Alpha, Bravo, Charlie

Well.. that's what I am saying a lot in another game, but for World of Warcraft, we just went into Beta, and I am still in.

To be honest, I have no idea what I did in Alpha, the testing was mostly while I was at work. I did level a little bit, and did some stuff here and there, but not really much. Now we are in beta for a few months, my Troll Druid will be leveled probably.

Alpha-Gowron trying to take down Anduin....

The problem is that I am actually playing a lot on Live now, not really playing on of me many, many 100+ characters, but leveling a Void Elf, through TBC. All those quests I forgot existed... well, after Hellfire of course. He is o level 69 and already 2 levels knee-deep in Shadowmoon Valley stuff.

Stephanus is already ready for Orgrilalala and the Shatari Skyguard. Can actually go farm Netherwing if he reaches 70, and is on the first part of the attunement to The Eye and Mount Hyjal apparently. I also forgot that the players themselves where actually responsible for getting Gorefiend back in the loop.

Stephanus ready to take on the local wildlife.

Innovation has done something new last week, Mythic Garothi Worldbreaker, not that we downed it, but there where some promising pulls. And that's what seems to be the plan, one night Mythic, two nights farming, because we definitively got Heroic on farm now. Looking only at myself, I am not that hyped to do Heroic anymore. I have adequate gear from it, some gems, some forged. I even got a Acrid Catalyst Injector, although one of my few seals is used to get a forged one.

But we have been doing heroic for a while now, and before that normal.. Why is there still normal raiding? Once upon a time normal was called flex, because that was the only raid where you din't need 25, then they changed stuff, and now both normal and heroic have flex. And I don't really see the reasons for an extra difficulty anymore.. why not just ditch one...

Innovation's Gummi Bears

And finishing with Beta, Blizzard stated that they think most specs are done now, they mentioned four which maybe are not, Balance Druid was not of those.....

Balance is fine...they say..

I do not know

I think my Solar Wrath button needs to be renewed.

Basically, I have no problem with the GCD-changes, that just needs to get used to, but the changes for balance are, well.. we know have two Astral Power generators, two DoTs and two spenders (one ST, and one AoE).

Granted, the Moon Spell is not gone, it's a talent now (instead of Astral Communion) with double the refresh rate. And Fury of Elune is now basically an AoE-DoT, So, there may be some interesting talent-choices coming up...like I already didn't change talents every freaking fight.... 

And we still cannot really switch quickly between ST and AoE. And unless you take Moon, which does not seem great atm due to longer refresh, your main Astral Power generator will be Solar Wrath.. did I also tell you the decreased the size of Sunfire and Lunar Strike splash.. yeah..we are fine....

So,  my eye is also on some other classes. Beta really needs to convince me to stay Balance.

Azurite Armor version 1?

Today Alpha rolled out the first piece of gear of Azurite Armor. Create a new character and you get a chest-piece which you can upgrade if your Heart of Azeroth (neck-piece) has a high enough level. Upgrading you neck-piece seems random, there are some quest that give you azurite power...or something like that. As you can see below, my Alpha-Troll, lvl 112, already has a lvl4 neck.

Morshando, Alpha-Troll

So, I made several different classes to see what was going on, and they all seem to follow the same path. You have 4 lvl's of  talents, the first level, available with a lvl1 neck, gives you a talent which does something when you kill something, and a talent for every available spec your class has, so Druids have 5 options, and Demon Hunters 3.

The Balance one, Streaking Stars, has a nice idea, more damage during Incarnation when you don't cats two the same spells in a row. The problem is..291 extra damage... that does not seem to be so much, but that may just alpha. The resto talent is also interesting, swiftmend will explode your mushroom to heal a nearby target.

The next level of talents, available with neck-level 4 are more role-specific. So for Druids I had a dps, a tank and a healing talent.  Looking at other specs, they seem to follow the same path, with a talent for every role you could do, and if  you can only have 1 or 2 roles, the other talents where more dps-orientated.

The DPS-talent here almost everyone has, chance to get 97 of a random secondary stat for 10 seconds.  Considering my Alpha-Troll have around 300 normally, 97 is a lot, like a mini-heroism.

The other roles have similar increases.

Azurite Armor v1

Level 7 only has two options left, for all specs/classes the same now, either a Prydaz-effect for 262... which seems low. And a heal/more speed when something dies, situational at best. The last level is a flat 5 Ilvl increase. 

There are some obvious problems of course, especially if you consider this system is here to replace tier-sets. The first is that you cannot change the talents as of know. Which means that if you want to have an off-spec, you got to have another piece of gear for that slot.

Well, for an old player like me, that doesn't seem to bad. We used to collect different pieces of gear back in the day, so I could live with this. The bigger problem, also tying in with not changing talents is the lack of choices.

