TMR Needs you!

A post from TMR's Admin, Wolfwood:

We need some help!

The Moonkin Repository has always supported itself solely through the donations of members, and my own pocket. I only call for donations when we need them for a specific reason. Our community has always been responsive and generous in the past and we have survived and grown thanks to this.

We never require a large amount of money, because we never use it for anything except basic website maintenance.

Our domain lease will be up on the 25th of this month, and the money in our kitty is currently $200 short of a two year renewal.

This is not good!

:cower

Basically... we need $200 in a few weeks!

:faint

We appreciate all donations of any amount that you make. If you donate you will receive the 'Repository Investorkin' title... and... a cake in the mail. And... you will be keeping this site alive!

The cake is a lie.

:danger :danger :danger

The cake is not a lie.

It's like Schrödinger's cat (minus the poison gas, unless I'm really feeling mean). Until you look in the letterbox, the cake both exists and doesn't exist! :dizzy

HOW TO DONATE:

To donate, you can click the donate button on the standard portal, here http://www.themoonkinrepository.com/portal.php, but that only works if you are using the older forum skin (wowmedevhempire). If you are using the new portal, then you can donate straight to my TMR paypal (which is where that button puts the money anyway), which is tsbryon@gmail.com.

Please send an email to that same address letting me know of your donation so I can give you the title/cake (cough).

Please help us! Thank you!

:wave

Druid Discussion on Vent with many moonkin

Edited my post to place Murmurs Summary here. He covers everything that we spoke of.

Hey again Druids!

Our first Roundtable discussion has ended and I, personally, think it was amazingly fun and successful. We talked about a wide variety of topics, some of which went off-topic at times, but all of it was in good fun. I'll use this post to highlight some of the fine points of our conversations. Keep in mind when raiding all of this that everything is purely speculation based off on some very limited information. How we think or believe a spell will function may not be accurate, and changes are that it won't be accurate at all, but it's the best that we could come up with with what we have.

Wild Mushroom:

There were many things thrown out about how this spell would function in both PvE and PvP, as well as how the spell would fit within the Balance Druid's rotation.

In PvP, the thoughts were mostly that this would be a primarily surprise or defensive based ability. By defensive, it won't exactly be the same thing as Barkskin, but rather act as more of a 'trap' spell that you have to use proactively. Using the spell overtly offensively might not work out too well since the effect will be fairly easy to avoid. To this end, players will probably have it set somewhere, like near where their healer will use lots of LoS, to set it up a clean burst. For Arena play, it adds some interesting kiting mechanics to how Balance will function. In Battlegrounds, Wild Mushroom will clearly be amazing for choke points and prevent flag caps.

In PvE, the spell holds a lot of potential. The current line of thinking is two-fold. The first thought is that Wild Mushroom will be highly useful during extended periods of movement. This is based on the thought that Wild Mushroom will be limited to a single mushroom at a time and that placing a new mushroom will cause the old one to explode. Since the spell is instant cast and has no cooldown, you could effectively spam the spell while on the move to supplement damage when you can't cast anything else. The other potential use for Wild Mushroom is as an effective 'Cleave' type skill. Generally speaking, Hurricane is only useful when there are a large number of mobs, around 4 or 5, and sometimes there is one 1 or 2 adds that need to be killed. In these situations, Wild Mushroom could provide the highest access to DPS by hitting all the targets more higher amounts of damage.

Other random thoughts on Wild Mushroom are how it could relate to our talents. GC has stated that Wild Mushroom will interact with our talents, but nothing as to how. One of the thoughts that came up with the ability to proc Earth and Moon on multiple targets. Having the 13% spell buff on multiple targets is a very big deal for add fights and AoE encounters, yet only one spec of one class can effectively provide this. Allowing Wild Mushroom to proc Earth and Moon on multiple targets would be a huge boost to group utility and allow AoE content to be easier to balance.

Nature's Torrent:

Since a lot of discussion already took place on this mechanic in the talent preview thread, not too much was talked about this spell. We all agree though that this is going to be one of the key things that can make or break Balance Druids in the next expansion. How it interacts with Eclipse and fits within our rotation is going to be a big players in Cataclysm. I'm personally really excited about it, but only time can tell how it will actually work out.

Eclipse:

Eclipse is getting a major change, yet still too little is known about the effect. We talk a little bit about possible rotations, how things could or could not work, issues that could come up, and how much more awesome it was. Here are things that we talked about.

Eclipse decay - GC has said that Eclipse is probably going to have to have some form of decay. We all agree to this point due to the fact that players really shouldn't be encouraged to go farm up Eclipse power before a pull in order to game DPS. The decay in combat is a little bit more tricky. Having some in combat might be okay, but it all depends on how it works out with movement. If the drain is too step, then it could re-enforce the current system we already have with movement.

