please say yes. And no, a guildie AIMing me doesn't count.

Ding! 74 -- and theorycrafting pre-80

Nothing exciting to report; just backfilling another ding. LevelSnap did an excellent job capturing the event, as shown above. The troll storyline in Grizzly Hills has been enjoyable, as has the werewolf line, give or take. The Voldrassil failed world tree storyline was wasted. I'd expected more. What, three quick runs, unspired mobs (slimes?), and a quick group and, well, you're done. The elves and druids have potential -- remember when there was evidence that the Darn druids were corrupt? -- but that potential simply hasn't played out.

I was going to save this for another post, but here goes...


Theorycrafting pre-80: Don't.

Don't theorycraft. Don't look at stats. If you can't tell which is better, sell one. When you're picking quest rewards, max your spellpower, and play with whatever's left.

Every second you spend theorycrafting pre-80 is another second you wasted getting to 80. Any time you spend is for an item you'll only use a week or two, tops! Don't do it. Buy the best dagger with spellpower from the AH ("of the Elder" rocks), and replace anything when you get the chance.

Right now, most of my time is figuring out how to keep the Iceborne +26 spellpower set bonus. Trade out shoulders, need gloves, etc. Don't waste time. Get to 80.