Right, so I'm considering buying WoW, since being guild leader in EQ2 eventually led to me getting fucked over by my own friends and officers.

So I'm looking for advice... Like the sort of things you wish you new when you started playing. Links to the good informative sites ( besides thottbot), common Ui mods that make the game easier to play.

Also I'm prolyl gonna play on Alliance Khadgar, anybody else play there, or hear bad things about it?

Also thinking of playing a heavy balance Spec Druid ( with about 20 in restoration). Any advice concerning the druid and that plan? Is it better to plan for a talent spec that allows more use of the animal forms?

Also I was curious if there was a class thats like the Bard in FFXI in WoW. you Know pimp daddy buffage, but ultimately very little responsibility in the group besides buff, and some minor roles with debuffs, CC, backup healage.

1 thing you should know. Spec your druid the way you want for lev 1-59. But when you reach 60 and start raiding MC and such content, Druid is considered a main healer. Unless there are many MH already in the raid, you will not melee.

Another good site than Thottbot for information is http://www.allakhazam.com.

Khadgar was the first server I played on, but then they took it offline for 3 days so we switched to Bronzebeard

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== Bronzebeard == Zakath ==
http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?5638
Guild : Exeunt Omnes

I play on alliance khadgar, name is Hornfell.

One thing I did wish I knew before starting and getting to lvl 60 was that paladins are buffbots/cleansebots in the endgame instances.

Like Zakath said, spec whatever you feel is the most fun until you hit 60 and start in the endgame instances where you will find yourself as mainly a healer.

You want to take at least 21 points in Restoration for Nature's Swiftness. This is the best talent in all three trees and none of the 31 pts talents in Balance or Feral are powerful enough not to justify having it. Being on a PvP server I run a 7 Balance, 11 Feral, 33 Restoration build (my linked Allakhazam profile is usually up to date w/in 2 or so days of my current character). I'm seriously considering moving 2 of my points from Improved Rejuvenation to Swiftshaping (mainly for CTF matches). Here's what experience I can give as far as our talents and abilities go:

Balance:
Damage-wise we have 3 main spells. Moonfire is an instant low-end damage nuke followed by a moderate DoT component. Moonfire spam, while mana inefficient and considered cheesy, is probably our best for of burst dps. As far as casted nukes go, you have two choices. Wrath is a 2 second (1.5 second with talents) nuke that averages around 250 damage at it's highest end. Unfortunately besides the tier1 talent to decrease it's casting speed there are no talents to improve this ability. Starfire is your more powerful nuke. It hits for ~500 damage at it's higher level. With the proper talents invested, 4-digit crits are not uncommon. However, it has a 3.5 second cast time that makes it exceptionally impractical for most PvP situations. Our nuking potential is rather under-powered and except for moonfire, I usually conserve mana for healing instead as we get a much better return for our mana.

As far as talents go, my favorites in this tree are Nature's Grasp, Nature's Reach, and Swiftshaping. Improved Entangling roots is kind of obselete with the introduction of Barkskin. Omen of Clarity is excellent for levelling (I had this until 60) but at high levels you are not going to want to be thwacking on something in your human form.

Feral:
Our feral tree has some great talents that really boost the effectivness of our forms. Unfortunately for those who want to go mostly feral, these talents are all found at the beginning tiers of the tree. Ferocity, Improved Bash, Sharpened Claws, and Feral charge are really the only talents of worth in the tree. You will not really be able to tell an effective difference between a full feral druid and one who only has 11-13 points in feral (depending on whether he/she took 3-5 points in sharpened claws) but is still wearing feral gear. Blizzard has said that this tree will recieve some love, but even if the leaked patch notes are true, the tree is still underpowered compared to Restoration

Restoration:
Like it or not, when people see druids they see healers. I'll guarentee that unless you're in a group of guildies/friends 99% of the time you're invited to a group it will be to act as primary healer. Also, this tree contains our best talents. Here's my list of "must have's" regardless of spec:
Improved Mark of the Wild - benefits any type of druid, well any class actually.
Nature's Focus - extremely important when you're getting beat on or shifting out of a form to heal.
Gift of Nature - 1 point for %5 improvement is one of the best deals in the game
Nature's Swiftness - Our best talent. Having an instant spell every three minutes is better than anything else you can get in any of our trees.

If you take these 4 talents you can pretty much do anything else you want and still be effective. That being said, most people find a high restoration build to be the "best" as far as the end-game goes. This is mainly due to Improved Regrowth (which turns a horribly mana-inefficient spell into an incredible heal) and Innervate.

Well I think I've blabbered on long enough for now. Hopefully this gives you a better insight into the class.

