Aenara the Seeker

Despite completing Tricks and Treats of Azeroth last year Aenara was getting credit towards 3000 Quests Completed when pocketing treats from the various Candy Buckets. For the final quest she returned to her initial questing area of Dolanaar where Innkeeper Keldamyr bore witness to that final quest.

Now for The Loremaster. Currently have 613/700 in Loremaster of Kalimdor and 526/700 in Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms so it's not too far away!

Almost Done Before Restarting

Still a little rough downing Heroic Sindragosa 25 but we got her on the third attempt. Picked up the Heroic Phylactery of the Nameless Lich. (Yay!) Excepting three Heroic Vanquisher's Marks of Sanctification and the ultra-elusive Professor's Bloodied Smock, Aenara now has all of the gear she's been eying. For now.

Oh Come On

Got done with the Headless Horseman on all the toons when Aenara saw some spam in Trade Chat for Black Temple. They were on council so it would be getting the achievement done pretty quick. Trying to zone in kept erroring out with a message: “You have entered too many instances recently.” Searching the forums there was a blue post that stated: “Five instances per hour is the current limit. Please note that this is per account.” *sigh* I understand they want to limit instance farming but there's obviously a bug. I'd done HH easily six times in 30min so whatever. Maybe the LFG system gets around it but if Blizzard is going to deny access, the least they could do is provide a “XX more min until you can enter an instance” message.

Thankfully they wiped on their first attempt due to lack of healing. *snicker* Might be able to get in while they try to fine more.

It's Over 7000!

Aenara got stuck at 98/100 on The Summit of Storm Peaks. EveryQuest's incomplete list showed a missing drop-quest started from a Dark Armor Sample. Didn't stick around to finish The Iron Colossus chain once the zone was done since there were still Tournament dailies waiting. Just have to finish up 87/140 Icecrown: The Final Goal for Loremaster of Northrend.

Aenara is now up to 7050 achievement points, with 661/1056 completed. Currently #8 in the guild.

Long, Strange #4

Finally! Picked up the only item Aenara needed for more than a year from the Inn Keeper in Westguard Keep… the damn Hallowed Helm for Sinister Calling. Picked up Hallowed Be Thy Name and What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.

Was down in Howling Fjord to finish up I've Toured the Fjord. Working on The Summit of Storm Peaks while watching 3v3 PvP at BlizzCon. Got Into the Basin done late last night so only Icecrown: The Final Goal remains for Loremaster of Northrend.

Two More Done

Somehow found the patience to grind out some more kills today, so Aenara finished up Oh My, Kurenai… which was also the last reputation needed to finish up The Diplomat. It did take some time yet it was sort of amusing running around camps of Burning Crusade mobs, dropping a single Insect Swarm on each, then circling back to collect loot. Which reminds me… I really need to see if Loot Filter is running again. It makes culling the loot trash so much more tolerable.

The mobs in The Steamvault didn't fare much better. Still spread IS around yet the new super-damaging Thorns made quick work of any melee mobs. The turn-ins were the most tedious part of finishing up Cenarion Expedition. Seems somehow right in an role play sense to have the druid astride a Cenarion War Hippogryph. Still have 72 Coilfang Armaments left over for the next toon that wants the rep. *rolls eyes*

This brings me up to 27/30 Exalted Reputations, 18/25 Tabards, and 77/100 Mountain o' Mounts. Thinking of targeting The Argent Dawn along with Deathcharger's Reins next while getting Hero of the Zandalar Tribe finished up.

First Wintergrasp

Blizzard added Wintergrasp to the regular PvP interface—quite handy. Felt like Aenara was ready to try some more PvP so decided to queue. Horde continue to suck on Azjol-Nerub. There didn't seem to be any bugs or changes to the zone. The quests grant significantly less honor. Was hoping they were dailies now but they didn't count towards the cap when turned in. *sigh*

The gather quest was A Rare Herb so headed down there. The Steppe of Life was heavily farmed so I took a quick break. Got back and had 7/10 Horde Herb Pouchs when a Horde Warrior and Mage popped up. It was surprising how easily they died. Was at half-health when another Mage appeared. Destroyed him, too. Maybe they just sucked, but Spect, Mouzashi, Magerfeeb really disgraced their faction this morning. Will have to hold on to the Unwarmed Shoes I took off Mouzashi's fail corpse. *giggle*

Shrooms + Wrathful

Aenara finished up The Czar of Sporeggar with relative ease. In three Normal clears I picked up 82 Sanguine Hibiscus. Ran Favor out with another 143 from the bank and done! The little spore bat is fun. This puts Aenara at 68/75 for Lil' Game Hunter, 16/25 Tabards, and 24/25 Exalted Reputations.

