Moonkin Moaning

BoomMummy is very sad that BRK is out of the scene for a little while - and yay, even some of my best friends are hunters - but my moan isn't about this.

Recently, out of boredom (and also having just leveled my fourth level 80.... whooops, how did that happen?) I decided to try some achievements.  Now, I love achievements like the next person - as long as that person isn't the Boomdaddy, who looks upon them as a sore excuse for game content.  But I don't care - I love em!

I just wish, to the bottom of my feathery heart, that all the damned rewards were not bloody drakes and obscure flying mounts that I'll never, ever, in my feathery dreams, end up using.  Druids have an epic flight form at the click of a button.  Why the hell do I want to wait a few seconds to do what I can do in an instant? 

Can we start a campaign for druid-worthy rewards?  Here are a few suggestions, to help out poor Blizzard who seem to have gotten into a bit of a rut with druid forms:

1) Purple feathers

2) Toucan-style beaks

3) Throbbing Antlers that moisten when excited

4) Smaller arses for lady boomkins

I can only hope my words are heeded....

Love, feathers, pointy bits and all that,

BoomMummy XXX

A Moment of Sadness

It seems that BRK is closing his blog door for 3 months. He will be truly missed . Great bloggers are few and far between and he is a gem. Hunters are next to mages on the evolutionary chain , just before belly button fluff, but I have aways read/listened to BRK because he is quality. I know that the hunters in my guild read his blog and take his wise words on board. He has taken the tard out of many hunters and as a raider, an officer and a gentleman, I salute his work. Through his writing he has saved many a raid because twig thwuckers and bullet bangers have read his blog and learned to be good hunters. Please click the link to his blog and give him a good send off, hopefully he can come back soon.

Those who are about to die (because huntards will return) salute you BRK. You get the Boomdaddy's love.

Link loveliness

Well, it has been super size sexy to be linked and talked about by lovely bloggers. Thank you chickens of the lazer and battle variety, your mentions have warmed the feathers of our heart.. We are not phae, we are not epic theory-crafters, we are simple boomkins who wish to add our little bit of boomness to the blogosphere. We hope that we add something to the booom-munity. We swear a bit, we bitch and whine, but we are lovely really, honestly we are.



We danced the boomkin dance today, because of the links bestowed on us...it fed our innate bloggers need for some attention and recognition. But it reminded us about why we bothered to start Boomkin blogging.



We started blogging because it is good to talk. When a class can come together and talk about *stuff*, it will inevitably end in good things happening. Dialogue is what takes our class forward. Talking to the Boommummy has taken both our dps to greater hights. Reading other Moonkin blogs has led to us taking on new ideas.



The thing is, i want to learn and get better. I'm a awkward cuss that is always right, but often I'm not. Reading and taking on ideas from fellow Boomkin is the stuff of life. As Bob Hoskins said, its good to talk.

Friday Mage Joke

Sally Fireball, mage, was taking gyrocopter lessons with Trixie Danglewrench, gnome engineer.  "I'll communicate with you every 1000 feet to see how you're doing, using my new distotalkophone."

At 1000 feet, Trixie whirred the distotalkophone into action and told Sally she was doing great.  At 2000 feet, Trixie was amazed - Sally was still doing well!

Right before Sally got to 3000 feet, the propeller stopped and Sally crashed to the ground.  Trixie ran to where she crashed landed and pulled her out of the gyrocopter.  "What went wrong?"

Sally said, "At 2500 feet, I started to get cold, so I turned the big fan off".

BoomMummy changes

Hello my little lovely readers! 

 

Well, can you believe it?  I certainly can't!  No, I can't!  Yes, no, really!  The BoomMummy has changed her spec!  

Before you all keel over in shock, thinking I have turned into a dodgy looking tree or some drunken bear-type, I must hasten to reassure you that I still have my antlers and feathers.  Phew!  It's just a little re-jiggle of the talent trees, that's all!  But an important re-jiggle nevertheless.  

So, what made this happy little mummy change her mind?  She was previously heavy Balance, with only 2 points in Resto.  I was fine trotting along like this, but two things began to press on my mind.  First of all, I was concerned with the changes in mana regeneration due in the next patch - what seemed to be a big nerf at first glance.  Alex Ziebart on Wow Insider wrote a lovely article on this here: 

click here

The second reason for my change was that the Boomdaddy began to whip my arse on raids (and not in the pleasant way I normally like on Sunday afternoons...).  I really began to pay attention to his spec which leaned more to certain Resto talents - a mana-regen type spec.  

