Win a free GPS from Gadling!
Posts with tag cat-form

Tank Talk: Do you feel lucky, punk?


Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and myself (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish. At least, that's what the others said they were doing. I intend to use it mostly as a soapbox to complain. Absolute power tends to......something something.

Welcome to Tank Talk. I am your bear Druid hostess for this week, with a topic that occurred to me while reading a recent article here on the site. Eliah Hecht wrote that his guild is facing a not-uncommon tank shortage and that he has considered the possibility of leveling a tanking class to 70 before Wrath, or tanking on a Death Knight afterwards. A number of people on my server and in my guild have talked about doing the same thing, or switching mains once Wrath hits. With so many people playing Death Knights, I think it's very possible that more people will discover they enjoy -- or at least, don't mind -- tanking, and may seek to do so in a raid environment without necessarily knowing what they've really signed up for.

From those of us who have tanked raid content in vanilla WoW or BC, here are the 10 questions you'll want to ask yourself if you're considering the possibility of tanking serious raid content:

Continue reading Tank Talk: Do you feel lucky, punk?

Shifting Perspectives: PvP as a moving target


Every week, John Patricelli of Big Bear Butt presents a well-researched, educational, and entertaining look at the state of the Druid class in WoW today. This week we said, "Screw that," and got someone off the street.

Veronica: Look at you, all helpful.
Logan: Your peskiness being unleashed on Connor brings me joy. Annoy, tiny blonde one! Annoy like the wind!
-- Veronica Mars, "An Echolls Family Christmas"

With apologies to Diane Ruggiero, the writer of the episode quoted above, but I find Logan's snarky comment (did he even have another kind?) to be a perfect, albeit general, means of describing successful Druid PvP.

Let us be frank; I am not, nor am ever likely to be, a hardcore PvPer, and to a great extent this post is directed mostly at people like myself. If you're one of those Druids carrying a 2K+ rating in full Vengeful, then I invite (nay, implore) you to leave comments and corrections based on your own experience, but the article's mostly for regular folks like me, who may not even particularly like PvP but recognize that it is desirable or perhaps necessary, given our ingame goals. As such, most of this applies to battlegrounds, and on a later date we're going to get into arena. Today, we are simply going to talk about how to avoid letting your PvP experience turn you into a miserably unhappy player who would rather undergo an appendectomy via Roto-Rooter than set foot in another EOTS.

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: PvP as a moving target

Keys to a successful alt?


I am a terrible leveler. I started playing back in January 2007, and in all that time have managed to produce a single 70. Admittedly, I think she's a very good 70 and she stays busy, but you would think that nearly 1 1/2 years would be a sufficient period of time to level another class to the endgame. Guess not.

Lately I've been trying to fix this and have gone back to leveling a few alts. While talking to a friend last night about his propensity for leveling alts at the approximate speed of an SR-71, it occurred to me that I have two warriors, only one of whom has leveled quickly. The other just can't seem to fill up the XP bar. Obviously there's no class difference to cite as a possible reason, so I started thinking about what affects the leveling speed of an alt, and why I've got so many unsuccessful ones littering the character selection screen:

Continue reading Keys to a successful alt?

Around Azeroth: Stalking the mighty Zhevra


The Tauren Druid stalks his prey in his natural habitat: the tall grassof the Barrens, into which he naturally blends. The Zhevra in the distance stands little chance against this predator, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Though this is an excellent stalking shot, it's apparently not a memorable one -- as reader Matt sent this one in with the note that he couldn't remember which character or realm this image might have come from.

Do you collect screenshots of your character on the hunt? We want to hear your stories (and see them!) on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Gallery: Around Azeroth

Feral druid range bug and graphical issues

For a very long time now, druids have been bemoaning the "feral range bug," which makes it so that feral special attacks sometimes don't work, even though the regular auto attacks are fine. I've always thought this bug caused special attacks to have a shorter range than auto attacks (and I wasn't alone), but some videos demonstrate that the bug (as shown above, and also here) has to do more with positioning than the actual range between the druid and the target.

I play a feral druid, and I can't say that I've noticed this bug very much, but I tend to shy away from PvP situations where it would be likely to show up most -- mainly because I find feral druid PvP to be very difficult (though I keep trying now and then). Perhaps this bug is one of the reasons for that, but everything is just too fast-paced for me to see?

In any case, Vaneras on the European WoW forums responded to a poster in order to let us know that the developers are indeed aware of this "concern," and they ... well... that's it. They're just aware. Nobody knows if they'll actually fix it or not, though I would assume they will at some point.

In addition, Vaneras says the developers are aware of the some graphical imperfections in some druid feral forms, and they also "like the idea of new graphics and models for the Druid forms, however there are no plans for such in the immediate future." The key word here is "immediate," which implies that the not-so-distant future might be quite different! Is there hope for feral druid graphical updates in Wrath of the Lich King, perhaps?

[Update] I just got back from testing this in PvP, and sure enough I found my special abilities weren't landing, even though I was on top of my enemy. Click on the link below to see a video of this bug in a PvP situation.

Continue reading Feral druid range bug and graphical issues

Tauren cat form updated a little in patch 2.3


We just talked about this issue in Shifting Perspectives a week ago, but it appears Blizzard is already doing something about the tauren cat form -- albeit not very much. Many tauren have long complained that their cat form is much uglier than the night elf version (compare for yourself here), and while these changes aren't comprehensive, at least they're a tiny step in a new direction.

