Yet Another Post on t10 and my thoughts

First off, this has been covered on pretty much everyone's blog, and pff? Why not!? Have you seen what we are looking at? Its a world first! Blizzard gave Moonkin correct itemization!

Lets go back in time and look at moonkin and what we dealt with!

In Vanilla WoW, there was only one spec. Resto. We used to have to spec into Innervate (when it was in the talent tree) just to be taken into raids. We were medicore healers and was mainly wanted for Mark of the Wild. We spammed Healing Touch and Rej just to keep people up and Regrowth was looked down on as if you just kicked someone's dog.

Ferals were very very few and in between. No guild hellbent on progression would let a feral druid in the raid and tank. When Innervate was made learn-able from the trainer, most druids went Feral or Balance and still healed. Our spec didn't do much of anything back then really for it to matter. I actually raided with a Feral druid wearing Resto gear and healing and still doing decent enough healing.  I myself raided as Balance but never got to dps. So I would switch from Balance to Resto alot. Only time I ever got to pop into Moonkin form was to be a crit totem for a Warlock and follow him around in AV. Once and only Once during a raid did I go Moonkin form. That same Warlock was an officer and had me in his group and told me to switch during Vael.

Needless to say, the GM didn't like it and said I was giving the casters to much threat lead and told me to switch right away. So yeah..That didn't end well. Though alot of guilds towards the mid of Vanilla allowed Moonkin to raid, but as with ferals, was far and in between.

We did use our feral druid a few times. Mainly for taunting Fankriss off the other tank to help with stacks and tanking Jindo the Hexxar in ZG so our tank would never get mc'd. (Most of us tanked that as resto anyway). But Gear was a different thing. Gear was mainly Spellpower or Healing. There was no merge back then so you could easily tell a healer from a caster/dps item.

Going into BC, they reworked all the trees making Moonkin and Feral wanted (Feral OP at the start). Moonkin were quickly looked down on as the noob spec and most were still refused a raiding spot while other guilds would only allow 1 just to be their totem cause our dps was more or less half of what a pure was. It was like a 20% hybrid tax for us, not 5% back then. Elemental shaman in badge gear could out DPS a Moonkin in Black Temple gear just from their sheer burst. Of course, the whole Clothies vs Moonkin loot problems came up since more Moonkin came to be. This got worse and worse as Blizzard gave us terrible gear options unless we went Cloth. Our teir pieces weren't to bad for the time but was still medicore.

Going into Wrath, Spellpower and Healing became one, making the loot tables less bloated, but now making healers and casters fight over gear that would be good for them. This is where alot of the problems I feel have come into play. Blizzard gave us leather, this is true. But it was either haste heavy with high spirit, or the stats were so bad we wouldn't touch it. Alot of guilds have a loot rule where you are limited to your armor class until no one else wants something you do. Which was highly unfair during naxx. Ulduar fixed a little bit of our problems so we didn't wear as much, but Naxx was like..Get your 4pc and wear cloth in every slot.

With ToC, Blizzard has heard the Cloth and Moonkin Cries. We was tried of fighting over loot, moonkin being shunned from pugs if a clothie was in there and wanted something and being refused upgrades in Raids because we could wear leather too. Toc gave us more leather gear that was correctly itemized. I think I'm wearing 1-2 cloth pieces right now? A belt and bracers. Which is pretty damn good compared to what it was in Naxx.

With IceCrown on the PTR and loot now showing as well as our Teir Gear, I think moonkin everywhere have creamed their feathers. Smo, Graylo, Xiera, Rev, Murmur, Wisp... hell, anyone who knows moonkin are all rejoicing right now. You know why? As more and more people get into IceCrown we will see less and less of "My guild wont let me roll on cloth" threads. Cause hell, with the trend Blizzard is going and the look of the stats on the Teir gear, we may only wear 1 cloth item..if that..and I bet it will be a crafted belt!

However, have you seen the look of the teir gear? EVIL TREES INC! :D