Cute Fuzzy Meow

Hello everyone! Instead of a guide or thoughts I wanted to take a moment to have a personal post. I’d like to apologize for the gap over the Christmas break, Sare and I have been moving to Colorado and finding housing. She started work, I started classes. Now that we’re settled in, I’ve started posting more. I didn’t opt to make a Lunar Festival guide post because the holiday is pretty straightforward, you don’t need a guide so much as a map. While the idea of going around the world and taking screen captures of each elder is tempting, I think your best bet if you’re having trouble is to check out Wow Head’s Lunar Festival Map. If you’re in Northrend, you might want to queue up for the various Northrend dungeons that have elders. This goes double if you’re playing a dps class with a 20 minutes queue time for Dungeon Finder. If you find that you are too low to queue for a dungeon, you may need to find guild-mates to run you through. (On that note, I would like to thank Thunderbrew Guard and The Cute Fuzzy Meow on Steamwheedle Cartel for letting my little level 75 Moonkin alt tag along to Utgarde Pinnacle).

Since I don’t often get a chance to have a post that isn’t a guide or article, I thought I would answer a few questions that I received. Since the game began I have played a cat druid and loved the class. I am currently playing a Death Knight because Kittens received a fairly intense overhaul and I thought a change of pace would be good. I’m ready to go back to druid for Cataclysm, though! I play a Night Elf and Tauren druid when I’m not on my Death Knight. I’m a casual player with an interest in starting to raid seriously again. I think that covers all of the questions except for the one about “why cats?” Well, when I was a kid I always wanted a kitten for Christmas. I’m still waiting. There you go!

I’m working on changing the layout. My art skills are limited, but I thought it could really use a personal touch. I have also been keeping up with my reading — WoW.com, MMO Champion, World of Raids, and the other usual WoW news sources and blogs. All of the news about retaking Gnomeregan and the Echo Isles is exciting, that’s a long time in coming. It’s good to see Vol’jin and the Gnome King doing something other than opening up kegs at Brewfest. WoW.com (Previously WoW Insider) had an interesting article on beast mastery called Scattered Shots: Can Beast Mastery Raid?. Despite claiming he has no bias in the matter, Brian Wood’s article probably comes across as being very anti-Beast Mastery. It contains a nice line that goes like this: “But let me ask you this: what if you had a raider — we’ll call him Bob — who, for roleplaying reasons, only used green quality gems, refused to flask, to eat buff food, or to wear pants of any kind. That’s just how Bob prefers to play, it’s what he finds fun in the game. Is that acceptable for a raider?” I’m not sure implying anyone who specializes in Beast Mastery is a slightly retarded roleplayer incapable of dressing him or herself is the way to show that you’re really not biased in the matter. That would be like me claiming I’m not biased against that family-killing psychopath witch, Jaina Proudmoore. But why this article stuck out to me is because I’d been catching up on episodes of The Instance they had a moment where they talked about the importance of trying all specs because some really resonate in players and you don’t want to miss out on finding the spec that really calls to you. While that particular Instance episode is far enough in the past that it probably wasn’t intended to be a rebuttal of Brian Wood, I can’t help but think that (raid viability aside) this is the big issue.

It’s not uncommon to find players who connect to a certain spec. Blizzard seems to love making each specialization have a distinct feel, and the more distinct the specialization the stronger players feel towards it. Most of the druids I’ve met fall in love with a certain animal aspect and you’d be hard-pressed to convince them to change to another. Hybrids are probably an extreme example, considering that they all fulfill separate roles. A bear certainly feels more like a different class than just a different spec when compared to a tree. Even among the DPS classes, though, the different specs have real flavor. Rogues are a dime-a-dozen, so it doesn’t take much effort to find a rogue who loves daggers and bemoans any period of time where a sword combat specialization is top on the charts. Some folks really love the vampiric flair of Death Knight’s blood tree, while others embrace the necromancer side of the class with Unholy. Hunters are another great example, I practiced Archery as a kid and young adult and I fell in love with the Marksmanship tree. I loved that period of time when hunters were discouraged to even have pets out during boss encounters. Rathakk over at Bandu Bites, however, has always loved the pet aspect of the class.

I seem to recall Blizzard responding to threatened hunters concerned about Demonology Warlocks, Frost Mages, and unholy Death Knights by saying that hunters will always be the pet class. And if that’s the case, what specialization shouts hunter more than Beast Mastery? Hunters are supposed to get attached to their pets, and many pet families are linked only to the Beast Mastery tree. I have the greatest sympathy for hunters forced to give up their Spirit Beasts and Lime Devilsaurs and play style they’ve come to know and love to be a dime-a-dozen Survival/Marksman hunter with a wolf pet. If a player finds a spec they love, I’m all for raid leaders letting them in if they pull their weight. Give me a happy player playing the class they love over a cookie-cutter guy about to quit the game any day. Also, it’s easy to take the argument a bit further. Classes fluctuate all the time, if Marksmanship hunters are 30% below Kitty Druids, bring maybe one for any unique buffs and then make the rest reroll. Refer-a-friend makes you 60 instantly, and another day or two for Outlands and Northrend, another day of heroics and they’re in 232-245 gear. Why bring multiples of a class at all if they aren’t top-of-the-line? The answer, really, is that if a person connects to a class let them play that class. Writing an article about Beast Mastery raiding without failing to address what we’ll call the “I love this spec!” factor is just silly.

Phew! I thought this was going to be a short update, then it turned into a rant. Maybe I just love Cat Druids and Unholy Death Knights too much. Though I would happily spec Blood to raid. Hint Hint. Heroic Arthas isn’t going to kill himself.