Figure that The Diplomat will be next. Aenara murdered her way up to 3198 in Honored with Timbermaw. Kept Favor on auto-follow to soak up the free rep. Pulled in 186 feathers along with the Deadwood Ritual Totem and the Winterfall Ritual Totem. Going to take a while to finish that.

Had to stop the grind when there was talk in the guild about the Wrathful PvP items. I'd heard somewhere that the gear was going to be purchasable without the Arena rating requirements. Sadly the requirement numbers where still there. Yet someone in the guild randomly tried to buy a piece and was able! So I hearthed up immediately to pick up Wrathful Gladiator's War Staff and Wrathful Gladiator's Wyrmhide Robes. Aenara was exactly ten points short for Wrathful Gladiator's Wyrmhide Helm but managed to get a 24 points in a horrible Warsong Gulch loss. Also dropped a Great Feast for Dinner Impossible. *lol*

The Drake With the Most Pink

Finally got On Wings of Nether completed this morning with the dailies and a couple extra Netherwing Eggs. This puts Aenara 2701/3000 Quests Completed, 60/100 Mountain o' Mounts, and 23/25 Exalted Reputations. Knocked out Crocolisks in the City really quick in hopes of picking up the last croc she needed, Chuck, but was denied. WoWJuju tells me another 225 Sanguine Hibiscus will get Sporeggar done so I might try doing that now.

Top Orc

Martini got Skyshattered done a year ago but I sure couldn't get it done on Aenara. Yet when I went out to get the dailies finished today I noticed I remained mounted on my Nether-Rocket, so I retained my 310% speed! Needless to say it was easy to complete this pesky achievement. Sometimes the patch bugs are good.

Wow WoW

Head is still spinning from all the changes. Aenara is doing insane Moonkin damage and pulling aggro off instance tanks with ease, single-target and on packs. Didn't end up reforging anything as I was right on with hit. Mana was a slight problem. Will see how things go in raid tonight if everyone is ready. Could get Grid running so I refused to try out my healing spec in a pug. Really like the flaura spawn from Swiftmend though. *smile*

Faerune has fared pretty well. Too much talking and reading to get the tanking configured (SO MANY CDs NOW!) yet Frost DPS is looking pretty amazing. The built-in Power Auras made reacting to Rime and Killing Machine procs very easy. It's sad that KM doesn't affect Howling Blast anymore, but DPS was fine. Pulled instance aggro a number of times so not looking forward to tanking.

Biggest problem with loading Professions, namely Inscription and Jewel Crafting. I suppose everyone needs those right now so it's taking a toll on the servers. Sure is frustrating. Takes a few minutes for the categories and cuts/glyphs to load, especially in Dalaran. My gouging plan didn't really work with Glyphs. I didn't realize that they work like spells now... once you learn one, you never need it again! Did sell a bunch of Druid and Rogue ones at inflated prices. But it wasn't worth the time and materials. I'm going to have to make a bunch for my toons, and they bumped up the cost of each glyph from 1 to 3 Ink of the Seas.

Still have so much to figure out not even sure where to begin. I really need Grid to work, so I'll prolly start there. Then maybe Favor? Scheme? Feraline? Sloosh? *sigh*

4.0 Druid -- Boomkin with Int, Resto with no Tree

With the big patch out today I'm looking at a solid week of reviewing all ten toons. Both fun and tedious, but I need to get it done fast. If I'm going to switch mains then I'll want to alert the guild right away. So Aenara is first.

Moonkin

Sources
Druid: Balance PvE (updated for 4.0.1)
*Patch 4.0 Guide*
Moonkin Guide 4.0.1