Eclipse gain - How rapidly Eclipse is gained or lost is going to be a major factor in just about everything. Right now there are too many systems out there to guess at anything solid.

Moonkin Form:

The controversial topic. Some people hate it still, some people love it. The biggest complain is just that Moonkin Form is too flat right now and really needs to be updated. Blizzard has thankfully said that one is eventually coming, though it may end up being slightly delayed. Hope exists!

Random Talents:

From our thinking, there's going to be quite a few talents that will probably have to be removed. The biggest of these was Nature's Grace. At this point, very few people present seemed to think that a nerf would be enough for this talent and that the best option would simply be to get rid of it completely. Doing so would hurt Balance Druids a lot, obviously, but with a new expansion coming out there is plenty of opportunity to re-balance use around this change. Another talent that is up for debate is Improved Faerie Fire. We know that the +Hit portion of the this talent is going to be removed, however we don't know if anything new is going to be added to it to replace that. Right now, a lot of people seemed to think that merely +3% Crit really isn't interesting enough to keep around. It would be a DPS increase that we certainly take, but it would lose a lot of flavor. Many people would either like to see something else added on to the talent or for the talent to be removed completely.

Improved Moonkin Aura will probably become our talent which allows us to scale Spirit into Hit. Since the talent already does this with Spell Power, it seems most logical that it would be transferred this way. Talents such as Vengeance will most likely stick around, and things like Improved Insect Swarm will probably be expanded upon - even though it will upset Hamlet.



All in all, the whole thing was a lot of fun with so many people stopping by. I pretty sure I can speak for everyone when I say that we all had a great time just talking it up about all the different random things that popped into our heads. With how great this turned out, I'll definitely be continuing this when Beta starts so be on the look out for future posts!

Stay classy Druids,
Murmurs

TORGEN FTW!

(inside joke from vent)

My Loot List GearSet

As I posted before, my guild uses a Loot Council/List for loot. I've already explained it before but if you didn't catch it, just send me an email and I'll explain it a bit more. But just like last time, I wanted to post the list I created for the Month of Feb.  Here is the set I've come up with.

Helm: Sanctified Lasherweave Helm
Neck: Amulet of Silent Eulogy 
Shoulders: Sanctified Lasherweave Shoulders
Back: Lich Wrappings
Chest: Sanctified Lasherweave Vestments
Bracers: The Lady's Brittle Bracers
Gloves: Sanctified Lasherweave Gloves
Belt: Crushing ColdWraith Belt
Legs: Leggings of Woven Death
Boots: Plague Scientist's Boots
Ring 1: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
Ring 2: Ring of Rapid Ascent
Trinket 1: Muradin's Spyglass
Trinket 2: Reign of the Dead

Rules of the List:

Rules were set forth with this list since we are going to be in the middle of a new boss with the next month and we don't know how far we will get trying to clear heroic. So we was to follow these rules.

1. No more Trial of the Grand Crusader loot
2. You are not allowed to List Loot from Arthas
3. Only able to go up to Heroic Rotface for loot.
4. No 10man loot allowed on this list (I added the cloak in there so you can see which I was going for)

Why this list?
Well, I decided I wanted my 4pc t10. However, I wanted to keep the Leggings of Woven death. Due to this, Hitcap was going to be under if I went for the Cloak I wanted off Dreamwalker. So to fix that, I went for her 10man version to keep myself Hitcapped. I didn't put down the heroic Version of the Boots either since I'm definitely not the only person after them and we are only allowed 12 slots, in which I added the heroic Vanq Tokens in.

And trinkets, oh god. Don't get me started on trinkets. Anub'arak has only dropped 1 Heroic Version of the Reign and we never saw another. We are terrible with loot, all we get is melee stuff.

Final Stats of this Set(Includes Gemming):
Spellpower: 3622
Crit: 1088
Haste: 864
Hit:  287

Final stats may be incorrect, but shouldn't be completely off.

Druid Teir 10 Sets and Bonuses- A little thinking on my part.

First, lets start off looking at the set bonuses.

# Item - Druid T10 Balance 2P Bonus - When you gain Clearcasting from your Omen of Clarity talent, you deal 10% additional Nature and Arcane damage for 6 sec.
# Item - Druid T10 Balance 4P Bonus - Reduces the cooldown on your Eclipse talent by 6000.

Of course, when you look at the 2piece, you think, why and the hell is Blizzard making us go into the resto tree? Well, my thoughts were already posted on the druid forums in regard to this. Remember though, its my thoughts on this matter, my opinion. Some people may take it to heart and start an uproar.

