Last week I talked about mid-level content and as expected, many of you expressed an opinion. One comment in particular from autumnbear got me thinking. Autumnbear writes:

"How about updating the overall lore for the game, and allowing more class choices for the current playable races. Still waiting for the Night Elves to teach my Human how to be a Druid, especially since he's Exalted with both Darnassus AND the Cenarion Circle."

Now that's something I can chew on. What about quests that will allow you to make race/class combinations that are not otherwise available in the game? I think this is a tremendous idea if the process is sufficiently difficult to prevent everybody and their uncle's cat from doing it. The original Everquest had epic quests that took some players months to complete. Everquest 2 had the betrayal quests which allowed you to change factions which took a really long time to complete.

Why shouldn't a human, in Autumnbear's case, who has earned significant faction with Darnassus not be able to learn the finer points of being a druid? Gnomes have no healing classes. Why not create a very difficult quest line for those gnomes who are exalted with Stormwind that would allow them to become a paladin or priest?

I know I'm going to get a billion comments about game balance. Admittedly this would likely not count as "mid-level" either, but I think that if it was properly implemented it could be a valid source of that new content that everybody is craving.

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by Dan O'Halloran and David Bowers.

Some people say that Blizzard is lazy. Players tend to start voicing this sort of opinion when it seems like Blizzard hasn't done something they think should have been done a long time earlier, such as adding new dungeons they won't visit, or new features they won't use. Sometimes there's just one particular thing that grates and grates on the players' nerves so much that they simply cannot understand why Blizzard hasn't done anything about it yet.

Even I have been guilty of this sort of thinking now and then. But ultimately, it becomes apparent that, whatever the status of Blizzard's list of flaws -- laziness is not one of them. Indeed, we simply do not realize the massive extent of work that is required to achieve some things, especially the things we don't personally desire, and therefore fail to give credit for hard work done where we don't realize such credit is due.

The topic at hand today is a prime example of such a problem, a druid pet peeve which has gone on for a long long time. Exhibit A, above, is the Tauren Cat Form, or rather, what some of us might wish the Tauren Cat Form looked like -- a player's own suggestion submitted in Blizzard's own art contest of 2007. The Tauren Cat Form that Horde druids have been seeing since 2004 is pictured to the left here in Exhibit B. Whether or not Exhibit A is the perfect replacement for Exhibit B can be left up to the good judgment of the reader, but for the purposes of this article, it is sufficient for us if we all agree that something must eventually be done about the feral druid's monotonous appearance problem. That's to say -- we tire of staring at the Same Old Animal Posterior (or SOAP).

It looks like feral druids will not be denied their bit of love in patch 2.3. The feral talent Heart of the Wild, will be changed to gain +10% attack power in cat form rather than +20% strength as shown in the current version above. As Vorox notes for us in his forum post this is a buff for feral druids.

It may be a nerf for those druids who have stacked as much strength as possible to the exclusion of other stats, but especially considering that they plan to raise the attack power on items that buff druids' attack power while shapeshifted, having this talent to make them even more powerful seems pretty nice to me. It also makes agility scale even better for cat druids than it did before, and in many cases it enables us to get more bonuses from many buffs and items (such as Blessing of Might, and... rogue gear!).

For the mathematically inclined amongst you, here is the formula for calculating your new buffed-up attack power from the original poster Vorox (who translated from German): (Current AP - (Strength in cat form - Strength in caster form)*2)*1.1

One of the many exciting changes announced at BlizzCon was that free Spell Damage would be added to healing gear. The purpose of the change is to make it easier for healers to enjoy the solo PvE content in the uber gear they have picked up in groups and raids. Too many healers change to lesser geared alts after raids are over, for example, instead of being able to quest in their +Healing epics.

It was confirmed last week that the change will occur in Patch 2.3 and the extra Spell Damage will equal 1/3 of the +Healing stat on gear. So, for example, an item with +75 Healing will have +25 Spell Damage added to it without reducing any other stats.

Some confusion has occurred, however, about just how generous Blizzard was going to be with the free Spell Damage. Forum poster Bridge requested a link to prove that "this includes enchants, gems and set bonuses".

