Recommended Reading: Week of 11-22

As I'm expecting 3.3 to hit tomorrow or next week, I've been trying to significantly lower the amount of time I've spent on WoW for the past few days... It's working, but now I'm getting bored >.>

But fortunately for us, not everyone has decided to take a break, and some interesting blog posts have been shared this week.

Many of us trees have off specs, though they might be a little less loved, the furry or feathery sides of us need attention too. Over at the Big Bear Butt Blogger, BBB posted a little guide on how to get some starting gear for a bear tank. Graylo at Grey Matter did the digging for us, and found some blue posts on the 3.3 moonkin changes, and gave us his take on the matter.

Speaking of 3.3, Lissanna over at Restokin is taking a survey to help her get a good idea of the audience before she updates her healing guide. She also posted some potential talent builds once the patch hits with some discussion on each.

Since it seems quite a few of us missed it, Blizz will be adding new Kirin Tor rings in the patch. They'll be iLvl 251, and pretty nice. While we're on the subject of new items, I did a little review of trinkets that will be available for us trees through Icecrown. Last but not least on the subject of 3.3 changes, a forum post over at Plus Heal has a pretty nice discussion on glyph choices.

And finally, a little fun... Keredria over at Tree of Life found a website that will figure out the personality type of your blog. Pretty cool, eh?

On a different note, though I did a pretty extensive one on 3.2, I'm not planning to do a big post or series of posts on 3.3 for trees. Just about everything has been covered somewhere, and I just don't know that I have the time right now to spend hours and hours researching and linking and writing. That said, if we end up with 18 hours of downtime and I'm just itching to do something WoW related, one might show up >.>

3.2 Incoming! Part 1: The Notes

Blue Post
For those plebians that don't read French, the last paragraph translates to something like

Updates are sorted based on their release date, you have to find all the updates up to patch 3.1.3 ... and 3.2 after next wednesday.

I read French >.> I swear. Not my fault that translation's identical to MMO Champion's post.

Current 3.2 PTR Patch Notes I'm sure you all love me for not pasting that all in here... But I'm not going over everything, so I'd recommend reading through that when you have the time.

3.1 Crit/Haste Gear

With all of the lovely changes in 3.1, it seems we're going to be moving quite a bit away from the current resto itemization wishes. I'm still attempting to get on the PTR myself (What do you mean I don't have any characters on Stonemaul %@$&!) but has anyone started looking at builds/specs/gear that is much more biased towards crit and haste? AI, actually using Nourish *twitch*

I'll likely go back and edit this with my thoughts once I've managed to run some tests myself, but from the numbers and reports I've seen so far, kinda worried that my rotation's going to start looking more like a holy pally 0.o

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Edit =)

Going to skip all the number fun... Every single blog out there seems to have that info listed somewhere.

After testing it out for a while, I think I'm going to be okay with this change. For the most part, my raid healing is going to stay the same, with single targets getting Rejuve or LB when it's predictable damage, and WG for group heals. Unfortunately, my mana regen currently fails, so my attempts at just keeping a 3 stack up on a MT have put me at going OOM more quickly than I liked. With all of the other regen changes, for any lower-end geared tree, I don't think that is going to be the best method for longer fights. While I personally think micromanaging is going to be the best way to go with these current changes, I don't think that is going to be a feasable playstyle for newer trees.

At this point, I'd recommend the standard keeping rejuve and regrowth up, but using Nourish more. That means that yes indeed crit and haste gear will be your friend. At the same time, start practicing in less-dangerous conditions how to judge your mana regen with lifebloom, the timing, and of course the actual bloom. By the time you're healing Ulduar 25, hopefully you'll have a good grasp of how to best manage LB in your rotation with your partucular gear and spec.

Just don't try and learn that while healing me in 3 drake OS >.>