It was all healers all the time this past week on the WoW Insider Show. Special guest tree Druid Phaelia joined us from her site, Resto4Life.com, and our good friend Matt "Matticus" Low brought his priestly insights from World of Matticus (and our own Spiritual Guidance column), and our producer Elizabeth Harper brought some Paladin judgement to the table. We chatted about how healing is going lately in the game, which classes are doing well lately (and which are doing not so well), and what Ghostcrawler might do for healers to make things more fun than whack-a-mole. We also talked about the 3.0.3 patch, and where we've been in the beta, and where we're going first on launch day.

Additionally, we talked with Phaelia about how she started in WoW and decided to start blogging about it, and we answered your emails, including what's up with those dragon heads you sometimes see outside of Stormwind and Orgrimmar, and the best glyphs for healers. If you've got a question or comment for the show, send it along to theshow AT wowinsider dot com, and you might even hear it on next week's show.

Lots of ways to listen to the show after the break -- don't forget that the earliest you can listen to the show is on Saturday evening: we've got the Ustream recording up right after we finish making it. But the best time to listen to the show is during, because every Saturday we do this live on our Ustream page (and you even get to attend the non-recorded aftershow). If you've never been, check it out next week.

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Our good friend Phaelia from Resto4Life (who, I'll have you know, will be live on our podcast this week -- more info tomorrow) has an extremely in-depth guide to setting up and using one of the most popular controllers for World of Warcraft, the Belkin Nostromo keypad. Some people swear by the G15 or the Zboard, I personally like to keep things vanilla with just an Apple Keyboard and a gaming mouse, but whenever you ask WoW players what they use, it seems like the Nostromo always comes up.

And Phaelia's got it down -- from setting up button mods (she's using Bartender, one of Adam's essential addons for 3.0.3) to configuring the keyboard itself and even putting in macros for all three Druid forms, if you've ever wanted to use the Nostromo, there's probably something interesting to learn here. Seems really complicated to me -- I'm not sure if I'm willing to commit that much work into getting my interface exactly right, especially if there's a chance that a big patch could wipe it all out.

But I can see how half the fun of playing the game is getting the controls just perfect, and if tweaking things that much makes you play that much better, more power to you. If you want to dive into the world of custom controllers, Phaelia's guide will probably be invaluable.

The Blizzard-created hairstyles revealed from a while back didn't really impress too much -- while almost everyone will certainly be trying the barbershop in the expansion, no one I know is running there just to put a certain haircut on. But Kxara has set out with some texture design and a model maker to change all that -- she's come up with some of her own hairstyles, and they look really great.

Some of them are just jokes from real-life hairstyles (the Duke is really funny, and I like the dastardly Blood Elf mustache, too), but some of them really pull off the characters in a way we haven't seen before. There no afro, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), and Kxara says that's because of the low polygon count on the characters -- either they'd have to go with high polygons and wreck low-end machines, or go low polygons, and it would look bad for everyone.

With barbershops in the game, Blizzard's starting haircuts are probably not the last we'll see (and maybe someday we'll even have faction or question haircuts), but these specs put together by Kxara are a good place to start if they decide to add more.

[via Resto4Life]

15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.

On a list of player names that serious WoW hobbyists should know, Phaelia definitely makes the cut. WoW Insider's Dan O'Halloran summed up why in his post last fall outlining druid blogs you should be reading: "Phaelia started Resto4Life.com back in March to educate herself about playing a better healing Druid. Turns out, she's educating the rest of us as well. Her entries delve into the many facets of a Tree Druid's gameplay: Re-evaluating Spirit, mp5 vs. +Healing and Getting More Out of Innervate are just a few of the many treasures to be found on this blog. Updated frequently with a friendly and informative tone, Resto4Life is the Big Red Kitty for Restoration druids." 15 Minutes of Fame visited with Resto4Life's creator, Phaelia of US Scarlet Crusade-A, about the many attractions of the Druid class.

15 Minutes of Fame: How did you get into WoW, Phaelia? Do you come from a gaming background?
Phaelia: I started playing WoW during the first open beta. To be honest, I was less attracted to WoW than turned off by the idea of giving over another five years of my gaming life to another game from Sony Online Entertainment. I began my MMO career as a sophomore in college, and while quitting EverQuest 1 left a void in my gaming lifestyle, I knew I didn't want to play another game from the same company. Blizzard turned out to be the breath of fresh air and fun that I was looking for!

Yes, you can have a Night Elf mohawk. That's the biggest thing you should take away from the new files uncovered by Andrige, a WoW fan artist. They show some of the new hairstyle options for various races showing up soon in a Barber Shop near you. He sent the files off to our own Big Bear Butt Blogger and to Phaelia of Resto4life. The Male hairstyles can be found at Big Bear Butt, while the female hairstyles can be found at Resto4Life.

