Feral Tanking in 4.0.3 and Me

Before 4.0 Ive always had an idea on how to tank from past experiences in BC.  In BC, at max level I was a resto druid that respecced every once in a while to feral to farm mats and stuff.  It’s funny because at the time I had no idea how to dps as a kitty but I knew how to hold single target aggro in bear form.  I never tanked any 5 mans but I remember tanking some of the high level elites for dailies and high level quest chains.  

In Wrath when I first decided to officially make my secondary spec feral, I put in a lot of time researching how to play correctly and perform the best I could with my toon.  I soon became a pretty decent feral dps after spending much time on the target dummy and I also messed around a little with tanking some lower level instances for guildies.  When 4.0 launched and the new talent trees were implemented, I found it easier to pick a few of the tanking talents while speccing for feral dps primarily.

Cataclysm Professions: A Whole New Grind

With Cataclysm fast approaching there are many things to look forward to and be excited about.  I realized a few days ago that one of the things I am personally looking forward to is going into this expansion with 3 max level toons from the previous expansion.  With three level 80’s I will be able to enjoy three different leveling and gaming experiences.  Another plus is that I can start off leveling 6 different professions at the start of an expansion to capitalize on whatever profits there are to be gained!  

My main character remained an alchemist/herbalist throughout BC and Wrath and will continue to practice alchemy and herbalism in Cata.  I’ve always wanted to have several toons with different professions to become a little more self sufficient but I’ve never been up for leveling more toons to max level until recently.  Towards the end of Wrath I leveled another druid as an enchanter/inscriptionist and a death knight as a jewelcrafter/miner.  I believe all of their professions are maxed out as of now except for maybe my enchanting.  I don’t know if its nerdy of me but I’m really extra ecstatic about leveling these toons the more I think about it.  I definitely plan on posting some sort of leveling guide for each of the professions eventually but for now I’d like to share why I look forward to leveling these professions starting with alchemy.

Short Hiatus

Sorry for not having very many posts these past couple of weeks but I have been very busy with other things.  I’ve started a few with various topics that I wouldn’t mind discussing but I haven't been able to complete any...I don't know...writer’s block or something.   Believe it or not I also haven't had much time to play WoW as much as I would like to even with Cataclysm fast approaching *Gasps*.  

From Facerolling to /facepalm'n

It’s no mystery that raids and dungeons have become less and less of a challenge as our gear got better.  A group can easily ignore the mechanics of a fight as long as their group meets the following criteria

• They have uber dps and uber heals
• They have an uber tank and uber heals
• They have an uber group with uber dps,tank and heals

Healing Impressions

I know a lot of resto druids were (and still are) a little peeved about the changes to the Tree of Life form.  I for one can admit that I was amongst the group of fairly disgruntled tree healz pissed off at blizz for taking away our beloved form when it was first announced.  I’m actually still not very partial to the idea that I’m a druid but the manner in which I go about healing kinda goes against one of the facets of being a druid.  I mean don't get me wrong, druid healers still have hots but priests have hots as well.  One of the things that made druids cool to play was the fact that we shape-shifted into a form to take on a particular role.  

Second Glance...wtf!

When 4.0 first went live and I was able to test out my dps unbuffed on a target dummy, I was pleased to find that overall it wasn't as abysmal as many others claimed it would be.  Albeit this was on a target dummy and there were a number of other factors that were not taken into consideration, I assumed that I could factor my results on the dummy into other situations (like any  player normally would) and be able to conclude upon my plausible dps performance in 5 man and raid settings.  This however was not the case.  I mean before 4.0 target dummies were basically for practicing rotations which lead to trying to optimize one’s dps.  So how could I be faulted to assume that as a result of playing with other players who brought more buffs (and debuffs in some cases) my dps would definitely increase considerably like it did before 4.0.  


Boy was I wrong.

4.0 First Impressions!

I don't know about anyone else but it took me forever to get the last part of the patch finished (or enough data streamed to be able to play). Of course I knew this would happen so I was content with mindlessly trying to occupy my attention with other things while anxiously awaiting the patch’s completion.  I was able to hop on all of my toons eventually and take the new specs for a semi test drive but unfortunately due to how late the patch actually finished for me I was not able to spend a lot of time with them... and I probably won’t be able to do anything until later today.  

I logged in on my main first to check out first hand some of the changes to resto and feral.

Because of my time constraints I did not look into re-gemming or re-forging ( lol, I Iogged off not being completely sure if that was even available.  I just assumed it was since it was among the things to find in Shattrath when I spoke with a guard).  I did manage to get the appropriate prime glyphs for all of my toons.  I honestly didn't spend to much time in my restoration spec. I did notice I had a crap ton more hp and mana but my heals weren't hitting as hard as they used to even out of caster form let alone while in tree.  Also my mana barely moved but then again I was just messing around with the spells so I really wasn't using anything that you might say would be optimal to use in an appropriate situation.  Even still, I noticed with the cast time of the direct healing spells by the time I cast the next spell my mana was regenerating crazy fast.  I also popped the ‘tree form’ cool down to check it out.  I guess it was cool and all but I would rather just have tree form back as a permanent shapeshift.  A lot of people have qq’d about the tree form  skin as wit was before 4.0 and blizz has actually addressed that “problem” in a recent build

.