So, my new talent spec is this (exactly the same as the Boomdaddy's):

 clickie clickie 

It really is fantastic.  My damage has really improved quite dramatically, and on the last guild raid on Tuesday I whooped the Boomdaddy's arse on quite a few fights!!!  Yay for revenge!!! I've practised hard at my spell rotation, have *almost* stopped trying to be a back-up healer, and feel I'm getting out of the little rut I found myself in recently.  This new build should also help out when the next patch comes out when we may start being more pressed for mana.

Anyway - on a side note, relating to the Boomdaddy's previous post:

The marvelous thing about having at least two moonkin in a guild is that you can have these discussions, go to target dummies together and test things out.  This didn't always seem to be the case, when moonkin were a rarity - in fact I was the only moonkin in our lovely guild, until the lovely Boomdaddy joined us.  The first time I met him, I was healing - yes - *healing* a heroic Slave Pens - while in my balance spec.  He was an inspirational moonkin, in full PVP kit and whacking out good damage even then (it was the only kit we could DPS in at the time, unless we went crazy for cloth on raids - which just upset mages and warlocks).  At this stage in the game, spell DPS druids were hardly known or trusted, and I always stood a better chance of getting into an instance group if I pretended I was a healer.  It *was* easier to heal in the game then as a moonkin - having tried off-healing once or twice since Lich King, I can tell you it is *really* tricky now - mana goes down quicker than a bottle of vodka in my house on a Friday night.  So, I don't do it anymore!  

Thanks for reading - hope you are all still lovely!  Feel free to express your love for me with message of support, flowers, chocolates or - more importantly - vodka.

BoomMummy XXX

Nostalgia

A few bloggers are getting all nostalgic recently, such as the egotistical priest. Vonya posted a nice piece on "the pivotal" event that shaped your WoW play/life style and I felt like I wanted to yap on a little bit here about my pivotal moments in terms of what lead me to where I am today.

Day 1 was the decision to go buy this crack derived game! I did not think that I would be playing after a couple of months , let alone playing for years! I have a very low attention span for pc/console games and 2 games have only ever gripped me.. Command and Conquer Red Alert and the Total War series for the PC. My only MMO experience before WoW was Runescape. At the time the concept of MMO blew my mind, what with all these real people out there interacting in a completely new phase of social interaction. I knew parts of Runescape was what I wanted but also that it wasn't right for me long term. Hence I did my research and ended up purchasing WoW.

I remember clearly the day I purchased it and the excitement of reading the little game manual while I waited for it to load. Then came the first and last time I had to consider what class I wanted to play.( The decision to play alliance and the Bronzebeard server were made for me, as a wonderful lady I had met in a previous blogging life played on BB and was going to take me under her wing. The only problem was, we found out the next day, EU customers couldn't access USA servers and I had purchased the EU version in ignorance! Doh.) It simply had to be a druid! Everything about them screamed versatility, variety and well, fun. From those early beginnings in the druid noob zone, to outlands to Northrend, my druid has been my only real toon, no alliance alt has made it past 29. The druid is me, no other class has "felt" right....even down to not ever changing how he looks, with haircuts etc.

The second pivotal moment for the emerging Boomdaddy was brought about by meeting the Boomgrandaddy. Salmonella to be precise. He was one of the only balance druids at that time on our server and was also a guidmate. He was THE only Boomkin that you saw in Stormwind, he was the guy everyone asked to dance because he was relatively unique. Sal was also a guildie and helped me through the different druid quests, taught me to be less of a noob, taught me where to fish Deviates (when it really was a secret on Alliance side) to make loads of cash in order to buy my first mount. He didn't boost me through stuff, he simply talked me through it, taught self reliance...he really was a true druid mentor and I think I would have given up years ago if he hadn't showed me the ropes. The pivotal day was when we both got trees for the first time and danced the night away in SW surrounded by shrubbery. That day the Moonkin contract was signed in blood, there was no was any other class could be so full of win!