Talents/Glyphs

WowHead

• Heard some interesting mana arguments (post 80) where it might make sense to drop Owlkin Frenzy if it's not getting triggered enough by mob mechanics along with skipping Blessing of the Grove. This allows four points that can be put into Moonglow and Furor (MMO Champion)
• Eclipse. The base Eclipse bonus is 25%, and the 12% from Total Eclipse stacks on top of that. The damage bonus is multiplicative. Spells provide Eclipse energy when they land. Eclipse ends after the cast that takes you to 0 energy; the last spell is still affected.
• Moonfury: Damage increase stacks multiplicatively. Due to the odd critical bonus stacking rules, the total crit bonus for affected spells if you use a Chaotic meta is 209%.
• Balance of Power: Your base Spirit is not included in the hit rating conversion, only bonus Spirit (green number in the tooltip).
• Sunfire: Identical to Moonfire in all respects except appearance and damage type. Affected by Glyph of Moonfire, Glyph of Starfire, Genesis, Lunar Shower, Nature's Grace, and Shooting Stars. Sunfire and Moonfire overwrite each other on the same target. There is currently a bug where Sunfire has a base tick rate of 3s instead of 2s, and is not affected by haste.
• Lunar Shower: If you don't have the buff, it only appears when you cast Moonfire or Sunfire. Once the buff is on you, it stacks and refreshes whenever you move. So if you are not moving and cast two consecutive Moonfires, the second will be affected by one stack of the buff, but to go higher, you need to move.
• Heart of the Wild: Stacks multiplicatively with Mark of the Wild.

Resulting Spell Coefficients and Damage Multipliers

Overall damage multiplier (Nature/Arcane): 1.08 (Earth and Moon) * 1.02 (Earth and Moon) * 1.03 (Arcane Empowerment) * 1.25 (Moonfury) * 1.1 (Moonkin Form) * 1.02 (Balance of Power)= 1.591.
Haste multiplier, before haste rating: 1.05 (Moonkin Form). Multiply this by (1 + HasteRating/3279) to obtain final haste ratio.
Crit Chance: 5% (Leader of the Pack) + 5% (Improved Scorch) = 10%, added to whatever you see reported in your character sheet (Nature's Majesty is included there already).

Stats

Weights
Intellect:
Spellpower:
Hit rating/Spirit:
Haste rating:
Critical strike rating:
Mastery rating:

Stat Value Caps

Hit: Against a level 83 target, with all buffs, we need 446 hit rating (17%) to cap at 100%. To check your hit rating, just mouse over it on your character sheet--it already includes the bonus hit from Balance of Power. Against an 82, 81, or 80 target, the caps are 158, 132, and 105 rating respectively.

Haste: Now that Wrath is a 2s base cast, it cannot run up against the 1s GCD minimum at any reasonable level of haste. There is a weak haste cap where the GCD hits 1.0s with Nature's Grace active. This requires 1.5/(1.05*1.15) - 1 = 24.22% haste, or 795 haste rating.

At certain levels of haste, our DoT's gain extra ticks. With 3/3 Genesis and Moonkin Form, and no Glyph of Starfire, they get an 11th tick at 365 haste rating, a 12th tick at 712 rating, and a 13th tick at 1059 rating. When affected by Nature's Grace, the 14th tick comes at 493 rating, the 15th tick at 795 rating, and the 16th tick at 1097 rating.

Overall, these softcaps are far less important than in WLK. Only the hit cap should be a significant factor in gear selection.

Reforging
Reforging allows you to change 40% of one secondary stat on an item into another secondary stat that's not already present. As noted above, the usual order of secondary stats by value is:

1. Spirit (technically better than Hit since it can occasionally give you mana).
2. Hit rating (until cap).
3. Haste rating.
4. Crit rating.
5. Mastery rating.

You should reforge whichever is the lowest-ranked stat on item up to the highest-ranked one that it doesn't already have. The only situation that's not obvious is when the hit cap is involved. If you need hit, reforge crit/mastery to hit on pieces that have those stats first, before you reforge haste. If you have excess hit, reforge hit/Spirit to haste wherever possible.

Gems
Red: Brilliant Cardinal Ruby (+20 Intellect)
Yellow: Reckless Ametrine (+12 Spell Power and +10 Haste Rating)
Blue: Purified Dreadstone (+12 Spell Power and +10 Spirit)

Eclipses

Lunar eclipse increases the damage of

• Starfire
• Moonfire
• Starfall
• Starsurge

Solar eclipse increases the damage of:

• Wrath
• Insect Swarm
• Sunfire
• Typhoon
• Starsurge
• Hurricane

AddOns

DoTimer
Balance Power Tracker
Quartz

Not Yet Updated for Cata
SquawkAndAwe
SquawkHard
Ovale
ForteXorcist

Links

YouTube Arythorn has a few PTR videos on the DPS rotations and output
The Moonkin Repository
Druid Resource list for 4.0.1

Restoration

Sources
*Patch 4.0 Guide*

Talents/Glyphs

WowHead

Still sad over the changes to resto so I'm going to put this off. Regrowth has been destroyed. Only one Lifebloom can be out. Treeform is on a CD. No more ticking poison removal.

There are good things. All the hots can crit. Treeform effects are great. Remove Corruption is an all-in-wonder like Shaman.

