Icebergs

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Icebergs near Winterfin Cavern, Borean Tundra.

Want to see more pretty pictures? Visit R&R's Gallery Page (now updated).

Preparing for Battle

Remember how I said I was going to try for [School of Hard Knocks] during Children's Week?  Well, I failed.

I admit, I didn't try very hard. I realised early on that I was going to have to throw more than a few hours at it, but by the time I actually got a decent chunk of playtime, it was already the Friday night before a busy weekend (my Sproutling doesn't let me get a lot of playtime at once these days).

I won't go into the sordid details of what happened but I will say that I gave up before many attempts at reaching a tower in Alterac Valley.  The most important thing for attempting this achievement (which I did not do) is to be prepared. Read Cynwise's awesome guide (so awesome!) on each part of the achievement and practise running the battlegrounds to learn how they work and where the towers and flags and such are located.

Afterwards I had a bit of a look into PvP gear for Resto Druids for future reference. Here's what I found. Please note that I don't generally do much PvP, so if I get anything terribly wrong please comment and let me know!

What is PvP gear?
Any gear with resilience, spell penetration or stun/snare/fear duration reduction is usually considered to be PvP gear. Since the Cataclysm, Resilience has been simplified - it now reduces all incoming damage. Spell Penetration ignores some of the target's resistance to the school of spells you're casting, reducing the possibility that the spell will be resisted. It should be fairly obvious why a reduction in stun, fear and snare duration would be beneficial!

As healers, we don't need to worry about Spell Penetration since our spells aren't generally hitting anyone who will resist them. 
Edit: I stand corrected. Here's what a very informative email from Aggrazel revealed:

Spell Pen is indeed necessary to cap for resto druid because healing is not all what pvp is about, a Resto druids real strength in PVP lies in our control tools, root and cyclone. You definitely want to be spell pen capped because you don't want your cyclone to be resisted at the wrong moment. The good news is that Spell Pen is really really easy to cap, you just buy the spell pen cloak and get the spell pen enchant on it, done.

Resilience and stun reduction will help us to stay alive. If you're trying PvP early before you have any resilience gear, put on whatever you have with the highest Stamina, as the more health you have the longer you're likely to stay alive!

Where do I get the Gear?
In the past, PvP gear was easy to come by - in fact in Burning Crusade items such as [Wyrmhide Gloves] could be purchased from reputation vendors for gold. During Wrath, some items could be purchased with Stone Keeper's Shards, which were ridiculously easy to come by since they dropped from bosses in Heroics if your faction controlled Wintergrasp. There has also always been basic Resilience gear made by crafting professions - Tailoring, Leatherworking and Blacksmithing.

PvP gear is also available through spending Honor - now known as Honor Points. Honor Points are awarded for killing members of the opposing faction in the world or in un-rated battlegrounds, plus from some quests in contested areas such as Tol Barad. The highest tier of gear is available by spending Conquest Points, awarded from ranked arena matches and rated battlegrounds. The first random battleground of the day awards you a few Conquest Points, so if you're persistent you'll eventually save up. You can also purchase Conquest Points in return for Valor Points, if you have VP to spare.

At level 85, PvP for Resto Druids comes from Leatherworking, Honor Points and Conquest Points. There is also the singular Battle Tome - an Off hand crafted with Inscription.

Leatherworking

• Bloodied Wyrmhide Helm
• Bloodied Wyrmhide Shoulders
• Bloodied Wyrmhide Chest
• Bloodied Wyrmhide Bracers
• Bloodied Wyrmhide Gloves
• Bloodied Wyrmhide Belt
• Bloodied Wyrmhide Legs
• Bloodied Wyrmhide Boots

These items are all BoE so are purchasable from the auction house or you could have someone else craft them. Depending on the price of Heavy Savage Leather and volatiles or the items themselves on your server it might be more affordable to just run battlegrounds and save up the Honor Points instead.

Honor Points

• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Kodohide Helm - 2200 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Kodohide Spaulders - 1650 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Kodohide Gloves - 1650 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Kodohide Robes - 2200 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Kodohide Legguards - 2200 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Drape of Meditation - 1250 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Footguards of Alacrity or of Meditation - 1650 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Band of Dominance and/or of Cruelty - 1250 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Pendant of Alacrity or of Meditation - 1250 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Relic of Dominance or of Salvation- 700 HP
• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Belt of Cruelty or of Meditation - 1650 HP

Conquest Points

If you're taking part in arenas or rated battlegrounds, you can purchase the Vicious Gladiator set using Conquest Points. Remember, Conquest Points can also be obtained in exchange for Valor Points.