Right now, it looks like they've mostly swapped hairstyles between races -- male Gnomes have the Forsaken male hairstyles for example, while Night Elves seem to have taken a page from the Blood Elf book. Still, there are a few seemingly new unique hairstyles, such as the aforementioned Night Elf mohawk and new horn types for Tauren.

of course, most of these new hairstyles aren't even immediately usable in the Beta barbershop yet, either, but it's likely that we'll see them in a future build. Also, I would imagine that we will see more hairstyles (hopefully more new and unique ones, specifically) coming as the Beta continues, but it's nice to get a sneak peak at what we have so far.

Again, you can see the female hairstyles at Resto4Life, and the male hairstyles at Big Bear Butt. Be sure to check out our barbershop gallery as well if you haven't yet.

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, the Big Bear Butt Blogger, encourages you to check out a wonderful podcast that spent an entire recent episode talking about our fun filled class.

I wanted to take a moment to cast the spotlight on a wonderful World of Warcraft related podcast that recently devoted an entire episode, Episode 43 to be exact, to a fun-filled discussion of all things Druid, and even had Phaelia, writer of Resto4Life, on as a special guest!

Epic Dolls is the name of the podcast, as well as the name of the guild on Perenolde server Horde side which is home for many of the podcasts' hosts, cast and crew.

Epic Dolls bring a fresh perspective and a lot of positive energy to their podcast, and I find it a joy to listen to.

Read on after the break for more on the podcast, the Epic Dolls, and a brief Q and A with Leala Turkey, host of the show!

The Richard character on the WoW comic LFG seems to be pretty divisive -- either you want to rip his guts out, or you just can't love the guy enough. For both of you, there's good news: the folks behind the comic have released a plushie of the character, so either you can pick it up and torture it for being such a violent jerk (ah, the irony), or you can love and cuddle the maniac as your own. The item is in pre-order right now, and will supposedly ship in November of this year.

And speaking of things you can cuddle, Resto4Life has some sharp new T-shirts in the mix -- they're rocking a Druid "Waffles" design, and the cheetah-skinned "Warsong Flag Carrier" (man I hate those sneaky Druids in WSG), but the best is the "Doncha wish your boyfriend cast 'hots' like me" shirt -- I don't know any boyfriends that would actually wear it, but it made me chuckle. Awesome to see these great fansites hopping with cool swag.

Update: Not to be outdown, our own BigBearButt blogger also has some nice Druid wearables for sale. Don't miss the trucker hat -- perfect for showing off your feral side.

I could have sworn that we interviewed Andrige here on WoW Insider, but I can't seem to find it in the archives, so I guess Resto4Life beat us to it. Phaelia has posted an interview with the artist (and machinimist) behind some of the best WoW fan art out there, and to the surprise of no one I'm sure, he seems like a fun, down to earth kind of guy.

He talks about his fascination with both the Horde and Druids, why he loves Feral, and what he's been up to lately -- he's planning to do a piece of the Night Elf bear and Tauren cat fighting each other, which should be awesome. He's also awaiting the art change in Wrath of the Lich King -- like a lot of players, he's tired of the sci fi and can't wait to get back into the old sword and sorcery style. He wouldn't turn down a job at Blizzard (who would?), but he humbly says that he's got a lot of work to do before he steps up to that level. Good for him. Finally, he shares some good advice about how to make machinima (the script for his film was actually written by a few people on IRC), and a few good ideas about Druid forms. A "Runic Wolf" -- I love it.

Nice interview, and good to hear from the guy behind the art.

Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, the Big Bear Butt Blogger, brings you a fun challenge for Restoration Druids specced for Tree of Life.

Since this column has been dominated by news of the Ferlol kind lately, I thought this week would be a good time to bring some true leafy fun into the mix.

I am still working avidly on a gearing for Karazhan list for Restoration Druids, with research and insight provided by Bellwether of 4 Haelz, with full expectations of having it ready for you to enjoy next week.

In the meantime, here is a wonderful opportunity for Treelovers to show their Bark is stronger than our Bite.

Phaelia, the mind and heart behind Resto4Life, decided that Arbor Day was the perfect time for Resto Druids to let their imaginations bloom.

To that end, she has issued an Arbor Day Challenge to all of you Trees out there.

More about the challenge, and the fun you can have, after the break!

Resto4Life has updated their very helpful Mana Regen Calculator -- if you want to figure out just how much mana you're picking up while buffed and dressed in a raiding or group situation, it'll tell you, including talents, items, and even abilities used on you (Innervate and Mana Tide totem). Pretty slick.