Just so everyone knows, OOC is and isn't a mandatory talent. At the same time, blizzard putting a set bonus in that uses the resto tree on a balance set is strange, but at the same time, I welcome it. Why do I welcome it? OOC is our best mana regen talent. Its a 100% mana free cast on proc. Unless you have squawk and awe set to show when it procs, you never will notice it. (Or you play with game sounds and hear it)

It works great for General V, but at the same time, isn't a required talent that its going to make or break you in dps unless you have mana issues. Blizzard is probably stepping back and looking at normal moonkin, and the talents we take. Wanting to try and help us out by making a talent we take only for one thing and giving a set bonus piece to make it so we wont fall to far behind on the meters in the next teir of content. Which we do everytime and they try to scale us up accordingly. They are just doing it before hand.

My two cents anyway. Even if it is a place-holder, you know as soon as Icecrown comes out, we'll be low on the meters and they will buff us like every other hybrid.

Those are my thoughts. I believe in the long-run, Blizzard knows 90% of Moonkin pick up this talent anyway, hell, maybe more than that. Its the best mana regen talent we have. 100% free cast. So almost everyone has this. At the same time, its kinda odd its going into the Resto Tree for a Balance Set Bonus. As for our 4pc, this is a placeholder. It has to be. In computer terms, it means the cooldown will be lowered by 6 seconds. Which, if you notice your eclipse got changed last patch, we don't need.

While the eclipse timer cooldown is 30 seconds, it doesn't work like that. We can proc one eclipse after the other. Each is 15 seconds, and by the time we reach our second ending eclipse proc, the cooldown is up and we can proc again. So its 30 seconds from when the first proc happens. Meaning, if I cast Wrath, proc Lunar....starting at that second I proc'd Lunar, the 30 seconds start. Of course, 15 seconds later, Solar procs and at the end of it, Lunar is up again.


Anyway, those are my thoughts on it. 4 piece has to be a filler until something is figured out. The 2pc isn't bad, though odd its going into the resto tree. It may as well be a filler too..Datamined Info is Datamined Info after all.

The Moonkin Repository and its Contests

For those who enjoy all things moonkin, TMR usually tries to hold a contest every so often. Well, we haven't had a contest in a bit and we are currently planning our next one. However, funds are short and we are going to be limited on prizes. So, while this may seem shallow, I am going to do it anyway for the site.

Any donations available to help get prizes for TMR should please click the following link. A dollar to even 25 cents will work as what we have in mind is just out of our reach. Or if you even have something you wouldn't mind giving up for the contest, toss me an email! I'll be glad to chat about it with ya!

Whats with the Button Foofy?

I got an email earlier today asking why I have a Donate button on my blog. Well, its simple. I'm poor. I have bills to pay but I handle the prizes at the Moonkin Repository. A lot of People like the Loot Cards, so I try and go out and buy a few packs every so often in an attempt to get prizes for when the Moonkin Repository holds their contests.

A few people have donated, due to them, I was able to get ahold of several Slash Dance Loot cards and get enough points for a tabard with the last contest and the one before it.

So yeah, any donations are appreciated cause it helps me support TMR. So, there is the answer to the question, especially for those who was still wondering about it but never asked.

PS, pirate day will soon be upon us..and I will not talk like one! >_>

The Long Overdue Update

Well, the last update was about the TMR contest, which I hope you all are going to par-take in! But this isn't want this post will be about. As we all know, new druid forms have been posted on the World of Warcraft site for all to see! We have new Bear and Cat forms at this time and it was stated that Tree, Moonkin, Seal, and Travel will come at a later date if at all. But lets take a look at the forms we got, starting with tauren!




As you can see with the new Tauren Cat form, we look nothing like we used to! They finally got rid of the old beta place holder we have had for years and gave us a model with a smoother and richer fill to its being! Though, I'm not a fan of having a ring in my cat's nose, its a welcomed change.



With our Tauren Bear form, it looks as if they just smoothed all of our edges out and allowed us to change our colors. Its a medium change but I still welcome being able to look different then the druid next to me to some extent.

Now for the Night Elf forms! You guys get to be so pretty! (Seriously..pink panthers!) With the release of the Night Elf Cat form, a few elves aren't happy that they will be a bright pink bundle of fur. Personally, I saw this coming and I have to agree with a few of them that I liked the old Cat model better.



Now lastly, the Night Elf Bear! You guys got a slight overhaul, but you still have the same model. I feel however with where they put the mini signatures/body art on your model, makes it look terrible with several of the color schemes you have available.


--------------------------------------------------------

In other news!

I'm secretly working on The Moonkin Raiding Basic's 5! This info will cover Ulduar rotations with the 4pc, the change in gemming and additional information that was released with patches such as:

Who should I innervate? (due to the change)
What glyphs are still good?
Solar
Lunar
4pc Proc

It wont be very big, but I still don't have to much time to play around with it during the day, that and I'm heading out to get a new mic to hopefully fix the annoying buzz that has some people complaining. So, no ETA on the video yet since I still have alot of information to gather. I also still have people asking me for a PVP how to video, but sadly, moonkin pvp just isn't there right now when its the world of Meleecraft and we have no survivability as is.