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by David Bowers and Dan O'Halloran.

I promised that I'd cover pre-Karazhan Restoration gear in this week's column, but I've since discovered that WoW Wiki has already done it! Their list includes all Burning Crusade gear, so just look at the pre-raid items. These lists come in two flavors at WoW Wiki: leather only and cloth only, depending on your style.

And while you're there, check out the different Restoration builds are available to healing druids on their Druid Build page. There's also an excellent sticky post on the US Druid Forums Gearing up For BC Endgame Healing.

This leads me to the topic of today's column: online resources for Druids. Today, I'm going to highlight gear guides, build guides, play guides, and wikis that provides useful information for the Warcraft Druid.

With DPS, this question is simple. You can take a glance at your damage meter of choice and see how much damage they've done, perhaps combined with how much damage they've taken (hitting the top of the damage meters may be impressive -- but if the only way to do that involves being a major drain on your healers' mana, it might be better for your group as a whole if you cut back), and can have a pretty good idea of how they're performing. On the other hand, measuring a healer's performance is a bit more ethereal, as discussed in depth today on Priestly Endeavors. Of course, you can watch the healing meters, but they don't tell the entire story of a good healer. What about mana management? The 5-second rule? Heal timing? (Heal too soon and you're overhealing and wasting mana -- but heal too late and you may not have anyone to heal at all.) Kirk on Priestly Endeavors breaks it down into the data you'd want to see to completely determine healer effectiveness:

• The health of every party member over time.
  
• Information on every heal that was cast and when it was cast (including things like Power Word: Shield which usually aren't counted).
• The healer's mana over time.

But while having a spreadsheet showing off all of this information for the duration of an instance run would certainly tell us exactly how our healers are doing, this much data would be heavy information overload. (Fascinating to sort through when you have specific questions, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it every day.) But seeing as we don't currently have access to such detailed information, I'm throwing the question out to you -- how do you measure the performance of a healer? What extra information would you like to have in measuring the performance of a healer?

With Patch 2.2 out the door, the official information about 2.3 hasn't stopped all afternoon. Here's what's in store for Druids as confirmed on the official forums by blues:

• Spell damage added to Healing gear. This was hinted at during Blizzcon and confirmed today: All +Heal gear will receive one-third of the healing bonus as +spell damage. So a chest piece with +750 healing will now also have +250 spell damage. The addition of spell damage is a bonus and will not lower any other stat on the equipment. (source)

• Intensity is changing. Currently, this Restoration talent increases your mana regeneration in combat 5%/10%/15%. After Patch 2.3, the mana regeneration will increase to 10%/20%/30%. (source)
  

• Innvervate will not be changing, but Tranquility will be receiving the benefit of +Heal gear. (source)

• Druid combat rez is having its cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 20 minutes. CM Bornakk went on to confirm that the cooldown will not be reduced any further since that would seriously imbalance PvP. (source)
  

• Zul'Aman is ready to go in Patch 2.3. This is important news for druids as some Balance spec itemization issues were promised to be addressed in this 10-man post-Karazhan instance.

• New relics for Druid, Shaman and Paladin PvP players. Blues didn't have specific details but promised they would be tailored for many different specs. (source 1, source 2)
  

• Moonkin's PvP viability will get a boost: they will be able to cast Remove Curse while in Moonkin form. (source)
  

• Tree of Life form will be able to cast Cure Poison and Abolish Poison. (source)
  

• No changes planned for feral druids in this patch. (source)
  

What these changes mean to druids after the jump.

Yes, I know this is 2.2's-day. One announced change for patch 2.3 has slipped way, way under the radar, though, and I think it could use some recognition. Using macros, Druids will be able to directly switch from one form to another (cat to bear, for instance), with only one keypress. Here's how it will work:
/cancelform
/cast Dire Bear Form (or whatever your target form is)
Fun, eh? This works because /cancelform is going to be recognized instantly in 2.3, like /dismount is now. The macro should function no matter what form you're currently in.