The new update allows for Mages to have a set of abilities of their own, including Mage Armor, and Evocation, which means that Druids, Priests and the followers of the Arcane all have their chance to see how much Mana they're getting back per tick. Shame that Shaman aren't on the list yet (maybe all of the mp5 on Shaman abilities and gear would make it too hard to do?), but if you're one of the listed classes, it's a terrific resource for seeing what your Mana regen abilities are like and how you can best make use of them. Very cool.

We often post about the bonds created with this game -- there are some terrific bonds between guildies, and Arena teams and battleground groups have some strong bonds as well. But Omen of Clarity and Resto4Life, two great Druid blogs, recently took a look at an even more intimate bond ingame: that between tanks and healers.

Omen started it off -- after stepping into a tanking role, he noticed that a certain Paladin healer had really bonded with him in terms of keeping each other up and running, and it really made them both better players -- the tank was more willing to step up when aggro got lost, and the healer had more reason to keep up buffs and rely on the tank, even at his own expense. Resto, from the other side of the spells, agrees -- even out of raids, the healer there will send the tank potions and go out of their way to keep both together. And from my time raiding as a Resto Shaman, I was always thrilled when I got to be in the same group as the tank I was healing, and got to Earth Shield them and spend my trinkets just to keep them up.

It's not the only major relationship in the game (there's also a nice relationship between the tank and the rest of the melee and DPS, as well as the buffers and the buffed in a raid group), but it is an interesting, minute one, and it's something pretty specific to these MMOs that we play. Playing together isn't just fun and games -- by building bonds with other players in other roles, we both become better at the roles we play.

Update: Just in case, like Ratshag, our little hint on the picture wasn't enough for you, the two characters in the pic above are another fairly well-known tank and healer combo, Tree of Life and Pretty in Plate. You try to hide a subtle little easter egg in there for those of us who read all these WoW blogs, and Ratshag won't let you get away with it. Thanks for keeping us honest.

Focus is a powerful tool built into the default UI that I just don't use nearly as much as I should. With '/focus" (and a number of key bindings), you can set up a "focused" target that, with one keypress or macro, you can snap back to and cast whatever needs to be casst. Resto4Life has been putting together a great series on Focus and how to use it: They've hit on hibernating, healing with focus, and now using your focus' target to deal out debuffs.

The situation is that you're in a raid and you're healing -- you have a little extra mana and you want to use it to throw debuffs on the main tank's target, but you don't want to miss a second of watching the main tank's bar. Using macros, you can actually cast spells on your focus' target (in this case, your focus would be the MT) without ever changing targets -- just set up a macro to cast the spell, put the button on your bar, and rather than ever having to switch targets, you can just run a macro. You can even use "modifier:shift" and "modifier:ctrl" to switch spells and/or targets. And with simple addons, you can watch your focus target even when you tab away.

Focus is such a powerful tool that it's a little overwhelming to think of all the things that it can make easier in game. But whenever you're in a situation where you're always going back to a certain target (whether that be an MT or self or someone else in the group you're playing with) and can set it as focus, then you can often use macros or addons to make everything else easier after that.

I can't say that I've ever seriously tried to do the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza -- I've seen it happen a few times, and I love the idea, but I've never committed to fishing long enough to be competitive in it. But I'm reconsidering that after reading these extremely fun tips from Resto4Life. Some of them are Druid specific (I bet the Shaman waterwalking spell would come in handy when trying to cross over to islands and through streams), and some of them are just silly, but it's just the right kind of thing to get you in the mindset to do a little Sunday angling. The two sources Resto pulled from have more: Tree of Life has a few helpful tips, while The Game Dame goes in-depth in laying out exactly how to win the event.

And it's a good thing we've got these, too -- as of patch 2.4, as the anglers among you have already heard, there'll be a few new fishing daily quests, and some brand new rewards (the fishing hat is now blue) from both the quests and the Extravaganza.

I still don't know if I have the interest to sit there, rod in hand, waiting for a fish to bite, but there's no doubt that this is a fun little, often missed part of the game. Very nice to have something fun like this going on weekly on the servers.

Just had to share this amazing "Tree of Life" wallpaper with you all, as seen on Resto4Life. It was commissioned by them, and done by Andrige, an artist who's created quite a few terrific WoW-related images. But man this is a great piece of work from start to finish, with a little Night Elf treeform backed up by the big Ancients in the background, all covered with that great purple Darnassian glow.

Very cool stuff, and very apt to grace the desktop of any Resto druids out there (or the people who appreciate them -- raises hand). My only complaint is that it's all druid centric -- where are my epic Shaman wallpapers?