Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. Itemization in Cataclysm is changing, and this week we'll be talking about how you can prepare yourself for the oncoming storm.

I've talked quite a bit about various changes that are happening with balance druids in the coming expansion: the Eclipse changes, the talent tree changes, Moonkin Form and a slew of other topics as well. One vital change that I have somewhat neglected, however, is that to spellpower and intellect. Blizzard announced many moons ago that, come Cataclysm, the spellpower stat would be completely removed from the game; instead, raw intellect from gear would passively provide spellpower for all classes. The only exception to this rule would be caster weapons, which would still retain pure spellpower as a stat in order to balance the difference between a melee player's gaining strength/agility and weapon DPS versus a caster's simply gaining intellect. Unfortunately, this is a change that's come and gone untouched.

As a core concept, removing spellpower to allow intellect to provide the same bonus is a strong change. To start with, it significantly reduces the time required to revamp lower-level quest rewards (despite the fact that most previous low-level quests are gone anyway, and thus, rewards would have had to be redone to a certain degree regardless), given that all of them already have intellect on them yet more often than not lack spellpower. This also allows for more commonality between all of the "base" stats: agility, strength, stamina and intellect (spirit is technically a secondary stat, not a primary stat). In removing spellpower and attack power as well, Blizzard allows for better balancing between spellpower and attack power values. Just as with spellpower, intellect is the new top dog in the caster stat options, especially for balance druids due to Heart of the Wild, Furor and leather armor mastery.

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Filed under: Druid, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

No particular reason for this image, just that I think Dalton Ghetti's pencil-tip mini-sculptures are amazing.


Eregos ftw! asked:

Is the pathing for flights in old world better then it is currently in live? I don't want to fly for 20 mins when the place I want to go is only 2 zones over...

Yep, flight pathing has been improved in several zones, largely due to the addition of plenty of new flight paths in said zones.

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Filed under: The Queue

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, into the very teeth of danger, armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid -- we're just crazy.

Good morning. I had said at the end of last week's column that this week would most likely be more about Cataclysm. Why, then, the sudden switch? Well, three reasons.

• I want to give the beta a chance to drop another patch. Without a numbers pass, most of what I've said in previous columns more or less holds true. But discussions of changes to the way rage generation will work definitely have me in a holding pattern as far as actually discussing the nuts and bolts of any spec. Quite frankly, my worgen warrior leveling to 60 already needed to use Battle Shout and Bloodrage on cooldown to generate rage; if they change rage gen so that critical hits don't generate more rage, he'll be looking at complete rage starvation. Rage will need to be tweaked upward quite a bit to give the "you can do your rotation and occasionally a Heroic Strike" feel; right now, it's more of a "please give me some rage, sir, I'm ever so rage-starved" feel.
• I also want to give the people who complain we talk too much about the beta a week off from writing angry emails. I personally love talking about beta issues and the way they show us the progression of the class, but I get that not everyone feels that way.
• I considered writing the arms report card instead, but considering the PvE state of arms, I just got depressed. "Still OK for PvP" doesn't seem like enough for a column.

With this all swimming in my head, I wanted to talk about the lore of the warrior class and who it derives from in the setting. We know who the paladins are (Turalyon, Uther, Arthas), who the hunters are (Alleria, Sylvanas, Nathanos, Shandris), who the mages are (Medivh, Khadgar, Jaina, Kael'thas) and who the gigantic demon-tainted night elves are (seriously, I wonder if we're ever going to get demon hunter as a class) -- but who are the warriors?

Well, it's called the Warcraft setting for a reason. There are quite a few of them. (So many, in fact, that this could end up being a series of posts.) Today we'll look at three: one Alliance, one Horde and one who could be claimed by both.

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Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Lore, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors

The world of MMOs would be a very different place without the monumental presence of World of Warcraft. At this point, WoW has shaped an entire world full of gamers, setting expectations, conventions and precedents that other games will be struggling to meet (or dodge, or surpass) for years to come. What is WoW's legacy to you? Once you've logged out for the last time and are eagerly preparing to dive into the next big thing, what will you be looking for?

WoW.com is accepting article submissions on what you crave from your next big MMO experience. From playstyle to game features, community and social features to casual/hardcore balance, what do you want out of the next MMO you'll play? What has WoW whetted your appetite for that you'd like more of? What would you like to explore in areas WoW never ventured? Your article will clearly relate how Blizzard and World of Warcraft's legacy has shaped your ideas on what you'd like to play in the years to come.