Guild politics and Outlands cocktail, was really what led to the last defining moment. The casual social guild that I had belonged to split, for several reasons, but looking back I think there was an underlying frustration at not "raiding". Raiding was completely alien to me. Yes , I had run all of the instances in Outlands but the emerging Kara was simply a pipe dream, something those hardcore guys in basements did whilst high on Red Bull and pro plus. A few of us stayed solo after the split but we shared a group calender and started to schedule runs into the new fangled heroics. Tor the rogue, his brother Demon the lock, Sal, myself, Letro the Pally (whose moustache alone can tank 3 mobs-true story), Ysanne the priest hit the heroics most nights , sometimes 2 per night. We formed a great team, which looking back now feels like the first real exposure to mini raiding that I had. Bosses were tough, tactics were talked, we used in game voice chat. I read about recount and Omen, worked out threat and gear and suddenly started to absorb some of the plethora of resources out there for us all to use and learn from.

The team split up though, when the others up and joined this weird social/raiding guild. I was sceptical and stayed away for a few months but one day went on a pug with a few of them by chance into the Slave Pens. That was the first time I met the Moonkin , now known as the Boommummy. A few days later I made an application (my God, imagine having to apply to a guild!!!) which probably to the horror now of my GM, was accepted. It was great to be back with old friends and seemed like a really new chapter had started in my WoW "career". Then it happened. Kara.

I had been in a couple of times in a pug wipefest on Attumen, so was not completely green but OMG what a different world, the first real world of raiding. Suddenly I found what I had always wanted out of this game, raiding. Hard fights where you were completely reliant on 9 other people to be at their best, to get you all through. Really learning how to squeeze every last drop of win out of your toon. Learning strategies, rotations, threat and mana management....simply awesome. A dedicated , social raiding guild. Casual in chat but in no way sloppy in raid. The thirst for raiding, That's what Kara gave me. That was my pivotal moment.

What was yours?

Patchwerk Revisited

Monday night and for the first time in a few weeks we had the numbers to complete a 2 night clean sweep of Naxx 25. Last night was just the Construct wing and the two Mr Bigs, it was also a night of god awful lag, never ever lagged so badly. Guessing every player and their dog where in Naxx before the weekly reset. A very mixed bad of results to be fair, 3rd on Grobbulus, 5Th on Gluth, a very special 2nd on KT and 5th (see above) on the Patchwerk. Patchwerk was especially pleasing as I added an extra 200dps over last attempt....may not have been the best, but I did my best. I did completely fuck up my rotation twice and ended up with Wrath eclipse which kept bouncing off the GCD, so there is definitely room for improvement. One month and we will break the 5k target , for sure.

Thadius, Thadius, Thadius though, that's a different story altogether. We had an absolute shocker (excuse the pun). Don't know if it was the lag, murderous guildies, suicidal me or simply a bad, bad day at the office...we sucked, we blew....we blucked. Apparently then, I now bluck on two bosses, Thaddy-poos and Heigan. We see a trend. If we have to move, we die. We dance like our Dad. Not good news with Ulduar around the corner.

Sundays round up

Was feeling a tad hung over and couldn't care bear, yesterday.....hence did not do anything really productive, well, except respec back to 55-0-16. I know the Boommummy will cry foul but i just feel much more comfortable with that raiding spec. Gone are IFF and Improved thorns, ill miss the thorns but my I will not worry too much about the loss of IFF. We will however revisit the talent after the next patch, if it becomes a 5 min deal. Ill hold my wings up and say I was not good enough at keeping it in my rotation, and using GCD, to make it really work for me. Our main tank is a furball, so the raid will always benefit from his FF anyhow. Target dummy likes our change back, over an hour over dummy thumping in Ironforge, we came out with an average 3106 dps, which is 2-300 up on last weeks efforts.

We liked that. So the call went out for "lfm dps VOA HC" over the general channel. Only a few guildies online, so we went with the pug. Usually I don't pug, I mean i truly loathe pugging any shit. If I cant do it myself, I will go with friends or guildies but eating cat hair is preferable to pugging. But it's only Voa, how bad can it be. To be fair, it was not even remotely painfull and it struck me as a useful exercise. What i mean is, I spend all my raiding (and most playing time) with the same set of people...i know their limitations and where they excel...i know from the damage meters where roughly everyone should be and can see who is having a blinder or who is having a lousy day at the office. So it was refreshing to compare my dps and raid competency with 24 unknown raiders....people who I have seen around Dalaran, checked out their kit etc. The results made for a mildly smug Sunday Boomdadddy..my dps was not earth shattering but sometimes we are an attention whore and like to see our name in lights.