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Character Profile
Mythrandir - Bard *gone*

The Talent Calculator is a handy little tool to plan out your character. Just a background into my various plans as I progressed in the game.

My original druid plan during beta:

Feral Combat Talents (29 points)
# Ferocity - 5/5 points
# Sharpened Claws - 5/5 points
# Feral Charge - 1/1 point
# Improved Bash - 2/2 points
# Blood Frenzy - 5/5 points
# Predatory Strikes - 5/5 points
# Faerie Fire (Cat) - 1/1 point
# Feline Swiftness - 1/1 point
# Strength of the Wild - 4/4 points

Restoration Talents (22 points)
# Furor - 5/5 points
# Improved Mark of the Wild - 5/5 points
# Nature's Focus - 5/5 points
# Gift of Nature - 1/1 point
# Improved Rejuvenation - 5/5 points
# Nature's Swiftness - 1/1 point

My original druid spec on Live:

Balance Talents (18 points)
# Nature's Grasp - 1/1 point
# Improved Nature's Grasp - 4/4 points
# Improved Moonfire - 5/5 points
# Improved Entangling Roots - 3/3 points
# Nature's Reach - 2/2 points
# Swiftshifting - 2/3 points
# Omen of Clarity - 1/1 point

Restoration Talents (33 points)
# Improved Mark of the Wild - 5/5 points
# Improved Healing Touch - 5/5 points
# Nature's Focus - 5/5 points
# Gift of Nature - 1/1 point
# Improved Rejuvenation - 5/5 points
# Reflection - 5/5 points
# Nature's Swiftness - 1/1 point
# Improved Regrowth - 5/5 points
# Innervate - 1/1 point

My current druid's spec:

Balance Talents (7 points)
# Nature's Grasp - 1/1 point
# Improved Nature's Grasp - 4/4 points
# Nature's Reach - 2/2 points

Feral Combat Talents (11 points)
# Ferocity - 5/5 points
# Improved Bash - 2/2 points
# Sharpened Claws - 3/5 points
# Feral Charge - 1/1 point

Restoration Talents (33 points)
# Improved Mark of the Wild - 5/5 points
# Furor - 5/5 points
# Nature's Focus - 5/5 points
# Gift of Nature - 1/1 point
# Improved Rejuvenation - 5/5 points
# Reflection - 5/5 points
# Nature's Swiftness - 1/1 point
# Improved Regrowth - 5/5 points
# Innervate - 1/1 point

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Character Profile
Mythrandir - Bard *gone*

Good information was here...

But ignored as usual.

Oh well... can't say I didn't try

thanks Mythrandir that is very informative stuff there. I could defitnely see the 3.5 second cast time on the bgi human form nuke being a bit impractical in a lot of cases, especially pvp. On the other hand how long does it take to shift out of say catform to start healing? That was kinda the main perk of high balance spec. is I could waste my power nuking and save time for when a clutch heal is neccesary. Also curious if the crit heavy natur eof high balance spec causes problems with classes withs trong talents linked to being hit with crits and the like.

About Paladins i got a lot of good advice on Pallies form Ponuh. I was just curious if there was really any strong motivation for specing anythign other largly in Retribution. Given the shield buffs and stuff in Protection are largely wasted due to the paladins inability to quickly gain aggro lieka Druid bear or warrior can.

Shifting is instant and you can start healing as soon as you're back to human form. That's one of the advantages of our forms is that when we're out of power we can shift and do mana-less dps while our power regens. This is one of the things that drew me to the class because I saw that on pulls where healing wasn't really necessary I could shift into a form and dps it up but if the shit hit the fan I could shift out and start healing with a full bar of mana (as opposed to a priest that must use mana for both dps and healing).

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Character Profile
Mythrandir - Bard *gone*

I see. thats pretty hot I guess. Makes the whole Balance crit spec less appealing.

Of course it takes mana to shift into a form though, no? so its not exactly manaless

Oh I also no WoW has liek a 10 day free tial thing for a "friend" Anybody have a code they haven't used that they could PM me... I already have access to game cds so I'm not above playing for up to 10 days for free to see if I even like it.

Kane ! You're playing WoW. Cool. Btw, my guild is kinda low on paladins. We only have 4-5 regular guys. If you see a migration for Bronzebeard, come

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== Bronzebeard == Zakath ==
http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?5638
Guild : Exeunt Omnes

I'll prolly make a Paladin and a Dr00d and see which one I like better.

Prolly make the the paladina chick. since chicks in plate maila re hot.

The Druid can be a guy. Cause guys in leather are hot too.