I'll prolly be main healing on the shaman at this point.

LFG Tool Success!

I have Aenara running around doing dailies when I get a whisper from someone named Rhialla asking if I wanted to do the Weekly. Took me completely by surprise because I'd queue'd up in the Raid Finder over two hours earlier. *snicker* Sadly I forgot to mark the Healer checkbox so I suppose I was lucky to get an invite at all. Was a bit rough as I out-geared the tank, Svennorsky, by a great deal and started pulling aggro around 80%.

It really isn't worth sitting in a city and enduring trade chat to find a raid yet I'm glad we got Anub'Rekhan Must Die! done. Aenara had 434 Frost Emblems and 188 Triumph Emblems so she doesn't really need any, but she only had 2304 emblems towards 2500 Dungeon & Raid Emblems. Sadly, when the quest was turned in, it didn't increment the count. Turns out rewards don't count as it's not looted. *sigh* Not sure I'll get that achievement since emblems will be going away next patch.

Call in the Cavalry!

Did some late night PvP with the guild on Aenara. We usually win a bunch so I had to spend honor as I approached the 75k cap. Still don't want to break up my 2t10 bonus so I decided to grab a Black War Elekk and got Call in the Cavalry done. Hoping the honor grind in Cata isn't too painful as I'll need to get the other four mounts eventually.

Wasn't So Dark

Finished up the Ulduar achievement run from two weeks ago. We only had to drop Yogg-Saron left—who I'd never seen let alone killed. Went through the exhaustive tactics writeup on the Wiki so I felt confident, though I still watched Cassette's and TankSpots ten-man videos. Took four attempts with twenty-two people yet it felt a lot smoother than General Vezax.

Since Aenara hasn't done much Ulduar there was quite a number of achievements that scrolled by:

• Glory of the Ulduar Raider (25 player)
• One Light in the Darkness (25 player)
• Two Lights in the Darkness (25 player)
• Three Lights in the Darkness (25 player)
• The Descent into Madness (25 player)
• The Secrets of Ulduar (25 player)

Actually would have used Show of Faith for healing yet a pally beat me out. Took home Soulscribe as a memento. Of course the real pay off was the Ironbound Proto-Drake. I'm finding I like it more than the Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher.

Classic Cenarion!

Magmadar finally gave up a pair of Cenarion Leggings so Aenara was able to complete her tier one Cenarion Raiment set! It looks so corny and I love it.

Finally got enough trash killed to move the druid into Revered so she turned in Hands of the Enemy and completed The Fifth Element. Looks like she and Sloosh will be the only toons to earn that Feat of Strength.

Meow Someday

Aenara continues to gather Feral gear. In this lockout she picked up Frostbitten Fur Boots along with Aldriana's Gloves of Secrecy. With Cataclysm so close I'm not sure I'll really get a chance to use any of it. *sigh*

Still Moving Forward

Not a lot of excitement lately… the usual grind of XP and instancing. Finally happened… Sloosh's first green upgrade is the Mendicant's Charm, replacing Dark Iron Smoking Pipe; it's better to have the higher base damage and take the drop on the use boost. Also ended up putting away my beautiful Hammer of Judgement for an ugly yet fearsome Kalu'ak Rep Reward: Totemic Purification Rod.

Did a Nexus run last night with some of Klutz's crew, Zethos, Nitespirit, and Fowler. Since I was tanking with Aenara it was nice with Nitespirit there. Klutz can totally heal me but we went really crazy with the extra backup. After Nexus Nitespirit had to head out so we picked up Pobedog then ran Azjol-Nerub and Utgarde Keep.

Try to get dailies out of the way in the morning. Today's set is:

Blackriver Skirmish: 20750xp, 5g60s, 10 Venture Coin, 137 Alliance Vanguard
Break the Blockade: 12050xp, 4g70s, 138 Alliance Vanguard
Defending Wyrmrest Temple: 20750xp, 5g60s, 275 The Wyrmrest Accord
Planning for the Future: 16250xp, 5g, 550 The Kalu'ak
Preparing for the Worst: 16250xp, 5g, 550 The Kalu'ak
Drake Hunt: 12050xp, 4g70s, 275 The Wyrmrest Accord
Infused Mushroom Meatloaf (Dalaran Cooking): 16200, 5g30s, 3 Northern Spices, 165 Kirin Tor

Sloosh (1298779/1653900) should be finishing up in Grizzly Hills tonight and I'm sure she'll hit 79.