This also allows things like shifting from bear to caster, drinking a pot and/or using a healthstone, and shifting back into bear, all without interruptions and with only one keypress:
/cancelform
/use Super Healing Potion
/use Master Healthstone
/cast Dire Bear Form
The 2.2 patch notes included an item that seems related to this ("Cast sequence macros no longer get stuck at feral druid abilities"), but I think that's just a bug fix; the above macros don't work in 2.2 as far as I know. Here's my question, though: if you can make a macro to shift forms directly, why not just make the default form buttons have that same behavior? Maybe they will, but I haven't heard anything about it yet.

[macros by Nandini of Darrowmere]

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by Dan O'Halloran and David Bowers.

Every class has its pet PvP problems. Some whine a lot about how many times they've been nerfed; others just whine about warlocks. But most of these classes have a pretty clear idea about what they're supposed to be doing. Sometimes they whine that they don't like "what they're supposed to be doing" and would rather remake their class into something completely different -- but that's another issue.

Here's the generally accepted conventional wisdom on what each class is supposed to be doing in PvP:

• Rogues: Kick buttocks (by surprise)
• Hunters: Shoot buttocks (from a distance)
• Mages: Freeze and burn buttocks (and sheep)
• Priest: Melt buttocks (or heal)
• Shaman: Shock buttocks, drop totems (and heal)
• Warrior: Charge in and smash buttocks (with a healer in tow)
• Paladin: Stay alive (and heal)
• Warlock: Laugh maniacally (a lot)
• Druid: Mix and match your healing, damage absorption, and buttocks-destruction by being in the right form at the right time to do the right thing that needs to be done based on whoever is around you and whatever is going on at any given moment (lol wut?)
  

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by David Bowers and Dan O'Halloran.

NOTE: Mages, Warlocks and Shadow Priests may be interested in these lists as well.

This last set of equipment slots are better tailored to Moonkin than the visible slots covered earlier. Because the neck/ finger/weapon/trinket slots have to cater to all dps casters, we see more pure +spell damage items and less equipment watered down with +healing. Also, the relic slot has items specifically tailored to Moonkin.

Since there are so many choices for these slots, the format of this guide is going to be more of level based list, than the conversational approach of Part I and Part 2. Each section will have a few recommendations followed by a complete list of non-raid Outland alternatives.

The best part is that because there are so many choices, you're pretty much guaranteed solid upgrades no matter your style of play (i.e. solo, group, PvP, etc.) Finally, at the end of the guide is a link to two excellent Moonkin guides for gems and enchantments found on the Balance of Power blog.

Enough build up! On to the pre-Karazhan equipment extravaganza after the jump.

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by Dan O'Halloran and David Bowers.

Druids weren't always night elves and tauren, you know. Well, in World of Warcraft they were, but centuries before the first snowflakes started to form in the clouds of Blizzard's creative minds, the authentic human druids actually walked around casting regrowth, shapeshifting, and spamming moonfire.

Or did they? How much of the class that we know and love in WoW is actually based on the real life druids of old? How did the word "druid" come to refer to our fantasy fighters rather than some ancient wise men in robes?

If you've ever watched Monty Python (and of course you have), you've probably seen the wonderful informational film "How Not To Be Seen." It takes the form of a crash course on how not to be detected, with explosive consequences for anyone who fails. Among the tips are not to stand up, not to choose an obvious hiding place, and not to let anyone know where you're planning on taking your holiday.

How Not To Be Seen reminds me a lot of questing and world PVP as a rogue. As long as you're invisible, you're fine -- but if you get caught out in the open, prepare to get pyroblasted into eternity. Other classes have huge swords, the light of the gods, demonic powers, endless channels of arcane magic, angry animal companions, and the powers of nature itself. We've got, what, two measly daggers? No wonder we need to hide.

So this week, Encrypted Text will present some tips -- both physical and psychological -- on how not to be detected when in stealth.

Lately there's lots of people running old world instances solo, as well as some people attempting runs of Burning Crusade instances alone and ending up victorious. I even saw a Paladin tank solo Hellfire Ramparts once.

But in this video a Tauren Druid named (perhaps appropriately) Immortal, kills all 3 bosses of Ramparts, all 3 bosses of Blood Furnace, and the 2nd boss of Mana Tombs -- all on his own. Definitely worth a watch!

Previously on Moviewatch...