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Filed under: WoW.com Business, Guest Posts

Wowcrendor is as irresistable as ever, and he's making a return to his tongue-in-cheek character roots with Gamon: The Untold Story. If you don't know the chap by name, Gamon is a Tauren who spawns in Orgrimmar. He is, in a sense, the Horde's third favorite punching bag. (The first two are gnomes and blood elves, respectively.)

Wowcrendor was inspired by this miscreant, and put together a brief machinima to tell the tale of the troubled Tauren. Take the time to check it out, and let us know what you think.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at machinima@wow.com.

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Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

Many people really enjoy the competition and grading of endgame progression raiding, but that's not the only raiding going on. Anyone can raid. To be clear, anyone who thinks raiding is fun can and should raid. You just need to find the right group of people with whom to have raiding fun. Even if you have obstacles like young children, an odd schedule or, as is the case this week, learning difficulties, there is a group of people who will enjoy raiding with you. Well, unless you're That Guy. Nobody wants to raid with him.

Dear Drama Mamas,

I want to start playing WoW. I think I'll be mostly fine running around on my own, doing quests and just general things. I'd eventually like to get into raiding. Here's where the problem starts. I have learning difficulties that make it a very, very slow process for me to learn things and then retain that information. I need to be shown over and over again before the information really sticks. Because of this, I'm very unsure about joining a guild, and the only other option available to me would be PUGs, but I'm not sure how that would go.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Drama Mamas

Beta tester Polegara of <Chamber of Aspects> (EU-A) was recently wandering around the newly redecorated Orgrimmar when she came upon this ghostly blood elf. The pointy-eared stranger, no doubt an Aperture Laboratories employee, was offering free portals to the inhabitants of the capital city. "Unfortunately, when questioned further, she admitted she would only send me to Nordrassil," wrote Polegara. "But her strange attire, coupled with a discarded Fusion Core from Uldum that had been deposited there by some untidy adventurer, gave her an otherworldy air. I wondered to what dimensions she might send me if only I could ding enough."

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Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wow.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Please include "Azeroth" in the subject line so your email doesn't get marked as spam, and include your name, guild and server if you want to be credited.

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Filed under: Around Azeroth

Each day, WoW.com takes you through all the blue posts and other Blizzard news from around the internet. From the latest posts from Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) to the lowdown on StarCraft II and Diablo III, we'll keep you informed.

Today's Daily Blues is brought to you by Slurm, courtesy of the Hypnotoad. All glory to the Hypnotoad.

Table of contents

• Ghostcrawler
• Other
• StarCraft II / Diablo III / Activision-Blizzard News

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Filed under: The Daily Blues

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.

Once I finally reached 80, I felt so accomplished and at the same time so behind. I still had not finished all the Northrend quests and needed to get going on heroic dungeons, maxing my tradeskills and maybe working on some achievements. Now that Cataclysm is coming soon, of course, we all have our bucket lists to be concerned about, as well.

Sometimes this becomes frustrating. I love to make myself to-do lists, much like collecting quests in my log -- but even more so, I love crossing things off the list that I have accomplished. With WoW, I always seem to feel like I am just trying to keep up. With more and more things about the game that I discover I want to accomplish, my to-do list grows longer. However, I guess that is inevitable when you play a game "that never ends."

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Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts

Buff(ing) for BlizzCon is a bi-weekly fitness series written by ShrinkGeek authors Rafe Brox and Michael McGreevy. Join the WoW.com team in getting in shape for the ultimate WoW geek event: BlizzCon 2010.

No, it's not another worgen post. I'd roll a goblin, anyway, and not merely because of factional preference. I spent too many hours as a n00b getting repeatedly pwnt in Silverpine Forest, which has made me as bitter as powdered aspirin towards those furry bastards; I'd gank myself. No, this is the midsummer swoon, when folks tend to go through the motions in the long, hot stretch (at least in the Northern hemisphere), twiddling their thumbs between increasingly monotonous dungeon runs, idly considering rolling yet another alt or take a hiatus altogether to go hit some conventions and interact in the big blue room.

In our case, it's also just past the midpoint of our six-month journey towards BlizzCon, when motivation may flag and adhering to healthier eating and exercise habits can begin to wane. Maybe you've hit a plateau. Maybe you're bored with your program. This point in time is, to quote everyone's favorite Mon Calimaran, a trap. OK, maybe it's more of a pothole, or yet another slog through Desolace/Stranglethorn Vale/[insert your least-loved zone of mid-game grind leveling here].

So what is there to be done about it?

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Filed under: BlizzCon, Guest Posts