Have a great Monday, Y'all.

How many Mages..

How many Mages does it take to paint a house?
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Depends how hard you throw them.

It's Friday Again - Mage Joke Time!

A Mage went to the appliance store sale and found a bargain. "I would like to buy this TV," he told the salesman.
"Sorry, we don't sell to mages," he replied.

He hurried home and dressed up as a Warlock, borrowed a pet demon, then came back and again told the salesman, "I would like to buy this TV."
"Sorry, we don't sell to Mages," he replied.
"Darn, he recognized me," he thought.

He went for a complete disguise next time; a full feather suit with beak and antlers. Perfect, he thought, he’s bound to sell it to a Moonkin! Just to be sure, he waited a couple of days before he again approached the salesman. "I would like to buy this TV."
"Sorry, we don't sell to Mages," he replied.
Frustrated, he exclaimed, "How do you know I'm a Mage?"
"Because that's a microwave," he replied.

Boom-boom!

Wednesday, After The Wishlist

As the commentator (many thanks for taking the time to comment) on yesterday's post pointed out, perhaps my wish list was a little ambitious. We barely scraped a 25 man team together, for the third week running and a few were either undergeared or inexperienced. That made for a scrappy night but hopefully it will help the guild in the long term. There seems to be a malaize similar to last summer, when raiding suddenly seemed too much effort for some. I guess it is Ulduar rearing its head and the anticipation of a whole new tier of gear. From my perspective though, we should be hitting Ulduar on day one kitted out in best in slot, not simply 4 pieces of T7 and some fill ins. We are a "casual raiding guild" but that does not mean we should raid casually (i prefer the term hardcore social guild anyhow).

I did not get any of the phat lootz that I was after, not even a moldy old limb. The only item to drop of any interest was the precious, tasty mage tears. /hug

Being a techno-tard, I haven't worked out to take a decent screen shot whilst at my home office, as I have two screens and it is baffling me.Any answers would be very gratefully recieved.

Patchwerk- Did not break 4.5k but did manage 4.38k which is a whole lot of happiness more than last week. We one shotted him, and the Boomdaddy came in 3rd, behind two warlocks as usual. The RNG was not at all kind and and I had to Wrath for what seemed like 30 seconds to get my first eclipse proc. Had fate and Blizzard been kinder, 4.5k would have got smished into tiny pieces, I think.We will break 5k before Ulduar , if it kills us.

Grob of green farts went down first time two, as he should, and we are pleased to have topped the chart on a boss for the first time in far too long.Yay for Boomkin. Gluth was a struggle but we still managed a very respectable second spot on the dps chart when he finally went to the puppy dog pound in the sky.

It was ironic that on a poor nights performance, the Boomdaddy had 3 of our best boss kill results.

No News Tuesday

.......yep no news.
..
..
..

It is Naxx 25 tonight, though, so we may have some news tomorow, if..

1-We get enough sign ups
2-We don't get drunk after being shafted by biggest customer and get arrested for being drunk in charge of a molotov cocktail
3- We remember to turn the damn combat log on

What we wish for tonight....

1- At least 3 wings down
2-4.5k on Patchwerk- any less and we call fail. Failing non fail, we demand his arm/leg/limb
3- Some new bracers from the Raz-man or at least gimme the damn idol
4-Maybe new boots from Loatheb
5- Some nice legs from thenoob'rekhan
6-Sweet tasting mage tears


Yes we need upgrades, our wardrobe is looking soooooo February.

Old Skool Raiding

Sunday night of boredom, then a glimmer of excitement when we are invited to go to Mount Hyjal . Was a run that was initially just to make up numbers for a very good friends son, but turned into a bit of a old skool guild run. We didn't ever finsh MH before THE patch, but it was nice to go back and finish off fatty. And yes, the boomdaddy was no.1 dps for the whole raid. Kaching.DPS peeked at about 5.3k after first boss, bit better than the last time we were here.

BoomMummy's Joke

A Mage and a Warlock both jump off a cliff at the same time. Which one will hit the bottom first?

The Warlock, because the Mage has to ask for directions.

