Ok ok, I know.  Beta stuff.  I’m not meant to be posting much about it! The rest of my posts are pretty beta free, though, and I really wanted to show off parts of the two of the cool new druid abilities - Feral Charge (Cat) and Berserk (Bear).

If you are a wee bit curious then see after the cut!

(Won’t subject those to it as don’t want to see it /hugs)

Can’t get it to cut in a feed reader - apologies.  Can anyone tell me how to do it for next time?

Berserk (Bear)

When activated this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 seconds and your Mangle (bear) and Maul attacks hit up to 3 targets. After the effect expires, the health is lost.  Whilst berserking, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.

I’m ignoring most of the effect in the video and just showing how it can be fun whilst solo-ing - I’m in kitty gear but my kitty gear is pretty lame so a bear in nice gear should see better numbers.  The ‘entrapment’ effect you can see happening is from Infected Wounds which I took to try out.  Also - all three hits seem to count as ‘normal’ and crit seperately. The swipe is there for comparison purposes.

This is a very nice soloing tool but I also see it as a lovely way to build quick aggro on multi-mob pulls.  My biggest gripe in TBC with druid tanking was that some groups expected you to have instant, unshiftable aggro on three targets because you had swipe.  Swipe, whilst a nice ability, was never enough for me to keep aggro from, say, AoE.

With berserk, however, at the beginning of a pull you can basically mangle three targets and get a few multi-mob mauls - similar to what I’d currently do in a three-mob situation except that it’s faster and you get them all at once instead of having to rotate through and risk losing aggro on the primary target.

There’s also the 30% health bonus.  This is a last stand talent only?  Maybe not.  You take most damage in big pulls at the beginning, not the end.   Think those large pack pulls in Magister’s Terrace when you’re lacking crowd control - ok it’s not going to be used much for them as it’ll be old content but I’m seeing a lot of those big-pack pulls in the new content, too.

Of course, this is all very 5-man / levelling oriented at the moment.  Raid wise - who knows?  Single target use of this ability for as an ‘oh shit’ button seems more likely but, in the end, it’s a nice, new, multi-purpose tool.

Feral Charge (Cat)

Causes you to charge an enemy, immobilizing and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 sec. This ability can be used in Cat Form, Bear Form and Dire Bear Form.

This is an interesting ability - it’s almost like a rogue’s shadowstep without the damage multipliers.  Using it does not break stealth - it does still cause the ‘entrapment’ effect (i.e. they will still be ‘immobilised’) but will not alert the mob to your presence.  Sorry about the fact it’s hard to see the kitty in the video but purple-ish kitties stealthed on blue-purple backgrounds are not the easiest to make stand out on a highly compressed video. /sadface

The most fun thing to do with this, of course, is to jump up cliffs and get out of tight spots!  The fact it looks like a huge kitty leap also utterly wins.  WINS.  *ahem*

I’m finding it very hard to be downhearted about druids in the expansion - the thing I’ve always loved about them is the ability to do cool and interesting things and I see these new tools as a way to do that!   I may feel different later but for now I’m simply having too much fun being as ninja as a rogue.

(Oh, and I have to thank my guildy Enerck for showing me how to compress my videos better! /hug!  I really am enjoying playing with fraps…)