First, the dull, I upgraded the site to 2.0.1 just now, and no problems so far. I didn’t really play around with 2.0 much to be honest, but meh, bug fixes for the win.

On not posting, yeah it happens a good deal when things of some importance are actually going on, when it’s slow is when I actually start to right crap… as evidenced by the following.

Apart from the heathenism that is WoW, it’s actually quite fun, and oddly enough is as close to old pre-CU SWG in terms of character creation depth as I’ve been able to find, not to mention Druids f’ing rock (said Druid). That middle statement’s kinda scary isn’t it? Anyway, in my constant persuit of making characters, I’ve come across 3 or so (groups of) Talent builds that really peak my interest. The first two are Balance-centered (Moonkin a go-go) while the other is a rather cookie-cutter Feral build (I can hear Skaald trying to kill me now.).

To begin with is the build I’m currently going after, that I like to call the Moonkin/Ninja Cat. It’s main version is 38/13/0, although there is probably some fat to cut on the Balance side to maybe make it 33/13/5 (Furor + Feral Charge = Ghetto Bear Intercept) probably either from Vengence or Moonfury but I’ll have to talk with Skaald about that to see if both are really pivitol compared to losing the ghetto Intercept and the free energy goodness (considering the 30% speed boost while outside in Cat Form from Feline Swiftness… meaning it would be used as a persuit mechanism after roots wore off from nuking them, it would be rather useful I’d think). The most likely canidate for chopping is Moonfury since I’m sort of riding the crits (and double crits would be painful) with this build whlle in Caster/Moonkin form. This build uses Cat for recon and assassination more then standing there in the fight, as that’s what Moonkin’s armor is for. Start as a rogue, nuke, if they run while nuking I’d go to back to Cat and rape ‘em. On the downside is, no healing talents from Restoration, but like a Shadow Priest, I think I could heal decently if called to do it, but my group role is a Nuker.

Base Form (38/13/0) and the one with Furor (33/13/5, and the one I’m more interested in at the moment).

The next one is sort of what I understand Skaald is doing, Moonkin with Restoration. In this build (35/0/16), on the Balance side of things I’ve ditched Natural Weapons and Omen of Clarity for Improved Entangling Roots to free up a couple of points. As I’d be staying mainly in Moonkin and Caster Forms, OoC is going to activate a lot less (Staves are around 3.0 speed while Cat Form is 1.0 speed) and plus, I won’t be whacking things with my stick much anyway. Bascially, I couldn’t really figure out where to put the points so my root seemed like the best choice.

On the Restoration side, Improved Mark of the Wild and Furor are sort of a toss-up, but for what this build tries to do, I may as well go with the Imp. MotW. The other three talents are basically no brainers with Insect Swarm for the added DoT/debuff (which stacks with Moonfire) and Nature’s Focus and Subtlety being Restoration must-haves. I could have ditched something for Nature’s Swiftness, but I’m just not a big fan of healing panic buttons.

This build (35/0/16) would do its job really well I’d think, but it isn’t something I think I’d enjoy playing a lot, at least not at first.

Feral builds are really popular for some reason, and after playing into my 30s I understand why, it’s great for leveling, darn useful in PvP (Prowl and Track Humaniods, yay) and well, all the 12-year-olds love to be Rogues anyway. I feel that this is a rather “balanced” Feral build, since it trades the semi-worthless Natural Shapeshifter for some of Nature’s Focus (just in-case you need to heal). (If I’m just an idiot and mana really is a problem for a Feral Druid, then it’s just a quick swap back over.) The Feral portion is your standard Cat Form-spec, so not a lot to discuss there. Over in Balance, between Nature’s Grasp and Imp. Wrath, I just can’t see a reason to go with the Imp. Wrath in this sort of a build. Natural Weapons and OoC are here for reasons mentioned above, mainly OoC being plain awesome with Cat form.

This 21/30/0 is a bit like the first group I discussed just a bit ago. In Caster form it uses Heart of the Wild‘s +20% Intellect to boost Mana/Spell Crit (although after looking Intellect up on WoWWiki, I’m not too sure about the later, at least near my level) and then in Cat form, all I’m missing is Feral Faerie Fire (which is really nice mind you) and Leader of the Pack (you can’t really argue with 3% Crit Chance though). Honestly, thinking about, this build may spread itself a little too thin to be useful, unless I can find mythical gear that gives me Intellect, Agility, and Spell Critical bounses… yeah, interesting, but it seems like a junker.

Anyway… I’ve still got 28 levels to go, so we’ll see how it goes.