I think you'll like WoW. It's not as hardcore as EQ but it has alot of the deeply nerdy D&D aspects of it, lol.

where did Zakath get "Kane" from in this entire post :P

but yeah I'm playing again if you were talking to me

He posted here silly

I've been hoping they'd have a migration to Bronzebeard Zakath heh. I was going to start on your server but Xalt was on Khadgar so I went with him...too bad he quit on me again

hohoho. Anyway what i did on my druid ( lv 20 atm) is i put all my first talent points into balance. You get Nature's Grasp, and what it does is if somebody hits you with melee you automaticly cast entangling roots on them. Very helpfull. Then i put 2 points into nature's reach makes your spells have longer range. then after that i'm gonna go full Rest.

Kane cna twink me out right? Omg. need handouts!

Yummy had links and removed them what a dick =\ Now when I want them i can't find them.

Edit: what I'm trying to say is Yummy I didn't ignore you, your information just wasn't something i could use at the time, and now that I can I'm hurting for it and you shouldn't have been so sensitive about it.

Bah, sure I'll post here. I have 60 Druid and 60 Paladin.

Druid is 30 Balance, 21 Restoration. That's probably what you are looking for. It's probably the best PvP build in that you can nuke well and have Nature's Swiftness for fast heals or entangles. You really need to go with a ton of Balance or almost none since the enhancements to Moonfire and Starfire don't come until late. I never found Swiftshifting to be all that helpful. Feral you need to make a big investment or none at all. If you want to be a instance Cookiecutter Druid, you go mostly Restoration. I'm fairly happy with my build for instances. I add more offense than a priest or restoration druid but still heal well enough to play the main healer.

Paladin build is 31 Holy, 20 Protection. That's mostly a support role, heavy on MP and not much for damage. I can tank ok so long as I'm given a second to grab aggro initially. Retribution aura, Holy Shock, Seal of Fury. Blessing of Salvation on those who need it. Need a disciplined group for me to tank, but, it can be done. This is probably the best build for MC in that I have a ton of MP and better healing. Paladins are most useful in MC doing cleanse and heal. You do need some variety among your Paladins in MC for Blessing of Kings and such.

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WoW: Dmi of Alleria
FFXI: 75 PLD - 38 WAR - 35 BLM - 26 RDM - 18 SMN

First, Druis are so insanely boring after lv45, that you just feel like raiding Ironforge solo over and over again. At level 60 you'll be out-DPS'ed by most classes 10 levels below you.

Second, Alliance are wusses. They zerg the crap outta everything.

And many players > few players.

Uhm, yeah.

Trocian you're just the stereotypical horde crybaby. Honestly. Even if a server has 2:1 alliance, it's not like the whole server fights. You can't hide behind that excuse now, as you can't really "zerg" BGs, can you?

By the way, my server is 1.3 horde to alliance btw.

Webpages:

http://wow.allakhazam.com

http://www.worldofwar.net

Addons:

http://www.curse-gaming.com

http://ui.worldofwar.net/

Aw Yummy. <3

At any rate I now have a lvl 7 human paldin on Khadgar named Sayra~

I also apparently learned to blacksmith and mine... but to be honest I have no idea how to do either... hopefully mining is no more complicated than taking my mining pick out to a mining node.

Blacksmithign on the hand confuses me... I don't know how to look at my recipes or anything so.. even thoguh I have a smithy hammer some copper and even some malachite( prolly not for smithing) I can't do diddly with it. I'll prolly RTFM eventually but for now I'll just waste 2 precious inventory spots on my hammers and stay lvl 1 skill forever.

Also I've only been to the 1 city near where I started. Seems pretty big. kinda annoying that I can't use an AH or anything there though. Not that my 10 silver would buy me squat.

Anyway it seems allright so far. takes kind of a while to walk around and stuff, but honeslty I always felt eq2's zones and stuff were a bit too small and easily traversed... but then I also knew where I was going then.

mining you just need a pick, mine and a forge. when you press "P" you can see your spells. theres 2 on there for mining, 1 is to look for materials and the other is to smelt the crap you mine. you need a forge, which is in cities near miner's or smithing guilds. you get skill from smelting til about 100, then its straight mining points. blacksmithing i havent done so im not sure but i assume you need to use the forge or anvil.

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75WHM / 37SMN / 61BLM / 37RDM / 70BRD / 75NIN / 75RNG / 56THF / 37WAR / 37DRG http://www.myspace.com/dan_wyld

sorry to say the crafting isn't as dynamic in wow as it is in eq2 (or so I hear) :P But it's very useful, straightfoward, and like everything in wow, actually....*fun*