Boom Joke Friday

Ok, so after a few drinkies the other night, myself and the Boommummy talked about a regular blog spot for mage related humour. As no one does any work on Friday's anyway, I guess today would be a good day to try it out. Please comment on who's joke is better, mine or the BoomMummys's! Also feel free to add your own.



After a gruelling day of being holier than thou, a young Paladin was strolling down the sandy beaches of Stranglethorn Vale, taking in the bracing sea air and thinking about all things bright and beautiful. In the distance he spies a small fishing boat, occupied by two legendary Moonkins. As he gets closer he spots a flailing, drowning gnome mage near to the boat and cries out in alarm. Thankfully the two Moonkin had obviously caught the poor mage by a rope and were pulling him on board to safety.

"Blessings of the Holy light be upon you two noble Moonkins" the paladin bellowed in his best clerical voice. "I will extol your virtuous actions in the Cathedral this very eve. Bless you again!"

The paladin continued his stroll with a jaunty stride, full of admiration for the heroes.

The first Moonkin turns to the second...."what a noob" he sighs,

"Yup, never been shark fishing".

BoomMummy has had nice Evening

Well, it's bloody rude, that's what I say.  I don't like the idea of moonkin misbehaving, and I think someone has made it up, just to make mages feel better.  I don't think it's right.  It's unnatural.  I've expulsed an egg in shock with all this worry.  I didn't even realise I was pregnant.  I hope I will wake up tomorrow and everyone tell me it's just a nasty dream I had. 

Lots of love and feathers...

BoomMummy XXXX

Naughty BoomBashers Naughty Boomkins

As always this morning, I had a quick troll through the various sites I have linked to this blog. I was somewhat astounded by what I found as it shook my dangly,feathery bits for a moment. I had an initial pappa Boomdaddy feeling, then some anger and then some sadness. The offending article was posted on the blog of the ever lovely Egotistical Priest by one of her minions about Boomkins of all things. Now if it had been a rant about Magetards, that would be both acceptable and understandable, but to stab at the heart of the Boomkin establishment simply isn't cricket, old chap. The Boomdaddy played nice and kept his toys in his pram but it has spurred me to think about what the original poster said and why we need to listen and pay credence.

The basic gist if you haven't clicked on the link and read it, is a scenario where the balance specced druid (careful use or wording there, did ya notice?) has pulled almighty agro with starfall and presumably hurricane. The poster priest has to shield him/her in order to stop them becoming road kill, the tank struggles to regain aggro and the artist formerly known as a Boomkin, typhoons the mobs away, leaving the poor tank to scuttle after them and try somehow to regain aggro.

Ok wings up, all Boomkins have done this at least once in their careers. You know what though?, we did it as a laugh on the friday- night- bit pissed on cheap wine- instance runs with guildies. We have done it for comic effect to annoy our lovely feral tank and grumpy shaman guild leader. We have done it in runs through ZG, nuking the bejesus out of low level mobs in a retarded AoE contest with locks and Magetards. Ok, so read all the above, it was done a handful of times for shit and giggles.

If you are a Boomkin that does this kind of thing in PuG's, instances and raids, then the Boomdaddy's Eye of Mordor is on you. You are an embarrassment and a disgrace. Stripped of the Boomkin title, you will walk the street of shame being known as "just a balance spec druid". Mages and Locks pull this kind of shit trying to be top of the pops, we do not.

We remember what it was like in TBC when we were aggro magnets and how we couldn't put out the damage of dps clasess. We remember being told by a raiding guild that the only use for a Boomkin was on a BBQ and was told to respec.../gquit.We learnt the rules of aggro, we learned spell rotation, we tried to assemble workable kit (despite of Blizzard). Of course we want to do as high a damage level of possible, thats part of our job in a raid...part of, remember that. We rez, we cross heal and sometimes if you are really cute or have a sexy teamspeak voice we may even give you our innervate juice. Dps is the thing we do when not holding the raid together.

Do not act the bollocks and get us bad raid rep, do not undo a lot of hard work by a lot of decent Boomkin players. Get your Omen threat meter. Analyze your spec and rotations, learn the consequences of your actions. Typhoon should not be taken out of your bag of tricks in a raid unless it is to get mobs of the healer in an emergency, The list of times when Starfall should realistically be used in end game WoTLK raiding is thinner than a hungry stick insect. That's why I call it an AK47 in the hands of a toddler, bad things tend to happen if you are not smart.