There are no choices.

It would be nice to either have choices to which talent to pick, or maybe, and that may actually be true, we have no idea, that different pieces of gear have different talents. But at the moment, it seems a little bit lackluster. Especially if it should replace tier-sets. So, as a first glance at Azurite Armor, it fails, horrible.

But, this is Alpha, there is just not enough information on either what stuff does, or what the idea behind stuff is. And being a Balance Druid, they haven't gotten anything new so far, which makes playing boomkin really, really, really boring.

How I Moonkin in Heroic Antorus

At the moment, I have five different gear sets locked in for Antorus, including 5 different Legendaries I use throughout the Raid, and than I also tweak talents within these gearsets.. so, let's see what Mardah does on all the fights.

But first a little about my standard Talents, I will always use Guardian Affinity and Stellar Drift, so I am not going to mention those again. Guardian Affinity because the damage reduction and Frenzied Regeneration are just way to good.. And Stellar Drift because I have Oneth's Intuition, which makes that talent even better on Single Target (ST) fights as Nature's Balance.

There are also two talents I only change on one fight. I normally use Wild Charge, except on Kingarath where Displacer Beast is more handy for oh-shit moments, that is if he suddenly points towards you. and the level 60 Talents are completely non-important, except two fights. Have Mass Entanglement on Coven, and Typhoon on Aggramar, the latter as backup.

And another mention on a special Talent; Blessing of the Ancient (BotaA). If not mentioned, you should always be a blue moonkin, i.e. use Blessing of Elune, only in the so-called 'Dad'-build should you be a yellow Moonkin (Blessing of An'she). Although, under Incarnation (Inc), always be Blue.

Garothi Worldbreaker, Immonar the Soulhunter, Kingaroth and Aggramar

Gear: Oneth's Intuition (OI), Impeccable Fel Essence (IFE)
Talents: Starlord (SL), Incarnation (Inc), BotA

These are the standard ST fights in Antorus, there are two adds up sometimes at Aggramar, but they should be focused down. Keep in mind that you have Typhoon for Aggramar, and that you can cast-while-moving while in your own Starfall, especially handy for casting while being knocked back.

Don't forget to use Displacer Beast for Kingaroth, and start the fight with Incarnation, even if your Raid Leader says not to start with big cooldowns. This is because of IFE. I noticed that if you wait with Inc till the Add Spawns, you will not be able to reduce the cooldown on it before the next Add-spawn..so you will be out of sync. Keep in mind, boss-damage is not important here, add-control is, so be sure to have a full pool of Astral Power when they spawn.

Felhounds of Sargeras

Gear: OI, IFE
Talents: SL,Inc,Shooting Stars (SS)

The Hounds are a liitle bit silly. It is a two target fight, but because they are tanked more as 40 yards from each other, the standard Area of Effect-build (AoE) do not really work. So you end up with a strange hybrid of talents. Keep in mind that during the the ability where you are being pulled towards a dark spot, a well timed Starfall can come in handy... Stellar Drift is so good.

Antorus High Command and Eonar the Life-Binder

Gear: Lady of the Child (LatC), Radiant Moonlight (RM)
Talents: SL, Soul of the Forest (SotF), SS

Antorus High Command is your standard AoE-fight, lots of add to deal with. and still enough ST to use Starlord. This fight is made for Boomkins. Eonar is a little bit strange, lots of running around, and you can also take the same talents as for Hasabel. That doesn't really matter.

High Command parse from me last night, a real boomer fight

Portal Keeper Hasabel

Gear: LatC,OI
Talents: SL,SotF,SS

This fight is much more ST than High Command, so dropping down Moons is less important. Keep in mind, that if you are assigned to portals, you should use the ST-build from Worldbreaker. You can also use this build for Eonar, for me it depends what I am already specced in,or if we are going Hasabel next.

Varimathras and Argus the Unmaker

Gear: OI, Radiant Moonlight (RM)
Talents: SL, SotF, Bota

These are the odd two bosses out. Both are mostly ST, but you are close to the boss, so you can take advantage of Stellar Drift. And you are better equipped for the Argus-adds-phase.This is the so-called 'Dad'-build. Make sure to always have a Starfall active, and use Starsurge between 60-80 Astral Power.

The Coven of Shivarra

Gear: RM, Soul of the Archdruid (SotA)
Talents:  Warrior of Elune (WoE), Stellar Flare (StF), SS

Yeah.. this fight.. see this blog-post why I choose this.


So, this is how I boomkin Antorus, with 5 different gear-sets and 8 different talent setups.

Now have a Picture of Mardah the Noble...something with bunnies and Varimathras...