But! To go away from the game, I finally got officially married! Yeah, I know..BUT YOUR PROFILE SAID...

I had been with my husband for 3 years now, and lived with him for a full year. We already treated each other like husband and wife and told others since we knew we was going to get married anyway. That and saying Fiance and Fiancee made us feel weird, like someone who went around rolling their eyes and trying to be perky the whole time. You know, something you would see on General Hospital or something (shiver).

Anyway, as I stated, I will be working on MRB101 part 5 in due time, I just want to get the finalized numbers for a few things as well as a new mic before I sit down and start working on it.

TMR Video Contest

Fellow Moonkin! It’s that time of year when The Moonkin Repository (http://www.themoonkinrepository.com) breaks out the peach schnapps and gives away free stuff! Well, technically you have to work for it, but it’s still free! There’s also not really any schnapps, but let’s not split hairs. Instead, let’s get down to the business of the -

Second Official TMR Competition!

We have decided this competition will be our first MOONKIN VIDEO COMPETITION.

The theme is simply anything involving Moonkin. Rather than stifle creativity, this allows you to enter in any genre, style or format. We will literally accept any video to do with Moonkin. PVP, PVE, fiction, non-fiction, screen-capture, live-action, animated, serious, humorous, abstract, anything! There are a few simple rules which should be followed unless you want your hard work disqualified.

The Rules:

1. You may enter as many times as you wish, but if you want to win, go for quality, not quantity.

2. The topic of your video must be related to Moonkin in one way or another. At the beginning and end of your video, you must include the URL for this site (http://www.themoonkinrepository.com).

3. No vulgar language. Written, spoken, or in the soundtrack. None.

4. Your video should be less than 10 minutes long. This does not mean you need to make a long video, a thirty second clip has just as much chance of winning as a 10 minute one. Remember quality, not quantity.

5. You do not need to be a current member to participate. However, you will have to sign up to post your entry, and so that if you win, we can track you down and send you your prize. Sign-up is free and takes only sixty seconds (go to http://www.themoonkinrepository.com).

6. If winners do not respond within 2 weeks of results being announced, your prize will be forfeited to the next most deserving entry.

7. Any video editing software may be used, but final entries must be submitted in the manner detailed below:

The competition starts now (05/19/09) and will finish in six weeks (06/30/2009). If enough people bitch and moan about needing more time, an extension will be considered, but do not count on it.

Entries must be posted on the ‘Moonkin Video Entries’ thread on the TMR website here: http://themoonkinrepository.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2559 as a stream. See below for a list of possible sites you can upload your video to.

Entries can only be posted in the LAST FIVE DAYS of the competition (from 06/26/09 to 06/30/09). Do not post your entry earlier, or it will be immediately deleted.

8. Judging will commence on 07/01/09. Judging will be open to all members rank two (Pewpewpoultry) and above – i.e. Members that have made more than 25 posts on the boards. More details about judging will be posted closer to the date.

Video hosting sites:

Youtube
WeGame
FileFront
Xfire

The Prizes:

We have some really great prizes this round! We hope you all enjoy them!

First Prize:
Stuffed Moonkin - We will be commissioning Syri to create a unique hand-made Moonkin for you! Shipping and handling will be taken care of by us.

Second Prize:
In-Game Epic Tabard and SlashDance trading card - With the Epic Tabard, we ask that you choose one tabard from the following list. Also, we all remember Slashdance! This card gives you 100 party Grenades to toss about and make people of your own faction dance against their will! As a moonkin, you can make your trees dance with you too!

Third Prize:
An official Moonkin Repository T-Shirt! The design(s) will be posted here shortly.

Note: For those of you who are wondering, the Moonkin Repository shirts will be purchasable to all shortly in the form of an online shop. More on that later.

Need help making a video?

First things first, most people will be wanting to capture in-game footage for your video! Fraps is probably the common program to do this. It can be downloaded at:

http://www.fraps.com

The free version will create a watermark at the top of your screen and only capture 30 seconds of footage at a time. If you are making a longer recording you will have to hit the record button again the second it automatically turns off. If you decide you like fraps and wish to buy it, there is a one-time fee which will make you eligible for all future updates. The full version will obviously record any length of time and remove the watermark.

Other video capture programs include:

Xfire
WeGame

Next, let us look at movie maker software. There are several out there. Most people will have a default one already on their PC. On a Windows PC, it will be called Windows Movie Maker. On most Macs it will be called iMovie. With these programs, you can take the clips you created from Fraps and insert them (often just by dragging and dropping) into the software package. All you need to do then, is edit, add your soundtrack and render.

So that is all there is so it! You can now make your own videos. If you wish to find more information or other programs out there, just ask around.

There is one extra tool we should mention. Most people love to use Wow Model Viewer. This allows you to take models out of the game by themselves and dress them up in any gear you like. This can be a really useful and fun tool for potential movie makers.

Final note. Please post any questions about the contest in this thread. If you have any great ideas for a video, but are not inclined to make one yourself, post your ideas here so that others might be able to utilize your inspiration.

Orly?

Manolo03 has sent you a message:
Patch 3.1 xD
Hi there.

I know the patch has just come up but since u got such a good way to explain moonkin stuff and give tips about it. Well I just wanna ask u not to forget us, your moonkin fans :P so i hope u can update as soon as possible the new patch changes since ur like a sen-sei to lot of us ;)


And even if ur dont upload a new video i could use a cute written update :P


Have fun with the new patch ;)

-----------------------------

Don't worry folks, if there is something that needs to be updated, I'll update it. I just wanted to let everyone know that. I wont be disappearing randomly or rerolling. Also, until we see what all loot there is (since we've only seen like 100 out of 800) we can't compile a real BiS list. So for now, just use what you know when you are looking at pieces that drop!

SQUAWK

And awe...

Do you want a moonkin plushie? Well, Syri over at the Moonkin Repository is able to make them! However, it takes awhile to make it so you have to ask nicely as well as pay for the materials and shipping for it to happen!

Just look at these cute chickens..you cannot hate her work! They are to die for!

This is my Plushie she made me.



Here is her own plushie she made for herself!

Moonkin Raiding Basics 4

Got the mic to work right after someone helped me..(after I got done with the video)


Video will be back up in a bit after I fix the audio!

Now people can rejoice!

--

Ok, the mic fix did not work. Apparently its just my mic or something else with my system. When I am able, I'll look into a new mic.. though I don't see many other Moonkin Raiding Basics coming out, since most of everything has been covered. Unless you guys can think off the top of your head that needs to be made into a video (No pvp please..dead horse is dead..stop beating it with that stick)

In the Works! MRB part 4

I figured I'd give everyone an update since a few people have asked me about Part 4 of Raiding Moonkin Basics. So, here it is!

The 4th installment is just going over the talent tree in a deep format. Explaining each talents and what they do for a moonkin. I already have the video done, I just need to do the voice-over. I'm taking my time on it to try and get good takes with little to no background noise and my voice light but not breaking anyone's ears.

I have also been busy since it was a Military Weekend for me and one of my buddies had to make up time for her AT. So she is in town (normally lives 3 hours away) and has been dragging me out to lunch and to bars (Azamath got drunk last night..was entertaining!)

Well, tonight Azamath's friends want to head to the bar for Saint Patty's Day so we are heading out again. So the video is slightly delayed but should be out sometime this week. All depends on how long it takes me to get the voice-over done as well as continue to raid on the PTR so I can keep attendance with my guild.

Anyway, that's all for now, just thought I'd give an update to those curious as to why its not out right now!

Moonkin Basics 101 Part 3

(link until movie is done rendering with youtube)

Well, here is number three! A bit later than I wanted to get it out, but with PTR raiding and all that, I think its out just in time. I also wanted to remind people that the Lunar Eclipse in video 2 may change to solar due to 3.1/Uludar. No idea yet how things will work out until all the number crunching is done!

However, for those who are interested in the number crunching, below is Murmurs post from the Druid forums with all the math could you want.

Balance PvE Info for 3.1 Changes--By Murmur

Moonkin Raiding Basics 101

I decided to make this video after seeing a post on the druid forums of a fellow druid trying to do the same...Ginseng, from the Llane server!

Either way..this is part one of a series I will be doing.

This part covers stats and talent specs. The second if all goes right will be glyphs and rotations.

3.1 Patch Notes--Ulduar

The patch notes are currently released and while they are not the full notes or finalized, several million people are pissed with the current state of every class in the game. From the looks of it, everything got nerfed down the board. Everything but Survival Hunters.

Anyway, lets touch base with the moonkin notes shall we?

• Owlkin Frenzy is now properly considered an Enrage effect. Now also does not trigger from spell hits, only physical ranged and melee attacks.
  

So, whats it? This is all the peek that moonkin get at this time. A double nerf with only one post. Excellent in the best regards blizzard, just excellent. Owlkin frenzy was useful in PVE during large AE fights if you had the extra points and wanted to have a little fun. In PVE is was our best defense with spell pushback, as well as damage increase to hopefully get something off us.

So, with it nerfed into the ground, PVE will just move the points elsewhere while PVP cries on the inside and finally respec's feral or resto. Why wouldn't they respec? Moonkin still has no survivilability in PVP period.

Oh wait...Guess what resto got!? IMP BARKSKIN! Thats right folks! Midway in the resto tree is a talent called Imp Barkskin! Congrats you guys! Though personally, only thing I see that I like in the notes right now is this:

• Plague Strike and Blood Plague no longer remove hots. Plague Strike’s damage increased quite a bit to compensate.

Yup, thats a great thing right there. Druids all over are cheering for this. Finally, we don't just have to stand there making baskets out of dried grass while waiting for death when we see a Death Knight coming at us. We actually will be able to heal!

Anyway, we all know these patchnotes are subject to change, and one change we all see coming is the removal of our RNG stun from Celestial Focus. BlackOut from priests was removed, so its time to take away out last stun.

So thats it. Hopefully the notes bring more promise as PTR goes on.


For those who are on PTR, you can find me as Grandstorm on the PVE server incase anyone wants to chat or just randomly dance naked with me outside instances.

Ulduar, thoughts, comments..concerns

For countless millennia, Ulduar has remained undisturbed by mortals, far away from their concerns and their struggles. But since its recent discovery, many have wondered what the structure's original purpose may have been. Some thought it a city, built to herald the glory of its makers; some thought it a vault containing innumerable treasures, perhaps even relics of the mighty Titans themselves. They were wrong. Beyond its gates lies no city, no treasure vault, no final answer to the Titan's mysteries. All that awaits those who dare set foot in Ulduar is a horror even the Titans could not, would not destroy, an evil they merely... contained.

Beneath ancient Ulduar, the Old God of death lies, whispering.... Tread carefully, or his prison will become your tomb.

As the next step in tiered raid progression in Wrath of the Lich King, Ulduar is set to blow players away with gorgeous setpieces, sprawling battlefields, and innovative boss encounters. Ulduar's design aims to provide a fun, unique, and innovative raid experience, but it also includes additional challenges - and rewards - for seasoned raiders. In this sneak-peek at World of Warcraft's newest raid dungeon, we'll take a look at some of the new content that makes Ulduar rise above the crop of amazing dungeons already available in World of Warcraft.

Welcome to Ulduar
Many players have already gotten their Wrath of the Lich King raiding feet wet in Naxxramas and the Sartharion raid, but Ulduar is the first example of the expansion's much larger, truly epic scope of raiding, as will be evident from the second you set foot in the instance. The most obvious difference between Ulduar and its predecessors is that the dungeon actually comprises two separate raid areas. The first section is an epic battle against a vast army standing between you and the entrance of the dungeon proper; in the second area, you will dive into the heart of the dungeon itself and finally discover the secrets of Ulduar.

Ulduar's new master has rallied his own massive Iron Army to guard the entrance to Ulduar and to prevent any unwanted guests - including you, especially you - from reaching the inner sanctum. Thankfully, you'll be able to face the Iron Army on even footing: although the main Horde and Alliance forces are focused on the forces beyond the Wrathgate and on each other, some who are better able to appreciate the true magnitude of Ulduar's threat have managed to scrap together a small fleet of siege vehicles to aid you in the assault.

You and your friends will have to use these vehicles wisely to break through Ulduar's defenses. A mix of motorcycles, demolishers, and siege engines will be at your disposal, each granting unique abilities to the pilot and the passenger. Motorcycle drivers, for example, can create pools of liquid tar that snare opponents and can be set on fire by area effect attacks, while demolisher passengers can load themselves into the vehicle's catapult so that the pilot can launch them into the distance. If used judiciously, these and other abilities will help decimate the Iron Army and any other threats lying in wait between you and Ulduar.

One such threat is the Flame Leviathan. After you've plowed through the innumerable ranks of the Iron Army, you will be confronted by an enormous tank. Mimiron built the Flame Leviathan as part of the V0-L7R-0N weapons platform, which means that it packs quite a punch. Normal spells and abilities won't be enough to take down this juggernaut, so you will have to rely on your siege vehicles to outmaneuver and defeat the boss. After wearing the massive war machine down, you will have to launch players onto the tank's back to destroy its defense turrets and sabotage the Leviathan before you can move on. Of course, if you'd like an additional challenge beyond this naturally frantic (but extremely fun) fight, you can try your hand at one of the Flame Leviathan's different Hard Modes (see sidebar).

Of course, the vehicle gauntlet, the Iron Army, and the battle against the Flame Leviathan are only the start of World of Warcraft's most ambitious raid to date. Patch 3.1 will hit the Public Test Realms very soon, so you will be able to see for yourself what other challenges await beyond the gates of ancient Ulduar.

