AFR #227 – Alternatives

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Of course, anything datamined off the PTR has to be taken as only slightly more reliable than a pencil sketch on the back of an envelope fished out of Ghostcrawler’s waste basket, but the idea of triple spec is still intriguing.  Of course, it would make a much bigger difference to some classes than to others.  Druids, paladins, and monks, for instance, have the choice of being tanks, dps, or healers.  Rogues and hunters, on the other hand, are really only choosing between different methods of sticking pointy things into their enemies.

Cataclysm retrospective: dungeons

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It was really hard to get people used to using crowd control in dungeons again when Cataclysm came out.  Eventually most people got the idea.  Then I would occasionally take my tank in a dungeon and find everything cc’d, and we would have to fight over whose cc would get broken first because we had to kill something.

AFR #198 – Patchwork

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The pre-Pandaria patch has really shaken things up, though more for some classes than for others.  It’s too early to know how things will really shape up, but it’s awfully confusing to be playing a warrior or a bear druid these days.  On the other hand, that’s what paladins go through every two years.  Rogues, though?  The most change rogues see from expansion to expansion is: “Hey, some of the stuff I used to have to carry around in my bag has gone gray.  Oh well, off to the vendor, then I can get back to stabbing things.”

AFR #191 – No druid love

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Poor druids.  A whole zone where aquatic form might actually be useful and they essentially just give it away free to everybody who shows up.

AFR #157 – Idolatry

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I still remember the exultation of getting my first relic (we druids called them “idols” back then) when I took my druid to Hellfire Peninsula.  It was for a completely different spec and did me no good whatsoever, but after more than fifty levels, THAT SLOT WAS NO LONGER EMPTY!  Still, I’m honestly not that broken up about relics going away in Mists of Pandaria.  It used to be they did nifty things to your spells (relics were glyphs before glyphs were glyphs), but it was a pain trying to track down the right one for your spec, and if you weren’t one of the classes that used them it was so aggravating to see bosses drop loot that only one spec of one class could use.  (Yes, holy paladins, I see you weeping in the corner.  I’m so sorry.)  Now, in Cataclysm, they’re just stat sticks.  We won’t be losing much when they go.

And for the record: no, I do not condone mailing skunks to Blizzard headquarters.  That’s a terrible thing to do to an innocent skunk.