So what has gone wrong? Why are there some "balance specced druids" out there causing a kerfuffle. Lets look at the Boomkin timeline.

Early TBC

Lets face it we were pretty crap. Gear was mostly pvp or paint explosion mismatch of cloth and leather. Even specced for threat reduction we pulled more than Brad Pitt in a singles and divorced club. We were the poster child for Lynx deodorant. Half the time we were waiting for the Omen bong bong bong noise to go away. Raid guilds used us as target dummies for melon throwing practice.

Middle TBC

Things seemed to get better. Broader minded raid guilds started to pick up a few Boomkins and we became a steady raid members. Our reasonable dps, raid utility and buffs were finally considered raid worthy. Top 5 dps places were pretty standard.

Late TBC

As with other classes, things got silly. God gave us a viable AoE and crowd control. We nuked the Locks into second place. We were the daddy and the mummy rolled into one. Some people got lazy....that's problem 1.

Early Wrath

Problem 2 emerges with the rise of Wrath. Now that Boomkins were really BOOOOOOMKINS they started appearing everywhere. Every druid I saw seemed to have turned balance to get to 80. Good luck to them and I hope they enjoyed the experience. Some have not gone back to what they were good at though and we appear to have inherited a new tier of Moonkins. Lacking in experience, skill and code. Don't shout... my point is a player could have easily leveled from 70-80 in 3-4 weeks and that is not what I call experienced. Some are great though, of course!

Blizzard is partly to blame for the laziness in all the dps classes. When you can AoE bulldoze your way through NAXX with no real need for crowd control, people will take the easy option. This was one reason why our GM banned us all from AoE'ing mobs in naxx (apart from the obvious AoE groups), people were forgetting how to single target mobs and pulling AoE bullshit all the time.

Conclusion. The lazy nuking druids need to remember the basics and work hard again, the fresh faces need to do their research. In that way the Boomdaddy will not get indigestion from reading BoomBashing on very eminent and well respected blogs, and would get some work done. Where I would never like to read our spec being derided, it is good to hear others views on our class, so we can continue to improve as the highest evolution of druid.

BoomMummy celebrates

Well, thank my feathers and antlers for that!  Exalted with the Sons of Hodir at last.  I really don't know why I put myself through so much suffering just for the tiny extra amount of spell damage and crit.  It's been pain all the way, doing the same dailies that everyone else is madly trying to farm at all hours of the day and night.  The alternative would be to spend a fortune on the AH - and what with the credit crunch and everything, that was a no go.  

Does Blizzard really think that all I deserve after this monumental boredom experiment is +24 Spell Power and +15 crit.  It's hardly very 'uber', now is it?  I think +50 Spell Power and +40 crit would much better reflect the nature of my pain and suffering.    What do the readers think?  Do people actually enjoy dailies?

Die you dragon scum die

Malygos dead. Sleep well sweet Boomkin.

Patchwerk Punting

Patchwerk is old news for many, now. He is on farm status. So why bring his royal ugliness up? Well, the Boomdaddy finally broke 4k dps on him last night. I know I know, lots of Boomkins are claiming 6k and over....we salute them, but we had hit a brick wall at 3.7-3.8k dps on the bugger. Last night though, we thought we had done a great piece of work on the werk and after the match downloaded the WWS report with trembly talons.


Did we make top 3?...nope...7th place with 4011dps on him (lovely but infuriating rogue was 555 total damage done above me in 6th grrrr). The important thing is we have done it, stepped up to a happier , higher level of dps. Before the fight I had a quick half hour of "eye of the tiger" warming up on target dummies, with the best result being 2980 till OOOMitis set in.


On the loot front, Boomdaddy is a very happy thunder chicken today. We woke up with the delight of equipping Dying Curse ! It does mean a whole mass of changing gear and gems, but its a sacrifice we are willing to make. We can kiss goodbye to the trinket of non-proccness now. Die No Proc Whetstone .

After the Naxx clearance , we went on to say hi to Malygos. Meh i hate that flippin' boss, his death still eludes me.5th place dps was better than 7th though. I wonder if my regular top 3 spot days are gone for good.

PTR lurve

Courtesy of MMO champion.

Starfall cool down has been lowered from 3 min to 1.5 min.