Beaux on the US forums showed everyone how, in patch 2.3, Blizzard has modified the tauren cat form's face to look more like a lion and less like a monkey, and changed the neck of the lion so that it doesn't look so hunchbacked as it moves. It's not as pretty as the tauren cat form suggestion submitted in Blizzard's art contest, but it'll do for now I would think.

[Update]: Our reader tmklein supplied us with some interesting links for what the EU player Andrige thought the various forms should look like -- all with a distinct visual style. Would you like this sort of change?

Shifting Perspectives: The same old animal posterior

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 [Update: Tauren cat form has been slightly updated in patch 2.3]. 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).

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: The same old animal posterior


RESOURCES

Blizzard Events
BlizzCon (190)
Worldwide Invitational (106)
Class Columns
(Druid) Shifting Perspectives (47)
(Hunter) Big Red Kitty (37)
(Hunter) Scattered Shots (21)
(Mage) Arcane Brilliance (43)
(Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It (51)
(Priest) Spiritual Guidance (26)
(Rogue) Encrypted Text (33)
(Shaman) Totem Talk (51)
(Warlock) Blood Pact (31)
(Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors (55)
Gameplay
(Arena PvP) Blood Sport (27)
(BG PvP) The Art of War(craft) (25)
(Casual) WoW, Casually (21)
(Guild Leadership) Officers' Quarters (63)
(Professions) Insider Trader (63)
(Raid Healing) Raid Rx (20)
(Raiding) Raiding 101 (2)
(Raiding) Ready Check (27)
(Roleplaying) All the World's a Stage (44)
Hybrid Theory (20)
New Players' Guide (3)
Tank Talk (6)
AddOns and UI
AddOn Spotlight (89)
Macro Anatomy (14)
Reader UI of the Week (27)
Reader WoWspace of the week (31)
The Creamy GUI Center (14)
Lore and Stories
Around Azeroth (526)
Ask A Lore Nerd (9)
Barrens Chat (9)
Know your Lore (58)
Tales from the Lion's Pride Inn (14)
WoW Moviewatch (518)
Features
15 Minutes of Fame (26)
About the Bloggers (28)
Ask WoW Insider (63)
Azeroth Security Advisor (4)
Breakfast topics (728)
Build Shop (35)
Forum Post of the Day (24)
Gamers on the Street (25)
Guildwatch (82)
He Said She Said (5)
Illusionary Tactics (3)
It came from the Blog (29)
Phat Loot Phriday (92)
The Colosseum (0)
Two Bosses Enter (61)
Well Fed Buff (27)
World of WarCrafts (26)
WoW Crossword (1)
WoW Insider Show (68)
WoW Rookie (41)
[1.Local] (13)
Classes
Death Knight (100)
Druid (320)
Hunter (290)
Mage (182)
Paladin (307)
Priest (256)
Rogue (181)
Shaman (286)
Warlock (198)
Warrior (219)
News
Account Security (25)
AddOns (256)
Analysis / Opinion (3178)
Blizzard (1673)
Bugs (220)
Burning Crusade (378)
Contests (233)
Economy (198)
Events (467)
Expansions (639)
Fan stuff (921)
Features (676)
Forums (289)
Guilds (506)
Hardware (45)
Humor (809)
Interviews (166)
Lore (315)
Mounts (143)
News items (1612)
NPCs (213)
Odds and ends (1724)
Patches (1153)
Podcasting (78)
Ranking (56)
Realm News (298)
Realm Status (247)
RP (177)
Rumors (68)
Virtual selves (685)
WoW Insider Business (307)
WoW Social Conventions (156)
WoW TCG (57)
Wrath of the Lich King (426)
Strategy
Alts (118)
Arena (260)
Battlegrounds (158)
Bosses (362)
Buffs (130)
Cheats (74)
Classes (327)
Enchants (37)
Factions (166)
Guides (407)
How-tos (415)
Instances (685)
Items (884)
Leveling (304)
Making money (194)
PvP (782)
Quests (384)
Raiding (777)
Talents (153)
Tips (588)
Tricks (233)
Walkthroughs (93)
Media
Comics (80)
Fan art (49)
Galleries (196)
Machinima (604)
Podcasts (52)
Polls (67)
Screenshots (676)
Races
Alliance (119)
Draenei (66)
Dwarves (21)
Gnomes (47)
Human (21)
Night Elves (48)
Horde (120)
Blood Elves (72)
Orcs (29)
Tauren (51)
Trolls (27)
Undead (27)
Professions
Alchemy (80)
Blacksmithing (63)
Cooking (76)
Enchanting (77)
Engineering (112)
First Aid (19)
Fishing (63)
Herbalism (51)
Inscription (14)
Jewelcrafting (87)
Leatherworking (66)
Mining (50)
Skinning (31)
Tailoring (71)
Retired
Pimp My Profile (1)
(Engineering) Hoof and Horn Research and Development (17)
Azeroth Interrupted (24)
Back In The Day (3)
World Wide WoW (8)
/silly (14)

RSS NEWSFEEDS

Powered by Blogsmith

    Featured Galleries

    Scarlet Crusade Tabard T-shirt
    Reader UI of the Week 6/29/08
    Worldwide Invitational goodie bag
    WWI08 Costume and Dance Contest
    Worldwide Invitational 2008
    World of WarCrafts: Midsummer magnet
    June 2008 splash screen speculation
    Blizzard splash screen speculation
    Midsummer Fire Festival

     

    Most Commented On (30 days)

    Recent Comments

    Weblogs, Inc. Network

    Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in: