If (Horde Ret Pallys >= Ally Ret Pallys) Then

Horde Win();

Else

Horde Fail();

End If

But seriously, getting one shot is good times.

/sigh

First off, let’s get what’s on everyone’s mind out of the way immediately.

Ret Pallys. Ouch.

I think that covers the subject, kk?

Well, 3.0 started off kinda droll for me.  Of course, my server is one of the -last- ones to actually start functioning again and when it got up finally the battlegroup server continued to crash for several hours.  While I managed to spec Wild Growth and run a few BG’s with it I was not as impressed as I thought I would be.  Sure it is fun to run into the middle of melee madness and pop Wild Growth and see the numbers fly, but let’s face it. For PvP, its incredibly situational, mana expensive, and you have to take points in resto that you don’t want to get it. Now, Earthmother is pretty sweet to roll the life blooms, but again, costs you 5 valuable points and its pretty deep into the resto tree.  While I think that the Wild Growth build is very viable for PvE if you are not PvP geared like me (aka you have Spirit) and will be even better at 80, it really isn’t the optimal build for PvP.  At least not my style.

While kinda bummed about having to dump 45g to respec…again, and that the BG’s weren’t working, I strolled over to the AH at Org just to see what Glyphs were on da house.  For a whopping 10g, this bad boy caught my eye and made me start thinking.  A little bit more browsing and it was a nice stroll over to the Lexicon of Power, which btw, GG bliz for making it painful to get to in Org, to load everything up.  So I end up with this for the time being, since there were no better selections and everything was cheap.

My Glyphs

Well, who the hell uses Healing Touch in PvP? I mean really….but it got me to thinking.  Taking a note from Megan over at OutOfMana when she was discussing possible arena builds for Druids in 3.0, I came up with this crazy spec.  Now you druids may look at this in bewilderment, or even possibly horror, but check out what new toy I had to play with….

1 Sec Healing Touch

Yes sir, you saw that correctly, a 1 second healing touch. (btw, ignore my ugle UI atm, 3.0 is still driving me nuts on mods)  So now with my 3.0 Dreamstate Build I not only have Dreamstate + Nature’s Splendor, but I have Nature’s Swiftness, Swiftmend, and a 1 second Healing Touch to flash heal through burst DPS on a target.  “Wait wait, the GCD is 1.5 seconds, isn’t this over kill?” some of you may ask.  It quite possibly could be, but good god it nice to be able to keep someone alive without having to blow two GCD’s to Rejuv and Swiftmend or try to stack HoTs.  Besides, having a 1 second 2-3.5k heal in a pinch saved me and others numerous times. Which brings me to another point, HoTs…

Lifebloom has definitely been nerfed a bit.  It’s more expensive, heals for a bit less, but for some reason seems to crit a hell of a lot more on the final “bloom” of the spell.  Whether this is intended or not, I don’t know, but it’s doing it.  Rejuv still works like a champ, especially with my Rejuv Glyph.  (One a side note: One thing I’m trying to figure out is if the glyph applies to a Swiftmend used on the Rejuv if the target is below 50%.  I don’t have a definitive anwser yet, so if any druids know, please let me know. )However, with Nature’s Splendor, the additional 2 seconds on Lifebloom more than makes up for the additional mana cost and lower coeffiecient on the spell.  Not only that, but you can roll more stacks on more people in BG’s. Good times for all to be had there.

So what does Dreamstate + Nature’s Splendor + Nature’s Swiftness + Swiftmend + a 1 sec HT equal? OOM if you aren’t careful.  Those Healing Touches will eat your mana quickly if you aren’t smart about when you use them.  Although, my gear does suck quite a bit and I’d be extremely interested in what a geared Druid with good regen could do with this.  But trying not to be a retard, this is what I pulled off without too much effort….

The Board

Not bad for a S2/greens/blues fresh 70 scrub like me, eh?  I don’t claim full credit, everyone is running absolutely mad right now in BG’s trying all the “cool” stuff out so I know the numbers are scewed a bit.

On a side note, for those of you who wonder why I kinda ditched Improved Regrowth, it’s because I don’t like to stand still that long in BG’s.  I like to run and HoT, and if need be pause and rip off a 1 sec Healing Touch. I took the one point it because I had to in order to move on. I guess I could have put it in Tranquil Spirit for mana cost redux, but I dunno yet.  I still want to play around with this a bit….

On a closing note. Warriors you are sooooo fired.  I latch on to Ret Pallys now (and there’s plenty of the to choose from atm) and ride the pain train with them.  They give me mana. I still love you, but I’m a bit bitter about getting eaten alive by Titan’s Grip sporting monsters on the Isle while doing dailies.

P.S.  All you Hunter’s and your new insta cast Aimed Shots can go straight to hell. GG.  Although mad respect to the one hunters rocking the Core Hound in one of the Eye’s I was in.

Who’s excited? I know I am. Although I dread doing dailies as I know that serious gankage will be immenient tomorrow.

/hate all rogues

Something I would like to start is a weekly list of the PvP incidents that deserve attention. So, here goes…

• To the Huntard that Silencing Shot my personal thug, Honnz the rogue. Seriously?  Was it a misclick? He was chilling by himself so its not like you tabbed the wrong target. Honnz votes misclick. We won’t tell anyone, we promise.
• To the Dorf Ret Pally who was getting bumrushed by the Pain Train by two Warriors and a Rogue and popped wings. Ouch man, ouch. l2HoJ, BoF, sacrifice your dignity and GTFO out of Dodge man. There’s no derailing the Pain Train once it gets rolling.  Your selfless sacrifice earned your team 2 seconds more of DR and all of us an HK.  I think we got the better deal.
• To every single Hunter that is sporting one of the engineering BoE Epic rifles. /sigh
• Polymorph doesn’t work well against druids.  Gratz, you slowied our instant cast HoT cycle by one GCD.  Was it worth it when you drew the attention of my Brutal sporting Orc Warrior and he smashed your face in for touching his healbot?
• Perception…..ugh. I thought it was a lame racial while I was Alliance, now I hate it even more.
• I’m sure all of you Druids will laugh and say “Duh, idiot” when I type this but be gentle and remember my recent reroll to Druid?  Shapeshift removes movement impairing effects my ass. J of Justice FTL.

/bitter sarcastic tone on

A picture is worth a thousand words….

Uber L33t Stratz

Is it really this easy you ask?  Yes, it really truly is.  Let me explain a secret about EotS for the many that seem to not understand it.  If you hold 3/4 Towers, the flag ceases to matter for either team.  Sure, if you got a solid 3 cap rolling feel free to cap a few to make the time go faster, but why when you can sit back and farm HK’s?  For those of you who still don’t understand, I can explain this easier.

1. Cap three towers.

2. Hold three towers.

3. Win.

Some of you may feel insulted by this and it is not intended as such, but you and I both know that there are people who are -that- stupid.  “But Groloth, you have to be able to hold all three towers,” you say.  This is a very valid point and one worth addressing.  This brings me to the important ability to notify the rest of your BG team that players are incoming to the tower that you are defending.  Or as you may see it called, “Calling incs.”  There is a right way and a wrong way to do this.  First, let me address the wrong way…

Incs the Wrong Way

Yes, this really does happen.  What is even more frightening as this happens quite often.  So now we cover the right way.  Assuming you are a defender of a tower.  (Yes, sometimes you have to play D, blashemy I know…)

1. You are sitting are your tower, chilling. Watching tv or whatnot. (Don’t lie, we all do on D.)

2. You see enemy players outmatching your ability to defend the tower approaching you.

3. You type /bg INC [insert tower here]. Hit enter.

4. Fight your little heart out.

See the trick there? Notices that 3 comes before 4. Very key there.

Read, disseminate, digest and execute.  Unless, of course, you are Alliance in which case I urge to continue to utilize the strategy that enables me to farm Eye marks so effeciently.  It is seriously a more win strat then this. GG.

/bitter sarcastic tone off