When you absolutely, positively have to pull/kill every muther fooker in the room.Twice. We like anything that gives us the chance to do more damage but still not totally convinced that starfall has any great use in PVE. Is is a huge mana sink. We do love it in PvP though and will make AOE farming quicker. B+

Eclipse now gives you a 33% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 30% (up from 20%) when you critically hit with Starfire.

I will wait to read what the theory-crafting numberkins have to say about this. Does it mean that starfire to proc wrath eclipse will be the new black? Damn I was just getting used to it! I think the pendulum swings back to Starfire proccing Wrath as the highest dps rotation, but without some bimbling about I'm unsure how the changes to natures grace will work. B

Owlkin Frenzy now affects all attacks. (Old - Physical melee and ranged attacks only)

Good to see Blizz have changed their minds again. Enough said. B+ for waking up, Blizz.

Celestial Focus now reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Starfire, Hibernate and Cyclone by 23/46/70% and increases your total spell haste by 1/2/3%.

Losing the stun will effect PvPr's and leveling Boomkins the most. The stun was practically useless for raiding Moonkins. Think overall it just helps me sleep at night better knowing I have this instead of Owlkin frenzy.


Nature's Grace now increasing your spell casting speed by 20% for 3 sec. (Old - Reduced the casting time of your next spell by 0.5 sec.)

Haven't had any coffee yet but i think this is good news. 3 second duration......guessing haste will become even more important so that you can get off 3 wraths or 2 starfires during the proc.

Faerie Fire and Faerie Fire (Feral) now reduces the armor of the target for 5 min. (Up from 40 sec) Duration remains 40sec in PvP.

Even without coffee, I know this is good news. Little bit of wee, good news. IFF will no longer be a ginger step child spell. 5 mins!!!!! Bloody fantastic! Mana efficiency without pissing about with rotations.5% armour reduction and 3% haste for the raid, additionally 3% crit to us lovelies.Roll up roll up. We like. We like more than that exotic dancer we met in Greece. A+

Insect Swarm: The bonus damage from spellpower on this damage over time ability has been increased significantly to match similar spells on other classes.

Again, this will be one for the brainbox Boomkins to suss out. But it looks like fabulous news for the DoT.A-

I think thats it. All in all some good news. We will just have so see what else comes out of the rinse and whether or not these changes ever make it live.

Boomkin 1 Technology 0

I have to admit that the Boomdaddy is a tech-challenged. The pictures that have been previously posted have been courtesy of my lovely web mistress. She is a busy lady though and I need to stop bugging her with picture related crapness.....so its time to try and stand on my own two feathery feet. Exhibit A




Go me! Bit small but its my first attempt! I downloaded Gimp and have tried the picture crop, with some practice I may even become vaguely able to use the damn thing. Anyhoo that's a quick snapshot of last nights 3 wing clearance of Naxx 25. Curses on locks, hunters and rogues.

Exhibit B......why my guildies will never get the Heigan achievement.......

Yup, the Boomdaddy was lying down on the job again. Its a sad day when the raid leader says "and the Boomdaddy will be showing you all where the lava burst comes from" as part of his stand up routine. It was one of four deaths I incurred, in a little disappointing personal performance.

Crit watch says 57% on wrath and 82% for starfire. Crit based mana regen 185,000 over the 9 bosses. Eclipse procced 54 times. One stat that is a tad concerning is that the Meteorite Whetstone only procced 2 times over 3 hours on the 9 bosses. To me , that's a whole load of haste that ain't happening. Its a fill in trinket while we wait for the best in slots, yes, but still it needs to get its thumb out of its arse or it will get filed under b for bin.

Spec Speculation

Duel specs are apparently on the way *insert trumpets now*. How do we feel about the concept? Dunno, at the moment its a mixture of ambivalence with a dash of shrug and a smidge of oh dear. I have read a few eminent blogger's views, done some navel gazing, found a little bit of smelly fluff and then mused some more. Conclusion being drawn in the Boomdaddy's head is that the jury is still out. It solves some problems and is a nice luxury to have , for sure....but its not without some drawbacks, methinks.On a purely personnal note, I may well invest in the latest gold sink but......