Honor and Conquest Point items are purchased from the Quartermasters in the Old Town in Stormwind for Alliance, and in the Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar for the Horde.

Please let me know if I've missed any items.

Further Reading
For Gem and Enchant advice and other general Druid PvP information I suggest you head to Oombulance.com where it is all very neatly laid out!

Waterfalls of Nagrand

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The Lake and Waterfalls around Halaa, Nagrand.

Want to see more pretty pictures? Visit R&R's Gallery Page.

For the Children

Firstly, congrats to Rades on winning the Great Blog Noblegarden Egg Hunt for the second year! Also grats to the runners-up Christine and Anslym and a big well done to Kamalia for organising the whole thing this year!

However, Noblegarden is over and we've been thrown straight into Children's Week. These two holidays only run for a week each, so we don't have too much luxury to get the achievements done in time. Leesah didn't do [For The Children] last year - the necessary achievements are quite time consuming, plus it involves one of the least-liked achievements of all the holidays - [School of Hard Knocks].

If you're like me and the thought of capturing the flag and such in battlegrounds scares you to death, I recommend having a read of Cynwise's guide to the achievement from last year. He's done a great job of making it feel more achievable. I'm going to give it a red hot go, anyway.

Good luck to those doing Children's Weeks achievements this year!

Rise of the Zandalari

Patch 4.1: Rise of the Zandalari has arrived on US servers and will be on EU servers tomorrow. You can read the patch notes in detail over at Wowhead.

I'm no expert on any of the Druid changes anymore since I'm no longer raiding or, indeed, healing much lately but I have updated the cheat sheets (Resto and Balance) for reference and will update the gear lists to include the new gear from Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman as soon as they are updated on Wowhead.

Edit: The Resto Gear and Balance Gear Lists now include the new items!

I am quite looking forward to seeing what they've done with ZG and ZA, even though it is "recycled" content. ZA is one of my favourite raids ever and while I'm sad to see it gone as a raid, its nice that it has returned to relevancy.

As to the other changes brought by the patch for Druids, others have covered them well already.

• Jasyla has written about the changes for Resto Druids, including new specs at Cannot Be Tamed.
• Lissanna covers the changes at Restokin as well.
• For Moonkin, Graylo reviews the changes and also discusses recycled content.
• Bears are looked after by Reesi at the Inconspicuous Bear,
• And for kitties, head to The Fluid Druid.

One thing I haven't heard for sure though, is whether Mojo will still be available!

Time To Hunt Egg

Happy Noblegarden!

Here in Australia the day is already almost over, but the Great Blog Noblegarden Egg Hunt II is about to begin!

There is an egg hidden on R&R. It's pretty easy to find so I won't give any clues just yet.

If you'd like to take part in the hunt and have a chance to win some great prizes, Kamalia's blog has a full list of participating blogs. You have until midnight UTC on Thursday April 28th to send in your list of egg locations!

Big thanks to all the bloggers hiding eggs this year, and to Kamalia for doing the organising.

Good luck, hunters!

Aoifen's Journey

Blizzard have certainly had their share of complaints about the changes made to the levelling game for Cataclysm - a fair number of people seem to have voted with their feet and decided the game is no longer for them, and that's fine if they're not enjoying it. I have to say though that lately, I have been enjoying the game more than ever.

My baby Druid on Azuremyst, Aoifen, has just made it to level 58. Sadly this marks the end of her journey through the Shattered World for now, but what a journey it has been.

Aoifen hasn't taken part in that many dungeons yet, as I can't really commit large chunks of time at the moment, but each of the revamped zones she has quested in have been amazing. Sure, the "fetch me 10 rats" quests are still there, but they are usually part of a much larger zone-wide storyline that keeps you wanting to play the whole way through the zone. Many of the quests have made me laugh out loud with their jokes or whimsy, while others are very serious so that you feel like you're really helping to save lives or progress world events. The linear progression through zones didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, but I do wonder if my casual playstyle is now exactly the kind of demographic the Shattered Azeroth was designed for. In any case, I enjoyed myself and that's what counts, right?

Now, if only they would do something to ease the monotony of Outlands...

Here is a collection of some of my favourite bits of Aoifen's journey to the Dark Portal. Click to make bigger!

First things first - Aoifen meets Deathwing for the first time.

Helped the Effers to a feast,

Listened to tall tales around a campfire in the Badlands (and punched that Dragon in the face),

Hitched a ride with Fiona and her Paladins in the Eastern Plaguelands,

and wondered about Keeshan's state of mind in the Burning Steppes.

Onwards...