Like a kid in a candy store…

I just can’t stop looking at the list.  The geeky-goodness of it in all it’s objectived list glory is just too much to resist.

Part of me is intriqued that for once, there is a roadmap to follow for all that great gear you hear folks talking about.  And when someone disses your equipment and points out their Crystal Bat of Sophomoric Agility has 3 more points of whatever than your does, you can simply point out “That may be but my weapon scored higher on Emmerald’s list”.  Bingo-bango, end of argument. 

The other great aspect of the list is now I’ve got a place to start for all this great gear.  When I was approaching 60 with Amanna, I was behind the end-game curve.  I always heard of all this great gear, but was never quite sure where to find it or how to get started.  This time around, I’m more out front of the wave toward end-game.  Hopefully, I’ll get to participate more in the goodies.

But I must admit, what really draws me to the list, is the simple way it shows you what could be.  No tricks, no surprises, no hidden 15-part quest chains – here it is in one glorious list.

So after almost a full week of poking around the various sections and gear slots, I got to thinking.  What’s the best gear I could get without spending too much effort?  Now I don’t mean slacker time here, but let’s face it.  It’s going to be a while, if ever, before Amanna is wearing a Tier 5 set.  I just don’t play that much, nor is my guild a hard-core end game guild.

No, I started playing around with the list to figure out how good of gear I could get given the following play guidelines:

1. I assumed I was level 70.  I’ll be there soon enough.

2. I ruled out any gear that was one of a family of “…of the x”.  It’s bad enough farming for one piece of gear, let alone trying to get one with a particular enchantment.

3. I ruled out gear from elite raids.  Can’t be successful there with PUGs and it will be a while until I’m in there with my guild.

4. I’m also not considering drops from Heroic mode dungeons for the same reasons as raid dungeons.

5. I approached drops from elite or rare spawns with skepticism.  Again, I have better things to do then wait for an elite spawn, get a group together to kill it, and hope it drops the piece I’m looking for.   (Not to mention win the roll for it).

6. I don’t PvP, so no PvP reward gear was considered.

I did assume the following:

1. I am willing to pay good money for great gear.  I am also willing to buy the gems sometimes required to make good gear great.

2. I am willing to go on long quest chains for great gear.

3. For the right piece of equipment, I am willing to do some manageable farming.

4. I accept that Emmerald knows what he’s talking about and what he says is great really is.

5. I have a guild that will support my efforts.

What did I find?  You can get some pretty darn good gear, almost as good as Tier 4 or 5 and in some cases slightly better (according to Emmerald), if you know where to look.

So with this post, I kick off a three part series: Great end-game gear without raiding.  Following Emmerald’s breakdown on his list, the three posts will cover Bear tanking gear (damage mitigation), Cat sustained damage gear (damage generation), and Cat burst damage gear (crit generation).

The bear post will be first and I’m working on it right now.  There is some great gear out there, some of it surprisingly easy to come by if you know where to look and what to do.

Before I go though, I just have to say this.  Since posting the BC Feral Equipment List a few days ago, the link hasn’t gotten that many click-throughs.  I’m hoping you all have just added it to your browser favorites or something, because if you’re feral and you haven’t made this thing your bible, you are missing out.  So – click it, read it, use it!

Scha-Wing!

Look!  Up in the sky!  It’s a bird…  It’s a plane…  No, it’s a bird… Wait – THAT’S AMANNA!!!

So I can fly, and I gotta say: it’s pretty darn cool.  But we’ll get to that in a second.  Following up on my previous post – you may or may not have to buy a riding skill to fly.  There are four skill levels to riding: 75, 150, 225 and 300.  You need 150 to be able to train the talent.  So if you bought that when you hit 60, then you’re good to go.  I didn’t, so I had to buy it.  When you train the Flight Form talent, you automatically get the next level, 225, along with the new form.  Here’s a screenshot of my log with the results of the training I bought from Isla at Wildhammer, training Flight Form at Moonglade, then getting the auto-upgrade on my riding skill.

So did I just spend 600G or save 800G? 

So before we get to the good stuff, let’s get this out of the way right off the bat:  You can only fly in Outland.  You cannot fly away while in combat.  You cannot pick herbs while in flight form.  The controls for flying are different that swimming.  If you die in the air too high up, you’ll have to spirit rez.  You can only fly “outdoors”.  You cannot eat or drink in flight form.  You can’t use flight form in a battleground.  You can be ranged attacked while in flight form, and you can be killed in flight form. 

Whew!  I just wanted to make sure you got all that because, sooner or later, you’re going to talk to someone or read an entry somewhere where Druid Flight Form is going to be bashed or trivialized.  That person or persons will most likely mention one or more of the above as their rationale.

Here’s Amanna’s response to those people:  Re-Roll!  If you can’t find fun in this, then you have no business playing a druid.  Forget the fact that you just got Expert Riding for free (saving you around 800G) – you can now FLY.  Seriously, I really don’t understand people sometimes.  I’m half tempted to send BRK after these people – and unless they have plenty of Sporeling Snacks on hand and know how to give a French Manicure to an 800 pound purple cat – they are going to be in big trouble.

I’ll admit the controls feel a little klunky.  After so much time using right-click and drag to control my depth when in aquatic form, I just assumed it would also control my altitude while flying.  This is only partly true.  While you use a right-click to orient yourself down to lose altitude, you press the space bar to gain altitude.  Okay, the space bar is “jump” so that kind of makes sense, but personally it would have been much easier I think just to keep it all on the right-click.  This is an extremely minor point and I am not complaining.

So on to the good stuff.

Flying is a lot of fun.  Yes, you’re not moving very fast.  The speed is a 60% increase over running, so it’s just slightly faster than Cheetah form.   You do however, have full control over where you go.  You can basejump and the turn into flight form before hitting the ground.  It’s an excellent scouting tool, and you get zone discovery xp just by flying over.  Just like when flying transports, gathering resources will show on your mini-map – except now you can land and collect them.  (While you can’t pick herbs in flight form, but you can skin, prospect and disenchant.  Go figure…)  You can also control your altitude, which is pretty cool. 

I flew into Netherstorm and picked my first few Netherblooms this way.  They give a cool buff – see the pic.  From reading about them on wowhead, it appears they give a buff or debuff, it just depends when you pick it.  One commentor said to wait to pick until after you see the herb pulse and you always get the buff.

Just because I could, I flew to one of those floating rocks in Netherstorm and landed on it.  Just about gave myself a stomachache jumping off the thing in human form and freefalling before casting flight form.  Same thing last night – I flew to the top of one of the structures over Coilfang Resevoir and jumped off.  Pretty fun.

Others may discount this, but the other huge benefit to flight form is even more immersion in your character.  I don’t play a role-playing server, but just having this new additional form solidifies what it means to be a druid even more.  Why ride a transport griffon now when you can just fly?  We’ve always been a bit, special, and now we have one more thing that solidifies that uniqueness. 

So, enough from me.  If you can already fly then you know what I’m talking about.  If you can’t, then get off your big fuzzy butt and level up.  Oh, and if you’re not a druid at all, then: nanny-nanny poo-poo.  I can fly!

A good, short flight FAQ here.

Instructional video on the devastating Rawr-Bomb attack (please swallow all liquids before watching).