Hard Boiled
Ulduar brilliantly illustrates the new design challenges and innovations that come with the bigger scope of the expansion's raids. In order to make raid content more accessible, it has to offer a lot of variety, but it also needs to include a very granular means for players to adjust a raid's difficulty. This concept was first realized in the Burning Crusade with the introduction of Heroic mode, and Wrath of the Lich King is developing the idea even further with new Hard Modes.

Boss fights that have a Hard Mode are affected by certain variables which players can control and which change the encounter's difficulty. For example, spread throughout Ulduar's vehicle section are four defense towers you can destroy. The more towers you leave intact, the harder the encounter with the Flame Leviathan will be, but the loot will also be better.

Ulduar isn't the first dungeon to include Hard Mode, but it certainly makes the most use of it. Out of 14 bosses, 11 will have a Hard Mode that offers additional challenges and rewards. Ulduar will appeal to a wide range of play styles, but the dungeon also has great longevity and a high replay value. -- MMO Champion

Well folks, there it is. A look into 3.1. Everyone has been looking forward to this for a long time. After reading through this however, first thing that comes to my mind..

you will have to launch players onto the tank's back to destroy its defense turrets and sabotage the Leviathan before you can move on.

This should be highly interesting and definitely something new to the game I welcome. Being a moonkin, first thing I'm gonna do is call dibs. Who says moonkin can't fly now eh?

Either way, just seeing this gives us a good insight that the instance will be different from anything else we encountered since the introduction of Siege Vehicles for WG. While the idea itself is good in terms, the problems comes with people and their controls. Many people dislike controlling vehicles in WG due to the way they are used to moving. Wether it be with a mouse, keyboard, or a touch pad user.

The controls of the Siege Vehicles in WG aren't to hard. However, touchpad users do have a harder time controlling them (I know, I tried) and thus..could this limit your raid? Will these encounters allow for errors on the controller's behalf with the vehicle? (Getting stuck on terain like we normally do, bad controls, horrible turns at times)

If these issues are addressed, then there should be no problems, atleast that I can see. However, I just want to be launched..even if I miss, it would be highly amusing to see a moonkin fly over the battlefield.

I wonder if we can moonfire spam as we fly, then that would just be pure win.
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For those wondering, I will be taking part in the PTR, so any footage of Ulduar, I will fraps and post here. Especially if its of flying chickens.

Retardin alts..and Opness Meet+ Eclipse chatter (short)

A little offtopic from the normal Moonkin blogness I do, but I was so tickled to death about this, I had to talk about it.

I decided to transfer my paladin over to the new server since I was leveling Jcing. Yeah..shes a miner as well as a Jc'er (double dailies! More dragonseyes! WOOT!) and well, I decided to hit up Wintergrasp at level 70 to try and mine up what I could. I knew I was going to die no matter what. As long as I got a few nodes, I didn't really care.

Well, this is my paladin. I ghetto spec'd her so to speak a full 61 without picking up Imp Might. Real Ret Paladins are probably laughing at me or wanting to bust my skull in. Probably both. Her gear isn't that good either, especially since I was originally holy, then prot on her back in TBC.

Anyway, heres the story. I go to hit up Wintergrasp and the battle starts. Great..now alliance will be around..right? Amazingly I didn't really get bothered but by this one NE Warrior. He had full PVP gear on and he seemed to know what he was doing.

Of course, I had tenacity by 7 but that made us even, and I was missing half the time with little to no hit against a level 80. Yet it was amazing. He came at me and we fought it out. Being the nub ret paladin I am, I did what all paladins do when I got half health..I bubbled. 

This warrior seemed to me like he knew what he was doing because he tried his best to get out of melee range, even tried to get away from me enough to intercept me. However, I'm not that much of a pvp nub and kept within distance of him.

It was a good 5 minute battle. Healing myself every second I got with my free heal proc off Divine Storm. In the end..he got whooped by a level 70 in terribad gear. After laughing about it a bit, I ran off to hide..why? There was a large group of alliance coming after me now (Yeah, he brought friends)

Needless to say, We lost WG that time but I got out of there with 5 stacks of Saronite :D

Now for the Moonkin part of this blog. A topic arose on the Moonkin Repository questioning which Eclipse proc is better. Solar or Lunar?

Solar increases your wrath damage (which with Imp IS, 2pc, and Glyph is very awesome)

Lunar increases your chance to crit with starfire

Looking at these, first thing for those who may be new to moonkining might think that Solar is the way to go. This is where we bring up the points.

Solar requires wrath spam. The problem with that is, If you have any haste..any whatsoever or are spec'd into Nature's Grace (0.5 second taken off your next cast) then you will be clipping the Global Cooldown. That isn't a good thing. Wrath also doesn't scale that well on its own with spelldamage. Also, wrath can be very mana inefficent thus making you require replenishers as well as mana regen talents. 