As to what the second spec will be ,I am still clueless. I am balance.I have always been balance.I levelled from 1-80 balance all the way (apart from 2 weeks of resto to help the guild finish Kara, and I will say anyone that levels resto deserves a big Boomkin pat on the back).I chose to do this because I fell in love with initially being a druid and then with the balance spec. I love my feral brethren, but being a bear head banger or a sneaky kitty cat simply doesn't float my boat. Our guilds top tank is feral, he's great, so let him have it.....me, I don't know the dribbly end from the stinky end of bears. I'm balance, Im the Boomdaddy, I was there when Boomkins were laughed at and not allowed to raid. I strove to learn my craft, read all I could, practiced practiced practiced...and by the time my guild hit SSC I was consistently in the top 5 dps, sometimes top.

The appeal of the balance druid for me, has always been the challenge to excel and the utility of the class. Utility, yes. We are the finest class around because we are flexible, hard working and have a set of abilities that are finally seen by guilds as being very attractive in raids. The rush of battle rezzing the main healer, cross healing till they are good to go and then swithching back to deal more death is awesome, and many times raid saving. Ok our dps will suffer and we don't like to be out of top 5 BUT we regularly save the day. If a specific fight needed a cross healer, there we were. I say all this because I don't wont to be a leafy drood. I'm more than happy to cross heal, rez and bring that utility to a raid but that doesn't mean I want to heal as a lifestyle choice.So is there a burning desire to have healing as an off spec? Nope, not even a warm tingle. I fought to make the Boomkin viable for raids whilst being a Boomkin, not a Boomkin with a spare healer in his luggage. My fear is for some of my brethren boomers who may get TOLD to have resto or feral as their offspec, that raid places will be assigned to those that have dps/heal rather than the dps'r that heals.

The whole bullshit "bring the player not the class" is simply going to get worse. By homogenising the classes so much, dumbing down the game content and virtually destroying any need for diversity or crowd contol, Blizzard have not done the player base any real favour. Feel free to throw rocks at my head but that's the way I feel. All the classes were there for different reasons, with different responsibilities....now its all some soupy mish mash. I feel for the pure dps classes on this one. Unless they get a bit of love many could feel the chill when they are left out in the cold. Having a completely viable raid with 25 droods or 25 palaroaches strikes me as hysterical. The current content (hopefully Ulduar will be diferent) simply doesn't require the diversity of TBC and duel specs will make this even more apparent.


It will make raiding simpler, the great unwashed shout! Yes it will, and that bloodywell blucks. The content needs to become harder not easier to keep the game a challenge and to keep its product life cycle in growth ,not decline.

From a guild perspective, duel specs could be great for ensuring everyone has the opportunity to do instances etc that they need. It will ease tank and healer shortages, even if the majority of them are clueless how to play their role. It might be nice "for a change" too. All pluses, for sure. I think our hardcore social guild will tell everyone that duel specs are optional and raiding will continue based on current mains. If people want to duel spec, its completely down to them. My fear is that this will not be the case in all guilds and that's where the little bit of "oh dear" comes in.

Back to Boom

Hmmmmm I have been remiss on posting the last couple of days, due to a lack of any happy content to share and due to car crashes involving knife wielding ,non insured hoodies. But this is about the highest evolution of druids and not my secret agent like life....so on with some news.



25 man Naxx. Don't even go there. Nope, we were shite.Not just bad but shite.Don't know if it was the mix of battle rezzing, off healing, frequent deaths or what...but we were ashamed to be the Boomdaddy. Some how we managed to both suck and blow at the same time....we blucked I guess. Even the tight arsed magetards ate us up and pooped us out like twiglets.


The upside is we finished off 25 man Naxx again last night followed by Sartharion 25 with one drake up. I didn't capture the figures for the final two bosses in Naxx, but on the big cuddly dwagon (plus friend) the BoomMummy came in second placed dps and the Boomdaddy came in 5th. 3380 dps and 3090 dps respectively. A little pride was restored to the Boomkin nest at least. Warlocks seem unbeatable in raids at the moment...but that may change a little now the Boomdaddy has a new toy......drum roll

Good Head Love

Yep, the T7.5 helm voucher dropped and we were high enough placed in the epgp list to nab it, Sorry Boommummy. That little beauty gives me the 4 set bonus (helm, chest, gloves, shoulders) and we are a token or two away from the legs also. Happy days. It's meant we can swap our crit legs for the haste leggings of the winged serpent. Stats stand at 1742 spell damage, 299 hit, 27.66% crit (now effectively 32.66% with the set bonus..weeeeee) and 333 haste.

Roll on the next raid to see if any of that makes any difference!