Totems Done

Got a lot of maintenance done on the Shaman today. They were all 33 but still didnt have mounts or their Air Totems so was time for a visit home. Had my banker send 450g for deposit into their guild. After grabbing each a Gray Elephant, I spent time individually to get rid of some flotsam from their inventory then level their First Aid to 150. Going from 80 to 150 seemed to take around seven stacks so I exhausted the bank supply on the final shaman. Had to switch over to another pack rat alt to find the last few stacks.

The shaman have leveled so fast that they've completely outgrown their gear. I'm a horrible twinker so I'm always thinking I should gather this or make that. I'd really like to make them a full set of Big Voodoo gear for novelty's sake. Yet now that it's for FOUR characters, I'm not so eager. I refuse to pay the AH prices for 112 Thick Leather and 64 Flasks of Mojo. Farming them would take forever. Definitely not worth the five or six days they'd wear them. I did take the time to put together Golden Ring of Powerx4 since rings tend to last a while and they were still skill-ups.

Revised my keyboard layout a little. I've move the assist with the primary actions buttons to the Bottom Left button bar where I have everything bound on Shift keys. Most of my characters use that bar in the same way, so it's going to take a little retraining of my brain. Thinking it will be best to keep keys 1-6 un-broadcasted for whatever the main needs.

The Shaman on my Main account had to sit out today while made some SM Library runs. Thought about using the Mage as I've seen suggested yet Decimate really isn't that well geared. Aenara isn't that much better but she's done very well tanking in the past. With the 3.0.2 change to Swipe, she's now godly.

In Bear she has over 13k Life so I decided to see what my maximum pulls was. Turns out that casters will leash if you take them around more than two or three turns. So I would stealth all the way up to Doan, aggro the two monks in front of the library, then hoof of on back to the entry. I would swing into the alcoves along the way so I would end up using Frenzied Regeneration by the time I hit the Huntsman Cloister. The flurry of death is always so satisfying.

Doan was very cooperative. After six runs, I had a Robe of Doan, a Mantle of Doan, and an Illusionary Rod for all three shaman. Only happened to get two Hypnotic Blades but I'm sure I'll pick up more while using the Ehancement Shaman to run the Shaman on the Main account through.

Was kinda funny too. Finally have Chain Lightning so I threw down a few while clearing—going to be so deadly. These greedy Shaman have been stealing lots of gold from my Mains so I made sure one each run one of them would fill their bags from the piles'o'corpses. There was enough crap to sell that they'll hopefully keep up with their spell training costs. Thankfully I was being thorough because on the way out of my final clear I noticed an unlooted corpse that was holding a nice blue Cobalt Crusher.

The RAF program continues to be amazing. Have the Druid boost the three slaves through means the fourth Shaman isn't getting any experience. So I'll be using a number of the Level gifts to let her keep pace effortlessly. Wish the Character Transfer was going to I could do some strategic character relocation. Oh well. The experience is still wonderful. Doing the totem turn-in alone was 8700xp (+5800raf). I'm currently using the summon to my great advantage. My Main is summoning each character to the various Inns in Outland for the seasonal Candy Bucket quests and all Flight Paths. *snicker* Those little 34 Shaman are sure getting around.

Arena First

Sloosh and Hennesy are still struggling in the 1600s but it finally happened: Druid/Warrior team downed!



Hennesy noted that I was doing unnecessary pole dancing. A Warrior or Rogue pinning me down would follow me out of his LoS so he couldn't assist me. With Nightal on my ass, I parked against the corner of the Ruins of Lordaeron's center obstacle and focused on keeping myself alive while throwing occasional instant heals when Hennesy was in range. After Pain Supression's brief respite I didn't last long, but Erwynn died seconds later. Nightal was at 40% health yet Hennesy managed to finish with 7% health. I cheered rather loudly.

The most amusing fight was when we dipped down to 1596. We were pitted against a dual Frost mage team. I threw Power Infusion on Hennesy then went into full rabbit mode. Got their pets on me in the center of the field then chain dispelled my way to a corner. Pretty sure they didn't get a single Ice Lance crit on me though I was down to 20% health once behind the pillar. Hennesy had them dead seconds later.

Ended the day 5-5 with a 1649 rating. Going to start gearing up Aenara for PvP I guess. Druids are still too powerful with Swiftmended massive heals, Nature's Swiftness of anything, ultra CC, an AoE heal that isn't affected by LoS, a HoT that heals when dispelled, and immunity to polymorph/snare. For me the biggest losses will be Mana Burn and Dispel, but I'm sure I can adjust. I don't think Hennesy is happy about playing a Warrior but it might work out.