Starfire scales with its spelldamage and works great with haste. It works point for point with haste. It also cannot clip the Global Cooldown. Its also very mana effiecent. (short and sweet, I know)

Even though with all the buffs to Wrath you can get, Starfire still pulls ahead. Though we are always testing this theory as theorycrafters so this could change down the road. You never know!

Responses: I pretty much stand corrected, while Badegg is correct and I should have worded myself better.

Wrath does scale very well with spell power, but its scaling with haste and crit is awkward due to GCD clipping, the Lunar eclipse does minimize the amount this happens. But in any case the spellpower coefficient itself of Wrath is actually a bit better than Starfire, although not enough to make the Solar eclipse better.

--Badeggplant

He is correct. Wrath does scale  but due to the gcd clipping, its a pain in the arse to even try and use.  Thank you for the correction. :)

Glyph of Focus (Patch 3.0.8)

Welcome to the buggy patch of 3.0.8! Starfail has been nerfed and everyone around the world is dropping it! New Moonfire animation! (PEWPEWZ LAZER BEAMS) and everything is buggy or just not working!

What a wonderful day of Warcraft! Wouldn't you agree? Anyway, the patch has been out for a few days now. When the patch first came out, there was an issue with Wintersgrasp crashing the server. Each time the game was won, it sent out an infinite buff to everyone, causing the server to overload and crash (every server in the game mind you)..when the servers would come back up, the game was reset and people would try to take it again.

Honor farmers enjoyed this time while people in Northrend couldn't stop dcing from the for hours on end. It was terrible. Raiders were afraid to wipe and had soulstones and everything ready at hand for wipe recovery.

Malygos learned to fart so he was killing people behind him, let alone they added a larger range to his arcane breath..which apparently was chaining off hunter pets and ghouls, causing raid wipes. He also has targeting issues in phase 2 where you couldn't target him and he'd just melee you after a vortex. There is also no more stacking of sparks to dps him from 50%-0 with a bloodlust. Sparks now have a timer which is shared with their pools when they die and give us the buff.

Anyway, to the point at hand. With this patch came a new Glyph..Glyph of Focusing! This glyph increased your Starfail damage by 20% but decreased its range by 50%. This glyph however is a major glyph and not something worth picking up. Why do you say? With the 50% decrease, you only get 18 yards to use it with. Pretty much you will need to stand on the boss and pewpew. Which is a bad thing.

Closer to the boss means more agroo, let alone if that boss has a cleave, breath, tailwhip or anything like that, you'd be screwed. Anyway..for sheer curiousity we was quick to look into the numbers it would give.

Here are the numbers given by Wisprunner after I pointed the topic out. He did a 50% increase of damage and a 20% increase.

ok 20% increase.

600 average hit. 20% of that is 120, so 720 a hit for 15 hits is 10,800

1324 average crit. 20% of that is 265 (rounded up. 264.8 is the actual number), so 1589 per average crit for a total of 7945 with the 5 crits from my parse.

combine all that to get 18,745 so it's not even a 3 dps increase if I did that conversion right (which I don't think I did, I never remember that conversion, someone correct me if I'm wrong) over what my starfall did for me on the fight.

standing on the boss for 3 dps...umm...no thanks.

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Here is the 50% increase numbers

Take the last time you used Starfail on a single target mob (patchwerk, Instructor etc.) from a wws report, and just take the average hit, take 50% of that, add it, and that's what the hit would have done. take the total number of hits you had on that mob, and do simple addition from there.

That's how much glyphed starfail would have done.

For instance, the last time I did patchwerk25 and had starfail the average hit of my starfail was ~600 (rounded up for ease of math) 50% of that is another 300. so 900 a hit. 900 a hit for 15 hits is 13,500.

average crit was 1324, 50% of that is 662, add that on and we get 1986, 1986 average crit at 5 crits total makes 9,930

Grand total 23,400 compared to the 15,541 that the parse had. That was on two uses as well since the kill was a laughable 3:27.

23,400 would still have been half of what IS (next lowest total damage ability) was. so starfall would have added roughly 30 dps to my total of 3857 (hooray 30% wrath crit) instead of the 23ish I got that night.

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Though from his personal point of few, his numbers still show what type of increase you would see. 3 or 7 dps..doesn't matter..for 1 talent point isn't going to make this talent, but break it really. You could put that talent point anywhere else you like. Even pick up IMP Moonfire..or something. Me..I dropped it. I won't lie. I picked up 2/2 Gale Winds and put 1 point in Owlkin frenzy since I really have nothing else to do with my points. I have no mana regen talents or anything and I'm never oom in fights.

If you have no issues with mana you can always make your tree to your liking..always remember that. The 55/0/16 spec is just a basic spec for raiding if you have mana issues. Anyway, enough rambling from me. I hope this post will help people still confused on the glyph if they wish to take it or not.